Category Archives: Photography

Vibration Reduction

Lenses

The greatest photographic invention since digital imaging.

The current B&H paper catalog contains no fewer than ten pages listing some 132 digital cameras, from inexpensive point-and-shoots to full frame Canon DSLRs. So there’s no shortage of choice at any price point. What is intriguing is that some 25% of these now include words like “Image Stabilizer” or “Vibration Reduction” in their specification. Go back a couple of years and the only place you could find these technologies was in a select few exotic lenses for their DSLRs from Canon and Nikon. True, some makers cheat by simply upping the ISO where slow shutter speeds would otherwise be required, but you can see the general technological direction nonetheless.

My guess is that, a couple of years hence, every digital camera save the very cheapest will have this technology built-in. Makers have come to realize that it offers a competitive advantage and, until proper optical viewfinders make a comeback, holding a camera at arm’s length to squint at the little LCD screen on the back while composing the picture denies everything we were taught as children about holding a camera steady.

And steady means sharp.


The stabilizer switch on the superb Canon 24-105mm L lens

I have become so attuned to the grain-free sensor in the Canon 5D that an 18″ x 24″ print is, if not something that is made with impunity, at least pretty commonplace, and the definition in the details is nothing short of startling. There is simply no way that I would be turning out so many large, sharp prints, with 35mm film technology. The enlargement ratio would be the same, true, but the vibration reduction in that splendid 24-105mm Canon lens would be noticeable by its absence. So while Leica can justifiably lay claim to making the best 35mm interchangeable lenses on the planet, not a one of them boasts vibration reduction. Bottom line? The less refined Canon optic with VR beats the superb Leica one unless a very sturdy tripod is used.

And it’s not just at the slower speeds that this is noticeable. Like most photographers, the majority of my pictures is taken using shutter speeds in the 1/60th – 1/500th range. Now the old rule used to be that you had to use a shutter speed no longer than the reciprocal of the focal length for a sharp picture. So, 1/50th for a 50mm, 1/100th for a 100mm and so on. This rule, of course, is so much rot. Go to any photo show and viewers will not step back twice as far to view an 18″ x 24″ print as they would for an 8″ x 10″ one. So the effects of camera shake in big prints are effectively magnified from the viewer’s perspective. So that 1/50th at 8″ x 10″ suddenly becomes 1/100th at 18″ x 24″ for the same perceived absence of camera shake. Offset this with the three shutter speeds of added sharpness gained from VR and you can see why most of my 5D originals easily scale to 18″ x 24″ prints. I am, in effect, using far faster shutter speeds than ever before, thanks to VR. Take away the detail-robbing effects of film grain, courtesy of the 5D’s noiseless sensor, and you have another quantum leap in definition.

So VR will become as commonplace in digital cameras as anti-lock brakes have in cars.

No way I need VR in my Canon fisheye, which has an effective focal length of 12mm after applying ‘defishing’ software, but I would kill for it in the 200mm f/2.8 where it is sorely missed. So until Canon does that, I continue to drag my monopod around with me when using this otherwise excellent optic.

Remote strobe trigger

Technique

How does $20.39 delivered sound?

When, with the help of that merry boulevardier, Bert the Border Terrier, I wrote about my happy times with studio flash I grumbled about the cost of a wireless connector between camera and power pack. This obsoletes one cord, making for one less thing to trip over, but I couldn’t find anything reasonably priced, so I put the idea out of my mind. Canon makes a unit called the ST-E2, for some $210, which will trigger their Canon flash units only, and that price is for the transmitter only! And that’s an optical transmitter, meaning your receiving flash gun has to be in line of sight of the transmitter. No way, José. B&H also lists many units from other makers. My only interest is in radio transmitters, which do not require line of sight, and the cheapest receiver-transmitter I can find on their site is some $125 and that requires mains power. Ugh! Lose a cord, gain a cord. Too much money, too little gain.

