Photography Blog Talk » Equipment

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.

Great Singapore Sale 2009

Cheng — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 07:48:21 +0000

I blogged about the Great Singapore Sale (GSS) last year focusing on D300 prices. Now the GSS is back! How much has the price change? Well for the D300 body , the price is now S$2,688 compared to last year S$2,999 but last year offer came with a 50mm f1.8 lens. So the price for D300 really have not drop a lot.

Great Singapore Sale 2009

So what about the D700 body ? It is S$3,888 with a 8GB Compact Flash (CF) card and a Nikon branded Lowepro bag. It is really a good offer? You might want to check out the shops listed here to see if they could give you a better offer.

Yashica Electro 35 GSN

Cheng — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:58:38 +0000

This is another classic film camera that I owned and tested. This is a 35mm rangefinder that come with a Color Yashinon DX 45mm 1:1.7-16 lens. Trust me this lens is sharp. When I collected the scanned CD and developed negatives from the shop, I examined the negatives under a loupe. Boy, the images were sharp!

This is bigger than the Olympus 35 EC and weighs about 700g and is solidly built. I love the feel of it in my hands. This cameras can be obtained cheaply from Ebay at around US$25 or less. As with all old cameras, you will need to check the working condition and the condition of the light seals before you bid for one.

This camera uses the old mercury batteries that could not be found these days. Just roll of 4 LR44 button cells batteries and add some aluminium foil to make the contact.

Some sample photos off the camera.

Shopfront at Haiji Lane, Singapore

Shadow on a HDB block , Singapore

News : Nikon D700

Cheng — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:25:45 +0000

Well just as you has just bought your D300 and think it is the greatest camera, Nikon announced the D700.

Cutting through all the marketing talk, here are the major features of this D700 camera that matters to me (a D70 user).

FX – full frame! I could use my AF 20mm lens now was a wide angle lens!
ISO 200-6400 – useful in certain situation
Live mode
Image sensor cleaning – wow no more dust specks on photos

Price and date of availability is unknown yet.

Olympus 35 EC film camera

Cheng — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:48:00 +0000

Olympus 35 EC

Well I can said that this Olympus 35 EC camera, when compared to the plastic compact cameras, it is solidly built. I have the silver chrome one with cool black leatherette covering. There are a few unique features regarding this camera. Firstly, the film advance function. Instead of a lever, there is a thumbwheel which you roll it to advance the film. One hand operation is possible. The film is also loaded at the right hand side of the camera back. So you will wind the film from right to left.

Secondly, there is a lever that resembles a self-timer, but it is a shutter lock. To shoot you will have to slide it down otherwise it will lock the shutter. It has a orange light on top to indicate exposure, which is the same light seen in the viewfinder. Orange light means battery is OK when you do a slight press of the shutter. If it remains on when you press the shutter further, it means the shutter speed is slow ..1/30 or more. Simple right?

There is another thumbwheel for adjusting the ASA (now known as ISO). It goes from 25 to 800. Well it hard to find ISO100 film not to mention 25. This camera has the Olympus E. Zuiko 42mm f2.8 lens.

This is a zone-focus camera and has no manual controls – shutter speed and aperture are set automatically. This means, of course, that the batteries must be installed and the meter must be functioning. The battery compartmetn is also unique. It has 2 battery chambers designed to take 2 mercury batteries that are impossible to find these days. I just stack 2 LR44 batteries into one chamber and stuff the other one with a wad of aluminium foil. Viola ! It works!

Sample photo