cameras

Exhuming the SLR

~ beetleypete ~ 29 Comments

s5-picture

This is a post about cameras again. Anyone with no interest in photography is advised to read no further.

About six years ago, I bought a second-hand digital camera. I had been using a long-zoom digital ‘bridge’camera for a while, but I was still shooting film on a full-frame camera, when I wanted to take ‘serious’ pictures. I realised that I could no longer justify the expense of processing and prints, and it was getting increasingly harder to find a reliable company to do the work properly.

After some research, I decided to get a Fuji S5, like the one pictured above. It is what used to be referred to as a ‘clone’, as the body is that of a Nikon D200, which Fuji bought in. They then replaced the processor, and altered the configuration of the buttons and features, leaving the buyer with a solid Nikon exterior and a very different camera underneath the shell. As it retains the Nikon lens mount, I also bought a short standard zoom to fit on it. To be honest, the camera was almost too over-specified. I could hardly understand the user manual, and the confusing array of menu options left me scratching my head at times.

I managed to get it set up in the most basic shooting format, and then started to learn about the ‘crop factor’ that applies to APS-C sensors in the DX format, as opposed to the full-frame film cameras that I had been used to. They lose around a third of the focal length, so the lens that would have been known to me as a 28-80MM, was marked as an 18-55. I bought a spare battery, a U/V filter to protect the lens element, and a 4 GB Compact Flash memory card, which was huge compared to the tiny Xd card I had in the previous Olympus. This new Fuji weighed a ton, was built like a battleship, and really looked like it meant business. When it was released here in 2007, it cost £1,000 just for the body, a price to match the build quality. Fortunately, I had paid less than half that, including a brand new lens.

As soon as I began to use it, I was a happy man indeed. The well-known Fuji colour rendition was immediately apparent in my results, and the weighty beast ensured steady shooting, especially as the lens was also stabilised by the addition of the new Nikon VR system. I carried it around happily, sometimes using the small built-in flash to good effect in daylight fill-in, as well as purchasing a large Nikon accessory flash too, though that was rarely used. I had the desirable ‘one camera-one lens’ set up at long last, with a weather sealed body built to last.

But then I stopped taking it out. The large size necessitated using a decent camera bag to lug it around in, and having it around your neck on a strap for long periods proved to be irritating and uncomfortable. The appearance of this photographic dreadnought in a crowd would make people think I was very serious indeed, and they started to ask me to take all the photos. Others would joke that I thought I was “like David Bailey or something”, and it was impossible to blend in with such a monster clamped to your face. And I always had to keep an eye on it, and wonder where I had left the camera bag, instead of enjoying the occasion, like everyone else.

Eventually, I used it less and less. It went back into its bag, and didn’t see the light of day. I had decided to invest in something lighter, potentially pocketable, (in a big pocket…) and with a slightly longer zoom, as the 80 MM (equiv) on the Nikon kit zoom was always not quite long enough. So I bought the small and lightweight Fuji X-30, which I have written about before in this blog. I started to take a lot of photos again, many of which have been posted here. More importantly, I took the camera out more, often just dropped into a shoulder bag, or stuffed into a large coat pocket. And I experimented with the settings, encouraged by a more intuitive menu system. I was happy again.

But the smaller Fuji only has a 2/3 sensor. This is some six times smaller than the APS-C sensor in the larger SLR, and as a result picture quality does suffer. This is an acceptable trade-off for the easy to carry size and feature-packed small body most of the time, but that big brother lying dormant in the camera bag was often at the back of my mind.

So I decided to exhume it today. I dusted it off, and charged both the dead batteries. I installed the unwieldy compact flash memory card, and read some reviews and instructional pages to refresh my memory of what went where, and how this or that worked. But I had forgotten just how vast the setup menu is. There are literally over one hundred possibilities of how to set up the different functions on this camera, and that’s even ignoring the menus for using the internal flash. So now the camera is looking as good as new, fully charged, and ready to go. But it is going to be a while until I get my head around the menu functions, and have it ready to actually fire the shutter.

The next time you see any photos on this blog, they will have been taken with my old camera, freed from its enforced exile in the depths of a camera bag. Time will tell if they are any better.

More camera chat

~ beetleypete ~ 41 Comments

After my recent run of photo posts, I am very pleased with the response to them. The positive comments, and huge increase in views, all are of course very welcome. After many years of avoiding photos and images on my blog, I might finally be coming around to recognising the positive aspects of illustrating many of the posts.

