Every single week that I have worked here we have had someone come in looking for a quick-release plate to match their tripod - they have lost the original one or have added more lenses and bodies to their bag and need to connect to the tripod.Nearly every single week someone has had a sobering experience - the quick release plate that fits their tripod is long gone and their tripod is irredeemably bare on top...
Never mind the state of the world or the Prime Minister. That can wait. There is a new Fujifilm X lens in the shop and you can try it out right now.The new 16-55mm Fujinon XF has:Constant f:2.8 aperture.Aspherical elements.Water-resistant gasket.Superb X-lens construction - smooth focussing and zooming and solid build.This is the perfect companion piece to the Fujifilm 50-140 f:2.8 WR lens.You won't get it free in a cornflakes packet and they don't send 'em up with the rations, but the lens is a real gem in the Fujifilm lineup. Anyone using the X-Pro1, X-E2. or X-t1 for landscape, interiors, or portrait groups would be well-rewarded with a test run.Come in now and see how good it is....
A general rule of military operations is to keep things as simple as possible - if there is less to go wrong less will go wrong. It will still go wrong, mind, but the area that you'll need to fix will be smaller.For years I have suggested this to people who want to fire flash guns somewhere other than on the hot shoe of the camera. The choices have been:1. PC cable from the camera to the flash gun. PC Socket or hit shoe adapter.2. Infrared transmitter on the top of the camera and infrared receiver in the flash gun.3. Infrared code from the on-camera flash and infrared receiver in the flash gun.4. Radio transmitter on top of the camera and radio receiver into which the flash gun plugs.5. Radio transmitter built into the camera and radio receiver built into the flash gun.Old hands will recognise the proprietary system their camera operates on - some Nikon cameras will work with No.3 and the Canon EOS 5D Mk III will do the No.5 with the appropriate flash gun. These people are...
The management has returned from the Canon luncheon with a prize - a specification pamphlet from the new Canon EOS cameras. In addition to the features we mentioned earlier today, it would appear that there are some other goodies on the EOS 5Dr and EOS 5Ds:1. An intelligent viewfinder that lets you make changes to settings with the thing to your eye.2. Multiple exposure capability.3. A 150,000 pixel RGB measuring sensor with IR sensitivity means you get a correct exposure even if the light source flickers.4. Time lapse movie mode with the EOS 5DsMore info as it trickles in...
Anyone with a digital camera knows the annoyance of discovering spots on your images - no-one more so than wildlife photographers who take pictures of leopards or giraffes. Thus you can understand my problem yesterday on the African savannah. The elephants were fine - the lions were fine - even the vulture was attractive and co-operative...
Samsung stepped on our stage a few months ago with some very new and highly-featured mirrorless cameras for their new system. The one at the top of the tree is the NX-1. now it has a smaller brother - the NX 500 - with very much the same heart.The lens mount remains the same, of course - it wouldn't be a system camera if this wasn't the case. But instead of the larger body of the NX-1 that is somewhat reminiscent of a DSLR shape ( without being as heavy as a DSLR ) the NX 500 has the familiar rangefinder shape of other mirror-less cameras.No stinting inside, however, as Samsung have put the sensor from the NX-1 into the new body. You get 28 megapixels in a APS-C frame. It has an AFIII autofocusing engine and can fire at 9 frames per second.ISO rating is native at 100-25600 though you can go one step higher for emergencies. 4K video. Samsung Auto Shot predictive focusing to capture moving objects coming toward or away from you.3" full tilt LCD screen means...
The Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera was a world shaker - little, solid, sealed up, with the kind of image results that made larger DSLR systems jealous. The image-stabiliser system was great and made sharper images in nearly all conditions. Many workers ditched larger and heavier systems to go with the Olympus mirror-less lead.They can now do the same thing again with a NEW E-M5 MkII. Olympus have redesigned the sturdy workhorse to incorporate new features:16 megapixel sensor that can be set to waggle around eight times in a second and to deliver a 40 megapixel image at the end. Wowsa! Look out hard drive.Vario-angle touch screen.New, bigger, and better grip.Knurled control dials. Knurling rocks.5-stop image stabilisation.Improved weather sealing.New bounce and swivel flash supplied with camera.Anti-shake shutter curtain function to steady down long exposures.Built-in WiFi.Improved video.Increased battery life - about 2 x what you got before.Silent electronic shutter function.These things are enough to suggest that current E-M5 users get another body - you can always use two on any professional shoot and the new one will process things a lot faster....
Today is the launch day for two new Canon cameras - as I write this, senior figures from Camera Electronic ( and others ) are being feted by the Canon company - eating lark's tongue paté and sipping rare champagne like as not - while we struggle here at the shop counter with a dry crust of bread and a sip of pond water. Cough, cough. It is good to see that priorities are preserved...
Colour management has had a bad rap in the last few years - but if you listen to rap, bad is not necessarily bad.As digital photographers discovered that they could no longer push the button and rely upon Kodak to do the rest...
Remember the Megapixel Wars*? When each new camera model from the major manufacturers with the megapixel count jacked up to overtop their compettors. And CHOICE magazine jumping up and down on the side urging the fight...