Archive for the 'Camera Gear' Category(IMAGE: Sigma APO 200-500mm F2.8 EX DG) 11 months after being announced, Sigma's 200-500mm f/2.8, 35-pound monster is finally available for purchase. When it was announced almost a year ago, I naïvely speculated that it might run $6,000, so it was a shock when I found it at a retailer in Japan for about 2.6 million yen (US $25,000). I haven't seen it in a US retailer yet, but I doubt it'll be substantially less. I wouldn't have gotten one at $6,000, but at $25,000, all I can say is “wow”, and note that my birthday is coming up.... 
View full post » I reported a couple of months ago about a Black Frame Syndrome affecting my D200, whereby the raw image data was fine, but the embedded jpg previews were all black. (A NEF file has two embedded JPGs.) Because I shoot raw, the only practical effect for me is that I get a black frame when I try to review the images on the camera LCD, but someone shooting in JPG mode would find all their images completely blank. Yikes! This happened to me for the second time yesterday, but this time I believe I've figured it out. It turns out that the D200's white balance [...] View full post » (IMAGE: Me @ f/1.2) Photo by Zak Braverman Zak kindly offered to loan me his Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 for a while, so I took a walk down to the Starbucks on Sanjo (eastern Kyoto, Japan) for the pickup. f/1.2 is an extremely big aperture. I've written about the shallow depth of field you get at large apertures (small “f” numbers), such as on this Sigma 30mm f/1.4 post, but this f/1.2 aperture is a new experience for me. Focusing on anything relatively near with the aperture at f/1.2 results in a paper-thin field that's in focus, but even then, the focus is “soft” due to spherical aberration and perhaps other things [...] 
View full post » (IMAGE: Schweeeeet!) A bad photo of my new multiple-monitor goodness I found myself suddenly lusting for a second monitor, and with visions of a tax writeoff dancing in my head, I opted for the mid-level Eizo FlexScan SX2461W, a 24" widescreen that offers a 1,920 × 1,200 desktop in luscious relatively-wide-gamut color. (If I'd had visions of hitting the lottery dancing in my head, I'd have gone for the $6,000 Eizo ColorEdge CG221) I had trouble setting up my XP box for dual monitors until I installed the latest drivers for my ATI graphics card — ATI's new “Catalyst Control Center” made it trivial to set up [...] 
View full post » I've been meaning to write about and recommend the 16" FotoSharp Camera Rain Cover I picked up last summer. It's a remarkably simple little cover that scrunches up into a tiny ball in my camera bag when not in use, yet provides rain protection even with my big Nikkor 70-200 VR zoom on my D200. The pictures on its web site pretty much show what it is, especially the 3rd one that shows it laid out flat (on top of a book, to show its transparency). It's a tube with a smallish opening on one end that goes over the lens, and a big opening on the [...] View full post » (IMAGE: Japanese Banknote at 35 × Magnification) A couple of months ago I posted about basics of reverse-lens Macro photography, where I showed some items photographed with some magnification that is considered fairly extreme by macro-photography standards. I threw around “true but misleading” big numbers like “45,000 ×” in jest, but in the normal nomenclature of macro photography where magnification is represented by the relative size of the object to its projection on the film or digital sensor, the photographs in that post were just a bit less than 3 × magnification. Pretty strong stuff. I later posted an example at 5 × magnification, making the edge [...] 
View full post » I love my Nikon D200, but yesterday added a new woe to the “Dead Battery Syndrome” I experienced a couple of months ago: “Black Frame Syndrome” Yesterday, Kyoto was a cold and heavily overcast, with sporadic misty rain. Occasionally and all too briefly, the sun would poke out in brilliant fashion to set the foliage momentarily on fire, so on the way back from picking up Anthony at preschool, I stopped by the grounds of the old imperial palace, now mostly a big park heavily laden with fall colors at their peak. The trees were amazing, but it was dark and dull, so it wasn't too interesting [...] 
View full post » Lighting a scene to photograph in a pleasing way is either a matter of luck, or the combination of two skills: knowing the physics of light (that is, knowing the results you'll get from lighting decisions), and having the creative sense to use that knowledge toward an aesthetically-pleasing end. For my part, I generally go with the “luck” option, but that's about to change. I've recently started reading Light — Science & Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting, and the first chapters have made me positively giddy with expectation. As I lamented once before, good photographers apparently make bad writers (with the most poorly written book [...] 
View full post » Today was “Sports Day” at Anthony's preschool, which is a fun event full of play, silliness, and dance. Like last year's Sports Day, it was very hot — 90s in the shade, but the entire event was in the sun — but this year I think the heat was worse for my camera than for me. I was using my big 70-200/2.8 zoom and Nikon D200 on my monopod. After taking about 830 pictures, I was surprised to see the “battery empty” symbol. This surprised me both because I expected to get more shots from the battery (I can go weeks without having to [...] View full post » (Note: this post will be of interest only to camera geeks) My previous post contained a superficial listing of considerations for building a tripod, and left off wondering how to test the effect of various ways to use a tripod. For example, how detrimental is it to add a center column? How beneficial is mirror lock up? Since getting my really nice tripod, I find myself wanting to learn how to use it properly, and these questions are a big part of that. I tend to dive into things looking for answers, as evidenced by the posts in my photography-tech category, such as my auto-focus test chart, my analysis [...] 
