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.

The Wind's Under Your Wings With Olympus

A sunny morning, Jandakot Aerodrome, and the new Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mk II camera. And the 300mm f:4 IS PRO lens buckled on...it's my own local air show for free.

All I have to do is brave the traffic on Karel Avenue ( and I get the easy part of it - the poor people who have to join the roundabouts from the side can be waiting for ages... ) and the grassy space in front of the Aviator's Cafe is open to all.

Light planes are an amazing variety of shapes, but unfortunately they can have a sameness about their colour schemes - white is used for most of them with a little trim. You can see them against the sky to some extent, but I find myself wanting a different hue. Fortunately this last Saturday saw several aerobatic aircraft working the runways.

The Olympus camera features stabilisation in a variety of planes ( not a pun ) to a degree that other manufacturers do not match. You can roll, tilt, yaw, and displace the camera and lens to a remarkable degree while the IS systems  - in the camera and in the lenses  - iron it out. The Olympus Pro lenses talk electronically to the computer in the camera to figure out which system does which correction.

Experiment one was to set the camera to give a continuous autofocus and to shoot with it doing a low rate of shots. I took a couple of passes at the taxi strip but found that it was just wasting frames with no real movement between the aircraft. So I took it off the continuous and selected single AF shooting.

This proved just as good, as the Olympus responds extremely quickly to the first pressure on the shutter button. When you hit it, the IS starts up instantly and the bounce or jitter of the viewfinder smooths out like a calm sea. It is much easier to find and follow the subject with the IS on. There was no perceptible lag as I pressed the button for the final exposure - I was able to freeze the selected airplane as it passed through the belts of colour in the backdrop.

Shutter speed was left at 1/1000 or 1/2000 for most in-air shots. The stopping power is awesome, though viewers will note the heat shimmer on the tarmac spoiling some shots - it was the same on the car race day out at Barbagallo Raceway. For the close liftoffs or passes the detail in the shot is phenomenal.

Two tricks with this lens: Select the 4 metre to infinity limiter on the side of the lens barrel - saves the lens hunting and losing time. Any aircraft closer than 4 metres will be engaging your attention in ways other than focus. Also unlock and rotate the tripod foot up over the top of the lens as you hand-hold it. It is a weighty combination - you do not want that metal bracket digging into your palm for hours as you stand waiting for the takeoff.

Report From The Trenches - Manuel And The Canon - Part Five

Well, it has been a week since the motor sport workshop up at Barbagallo raceway, and you've been able to read some of the things that Manuel Goria told us about the techniques of shooting. Now here's the final bits of advice regarding the physical business of chasing cars.

a. Where do they race cars? At car race courses. Some are good places for pictures, and some are awful ( guess which category Barbagallo falls in...). When you are in the good looking place, show the good looking place a lot in the pictures. When you are in the dump, concentrate on the car and blur or fuzz out the backdrop. You may need to use a longer focal length for it. Get up high and get down low.

b. The race course organisers and the industry rely on photographers and videographers to advertise their events and draw money to the sport. But they can be strangely partisan when it comes to who gets access to the place. Video crews get more favour than still shooters in the pit areas.

c. Work is required - it is not just a case of plopping down at one point and watching automotive art pass in front of you. Manuel walks about 20 Km per race finding new positions and scenes of activity.

d. Get close to the fence. If you are lucky there will be a hole in it that you can see through, or at least enough image coming through wire mesh spaces to allow you to optically bypass it. Vertical fence elements are easier to avoid than horizontal ones. If someone would cut a hole in the barrier...

e. Lousy weather is always a possibility. Racing cars and wet weather are spectacular, even when they are racing safely. But the business of keeping the camera equipment operating is part of the problem for both manufacturers and users of professional equipment.

The expedients that others adopt - rain sleeves, ponchos, raincoats, housings, etc. are a nuisance to Manuel. He does without them. He is largely waterproof and has come to depend upon the higher-end Canon professional bodies and lenses to have a similar degree of water-resistance.

Other photographers in other divisions of the sport would do well to take note. Water penetration is one thing, dust and dirt strike is another. Anyone who has ever shot pictures at the speedway knows what I am talking about - a shower of gravel is bracing but no good for expensive gear. Likewise for  the shooters who do the drag races, burnout comps, and drift events. Our sensors are delicate things and there is a lot of particulate matter in the air in these situations. No wonder Manuel says that they have Canon and other makers' service representatives at the big car races to do sensor cleaning each time.

f. You think the cars are fast? Consider how fast the photographers have to be in reviewing, selecting, editing, and enhancing their images at the events to get them to the publisher's desk in time for consideration. The amateur has a week to produce a masterpiece - the artist a lifetime. Manuel and the rest of the workers get about a half hour after standing around all day in the sun or rain.