The other night, thinking about that strobe piece, and preparing mentally for the annual Christmas family snap which requires strobes as often as not, I was reminded of a conversation with a nerdy friend. You know, the one who thinks nothing of dismantling his computer to convert it to a faster chip or ripping apart his motorcycle in the quest for two more horsepower. This fellow had bought an el cheapo radio receiver-transmitter from eFraud, excuse me, eBay, and was singing its praises to the high heavens.

Now, truth be told, he was visiting from Crime Central, a.k.a. Baltimore, and the libations were flowing freely, so I dismissed this as so many ramblings of a too active brain. But that strobe piece caused something of a flashback to that discussion so I checked eCheat, sorry, eBay, to see what was out there, dialing in the words “flash remote”. Well, seemingly hundreds of choices presented themselves so I went for the cheapest, smallest, battery powered radio unit, going for the startling sum of $4.95. OK, OK, plus $14.99 postage. So $20.39 all in, counting 41 cents to the serial larcenists and pant droppers in Sacramento, CA for sales tax. My unit of choice goes under the splendid name of “New Wireless Remote Radio Slave Strobe Flash Trigger AA”. No prizes for originality, but five days later my good friend Greg Littell, who doubles as the mail man, dropped off a small package which must have cost the vendor all of $1.99 to mail. Hey, whatever, I was only in for $20.39 all told.

And here it is.

You get the receiver, with a 1/4″ mono plug, which plugs into your strobe’s power pack, a mini-jack adapter, a transmitter-to-camera cable if you have no hot shoe, and the transmitter. The whole things weighs – well, about $1.99 in postage.

The instructions are written in Chinglish. “Trigger flash lamp in long distance and in all around way without barrier”. Let Dr. Pindelski, your Sino-studies expert, translate. “Radio remote strobe transmitter and receiver, not requiring line-of-sight”. They also say you need a 12 volt 23A battery for the transmitter, the bit that goes on the camera, and two “Size No. 7” batteries for the receiver, the part that is plugged into the strobe’s power supply. That’s “AA” to you. I popped the small Phillips screw in the transmitter, and the 23A battery was already there.

By contrast, the receiver was sans AAs, excuse me, No. 7s, so I dropped in a couple rechargeables.

Now, there’s a bit of a snag. My Novatron power pack, being Texan, has little in the way of effete connectors. When Texans decide you need to connect a camera to their power pack, they make the connector a household ‘H’ plug, which is designed to transmit some 15 amps of power. So, off to Radio Shack for a pair (they wouldn’t sell me one) of their 274-340 1/4″ coaxial jacks and to Home Depot for a household H plug. Solder the two together, glue the bodies for a nice look and this is what you have at an additional cost of some $7. The Dr. Pindelski 1/4″ Mono Plug To H Socket Adapter. Available from me at $99.95 + $30 shipping, should you need one. Order early as I expect to be inundated with Christmas and Hannukah orders.

Time to test this little rig. We don’t need the 1/4″-to-mini-jack adapter, so that goes in the cardboard box in the corner of the garage which the black beetles call home, together with the coax cable, as my Canon 5D has a hot shoe. This is how it looks on the 5D:

Let me stress, my 5D can sustain 250 volts, so I’m safe. You should conduct your own test before use if you are unsure.

Finally, here is the receiver plugged into the Novatron power pack, the same one those good Texans use to fry the miscreants on Death Row.

So does it work?

You bet.

As reliable as the Texas Electric Chair. I measured the range at an astonishing 75 feet on my 5D. At 76 feet it fails to trigger the flash.

Not bad for some $28 all told, huh? And one less cable to trip over.

More censorship from Leica

Cameras, Leica

Censorhip is simply much tougher than in day’s past.

I wrote of Michael Reichmann’s appalling behavior regarding his review of a faulty camera from Leica (the M8) here.

