Photography Blog Talk » Equipment

Christmas Ideas for Photographers : Pelican Pelicase 1510

Cheng — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 14:20:27 +0000

I am considering getting a hard case for my camera gears when I go out for my assignment. I am thinking that a hardcase will be more convenient for me. Currently, I am carrying my gear in a Crumpler canvas bag and maybe another one or 2 bags for the other photo accessories. Obviously I have to pay more attention to the Crumpler bag since the equipment in it is worth the most.

Here is one of the one that I am considering getting : the Pelican Pelicase 1510

(See all Camera Cases)

I thought with a hardcase trolley will free up my concern for the cameras and lens since he Pelican is “The world’s toughest watertight protective cases. Pelican cases feature an exclusive 1/4″ neoprene o-ring to guarantee a perfect seal. Neither dust nor water can penetrate this barrier.” Sound pretty good isn’t it?

Let me know if you have use one before and what your experience with it.

Review : Thinkphoto Digital Holster 20

Canon DSLR – EOS 600D

Cheng — Tue, 24 May 2011 09:19:01 +0000

: Canon 600D

After many years of using Nikon SLR and DSLR camera, I finally bought a Canon 600D only. Why? Mainly is to use it for videography. In the last one year or so, there is a bloom of videographers or independent (also known as budget) filmmakers who made the switch from camorders to using DSLRs for making films and videos.

Here are the 2 main reasons :

You get HD quality off the camera. In fact the camera has to reduce the image size to HD quality which only has 1920pixels at its longest side.
The use of prime lenses with big apertures allow you to achieve the film look with shallow depth of field.
The digital format (in Quicktime MOV) will allow video editing to be done easily.

I only purchase the Canon 600D body as I could use a Nikon to EOS adaptor to fit my Nikon lenses on them. Just buy the simple one that I linked to above. Initially, I tried the AF Confirm Nikon to EOS adaptor but the video footage suffered from some light level flickering. I guess somehow the AF confirm signal sent from the adaptor to the camera is causing some interference.

So I have my Nikon 20mm , 50mm and 135mm prime lenses for use on this little body. Of course the camera lose the metering and autofocus feature. It is something that I can live with. I will probably get some Canon L glasses if my interest in videography continue.

I will share some more accessories used for HD SLR in my next post.

Review : Thinkphoto Digital Holster 20

Cheng — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 02:02:32 +0000

It has been a while since I buy a camera bag. The triangular shape SLR bag or holster like bag that I got when i first purchased by first SLR has been breaking abreak after 8 years. So I decided to get another to replace it. I finally decided on the Thinkphoto Digital Holster 20 for the following reasons :

It is expandable to fit a 70-200mm lens. Although my reasons would probably be keep one short lens mounted and another short lens in the bag. It is also part of the Thinkphoto modular system.
It has a raincover to keep the camera dry.
The material (canvas, zip) and stitiching are superior than other brands of bag that I check out.
There are a few options on carrying it : by the sling, by the handle on the top cover or use it on the optional belt system.

Just take note that there is a Thinkphoto Digital Holster 20 ver 2.0 that has a few more minor improvements over the original. So if you intend to get one , ask for the ver 2.0.

Thinkphoto Digital Holster 20 (Photo credit : ThinkPhoto)

Price : $80 from TK Photo at Funan Digital Mall, one of the most popular shopping spot for Singapore photographers.

Strobist Stuff – Lightstands

Cheng — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 03:36:44 +0000

Well, again on strobist or off camera lighting stuff.

We will also need lightstands that will hold our lights while we shoot.

Manfrotto Nano Light Stand

Some of the things to consider when looking for a lightstand are :

Weight – We usually need more than one lightstand so the lighter it is the more we can carry. The trade off here would be the steadiness as it will be more flimsy in its support.
Height - How high can the lightstand go up to? This is important for setting up hair lights. I would say 2 metres and above would be helpful.
Compactness – relating to point one and 2, how compact would the lightstand be when fully folded? Reminder strobist tends to work outdoor and we need to bring the lightstand around.

Other tips :

Weight down the lightstand with your bag to prevent it from falling.
A tripod can be use as a light stand if you have an flash stand

Want to learn more? Enroll for our Off camera Flash Photography Course here

Strobist Stuff – An Introduction

Cheng — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:06:11 +0000

Well, strobist or off camera lighting is not a new concept. It means to take the camera from the camera hotshoe and place it in a different position. Sometimes it means using more than one source of light. Digital cameras has made it easier for us to gauge our exposure immediately after taking a shot.

So what are the gear that we need , mainly

A Flash. Personally I prefer a Nikon Speedlights for its portability. The good thing about operating the flash in manual mode means we could still use some of the older Nikon Speedlights models like SB-22, SB-28 etc. However if you have other brand of flash, they are still usable.

Triggers – There must be a way to trigger off the flash. There are the cheap ways (not so reliable) or the expensive way (very reliable). The ones I used are from ebay which are cheap and pretty reliable .

Want to learn more? Enroll for our Off camera Flash Photography Course here

Which DSLR should I buy?

Cheng — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:27:49 +0000

I have been conducting basic photography training for the one year and this is one of the common questions that I get- Which DSLR should I buy? This is the kind of question where you will get 10 different answers if you ask 10 different persons.

Initially I was reluctant to recommend any specific brand or model as I believe most of the DSLRs on the market currently should serve the needs of beginners. I was right to a certain extend. Different cameras capture the color sdifferently. Some of them have good auto white balance (AWB) while some are awful. Some have good decent kit lens while other have kit lens that produce soft images.

