thewayne | Entries tagged with camera equipment

Sunday I ordered a right angle viewfinder and a remote timer for my Canon. The viewfinder I went non-Canon to save money, I hope it works out. I thought with magnification that I might be able to focus my 6D at night. Here's to hope!

The timer is Canon, though used. It arrived about 24 hours ago, and I was disappointed by what I thought was a dead battery. There's no way to get a CR2032 up here, and I didn't want to drive down to Alamogordo for one thing. Fortunately my wife was amenable to go down to dinner, and Home Depot had the battery in stock. Getting it at HD also let us look at storm doors, so it was an excellent twofer.

I get home, replace the battery, and it's still dead.

ARGH!

And they're closed on Saturday for the Sabbath. But at least that means they're open on Sunday, so I can call them tomorrow to see what we can do. I'm hoping they'll send me a replacement promptly, I might have to buy another and then have them refund the dud.

The only good thing is that the timer also works as a remote release with a lock, so I can do long exposures with it and just time it with my watch, but without the timer function, I can't do a series of shorter intervals. I know that the star trails work at ISO 800, f2.8 and 30 seconds, but long exposures don't mathematically scale at this low of light levels as you'd like.

I NEED THAT TIMER! I wonder if they'll test the new unit (still going to be used) before they send it? Also need to dig out my multimeter and confirm that the original battery and my replacements are good: CR2032s are used in lots of things and should have enough turnover to ensure fresh stock.

Crossposts: http://thewayne.livejournal.com/1017114.html

lovelyangel made an interesting post yesterday about photography, asking whether or not your current camera is the last camera body that you'll ever buy. I highly recommend the post as she brings up some points that I'm not going to dwell on here.

Good food for thought. I've been shooting for about 40 years now, digital for 15+. I can't class Nikon bodies as to what is what in the Pro vs Consumer or Prosumer spectrum, when it comes to Canon, it's pretty clear: 1D series is Pro, 5D series is just under it, and 6D is the top of the line prosumer: full-frame, but not quite the full-metal body of the 1 and 5. Then you have the consumer Digital Rebel series. The Rebels are quite adequate and I spent a number of years shooting them, and I still own one. But now my main camera is a 6D.

Two decisions went in to me buying the 6D over a used 5D Mark II (Mk III wasn't out at that time and I couldn't afford new), the 1D was never in the race as the price point was just ridiculous for me. I knew I needed a full-frame DSLR to get rid of the 1.6 multiplier for lens focal length caused by the imaging chip crop. This prevents you from having true wide-angle lenses, and that's critical for me. I'd lived without it for a decade, and that was long enough. The first reason for buying the 6D was price. It's simply much less expensive than the 5D. The first generation 6D also had built-in GPS and WiFi. I don't normally use the GPS when shooting locally, but it was turned on constantly when I was shooting in Germany. The second was weight. Again, very nice when I was shooting in Europe, but nice overall. Electronics-wise, the 5D has some slightly better features than the 6D, but price won out.

Will it be the last body that I buy? Ignoring loss (theft or damage), it's a possibility. Like Amy, I'd like larger pixels for improved lower light sensitivity for shooting at night at the observatory (homey don't do weddings and ain't much of a people shooter). For me, I expect I'll be buying more glass as I don't have the exact mix of lenses that I want: though I'm happy with what I have, I need a long zoom and I'd like a wide fixed and perhaps a fast normal and fast 85mm, though not a priority on the last two. I'm very slow on acquiring gear: it's not just my unemployed state, it's my attitude of my gear fits my needs pretty well.

Which still dances around whether or not this is my last body. In short, probably. It takes a lot of shooting to wear out a body, and I haven't done that yet. I currently shoot three bodies, plus, occasionally, my iPhone. My cameras are: Canon 6D, Canon Rebel SL1, and my Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX7 (I also have a Elan 7e film body, though I have no plans for that to ever be used again, you never know). I'll be keeping the two Canons, barring theft or the body failing, but I am planning on replacing the Lumix. There's another Lumix model that I covet: it's pretty much the same size, so it's easily kept in my pocket, about the same lens focal length, the difference for me is that it has a viewfinder. It has a fake place for your eye that detects your eye being there and turns on a tiny LCD screen, just like the big one on the back. The difference is that I can't use the big one on the back for composition without putting on my reading glasses, which means the rest of the world goes fuzzy. So either the composition is clear and the world is fuzzy, or the composition is fuzzy and approximate and the world is clear. Annoying. I think that would be worth spending less than $400 to remove an annoyance, if I ever get another job.

Thinking about it, my Lumix is currently my primary camera based on current usage, but that changes when I have a specific objective when shooting with friends. But that's all mainly because I can carry it in my pocket all the time.

