The X100 Cameras Go Out For The Day...

And the evening, too. Not everything happens in a studio, so you have to go out to where they store the landscapes. You might be able to make convincing copies on a tabletop or in Photoshop, but if you use the original scenes it is a lot cheaper and quicker.

Jandakot, again, and boiling hot. It can't be too much fun to do circuits and bumps in the heat and I daresay there is quite a lot of turbulence coming up off the tarmac. Nevertheless, I balanced one X 100 in one hand and one X100F in the other and tried to track the same planes in the same phase of takeoff.

The settings are as before - ProNeg Hi for the X100F and Provia for the X100. See the difference that it makes with the grass colour? As before the X100F is on Large/Fine JPEG and the X 100 is running RAW.

The picture sizes are adjusted in the final result to show the resolution. The tail registration numbers on the aircraft prove that the X100F JPEG is better than the X100 RAW...but by just a little bit.

Note as well in the uncropped versions that the vignetting the X100 is prone to is easily seen against the mid-blue sky. Not there in the X100F file. As an effect in portraiture or reportage - very helpful. In landscapes, not so much.

Later in the day the good old South Perth foreshore at dusk delivered the goods. It also delivered the ants - watch yourselves when you set up for landscape shots - some of the landscape regards you as food.

The fact that the X100F could be run at much higher ISO before electronic noise crept in - a function of the newer processor in the camera - meant that the motion of the water was easier to stop. In the case of these shots I relented and shifted both cameras to Velvia and both AE systems to Average.

I reviewed the images and found a number of them unusable:

a. The panorama pictures that you can do at 120º or 180º looked fine on the back of the LCD but as they were taken at a slow shutter speed and too high a rotation rate, there was a lot of motion blur. The cure would have been to set the shutter speed to 1/60 to 1/180 of a second and raise the ISO accordingly.

b. Some of the still shots had a surprising amount of blur. This is my fault for trusting a lightweight tripod and no cable release - even the pressure of me jabbing down on the camera was enough to displace it slightly. The studio Gitzo Studex 5 on a concrete floor is one thing - a spindly tripod on grass is another. Lesson learned for next time.

 

Note the thunderhead seen earlier in the day down the length of our street. I took it as much to test the dynamic range of the camera, as to admire the beauty of nature. The lightning show was great at South Perth as well, though no-one did as well with the lightning pictures as our friend Duncan Dodd. He may have arranged for the thunderstorm just to get some good pictures down at Rockingham.

Video With A Bang

Casting about the other day for some sort of a handle to attach my mobile phone to for video work, I came across a couple of German accessories. Unfortunately they were not fitted with gimbals on the top for the camera , nor with a clamp, nor a 1/4" tripod screw. In fact, I don't think they were intended for modern video filming at all. They did have a pull-string at the bottom of the wooden bit so I pulled one but nothing happened. I threw it in the bin after a couple of seconds...

Note: The neighbours in this suburb are a nervous lot. Loud noises seem to make them very angry. I just found this out.

Well I should have gone down to the new Camera Electronic shop near the corner of Murray and Queen Street in the city. They've got a new cabinet with drone camera systems and accessories in it and one of the displays has a handle called an Osmo Mobile. THIS is what I needed.

DJI, the drone people, make it. It clamps your mobile phone and then lets it turn to follow you - automatically - as you move. It makes all the camera movements that you wish to do smooth and steady - like a professional mounting and crew would do.

It also has time-lapse capability as well as the facility to stream live video out to the world.

The business of moving with a video or motion picture camera has always been a two-edged sword - you get more drama by following or coming into the action, but you pay the price of jerky and disruptive movements with the camera - and these come out on-screen as jumps and bounces that spoil the effect. We can all remember the home movies of the 50's when the camera operator got excited and jumped up and down.

The Osmo Mobile smooths these out - you can walk through a sequence and it looks as though you have been moving the camera on a smooth track. You have become a dolly system that can go anywhere!