Better him than me...

Now for a final note on this event - a note from the point of view of a neutral observer*. I think the paying customers got fantastic value for their money this time.

Leave out the lunch and the give-aways and the chance to shoot with a zillion lenses and the free prints that Sheryl was offering for the best images of the day. ( Up to A2 if they wanted...). Leave out the special prices on Canon gear that Saul promised - and people could take him up on that for a week. Leave out the fact that the Porsche owners were pushing hundreds of thousands of dollars of toy cars around the track all day. The real value was Manuel.

He is a true professional in several ways. He is in a tough business. He can do that business to a high standard, repeatedly, and to order. He can profess - that means speaking and teaching his knowledge. And bless him, he does. No hiding back trade secrets for fear of people finding out how to take his job away. No mystery talk to make himself look exotic. Just plain speaking, well organised, and to the point. It was a pleasure to listen to him.

Note: I have no idea whether he is an award-winner, international icon, or superstar ambassador. We weren't told that. He was not covered in gold medals like a wine bottle or a North Korean general. He did not puff himself or his business nor ask us to subscribe to his politics, religion, or emotional state. He just showed us how to take good racing car photos.

That makes him the best photo lecturer I have seen in about thirty years.

*Not that neutral. I got lunch out of it...

Heading image: every one of those lens or body caps represents a photographer out there in the boiling sun taking pictures of race cars. Canon and Camera Electronic know how to have a good time.

Panning For Gold With Manuel Goria - Part Four

In the previous weblog columns this week we have mentioned that our motor sport professional - Manuel Goria - insists that the image must be focused. You must fight overexposure, shaky hands, and heat haze to get the focus point dead on where you need it and everything around it pin-sharp.

And now you get to ignore that advice with his next lesson - when and how to pan the camera.

We all know about panning a camera to follow the movement of a passing bird, plane, car, or person. It gives us a chance to have the main subject in focus while everything around it is blurring out. The blur is a stream of motion behind or in front of the thing that we wish the viewer to concentrate on. It's simple to do. Not.

Oh, it is simple to twist oneself around, but trying to coordinate the rate of twist and the change in rate ( plus the change in change of rate...like the firing solution for a battleship...) is the tough part. Close to us needs more and faster movement - further away slows this down. The angle that the subject makes as it moves to us also affects the amount of movement we make - a car approaching or moving away is less angular movement but more focusing. Fortunately, it is a firing solution that the Canon processors can cope with.

The use of a parallel position beside the track may let the shooter get a very clean blur behind the car, and sometimes a degree of blur in the wheel spokes. Up and down movement spoils the effect, however. It seems to be much a matter of chance s the shooter develops skill - Manuel says that it is about a 1:50 chance of a keeper when shooting in a pan.

Oddly enough, panning while use of a slow shutter speed can have the effect of getting a main subject in full even if it is intermittently blocked by spectators or fencing.

Manuel likes to see a bit of a tilt in the images - as long as the attitude of the car in question will support the angle and as long as there is no tell-tale vertical element in the rear of the main subject to give away the illusion. Often images can be given freshness and a dynamic look by tilting. Just don't go mad.

The blurring need not be exactly even - as long as the main image is coherently sharp in the areas that you need to illustrate - helmet, logo, wheel, etc...you can have quite a wild backdrop. Look for helpful colours there.

Final notes tomorrow - Manuel tells about the professional shooter's task actually on the F1 circuit.

Razzle Dazzle 'Em With Canon Cameras - Part Three

Apologies to the lyricists for " Chicago "...I couldn't let that one go. Because that is what you can do with the Canon cameras and lenses at the motor racing track. Here are more thoughts from Manuel Goria for the shooter - and seller - of car images:

a. If you are taking a picture of a car, the car should fill the screen. It should be in the place on the screen that you decide upon. This decision can be based upon art aesthetics or sure knowledge of where the editor is going to put other elements of the design. If you are going to need to have a vertical image, shoot a vertical image. But shoot the car close enough and big enough.

b. If you shoot multiple car images with different backgrounds, you have a chance to sell multiple copies to the owners or editors. Variety pleases.

c. If you are shooting for a sponsor's needs and that sponsor has a logo on the car - or on the track - the logo is the thing you must show. In most instances you will want to show it very clearly.

d. Sharpness is the ultimate test of the salability of any image. It can be lost through wrong movement or technique, through overexposure, or through the heat haze and mirage that affect motor sport tracks.

