Posted by Constantin Chirila on Feb 27, 2009 in Camera Gear
We often find ourselves wishing and talking about DSLR cameras, we compare them and adopt a geek language babbling about shutter speeds, ISO, camera features, image processing and other technicalities. This makes us forget about the most important piece of gear that helps us take the photograph we want, and that is the LENS.
The lens is the eye of the camera, and every photograph is recorded after the light come through the lens. Taking your DSLR without putting your lens on, and start taking photos, your see that the image processor records and extremely blurry photographs.
Lenses allows us to:
get more light ( lenses with big aperture), even if your camera have high iso numbers, you’ll still need a fast lens to get fast shutter speeds.
get close-up of your subject without actually being close ( telephoto lenses )
get incredibly sharp photographs
get sharp images of a mosquito’s eye ( macro lenses )
isolate our subject with small depth of field
capture sharp images of huge mountains and big fields of flowers ( wide lenses )
make creative photographs with lens-baby
As you can see lenses are way more important that the camera.
In creating the ultimate lens is involved a lot of precision mechanics and optics science. Also there is use a high amount of very expensive glass materials, so you will need a lot of glass elements in building a zoom lens with fast aperture. Also every piece of glass is treated with other substances for durability, minimize chromatic aberrations, reduce flare, etc. Also raw optical glass costs around 1000$ per kilogram, as Discovery Channel points out in their “How it’s made” show.
All of this being said, you can easily explain why a good lens costs hundreds and even thousand of dollars.
Also please check this video created by Discovery Channel on how lenses are made.
For a few days there are the news of the improvement of Pocket Wizards. These are the brand new PocketWizard FlexTT5 and MiniTT1. It seams that all the time that Pocket Wizard stood quietly without any release news or anything, they secretly were developing an improved version.
So to get out of the confusion the MiniTT1 it’s a transmitter and the FlexTT5 is a transceiver (meaning that it can act as transmitter and receiver).
Here’s what new PocketWizards can do:
You can control your strobes in TTL mode. You can use 20 channels in TTL photography or 32 standard channels in manual flash photography.
When using multiple strobes you can use HyperSync™ Technology to push your shutter speed up to 1/500th.
You can even push your ControlTL system to get flash sync with shutter speeds beyond 1/500 and and even up to 1/8000. To do this you will automatically get into FP/High-Speed sync mode.
You can connect your PocketWizars to your PC via USB and configure it or update it’s firmware.
FlexTT5 has an Auto-Sensing Transceiver Technology that enables it to switch back and forth between Transmitter and Receiver modes as needed for greater flexibility on the job.
The new system of PocketWizards can still be used with older ones like PlusII or MultiMAX but you will need a FlexTT5 as transmitter.
If you want to know more you can go to their website and watch the video below:
And some last info, the PocketWizards will be available by 1st of March for Canon and Q2 2009 for Nikon.
I cant’ wait to test them to see if it worths the money.
Posted by Constantin Chirila on Feb 7, 2009 in Personal
Yesterday I went to the opening of a gallery where three photographs of mine, previously chosen, were exposed. I was pretty amazed of how many people in my city are interested of photography. Also I met other photographs and exchanged some experiences we had. I found out and learned new things from them.
I felt pretty happy and proud when I was asked different questions about my exposed photographs or when I was told that my work is pretty good. Also there were people interested to buy my work, which I wasn’t expecting.
At the end there were some beautiful speeches by some important people (from the art point of view), and also by my current professor from the School of Photographic Art. Me and some other photographers, each received a diplomafor the selection of our photographs to be put in the gallery.
Overall there was a beautiful experience and there is no doubt that I will repeat it, with other more beautiful photographs to impress people that love and understand photography as art.
You can check some photographs from the opening of the gallery at my FlickR account.
Posted by Constantin Chirila on Feb 2, 2009 in Rumor
According to an anonymous source, that’s somewhat trusty, by the fall of this year will be launched the replacement camera for the 50D, but the name will be changed into “Canon 7D”. You might ask “Why Canon is doing this?,” well it’s said that this is because of the confusion with some models from Nikon (Canon 40D, Nikon D40). So there will be no 60D.
Here are the supposed specifications:
15.1mp (apparently it will be the same sensor with some internal upgrades)
DIGIC V (DIGIC IV a stopover to a big advancement in processing)
New 13 Point AF
1080p Movie Mode
8 fps
3″ VGA LCD
98% Viewfinder coverage
New Battery
Weathersealing
Ergonomic Upgrades
1x Compact Flash and 1x Secure Digital Slots
As seen from the specs, this seams a camera worth to buy for 40D and 50D owners (since 50D is a bit of a dissapointment).
Anyway we will wait and see how true of a rumor this is.
We often find ourselves wishing and talking about DSLR cameras, we compare them and adopt a geek language babbling about shutter speeds, ISO, camera features, image processing and other technicalities. This makes us forget about the most important piece of gear that helps us take the photograph we want, and that is the LENS.
For a few days there are the news of the improvement of 
Yesterday I went to the opening of a gallery where three photographs of mine, previously chosen, were exposed. I was pretty amazed of how many people in my city are interested of photography. Also I met other photographs and exchanged some experiences we had. I found out and learned new things from them.
