Going On Safari? Come Up And See Me Sometime...

The Safari Season is upon us. People are gearing up to look at the wild animals in Africa, Alaska, and Europe*. As we speak tourists are packing backpacks the size of refrigerators with DSLRs, lenses, flashes, laptops, and waterproof apple corers. Because you never can tell when you will need to can apples in Constantinople in a rain storm.

Wise tourists who have done this before and have the chiropractor's bills to show for it may elect to take a smaller rig this time. Consider if your ambitions and plans might well be suited with a camera that has a 30X zoom lens, 4 second to 1/2000 second shutter, manual aperture and shutter wheel, and GPS built-in. And a Leica lens. And a proper viewfinder on the LHS of the body. And full HD video with stereo sound.

And fits in your top pocket as you go through the door of the airplane. And for which you have not paid excess baggage.

Panasonic TZ-60.

You may not know which wine to drink with your biltong or cheese fries, and you may not know a bear from a banjo, but you can capture the fun and the scenery without making a guy or a mule of yourself. You will be less likely to attract the attention of the local pickpockets, or at least they will concentrate on your passport and wallet, if you are not carrying a camera shop on your neck. The grizzlies and hyenas will be less likely to demand a fee for posing if you do not shoot with a DSLR.

You'll still have to deal with the Europeans, but at least you will have your hands free while you do it.

Who Can You Talk To About Photography? Ten Good Ideas...

We all need to talk to someone. In my house they do it when I am in the john - no end of conversations seem to be vital to the other members of the family whilst one is sitting down. The only way I can think of breaking of this habit is to open the door but this involves some loss of dignity...

For photographers, talking to someone is essential. Around your birthday you talk to the family about how you really, really need the new 12-2500mm zoom lens that has just been announced at Photokina and how much better it will make their lives. Sometimes this works.

Of course there are different divisions of photography and it occurred to me that each one has a different form of conversation:

1. Family photographers talk to the family. Initially in soft sweet words and eventually in parade ground tones.

2. Good portrait photographers talk to their subjects. Bad portrait photographers talk to their assistants.

3. Landscape photographers talk to themselves.

4. Food photographers talk to themselves but in different voices. Sometimes the voices talk back.

5. Sports photographers talk to the St. John's Ambulance  attendants.

6. Fashion photographers talk to the models. Slowly, and with little words.

7. Leica photographers talk to the Almighty. Once, in the morning, to give orders for the day.

8. Camera collectors talk to their cameras.

9. Darkroom workers never talk.

10. Photography Art collectors talk to their brokers.

If you wish to add any to this list please pop it onto our comments section or onto the Facebook page attached to this blog.

Uncle Dick

Another Three Arrows In Your Mirror-less Quiver

The advent of the Olympus and Panasonic mirror-less cameras - the micro 4/3 system - has seen some amazing lens performance from the two manufacturers. Each have unique focal length and aperture combinations as well as shared equipment. There are special features abounding , yet there is one thing in common between them - a common mount and operation.

Now there is a third alternative - another exclusively Japanese manufacturer has taken options on the mount design and operations - Sigma is in the game.

And in a good way. Sigma is making three micro 4/3 lenses in prime form that are proving to be superb in terms of resolution and colour performance. The new " Art " design for the barrels is very smooth and sleek and they all have the feel of quality in the focussing.

We've tested them here on our cameras and our Olympus expert, Gavin, has had a chance to go head-to-head with equivalent Olympus lenses. Even he is impressed.

I am hoping that they also take up options for Fuji X mount and fill in with these focal lengths. I use a Sigma currently on an APS-C DSLR and am more than happy with the performance.

A Wonderful Chance To Pursue A Dream - With Iconic Images

Iconic Images International and Denis Glennon have had a chance to see a great deal of the world and have recognised that you want to as well, To this end, they have arranged for a world-renouned author and photographer to present a seminar here in Perth later this month.

Their speaker, Shem Compion has many awards and books to his name - he is a photographer, hide designer, and author. Now he speaks and conducts workshops that help others to learn the mechanics and rhythms of his art. He has one of the most successful firms in Africa that deal with the subject; C4 Images and Safaris - he has also provided work for the BBC series "Planet Earth".

His workshop will be held at the State Library of WA on Saturday, 17th of May. It goes from 9:00 to 4:30.

