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.

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!

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...

New Lens From Sigma Shows A Real Flair For Design

Using the word flair in a header to announce a lens is a little dangerous - but as long as I spell it right, the correct message is there. And I am a whiz at coreckt spelinge...

The introduction of a new barrel style by the Sigma corporation with their 35mm, 16-35mm, 24-105mm, and now 18-200 and 50mm was a good move. I looked at the older style barrels with their strange crackle coating and wondered if it was all a design mistake. I knew the glass  and operation was fine...I spent my own money to buy the 8-16mm lens and have never regretted it...but the wear and tear on that crackle finish made them look sad.

The new barrels are metal - and smooth, and sleek. The weight has been increased, the feel of the focus ring improved, and the overall style greatly advanced. These lenses look every bit as good - and in some cases a lot better - than the dedicated lenses from the two major manufacturers. You can consider getting Body A or Body B and putting a Sigma on for preference.

The first reports that have come from the current CES show reveal a new 50mm f:1.4 mount and a compact 18-200 mount. The former is portrait territory and the latter may very well best the kit lenses that everyone gets. Consider getting bodies A or B and this one for a universal travel kit.

I'll show examples of these then they reach our shop.

Uncle Dick

Another View Of Art - A New Sigma Lens

It is a bit bold to attach the term " Art " to a product. Of course if the product is a tube of oil paint or a brush or a chisel and mallet, you can see the connection. Yet...you can use oil paint to do the walls of the bathroom and a mallet and chisel to split a jaw, and there are no awards given for either achievement.

Still, Sigma have applied it to their new 24-105 lens and signalled it with a silver "A" plate on the side of the lens. Call it what you will, the lens is another addition to the new mount style that indicates their best products. You will have seen the mount style with their 35mm f:1.4 lenses and the 16-35 f:1.8 - solid, smooth, and heavy. Remember as well that the 16-35 is a star performer according to DP Review - the whole darn test chart seemed to be blue...the highest resolution and lowest chromatic aberration. Let us wait for the DP results on this one...

Steam in pretty quick to have a look at it - it is likely to go out the door in the rush up to Christmas. It will, of course, have the two-year warranty that Sigma are proud of.

Seeing Is Believing - Updating Works

A couple of days ago the national trainer for the Fujifilm company visited our shop and took us in groups for sales training. It was interesting to see the new components in the X-series cameras explained - the question of the new X -trans sensor in particular. He was a great speaker because he finally explained the real cause of moiré patterning in images and the various means that have been adopted to deal with it.

He was also a great speaker because he showed me how  to update the firmware on my X-10 camera. It was done in about 3 minutes and the difference it has made in the operation of the camera is magic.

I also took courage to re-jig an another Fuji X camera and watched it go from good to great. See the images for this post. The hot rod was taken with my standard package of Nikon D300s, 18-200 lens, and SB700 flash on a Stroboframe rig. Note limited depth of field that is just enough to get the car in.

Now look at the Fuji image - the '49 Mercury. It is under different conditions - a bare studio set and some studio lights. There is less contrast as the light source is huge.

There are some similarities - the sensors in both cameras are APS-c size. It was flash exposure so the shutter speed was about 1/250 second - no movement.

The lens focal lengths were different - 120mm for the rod and 23mm for the Mercury. The f stop for the rod was f:22 and for the Mercury, f:16. This is the smallest stop the 23mm lens can do. Of course they are both going to be affected by diffraction, but unless you sacrifice DOF by sticking to f:8, you are going to have to deal with it.

Or not - if you buy the new Fuji X-100s. There is a special computer program in it that specifically targets areas that are spread by diffraction while preserving the portions of the image that are not so afflicted - the result would be dramatically sharper resolution in the picture. I don't know, because I am still using the older X camera, but the new guys are going to get world-beating results.

Note also that the update added the capability to see "focus-peaking" in the LCD screen. It is the enhancement of the in-focus portion of the image with a black or white rime. It is evident even in small areas and allows you to get a sharper manual focus than you could do with a bare eye. I could "walk" the focus back from the headlight of the car to the front of the windshield to maximise the depth of field. Beats peering into a small viewfinder in the dim focusing light of the studio mono-blocks.

