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...

The Eye Of A Fish - Tokina

I have not reviewed many fish-eye lenses in this column over the years - not for any sinister reason, mind, but really because I am at a loss as to what images will be best captured with them.

I do not swim underwater with the fish and rarely go to pop concerts or inaugurations that might have tens of thousands of people attending them. I rarely go into caverns or cathedrals, and generally do not take the wide view of the place. So for me, the fish-eye view is a novelty.

For others, it can be the exact way they see the world...and I am not talking about haddock and tuna...some people see a wider view than I do. Not surprising, really, as I was fitted with spectacles at the age of eight and have seen the world through frames for the last 60 years.

For those who do see more, the Tokina AT-X 10-17mm f:3.5-4.5 DX Fisheye lens is a wonderful device. It is avaiable for Canon and Nikon mounts - this one is the Nikon version - and is built in the old-school material - metal. Note the slightly bulging front element that is characteristic of a fisheye lens and the fixed compact lens hood.

As we said with the other Tokina lens reviewed recently, the focus and zoom ring action is smooth and well damped and the operation very quick indeed.

A worthy optic for experimenters, interior shooters, landscapists, and environmental shooters. Not exactly a portrait lens, unless your taste in portraiture differs markedly from that of the rest of the world...and from that of the clients. Mind you if your clientele are haddock or you do schools portraits for herring and you can sell  the images, by all means come in and buy one!

As with all Tokina: made in Japan

One Of The Dishes On The Buffet - Tokina

When we get a big-name camera we sometimes get a big name complex...and we cannot see beyond that name.

Members of camera clubs throughout the state are familiar with this as discussions of Nikon versus Canon versus Sony versus Flapoflex start up during the coffee breaks. The opinions expressed range from youthful enthusiasm to senile folly but fortunately there are few fist fights over the subject. Fair amount of snarling, but...

It can be the same with the lenses for the cameras. The big-name enthusiasts argue with each other and in the process sometimes fail to remember that there are other players in the game - and some of them are stars. Sigma, Tamron, and Tokina come to mind...and we're going to consider the latter brand.

I can make a personal judgment of this brand of lenses - I own one. It was purchased when I ran Nikon cameras and I was so taken with what it does that I retained it when I switched systems. It is the constant workhorse of the Little Studio and for good reason; it has a focal length and focus range that is unavailable in other brands , and it is very well made. For interest - you are looking at the illustrations on this column through it - the Tokina 35mm f:2.8 Macro.

But back to the lens in the heading image. Tokina AT-X 70-200mm f:4 PRO FX VCM-S. That's the usual advertising alphabet soup to tell you that it has a big enough image circle to work on all Nikon cameras, an image stabilising mechanism inside, and no aperture ring. You'll see that readily from the upright image, but what will not be evident until you handle the lens will be the weight of it and the solidity of the barrel. The secret lies in the fact that Tokina use metal barrels for their lenses.

The operation of the focus and zoom ring are as smooth as you could ever want. The focusing is internal so there is no pumping of the front element.

In every respect this is a first-class medium zoom lens that deserves your consideration along with the others in the class. The price is likely to be very attractive. I know the 35mm Macro was certainly so.

One other note: Made in Japan.

Cocktail Hour Vs Happy Hour In The Camera Store

We are not going to suggest that the clients of Camera Electronic should come in to buy stuff in a sozzled condition - far from it. It has been done, mind, but it was not a pretty sight to see. And it is hard enough getting the sales staff down off the top of the cabinets with a hockey stick at the best of times.

But there is something to be said for the concept of the cocktail hour consultation. Pull up a shaker and I'll explain.

Cocktails are made from a mixture of things - liquors, essences, fruits, mixers, etc. They can be very complex or very simple - provided the ingredients are good, they nearly always succeed. Okay, the pickled herring martini was a general failure but we still sold some in Holland...The point is to get good stuff to start with and mix it judiciously.

And in the camera trade? Well, give some serious thought to mating camera bodies to lenses and flashes. Your tastes and needs may be entirely different than those of your neighbour, and just as you might like a martini and someone else might do better with a Manhattan, so your optic mix muight be different. Here's your ingredients:

Canon bodies
Nikon bodies.
Sony bodies.
Olympus bodies.
Panasonic bodies.
Sigma lenses.
Tokina lenses.
Samyang lenses.
Zeiss lenses.
Nissin flashes.
Metz flashes.

