Random Musings > Phototalk

Bought any photography stuff today?

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ed_o_brain:
A bit like this thread, only for photography stuff.
I've just taken delivery of a panoramic head... I'm going to use it for creating 360º product photos, once I have a platform attached to the top bracket.


Manfrotto 300N Panoramic Head by ed_o_brain, on Flickr

rogerzilla:
A Leitz 40mm f/2 Summicron-C.  The bargain among "modern" Leica lenses, it's a small fraction of the price of the equivalent 35mm*, offers impeccable performance and (from long experience with a Minoltina-S rangefinder) 40mm is a more useful focal length than 35mm, which distorts a little too much if you don't keep the camera back straight.

The gotcha is that only the forgotten Leica CL has 40mm framelines, and this is why the lens is cheap.  The lens brings up 50mm framelines on other bodies and you basically need to shoot to the *outside* of the thick M3 framelines, plus a little bit.  This isn't as big a problem as you might think, since the framelines are only an approximation due to the increased magnification at close distances.  Remember that most consumer SLRs give you quite a lot more on the image than you see in the finder; some have only a 90% FOV.  Or you can just buy a 40mm accessory viewfinder for the hot shoe, but that won't have parallax correction.


*currently selling s/h for more than the new price at some dealers, since Leica in Solms can apparently only crank out 63 lenses a week and demand (supposedly from Chinese nouveau-riches and people with a new digital body) has gone through the roof.

Charlotte:
A second hand Nikon SB900 flashgun.  Dear Lord, it's a bit of a beast; both in size and complexity.  I can see why Ken Rockwell slated it for being overcomplicated - it's got more menus than most DSLRs have.  The reason I wanted it was that unlike the lesser flashes in the current range, it can act both as a commander for Nikon's CLS lighting system and (crucially) it has a PC synch socket when I want to tether it up with a cord.  Also, it's a mite more powerful and comes with a really useful set of light modifiers and gels.

Probably because I already own an SB600 already, I was able to figure out how to use it without the instruction manual (that I didn't get from the seller).  Shame I couldn't figure out rear-curtain synch though; Mr and Mrs Pike were chucking fire about at the weekend and it limited me a bit.  Why don't all cameras and flashes default to rear curtain?

Still - mixed in with a little bit of strobist magic, I did manage to use it to reasonable effect on these shots.

dasmoth:

--- Quote from: Charlotte on 30 August, 2011, 09:21:05 am ---Probably because I already own a. SB600 already, I was able to figure out how to use it without the instruction manual (that I didn't get from the seller).  Shame I couldn't figure out rear-curtain synch though; Mr and Mrs Pike were chucking fire about at the weekend and it limited me a bit.  Why don't all cameras and flashes default to rear curtain?

--- End quote ---

All Nikon manuals should be available to download from their website.

David Martin:
You don't set rear curtain on the flash, you set it on the camera.

On the D80 you press the flash exposure comp button and twiddle one or other of the dials to change the flash mode (the other does the exposure comp). Don't think your D7000 will be much different.

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