What NEX(t) ? The new Sony Nex-5- a field trial

Blinded, Cashel Mall

Those of you who have been keeping up with the play will know about the new market which has opened up in the camera scene. Panasonic and Olympus opened the game with the four thirds format. First there was the BSLR (Baby SLR) with the Olympus E-600’s and the Panasonic G-1.  Then the game heated up. Olympus fired a broadside with the Pen EP-1 & 2. Panasonic returned fire with the GS-1, both of which were aiming for the rangefinder ground inhabited by the M-series Leica and the Voigtlander Bessa. Technically cameras in this category are known as EVIL ( Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens).

The  photographic market place has seen a revival of interest in photography, because cameras of this type, quite simply, make it fun to be a photographer. And make serious photographs in the process. To date the Big Three (Canon, Nikon and Sony) have held out, but now Sony have entered the battle with the paradigm-shifting NEX-3 and NEX-5.

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Almost all the photographers I know and respect have a prime lens somewhere in their kit. It is one of those things that are just what you want when you want it. But there are other reasons for using a prime lens. So prime lens, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

In the Beginning, before the zoom lens, there were only prime lenses.  Zoom lenses did not appear until the mid 20^th century. You may be interested to know that most of the designs for prime lenses were formulated in the late 19^th or early 20^th centuries and, apart from advances in glass and coating technologies, have remained fairly true to their roots to this day. The Planar design is a standard and a classic. When zoom lenses first began to appear, most serious photographers stayed away, because the optical quality was…well…diabolical. My first zoom lens, a Soligor 70-200 4.5-5.6 was the perfect portrait lens, distinguishing itself by being supremely soft at all apertures and all focal lengths. Its optical qualities would have made Claude Monet happy.

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Sony HX5V

It always happens.

You set off somewhere, on a strict timeline, having carefully calculated the time required to be there at your appointment, a time which allows you do some final checking before you leave and maximise your productivity before leaving.

This method is also known as Setting Off at The Last Minute.

Because you know it is going to be a fast trip, with no opportunity to stop along the way, you pack all your expensive camera equipment and put in the boot of your vehicle. After all, there will be no time to stop. Will there? And you leave.

And it happens.

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a-data-sh93

Kia ora tatou:

This e-mail arrived in my inbox the other day, and after reading it, I felt a need to share it with you. So, many thanks, Alan, for getting this to me, and for all the obvious research you have done. I’m going to post this, and then make my reply afterwards.

A word of warning about new Western Digital MyBook USB drives bundled software

At one of Tony’s recent courses he reminded me that I shouldn’t be trusting my valuable data to a Seagate USB drive when he saw me using one, his preferred option being Western Digital. A recent visit to Dick Smith’s sale gave me the opportunity to replace my drive with a Western Digital, so I thought I should share my experience with you all.

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Kia ora tatou:

I know I have banged on about tripods ad nauseam, but I feel it is time to visit this again, having been at a workshop where the $80 tripods which are a chiropractor’s best friend were present. A good tripod is indispensable for a photographer.End of story.

If there is one piece of equipment which is absolutely indispensable to a landscape photographer, it has to be the tripod. Put simply, any landscape photographer worth his salt has a really good tripod … or two. Whenever I am teaching landscape photography workshops, it never ceases to amaze me how little emphasis would-be photographer’s give to the selection of their tripod. They spend an amazing amount of money on the best cameras, the best lenses and high-quality filters, then spend a pittance on the tripod. Buying a cheap tripod is, quite simply, false economy. And here is why.

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Thriller, Colombo Street

Kia ora tatou:

Enough of the serious posts…for the moment…

I’ve noticed I am prone to a disease specific to photographers, which rears its head about this time of the year. It’s probably happened every year for the last 25 or so, so when the symptoms present, I’m fully aware of what’s going on. The symptoms go something like this:

For no particular reason I find myself parking up and wandering into my favourite local photographic retailer (you know who you are!). I really don’t have a reason to be there, but somehow it just happens. When they come up and asked me what they can do to help, I shuffle and mumble, and try to think of something meaningful to say. What I really should do is be honest and say: it’s that time of year again, and I need to kick some tyres. I suspect I haven’t got this problem on my own.

