richard_cochran

December 30, 2013

For what it's worth, I purchased my FM new in April of 1980, and it has the same style multi-exposure button as shown in the OP's photo -- the round three-layer "wedding cake" button between the shutter speed dial and the prism. You slide it toward the prism to take multi exposures. My FM is newer than Dieter's. It has the new style smooth non-rotating ring around the shutter speed dial, with no lock around the shutter button. The shutter release is locked when the film wind lever is stowed in the "meter off" position, and unlocked when the wind lever is pulled out to turn the meter on.

December 11, 2013

I have an FM purchased new in 1980, and an FM2n purchased new in 2001.

The FM has a metal front to the prism, where it has that prominent "Nikon" we all see. The FM2n has the same part made out of plastic. It looks very similar, but a quick check with a multimeter in continuity check mode reveals that the FM conducts electricity, while the FM2n doesn't. You can also feel that the FM feels much cooler to the touch than the FM2n at that part of the prism cover. Both of them are the chrome silver models, not black.

So it seems the Df may be modeled more closely after the FM2n/FE2.

May 10, 2012

The F5, like most SLRs, gives you complete control. Your flash will be as intense as you tell it to be.

But the problem of reflections is primarily one of angles. If you put the flash on the camera, and take a picture of a fairly flat reflective surface, you'll get nasty reflections. On-camera flash is a poor choice for this scenario. A traditional solution is to use two lights, both off the camera, at 45 degree angles on either side of the lens. You can buy a professional "copy stand" designed especially for this kind of work, equipped to handle two or four lights.

I'll also note that there are many other approaches which can work. If you can put your camera on the tripod, you can use as long a shutter speed as you want, so you can do the photography without flash. This may make it easier to avoid reflections, since what you see in the finder is what you'll get. One of the cheapest ways to evenly light a flat artwork is to put it outdoors in direct sunlight. Play with the placement of the painting, adjusting the angle until reflections are minimal, keeping the camera directly in front of the center of the painting pointed straight at it.

February 1, 2012

It's not a vacuum. The tube is filled with gas at pressure that's lower than atmospheric pressure, but it's still got some pressure.

Anyway, the gas in the tube very rapidly heats up tremendously. That heating increases the pressure. A sudden change in pressure is pretty much the definition of a sound.

January 14, 2012

Yes, preflash can cause blinking, and there's no need for pre-flash with a group set up in a static situation. If all those people are giving you their time for the photo shoot, take a minute beforehand to set the flash power manually. The lighting conditions won't be changing so fast that TTL is a requirement.

But no matter what you do, if you have a large enough group, the laws of probability aren't on your side. With 50 or 100 people, you will always have someone who is blinking. A trick to deal with this: Put your camera on a tripod, and take 5 or more shots with everyone in the same place. When you get back home to the computer, select the best one as your "base", and then for those people who are still blinking, clone their faces from another shot into your base. Since the lighting conditions and poses haven't changed, and you're cloning the entire face and not just eyes, this cloning can be very difficult to spot in the final product.

January 8, 2012

If you ever forget, just remember that the protocol for X-sync dates from the days before cameras had batteries in them. The PC contact has two wires only. A purely mechanical camera can't easily put voltage on the wires, but it can easily short them together via metal contacts in the shutter. So that's why the protocol is that the camera shorts the two wires together, and the flash is responsible for providing a bit of voltage. The voltage and polarity provided by the flash isn't standardized.

Most old flashes will work on modern cameras and most old cameras will trigger modern flashes. There are exceptions for some old flashes which use high voltages that are incompatible with the semiconductors in some modern cameras, so beware. But this compatibility with old cameras is why the protocol is the way it is. Besides, it's not broken, so there hasn't been a need to fix it.

January 8, 2012

My PWs are from about 2003 or so, if I remember right. And I tried transmit only mode and found it makes no difference. So it sounds like our measurements are consistent at 692 microseconds. It's interesting that newer ones can be a bit faster, though the difference isn't likely to matter in practice.

January 8, 2012

Thanks for the comments. I'm glad I'm not the only one who has been obsessive enough to measure this kind of thing. As for Harry's comment about (I presume) optical slaves, I think they're significantly faster than radio triggers, but I should measure them when I get a chance.

