Technical Writer Wanted For The Glue Company

No special skills needed - it's a cut and paste job...

If you have a Facebook feed or other social media connection you'll have had any number of people passing on information from others by simple means - they have pressed a hashtag key or a forward button and flooded the computers of their friends with another political meme or picture of a cat riding a motor mower.

It is the civilian version of what used to be the rip-and-read radio news service that interposed itself between you and a teletype machine. It kept you up-to date, but generally the date was July 8, 1959. Still, it was better than waiting for the newspaper to be thrown into the rhododendrons at 5:00AM next morning, particularly if the news was not what the editor or the owners of the paper wanted you to read...'cause then you didn't read it and never even found out that you didn't read it until much later.

Nowadays we instantly read, hear, see, and possibly taste darn near everything over the computer and a juicy news story will be available over dozens of feeds...but if you look carefully, the dozens of feeds are all saying the same thing. Because most of the writers of the various posts are sitting down by the teletype machine with a pair of scissors and a pot of glue.

It's the same for the technical photographic writing. You may see a dozen reviews of a new camera or lens but eleven of those will say the same thing because they have been derived from a press release or product sheet. It is only No.12 that has anything new because in many cases only No.12 has actually had the camera in hand and pressed the shutter button. Don't be too cynical about the other 11 - there may not have been enough of the new cameras in the country when the call for a tech report came out and the writers have just had to wing it.

You can have confidence to a certain extent in the eleven other reports. If they have not been typo'ed too badly you will get the basic information you need. But if you want to really find out the valuable bits, look for that twelfth piece. It is only the people who have handled the equipment* that will be able to let you have a human view of it.

And then come down to the shop and pick it up and form your own assessment. Judge as carefully as you might, and remember that you are as free to have a good opinion about new equipment as to have  a bad one.

*Sometimes with sticky fingers.

Images: farming on a small scale at Cannington Showgrounds.

The Mikra 1/3 - And Why You Need One Now

 

The history of science is dotted with people who have said - “ What If? “ - and in many cases have levelled entire city blocks finding out. Photographers too, have uttered those words, but generally have only managed to blow the doors off the darkroom.

I have passed by the Leica 1F in the secondhand Leica cabinet for years - the one with the MIKRA 1/3 attachment on the front of it - with never more than a passing recognition that it is a camera that has been in service for years and has never actually been used all that much.

This is a camera that has been adapted for use on the eyepiece of a standard clinical microscope. I am willing to bet it lurked in the back cupboard of some university departmental lab since the late 1950’s and was rarely taken out. To turn around an old slogan - it’s had fewer shots than you’ve had hot dinners…

 

Well, the basic camera is a screw-mount body with no slow speeds, no finder, and a variable synchronising control. It could readily be adapted to modern life with a fast black and white film, a push in finder, and a screw-mount Leica lens - a collapsible Elmar would be perfect. Add a skinny bald Frenchman and you would have the perfect street combination…

But what does the MIKRA1/3 do? I coupled it up to an M39 / Fujifilm X adapter this seek to see. After all, if it is optical, mirrorless cameras let you see it straight away.

Well, as it was built to peer down the throat of a microscope and record the beasties that the researcher has on the glass slide, it is fixed to approximately an infinity focus. I confirmed this on an X-Pro1 out in the yard. The resolution is reasonable but the focus is out to about 50 feet. field of view looks to be about the same as a 50mm lens.

This suggested another experiment. Inside to the Model car table and a Greenlight Volkswagen T2 van. These are tiny things in 1:64 scale - observe the 10¢ piece. The establishing shot is taken with the standard 35mm Tokina macro lens.

The VW logo was taken using an old Russian 50mm Industar lens reversed onto the front of the MIKRA. No mounting - I just held it on there. Older photographers will know the trick of reverse-mounting of one lens to the nose of another to give macro results. In this case the Industar is wide open and the DOF is like nothing at all.

Stopped down to f:16, the Industar actually does have DOF. The picture of the headlight’s a seriously small slice of VW, and if you were a film shooter, you could get this on the Leica 1F. You just wouldn’t know you had got it until the results came back from Fitzgerald’s Photo Labs.

Sooooo - who’s ready for some retro fun out there? Neither the body nor the MIKRA are bank-breakers and whoever uses that Leica 1F will become the undisputed Kewl King or Queen of Perth photographers. And score the envy of every old camera club shooter that sees it.

PS: The downside is that you need to know what you are doing with it.

