PDN PhotoPlus Expo 2015 Write-up

I don't remember since when the name became what it is today.  I think it used to be shorter.

I wonder what would happen if one day Nikon or Canon decide not to be part of the expo.  They are the tent poles of the event.  Sony actually might be just having as big a presence as Nikon or Canon, especially in the last two years.  Fuji sticks around.  And I don't think Kodak bothers to show up anymore.  Leica got a respectable show booth and gets a bit bigger every year.  It is somewhat comparable to their brand allure.  I am surprised to find Hasselblad but their presence seems a disservice to the brand.  But it is what it is.

Nikon basically provides the most generous display of merchandize for users to play with.

I hand tested or played with the new 24-70 as well as the 200-500.  The 200-500 is slightly outside my comfort zone.  And I wonder how useful it would be for me practically speaking--I am not practical so it doesn't bother me even it's totally impractical.  The thing is big but not too unwieldy to hand hold.  And actually with VR, I think you can acquire pretty sharp images all and all even at 500mm.  The price tag in relation to all things Nikkor is practically free--I know it sounds obscene but if you look at the pro lens price tag, they are sure around $2500.  The 24-70 is a 24-70 and I am not particularly turned on by it.  I guess everybody shoots differently.  My lens combination has always been the 20-35 and 80-200 or 16-35 and 70-200 or some variations of them since last year.  I find them most useful for my liking.  Most of the time I carry one camera and if I feel a bit insecure then I carry two.  I don't know how the 200-500 would fit into my shooting MO.  If the lighting condition is sub optimal you may need a better camera body that can give you better ISO performance than what I have now.  Talking about camera, I am again impressed with the D4s.  I shot mostly between the D4s and the D810 at the expo.  And I have to say I like the image on the D4s' LCD screen better.  It is by no means scientific or objective at all as I hardly go through the settings of each camera.  The exposure and the color seem better on the D4s: no blown highlight and color is vivid and saturated, again on the LCD.  Silly as it sounds I am really sold on the D4s.  I read somewhere the sensor on the D810 is actually better, so what do I know?  My next camera upgrade hopefully is a D4s or a D810.  Maybe my next single digit D camera is the D5 or D5s so it dovetails with my Nikon F5 from the film day.  I can keep dreaming, eh?  Camera choice for me is really a personal choice, it goes beyond specification and rationality.

I probably regret not having my D700 sensor cleaned at $40.  Oh well.  Just don't shoot at f/16.

PhotoPlus Expo 2015

Viewfinders and other ramblings.

I am old and old school.  I always prefer an optical view finder.  And honestly I think some of it are just being old habit dies hard.  I grew up with optical view finder.  LCD live view in the back of a camera is good but only if on a tripod with enough time to fine tune, zoom in and adjust given that I am farsighted now it's just hard for me to see or read up close.  So maybe an EVF isn't such a bad idea after all.  Except maybe the battery as a whole sucks compared to most of my optical view finder cameras which can keep going and going like more than a 1,000 frames with chimping in between shots.  Part of the full frame allure is in addition to having more sensor real estate and hence likely better quality the viewfinder is just better than those from a DX camera, again, all things being equal.  I also find it oddly liberating and inherently cool to use an add-on optical viewfinder on a hot or cold shoe.  Sometimes it's a leap of faith in composition and focusing but it certainly is fun to use, you just have to free your mind and ignore the fact that you're going to waste a lot of frames or worse film.  I have one of those for my Canon P rangefinder and it certainly was fun to use.  I don't remember the last time I used it, probably five years ago or so.  And the camera still worked flawlessly even not in the best of conditions--I certainly am too cheap to give it any TLA or CLA after I plucked it from eBay.  I was and am still surprised how the camera holds up all these years.  The last time I shot with it I actually developed the negative hands-on myself.

ZERO Halliburton, smh

Where is the proof reader?  Where is the quality control?  It's just sad.

2015 North South Lake

Maybe the first time we went to the North South Lake area was in 2010.

Photography is Kind of Physically Demanding

Two warriors sparring.  The "Chinese" or "Mongolian" wrestling.  "Shuai Jiao"

This is the third or fourth time I felt exhausted after shooting an event.  The first was the Red Hook Crit in Brooklyn, the second time was the Red Bull mini velodrome and the third was the UCI downhill in Windham.  I can understand why some people opt for the smaller sized mirror less cameras.