Since I only have three PW units, and I sometimes use more than two lights in a studio, I often end up using a combination of PWs and optical slaves, where the PW on the camera fires one light, and that light fires others via optical slaves. With that situation, I have the cascaded delay of the PWs plus optical slaves. To make it worse, I'm normally using my not-so-fast monolights with their long flash duration. Saving grace is that, in the studio, I've got so little ambient light that there's no harm in slowing the shutter down to 1/100 or even 1/80 or so. I've done exposure tests, somewhat like Pete describes, where I look at an evenly lit background, start with a very slow shutter speed, and speed it up until I can see the uneven light caused by the shutter curtain closing while the flash is still putting out light. In my worst case situations, I need 1/100 to capture all of the useful light from my strobes.

Next step, hook up a couple of silicon photodiodes to watch the delays between various slaved lights, and to track the intensities of the lights at various power settings. I wish I had more time to play with this stuff.

January 7, 2012

I've been using PocketWizard Plus II modules to trigger flashes for several years, but I've often wondered how much delay they add to the time required to fire the flash. In other words, how long is the time delay between the instant the camera sends the "fire" signal to the PocketWizard mounted on the hot shoe, and the instant the remote PocketWizard sends the "fire" signal to the flash it's attached to?

I've seen the question asked on various sites, and the answer seemed to be something along the lines of "not very long", or "not long enough to matter", or "you might want to slow the camera down by one shutter speed, especially if you're using slow studio flash units and camera with a fast sync speed".

Well, I recently got an oscilloscope, and it makes it easy to make a precise measurement of this sort of thing. I attached a probe on channel 1 (yellow) to monitor the flash sync circuit between the camera and the transmitting PocketWizard. I attached a probe on channel 2 (cyan) to monitor the firing circuit between the receiving PocketWizard and flash. The results are below:

I got nice clean traces, and very consistent results. You see the voltage on the yellow trace goes down, and then a short time later the voltage on the cyan trace goes down. Each square on the grid represents 100 μseconds. You can eyeball the difference at about 700 μseconds, but the cursors measured it at 692 μseconds. That's 0.000692 seconds. Or if you prefer, 1/1445 of a second.

If your shutter speed is 1/250 of a second, this represents about one sixth of the time your shutter is open. If your shutter speed is 1/125, the delay now represents about one twelfth of the time the shutter is open.

Whether this delay is significant depends on several things, among them the time required for your flash units to fire, and the time that your shutter remains fully open. So as a practical matter, I'm back with the idea that it's probably not enough to matter in most circumstances, but it's probably reasonable to slow the shutter down a third of a stop to allow for the delay. Especially if you're using a camera with a fast sync speed and ambient light is dim enough that you don't absolutely need the fastest possible shutter speed.

But now I've got a number to back that up. 692 microseconds.

December 13, 2011

At least he's not using his right index finger on the top deck to press the shutter release! It looks like his left index finger is in about the right place to be on or at least near the release. But his eye really needs to be looking at the screen, or else he ought to flip open the sport finder. And if he's looking at the screen, his right hand really ought to be around the focus ring, though I'll give him a pass on that.

I can understand how Hollywood always messes up technical details in some subjects, for example aviation, since there aren't many pilots who make movies. But I'd think there would be lots of people on the set who have at least a passing familiarity with cameras, at least enough to know how the viewfinder works.

November 23, 2011

That sounds like a flash recycling problem. Especially since it goes away when you turn off the internal flash or use an external flash. Does it happen on the first shot of a sequence (I'm guessing not)? or when trying to shoot multiple shots fairly quickly, within a few seconds?

If the problem is flash recycling, you can reduce the problem by turning down the flash power. If the flash is on auto, then turning up the ISO is probably the easiest way to effectively turn down the flash power.

November 15, 2011

No, it's not.

The fastest F-mount lens for 35mm SLRs is f/1.2, and there have been several models of this speed, with focal lengths of 50 to 58mm. I believe the geometry of the mount makes f/1.2 the limit, and I know that the early pre-AI photomic meters also had this limit fixed in their metering system.

As far as I can tell, that f/1.1 lens may be the fastest lens for the 35mm format Nikon made, but it's for the rangefinders, not the more famous F mount SLRs.

If you leave the 35mm format, Nikon made a 35mm f/0.9, faster than either of these. There may be other faster lenses I'm missing.

http://homepage2.nifty.com/akiyanroom/redbook-e/repro/tv.html

October 28, 2011

The nice thing about the EL2 (and most film cameras) is that you can open up the back and look through the shutter to see what's happening when you press the release, at least if you don't have film in the camera.

