Loreo 3D Lens in a Cap Preview

Just wanted to share a couple of samples from the Loreo 3D Lens in a Cap.  Will post a review soon.

UPDATE: Loreo 3D Lens in a Cap review now posted here.

parallel view

cross-eye view

parallel view

cross-eye view

Home Pastries With The OMD

 

That looks tasty, my wife was baking these pastries at home and I immediately remembered a short movie Phillip Bloom made of his mother cooking, it was brilliant, so I decided to do something similar but with stills, and document the main parts of the process. It will be also a chance to talk about the OMD for a bit.

Silver umbrellas made obsolete by new octagonal softboxes

I was looking for a silver umbrella, but found out they are pretty much obsolete. That's because of the Westcott Orb and similar octagonal softboxes on eBay, Amazon, and elsewhere.  In this post, I review the CowboyStudio version of this octagon softbox.  In a first for me, the review will be in video form.

The video will cover these topics:
- Why you might want one for your lighting gear.
- Comparison with other octagon softbox designs.
- Demonstration of how the octagon softbox is mounted with a regular umbrella adapter, a speedlight bracket, and an Alien Bee.
- Advantages of the octagon softbox.
- Disadvantage of the octagon softbox and how to remedy it.
- Demo of its usage.

Lighting Technique: Taking Photos of Dark Objects

With most subjects, the form and its texture is revealed by shadows.  With black or very dark subjects, the shadows blend into the subject, therefore the shadows don't show its form as easily.  Instead, we see the form through the specular highlights and reflections.

I took some photos of a pair of black leather shoes.  In this post, I discuss how I lit the shot.

A Teaser

I've been quite busy lately, and I still am, but there are a lot of goodies coming on the way, so hang on. This is my newly acquired Sony RX100, a 20 MP little monster, and below is a picture taken with it, full flash sync @ 1/2000 sec. ;-)

And a 100% crop for your pleasure, very sharp optics, amazing amount of details for such a small sensor packed with 20 megapixels, great dynamic range, and those Sony sensors can surely withstand pulling the shadows without showing ugly color blotches.

How I Keep Fungus Out Part 2

This is a follow up post to my previous post on How I Keep Fungus Out.

I have since gotten a Lockdown Silica Gel Can, 750g as well as a digital hygrometer.  Here are the results:

Leaving the Safety of the Typical Zoom Combo

Yesterday, we went to Disneyland (surprise).  Since my wife was coming, I decided to bring a two-camera combination.  Usually, I bring the event photographer's typical combination of a standard zoom (24-70 or similar) and telephoto zoom (70-200 or similar).  Specifically, I liked to use the 24-70 2.8G on a D600, and the Sigma 50-150 2.8 (non-OS) on an APS-C body.  That combination of zooms covers virtually any situation and perspective, from a very wide 24mm to 225mm equivalent and at f/2.8 all the way.  Pretty darn good combination.

However I think the combination falls a little short in some ways.  Specifically, the 24-70 is one of my most often used focal lengths, and is probably the lens I would choose if I could have only one lens period but I sometimes find the images from a 24-70 a little too tame.  I like images with shallow DOF and to some extent I get that with the 24-70 on a full frame (compared to a 17-50 on APS-C) but it's not shallow enough to really wake my eyes up.  Another kind of image that I find interesting is one with zany lines like those of an ultrawide or fisheye.  Again, at 24mm the 24-70 can somewhat be used to get those lines, but nowhere to the same extent as a true ultrawide.

As for the Sigma 50-150, yes it does deliver the shallow DOF that I like but at the telephoto focal lengths that I typically associate with shallow DOF.  It's what I expect.  So even with the shallow DOF, the images don't make me do a double take.

I decided to try a different lens combination: for very shallow DOF, an 85 1.8G on a D600.  For the crazy lines and wild angles, the Tokina 11-16 2.8 on an APS-C.  Because it was sunny, I decided to use the Fuji S5 Pro.  So, no standard zoom.  Are there shots that I could miss because of the wrong focal length?  Possibly.  Fortunately, I'm not an event photographer or a documentarian.

As a footnote, one benefit of this combination is that my gear can all fit into a smallish Lowepro Nova 3 AW camera bag.

Anyway, here is how the shots turned out.

Nikon D600 Resource Page

I've collected all the Nikon D600-related posts and organized them by topic into one page.  Here it is: the Nikon D600 Resource Page.

Let me know if you have any suggestions!

Nikon D600 Dust Update

Here is an update on the status of my D600's dust spots.

Nikon D5200 has the best DX sensor per DXO

DXO released their score for the Nikon D5200.  What I found most interesting was that it matched the D7000 for dynamic range, and beat the D7000 at both color depth and high ISO performance.  On top of that the D5200 has a higher resolution (24mp vs. 16mp).  I don't need the extra resolution for my usual viewing sizes but that extra resolution tends to make noise reduction in postprocessing more effective.

