Get A Grip Week - Day Two - Olympus Discovers the Grip

I realise that there will be camera historians reading this column who will take umbrage at the title - they'll be able to find lots of Leica and Contax and Exakta grip designs that have been sold long before the current Olymopus digital camera grips. Okay - I'll modify it for you:

Get A Grip Week- Day Two - The Grip Discovers Olympus

Olympus have always known where their chief marketing points are, and for a great deal of the time that they've been selling 35mm film and micro 4/3 digital cameras one of them has been the size of the apparatus. Olympus cameras are made compact - they contain all the good ingrediants, but they are small in the hand.

Good if you are a person with a small hand, as many of the people in the land where Olympus comes from may be. Targeted design. But the target shifted overseas decades ago, and much of the rest of the world has larger hands. This is not a problem - this is an opportunity - an opportunity to sell an accessory.

Grip One:

This fits an OM-D E-M5 camera. The shooting button is surrounded by an adjustment wheel to spread what you can do further away from the top plate of the camera. Literally, there is a bigger hand piece for the camera. But it also has provision for the attachement of a further grip, containing an extra connected battery and controls that in turn allow you to turn the camera on its side for portrait orientation.

That's why you see a connection of the electrical contacts through the bottom of the grip as well as the top. Clever marketing, because even if you are a landscape shooter you get to buy something for your money.

Grip Two: 

 

This one matches a micro 4/3 mirror-less camera that is on the more basic level. Basic, but equally small, and needing a grip boost if it is not to turn in the hand. 

 

The grip has an unusual feature on the lower level - a slide switch. Pull it and... 

And it comes apart. I can only surmise that you are meant to leave it attached for most of the time and then when you need to change batteries you trigger it off rather than screw it off.

Grip Three: 

This grip suits the new Olympus Pen F micro 4/3 camera - the one that looks like a rangefinder. It's been made with the recognition that more and more photographers are standardising their camera support systems to include the Arca-Swiss quick release fitting. The rail at the bottom of the grip is Arca-Swiss fitting, though they do allow you to second-guess your choices by also including a standard 1/4" tripod screw. 

Note the open frame to allow for battery changing. Also note the allen-key screw head - this grip is designed to stay on permanently. I am speculating about the hollowed out portion of the casting at the left of the camera...being the fiddler I am I would make a small cover for this that would hide a couple of spare SD cards.

We'll return to the Olympus company at the end of the week...

Get A Grip Week - Day One - The Murky Past

 

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

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

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

Yeah. Gotcha...

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

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

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

 

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

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

Next post: Olympus grips everything in sight!

New Nikon - Handy New Bit

Just in on the shelves - the battery grip for the new Nikon D500 camera - the APS-C flagship DSLR for Nikon Australia. It is designated MB-D17.

Why buy?

1. You get to put another battery in the system - the camera shoots more shots and cycles faster with the extra power available.

2. You get a grip on the camera when it is being held in the portrait ( vertical ) mode that does not involve canting your right wrist up and over the body as you shoot. The benefit when you are doing this over a long session - for instance with dancers or portraits - is considerable. The joint strain after a couple of hours without this grip would erase all the fun of the photography.

3. You can control the position of the camera in the Portrait mode much better as this gives the same body feel as the normal side grip. Rubber pads and all.

4. There is a repeat of the major function buttons and wheels on the grip - you can operate as per normal without having two revert to the side controls. Just keep shooting.

5. You look like a cool pro while using it. I know this would never influence the sensible readers of this column, but I assure you it influenced me when I cared about what I looked like.  The downside was people would ask me for advice on their cameras and I had to invent things to say...

6. The grip has a little special cast compartment in the top surface that stores the rubber cover on the bottom of the D500 base. You can save it for later if you take the grip off.

7.  It's genuine Nikon, with the full Nikon Australia warranty.

Call in and try, or phone in and buy or come on line to our online store and....well...buy.

" How Many Batteries Do I Need? "

How many pockets have you got?

The question of batteries rarely concerned us in the old film days - at least for the little people. The mechanical shutter and the finger-powered film advance worked pretty well all the time and no electricity was needed. Adding a selenium light meter to the mixture still avoided a battery, but as soon as the CdS and later cells were incorporated and we got electronic shutters and motor drives we started to have to be cagey about on-board electricity.

We started to have to look for 22.5 volt batteries for flash guns...similar ones for Polaroid cameras...D cells for Graflex flash guns...and then a whole raft of cells for the early strobe systems. Victor Hasselblad introduced us to a small blue-coated stack of nickel cadmium cells for one of his cameras and they were NEVER happy batteries.