Details of this as well as tickets to book a place can be obtained by going to the Iconic Images International website - it pops up first-off on Google.

Or you can ring Denis on 08 9284 7373 or 0418 923 103.

The website has some magnificent images to whet your appetite - Mr Compion has the information you need to know to make your own.

Forget Forgetting - Carry A Spare In The Boot - With Promaster

No end of people need a tripod for the occasional landscape or group shot, but never want to carry their big studio model with them. They sometimes try to get a tiny travel tripod to attach to their camera bag but are horrified when they see the weight and size equation that this creates.

Overseas travel needs this equation to be solved with very small figures - but that means that the price goes up. That is inescapable - and if you add a further requirement of large lenses or camera bodies you need to go even further up the price scale. Eventually it becomes cheaper to just import the landscape rather than buy the tripod that you need to go photograph it...

If you are only going to be in the city, state, or country and plan to drive your car to the shoot, think about having a really cheap and light tripod in the boot of the car. It will be best suited to mirror-less cameras and it will not have carbon fibre or super complicated head but it will be there when you need it. If your wife drops a bag of superphosphate on it you'll only be out 50 bucks.

We've got good, cheap Promaster Vectra Delux tripods in store right now  for $ 50. Flip-lock legs, central rising column, three-way video head and even a little quick-release plate. You can afford it and you might just need it.

Something for the weekend, Sir?

When You Know What You Want...

You can get it.

This was borne home to me two days ago when the chief of a dance troupe brought her ladies to the studio for publicity shots. She could tell me where the images would go, what size they needed to be, and the projected colouration of the graphic designs. She told the dancers how to dress, and what poses she wanted. She watched them and aided their posing - between her and I we got the best out of them - even the novices. They were very theatrical.

The post-prod was a dream. The chief now has a selection of poses, groups, displays, dances, and costumes. The ladies are going to look magnificent. It all ran through Aperture with only 3.75% having to go over to Photoshop for serious correction.

As a result, the work time was dramatically reduced and the cost to the customer substantially less than it has been for other troupes.

Now, if you can do this in your own photography...I mean figure out before you sally forth exactly what you want to achieve...you can be equally successful. Okay, you don't have to approach it like a Prussian Guards regiment and never deviate in spite of the cannon balls, but do know what you want as you go for it.

This also has an echo here in the shop. Wander, please. Look, speculate, ponder. Ask an intelligent question if need be - the staff's little faces will light up. No need to tell us what the latest rumour site has reported because we read that stuff too*. In any case, do think  - for yourself - about what YOU want to do. Then you are more likely to be able to do it.

* I read it in theatrical accents - makes it funnier...

Rubber Balloons

Those of you who remember the Benny Hill sketch on television that ended up with the punch line " Rubber balloons " may now blush in shame....

The question of rubber arose the other week when the new Nikon D4s was shown here at the shop. The Nikon representative took all of the staff into her confidence about the new features of the camera. The more arcane aspects of predictive double back bounce around tracking focus were a mystery to me - other than realising that the camera makes pictures in focus in spite of the user  - but I did fasten upon one new aspect; Nikon have changed the rubber composition for the grips on this new camera.

Not before time. I use the Nikon D300 and D300s and love them for the images they take and the ease of use that they exhibit...but I hate the grips.

Oh, they are comfortably-shaped and soft and squishy, but that is because they apparently contain a large proportion of silicon in the rubber. They are fastened to the body panels of the camera with double sided sticky tape and while the tape takes to the body it eventually peels off the grips. They flap open under your hand. I've had the D300 ones reset by Ernest but my sweaty fingers will undo them again the the future.

Joy of Joys, Nikon changed the formulation of the  rubber for their new flagship camera. A little less squishy and a lot more likely to stick onto the camera for the foreseeable future. Good boys.

Note: the big Canon cameras don't do this, but their grips are a little harder and thinner. Leica has opted for a bare metal body on their new T, though you can cover it with a clip-on plastic surface case. Fuji, Panasonic, and Olympus seem to be able to stay together pretty well.

Now whether they various manufacturers have opted for well-shaped grips or not is another matter - and the subject of another blog...

Of Course You Can't...But Here Is Your Chance Anyway.

