The Personal Pick - Part Two - The Trigger Point

I often wonder what it is that will trigger a purchase in the camera shop. Price, of course, is often seen as the overweening factor. Novelty is another. Prestige, colour, and social status all can play a part.

And sometimes it is a very subtle thing...something that can be felt but barely articulated. A wisp...

I like to call it industrial nostalgia. The effect of design that recalls us to our history - even if we never experienced it before. Perhaps a call to desires that we once had.

Two products in the Camera Electronic Murray Street shop started the juices flowing. One by Fujifilm and one by Leica. See if you get the same feeling.

The Fujifilm X100F got a full write-up a couple of weeks ago. The chrome version was winking away in the Murray Street cabinet, looking for all the  world like a film camera of the 1950's or 1960's. It begs for a leather half case, a leather strap, and a slotted lenshood. And then it begs for a trip to Zermatt in winter or Lake Louise in summer. For good, comfortable travelling clothes and a schedule that has scenery and architecture and historic places. Also for morning tea, afternoon tea, and a good dinner...Well, suit yourself about that but a well-fed tourist is a good thing to be.

The person who uses the Fujifilm X100F to best advantage is the thinking photographer - one who brings themself close enough to their subject to make use of that 23mm lens. One who makes use of the Fujifilm X-trans sensor and the film simulations as much as possible. Say what you like about always using RAW files, the convenience of a really good JPEG camera that can go up to a high ISO is not to be sneezed at. If you are a person who combines a WiFi camera with a tablet and cloud storage you may well be able to take an entire office in a bag. Not that you want to work in the office if you are sitting on the hotel deck at Lake Louise with a nice afternoon tea...

Okay, one button pushed on one side of the shop. The other siren call came from the other side - the Leica cabinet. Someone in the Leica factory got all nostalgic and looked out an old lens design...

The Summaron-M is only 28mm focal length. It only opens up to f: 5.6. It closes down to f:22 and focuses to a metre. It has a tiny piece of glass inside a classic chromed brass mount ( with Leica code pads on the mount for modern digital cameras ) and it looks as if it comes straight out of the 1950's. It even has the classic push-button Leica infinity stop to park the lens when you put it away.

It also costs a bomb. But it is built with the precision that Leica have always employed for their optics and it is the perfect accompaniment for the Leica M10. Also recommended for that Swiss or Canadian trip but you won't have as much spare change left to tip the waiter. Particualrly if you also indulge yourself in Leica collapsible Elmarit 50mm and 90m lenses to complete the nostalgia kit. Oh, and the tan leather half case...

I wonder if dear old Walter Benser is still making leather boxes?

The Personal Pick - Part One - Someone Else's Purse

I spent a cheerful half hour in the Murray Street premises of Camera Electronic spending other people's money. Don't worry - no wallets were harmed in the process - no money changed hands. And I am pleased to be able to say that I did not annoy the staff with constant questions...I just looked for myself and made mental notes to find out the prices later.

Note as well that I do not need more equipment - I need to get out and learn to use the stuff I have right now. But that is not what the weblog column for a commercial firm should say, so I'll scrub it out before I post the thing...

First cab off the rank for desirable is the new Fujifilm GFX50S. It looks every bit as good as the Fujifilm bodies I already use as far as the external construction, and the handhold is perfect. Obviously this is not intended as a pocket travel camera for Japanese schoolgirls, and they have taken into account the larger hands that are likely to be grasping it. And at the cost that it is likely to be sold at, those hands want to have a firm grip on it. In any case, when the opportunity arises, I will beg the Rental Department at Stirling Street for a chance to heft it in the Little Studio and we can see what the results look like.

Note - while I cannot muster enough imagination to convince myself that I would make sensible use of such a large medium-format camera, the new Fujifilm X100F is another matter entirely. I see we have them in stock now, and as you will have gathered from a few weeks ago, the temptation to gain the higher performance of this vs my older X100 is growing stronger. There is only so much practical frugality I am able to sustain before I have a blowout...and I suspect that this is a characteristic of a lot of people. Folks, if you are going to blow a financial gasket, you could do far worse than invest in this new Fujifilm.

