Welcome To 1953

Well, it seems like that sometimes. I look into my clothes closet at home and the smell of nostalgia and mothballs wafts out. The holes still appear in my clothes - the insects have taken to wearing tiny gas masks...

Users of mirrorless cameras who are heading overseas and wish to trick the airlines into letting them sit inside the fuselage but not pay extra for it often ask for impossibly small and light tripods. Here is one from Cullmann, based upon time-proven technology: the pull-0ut leg.

This has pop-stops to keep it extended - you can't ask it to support a big DSLR, but it will to the little cameras a treat.

You can do a bit of videoing with the pan and tilt head as well. It comes in a travel bag and costs very little*.

* $ 119

Tiny Studio With Cullmann And Promaster

 For the last year I have been shifting a number of interesting boxes from Cullmann around the shop shelves. The studio support sets come in various sizes - from basic to humongous with every camp known to man - and up to now I have never experimented with them. And normally I try everything that is lying around undisturbed. Ask some day about the container of hydrochloric acid and the pool chlorine...

Any rate, the Flexx Support Set is the one I raided to make the editorial studio. The desk drawer slides backward and provides and edge to attach the camera support. I elected to attach the X-10 camera to it and it is totally solid. Exposures of a second are no problem.

Fortunately the exposures can be shorter than that with an aperture of f:8 to f:16 - the camera runs at ISO 500 now and there is a Cullmann Copter tabletop tripod that acts as a light stand. On top of it is a small Promaster LED 30 light unit. If I can wangle one of the new LEDGO units we'll have even more power and shorter exposures.

None of this lighting is Steve Sint stuff - it will take a little more time to figure out  good main and fill for this tiny area - but the ability to shoot fast and illustrate as soon as an article is written in invaluable.

Anyone who shoots products or tabletop subjects would be well advised to come browse among the Cullmann accessory kits.

Fustest With The Leastest

General Bedford Forrest was nearly right - he used to give his formula for success on a battlefield as " Git thar the fustest with the mostest .". He frequently did, though the logistics eventually defeated him.

In the case of a the wise traveller, it is still good to get thar fustest, but if you try to take the mostest you find that your back and legs give out. The images we take may be as insubstantial as thistledown, but the damn cameras, bags, lenses, tripods, and accessories are not. The fully equipped enthusiast who lurches from the hotel on Day One at 9:00 loaded down like one of Sullivan's mules will eventually be brought back at 4:00 by either a taxi or ambulance attendants. Day Two of the venture will be harder still, and Day Three will see them sitting in the hotel bar developing a case of the regrets.

Look at the Cullmann Freestyler in the picture. An extendable pole with a small ball and socket head at the end, and attachemnt for either a flash or a camera. It makes a good handle to put the camera or flash up above the crowd. Or round a convenient corner. It makes a tabletop monopod. Depending on how you orientate the stick you can take selfies in either landscape or portrait mode. It has a 1/4 threaded socket on the bottom of the stick and you can attach it to the top of a tripod to make a light stand. It may be possible to use it at a Girl Guide campfire to toast marshmallows...

Remember every 10 grammes of weight that you save as you leave the hotel becomes a kilo when you return. And 5 Kg the next day....

Round The Houses Again

Nothing like a fine spring day and a 40 year-old Novoflex accessory that has just turned up at the back of the shelf to get the blood singing. As I take aspirin, it sings in a thinner voice...boom,boom.

No, take a look at the rig. The bottom is a Novoflex turntable that you can still get and the top is a Novoflex focussing rack that was made in the 1960's . It would be unfair to show youthese xcept for the fact that you can get a modern version of this from Novoflex right now. The tripod is the Copter from Cullmann.

Why?

To take full advantage of the panoramic feature on my beloved Fuji X-10. This allows fast and dirty panos at 120º, 180º, or 360º but since it allows precise central rotation in the vertical axis, the panos stay quick but come up clean.

The Fuji has the tripod socket offset under the camera - the macro slider allows me to recenter it over the vertical axle. I levelled the rig on the top of a convenient rubbish bin ( Oh we are sophisticated in Stirling Street...) and spun the camera as directed by the internal program. Perfect pano.