The Rebel SL1 fills a specific niche. Actually, it fills two. First, it's a Digital Rebel, which means a smaller sensor, which means all focal lengths get multiplied by 1.6. Thus the 100mm lens becomes a 170mm lens. Fantastic for telephoto shooting, sucks for wide-angle. I have a 75-300mm for wildlife and other telephoto shooting, so this body will stay until it dies, and it's pretty inexpensive to replace if you don't mind used equipment, and 90% of my equipment over the years I've bought used. It's very lightweight and small, so nice to transport. Excellent backup and specialist camera.

I'm going to talk about one more thing: what are the reasons to buy new camera bodies? Ignoring buying a new body for sheer newfangledness, I see it for two reasons: pixel lust and feature lust. Pixel lust breaks down to more or bigger. More is sort of a false race at this point: while 20 is better than 10, for more people 30 is not markedly better than 20. The sheer number of pixels is not terribly meaningful, but the size of the pixels is. Let's do the time warp: five years ago, cell phones and DSLRs were beyond 5 megapixels and people were saying that cell phones were going to replace DSLRs. There's two problems with that line of thought. Yes, in terms of the raw number of pixels, that was true. But the cell phone pixels were crammed in to an area the size of your pinkie thumb nail while the DSLRs were the size of a postage stamp and thus were much larger. When the number is the same, size matters. Second, when the density is increased, in the case of cell phones, other problems emerge: cross-talk between pixels, increased noise, false colors, etc. So while cell phone pictures look great on a computer monitor, blow it up to a 16x20" print and it won't look nearly as good.

There's also generational improvements in digital technology. Last month I gave my mom one of those digital picture frames loaded up with photos from my wedding. My wife and I were married 12 years ago, and our wedding was shot by a friend using two Digital Rebels and two film bodies. And we really should have hired a professional. T is a very good photographer, but the equipment quality just wasn't that great. I was cleaning up those photos prior to loading them on to a memory card and was proverbially gritting my teeth, mentally comparing them to what my cameras produce today. That's viewing them on two computers: a late 2015 27" iMac with a 5K display and a 2011 1" MacBook Pro. The flaws in the camera electronics are quite obvious. I know the electronics in my current cameras are amazingly awesome: but what are they going to be like in another 10 years?

30 years ago, my mom asked me what computers would be like in another 20 years. My answer holds true today and for the future, and for photography: smaller, lighter, faster, less expensive, but I have no idea beyond that. Ask any serious photographer and they probably have more money in glass and other equipment than bodies, and next year's bodies work on last year's glass. My oldest Canon lens, a 35-105 (the first Eos lens that I ever bought), is from the late '80s and works just fine on my 6D from 2-3 years ago.

Crossposts: http://thewayne.livejournal.com/1011062.html

In two weeks I will be in Prague! And while I'm taking my Canon 6D with two zoom lenses, I wanted something small and light that would be better for video (light weight, easier to hold steady) and woud fit in my pocket.

Two weeks ago I went to Las Cruces and ended up at Best Buy seeing what they had on offer. They had a lot of intriguing cameras, the one that really caught my eye was a Nikon CoolPix 9900. I like Nikon glass (yes, a Canon guy saying there's something about Nikon that he likes) and this one had a remarkable feature -- a GPS! Now, my Canon 6D also has GPS (and WiFi), but I don't use it for normal shooting. It increases battery drain and I know where I'm shooting. But in Germany? In the Czech Republic? I can probably puzzle out general location based on date and itenerary, plus I can photograph any landmark signs when I arrive somewhere spiffy, but for Europe the GPS will be cool. And I have a spare battery or two for the 6D. And the boat that we'll be on has 110 VAC in every cabin, so I don't have to shlep around a bag full of adapters.

The problem with the Nikon is that it only shot JPEG. In fact, upon research, every single effing camera sold in the store by Best Buy only shot JPEG, no RAW. For most people this makes no difference, but serious photographers want RAW format. JPEG compresses the image, so you lose detail that can never be recovered. It also does some sharpening and tone adjustment, which, again, cannot be undone. With RAW, you're dealing with the pure pixel output from the camera's CCD: all the information, unadulterated. Which means you're going to have to do some Photoshop work to make good images.

Which is OK: serious photographers are a bit weird and enjoy doing things in Photoshop or other image editing software. And most serious photographers cheat: we shoot in a mode that gives us both RAW and JPEG, so we have both a photo that we can instantly post online and a photo that we can manipulate the heck out of.

So I started digging around on Adorama's and B&H Photo's web sites, and I learned that there is no such thing as a pocket camera that has both GPS and RAW. Olympus has one that will be released soon, but it's not out yet.

So back to digging through sites. Turns out that I couldn't find any Nikon pocket-sized cameras that shot RAW, so scratch them. I was probably going to end up with a Canon, when a friend recommended looking at Panasonic Lumix cameras.

