Hip camera holster

"Pro Quick Hunter Shoot Good Partner Camera Holster Belt Kit" from ebay

I was researching on ebay (I think that is the right spelling of "eBay" as it was called before) for a d-ring to screw into the tripod mount socket of my camera when I came across this holster.  It's the Good Partner Camera Holster.  It sounds goofy and all but it does look cool.  I have seen some wedding photographers carry their cameras on their belt before.  I thought that was cool and so I guess this is what they used.  I did a bit of research on Google and found out it was probably a knock-off of the SpiderPro Single Camera System.  What's new.

The SpiderPro system comes with a belt.  This knock-off does not.  If I buy this knock-off, I'd use it with my leather belt, which is far stronger than SpiderPro's belt with a plastic snapping buckle.  I cannot understand why the pros trust this kind of belt with their pro DSLR bodies and lenses.  I guess they check for cracks in the buckle everytime they use it?  I had one plastic buckle break on me once.  Maybe it was cheap plastic that got brittle over time.

Anyways, I am contemplating at getting one of these hip holsters now.  I already have a fairly good camera strap.  This hip holster would be for a second camera that I carry from time to time.

Preventing fungus in the lens

My lenses are still clear, edge to edge.  There is no fungus that I can see.  I hope to be able to keep it that way forever.  However, as I was shooting in the rain again yesterday, I was thinking I was just asking for trouble.  With a plastic cover over the lens or not, there is still quite a bit of moisture that the lens can draw in and out of the lens barrel.  It's worse if there are rain drops on the lens, and of course, there were.  I tried to keep the lens dry as much as I could but there was nothing I could do to keep moisture out.  When I got back to the car, I could see there were moisture inside the lens again.  Zooming in and out extends and contracts the barrel and moisture can be seen on the barrel.

I believe all the moisture has been drawn out now, but to be sure, I will keep the lens extended out to allow as much moisture to escape as possible.  I left the lens sitting on my bed.  It is a dry environment so hopefully the moisture will naturally escape from the lens.

To deter fungus formation, a lens should be kept in a dry and cool environment.  To help with that, I just purchased from eBay a couple of silica gel boxes.  These blue silica gel beads turn red after absorbing moisture from the air.  They advertise that the gel can be dehydrated back to their blue colour with a microwave oven.  In addition to these two silica gel boxes, I will order 100 small sachets of white silica gel.  These blue gel beads will be my indicator that the gel need to be dried out so when I dry the blue gel I will dry the normal white gel at the same time.

Blue silica gel that will turn red with moisture.

I cannot wait for these blue gel to arrive.  I think they look pretty cool!  I will like to take some macro photos of them.

Choosing a lens, part 3

Sigma 50-150mm f/2.8 DC OS

I think I have also made up my mind that I will not buy the Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8.  It is an excellent lens, just not for me, not for a DX camera body.  The 70-200mm on the DX body would be like a 105-300mm on a FX body.  If I were using it in a wedding shoot, I would be missing a fairly important range.

I already have a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 VC.  It is a great lens.  The vibration compensation mechanism is not as good as Nikon's but then again, the Nikkor 17-55mm DX does not have any VR.  I ran some handheld tests today and like I said before, VR is a big deal.

What about the upper focal range?  I'm thinking the Sigma 50-150mm f/2.8 DC OS would fill this gap really well.  I have seen only great reviews of this lens and by the way, this is the "DC" version. This lens is sharp throughout the range, even wide open.  I would use it in combination with the Tamron 17-50mm for wedding shoots.  Together, they are similar to the 24-70mm and 70-200mm combination on FX bodies.

Now, where am I going to find this lens?  I'm very hesitant to pay the retail price of about $1200.  The purpose of this lens for me would really be for the occasional weddings and conferences.  I see using it for mostly indoor shoots, and even then, I would use my all purpose 18-200mm for parties.  I would not use the Sigma 50-150mm or the Tamron 17-50mm for hiking, camping, traveling, and nature photography either.  For that, I use my Nikkor 18-200mm and Sigma 10-20mm lenses.  In these types of photography, there is less of a need for the f/2.8 aperture.

