There are many reasons to do away a with cash money in modern society. One of those reasons has been reinforced in these Corona times: paper bills and metal coins can be a transmission vector for infectious diseases. The discussion about pros and cons is certainly not yet over, as evidenced on Wikipedia.
Let me add another reason not to throw out coins right away. Many older photo cameras will demand that you use a coin to open and close their battery compartment:
So yes, cash – even those small almost worthless coins – can be more than just money: they are a very useful tool ;-)
Last year, my brother moved to a house in what we would (almost) call the countryside. The lockdown provided him with lots of time to clean up his garden, which includes a chicken coop and a greenhouse – we all hope to be invited for a celebratory BBQ, by the way ;-)
Guess what he found in the chicken coop: a mouldy camera bag with a camera and a few lenses. Photography being one of my interests, he dropped the bag at my door last weekend. I investigated the contents: the bag went straight into the rubbish bin.
I found a few references to this model on the Internet, and having handled one myself I can understand why one (recent) review calls this camera “big, chunky and disappointing“. It is indeed well-built and probably very strong camera, but it’s also quite heavy.
The Sekor 500 TL was introduced to the market in 1966, but I guess the one I have here is younger than that. Contrary to the 1966 model, it does have a self-timer. As a nice addition, it also includes a detachable (cold) flash shoe accessory from Asahi-Pentax; I guess those two brands had similar prisms on their cameras, or it would not have fitted so well.
The Asahi Pentax flash shoe
I already have a few camera’s in my collection, and this could be a new addition… but this particular item is damaged: it has a serious dent. I’m not even sure the back closes correctly, which is essential for any camera.
The dent is quite serious, given the heavy construction of this camera
Even if there is no internal damage such a dent makes the camera probably worthless. My shelve space is rather limited, and that makes me wonder: should I really keep this one, dent and all?
PS. These are my first “product stills”, and I know that I have a lot of work to do on the white balance of those pictures!
The Guardian writes up the story: “Ukraine’s lost photos: restored images reveal Soviet-era lives“. There are some more rescued photographs from what were probably happier days in Ukraine on the website of the man who found them: Samuel Eder. I hope he continues to expand the collection shown on his site, if only because it gives a glimpse into life in a region and period that is not very known to us.
Click on the image to go to Samuel Eder’s website for more rescued treasures
We had two completely unexpected visitors in our garden yesterday. I have no idea where they came from – or what species they are. But here they were: two members of the parrot family, both substantially larger than the caged parakeets we’re used to see in many homes here. Luckily they lingered about for a few minutes after I spotted them, allowing me to capture a portrait of each one. Long live the Panasonic Lumix G Vario 100-300mm f/4.0-5.6 Zoom Lens, for being practical and not too heavy for handheld use.
Alien number 1
Alien number 2
I hope they find a way to survive in the cold nights that are coming. The climate may be getting warmer, but parrots are not yet endemic birds in Belgium!
Yeah, I cracked under Apple’s marketing and ordered an iPhone 11 to replace the iPhone 7 I was using since January. My excuse? My eldest daughter was exasperated with the old Samsung J5 I gave her a long time ago, so I promised her an iPhone 7 to replace that ;-)
I was not looking for a pocketable camera – I have two of those, thank you. But Austin Mann says that the 11 might well replace them in daily use…
Here’s a sample from yesterday, unedited: a view of the rooftops of Antwerp, seen from the top of the Vleeshuis museum.
Unedited picture of the Antwerp roof top, seen from the museum Vleeshuis. Click on the image to see the full-size version.
I’m not blown away by the sharpness of this picture, but the conditions were not ideal. I will admit that the photos I took inside the building are much better than expected given the dim lighting in the museum rooms – thank you, Night mode!
My first camera was an Olympus OM-1, and I still regret parting with it when the children became so active that I needed an autofocus camera to catch them on film ;-)
I still remember the build quality of the OM-1, and I loved the fact that the OM-1 plus a 50mm and 135mm lens (plus a bit of small junk) fitted in a small bag that could barely contain the Nikon F-something from my best friend. Olympus takes a top spot in my list of reputable firms, that should be no surprise.
In October, Olympus will celebrate its 100 years of existence, and they have created a website to show the history of the company and some of its products. It includes a nice video documentary about the evolution of the Olympus camera business.
Olympus: “A Great Moment” (click the image to see the video)
There’s a brief history of the company logo as well; that’s where I found the name ‘Tokiwa’.
