16 Sep Clip Leg Or Twist Leg Or Thumbscrew? A Tripod Debate
No matter where you stand on this question, there is one thing certain - you will be firmly on three legs...
September 2015
16 Sep Epsonnews – Money Is In The Pipeline
Two good bits of economic news from Epson - makers of fine inkjet printers, inks, and media.1. The cash back offer to purchasers of Epson Stylus Pro SP-4900 printers has been extended. From the 15th of September to the 31st of October 2015 you can receive a $ 500 cash back from Epson on these fine devices. Of course you have to buy it from a dealer - like us - between these two dates, but all you have to do is contact them online after you have your printer and let them sight your serial number and invoice.The 4900 is a very sophisticated A2 roll and sheet printer. It can produce all day, every day.2. You can also participate in the Epson cash back festival by purchasing one of the new Epson SureColor SC-P600 inkjet printers between the 15th of September and the 15th of November 2015. In this case you do the same proof of purchase to Epson and receive $ 300 cash back.The SC-600 would be ideal for the home printer and enthusiast. It can take roll...
15 Sep Wot We Got, Wot We Gonna Get…
An order came down from the bridge today to make you aware of three new products. One we got, two are coming.The one we got right now is the Nikon 24mm AF-s 1.8G ED lens . It is the heading image. Full-frame, moderate weight, fast aperture, focuses to 23cm. Looks like a great optic for interiors and large groups. Come try it out.We'll also be getting a new Canon lens soon. The new 35mm EF f:1.4L II lens should be a high speed undistorted landscape lens for the EOS system. We'll tell you when to stream in to see it when it hits the shop.November will also be a big month for the Sony fans. We anticipate the arrival of a new full-frame mirror-less camera from this maker. The A7s II will be strongly followed - heck we have people asking about it now. There will be a launch in November here at the shop. More details as we think them up....
15 Sep The Solar Powered Camera
It should be possible to capture, modify, project, and publish our images totally with solar power. The dream of those great advocates of eco-friendly green sustainable art - J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie - is to become real at last. We are to get solar panels for the roof.By we, I mean we here at Camera Electronic. They are installing solar panels on the roof and presumably will be leading the resultant electricity into the building somewhere*. If they just left it around on two bare wires I could see trouble, but I think they will connect it into the regular wires. Some f he sunlight will come down to the shop, the camera batteries will absorb it, and it will go onto the memory cards. And since the computer and the printer are connected to the mains, there it will be in them.The business is not new to me - our house has had a set of panels for a year and a bit and the electricity bills are considerably reduced. They would be further lessened if the family...
15 Sep Where It Is At – Where It Is Not At
Armed with a Pentax SV, a roll of Plus-X, and 55mm Super Takumar lens, I roamed the streets. I roamed them on Saturday afternoons when the rest of Perth had shut their shop doors and gone to the football. I roamed them on Saturday nights when I should have been out at the movies with girls. I roamed them on dead Sunday afternoons when nothing moved except for the tumbleweeds and Holden Fj's. I have reviewed my negatives and prints of the period and they all reflect the fact that I had no idea what I was doing - it was not that the 60's was a haze of drugs or anything - I just had no skill as a street photographer.I have recently gone out again on Saturday and Sunday armed with a digital camera. The streets are busy to bursting these days and there are images everywhere ready to be scooped up on a photosensitive surface. The scooping costs considerably less than it did in the film era. I should be happy and productive and famous by now.Hah. I...
15 Sep The Difference Between A Self Portrait And A Selfie
The difference between a self-portrait and a selfie can be far more than the equipment that is used for the image - and far more than the location or occasion. It can be the difference between a portrayal and a betrayal.We are beset or blessed by social media - Facebook, Twitter, Flicker, Blatt, Squeal, Overshare, and Timewastr. We all need photos of ourselves to put on the top or the bottom of the page - or, in the case of one of my FB friends...
15 Sep The Hanging Judge
Did goe to the Mandurah Camera Club laste night and was greatley entertained.Any club that meets in a bistro with a bar and snacks is doing it right. This was the Mandurah Bowling club - new premises - and it has the advantage of being easy to find, easy to park, and serviced by a freeway.Photographers are a funny lot. Sometimes funny haha and sometime funny hmmm. The Mandurah CC are funny fun - their photos were good and their welcome was warm. And there was a large roll-up...
14 Sep The Neutral Density Controversy Explored – Through A Glass Darkly
The future, as George Orwell would have it, is grey. We can supply it in varying strengths and configurations, we might add, and it in different diameters. Big Brother would approve.The neutral density filter makes things go darker. You can make things go darker by one f stop - or two, three, four, six , nine, or ten stops quite readily with commercially available products. You can get filters that allow variable density from 1 to 8 stops - just by rotating the filter. You can get filters that start out at the top with a dark patch and then fade out half-way down. You can even get in-built neutral density filters in some special cameras.The uses that people out these humble little bits of glass or plastic to are manifold: Landscape shooters position the partial filters so that bright parts of their scene are brought into the camera at a lower intensity - the sensors then cope with the highlights much better.Special effect photographers stack up extremely dark filters to allow long exposure times - and eliminate people from cityscapes...
14 Sep The Country Show – Cameras In The Sticks
One of our principals and one of the sales staff have just returned from attending a photographic conference in Albany - a delightful country city located on the south coast of Western Australia. They took a large Mercedes van stuffed to the gills with equipment down over the weekend and presumably entertained the masses. We are in the process of emptying the van and restocking the shelves in the shop.Looks like they had reasonable weather - the rains have hit the place today but they are back up here in the sun. The Albany run is fairly long, and they would have had a busy and tiring weekend of it.Country conferences and open days are generally good things - the local people out in the bush are as keen about photography as those of us here in the city and as a fair amount of the landscape in Western Australia is stored out in the country - they have the ocean out off-shore to keep most of the water together - the country people can sometimes get out to the...
14 Sep ” My Gear Was Stolen…”
We hear this from clients quite regularly and note internet warnings about stolen photo equipment every month. Insurance companies contact us for quotes to replace cameras and lenses. It is really becoming a series of horror tales.We cannot say who steals the stuff, nor can we say what becomes of it. Anything that is presented for sale or trade here is VERY thoroughly scrutinised by the tech staff, the sales staff, and our second-hand expert. Then it is vetted by the WA Police through their computer and investigative services. So far I have only seen one instance where our commercial vigilance needed the attention of Mr. Plod, but when it did, the response was fast and magic.Unfortunately we often hear that photographic equipment has been stolen from motor vehicles while the owner is off taking pictures. This would seem to argue that some of the more popular photo locations have a population of thieves that monitor who is visiting. and what they have in their car. We all have a tendency to take more than we use, and if we...