More Bang For The Buck With Nikon

Yesterday's arrival of the D7100 fills a need that we have felt for the last few weeks - an APSC-size sensor with 24.1 Megapixels and the Nikon lens mount.

The chassis is the well-proven D7000 type. Nikon enthusiasts know that this is the result of the continuous development all the way from the D60 days - as each successive generation of camera is introduced the body build quality improves - magnesium castings for structural rigidity - and the electronic performance steadily upgraded.

This means better low-light performance - improved video working - and in this case a more finely divided sensor. I hesitate to say that 24.1 Megapixels will be the final achievement for the 18mm x 24mm sensor because I know that some of the extremely tiny sensors on compact cameras and cell phones can be hold even smaller light-sensitive divisions. Who can say if the major manufacturers will try to make a higher number in the future...

In any case, this should be a perfect camera for the landscape artist or for people concerned with extreme detail. The carry weight of the camera with the average wide-angle lens is also favourable - it is no fun trying to lug a camera that is the weight of an anvil if you are expecting to climb mountains  looking for a view.

Likewise, workers who expect to lug the aforementioned camera through a long day at a wedding or event might welcome this sort of Nikon - every gram of weight you don't support means your arms will feel better.

Of course the camera has all the normal Nikon features - dedicated custom channels for pro's, helper programs for the perplexed, standard PASM for everybody else. Quick-clck bracketing button on the left side of the body so that you do not have to re-program it from the menu. Preview button tucked up near the lens for stopping down.

Interesting feature - if you can live with 15.3 Megapixels in your picture...you can turn on a 1.3X feature that gives you just that much more reach with telephoto lenses. In the case of the 18-200 I put on for the heading shot, this means you are fielding a 260mm. Good for sports - good for portraits if you really don't want to go close to the subject...

D7100 - in store now.

7100 Good Reasons

If I was a brand new Nikon D7100 camera where would I be right now?

In Camera Electronic at 230 Stirling Street.

If I was a customer who wanted a brand new Nikon D7100 camera where would I race into?

230 Stirling street.

Written at 10:54 on Wednesday.

Start the car...

I'm a Laydee - I'm a Laydee...

Sorry, its one of those television buzz-phrases that just lodge in the mind. But this certainly IS a camera for a Laydee.

Nikon Coolpix S01. Internal memory - 7.3 GB - no card needed. Internal battery - charges off the USB port of your laptop or other digital device. 10.1 Megapixels, 3x zoom lens, touch screen control, even does HD 720p videos.

And the size - that's a real 50 cent piece in the images - and a real hand.

Comes in gloss black or shiny silver. Peerfect for pocket or purse - even an evening handbag.

In-store right now.

The Best Tool For The Job

The best tool for the job - is frequently a debated point. One practitioner points to one item, another holds up something different, and the argument is on. If the job is a technical one the rest of the populace stands baffled.

Suppose you are a dentist who wants to take pictures of teeth and jaws - or a skin specialist who wants to illustrate surface lesions for lectures or books. Or a mechanical engineer who wants to show tiny little parts and mechanisms. You reach for a digital camera with a good close-focus setting and try your luck.

If you have the light just right, and the white balance just right, and the auto focus on and you don't shake too much, you might succeed. Equally you might be too much in the shade, or too blue, or too wobbly.

Rethink. Get yourself a decent DSLR or mirror-less camera. C, N, P, S, or O come to mind...clap on a decent macro lens that will allow you to stand back about a foot from your subject. Put the Metz Mecablitz 15 MS-1 digital macro flash onto the lens, set the flash to take orders from the camera and go for your life.

Note: experienced clinical and macro workers do not try to use the auto-focus on the lens. They set the thing to manual and lean into the subject until they see it in focus.

The Metz people have been making flash units for decades - I have my original Mecablitz 45-CT1 from 1975 and it is still producing saleable pictures - and I've added three more of them from garage sales...Suffice it to say that Metz is the standard of the small flash industry when it comes to reliability.

The 15 MS-1digital fastens to the front of the lens with threaded rings - rather like some of the filter systems these days. There is a quick-release for the flash if you need to do something else with the camera straight away. Metz also supply a funny little clip - rather like a hair clip - that you can see in the main illustration. It is used when your DSLR has a pop-up flash.

The idea of the 15 MS-1 digital is that it can take TTL synchronising information from your DSLR in the same way that remote flashes do. The clip goes over the pop-up flash to prevent visible light flooding the subject while the IR information that instructs the flash goes out the side.

In addition, there is a standard PC socket at the side of the flash to take firing instruction from cameras that do not have a commander flash.

The two tubes mounted either side of the lens are movable - they can toe-in to illuminate subjects at very short range. There is an integral diffuser that you can rotate into position to reduce the intensity of the light.

The GN for this unit is 15 in the metric system - 49 for the imperial. More than enough for intra-oral and full-face shots. It runs on AAA batteries and will poot out 140 to 200 shots at full power.

In short, Doctor, the 15 MS-1 and the C,N,P,S, and O will be OK at TTL for IO and FF.

But that is just my initial diagnosis...

Big Soft Sale For Big Hard Photographers

Go on. Harden up. Time to soften your photos.

We've just put out a sales stack of CL-brand soft boxes and suitable speed rings on our bargain floor near the front of the store.

The CL boxes come in all sorts of sizes - from little 40 x 40 squares up to massive strip and bed boxes. There are octas as well. Also deep and shallow types and some with recessed fronts so that you can fit egg crate grilles.

