An Announcement From Nikon For Warranty Issues

I have received a message from Thomas in our repair department alerting me to an announcement from the Nikon company.

It concerns the questions that have arisen around the shutter mechanism of the Nikon D600 cameras. Some people may have experienced difficulties with oil contamination of the sensors in these cameras, and have had to refer to Nikon for warranty attention.

Essentially the Nikon company has said that circumstances may not necessarily gone to the advantage of D600 users...and that if owners do have issues with oil spot contamination on the sensor they can send it to Nikon to get the shutter replaced free of charge. Thomas says that our customers can bring them in to us and we can send it off to Nikon for them.

Here is a the rather complex web address that will link to the service advisory:

http://www.nikon.com.au/en AU/service advisory.page?ID=templatedata/en Asia/taggable content/data/service advisory notices/d600 service advisory&Category=service-and-support&Section=nikon-service-advisory

I hope this will be of assistance to the Nikon users - the cameras are excellent and the system is extremely successful. I use their cameras and lenses myself and have always been pleased with them. This should correct a small manufacturing glitch and let the D600 users venture out with confidence.

Uncle Dick's Feijoada

Look it up - look it up. You're on the computer anyway so just Google feijoada. It is what they created Tupperware containers for...

Right. Learned something of interest to Nikon and Fuji users last night - actually might work for Canonistas as well, but I have to experiment down here at work before I can confirm it. The basic problem was to go out to the field and take car pictures in bright sunlight - see my previous post decrying the sun for the difficulties of this - and to do this at a distance...about 2100 Km.

I want to take pictures of the Victorian Rod Show and the Australia Day car display in Melbourne. I could do it by one of several means: take the Nikon D 300s, the Nikon SB 700 flash, and the Stroboframe Pro RL bracket, or take the Fuji X-10 by itself. The former gives great shots but is heavy and cumbersome, and I don't want to ship the entire rig back and forth for a 10 day's holiday. The latter gives good shots but is defeated by the shadows under the cars or in their interiors.

I could rent a Nikon outfit at Michael's in Elizabeth Street but that would cost money. I could ship my Nikon outfit over in a Pelican case and then back again but THAT would cost money. I could purchase a big Fuji flash for the little Fuji but that would cost money. I am cheap. I needed to think it all out.

The answer lay in the menus of the Fuji and of the SB 700 - and hanging on the doorknob of the computer room. I switched the flash to "remote" and searched the menu for "SU-4". Then I went into the Fuji menu and enabled the external flash. The Sb 700 was put onto Manual and dialled down to 1/8 power. I pulled the Manfrotto monopod off the door and cleaned the blood and fur off it.

Fuji at 400 ISO, f:8, 1/125 second in Manual mode. Flash up. Camera fires, flash fires, SB 700 fires, perfect exposure. I have SB 700 in one hand and the camera in the other so I have off camera flash by the simplest means possible. If I attach the SB 700 to my monopod or extension pole I can do anything I want with it. And it'll cost me nothing. I'll fuel the Sb 700 with a fresh set of AA lithium batteries and I am laughing all holiday.

Note that this outfit goes into my little Tamrac shoulder bag that I got for free along with my mobile phone, notebook, and a muesli bar. The food at the Victorian Rod Show is awful so I go prepared. Note also that the Manfrotto monopod I carry to support the camera is also air-transportable, so I am good to go. I'll still visit Michaels. but only to spy on them...

Other users of other systems can benefit from this sort of flash connection - as long as they do not need the TTL facilities that the major manufacturers build into their respective systems. TTL is wonderful but you can use flash without it. We do it in a studio all the time.

Stereoscopic Low-Light Lenses - Newest Development

News just in from Rochester about the development of new lenses for stereoscopic work.

Apparently they have developed small lenses with a focal length of about 22mm that can be remotely controlled to change their shape to focus on close objects. An electrical signal is fed into the lens and the actual curvature of the lens can be changed. This will eliminate the need for manual focussing helixes or stepping motors in the application.

The lenses are currently limited in their aperture range from about f:2.1 to f:8.3, though one researcher says that the maximum aperture is closer to f:3. The lenses are being paired with dual-element sensors that can be dialled up to a considerable ISO. Unfortunately when the ISO approaches the maximum the colour information is switched off. So far the maximum resolution of the experimental sensor is only 5 megapixels but this may be increased  - it is understood that funding is being sought from private investors to do this.

Up until now the maximum shutter speed of the test rig has been about 1/50 of a second.

Apparently there is a 20-stop dynamic range with the sensor, but the monochrome limit applies at the lowest light levels.

One interesting thing I saw in the photos of the test rig was the automatic tracking mechanism that allows the cameras to go from a straight lock for infinity to a slight inward tilt for closeup objects. This can give a sort of three-D effect.

So far these lenses and sensors are in a developmental stage but already the marketing boys are adding their input - the iris diaphragms come in grey, green, blue, and brown.

Note: apparently they are also thinking of equipping each lens/ sensor assembly with automatic covers that close over them for about 8 hours out of 24.