Note that you can change the direction of rotation for the actual shooting. I realised this after the fact - look at the hideous distortion of the cars in the 180º shot.

Note also that you can do this sort of thing with the Panomatic but you might have to do a bit more setup.

Round The Houses With Cullmann

The panoramic photograph seems to have been to be the soupe du jour - or is that the suppe di anno? Whatever, everyone was doing them them last year. As a number of manufacturers make wonderful equipment for the specialty, we hope they do them next year as well.

The heavyweight star of the panoramic brackets is. of course, Manfrotto,. The MH057A5 head is magnificently equipped for horizontal or vertical panoramas with a great deal of precision and repeatability. It can accommodate the largest lenses that one might choose and has adjustable click stops to let you take your exposures rapidly. It is super-engineered and so heavy that if it fell on you from a tall shelf, it would kill you.

If you wish less risk but almost the same expense, I recommend Novoflex products. They are also engineered but with elegance and style. They are also lighter.

These used to be the two choices for the big player, but now Cullmann has come out with a design as well. The Concept One system from Cullmann has a similar precision turntable that bolts on to the stem of many Cullmann ball heads. I should mate it to the 6, 7, or 8 series - or onto the dedicated Concept One heads. The big ones are BIG, so do come in and find one that matches your equipment.

The Concept One mounting plates are Arca-sized and I note that they make a corner mount that allows you to mate up two of their longer plates to make an L-shaped bracket for vertical mounting. Neat use of the existing equipment.

One final note - for simple panos with little cameras try the Panomatic and for even simpler ones use the Fuji X-10 and X-20 in the SP mode - there are 120º, 180º, and 360º settings and all you do is spin around slowly. In the case of the 360º one you spin around until you fall down...

Hands Across The Table - Cullmann Studio Set

I wish I had an underwater studio. Then I could employ an octopus as an assistant and whenever I was trying to photograph a complex setup on the tabletop there would be extra arms available to hold things.

As it is, what might look like a simple bunch of toy cars and their associated scenery might be propped up with toothpicks, Blu-tac, double-sided sticky tape, folded matchbooks, piles of rice...the variations are endless as I try to show he object but hide the support. Photoshop is helpful to erase shadows but the more you can do at the time the less fiddling you do later.

Enter the Cullmann Flexx Studio set. A whole kit wrapped in a nylon carry bag that attaches to table edges, or smooth flat surfaces, or cranes over from a light sand. there are clamps, grips, and a ball head with a cold shoe for a speed light. There are extension poles and goosenecks. It should allow me to get a steady shot while holding a lot of the heavier little components at awkward angles.

Guess what I am going to push for as a Christmas present...

PS: You can get smaller sets as well, but this is the big daddy and I deserve the best...

A Day With My Scaley Mates

Did goe to the Reptile Expo yesterdaye and was greatley entertained.

It was held at Bogan Central - otherwise known as the Cannington Agricultural Hall. The reason for the nickname is instantly evident, but so many fun things happen at this venue - the toy car expo next weekend and the collector's fairs, etc. - that the occasional flannel shirt and uggs is a small price to pay for the pleasures. Even if you are the one wearing them...

So - yesterday was reptiles, and it was a typical Perth experience - and eye-opener as to just how many people are interested in a subject, how sophisticated their knowledge is, and how much trade and commerce there is out there to support it. It is the same with quilt sewing, hot rods, iron ore mining, and Lithuanian ferret racing - give them a day out and there are a million people there.

We took a stand of goodies that might interest a reptilian - DGK grey cards, Adobe image programs, Datacolor Spyder - and a some magic Nikon cameras and a coupla Cullmann products.

Well, the 10:00 lecture from me on wildlife photography was attended by me. And after ten minutes even I left. Everyone was having too much fun with the rest of the snakes to want to listen. In the event, they did come and ask sensible questions at the stand.