The EL2 has an electronically timed shutter, so unlike mechanical cameras, there is no whirring sound while the shutter stays open for a long shutter speed. But you should hear a noise both at the beginning and at the end of the exposure, as the shutter opens and then closes. At shutter speeds of 1/60 or faster, it's hard to hear the separate sounds. Slower than 1/2 or so, it should be easy enough. In between, it depends.

October 26, 2011

I used an original EL, the one before the ELW and EL2. It has probably the most intuitive display of metering and shutter speed that I've ever used. The same metering display is used in the FE series and FM3a. If you want to go manual, it's easy to match up the needles. If you go auto, it's easy to see what shutter speed the camera has chosen for you.

The EL series has very nice controls and is easy to understand. About the only non-obvious quirk is figuring out how to change the battery (it's under the mirror. Take the lens out, raise the mirror, and open the compartment down there, being careful not to touch the shutter or other delicate parts inside).

That f/2.5 lens is extremely fast by the standards of modern zooms. But it's nothing outstanding by the standards of older fixed focal length lenses. Still, it should be a solid performer, with a nice bright finder and good low light ability.

Enjoy.

October 16, 2011

If it's only got one ring, and no way for the diaphragm to open except by turning that one ring to the widest aperture, that's what I've always known as a manual diaphragm, not a preset one. Most enlarger lenses are that way, as are most lenses for cameras that don't use TTL viewing.

The word "preset" refers to the fact that you can "preset" or select in advance, the taking aperture. Then, while your eye is occupied in the finder, you can very quickly switch between wide opening for focusing and the preset aperture for taking. You need one ring to select the preset aperture, and another ring (or lever, or similar device) to switch between wide open and stopped down.

September 22, 2011

Not terribly relevant to this particular situation, but at a recent wedding I attended, the photographer was using "obsolete" Nikon F3, Nikon FM, and Hasselblad 500c/m equipment. State of the art stuff in 1980, still capable of fantastic results in good hands, but we all know that manual focus film equipment is not in common professional use these days. During a quiet moment at the reception, I commented that it was nice to see a photographer who still knew how to use a focusing ring, and she mentioned that one of the advantages of using such equipment is that she doesn't need to carry insurance. Her equipment is fully depreciated, and in the event of a problem, she can buy used replacement gear cheaply enough that she doesn't worry too much about it. Cheaper to do the occasional replacement out of pocket than to pay insurance premiums.

I'm not certainly arguing that it's the right solution for everyone, but it is interesting to consider the business case for using equipment that's a wee bit less than today's state of the art, but that will deliver high quality images without risk of excessive damages. Especially when drunken guests are an occupational hazard.

August 1, 2011

For single focal length lenses, my rule of thumb is that it's hardly worth swapping lenses unless you can about double or halve the length. So something like 35/85/135 makes a reasonable kit, or 24/50/105/200 works. If you've got a 105 and a 180 or 200, the 135 fits in the middle, but the gap it fills isn't very big.

Since the early manual focus days, Nikon made a wonderful 105 f/2.5, and a wonderful 180 f/2.8. If you couldn't afford the 180, the 200 f/4 was inexpensive, small and used 52mm filters like most small Nikkors. For me, the availability and quality of those lenses on either side of the 135 made the 135mm focal length largely unnecessary.

But tastes vary.

July 20, 2011

I own both an FM and an FM2n. They're both fine cameras. My own FM is a little more beat up than my FM2n, but then it's 21 years older, and it has seen a lot more hard use.

The main differences are the top shutter speed, flash sync speed, FM2n's viewfinder ready light (when used with a Nikon flash on the hot shoe), changeable screens for the FM2n, FM2n's ability to take the cordless databack (MF-16) and the FM's ability to mate with non-AI lenses. In practice, it's very rare that any of these features are important to me. The more important difference is the condition of the individual camera. And even though my FM is cosmetically more beat up than my FM2n, mine are both in excellent working condition, so there's very little reason for me to choose one over the other. I alternate between them somewhat randomly.

As others have mentioned, there are plenty of other choices these days, and it's not hard to find nice film cameras at very reasonable prices. But if you're looking at the FM and FM2n, you won't go wrong with either one. I'd base the choice on what you can find available in good condition at a reasonable price.

July 18, 2011

I'm not sure where you're located (or more importantly, which market your PocketWizards were designed for), but in the US and Brazil, PocketWizards operate at a frequency of 344 MHz. Other frequencies are listed here:

http://www.pocketwizard.com/inspirations/technology/frequency/

A ham radio operator or someone with a scanner radio may be able to tell if there's some other equipment that's generating interference on that frequency. As a test, you might try unplugging computers and other electronic equipment to see if you can eliminate the problem that way.

