I don’t like straps….

I should qualify this, I feel – as a general rule, camera straps just get in my way. I have a short ‘hand-grip’ strap for the D3s which is ideal – I can’t drop the camera, and it improves my hold. This connects to the upper right strap lug, and the lower strap fits onto my ARCA type ‘L’ plate that is permanently fixed to the camera.

I have been looking for an equivalents for my Z series cameras, but up until now I couldn’t find one with the additional ARCA type quick-release tripod mount that I use.

Up until now. This is the JJC Pro1M

It’s fairly clear how this connects to the camera body – a strap passes through the righthand strap lug, and a metal plate screws into the tripod mount underneath.

The advantage of this model is the ARCA type rapid release tripod mount incorporated into the metal plate that fixes underneath the camera. I can slot it straight into my tripod ballheads without a problem.

There is another model, the Pro1P which doesn’t have this mount, but the lower plate has a couple of extendable ‘feet’ which allow the camera down stand on a flat surface without it leaning forwards onto the lens.

The most amazing thing is that these are available at 22€ post free.

I was WRONG !

Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true.

All this time I’ve been complaining about this damn joystick thingy that controls the focus point on the Nikon Z series cameras, saying that it’s totally useless etc. but I’ve just discovered there IS a use for it, and it turns out that it’s VERY useful indeed.

Situation: out with my camera, early one morning, aiming to shoot the sunrise over the Pyrénées. Not unnaturally, the camera, equipped with the 70-200 f/4 lens, is firmly seated on a tripod. This is what I see in the viewfinder:-

The focus point falls on the flanks of the mountain (not a lot of contrast there) so to be sure I’m actually focusing on an area that the camera can use to focus, and instead of releasing the ball-head lock and moving the camera up to move the focus point, I moved the little joystick thingy up a couple of blips so that it was on the crest of the mountain and BAMM – it focused perfectly. All this WITHOUT moving the camera. I’m frankly astounded at just how long it has taken me to realize this.

I never thought I’d ever find a use for this damn thing – and now, in the space of a week, I’ve found that there is a use for it, AND that I can programme it to reset itself if I accidentally move it. The world is truly a wonderful place!

More news – it would seem that there is a new firmware update for the Z6/7 coming from Nikon this week. No confirmation, but it’s likely to enable people to use the ProRes RAW format for video enthusiasts, and improved autofocus. Still no news on the firmware update to enable the use of CFExpress cards – which are now available.

Cat? What cat?

The one that’s now « out of the bag »… this is the Nikon Z 7 which is now part of my camera gear…

Nikon Z 7 + 24-70mm f/4 S + MB-N10 battery grip

…and it’s great. I’ve already been out to take make some test shots, and the first thing that surprised me was the lack of hi-ISO noise even though I was shooting at 6400 ISO – remember the sensor is almost twice the pixel density of the Z6.

The battery pack now allows me to shoot continuously for much longer than before – sometimes I had to change the camera battery halfway through a performance, which was a nuisance. The batteries can be « hot swapped » – this means that if one runs down, it can be changed without affecting the power coming from the other battery (assuming it’s charged…) The only button on the battery grip allows you to check the charge of the batteries inside. There is also a USB-C connection to enable external charging (but only when the camera is turned off, strangely)

The grip is metal (magnesium alloy?) but the end caps (battery doors) are plastic. Ergonomically it actually helps (me!) to grip the body of the camera – the only downside at the present moment, is that an ARCA tripod mounting plate designed for this grip hasn’t appeared on the market yet – as I would generally use this for dynamic (concert, performance) work this isn’t a huge problem, but it’ll be nice to see someone get to making one so that I can whack it onto a tripod easily.

There’s not a lot to say about the camera itself – aside from a couple of minor (IMHO) technical issues – slower burst shooting, lower maximum Hi-ISO setting – which don’t affect me in any way, it’s IDENTICAL to the Z6 – in fact, the only thing different is the 6 or the 7 on the bottom righthand of the camera body.

Nikon Z7 24-70 f/4 S 6400 ISO 1/125s at f/4

This shot was one of the first I shot on the new body – as you can see, the hi-ISO is pegged at 6400 and frankly the noise is handled extremely well.

Nikon Z 7 IRIX 11mm f/4 200 ISO 6,0s at f/4

This was taken a couple of days earlier, but the ISO was down to 200 as I had the camera on a tripod.

Nikon Z 7 14-30mm f/4 S 6400 ISO 1/30s at f/11

This is confusing in that the detail was masked by the fog! Hi-ISO but on a tripod.

Are you listening NIKON?

This is the back of the NIKON Z 6 – the yellow arrow marks the famous ‘joystick’ used to move the focus point around the frame area.

Who needs it? More to the point, why can’t we turn it off, or at least LOCK it into a position (preferably central)?

I am far from being the only person who, every time they pick up the camera, manages to move this STUPID control somewhere where we don’t want it to be. As it is, I NEVER physically move the focus point – I simply point the camera, with my finger on the AF-ON button (and the focus point in the center of the frame) to where I want to mark the focus, then I lock it (by taking my finger off the AF-ON button) and compose the shot – simple.