But here's another feature of this device - if it can steady out moving pictures, it can also steady out still ones. You can take still images with the mobile phone and hand-hold them for up to 1 second exposures. The results are streak-free.

More - Take panorama photos with automatic internal blending of up to 9 images.

Even more! Prop it onto a tripod and let the tracking facility help you make start trails.

Note: Some mobile phones may be unsuitable for these functions. Make this simple test; if you pick up your phone and girl's voice says " Hello, Central. Number Pleee-uz " you probably won't be able to use the Osmo Mobile.

Everyone else come into the new Murray Street shop and have a look at the gear.

2/324 Murray St, Perth. Click here for details on extended December trading hours.

The Urge To Share Just Got A Little Stronger - Nikon KeyMission 170

Weblog columnists are a bit of a menace - I know - I write three of these things every day and I would shy away from myself at cocktail parties. I'd be afraid that I would either start riding a hobby horse to dominate conversation or that I would be secretly watching me to see if I could get some copy for the column...

It's not bad character - it's the desire to share that does it. And this desire to share is the basis of the action-camera photographer's work. They want you to see what they are doing. And to be fair, sometimes it is worth looking at.

If you are an action person you now have the new option of the Nikon system action cameras. Today's blog is for the Nikon Key Mission 170. Make what you will of the name, the actual camera is a remarkable thing. And that said at a point where we have seen action cameras for years by other makers.

The Key Mission 170 is basically box-shaped, but does not need an additional bulky housing to waterproof it down to 10 metres. It is good to go out of the box. The makers do provide an protection lens for underwater hazards, though, so they may know more about the dangers you are going to get into than you do...

The camera is remarkably easy to use in the field. Two buttons on top - one for stills and one for video. three buttons at the back to navigate the menu system. And a separate hand controller to let you separate yourself from the device if you are at another point of the surfboard, yacht, or sailplane.

The necessary waterproof door with big yellow seal has twin locks clearly defined by orange warning panels - you should not be able to mistake what is happening and open the back at the wrong time.

There is a dedicated ball head mount and a snap-off release that glues to flat surfaces. I should not wonder if there were not other mounts in the offing - these sort of cameras generate ideas.

There is an integral LCD screen on the back you can see your results while you are still out there and make sure that you are bringing back the footage you need.

You'll be able to do real-time seamless sharing of your experiences too, with the Nikon SnapBridge 360/170 app that will be available for iOS and Android. The camera does a variety of video types, including 4K.

Note that the case construction of these little cameras is superb, as is the quality of the optics.

Now there are more new Nikon action devices in our stores. We'll be featuring the next one soon. In the meantime come on down and see what they look like - summer is coming fast and the water calls...

Nikon KeyMission 170 is at both Camera Electronic stores. 230 Stirling St and 2/324 Murray St, Perth. See our extended December trading hours here

See the Nikon KeyMission 170 on our online store 

Sikorski Never Had It So Good - The New CE Drone Cabinet

Look up. What's that flying by? A bird? A plane? A man dressed in red and blue tights?

No, it's a DJI drone with a camera mounted on it. Someone is making an epic movie and they've decided to incorporate aerial views as well as the ground-based ones. They've gone further than the old trick of mounting a camera on a long boom - or of hanging out off a nearby building's roof. They've got the spectacle of the flying camera.

Well, so has Camera Electronic. We've had the gear in the Stirling Street shop all along and now we're featuring a dedicated drone cabinet in our new Murray Street shop - please see enclosed pictures.

 

And there's more - that's our own staff member Ricky calibrating the GPS system on a drone out the front of the shop. Don't panic - he's not flying combat missions from 230 Stirling Street. He hasn't attached the propellors or the ordnance to the machine in the picture. Yet. And you will be pleased to know that our Repairs Workshop is getting increased experience with drones as they come into commerical and artistic service in Western Australia.

