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Sony Announces New DSLRS, Tries to Find Bottom of Market

Sony, Sony, Sony. I gotta say, whatever animosity I hold against Sony after their RIAA-inspired DRM nonsense and their dissolution of Aiwa right before the sexiest executive bookshelf stereo ever was going to come out, well, it’s mostly all forgiven with their DSLR line.

A330

A330

While I was lounging around my apartment this weekend with the girlfriend they were busy announcing three new consumer DSLRs, doing an across-the-board upgrade to their consumer line (kinda the opposite of the ‘last-years-top-is-this-year’s-bottom approach Canon has traditionally taken in this segment). So, out go the A200, A300, and A350. In come the A230, A330, and A380. All three seem to slot in the same way as their predecessors” The A230 is lower rez and lacks live view, the A330 is similar but adds live view, and the A380 takes all that and jacks the rez up to boot. The upgrades are pretty benign, almost painfully incremental, and you can read about them best over at DCResource, so I’ll skip them for now and talk about the truly exciting bits.

One: Sony’s recent announcement about regretting a closed system in their music market seems to be splashing over to other divisions as well, as these new Sony’s embrace the increasingly ubiquitous SD format. OK, they still take their proprietary MemoryStick format, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But, SD is a good move. Good for them! Hey Oly, I love you, but nudge nudge already.

Two: Sony appears to be on a mission to find the bottom of the market. The new A230? Reportedly MSRP will be about $550 with a lens. Now that’s cheap. Real cheap. Like the budgie cheap. And, all three are available with a second lens for a clean 200 buck upgrade. Not bad.

Three: In a refreshing move, Sony hasn’t complied with the “Black! Make it black! It must be black all other colors are cheap!” chant you hear on the forums, and these cameras have a nice, techy two-tone look, like that gunmetal and carbon-fiber look of the A330 there. And I’ve seen pictures of it in eye-rending bronze, too. But, they aren’t your norm, and I applaud that. Go on, buck the system, Sony. And keep doing it, I’m behind you if nothing else.

Oh yeah, there some lenses and a flashannounced to. One of them is a 50mm f1.8 prime, for you prime fanatics out there (and there do seem to be more and more of you these days). More on those as I get it myself, but they look to be all in the lower-end of the line-up.



The things we do to…

Like D-mart said in a previous post, I’m borrowing his legacy prime (OM 50mm 1.8), which as forced me to move around a little more. Right now my kit is a comfortable 14-42 and 40-150, which is a 28-300 equivalent and keeps me from getting too dirty when trolling around my habitual environs trying not to chimp into chumping. Being locked into the constant focal length of 50mm on a 4/3 system is giving me a nice view of the world in telephoto, and working with an aperture wider than 3.5 is a treat.

It does, as I discussed with Mr. Martin over a pint last week, strain my discipline. I’ll be the first to say that I’m lamentable with composition, relying heavily on cranking my lenses and cropping in post. This nifty fifty (happy hun’nerd?) gave me some foot-time while I was waiting on my dearest to return from some degree related event in the morning…and as is my growing habit I took a walk to see what was around. Some waterfowl, a dramatically illuminated plaster garden statue, and a ground level AC unit.

Metal and sunlight, I like those

Metal and sunlight, I like those

And while I was crouched down and trying to balance myself and get the thing in focus I felt some water dropping. Thinking of course that since I’m near an air conditioning unit that condensation will abound I went about clicking happily in oblivious (isn’t it always?) joy. I didn’t stop to consider that with a grounded AC unit there’s nowhere for water to be dripping from above. Only later did Dearest, on her return, point out that there was something on my shirt -a gift from whichever avian was perched on the sill above the unit I was photographing.

Mr. Martin’s response to this was only that I’m a step closer to being a real artist now, and to get used to it.



Noise vs Awesome

Click to See 1:1 Crop

Click to See 1:1 Crop

So, this weekend my old college pal Cory had a party to celebrate finishing his masters’ thesis (good job, pal), and a handful of us were up there that evening chumming around on his porch. I grabbed this shot of our dear Mr. Henry, sporting possibly the most excellent facial expression ever (for the record, he was using Live View to try and focus my old OM 50mm f1.8 more accurately in the dusk light). As I was looking over the shot (ISO 800, 1/40 second, mixed dusk and tungsten porch light), I was remembering one of the most arrogant sentiments of all time I read on a forum one time:

“My vision of the world does not have noise in it.”

Man, talk about a poor attitude to take. Would it be better if cameras took silky smooth pictures at ISO 6400? You bet! But, in the meanwhile, we see the world differently than cameras do (our eyes work much more akin to video cameras than still cameras, constantly reading light instead of having to rebuild it in shots). And, until technology catches up with us, isn’t it worth a little noise to catch moments like this one? As a matter of fact, show of hands, who noticed the noise before they noticed Mr. Henry’s expression? Who noticed the noise before I pointed it out? (Go ahead you peepachus, click it to see a 1:1 crop, I’m not ashamed. I’d print this shot any day and not even think twice about it.)