July 7, 2011

The original Nikkor 8mm f/8 fisheye lens was actually focus free, with no focusing ring at all. It also required full-time mirror lock-up, because it protruded into the mirror box, so it would not be practically usable on a modern DSLR.

There may be another fisheye or two that Nikon made without a focusing ring, but almost all Nikkor lenses give the photographer the ability to adjust focus. As has already been suggested, you may stop them down and lock the focus with gaffer's tape such that they behave like fixed focus lenses, though.

July 3, 2011

"BTW is there a given correlation between power and duration, or does it vary depending on the make of the strobe?"

It varies. Most studio strobes don't vary the duration very much with power changes. They'll typically have a slightly longer duration with lower power, and shorter duration with high power. This is the reverse of what happens with most hotshoe flashes, where lower power means shorter duration. If the details of this are critical to your work (often they're not), you may need to do your own testing and/or contact the strobe manufacturer, unless you can find the relevant info in the strobe's user manual.

July 1, 2011

zlight B wrote "the japanese write it and pronounce it unambiguously as "2) nik-kon (short i sound)".

But the Japanese language has no short i sound, ever. Japanese has the same five vowel sounds as Spanish and Italian have. http://japanese.about.com/od/introductoryjapaneselesso/a/blank.htm

The Japanese pronounce the first part of Nikon like the Americans pronounce the word "knee". And the "o" is pronounced differently than Americans pronounce it, as well (closer to "own" than "on").

And Americans pronounce it however they want to. I could go on about the crazy, almost unrecognizable pronunciations I've heard of American brand names in foreign languages abroad, but let's just say that pronunciations become flexible when you cross language boundaries. The Nikon marketing team and EPOI historically pronounced the brand name differently in the USA than it was pronounced in Japan and Europe.

June 21, 2011

I'm sure that subject line has many saying, "no way", but check out this article from Popular Science in August of 1971:

<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=9wAAAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA85&ots=BptsGxGwQN&pg=PA85#v=onepage&q&f=false">http://books.google.com/books?id=9wAAAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA85&ots=BptsGxGwQN&pg=PA85#v=onepage&q&f=false</a>

It shows what appears to be a standard Nikon F (with plain prism finder, no less), mounted to a special 80mm f/4.5 lens with a prototype autofocusing system, including batteries, entirely contained in the big bulky lens. The article optimistically claims it'll be available "next year", which would mean 1972.

As far as I can determine, this thing never made it past the prototype stage, and was never sold to the public. I think the first Autofocus system Nikon sold was the F3AF, more than a decade later.

Anyone have any more info on this? Hmm, I wonder if this system would have worked when mounted to an original 1959 Nikon F? It looks like it might have. That could surely start a heated debate around the trivia question, "What was the first Nikon SLR capable of autofocus?"

June 17, 2011

The 50mm f/1.4 should be capable of a lot of good work, but sometimes a slightly longer lens that can focus closer may be useful to capture details. This one was taken with a 105mm f/2.8 Micro Nikkor (AIS manual focus version), but the precise lens isn't so vitally important. Any lens that can easily focus close could do as well. <img src="http://webs.lanset.com/rcochran/marina/medres/BWMarina2-03a.jpg" alt="" width="650" height="453" />

I used a single monolight in a 3x4 foot softbox to light this. Off-camera flash makes this sort of thing much easier than available light, because it makes it easy to combine an exposure time that will freeze motion (both the motion of a handheld camera and the motion of a twitchy baby), with an aperture that gives good depth of field, at a reasonable ISO.

I'll also point out that B&W can be flattering for very young newborns. Sometimes they can have some red splotchyness for the first few days, and a little desaturation hides this.

And I'll give my standard advice: practice your lighting and exposure technique on a bowl of fruit or a baby doll first. Either one is a lot more patient and easy to deal with than a live baby. Once you're happy with your lighting, exposure, and composition on a still life, you'll be ready to add the complexity of dealing with a live subject.

May 10, 2011

I've made a grid for a small speedlight out of black drinking straws, cut short and glued together in a honeycomb pattern, held together with hot melt glue, with velcro holding it to the flash head. It works beautifully and gives wonderful results, but if your goal is to impress others with your professional looking equipment, this is not the way to do it.

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Posts posted by richard_cochran