Note: Barbagallo proved this to all the shooters. Even with magnificent lenses that could come to very sharp focus, too much exposure let the images waver.

e. To get sharper images, a shorter exposure time is needed. To get enough depth of field for sharpness on the contours of the car you may need to use a smaller aperture. Both of these factors may dictate a high ISO - up to 5000 ISO in some cases. The Canon 1DX can do this easily with good low noise, but it is still open to reduce the ISO as far down as you can to preserve quality. As with everything, it is a balancing act.

f. Salable images can be unusual or iconic - if there are structures like Dunlop bridges or famous locations, shoot some of these as they are expected. But also shoot location shots that show where the race is taking place. Accept the fact that some of the best shots happen in front of some of the worst backdrops and plan these shots with a shallow depth of field or a blur.

g. Compositions that do not show all the car can sometimes work, but you have to choose the right car. People who know the shape of iconic cars want to see ALL of it. It is possible to use trackside elements and colours in an artistic motif to make an interesting shot out of an ordinary one - it is all about quick design as much as capture.

Note that Manuel always likes to see the front wheel of the car in sharp focus...unless it is an occasion where he doesn't...and that is tomorrow.

Manuel Exposure For Motor Sport - Part Two

Pardon the pun - the professional photographer who delivered the Canon Australia Motor sport workshop is named Manuel Goria. He is a world traveller and a world worker in the business of illustration of motor sport - Formula One all over the place as well as other types of racing. That's him in the heading image before the heat started, pointing the way to the track.*

It is hard to report the entire lecture that Manuel gave in one web post - there were so many good practical points that he covered. Rather than cop out, I will take several days. Let's start with the equipment recommendations:

Not surprisingly, he recommended Canon. He uses the brand's large professional 1Dx cameras - several of them - and keeps long lenses on them. The Canon professional optics are second to none for this sort of precision and the agencies and editors who are concerned with his work are not going to be satisfied with sub-standard images. This is also tied in with the rapid autofocus response and shoot time available with the Canon professional bodies - Manuel frankly admits that there are some situations that are made for burst-shooting.

It might be funny to observe rivalries between major manufacturers that start arguments between user groups and enthusiasts - but it is no fun if your income and reputation depend upon the reliability of the goods. Canon gear works for Manuel, and he is prepared to say that it will work for the rest of us. Another philosophy - that of doing what you can with what you have, where you are - is also valid, but it may not get your images over the desk of a top-quality publication. Each of us must decide for ourselves.

But to today's points - Manuel sez:

a. For him, the most important focus point in a photo is the helmet of the driver. People look for people in pictures. ( That's not one of Manuel's shots - it's Jane Fangio in the Shuco Ferrari...)

b. For most occasions, a high shutter speed is best.

c. He must decide where the car is to be placed in the picture - it is generally the star attraction of the image. He uses a single AF focus point and moves it around frequently to allow it to place the exact focus.

d. Preconception of the picture is by far the best way to success - the backdrop will influence what people see in the car, so Manuel chooses the focal length of the lens to assist in the background rendering. It's not hit or miss.

e. Sharpness in a photo is essential to interest an editor and deliver the impact that a publication needs. There are many factors that influence it - positively and negatively.

On the plus side is the performance of a good Canon lens . But he must make sure that the exposure of the image does not blow out areas of highlights. When they are gone, the sharpness of the picture and the interest of the editor is gone as well. So he will deliberately underexpose each image and recollect the overall light levels in post-processing.

f. To get a consistent result through to the Lightroom program, Manuel will shoot most of his images with manual exposure of both aperture and shutter speed...and will also not allow the camera to take over with automatic ISO control. He aims to have the same levels in everything so that an overall master correction in Lightroom can be batched through the lot. It is a matter of time for him as he does not have the week's grace that an amateur may possess before results have to put forward. Professionals are under pressure - remember that when you envy them.

And having said that, please remember the professionalism of the other people that you see here in today's column:

a. Sheryl from Canon Australia who organises all the events for Canon in WA and Saul who organises events for Camera Electronics. By and large, when they are on the job, things work out pretty well as planned. They provided lunch, which is a good way of ensuring my affection.

b. Ernest, Beth, and the rest of the Camera Electronic staff who scurry about and do the work. Ernest is further distinguished by knowing how to fix things. This picture is of him doing his famous line from  ' Crocodile Cesar '..." That's not a lens - now THIS is a lens...".

So...tomorrow you learn how to see motor pictures that sell pictures to clients.

* to be fair, when the noise started, we knew where to look...

