There have been a number of photographic equipment manufacturers in the past who have made what are termed "fisheye" lenses. I can recall seeing examples from Olympus, Nikon, Canon, Tokina, and Rokinon in my time at the shop. Doubtless there have many others - even down to Saga or Spiratone who made a fisheye adapter that we all bought in the 35mm era.Did I include Sigma in that list? I should have, because they have made a number of these...
In the theatre and in the dark - that's where I see this new lens from Sigma. And believe me, here in Perth we have dark theatres. The operating theatres in the hospitals are all pretty well lit, but after that it all gets pretty dim...
I called into the shop yesterday to place mousetraps on the toilet seats and as I was waiting for the ladies loo to be vacated, I got to chatting with one of the professional photographers who was standing at the rental counter. I noticed he was taking out a set of studio mono lights - a very good quality item.The odd thing for me was I remember him taking out these same mono lights with various light modifiers all last year, and, I think, the year before. Weekday rentals mostly and some weekend rentals. Lotsa rentals...
I was put in mind of this analogy when photographing today's product for the column. It also had certain features of trying to hang out wet washing upside down or put a toddler back into a play suit. There were more things to do than could be done and new surfaces kept emerging. I think it was invented by M.C. Escher...
Today was slow in the cutting-edge-of-technology-game-changing-electronic-marvel-of-the-century-business. On the good side, so far no earthquakes. Taking advantage of this, I have balanced two bags on a studio seat and taken some pictures.The first is an F-Stop case that is intended to compress a whole field assignment's equipment in one case - a case that you can heave into an overhead locker and not trust to the loading crew. It is labeled as the F-Stop Pro ICU Large.Note that this really only applies if you are carrying out your assignment with a mirror-less system. Fujifilm, Olympus, Sony, Nikon, and Canon pros can take notice. The case will not hold big long wildlife lenses for full-frame DSLR but these come with their own cases and native porters anyway. Just remember that if you are compelling someone to haul your 2000mm f:2 lens up mountains and through deserts covered in thorn bushes, "Bwana" is not a term of endearment...
Yesterday's column hinted that there will be some delay for a major camera manufacturer in the delivery of promised cameras because of the recent series of earthquakes in Japan. Today I see their largest rival clocked in with a similar press release - but in this case reassuring us that they were good for stocks for the next two or three months.Not so good for some of the component subcontractors who were in the shake area - they are assessing what impact this will have on the overall supply situation this year. One of the major component manufacturers has suspended production of sensors at a plant that was within the affected prefecture. And they make sensors for a lot of people...
I trawl the bottom of the camera trade harbour every day looking for items that can be turned into weblog posts in this column. Amongst the discarded boots and old tuna tins, I find snippets of news from manufacturers and their wholesalers, American review sites, the rumour and geek sites, and our local competitor's advertisements. Some of it is distinctly suspicious, while other items are so blatantly bland as to suggest a trainee intern is clocking up time on the press-agent's computer.The rumours you can all get for yourselves, and you can involve yourselves as deeply as you wish with the fan-boy fights on the various forums. They are a good way to keep up your level of rage in between camera club meetings. And they have the advantage over club meetings in that while you cannot actually strangle anyone when engaged in an internet argument, you do get a better class of coffee and biscuit at home.The manufacturers can sometimes be cagy in their announcements but are often candid about what is really happening back at the factory. You...
A while ago Fujifilm Australia sent out an email message to tell people how to share their images responsibly. I was frightened to read it as I was worried that they were going to ask me to be responsible for something - and I have managed to avoid it for so many aspects of modern life. I pay taxes and have stopped counterfeiting government documents and rarely run people down on the road, so what more do they want?Well, it turns out that they are just advocating watermarking your images so that they cannot be stolen. This may be a problem for some photographers, but I have noticed that mine are rarely taken. Even when they are, they are returned in better condition than when they went and one kind soul even pinned a five-dollar note to my collar and said that he hoped my eyesight would recover.Putting the watermark in the dead centre of the image and making it complex and intrusive seems to be the key advice. This is to make it hard to remove. It is also the...
If you are worried about people who give you funny looks - or throw things at you in train stations - then this column is not for you. We acknowledge your sensitivities and will not compel you to put yourself in the public firing line. The rest can crowd around and settle down.The days of writing down your exposure details for each test shot you do have gone. No more scraps of paper or grubby notebooks. No more stubs of pencils. You can reserve these for writing down locomotive numbers - the digital age has put all the data you will ever need right there in each file you create. And there are any number of editing programs that will show it to you on demand, together with international conventions for copyrights, naming of files, technical details, and hot dates. It is an age of information overload and you are expected to shoulder your share of the burden.But there are any number of things that the camera does not record...
If you are allergic to cynicism, switch off now. The next couple of paragraphs are going to make you itch. If you can stand it, read on.Any sales network makes money for itself by selling you things - which you know perfectly well. In many trades this can be a seasonal or annual effort - look at what the clothing fashion people do to you four times a year - and think what the automobile makers try to do with yearly model changes and annual sales. If you've lots of money and the psychological need for novelty then all is well - you suit the trades and they suit you.On the other hand, if you want to, or have to, be careful with your money you are not quite the market that the manufacturers seek...