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Sony Vaio VGN-AW37GY

Kia ora tatou:

ASP stirred the pot a week or so back  in suggesting that the Sony Vaio laptop ( hereafter referred to as the BBB-Big Black Box) I took to Africa may have found its way under a Namibian dune, because I hadn’t said anything further. Well it hasn’t, and I probably need to a do a review of that as well. Frankly I  have never reviewed a computer before. I read reviews, but have never written one. It would appear that time has come. but first some ground rules.

1. This will get techy at times, but frankly  I am more interested in how it performs and whether it will support rather than hinder me. So this is an end-user review. People who need to know stuff like hyperthreading ability and on-board cache won’t find any of that stuff here. Go Google….
2. I use a PC but I have spent time with Macs. I like both. Neither operating system is perfect.  I tend to push my computers really hard and I have found that Mac’s can get just as slow as a PC. So I use Windows-based machines, because there is enough under-the-hood control fo me to be able to keep them at peak efficiency for me. I prefer using a PC because they are (bang for your buck) more affordable.I know many pros prefer Mac but I have yet to see the advantage. Mac fanbois, feel free to weigh in below (some evidence would be great!).  and since this is the Paragraph of Contention, may I add here that I have been a fan of Vista since its inception, and especially since SP2. It just works, and it does not clog up like XP, requiring a full reinstall every year or so. I love the interface for one thing.Finding files in a desktop with 8 Hard drives and a total of 6 TB of storage is not easy, but Vista makes that a breeze. Of course there will be some amazingly useful plugin which makes XP friendly and justifies continuing to keep the corpse alive…. Feel free to share in the comments section.

There it is. Let us move on.

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Dune 45, Sossuvlei

Kia Ora tatou:

A Number of you have rung or e-mailed me since I got back, wanting to know how I got on with the Sony in Africa. I’ve been thinking about that, and decided it’s probably time to write some sort of gear review.

I don’t do gear reviews easily. Certainly not the ones that go into every intricate detail of how the camera functions, that make really boring photographs of household objects on a white background, and then tell you how good the camera is or not. Frankly, I’m not that interested in the intricacies of the custom menus. I’m a photographer. I use a camera to make pictures, and I measure the success of the machine in question in two key areas: how intuitive  and reliable it is to use in the field, and the quality of the finished file. Make me happy on both those accounts and I’m a loyal supporter.

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Kia ora tatou:

While I was mucking around in the menus, trying to avoid having to RTFM, I came a cross a couple that could be useful.

The first is C-RAW, which gives a 12 Mp file whenever you use it. Might be really useful the next time I shoot a wedding…..

The other is APS-C mode. I had the opportunity to use it yesterday in Pretoria. My good friend, Reg Botha, took me to a game park nearby, which sprawls across around 4 000 ha of the high veldt. Now the last time I shot ( rephrase: photographed) animals was 3 years ago in the Kruger, so I was well and truly out of practice.

But the animals were not.

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…But the Road has always been, and those of us who can travel it always have. The world goes on, the Road goes on-from creation to destruction, amen, for all you know. What’s your point?…

-Roadmarks ( Roger Zelazny)

Kia ora tatou:

In the last chapter of the story of a new Sony user in Africa, I talked about the camera and the files coming out of it. In this post I want to talk about the post-production implications of making the switch.

Just before I left last week, Marcus at Dove Electronics, who handle Sony cameras in New Zealand, suggested I take one of their Vaio VGN-AW37GY laptops with me. Given that I was looking for a new laptop, and I have only ever heard good things about Vaio’s, I readily agreed, on the premise that I was free to bag it if it didn’t perform. He agreed ( but seemed a bit too confident, so I resisted the temptation to put money on it), so late last Thursday I picked it up, and started throwing software at it.

