One Day With Ken Duncan OAM...

And that one day is going to be Friday, the 7th of October. He's going to be at the Pan Pacific Hotel - 207 Adelaide Terrace, holding a one-day seminar to help Western Australians understand their digital cameras and - to paraphrase his own advertising - to make something very simple out of something that might have seemed hard work.

Ken's a landscape person - Oh, Boy, is he a landscape person - and the landscapes he has captured are the wide views of Australia. Limited edition prints, published books, calendars, cards, DVD's, and even jigsaw puzzles. He is an honourable jigsaw maker - he gives you ALL the pieces in the box...

Well, he's coming to Perth to present a seminar that will help nearly anyone who takes pictures. Really - anyone from pro to amateur to family snapper. The main poster for his seminar lists the topics and there is a good mix of what you need to know and what you need to do - and also the candid inclusion of what you DON'T need to worry about. Bless us, thus is just what the Camera Electronic sales staff and management want to see - a man who loves photography as much as we do.

Well, he's got some good backup - makers of the famed Lumix range of digital cameras and lenses, Panasonic are the event partner and we're going to be the exclusive retail partner. We stock Panasonic here at Camera Electronic and we know how good they are for taking landscapes - that's one at the top of the column taken on a Panasonic Lumix GX-7 with a 20mm lens. Some people have said it looks a little like Japan...

Well, more good news from Panasonic - one person at the seminar will win a Panasonic camera valued at $1099. And there will be more free give-aways - goodies, discount vouchers, tools and tutorials.

You won't starve or parch either - morning tea, lunch, and afternoon tea are included in the $249.75 seminar fee. Please don't ask me where the 75¢ comes into it because I have no idea...

But goodies aside, what you REALLY want to get is what you really will get - Ken's expert advice on what to buy, what to set, what to look for in a picture, and how to capture it. It doesn't need to be award-winning landscape panoramas like he does - it can be people, places, events, and objects just as easily...and easily is just how Ken wants you to do it. Come along and be charmed and instructed all at once.

The link to go to to book for this day is: https://www.trybooking.com/BookingEventSummary.aspx?eid=200588

If you key in CAMELEC as you are checking out you can get a 10% discount off the ticket price.

Now, go and do two things - go book that ticket and then google up Ken Duncan OAM and press the "images" button on your browser...

WOW, Sir! Those are really some pictures! Wouldn't you like to find out how he made them look so good?

7th of October is the day to find out...

Left Or Right To See The Sights - Tilt/Shift part Two

I

In the first column that looked at the Samyang 24mm f:3.5 tilt/shift lens we turned the little plastic knob that shot the lens structure off the central optical axis in an arc. If we waggled it left or fight we could induce the Scheimpflug effect ( I'll wait here while you Google it. Come back after you're done...) and we got sharp focus along a lot longer area of a studio subject.

Today we take the lens out and leave it looking straight ahead... but we make it shift from side to side like a nervous kid to see what it does.

Here is our street shot in the afternoon*. Camera on a tripod, artificial level indicator turned on in the LCD, horizon about mid way.

Here is the shot with the lens racked to the left.

Here is the shot with the lens racked to the right. The camera position remains exactly the same.

And here is the result of the two images emerged in Photomerge - the Photoshop feature inside their editing programs. Not a glorious scenic prospect, but an easy way to get about a 2.8:1 panorama picture. You've got to help the program by giving it clean stuff to work with and you still have to remember your horizon and your light levels, but once you get the two good shots the computer can assemble them with minimal distortion.

I'm afraid our suburb is deficient in sky scrapers, thank goodness, and I could not do the classic architectural shot of the Empire State Building to show you how this sort of lens renders tall buildings with correct perpendiculars - but take it from me that it does. You would still benefit from being halfway or so up the side of a building opposite the one you are targeting and back far enough to give the lens full play in upper extension, but the effect is both magical and professional.

* Fujifilm X-Pro1 with the film simulation set to Provia mode.