The speed rings are available for Elinchrom, Profoto, and Bowens - though there are a limited number of Bowens ones. As you'll see from the illustration, the rings are multiple-use types - they are colour-coded for where the rods are to be inserted.

These are well-built items and would serve a good long time in professional use.

The sale prices are 30% off marked retail for individual items - and if you buy the softboxes with a lighting kit we'll go to 40% off the softbox prices. It is a good opportunity to expand the light-shaping capabilities of your studio.

Timely Protection For The Road

Residents of Leeming, Bull Creek, and Winthrop may be interested in this posting.

We have a good supply of the GoPro cameras in stock this week - enough so that drivers may wish to purchase them in multiples of 2 or 4.

We can particularly recommend the GoPro Silver edition and we're happy to be able to report good stocks of suction mounts and curved adhesive mounts. You should be able to secure your cameras to most surfaces on the motor car and with a little careful measuring you can make arrangements for the cameras to see the front and rear bumpers as well as all the side doors.

Don't forget to purchase some of the SanDisk micro SD cards for your cameras - you'll want them to operate any time you are parked in local shopping centres.

Happy motoring...

Uncle Dick

Pssst - We Got The Stuff...

Psssst. Hey. Hey, you...c'mere. We got ya stuff...we got ya stuff right here...

You wanted binocular straps? We got'em. Light weight. Let the binoculars slide up to your eyes and down to rest. Op/Tech - ask for 'em.

Sick of hanging the camera around your neck? Try one of the straps that go on the right side of he camera and curve round the back of your hand. The camera can dangle there safely and you can shoot freely. Lots of manufacturers for this and they are all different styles -there's even one made of rubber for those times when you need rubber...

Want to light a macro subject without frizzling it up? Two clock batteries and a Macro light from Promaster are all you need. Ask me later about how good this is for the headlights of model car shots...Also good for nasal or ear surgery, I shouldn't wonder...

Uncle Dick

The Straight Eights - Buick and Sigma

1948 Buick Straight Eight with Dynaflow, thank you. Yes, I own it.

2013 Sigma 8mm to 16mm f:4.5-5.6 HSM, thank you. Yes, I own it.

If you are a photographer who wishes to deal with crowded interiors, with vast landscapes, with real estate presentation, or with large numbers of people - and you are using one of the APSC - sized cameras - then the Sigma 8-16 should be on your list of wanna-see lenses.

I bought one, with my own money, a couple of years ago. I have never regretted it. It goes to all my weddings for the church and hall interiors, it captures the largest wedding party, it opens out crowded exhibition halls and museums, and it makes tabletop photography look vast.

I can't use a filter on it as the front curved surface and the extreme angle of view would mean a very large filter indeed. Never mind - I don't use polarisers on any other lens and I am careful enough with the front surface of my glass. That petal lens hood is a metal protector anyway.

The joy of the Straight Eight is the giant engine and the luxurious appointment inside it. Buick were always the cars of successful executives. The joy of the Sigma 8-16 is the straight lines at the edges of the frames - no fish-eye curvature. Highly recommended for successful executives...

You can get the Sigma to fit Canon, Nikon, or Pentax. If you've got a D7000, a D5200, a D300 - or a 60D, a 650D, or a 7D....motor on down to the shop and let us fit you out with a superb lens. If you arrive in a Buick Straight Eight with Dynaflow you get a special discount!

New Cameras Here - Now New Cameras Gone

Want to see that again? Come to see us next week...

The new shipment of the Fuji X-100s came in yesterday and I had hoped to open up a box and show you the new camera today. Hah.

All 5 of the little gems are spoken for and laid-by. So I'm not even allowed to peek inside. Hence the pack shot at the top of this post. Most frustrating.

From the published information on the net it looks as though the Fuji people have upped the operational and focus speed of the X-100 - given it a new sensor, removed a filter, and generally turbo-tuned what was a brilliant camera to start with. If you Google over to the official Fuji page they have a promotional video that is interesting to watch.

All this may be contained within the box illustrated. Equally, the boxes may contain noodles, sauce, and a plastic fork - I won't know until the next batch arrive next week and I can have one to open.

If you are curious, join me. If you'd like to secure one for yourself, for heaven's sake ring us and lay one by - or we may be waiting another week.

Uncle Dick

Yay - Back In the Saddle With Pentax

Yippee - Tie-Yoh Pentax have got their mojo back.

After years of stylistic bouncing about, Pentax have wisely looked into their past and come out with a design that remembers how good things were.

I mean the new Pentax MX-1 camera. If you remember the Pentax MX cameras in the 35 mm film days, the features that stick in the mind were the solid build, compact size, and great feel of the top and bottom metal body panels. Pentax were wise and chamfered them to allow your hands to feel comfortable. Someone in their design department in the 70's knew their ergonomics - or more to the point, knew ours...

The new MX-1 has continued this tradition - so much so that the top and bottom plates are not just chamfered, but are actual brass pressings with proper chrome. As a result, the camera body has a solidity that is missing in some other brands.

The usual access controls have a solid feel to them as well - three dial wheels as well as the multi-selector. The screen is the horizontal tilt type so macro and low-level shots are easy. There is a 4 x zoom range and a macro facility that is bitingly sharp. There is a built-in flash for dark and an HDR program for lots of other conditions. 12 megapixels.

In all, a really well-thought-out travelling camera - this is the the one for the European vacation.