Now an erudite posting, addressing the M8’s problems that Reichmann struck from his ‘review’, was censored by one of the moderators on the Leica User Forum. Not so fast, Mr. Censor – you can erase the message on the forum, but you cannot remove it from my news reader:

Now I do not know the poster, but the message seems rational and well argued. Why then was it struck soon after posting?

Leica’s Watergate

Hall of Shame, Leica

Just another case of a lack of journalistic integrity?.

When I trashed the Panasonic L1 I wrote positively about Michael Reichmann’s objectivity when he wrote about this camera on his web site.

I now have no reason to any longer think that Reichmann is an objective writer.

He has admitted (after clicking the link go to the bottom) that, in ‘reviewing’ the Leica M8 he pulled critical comments from his piece as requested by the Leica Company who had loaned him the camera. It is possible that many who based their purchase decision on his purportedly objective review would have refrained from buying the camera had these comments not been censored.

While he has since bought an M8, I assume using his own money, the reality is he allowed his objectivity to be irrevocably compromised, in this writer’s eyes, by the provision of a free loaner, trading it for self aggrandisement that comes from being one of the favored few to be graced with a pre-production M8. “Look how important I am. Leica gave me a free loaner.” Psychic payola, and good value, had it worked for Leica. They didn’t even have to write a check. In the event, collusion between manufacturer and ‘reviewer’ has, in this case, hurt both.

Had Mr. Recihmann published his adverse findings, explaining that Leica told him they had fixed the problem (they have not) that would have been quite different. In that case he could have stated that he would verify such claims in a follow-up to his review.

As long time readers of this journal know, there is no earthly chance that Yours Truly would ever be given anything free by any manufacturer to ‘review’, as a manufacturer’s publicity machine is not intended to spread truth, justice and the American Way. Rather, its sole intent, which is fine with me, is to sell products. Just don’t expect me to write manufacturer-censored reviews under the guise of objectivity.

You may check my ethics policy by clicking ‘Author and ethics’, below.

The closing three sentences of Reichmann’s apologia are breathtaking and I quote – my underscore. I quote, in case they should one day disappear from his site – please read his whole piece to put these in perspective by clicking on the link in the third paragraph above:

“But, in the end I would do what I did again, simply because I felt that potential owners needed to know what I had learned in my testing, without delay. And, I would have held back again on the issues that I was requested to because that’s the proper way to deal with manufacturers, who one assumes will take their responsibilities to journalists seriously. Enough said.”

If you can reconcile the first and second sentences, please educate me by leaving a comment, below.

So now that you understand Mr. Reichmann’s “….proper way of dealing with manufacturers….” you will know better than to believe anything he ever writes again on his Luminous Landscape web site.

Mr. Reichmann, let me put you out of your naïveté. A manufacturer’s goal in a capitalist system is to get journalists to write what is best for the profitability of the manufacturer. A journalist’s goal is to write unconflicted truth as he sees it, pulling no punches with regard to material facts.

And here is what you really meant to write, and do feel free to copy and paste it into your column – no attribution needed:

“Dear Luminous Landscape readers – I made a serious ethical and journalistic error in withholding information regarding product defects in the new Leica M8. I did this at the request of the Leica Company who had given me a free loan of the camera. In doing so, I made a material misrepresentation to you, my readers. I have seriously compromised my journalistic integrity and accept full responsibility to all of you who bought the camera on my recommendation and now find that, had my findings been uncensored, they would have changed your purchase decision.”

Trust, once lost, Mr. Reichmann, is seldom regained. Print a proper retraction on the lines of the above and I will be happy to publish it here.

As for Leica, the company may have knowingly released a faulty product. If that is the case, the class action lawyers will take care of them, assuming there’s enough money left there to make the suit worthwhile. Why, even Mr. Reichmann would collect something in the settlement.

Balls

Cameras

Well, ball heads, to be exact.