Tiny, Green, and Cheap - And On The Level

In an never-ending quest to find the smallest and lightest accessories for you, we have hit upon this little gem.

It's a tiny ball level that you slide onto the hot shoe of your mirror-less camera for when you want flat horizons. If you're going to take landscapes - and in particular if you are going to go out capturing a series of shots for a panorama - you need this.

Big deal? You might not think it if you see a set of bubble levels on your tripod, but sometimes those levels are placed there as a sales incentive without being a photo aid. If the camera is not level, the whole thing is pointless, and sometimes the makers put the tripod levels on bits that are just not going to help - you need a bubble level on the camera itself to get what you want.

It weighs about nothing and doesn't cost much more - and if you plan to use the on-board flash anyway you can reserve the hot shoe for this level. I'd say this it the tourist's best friend when it comes to seascapes or pictures of the surroundings at Zanthus*...

* The mountains. Oh the glorious Nullarbor Alps at Zanthus...words fail me...

Epsonnews - Money Is In The Pipeline

Two good bits of economic news from Epson - makers of fine inkjet printers, inks, and media.

1. The cash back offer to purchasers of Epson Stylus Pro SP-4900 printers has been extended. From the 15th of September to the 31st of October 2015 you can receive a $ 500 cash back from Epson on these fine devices. Of course you have to buy it from a dealer - like us - between these two dates, but all you have to do is contact them online after you have your printer and let them sight your serial number and invoice.

The 4900 is a very sophisticated A2 roll and sheet printer. It can produce all day, every day.

2. You can also participate in the Epson cash back festival by purchasing one of the new Epson SureColor SC-P600 inkjet printers between the 15th of September and the 15th of November 2015. In this case you do the same proof of purchase to Epson and receive $ 300 cash back.

The SC-600 would be ideal for the home printer and enthusiast. It can take roll paper, sheet paper, CD's, and produces prints up to A3+. Of course if you use the roll paper feed you can make looooong panoramas as well.

These printers are easy to use - I know because I use an R3000 at home  - and the results are delightful. And inkjet printers are perfect for one-off fast print jobs; you can be in and out of the computer room with a new A4 print in under two minutes with no cleanup, travel, or traffic time. Think about that next time you are stuck on the road at 4:30 in the afternoon...

Staff Training Day - With Cullmann

Yesterday's staff training concentrated upon Cullman products and one of the bits really caught my eye. I'll be careful in future about bending over near the shelves. The doctor says it is just a bruise and I should be fine in a week.

Moving on from there - here is the device: the Cullmann answer to panoramic pictures.

The bottom turntable fastens to the head of your tripod - it could be a Cullmann, which is an easy bolt-on, or another maker's head - equally easy after a little wrangling. You can use a ball head, a three-way head, or a leveler.

This turntable has a precise Arca-Swiss sized jaws on the top and into this the L-shaped bracket just glides.

You position your camera anywhere on the horizontal or vertical arms of the bracket for landscape or portrait orientation depending on the coverage you want and the nodal point of your lens.

Note - there may be a table somewhere on the internet that gives nodal point measurements for camera and lens combinations. I haven't found it yet but would be grateful to any reader who could research it. I just play mine by ear with a simple field measurement.

Well, you level the table, set your exposure and focus manually, overlap the images and shoot away. This combination of components ensures that your computer program is presented with the best material for stitching - provided you have enough computer power in there to do it. You'll get more even and square panoramas.

The really attractive thing about these components is the combination of precision, affordability, and light weight. You can haul this out into the landscape at less than half the weight of the other well-known rival. If you are packing your own gear and not using bearers or mules this is a very good thing to discover...

Here's our shop link.

Real Virtue For Virtual Reality - Cullmann Pano Parts

There are a number of manufacturers of panoramic accessories for modern digital cameras - Manfrotto, Novoflex, and Cullmann come quickly to mind. I'm sure there must be more, but as we have found these three to satisfy most of the requirements of the customers, these are the ones we have featured in the shop.