I did write a post about my current camera, and in general, I have been very pleased with it. For the money, it is a great little all-round compact, capable of producing some very pleasing results. But my rekindled interest in taking photos has left me excited about equipment once again. So I am thinking of adding another camera to my collection. I have narrowed down the choice to a mirrorless micro four-thirds camera. These seem to offer the ideal combination of a good-sized sensor, with smaller bodies that are more portable, and lenses that are easier to afford, than on larger systems. They also offer many cutting-edge features, all crammed into attractive retro-styled bodies that are as much of a joy to look at, as they are to use.

I know that many of you are keen photographers. Most of you are very good too, and at least some of you already own and use cameras based around this system. Perhaps there are others out there who have never seen this blog, but might be attracted by the tags. They might also use MFT cameras, and have their own opinions. So my question is this. I have narrowed down my selection to three choices, all of which will be investigated with a view to a purchase after Christmas. What do you think of my choices? Do you have alternative choices, or personal experience of using any of these?

Before I commit to what will be an expensive and possibly final decision on something I will be owning for a considerable time, I would appreciate comments and input from anyone out there, especially from those in my existing community. Here are the three choices, in no particular order.

Panasonic G80.
panasonic-g80
Olympus Pen F.
pen-f
Olympus OMD EM-5 Mark 2.
omd-em-5

Let me know what you think. Any comments will be much appreciated.

The Lakes: Photography chatter

~ beetleypete ~ 24 Comments

No photos!

Just to add some photography trivia and details, of interest only to those who like that sort of thing though.

Everyone else can just delete this post, and wait for more pictures.

For anyone who doesn’t know, my camera is a Fuji X30 compact.
fujifilm_x30_review-275x222
It has a 28-112 lens (35MM equivalent) and a small 2/3 size sensor. The secret is in the chip, and the film simulation modes. The chip renders ‘Fuji colours’, favouring reds and blues. The film simulation modes include ‘Velvia’, which replicates slide film, and ‘Classic Chrome’, which mimics Kodachrome 64 slide film. Other than occasional and very rare use of these modes, all my photos are straight J-pegs from the camera, with no post-shooting manipulation on Photoshop. The camera is light to carry, easy to understand, and only costs £280. I shoot in Aperture Priority, and let the camera choose the relevant shutter speeds. Occasionally, I employ Exposure Compensation, to create shadows or to avoid overexposure. Other than that, you get what I could see when I pressed the shutter.

By contrast, Antony carried some serious kit. A Nikon D3s full-frame SLR, with an assortment of lenses. He also had two tripods, and only shot in RAW, which he later sorts out in Lightroom, or Adobe Photoshop. For every shot I took, he took at least ten, maybe more. He also carried the small but powerful Sony RX1R. This is a full-frame compact camera, with a fixed 35MM lens, capable of stunning results with practice. It will take him some time, maybe a week, to sort out all his photos. But when he has done this, I expect to be able to put some on this blog, and I will also link to his site, which I really hope you will visit.

After half a lifetime carrying around huge amounts of photography gear, I was pleased to only have one small camera, and to ponder my limitations accordingly. I only shot around 230 images in a week, about 30+ a day. From those, I spent some time choosing the right ones to illustrate what I was writing about on the blog, as well as deleting a few on the way. Overall, I am happy enough with my choice, and can really recommend my camera as a reasonably-priced option that fits into a large pocket, or small case. Given good weather, is it an excellent little carry-around camera at a bargain price.

A new article: The Camera on Film

~ beetleypete ~ 16 Comments

Once again, I have been fortunate to have an article published by James on curnblog.com
This time, it is about films that feature photographers. So, cameras, photography, some good films, and many you might not have seen. I have added a link, and I hope that you will click on it, and read the original.

The Camera on Film: Seven Films about Photographers

Best wishes to all. Pete.

My face is red now

~ beetleypete ~ 19 Comments

After a week of moaning about frustration with my new camera, and Fuji not supplying a lead to transfer the photos, I eventually ordered a card reader. In the meantime, I contacted Sandisk for advice about the memory card, and asked friends if they had any ideas. I wrote a blog post about the whole issue of not being able to see the photos, and generally felt pretty hard done by. This evening, I was prompted to look at the charger unit, the one used to connect the camera to a power source to charge the battery.