Worry about noise when you can. But, if you start sacrificing the shots that matter because “your vision of the world doesn’t have noise,” well, it might be time to readdress that vision of yours.



The Viewfinder is a Lie

The viewfinder is a lie. There, I said it. Unpopular statement, I know. Especially since all a viewfinder does at one level is bounces the picture the sensor will see up into a little tunnel, but despite that, the viewfinder is a lie. Or, at least, its depth-of-field is.

There’s a lot of humbug these days about lenses with focus issues (front focus / back focus, what have you). This is the first half of a set of posts I have about things to check before you pull a chicken little and run to avoid the falling sky.

Here’s the deal: To better aid in manual focusing, most DSLRs use a micro-matte etched focusing screen. These are very good at enhancing micro-contrast and such things that we humans use to determine whether something is in focus.

The problem is, they often muck a bit with depth of field. I can’t speak for every system or every model, but, those of you with live view that allows for off-the-sensor magnification can test this yourselves. I first found it when playing with my old 50mm f1.8 OM lens, which has a shallower depth of field then my E-system was optimized for. I was looking through the viewfinder, as I prefer to do, and was a bit disappointed there wasn’t more bokeh happening. Snapped the shot and–woah!–the picture had a completely different bokeh than my viewfinder had showed me. I was confused about this for a while, and was mucking about with things, so I flipped to LV and zoomed in to 7x for some super-precise manual focusing and I noticed the picture in LV looked just like the ones the camera was actually taking. Then I remembered the matte focus screen and had an “aha!” moment.

The moral here is, sometimes the matte screen shows a greater depth of field than the camera is actually going to expose. So, while you’re looking through your viewfinder, something might look in great focus but you fire the shot and your focus was off. There’re chance, if you’re experiencing this wide-open only, that your camera picked a point for focus (or even your eye, if you manual focus) that fell within the matte screen’s depth of field, but was in a different spot than you had expected in the actual depth of field. Trust me, I’ve done it.

Next time: Auto-focus and the imaginary plane



PhotoWalk, Behind the Scenes

Getting started this morning.

Getting started this morning.

This morning was chilly, but Derek and I were happily joined by three other area photogs and model Emily Allen.

We chilled out on the meeting corner until about ten after eight and walked back to last week’s shooting location -the Pan American Plaza.

There was surprisingly little cursing of the cold, despite our gelid fingers. I for one fell into the trap of taking two kinds of shots: Emily’s face at 150mm -none of which are bad in preview, and the kind to the left there. You know, what’s going on in a sort of third person, non-omniscient narrative.

One of the most captivating aspects of photography for me is the notion of context. I’m not an art student, I’ve no formal training in composition, and never completed my photography merit badge but it seems to me that in every photograph what you don’t see is as important as what you do. I’ll try to keep my eyes out in post for a picture of Derek taking a picture of Emily and compare  his shot with mine for that “whoa, context” moment.

Thanks, guys, for coming out this morning. It was chilly, it was early, but hey -we took pictures. Awesome.



Bullet-Point Updates

Sorry I’m so quiet right now, I’m busy back here getting the help department ready to go and filled with all tose useful shopping tips and technical tidbits I’m famous for wasting your time with.

So, here’s the ultra-super-quick update of things I’m behind on mentioning:

1. My beloved E-3 Olympus digital camera had a recent firmware (which DPReview has so far failed to mention), which improved some focus situations and in a rare move for Oly, added a feature: I can now switch my af point with the 4-way controller, mostly just like you wonderful Nikon digital SLR camera users out there.

2. Speaka Nikon, I’m sure you’ve all heard about the AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G, which for all you DX users will be as close as it’s going to get to the 50mm f1.8′s of ye olden days. That price point is pretty sweet, two, color me envious this time.

3. The Panasonic G1 updated its firmware

4. Canon updated firmware for the G10, and of course there’s the 5D Mk II firmware update that’s been out for a bit.

5. Fuji’s new EXR technology looks poised to change the game if it works as well as they claim (and in general their past tech has, although there usually seems to be one minor niggle that people hang it for, I’m hoping EXR overcomes this because it stands to revolutionize low-light shooting.) I’ll talk about my thoughts on this once I can get a moment to breathe this week.



Prime Interest

Nikon lensesOne of the big things the past couple of months in photgraphy seems to have been primes.  The Nikon 50mm 1.4G has been an exceptionally hot little item. And, it’s not just Nikon lenses with renewed prime interest, if you follow the various forums. There’s quite a lot of clamor about for more primes. We have to admit, the resurrection of interest in primes caught us a bit by surprise.

For those just joining us already in progress in the digital age, primes were the de facto norm for film for a large chunk of photographic history. A single focal length historically made it easier to formulate a sharp optic, a feat more difficult in zooms because you have to try to optimize a wide range of focal lengths, which often adds weight and size and makes the lens slower.

