Ian's-tagram

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.

One of the minor disadvantages with the new Nikon Z series cameras is the size. It’s actually both good and bad – good in that there is a lot less bulk flaying around the shoulder, but bad in that for people with largish hands, the grip (to the right side of the body) isn’t deep enough vertically and the last (little) finger tends to be left floating.

Nikon have announced development (What? This should have been available when the body was announced – it’s only a battery case) of the MB-N10 which will provide room for two EN-EL15b batteries (but strangely, no shutter release, AF-ON buttons etc.) – the design goes back to the older D5*** and D7*** where a stalk replaces the camera battery. Sadly no-one has actually seen one…and frankly for the additional size and weight, I think a spare battery in a pocket is going to be substantially cheaper and a better solution.

The bulk of the grip is for the two batteries. There are no electrical connections on the base of the Z series cameras (yet…who knows what future designs will give us…) so this is the only way to connect the batteries to the camera electronics. The original battery door unclips and can be stored on the grip. Aside from the obvious increase in autonomy, the battery grip gives more vertical depth, and thus better ‘grip’ !

Back to the Meike MK-Z7G. Meike have obviously given this a fair amount of thought – the machining is really top class, and there is even a location ‘stalk’ on the plate which mates to a recess in the camera bottom plate – this makes the alignment perfect.

Another nice touch is the way that they have included a recessed plastic block into which the original battery door is clipped – it retains it’s job of being a ‘door’, but flush with the underside of the plate, rather than hidden and almost inaccessible under the plate in it’s original position.

Sadly the plate is not supplied with a hex key with which to fix it to the camera – a detail, but a lot of the ‘L’ plates and other accessories purchased from China are supplied with these (so it’s ok for me – I’ve already got loads!!)

The plate increases the vertical depth by 19mm which is VERY useful and comfortable – my little finger feels quite at home and the overall grip is improved without a huge increase in size and/or weight.

Shipping included I found this for 32€ on eBay and the (free) shipping took 10 days.

It’s been a while – but I’ve actually been quite busy since the last article.There’s a little bit of catching-up to do:

DECLIC 2019

This years edition was very well received – we had 77 participants and they all spent the day wandering around Auch (aimlessly!) taking photos…that was the point wasn’t it?

It wasn’t difficult for me to keep the themes secret – as it now seems to be only me who organises everything to do with the marathon, I just didn’t tell ANYBODY. Much easier.

The first indications showed up on the video projecter at 10h00 « Rdv at Ciné32 at 10h15 » – this is our local cinemea ‘complex’ and was easily within 10 minutes walking distance. I caught-up with the group at which point I announced that we would be heading off towards the river Gers. So we all set off…but after a couple of minutes I stopped everyone and asked if they would perhaps prefer to spend the morning exploring the abandonned military ‘caserne’ that we just happened to be passing…not unnaturally that got 77 heads nodding so we did just that – I had arranged for the gate to be unlocked and I was able to just open it and usher people onto the site!

We finally got back to the BIJ (the people really didn’t want to leave) at 12h45 at which point everyone started to download there images and eat their packed lunches.

We managed to consume 6 kilos of M&M’s, and produced 488 images. The jury sat the following Wednesday and tonight we will award the prizes.

Cie Bivouac

I’ve known this circus company for a few years now – we’ve always got on well, and they often buy a few of my images. They came back to Auch in late May for a ‘residence’ and as usual, they brought a new ‘structure’ with them….and this thing is huge!

This thing moves every which way – the square outer part revoles around a center pivot – the circular inner ring also revolves around the same point, but it also turns within the structure… This is not at all clear from these images, but when there are 5 people leaping and climbing all over it, it creates a superb impression…I think I’ve got some good material from the presentation, and afterwards they asked me back to do a specific shooting – the spectacle will be having it’s first night in three weeks – and they don’t have any visuals yet!

Berlin

Both our birthdays are in roughly a weeks time, so we’ve decided to celebrate both of them….in Germany. We’ve wanted to visit, so this will be our birthday present to each other!

We’ll be leaving on my birthday – and spending 4 days away – looking forward to this – if only to get away from Déclic!!