They all have their merits and charms - and in some cases mild drawbacks. Some designs suggest that the designers never actually carry their products themselves to do a job - at least not over a long distance. If they did they would reduce the weight, bulk, and complexity. There's probably a compelling argument for each additional feature that someone puts on the basic apparatus but unless you need that feature you are going to pay to haul it around...

Cullmann have adopted a different philosophy - their panoramic gear has been stripped down to basic form to follow basic function ( Say, that would make a good industrial movement. Must ring Weimar...). You can start with basics to just spin a camera round in one plane and then add standardised parts to bring different movements or camera positions into play.

Look at the basic L-set here - it's comprised of the Concept One OX369 panorama base. it screws onto a Cullmann Concept ball head - or to the ball head of another manufacturer - and clamps to an Arca-Swiss rail. Then it spins around on itself, much like a minor political party. Very well-built - very precise.

The A/S rails can be the sort of thing that is cast onto the bottom of a hand grip - Fujifilm does this for some of their X-Series cameras - or you can mate one of the Cullmann ones to your camera. These are available in various lengths. The L pair you see on the OX369 is the OX399 set.

Starts to look like you can mount the camera vertically as well as horizontally, doesn't it. Yes, you can, and you can do it straight or with another of the OX369 for a 360º virtual reality setup. Note the two unique Cullmann features; the clamping cross-bar to prevent camera twist and the clip-on socket at the end to take a Cullmann CX678 two-way spirit level.

This is good stuff on a technical level and also to a price point. The turntable is $199.95 (Available here) and the L bracket complete is $198 (Available here). Ten year warranty on both bits and in-store right now.

Head And Tail From Manfrotto

Just a small note for the users of Manfrotto 190 tripods with removable center columns.

The 556B center column is available as an accessory for these - it allows you to add the capability of levelling the head separately from the orientation of the legs. This means that if you are using a video head it can start movement dead level with the horizon and then move to a smooth pan. You'll see a mechanism like this on the larger professional motion picture tripods.

The basic platform sits in a bowl and you get some 15º if tilt in all directions - the grip down at the bottom of the column then tightens up.

What it would also be perfect for is the panorama enthusiast. Combine this leveller with a simple turntable and you would have a complete light pano head that doesn't flop around. Gotta be a good idea for someone.

Round The Houses - The Panoramic Experiments

Did goe to take panoramic images yesterday and was greatley amused.

With the prospect of sun and a Sunday I decided to see what the current state of tourist pano might be. I am in the process of lightening up my outfit - courtesy of the Fujifilm series of X cameras - and I wanted to practise up for a trip later in the year.

I'm pretty well settled upon the new Cullmann 622T tripod for my field shots. It is small enough to fit in the roll-around bag and I suspect it will fly with ease. I am coming to grips with the ball head. Kudos the Cullmann for a good quick release mechanism this time.

Okay, I attached the Novoflex Panoramaplatte to the top of the ball head and put the Fujifilm X=E2 on top of that. Out in the little car to the edge of he Canning river. Note: the edge of rivers can be marshy, as the state of my shoes and trousers will attest.

Extend the tripod and center the bubble level on the Novoflex and track left and right to see if I can get what I want. The X-E2 has two settings for "internal" panorama - 120º and 180º that produce long skinny jpegs. Very good jpegs too - I frequently don't bother with RAW with the Fujifilms as their jpegs are so good. As long as I get my exposure right, I can just wipe them off and put them on the plate...

Well, anyway the motion panorama settings need a reasonably high shutter speed to work - you're better shooting at 1/125 - 1/500 as you get crisper images. If you get a hint of vertical banding, drop down a speed. It takes a little practise to swing the camera steadily when you are doing it freehand, but on a tripod it's a doddle.

Okay, next experiment was a group shot of the Grey Company warriors at training. Here I set the shot deliberately to get an even size for all the figures by grouping them in a semicircle around the tripod. The swing of the camera is the same - 120º.

And the last trials involved the river down by Trinity and the trotting ground. Taking care not to run over by cyclists ( always worth setting out the portable mine field when cyclists are about...) I shot the Burswood side using he motion panorama and then using the simple trick of two quick exposures side by side.

