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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)



Baby, it’s cold outside

At least it is in the midwest (though, honestly, it could be worse), and at least it is for camera batteries. That’s right, batteries, the most essential of all digital camera accessories, the little electric hearts pumping currents of life through those EOS Rebels and Nikon Coolpix cameras you’re all out there swinging around like photographic uzis. Camera batteries, which might hate the cold more than I do and will certainly quit working out in it even faster than I would. Camera batteries, which for the rest of this article we shall refer to as “the weakest link.”

Now, you may or may not be aware, but if you can find the environment specs for your camera, it’s almost guaranteed to be more robust than you. My E-3 Olympus digital camera lists its operating range of 32 – 104 degrees Fahrenheit, and it’ll happily clack along well below 32 while I’m using choice words to, ah, “complain” about the weather. If it hits a hundred and four degrees I’m probably more concerned with where my next cocktail is coming from than going out and shooting. So, cameras are pretty laissez-faire about the weather. It’s those darned weakest links.

So, here’s my tip for all y’all out there in cold weather: keep some batteries close to you. No, closer. Let your body keep them warm. Put them in the internal pockets on jackets, in your jeans so they’ll be next to your leg, something. And, then, every so often if there’s a break in shooting, swap the one in your camera for a spare. Yes, it’s a hassel swapping them in and out a lot, but if you can keep them happy and warmer then you won’t have to deal with the frustration and heartache of one dying on you prematurely.

Now, speak of cocktails, I’m going to go wrap some things up and then have myself a good New Year’s celebration, and I wish the same for the rest of you. I’ll see you all in the harsh light of dayand sobriety come Friday.



End of the Year Ramblings

2008 is working its way to a close, and in the end-of-the-year fervor over Canon’s long-anticipated 5D Mark II and Nikon’s rather controversial (or so it seems on the forums, anyway) D3x, I’d like to take a moment to go over some cameras that, to my mind, didn’t get quite the recognition they really did earn out there on the market.

One is Nikon’s D700, the po’ man’s D3. Attacked on several fronts, mostly the decision to stick to “low rez” 12 MP and not to include video, somewhere in the shuffle I think the market lost sight of the fact that this is among the absolute best low-light cameras ever made (consistently getting the promised 2-stop ISO advantage over my own beloved E-3, in my own findings and comparisons). In addition, reputation has the weather-sealing on this up to snuff for pro use (even if the shutter is “only” rated at 150,000). All this for comfortably under 3 grand.
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Hot Sensors

This past weekend I had to nip down to Florida for my grandmother’s 80th birthday, I unfortunately didn’t get any of the three days I was down to myself for shooting, but Saturday I had the honor of pulling a fairly lengthy five-six hour session to document that fairly important milestone in my grandmother’s life. It was a long day, and I had to keep bouncing between my good portrait lens and a more reasonable standard zoom for getting wide shots indoors.

Even with my typically minimalist shooting style (I prefer to cherry-pick when I take shots instead of machine-gunning), I managed to burn through my usually ample compact flash memory cards and filled my old emergency microdrive too.

But, my favorite part had to be when I finally pushed my Olympus digital camera to its limit and it made me turn it off for a moment to let the sensor cool down some. I’ve used an E-3 on and off for about 10 months now, and it took a family reunion to push it to the edge.

That oughtta tell you something about my family reunions. I’ll try and get a Florida shot or two up once I have a chance to finally get home and work through these shots.



7 Million Dollar Home: Video Review

Alright, in honor of my bag upgrade we’re going to start a specialized segment of Roberts Raw for bag capacities. We’re going to kick it off with my own personal kit (actually, there was some space left so I borrow a few extra products from our display rack to pad it out) and a Crumpler 7 Million Dollar Home to show you about what you can expect it to hold. Because, let’s face it, if you’re anything like me you read the interior dimensions of a bag and go “that’s great, now how much is that in equipment?”

You can watch the video below, no frills, just quick bag packing, to see how much equipment this particular bag can swallow. If you want to see a specific ag you’ve been eyeing packed, hit us up in the comments or email me at [email protected] We’ll select two bags a month and pack different types of kits–Canon digital SLR cameras, Nikon flashes, Sony lenses, compact camcorders, you name it–all specifically chosen to give you a good visual estimate of how much you’ll be able to squeeze in.

This particular bag held all this equipment: Olympus E-3, Olympus 50-200mm, Olympus 18-180mm, Olympus 12-60mm, Olympus Zuiko 50mm, Lensbaby 3G, Nikon SB-25, Metz 58 AF-1, Joby Gorillapod SLR-Zoom, Induro SA-0, Roberts card wallet, miscelleneous small bits and accessories.



It’s EXPO!

EXPO 2008

It’s Expo here at Roberts. Well, today and tomorrow anyway. Our sales floor is busy busy buzzing with activity and darn near everybody is down there. The list of manufacturers with representatives 10 feet below me as we speak is over 30 now. We’ve converted many of our sales displays downstairs, draped them in brightly colored cloths and buried them under Canon digital SLR cameras, PowerShot digital cameras, Nikon digital SLR cameras, a rainbow of Nikon Coolpix Cameras, and Sony digital cameras of all sorts.

Olympus is down there, and I had to stop and chat with them and try some of their f2 constant glass on my E-3 Olympus digital camera. And, bonus for you guys: they’ve loaned me a 1050SW so we can make a Raw Footage showing you just what sets the SW line apart from others.

If you’re eyeing any camera tripods (Bogen Manfrotto tripods, sturdy Induro tripods, the niftiness that are the Trek-Tech Trekpods, you name it) you’ll find the best help in the area.

