Bare essentials

I just had a thought.

Over the few years I have had my D80, I have collected many camera equipments and gears and sold some. I found some quite useful and some tend to stay home 95% of the time. For those newbies to DSLR world, below are the things I find essential almost everyday and things I can live without for a while. This list might help you decide what to buy for yourself:

The bare essentials:

• A telephoto (18-200mm) walkaround lens
  
• A good UV filter that stays on the lens all the time
• Vertical hand grip with a built-in battery (good for over 1000 shots)
  
• 8 GB memory card (good for about 1000 Hi-Res photos)
  
• A hotshoe flash with a diffusion dome
• A (foam) bounce card
  
• A school knapsack (or if you want to be fancy, a camera case/bag)
• A point-and-shoot camera
• Leather hand strap
  

That is pretty much what I carry around with me everyday. Then, there are the stuff I leave at home that I use frequently. These are stuff I would naturally bring with me on a long trip, but if it's a short trip within the city, they stay at home:

• Micro-fiber cloth for cleaning the lens filter
  
• Dust blower
• Artic Butterfly brush for cleaning the sensor
• Wet cleaning kit for cleaning the sensor
• Rechargeable batteries for the flash (I have two sets -- one in the flash, one outside ready to be used at any time)
• Extra memory cards (I have 17GB in total I think)
• Memory card reader (I have two)
• A computer to view photos on
  
• A file server or a couple of USB disk drives (I built a RAID-5 NAS to store my photos in)
  

And then, there are items that rarely get used. They go into my luggage on long trips too:

• Tripod (I have a great OPUS tripod)
• A DYI lightsphere
• Extra lenses (my 18-200mm tend to stay on the camera all the time)
• Extra camera batteries (my vertical hand grip with the built-in battery tends to stay on my camera all the time now and I never have to switch to another battery as long as I recharge it before a shoot ... but I would carry the extra battery if I shoot an important event)
• Circular Polarizing Filter
  

That is about it. Have fun.

Instant Krazy Glue

This article is not about photography but because I have used Instant Krazy Glue a number of times already to build and fix photography stuff, I thought I'd mention a tidbit here. If you go buy Instant Krazy Glue, make sure to buy the 4-tube package.

See here: http://www.krazyglue.com/products/product_detail.asp?pc=KG867&g=10

The package contains 4 small tubes of Krazy Glue. This is great because often, I only needed a drop or two of the Glue. If you have used Krazy Glue before, you know once you open a tube, it is likely going to harden inside. Having these small tubes means if it hardens, I'd be wasting only one small tube instead of an entire big tube. Now, these small tubes do not have a cap so after use, if you want to store away the remainder, use cellophane wrap to wrap up the dispensing head air tight. After a month of storage, the tip of the dispensing head will harden so you may have to cut the tip the next time you need to use the tube. Needless to say, you need to be extra careful cutting the tip. You do not want any Glue to squirt out onto your fingers, face, etc.

I was able to store and use and re-use an opened tube this way for up to 5 months. Instant Krazy Glue is great!

D80 actuations

At the rate that I shoot, I fear my D80 will die from too many shutter actuations. I wondered then how many actuations it can bear. There is no definitive answer but then I thought some averaging might help.

I found this website where people post their numbers: http://www.olegkikin.com/shutterlife/nikon_d80.htm

It would appear the chances of the shutter dying increase significantly after 90K clicks.

My D80 might have about 3 more years left to go. By that time, I would have upgraded. I hope.

Stofen or Lightsphere?

My SB-800 speedlight came with a diffuser dome. When I bought it a couple of years ago, I did not know the Stofen omni-bounce is virtually the same as the diffuser dome. I got curious now, after building my DYI Lightsphere. I was curious to know if the Stofen is better or worse than my DYI Lightsphere.

So, I took a few shots inside my room. The diffuser dome was angled straight up and at 45 degrees. The DYI Lightsphere pointed straight up.

When the diffuser dome was angled at 45 degrees, it created fairly sharp and dark shadows. Everything that was lit was bright. My blue wall looked a little washed out, but this is definitely better than shooting without the diffuser dome.

When pointed straight up, the dome created softer shadows, and the blue of the wall was bluer than the first shot.

