Archive for the 'Camera Gear' Category

Posts about my camera gear

Giving Up, Sadly, on Adding A CPU Chip To My Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 Lens

Two months I posted the report "Adding a CPU Chip to a Nikon-Mount Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 Lens", using a "Dandelion" CPU.

After posting the report, I spent some time actually using the lens, and could not get a consistent exposure. I thought that perhaps the aperture was not linear (that is, when the camera moved the aperture arm half way, the aperture closed something other than half way), so I re-programmed the chip so that it told the camera about the focal length and maximum aperture, leaving the actual control of the aperture back on the lens, as it was [...]
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The Conundrum of Cleaning Lenses

Why is it that no matter what kind of special lens-cleaning this or expensive micro-fibre that that I buy, the most lint-free and absorbent cloth for cleaning my lenses remains my T-shirt?


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Unconventional Camera Bag: Repurposing a Think Tank Photo Retrospective Lens Changer

This post is about a new camera-bag solution I'm trying, and so far like, involving an unconventional use of a Think Tank Photo Retrospective® Lens Changer 3 shoulder bag. You can see it at my side in the photos above.

I usually bring just a few lenses when I'm out with the camera, often a Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 and a pair of Nikkor f/1.4 primes (24mm and 50mm). My normal bag is the v1 version of the Think Tank Photo Speed Racer, a nice bag with a silly name, and it's not bad with how I shoot, but I was [...]


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Adding a CPU Chip to a Nikon-Mount Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 Lens

UPDATE: Sadly, the procedures reported on this post ended up not working. More info here.

I'll leave the whole post, including the inline updates, but be warned that it was all for nothing. )-:

As most folks guessed correctly in my golden bumpy "What am I?" quiz, the object is a lens CPU chip/contacts set. I'm surprised so many people knew what it was because I had no idea they existed until recently. It allows one to update an old lens with modern electronics that tells the camera body a few particulars about the lens.

By far my favorite [...]


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Looking for a Good Photo-Viewing iPad App

I'm looking for recommendations for a photo-viewing app for my iPad; Apple's "Photos" app has too many bugs and limitations for my needs. What I want seems simple -- an elegant way with which to impose my photos onto someone hapless to come within an eyeball's reach of me -- but I haven't found it yet.

Features that I hope for:

Clean, simple, uncluttered interface.

Photo update via FTP, Dropbox, or some other method where management is done on my computer and merely reflected to the device.

Supports display of basic metadata on each photo, when asked.

Supports display of [...]
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