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› archive for April 21st, 2009

Photo Walk Tomorrow

Just a reminder for you all in the Indy area, join Nick and I tomorrow morning at 8am for our usual photo walk. Be astounded at our magnificent vocabularies, rejoice in our aimless wandering, click shutters at things to slow to move away. Bring forth your Canon Digital Rebel cameras and your Nikon Coolpix cameras and, if you’re insane like Nick and I, bring forth your Evolt Olympus digital cameras and we shall verily rock the block party.

8 o’clock AM, intersection of South and Meridian in Indianapolis, be there. We will.



Tripods and Pinched Fingers

So, as my co-worker beside me works on finding a tripod for a customer who insists on flip-locks over twist locks, I thought I should take a moment to talk about my thoughts on these two popular ways of telescoping tripod legs.

Twist locks are actually my preferred method, I find them faster, more comfortable, and considerably less likely to end in me yelling profanities after catching some soft, fleshy bit of my finger in a lever of DOOM.

However, some people have had problems with over-tightening twist locks, which strips them and makes keeping their camera tripods upright a very difficult chore. Flip locks are much more difficult to do this with, in general you set the initial tension to the right level and then it’s either on or off.

Maybe I just don’t trust flip locks because I’ve had the mechanism inside them snap while pulling the level down, which made me quite unhappy. I don’t tend to be much of an over-powering dude, so I’ve never killed a twist lock. To each their own, though.

If you like twist locks, Induro and Gitzo are big into those.
If you like flip locks, why not peep out some Bogen Manfrotto tripods, or maybe some Sliks?



Down With The Tyranny of Snap Caps

The 50-200mm is my favorite Olympus camera lens, Indianapolis, you know that. But, what you don’t know is that it came with a standard OEM-style “snap cap” that ticks me the heck off. I’m sure you’ve seen the type. Flat surface, adorned only with a lens manufacturer’s name, and two squeezey bits on the very edges so it can “snap” into place.

That sucks.

Promaster Pinch CapI, personally, prefer the “pinch” style caps, such as this one (from Promaster, but these handy-dandy digital camera accessories are also available from Tamron in the after-market sphere). I prefer these for one simple reason: it’s possible to take them on and off without removing or reversing the lens hood. Since I can reach in and pinch it by the middle, instead of having to squeeze the sides, I can get the cap on and off more quickly in the field.

Effeciency, it’s what all the cool kids are doing.

(Third party lens caps are available in all the standard sizes, accomodating your needs be they for Nikon lenses, Canon lenses, or 30 year old Vivitar lenses. Rock on.)



The things we do to…

Like D-mart said in a previous post, I’m borrowing his legacy prime (OM 50mm 1.8), which as forced me to move around a little more. Right now my kit is a comfortable 14-42 and 40-150, which is a 28-300 equivalent and keeps me from getting too dirty when trolling around my habitual environs trying not to chimp into chumping. Being locked into the constant focal length of 50mm on a 4/3 system is giving me a nice view of the world in telephoto, and working with an aperture wider than 3.5 is a treat.

It does, as I discussed with Mr. Martin over a pint last week, strain my discipline. I’ll be the first to say that I’m lamentable with composition, relying heavily on cranking my lenses and cropping in post. This nifty fifty (happy hun’nerd?) gave me some foot-time while I was waiting on my dearest to return from some degree related event in the morning…and as is my growing habit I took a walk to see what was around. Some waterfowl, a dramatically illuminated plaster garden statue, and a ground level AC unit.

Metal and sunlight, I like those

Metal and sunlight, I like those

And while I was crouched down and trying to balance myself and get the thing in focus I felt some water dropping. Thinking of course that since I’m near an air conditioning unit that condensation will abound I went about clicking happily in oblivious (isn’t it always?) joy. I didn’t stop to consider that with a grounded AC unit there’s nowhere for water to be dripping from above. Only later did Dearest, on her return, point out that there was something on my shirt -a gift from whichever avian was perched on the sill above the unit I was photographing.

Mr. Martin’s response to this was only that I’m a step closer to being a real artist now, and to get used to it.



Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…

Oh ok, Mr. Martin brought it to my attention that tomorrow morning is going to be cold and rainy. Well, we’ve done that theme for a Photowalk already (heck, it’s April Showers over at the Monthly Photo Contest on the Robert’s Flickr) and I bought a pack of those happy Optech camera rain covers, so it’s not like I’m unprepared. However, we’re both thinking that Thursday’s forecast looks a lot better and only about 20F warmer.

So we’re rescheduling to Thursday morning. It’ll be nice, I think, to show up in shirtsleeves and even then I’m looking forward to showing up in shorts and sandals in a few more weeks.




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