I also noted in passing that the new GFX50S is supported by three lenses - two primes and a zoom. They look to be designed for event and studio work, but I should imaging Fujifilm will be adding to them every half-year or so.

Also of note was the surprise that the deeper body of the medium-format camera does not seem intrusive into the face when using the eye-level finder. From net pictures I had feared this. More details when it gets into the studio...but you can certainly jump ahead of the game by going and judging for yourself. If you want to be in front of the competition now is the time to get in there.

PS: Being in front of the competition only works in certain jobs. Flying a Mitsubishi Zero in front of a Grumman Hellcat was never all that good an idea...

Fill Up At the Fujifilm Pixel Pump Today...

Well, that's what the images of the new Fujifilm EF X-500 flash reminded me of after I took their pictures for this column. I kept feeling around the left hand side for the filler hose...

The real reason is I wanted to show you the easy menu system of the flash. The menu of the previous flash was only a two-button affair, but that meant that you were condemned to following through a whole series of things that you did not want before coming to the bit you needed. The new flash uses more buttons and a control dial but lets you in and out far quicker - and it lets you do far more things.

a. Standard - 91 octane - you set to set your own level from full blast to 1/512  of the power. Or you can just leave it on TTL and see what you get. The oblong lighted button under the Mode sign opens the page and you whizz the control wheel round to whatever you want. Then punch either the page button or the central wheel button to set it in place. No waiting ten seconds while the computer thinks about it.

b. Ethyl - 95 octane - the next push on the page button sets up the zoom for the flash tube - you can run it from a 24mm wide angle to a 105mm portrait length. Again there is the Auto zoom option if you are changing gears frequently.

c. High Test - 98 octane - the page button will also take you to the LED light. This light glows just under the main flash head and can be operated separately or together with the flash. It acts as a quasi-modelling light or can be run up to quite a fair power as a video light. Again there is an intensity control and arrangements for this light to assist with illumination for auto focusing.

d. Oh, I almost forgot...how do you know when the flash is receptive to change and when it is locked? The part of the screen that contains what you are trying to adjust - in this case the power of the manual flash - is rendered black when it is active. Once you hit the page button or the central wheel button it is locked in and turns white.

e. Aviation Petrol - 100 octane - now it gets fun. See the thing that says Multi? That means the flash is going to fire like a stroboscope while the shutter curtains are open and you are going to get multiple images recorded on one frame. It is either going to be art or science.

You get to choose how many times the flash goes off and how it is spaced out - the Northeast corner of the green panel contains two figures; the left one is how many times it fires, the right one is how often. You can set the power level as per usual on the scale below these. This is a manual operation - not TTL.

f. Diesel - this is the setting for the flash when it is going to serve as a slave in a flash group. The amber colour is a distinct warning that you have clicked the switch on to the next segment. You'll see that it shows as Manual but you can also switch it to TTL. I am in several minds about this - the times I have tried to run systems where they had a degree of autonomy have always seemed to contain the most out-of-control light levels. 

I have decided that I know what ratios I want and am prepared to dial them into the various group flash guns. The number of times that I have had to deviate from the plan are minimal, provided I have had time to test out the shots before the actual action start`s.

g. Cognac - when you have finally decided to be the boss. This is the master position for the flash - it can run up to three other groups of flashes, with multiple flashes in each group. As you can see, there is TTL, or otherwise. The degree of control may be far more than you can sensibly manage in any one shooting session, but if you find the combination that works, you can lock it in for future reference. The flash gun will return to previous settings after it is turned off and on.

PS: You don't get discount pixels at Camera Electronic but the restrooms are clean...