Buy from Amazon now

Currently my personnel recommendation is the Nikon D90 with its 18-105 VR Zoom lens. This is slightly more expensive than the entry level DSLRs but has good functions and produces good quality images. The images shoot from the camera using out of the box settings are good in color saturation and sharpness.

I may be biased from the years of using the Nikon D70 which is the pre-pre- predecessor (D70-D70s-D80) of the D90 . However looking at the many camera and kit lens combination from the various brands, I’m pretty convinced that the D90 + the 18-105 lens combination is one of the best at this moment.

Check it out at the stores now

Review : Amazon Kindle 2

Cheng — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:53:15 +0000

I know the Amazon Kindle 2 ebook reader is not a photographic equipment but I thought readers of this blog might be interested in other electronic gadgets. I always been an avid reader and usually borrow books from the libraries in Singapore. I would be quite willing to buy books that are not available in the libraries or books that I would like to keep eg photography books. Therefore I was quite interested to know more about the Kindle. The other ebook reader I had tried was a small PDA. It was hard to read using that and I got giddy after a while.

As of now, Amazon does not allow the Kindle to be shipped to Singapore even for the Kindle 2 International version. However you can work around the problem by shipping to Vpost.

You may like to refer to this nice post by Jeff Yen on the workaround. He also works out the cost of the Kindle 2 including the leather cover , the shipping & GST charges which is about S$471. This is not a cheap device if you are not into books. However for an avid reader, having a mobile bookstore is well worth the money.

A quick test show that the Whispernet works on the Kindle 2 International version here in Singapore. However there is a catch, you need to pay US$1.99 delivery charge in additional to the price of the book. The cool thing is you could surf the web using the simple web browser. It is good for text only site like gmail.com.

Kindle

I like it for these reasons :

Monochrome screen, long battery life - Simplicity. Remember those monochrome screen handphones? I missed them for their long battery life per charge. I never purchase a iPhone or other smartphone before their battery life cannot match their capabilities.
Non glare & Non Reflective screen - No glossy screen here. Just a screen that almost look like a page off a book. You can read it under the sun unlike the normal LCD screen.
Simple operations – To go to the next page, you press one of the bigger than thumb size ”Next Page” button. To go to the previous page, press the ”Previous Page” button. This 2 buttons would do 90% of what I need the Kindle to do.
Personal Library on a smaller footprint – I have more reasons to buy more books for my Kindle as I no longer have to worry about the space the books will take up. There are also free ebooks that you can get off Amazon store.

Any cons to this device? Of course. Here they are :

Power switch – Quite awkward to use it as it is small and I need to slide and release to set it to sleep mode or to wake it up from sleep mode. To power it off, I need to slide and hold for 4 seconds. So usually I just wait for it to go sleep mode by itself after 10 mins of idle time.
White only - I would prefer a black or darker tone for the Kindle 2 body. I would imagine the body especially the buttons to get dirty soon from my greasy fingers.
The transitions of pages – Not the prettiest of all transitions. I would describe it as “scattering of ink”. How about a page flipping kind of transition?

Ok, I am off to read my book, Lost Symbol by Dan Brown on my Kindle of course.

Lumix LX3 DIY Flash Mount cover

Cheng — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 13:13:45 +0000

Somehow the Panasonic Lumix LX3 did not come with a hot shoe cover. Not critical as I never had one for my other cameras. Seeing one being sold for almost US$10 made me wonder how could I make one for myself. In the end, I made one using a bottle cap of a 1.5l Coke bottle. The thickness of the cap is just nice for the hot shoe. Just use a sharp penknife (Caution : handle with care) to cut to the shape. Here we go :

Hot shoe cover

Yet Another Purchase – Panasonic Lumix DMC LX3

Cheng — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 02:37:49 +0000

I had been staying put from making camera purchases for the past few years, preferring to shoot with what I already owned. My main camera is a coming to 5 years old Nikon D70 DSLR. Two years ago, I already noticed the Panasonic Lumix DMC LX1 but in the end I did not purchase it as I could not justify the purchase.

Two years down the road, my needs has changed. On many occasions, it is no longer practical for me to use a DSLR such as during family outings. So yesterday (21 July 09) I went ahead to purchase the Panasonic Lumix DMC LX3 from Alan Photo in Sim Lim Square for S$685. That the same price as LX1 two years back so we can see that the price of the LX series remains pretty constant.

Panasonic Lumix DMC LX3 - Photo from Pansonic website

Why the LX3 among the zillions of compact cams?

A few of reasons are :

a 16:9 ratio for a different perspective
ability to shoot RAW files (not that I shoot RAW)
a Leica DC f2.0 lens for low night photos
automatic and manual controls

I will share more photos in this site when I shoot more with it .

Olympus PEN EP1

Cheng — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:01:16 +0000

I owned a few vintage Olympus rangefinder like the 35 EC and was pleasantly surprised when I read that Olympus is launching a rangefinder style digital camera – the Olympus PEN EP1.

: Olympus PEN EP1

What makes the EP1 different from the other digital cameras is that is interchangeable. From the photos from the Internet, it seems to have a stylish metal finish just like the good old film rangefinders. It weighs only about 335 grams and has a 12 MB pixels sensor.

Hey but it doesn’t come with a optical viewfinder, you will have to shoot through the LCD. Fortunately, you can add on an electronic viewfinder but will means you have to pay for it. The 17mm pancake looks cool with the whole setup but it is only 34mm in focal length as there is a 2x magnification factor.

Estimated street price is S$1488 including the body and 17mm lens and $1298 for the body and 14-42mm lens. But if I intend to get this cam for its vintage feel,I would definitely get it with the 17mm pancake lens.