Guess what? The lead comes out of the unit, and connects the camera to the computer.

How stupid do I feel right now? Pretty stupid, I can tell you.

Look out for a photo post. Coming soon.

Photographic frustration

~ beetleypete ~ 32 Comments

Sorry readers. This is about cameras and memory cards, and all sorts of boring forum stuff. It will probably only appeal to a handful of you, so feel free to delete it without reading on.

New camera. Check. New memory card. Check. Sunny weather, and afternoon walk with Ollie. Check.

Off I go, determined to satisfy all of you who have asked to see some photos. Beetley Meadows, the small river, Ollie in the water, and Norfolk nettles. (The county plant) All on the agenda. Waiting for the light to come from the west after 2.30 pm, I have the camera set up with Kodachrome film simulation, aperture priority set at f 5.6 on the lens, +1 sharpness, and auto ISO set within a range of 200-800. With the electronic viewfinder showing adjustments made with the exposure compensation dial, I am soon snapping happily.

The viewfinder is so clear, I don’t need to resort to the rear screen at all. The Fuji X30 is remarkably small and light, and I have to keep looking down, to make sure that I am actually holding a camera. I get some good mixed ‘greens’, various views of the meadows, and some of Ollie in the river. I explore the wooded areas for a nice close-up of some bark, and even try some close-focus flowers, but it was quite breezy. I keep the settings the same, to try to get a consistent set of images, only using exp/comp as the light changes slightly. The 28-112 (equivalent) lens has a manual zoom ring that is a joy to use, and the shutter is remarkably quiet.

I set a target of fifty frames, and that takes around an hour, allowing for interaction with Ollie. At the end of the walk, I am keen to get back home, check the results in interior light, and get the better ones loaded up onto wordpress, ready for my first ‘proper’ photo post. The three-inch screen shows them up quite well; I am happy with at least ten of them, and most of the rest are still reasonable as ‘snapshots.’ I pick six, and think of suitable descriptions to write. The card is removed from the camera and inserted in my PC card slot.

Nothing. The computer shows the memory card as ‘Removable Disk (F),’ and that is empty.

Try again. And again. Still nothing. I put the card in the camera, and the photos are still there. Put it back in the PC, and nothing can be viewed. Like a cheap magic trick. I don’t have an external card reader for SDHC cards, and the camera doesn’t come with a PC/USB cable. So I turn to Antony, my photographic guru, and send him an e mail. He makes some sensible suggestions, but they don’t work. He suggests formatting the card, which will lose all the images. That’s also sensible advice, but I want to keep them, at least for a couple of days.

I decide to order a card reader online. It’s only £4, so not much to lose if it doesn’t work. Then I get on the forums, which turn out to be hit and miss. So, I ask a question at Sandisk (the memory card company) support, and begin to see what the problem might be. I have a Hewlett Packard PC. It is quite modern, bought in 2012, (running Windows 7 though) with a Pentium i3 processor. It generally works well, and I have been happy with it. But according to Sandisk, if it was made after 2008, it should have an SDHC compliant sticker near the card slot. It doesn’t. This could mean that it will not recognise anything other than normal SD cards, of less than 4 GB capacity. If this turns out to be true, it suggests that HP sold me an old-stock PC as a new item. It was discounted, but they didn’t say that it might be four-year old technology. Lesson learned. If this is not the case, then maybe the card reader has broken or malfunctioned, and I will be off to the PC repair shop.

A pleasant afternoon, rekindling my photographic interests, and looking forward to seeing the results. This turns into an evening spent almost entirely at the computer, trying to resolve a computer problem.
And I still haven’t seen the photos. I will let you know what happens, if anyone cares.

I won’t blame you if you don’t.

Making my mind up

~ beetleypete ~ 28 Comments

Many years ago, my first wife and I went on a holiday to Turkey. It was a two-centre trip; the first week spent in Istanbul, then a transfer to the south coast, near Antalya. In Istanbul, there is a huge market, called the Grand Bazaar. http://travelioo.com/images/turkey/grand-bazaar-istanbul
Inside this enormous place are many shops that specialise in jewellery, and in particular, gold. We entered there one morning, my ex-wife keen to explore the numerous gold shops. In the first small shop, she found an item that she liked a lot. The owner sent out for mint tea for us, and weighed the item, as is the custom. After some consideration, she advised the shopkeeper that she would ‘think about it.’ We then toured the market for hours, looking at similar items, in near-identical shops. We were served countless mint teas, and in one place, a small boy even washed our feet!

