Bought any photography stuff today?

[David Martin]

I'd like a magic arm, too.  Calumet do an own brand one which is significantly cheaper than the original Manfrotto one, by the way. 

I've not been able to find it on their site. Only a very small monitor/flash arm

[Charlotte]

You mean this?  Or this?

[David Martin]

Exactly, the little accessory ones which are hardly in the league of this which will happily take the dSLR and lens, and is much bigger than the ones you linked to.

[inc]

Just arrived today Another ancient Takumar lens, this time f3.5 28mm and a new 7D body at a very good price, just charging the battery for a play later.

[David Martin]

I bought a couple of flashgun grids off eBay for a project I have going (needing to photograph speakers and slides at a conference - using colour balanced gridded flash to light the speaker without washing out the screen)

[David Martin]

well, I can confirm that they worked absolutely perfectly for what I wanted. Not sure I can post any pictures of the event, but it went sort of like this:

I arrive and walk into the room. "Rats!" Instead of worrying about how I was going to get to the gantry to attach the flashgun (superclamp cunningly included in my luggage) I was now concerned that I wouldn't be able to put it anywhere. Instead of a FOH gantry with the data projector, this year we have gone upmarket and have a back-projection system.

Never mind, needs must when the devil drives, so I clambered onto a chair and made efficient use of a picture frame on the wall (we were in the Drawing Room at the Creiff Hydro - see here http://www.crieffhydro.com/meetings-and-events/our-facilities.aspx and it is the one on the left hand wall looking forward). This allowed me to get a narrow angled beam that would cover the podium and miss the screen, allowing me to balance the projector screen (at about 1/60 f3.5 iso 400) with the flash (SB800 on just under 1/2 power). Ambient room light was about 4 stops down so backgrounds (dark coloured curtains) were essentially black. Wireless trigger with Cactus v4 - fine as long as the antenna points in the right direction. When I was sat on the podum side of the front row it worked almost flawlessly. From the back of the room it was a bit more hit and miss - not reliable enough so I reverted to being on just the front row.

I had to guess at the colour balance of the data projector. It turned out that my 1/4 CTO and shoot at 4500K for the flash was a bit pessimistic, and I could have managed without the CTO.

Could have done with the flash being more straight on as some of the modelling was rather hash. But better than nothing at all. Sat on the front shooting with focal lengths from about 20mm (wide enough on DX to get the whole stage) through to 100mm for head and shoulders shots and 200 from the back of the room on the monopod (80-200/2. Didn't take more than 3 or 4 per speaker except during the questions session as I didn't want to distract excessively and I also was there to listen to what they were presenting. Generally pleased with the outcome.

[Chris (was scych)]

This little lot were a bargain on eBay tonight.

Nikon D300
with
4GB memory card
Nikkor 18-70 mm f3.5-4.5 ED lens
Sigma 70-300 mm f4-5.6 lens
camera bag
Tripod

I've been looking for a second body for a while now and love my current D300. So I'll keep the camera, memory card and the 18-70 lens.
The Sigma 70-300, camera bag and tripod will go back on to eBay.

I really do have to learn how to control my impulse purchases.

[David Martin]

Just clicked the button on a Nikon S30. Looks like an ideal family cam - waterpoof, bounceproof, 720p video, AA batteries and quite a simle UI. The downsides: No manual control. Upsides: under £100 delivered and it is in a sensible colour.

We needed a replacement go everywhere camera and when this was announced it was clearly the right thing..

[PH]

After much dithering and waiting to see what comes out next, I decided Micro Four Thirds would do everything I wanted, while still being portable enough to get used.  Once decided it was easy to jump in.
Panasonic GX1, including Lightroom 3, which was on the shopping list anyway so a decent saving.
14mm 2.5
20mm 1.7
45-175, which is very small and light
Electronic viewfinder

I nearly waited for the Olympus OMD, but I like the idea that the GX1 and one of the pancake lenses is till small enough to carry everywhere.  And of course the price difference meant getting a lot more kit for the same money. Playtime.

[JohnP]

Not today but i bought a Nikon P7100 last week.  Still not sure quite why - it's too big for a shirt pocket but much smaller than my D90 with equivalent 28-200mm range.  Fits nicely in a walking jacket pocket so time will tell if this fool was easily parted from his money.