The new Murray Street Shop - that's near the corner of Murray and Queen Street in the city - has the new cabinet. They've got extended trading hours that let you browse for new equipment later on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. This might be a good time to take stock of your photography and see if a fresh viewpoint - from the air - would boost your sales and fun.

Remember that Shoot Photography Workshops right next door to the 230 Stirling Street shop also run periodic courses and workshops that deal with drone and aerial photography as well as other aspects of videography. Ring to Shoot and see if there is a new world of fun awaiting.

See the DJI range on the Camera Electronic website
The new Camera Electronic city store is now open at 2/324 Murray St, Perth.
For opening hours click here

Action Stations - Flank Speed - Part Three

Now that we have gone through the normal, sensible, mundane action camera mounts, we get to the  special stuff. The mounts that they won't sell to minors. The mounts that you need a note from and MD, an MP, and a JP to purchase...

A. The Hand-Wrist-Arm-Leg mount. GoPro The Strap. This is the sort of thing that the Mississippi prisons department straps onto the road gangs when their chains are in the shop for service. Either that or this is the mount for use in all-in wrestling. No matter which end is up you can still attach a camera to it.

B. The Sportsman. GoPro Sportsman Mount. If you absolutely have a need to attach an action camera to a rifle, a bow, or a fishing rod, this is the squeeze clamp that will do it. I have no idea what you will do with the resultant footage. No, don't tell me.

C. The Chomp - GoPole (in store only). No, I am not making that up. That is what it says on the box. It is a rubber mouth guard with an action camera mount attached to it. You fix the camera on it, start it up, and grip it between your teeth. Part of me wants to see what happens next, and part of me - the bit that used to be a dentist - wants to look away. To be fair it does have rubber grippy pads inset into the main body to give a firmer grip, and it is probably washable. 

Nevertheless, I should not advise sharing it with other enthusiasts...

I suppose this is a way of getting coverage without fixing the camera to a helmet, but the possibilities for injury are mind-boggling. I am sorry to say I can see this being tried out on a football field.

D. The Rig - GoPole (in store only). This is actually very good. It is a lightweight versatile video rig that has provision for two action cameras on the bottom level, two monitors or lights on the top, and three shoe mounts as well. There are tow sturdy handles and they are drilled for starter switches or cable releases. It would have application far beyond the action camera for sport and press work. I am looking at it seriously for this sort of thing. There are other video cages out there, but this one is light enough and cheap enough to actually be useful.

 

See the GoPole range on the Camera Electronic webstore here

See the GoPro range on the Camera Electronic webstore here

Action Stations - General Quarters - Part Two

This is getting quite exciting - you can tell who's going to be the first in the movie queue for the new Tom Hanks movie starring him as a destroyer captain. I hope I don't get thrown out of the cinema again.

Well, to business. More action camera mounts to be considered. In this case we move to more of the non-action mountings:

A. The tiny tripod mount by GoPole (in store). This is one of the ancillary accessory manufacturers who has cottoned on to the standardisation of the action camera mounts. if course there are mounts from the makers of the cameras, but it never hurts to browse around the shelves for the other stuff.
This mount is quite light and doubles as a small hand-hold for the cameras as well as the tripod.

B. GoPole SceneLapse 360 Degree Time Lapse Device - The Rotating Mount. Now we're getting somewhere in the gadget stakes. This is a mount designed to be paired with one of the specialised functions of an action camera - the ability to shoot interval shots over  along period of time.

We've all seen the videos that are constructed of individual shots that might have been separated by a second or longer - up to half a minute- that seem to compress time and to speed up the world. You can see traffic whiz past, the clouds scud over the sky, and the stars turn in the night. They are fascinating. If you use the extra-long recording  ime you can make a video of a teenager getting off the couch on school holidays and see actual movement...

Well, this mount is a clockwork turntable that allows you to see the world as a panorama taken with the interval timer - it has various divisions  marked round the barrel and will spin 360º in one hour.