Sony Week - Part Four - The Local Tourist

It is no fun being a local tourist - particularly if you have lived in the place for 53 years. The exciting mustn't-miss glamour spots of the 1960's have not worn well. Some of them peaked when the America's Cup races were held and some of them have yet to do so...So finding iconic world-beating landscape award-winners on a cloudy Tuesday at 2:30 is somewhat problematical - particularly if you want to get off Leach Highway before the rest of the world gets on it at 3:30...

In most Australian cities you can at least find a dramatic view around the war memorials - they are grassed and lit and maintained. Thus I used the naval memorials up on the hill as my base to view. If the council had not been cutting the grass and if the wind had not been blowing a gale it might have been idyllic.

As it was, it provided a good workout for the 28mm f:2 full frame lens and the 18mm f:1.8 APS-C lens. In this case, as with the studio shots from yesterday, I eschewed using RAW for either camera  -it was easier to set a fair comparison in train by putting them both to JPEG. I also used a programmed or auto setting for both and selected 650 ISO. AF was in operation for both, and as there was a good amount of light under the clouds, the speed of focusing was no problem for either camera.

Against the light shots are tough - the camera sees what we refuse to see and renders it as flat or overblown in highlights. It's no good hoping for good light if the geography of the place puts you looking into it anyway, but you can tantalise yourself by moving round the other way when the sun breaks through the clouds - as seen in the torpedo shot.

Technical note: This is an ex-US Navy torpedo that was not fired at Japanese ships and did not explode. As opposed to the ones that were fired at Japanese ships and did not explode. I recommend RUN SILENT RUN DEEP as a reference for this question.

But back to the cameras. They both shot fast and accurately. They both turned in files that benefited from the "automatic haze removal " feature of the Photoshop Elements 14 program. But look at the difference between the full frame and the APS-C in the image of the HMAS ADELAIDE ( L01) tied up at Victoria Quay. Here's the force of the newer sensor, greater resolution, and larger surface area of the sensor all combined. Plus a bit of the in-body 5-axis stabilisation throwing in goodness.

As loyal as I am to the APS-C system for my studio shots - and for good reason - I must say that if I was taking landscape shots that I wanted to blow up to large images, I would have to acknowledge the superior result of the full frame. I daresay there is more that could be wrung out of an RAF RAW file but then there is more that could be extracted from a Sony RAW file as well.

There may well be similar improvements in portraiture or large group images - I must see if I can get another chance at the larger sensor in the studio with a human subject.

And as a final note - Street photography has been touted as a fine division of the art. It may well be, but there are streets and there are streets. I drove a number of the crowded ones around Fremantle and concluded that in the rich ones the locals didn't want me to stop - and in the poor ones I looked at the locals and had no desire to stop. I think I will do my touring up to Coles and leave it at that.

Sony Week - Part Three - The Model A Test

I regret that title. I suddenly realised that Sony - as well as Henry Ford  - used to make A model cameras too. Hopefully readers will be able to separate them in their minds*. The Sony products do not have wire-spoke wheels or rumble seats. A pity in some respects...

Well, the contest between a full-frame camera and an APS-C camera in the studio will always range around two things; the out of focus appearance behind the plane of sharpness, and how wide that plane can be spread in the picture.

You can quantify it easily - just go to the DOFmaster website and specify the focal length you will be using. The figures on the calculator are minutely accurate, and infinitely depressing if you are trying to get a deep depth of field. Nothing you can do at close range will increase it markedly. But you grasp for every millimetre you can get.

An APS-C camera with a 35mm lens will have the same angular field of view as a full-frame camera sporting a 50mm lens - the pictures will have the same look and perspective. But the 35mm will have more depth of field for every equivalent f stop.

If this is important to you - it can be a big factor in what you choose.

On the other hand, if you need a shallower depth of field for portraiture or atmospheric images, the 50mm on the full-frame camera is the way to go. You will also benefit from more resolution and the ability to blow the image up to a bigger print. You'll pay for it in more memory being used and a consequent longer time for processing, but the details will be there.