This was aided by an obliging  fish-trap that came paddling by - fortunately slow enough that I could capture him and then swivel past him to the casino shot. This is the same sort of thing that the Panomatic is suited to - a series of shots that stitch together in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. You can do 3 or more but I find I am most pleased with the proportions of a two-shot. The screen at the back of the Fujifilm X-2 can be set with a grid overlay that lets you accurately overlap the images. The PS or PSE program then has the best material to work with and avoids artifacts.

The last picture is the trotting ground, and here I learned what to do when the subject height exceeds what the camera lens can see.

I removed the Novoflex turntable from the stack and attached the X-E2 to the QR plate of the ball head. Then I carefully centered the bubble on the TRIPOD's yoke by adjusting the legs. Now the base of the head would act as the vertical pivot point for the shot. I was free to gently tilt the camera up until the clouds that I wanted to feature could be seen.

The X-E2 and the X-100 series have a little green artificial level in their screen that means you can do this tilt but still have the camera swivelling in an even horizontal plane. There will be a little curving of the subject due to the laws of optics but it will be even.

The real advantage of the stitched pano vs the motion pano comes with the increased quality of the jpeg or even RAW that you can put into the files. And you can be creative with lower shutter speeds.

Get out there and spin around until you're dizzy!

Take The Wide View, Comrade

Whether your photographic dreams lie on the steppes of the Ukraine or the steps of Odessa, you will welcome this chance to own a part of Soviet photographic history. The FT-2 is one of the most ingenious things to come out of Russia that doesn't explode.

It is a metal-bodied 35mm panoramic camera that operates on strict socialist principles. ie. it works, but only after you study the propaganda for an hour and even then you are never sure if someone is looking over your shoulder. Occasionally users will disappear and none of the neighbours can say where they have gone. It has a red spirit level, and if that isn't Soviet, I don't know what is. I presume that is water in there - if it was actual spirits they would have drained it by now...

Okay, seriously, this takes 35mm film into its own especial cassettes - of which there is one on board - so you will need ebay up another one before you attempt to load it in a darkroom. Once it is fueled*, you close the front latches and start to wind on with the knob - watching the counter at the right side as it revolves. Quite what the mathematics of this are I do not know so practice with a dud film will be needed.

The two semaphore levers on the top control the three shutter speeds. It is a revolving lens with a fixed f:5 aperture so you calculate your exposure by looking at the light and following Party instructions. The level is fantastic - big and red. I am surprised it is not star-shaped. I would have done it that way...

Does it work? Presumably so - with the sort of reliability of a sickle or a hammer. Nothing much to go wrong with it.

Call in and embrace the New Era of Panoramas.

* Fuelling Soviet machinery can be exciting. Google up Nedelin and see what I mean...

Rude, Crude, and Successful

Thinking outside the square is generally lauded as progressive and intellectual. Standing outside the square gets you ridden down by French cavalry. Trust me on this*.

But thinking cheap is the best thing of all, particularly if you have to spend a great deal of money here at the shop to arrive at the most economical idea. I did and I have.

To get to the best cheap solution for a problem you have to consult the Oracle of Google. You sit in a darkened room and try to think of enough key words to send you to a website that will have done your thinking for you - in reality it just dumps you onto YouTube and you watch cats fall into bathtubs.

I adopted the policy of buying whatever looked cool as soon as it came in the shop, which accounts for the 54 camera bags that currently live in the shed. This shop is not the only culprit - the Crumpler man down in Wesley Arcade has much to answer for. In the end I have found out the best 4 bags for my several purposes and as long as I do not pass the bag shelves again when I have low blood sugar I should be okay.

This weekend's experiment involved a $ 14.95 Promaster plastic bubble level that slides into a hot shoe and a sticky label from a roll that I bought at Officeworks. This, combined with the Manfrotto carbon-fibre monopod that I got from our shop and my little Fuji camera let me take panoramas in Mandurah.

