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Greg_Embree

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Posts posted by Greg_Embree

    Canon Powershot S120 Menu Question

    in Mirrorless Digital Cameras

    Posted

    <p>I'm unsure if I'm in the right forum.<br>

    I recently bought the above-named camera and have spent this evening going through the user's manual page by page, with the camera in hand, to learn how to use it. Everything was going swimmingly until I hit page 102: "Saving Commonly Used Shooting Menu Items (My Menu)." I cannot get "IS Mode" to show up in My Menu. It is grayed out when I select it. I selected IS Mode and Night Display, but only Night Display shows up in My Menu. Yet when I engage the Sort function, both items appear in the list--both IS Mode and Night Display. IS Mode is a no-show in My Menu no matter which shooting mode I select. On page 201 of the manual, the chart shows IS Mode available for almost every single shooting mode, which makes me more perplexed.<br>

    What am I doing wrong?<br>

    Thanks in advance for any guidance.</p>

    What kit do you carry for what purposes?

    in Nikon

    Posted

    <p>For travel, I carry my D800, a Nikon 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6G AF zoom, which stays on the camera 99 percent of the time, and a Nikon 10.5mm f/2.8 DX semi-fisheye. I use the latter sparingly, with the camera in DX mode, but I often get one or two keepers with it from each trip, certainly enough to justify having it along. Last year in New Zealand I got a photo of the Auckland Sky Tower with the 10.5, plus one of the jib sail on our ship cruising Milford Sound. <img src="http://www.cherrydalelibrary.org/AucklandSkyTower.jpg" alt="" width="750" height="500" /><br>

    <img src="http://www.cherrydalelibrary.org/MilfordSoundCruise.JPG" alt="" width="750" height="500" /></p>

    <p> </p>

    A book about Not Going Pro.

    in Casual Photo Conversations

    Posted

    <p>I read the book in one sitting, instead of enjoying the Sunday paper as I usually do at this time of the week. I consider "Don't Shoot" a superb guide for anyone planning to become a professional photographer or who has just started out as one. The message in the book slowly morphs from one of warning to one of "OK, if you're going to do it, here are some things to keep in mind." Steve's/Dirk's style was a breeze to read. I laughed out loud in spots, my highest accolade for anything I read or watch nowadays. (The beta version I read could use another scouring for typos.) </p>

    No Luck with LumoPro Hot Shoe Universal Translators w/Audio Patch Cord

    in Lighting Equipment

    Posted

    <p>Thanks, Ellis. Do those two black bands on each plug of the audio patch cable indicate that it's not a single-channel cable? I'm new to everything associated with audio cables. <br>

    After posting this, I found on the web site of Midwest Photo Exchange a 16-foot cord for connecting two Universal Translators. I should have shopped the photography sites for the cord instead of simply Googling for an audio patch cord. </p>

    No Luck with LumoPro Hot Shoe Universal Translators w/Audio Patch Cord

    in Lighting Equipment

    Posted

    <p>I am hobbyist who occasionally shoots location portraits for free for our neighborhood association. I've had great success with Cactus 4 radio receivers to fire my off-camera flashes, but I thought it would be a good idea to carry along a cheap and reliable backup triggering system. I purchased a 15-foot audio patch cord to connect my camera to an off-camera flash unit via two LumoPro Hot Shoe Universal Translators, one on my camera's hot shoe and one attached to my off-camera flash (a normally reliable Vivitar 283). I tested this combination this evening. It worked sporadically at first, then stopped working at all.<br>

    I've used the Universal Translators and Cactus Fours to fire my Alien Bees studio strobes for years with no problem, albeit using the Translator's PC connection, not the 1/8" mini-plug connection. I suspect the problem lies with the patch cable. When I experimented with plugging one end of the patch cable directly into my Alien Bee's mini-plug socket and the other end into the Universal Translator mounted in my camera's hot shoe, the Alien Bees wouldn't fire. As you can see in the photo below, the patch cable's plugs don't match exactly the configuration of the plug at the end of the cable that came with the Alien Bees. Did I buy the wrong kind of patch cable? If that's the case, can anyone recommend a source for the correct kind? <br>

    <img src="http://home.comcast.net/~suza1/IMG_5603.JPG" alt="" width="534" height="577" /><br>

    <img src="http://home.comcast.net/~suza1/IMG_5604.JPG" alt="" width="601" height="504" /></p>

     

    Dropped a Vivitar 283--Repairable?

    in Lighting Equipment

    Posted

    <p>My damaged 283 won't work on batteries; the ones I tested it with are 100-percent fresh. I tried firing the flash with the VP-1 Vari-Power module and the standard Auto-Thyristor sensor installed. No dice with either, at least in battery mode. I even tested it with different battery carriers--those things that one slips the batteries into before stuffing the whole shebang into the flash. <br>

    To my surprise and great relief, the flash does work perfectly with the SB-4 AC adapter plugged into the wall. This is a partial victory, because it means I can still use it for product photography in my basement, of which I do a lot, and I won't have to dump the flash in a landfill. I already found a replacement 283 for $27.50, for my use on the road. <br>

    So, Robert and Craig, you were both right. I seem to have messed up the battery connections somehow when I dropped it. Craig, I'm always glad to run across another 283 fan. I have four (well, now three and a half) and they do everything I need them to do. I never spent more than $40 on any of them. <br>

    Thanks for your responses.</p>

     

    Dropped a Vivitar 283--Repairable?