It would seem likely that there are actually people out there who have the time, and or inclination to piss about moving the damn focus point all over the place before taking the picture – what a WASTE of time and effort. Why do you think there is AF-C and an AF-ON button?

I cannot believe that it’s rocket science to add a menu item (oh no, not more bloody menu items….) to activate/disactivate this function – and I feel sure it would make a huge number of people happy…

This said, we’re still waiting for the firmware update to be able to read CFexpress cards…ok, so they are not actually very freely available at the moment…and the few I’ve seen are even more expensive than XQD cards (which are FAR from cheap)

HELP IS (finally) AT HAND

A friend who « suffers » from the same problem has found a way to ‘reset’ the default value for the joystick.

In the CUSTOM CONTROL menu, menu item f2 allows you to assign different values to a number of controls – one of which is the famous ‘joystick’ (third down, on left)

Simply assign the value « RESET to Center » and every time you press this button, it will automatically come back to it’s central (initial) position. so even if the joystick is moved and the spot changes, it’s very easy to get back to the middle. I missed this as A: I rarely actually read the menu items due to the fact that B: I can’t actually read.

Many thanx David – lifesaver!

Bye-bye DX

This weekend I made a very radical decision – I don’t like selling stuff, but it’s a bit silly keeping perfectly useable camera gear in a box – it only loses it’s resale value in the event I do get around to selling it. The problem is that I have shifted over to the hybrid mirrorless system, which is much more adapted to the environments I generally work in.

So this one had to go..

The Nikon D500 – if this wasn’t obvious by the title in white…

I initially bought the D500 for two reasons – the first was that it has a wonderful sensor, which works very well in VERY low light situations, and the second, that with a small ‘kit’ of three lenses, I could fit it all into a small Think Tank bag and cart it around very easily. It became my holiday camera – until the arrival of the Z6.

This camera is what Nikon call ‘DX‘ which means half frame or 23.5 x 15.7 mm which is half the ‘full frame’ 24 x 36mm (NikonFX‘ format) – the lens mount is the classic Nikon ‘F’ and any Nikon lens will fit – this model also has the ‘screw drive’ autofocus connection (as well as the electrical contacts for more recent lenses) so even the original auto focus Nikkor lenses will work.

I used three lenses with this camera body – the 10.5mm fisheye, the 10-24mm wide-angle zoom, and the 16-85mm mid-range zoom – they were all I really ever needed. Using my FX lenses was possible, and I remember using the 70-200 f/4 successfully with the camera – of course, the focal range became 140-400, but that was the point – I needed a long focal length which I didn’t have available in a DX mounting.

Anyway, this ‘kit’ will soon be in the hands of another photographer – I wish them well, it never failed me. I just hope the hybrid mirrorless bodies stand up as well to the working environment…

Backing up – on the road

One problem common to all photographers who are away from home for extended periods, is how to backup their daily photos while they are ‘on the road’. Camera memory cards, particularly the recent SONY XQD format, are not cheap – a 64Go card costs around 179€ at time of writing. So one option is to take a small laptop computer, or tablet with you on your travels – this will also allow the photographer to go back and look at his days images on a larger screen than that available on the camera.

This is all very nice, but I was looking for a simple storage solution – copy the card onto a disk drive, and keep adding as the card fills up each day. I leave the treatment until I return home. Admittedly, this doesn’t happen very often in the year, on roughly three occasions when we are able to skive off without anyone noticing, but it’s reassuring to not have to rely just on the camera memory card.

I hunted around, and after a few false starts, came up with the Following simple procedure. This will not suit everyone, but it works for me – and costs less than the same as 1 64Go XQD card, but can store the equivalent of 15 x 64Go cards

Samsung A8 – it has a USB-C port

To start with, I happen to have a telephone with a VERY fast USB port – this is helpful, as I will initially need to copy my images to this, and given the fact they they are VERY large RAW images, it’s nice to be able to do this quickly. This model also has a microSD card slot, which allows a massive microSD card of 256Go.

A card reader for the XQD format – with USB-C connectivity

Next up is a card reader for the XQD cards – to copy the images from the card, to the telephone. This simply plugs into the phone. Once the images are copied (‘saved’) to the telephone (There are apps supplied with the phone, but I find File Manager works very well, and it’s free on the Play Store) you then have to copy them back off to an SSD type disk drive, using the telephone to control the next step…

NVMe memory card

This is a fairly recent innovation – the NVMe memory card – it’s like a tiny SSD (the actual size is 22 x 80mm) and fits into a housing with a cable to connect to the telephone. With a USB-C connector It is blistering fast – 1800 MB/S and a card which will contain 1 terractet/terrabyte of data costs about 100€ today.

This is the card housing. It costs around 45€

The final step is to copy the images back from the telephone onto the new NVMe card. The card housing is also supplied with an USB-C connector, so that simply plugs into the bottom of the phone, and File Manager will allow you to copy the images on the phone back to this. With the amazing speed that these new cards run at, the copy is very fast.