After all this coming and going, we found ourselves back at the first shop. She went in, and bought the original thing we had seen, many hours earlier. There is no real moral to this tale, except that sometimes the thing you see first, the one that looks just right, and has a fair price, is the one you should buy. You can save yourself a lot of time and trouble that way. But this post is not about foreign travel, jewellery, or the gold market in Istanbul. It is about cameras.

Some time ago, I wrote a couple of posts about wanting to change my camera for something more portable, without the weight of an SLR, or the fuss of interchangeable lenses. I did a lot of research, and decided on two that I liked, with a firm favourite. I asked you, dear readers, for thoughts and suggestions, and as always, you responded with help and advice, kind people that you are. Unfortunately, as is often the case, that advice, and one suggestion in particular, threw me off the track completely. I no longer wanted my first choice, and began a new round of late-night research on the Internet, reading reviews and looking at specifications, until my head was swimming. After allowing myself to be convinced that my original favourite was not up to the task, I arrived at a new shortlist, and yet another first choice from that list. Trouble was, they were much more expensive, and my ideas of trading in my old camera kit were deflated by unrealistically low offers for it. At the sort of trade-in price they were offering, I might just as well keep it. It might be handy as a back-up, and would also make a nice gift for someone later on, perhaps.

This left me with the desire to own a camera that I couldn’t really justify spending the money on, with the only option left to wait a while, a long while, until this fairly new model came down in price; by at least half. Add to this the fact that I had to spend a lot of money getting my car repaired, and I had given up on the idea completely. I was reminded of the useful old phrase, ‘Cut your coat to suit your cloth.’ For a while, I stopped looking at cameras and test reports completely, until I was sent an e-mail from a supplier, suggesting I have another look at one of the most expensive cameras. I checked their review, and found that it was compared to my original, much cheaper choice. And it compared most favourably too. So this week, I started to look at tests and reviews of that first choice again, focusing on the positives rather than the negatives. One of the best positives was the price, as a new one was available at less than £280 ($440), almost £80 ($126) cheaper than it had been some weeks previously, and £220 ($347) cheaper than the one I had been considering. No doubt an updated model is on the horizon, hence the fall in price, but that is always the case with electronics, and you could wait forever for that ‘perfect’ time to buy.

I then found a hands-on review, from a photographer in Canada. He pointed out all the various faults of the camera, but showed that there were just as many positives, and he illustrated the article with some convincing images too. He didn’t say it was fantastic, but he thought it was good for the price. The most important thing he mentioned was that he enjoyed using it, and that it made him want to take photos. That was just the sort of key statement I was looking for. Armed with the knowledge of the limitations, I decided to trust his comments, and placed an order. I won’t be getting it for a few days yet, and I had to order an SD card from Ebay too, as I only had different types of memory cards. When it arrives, I will take some photos, and put them up on this blog, as so many of you have requested.

After all that, what did I get? The Fuji X30, in silver/black. Here’s a link.
http://www.fujifilm.eu/uk/products/digital-cameras/proenthusiast-fixed-lens/model/x30/product_views/

Cars and cameras

~ beetleypete ~ 23 Comments

I posted a couple of articles about cameras recently. I wanted to change my elderly SLR, and discussed the option of getting a modern compact camera that would give me all the features and functions I desired, alongside more traditional operations, as well as having a decent lens. I arrived at my shortlist, and asked for suggestions from my fellow bloggers. I got some very helpful comments and recommendations, which was only to be expected, given the number of enthusiastic photo-bloggers out there. I said that I would let you know the outcome, so that is what I am doing with this post.

Today, my car went in for the annual major service and MOT test. (For readers outside the UK, an MOT test is a compulsory safety check. There is a strict list of requirements to be checked, and if your car fails any of them, it is essential to have them rectified.) This is always potentially expensive. The service alone is around £250, and the test fee is £49 on top of that. Even on a good day, I was going to be £300 out of pocket, but I had budgeted for that. I left my car with the dealer at 08.45, and headed off for a walk into Dereham, in bright sunshine. After a quick trip around the town, I went into the library, to use the one hour of free Internet access allowed for members. I thought it would kill some time.

