I Lost My Heart...

In San Francisco. Tony Bennett found it, but won't send it back. Bummer, dude...

I also lost my charger, download cable, and flash stand for my Canon 430 EX II, 600 RT. Nikon Sb700, and 910 flashes. That's a lotta losing, but I am careless when I go out to do strobist shooting.

Fortunately Promaster have come to the rescue - they have just sent us a supply of the multi-mount flash stands. These have thee shoe positions with locking holes for the standard flash hot-shoe and a 1/4" threaded hole in the underside for the light stand or tripod. it is a proper brass threaded socket too - good and tough.

Now the loss of the charger is also solvable with a Hahnel universal charger and the cable can be safely dispensed with now that I have a Hoodman RAW STEEL USB 3.0 card reader.

But it still leaves the problem of Tony Bennett...

Begone Dull Care - Begone Dull Car

 Did goe to Gillam Drive yesterdaye for to see the hot rods and was greatley entertained.

This follows upon a visit to a celebration of the motor car on a previous weekend. The venues could not have been more different, nor the visitors, nor the cars. Indeed the photographers were similar, but with an important difference.

The venue is a strip of street that is lined with panel beaters, spare-parts yards, and chop shops. If you know what a chop shop is I need say no more about it. The street is hot in summer, cold in winter, and dusty withall. There is a lunch bar, that serves Chiko rolls and pies and pasties. With sauce.

The people who frequent the Gillam Drive show are variously described as rockabillies, rodders, rednecks, bogans, or motor-car enthusiasts - depending upon the prejudices of the observer. They dress well, and not so well, and badly, and appallingly - again based upon the observer. They wear caps, and hats, and mullets. Sometimes all three at once.

They are invariably cheerful, and well-behaved. They respect each other's cars and conditions. They appreciate the opportunity to show and see and cooperate with each other. They may not have as much money as the classic-car enthusiasts who gather under the gazebos of the expensive venue...but by God they have a great deal more style.

On to the photography - several Black Rapid rigs seen. Several people using battery packs - at least three of the experienced hands using fill flash. Lots of mobile phones and one iPad being aimed clumsily. No Hoodman loupes in use, but they were needed. I am still puzzling over the chap with the extreme wide angle lens and the 64X ND filter over the front of it...

For most shows I recommend a wide-range zoom but this time I experimented with a single focal length - the equivalent of 35mm on a full-frame camera. Had to frame tightly in small spaces, and would have appreciated a 28mm for that but still happy with the results. Not having to haul a big rig has advantages, particularly when you are trying to juggle a Chiko roll and a choc milk as well.

Ah, the taste of grease in the morning...

Whole Lotta Cardin' Goin' On

How fast can you go? How fast do you need? How fast is your camera? How fast are your subjects? How fast do you need to download?

Good questions - if you are in a speed race with the next camera club member and need to gain bragging rights by inching ahead in the Megabyte-Per-Second Stakes you can either use a whip on your rival or get a Hoodman Raw Steel Ultra High Speed SDHC card. Then you can fight it out amongst yourselves.

If you don't need quite the blistering speed but would like an SDXC card that will go at 60 MB/second and carries a lifetime warranty, may we suggest the new Hoodman High Speed SDXC cards that have just come into the shop. They are in 8, 16, 32, and 64 GB sizes and the prices are about a third of the Ultra High Speed version.

Now, my camera system still regards this speed as blazingly fast, so I get to benefit from the price advantage - you can too.

Scrub That Sucker Clean, Baby!

Those of you old enough to remember the 1970's may remember where - that - line comes from.

The real reason we are featuring lens cleaning products is that we have so many of them and you all need them. This town is full of dirty glass, as any day at our or repair counter will attest. The wise people have dirty filters on clean lenses and the foolish people have dirty lenses, but that is another tale - today it is the question of cleaning glass.

Firstly - do not get it dirty. Use a lens caps and keep your fingers out of the lens hood -and if you are subject to environments that are dusty, brush or blow it off the glass with a blower or a soft brush. If the environment includes oil, fingerprints, dog nose prints, or fragments of egg-salad sandwich with mayonnaise, you will have to go on to the active cleaning.