I can see an opportunity for surveillance work with this.

C. Three Way Grip - Arm -Tripod (in store). This mount is a bit of everything as the diagram on the packaging shows. There seems to be eight different configurations that allow you to either set the camera onto a surface, hold it out at different angles, or let it swing around unexpectedly and smack you in the eye.

As it is made by the original manufacturer, it will perform these operations with precision. You have been warned...

See the full GoPole range on the Camera Electronic webstore

Action Stations - Man The Cameras - Part One (GoPole)

I suppose in today's social climate that should really read "Human The Cameras", but I am hoping that we can get through the post before the flood of protest closes down the weblog page. Here goes.

The action camera craze burst upon the photographic scene like a bombshell a few years ago. Perhaps we should say- in view of what people do with them - that it burst like a ligament or a medical benefits claim. However you look at it, it has been successful in capturing the imaginations of the public. More and more of the little cameras record more and more of the world.

The makers of the original  action cameras were smart designers - they came up with a mounting system that was light, stable, and easy to attach. They went further - they made it universal. This had not been done in the design field since the 1/4" tripod screw socket supplanted the 3/8" socket in most modern cameras. It far outstripped the teams who devised different lens mounts for the SLR and rangefinder cameras of the film era - and who have given them on as legacy to their digital descendants.

The makers of the first action cams may have been serving themselves with their desire for standardisation but they ended up serving their customers and their competitors, and they served them right.

As a result, there are more variations of mount for the action cams than you can shake a crutch at. Bikes, helmets, wrists, foreheads, chests, poles, tripods, car windows, etc, etc...After three years I thought that they had run out of places to stick their cameras. I was wrong.

A. GoPole Grenade Grip. Good if you need to assault a trench by throwing your action camera at the enemy. I should imaging that if they get around to filming " Storm Of Steel" or " All Quiet On The Western Front " yet again, this is exactly what they will do.

B. GoPole Bobber. For the diving enthusiast who will be filming in the surf and expects to get turned over like the washing in the Kelvinator - and is going to need to let go of the camera to save them self. The camera should have enough buoyancy to ride up through the surf and be carried inshore to be dashed to pieces on the rocks.

C. GoPole Reach (14-40 inch extension pole). A little like the Grenade, this has just a little more length to allow you to lift the camera up above the crowd at the fist fight to capture the action. These are available in several lengths and some even have adjustable extensions in case you are behind tall people and you are not...

D. The Control Grip (in store only). Some of the action cameras can be controlled - unlike their users - by remote means. There are little boxes that send out radio signals to the camera. This grip is one of the extendable ones that also provides a waterproof housing for the controller. 

I'm afraid that I have to admit that I see the camera on the end of this grip rising up out of the water like a submarine periscope and looking around. But then I saw all the Pink Panther and Revenge Of The Nerds movies when they were fresh...

Da dum dadum, dadum, dadum, dadum , dadum dadum, da daaaaaaa...You can hum that all day if you wish.

See the full GoPole range on the Camera Electronic webstore.

Get A Grip Week - Day One - The Murky Past

 

This is the week when you get a firm grasp of getting a firm grip - when you go from the ridiculous to the sublime and then back again.

We promise ridiculous, and the heading image might suggest it, but if you were shooting a medium format TLR camera 20 years ago, you would have a different opinion. Because TLR cameras were made to be particularly hard to operate...and that was deliberate.

Think I'm joking? Pick up a Rolleiflex and hold it in your left hand. See how your finger falls on the shutter button? And your right hand holds the film winding handle? All good? Now focus the camera...

Yeah. Gotcha...

You might just get away with a Minolta Autocord or Flexaret with the focusing lever under the lens stage, but you're still going to be juggling things and I'll bet you'll eventually drop it in the mud...

