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January 2018

17 Jan

Posted at 09:44h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

I am in an excellent position to write on this subject as I have served a long apprenticeship in the trade of buying - and in many cases I have bought junk. Like most people who have done this, there were a number of factors that entered into it: a. I have had money that was burning a hole in my pocket. b. I have felt a vague need for something. c. I have not thought sufficiently about the design of something - or the materials  - or the construction. d. I have not had any experience with the goods in question. Only the last in the list had any real validity - the rest were somewhat of a shame on me. But once having gone through the process of buying the junk, and finding out all about it, I could eliminate this in the future. Let me help you out with one little matter from our photographic accessories in the shop - the business of the cable release. In this case it will be specifically the mechanical release. Look on your camera and see if there is...

16 Jan

Posted at 08:50h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

The phrase " Standard Of The Industry " is wonderful. It has the sort of authority that is slowly slipping away from the rest of society. Time has eroded the power of the religious authority figure, the holder of civil power, the educator. A century of propaganda and counter-culture has made us doubt everything...

15 Jan

Posted at 07:46h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Unlike some internet humorists, I am not jealous of the comedic efforts of others - particularly when they are expressed in a concrete form. Thus I present an item that was given to me on New Year's Eve by a friend. You may see similar things in the shops at a discount now that Christmas is finished. DO buy one, if only to encourage the manufacturers for next year. The camera you see is dedicated to taking sweet images. I am not sure if it is available in professional black, but as I prefer the silver with brown covering, I am delighted. And it is just the retro style that fits in with the rest of the studio furnishings. While the lens may not be removable, it has a usable zoom range. Multicoated, too. Not so sure about the 12 x zoom, though, as I only see an 18-55...

11 Jan

Posted at 08:41h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Christmas-time was the traditional period when people searched high and low for inappropriate gifts for their friends and relations. Some were more dedicated than others - visiting designer-bureaux, art galleries, and trendy boutiques in an effort to find the most appalling present. Others were more pragmatic - they just went into the back aisle at Big W, give the nearest shelf a hefty kick, and trollied away whatever fell down. Either way the recipients of this sort of thing got a memorable Christmas, and a year to plan revenge. Or...

10 Jan

Posted at 09:18h in Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Thank you, Mr. or Mrs. Canon. Thank you for thinking like I do, and more often, too. Thank you for doing the things on the Canon EOS M6 that I think are a good idea. I say this pointedly, as I have sometimes taken gear out of the box to test at the studio and regretted it. Not that the cameras were bad, but they sometimes had such arcane menus, simplistic controls, or trendy features as to baffle the mind - or at least the mind that had to get them back to the shop in under a week. I can truthfully say that I did not have one bad experience with the EOS M6 when I pointed it at the new model airfield. I turned the LCD exposure visualisation off so that the screen did not become dark during focusing, I turned the shutter to 1/250 second, and the aperture to anywhere between f:16 to f:25. I am led to believe, looking at the specs on a Canon website, that it may well go to f:38...

09 Jan

Posted at 09:25h in Dick's Rant by [social_share]

This column will come to you far enough into the new year that we won't have to go over the old chestnut of New Year's Resolutions - and let's face it - we get enough resolution out of our lenses as it is. If the NYE party left you with a bit of residual chromatic aberration you'll know to take more water with it next time. In the vacuum of time between the major celebrations I checked a Canon mirror-less camera out of the shop stocks and had a close look at what this manufacturer has done to catch up to Olympus, Sony, and Fujifilm. I use the phrase advisedly, as I realise that company prestige is involved, but Canon Australia need not get angry at me - I have a number of good things to say about their product. The example I grabbed is the Canon EOS M6 kit with a silver body and a 15-45mm lens. It has stablemates in the mirror-less lineup - the M3 and the M5 with different characteristics. I chose this one because it has a...

08 Jan

Posted at 08:38h in Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Or should that be gilding the Quaking Aspen? It was just one of the thoughts that came to mind when unpacking this wide-angle zoom lens from Tamron - the 10-24mm f:3.5-4.5 Di II VC HLD. It was occasioned by discovering the switch for the vibration control mechanism next door to the AF/MF switch. I must say I was surprised by it as this sort of focal length range seems a little short to benefit from an anti-shake mechanism.   I daresay the Tamron people will insist I am wrong, and I'll bet the lens produces some very nice results hand-held in dim interiors when you examine the results under 100% magnification...

05 Jan

Posted at 08:36h in Dick's Rant by [social_share]

I like to haunt* the Camera Electronic premises every so often. Retiring from behind the counter a couple of years ago but not from the editorial desk means that I need information and inspiration from the staff, products, and plans that make up the business. So I go in every week or so to see what's new and good. I should recommend the idea to everyone reading this column - not just for the fact that you might be tempted to leave money at the till, but for the fact that you might take away fresh enthusiasm for the art and science. Plus if you're retired and your wife is looking at you with the sort of speculative eye that will eventually lead to moving a piano up a flight of stairs, it gives you a chance to get out of the line of fire. The Stirling Street shop has stairs, but no piano. Well there were several good-looking items in Murray Street this week. The silver-coloured Leica Q for the fashionable and well-heeled...

04 Jan

Posted at 10:11h in Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Some people embrace change - some resist it. Some just search for it down the back of the sofa cushions. But whichever way you deal with it, you can't ignore the fact that it exists. No good telling me it wasn't that way in the old days. I was there in the old days and I was nosey - I looked around to see what was happening. And everywhere you looked, there it was; change. We went from big old sheet film and plate cameras to roll-film cameras to little 35mm cameras...