Ian's-tagram

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..

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 (Nikon ‘FX‘ 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…

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

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.

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…

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.

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…

More information on this intriguing question….in a future article…

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)

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

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.

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.

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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.

One of the noticeable things about mirrorless photography is the sudden increase in the number of battery changes one has to perform. Everything works from a fairly small battery – shutter and recording mechanism, but also the two screens (viewfinder + rear screen) so the battery drain, even without using the rear screen, is relatively important.

In comparison with the D3s, on which I shot two concerts with only 1 bar down on the battery meter – two concerts is roughly 2 hours, and on the Z6 I would have had to change batteries after the first concert.

Nikon have now (finally) released their solution to this problem…the MB-N10 battery pack

This is unusual in that it really is a battery pack – it only stores batteries – one in each end. There are no shutter buttons, AF buttons – nothing. The increase in battery time is in fact indefinite, as discharged batteries can be hot-swapped out and replaced with charged ones without interrupting the camera – for example if you are filming a long time-lapse, or a video.

Sadly, this does not act as a vertical grip, which I think is a shame as it’s actually quite useful to have a second shutter and AF button for use when the camera is used vertically.

Nikon will no doubt come up with excuses for this, and other, oversights, but for me this pack at least will allow me to photograph circus events and concerts without having to turn the camera off half way through (and losing all my temporary setting adjustments) just to change batteries.

There are some very amusing comments over on the Nikon Rumors site, following the announcement that the pack is now available – before reading ANY comments on that site, one has to keep in mind that the ratio of photographers (who actually USE equipment) to ignorant forum squatters (who wouldn’t know a camera if it fell on them) is roughly 1:200 – so PLEASE take virtually ANY comment with a serious pinch of salt.

Going somewhat against the trend of mainstream photography (where everything happens on a screen), I’ve decided to print an image, frame it, and whack it up on a wall.

This image is being printed 40×60 on a beautiful mat, full rag paper, and will eventually be mounted in a gorgeous Nielsen Alpha Oak frame.

Can’t wait to see this hanging…

Update – it looks amazing (he said modestly)

…I think I might go to see a concert this evening. This is something I generally avoid because, for photographers, the lighting in our concert venue is, how can I put this gently? Oh yes, « shit » describes it pretty well.

This colourful lot are called « The Hyènes » (The Hyenas) and come from the Landes which is not far from us here in the Gers. They are known nationally, and I thought it might be fun to spend some time with them, before and during the concert, and try and get some useable images.

I can’t gaurantee anything until they actually arrive here this afternoon – I always confirm with the artists before doing anything – it’s polite, and I consider it a minimum – and anyway, it costs nothing!

They’ve played here before, so they obviously know the routine – fingers crossed – who knows, perhaps I’ll even stay tonight…

It’s been a little quiet here recently – principally due to the fact that after retirning from our annual « retreat » in September, there wasn’t a lot of time before the 10 days Circus-fest which happens here over the autumn school holidays.

This years festival was interesting as I was able to see the final finished spectacles from a series of residencies that I had photographed here in Auch over the past year.

First up was Baro d’Evel with « Falaise » – I am still not allowed to publish most of what I shot (due to the company wanting to surprise it’s paying public) but I’m allowed to show you this…

The production was excellent, as one would expect from this company based just outside Toulouse – however, I wasn’t the only one who thought there were two or three elements which tended to go on a bit too long.

Here are a few Instagram (Square) shots from some of the 17 other spectacles I viewed this year:

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All in all a good festival, photographically – though I would be the first to admit I have NO IDEA what the companies were trying to get across to the (paying) public…

So what’s new?