They ran a photographic competition that was won by three suitable shooters - first and second prize were a father and son team and son beat father. I should advise him to guard his prize - a Cullmann 525 tripod and big carrying bag - well as there was a predatory gleam in Dad's eye...reptiles do that to you.

One thing was impressive - everyone from the pure enthusiast all the way up to the two wandering officers from the Conservation Department had the interests of the animals at heart - none of the reptiles were ill-housed or ill-treated. Some of the pythons seemed to be exercising a wicked sense of humour when they were allowed to climb over pretty girls. The frogs looked nonplussed and none of them elected to turn back into princesses no matter who kissed them. The bobtail goanna in the terrarium next to our table was prosperous - his keeper obviously knew exactly the right diet for him.

The day was a success - next Sunday is toy cars and I am looking out my tracky daks and Jackie Howe shirt in preparation. I wonder if I have time to grow a mullet before then...

Sit Up And Beg - With Cullmann

Couldn't resist that one, folks. It is Friday and I am sitting in the editorial office avoiding manual labour...

The Cullmann Cruiser is one of the items reminiscent of their early products. Cullmann always did have some sort of a shoulder stock for use in the 8mm film days. People would attach their Bolex or Bell and Howell cameras and then press back into their shoulders like a rifle shooter as they filmed.
The combination of the stock plus the muscular tension as the camera was pressed back against the forehead or circum-orbital bone  meant that the resulting footage was very much steadier.

Same thing these days with DSLR's and video - indeed for any DSPR shooting in landscape orientation. You can gain a full shutter speed down with this.

The fun bit of the Cruiser is that the shoulder pad folds into the stock and then two auxiliary legs fold out to make a table-top tripod. One more clever Cullmann product.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

If the most exciting thing that is sitting on your studio table is a dried up coffee-cup stain, it is time to head on down to Camera Electronic for something new. We have fresh coffee-cup stains.

No, no, apart from that - we have the perfect answer to the boring table top and the shaky camera - the little tripod.

If you are on a budget, look to the Manfrotto 209,492. This used to be known as the Table Top Tripod until Manfrotto got all streamlined and efficient and gave it a new number. It is a European number too, as you can see from the comma in the middle...

Apart from this, the tripod is a beauty - the thing breaks down into legs and head and the attachment is good old 3/8" at the joint - you can put other things on there. I use on with the Fuji X-10 and am delighted with it.

If you are not on a budget, consider the Leica Table Top Tripod. The three legs swivel under each other and lock with the wing nut. There is a standard 1/4" camera screw on the top, and the finish is glorious grey hammer tone.

If you are not easily startled, consider the Cullmann Magnesit Copter. You can break it down in the middle like the 209,492 but the screw is 1/4". The legs when clasped together with a rubber band have hole down the center that can fit on a standard light stand. The legs have rubber feet. If you are nervous, it does come in black as well.

Uses for table top tripods? Selfies in restaurants. Studio support for closeups. Light supports for speed lights. Balancing a camera on a fencepost or rock out in the field. Holding against a wall with a standard SLR for a long-exposure night shot. Impromptu chest pod. Low-level camera shot out at night. Low-level camera shot chasing flowers or fungi. Discrete tripod work at wedding receptions.

Henri? Well, you'll have to look that one up yourself...

Sticking To Your Post - With Manfrotto And Cullmann

Saturday night last was a  revelation for me. I attended a hafla - a dance show for Middle Eastern dance - at a local school auditorium. The evening was four hours of wonderful dancing to terrible music by talented dancers in colourful costumes. I hasten to add that the experience is not new - I do a half dozen of these a year. What was new was the equipment I took along.

Camera the same, flash the same, flash bracket the same...even the same old sandwich and bottle of beer in the camera case. The new bit was the monopod.

Four hours of holding a heavy DSLR rig is no fun, particularly if you are in a kneeling rifleman's position. Eventually your arms start to ache. This time I supported the weight of the camera and flash assembly on a Manfrotto carbon-fibre monopod and only had to concern myself with the zooming and firing. I was able to sit on a chair for some of the time as well, and my toes thanked me for it.