Never let it be said. At least not by you. And if someone else says it, go deaf.

There are any number of things that you can't do, but if you can maintain a healthy level of ignorance you can generally accomplish whatever it is that you start. Once you admit doubt and accept advice you are sunk.

It is the Wiley Coyote principle - you can run as far over the cliff as you like but once you look down that is where you go.

A case in point is one of the staff members who wanted a bowl of home-made chicken soup. Not having ever made it before he gathered the haziest description of the process, and a chicken and ran full-tilt at the problem. He appears to have succeeded, if the big bowl of chicken noodle soup and kneidlach that he put in the fridge is any indication. We shall be testing his skill at lunch time. If the shop is closed tomorrow, you may draw your own conclusions. I am willing to try it, but I ain't lookin' down...

Similarly, the owners of digital cameras can exercise the same courage and resolution by skim-reading their camera manuals, closing one eye and reading Ken Rockwell, and pressing all the buttons in the menu. I am doing that right now with one of  the Fujifilm cameras that I have - unfortunately the computer system I have is too old to support the RAW file for this camera, though it does support the files for the other two Fujifilm cameras in the stable. I am in jpeg only, though you must remember that Fujifilm jpegs are wonderful files.

My computer system is also of a type that does not show all the gazillions of colour variations that the professional EIZO monitors do, so I am going to restrict the colour space of the camera to the gamut that the screen can use - and that my screen readers can see - and see if it makes a difference to the actual end result. Some will decry it, and advise against it...but then they said that about shelling Verdun and that worked out pretty well in the end.

Circle The Wagons - Here Come The Native ISO's

The question about natives is...are they friendly natives?

The answer to this question sometimes depends on which side of he conversation you are on. ie. Don't ask General Sheridan and expect a comfortable answer...

In the case of the native ISO of digital cameras, this seems to be fixed around the 160-200 mark. I suspect that it is a characteristic of the actual component and is a function of the composition of the silicon layer and whatever the current state of division thereof. I have discovered that these sensors are manufactured by a very few companies - and in many cases well-known camera companies are using sensors that are manufactured by business rivals.

And they are all perfectly okay with this as each manufacturer takes the sensor and then does different things with the signal - one optimises it for one thing and one for another.

I was apprised of this by reading a book this weekend - " Mastering the Fujifilm X-E1 and X-Pro1 " by Rico Pfirstinger. It is a Rockynook book obtainable at Boffins Bookstore in William Street.

In the chapter that deals with ISO settings it makes the point that the native ISO of the two cameras it deals with is 200, and the camera always takes its picture at this 200 - even if you set it to ISO 1600 or higher. What it is doing to present you with a picture at that higher ISO is underexposing the image and then dealing with that underexposure through software. And apparently doing it very well.

This strikes me as true of all of them, and explains the improved characteristics of each new model of camera from any one manufacturer - they are not adding a new sensor in many cases - just re-writing the mathematics of the signal processing. Then I realised I was not reading carefully enough...

Fujifilm has a different sensor from others - it really does have a different pattern of receptor sites from most of the others, and can benefit users greatly in the way of resolution and clarity. The X-trans sensor may very well be quite different indeed. But I take it that it still looks at the world at 200 ISO and then just shuffles the electrons to get up to a clean 6400.

Who'da thunk it?

Reading The Book

" I don't know anything about cameras but I want one to take good pictures and I'm going away tomorrow and which is the best one? I get discount."

Good thing , that. Not the discount bit, mind... the going away part. You'll have a good 3-6 hours on a Boeing with your knees in your chin and you can balance the camera instruction manual on them. If you can't become an award-winning iconic master in that time well where is the world coming to.

You're in good company - a long line of Australians have headed to Singapore, Bali, and Bolivia with a new 35mm camera in a leather case and a little Japlish instruction book in the bag. The ones who took a boat were better off as they had more time to read and were not likely to have their ( mostly blank )  colour slides back from the processor until they returned home. It was disappointment deferred.

It was a bit better in the 1960's as there was a longer time-frame for a number of things. Items came from the eastern states at a slower pace and people in the west accepted that they might not get what they wanted inside a fortnight. There was no instant view of an item bouncing on a screen to promise them instant delivery. The wise ones used the time interval to study up on what to do with the new camera that was coming. The less-wise just opened the instruction book ( " Thank You for the buying to this fine instrument...") and winged it.