So, I'm looking for a second hand version from someone upgrading to an FX body.  I don't see it anywhere yet.

Nikkor 18-200mm after the drop

Last year, I wrote about removing a dented filter from my Nikkor 18-200mm lens (see:  Photon Farmers: Stuck filter on lens.)  I thought I'd write a bit about the lens after one and a half years later.

You gotta give it to Nikon.  They do make a really solid lens, even if it's mostly plastic!  The force of the impact from the drop dented the filter enough that its rim is warped.  The filter does not thread into the lens barrel easily now, although I could still use it.  Immediately after the drop, I could feel something was not right with the lens.  The focus ring felt a bit gritty.  Whenever I use it, it feels as if there are tiny bits of sand inside.  It does not seem to affect much anything anyway so I do not care much about the gritty feel.  However, there is something I noticed on one camping trip while I was shooting the stars at night.  The lens used to be able to focus to infinity without a problem.  My shots of the stars were all blurry.  All the images were out of focus.  Also, when I turn the focus ring manually, the focal length indicator inside the lens does not turn sometimes.  I never had this problem before the drop so I guess there was some damage.  Besides that though, everything about the lens is working fine.  The VR is still working smoothly.  The zooming is fine too.  The lens is still my primary go-to lens.  I use it for almost everything I do these days, whether it's for a party or for a hike.  So, hats off to Nikon for building such a solid lens!

Choosing a lens, part 2

I think I have made up my mind.  I will not purchase the Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 lens.  It does not have VR and VR is a big deal for me.  I remember doing test shots with a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 in one of Henry's stores before and frankly, when handheld, my Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR beats the 50mm in sharpness hands down, almost all the time. With the 17-55mm, would there be any difference?  To put it to the test, I brought out my Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 and tried it with and without VC.  When shot with VC, the Tamron delivers sharp images almost all the time.  Without VC, very few images are sharp under normal room light conditions.  So, it makes a big difference to have VC.  Anyone that says otherwise must have a really stable hand or a really good camera so they can crank up the ISO to compensate for low lights.

On a tripod or in bright day light, the Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 would be a superb lens.  Otherwise, forget it.

Choosing a lens

Just yesterday, I was browsing for and reviewing the Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 lens.  It costs at least $800 used.  A few months ago, I was browsing for and reviewing the Nikkor 70-200mm f/.8 lens.  Again, this beast also costs at least $1300 used.  It begs the question:  do I really need any of these two lenses?  I like that they are really fast, but there is no VR.

ExposurePlot:  graphs of 234 photos.

Besides that question, my other question is, how often do I shoot in a certain range to justify such an expensive purchase?

I ran a quick search on Google and landed on one piece of free software called ExposurePlot.  I just had a quick look and I like it already.  I ran it against 234 photos I took at a niece's birthday party.  All the shots were made indoors with flash mostly.  I forgot now what ISO values or aperture settings I used.  This software answers this question in minutes.

I can see I left my camera on ISO 1600 the whole night, as shown by the big red bar.  Since I used Aperture Priority virtually all the time, with flash on, the shutter speed is maxed out at 1/60 seconds as shown by the big green bar.  I can see that a few times, I turned flash off, and they show up as those tiny green bars.

Now, for focal length--and this must be taken into context of an indoor party shoot--I spend most of the time shooting between 18-55mm (DX).  The graph converted my focal lengths into 35mm equivalents and I am not sure how to turn off that conversion yet.  I do shoot in the 70-200mm (DX) range but not as nearly often.  Overall, I can see that I do use the full 18-200mm range in a given night.

If I were to purchase a 17-55mm lens and a 70-200mm lens, I will likely use the 17-55mm much more often than the 70-200mm, but will I likely want to switch lenses during a party, or will I simply adapt (i.e., getting closer)?  I have brought just a 50mm lens to parties before and I was forced to adapt.  Hmmm...

I have to run now.  I will play with this software more a bit later.

Sensor cleaning, nasty bunny

After the Henry's Exposure 2012 show, I decided to perform a wet cleaning on my sensor.

