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There I was a few months ago waxing lyrical about my ‘new’ Billingham bag – I knew I should have kept my damn mouth shut….they’ve just announced a new ‘tweaked’ version – and it’s even BETTER.

Damn them!

So what’s new? Well, the main advantage (now) is that the main strap can be unclipped from the bag. I consider this a distinct advantage. There are a couple of other little ‘tweaks’ which are less interesting to me (there’s now a sleeve at the back of the bag so that it can be slotted over the handle of a wheeled carry-on bag. Oh, and the rear compartment now has a waterproof zip…)

Now I’m trying to figure out if I know any harness makers who could adapt my bag with these features….watch this space!

This is not an image quality comparison, rather a few practical thoughts. Both lenses are more than sufficiently sharp for most uses, with the f/2.8 having a slight edge on ‘usability’ in certain situations simply because it is 1 stop faster.

I took this recently and got thinking about which lens I use the most.

I purchased my first 70-200 in 2012 – it was a second-hand f/2.8 VR l model and it served me well, for CiRCa and for the Cri’Art concerts, as both were environments where the range of lighting was vast – from almost total darkness to daylight.

The f/4 version came out after later in the same year, but didn’t particularly interest me, as I already owned the f/2.8.

A couple of years later, I had a chance to try the f/4 version and I was impressed by the quality of the lens – it was considerably lighter (840 over 1480 grammes) and quite a lot less imposing (178mm versus 215mm) – but what impressed me the most was the quality of the optics. So I bought a new one.

This lens is sold without the tripod foot. Apparently Nikons thinking behind this is that it’s such a light lens that it’s unlikely that people will ever have to mount it on a tripod, so the tripod foot is extra – and a very expensive extra too at over 200€. As it happens, our Chinese cousins got their hands on this and now produce very respectable copies for 35€ – delivered!

This is in my current ‘kit’ – the fact that it is a stop slower doesn’t really change a lot for me – if I feel I really need a fast lens and I’m in a situation where a heavy lens isn’t problematic, I’ll use the f/2.8 – but frankly, the f/4 does pretty much all I need.

To make the shot above I traveled by bike – I packed my backpack with a camera body, two lenses and a few odds and sods, and it was still easy to carry while I was riding.

Horses for courses….

I haven’t the faintest idea – but here’s a few facts and figures.

This focal length has always been popular – on full frame 24×36 cameras, it’s a ‘medium telephoto’ and a favourite for portrait photographers.

For the 6×6 format, the 80mm is a ‘standard’ lens – and for a 10×8 plate camera it’s a wide angle!

(A ‘standard’ lens is considered to be a lens with a focal length which corresponds with the diagonal of the format size. Thus for the 24×36 (35mm) format a ‘standard’ lens is a 50mm – the diagonal is actually 43mm. For 6×6, the diagonal is 84mm etc.)

Nikon have just announced the 85mm f/1.8 version for the Z series mirrorless cameras. Not unnaturally it’s quite a lot more expensive than the existing AF-S version, even though there’s actually a lot less ‘mechanism’ to pay for (image stabilisation, for instance, is now done in-camera) and optically, aside from the addition of two ED glass elements, the lens remains similar to previous designs.

For some reason, the existing f/1.4 version of this lens, albeit extremely expensive, and slightly less sharp (wide open) than it’s f/1.8 brother, has a tremendous reputation – yes, it’s half a stop wider than the f/1.8 but I can’t honestly see that this justifies a price three times that of the f/1.8 – but then, it’s always good to be able to brag that you have a wider aperture…isn’t it? Is it?

People get very carried away with an effect called BOKEH. This is a Japanese word used to describe the effect of out-of-focus elements within the field of view. Shooting wide open at f/1.8 for example, the depth of field will be roughly 10 centimeters either side of the point of focus, and anything a couple of metres behind the subject will appear very soft and out of focus…and a lens with good ‘Bokeh’ is sought after. Good Bokeh is when the out-of-focus highlights show up as tiny doughnut shaped circles.