No sooner had I logged on, than the garage called my mobile. The car had failed. A rear tyre was damaged, possibly from a pothole in the road. As well as that, there were some other issues he wanted to discuss, and he thought it best that I return to talk to him in person. As soon as he emerged from the back, and showed me into his office, I knew that the news was not good. He went down the checklist, advising me what would have to be fixed to pass the MOT, and what needed doing in addition to that, but could be out off until later. Front brake discs, front brake pads, the offending tyre, all would have to be done, no question. These items added well over £300 to a bill that was already well over that figure. Wheel alignments and tracking of the steering (again probably caused by potholes), another £50. As these were fairly big jobs, it will have to go back in again tomorrow, but at least they will collect it free of charge, and leave me a car to use too.

And the other jobs, the ones that need doing sooner rather than later? Cam-belt and water pump, well over £300 the pair. Rear suspension mounts; a big job, not yet priced. Tailgate struts, (they don’t keep the big rear door up properly) £150. Best part of £800 the lot, was his best guess, on top of the more than £600 I have to pay tomorrow. So, those extra jobs will have to wait a bit, until after the summer, I expect. That leaves the new camera, its budget blown on keeping the nearly eight-year old car on the road. It looks as if I am going to have to rekindle my relationship with my old SLR after all.

Still, try as you might, you can’t drive a camera.

More about cameras

~ beetleypete ~ 19 Comments

After my recent post about buying a new camera, I was encouraged by a good response from everyone out there. I had some great suggestions from a few readers, including a real top tip from photographer Martin, via Pippa. Cameras are quite a niche topic, so anyone with no interest in them, please stop reading now. It gets more involved…

I have a new shortlist. My previous front-runners have now gone, due to the small sensors found in them. Sensor size is fairly crucial, so a few favourites have had to go, as their sensors do not manage to overcome their good points. That’s a shame, as they are also considerably cheaper. This means that my previously well-researched shortlist of two cameras has now had to be scrapped, and extended to three. All of the three are substantially more expensive, but as this might well be the last serious camera that I ever buy, it might be worth the extra expenditure.

The evenings at chez beetleypete have been consumed with Internet research. I have read reviews, user forums, seller websites, and photo blogs, until I was literally exhausted with camera-speak. I have drawn up physical and mental shortlists, saved pages as bookmarks, visited manufacturer’s websites, and perused the selling pages of every known camera supplier in the UK. Suffice to say, research is now done. My shortlist of three is now complete. Two Fuji products, one Panasonic, all around the same price. They all have good size sensors, with the Panasonic the smallest, at micro four-thirds.
Here we go.

1) First choice. Panasonic DMC LX 100. (Thanks Martin) Leica lens, 24-75mm equivalent, lots of features, does most things I could ever want, but it has a separate flash. Modern style, with a retro feel, not going to fit into a pocket, but a manageable size, much smaller than any SLR.

2) Fuji X100s. Unashamedly retro, fixed 35mm equivalent lens, beautifully made, and built-in flash. No zoom capability, and might be superceded by a new model, but tactile, solid, and very desirable for a photographer to own. Loved by reviewers, perhaps a little overpriced.

3) Fuji XPro-1. This is a solid camera with interchangeable lenses. The best lenses are very expensive, almost as much as the camera body. The current deal is with two cheaper lenses, with 35mm equivalents of 27mm and 40mm. It is incredibly well made, and loved by ‘serious’ photography equipment reviewers. Flash is a cost-option, but it has a full-size APS-C sensor, so the potential is there.

All of these are the best part of £600 to buy, and I might be exchanging my current kit to reduce costs a little. Any ideas? Does anyone have these cameras, or experience of them? Advice appreciated. Pete.

I am including links below, for anyone remotely interested.
http://www.panasonic.com/uk/consumer/cameras-camcorders/lumix-digital-cameras—point-and-shoot/compact-cameras/dmc-lx100.html
http://www.fujifilm.eu/uk/products/digital-cameras/proenthusiast-fixed-lens/model/x100s/
http://www.fujifilm.eu/uk/products/digital-cameras/interchangeable-lens-cameras/model/x-pro1/

A photographic recommendation

~ beetleypete ~ 4 Comments

A very good friend has just returned from Paris, and has added a short portfolio of photographs to his website. On this trip, they were all taken on a full-frame Sony compact camera, with a fixed lens. For those of you interested in photography, here is a link to that article, and his website, which is still under development.
Have a look at it when you get the chance, you will find some very good images there.

http://antonykyriacou.photodeck.com/