Photokina 2010

24 09 2010

Last thursday I had the pleasure to visit photokina in Köln, Germany.
Of course I was drooling over all the new gear and stuff like the Nikon D7000 etc. I was also one of the lucky ones to win a Blackrapid RS7. I’ll write you a review once I have used it a bit more. I also found a great solution for geotagging, unfortunately my own camera, the nikon d60, can’t handle gps input. But once I upgrade I’ll give it a shot. It simple adds a tiny bluetooth device to the camera which can be combined with any Bluetooth gps module. It  enters the geolocation directly in the image. Check it out at www.foolography.com
The best experience for me however was the ability to hear some top of the notch photographers talk about photography. I had the pleasure to watch a presentation by Jonathan and Angela Scott at the Canon booth and Vincent Versace at the Nikon booth.
One thing complete me baffled me. When, at the end of their presentations, they asked the audience for questions, hardly anybody did! I mean what on earth are you doing at a photography event with a camera around your neck if you think there is nothing you can learn from these great photographers. All the better for me as I could ask multiple questions. After the presentations I stayed behind and had the opportunity to talk to them and even to have Johnathan Scott look at my animal photos and give me some advice on how to improve. Having an iPad with your photos on it, is a great help here. I’ll share the lessons I learned In another post.
Johnathan Scott at Photokina 2010
So if you are listening to a presentation by a world renowned photographer and he is asking if there are any questions, ask! Anything. They don’t bite and you might learn something.
I had a great time at Photokina and could have easily stayed more days.

Happy shooting!


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Manfrotto 785SHB tripod review

10 06 2009

About a month ago I decided it was time to buy a tripod. I was going on a trip and I didn’t want little light to stand in the way of a good shot.

Why need a tripod?
You need to use a tripod if your shutter speed is getting in the area of 1 / the focal length of the lens. So if you have a focal length of 50mm you stand a good change of shooting a good picture at a shutter speed of 1/50s. If you use an image stabilizer you might be able to get a sharp image at 1/30s or slower, but if you need to shoot at slower speeds or want to be sure of a sharp picture, use a tripod.
Street in Utrect
D60 sigma 70-300mm at 170mm F/7.1, 1/50s, ISO 200

Which tripod?
Of course tripods are a pain in the <insert body part of choice> to carry around. You might be tempted to leave it at home, especially when you are just stating out and are not yet so sure if you really need a tripod.   So the most important thing is to pick a tripod you will actually take with you. Any tripod in your bag is better than the one at home. However they should still be able to carry the weight of the camera. So with this in mind I started to hunt for my tripod; small enough to fit in my bag, yet strong enough to support my camera and lenses.
After some looking around and trying them out in the shops I settled on the Manfrotto 785SHB.

Manfrotto 785SHB
It is a small yet sturdy tripod. Collapsed it only measures 36.5 cm. It is small enough to fit into my backpack! So no problem to carry it around. The ball head and joystick grip is handy and easy to operate. It also comes with a bubble so you know when it is level. Extended it reaches 114.5 cm which is high enough for almost all situations. As you can screw off the lower part of the center column it can go very low as well, 15.5 cm.
The big question however is if it can support my camera with lenses. It is rated for 1 kg. This means that my Nikon D60 with my 50mm prime or 18-55 zoom should work perfectly fine but the D60 with my Sigma 70-300 zoom would exceed the weight limit (with about 200g).

And true to the spec I had no problem whatsoever with the 50mm or 18-55 zoom. It carried is nicely. It also carries my D60 with the 70-300 zoom lens fine, but with some limitations: It will not lock when the camera is in vertical mode. The weight will simply make it point down. It does however work when the camera is horizontal, though you have to push the lock tight so it does not slip. With the 70-300mm zoom it is also recommended to use either time delay or remote shutter press as it is sensitive to vibration. The price is about €70 so not expensive

Conclusion
I recommend it without hesitation if you keep the limitation in mind. It works very well for me.

pro:

  • small
  • light
  • sturdy

cons:

  • only carries 1kg

Hope this helped you, if you have any comments well put them in the comment :)

Happy shooting
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New DSLR? What to buy next?

3 06 2009

So you’ve got your (first) new dSLR and wandering what kind of additions to get next to get started. Here are 3 items which helped me most in improving my photography, enjoying my new dSLR  and which I recommend you to get first. If you disagree or have some additional must haves, leave a comment.
I bought these things based on recommendations from Scott Bourne’s website and podcast Photofocus site and Alex Lindsay’s podcast This Week In Photography. Both great podcasts ad I suggest ou check them out.

  • Good bag. It sounds trivial but a good bag makes all the difference. In my case it means I have no hesitation in bringing my camera. I have a comfortable bag which actually holds all my gear. I’ve chosen a bag (lowe pro compudaypack) which also has plenty of room for stuff to take on a day trip or hike. When you buy your bag remember that you most likely want to fit in more stuff in the future as you get more buy more gear
  • Fast prime. (a fast prime is a lens with a fixed focal length and a large maximum aperture like the like the Nikkor 50mm F/1.8) This kind of lens really enable you to take those kind of pictures you simply cannot take with a point and shoot camera
  • Lenspen. Cheap, small but I use it a lot, just get one.