As the format increases, the 85mm focal length becomes more of a standard lens, as with the 6×6 format. The apparent depth of field decreases too – it actually doesn’t, but it looks like it does. Lenses over and above 85mm have always been easier to design and produce, (a considerable number of ‘current’ lenses actually share their design with lenses from over eighty years ago) as there’s a lot less ‘bending’ of the light required than in, for example, a wide angle lens. Initially with large format cameras, the lens (equivalents) were ‘telephoto’ compared to the 24×36 format, as the format was so huge – as the format size reduced, so the focal lengths reduced too and lens designs got more and more complicated.

I realise that I still haven’t been able to answer my own question…

People get paranoid about dust and fingerprints on the front elements of their camera lenses. I can understand this, up to a point, but it’s funny that people go bananas about muck on their lenses, and then never clean the camera sensor…

Dust or fingerprints on the front element won’t ever appear in the picture – if they are REALLY huge they could cause a slight ‘softening’ of the image, but you would have to have really good eyes to see the soft area. Muck on the rear element, which is much closer to the film/sensor, is more likely to create ‘soft spots’ but again, it would have to very noticeable.

Example: imagine a drop of water on the lens of your glasses/sunglasses – you know it’s there, as you can see ‘something’ but it’s not at all well defined.

I’ve just started noticing a mark on my images when I use my IRIX 11mm f/4 lens. Initially though this was sensor dust, as it was an out-of-focus blob appearing in the same place on every image.

I cleaned the front, and rear elements of the lens, and I also cleaned the sensor. The blob hadn’t gone away.

I tried other wide angle lenses – no blob – so back to the IRIX. I shone a bright LED light through the lens, and at one particular area there is ‘something’ which doesn’t move when I move the light – the culprit?

This could be a number of things – it could be fungus or mold which is growing on the surface in between two lens elements, or it could just be dust that has somehow managed to worm it’s way in…hard to say – but it’s very annoying. As this lens is not a zoom lens, it’s difficult to imagine how dust could have got in through the mechanism.

As for fungus, this usually happens if the lens has ben stored in a humid environment – which is not the case here. Fungus used to occur a lot more 40 or 50 years ago when the internal lens elements had no anti-reflective coating and any air-born fungus could stick to the surfaces much more easily.

This is annoying, but not the end of the world – it can be ‘corrected’ (removed) in Lightroom, but I’m more concerned about it growing larger…

I’ve contacted IRIX – we’ll see what they come up with…

Update : I’ve been given an address in Krakow, Poland by IRIX in Switzerland – and a price of « between 28 and 30€ » – so I’ll send it off and we’ll see.

Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t really like photos of me – however someone has finally managed to take one of me that I really appreciate.

Thank you Sylvie!

Yesterday I received my Platypod (R) – it’s a fiendishly simply way of getting photographers to fork out huge sums of money for what is essentially a simple metal plate…however, it does have certain advantages over a ‘simple metal plate’.

I am a fan of ultra-wide angle lenses – on a full-frame (24x36mm) camera, ultra-wides start at about 18mm and as the number reduces, the angle of view increases…my widest ultra-wide is 11mm…this is a staggering 126° angle of view (as an example, a 20mm lens has a 94° angle)

One way of making visually impressive images with a wide angle lens is to get a really low viewpoint. When you’re doing this in near darkness, a tripod is a huge help – however, sometimes it’s not practical to carry a tripod, and additionally, many tripods don’t unfold particularly ‘low’.

This is where the Platypod comes in.

One simply screws a ball and socket mount onto the centre screw and off we go.

Having a tilting read screen also helps…unless you actually like laying on the ground trying to squint through the viewfinder…

So this allows a very low viewpoint, which means we can produce images such as these…

Conclusion

Despite what I said at the start of this article, my first outing has convinced me of its qualities. It is a very well thought out ‘simple metal plate’ and I can fully understand how their Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign was so popular.

I used two of the threaded screws to adjust the plate, not to be perfectly horizontal (I can do that with the ball-head) but to create a stable base. The length of the plate has been thoughtfully designed to be able to use longer telephoto lenses, and the storage of the screws is very well though out too. Each screw has a ‘rubber’ cap AND an adjustable locking collar, (the opposite end of the screw being a point)- this means you can turn the screw to the desired length, then ‘lock’ it in place – I find it all works very easily.