 

I'm just speculating here but I believe this imbalance (lower-end camera outperforming a higher-end camera) cannot last very long, and therefore it implies that the next high-end DX camera (D7100? D400?) should be coming soon.

Meanwhile the D5200 is an awesome camera.  Besides the class-leading sensor and articulating screen, it even includes the smart Auto ISO feature found in the D4, D800 and D600.  I would love to have one except that it doesn't have AF fine tuning and a popup commander.

RELATED POST:

Differences between D5200 and D5100, D7000 and D90

How I Keep Fungus Out

Have you seen those new lens caps and body caps with built-in dessicants?  What a neat idea.  I just don't like the prices ($24 each).

What I have been doing is to use these reusable dessicants, which cost only $6 each.

They're made of aluminum and have a small window where you can see the desiccant crystals change color.  When they turn pink (as shown) they can be reactivated by baking in an oven for 3 hours at 300 degrees F.  Because of their low cost, I was able to buy several.

Of course, to be effective the lenses and cameras have to be in a watertight container.  For that I bought an ammo dry box (around $17) which is not literally watertight but has an o-ring seal and is "water resistant."  Good enough for me.  The interior dimensions are 5.8 inches x 11 inches x 7.2 inches.  It's smaller than I would like but is enough to fit a few lenses (just not the bigger ones).

I was able to fit 5 lenses in the box.  From left to right: Sigma 50 1.4 (with hood), Nikkor 50-135 3.5 AIS, Nikkor 85 1.8G (with hood), Tokina 10-17, Tamron 70-300 VC (with hood)

For my larger lenses, I just insert a couple of the reusable dessicants in the lens case.  It's not airtight but oh well.

The one advantage of the BRNO dri-cap system is that they claim to be able to maintain relative humidity in the ideal range.  Apparently, if the relative humidity is too low, there are certain kinds of fungus that can thrive.  Unfortunately I have no way to tell what the humidity is when I use these alternative products.  Perhaps for pricier lenses, the BRNO dri-cap may be worth it.

UPDATE:  I found a large reusable desiccant. I ordered one for my closet where I keep all my cameras and lenses.  I also ordered a digital hygrometer (humidity monitor) which is very reasonably priced.  When I'll get them I'll post where my relative humidity ends up.

If you'd like to buy these products, please consider using our affiliate links below.  Thanks for supporting our blog!

UPDATE 1/24/13:  I've received the Lockdown silica gel can and the digital hygrometer.  Here are the results.

BRNO dri-cap rear lens cap.  Canon mount (Nikon mount below):

Nikon mount:  BRNO Dri+cap Nikon Rear Lens Cap - BRNO DRI+NikLENS

$2000 lens vs. $200 lens: Real World Comparison

This is a follow up post to my post about the depth of field of full frame kit lenses.  In that post, I mentioned that my coauthor MShafik's downsizing (pun not intended) got me to thinking about my gear.  One potential area for savings is my Nikkor 24-70 2.8G.  

The 24-70 is a great lens.  It meets all my needs (other than not having stabilization) and has no significant weaknesses from my point of view.  On the other hand, it is quite expensive (around $1900 new).  

Meanwhile my old Nikkor 28-105 3.5-4.5 AF-D covers a similar range and more, has a not-too-slow aperture, is sharp, and costs about one-tenth as much.  

I'm not really interested in a brick wall comparison.  I'm more interested in their real world usage.  The most significant tradeoff for me in terms of specs is the aperture.  (Incidentally, the 28-105's aperture is the same as that of the new 24-85 3.5-4.5 VR.)  I was most concerned whether the depth of field would be sufficiently shallow.   In addition, I was concerned with whether the lens is usable in low light conditions.  Finally, I wanted to get a high enough shutter speed for a sharp shot without getting too much noise from being forced to use high ISOs.

(Note: for all shots used in this post, you can zoom in on any picture up to 1600pix by clicking on it.)

Faces!

You Serious?

 

This was a fun project, my friend which you see above showed me a portrait for a bearded man with lots of face details and wrinkles, and wanted to imitate the picture, so we gathered along with my brother and played a little with lights, hit the jump for more details.

Soft Fill Light Outdoors

f/4.5, 1/320, ISO 1250

Here is a quick portrait I took yesterday.  Here is what it looks like without flash:

We were outdoors, with no nearby walls.  Hit the jump for the lighting technique I used.

Yongnuo RF-603 + Olympus OM-D

OM-D + RF-603 working happily, excuse the quality, picture taken with my phone

During my DSLR sale, I kept all of my lighting equipment, one of my recent purchases were a couple of YN RF-603 wireless triggering kits (Canon 5D version), I never had a chance to use them on a real shoot with the 5D, however I tested them and they worked as advertised. I bought 2 kits, so I had 4 transceivers, they can trigger 3 flashes from the 5D, and they could be used to trigger the camera wirelessly as well.