Novoflex is a German company with a long and storied tradition of making camera gadgets. While their publicity machine in the US seems non-existent, the company for many years made a variety of adapters, bellows and follow focus mounts for Leica and other lenses which earned them a stellar reputation for quality and design. Indeed, for a while in the 1970s, you could buy the Leica 400mm and 500mm f/6.8 follow focus Telyt lenses from Leitz mounted either in the Leitz buttton release follow focus mount or in the Novoflex trigger release style.

The fact that their marketing in the US is lousy does not in any way minimize the quality of their products. Type in ‘Novoflex’ at the B&H site and you will be rewarded with no fewer than eleven pages of Novoflex products, from a $1,200 tilt bellows which can be adapted to just about any SLR made in the past fifty years, to a $19 plant holder clamp (no kidding) which can be affixed to a standard tripod screw.

Want an adapter to mount your Canon EOS lens backwards on the body for extreme close-up work? Novoflex has it. A nicely made, inexpensive, table top tripod? No problem. A forked joint, V-shaped tripod head to support the long barrel of an ultra-telephoto lens on a second tripod? You bet.

In other words, if specialty applications are your thing, there’s a good chance Novoflex makes it.

Having sold off a bunch of stuff left over from the old film camera days, I decided to reward myself with a toy. Something not essential, you understand, but nice to have. Now while I am not in any need of more cameras or lenses, having pretty much all I need, I do recall thinking that a really nice ball head for my Linhof tripod would be a good idea. Until now I have used a Leitz ball head which is very secure, the serrated ball locking firmly with very little force on the knob, but because I like to have both my tripod and monopod in the trunk of the car at all times, I concluded that one necessary luxury would be a second ball head. The Leitz could make its home premanently on the monopod, and the new head would live on the tripod. Like an old rather affluent friend who keeps mistresses in several of the world’s great cities. Luxury indeed!

Go to the Ball Heads section of the B&H site and you will find no fewer than nine pages’ worth. Phew! Sort in price order and the costliest, from Arca-Swiss, comes in at nearly $800. Now I like quality as much as the next man but I am not insane. Go down a few pages and you come across a truly funky one, suggesting that the folks at Apple are not the only ones who ‘Think Different’. It is, of course, from Novoflex, and is sold in three sizes (mine is the smallest – the ‘MiniMagic’). Here is how it compares with that inspired and ancient Leitz design:


The Novoflex MiniMagic ball head next to the full size Leitz one

In the above picture both heads are fitted with Manfrotto quick release tripod plates. The design of the Novoflex permits unobstructed rotation of the camera without having to locate the ’90 degree slot’ you can see on the Leitz design. Some inspired designer at Novoflex has basically flipped the design and made the base of the head accept the camera, mounting the ball on the tripod. Genius.


Electric blue adds a nice touch of fun to the inspired design

Novoflex states that the head will support 11 lbs, which means three Canon 5Ds with the standard zoom lens fitted. That’s a lot of weight.


Flipped 90 degrees the nylon friction pads are revealed. Cleaning the ball could not be easier.

The head is fastened by rotating the large serrated protruding handle.

Novoflex makes two larger variants, capable of supporting 15 and 22 lbs., respectively, but for 35mm and medium format work the smallest seems more than adequate, weighing in at all of 11.5 ozs. The larger ones come with friction control, but it’s not something I need; for that matter, gently tightening the handle confers an adequate level of friction control with this model, should you require that to level the camera with small incremental movements. Also, realize that you would have to add the Novoflex Universal Panorama plate if you want calibrated, level rotation, but for panoramas I think you are far better off with something like a proper panoramic head with nodal point offset.


A toy, you say? Think again!

In practice the head is wonderfully easy to use, nothing ever gets in the way, and you can rotate the camera well past 90 degrees for those occasions where your tripod is not especially level. It looks just super on my old Linhof tripod. Recommended without reservations; even the price of $240 seems reasonable for something you will use the rest of your life. And that old Leitz head? Happy as a clam on the Manfrotto monopod, one of the best tools I know of to make your lens deliver its best.