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20 Jun

Posted at 07:34h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

Okay, that's a predictable headline given that we were at the Western Star Mercedes showroom in Osborne Park last night and that we were clustered around  a grasshopper green Mercedes AMG 4.0 V8 BiTurbo sports saloon. No-one who came into the showroom missed seeing the car.  It would be an enormous hit wherever it went - Subiaco, Dalkeith, Applecross, Winthrop. Parking it might be easy but the anxiety involved in leaving it to the tender mercies of the other shoppers would be killing. All those doors opening...

14 Mar

Posted at 09:24h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

My first fiddle with a Nikon Z6 mirrorless camera and Nikkor S zoom lens today. Not a shooting fiddle*, but a chance to handle and picture it. And mighty impressed. Forgive yourself for not being able to see at first glance that this is the Z6 rather than the Z7 - they look so alike. There are internal differences, of course, to do with image resolution and size, shooting speed, and focus points, and the targeting of a less-demanding market with the 6 than the 7. But they look and act very similarly. The standard zoom fitted is 24mm to 70mm in the new Z mount - a Nikkor S lens. Note the stowed position, deployed position, and maximum zoom position. The rotation of the zoom collar into the stowed position will trigger a warning in both the LCD and EVF screen to the effect that you'll need to unlock the lens. The office is as neat as Nikon can make it while still preserving the D-pad as well as the joystick. No surprises there though I do commend the designers for...

08 Mar

Posted at 08:53h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

The heading image is not manipulated, apart from increasing contrast and dropping tones to give a silhouette. It shows the newest of the Olympus micro 4/3 mirror-less cameras alongside a workshop example of my first digital camera - a Nikon D1x. They are continents apart in digital performance and capability but look how close they are in physical size...

21 Feb

Posted at 08:56h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

I formed a very good opinion of the Fujifilm GFX 50S camera when I tried it out in my studio a year or so ago. The test shots done with a pin-up model in the style of a magazine cover pointed out the extreme detail available with the medium format sensor. The richness of the colour that the CMOS sensor produced told me that this would be s perfect studio camera - if the subject matter required a degree of enlargement and the price of the job would justify the extra outlay that medium format requires. I regretted that I didn't have that sort of business to justify owning the camera. I have now had a very brief chance to play with the alternate version of this camera - the Fujifilm GFX 50R - in an almost-studio situation. And as it was the sort of studio I dabble in, there was some point in me comparing that last experience to this one. The new Fujifilm has much the same sensor as its stablemate, but takes a different form - this one is...

15 Feb

Posted at 05:54h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

You gotta give it to 'em for showmanship. Cheryl and Maureen from Canon Australia set up their mystery display at Camera Electronic's Stirling Street premises a half hour before noon yesterday - but they insisted that no-one got a look at it until the 12:00 o'clock embargo was lifted. Apparently there were two other Canon Australia representatives down at the Murray Street Store. They were all mysterious but good at their word - dead on 12:00 we got to see the new Canon mirror-less camera - the Canon EOS RP. They got a crowd. They also got media coverage - Jennifer Villa-Lobos was doing a two-handed live Facebook feed for the shop. Saul was there to let people know about a special offer in respect of the new camera - there are special accessory grips available for the camera. People got to handle the cameras and operate them. The camera seems to be a lighter and smaller model of their current new EOS R mirror-less line - perhaps aimed at the travelling photographer. As you can see it loses none of the functionality of...

21 Dec

Posted at 15:04h in Newsletter by

Leica have announced the Leica D-Lux 7 camera. It’s the latest of their compact 4/3 sensor models with a fixed zoom lens - and just the thing for summer holiday travel. The lens is 10.9 - 34mm f:1.7-2.8 - that’s 24-75mm in 135-speak. The sensor has 17 megapixels and there’s a 3” touchscreen at the back as well as the conventional D-pad controls. Bluetooth and wifi, of course and a brilliant 2.7 million dot electronic viewfinder. It’ll shoot 4K video and even do focus stacking - there is also a flash included as an accessory in the kit. The newest feature is The fact that it will play with the Leica Foto App on your smart devices to let you fire your travel shots off as soon as you finish them. Your friends will avoid you for weeks… The Leica lenses are the real secret of thee success for this and the previous range of D-lux cameras. I had the good fortune to watch them being made in the factory, and the most fun was listening to the moulding machine finish one - to...

14 Dec

Posted at 09:02h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

I know you're going to do it. And Nikon know you're going to do it. At least they are not hypocrites about the thing - and they'll do their best to assist you to do it. It? The use of older Nikon F-mount lenses. The wise user of a new camera like the Nikon Z7 or Z6 will get a new full-frame Nikkor S-mount lens to go with it and will only add Nikkor S mount lenses to it in the future. They will have all the benefit of the new mount and the constant improvement that Nikon bring to their lenses. That's the wise user. The rest of us have shelves full of film-era and DSLR Nikon lenses that we are dying to try out...

11 Dec

Posted at 07:56h in Blog, Dick's Rant by

Aha! I have my hands on it at last - the new Nikon Z7 mirror-less camera and a suitable lens for it. The Camera Electronic Rental department has just taken one on charge and I got it for the day - with a new 24-70 lens made especially for this new lens mount. Plus a bonus in the bag. Note that I cannot do an unboxing for this one. Nikon have put a plastic guardian at the gateway to the goodies, and there is no knowing how they have stacked it inside. I'm guessing it's probably packed pretty well in there and they haven't had to resort to excelsior or old socks. Had that seal not been on the boxes, one of my problems would never have arisen...