It seems Desmond « call me Ye » Gumby (aka Mr K. West esq) has finally bust a bloodvessel and after accusing everyone, but not of course himself, of just about every world ill, has checked himself into a hospital – « cos he’s fucking nuts » as a source close to the « star » recently said. It appears he has apologised to his wife, children, Donald Duck etc. for being such a prize wanker – what this will change? Heaven only knows.
His wife, former sex-tape star Kim « brain dead » Kardashian has recently been accused of bursting into tears. No one actually knows why, but as everything she does is examined at microscopic level by the tabloid press, we will no doubt soon learn the real reason. It could be that she’s pissed that she’ll never be « First Lady » after her husbands failed attempt to stand for President of the United States. (A spokesperson commented « Not that she actually knows ANYTHING about being a lady anyway… »)
The REAL question on the tip of my tongue is…do we actually care?
Answer – not a lot.
Her only claim to fame, aside from an arse the size of Canterbury, is that she has bought a series of children (poor sods) – but is this news, you ask? (In case you wondered, the correct answer is « No »)
Well apparently to some bottom feeders, like this particular family, who basically share a single brain cell, this IS news, and we should all have this forced down our throats at every opportunity.
I was recently looking around for a new camera strap – something that was very flexible and fell easily out of my way when I picked the camera up. I came across Hyperion Camera Straps and thought I’d give one a try…
These are made by a photographer, Pavlos KOUTSOUKOS, in Greece – he originally made one for himself, and pretty soon all his friends wanted the same thing so he started a small business to make these straps from acrylic cord in various colour ways.
Hyperion Camera Straps
They are available in 4 lengths, and I strongly suggest you visit his site – link – to see all the different colours available. I find the 1M20 length the most comfortable for me, but there are other lengths available – and the amazing thing is that the prices start at only 15€.
First you choose your strap colour, then the binding colour – this way you can personalise every strap. The acrylic material is very strong and flexible and serves my purposes perfectly as it falls easily when I pick up the camera. The models I chose are made from the round cord, but a flatter version exists too, and also a very nice looking real leather version which I haven’t tried….yet…. 🙂
Sometimes the shipping takes a while – we joke about Uncle Stavros’s donkey transporting the packets, but the postal system usually manages to deliver to France in 2 to three weeks.
For as long as I can remember, I have always appreciated well made objects – even when they are completely useless – if they’re well produced, I’m a fan!
Smallrig is a Chinese setup in Shenzen, just next to Hong Kong but in mainland China. They have been producing camera accessories for a while now, and they are all exquisitely designed, and made from high quality machined alluminium. I have purchased a ‘grip’ for the Z series Nikon mirrorless, and various ‘L’ plates for other cameras, and the quality and pricing is excellent.
Smallrig L bracket 2258 for Nikon Z
This bracket lets me use the quick release ‘Arca‘ style mounts for horizontal or vertical camera mounting, that I use on all of my tripods.
Smallrig have just announced a new camera cage for the Z series – this will be useful for people who use the camera for video as there are mounts designed for holding external screens, microphones, handles etc. which simply bolt-on to the cage. It’s hard to believe this will retail at 45$.
Smallrig Z series camera cage 2972
For the sort of things I do, the only thing missing is an Arca mount on the bottom and to the side – perhaps Smallrig have plates which can be added-on…? It seems obvious to me, using a tripod, but I can see that this is not always necessary for someone hand-holding the camera.
Take a look at their site – it’s well worth a trip…www.smallrig.com
One of the largest, and well respected press agencies, Associated Press has just announced an exclusive partnership with SONY for all their photographic needs (Still & video).
While I can see, from a purely ‘mechanical’ point of view, the advantages with everyone using the same basic setup, I can’t help thinking that this sort of exclusivity can only lead to the AP photographers being tied to the whim of SONY who may or may not ‘lsiten’ to it’s user base regarding future developments – with a captive audience, there is always this risk.
The current situation is far from ideal as the market is changing rapidly with the advent of the mirrorless camera, and that’s why I think it’s good to ‘use’ this competition between manufacturers to get the very best from any particular innovation, or more, proposed innovation.
Canon, Nikon and Sony make some extremely good picture making machines – but all with sublte différences that professional users use to their advantage. The simple fact that you can all share batteries or lenses if you’re all using the same camera only really comes into play at sports events covered by numerous ‘pool’ photographers (The Olympics comes to mind – however, both Canon and Nikon go to great lengths to provide professionals covering the Olympics with enormous amounts of ‘loaned’ camera Equipment – will Sony do this?)
This is obviously terrifc marketing for SONY, and I wish them well – however it would be interesting to get the point of view of a few of the AP photographers pool…
NIKON has just announced a new full-frame mirrorless camera, the Z 5. This fits under the current Z 6 with a slightly redesigned top plate, cropped 4K video, but strangely 2 memory card slots (SDXC) and at an estimated European price of 1500€ – frankly I think they’ve missed the boat with this one – the more advanced Z 6 is available for only a few hundred euros more.