I must complement the writers from Japan. They now make an instruction book that instructs - it may be plodding and patronising, but it actually explains what happens when you press the button. The more cynical members of the trade sometimes feel that there are too many features offered ( full-time birthday face recognition predictive AF exposure compensation for pets being one, particularly when the Schnauzer is in HDR...) but people want to push buttons anyway so you might as well give them buttons to push. It keeps their fingers away from the front of the lens.

As for right now, please remember to put your instruction book into airplane mode before you buckle up.

Eight Bars Of Entertainment And Thirty Two Bars Of Music

Those of you who have ever attended a belly dance show know what I mean - particularly if it is traditional, nostalgic, and culturally sensitive. The saving grace for a photographer of these events is the fact that if you missed it the first time, you have three more goes to capture it...

The same might be said for many aspects of photography - I mean about the repetition. I see a number of club contests that set out categories for images. The contestants are pretty good in what they do - they follow the categories and fulfil the set subject criteria - and there is a very high level of technical skill.

There is also a warm nostalgia about some of the images. Not only is the image of the rusted 1937 Ford truck* in the wheat belt paddock evocative of 1937 and the wheatbelt, it is reminiscent of every club competition since 1938, both in and out of the wheat belt.

Some of the subjects are actually the same. Mrs. Ah Wen Chung has served as the wrinkled smoking Chinese woman for club photography since 1957. It has been steady employment for her, and apart from a racking cough, has benefitted her and her family.

We are hoping for a little change in the landscape section in 2016 as the Albany Shire Council has decided to cement up The Gap. If they sell off Wave Rock to the Chinese government we may have to fall back on sunsets and Bluff Knoll. Mind you, hauling a rusted 1937 Ford truck up the top of Bluff Knoll will be a royal pain.

Still, look on the bright side - in November of this year the Albany Shire Tourist Trappers Association will be combining with the Royal Australian Navy, The Not Imperial Any More Japanese Navy, and as many of the local RSL members as can be coaxed out of the bar to commemorate the passing of the ANZAC fleet in 1914. Albany will be Where It's At. What an opportunity for he photographer to capture the scene. Flags flying. Bands playing. Coffee stalls perking. Politicians speaking. Don't worry about missing the speeches - you'll have three more goes...

* The original 1937 Ford has been replaced with a fibreglass replica. Good from the front.

The Answer Is Right/Left To Hand

Yesterday I was discussing camera operation with one of our clients - he had just finished a trip to take surfing and landscape shots up through some wild country in the Dutch East Indies.

He was using a couple of the bigger DSLR bodies for his work, and was very successful in his capture - the surfing shots are perfectly timed and the village and lagoon images are wonderful art. All good for him, but he mentioned the difficulty he had in trying to operate a camera while he was travelling on a motorcycle.

The M/C had a throttle on the right handlebar and trying to operate a standard DSLR while controlling the bike sounded like a juggler's nightmare. Lucky he and the cameras are still in one piece. Right-hand operation being the absolute for all cameras now, he was in trouble.

Readers will remember that film Exakta cameras were left-hand operation, but this was a long while ago and a long way away. No-one seems to have been inclined to repeat  the design for the digital era.

Puzzling - the operation of digital cameras is electronic. That means the shot is done with the closing of an electrical switch. It might then cause a lot of electronic commands inside  but it starts with two bits of metal touching because you pushed your forefinger down.

Well, you can push your left forefinger down as well as you can your right one. More particularly, if the little designers in Japan can make a bolt-on camera grip with a trigger that sits on the right of the camera, they can make one for the left hand side as well. All it's gotta do is close that first circuit...

AND WOULDN'T THAT BE A HELLUVA WAY TO GRAB THE CAMERA MARKET AWAY FROM YOUR COMPETITORS?

You could dial into 30% of the population right there and you wouldn't have to redesign the main body. Just make a LHS grip with a switch.

GO, Boys. DO it. And remember that I could use another trip to Japan as a thank-you for the idea...

The Ball O Light - Gary Fong In The Steampunk Era

I am glad that the neighbours can't see me in my little studio. They would ring the department, the men in the white coats would come, and that would be the end of it. As it is, I close the curtains and put on my Mad Doctor outfit and start experimenting...