While I was at the show, I had my lens cleaned at this one booth for free (and they gave away a free Lenspen FilterKleaner.)  I did not know they would try to clean my sensor as well.  Well, they did.  They showed me their 6x magnification loupe with built-in LEDs.  The loupe is actually pretty cool.  It has an opening for a special lens pen to be inserted to clean the sensor.

Crop of image:  a persistent blob on my sensor!

I knew my sensor was probably dirty.  I hadn't cleaned it for a while and I have taken my camera to many dusty places and have switched lenses many times over.  So, I was not surprised to see tiny dust bunnies through the loupe.  They went to clean my sensor and I was really hoping it'd actually work, but unfortunately not.  The pen they used only smeared the dust bunnies and might have added more dust or some kind of residues from the cleaning tip.  After a couple of minutes, I told them "it's ok ... I'll do a wet cleaning." :-)  I'm sure they appreciated that.

Anyways, I went out to buy the Pec Pad sheets I mentioned a few months ago from Vistek.  The 100 sheets of Pec Pad came out to $14.68, including tax.  Each sheet can be cut in half and each half can be used two or three times by adjusting the sheet to use different parts of it--I used each half only twice.  This was the Copper Hill method.

With the Pec Pad sheets, I performed the cleaning four times.  There was one dust bunny that persists.  I still cannot clean it.  It appears in the lower left corner of the image, so on the sensor (looking from the front) it should be in the upper right corner.  I scrubbed the area a few times over but the dust hangs on.  I think I will get a loupe to take a closer look at the sensor.

UPDATE:  I ended up ordering a cheap 7x loupe from eBay.  The loupe has six LEDs.  With it, I'll be able to see what that dust bunny is.  I hope it's not between the sensor filter and the sensor itself!

Loose lens hood

Sagged bridge on my HB-35 lens hood.

When I bought my D300 a couple summers ago, it came with a Nikkor 18-200mm VR lens, but the lens had no hood.  As I already have an 18-200mm lens, I gave the new lens to my eldest brother and gave him the original hood that came with my older lens.  I decided then to buy an HB-35 lens hood from eBay.

Maybe the old adage rings true even for accessories like a lens hood.  You get what you pay for.  The lens hood was super cheap, shipped from China.  It worked great--well, it's just a lens hood--but there was one thing that irked me for over a year now.  The lens hood was a little loose.  It was easy to knock it off and it's something that is constantly on my mind on hiking excursions.  I remember having to deal with it in Cape Breton by inserting a strip of birch bark in between the hood and the barrel.  (I did not have any plastic or paper at the time.)  In contrast, the original lens hood had a tight fit and wouldn't easily get knocked off, although it is still very possible--I almost lose mine on a hiking trip in Costa Rica one year.

Today, I read somewhere someone had the idea of using tape around the barrel.  I guess that could work but tape may come off and leave a gluey residue behind.  Someone had melted the plastic of the hood for a better fit.  So, I thought I'd try that, and above right is the result.  Notice the imperfect bridge.  That was my melted hood.  I held a lighter under the hood at some distance but close enough to heat up the bridge where the small nodge is.  It could see the plastic starting to sag a little.  As soon as gravity started to bend the plastic, I remove the flame, and let the plastic cool down and harden once again.  Now, I've got a really good, tight fit!

Disclaimer:  If you try this, be very careful.  That plastic melts really quick and can easily catch fire too!  Do so at your own risk!

Fall colours, part 2

The further north you go, the fewer leaves there are in the canopy.  In fact, there isn't much of a canopy anymore in many parts of Muskoka region.  On a camping trip to Big Orillia Lake, although I did not actually camp on Big Orillia Lake, I took a few pictures of the fall colours.

Fall colours

When it gets a little cold, it's probably a good time to start getting your gears ready to capture the multitude of colours of the fall.  This past Monday, I went hiking with some friends at the Mono Cliffs park, a little north of Orangeville, ON.  The day started fairly cold.  We saw some bits of snow flakes in the air at 9am.  That did not deter us.  We hiked for about 1.5 hours to the top of Mono Cliffs and peered down the landscape.  It was beautiful.