It's Photo World again. Already been there twice. Nothing jumps out at me; I can't afford the f/2.8 zooms, nobody's selling Pentax primes, the Canon 5D Mark II plus 24-105mm f/4 L kit lens costs a mind-boggling 180,000 pesos which is the down payment on a car or an apartment (or could buy you a ten-year old Honda Civic or half of a ten-year old BMW 3-series sedan).
I was looking for the Nikon DK-21M magnifying eyecup, so that my K10D viewfinder can feel "full-frame-ish," but nobody has it in stock. Nobody has those cheap 350-peso umbrella clamps either, they're only selling the 1,200-peso umbrella clamps. I should make the clamps myself from steel epoxy, save me a trip to Binondo.
June the used camera guy has a 105mm f/2.5 Nikkor-P in thoroughly beat-up condition for 4,500 pesos. Not a bad price (checked ebay completed auctions) but I'd hesitate to buy one in such a state for that price. He said he'd bring some Pentax lenses tomorrow (but he said that yesterday!)
Maybe I should just buy wireless triggers and return Dennis' ones. Those I'm sure I will use.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
A lot of folks have reported stunning results with using old (mostly Russian and Leitz Colorplan) projector lenses on their DSLR. For example "Abbazz" on the Manual Focus Lenses forum has gotten some pretty good results.
Eager to emulate these successes, I got one of these for $2.00 from ebay, it's a Francke & Heidecke Heidosmat 110mm f/2.8 made in Germany. F&H went on to become the Rollei company so this lens has a distinguished lineage.
After unscrewing the chrome barrel, I put a few layers of self-fusing butyl tape around the inner barrel, and friction-mounted a helical from an old unwanted 135/2.8 Hong Kong plastic lens..
After threading the helical back on the 135mm lens barrel (still sporting its M42 mount, but with the diaphragm etc. removed)
I can screw the chrome barrel back on (the whole thing rotates to focus, but it's surprisingly user-friendly).
The problem is, this is not a good lens. The OOF highlights are horrendously bad.. but still $2.00 (more like $20 with international shipping) isn't too bad a bargain..
Here are a couple of outdoor shots:
It does have that dreamy, "ethereal" quality you get from old optics. However, the OOF background highlights look terrible!
Eager to emulate these successes, I got one of these for $2.00 from ebay, it's a Francke & Heidecke Heidosmat 110mm f/2.8 made in Germany. F&H went on to become the Rollei company so this lens has a distinguished lineage.
After unscrewing the chrome barrel, I put a few layers of self-fusing butyl tape around the inner barrel, and friction-mounted a helical from an old unwanted 135/2.8 Hong Kong plastic lens..
After threading the helical back on the 135mm lens barrel (still sporting its M42 mount, but with the diaphragm etc. removed)
I can screw the chrome barrel back on (the whole thing rotates to focus, but it's surprisingly user-friendly).
The problem is, this is not a good lens. The OOF highlights are horrendously bad.. but still $2.00 (more like $20 with international shipping) isn't too bad a bargain..
Here are a couple of outdoor shots:
It does have that dreamy, "ethereal" quality you get from old optics. However, the OOF background highlights look terrible!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Games Games Games
A couple of Bethesda games.
Oblivion, from 2006 (with a ton of mods: Ashara's Sirens and Tritons, Beautiful People, Cernasite Dragon Eyes, Corean Hair, Eyelashes for Vanilla Race, Hentai Gentleman's Eye Candy body, Corean hair, Corean eyelashes, Ren's Hair)
Fallout 3, from late 2008. Same game engine, but with two years' worth of technical improvements. Not much in the way of mods for Fallout 3 yet:
I must say, the V.A.T.S. "bullet time" system in Fallout 3 is quite an amusement. And blowing enemies' heads off or vaporizing them is also vastly amusing.
Oblivion, from 2006 (with a ton of mods: Ashara's Sirens and Tritons, Beautiful People, Cernasite Dragon Eyes, Corean Hair, Eyelashes for Vanilla Race, Hentai Gentleman's Eye Candy body, Corean hair, Corean eyelashes, Ren's Hair)
Fallout 3, from late 2008. Same game engine, but with two years' worth of technical improvements. Not much in the way of mods for Fallout 3 yet:
I must say, the V.A.T.S. "bullet time" system in Fallout 3 is quite an amusement. And blowing enemies' heads off or vaporizing them is also vastly amusing.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Under $100 Studio
The Strobist blog is extremely popular, with over two million readers, and made famous the concept of manual flash, particularly with older portable flash units.
Most Strobist users, in addition to using their camera brand's dedicated flashes, also use older, less expensive flashes such as the Nikon SB28, Vivitar 283/285, Sunpak 383, and so forth.