And note - I didn't even mention the fact that the body makers have a full line each of their own lenses that fit their bodies...

Also note that I didn't raise the question of Leica cameras and lenses, or ditto for Fujifilm.

Or the adapter drawer full of possibilities.

Ask your bartender...err...sales assistant for a taste recommendation and try out  a number of combinations. You need not be frightened to mix and match - there are any number of combinations that work well.

Oh, Happy Hour? When the drinks are half-price? Well think of the cash-back offer periods that the manufacturers institute as the closest thing to this. Wait if you wish, and you can score some good savings. Or sip your way with a new lens or two while you are waiting. We are prepared to put coasters down under the telephotos for you...

The Little Man With The Little Trade Table

If you have ever gone to a photographic trade show, collector's market, or enthusiast's conference you know roughly what the exhibition hall will look like.

There'll be a number of stands set out by major manufacturers, a couple of tables from a local authority or professional body loosely allied to the theme of the day, and one or two little card tables set up with sad-looking people behind them. They'll generally be in the least favourable position in the layout - near the toilets or down behind the service corridor. Do yourself a favour - seek them out.

We're not saying that the major players don't have good stands - after all, they've got the money and prestige and corporate power to get the best place in the show. And they'll be the ones with the big new products that everyone has been seeing hints of for the last two months on the internet forums. Go to them and heft the new cameras and lenses and have a good time. Enjoy their latest slogans...: "Dare To Imagine The Innovation Of Inspiration To Succeed/Exceed/Recede In You!" "Be What The Paradigm has Adventured!" "Now The World Will Revolving Around Of You!".

Hard to know how to respond to some of this...I suppose you could always shout out "Banzai" and throw yourself on the barbed wire, but that's a big ask for most Australians at a camera show...

But you will do more for your photographic development looking at the offerings of the little card-table people. They might be as humble as someone selling greeting cards, or as complex as someone with a scheme for reprocessing JPEG images into vegetable oil. All sorts of little gadgets are on offer, and some of them are actually useful.

You must not expect perfection - little craft makers rarely achieve industrial precision - and there may be an air of cottage industry about the presentation. Packaging might be scrappy, and instructions and diagrams crude - but then if you have ever read the instructions packed with a Metz Mecablitz product you will know that goodness need not be written up all that well. Look at the equipment first-off.

The German trade show Photokina in Köln has many such tables. People have made their way to Germany from all over the world to try to light the sales fire. If you want manual controls for an electronic computer or strange printing materials or little plastic accessories for anything, you need to haunt the card tables. The demonstrators will be there until the last of their samples, brochures and patience runs out...then they will clap the legs to on the table and beat it for the door. Look well, for you may never see them again.

Beware of entering into lifetime schemes of commitment at these fairs. Sometimes the commercial lifetimes they refer to are based roughly on those of Mayflies. Software is sometimes abandoned at the church door with a pathetic note asking the finder to nurture the infant program. Reseller's programs are also shaky ground...particularly if they ask you to recruit other re-sellers...or call for start-up funds.

Still, there are lots of good things on offer. If nothing else, collect all the brochures you can. They won't be worth anything in 2 years, but you can always paper the walls of the camera room with them.

The Best Of Everything

We have just come down off the Photokina 2016 high and are sitting with our heads in our hands. The  lucky ones who went to see the show have hangovers, sore feet, and credit card statements to deal with. The rest of us have our hopes, fears, desires, and aversions to consider - all fuelled by the internet reports of new equipment. We'll need to keep our wits about us in the coming months.

It is not the fact that there will be new equipment coming that will stress us - new equipment is always entering the market, just as old equipment leaves it - it will be how we feel we must react to it.

Feel? React? What the heck is this? A camera column or a new-age forum? Well, follow along and you'll see what I mean. I'll be honest with you and you should be too...

Photokina 2016 will raise your level of desire. It was meant to do that. No matter what the organisers ever say, all trade shows are there to cause people to want to trade. This is natural and healthy.

Stimulating that desire is done by showing new equipment, processes, or services. If the advertisers who work for the manufacturers are lucky, they catch you just on the cusp of change - when you are about to switch cameras, lenses, flashes, or programs. Then they show you the new gear and away you go. Sale.