Of course, it helps to have ball-head handy – which I just happen to have in my vast collection of ‘bits’ – this one is a Manfrotto MHXPRO which I’ve kitted out with the Manfrotto Arca mounting plate the MSQ6T (The ‘quick release’ plate shown mounted on the ball-head is a complete disaster, hence the change) as all my cameras/L-plates are equipped with Arca style quick release mounting plates. The advantage of this ball-head is the weight – it’s made from a magnesium alloy and doesn’t weigh a tonne!

We did something unprecedented this weekend – we went to someones wedding!

A close friend of my daughter was getting married in a church (all the bells and whistles) and we were invited – this is only the third I’ve ever been to in my life – fun was had by all.

And I bought a hat…

Need I say more?

After months of farting around, a large Orange van (well, the van was actually white…) arrived this morning complete with ladder – and two kids got on with running the cable. It took a while principally because the two doing the installation took their time – but it was working in three hours.

I ran a speed test before changing over, and I was getting 8 Mb/s down and 0,8 Mb/s on up. When I plugged my system into the new ‘Livebox’ I instantly got 80Mb/s down and 170 Mb/s up – so, roughly 170 times faster than this morning – ok, I’ll go for that.

As an example of the advantages of having a faster upload, in one hour this morning my LARGE backup safeguarded the equivalent of a WEEKs previous safeguard…

This, at 14h CEST the 19th of June 2019, is what all the fuss is about…

Well for all Hasselblad fans this is NEWS. The XID, Hasselblads excursion into the world of mirror-less cameras, has been updated and here is the X1D Mark ll.

6000€ without a lens….so I sincerely hope it HAS been updated…

It’s a gorgeous peice of kit – made out of a single chunk of alluminium it’s relatively small and light at 650g (without a lens) . It keeps the 50Mp sensor (43 x 32mm) from the previous model, with a 3.6 inch rear touch screen and a 3.69 OLED viewfinder it’s really a very interesting beast.

It takes dual SD cards, has USB-C connectivity (and WiFi and Bluetooth of course) and is launched with the new XCD 35-75 f/3,5-4,5 zoom lens. This brings the range of lenses up to nine – from the 21mm f4,0 Ultra-wide up to the 135mm f2,8.

Now all that’s left is to find the ????€ to buy one….

PS Hasselblad also launched the 907x body today – here it is stuck on the front of the CFV ll 50c sensor back…

Sadly, as yet, there is no price published for this.

What a great way to celebrate our two (Gemini) birthdays – a long weekend in Berlin. And it was great – the weather was fantastic, there was loads to see, the people were great, and the food was good – what else could we want?

Our chosen hotel was very well placed – and very well served by the U-Bahn (metro) – the 72 hour all-transport pass we purchased was well used by the end of our stay!

We had booked an « Alternative Berlin » Walking tour, which started at 14h on our first day – the meeting point was infront of the Brandenburg Gate…

The tour guide, Sophie, was Welsh and was able to anwser most of our questions – the Walking tour took three hours and we visited the three major areas of the city, crossing backwards and forwards into the old Eastern and then the Western parts of Berlin as we walked.

It was 31° in Berlin when we were walking – but although we had no feet by the end of it, we were able to spotlight areas we wanted to visit during the following two days.

The East Side Gallery is a 1,3 kl stretch of wall that remains to the East of the city and has been dedicated to street artists, with the previso that they paint on the Eastern (otherwise unseen) side of the remaining concrete wall.

The following two days were almost as warm, but just as exhausting as we wanted to see everything! We decided to go out late at night to see what was lit up – and we weren’t disappointed…

Walking behind the Brandenburg Gate and the Bundestag, we discovered a very recent development of office buildings which looked terrific at night. This is the Paul-Löbe house and the Bundestag Library.

During the week the Berliners seem to come out at night, and the parks and open spaces were filled with people lounging around, drinking a beer and listening to live music…brilliant place!

Great trip – wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Berlin as a place to visit.