Mac Group is down there with popular digital camera accessories, including Sekonic light meters, PocketWizards, and the ColorMunki (which I use for my own laptop’s color calibration.)

Professional studio lighting more your cuppa (you can keep it, my current cuppa is a nice mellow Juan Valdez Colina), Profoto and Elinchrom are down there, as is Lastolite for you lighting accessory needs.

And video! I almost forgot our Canon video rep is down there next to a case full of shiny HD camcorders and a few odd professional camcorders.

Bottom line, if you’re in the Indy are– heck, central Indiana period– and you aren’t here, well…THEN YOU’RE IN LUCK! We’re doing it again tomorrow. Don’t miss out.



Understanding Metering, pt 1

Being adequately full of coffee and other caffeinated substances, I feel inspired to start a brief mini-series on a subject I’ve been interested in lately: metering.

Basic Matrix Metering

Let’s start with the metering mode most of us are likely to be using: matrix. Now, in matrix metering what your camera does is divide a scene into a grid (the number of segments in a grid depends on your brand, my E-3 Olympus digital camera has a 49 area matrix, the newest pro Nikon digital SLR cameras use an advanced 1,005 pixel sensor). No matter how it’s divided, at heart the basic idea is this:

1. The metering reads how much light is in each area.
2. It then decides how exposure needs to change to average the scene out to middle gray.

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High ISO vs Image Stabilization

I guess the debate between high ISO (championed in cameras like the D700 Nikon digital SLR cameras or the new 5D Mk II Canon digital SLR cameras) and built-in image stabilization like in Olympus digital cameras (well, the 510/520 series and the E-3, at least), Pentax cameras (like the and Sony digital cameras like their Alpha line) is more important to the enthusiast market than I’d given it credit.

To that end, this is one of the more level-headed articles I’ve read about the two that basically boils down to “they both do their jobs for static subject”. (whether or not you want to stop motion blur is a different and artistic decision, and in that case there’s no substitute for higher shutter speeds via high ISO if you want to counter-act it). Nikon users, don’t write the article off until the second example where he does the test more empirically. The first test is good for showing how different factors contribute to overall image quality, however.

http://theonlinephotographer.com/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html



Focusing Screens

EF-D Focus Screen for EOS 40D/50D Among the more interesting and most under-mentioned digital camera accessories I can think of are focusing screens. Pick up your DSLR real quick and put it to your eye. Depending on your brand you’ll see different things, you might see nothing, or maybe you see a few AF areas marked out. What you aren’t seeing is the very finely textured screen that lets you discern focus through your viewfinder.

In the modern age of auto-focus this is the most versatile way of doing a focusing screen. It allows for focus points anywhere in the frame, and provides bright, clear viewfinders. But, for people who prefer manual focusing (like for macro work), the old split-prism focus screens of the film age are missed. Old-Fashioned Split PrismThose of you who used film know what I mean, but for those of you who joined us in the digital age cameras used to have a circle in the viewfinder with a dark ring around it and it was split in half. The line through the center would divide subjects and if they weren’t in focus they wouldn’t line up, which made confirming focus pretty darn easy.

What a lot of people don’t realize in a lot of modern DSLRs, including several Canon digital SLR cameras, Nikon digital SLR cameras, Olympus digital cameras like my E-3, and more have available alternative focus screens.

Some of these screens are just even more precise “matte” screens, but some have grids etched (for making sure straight lines are, ya know, straight), and hey, some of them even have the split prism functionality.

So, you might take some time and look into it. Odds are, the way you currently see through your DSLR might not be the only option you have.



Don’t Hate the Popup Flash

Pop-Up Flash on the E-3 I feel sorry for the pop-up flash. This appears to easily be the most hated of all camera features, and I just don’t know why.

For those not in the know, the pop-up flash is generally not considered a ‘pro’ feature, and therefore finds its inclusion on high-end cameras such as the D700 Nikon digital SLR camera highly criticized. I’ve also seen countless forum threads begging manufacturer X not to “mess the camera up” by including a pop-up flash.

But, no matter how you approach this, it just seems irrational to hate the pop-up flash.

Let’s start with the most common critcism: it’s not “pro.” IE, the highest end Canon digital SLR cameras and Nikon digital SLR cameras (like the EOS 1Ds Mk III and the D3) don’t have pop-up flashes. But, who’s to say that the no pop-up flash, integrated grip design is what makes the camera pro? Shutter life and body construction seem like better markers, and companies like Sony and Olympus and now Nikon (with the D700) are releasing pro models without integrated grips. So, it seems kind of picky to not like them just because they’re not pro.

Cost: Given that a $400 E-410 Olympus digital camera has a pop-up flash and the $5,000 D3 does not, I think we can safely say including a pop-up flash isn’t increasing cost.

Durability: Another popuar complaint is that they’re a weak point for durability, but I’ve ad a 17″ CRT monitor call over onto my E-3′s pop-up flash without it taking any damage (and, the E-3 also manahes to be water-sealed with the flash up, ruining the argument that it affects weather-sealing.)

So, where’s the harm in the pop-up flash? If you prefer a more powerful, less harsh light, using something like the SB-900 (in Nikon flashes) or 580EX II (for Canon flashes) is always an option and will over-ride the pop-up, but for users who don’t want the weight of a flashgun for some quick fill light or snapshots, the pop-up is useful to have around.

There’s so much in photography we could be focusing on, how about we stop complaining about the pop-up flash and see it for the value-added feature it is?




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