[Thor]

Not today but i bought a Nikon P7100 last week.  Still not sure quite why - it's too big for a shirt pocket but much smaller than my D90 with equivalent 28-200mm range.  Fits nicely in a walking jacket pocket so time will tell if this fool was easily parted from his money.

I have a P7100 - acquired at Christmas (and also a D90 btw).

The P7100 is for those occasions when you don't want to schlep a DSLR and associated lens(es), but still want plenty of "creative input" and a good zoom range.  It has a decent macro capability, raw format, lots of external controls and low light performance is surprisingly competent.   What you don't get is very small aperture settings due, I suppose, to the likelihood of compact sensor diffraction effects.

[docsquid]

Not today, but since I haven't been on the forum for a while, I thought I'd share my most recent purchase which was absurd, really.  I don't need it.  I'm not capable of using it to its best advantage, or even a fraction thereof.  But I bought a Canon 300mm f2.8 IS L lens - the big wildlife one - with a camo cover and a 1.4x extender from a pro wildlife photographer on Twitter.  It is an absurd piece of kit, like having a telescope with a camera on the back.  But it does take some nice pictures, and I did get it for under half the new price.

This is one of the photos I took with it

[David Martin]

I should point out that cameras don't take pictures, they are used by great photographers as tools to create them.. It is like looking at Michaelangelo's David and saying 'he must have had a really good chisel'

[ed_o_brain]

Awww what a lovely tit
And it sounds like you have some excellent kit. I can vouch from your photos on bookface that you are certainly capable of getting very worthy results from it.

I already have the 1.4TC - I'd love to have a 300mm or 400mm telephoto to go with it. No real justification for that though, except I'd like to take more pictures like this:


Female Chaffinch by Daniel Cadden Photo, on Flickr

That was using a 70-200 with the 1.4TC.
I'm doing some more sports photography this summer, in fact I have a weekend photographing Rugby. If it goes really well, then maybe I could consider a 200-400 for next year.

Great to see you posting again squidders.

[marcinski]

I bought Panasonic 14mm for my GX1 but they send me a silver one and I wanted black  so it's on its way back for replacement.

[David Martin]

It's arrived! my new Nikon. It will open up possibilities that previously I could only do on film.

[mike]

which one, David??

[David Martin]

High end model - S30. Last time I had a waterproof Nikon was 1986ish and it was a Nikonos II

Seems fine indoors (though the colour balance is hard to control under tungsten). Controls are easy enough to find though you can't force the flash on.

[mike]

excellent!  I've got a similar water & drop proof panasonic and it's great not to worry about it when I'm on the bike!

[David Martin]

Image stabilisation is good. NR is aggressive in poor light - it uses IS rather than flash down to quite slow shutter speeds. 1/4 sec or slower. Hard to persuade it to use the flash (turn off VR). Close up mode turns off the flash.

I'll try it in daylight tomorrow.

[Charlotte]

An OM10 outfit on eBay.  For eleven quid 

I wanted an old film body to do this with and I've been watching for a b0rken OM10 or similar for ages.  My budget was about £15.  Problem is, this one's a goodie and came with a manual adaptor, 50mm, 28mm, a couple of 'orrible old off-brand zooms, teleconverters and fisheye things.  There was a whole box of crap.  Three flashes including a minty old 283, albeit without the fabled manual adaptor, so that rules it out for strobist use.

There's a couple of bags, straps and leads - bunch of filters.  Even a graduated tobacco 

Problem is, I'm not sure I can bring myself to carve this lovely old camera up for a DIY project...

[Wowbagger]

Surely you would prefer a crap old camera for something like that? I've got an old Ricoh KR10 SLR which is yours if you want to preserve your OM10.

[Jaded]

OM10s were nice, but plugly compared with OM1s

[Charlotte]

On closer examination, the OM10's light seals are all Donald Ducked.  Yeah, they can be replaced (I know you can even DIY) but the camera cost me eleven quid, so I'm unlikely to.  Also, film: meh.

I think I might just flog the manual adaptor, 28mm and the rest of it on eBay and get jiggy with Mr Screwdriver as per the original plan...

[Zipperhead]

OM10s were nice, but plugly compared with OM1s

OM1's were just beautiful. Such a lovely well thought out camera.