The Financial Year Camera

With the new financial year rapidly approaching we are all staring down the barrel of the Law...the law that states that if the departmental budget is not spent by the end of June you get less money next year

As the calender ticks over we come up with implausible schemes to stock up on copier paper or send fact-finding missions to Bavaria. It all gets desperate and we are wheeling trolley's out of Officeworks stacked with anything we can grab. Well, this year we can short-circuit this...we can win outright at the start.

We'll just grab this titanium Leica M-P kit and gleefully clap on one of the lenses. We can choose the 50mm or 28mm focal length, depending on whether we want to just take a picture of of the accountant or his whole family.

We'll be sure to point out the fact that the titanium construction of the body makes it 3 ounces lighter and that the lenses are especially anodised to have the same shade as the body. And let him see the fitted titanium-finish back lens cap.

Mentioning that there are only 333 of these in the world...and if we are really ambitious, buying up all the rest in Australia...we'll then tell his wife that we're surprised that she doesn't have one by now. Is there a money problem? Oh dear...

I think we will do it right. Looking into the Leica Boutique we'll equip ourselves with a fashion bag as well. And a spare battery.

After all, 'tis the season to be frugal. And the price can only go up later...

New Leica Cabinet Installed In Murray Street - Revolutionary Unique Design

Which is a blatant lie. It's a Leica Boutique cabinet - it looks the same as the Leica Boutique cabinet in the Stirling Street store. Which looks the same as the Leica Boutique cabinets in Tokyo, Singapore, Sydney, and probably every other major city in the world. Black MDF cabinet, red interior, red dot on top.

Leica are smart people - and I am not talking just about the cameras and lenses and binoculars...they are smart with their branding. They realised early on that they had a name that was worth putting on a banner and were careful to cut the banner the same size for everywhere and put it on the same pole. As a business strategy it is akin to a national government deciding on a flag and making sure that it is seen everywhere. It re-enforces loyalty, and in this case it re-enforces the sort of loyalty that the customers actually want to pay for.

Brilliant.

Of course, each manufacturer has a characteristic colour combination, and you'll see that used in advertising and signage. The more adventurous ones have a bright colour that attracts the eye so that people snap to their displays in the shops. These days, they can repeat the hue on their packaging so that every discarded box becomes a free billboard. If they are bold they can make a logo physically bigger on the packaging or...gasp...on the product itself.

It can backfire...think back to the Minolta logo when it got all arty in the 1990's and people were hard pressed to figure out what it actually was...and that also meant that they were confused as to who Minolta were*. You can surrender to the blandishments of the design department a little too early.

It can be too conservative - harking back to the design styles of the film eras can be dangerous too. There is a major maker that has several logos in operation right now dealing with different divisions of their overall company that could look at this aspect - some of the brand presentation looks decidedly 1970's. It might be argued that the division of business that they are dealing with also harks back to the 1970's so the buyers of the goods would not be influenced by a modern logo. Perhaps this is the case, but I am glad to see that they have adopted a far more stylish nameplate for their newer cameras and lenses.

But they did not choose a bright colour combination. It will remain to be seen if their presentation can grab the casual shopper's eye.

Well, back to the Leica Boutique. The Murray Street shop walls are now complete and the stock that you see in there will be designed to appeal to the high-end buyer. I noted that the titanium M kit was there this week. Pick one up on the way home from the office...And there are no end of lenses that will be making an appearance.

One particularly attractive bit was on the island display - and you need not spend the annual budget of Brazil to buy it. If you are a Leica shooter treat yourself to an oversize shutter release button in one of a number of styles. They screw into the shutter button as it currently exists and make for smooth and comfortable shooting. I use one on a camera when I am doing waist-level shots at car show. I press it with my thumb and the shots are rock-steady.

* To be fair, a lot of people couldn't stop themselves from calling it " Minololta ".

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 Pukka Pack For Particular Persons

Choosing a back pack for exploring the less developed corners of the empire is a delicate task. One must accurately assess the opportunities that will be presented as well as the risks that will be run. This is why our featured article - the Think Tank Trifecta 8 -  will be on the short-list of many adventurers.

The basic idea of the Trifecta 8 is to take enough equipment onto the wild to enable you to capture images of the savages whilst not weighing you down in case you need to make a run for it. Modern thinking has provided us with mirror-less cameras and lenses of reduced size and weight and this is all to the good. Now we have a way to carry them about the person.