My honest conclusion is that it is an image as good as or better than that produced by my regular studio tabletop rig. Provided I want to point of view to be that of the 35mm lens on an older film camera, it is ideal. If I wish to replicate the 50mm on an old film camera it will still have to be the Tokina 35 macro - if I want wider views the Sigma 8-16 will be needed. At least I now have and excuse to have another camera!

Open Wide...

In 2007, having peered down cake-holes for nigh on 40 years on a professional basis ( as opposed to doing it for a hobby...) I sold the old dental chair and retired. It was time to get rid of it - it had had three changes of stained upholstery and the armrests were deeply finger-marked.

 During the 4 decades I attended hundreds of lectures illustrated with thousands of  intra and extra oral photographs. Three of them were good. The rest were masterpieces of illustrative skill but all you could see was teeth. It was like looking at the front grilles of Buicks, but at least the Buicks flossed...Thus my general advice to anyone wanting to take dental pictures is - don't.

If you insist on it, however, the best way I know is to use a digital SLR or mirrorless camera. I used to advise people to use ring-flash units for the illumination but that has stopped with the advent of the white LED light. Nowadays you can get a decent ring-shaped LED set that runs on AAA batteries or a mains adapter and mount it on the front of nearly any decent camera. If you then set the ISO of the camera to 400-800 ( or higher if it is a modern camera ) you can put the mode to "A" and set an aperture of f:8 to f:16. If you put your lens on manual and at the shortest focusing distance you can generally make a rather decent extra-oral shot. An excess of decency.

If you need a closer shot or one that goes far back in the arch, the true macro lens may be necessary. Costly, but close-focussing, and it lets you stand back a bit from the customer as you work... Some of the customers have breath that makes this a relief.

If you need to have more light - really - you can use the ring flash systems. Nikon, Sigma, Canon, and Metz make them. They are in various sizes and degrees of sophistication, and some of them are automatic enough to work most of the time. But there is an almighty pop as they go off that might spook the patient. Plus they generally are more complex so you end up with a system that your staff might not find as easy to use. If you consistently get overexposure or out of focus results it is advisable to beat the nurse with a stick.

What you do with the results is different than the old days. The Carousel slide tray full of VMK preps is long gone. Slide shows on Powerpoint and Show Off can be integrated with text, sound, and music. There is no way to describe the experience of a professional presentation on gingival recession when it is accompanied by John Cage.

Please note that the above notes also apply to dermatology illustration, but with knobs on. Pulsating multi-coloured knobs...

More Than Just A Change Of Clothes - New Sigma

I have been watching the Sigma range of lenses over the last five years - not just as a salesperson, but as a user of their wide angle 8-16mm lens on my Nikon camera. As I explained before, I spent my own money to buy one, use it in the studio and at weddings and car shows*, and amdelighted with the results.

In examining the lenses, I have noted a constant change in the presentation of them. of course the mounts - whether Nikon, Canon, Pentax, etc - remain constant, but the barrel finish and control rings seem to change quite a lot. I've seen smooth aluminium anodising, matt plastic surface, crinkled paint surface, and any number of patterns for the rubber rings. Some of these seem to be more successful than others in resisting the grubbiness of he fingers that grip them.

What intrigued me today in looking for a blog topic was a comparison between the 30mm f:1.4 lens of six months ago with the current new 30mm f:1.4 Art lens. The barrel finish is different - sure - and the mounts are the same - sure - but the big surprise comes in looking at the front element.

I had expected to see the same glass in each mount. No way - the filter thread is 62ø in each case but the front element size in the new Art lens is half the area of the older lens. Both are coated, of course. If they are both f:1.4, and the exit pupil of each lens is roughly the same,  how the heck can one be half the size of the other?

Different lens formulation is my guess - so we are not just getting the old wine in a new bottle. As the 30mm focal length is perfect for my DX-sized camera...equating to 45mm in the old film camera speak...I think it is time to do some real personal studio tests on the new Art lens to see what it produces. I shall report.

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!