Roberts Raw!

› archive for April 16th, 2009

Ray to the Bling-Bling Flash

So, Indianapolis. You do know that Roberts is the best for photo lighting equipment Indianapolis, yes? What with our Canon flashes and Nikon flashes and flashes by people who aren’t either of those?

And, now we’re also a distributor for that infamous accessory, the Ray Flash. Yes, the Ray Flash, which adapts to your flash and goes over your lens and converts for boring old DSLR into a new and exciting ring flash SLR, fully capable of doing fashion shoots with doughnut-shaped catchlights, just like [insert name of some young dude making a name with edgy, ringlight fashion work here].

Most of them are order-as-we go, so even if it says “Out of Stock” you just tell us that shall not stand and we’ll get you one in. Booyah.



E-620s are Landed

E-620The E-620, Olympus’ newest body, appears to be happily in stock (body only) at our store now. All I have to say is “sweet!” I have yet to play with this, but the gist is you get most of the imaging capability of the E-30, Olympus’ third AF system ever, a tilting swiveling screen with Oly’s newest revision of how Live View should go, and FRIGGIN’ BACKLIT BUTTONS, with in-body IS in something the size of my old AE-1 and which makes one of my Chucks (the shoe, not the sales dude) look like a bowling ball.

While the Olympus digital cameras are in body only, we’re still waiting for the kits with the 14-42, the first of two Olympus camera lenses to prove that 4/3 can be tiny, tiny, tiny. But, they’ll be in sometime, so if you need a kit from scratch it’s worth waiting to check them out.



When the backup to the backup goes………

So you are in the limo with your clients shooting away…….things are going great, it’s a beautiful day outside, a perfect day to shoot a wedding.  Then, the unthinkable happens…..the shutter won’t click.  This can happen to anyone.  The digital camera technology is amazing today, but even the fastest compact flash card won’t help you when the shutter won’t fire.  Well, you can always do what a great customer (and a pretty good photographer too!) of ours did if it happens to you on a Saturday and we are still open (we close at 4:30).

Like I said, he’s in the limo with his assistant (wife) and clients, shooting away!  The backup camera goes down.  What to do?  Tell the driver to head to Roberts Imaging, grab your mobile and call the store and get the rental pulled.  Be there in a minute!  Limo pulls up, get the rental, back to shooting in minutes!

Bad things happen to great people.  Even Randy Baughn.  The moral to this story……we are here for you!  Need that photo paper at the last minute?  Leave those flash memory cards at home?  Saturday from 9-4:30 we can help you if things go bad.



New Nikon

Nikon D5000Everybody  talkin’ at me, but I don’t hear a word they’re saying.
At least not until I can actually handle the new D5000 Nikon Digital SLR camera offering myself. The previews do look good for this soon to be in stores replacement of the much lauded D80.  Many of the features that are in the D90 are going to be available for shooters on a tighter budget soon.

The D5000 keeps the D80′s 11 point AF and gains a little more continuous shooting speed at 4fps. Another improvement is on the back of the camera, Nikon’s first swivel screen on a DSLR, couple that with Live View and that makes this camera a serious contenderand gives it an advantage ofer it’s direct Canon competition (even the Rebel T1 which is also coming soon).

Nikon also switched to a CMOS sensor instead of the CCD and upped the pixel horsepower at the same time. The D5000 Nikon Digital SLR shares the same 12.3 megapixel sensor as the D90 but gets the latest firmware version on the Expeed processor which features improved Auto Active D-Lighting and face-priority AF) and enhanced Live View AF.  Other neat Nikon Digital SLR accessories that work on the D90 also move down to the D5000 like the GP-1 hot shoe which tags GPS location information directly into the EXIF file data. Nikon’s industry leading wireless flash system also works on the newbie.

The new D5000 is expected to ship at the end of April.
Body only for $729.95 . Body/lens kit with the 18-55mm
VR lens for $849.95.

I’m going to let the D5000 do the talkin’ just as soon as I can get
my hands on one, then we’ll talk some more, cowboy.



Olympus and the Pen and OM Systems

Whether or not you’re a fan of Olympus, have ever used an Olympus, or even know who Olympus is, if you’ve ever used a film SLR from the 60s – 80s, you should really take some time and read through this lecture that was given by Yoshihisa Maitani, a then engineer for Olympus who was fairly responsible for the Pen and OM series cameras, and is responsible for the earliest point-and-shoot camera I’ve read about yet (not saying there weren’t earlier ones, if you know of something predating the Pen EE hit me up in the comments, I’d love to know).

I suspect this is linked to their pending micro Four Thirds release, there’s been a lot of marketing on their end connecting that back to these half-frame and revolutionary SLRs of old. Whether or not m43 lives up to what the cameras this man gave us accomplished or not is in the air still, but his very easy to understand way of discussing how things came about is very intriguing for anyone who misses the mechanical snap of a pre-digital camera.

Link here



Roberts Photo Learning Updates

OK, so, we’ve got some local classes and events here in the Indianapolis area coming up that I need to let you all know about so you can come out here for them:

First off, those of you looking to get into working with compact strobes and who happen also to be Canonistas are in luck, we have Mary Mannix coming out to Carmel on May 8th to give a lecture on Canon Speedlites. Actually, since a lot of the modern flash technology is similar for every system, even you Nikonians and weirdos like Nick and I could walk away with some useful info that’s readily applied to our systems. Sony people, I’m sorry, I’m not familiar enough with your flash system to know if this also holds true for you. I’ll brush up on that today, I don’t like slighting any system like that. (Cost for this class is 10 bucks a person)

Speak of you Sony people, if any of you have recently purchased an Alpha 200, 300, or 350 (like this sweet bundle here), or intend to before May 16, then you get to come to our introductory class for that series of cameras free. If you didn’t get your Alpha from us, come on out anyway, $25 reserves you a seat and we’ll be covering the basics of how to set the camera up and what the controls are for. This is just a gear class, though, so we won’t be priming you any on exposure and what-not.

Learn more about all our classes and upcoming events at the links below:

Photo Classes

Upcoming Events



Keep on keepin’ on.

Alright boys and girls, step right up, bring yourselves, bring your cameras, bring hot shoe flashes and accessories, bring your friends who wear hot shoes and flashy accessories – we’re doing another Photowalk on Wednesday, April 22nd.

Thanks again to Chris and Tony who came out this week, despite the chill, despite the humidity, despite the overcast, way too evenly diffused lighting.

I ran into a snag, of sorts this week, one which I intend to Crumple next week. The snag? Adding Derek’s Lensbaby 3G to my bag for a few days. Now my handy little Olympus kit bag is bursting with kitted goodness and things are more crowded than a Tokyo subway. Despite my 410′s dinky body, one attached and two floating lenses is more bacon than the pan can handle.

My chosen solution is the Crumpler Six Million Dollar Home. I know you know that D-mart is a Crumpler devotee, and I’m getting convinced myself. They’re heavy duty, water-repellent bags with massive amounts of velcro, fat padding, and are run by guys who will measure the capacity of their bags with six packs. Now if only camera manufacturers would start using jiggers as a metric for bokeh…




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