Just as Kipling’s cavalryman spent the winter preparing his spring campaign - paring an ounce of weight where he could to extend the range of his mount - so we can reduce the amount of gear we carry. But it still needs to be accessible at short notice when we come across a herd of wildebeest or porcupines.

The Trifecta 8 accomplishes this by maximising the main openings in the case - two lateral flaps and one ventral opening. The two former features allow the user to access either side of a central divider whilst the pack is worn on the back. If it is taken off, the ventral opening gapes wide to allow access to the entire equipment compartment.

Security amongst troublesome natives can be increased by cable-tying the zips of the side panels tighter and only using the ventral access panel.

Note that there is also a dorsal panel at the top of the pack that opens to allow storage of watercress sandwiches and bottles of cold tea.

So the next time you are headed out past the perimeter of the camp - or the range of the Gardner guns - remember to pack your mirror-less camera and lenses in this splendid case. It is professionally - made and will give years of sterling service.

Pip Pip!

Who In Their Right Mind Would...

a. Give their credit card details to an unknown person on the other side of the world for a small camera accessory that they could just as easily buy in Perth?

b. Air-freight a small camera accessory half-way around the world to Perth?

c. Think that they support the conservation of the ecology of the planet while compelling someone to fly a jet aircraft halfway around the world to deliver a small camera accessory?

d. Need a small camera accessory - since the cameras we use have every conceivable function built-in?

e. Stock a small camera accessory that yields about $ 2.00 profit if it sells immediately and $ 20.00 loss if it sits on the shelf for six months?

f. Take pictures that are never again looked at - sitting as they do on hard drives or in computer bodies - with expensive small accessories that have come half-way around the world?

g. Enter pictures taken with small accessories into photo contests that are destined to be seen only by other people who are willing their competitors not to win?

h. Put up photo contests that revert to a fight between users of two different camera systems...and their small accessories from America?

i. Agree to act as a judge at such a contest for the price of a glass of cask wine and some cheese on a stick?

j. Read lists like this?

The answer to these questions is " pretty much everybody I know..." in one way or another.

I have just completed the exercise of pricing up items from international firms for one of my hobbies - building miniature scenes - and then calculating the shipping, postage, handling, and enchilada fees for them. Then I went round to the lady in Myaree who runs Miniature World and bought the little furniture over the counter for less than it would have cost imported. I call that a win - and I suspect that clients of Camera Electronics might be fooling themselves if they indulge in late-night forays with their credit card onto overseas sites. They would do far better to come down to the shop and get the goods in hand right now.

As far as taking pictures and never having them seen, Instagram and Flicker solves that problem, though sometimes the feedback is not quite what we would desire. I'm still debating whether offering images to locally-produced publications is productive or not - so far the only thing it has produced is silence from the editors. This would not bother me so much if it were not for the fact that every time I call round the editorial office they turn off the lights and hide behind the couch. I am starting to get a feeling...

PS: Don't feel bad about reading internet lists. We all do it, and it is forced on us. It is a social media trick they teach in the lectures. At least we are not giving you pictures with dead whales on freight cars...

Tune-Up Time With Manfrotto

How many of us get a tool kit with our new digital cameras these days? In the old film days it was common for the box containing the SLR or rangefinder camera to have a complete tool pouch including a stilson wrench, set of spanners, lens brace, film jack, and a bottle of optical antiseptic. In the case of some Kodak cameras you got a 8-round clip of .30-06 ball ammunition and a toothbrush.

I think we are being done - nowadays you're lucky to get a battery charger and a squidgy little lens cloth with some. Even the instruction manuals are on a CD...or are a web address.

Well, all that having been said, it is refreshing to see that Manfrotto, the famous Italian tripod and lighting accessory manufacturer, has realised that users of their equipment still like to be able to maintain the goods. Their recent carbon-fibre monopod model is a...well... a model of a good product. It works and will keep on working.

The monopod idea is brilliant for anyone who is toting heavy cameras or lenses and needs some relief from the weight. I spend 4 hours shooting dancers on WA Day with a long zoom and a heavy little camera. The Manfrotto monopod I use - an early cousin of this one - takes all the weight out of my arms and puts it down, while not occupying a big triangular patch of floor. Makes the difference between an easy job and a arm breaker.

Well, like some older Manfrotto CF tripods, this one has three lever claps to adjust the sections. Far faster than screwing the sections together like some cheaper monopods. As they are acting on springs, there will come a time when they grow weaker, and need to be adjusted. This is where Manfrotto have been smart - they moulded a plastic box spanner onto a grip and clipped it to the shaft of the monopod.