The one worrisome point was the fact that I had the camera in landscape position for most of the evening - fine for the wide shots when the whole troupe comes out, but it meant some cropping for portrait orientation on individual dancers. Fortunately my Nikon camera at 400ISO will support this sort of trimming and the resultant images should be all that the dancers could desire.

Oh, the blessed relief to be able to let the Earth support the weight and just move the camera around.

It struck me that the video people would also appreciate this facility with the dedicated Manfrotto monopod you see in the heading photograph. The thing stands fully a man's height and is in itself heavy enough to take even large video rigs. The fluid head means smooth pan and tilt and the monopod is equipped with a very wide-pread foot for use in boggy ground. There is a self-centering mechanism in that foot that basically allows the monopod to stand upright of its own accord, as long as there is no camera on top.

I know that sounds silly, but it allows you an extra degree of flexibility when you are mounting our dismounting the rig if no-one is there to stabilise it for you. You can't expect it to balance the full rig without you holding on.

I know monopods are not new to Perth photographers, and they are in the basic pack of many sports shooters. But there may be far more uses for the theatre and wedding people - particularly if they want to make use of lower light and a slower shutter speed. I know I was able to drop my basic speed to 1/15 second for the dancers - the flash froze them, the background burned in, and there are the occasional little speed lines where a fringe of beads moved. Magic.

Oldest Resident In The Village - Your New Camera

What is the oldest piece of photographic equipment you own? What is the oldest piece of equipment in your kitbag? Are they the same thing?

We all keep stuff way past what the manufacturer reckons we will - way past what the retailer would do. It might be a rattly old tripod ( missing the quick-release plate, as they always are...) or a scruffed-up flash that we bought on holiday in 1969 ( with a voltage surge over the terminals of the PC socket that would weld titanium...) or some such relic.

Why do we keep it? Because we bought it - or someone gave it to us - or we found it on the verge at the last collection day. It has formed a mental value for us that far outweighs any real benefit. In the case of the Flash Of Death it is actually dangerous to the rest of our gear.

How do we escape from this? Well, joining a religion that eschews all material possessions is a good way - provided you do not have to stand and watch as the high priests fight over your goods. Shaving off one side of your head and changing your name to a hieroglyph is another - and has the benefit that you may be offered a place on a television show panel. As the very last resort you can take whatever it is to the camera market. If it sells, well and good. If it doesn't, try to find someone who has left the window rolled down on their car and ditch it in there, then run.

Now that is the last resort - and a time-share one at that. Beyond the last resort is the zen solution. Look at whatever it is that is sitting there until you can figure out what it does. Then go out and do it. If it is successful and you feel better, bring it back. If it does not work, bin it.

Note that this approach also works with clothing, books, and sporting gear of all types.

Remember that if you suffer pangs of remorse,we are fully equipped down here at the shop to supply new old gear to take the place of the last lot.

One Big Hairy Head - Cullmann Video

What do Perth's modern videographers have in common with the Royal Navy in the 1890's?

Simple. They both need stable platforms for heavy equipment. In the case of the former it is complex DSLR and camera rigs with follow focus mechanisms, matte boxes, and video monitors. In the case of the latter it is simpler - 2-pounder quick-firing guns. ( Not as good at weddings but excellent against torpedo boats. )

Back onto the video rigs. We have just taken delivery of a shipment of very large and precise fluid video heads by Cullmann. They are marketed under the Alpha 9000 VH name, and are suitable for carrying equipment up to 10 Kg in weight.

Standard 3/8" and 1/4" mounting socket on the bottom and standard 3/8" and 1/4" screws up on the removable top plate for the video equipment. Extremely strong and slow movement from the fluid-filled bearings, both training and laying.

The real surprise for me was when I turned the knob on the RHS of the head - the one that has the red arrow in the picture. It is a geared control for the camera plate to slide it for and aft. You can precisely balance your camera and lens once it is mounted on the head and can re-set it as you like when you change lenses. The collar around the knob is a positive lock.

Perfect match for the Cullmann Titan tripods.