If you are not at that launch point they have it a bit harder - they must convince you that the goods that they want to sell are better than the goods you own. In the case of digital equipment, they do this by additional performance or new features. Again, if they can get you up the slope of desire to the tipping point...sale.

The toughest thing that the Signal Corps* ever has to do is rouse the person who is happy with the equipment they already own to some feeling of discontent. Dissing something is a tricky business if you are the same firm that sold the original camera and lens to the photographer...and are now faced with selling a replacement well before the old one wears out. Because - and make no mistake about this - the equipment lasts far longer than they wish your contentment to last.

Ouch.

Well, I told you I was going to tell the truth. Now be truthful to yourself. You really do want the best -everybody does. But the best is ever-changing. It can shift within a particular manufacturer's lineup and it can jump between different makers. It rarely, if ever, settles upon one item from one maker.

It never is the same best for every photographer. One little change in your needs, likes, colour sense, clients, or business model whisks the concept away to another perch. Likewise your training, skill, intelligence, and personality all change the best. And then there is the fiscal elephant in the corner that we never discuss...

So you really should do a bit of self-analysis in the coming weeks as the Photokina reports flesh out. Do not be too hasty to judge, and in particular refrain from pronouncing sentence upon anything until you actually see it. If it is not best for you, don't assume that it is not best for others...and vice versa.

Wait until you have the item to hand to make a decision - by all means review other people's opinions on the net, but remember that the net is the same channel that brings you alien bat children in caves and the break-up of Hollywood marriages...

Make up your own mind.

* Signal Corps = Advertising Department

The Rolls Royce Of Adapters

Or the Fujifilm of motor cars...

In the spirit of the elk*, I knocked a Fujifilm M-adapter and a Zeiss 50mm f:2 M-mount lens off the shop shelves with a stick and clapped them onto my Fujifilm X-E2 with the turbo-boost vitamin -enriched firmware update. I was going to see how much different it made the adapter experience compared to the Ray-Qual and Tokina combination that I am most familiar with.

The first impression was quality improvement in both the lens and the adapter - hardly surprising as both of them are quality Japanese products. Not to knock the efforts of other sections of the Asian world, but there is no denying the superb machining on the Fujifilm or Zeiss mount. They clip together with no hint of distress.

No hint of a hitch, either, in the operation of the focusing ring and the aperture ring of the Zeiss lens. I am not surprised with this - when I operated Zeiss lenses on their own cameras or on Hasselblad 6 x 6 in the past there was never an operability issue - the operator might foul it all up, but the lens came through.

I have written before about the slowing down of the photo process when you use adapters and other-maker's lenses on your camera - how you are forced to give up auto-focus and are always opening and closing an aperture to view or expose an image. In some cases, like that of the Ray Qual/Tokina combination - it is really only suited to studio closeups and careful work. Even then the mind wanders, you forget to stop down or to open up and the image suffers...

Well, it ain't the same with the Zeiss on the M-adapter. Sure, there is no more AF. I accept that. I can turn the focus selector on the Fujifilm X-E2 to M and leave it there. In dong so I have opened access to the focus-peaking mechanism that Fujifilm provide. It is turned on with a push of the thumb control wheel and instantly zooms up the portion of the image that is covered by the AF box. Disregard the fact that there is no AF in this configuration - you still get to see exactly what is in focus in that box. I've set it so I get a bright red rime around the exact plane of focus.

It is a matter of a moment to thumb up this image, turn the focal ring until it pops, and then thumb back to the main view. Almost as fast as the Leica M2 camera...

Do I need to focus at full aperture and then stop down? Probably do if it is a close-up shot. I can whack it open and then count clicks down to the selected shooting aperture.

Do I need to do this in the field with a subject at is further away than about 2 metres? Nope. the Fujifilm X-E2 can boost the viewfinder image bright enough to let me focus and frame right down to about f:11 anyway so if I am going to get enough depth of field anyway I can just leave it at this stop and do nothing but focus and fire. Now that's about as close to the old Leica M2 experience I used to have as I can get.

Mind you, I do miss twisting my fingers into a knot at the end of 36 shots and then having to juggle the base plate as I load the next 36...

The results? Zeissuperb. Plus it has a silver ring at the front that makes it look cool.

* That was meant to read "week" but the autocorrect mechanism took over. I quite like the elk, eh?