If the weather changes or the equipment ages, you just tighten up as you go.

Brilliant. Combine it with the Manfrotto 234 or 234RC tilt top and you've got the smartest quick support in town.

The Translucent Mushroom vs The Poop Scoop - A Studio Battle

I was conscious of the anomaly of what I was doing but it was all for a good cause; I was trying to determine which of the new Mag Mod light shapers would be the best for event coverage. I had inveigled Chelsea Bunz - the Steampunk Absinthe Fairy - to come in and pose for head and shoulders shots with the IceLight 2 and Promaster LED 120 portable lights and I thought to take advantage of the chance for some Mag Mod experienmts. They were duly conducted but I am still in a quandary.

For those who came in late, the Mag Mod light shapers are designed to attach firms to portable speed lights and to give either colour, diffusion, or concentration for the flash. I want something that will let me front up to Steampunk patrons of Rigby's Bar in St. Geo. Tce when they have one of their Steampunk Balls and take well-lit portraits in a flash. I need to do full-length, half torso, and head and shoulders.

I most definitely don't want to do it with a tripod light stand or strange umbrella rig. I know this because I have tried it before and found out that in a crowded venue of people having fun, that kind of gear makes me a social menace. I need to be light, bright, and no tripod legs to trip up the dancers.

The Mag Mod Dome is the translucent mushroom. It attaches magnetically to any speed light and provides what can best be described as a bare-bulb effect. Gorgeous in a small room - the light goes everywhere and nothing gets too much of a hot spot. I would choose it unquestioningly for areal estate coverage. The pros in that game know their own lighting better than I do l but I still think the bare-bulb is the way to go.

The other choice - the Poop Scoop - has a more dignified name; Mag Bounce. I know my readers, and I am willing to bet a number of you will ask for this product by the name Poop Scoop. The manufacturers can gnash their teeth...Australians are Australians and this sort of thing happens... It does not detract from the useful nature of the device.

I find it delightful. Bigger than the translucent mushroom, and slightly more daunting in appearance, it casts a harder front of light out to the subject - witness the slightly harder shadow behind Chelsea - but there is still a some illumination that escapes upwards and backwards through the white silicone shroud, and this bounces off walls and ceilings. If the Stay-Puft man was a photographer, it would bounce off him. The fact that it projects more may be the deciding factor for open events.

The joyous thing about the Poop Scoop is the fact that Mag Mod have put two sets of samarium magnets in it at 90º to each other. You can run the speed light sideways and still project out the front of the camera. This means you can alternate between portrait and landscape orientation with a twist of your left wrist. If you're shooting a prime lens with auto focus you never need shift hands to fumble for anything. Just run and gun.

The other joyful thing is that if the event you are covering - Steampunk Ball, family dinner, or wedding - turns violent, and you have to make a run for it...The Mag Mod accessories are mostly made of soft flexible silicone rubber. You can squash them up and stuff them into your pocket as you scuttle for the door.

Mo Stuff!

I was a bit non-plussed while reading the Photokina reports this year at the strange things that were being introduced. Some of them seemed a little odd as marketing choices. Now I have had a chance to see one of them in the shop and I am somewhat reconciled.

The Sofort camera from Leica seemed a strange departure for a company that had always been known for extremely professional and extremely expensive cameras and lenses. It was, after all, an instant camera with some sort of connection to the Japanese Fujifilm Instax line. If the designers were not the same people, they at least did lunch together. Sushi and sauerbraten?

The actual camera in the shop is really rather nice, and the colour decision for the blue and brown panels is delightful. Very Germanic in a high fashion way. The operation would appear to be pretty near that of the Instax line and the resultant print very much so. Note that Leica are wisely not re-branding the film packets.

What they are doing is providing some fun accessories with the basic system...designed around the storage and display of the instant prints. As there are no accessories to add to the basic camera and it works away undisturbed, you get to spend your extra money downstream with the picture albums.

None of it, from camera and film to albums and display frames, is break-the-bank prices. You can afford to give or get one as a gift this year and have a lot of fun with it.

Instant Leica....never thought you'd say that, did you? Wonder what old HCB would have thought of it all...

Quite Possibly The Leica For You

Leica cameras are not for everyone.