NIKON Z 5 with Z-GR1 grip and Z-VP1 vertical bracket
More interesting to me, at least, is the fact that NIKON have also announced a grip and vertical bracket, much like the SMALLRIG and MEIKE grips that have been available for the last 18 months.
NIKON Z-GR1 grip
NIKON Z-VP1
I have to say that I think they must start feeding the poor sod hidden away in a cupboard somewhere, who was tasked with coming up with these designs – nice try, but why not look at what else is out there first?
I mean, who needs to fold a bit out of the way to change the battery?
NIKON recently announced the V50 Video-logging kit with the Z-50 and various accessories – one being a SMALLRIG grip designed to hold a screen etc. SMALLRIG make some excellent accessories, why not use what they have designed, as is often the case, rather than create this ‘thing’ ?
Sorry mate – back to the drawing board – oh and by the way, just a thought, will it fit the Z 6/7 ?
This seems unlikely as the grip on the Z 5 is actually 2 millimeters deeper than the previous cameras…
UPDATE – it seems that people who can read Japanese have translated the NIKON Japan website page for this grip and it seems it will fit all the full-frame Z series camera bodies. The existing battery grip ( MB-N10 ) will also fit the Z 5.
This is Ivanka Trump. Her only claim to fame seems to be that she is one of Donald Trumps offspring. I say « seems to be » as thus far she hasn’t actually been able to prove she’s useful or good at anything in particular – I suppose daddies billions help this…. Personally I think she’s as ugly as sin, and thick as shit but what do I know.
Anyway, she’s just come up with a wonderful new initiative aimed at helping unemployed Americans (you remember them – the ones who had perfectly good jobs before Donald let the country go to the dogs) find new careers – it’s called « Find Something Else«
Wow – wish I’d thought of that. As an advisor to her father, she’s probably paid for this too.
The current ‘buzzword’ seems to be BAME – for those of us unused to hearing this, it stands for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic and describes anyone who isn’t basically a ‘white’ skinned person.
Why this is important completely defeats me – what possible difference can their be if a person has blue green or yellow skin? Surely it’s what’s inside that counts?
Apparently I’m in a minority myself thinking this way, and as we’ve seen recently, after a series of black people who’ve been beaten and even killed by the police in the United States, a movement is in progress.
To a great extent I agree with the idea of the movement – principally to be clear the ‘Black Lives Matter’, but sometimes I do feel that that is overtly racist against white people.
Surely EVERBODY matters, and the simple fact that this movement seems to be aimed at black people makes it detrimental to white people?
The knock-on effect is now being felt as well – cosmetics group L’Oreal are removing words that could be ‘misconstrued’ from their advertising – toothpastes no longer ‘whiten’ your teeth’ etc. the photographic co-op Magnum has announced it’s hiring three ‘black’ photographers to ‘even the balance’…
Are black and white photographs soon to be renamed? I suppose we actually already have ‘monochrome’ so that would stand up, but isn’t this all getting out of hand?
Of course there are racist people in the world – everywhere you look – in some places worse than others. In India, for example, the situation is incredibly racist in terms of the caste system, and the people are all the same colour! At least, in America, the police know which colour to beat up (but then these policemen are pretty thick as a general rule, and need all the help they can get, so colour-coding the people must have seemed like a Godsend)
Trump, my favourite world leader, is true to himself, and couldn’t give a shit – aside from his re-ellection, which seems to be hanging on by an ever thining thread, and his bank balance, the country to go to hell in a handbasket for all he’s concerned. And judging by his efforts, probably will…
Sanity will ultimately prevail – but sadly not before a lot more damage has been done. Destroying statues, and our history, is not an answer in my opinion – it was particularly refreshing to hear a black historian interviewed on French television the other day – in his opinion, tearing down statues erected to slave traders and the like was simply a denial of our history – far better to learn why the person ‘celebrated’ by having a statue erected was, in our current thinking, wrong.
I agree – otherwise we risk becoming like China and Russia whose authorities have rewritten parts of their history books to hide/deny earlier historical events.
I can’t seem to find a lot of info about these people – I know they make third party lenses for Nikon, Fuji etc. and that their ‘site’ seems to be a Facebook page (hardly a site…)
I purchased mine from the NikonRumors site/blog as the site admin made these available to the readers. This one came from Singapore but they are available in Europe – at pretty much the same price of around 200€ – this is an excellent lens for the price – we’re not expecting Leitz-standard quality – be reasonable guys – but I’m frankly well pleased with the few test shots I’ve done today.