See the Zeiss webstore here: http://www.cameraelectronic.com.au/zeiss 

Staggering Through The Darkness With The New Lee Filters

Well it is strange, isn't it. For a hundred and fifty-odd years  photographers have been trying to get more sensitivity out of their recording surface - sensitising plates, using speed-increasing developers. pre-flashing plates, etc. Developing flash power, flash bulbs, and eventually electronic flash to a very sophisticated level. Making lenses with wider and wider apertures...

And then Lee come along and clap a dirty great black sheet of plastic in front of all the other developments and ten stops of light disappear. People are thrown back to heavy tripods, cable releases and counting their exposure times on their fingers...

The power of fashion, eh? Well, what the heck, Misty waterfalls, glassy oceans, deserted streets - it's almost like Grand Final Day at 2:00 or Christmas Eve in the workhouse.

Up until now many of the fancier wide angle lenses that people wanted to use for landscapes and interiors were handicapped by the design of their front elements. They bulged forward in such an alarming fashion that no filters could be put on. Heretofore in this class of optic only the Nikon 14-24mm f:2.8G ED lens was catered for  - Lee made a holder kit called the SW 150 and a matching set of filters for it. Big. Really big. But everyone wanted graduated neutral density filters for landscape, so the kit sold well.

Now the range that can be catered to has enlarged with the Lee SW 150 Mk II. The following lenses can match to this filter holder:

Nikon 14-24mm F:2.8G ED
Nikon 14mmF:2.8D AF ED
Canon 11-24mm
Samyang 14mm f:2.8
Sigma 12-24mm f:4.5-5.6 DG
Tamron 13-30mm f:2.8
Tokina AT-X 16-28mm

The filters are the 150 size and you can get a variety including the popular graduated Neutral density and the very dark Big Stopper.

As well as the additional mountings, there is an improvement to the rig with the inclusion of a rear light shield in the basic pack. It makes sure that there is no light bouncing from the sides or back of the holder to give ghost images or flare that degrades the image. Of course there is the classic foam sealing of the Big Stopper filter contributing to this glare protection.

The picture of the Big Stopper is not just gratuitous advertising for my little studio - it uses a standardised business card to let you see just how big the dark filter actually is. That's a serious piece of plastic in that tin box!

The devices to which these filters fasten are large. The lenses to which the filter is fastened are large. The camera bodies to which the lenses are attached are large. Hopefully the wise photographer will also realise that they need a sturdy and ( large) tripod to support the whole. And they will be going out a long way on difficult tracks to take pictures of landscape...because that is where they keep the landscape. Good luck troops, and ignore that chuckling sound coming from inside the studio as you head out into the rain.

The Legacy Lens - Pat It At Your Peril

I have come to the conclusion that Legacy Lenses are the optical equivalent of the small vicious dog that my aunt used to have. Slightly scruffy, oddly shaped, unpredictable, and liable to leak or bite at any time*.

Legacy Lens is a great phrase - it makes you think that you have encountered something wonderful and precious. And all for free. This illusion rapidly vanishes as you try to adapt it to your modern digital camera - you discover that you'll need to spend more again to get an adapter  - and in some cases we're talking more than the price of the lens itself - and the result can be sad. If you have purchased the Legacy rather than found it in a box under a bed, that is so much further you have gone from free and wonderful.

Point the finger of hypocrisy at me if you like - I have a Tokina 35mm Macro that was intended to sit in front of a Nikon camera but now links via a Kipon adapter on a Fujifilm X-E2. And does very well - it was the shortest 1:1 macro lens I could find at the time for an APS-C camera and delivered/delivers exactly the point of view and focusing distance I need for tabletop shots. The adapter is well enough built to keep it in good alignment and I am always working at manual aperture and manual focusing anyway. I'd chuck the lash-up in a second if Fujifilm would put out a 34mm Macro in their native X mount, but until they do I am going to take toy car pictures with the Tokina.

Did I wish to retain auto-focus or auto-exposure I would be nursing a dog bite. Legacy lenses were made for the days when you were expected to make your own focusing errors - not entrust them to the AF program on the computer. You throw away all modernity when using them.

Are they better than new lenses? No. Stop squawking, it's true. In every case where modern manufacturers have replaced their 1957 Whateveromatic lens with the 2015 AF ASPH Whateveromatic lens they have multicoated it and recalculated the optical formula to present the ray paths at a better angle to the receptors in the sensor.