Why Mandurah? Why indeed...nevertheless, the setup makes use of the fact that Photoshop Elements has a wonderful little panorama maker. You supply it with files that are taken flat and level with a reasonable overlap, and it will stitch up a great scene. I'[ve decided that I only want landscape orientation and two panels so the trick is to get flat and level. The monopod supplies the axle upon which the camera turns and  the bubble level keeps it vertical. The only other problem is the overlap.

I used the back screen and the grid overlay to position a central object either 1/4 from the left or 1/4 from the right side. I drew in pencil on the paper label on top of the camera toward that central object in each case. Thus all I need to do is sight along the pencil lines left or right and take two snaps - perfect files for the computer.

Okay. This ain't Lawrence Livermore stuff, but it means I can get pano shots in the field with no tripod and an absolute minimum of preparation. I will have to set the distance and exposure manually for the shots - if you let the camera make its own decision it can make a different one for each view and the computer will be unhappy. But this means I can capture ALL of the Lincoln Continental at the car show instead of just the front half.

*Poking the Frenchman's horse in the nose with a bayonet solves that problem. Trust me on this.

Two Panel Or Three Panel?

Planning ahead for my holidays, I have decided to review the capabilities of my imaging system* to deliver panoramic pictures. That sounds very grand, but it really means I am going to see if I can't do the most with the least - least weight, least cost, least fuss.

I plan to reserve my serious cultural and intellectual efforts for toy stores, book stores, and pubs. If the Jack Stanbridge's put in a used book section, a couch, and a keg I would never leave the town...

Be that as it may I experimented this morning with the Fuji X camera perched on top of a monopod. The places I go to have other tourists swirling about and a tripod would be a distinct hazard - and the extra weight and volume of one would cut down on the capacity of my luggage to bring back toy cars and books. The monopod is a carbon fibre one, fits into my folded photo bag, and with a Novoflex panorama plate on top makes a handy war hammer for late night explorations.

The panorama plate is normally seen on a tripod - you get the bubble level centered and then spin the camera around the vertical axis and get good horizons on your image. I figured that I could HOLD it vertical and then spin it for 2 or three shots. Out on the lawn this morning to experiment...

Yes. it works. I let the camera set its own exposure, though on other occasions I would use manual - there are some scenes that change light value widely and you really need to set a good compromise and then run all the panels with it. The Fuji puts out a good image on the rear screen and writes its RAF files fast enough to let me do three panels.

The files go into the Photoshop Elements program in the computer - it has a very easy-to-use panorama maker that allows a number of different perspectives on the scene. You can get a flat horizon with essentially flat images or they can curve up at the ends in several ways. I have been experimenting with it but have not decided which I prefer.

One good setting in there removes most of the vignetting that might occur around the edges of the panels - in a single photograph it might be quite attractive, but in multiple panels it is disturbing. Of course it adds a little time to the assembly of the images, but it is automatic and you can drink coffee while it works.

Purists will squawk at the imprecision of the monopod vs the tripod - at the simplicity of the PSE10 program - and at the modest nature of the result. But if I see a good panorama I can capture it in a minute and I won't have to haul 10Kg of gear to do it. I can leave my nodal points and virtual reality at home in the cupboard and leave space in the camera bag for a chocolate bar. And a hot rod magazine.

Ya gotta get yer priorities right...

* I used to own a camera and photo album. Now it is an imaging system.

Round The Houses Again

Nothing like a fine spring day and a 40 year-old Novoflex accessory that has just turned up at the back of the shelf to get the blood singing. As I take aspirin, it sings in a thinner voice...boom,boom.

No, take a look at the rig. The bottom is a Novoflex turntable that you can still get and the top is a Novoflex focussing rack that was made in the 1960's . It would be unfair to show youthese xcept for the fact that you can get a modern version of this from Novoflex right now. The tripod is the Copter from Cullmann.

Why?

