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January 2019

14 Jan

Posted at 07:13h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

We were always expected to maintain a stiff upper lip in school - even when the various pedants set above us had descended to throwing chalkboard erasers and hitting us with sticks. It was meant to show character. I was fortunate in that I had none - and therefore the scornful commands had no effect. As far as stiff upper anything in photography, the closest we come to it is a large tripod anchored in concrete. Useful, but limited when you want to take it down to the beach or out to a race track. The Chinese firm Zhiyun have a couple of alternative suggestions - one of which is seen in today's column: the Crane Plus. If you are going to use your camera for video work you are probably going to have to take it elsewhere and move with it as you shoot. The possibility of shaky images and jumpy screen shots increases  as you get more imaginative and faster moving. Here's the answer for the DSLR or mirror-less user - the Crane Plus. You charge the batteries, load them in...

11 Jan

Posted at 08:16h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

And who wouldn't trade a bride if they could, eh? I stopped being romantic about weddings a long time ago, but I suspect that there are many who still are - not least the people getting married. Thus the business of wedding photography employs quite a few people. Some of them work for studios - some of them work for themselves - but they should all work for the married couple If possible, with them, not against them...

10 Jan

Posted at 07:50h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Okay, that's hooey. Plastic dies regularly - just when you need it most. It explodes into shards and falls to the ground. Witness plastic cutlery and dinner plates. But plastic design never does - and we've been seeing plastic design in the matter of photo tripods for decades. Here's an example.   Sirix are a Chinese firm who make tripods that look remarkably like the ones we saw 20 years ago on the general photo market. Their legs and tripod screws are metal, but nearly everything else about them is black plastic. To be fair, it seems good quality material made up in familiar form. Professionals wanting an industrial-grade tripod for studio use can stop reading right now and go earn a living. The rest of us may actually benefit from the Sirix Digital Tripod more than you'd think. To start with...

09 Jan

Posted at 08:45h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Here's a little product that was lurking on the sales floor this morning in CE - the Kii Pix instant printer. It is the sort of device that is somewhat practical ad totally fun. And it will sit and fit with a lot more people than you'd imagine. The mobile phone - or smartphone, if you come from a part of the world where phones are more intelligent than their owners  - contains a lot more of the imagery of the world than the average camera. It certainly contains more of the personal history - once the call records are subpoenaed...

08 Jan

Posted at 08:02h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Knobs, as opposed to buttons. Some retirements have calibrated dials and vacuum tubes that need to warm up before they work - that is why retirees rarely start to really move before 9:00 in the morning. ( Except for the ones who have a front porch overlooking the freeway and they like to sit out with a cup of tea, watch the traffic jams, and laugh...

07 Jan

Posted at 09:47h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

I reported on the Fujifilm X-100F some time ago - comparing and contrasting the black version of this camera with the black X-100 that I owned at that time. They were separated by a number of generations of development but closely tied in form and function - go look in the archives of this column if you'd like to read the original articles. The last report on this one was on the 22nd of June and was pretty comprehensive in explaining the retro nature of the model. I'm afraid I got canned on our Facebook page for this post by a reader who thought I hadn't pointed out the right features. I daresay he is leaping for the keyboard right now, but what the heck - the camera is a bit of a gem. This week I was curious to see what might be made of the images taken at closer distances...

04 Jan

Posted at 09:51h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

And this time it's not the maple syrup - it's the vexed question of what lens to get whan you have no idea - no idea what you you will be taking pictures of, what your camera can do, where you'll be going, or why you want the pictures. If this sounds a bit vague...

03 Jan

Posted at 09:28h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Not where I come from, it isn't. Mind you, we tended to put maple syrup on everything. I'm surprised I still have teeth, eh? More to the point, is it a pancake lens if it actually amounts to a standard focal length? Should it be a wide angle if it is going to be short-coupled? Is there another name we can apply to it? Yes. I call the Panasonic Lumix G 20mm f:1.7 ASPH II the fighting lens. It is just a little bit shy of a standard lens for the micro 4/3 sensor...

02 Jan

Posted at 09:50h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

More to the point, do I agee with a lady who writes for DP Review about a product that someone else makes. Do you agree with either of us? After Christmas dinner, Boxing Day barbeque, and New Years Eve buffet, will anything ever agree with me ever again. Or is it a lifetime of Mylanta? Well the chief topic of this controversy is a Panasonic product. It's a micro 4/3 camera and associated lenses that comes into the portable/enthusaist category as a new product. It's the direct successor of several previous models - building upon their form and with many of their unique features. And for me, it is recollection of the past - I was allowed to use one of the previous cameras on a trip to Japan. While I could not retain it until now, testing the new evocation has answered a lot of quetions formed at the time. The camera is the Panasonic GX9K - mirrorless interchangeable lens with a micro 4/3 sensor. It is formed with an EVF at the upper left corner and small enough to be considered...

01 Jan

Posted at 09:43h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

We've been shaking rockets at people for years - and no-one has ever invited us to disarmament talks. In fact wise people buy them from us for their own use. The Giotto people were very clever to mould the air bulb of their camera cleaning syringe with four stubby fins at the back end of it. Not only does it allow you to set the thing on its tail and keep the nozzel out of the dust, it makes for unbeatable advertising copy. I note, as well, that they have put " environmentally friendly " on the packaging to make people feel better. I bet Thiokol and Lockheed Martin don't do that on their ICBMs and they probably don't get half as many sales to the general public...