This is not just because of their price  - which is considerable. It is also because they may not be the exact tool for the job that you intend to do. If you are hanging out the side of a helicopter taking survey pictures of a forest you might be using a Hasselblad. If you are photographing polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba you may not want to do it with a wideangle lens from two metres...If you are doing technical architectural illustration you may want swings, tilts, shifts, a Bex, and a good lie down...

But.

 If you want the ultimate travel/tourist/photojournalist/street/life camera the Leica company very likely has the best one that you will ever own somewhere in its range. For the person who wants to do it all pretty close by and on one package, the Leica Q is really the answer.

It contains one lens, one sensor, one screen, and one viewfinder - which is not that unusual for digital cameras. Unlike some of the other Leica offerings, however, the lens on the Q does not come off. It also does not zoom in the conventional way...but nevertheless contains three focal lengths. and it is a macro lens.

Your own vision of what you want to take pictures of resides in your head - but on the Leica Q it is shared between the LCD screen on the back and the electronic viewfinder. No tilting screen - the whole thing is rock solid.

The lens looks at the world with the angle of view of a 28mm focal length all the time, but the viewfinder image is changed by a ring around the lens to show an internal cropping for either a 28mm, 35mm, or 50mm field of view. You can rest assured that the Leica lens and processor will deliver the resolution, contrast, and freedom from distortion that you expect at all those settings.

You also get a detented switch that will let the camera lens go down to an extremely close macro setting. So you are carrying four things in one - and you are carrying a closed system that will never need the repeated attention of a camera technician for screen cleaning and dust removal. You just go out there and shoot.

Now look at the heading image again ( Thank you to the Leica Club visitor who acted as an unwitting hand model. ). The controls are disposed on the camera exactly where you expect them to be. Aperture ring up the front - and you can take it off the click-detent automatic position through the manual aperture from f:1.7 to f:22. Shutter speed Automatic and then 1 - 1/2000 second. Manual or automatic focus - you choice.

That titanium finish is unique - you can also get it black. Plus a number of imaginative cases.
If you ever wanted to own one Leica - just one - and did not want to take extra lenses or accessories with you, this is the one. And I'll contradict myelf instantly by recommending that you also invest in a Leica flash as well...but that is because I am a flash shooter and know how useful the things are -  purists can disagree.

You May Have Been Fooled - At The New Leica M10 Launch

Last night at Camera Electronic's shop on Stirling Street he Leica company showed the newest of the M series cameras to an appreciative audience.

As is usual for these events, there was food and drink and cameras. Also industry representatives and a professional photographer who had been given a chance to use the new camera in the field. Several of he camera were in evidence...indeed one of the new M 10's has been in the shop for several weeks - you saw pictures of Saul unboxing it in this column a while ago.

There was a video presentation and I must commend the man from Leica for his use of the joys of mobile phone control - he commanded the whole procedure from his phone and it went flawlessly. It's a long long way from doing 35mm slides hows on the old hand-changg Pradovit that I own, and a lot better show.

But.

But if you were handling the new M10 during the evening - taking pictures and reviewing them on the rear LCD screen - you might have been fooled into thinking you were holding an old M2 or M3...Not that the M2 and M3 were all that good at taking digital photos. Oh, you could jump out of airplanes with them and go to Africa, Antartica, and 8000 weddings with them and they would never miss a beat - but they weren't good at digital photos...

So why would you think you were holding the older bodies? Because Leica has finally trimmed the front-to-back body dimension of the M10 to the same as the film cameras. And as a kindly little design exercise, they have put a neat lift-and-lock switch in the exact position that the old M2's and M3's had a rewind knob. It is almost like coming home to a familiar house.

It might be familar real estate, but prices have risen. As our professional photographer - and on-set stills shooter for major cinema productions - said, you are looking at about $ 10,000 for this model camera and lens. If you want the fancy Noctilux you can advance that price considerably. Of course, you will, as the gentleman pointed out, be advancing your low-light photography considerably too.  While you may not wish to rush into the 50,000 section of the ISO settings on a regular basis, his photos on the screen ceertainly proved that you can go to 6400 like strolling to the corner shop - free, easy, and with perfect confidence.

Apparently you can do it about 800 times on one battery charge, too, which is nice. Mind you, the old M2's and M3's never gave battery trouble either...

Note: the M10 has a camouflage cover available. You can just see it in this photo. The fact that it is only invisible in a Leica Boutique cabinet is neither here nor there. You might be photographing in the interior of a red-plush lined Victorian boudoir and it would disappear quite nicely. You have to be prepared for these things...