 

Anyway, that's not the point, when I bought the OMD, I ordered an FL600R flash as my TTL, on-camera bounce flash, and I had a couple of YN-560 II powerful manual flashes to be used in lighting setups. I kept the RF-603 kit when I wanted to trigger all three flashes for setup shots, I know the YN-560 II flashes have optical triggers, and the Olympus FL600R can can be controlled remotely from the OMD, but I wanted the reliability of wireless triggers, especially if there are line of sight issues. When I tested the RF-603 triggers, I discovered they don't work with Olympus, I had totally forgot that I bought the Canon version, hmm, I thought, that's a bummer, let's see what I can find on the interwebz. Hit the jump to find out.

Olympus OM-D: First Impressions & Comments on DOF

Olympus 45mm f/1.8 wide-open

You probably already know my story with the DSLRs and why I suddenly decided to switch, and start a new life with micro four thirds and Olympus, here's the link if you haven't already read it before.

These are my first impressions on the Olympus OM-D, I have not had a chance to thoroughly use the camera, I only used it 3 times briefly, at home, at work and at a petrol station where the picture above is from. Hit the jump for a quick, fun read.

Depth of field of kit lens vs. 2.8 lens

When I read my coauthor's analysis of why he gave up his Canon gear, it got me to thinking about my photography expenses as well.  I don't foresee that I will make a similar move, but I did reexamine my gear to see whether I could trim some fat.  One potential area of savings that I looked into is whether I could replace my Nikkor 24-70 2.8G (blogged here) with the far less expensive Nikkor 28-105 3.5-4.5D (reviewed here).

There are some who would dismiss such a thought outright.  The common wisdom (isn't that an oxymoron?) is that it is foolish to use a cheap lens on a nice body.  I think it's a foolish idea to buy a nice camera (full frame or otherwise) and get a bad lens for it, but a cheap lens is not necessarily a bad lens.  And there is an element of subjectiveness in what constitutes a bad lens.  For example, the bokeh of a lens can be considered bad by many people, but what if the photographer doesn't care about the quality of the bokeh?  Who is to say that that lens is bad for that photographer? 

Getting back to the discussion... among other things, a significant issue with using the 28-105 instead is the depth of field.  The biggest reason I use a full frame camera is to have the option to have a shallow depth of field.  If I couldn't get that shallow DOF because my lens just doesn't have a wide enough aperture, it would defeat the purpose of having a full frame camera in the first place.

It's probably a similar question facing folks who are just moving to full frame for the first time -- whether the kit lens (Nikkor 24-85 3.5-4.5 VR or Canon 24-105 f/4) has a shallow enough DOF compared to a 2.8 lens, or even a 2.8 lens on an APS-C body (such as the Tamron 17-50 VC).  Sure you could use a depth of field calculator but one thing I have learned is that those DOF calculators may be 'technically' accurate but don't give a precise idea of the actual "blurriness" of the background.

In this post, I wanted to put that issue to the test -- how much of a difference in apparent DOF is there between the 24-70 and the 28-105 3.5-4.5D (which has a similar aperture range to the 24-85 VR).  By apparent DOF I mean based on the blurriness of the background, not the range of acceptable focus.  I also tested f/4 for those who are considering the Canon 24-105 f/4 (the kit lens for the Canon 6D) or Nikkor 24-120 f/4G.  I also tested an APS-C body with a 2.8 lens at these focal lengths.

Secret Portrait Spot at a Small World

Every night at Disneyland, just when it gets dark, there is a countdown and then the facade of the Small World ride suddenly bursts with bright and colorful lights.

It's a great background for a photo but in all the years we've gone to Disneyland, I've never been able to capture it satisfactorily until now.

The shot above might look like a studio composite/overlay job but it's not.  Actually I did composite it, but only because I had to combine the best facial expressions.  It is otherwise captured in camera.  Here's how we did it.

Learning by Doing

Copyright: DigitalCamFan.  All rights reserved.

I firmly believe that photography is one of those skills that can't be acquired just by reading and researching articles on the net.  You have to get out there and take photos.  A common response is -- but there's nothing for me to take photos of!  If that sounds familiar then check out DigitalCamFan.  While many photography sites focus on gear reviews, DigitalCamFan offers suggested exercises and projects for you to work on.  In this post, I spoke to Amy, who runs DigitalCamFan. Hit the jump for more.

Snow Day

Last weekend I saw that there was snow expected at the local mountains (Big Bear, CA).  We decided to take the kids there.  I decided to bring the D600 with the Tamron 70-300 VC, the S5 with the Tokina 11-16, the Lumix LX5, and the Dolica carbon fiber tripod (in very cold weather, carbon fiber is easier to handle than aluminum).  Here are some shots from our trip.