Now try attaching it the camera to this ( no-name ) grip from the 70's. The big base takes the square base of the camera. The big hand grip lets you hold it firmly and the hand strap firther re-inforces the steadiness. There's a flash shoe - admittedly plain but then the flashes of those days used PC synch cords. Unfortunately the cable release that feeds out from the bottom of the grip is missing but that was the ideal way to trigger the camera - from a mechanical trigger under your finger. Focus, wind with one hand, shoot with the other. Then take your films to the chemist and wait a fortnight...

Oh, and look at how neatly the thing folds into itself for storage in the big leather camera case -the one with the paisley strap. 1970 was good.

 

Okay, joking aside, this grip is well thought-out. Like the Hasselblad grips of the same period - and the equally smart right-handed Bronica winding handles - it balances the camera function wisely between two hands and lets the shooter function far better than with a bare camera. And that is what the digital grips you'll see later in the week do for modern times.

Side note: The Rollei TLRs only made ergonomic sense when you did as Mr. Franke, the owner of the Franke and Heidecke company, did. He suspended the TLR from a neck strap off substantial lugs on the side of the camera, held it out in front of himself with his stomach, and then had both hands free to twiddle the focus and winding controls.

Next post: Olympus grips everything in sight!

When You Get That Sinking Feeling.. Leica X-U

Make sure your battery is charged and you have a fresh card in your Leica X-U camera. Down to 15 metres you will be the king of your environment for an hour.

Or you may elect to document harvest time in the wheatbelt from the top of a header in a dust storm. You'll still get great pictures and the camera will be in better shape than you are at the end of the day.

The lens stays on - you don't change it. It's 23mm so the APS-C  CMOS sensor sees a moderate wide angle view. f: 1.7 - f:16 aperture and infinity to 20cm close focus. Just look for a sight and shoot it.

If the lighting on the scene is too dim to be captured  - even by the 12500 ISO setting - there is a dedicated flash at the front edge of he lens that is never blocked off from the subject. (Bravo Leica. This is something camera designers needed to do for years and you have had the courage.)

Note: for the underwater work, there is a apparently a separate portion on the control pad at the back that adapts the white balance and distortion correction to the blue-green light and the diffraction of the water. Too much science for me but it means you will not be attempting it on the computer later.

DNG and jpeg so whatever computer and image editing program you use will not be fighting back later.

And Woo Hoo, a fitted sealed TPE armour coat for the camera that protects it in the situations where you fail to protect yourself. As well, the door to the inside is double locked and rubber sealed as well. Even the darn strap attachments on the ends are sunk in like deck tiedown points so they will not dig into you.

Given the fact that this camera also records full 1080 HD video I think it is a perfectly viable alternative to the little action cam for tough filming. Certainly you'll get better resolution in a hand-held camera.

See the Camera Electronic Leica online store here

You Can Get Arrested For That Sort Of Thing

I have always admired Christopher Columbus, Vasco De Gama, and Magellan, and hoped to emulate them. In an effort to discover a new trade route to India, I drove to Canning Vale the other day and made an experiment along the way.

I'd seen a number of cars with action cameras bolted to their dashboards, and a few with them looking out the rear window. One bicycle rider that used to visit the shop had an action camera mounted on a witches hat at the back of his bike*. It seems to be the coming trend, and I have always been on the cutting edge of technology**.

I don't own an action camera. Not surprising - I rarely display any action worthy of photographing. But the curiosity is still there so decided to adapt a camera I do own to the role. I tried to rig up my Fujifilm X-100 on a cradle looking out the front window. I say tried, as I discovered in garage experiments that while you can mount it in the cradle and mount the cradle easily at the windscreen, you cannot turn on the camera or trigger it without a vast mechanical and cable apparatus.  You might be able to reach to the bottom of the windscreen on an old VW beetle or a Ford Model A, but a Suzuki Swift has a deeply raked screen and it is all too far away.