View full post » I recently wrote about the really nice tripod that I put together, but I didn't talk much about how I arrived at the mix of components I got, nor about how I'll use them. What to Buy? Deciding on components is a balance among a lot of things, including: Size (how easy is it to schlep, pack in luggage, etc.) Size (is it tall enough that you can use it comfortably?) Size (can you get low enough to the ground with it?) Price (isn't it always?) Ease of Use (how easy is it [...] View full post » I recently wrote about the pro-caliber tripod I put together with components from Gitzo and Really Right Stuff. This time I'm writing about a monopod that I put together at the same time. However, unlike the tripod, it took two tries to get a good monopod solution, and at that, I'm still not 100% happy with it. I had no problem with the monopod leg itself, a Gitzo GM3550 6X Carbon Fiber 5 Section G-Lock Monopod. It's got the G-Lock section logs that are so nice to use, and it's long enough to suit my 6'4" height. The problem I had was with the Really Right [...] 
View full post » Katz Eye™ Focusing Screen for the Nikon D200 (Note: this post will be of interest only to camera geeks) Continuing in the series on the camera toys I've picked up on this trip to The States (other entries: GPS unit, tripod), this post is about the Katz Eye Focusing Screen that I picked up for my Nikon D200. An SLR's focusing screen is a frosted piece of glass that you're actually looking at when you look through the viewfinder, upon which the lens projects the scene being viewed by the camera. Katz Eye Optics is a company that makes replacement focusing screens for all [...] 
View full post » (Note: this post will be of interest only to camera geeks) My New Tripod Among the camera toys I picked up recently are the components needed to make a really great tripod. The components, from top to bottom, are: Clamp — Really Right Stuff PLC-1 Head — Really Right Stuff BH-55 Column — Gitzo GS3510S Legs — Gitzo 3540XLS Quick release plates — Really Right Stuff (not shown) (mouseover the items above to highlight them in the image at right) I'll talk about each of these below. If you're [...] 
View full post » I'm ostensibly spending the summer here in The States for Anthony's English development, but the real reason is to load up on camera toys. I do get things in Japan, but I prefer to buy some things here because of price, availability, ease, or just mental comfort. It's been a while since I treated myself to some nice camera toys, so I've developed quite a list of fun toys to procure on this trip. This post is about the GPS unit I got a few days ago, a Garmin eTrex Legend HCx, as a replacement for my Garmin GPSmap 60CS (which I wrote about when I [...] 
View full post » Last November, I posted about the then-new 70-200 zoom I'd just received, and about how it had focus problems. I actually got two lenses that day; here are some test shots I took with my at-the-time new Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8, after having headed back to the playground with Anthony. Parking His Ride New Friends It's fun being a kid Hello! Hello! Awww, Cute Kitty.... Skip the cat, check out the ice cream! This lens, officially the 17-55mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor, has by far become my most-used day-to-day lens, while my 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 collects dust. When helping Anthony get dressed in the [...] 
View full post » During the three-month ordeal of autofocus problems with my Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 zoom, between suspecting a problem and finally having it fixed by Nikon, I learned a lot about SLR autofocus — how it works, and how best to test it. There are plenty of autofocus test charts available on the web, but all of them were severely deficient in one way or another, so I ended up making my own. Its development progressed over time as I tried different approaches, discarding what didn't work and refining what did. (The chart I used in November shows elements of both.) After Nikon finally fixed my [...] 
View full post » Nikon AF-S 70-200 f/2.8 VR on my Nikon D200 I recently bought three new lenses for my Nikon D200. In my previous post, I told of the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 that had such horrible focus problems that I had to return and reorder it. Today I write about the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G IF AF-S VR that I finally received on Saturday. I should mention my mindset before receiving this lens. Other than the short stint with the Sigma 30mm, I've had just one lens since getting the D200 in January, the Nikon 18-200 f/3.5-5.6 VR. It's quite a bit thicker and longer than a standard SLR [...] 
View full post » As I recently wrote, I love my Nikon 18-200 zoom except that it's a bit “slow”, optically speaking: at f/3.5-5.6, the lens diameter is too small to allow enough light for reasonable shutter speeds in low-light situations. So, two weeks ago, I finally picked up a Sigma 30mm f/1.4 prime lens. At f/1.4, it's 3 stops “faster” (optically speaking) than my current lens, meaning it can allow 8 times more light, in turn allowing a shutter speed 8 times faster. That makes it great for low-light situations. A byproduct of a large aperture (low “f” number like 1.4) is that it can produce an extremely shallow [...] 
View full post » The only lens I own for my Nikon D200 is a Nikon “AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor ED 18-200m F3.5-5.6G(IF),” also known as “the 18-200mm.” I really love it as a fantastic all-around lens, but at f/3.5-5.6, I find that it is sometimes a bit slow (that is, it doesn't let in enough light for me to use a fast-enough shutter speed). So, I've been thinking of getting a faster (allows in more light) lens for use in lower-light situations. Because of its “18-200mm f/3.5-5.6” name, I know that my lens is f/3.5 at 18mm, and f/5.6 at 200mm, but what is it in between? Without knowing, it's [...] 
View full post » | 
Jeffrey Friedl You are currently browsing the archives for the Camera Gear category. Blog Basics Index of Photos Post Categories Currently Popular(Not counting recent posts)
(Popular six months ago)
(Most popular posts, ever)
|