09 Mar Don’t Call Me A Potato
I'm a potahto. And while we're at it, the tomahto wants to have a word with you as well...
March 2018
08 Mar Ronin In The Gloamin’
Possibly on the bonny banks 'O Yangtse...
07 Mar Cheap, Ugly, And Home-Made
Come to think of it, that describes a lot of my cousins...
06 Mar A Tale Of Two Lenses
The design bureau of any major camera maker must be a fascinating place to work. I'll bet they have interesting times...
05 Mar The Entry-Level Camera – Entry To Luxury
I opened the box of the Fujifilm X-A5 camera expecting something of a Po' Boy camera - an entry-level device that had been cut down to the bone to capture the cheaper Asian market. I could not have been more mistaken in my life. The camera body is smallish - in keeping with the form of the other X-A series cameras. The lens is compact - again looking to keep the overall package small. There is no eye-level viewfinder. And after that it is all luxury goods and a fabulous technology - made all the more so for me as it is a camera that is well suited for studio shooting. The top plate feels like metal. Here's the basic form of it. Tilting CD screen, standard RHS controls, in-built flash head, and as many modern eye-catchers like 4K and WiFi as you would want. Fujifilm have thankfully kept the pop-up flash tube but also included the full suite of TTL features in the hot shoe mount. A lot of the controls have been stacked onto the touch screen, but...
02 Mar The Mind Has Shifted
Landscape photography is a wonderful art - if you find people make you uncomfortable but are quite willing to be cold, hot, tired, thirsty, and sore. And far away from home. Heck, with attractions like that you might as well join the Marines...
01 Mar Reputable, Reportable, Repeatable
The three R's of a commercial weblog column are encapsulated in that heading - everything that comes out on your screen at home should contain at least one of those attributes. The better events or products get more than one tick. And if they go in the bush they get lots of ticks...
28 Feb The Alternative Solutions Again
Those of you who think they have seen these products in this column before are right - I've been mentioning these and similar items for years. But not everyone who reads this page with their Weeties has seen those older postings. The wonderful thing about photography is that it is a subject that always attracts new enthusiasts. And the fact of the matter is that the new enthusiasts sometimes have old problems.* The problem that the Unipal chargers from the Hähnel company addresses is the circumstance where a photographer discovers that they have no charger for their camera or flash batteries. Either it has been left at home while they travel or been stolen or lost. Or, if it is an older charger, it has just quit working. I've personal experience of this - having had to replace chargers on two separate occasions. It's not an isolated thing - every week when I was behind the counter there were a number of people who came in and wanted fresh chargers - sometimes several requests per day. It was the sort of thing...
27 Feb A System Of Photographic Economy
At the outset, let me say that I am not suggesting that you avoid spending money...
26 Feb The Camera Markets – Still Dancing
The Workshop Camera Club's Photomarket is an event that has been a part of Perth's photographic scene for over 25 years. I've attended lots of them - sometimes as a buyer and sometimes as a seller. Each one is completely unique and new...