This is not a placeholder post. But it may look like one, since it will (or at least may) be different for each visitor. I’m using the Picsum Lorem website to add a more or less random image to this page.
Click the image to go the Picsum Lorum home page
Picsum Lorem takes a well-known concept: the use of placeholder text when designing a document, and applies it to images. The images are free, coming from the Unsplash community. For details about what Unsplash means with “free” you should check out their Help pages. In summary and according to my interpretation, “free” does mean “free” as in “free beer”, but it is considered a basic form of politeness if you credit the photographer of an image when you use it in a commercial context. Sounds logical, no?
I guess it won’t be long before we also find a “Moviesum Lorem” – or perhaps we should call it “Vidsum Lorem” ;-)
For many years now, I have stored my “approved” pictures on Flickr – straight from Apple Photos on my Mac. About two weeks ago, that suddenly wasn’t possible any more. Sharing a picture did bring up the dialog to set a title etc. for the picture, but no list of albums appeared – only an ominous message saying “ShareKit is not authorized to share files“. Excuse me? Why not?
Well, I still don’t have an answer to that question. Through DuckDuckGo I found an Apple Forum thread on the subject: “Can not publish via Flickr“. Sadly however, none of the suggestions worked. In fact, for the moment I am incapable of adding a Flickr account to the Internet Accounts section of the Mac’s System Preferences… Trying to do so with the correct data (!) the only reply I get is this:
And now the question becomes: is this problem caused by Yahoo, by Flickr, or by Apple’s OSX ? All ideas or help are welcome!
“We see [climate change] happening, but unfortunately the political leadership, even when they acknowledge it, aren’t acknowledging the reasons why it’s happening. And it’s getting to the point where I’ve gone from thinking that I want to document what’s going on to being frankly terrified that after only six years working on this project I’ve seen the changes starting to accelerate”
The Sand Fire burns in the Angeles National Forest Saturday July 23rd, 2016 under triple digit heat. The fire had burned 20,000 acres by Saturday evening and was 10% contained as firefighters battled low humidity, shifting wind, and high temperatures. An unknown number of structures were lost. Click on the picture to read the whole article on DP Review
We can only hope that 2019 brings real solutions to the problems that are already reshaping our world.
As an amateur photographer, I care much about the image quality of my camera. That’s one of the reasons I switched cameras so often once they replaced film with chips: starting with Nikon Coolpix E885 and CP5400 over a series of Nikon D’s (70, 80 90, 7000, 5500, 5600) up to my current Panasonic Lumix G80 and GX9. Naturally, I also wanted a decent camera in my smartphone, although my phone was never meant to replace my camera. Even when just going to work, I always carry what I call a real but “general purpose” camera with me, be it the Fujifilm X20 or the GX9: you never know what you’ll see while traveling ;-)
There’s been a lot of talk about the quality of the latest smartphone cameras: is two cameras better than one? Is three better than two? Do you need more pixels or would it better to have bigger sensors and separate lenses? Is the Google Pixel 3 a better camera than the latest iPhones? And so on…
What is the best smartphone camera of 2018? Well, the answer is simple, if you believe Youtuber & Video Producer Marques Brownlee. He ran a competition on Twitter; he called it “The Blind Smartphone Camera Test“. Conclusion: forget about the “best” smartphone camera (technically speaking), social media consumers just care about pictures that are bright enough. For the full report, head over to Youtube:
This much is clear to me: if you’re just posting images to Instagram, you don’t need to have the best smartphone. Personally, I’ll stick to real cameras, thank you.
It’s a coincidence, of course: just days after I publish my story about the Panasonic cameras, the company announces a new version of their Lumix LX100. The “LX100 II”, as it is called, certainly comes with fine credentials and a promising lens: a 24-75mm equivalent F1.7-2.8 lens. DPReview already has a “first impressions review” about this new model.
The biggest mirrorless announcement came from Nikon, of course, and I’m certain the brand-new Z6 and Z7 camera’s will be great. But speaking for myself: those are not the camera’s I was (am) looking for. They’re way too expensive for me, to start with. The lens line-up is fine for pro photographers to start with, but not for me. Besides, those lenses are still rather bulky – as they have to be, considering the size of the full-frame sensor.
The Nikon announcement does make it clear that “mirrorless” is most likely the way of the future. Not that I needed any confirmation, but it seems to prove that I made the right choice when switching to MFT.
