Wednesday, December 13, 2023

PocketWizard FlexTT5 Revisited

 Once I set them up I never bother with them again.  When I first got them I updated all the legacy firmware to the latest available.

It works pretty well for what I do.  As far back as I can remember they do allow me to sync up to 1/250s and even higher for my Nikon.  Not high speed sync but hypersync as I don't use the Nikon SB-800 instead I use the Sunpak 120J.  

Today I try that with my Quantum flash, I don't think it syncs up to 1/250s, or even 1/200s.  1/160s seems to be the safest bet.  I was using the Nikon D4s.  I guess if one is not use Nikon Speedlight then there is no guarantee it would actually sync up to the highest speed 1/250s.

I guess it depends on the flash duration or in other words, the power setting of the strobe.  I imagine full power with the longest duration I can actually sync up to 1/250s or even higher for hypersync.

Since the Z9 doesn't accept the TT5 as transmitter if used as a TTL trigger, it needs to be downgraded to Basic Trigger in order to work as a simple trigger.  And it does work when I set up C2 as basic trigger and used as such.

The D4s can also use C2 the basic trigger but then it will lose all the TTL features...One thing kind of unexpected is when I test the C2 setting using the D4s I found even the color balance shift.  If I left the color balance to auto, if I left the TT5 at C1 at TTL then the WB is warmer, if I used C2, basic trigger, the WB is cooler, very noticeable difference.  I don't know how the TT5 behave can actually affect the flash color temperature, perhaps the flash duration used or how the D4s interpret the WB of the flash.  There is clearly a shift in WB on the picture taken using the TT5 as basic trigger.  If I use the TT5 as TTL then the color is warmer like it's always been.  I have never set the C2 as Basic Trigger unitl yesterday just to test out the Z9.  Very interesting.  I set the D4s WB to 5500 then the pictures look the same whether the TT5 set as TTL or Basic Trigger.

Friday, December 08, 2023

The Nikon Refurbished

 Nikon do sell refurbished items, like their flagship items.  But they make no mention of where they come from or imply anything.  They are just under Deals.

I got myself their flagship, a Z9.  I know I won't be happy with anything less.  I took a few blank shots even before I got my CFExpress Type B card.  When I got around and checked the picture, the image number is 69,091 (using Photoshop File info).  So the refurbished camera has more than 69K actuations before getting to me.  The battery certainly looks used as it has quite a bit of rub marks.

So if you buy refurbished from NikonUSA, don't expect you will get "lucky" and got a brand spanking new item with some 1,000s actuations.   Given that it can shoot 120 frames per second, it's not too difficult to rack up big actuation counts.

The Z9 itself looks decent but not new.  Anyway, as NikonUSA makes no explicit or implied newness so I think it's fair or fair enough.  But the 90 days warranty is just bad.  I can't help but think of Apple, its refurbished has the same warranty as brand new.  And in general the Apple refurbished has brand new battery and new casings or so I've heard.  Well camera is a different beast so I can understand.  All my other recent cameras in the last decade were bought used.

From SLR to DSLR to Mirrorless.  I guess it's inevitable.

From CF, SD and XQD and now CFExpress Type B.  I guess it's inevitable.

I can understand why one needs more storage and more computing power.  Things just keep changing and marching on.

I've made no conscious effort to stay or move on to mirrorless.  But my recent drop of the D810 together with the 24-70 f/2.8 kind of gave me the excuse to move forward.  Again you are buying into a system.

Monday, November 06, 2023

Pocket Wizard and some other decade old stuff

 I got myself four PW FlexTT5 and an AC3.  I simply don't have a clue how the names came about.  So it's mildly intriguing.

The TT5 by comparison is so much more reliable than what I have used up to this point.  The TT5 simply works.  One of them has some corrosion in the battery compartment that was made known to me before the bid.  The seller says it works even with the gunk and corrosion.  So it's all fair.  I cleaned it up with some vinegar and it didn't quite work so I used a pocket knife to scrap the contact a bit.  Voila it works.  I was on a shopping spree so I bought another quantum qflash T2.  It comes with a pocket wizard plus receiver.  I couldn't find any reference on the model, Plus II, III, but not just plus.  Interesting.  So I proceed to engage the learn mode by pressing the TT5 and somehow, then the TT5 can trigger the plus receiver.

I just have that compulsion to buy this old stuff.

UPDATE:

Per usual, I tested them out.

The TT5 can sync up to 1/8000 when the flash units are in full power otherwise normal sync up to 1/250s.  The PLUS unit can sync up to 1/200s but fires at 1/250s with narrow black bar and it won't fire on any speed faster than 1/250s, in essence, the PLUS has no hypersync or high speed sync.  My quantum T2 works pretty flawlessly as I would expect.  I read it has a 150w/s power.  The Sunpak 120J when bareblub has a 115w/s.


Friday, March 31, 2023

SUNPAK AUTO 383 SUPER

 Ever since I have used the Sunpak 120J, I kind of like the good old Sunpak brand for flash.

This flash just looks like your regular flash but deep down or within it has some killer specs, at least to me.  It's compact just like most flashes.  But it packs a GN 120 number which is pretty nice.  It has 3 f/stop auto and 5 fraction power adjustments from full blast to 1/16. I think that's neat.  Another killer spec is one can use external power source for long usage and fast recycle time.  For an old flash the cost $20 that's pretty neat.