Let's face it - when you agonise for months about the latest and greatest camera body of whatever make, and then throw yourself around the town trying to cheapen it with every dealer, and then sit sweating in front of every internet forum to see if strangers agree that you made a wise choice...wouldn't it be nice to know that you have the optical design that was actually intended for that body? Whether it is made in Bangkok, Saigon, Yamagata, or Wetzlar ( or made in Yamagata and shipped to Wetzlar... ) it is a fair bet that the optical designers ate their rice noodles or bratwurst with their camera body colleagues in the staff canteen and that there is likely to be a close agreement on what the glass does to the silicon.

Closer than anything you, your aunt, or that damn dog can think up.

Uncle Dick

* Poodle. Suzette. Like a dyspeptic rat, but meaner.

The Big T - My Oh Yes

Big T, little OK, I-N-A...

Alright, it isn't great lyrics. We're selling DSLR lenses here, not Broadway musicals.

From a situation of not many a little while ago, we have moved to quite a few right now - keeping Tokina lenses in stock, I mean. I count the following in the cabinet:

100mm Macro
SD 12-28 f:4 DX
SD 16-28 f:2.8 FX
SD 11-35 f:4 FX
SD 12-24 f:4 DX
AT-X 11-16 f:2.8
AT-X 70-200 f:4 FX
Reflex micro 4/3 300mm f:6.3

I can attest to the good performance and sturdy build quality of these lenses - I own a 35 macro for studio use. Thus:

All of these would make worthy additions to a Canon or Nikon outfit. Please come in and try them out.

A Weekend Of Discovery

You can learn a lot when you are stupid. Of course you can learn a lot when you are smart, and it generally doesn't take as much skin off, but the knowledge gained from ignorance seems to sink in better. Thus my weekend...

Round one. Read the label. Whether you are mixing a cake or setting a camera or purchasing bookcases from IKEA...read the label. Saves you hauling three giant cardboard boxes back up the freeway in a Suzuki Swift to exchange them for one of the right size.

Round two. Hook up a mirrorless camera to the studio lighting system and try to use it in the same way that the DSLR system operates. In my case I have an adapter that lets me use the same lenses as my Nikon. Oh boy, I bet it is going to be better...! Oh boy, am I wrong.

The lenses and the sensors being equal...the images are the same size and proportion. And the depth of field is the same - thats a function of focus distance, focal length, and aperture.
No gain there.

When I am using a camera in studio mode - manual setting for both aperture and shutter speed - DSLR's  let me see through the viewfinder at full aperture and then check depth of field by pressing a preview button. Mirrorless cameras don't - they compel me to open and close the aperture by the click-stop ring and I am liable to push the whole assembly out of position as I do it. Do-able, but much more inconvenient.

Moral of the story? Use the regular heavy old DSLR for studio work in manual mode. Save the new you-beaut mirrorless for convenient field shooting.

Round three. The new you-beaut mirrorless camera can be mounted in a wooden box and triggered with a standard cable release. It is absolutely soundless when in the box, but will do perfect automatic focussing and exposure. It will also do a pretty good recording in sepia straight out of the camera. Steampunk Time!

Not Safe For Work - With Sigma and Tamron

As with many companies, our employers have forbidden us to access pornography at work. This is a good policy, but I sometimes wonder whether it does not go quite far enough. You see, we are still allowed to read Ken Rockwell.


I have been informed by those in the know that porn is a guilty pleasure. Sort of like spending money in the toy car section of the local hobby shop. Or getting the last bit of curried chicken and leaving the uninteresting bits for the rest of the diners at the buffet. I suspect that reading Ken is a little different - the guilt without the pleasure.

His post today is a wonderful example of damning with ephithet and innuendo. He has decided to bag Tamron and Sigma lenses in comparison to Nikon, Canon, and Leica lenses and has elected to use the term 'junk' freely - repetition that purports to be true advice. He has damned retail camera stores for stocking them. He has vaguely sailed by saying that these lenses do not work on older equipment.

He's entitled to put forward his opinion - or the opinions of the big New York retail stores that advertise near his website...goodness knows whether he needs to believe any of it - he needs to write nevertheless. But we need not believe him.