Hopes this helps you in deciding what to buy next. Happy shooting.
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Nikkor 50 mm AF-D F/1.8 review

29 05 2009

In this review I will take a look at my first lens I got (apart from the kitlens, Nikkor 18-55 F/3.5-5.6 VR). The lens is the Nikkor 50 mm AF-D F/1.8. As I have no other similar lenses to compare it with, I point you to other online resources who go in depth regarding quality etc:

I will focus on how this lens has worked for me.
To start off my body is the Nikon D60 which does not have an autofocus motor build in. This means that in order for autofocus to work the lens needs to have it. In this case the lens doesn’t so I don’t have autofocus. I knew this in advance but decided to took to risk. (It saved about €200). I found that after some practice working without autofocus is certainly possible. It takes some practice but it works fine. Important to note is that the body helps you in focusing. In the viewfinder the indicator which normally shows if the image is over or under exposed now shows weather you are in focus or not. If there are green bars left of the 0 point the focus is too close and if there are green bars on the right the focus is behind the metering point.

Thanks to the large maximum aperture (low F-number) you can easily play with shallow depth of field. (What is depth of field?) As an example at F/1.8 a subject 1.5 meters away has only 6 cm is in focus. At F/5.6 this is 20 cm. Another advantage of the large aperture is the ability to take well exposes pictures in low light conditions. I’ve used the lens to take family pictures inside without using a flash. Not using the build on flash results in better pictures in my opinions since they retain the natural light and no flash reflations etc.

Because it is a prime lens (a fixed focal length) the lens is very compact. The focal length of 50 mm is maybe not the ideal focal length. A wider focal length might be more useful for general photography, but the 50mm is very well suited for making portraits.
Dog portrait
F/1.8, iso 200, 1/200s

Recommendation:
I love having a fast prime lens. This lens is also very affordable. If you have more money to spend and have a D40 or D60 (without build in focus motor) you might want to take a look at the recently announced Nikkor AF-S 35mm F/1.8 or Sigma 30mm F/1.4.

Pros
* large maximum aperture
* compact
* inexpensive

Cons
* No autofocus on Nikon D40/D60


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Quick tip: Which lens? check library

19 05 2009

A repeated question is “which (additional) lens should I buy?” Here is a tip for those of us beginning photographer not sure yet what kind of photographers they are.

Open your photo library. Look at your best photos. Pay attention to what focal length, which aperture etc is used. See if you can see a pattern and base your decision on what you found.

For example. If you have a lot of them at the maximum of your zoom range of your lens and you find yourself cropping them, a longer zoom seems like a good investment. If shallow depth of field is a pattern, a faster lens (What is a fast lens) is a good step.

This tip is of course only helpful if you already have a good amount of photos to sample from. If you don’t have a big library yet, it might be best to start building one first. If you are looking for your first lens, a zoom lens will do fine to start building your library.

Hope it helps you find your next lens. Happy shooting!


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Nikon D60 review

17 05 2009

In this post I review the Nikon D60 DSLR. I do this with the question in mind how does it work for me as a photographer who is just starting as a serious amateur.
Before I start the review I will mention the why. Why did I buy a DSLR?
Why DSLR?
Before the Nikon D60 I had the Sony cybershot DSC-P93. A nice little point and shoot camera. Quality was ok, colours could be better but by and large ok. I was able to take good pictures with it so why buy a much less portable dSLR? The main reason for changing to an SLR for me was the increase in control over the picture. The Sony had a manual mode but it was crap to operate and very limited.

Nikon D60
To start off I want to point your to other reviews. I only have one DSLR and never had any other so I can’t compare it to other bodies. Here are two links of in depth reviews of the D60.

Secondly I should mention that I bought the kit meaning the body (camera) and the lens (Nikkor 18-55 VR) as a package. It is very convenient when you start out to buy the bundle, but important to keep in mind is that the lens has a much bigger impact on your photo’s than your body.. So if you have the choice between a cheap body and a better lens versus a cheap lens and better body, go for the better lens.
Related to this if you buy your first SLR it is important to consider the brand. The reason why this is important is that, if you want to increase your range as a photographer, you will need more lenses. And it is important to know that not all lenses fit on all camera’s! The safest brands are Nikon and Canon they have been around and have a large set of lenses and plenty of third party manufactures make lenses for Nikon or Canon bodies (Sigma, Tamron etc). Pick either brand and you’re fine.

My experiences with the camera are good. As an entry level camera is is nicely compact. The amount of control I gained by getting this camera compared to my previous one is enormous. It doesn’t fit into my pocket but it enables me to make better photo’s. Besides control over settings like aperture and shutter speed, the colour response in much better than from my point and shoot. Colours are more saturated and more detail in preserved. All in all I am very satisfied.

One thing to note is that this camera does not have an autofocus motor build in the body. This means that the lens has to have one in order for auto focus to work. Many lenses do (for Nikon lenses look for AF-S) but not all. I have one such lens Nikkor AF-D 50 mm F/1.8 which means I have to manually focus it. This is by no means impossibe and the camera does have a focusmeter build in to help you, however it requires some practice and is hard to do with moving objects.

One other huge improvement over my point and shoot is the ability to take pictures in darker surroundings without the use of flash. The camera can go up to ISO value Hi (1600) but significant noise is already present at ISO 800.

Conclusion
The Nikon D60 is working out very well for me. It is a great entry level camera very well suited to explore serious photography. I have hardly ever felt that the camera was limiting me in the pictures I wanted to make.

    pros

  • affordable
  • compact and light weight
    cons

  • Although it performs reasonably well in low light situations, it is not top of the class
  • requires lenses to have AF motor limiting the lenses you can use.

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