In my case, I rarely blow my work up enough to justify the increased quality, and I DO need every millimetre of DOF I can get.

Some words of practical praise for the Sony FE 50mm f:2.8 macro lens:

a. It is superbly sharp.

b. It has a very positive focus feel to it. No lag, no slip.

c. It goes a true 1:1 macro.

d. It has a focus-hold button - that little round one in the middle of the control panel - that freezes the action of the AF so that you can shift the lens slightly away from the original position. This allows you to follow a slightly moving subject without having the lens hunt back and forth and become uncontrollable.

This isn't all that useful for toy cars but it saves many a " Yike Yike " moment for the bee photographers...

* Mind you - the cameras only come in black...like Model T's...Hmmmm...

Sony Week - Part One - Lifting the Lid

Opening the box on a new camera is like lifting the lid on either a treasure chest or a can of worms. Don't let that image put you off - it depends if you are fishing for compliments or bass.

This week's exploration is of a Sony mirrorless camera and two lenses. These were chosen from the Camera Electronic stocks to find out what the brand is like to handle and to see whether there is a real usable difference between the full-frame system and an APS-C system. To this end, lenses that would give a similar field of view were selected:

Sony Alpha 7 II and Fujifilm X-Pro1

Sony 50mm and Fujifilm 35mm

Sony 28mm and Fujifilm 18mm

The true believers of each brand are free to jump up and down, wave spec sheets, and berate each other as much as they like - the committee of the camera club needs to fill a hole in the year's entertainment roster and a fist fight will do nicely. I am jut going to play cameras in the studio and out in the field.

First comment, though, is one that Mr. Sony, Mr. Panasonic, and Mr Fujifilm may well like to heed. It is a biased comment, and a finicky one, but here goes; knock it off with the in-camera battery charging, guys.

It might look like a good idea, but it turns around and bites the photographer in the end. If the only way that the shooter can get electricity into a battery is to relinquish the use of the camera for the charging period, there is gong to come a time when the best shot of their life is happening and the camera is connected to a wall socket or a computer...

Oh, I know you can buy accessory charger blocks, and I know you can buy extra batteries - and I strongly suggest that anyone who gets a camera with no charger goes out and does exactly that - but think about the people who have not got this same amoiunt of foresight. Give them a charger block that they can leave back at the hotel charging their extra battery when they take the camera out. You can bank on the fact that they will eventually forget to pack it when they check out and have to buy another one. You'll score extra profit eventually. But give them that charger block to start with.

Note also to ALL makers: Memory cards are cheap as chips these days ( ...see what I did there...? ) and if you are a multi-billion Yen camera maker you can probably get a discount down at the local Bic Camera store in Tokyo - so you can afford to include a little 8 GB or 16 GB card in the basic camera box. It will save the thoughtless buyer from opening the thing on the Boeing and having no way to take pictures. If you brand out the cards as well, you'll encourage them to always buy your version in the future.

Now a word of praise to Sony. Their packaging designers have finally come up with a sales box that is neither too complex to be understood nor too sealed to be opened for inspection. Plus the external graphics now include a clear flag that the product is suitable for both the E - mount and the full frame format. Complex codes and numbers never help - clear labelling is a winner.

Interesting to see how many instruction books they put into the packaging. I counted 6 in the 50mm lens coping with Chinese, Japanese, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Greek, and what may possibly be Korean. Three of them seem to be addressed to the photographers and three to the photographers' lawyers. I suppose it is the way of the world...

That there is no leather case in there is a given these days. You have to step pretty far up in the market fto find someone who is prepared to include one - though there are plenty of bag manufacturers who have wonderful camera containers. You should pop this Sony into an Ona if you are stylish or a Think Tank if you are practical. I'm cheap - I used a hessian bag...

Note that as this camera is one of the wonderful WiFi ones, you may wish to consider a bag that has a compartment for your tablet or mobile phone - you are going to be using that WiFi facility to store and share on a regular basis.