17 Dec The Vast Waistland
I wonder if Newton Minow was thinking of camera bags at the time...
December 2019
16 Dec The Ghost Of Christmas Present
This is a powerful spirit - it rattles the cashbooks and money boxes just like Jacob Marley in Dickens' tale. And it will not be silenced. You buy it and wrap it and give it or else...
12 Dec Hard Shell Easy Sell
The Camera Electronic Emporium Of Imagination has struck again. I gathered an armload of Lowepro camera cases off the racks this morning and started to think hard about them. Hard is the operative word, as these are a departure from the normal floppy cases and bags that we see. Of course, Lowepro make literally dozens of styles of bags at any one time, and I would be willing to bet that in the 11 years since I started on the CE shop floor, there have been hundreds of designs pass through. And thousands of Lowepro bags are out there in Australia right now protecting camera gear. I've got two very old Nova 1's that trot out at intervals to carry specific camera combinations on trips. Okay - I've got two 1990's Lowepro's...
12 Dec Be Humble For The Holidays
The upcoming holidays are expensive affairs - food, drink, decorations, housecleaning, etc. Whether you do it with a few people or a great many, you spend a lot of money, time, and effort to entertain and visit. If you are trying to fly somewhere the local baggage handlers, airline pilots, or ground staff generally commence industrial action. This is also expensive in terms of bookings, accommodation, and nervous stress. But where would Australia be without a holiday tradition like this...
11 Dec Curing A Hardened Heart
There are several well-documented ways of curing a hardened heart: Read Emily Dickenson poems and weep silently. Read " The Pickwick Papers " by Dickens and laugh out loud. Triple bypass surgery. Buy a colourful camera. This last may not show up in the literary or medical world, but I can assure you it's real down at Camera Electronic. For some reason, the Nikon Corporation has its moments of whimsy and tends to translate them into photographic machinery. They are not all intended for the young, either...
10 Dec That Curious Little Symbol
In the heading image - the symbol engraved into the side of the Nikon camera lens. Looks like an expanding rectangle. Never knew what it was until a few weeks ago. I often wondered if it was a warning about biological hazards...
09 Dec I May Have Been A Bit Hasty…
When I undertook the assignment of illustrating a catalogue of scale models for my club I got an attack of the Gottahavits - it occurred when I rounded the cabinet with the Lume Cubes in it and was probably just a recurrence of an old malady. The thought of using these tiny LEDs as a miniature studio light had been lying dormant since I first reviewed them several years ago. Cute goods sell in Japan and cute sells to me...
06 Dec There Are No Words
I am sometimes lost for words - not often, but when it does happen the silence can be deafening. Mind you, that's a very good thing, because if I don't say anything, I don't say the wrong thing. Fortunately, this reticence and wisdom rarely extend to my writing for this column so here goes: What the actual...
05 Dec The Holidays Are Coming
And what better tradition than to cut out pictures of the presents you want and leave them casually around the house for the family to see. Or beside their cereal bowls at breakfast. Or nailed to the door. Try to be subtle. I am going to print out several copies of the pictures you see in this column - I have a Gitzo tripod, you see, and at present it has a lesser maker's adjustable head on top of it. Of course that's working fine but in the face of something as magnificent as this device, I am helpless. The advantages of three-way heads are many fold; they can be quite a bit tougher for a smaller profile than their ball-head alternative. They can also be more precise in movement, as you shift one plane of movement at a time. You can frequently come back to the same position reliably. I was dead pleased with what I saw, desiring it mightily...
04 Dec Snake Season
And we don't just mean at Tomato Lake or Jackadder or in the carpark of Murdoch Hospital...