Case in point. I keep a Nikon camera outfit - bodies,lenses, flashes, accessories. Use it in the studio and in the field and am delighted with the results. ( Mind you, I have not yet shot over-saturated restroom signs in New Mexico so I cannot say whether it would be capable of pleasing Mr. Rockwell...) I use three new and one old Nikon AF lenses and find they do what I need perfectly.

I also keep a Sigma lens and Tokina lens in the cabinet - they answer specific imaging purposes, such as extreme wide angle and macro work. The operation of them and the files they produce are every bit as good as their Nikon counterparts would be. I know - I have tested out every damn lens in the place in my own setup and have chosen these products as perfect for my use.

I daresay if I needed a specific fast long zoom that I would also be happy with one of the lenses from Tamron - I've watched them in action with our customers and seen the good results therefrom.

And the joy of the thing is that in most cases the Sigma, Tamron, or Tokina lens offers a significant cost saving vs other lenses. I am bouyed by the fact that the Sigma and the Tamron people also offer two-year warranties on their lenses. I think that many Australian photographers who have not read Mr. Rockwell are out there taking great pictures with these lenses.

Ahh, perhaps I am just being too concerned. This is Thursday. Ken has the Greatest Camera That Ever Was Or Ever Will Be right now and it will reign supreme until the next GCTEWOEWB is on his desk. Next week just before lunch? Then it will be consigned to the 'junk' bin...possibly along with his opinion and the pictures of the restroom signs.

Doing The Maths

At the recent AIPP conference in the Hunter Valley, one of Australia's most famous wildlife photographers - Steve Parish - presented a two-hour talk with a lot of his iconic images. The most glorious underwater pictures you could want.

These days the old Carousel projector has long since been replaced with the laptop computer feeding into a video projector. Professional ones seem to be every bit as good as the old slide projectors, and the whole thing can be extremely slick with segues to video clips and music - you can be a real showman with the material.

But of course, some of the material may have started out in the film era and has had to be translated to a digital file. Steve's best work is in the digital domain now but he showed us a really disturbing thing - his core base of colour slide material was caught in the Brisbane floods last year and a substantial part of it was ruined. The flood waters that lapped around his storage warehouse came up into the lower drawers of his files and as the water was contaminated with fuels it just dissolved the images off the slides! The whole audience literally gasped and groaned when he showed the slide drawers - we all recognized the artistic loss that it represented. I bet a lot of us vowed to digitize our slides and negatives right then.

So how to do it? I own the Epson V700 scanner -wonderful machine - and I use it to throw 35mm, 120, and 4 x 5 negatives into the computer. It can do the finest detail scanning for flat art work and thing section objects. It has a plate that can take 12 mounted 35mm slides at a time. Surely this will be the best answer.

I"m not so sure, Shirley. When I translate the 120, 4 x 4 , and 8 x 10 material into the computer this will be my only option. I have the settings worked out for each of these situations so it will just be a case of grinding through it, minute by minute. The minutes add up, however, which led me to think of the title for this post.

When it comes to the 35mm mounted slides, the scanner will need at least 180 seconds per set of 12 slides to scan and drop them into the hard drive. I've got 6400 slides to do. 6400 divided by 12 times 3 minutes is
1600 minutes. 26 hours of solid scanning plus the time to get the slides out of the pages, put them back, and reset the scanner for the next batch. I'm just going into the darkroom, fellows. I may be some time...

Rather than doing a Captain Oates I think I might re-think. I have a Nikon D300 and can fit a Tokina 35mm macro lens. It can focus precisely on the 24mm x 36mm aperture of a slide mount and render it onto the sensor. I have an unused enlarger chassis that can suspend the camera vertically over a lightbox. Taking a custom white balance from the lightbox is a one-click affair and the only additional bit I need is a locating template for the top of the lightbox. Matt board, Stanley knife, and gaffer tape...

If I sit quietly in my old darkroom dropping the slides into the gate on the light box and triggering the cable release on the camera I should be able to do them at a rate of a slide every 10 seconds - that's dropped the mechanical time to 17 hours. I should have time for a sandwich.

Will it work with the 35mm negatives - of which I have far more than colour slides? Considering the handling of the negative strips is going to be more problematical than the slides, perhaps this is a job for the scanner. I will investigate the situation and let you know in a future blog.

How Sweet It Is...

Those of you who remember Jackie Gleason will also recall his phrase that introduced acts on his variety show - considering his famous size, perhaps it is just a little ironic that I am re-using it to introduce one of the nicest little lenses that we have seen recently.