Did you also note that the DPReview TV video titled “Nikon Z7 hands-on first impressions” was recorded on a Panasonic GH5 ? That’s not a coincidence!
According to DPReview, the Micro Four Thirds format was introduced 10 years ago. DPReview calls it the start of a revolution, because it enabled Panasonic and Olympus to offer serious, even professional, system cameras without a mirror-based viewfinder, thus entering a market previously reserved for Nikon and Canon.
In 2008 I was already committed to the Nikon SLR format. I had been using an F50 film camera for more than a decade, and I had just replaced my D70 of 2006 with a second-hand D80. So I did not really care about the MFT announcement, what I wanted was an affordable full-frame Nikon DSLR (still waiting, by the way).
When my Fujifilm X20 started to show its age a year ago, I started looking around for a possible replacement. I went looking for an affordable small camera with a decent viewfinder, a usable zoom lens, a hot shoe and serious controls. After a lot of searching an pondering I decided that the Panasonic DMC-LX100 could be what I was looking for. But it was still a bit too expensive for me at that time: I looking for a second all-in-one camera, not for a replacement of the Nikon D5600 I considered to be my main workhorse ;-) Some of the MFT cameras that were presented to the public the past 10 years did catch my attention, but the really interesting ones are system cameras, and they would have “forced” me to build up a second collection of lenses – and I did not want to do that, for financial reasons as well as lack of space in my photo cabinet.
At the beginning of this year, just by accident, I found out that the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX80 with its standard 12-32 zoom was offered for (substantially) less money than the LX100. So I bought the GX80… and that was the start of an unexpected experience.
You see, the GX80 showed me that the MFT platform has matured so much that the image quality rivals that of APS-C, at least for my purposes. No, the viewfinder is not as large as the viewfinder of a Nikon DSLR like the D7500, but it will do for me. In fact, I prefer it because the electronic display is capable of displaying the complete menu system of the camera, meaning that I don’t have to get my reading glasses to change a setting during a shoot! At the same time, the GX80 and its lenses are so much smaller and lighter than the corresponding Nikon material – I admit to having bought a cheap 45-150mm telezoom for the GX80, contrary to my plans for this camera . And the results, in terms of image quality, are good enough for me even now (and I know I still have to learn more about them in order to use their full capabilities).
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-G80 with the excellent 12-60mm zoom lens
To cut a long story short: I am replacing my Nikon material with Panasonic cameras and lenses. The Panasonic Lumix DMC-G80 body weighs a bit more than the D5600, but the lenses are much smaller and lighter – and the whole system is weatherproof as well. The ergonomics of the camera are great as well: you need the manual to come to grips with the many capabilities and options of the camera, not with its use. I have added the Panasonic G Vario 12-60 lens to my collection. That means I now have a camera and lens that can do almost everything I want to do while on holiday without having to change lenses, while weighing less than 800g.
I know that an expert or professional full-frame DSLR with premium lenses will deliver better images, even if it’s just me using it. But these products are way too expensive for me, and I don’t want to haul them around a whole day while I’m supposed to enjoy my surroundings – so I have put the dream of owning those to rest.
Having a smaller range-finder-like camera like the GX80 or the GX9, that can use the same lens collection, is another plus. In fact, in combination with the standard 12-32mm lens these cameras are not that much bigger than the Fuji X20, just heavier – they still fit in the supple Nikon camera case I bought a long, long time ago for an L35AW. I don’t see Nikon (or Canon) offer me the same capabilities in the same small package. Unless Nikon or Canon are ready to embrace the MFT platform as well – that would be interesting, don’t you think?
For another view on the MFT platform and its place in recent camera history, check out the DPReview video:
I got lucky last weekend: one of the macro photographs I made turned out very well, if I may say so. For a larger version, go to Flickr by clicking on the image…
The “family business” mentioned in yesterday’s post included some repositioning of plants in our garden – weekend with an extra holiday thrown in are good for those chores. While watering the newcomers, I spotted a few brightly coloured dragonflies on the wet plants. Pictures of both species can be found on my Flickr photostream. By the way, I call them “new” visitors to our garden, because I have often seen dragonflies in there before – but these last few were significantly smaller than earlier specimen. These red and blue dragonflies measured no more than 5cm at the most.
Clicking on the images will take to a larger version of the photos. Now if someone could tell me which species I saw (just leave a comment on the corresponding picture on Flickr, of here, of course)…
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