Well, things are now digital, and batteries are a fact of life. We get lithium-ion cells with every camera we buy and if we are wise we grab an extra one from the accessories rack to go with the new kit. Of course they are re-chargeable items - that is part of the appeal of digital photography - but the amount of juice that any given camera takes is variable factor and sometimes you need more than one battery to have reasonable working time.

A case in point is my own dear little Fujifilm X-10. It works well, but the small battery fitting in it poops out at about 200 shots. If I am going for a full day's shooting at the car show I need to take 3 batteries. If I were a car show shooter with a big Nikon D3, D4, or D5 DSLR I could expect about 2000 shots on one battery and would not need a spare for the day*.

Here is where the user of the big pro DSLR has it over the user of the mirror-less camera in most instances - the battery on the bottom grip of this kind is larger and goes longer - or it repeats the battery in the camera and thus doubles the life. But the whole assembly is heavier, so there we go again with the pros and cons.

That's the new Pentax K-1 in the pictures with the accessory battery grip on the bottom. Well-proportioned for a larger hand and all the controls you could decently want scattered on the top and back. A rumour on another site says a new grip for another camera may well have two batteries plus the one in the camera - 3 altogether - makes lots of electricity but adds extra weight. We'll wait and see if the rumour site is right.

* but I'd take a spare for the day because I am the nervous type.

Get A Grip, You People*...Fujifilm, Olympus

*Note: For New Zealanders that is Ewe People...

Moving right along...we have more Olympus HLD-7 and Fujifilm VG-XT1 battery grips than we need at present - and you have less. We can adjust this situation with a small spot sale on these fine accessories:

a. The Olympus HLD-7 fits onto the Olympus OM-D E-M1 camera  - bargain stack right now at $ 245.

b. The Fujifilm VG-XT1 battery grips fit the Fujifilm X-T1. Fit yours out at $ 309 right now.

These accessories help you out by letting you hold the camera more comfortably and they add another battery to the system - more shots per session.

Ask to see the stack o' grips today.

* For pirates that is Yo People...

How Does That Grab Ya, Baby...

Sorry about that. I was researching 1960s LP album cover art last night and got stuck on a Nancy Sinatra loop...

Lots of cameras have an accessory available for them that really does grab - the battery grip. It screws into the bottom of the camera case and passes electricity to the body and instructions on how to use it.

Some models have shutter buttons, function buttons, and front and back thumb and finger wheels to do the same aperture/shutter speed adjustments that you get on the right hand side of the camera body. But as the grip fits under the body, these controls lie at 90º to the regular ones.

So - whaddaya do with it, and why? You grab it and use it as the primary hold on the camera when it is in portrait orientation. You keep a second battery in it to extend your shooting time. You use it to straighten your wrist in this portrait orientation - no more numbing or pain as the camera pulls down on your nerves.

Do you look more professional when you use it? Perhaps, but remember one of the other ways to look professional is to dress well ( if you are a woman ) or badly ( if you are a man ). Also you look professional if you can actually take good pictures - but then you knew that.

Some grips don't have batteries in them - they just help with the ergonomics of the camera. You can test this out for yourself in the shop. Try holding the camera and a big lens sideways without the grip for 10 minutes straight. Then try the same test with the grip. If the ergonomics are improved you will not be tempted to say " Errrg " at the end of the time.

You must excuse me - I am wearing boots and they are apparently made for walking...

Moving Light Artillery Into Battery - With The Fuji X-T1

It has often been said that putting a battery grip onto your digital camera will make you look like a professional photographer*. Perhaps, but that is not the best reason for using one.

Think in terms of the ergonomics of the machine. If you want to take a picture in vertical or portrait mode you are going to have to throw your right wrist over the top of the camera and the weight will depend upon your hand. The grip you need to hold the camera against gravity means more muscle pressure and stiffer muscles. Your hand and arm get very tired over an hour of doing this.

If you use a battery grip your hand remains upright and your muscles are more relaxed. You have the other hand free to operate a zoom lens and the whole rig can be held safely all day.

Plus some camera grips accommodate a second battery in there - you get twice as long to shoot before recharging.

This is evident with the new Fuji X-T1 battery grip - we've just gotten them into stock for the Fuji X-T1 cameras and can particularly recommend them to the users of the large 56mm f:1.2 lens. You can pick one up for $ 329.

* You can look like a professional photographer just by getting a bad haircut...much cheaper.