About This Blog    |    Press and Contact Info     |   Available Languages:

ENQUIRIES: 08 9428 7200

September 2015

29 Sep

Posted at 00:00h in News by [social_share]

We sell tripods. And we sell tripod accessories; plates for the top, ballheads for the middle, and spiked feet for the bottom. Occasionally we sell a tripod bag, but sometimes I wonder why - and other times I wonder why we do not sell one with each tripod.The bag has two main functions : One; it lets you carry a tripod that is bigger than necessary a longer distance than you need to - and without dislocating your shoulder. Two; it disguises your tripod on the tarmac as you look out of the airplane window and the fuel tanker runs over it.This is the same with golf bags, but with them you can at least wear funny jumpers and spend the late afternoon drinking - with landscape photography you need to be alert for the magic minutes of dying sunlight over the seashore or silos. Tripod bags are altogether soberer items.Manfrotto make them with a startling ends for the three-way heads that go on their large tripods. As these three-way heads are most useful for landscapers this is the choice...

25 Sep

Posted at 05:06h in News by [social_share]

Looking around at the tripod heads in the shop it occurred to me that only two of the manufacturers really get it - they are aiming themselves at the big end of the market - by the smallest means.Consider - when we put an image up on the computer screen in, say, Photoshop, we get the option to select something and move it in infinitesimal increments by using up down and sideways keys. We can't achieve the same degree of precision with trackpads, tablets, or mice and the computer people know it - so we get the electronic equivalent of a fine-tune control.We also can't achieve the fine control of cameras that we need on conventonal tripod heads - if we are working with a ball head it falls all over the place as soon as we loosen it - even the three-way heads are crude pivots when we need fine movement.Arca-Swiss and Manfrotto addressed this in their separate ways by putting mechanical creepers on their cube head and the 405 three-way head. In each case there is a crude...

25 Sep

Posted at 00:50h in News by [social_share]

If you are new to photography, you may never have done the dance. The RiseTiltShift Waltz. You have no idea what a delight you are missing.Those of you old enough to have wrinkles that won't go away may have had a chance to use a view camera or a tilt/shift lens in the past. You know the dance, and when to dance it.For the newbies - you do the dance when you want undistorted verticals in an architecture shot - or when you want easy stitching for a panorama - or want infinite depth of field for a product or landscape shoot at wide aperture. The Scheimpflug Principle takes care of the last named and the rising front of the camera - or falling back, for that matter - takes care of the first. The shift lets the budding panoramacist add more width to what they do and the stitching programs love the result.While you can get massive movements on a 4 x 5 or 8 x 10 sheet-film monorail camera, you are a little more restricted with the dedicated...

25 Sep

Posted at 00:48h in News by [social_share]

You sure do!Even if your digital cameras usage is sporadic and just around home, there is nothing worse than being caught out with a depleted battery when the good shots just start coming. Birthday parties do not slow down for you.Even worse - going away for a memorable vacation and running your battery down half-way through the first day. The rest of the tour bus passengers will not wait near a mains outlet while you try to recharge your one and only battery...

25 Sep

Posted at 00:47h in News by [social_share]

Relax - the car's all right.Yesterday, Burke gave a great 3-hour display of the new Olympus OM-D E-M10 MkII camera to an appreciative audience. As with many new cameras, the Olympus has a number of features that involve bracketing. One of them is apparently focus bracketing. I was puzzled and asked Burke what it was.Burke was puzzled.After the demo we did some experiments here on the editorial desk and found out the answer - and it is a ripper.Do you do focus stacking with your camera? You know - where you shoot a number of images of a fixed object with a slight change of focus between each shot. Then you put the images into a computer program like Photoshop and it blends them into a single presentation with greatly increased depth of field. It's a sophisticated technique that lets the macro worker overcome some of the optical limitations of shallow depth of field when you are in close.Well - that what it does...

24 Sep

Posted at 01:23h in News by [social_share]

Well, it's the old bump and grind this weekend. Three hours of colour, movement, and loud music. And I'm going to be out the front with a camera.No, not the burlesque. That's not my beat - though I have seen some dynamite shows here in Perth and some very good publicity, event, and art shots taken by the photographers who specialise in this. I'll be at a hafla - a belly dancing show held at a suburban school.The school isn't just your regular local primary - the Saturday venue is a pretty swish one that takes in private-school money. And spends it on their theatre facilities, I might add. The main performance space and seating is very professional - more so than many public venues. They have good lighting, good lighting control, and good sound - and a large enough stage to make a real production.I'll set a fixed camera with radio wireless control to capture full-stage shots from the mezzanine ( They have a mezzanine! ) and roam the aisles and floor with a large-aperture Fujifilm lens on my...

24 Sep

Posted at 00:43h in News by [social_share]

The days of putting our films in to the chemist and hoping for some decent prints in a fortnight are long past. We now put our memory cards into the card reader and hope for some decent images in 5 seconds. The time occupied by gnawing anticipation is reduced greatly but we have also lost the consolation of being able to buy a bag of barley sugar sweets even if everything is blurry.Same with colour. We once got what we were given and liked it. Sometimes we got what we deserved. The cost of colour slide film or colour printing in the film era was considerable - and we did not waste our shots. But what came back was tied to the temperature and purity of the baths in the processor and that could be a mixed bag - and sometimes the technicians loading the machines got it horribly wrong. Ask me about the wedding that vanished...