This was Sunday. Last week Monday I ordered a Lumix LX-7 and it arrived Thursday.

It is not the latest and greatest in the series, which means it's only 10 megapixels. Perfectly adequate for what I need. The newest/best in the series has a lot of complaints, two of which stand out. First, the control dial on top that sets the mode that the camera is using has a problem with the lettering and typically in two weeks all of the lettering wears off. Unacceptable. Second, and this isn't camera-specific, Panasonic has a terrible reputation for customer service if you need a camera repaired. So I bought a two year warranty, hoping I could make the warranty company deal with Panasonic if mine needs service.

I've got to get to bed, so here's some highs and lows.

Highs:
More 'special' exposure modes than I can count. I'll list them later. I don't know if I'll use them, we'll see. I am experimenting with them, just don't know if I'll use them for stuff on the trip.
Seems to be well-sealed. It has a proper lens cap that snaps on and off rather than those bladed lens covers that so many cameras have. It has a very good feel: solid body made of metal not plastic.
Best thing -- Leica/Zeiss optics! And they look like they perform quite well, I'll post some pix later (and during the trip).
Battery life: I received the camera Thursday and charged it. Shot 220 images Saturday through today and the battery warning was blinking red, but it was still shooting. The battery is on the charger now.
Camera size: fits quite nicely in my pants pocket. I always wear cargo pocket pants and keep my wallet in one of the sides, so there's lots of room for the camera. So I think it'll travel well.

Lows:
I have some apprehension about Panasonic service. I used to sell Panasonic and Matsushita/Technics electronics and they were always a superior product. I don't know what happened to their service, hopefully it'll be a long time before I find out.
Elements of construction: I don't like their button design on the back, I'm concerned that the button will eventually catch on something and get pulled off, and then I'm at the mercy of Panasonic service.

My biggest complaint is crazy stupid: the latch on the battery cover door. The door is spring-loaded to stay open, as you might expect. And the battery compartment is also where the SD memory card is (I have a 16 gig and I'm not sure I could fill it on my forthcoming trip). But the latch does not reset when you open it -- you slide the latch open to remove the battery, and it stays in that position. You have to slide it closed to lock it when you want to close the compartment. VERY stupid design.

Conclusion in brief: looks like a good camera. Good images, versatile (the lens is the equivalent of a 24-105 zoom), good battery life (I think if I charge it nightly I'll be fine during the day).

I took it to Three Rivers Petroglyphs Saturday along with my Canon with its 24-105 zoom and did a lot of side by side shooting. I'll try and post some of those pix and more very soon. I will be posting JPEGs, but that'll be good enough to demonstrate capability.

Cost: $400 new. You can find used ones in varying conditions for $250-300.

And I have to get to bed, 5:15 is too damn early for my liking but that's the way it is.

I've used a Sekonic L-398 light meter for a considerable number of years. Wonderful meter, powered by the selenium cell that takes the light reading, so you never put batteries into it: it's self-powered. VERY strongly made, it's survived banging around with me for 20 years or more.

Unfortunately when my portraite studio photography class started this semester, I found out that it was not reading accurately, so it's sort of been semi-retired for the last couple of months.

Well, if there's one thing true about serious photographers, they're gadget freaks. I am certainly no exception. An incident light meter like my L398 is of limited use in a studio photography class, our main need is for flash meters. They work the same as incident light meters in that they measure the light falling on the subject, but they have the addition of being able to plug the flash cord into the meter then pressing a button to fire the flash.

We have one in the studio for, drum roll please, studio use. I never cared for it: the ergonimics of how it feels in my hand just didn't work (such things are very important to me), and the auto-shutoff powers down the unit in just a minute or two of non-use.

Not acceptable.

So I started cruising eBay. I found a really cool Minolt Auto Meter IVf for a very attractive price: $108 including shipping. AND NOW IT IS MINE! It arrived today, and I used it in tonight's shoot. Feels very good in my hand, very easy to read display, and the auto-shutoff is ten minutes! And since it's powered by a single AA battery, it's easy to get replacements.

I had some concerns about buying it. They seller had a high rating, almost 1000, and it was over 97% positive, so I had no problems there. But I really didn't look at the add close enough. He doesn't take PayPal, they closed his account for selling "adult material". I consider that a little hypocritical: if eBay lets him sell it, PayPal shouldn't have a problem since they're owned by eBay. ANYWAY, I had to go to the hassle of going to my bank and mailing him a cashier's check. My concern was that if there was anything wrong with the meter that I'd have a hard time getting satisfaction from this guy. The high rating and high positive score assuaged that fear somewhat, but it still nagged at me.

I mailed the check off last Tuesday. Didn't hear from the guy. Sent him an email last night asking if he'd received the check. He said he had and that the meter went out Friday.

And Monday it was in our mail box! SQUEEEE!