Look at the head and tail images. These products are all designed to get after those heavier contaminants. You'll see three packets of dry lens tissue - soft one-use paper that can be safely wiped over glass. I would recommend that you either use a commercial eyeglass spray cleaner to wet one of these, followed by a dry wipe with a second tissue, or resort to the good old el-cheapo alternative of one drop of washing-up liquid in a glass of distilled water. Do not use drinking alcohol to wipe over the glass surface, particularly do not use Midori or Advocaat.

A packet of these dry tissues are a good partner to a couple of the Hama Feuchtreinigungstuchen. Say that late at night and see what materialises in the dark....

If you are caught out in the field, away from the washing-up liquid, he best cleaners are the Hoodman Lens Cleanse packets. They are a wet then dry combo and can remove anything organic. Highly recommended by Ernest, the fussy technician.

Last on the list are the microfibre cloths - these are available from several manufacturers, including one with our shop logo emblazoned on it. Use them to keep the small bits of oily smear at bay - they can also be washed out when they become fouled.

Good News For Earlier Customers - Hoodman

I mentioned the new Hoodman Custom Finder and loupe for the DSLRs recently. It used the new 3.2 Loupes for Canon cameras.

Good news - they have also sent us their new Custom Finder Base Plate kit for $ 219 - and it has an adapter frame that lets you mount the older Hoodman 3.0 loupe with the new convenient frame. The 3.0 loupes are obviously not as wide a coverage as the 3.2, but if the 3.0 was the correct fit your older DSLR screen this frame will hold it in place very elegantly.

Will it go onto a smaller point and shoot? Next experiment, Dr. Watson...

At Last - Hoodman Makes The Video Loupe We Have All Been Waiting For

Yup. Hoodman have done it. They brought out the camera support frame to marry their new Hoodloupe to the Canon DSLR cameras.

This was on the cards for a while - as soon as the H-32  and CH -32 loupes came out with the integrated 1/4 20 threaded socket set into the underside of the body, we knew they were working on a support system for it.

In the past they had depended the 3.0 loupes from the hot shoe of various cameras - and we hasten to add that this option does still exist for users of cameras other than Canon. And there were rubber straps that hugged the DSLR body to position the 3.0 loupes as well. Heck, I even got one to sit successfully on an Olympus compact camera, which surprised even me...

But now we have the new Custom Finder Kit. Machined aluminium anodised black frame, with a firm and direct connection to the 32 loupe, and a proper connector for the tripod screw socket at the bottom of the camera. As you'll see from the images, there are also two adjustable support arms that rest against the front of the camera body and prevent twisting away from the loupe.

We do not know if these arms are going to let the custom finder frame sit against cameras from other manufacturers, but you can bet we're going to find out in the next few days. A little experimentation with an allen key is in order.

You'll note a big brass knob on the LHS of the frame - you can release the loupe holder from the main frame if you want to take the rig apart for normal still shooting.

Okay - if you are determined to take video with your Canon, this is your rig.

Losing It - With SanDisk, Promaster, And Hoodman

Did you know who the largest supplier of digital camera connector cords, camera chargers, and mobile phone charges the world is?

Hilton Hotel chain. They source them from the things that travellers forget in their rooms when they
check out.

We get daily calls for camera cords and chargers, and nearly always we advise the frantic tourists to get a universal charger and a memory card reader. The card readers transfer the data much faster than most cords and the camera batteries are not depleted in the process. They are also much cheaper than replacement cords, particularly when you find a manufacturer that picks a totally unique socket for their camera

Herewith please note three readers in stock now. The tiny Promaster for SD only, the mighty Hoodman for SD and CF and the SanDisk for SD, CF, and Memory stick. If your camera uses the Guatemalan FDQ/X-3 card with the reverse frammis, don't lose your cord.

On another topic, look through the viewfinder or screen of your camera and point the lens at the Eiffel Tower. If the tower looks fuzzy and pink, you either need to stop drinking before lunch or clean the lens of your camera. And the viewfinder and the screen - get yourself a set of LensPen maintenance tools and set to work.

The Filterklear and the Lenspen will do the front of the camera and the tiny little Micropro will get the back clean. They have  a cleaning compound and specially shaped applicators as well as fine brushes to lift off particulate matter.

If you have a grungy iPad or tablet look at the LensPen Sidekick cleaner - same idea with a big square replaceable cleaning pad. Your Facebook surfing will never look so good...