The current line of research revolves around a steampunk event that will be run in May. I've decided to run a portrait set-up and have been assembling the equipment and the lighting. The get-up is no problem - I've been wearing steampunk outfits for the last twenty years at various events and it has stopped being costume long ago - it is clothing now, and old clothing at that...

The camera is the new Moriarty Portrait camera - supplied innocently by Justin Moriarty and the Fujifilm company. Not that they knew it at the time, mind, but I'm sure they will be charmed by the results in the end. Hey, any company that deliberately gives me a sepia setting in the menu of their digital camera ( the X-E2) must expect me to grab the idea and run with it. If they will kindly put a daguerreotype, ambrotype, and tintype setting in as well I will send them a bouquet of chrysanthemums.

Camera sorted, I have turned to lighting. As tempting as it is to devise a lighting system that incorporates a miniature steam engine ( Saito Mfg.. from Japan), a motorcycle generator, and antique light fittings, the work and oily mess involved would make photography impossible. So I have chickened out and  opted for electronic flash.

The Elinchrom Quadra system would do it on a professional basis - two light stands, two heads, battery controller, Skyport trigger and such, but I don't own one and I don't want to borrow one of the Rental Department's kits. The idea of steampunk is you think it up and make it yourself.

I do own some Nikon SB 700 speed lights so I turned to one of them and the Gary Fong collapsible Lightsphere. In the top the sphere I dropped one of the silver diffusers - up until now I have never been able to make this chrome accessory do anything. Now it is brilliant. It fires the light out into a flat annular pattern while still allowing some of it to exit the top of the Fong going toward the ceiling.

The result is absolutely even lighting and some degree of reverse fill in the shadows to the back of the portrait subject. No hot spot on the frontal planes of the face and no burn-out on bald heads. ( I have found my own pate useful for test purposes...)

I've got the light on a standard light stand and  have found that the legs of it can stand within the compass of my tripod legs - thus reducing the chances for people stumbling over them in the dark of a ballroom. I am thinking of decorating the legs of the tripod to further warn off the punters.

Next experiment will be to reduce the output from the Fong and do a hand-held SB 700 with a snoot or grip for spot lighting. Steam on!

Serving On The DEW Line

Easter in our family is traditionally spent serving on the DEW line.

No, not that chain of radar stations and weather * domes across Alaska and Canada - someone else can sit up there and freeze if they want to. No, I mean DEW all the things that have built up over summer before the rains make it impossible. This includes cleaning the arrows out of the gutters, hosing the lounge room, and burying the pets.

It is also wise to clean and oil the photographic equipment and change any parts that have broken. Dead pixels can be removed from sensors - not a job for people with shaky hands, I must say - and the computer screen can be collaborated. Or is that salivated? Well you do something to it and then it is ready for winter.

This year I tried all the lenses on all the bodies to reassure myself that the contacts still worked. One battery grip proved to be faulty but when I checked it here at work it came good. I put that down to the beneficent influence of our repair department. I am still waiting for the batteries in my Nikon cameras to give up the ghost but they are proving to be immortal.

Cleaning the sand out of the tripod legs has proved to be both a good and bad idea - I have a small beach on the floor of the computer room now. I used shotgun swab to clean the inside of the tubes and then oiled them with Ballistol. It might not be what the manufacturers use but it has proved to be perfect for every other use I have ever put it to and I can't see why this won't succeed. The smell is very comforting - Ballistol in the morning smells like victory...

The computer was not neglected. I blew through the circuits with a 24 v aircraft starter battery and everything seems freer now. I used fffg powder last year and it let quite a residue.

So we're all ready for winter. Hope you've been as busy yourselves.

* New Zealand also has a DEW line. It has wether domes...

Shop Party - It's Not Just About Cameras

We wish to apologise for the noise. We have been celebrating the the refit of our showroom here at 230 Stirling Street. This is the sort of event that happens somewhat seldom, and we have been making the most of the opportunity.

I have enclosed a number of unofficial photos found in an old camera in a footlocker...there will be better pictures from our official photographer "Mr. Ernest" as soon as he returns. In the meantime you can get a feeling for the evening from this selection.

The venue.

The red carpet.

