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Landscape Tag

29 Jul

Posted at 08:10h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

I'll have something for the rest of you later in the week. Today is for the analog landscape and portrait artists. Some people see them as a dying breed - what with the rise of ever-larger or ever-smaller digital sensors. But they are not unhealthy at all - just selective in what they photograph and what they use to do it. This Fujifilm GF 670 Professional camera is sitting in the secondhand cabinet at Camera Electronic - ironically on an X-system plastic plinth.  It is one of the last of a very long line of traditional folding cameras - remember the Zeiss Ikon camera you saw here a few months ago. But this one gives no quarter at all as far as lens quality and resolution. It is superb.   The format that the camera seems to support is 120film in a 6 x 7 cm gate. However, if you prefer a sqaure format you'll find that there is a switchable mask inside the camera that can pare it down to 6 x 6. You choose as you load the film. Users of other...

10 Jan

Posted at 09:27h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

If your camera could use a 100mm set of filters for effective light control during landscape or seascape shooting, NiSi have packaged up a holder kit to make it easy - and they have looked ahead to the conditions where you might be forced to use three filters at once with an additional circular polariser. Don't let people laugh at you for this or ask if any actual light gets in through the lens. They'll be sorry when you show them the seashore shot with a misty effect under the wooden pier pilings and the night sky above it with the Milky Way. What price their old pictures of sunsets now, eh? Apart from the one-upmanship of multiple filtration, there are valid reasons for using the kit. You may indeed have a bright sky and dim sea or land base that need equalising. You may have mountain slopes in similar tones. You might not be able to shade and blend the scene using your hat and an old cornflakes box cut apart. That's where professional filtration systems and their attendant holders come...

11 Jun

Posted at 06:49h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

If you are determined, we can't stop you. Indeed, the best thing that can be done is to reach into the Sigma cabinet and pull out the 14mm f:1.8 DG HSM Art lens and let you put it on your Nikon or Canon. Then you can head out for your architecture, landscape, or astrophotography and we can feel that we've done our best for you. You will not go away lightly - you'll be adding 1120 g to your burden, and if this is out bush to get the landscape or the star view, that's a significant weight. No wonder- the barrel is fully professional and there are 16 elements - three of them aspherical - inside it. You'll be operating the aperture electro-mechanically with either mount and you'll also have an option to add a rear filter if you're using the Canon version. Quite what you can do with a filter arrangement up the front is beyond me - this is a very wide view of the universe for a full-frame camera - and the adaptation you'll need for a graduated...

18 Dec

Posted at 07:48h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

I always love to see Three Legged Thing products - they are colourful in a world that is becoming just black, silver, and grey. Like little sports cars on the road in bright paint jobs - they make photography fun. These Three Legged Thing QRII LC brackets make it more steady too - they are anodized aluminium L-brackets that will fit many DSLR and mirrorless cameras. I found orange and blue and there may be green available as well. The bracket is essentially Arca-Swiss size but has been made universal for most cameras. The side piece can be unbolted from the baseplate if you only want a bottom rail - though I often use the side rail on my bracket in the studio when a portrait-mode picture is needed. There are several threaded sockets in strategic places and very sturdy strap attachment points at the top and side. I use a wide woven cotton strap on mine. Note as well, the rubber non-slip grip at the bottom of the baseplate should protect the finish on your camera. The included carabiner is possibly intended to...

25 Sep

Posted at 07:31h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

You've got the bully beef or the mutton stew. And cans of plum and apple jam too. There's a tablet of salt and a biscuit of wood And you end up feeling fed-up good. Or you can go to Margaret River and have a different sort of MRE Experience. Here's a few bits of the local flora that I found on a recent weekend trip. I was fortunate in being able to poke around a bush track that abutted a forest. Every district has someone who is interested in it - a long-time resident or a zealous newcomer - and who is generally shyly bursting to tell you all about it. The thing is to find them and to give them a chance to do it. It may involve a little money, but the expertise you get in your exploration will make the expenditure well worthwhile. Any day you learn something is a good day. Expect to get dirty in some places, and tired in many more. You'll generally have to walk it some part of the way but if you pick the right season to...

20 Apr

Posted at 09:08h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

A great deal of photographic equipment is novel - at least it is the first time you see it. And some items are frivolous - mere mechanical bagatelles. Not so today's featured device. The box said Manfrotto 405 New Geared Head. I'm glad it was on a low shelf because I would not have liked to lift it down - it was a heavy box. The camera head inside turns out to be the closest thing to a naval cannon mount that you can buy commercially...

02 Mar

Posted at 08:25h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

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...