The Tokina 300mm f: 6.3 lens is built for the Micro 4/3 lens mounts - thus you might find it on the front of an Olympus camera - or a Samsung - or a Panasonic. You'll have to look closely as this is not going to stick out 300mm from the body. It is a catadioptic lens - a mirror lens. It is one aperture only but has been condensed and refined so that overall it is just 67mm from mount to front ring.

It is finished in a smooth silver anodised finish with a slightly darker grey on the focusing ring. It is manual focus but will cheerfully range from infinity to 80 cm. Do your maths for the Micro 4/3 systems and this means you have a 600mm equivalence in a tele lens that is smaller than a man's hand.

This will be the queen of birder lenses for those who plan to trek far into the bush with light packs, and the air show enthusiasts will also welcome it. Sport? Surf? Surveillance? All possible with a tiny little handful of equipment... and no more excuses for not having a long lens in your pack.

The test shots we took of the R&I tower were magnificent - of course with a lens having a focal length as long as this, your limiting factors are atmospherics and your ability to hold on target. Contrast looked good.

Bring in your Micro 4/3 and take some test shots. This is a sweetie.

Maybelline Or Why You Can't Be True

Professor Charles Berry in the 1950's experimented with a method of increasing engine power for domestic vehicles. He showed that extra engine cooling on the V-8 Ford flathead engine could be provided by the intake of atmospheric water vapour during rain storms and that this extra power improved overall acceleration. In some cases it was sufficient to allow a standard Ford to overtake a much heavier vehicle at 104 miles per hour, even if the pursuit was up a grade. Please see the attached photograph of the experiment.

This sort of illustration in the studio is made possible by several things; the small-sensor digital DSLR, the close-focussing lens, and the digital editing program.

The APSC -sized sensor - in this case within a Nikon D300 - combined with a short focal length lens allows the camera to see the scene with the same angle of view as would be experienced with a dear old 35mm camera in the 1950's or 60's. In those days most people had a camera with a lens of around the 50mm mark, give or take a few millimetres. The car pictures you see now were taken with standard lenses.

The 35mm also gives a better depth of field in a studio setup than would a longer focal length - you need all the depth of field that you can get with close-up subjects and in this case the real bonus is that the 35mm lens is a Tokina with a macro focusing capability. Note you can also get a similar deal with a 40mm Micro Nikkor lens.

The editing program is the simple, but simply marvellous Adobe Photoshop Elements. This is sometimes thought of as a second cousin to the Main Adobe products, but it isn't. You can do a great deal with it - I use the old PSE 6 and now PSE 10 is even better.

What happens is:

1. You set up the scene and the overall lighting. I use Elinchrom studio flash as it is consistent in colour temperature and intensity between flashes.

2. Focus on the close car - find a point 1/3 down the body of the car and use this as an exact plane of focus. Use enough light so that you can use at least f: 16. If you can do it, use f: 22 or 25. Never mind what is happening in the background. Shoot with your camera locked steady - I recommend either getting a Gitzo tripod or welding your camera to a steel beam. Bedrock is also nice.

3. Remove the nearest car and without disturbing the tripod, refocus the camera on the far scenery. Shoot again.

4. Pop the files into your computer and open them up - at first with PSE they will pop up as an ACR window. When they do, adjust the first one until it looks almost perfect and then re-set your camera raw setting for this. This will make sure that the second file you open has the same rendition as the first.

5. With the close car picture open, select around the car and whatever part of the road is in the same plane of focus - take your time and blow it way up on your screen before you steer your mouse or pen around - get that edge on the car nice and sharp. Duplicate whatever you have selected and turn off the background layer underneath.

6. With the background picture open, Magic Select the fake paper sky and delete it out. Again turn off the background and then go out and find yourself a nice image of a real sky to slot into the space below this. Real sky is that stuff outside your computer room and fortunately you do not need to pay modelling fees to take pictures of it. Yet.

 7. Turn the blur tool on, go to 60%, dial down a small fuzzy brush, and go over each edge of the foliage that rims the sky.

8. Open the car layer and drag it up to set over the scenery. If you are using PSE 6 like me you'll have to anchor this layer to one corner and drag it down to 250.2% to match up the backdrop, but if you are using the PSE 10 it'll just snap into registration instantly. What you'll see is the original scene but with a fabulous depth of field that extends from the closest part of the closest car to the far horizon - a DOF that you could never get by one-step optical means.

