Free photography

So I decided that I will do an experiment.  I will offer a few free photography shoots in my area for small events.  I will see if the quality of photos I produce is good enough to go semi-professional.  I have enough gears to cover most types of events (except for sports for which I still need a 70-200mm f/2.8) indoors and outdoors.  I do not have light modifiers or an assistant so whatever I have on the camera body and attachments will have to be it.  Well, we will see if anyone takes up on the offer and in a few months, I might decide to charge for the work. :)

70-200mm f/2.8 or not?

After selling the Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 that I purchased just one weekend ago, I was on the search for a Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8.  The VR I and VR II versions are superb lenses from what I have read, but definitely not for the hobbyist like myself.  I cannot justify to spend $2200 on a lens that I will use a few times a year (the VR I lens might go for $1600 but I cannot find it anywhere, new.)  I then started looking at the Sigma alternative, the new 70-200mm OS.  New, that costs about $1500.  Not cheap.  So then I started looking at the Sigma 70-200mm Macro II (without OS).  I can purchase a used copy for $730 or so today, but should I?

Last night, I was at one of my nieces' birthday party and decided to bring just the Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D lens.  I figured my brothers would bring their DSLRs along so there is no need for a flash unit or the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 DC lens.  Well, the Nikkor 50mm is more like a 75mm in DX format.  I had difficulties using it.

For portraits, I could stand about a metre away from the subject and get a nice head shot.  A couple of metres away, I could take a fuller body.  A few metres more away, I could compose a scene with maybe five people in it but that was about it.  I did not have the luxury of the longer length of the room to shoot.  The Tamron 17-50mm would have worked much better than the 50mm.

What does it then mean for the 70-200mm lens (i.e. 105-300mm in DX format)?  If I was having so much problems with the 50mm, a 70mm will be a lot tougher to work with in an indoor environment.  A studio environment would be fine for it but not in an indoor party environment where you have little space and little control of the setup.  Therefore, a 70-200mm is pretty useless to me, indoors--it could work for wedding banquets though.  Having said that, I could use the 200mm focal length for outdoors photography or for sports events.  I thought I could use an f/2.8 aperture for a faster shutter speed to capture flitting hummingbirds, but if I really want a nice shot, I will have to use a fairly large depth of field and will have to use a flash gun too, so f/2.8 will not be useful in that scenario.

Therefore, I am going to purge this itch to purchase a 70-200mm lens for now.  If I have a wedding to shoot or get invited to a sports event, I will get one then.

D7000 back-focus problem

Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 ED AF-D

I have been using the D7000 for over a year and never thought of this problem.  After purchasing a Nikkor 80-200 f/2.8 AF-D, I realized the D7000 has been reported to have back-focus problems with this lens when shot with AF between 135-200mm through the viewfinder within a short distance from the subject.  The lens deliver tack sharp pictures and a nice bokeh.  Focus is spot on when focus is performed manually or through the D7000 live view--just not through the viewfinder.  Apparently, when live view is used, focus is performed using a contrast algorithm whereas when the viewfinder is used, focus is performed using some phase detection algorithm.  The D7000 has an AF Fine Tune control to correct these problems, but it does not help in the case of the 80-200mm lens however.  I set it to -20, the maximum setting for correcting back-focus problems, but it is not sufficient for the correction--see the picture below.  Rats.  Now, I wonder if I should sell it or just use it in manual mode or use live view.  The pictures do come out tack sharp!

Back-focus problem of D7000 with Nikkor 80-200mm:
"Hiding" is supposed to be the centre of focus.

Now, while I was already playing with the back-focus problem, I decided to test all my other lenses.  It looks like the Nikkor 18-200mm lens has a slight back-focus problem too.  It needs some AF Fine Tune adjustment of -8 or so on my D7000.

One too many gears?

Every now and then I like playing with everything I've bought.  I think I've gone crazy with lenses.  My list of lenses now includes:

• Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 DC HSM
• Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D
• Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 OS AF
• Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 AFD
• Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR ED AFS
• Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 ED AFD
• Tokina 80-400mm f/4.5 AF
• Nikkor 500mm f/8

I also have a Tokina 80-200mm f/4.5 that is permanently paired with a Nikon EM camera I purchased a couple of years ago in a 50mm f/1.8 bundle.  This Tokina will probably never see light through its lenses.