But one source of ultra-cheap flashes has been neglected to date: pre-Sony, Minolta-dedicated TTL flashes. These flashes, for some reason, are sold much more cheaply than their Pentax, Canon, and Nikon equivalents.
For example, I got this Minolta 2800AF for $7.00 in "Bargain" condition at KEH. KEH, incidentally, provides a warranty on their used goods, so it's safer than buying on e-bay. KEH is also quite conservative in their ratings of used equipment, their "Bargain" is your typical ebay seller's "Mint Condition."
Actually I got five of the Minolta flashes, the one pictured here is the early, somewhat rare one where the two X's in the "Maxxum" logo are interlinked; Minolta had to modify their logo after the threat of a lawsuit from Exxon, the oil company, which claimed exclusive use of the interlinked X's.
The Minolta 2800AF is a GN 31 flash, with 35mm of coverage. Some of them come with a diffuser which increases the coverage to 28mm and lowers the GN to 28. It has no tilt or swivel, takes four AA batteries, has TTL dedication for old Minolta AF cameras such as the Maxxum 7000, and has a mere two manual power settings: 1/1 and 1/16.
Still, not bad for $7.00 in my opinion.
Some of the later Minolta flashes have the "iISO" or inverted ISO shoe. These (such as the Minolta 3200xi and newer) will not mount on a regular camera hot shoe. Avoid if possible.
The best thing about these old Minolta flashes is their low 3V trigger voltage, meaning no need for hacking tricks to lower the trigger voltage. Cactus wireless triggers work perfectly. You can even mount the 2800AF on a Pentax DSLR and it will fire at full or 1/16 power (depending on the setting at the back). The Minolta-dedicated pins are completely ignored by the Pentax body.
I used the ordinary Cactus v2 wireless triggers, some 350-peso (about $8.00) 30-inch shoot-through umbrellas from JT Photoworld, 700-peso ($15) tripods from CDR King, and I used hose clamps and plastic cable ties to attach the umbrellas to the tripods.
These cheap tripods are flimsy but they have QR plates! so it's very convenient to remove the entire flash, Cactus, and QR plate in one go.
Here's my sofa studio:
And some results (lens porn!)
A couple of "real" portraits:
Not bad for under $100 for everything! (including the wireless triggers but not counting the DSLR)
Most Strobist users, in addition to using their camera brand's dedicated flashes, also use older, less expensive flashes such as the Nikon SB28, Vivitar 283/285, Sunpak 383, and so forth.
But one source of ultra-cheap flashes has been neglected to date: pre-Sony, Minolta-dedicated TTL flashes. These flashes, for some reason, are sold much more cheaply than their Pentax, Canon, and Nikon equivalents.
For example, I got this Minolta 2800AF for $7.00 in "Bargain" condition at KEH. KEH, incidentally, provides a warranty on their used goods, so it's safer than buying on e-bay. KEH is also quite conservative in their ratings of used equipment, their "Bargain" is your typical ebay seller's "Mint Condition."
Actually I got five of the Minolta flashes, the one pictured here is the early, somewhat rare one where the two X's in the "Maxxum" logo are interlinked; Minolta had to modify their logo after the threat of a lawsuit from Exxon, the oil company, which claimed exclusive use of the interlinked X's.
The Minolta 2800AF is a GN 31 flash, with 35mm of coverage. Some of them come with a diffuser which increases the coverage to 28mm and lowers the GN to 28. It has no tilt or swivel, takes four AA batteries, has TTL dedication for old Minolta AF cameras such as the Maxxum 7000, and has a mere two manual power settings: 1/1 and 1/16.
Still, not bad for $7.00 in my opinion.
Some of the later Minolta flashes have the "iISO" or inverted ISO shoe. These (such as the Minolta 3200xi and newer) will not mount on a regular camera hot shoe. Avoid if possible.
The best thing about these old Minolta flashes is their low 3V trigger voltage, meaning no need for hacking tricks to lower the trigger voltage. Cactus wireless triggers work perfectly. You can even mount the 2800AF on a Pentax DSLR and it will fire at full or 1/16 power (depending on the setting at the back). The Minolta-dedicated pins are completely ignored by the Pentax body.
I used the ordinary Cactus v2 wireless triggers, some 350-peso (about $8.00) 30-inch shoot-through umbrellas from JT Photoworld, 700-peso ($15) tripods from CDR King, and I used hose clamps and plastic cable ties to attach the umbrellas to the tripods.
These cheap tripods are flimsy but they have QR plates! so it's very convenient to remove the entire flash, Cactus, and QR plate in one go.
Here's my sofa studio:
And some results (lens porn!)
A couple of "real" portraits:
Not bad for under $100 for everything! (including the wireless triggers but not counting the DSLR)
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