All that remains is to reformat the original camera memory card and reuse it the next day. Once home, if you are sufficiently organized with the file naming etc. it’s a very simple job to connect the NVMe card housing to your computer and read all the relevant image files onto the hard disk. Remember of course, if there are any problems, or you accidentally wipe out a file on your computer or the NVMe card, the ‘original’ copy still exists on your telephone. I check the final copy to the computer, and if all is well, I can then delete the image files on the telephone.

Works for me…

Talking of Saddles…

Called in to CiRCa today to visit a new company in residence – the difference this time is that they actually have animals – well, 6 horses and 2 dogs. This could be different I thought…

Well it was – the avant-premier is this coming weekend – personally I think they need more time, but what do I know. Here’s a small album I prepared for Instagram (hence the square images)

Check out the main site if you want to see more.

Back to the future – weekend musings

Recently « GAS » (« Gear Acquisition Syndrome ») has been mentioned a lot, and I admit, it got me thinking about what I could use for my ‘work’ in the future.

The principle reason is that I think I can detect a movement away from the classic reflex to mirrorless, on the part of the manufacturers, which can only involve an increase in development funding etc. for what will no doubt become the principal money earner in a few years time. This is positive and negative – the manufacturers will no doubt feel obliged to produce more variants of what they already sell, which will surely be ‘niche’ offerings rather than generally usable camera bodies. An example of this is the 58mm ‘Noct’ Nikkor S – what a complete waste of time at 9000€, yeah – right!

Regarding Nikon, the Z6/7 and now the Z50 are a very good start – far more convincing than Canons efforts – and I’m very happy with the Z6. I’m waiting for the next iteration, which will probably involve a 60Mp sensor. In itself, this kind of increase in pixel density doesn’t interest me, but the knock-on effect might bring the Z7 down in price, and closer to my eager hands.

A higher density sensor is useless to me for the circus/concert work I do, but that still leaves a lot of other aspects to cover, notably landscapes.

In terms of ergonomics, while I love dearly the D3s (despite the weight and size) I feel I’d be happy to trade in the D850 (and final get rid of the D500 which simply isn’t used) and replace this with a Z7.

On the downside, I’m still pissed off that the two button card reformat hasn’t found its way onto these bodies, as trolling through menus is a pain in the arse, and to be avoided. And as previously mentioned, the un-locked joystick STILL causes me huge problems, but there are ways around the latter – a small piece of black tape should fix that.

Despite my contact with Nikon, I seriously doubt that they will ever react to the ‘real’ needs of photographers – they have got it almost right, in my opinion, and that’s all they need to do, in theirs.

In terms of lenses, if I pursue this transformation, I can see on the ‘S’ roadmap a number of interesting lenses coming up – the 70-200 f/2.8 was supposed to arrive this year, and the 24-120 f/4 is due for 2020, both of which interest me greatly. However I can’t imagine the up coming 14-24 f/2.8 being within my range, financially.

A ‘portable’ kit involving the lenses I own, two mirrorless bodies and the two lenses mentioned above could be packed, and more importantly, carried to locations – far lighter than the kit I lug around today.

Next Wednesday, I have a « shooting » at the Dôme, and I’ll be dragging all sorts of stuff ‘just in case’, and as I don’t have a wheeled camera bag, I hope I can park close by!
Another advantage with the ‘S’ series lenses is the relative speed increase – the f/1.8 is a nice bright lens wide open – not that this changes a lot with an electronic viewfinder of course. The FTZ adaptor is the way to still be able to use all my ‘classic’ glass, of which I seem to have a number, and that placates me somewhat.

The original AF-D will have to go one day, but I’m loathe to get rid of the ‘curiosity’ lenses like the 16mm fisheye, only available in AF-D – this lens one uses once a year, but it’s nice to know I have it! I have it’s DX partner, the 10.5mm too – totally useless for everyday shooting, but fun nonetheless.

Getting back into the saddle

Unusually, I decided to photograph a recent concert at the Cri’Art. Unusually, because as a general rule, the lighting is crap (all coming from behind) and the lighting technician is so doped out of his head, he spends most of the performance just playing with the lighting control faders with no real effort to create a cohesive ‘plan’.

I decided, against this very negative backdrop, to test my « one lens » project at a concert. The equipment was simple, a Nikon D3s and the 85mm f/1.8 AF-S – this is a very ‘luminous’ lens – not the ‘fastest’ 85mm – there is an f/1.4 but at 1300€ I think I’ll pass thank you. Combined with AutoISO I thought I had a good chance of capturing something.

As this is not my normal « go to » concert lens*, I was using the experience to learn how it handled, in particular, the depth of the depth of field ‘wide open’ at f/1.8. Most concert artists move around a lot, and with V**** terrible lighting, I had to be able to stop the action, but also have sufficient DOF to render a usable image.

I’m happy enough with the results, but despite the optimistic title, I doubt I will be going back to cover any more concerts – the lighting is rubbish.

  • My ‘normal’ lens for concert work is the 24-120 f/4 – not a fast lens in any respect, but I know it so well, and can anticipate the depth of field at any particular focal length, it makes it very easy to use. With autoISO set at 8000 I generally manage to capture what I want.