In the modern age, decades of experience formulating primes, in addition to their simpler and smaller optic constructions, typically leads to primes being among the cheaper offerings a manufacturer has. (The EF 50mm f/1.8 I, for example, is one of–if not the cheapest–Canon lenses, weighing in at under 100 bucks.) Also, primes are usually faster, typically being f1.4 or f.18, much faster than standard kit lenses which are usually f3.5 or slower.

So, for cost and aperture speed, primes are still hard to beat. But, if you want more flexibility than a single focal length can offer, don’t fret. Despite the common insistence that primes are the best optically, computer assisted design has lead to a generation of quality zooms that perform to the level of primes of old at many, and sometimes most or even all, focal lengths. Olympus is famous for the consistent performance of it’s mid and high grade zooms, the new f2.8 constant aperture zooms from Nikon also offer equal performance. And, of course, Canon prides itself on the performance of it’s L-series senses, and if you buy Sony Alpha DSLRS you’ll find a collection Carl Zeiss zooms which also lack any concerns in their optical performances.



The Ringlight Chronicles, vol I

So, ringlights have become pretty popular these days (along with 50mm primes, like the 50mm f1.4 G Nikon lenses). Which is understandable, times are rough and Profoto’s stellar ringflash weighs in at about 1500 bucks, without pack, putting it well beyond most weekend warriors. So, the prospect of using any Canon flashes or Nikon flashes one might already own to a simlar effect is, you gotta admit, pretty tempting.

So, finding myself bored last night and deciding between organizing the towel closet and doing something productive, I decided to give a go at making one of the DIY ringlights whose formulas can be found bouncing all over the photographic intertubes.

The results?

Olympus digital cameras don't deserve to be made this ugly

Functionallity: 1

Aesthetics: 0

In my quick test shots the thing does work as advertised, throwing a nice even ring of light which makes headshots shine as all harsh shadows are removed from faces leaving behind only soft, sumptuous modeling.

But, boy, it is friggin’ ugly. Some more black tape on the outside would help things, but only in the same way that giving Michael Jackson a new nose would help things.

But, it does work, so I’m already plotting a Mk II. I think maybe a couple Harbor Digital flash adapters and a nice wide throw reflector might make for a better start. We’ll see.



Alright, /Now/ You Can Make Streetwalker Jokes

So, as promised, I finally got down to the floor and loaded a ThinkTank Photo Streetwalker Backpack with a 50D Canon digital SLR camera, some Canon lenses, some mixed Induro camera tripods, and some of my usual junk.

I’ve got it uploaded to YouTube, as I always do, and you can find the embedded video below. For those of you just joining in, this is also available (as well as all past installments) on our Podcasts page.

Quick links to mentioned equipment: Induro A013 6M Aluminum Alloy Tripod, Induro DM01 DM-Series Ballhead, Induro MC14 Carbon 8X Monopod, Canon 50D Body, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM, Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM, Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM, Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM, ThinkTank Photo Streetwalker



What’s In a Bag?

ThinkTank Streetwalker (Please, Withhold All Jokes for Later)So, it’s been a while since we’ve hit up a Raw Footage (my camera-man has been busy the past month), but I’m going to try and get a packing exercise done later for the ThinkTank Photo Streetwalker, which is actually a surprisingly trim and still roomy backpack (and of the tried-and-true “strap a camera tripod to the back” variety at that”).

And, while I’m thinking bags, Chuck forwarded me a mail yesterday, in which a reader name of “Greg” said he’d like to know what we over at Roberts shove into our bags. You know, Greg, I think it’s a great idea, although I’m not sure I’ll be able to con anyone else into talking. Might be fun to try and get a shot of Jody’s gear, though…

But, I thought, hey, I may as well talk a bit about the various odd bits and digital camera accessories that’ve sorted themselves into my Crumpler since I shot the footage of me packing it:

1. Olympus digital camera kit. Anyone who reads this blog knows I shoot an Oly kit. E-3, 50-200mm, an old 50mm Zukio f1.8, and a Lensbaby 3G. I’m angling to add a 14-54 to my kit sometime (hey, how about it Oly, you wanna hook me up with an old demo one? Eh? Eh?)

2. A Nikon SB-25, which I found in our venerable Used Department. I use it with a Wein peanut slave as an off-camera key light.

3. Two custom flash modifiers.

4. Two medium plastic spring clamps. And a little 2″ metal c-clamp (hey, you never know, I might need that!)

5. An LED flashlight (never know when you need to shed a little light on the subject).

6. A Roberts card wallet with a selection of mismatched flash memory cards.

7. A Lensbaby creative aperture kit.

8. A Crumpler beer bottle opener (in true Crumpler style, called “The Boozer’s Friend”)

9. An Altec Lansing Orbit portable speaker (for jamming out when shooting models outdoors)




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