    in Lighting Equipment

    Posted

    <p>Yesterday I dropped one of my Vivitar 283 flashes on a linoleum floor from about waist-high. Nothing broke from it. Nothing rattles when I shake it. But it no longer turns on and it won't fire when I push the test button. I hate to add this flash to a landfill unnecessarily, but I presume that mailing it off for a professional repair job would cost more than simply buying a replacement for it. Am I right? Also, I wouldn't know to whom to send it. Is this flash unit's problem something I can diagnose and repair at home? I have a Radio Shack multitester and know how to use a screwdriver, but I'm no electronics professional by any means. How would I go about diagnosing and fixing the problem? </p>

    D800--Problem Adjusting Monitor Brightness in Live View

    in Nikon

    Posted

    <p>I just finished reading Darrell Young's excellent <em>Mastering the Nikon D800</em>. As I read it, I tested each function and setting on my own D800 that the author talked about. When I got to the part about adjusting the brightness of the monitor in Live View, I got tripped up. As he instructs, I pressed the Thumbnail/Playback zoom out button. The camera did indeed display the hue and brightness control icons, with the hue icon in yellow and the brightness icon in white. While holding down the Thumbnail etc button, I tried to move from the hue icon to the brightness control icon, using the multi-selector. Nothing happened. The hue icon remained yellow and the brightness icon remained white. I pressed the multi-selector to move right, left, up, down--still nothing. I tried holding down the Thumbnail button and rotating the command dial and the sub-command dial. Still nothing. <br>

    Is this a defect with my particular copy of this camera or am I doing something wrong? <br>

    I confess that this tiny flaw, if that's what it is, doesn't warrant my mailing the camera to Nikon for a repair, except that it irks me that I don't have a perfect camera. At the same time, I thought that if the cause was user error, I would like to correct it. <br>

    Thanks in advance for any help. </p>

    the old Vivitar 283 manual flash

    in Nikon

    Posted

    <p>Two years ago I prepared a crude iPhone video for YouTube that shows how to measure the trigger voltage of a Vivitar 283, using a Radio Shack multi-tester. The video walks a viewer through all the settings for the multi-tester and shows precisely, step by step, how to do the measurement. It's here:
    . I own five Vivitar 283s, and I've found generally that the ones manufactured in Korea or China are safe, low-voltage versions, while those manufactured in Japan have dangerously high trigger voltages. But it's always best to test each individual flash unit. </p>

    How To Edit Photo Captions in Picasa 3?

    in Beginner Questions

    Posted

    <p>Hi, David-- I followed your procedure, making sure I was logged on to Google, even going so far as to log off and log back on again. I went to the appropriate web album and clicked on the photo whose caption I wanted to edit. I saw the gray text beneath the photo; as you noted, it was the album name, not the photo caption. To the right of the photo was nothing--just a black empty expanse, no caption or anything. When I play the slide show for the album, all the captions appear normally. I just can't figure out how to edit the things. <br>

    I'm with you on being less than pleased with Picasa 3. When you find something simpler and more intuitive, please let me know. I'll join you in making the switch. My e-mail is suza1@comcast.net. <br>

    Thanks. </p>

    How To Edit Photo Captions in Picasa 3?

    in Beginner Questions

    Posted

    <p>Before I "upgraded" to Picasa 3, editing photo captions in my Picasa web albums was intuitive and easy. I'm now finding it difficult. From my searches on Picasa's technical support site, I infer that I'm supposed to 1) Make sure I'm logged in to Google. 2) Go to the Web Album containing the thumbnail of the photo whose caption I want to edit. 3) Click once on that thumbnail to display the photo by itself. 4) Click on the word "Edit" that appears among other menu items above that picture. 5) Once the image reappears on the editing page, I'm supposed to see the caption in small, gray lettering under the photo. 6) Then I'm supposed to click on that caption, edit it, and hit Enter.<br>

    For me, the process breaks down at Step 5. I see no caption beneath the photo. <br>

    What am I doing wrong?<br>

    Thanks in advance for any help.</p>

    Poor Blue Skies with Nikon 24mm f/2.8 AiS MF Lens

    in Nikon

    Posted

    <p>Mystery solved! It was user error all along. I hadn't realized that the blue color channel on my images was blowing out. The other lesson I learned was that lenses of different focal lengths can meter differently. Another thing I learned in this exchange is that PhotoShop can work miracles in salvaging poor photographs. <br>

    As you can see from these four images, any future problem I may have with faded skies with my 24 mm/f2.8 AiS MF Nikkor can be easily avoided by lowering the exposure bias by a few notches. <br>

    We had a beautiful blue-sky day today. I stepped outside in the early afternoon and shot toward where the sky was bluest, using my D800 set at aperture priority, f. 5.6, and ISO 200. Shooting handheld, I simply fired off four quick shots with the exposure bias set at what's indicated on each image below. <br>

    Many thanks to all who weighed in with suggestions and observations. I'm going to bed tonight a happier and wiser photographer.</p>

    <p> <img src="http://home.comcast.net/~suza1/DSC_0460a.JPG" alt="" /></p>

    <p><img src="http://home.comcast.net/~suza1/DSC_0461a.JPG" alt="" /></p>

    <p><img src="http://home.comcast.net/~suza1/DSC_0462a.JPG" alt="" width="500" height="334" /></p>

    <p><img src="http://home.comcast.net/~suza1/DSC_0463a.JPG" alt="" /></p>

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