The Long Lens Inside - The Saga Of The Fujifilm Continues

If you read most of the photographic press that deals with interchangeable lenses for DSLR and mirror-less cameras you'll see much the same recommendations about choices. It's not conspiracy - it's sensible agreement. Being photographers we are free to be neither sensible nor agreeable - and sometimes it pays off big-time.

The books all talk about long lenses being the sensible choice for motor sports, surfing, field sports, wildlife, and aircraft photography. I've not gone in for a great deal of these subjects, but when I have the advice was good. You need long focal lengths to bring in lions and Tiger Moths - you also need bright light. Anything less is going to be a failure.

Oh yes? Well what if you get an assignment to take pictures at a Halloween dance show in Fremantle -at the Fly By Night hall on High street. That's a picture from the mezzanine balcony at the head of the column. Great place to prop up during a performance as you are in no-one's way, but a long way from the stage...Note: The establishing shot is a Fujifilm 18mm f:2.

Enter the Camera Electronic Rental Department and the 100-400mm Fujinon zoom lens - the big boy in their lineup. Widest aperture is f: 4.5-5.6 but it has a dynamite optical stabilization circuit inside and an extremely smooth focus. The support shoe and rotating ring are also super-professional.

I bolted the lens onto a Manfrotto 234 monopod tilting head and in turn supported that with my Manfrotto carbon fibre monopod. Sitting on a chair up there in the gods at the Fly meant that I was stable and the lens was too. I could even grip the monopod with my knees if I needed to busy my hands elsewhere and the whole assembly stayed upright. I love tripods in the studio but am starting to love the manfrotto monopod more when I am out an about - so much less hassle but still great stability.

Okay, it's dark in there, and the stage lights are good but still not the same as sunlight. ISO up to 6400 on a Fujifilm E-X2 is as high as you want to go, but fortunately it was high enough to work. Really fast dancers blurred, but slower ones came in well. And the transition from landscape to portrait orientation couldn't have been smoother - I just kept the lock knob turned off and rotated at will all night long.

The job was a lot of fun - Halloween brings out the theatre in people and if they are good actors, singers, and dancers to start with it is all that much better under stage lighting.

Note: If you've got a job that needs long coverage think about talking to the Camera Electronic Rental Department. They've got faster lenses for other systems as well, or if you would like to try the latest and best from Fujifilm, ask to see the X-T2 with this lens. You could even add a teleconverter to push it out to 600mm.

Performers, Nina, Richell, and Jenier. Thank you for a great night, ladies.

The Game's Nearly Afoot, Watson - With The Olympus Long Lens

 

NOTE TO READERS: THE ELECTRICITY HAS BEEN OFF ALL DAY DUE TO SHORTS OVER THE LINE. IF IT IS STILL OUT IN YOUR SUBURB, DON'T BOTHER TO READ THIS MESSAGE...ALL BACK ON HERE AT THE EDITORIAL OFFICE...

Well nearly a foot. 11.81 inches to be precise...

That's the focal length of this Olympus 300mm f:4 IS PRO lens - I didn't actually measure the thing from front to back. It is one of the longer choices that one can make for the Micro 4/3 system. Olympus and Panasonic users with a desire to pull in long distance images are the market.

 

You? Do you shoot sports? Cars? Surfing? Aircraft? Large wildlife? Birds? Well step up to professional qaulity and take this lens away.

 

But wait - there's more. As I found out a week ago in the dim reaches of the Fly By Night theatre in Fremantle, theatre shooting can also be done with this sort of camer and lens. Boost your ISO, put the thing on a monopod, and blaze away. The 300mm is more than long enough for most theatres.

 

But wait - there's more. As I discovered when I pulled the focusing ring backwards on the mount, this is a long lens with a rearkably short minimum focuss distance - just under 1.4 metres. Any object seen at this close distance under the magnification that his focal length gives will be pretty large on the sensor. Remember that in terms of the old 35mm film geometry, this is a 600mm lens!

Depth of field will be shallow under these criteria, but that is optics.

The heading image is just bcause it is a lovely piece of glass to look at. The lens hood is attached to the lens and just slides forward into position.

Note the feature of a " industry-standard " profiled mount on the tripod support foot. I used a similar idea for mounting a zoom lens on a monopod and it is the height of convenience and elegance.

The Gambol With the Gimbal

Never gamble with your gimbal when you gambol with the sambal...the deer that is, not the hot sauce. You're on your own with the hot sauce.

The product today is mechanical, rather than optical. It has no glass in it, but several moving parts. It is second cousin to a gun mount, but not nearly as noisy.