For most of the shots I took.  It was done with the following:-

Nikon D700, with battery.
Nikon D700 motor drive, with battery.
Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 VR with hood.
CB mini bracket
mini ball head for attaching the flash
Sunpak 120J with 4 AA battery cells and Paramount household sync cable to the D700
Sunpak TR-Pak II and 6 sub-C pack, power cable to the flash, mostly sat on the floor.

I was holding this rig on eye level most of the time from 10AM  to 5PM.  And toward the end of the day, my wrist was hurting my right rib cage was hurting, my neck was hurting.  And my right eye eyesight wasn't getting any better.

Every shooting experience is somewhat unique.  Shooting cycling, especially in the velodrome is somewhat predictable as they almost always come back to you.  Shooting downhill is like "once in a life time experience, hey it is gone it's not coming back."  Tennis and martial arts are somewhat unpredictable.  I guess if you are familiar with the Kung Fu form routine then it helps.  I am not familiar with the routine.  Composition and focusing are always a challenge when subjects move and move fast.

Portrait

This has no production value whatsoever.
Light between him and the wall.  Light in front of him slightly to the right and above the camera.
The lens is an oldie, Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 manual focus lens set at f/11 and shutter at 1/100s.

Picture Composition

Despite all the rules out there, my composition is largely or entirely dictated by the AF points of my camera.  If my AF points are mostly in the center then my subject is in the center.

Back in the days when manual focusing is the norm, you have a focusing screen with rangefinder split, micro prism ring and matte screen focusing aid and it's relatively easy to off center focus as the focusing aid is a piece of real estate on the optical viewfinder instead of just a focusing point.

The current Nikon models provide a 51 AF points which is kind of enough but composition can benefit if more points are present.

PS:  I just don't believe in or do focus and recompose.

Winner, Quitter and Loser

The winner wins, the quitter quits and the loser doesn't do anything.  Complaining and whining all day but doesn't do anything.  I think that's the worse.  If a person quits it just shows he knows maybe something is not worth pursuing and cut the loss.  A quitter can be smart and decisive.  Most people tend to make quitter a loser.  But I think there should be a difference.

FM Radio Trigger

I finally broke down and bought a set of radio trigger/receiver.  This set comes with one trigger and two receivers.

Between feeding your family and buying more photographic gears, sometimes you just have to make the rational choice: buying more but cheaper equipment but never stop buying.

This is a pretty generic trigger set and seems to be branded depending on who is selling them.  If it's sold by cowboy it is called cowboy.  This set I got is branded Neewer and has four different channels which I have no reason not to believe despite not checking each and every channel.  There are similar models that have sixteen channels.  Wow.  The quality isn't great but it isn't bad either.  I need to jiggle the battery trap door more than I like to open and close it.  In the first hour that I used them I managed to drop the receivers twice from the desk top four feet above the floor; it could be the same one or it could be once for each.  Nothing was broken.  So that's good news.  Overall they seem pretty well built or well built enough, no sarcasm.  The mis spelling of "Tigger" is just endearing and somehow assures you that it's honestly made by engineers who couldn't care less about spelling English correctly.

I tested them on my Nikon D700 and Sunpak 120J.  They just worked.  Just for the fun of it.  I also put the trigger on my Yashica Mat 124 G (next my Hasselblad 500C/M).  I used the provided PC sync cord plugged into the PC socket of the Yashica.  And it just worked.  The receiver also has the PC socket so if your flash or strobe doesn't have the hotshoe it would work with the sync cord.  And they certainly work on my Sunpak 120J that doesn't come with the hotshoe.  It's the little thing that warms my heart.  It's the little thing that enables and enchants.  No, you don't need line of sight between the trigger and the receivers for them to talk to one and other.

If you look for fancy features, you should look else where.  This set is only $16.05 shipped free from a warehouse in NJ.  And they just work.

UPDATE:
10/3/2015
Yes, it does work with the Hasselblad 500 C/M camera, with the 80mm f/2.8 Carl Zeiss lens PC socket.  People who think you need to have some electrical or electronic camera is mistaken.  The $16.05 can be cheaper than a sync cable actually.  The PC socket totally works.