The 120J body and the 383 share a very similar body except the 120J has a bare bulb design which makes transportation a hassle even more so when you also carry the standard reflector.  But the bare bulb design certainly has its merits.

Both the 120J and 383 can be used with an external power source.  But for 383 if you were to use only external power source with no AA batteries inside the compartment, the flash will still fire but only with full power no matter what settings the unit on.  I think that's pretty interesting.  I know the Nikon SB-800 kind of behave like that, you need cell batteries inside even you are attaching external power source.  So you might actually think the auto or fraction power functions are toast if you only bother to use it with an external power source like I did in testing initially.  The 383 becomes full featured once the AA batteries are in the compartment.


Sunday, March 19, 2023

A Guilty Conscience (2023)

Once or twice in our lifetime, if we were lucky we got woken up from a slumber of our own making.  This force majeure  jolts us to remember what we long suppressed like why we wanted to be a lawyer in the first place.  Nobody wants to grow up working 27 hours a day kowtow to the rich and corrupted.  And yet we have grown to accept that as part of growing up and being adults.  A Guilty Conscience (2023), starring the multi-talented Wong Chi Wah with an equally impressive supporting cast, tells such a story.  Wong plays the titular character, an acerbic tongue attorney, and hence the Chinese title, who was passed over for promotions in part for his failure to manage up.  He later quit his job at the bench as a magistrate and went back to private practice with the sole intention of cozying up to the rich or in his words to lick those assholes where presumably money is dripping out.

Lam's scheme to park himself next to the rich quickly falls apart.  He was the defense attorney of a mistress who stood accused of child abuse and  endangerment of her own young daughter.  Her paramour and father of their love child is a doctor and a married man to the daughter of a prominent family.  Both families of the married couple are well respected in Hong Kong for their wealth if not for anything else.  The child endangerment case against the mistress quickly made a turn for the worst.  The child died from injury sustained and his client, the mother of a now deceased child was convicted of manslaughter and was sentenced to seventeen years in prison.  The conviction in large part was due to Lam's professional negligence--his failure to secure written affidavits from the witnesses, that is from both the father of the diseased  and the security guard and Lam's general insouciance towards the case as a whole.

His failure to defend his client left him badly shaken with a guilty conscience, and hence the English title.  The silver lining of his legal debacle, if any, is it makes him reassess his life thus far like why he wanted to be an attorney in the first place: it's about justice and helping defend those who can't defend themselves.   He vows to save his client using all he's left and can muster.  What he lacks in money and powerful connections he more than makes up in his doggedness and not to mention his acerbic tongue to outwit and out maneuver the prosecution.  By saving his client he also saves himself from straying from his original ideal of justice for all and to a larger extent righting a rigged justice system that not only favors the rich and powerful but at times also punishes the powerless and penniless.  AGC is a welcome departure from the all too common gangster genre forever popular in Hong Kong cinema since the 80s.  In present day Hong Kong, people live in extreme wealth disparity and many question law enforcement and the judicial system behind closed doors.  Hong Kong nowadays can't even just have simple evil like regular psychopath who kills and dismemebers for pleasure.  Instead Hong Kong now has an extreme brutal murder that potentially involves cross border organized crime, corruption, and filthy amount of cash: a case that embodies everything that is wrong in Hong Kong.  Lam in his courtroom closing statement utters, "In the past, all were equal in front of the law.  Now, the poor suck dick before the law," a sentiment that's widely shared and believed in Hong Kong.  AGC provides a two hour reprieve for an audience who has to live everyday brutality that's now Hong Kong.

Tuesday, December 20, 2022

Lazy Loading Jetpack and Envira on WP

 Full size images load at the bottom of a Envira gallery and it really shouldn't.

To make sure the full size images do not load, I need to turn off the Lazy Loading on Jetpack.  I don't know any other way.

For mobile browsing, the Lightbox images are very very small and can't be fixed via the additional CSS.

For the above two issues I don't know if it's exclusive to the Lite or i.e. the unpaid version or somehow the issues are fixed on the paid version.

Thursday, September 22, 2022

Stutterheim Bucket Hat

 The item was shipped directly from Sweden via UPS.  Frankly I am impressed, then again, I maybe easily impressed.

The item is known as Beckholmen Coconut size L.  Coconut refers to its color, not the shape, taste or smell of the hat.

I've always like a bucket hat with a size large enough for my noggin.  The Large seems to be large enough "even" for a European brand.  As I've always got the impression they run small.

The item arrived.  And size wise I think it's big enough but it doesn't fit too well to me.

The bigger issue is it smells funny.  Perhaps I should have known.  The hat is coated with some rubber or whatever chemical so it's waterproof.  So it's sweaty and non breathable, two of the things I hate or don't appreciate at all.  Between polyester and cotton, I always prefer the breathable cotton.  I think Gore tex is bad, try rubber coated fabric.

Oh well, I hope the smell would get less repulsive over time.  I am OK just not sure people next to me.



PocketWizard FlexTT5 Revisited

 Once I set them up I never bother with them again.  When I first got them I updated all the legacy firmware to the latest available. It wor...