Archive for the ‘Equipment’ Category

Some Beef In The iHype

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

Apple’s products have been poster children for elegant design for many years. The iPad has several things an ebook reader, web surfer, and video appliance need, but some glaring omissions crash it.

Its 1024 X 768 screen isn’t natively compatible with 720p HD at 1280 X 720. For a device that’s touted as a deluxe video/movie/TV program player, that’s a huge oversight. Yes, you can play H.264 video encoded at 720p, but it won’t be full 720p resolution on Apple’s screen.

The lack of Flash support is also pretty bizarre for a web-surfing device like iPad.

There’s no word on compatibility with Kindle books or book files from Barnes & Noble, but I’m betting the iPad will only support downloads from the iBook store. However, I’m sure there’ll be a hack for Amazon and Barnes & Noble book files before too long.

There’s only indirect mention of networking compatibility with OS X and Windows computers, but this is a must for any machine with limited mass storage like the iPad.

Still, the UI looks very good - flipping pages with your fingers like a real book is cool. I guess haptic feedback on the touch screen was too expensive, and I agree an SD card port and user-replaceable battery would have been nice.

With handwriting recognition and audio recording, the iPad would become a must for any college student taking notes. I’m surprised a company like Apple with a historic presence in the education market didn’t see this and add those features.

As a lightweight laptop replacement for a photographer in the field, it may be a winner. If the software supports it, you could use an external card reader to upload image files to the iPad for later transfer to your PC. If there were a version of Lightroom for it, you could sort and edit pictures on it too.

You’ll at least be able to transfer pictures directly from your camera with Apple’s add-on camera kit.

It looks like this product announcement was an attempt to preemptively capture the market, though that’ll be tough for a device that won’t be available for 8 weeks.

Tags: ,
Posted in Equipment, Travel | No Comments »

Great Upgrade or Waste of Money?

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

Many of us look through virtual store windows like little kids staring at video games. We salivate over new stuff, sweaty hands on credit cards, even when we’re unemployed. Most of the time, we already have last year’s model operating perfectly.

When is it time to upgrade?

Canon just announced the EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II lens. It released the updated EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II last year, along with a new EF 24mm f/3.5L TS-E II.

Canon revamped its digital SLR line with four new models in the last 18 months. One of them, the EOS 5D mark II, replaced a model that was 4 years old. The 5D mark II offers a self-cleaning sensor with much-improved noise reduction and almost twice the resolution, plus four times more dynamic range. It also offers full-frame HD 1920p video, originally a competitive marketing feature unused by many of us.

But new gear doesn’t make your old stuff stop working. In fact, Canon’s other new dSLRs seem evolutionary compared to their predecessors. I never upgraded to the EOS 1D mark III since it just didn’t offer enough improvement over an EOS 1D mark II I still use.

 
Pasta Parmesan

 

This image was made with that camera and Canon’s original EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS (not the II). I’ve used that lens with a variety of cameras including my 5D mark II, which reveals all the warts and defects (aberrations for you physics majors) of any lens you mount on it.

I’ve yet to see anything I couldn’t live with using the original EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS for food, commercial portraits, pro mountain bike races, and wildlife. My philosophy is getting it right in the camera, since I don’t particularly enjoy endless tweaking in Photoshop. That lens delivers the raw image quality I need.

On paper, the new 70-200mm f/2.8 II looks very similar to the original - same number of elements with different grouping, slightly closer focusing, same weatherproof construction, same 77mm filter diameter. It’ll probably cost more.

I also have the original 24mm f/3.5L TS-E. The new one has some nice new features for combining lens tilts and shifts. But I don’t combine the two. In fact, most of my architectural work uses shifts alone to correct perspective.

 
Campbell Heritage Theater, California

 

The 24mm f/3.5L TS-E II’s enhanced corner sharpness would be nice, but I can’t justify spending $2200 for it.

So where does that leave us?

