About This Blog    |    Press and Contact Info     |   Available Languages:

ENQUIRIES: 08 9428 7200

May 2019

29 May

Posted at 09:05h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

If you have a tendency to get confused by the very latest developments in digital electronics and have to sit down until the sparkly lights stop, you have my sympathy. Older users often run the gauntlet of newer applications, programs, equipment, sales personnel, and promotional material. We do not always have our children and grandchildren handy to get things going or reset them and in any case it is rather a fraught business - what with all the eye-rolling and muttering. It is often a pleasure to be able to do it yourself...

28 May

Posted at 19:51h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Today was to have been a treat for you - Stan Davies wrote several travel photography articles that have been waiting here for publication - I thought to give you one today. It was a corker about photographing in Northern Canada with a superzoom camera. While the Wordpress Dashboard here said that the article was published, there seems to be no sight of it on our regular website. I jumped at this and tried another of his works - on photography in Melbourne - this evening. Again it has mysteriously vanished into the aether. No sign of it. I'll be dead chuffed if they come back, but I've no idea where they have gone to. I'm not willing to risk making any more of Stan's good writing disappear by pressing random buttons. I just hope he has copies at home on his computer. Sorry about that, folks. The machinery is easy enough to operate, but when it does random things with no-one to regulate it, it can be stressful. Back to the regular program tomorrow....

27 May

Posted at 09:21h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

All those teachers who used to give you 95% on a test - even though you had answered the questions 100% right - and who haughtily announced that no-one could ever achieve perfection - were right. Of course the thing that they did not tell you was that they secretly felt that their pronouncement was 100% right, but that's getting into psychology instead of photography...

23 May

Posted at 10:05h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

I know you guys are in there. It's no good closing the office blinds and hiding behind your desks. I can hear you breathing. Hard. Look, all I want you to know is that we've got new competition and we're going to have to do something about it. See, I went to the local DIY store - you know the one - they've got a branch in every suburb and you can get drill bits and a sausage in a bun. I just went in to get some Gorilla Glue and MDF board because we're having people over for dinner and I wanted to make lasagna. Are you guys listening? Well, it looks like they're selling cameras now. It's no big deal because they are mostly pine but if they get a foothold in the industry it'll be disastrous. What if they introduce meranti and jarrah? Telephotos in teak? This is just looking for trouble. So I want your go-ahead to start a campaign of sabotage. I've got a jar of wood worms at home that we saved from the last holiday dinner. I could...

21 May

Posted at 08:01h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

If you are a person who loses things because they have been stored haphazardly - consider that you have lost more than the goods - you have lost the timely opportunity to use them. Too often you've settled for making do with an automatic shot because you've left the accessories you could have used to do a fabulous job in the desk drawer at home. Reform yourself before it is too late with sensible storage from Lowepro: a. Memory cards If your cards are sliding around the bottom of your camera case amongst the biscuit crumbs and old tram tickets you are going to lose them. You'll pull something out and the gardens section of the Fosgood-Smythe wedding will come out with it and fall under the reception centre sofa. Try excusing that Mrs. Fosgood nee Smythe next day when she wants to see the proofs. Guard your reputation as you guard those cards. Put them into a clean, zipped Lowepro Gear Up bag...

20 May

Posted at 09:37h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

I like Gumtree - the local swap and sell app that you can run on your computer, tablet, or mobile phone. I have it on my iPad and it's the way I dispose of a lot of unwanted model or studio gear. And I have a secret when I use it - I can do good lighting for the items I want to sell...

17 May

Posted at 08:03h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

We cannot talk analog cameras without involving the Leica company - they are one of the very few makers of new film cameras. They are certainly the only manufacturer who has a new offering of absolutely professional quality. You get a choice of two fresh ones - the M-A or the MP. They shoot the same lenses but with the M-A you'll be on your own as far as judging exposure. Cheer up - many film packets have an exposure chart...

16 May

Posted at 14:30h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

I can remember a world without chargers. It also had nickel chocolate bars, Howdy Doody, and John Diefenbaker, so you can see how long ago it was. Since then we have, all of us, accumulated more devices and chargers than we can well use - and the only real solution to the way they have built up is to lose them. That is why we take holiday trips to foreign countries or to Melbourne. We can lose them deliberately - a sack of old chargers worn under a loose jacket can be scattered from the top of an open double-decker sightseeing bus. Or we can lose them inadvertently, as in a hurried check out the morning after the night before. But lose them we will, and this is why Camera Electronic sells an inexpensive Korjo universal power adapter. It is cheap enough that you can afford to abandon it when you do a runner from the hotel. If things are not as dire as that, consider the fact that so much of today's equipment needs a USB port to charge up from....