8. Do that thing with the 60% blur around the edges of the car. This makes each layer blend into the one below it.

9. Darken, colour change, sharpen to taste. Fiddle with the shadows if you must, add captions, borders, frames, and anything else that your aesthetic suggests. Remember that after 38 layers it becomes anaesthetic and you fall unconscious to the floor.

A final note to tie this all together - we sell Nikon camera, Elinchrom flashes,Tokina lenses, and Adobe Photoshop Elements 10. I can point you to the sellers of model cars. Professor Berry's lectures are available on CD. For everything else, come in and ask me.

A Stack of Three

As promised, the results of an afternoon experiment in the studio - actually a two-fold one, which makes no scientific sense but it is my studio after all...

The trial lens is one of the new Tokina 35mm f:2.8 Macro in Nikon fitting - they are also in stock for Canon. Extremely well finished and smooth operation, but did it do the job? Well, the job was trying to record three planes of focus for a table-top model photography shot. The table was 900mm wide so there was more depth than the average lens could cope with. To top that, the main subject had to be right down the front and loom out toward the viewer.

The macro aspect of this lens was the key to the foreground shot - it focusses closer for that focal length than anything in my lens collection. Everything else with a 35mm point was restricted to at least50cm away from the film plane - the Tokina went right up to the subject with the front ring of the lens - practically touched it.

Of course, even with this close focussing, DOF is critical, and the trick here is to choose an aperture of at least f:16 and focus 1/3 along the length of the car model. Of course everything is on a sturdy tripod and there is a cable release to eliminate camera movement.

At this point in previous photos I would have been trying for f:25 and accepting that the second and third plane of focus on the set were going to be out of focus. This time I deliberately left the setup as is for a second and third shot but in each one I subtracted one more of the photo elements - so I had three files - one of the front car in focus, one of the second car in focus, and one of the background buildings in focus.

In my computer I open the files in Photoshop Elements 6 - it is old and crude but then so am I...and in the foreground file I selected around the car ad erased the backdrop. Then with the second one I erased the background but left other items untouched. The final file -  the backdrop one - needed no erasures as it was destined to be the bottom of the pile when I assembled the picture. Some people do not realise that the PE6 program will stack files in register if you are careful when you drag them up from the project bin. Then you can locate them on the top right corner, command the computer to make them 250.2% size, and they fall into place.

Result? Three planes manually stacked to allow for three points of interest and all in focus. Now all I need to do is add some rain and a couple of wet hot rodders and my picture is complete.

Oh, and just to let you see what it will do with more light but no stacking.

Tokina? great lens.

Up Close And Personal

I am often asked in the shop what the difference is between macro, micro, and close-up. The answer is a complex mathematical formula that means you get to peer into flowers and annoy the bugs who are going about their legal business in there. Shame on you.

Okay, there is the business of reproduction ratios, flat-field focussing, and special colour correction, but in the end it all adds up to whatever you are trying to take a picture of is in danger of being out of focus and badly lit. The whole science of macromicrocloseupology is designed to defeat this.

At Camera Electronic, we are dedicated to overcoming your problems - as well as overcoming your sales resistance. Sometimes the two aims coincide. In the case of the small world of macro we have two new products that may help.

Saul has secured some new Tokina 35mm f:2.8 macro lenses for Canon and Nikon mounts. This may seem a strange choice of focal length as it leaves little room between the lens and the subject for light to drop in - but it may well be a brilliant solution for those who need a 35mm focal length that goes just a little closer than the average 30 cm. It may be a blessing for those people who want to do small model photography.

For other workers, a new supply of JJC macro focussing rails has arrived. These work in two planes - side to side as well as fore to aft so that you can position your macro rig with the sort of precision that is just not yielded by the average tripod. JJC products are in at a very good price point too, so any macro worker can afford them.

The same goes for the JJC LED ring light. We've mentioned this one before, but at $ 149 it should be in the field pack of any  bug or flower photographer.

Final note - I am trying a new stacking procedure with tabletop closeups in my own studio. Success or failure, I'll tell you, but it might be a clever way to solve some of the DOF problem. Don't let that stop you from coming into the shop and spending money, though.