These new Canon lenses may show improvements, but without obnoxiously nasty behavior in the originals, it’s hard to justify replacements.

Commercial photographer Kirk Tuck once told me not to be an equipment junkie, that I could make salable stuff with a Yashica MAT 124 as easily as a high-bucks Leica. For commercial clients, I use better equipment than that old Yashica, but usually stop short of Leica.

After all, your unique contributions to any client’s projects are creative shot design and lighting, not the tools you use.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Equipment | 1 Comment »

New Features For Old Strobes

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Radiopopper’s JrX promises 128:1 manual flash output adjustment with wireless triggering. For most professional and semi-pro photographers on location, that’s a big deal, especially over long distances and through wooden walls.

There’s just one catch - the JrX needs a trigger adaptor called an RPCube to work with Nikon or Canon TTL strobes. Radiopopper told everyone RPCubes would be ready in 6-8 weeks - and that was last August. So far, still no RPCubes.

But it turns out you can make your own - at least for Nikon strobes.

I wasn’t sure just how compatible my old Metz 32MZ-3 / SCA3402 strobe was with Nikon’s flash protocol. Turns out it’s very compatible - my own DIY Nikon RPCube works fine with my 32MZ-3 / SCA3402.

I was a Nikon user, but sold everything Nikon when I switched to Canon in 2003 - except the Metz 32MZ-3 / SCA3402 and an old Nikon SU-4 TTL optical slave. I also had an SCA3501 base for TTL with my Leica M film cameras, another reason to keep the 32MZ-3.

But the SCA3501’s TTL mode doesn’t work with the M8, and the 32MZ-3’s single manual power level isn’t very useful.

The JrX changes everything. It works with the M8, or any camera with a hot shoe.

Variable manual power with old TTL strobes and Leica M8

To get variable manual power, be sure to switch the 32MZ-3’s mode to TTL to allow output control from the JrX transmitter. The JrX gives 1/1 - 1/128 power variability to any compatible flash. The 32MZ-3 has just one power level in manual mode, so that’s a big deal - it’s like getting new features from a firmware upgrade.

With my old Wein Safe-Sync underneath the JrX transmitter, it mounts on my flat-topped Leica M8.

So I have wireless sync and variable manual power with a compact Metz strobe and an M8. It’s the strobist’s ultimate light-weight setup.

Technical Notes -
TTL = Through The Lens, a camera’s ability to control flash output with through-the-lens exposure metering. It first appeared on Nikon flashes and cameras in the late 1980s. I can still remember Galen Rowell’s description of it in his Outdoor Photographer column “The New Fill Shooters”. That column appears in Rowell’s book Galen Rowell’s Inner Game Of Outdoor Photography, pp. 98-102.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Equipment | No Comments »

Radiopopper JrX transmitter extender for flat-topped cameras

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

Radiopopper’s JrX promises remote flash control with any hot-shoed camera. It uses UHF frequencies to avoid the line-of-sight requirements of optical remotes. But there are mechanical problems with some cameras.

The JrX transmitter’s antenna is a little knob protruding from the bottom, clearly designed for an SLR’s pentaprism shoe location to raise it above the camera’s body. On cameras with flat tops, you can’t slide the JrX into the hot shoe because the antenna blocks it.

What you need is an extender with a hot shoe on top. I had an unused shoe-mounting Wein Safe-Sync lying around. It did the trick nicely on my Leica M8 and M6 TTL.

It works on my wife’s Canon G10 too.

So yes, there is an off-the-shelf solution when you want to use a JrX with your Leica M or other flat-topped camera.

If you’d rather go the DIY route, a replacement hot foot and shoe can both be had fairly cheaply. Metal Supermarket can supply a small piece of aluminum stock for an extension. They can also recommend a local machine shop to tool it for the foot and shoe attachment points, and the hole for the ‘hot’ wire.

Find the nearest Metal Supermarket at
www.metalsupermarkets.com

Tags: , ,
Posted in Equipment | No Comments »