With the DYI Lightsphere, the shadows are much softer still, and the blue of the wall has a similar tone as the blue of the second shot.

From the few shots I took, it looks like the DYI Lightsphere would create a more pleasing photo than the diffuser dome. However, my DYI Lightsphere is much bigger than the diffuser dome. When I go to a wedding this July, I would like to bring my DYI Lightsphere. However, it looks ugly and is clumsy to carry it around.

Rubber zoom ring on Nikkor 18-200mm

After about two years, the rubber zoom ring of my Nikkor 18-200mm VR lens showed signs of age. After Cuba, the rubber started to loosen up. It got stretched by about 3mm. I got so annoyed by the loose rubber ring. The feeling of looseness was not fitting with a camera, so I decided today to do something about it.

After playing around with it for a bit, I figured there was no glue holding it together. It was just a rubber ring. So I slid it out. What you see below is the underside of the rubber ring pulled over the extended barrel.


Here, I removed the rubber ring from the lens altogether:


I could not think of a way to compress the rubber ring so there was only one solution -- cut it (note the length of the segment was cut):


After cutting it, I wrapped the rubber "ring" around the lens and used Instant Krazy Glue to connect the two ends together. I use Krazy Glue for many things, including the Gary Fong Lightsphere imitation.


The Krazy Glue line looks like a scar but at least, the rubber ring feels good to the touch. It is tightly wound around the barrel.

Nikon sells these rings for $10 I believe.

Artic Butterfly, or not?

I have used Visible Dust's Artic Butterfly many times over. It worked flawlessly, always as expected ... until a couple of days ago.

Returning from a camping trip, I decided to clean my sensor for this weekend of dragonboat festival at the Toronto Centre Island. I was confident the Artic Butterfly will remove a couple of annoying specks of dust on my sensor.

Here was the before-cleaning shot:


After brushing across the screen once, here is what I got:



Yikes! I brushed across the screen a second time, and a third time. The gunk was stuck firm on the sensor filter!


I believe the edges of the sensor was very dirty. I must have touched the edge and dragged the dust or some other gunk across the sensor filter. It was horrific! I could even see the streaks of dust or other deposit on the sensor filter with the naked eye. Well, it was ruined I thought. I guess only Nikon Service could fix this mess. That meant lots of wasted time and trying to make it to their office before they close at 5pm or something like that. Just then, I remember Cesar had bought a wet cleaning kit.

Cesar's wet cleaning solution is called "ultrapure optic cleaning fluid" made by American Recorder. A few drops on the swab and a couple of swipes across the sensor filter removed most of the gunk, and another couple more swipes to remove all the gunk. A strand of the swab or dust got left behind on the right edge of the screen after the wet cleaning. I then used the Artic Butterfly to remove it.

After the first application of wet cleaning (still some dusts):


After a second application of the web cleaning and then the Artic Butterfly:

Gary Fong Lightsphere

I was at the Henry's Photographic and Digital Imaging Show in Toronto yesterday. I was surprised but delighted that Gary Fong was there, promoting his Gary Fong Lightsphere and his new book, The Accidental Millionaire: something... -- I think that is what it is called. Since I heard about his Lightsphere and always wondered if it is any good. His demonstration of the Lightsphere was quite captivating. There is always a big crowd around his booth and his presentation on Wedding Photography drew huge crowds. I went away thinking.

I got back home and started searching on the web for a Do-It-Yourself kit. I found this website: http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Gary-Fong-Lightsphere/

I knew I have somewhere in the house or in my car or translucent hard plastic I could use and mold into the DIY version of the Lightsphere. I found it in my car.

Based on the instructions from the website, I built this DIY Lightsphere. Instead of using velcro (as the instructions specified), I applied some Instant Krazy Glue to bind the ends together so the whole thing keeps its shape. My DIY-Lightsphere fits nicely over my SB-800. It is no where as good as the Gary Fong Lightsphere, but it will do.

The results were good. This DIY-Lightsphere does diffuse the light although I am not sure if it works as well as Gary Fong's.

Now, I got curious. I had built a bounce card out of foam before, so I had to test this DIY-Lightsphere and my bounce card. As it turns out, inside my room, there is virtually no difference I could see.

Would a Lightsphere make a bigger difference in a big hall with high ceiling? I don't know although it would make sense it would.