This lens is a full-frame, manual focus, fisheye (not a circular image) with a comparatively ‘fast’ aperture of f/2.8. Judging by the weight (556g) it is a mostly metal construction, and as there are no electrical contacts or ‘aperture feeler’ the lens is constantly stopped down to whatever is chosen on the aperture ring. This has an obvious effect on what you see in the viewfinder – the image will darken or lighten for a few seconds as you change aperture until the camera ‘corrects’ the exposure change (by changing the shutter speed).
The lens arrived via DHL this afternoon, and within 30 seconds I was tearing it out of the box… It’s a very compact lens – with a very interesting focusing scale…0.17, 0.2, 0.25, 0.3, 0.5, 1m – infinity. So basically there’s really not much point adding autofocus anyway – virtually everything is in focus from 1m to infinity, without turning the ring at all! (At f/8 the effective depth of field is from 0.4m to infinity.)
If you put a genuine Nikon rear lens cap (LF-N1) onto the Nikon Z bayonet, the fit is, how can I say this, ‘approximate’ – or ‘loose’ – however, the cap supplied with the lens works perfectly. The front lens cap is metal with a foam lining which needs a slight pressure to pull-off. Good move, as front lens caps that just slide off on their own are not terribly useful.
Obviously there is no filter thread, and the domed front element is quite pronounced. There is no provision for sliding gelatin filters behind the lens (on the mount side) either.
As there are no electrical contacts, no information will be passed back to the processing engine in the camera – what are you expecting with a 200$ manual focus lens?! This means that no aperture or distance information will be recorded in the EXIF data – obviously it’s a good idea to programme the lens as a ‘non CPU lens’ on the camera body, but strangely, on the Z6/7 the range of options for ‘focal length’ jump from 8mm to 13mm – time for an updated firmware Nikon?? (Note: this is due to the fact that Nikon imagine that you will only ever mount Nikkor lenses on the camera, and the focal lengths correspond to Nikkor lenses…)
Here it is, wearing one of my favourite Hyperion straps (A red binding version is en route for the Z6)
Held virtually horizontally, this is simply a wide angle lens…
But tilt it up a bit and interesting things happen! As you can see (click on the image for a larger view) there is a bit of lens flare – but nothing we can’t cope with, with a little judicious Lightrooming…
As I’m a fan of ultra-wides, I’m already looking forward to putting this through it’s paces in extreme environments – we have a cathedral in our town which could be interesting to use as a test bed…
As you can see, there’s a fair amount of vignetting (which can be corrected, more or less, in Lightroom). This doesn’t particularly bother me anyway….
This is the story of a ‘fantasy’ lens – a lens that, in it’s original manufacturers form, would cost an arm and two legs, but has been produced in a slightly simpler, and much cheaper form by the simple expedient of manufacturing it in China…
Welcome the TTArtisans 11mm f/2.8 Fisheye lens. This is a full-frame fisheye (not a circular image) and one of the things that appeals is the price – 199€ shipped! Mine is apparently on a plane from Singapore at the moment, and as soon as it arrives I’ll post some images – watch this space.
As a fan of ultra-wide angle lenses, this conforms to my requirements – it would be idiotic to complain about distorsion, or color fringes at this price, and with such a wide angle, ridiculous to expect edge to edge sharpness wide open.
This particular lens is designed for the Nikon Z mount, so I’ll be able to use this on my Z series camera bodies without the FTZ mount – the lens is also very compact, so I’m looking forward to carrying this around as I won’t feel my arm is being pulled off by the weight of the lens and body.
This lens is also manual focus – which is never a problem with ultra-wides as it’s much easier to set the focus distance at 3m, shoot at f/8 and EVERYTHING will be in focus anyway. The auto-focus motors and engineering are also what help to increase the price of the lens…I’m happy with this.
So, we’ll have to wait a few days to see…come on DHL….
Or should I say, ‘collection’ ? I’ve just splashed out on this little beauty.
This is one of the series of f/1.8 prime lenses that Nikon produce for the Z series cameras.
It is astonishingly sharp, across the frame, even wide open – there will always be people who complain about the quality of the ‘bokeh’ but frankly, I’m more concerned about the sharp bits rather than the blobs that are out-of-focus.
I stumbled across this on the site ‘Leboncoin’ (a site where people sell off all they don’t want, can’t use etc.) and the man selling it seemed a bit odd….he had purchased the lens a few weeks ago, had never used it, and was now selling it at 2/3 the price. I had to take a closer look.
So I drove over to Libourne, near Bordeaux, and met the chap in a carpark (very secure!) – turns out he’s one of the breed who believe EVERYTHING written in photo magazines, and as such, had decided that he prefered zoom lenses and that this lens wasn’t for him., without even bothering to actually put the lens on the camera and try it…
Anyway, everything checked out – he had the bill, I saw his ID card and the name was the same on the bill…
Now all I have to do is try it out! This shot is hardly a definitive test, but it does show the lens is VERY sharp!