I should think about making money from my hobby now to recuperate the money I've invested so far.  I had an idea of doing vacation photography.  I wonder if anyone would buy me a ticket to travel with them and just enjoy their vacation while I build a photo story of their precious moments together.

Sound trigger for high speed flash photography, part 9

Some experiments with water filled balloons (about 100mL of water).  My niece was popping the balloons for me this time.  The SB-25 flash gun was set at 1/32 power.  The camera was set to f/10, ISO 200.

I am out of balloons now.  The dollar store is just down the street, but before I take any more balloon shots, I need to think about a different backdrop.

Balloon placed slightly on the side.  Notice the crown of water formed at the bottom.

Triggering the D7000

The reason I took out the Solmeta GPS unit last night was because I needed a way to remote release the D7000 shutter.  I thought the D7000 came with a PC Sync port like the D300.  It does not.  Instead of the PC Sync port, there is a special GPS port (see below).  The good thing with the Solmeta GPS unit is that it has a pass-through remote trigger 2.5mm stereo jack.  For my DIY, I just needed to build a cable with a 2.5mm stereo connector that goes from my laser/sound/lightning trigger circuit to the 2.5mm stereo jack.

Left side of Solmeta GPS N1 with 2.5mm jack and special USB port.

The D7000 / D90 GPS connector:

http://www.doc-diy.net/photo/remote_pinout/d90_pinout.jpg

The 2.5mm stereo connector to connect to the Solmeta has the same pin-out as the Canon plug except that to trigger the shutter, it is not sufficient to connect the tip (shutter) to the sleeve (ground).  To actually trigger the shutter on the D7000, I had to connect the ring (focus) to the sleeve (ground) first, then join the tip (shutter) to the pair.

http://www.doc-diy.net/photo/remote_pinout/canon_pinout.png

I fashioned a cable with a 2.5mm plug end from an old earphone.  I cut one end of the earphone, soldered three wires to it, and taped it together:

2.5mm connector with the Solmeta GPS N1.

Below is how I would connect to a lightning trigger circuit.  The three wires are isolated from one another until the OptoIsolator is activated.  This circuit is based on the laser trigger circuit with the resistor-capacitor components removed and switching the PhotoResistor and the 62 KOhm resistor around ... and ORgate1 should probably be removed.  The lightning trigger circuit activates the camera shutter when the PhotoResistor senses the flash from a lightning bolt.

Lightning trigger circuit

Reference:  The pin-out diagrams of the GPS plugs came from http://www.doc-diy.net/photo/remote_pinout/

Problems with Solmeta GPS N1 for D7000

It has been eight months since I last used the Solmeta GPS N1 unit.  I thought I did something wrong back then, but I don't think so now.  The unit is fairly simple to use.  You just plug in the provided USB cable and power on the GPS unit to start receiving GPS signals.  In my test last night, I did not even power on the GPS unit and yet, after a few shots, three things failed to work on my D7000:

1. Half-pressing the shutter button to focus actually triggers the shutter.
2. Sometimes, the shutter release button stops working.
3. The Play button to review photos taken stops working.
4. The Menu button stops working.

The only way to restore functionality to the D7000 is to disconnect the USB cable.

Having observed the behaviour of the SB-25 flash gun when it is triggered with a PC Sync cable, I have a feeling that some wires inside the Solmeta unit get shorted (to activate the camera shutter) and not released.  To trigger the SB-25 flash gun to fire off, the two wires of the PC Sync cable just need to be connected together.  The SB-25 flash gun will fire off once.  If the two wires stay connected together, the flash gun will freeze up, i.e. the menu and function buttons will stop working.  A very similar behaviour is noticed here with the D7000 and the Solmeta unit.  I wonder if the trigger wires got shorted and not released, electronically.

I should have done this test last July when I bought the unit.  Well, it is still under warranty so I just e-mailed service[at]solmeta.com for support.  Let's see what they say.