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Kia ora tatou:

I have been in South Africa a few days now and have had time to try out the camera and lenses, along with the laptop loaned me and revisit my workflow. So I intend to write this review in two parts: in the first part what I am learning about the Sony and the way it works. In the second I will write about the laptop and the effects of using it and the impact on my workflow.  As many of you know , I have been a Canon user for around 10 years, and in most of that time I have used 1-series  Canons, with the latest being the 1D Mk III and 1DS Mk III. So I have a body of fore-knowledge which needed to be rebuilt. This review will tend to compare the 2 systems in places, as it gives me a better idea of what the 24.5 Mp Sony A900 delivers relative to the Canon.

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Kia ora tatou:

Those of you  interested in how much of the market is taken up by each brand might be interested in this….

Photoscala has posted an interesting Gain & Loss analysis of the worldwide DSLR market, for the period 2006-2008. According to their findings Canon, who were the undisputed worldwide leaders in 2006, have lost 9 percentage points and barely managed to keep their number one position against Nikon, who have gained 4 percentage points in the meantime. The biggest winner is Sony, who managed to more than double their market share, and took the third position from Olympus with ease. The rest of the market is devoid of any major changes, although Panasonic has managed to double its share, partially owing to its introduction of the DMC-G1 (which is, technically speaking, not a DSLR, but is nevertheless included in the figures).

Nota bene: Photoscala warns that these numbers, which were derived from multiple sources, are to be taken with a grain of salt, but allegedly “the tendencies have been captured quite accurately”.

Kia ora tatou:

It’s that time of the year, when the rumours turn to fact…or not…

With something  called IFA around the corner ( another trade show, I think) the manufacturers are rolling out their new products. Samsung, Casio and Olympus have released new toys ( sorry, tools) but they look so underwhelming, I won”t go into them here…..

The two things which have the Bridge Salivation System (BSS) in full werewolf-slaver mode are the new Canon 7D, specs for which include:

* 18MP APS-C CMOS sensor

* 8 frames per second continuous shooting

* 1080p HD video recording with manual controls

* 3.0 inch Clear View II LCD screen with 920,000 dots

* 19-point AF system (all cross-type)

* 1.0x magnification and 100% coverage viewfinder (more…)

For as long as I’ve been involved with photography, I’ve subscribed to the edict (and taught it) that you should have a filter on the front of the lens.

Until now.

After a conversation with a camera technician in South Africa, I’m rethinking the whole thing. I’m coming to the conclusion that they aren’t necessarily a good thing.

For those of us who came up through film, there were lots of good reasons for using filters. If we shot black-and-white, then we used a UV filter to cut down the amount of ultraviolet light reaching our film,  therefore giving it a better spectral response. If we shot film, then we probably went out and bought a skylight filter, to reduce the amount of blue light reaching our colour film. Here in New Zealand, with its excessively high amount of ultraviolet light (especially since the ozone hole came into being), there was no question of the necessity for these. But do we need to continue with this practice when all but a few of us use digital cameras?

Another reason for using filters like this on the front of our cameras was to protect the soft coating on the front lens element from scratching and from excessive cleaning. The theory was that filters could be thrown away when they got scratched and that it was cheaper to replace a filter than to replace the front element of the lens. Conventional wisdom also said that in using one of these filters we would be protecting our lenses from damage if we dropped it. And so for years we all dutifully bought filters for the front of our lenses. But, with coatings much harder and durable, is there a need to do so any more? (more…)

Kia ora tatou:

Just in today.

Canon have announced new models.

1. 350D/400D/450D owners will soon be able to upgrade to the 15.1Mp 500D. Cool features you might like include ( note: taken from Canon Press release, so you might want to circle around the adjectives)
2. * 15.1 Megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor
   * Full HD movie recording with HDMI connection for viewing and playback on an HDTV
   * ISO 100-3200 (expandable to 12800)
   * 3.4 frames per second continuous shooting
   * Max. 170 large JPEG images in a single burst
   * 3.0″ ClearView LCD with Live View mode
   * 9-point wide area AF with cross type centre point
   * High speed DIGIC 4 performance and superb image quality
   * EOS Integrated Cleaning System
   * Full compatibility with Canon EF and EF-S lenses and EX-series Speedlites, including new Speedlite 270EX, TS-E 17mm f/4L and TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II (more…)