The underslung gimbal mounting  - also known as a Wimberley mounting after one of the many makers - is a form of suspension for specialist use in photography. Shooters who want to use long telephoto lenses and who need to follow the movement of wild animals, aircraft, racing cars, surfers, or field sports players will be interested. It is the answer to a number of their needs.

At this point let me introduce an analogy that was explained to me when I asked about the differences  flying helicopters as opposed to fixed-wing aircraft. I was asked to think of a large imaginary bowl in the sky - hemispherical and slippery.

The fixed-wing aircraft rides inside this bowl. If it is up on the inside surface of the bowl...in a bank, turn, or climb - and the pilot lets go - the plane runs down the inside of the bowl and settles into a stable position on the bottom.

The helicopter rides on the outside surface of an inverted bowl. When the pilot takes his hands off the controls the helicopter falls down over the outside of the bowl. The pilot needs to fly it all the time.

The operator of a big, long, heavy telephoto lens mounted on a ball head tripod is in the same position as the helicopter pilot - the lens is either held up all the time or locked in position. It is unstable. Gravity is trying to take it off centre.

The underslung mount is generally on a tripod, but when an unwieldy lens is mounted, natural forces cradle it at the bottom of the arc of swing on the mount - it retuns to a stable position. It is much less fatiguing to watch and wait with it.

This example of the underslung gimbal is by Promaster and is a marvel of economy. It is heavy and precise enough to stand the long commercial lenses, however it has smooth damped action as it swings about. It is like operating a good gun mount.

Like a gun mount, it has marked divisions on the turntable and on the horizontal axis. I can't really say why they are there because most photographers would not fire their cameras to instructions from a director, but perhaps they are there because it looks cool. The mounting platfom rises up and down to accommodate different lenses and there is a channel grip at the bottom of it that is stated on the box as " industry standard ". They really mean Arca -Swiss but they don't say it because I'll bet their lawyers warned them off.

The whole assembly is well made and would be a good alternative to a ball head or three-way for the nature and outdoor shooter.

We Finally Get To It - With The Big Fujifilm Lens

I have been experimenting for the last few months with long lenses attached to my Fujifilm X cameras by means of adapters. The tests were encouraging as long as there were suitable subjects some distance away. Yet I had never gotten to grips with the long zoom made by Fujifilm themselves - now was the time.

Each manufacturer presents their material in a different way - some go for simple cases to protect their lenses and some go for quite elaborate hard cases. Fujifilm has packed the XF 100-400mm  f:4.5-5.6 RLM OIS WR lens in a sturdy box, a cardboard cradle, and a cloth wrapping...I should advise investigating a Lowepro or Promaster Lens case before venturing out into the field - the lens is superbly finished and it would be a shame to nick it up unnecessarily.

Well, it is certainly big in comparison to the other Fujifilm lenses, but small when you consider the optics of full-frame DSLRs. This would be a great deal easier to haul on long wildlife trips - even with the substantial lens hood attached it is manageable. That's a standard-sized business card there in the zoom picture.

The lens is fitted with the usual controls - dealing with the stabilising system, zoom ring, zoom ring lock, and Automatic or manual aperture. There is one additional control switch that limits the focusing travel if you are only going to play with distant subjects.

The tripod foot is quite neat but substantial.

The surprises on the lens hood come in two forms; there is a button to release the hood gently, and there is s sliding panel on the underside. This is not the cover for the waist-gunner's position, though it looks like it - it is hatch to let you reach inside and turn polarising filters to best effect. Note from the shot of the inside of the lens hood that Fujifilm have even gone to the effort of ribbing it for flare reduction - a neat finishing touch.

But what of the operations? No more fumbling with a manual focus ring with this one - and no more hastily turning a manual aperture ring to stop down just before exposure. Oh sure, you can do it...but you lessen your chances of getting a really sharp shot, really fast. Adapters are all very well, but they are still adapters. It was a sheer pleasure to point and shoot in single-frame and watch it snap into focus.

Here are some shots taken in the open air - no polariser to darken skies. The camera body was the Fujifilm X-E2 with the latest firmware update and I can honestly say the autofocus speed was as good as I could expect. There is always a fuss about this function in sports shooting from the point of view that it is not as fast as a DSLR. Well, it's a lot faster than winding it manually, and not noisy while in operation.

I should still resort to focus trapping at a motor race to ensure that I was giving the mechanism the best opportunity to perform sharply on high-speed vehicles like this one...

Oh, how I wish The RAAF would save enough money to buy jet fuel and have an air show at PEARCE. I would be willing to sponsor a gallon of avgas myself.