And I'd like to introduce...

The stars of the evening...

B1 and B2

One of them belongs to Leica and one of them belongs to us...

Sam And Frodo

Oh Myyyyy...

" See? I told you...

Yes, actually. They really are...

See? There's a C in the middle of the keyboard...

Now is actually a good time to come down and see us. The walls have been freshly painted and all the electrically-operated doors still open. We are stocked to the gunwales with cameras and lenses and there is space to move round the floor. Easter is upon us so get in today before it all sells out!

A Conflict Of Disinterests - Camera Choice For The Perplexed

Working at a camera shop is wonderful. You can play with cameras all day.

Working at a camera shop is horrible. You have to play with cameras all day.

Neither of the sentiments above apply if you are a customer. Then being at a camera shop is exciting...but totally confusing. The modern world is presenting you with so many choices and alternatives that you are hard pressed to make a decision. You might want to press the button, but unfortunately Kodak is no longer there to do all the rest.

The keen enthusiast dives into the internet and reads every forum and rumour site there is.  If they are of an (ahem)..."older generation"...they look out CHOICE magazine from the local library and photocopy pages of advice. I can say this because I am of the same generation and go to the library regularly to look at the lingerie magazines. Readers of CHOICE would do well to remember that every public library has a fiction as well as non-fiction section...

Okay, armed with a looseleaf of papers and a mind full of internet camera equipment flame wars, the prospective customer comes in the shop. If they know what they want, see it on the shelf, open their wallet and whack out their credit card, the whole thing is easy. If they present 5 different opinions about 5 different cameras gleaned from other sources, it all starts to look like the battle of Verdun on a wet night.

One of the smartest things that the prospective camera buyer can do is draw up a list for themselves...in their own handwriting...of what they are NOT interested in. If they don't do portraits in the studio they don't need a portrait lens. ie. they don't need an 85mm f:1.4. If they don't want to go out taking landscape shots of the beach they don't need a 10-20 f:3.5 lens. If they are not interested sports shots they don't need a pro-DSLR with 10 fps capability. And so on...This can eliminate a lot of worry.

After the person thinks out what they don't want, they can think what they do want. Family shots, wedding coverage, fungus in the forest at f:4...whatever. Just as long as they are honest with themselves about their core interests.

Finally, they can see if there are any really odd things that would be fun, but not be absolutely necessary. Automatic toast recognition. HDR food baby sunset mode. With star trails. No matter what the customer can think of, they cannot think wider than the Japanese designers, because the Japanese designers drink at lunchtime. The trick with this category of features is not to make them the central point of choice.

Or CHOICE, if it comes to that...

Adapt That, Sunshine!...With Fuji And Sigma

Having watched one of my workmates go through a little fit of adapting strange and horrible lenses to his mirror-less Olympus camera...with all the resulting distortion and confusion that you could predict, I vowed never to follow suit. The Olympus lenses he had were wonderful and the old lenses from the back of the drawer were terrible.

Then I got a Fuji mirror-less camera that would accept X-mount adapters, and visited a camera shop that had adapters for it and of course I bought one. I am nothing if not inconsistent - constantly so, in fact.

All seems to be well. Western civilisation has not fallen any further than the Crimea and they still make beer in breweries, so we may be able to carry on. But the adapter business is starting to make me nervous. Not on the question of resolution or  distortion - more just a worry about the physical forces that are called into play.

Any time you stack a long lens onto the front of a camera you have to think how you are going to support that lens. This applies equally if you are coupling up an adapter as well as a lens - there is a strain on the lens mount. Okay if you are cradling the lens and taking the weight there - the camera body just goes on for the ride. When you have to attach the body is where it gets bad - the moment of force on the big lens can be fierce, even if the lens has a short focal length.

Good adapters would have feet like telephoto lenses so that they could become the fulcrum point. The one I bought doesn't, and if I am going to clap the Sigma 8-16 lens on the front of it with the Fuji X-E2 on the back, I am going to have to figure out how to balance the assembly - I don't want to ruin the tripod mount on the underside of the body.
This sort of thing is probably catered for by Manfrotto or Velbon but I have a feeling that it is also amenable to a little shopping at Bunnings.