To take full advantage of the panoramic feature on my beloved Fuji X-10. This allows fast and dirty panos at 120º, 180º, or 360º but since it allows precise central rotation in the vertical axis, the panos stay quick but come up clean.

The Fuji has the tripod socket offset under the camera - the macro slider allows me to recenter it over the vertical axle. I levelled the rig on the top of a convenient rubbish bin ( Oh we are sophisticated in Stirling Street...) and spun the camera as directed by the internal program. Perfect pano.

Note that you can change the direction of rotation for the actual shooting. I realised this after the fact - look at the hideous distortion of the cars in the 180º shot.

Note also that you can do this sort of thing with the Panomatic but you might have to do a bit more setup.

Round The Houses With Cullmann

The panoramic photograph seems to have been to be the soupe du jour - or is that the suppe di anno? Whatever, everyone was doing them them last year. As a number of manufacturers make wonderful equipment for the specialty, we hope they do them next year as well.

The heavyweight star of the panoramic brackets is. of course, Manfrotto,. The MH057A5 head is magnificently equipped for horizontal or vertical panoramas with a great deal of precision and repeatability. It can accommodate the largest lenses that one might choose and has adjustable click stops to let you take your exposures rapidly. It is super-engineered and so heavy that if it fell on you from a tall shelf, it would kill you.

If you wish less risk but almost the same expense, I recommend Novoflex products. They are also engineered but with elegance and style. They are also lighter.

These used to be the two choices for the big player, but now Cullmann has come out with a design as well. The Concept One system from Cullmann has a similar precision turntable that bolts on to the stem of many Cullmann ball heads. I should mate it to the 6, 7, or 8 series - or onto the dedicated Concept One heads. The big ones are BIG, so do come in and find one that matches your equipment.

The Concept One mounting plates are Arca-sized and I note that they make a corner mount that allows you to mate up two of their longer plates to make an L-shaped bracket for vertical mounting. Neat use of the existing equipment.

One final note - for simple panos with little cameras try the Panomatic and for even simpler ones use the Fuji X-10 and X-20 in the SP mode - there are 120º, 180º, and 360º settings and all you do is spin around slowly. In the case of the 360º one you spin around until you fall down...

Cubists Of The World - Unite! You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Ballheads!

At long last the Arca Swiss Cube has arrived and we can throw away our ancient three-way heads that have been sitting on the studio tripod since Fox Talbot was a kitten. This device has been advertised on our window for months...with never a sniff of the real thing. Well, the real thing is here and it is wonderful.

Please note that I am not restricting the sales pitch to studio shooters; landscapists, architectural photographers, and panoramicists will also benefit from this piece of gear. It is simply the most precise way to orientate a still camera on the top of a tripod that I have seen.

I use a Gitzo tripod in the studio - it has either a Linhof pan and tilt mounting or a Gitzo 3-way head on the top, but neither of these alternatives come close to the Arca Swiss.

The Cube has precise rack control of two axes, and a positive lock mechanism for tilt. It has variable pressure for the knob controls, so that you can match the effort needed to move the camera with the weight of it. It has a precise panorama turntable at the top of the totem pole...so you can level everything before you spin around in the pano shot.

It is well-built. The Swiss are like that. Their cheese may have holes in it but their camera gear is pretty solid!

Switzerland - Head Of The Valley

Some people chose the best because they actually need it and some choose the best because they have a big sack of money. Most times it ain't the same person...

If you fit either class, consider the Arca Swiss head on this blog. It would be rotten to do sport with and rotten to do portraits with...but it is the world's best for panoramas. If you are into horizontal stitching and can determine your camera/lens nodal point, you can make this head spin on the vertical axis with a precision that will astound you.

It copes with the tripod being on uneven ground by the simple expedient of keeping the ball under the tyrntable. Do what you like with the legs under it, once you level the camera and check it with a spirit level you can spin round for a perfect horizon. Your stitching program will cope much better.

That is an Arca-Swiss mount on the top, of course, so it will match lots of the ...ahem... oriental copycat manufacturer's tripod plates. Let them fight it out amongst themselves in the mountains...