Archive for the 'gear' Category

Let the word spread around. The Nikon D90 has just been announced and even Chase Jarvis has his words about it. See the video below, the DPreview here and some sample videos made with this camera here.

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I’ve just noticed that dpreview.com has a complete review on Nikon’s full frame flagship camera. It’s not that I’m planning to buy D3 in the near future. It’s only my normal geeky interest. I googled around and collected a few reviews too. See them below:

• Nikon D3 review on Digital Photography Review by Simon Joison and Phil Askey
  professional and thorough and detailed material to a level that you can refer to it if you happen to lose the user manual
• Bjørn Rørslett’s D3 review
  I’m sure you read his lens reviews regularly. This review is similar in quality, details and personal opinions with a neat table of categories of application, some high ISO showcasing and some FX and DX comparison.
• James Russell’s review on Luminous Landscape
  a professional’s opinion after shooting more than 7000 frames throughout 8 days
• Moose Peterson’s user report on Nikon D3
  an other big name sharing even his settings of the camera
• Ken Rockwell’s review in Ken Rockwell’s style

From time to time I check the search terms that lead people to my blog. I see for example Qtpfsgui appearing regularly since I wrote a post about this great open source HDR tool some time ago. And 70-200 is also a frequent one that brings people here even though I’ve never written a proper review about it, but definitely mention this great lens quite often. I saw one expression yesterday that made me laugh: ‘tibor radványi photo‘. Hey, am I that famous?

One day I noticed a search term that was interesting enough to write about and thought that it might start some thoughts and is worth to discuss: ‘cheap photography equipment for professional‘.

I think there is an intrinsic antagonism between professional photography equipment and being cheap. The reasons are many fold:

Professional equipment is designed for heavy usage and is built from more durable e.g. metal parts and with solutions to protect the gear like sealing against water and dust to be able to use it in places and circumstances where most of us would never use such a thing. This extra durability and protection cost the maker and finally you more money.

Professional gear is equipped with leading edge technologies, which requires heavy investments in research and development, and which demand for higher margin when those shiny pieces finally appear on the market.

And finally it is - like anything money can buy - all about marketing and the story told and believed by us. (Suggested reading: Seth Godin: All Marketers Are Liars: The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World) What can be the story here? Pro equipment makes better results. If I’m a pro and I’m in fierce competition I need the best gear to survive and I must to show off to my customers too. And to achieve all this I’m ready to pay some - well, a lot - extra. Since there’s this belief, gear makers can charge extra and up-to-date photography equipment can never be cheap.

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I’ve subscribed some time ago to receive the regular newsletter of a local photography shop.

They surprised me a few days ago with an offer of a light-bulb looking slave flash packed together with a light stand and white semi-transparent umbrella with a diameter of 60cm and a combined E27 cap - umbrella adaptor too. The flash has a guide number of 28 and a nominal power of 45W, can be fired by a synch cable (included) and the light of any other flash (it even has a test button). The whole thing costs the Hungarian equivalent of roughly 66 USD. I thought it’s worth the price and grabbed one. (And was somewhat pissed off noticing the same flash bulb for as little as 5 bucks on eBay. OK, that one does not include the light stand and the rest, but it’s annoying anyway. This is similar to other pieces of photography equipment as well: prices in Hungary are always at least 20% higher than in the US.)

The power of the flash cannot be adjusted: it fires or not. Its sensor is sensitive enough to capture the light of the built-in flash of my Nikon D80 even if it’s dialled down to 1/128 power. However one thing is important to note: no TTL can be used if you want to control the light bulb flash by light, because it captures the pre-flashes of the TTL mode and fires before the shutter opens.

It is clearly made in China and it’s branded as a part of the Mettle Studio Lighting.

It’s said that this bulb flash slave can be used for photographing small products or even as a fill or rim light in portraiture. Test images will come later.

Was I stupid to buy it?

Update: I made some test shots with this flash.

I spent a few days in Warsaw (Poland) and Moscow (Russia) without taking a single picture. I just don’t understand myself. If you ask why I didn’t take pictures the answer is short and simple though the reasoning - or the list of excuses - can be lengthy:
Answer: I did not take my camera with me.
Reasoning: Many, many things, like:

• My gear is heavy and expensive. Didn’t want carry it all the way on the airports and worrying about it on the airplanes.
• I went to a business trip meaning all day long meetings in the office. So I expected that I would not be able to take any picture in daylight. Then how about the great long exposure night shots? Especially in case of nicely lit historical buildings. For that kind of fun I would have needed a tripod. Tripod, carry, check in, find it, repair it if needed…. Oh, no.
• I was advised to be careful with taxi drivers offering their services on the airport in Moscow because it can be dangerous. Probably a bit exaggerated fear, but definitely an other good excuse.
• I could have taken an old point’n’shoot camera with me but then how about the quality of the pictures that I’m so keen on achieving?

• Or just very very simply: I was - and still am - lazy.

Have you ever experienced such a thing about yourself?

This time I was shooting an old friend of mine who is happen to be a tap dancer, choreographer and dance instructor. He needed the pictures for his Web site and I needed the model for practicing portrait photography with a real flash’n'blood human being.
I used only my new 17-55 F2.8 lens for this occasion and two off camera SB-800 speedlights not in the most professional way, to be honest. The backdrop was far from ideal: whitiesh walls of some empty office space and dull grey sky.
I created the slideshow with SoundSlides that I has not purchased yet (when writing this post). I know about this software from David Berman (Sitbonzo).
Click on the image for the slideshow.