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.

Volkswagen: A Week at the Factory

Book reviews, Photographers

An extraordinary book by Peter Keetman.

What the Leica is to rangefinder cameras and the Nikon F to SLRs, so is the VW Beetle to cars. Each is an icon which transcends time and criticism. Each was the very best that its respective designers and engineers had to offer.

The photography in this book is exceptional. The cover picture is a foretaste of what is to come. Keetman, who spent a week in the VW facory in 1953 without a commission or pay, does not document workers toiling in tough conditions making thousands of cars. Social statements are not his interest. Rather, everywhere he points his camera he sees geometrical forms, shapes repeated, industrial beauty of the highest order.

Hundreds of differential gears look like so many flowers in a meadow. Stacked body panels create beautiful, repetitive designs. Cylinder heads look like nothing so much as immense, expressionist buildings – think of the Capitol Records building in Los Angeles or the BMW headquarters in Munich.

An exceptionally honest essay by Rolf Sachsse pulls no punches as to the provenance of the Beetle and Armin Kley provides a useful technical piece on the development of this cultural icon – the iPod of its day.

You do not need to like cars to love the great photography in this ninety page paperback, first published in the US in 1992. Amazon lists used copies for very little. Rush out and get one before they are gone.

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?

One hundred yards – Part I

Photographs

Some of the best pictures are one hundred yards from your doorstep. Or less..

Given how much time we spend in our homes, it’s surprising that many photographers feel they have to journey to remote, exotic locations in search of picture opportunities. They arrive tired, are in a strange location which they have no time to ‘learn’, and leave frustrated. You must make the return flight and have to make do with whatever weather is around at the time.

By contrast, the circle centered on your home, with a 100 yard radius, provides some of the best photographic opportunities. You know the area, are rested and have no deadlines. There is no return flight. And you can wait for the weather to come to you.

Here are a couple snaps, taken over the years, all within 100 yards or less of where my bed was the previous night. More to come over the next few weekends.


100 yards. San Diego, California. M2, 35mm.


5 yards. Templeton, California. 5D, 24-105mm

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