Plan B was simple. After setting the camera to 800 ISO and AWB, I turned the focus to S-AF and the aperture and shutter speed to A. Then the drive control was pout on the video mode and I was set. I drove at the normal freeway speed while holding the camera up so that it looked out the windscreen. At no time did I take my eyes off the road or my right hand off the wheel, and I made sure that the section of freeway I selected had no Leeming Blunder Buses or Tray Top Tradies to make it dangerous. I did get passed by the Mandurah-bound train, but only just.

Result was replayed on the home computer and I discovered a number of facts:

Fujifilm cameras make excellent video cameras. Clear, sharp, well-exposed scenes.

Sound is pointless. You get it but as there is nothing but engine and wind noise there is no message to hear.

The camera is steady if you hold it yourself. Attaching it to the structure of the car may be fashionable, but you'll get a far more stable image if you just hold it by hand. Or rather, if your assistant holds it so. You don't even need complex rigs or counterweights - just keep it off your eyeballs and hold it horizontal. The files played back are hypnotising but unless you are looking for evidence, hardly bear repeating.

Did I find India? I found butter chicken, vindaloo, and basmati rice. Close enough for me.

* And the witch was none too pleased, I can tell you.
**And I have the scars to prove it.

" I Drop These Cameras All The Time..."

If there were ever a phrase in the language more likely to cause me to love and admire Andrew Ritchie and the Canon EOS 1Dx Mk II, I have yet to hear it. He let us into this secret last night at the Northbridge Hotel while addressing the audience at the product launch.

Leaving his pictures aside...and they were very good pictures...his candid admission that the rough and tumble of his world - the newspaper photography game - is a tough one on cameras was a telling point for the brand. The Canon EOS 1D cameras of various marks are built to withstand all the rough treatment that they are likely to encounter. He knows it and he prefers them. He drops 'em all the time...

The evening was much the same as many product launches - a brief address from one of the CE owners - Saul - a talk about some of the new technical points of the equipment by the manufacturer's representative - Sheryl - and then a show and tell by a photographer who has had a chance to use the camera - Andrew. The audience was, in the "Casablanca" sense,  the usual suspects...but in this case they were the suspects for a different crime. Specifically for paid professional work that demands high speed and durability.

Andrew had been given use one of only two of the new EOS 1Dx Mk II cameras in the country and had to find suitable subjects that would test it out. He selected water sports, low light environmental portraiture, and his curly spaniel in the park with a green tennis ball. We can report that in all cases the camera and the Canon lenses that he selected to work with produced saleable, printable, publishable, hangable images. And the dog is gorgeous.

The camera is apparently a lot easier to use than previous evocations - they have taken a leaf from the more humble cameras and incorporated touch-screen technology to allow people to select what the AF system is going to do. It also has the ability to do a lot more than before, including tracking useful subjects even when interrupted by intruders into the frame. The viewfinder is a lot brighter than before.

The thing can shoot JPEG images as fast as it can get electricity - any where from 12 to 16 frames per second depending on the type of battery. And it can keep on shooting until the card fills up... the buffer has enough capacity for this. Even if you are firing off raw images it will go to 178 before needing a rest and sip of Gatorade. This means you get a picture of the spaniel and the ball in 178 frames of the tennis ball holds up..If you need to alter the raw file in-camera and then send it off fast to an editor ( or to Facebook...) you can do this as well.

ISO performance seemed good. He was shooting at ISO 2000 but of course the device will go into the 5-figure mark if you want it to.

From what I could hear, there will be an April delivery date for the new camera, but I could also hear the wholesale and retail people saying that you would be very wise to get a deposit in for the camera right now...there may be a rush and a delay in the supply otherwise.

Nota bene: The audiences at these beanfests do vary according to the sort of equipment that is on show. Of course camera people are always interested in cameras and lighting people are always interested in lighting, etc, but it is notable to observe the degree of concentration evinced and the sorts of questions that come forth from this crowd. These people are serious photographers and know what they need from their cameras. Their questions were sensible and to the point, and anyone listening to them and to the answers was benefitted.