You can get a lot of camera accessories at Bunnings, and power tools as well. If you go on Saturday they also serve sausages in a bun. Which might just work for the Sigma 8-16...

Like Peas In A Pod - With Fuji

Are all mirror-less cameras the same? Are the systems really identical - like peas in a pod? Can you buy one camera and use other lenses? Should you get a body here and the accessories there? How many forums should you read at any one time before your brain explodes?

To give you a quick series of answers; no, no, yes, no, none.

There are at least 6 mirror-less systems that I can think of and only two of them share similar lens mounts. With a bit of a fiddle and two trombones you can adapt some of the other maker's lenses to some of the other maker's bodies but you always drop some of the maker's automatic features...and you frequently pick up optical distortions that make the whole thing an exercise in futility.

While I love to hook up unlikely combinations of optics and sensors - after all I work in a camera shop - I have come to the conclusion that in general you really should stick to the lenses on offer from the particular manufacturer of bodies you have chosen. The exception to this rule would be if  Zeiss offers a lens for your chosen lens mount. These are likely to be very good lenses indeed and you will be asked to trade many potatoes for them.

All the above leads to the subject of this post: the new Fujinon 10-20 lens for their X-mount cameras. Fujifilm are forging ahead with the APS-C sensor cameras - the new X-T1 being hot at present - and they needed to supply a wide angle zoom for the landscapers and interior shooters. The 10-24 will give the same angle of view as a 15-36 would on a full-frame camera, but with a fast autofocus or focus peaking on suitable bodies.

Note: The focus peaking really does work well for manual focus in a studio situation - it makes it easy to see in dim conditions when you are dead on for focus. It also costs a few potatoes but is well worth it.

Get Outta Town With Panasonic Lumix GX-7

We sometimes poo poo the programs that major Japanese manufacturers put into their consumer-oriented cameras. You know - the miniature effect or the star filters or the forced HDR. Kid stuff, Mum and Dad concepts, nowhere near as sophisticated as we hot shot iconic international superstar mentor legends can be before breakfast. Poo. Poo.

Well, I have decided to keep my poo to myself in the future. I was given a Panasonic Lumix GX-7 camera to use for a recent trip to Japan - also courtesy of the Panasonic people. We went up on a Wednesday evening to the top of the Roppongi Hills Tower to see Tokyo at sunset. Fortunately it was clear - heavy weather set in the next day and the heading image shot would have been impossible.

The windows are big - wide and tall - and crowded with tourists looking to see that last flash of sun and the "blue moment" just as it sets. They are packed all along the windows of the observation deck. Fortunately they are small people and I am tall. And I have long arms. So it was easy to swing out the LCD screen from the back of the GX-7, angle it down, and raise it way high up over the rest of the shooters.

The camera was set on one of the special art settings - called "dramatic" or something like that. It was dead set easy to shoot and the picture you see here is just a jpeg straight out of the box. No big computer time. No colour changing by me.

Okay. Perfect setup and timing, luck of the draw. Good special program for this sort of thing. Whatever did it, I am happy  with the result and can readily recommend the camera to anyone. It was a delight to use.

Baka Gain

I am home again, and not permanently damaged. There was a point on the flight via Japan Airlines when I wondered if I would be able to unfold myself and walk again but the crisis passed. The trip taught me a great deal:

1. I shall be tolerant of those who do not speak my language. They were of me, and we managed well.

2. Bad language, entitlement, impatience, and greed have no place on either side of the sales counter.

3. Karaoke is the name of a volcano that exploded in the 1880's...

4. There are only 6 Suzuki Swift motor cars in Japan. All the rest are in Australia.

5. Camera store prices in Japan are no cheaper than they are here.

6. You can screen print Hello Kitty on anything.

7. No fish-flavoured drink is ever good. Cocktail or smoothie, it is just wrong...

8. When in doubt, smile. When in trouble, run.

9. Piety does not equal holiness does not equal morality.

10. Beer vending machines in the street do not make for drunken public orgies. The potential for bad behaviour is in the purchaser, not the vendor.

11. Japanese dogs do not bark. They are too polite for that. They raise their eyebrows at you...

12. It is not necessary to duck under hotel door lintels in Japan, but ship's deckheads and hatch coamings are another matter.

13. Follow the tour guide with the flag, lantern, or fish. Follow your own tour guide.