david_r._edan

Thank you so much! I was trying to do the same on B&H but they don't have enough criteria selection there, nothing like: maximum exposure time, manual exposure or manual focus. And, obviously, they have only what they're selling. I didn't realize there even was this kind of database. Anyway, after entering all my requirements, it came up with a shortlist of 30 cameras or so. Most are $600 and up. But there do seem to be a few in my price range that are worth checking out. So, I'll keep digging. Thanks again!

I'm looking for something "disposable" (and I'll explain). Those Richo's are way too nice, which also comes with a matching price tag. Seriously, those are bridge camera prices and what do you get for that much dough? A camera that is lacking in many ways and is not even that compact. Oh, a crop sensor? Tell them they can keep it. I need all the DOF I can get and let ME worry about the noise. I can take the cleanest pictures you've seen from any camera at ISO 6400, handheld. Just give me MANUAL controls and a burst mode. Anyway, the camera that I'm shopping for will be covered with sand, smeared with sunscreen, baked in the sun, banged around in a backpack and tortured in other ways. It will probably end up being destroyed after a few months of (ab)use. So, no, not looking for anything "nice". I didn't say anything about megapixels or sensor size. And, honestly, 12MP and above will work for me. There's the Olympus TG-5. It is only 12MP but it has a zoom, so I guess, that kind of compensates, not really important but whatever. It shoots 12-bit RAW, so, we're getting there. It's waterproof and all that, so, hey, maybe it won't end up in the trash after I'm done with it. Nice!.. But what about the actual freakin' controls? I don't see a Manual mode and I don't think that it can do long exposures, except in some retarded, backward way. Honestly, its form factor is OK and I would pay the retail price for it, even if it wasn't waterproof, just give me my manual controls! (exposure and focus) Why is it so hard? It's 2019 and you can get an app for your phone that does manual exposure and focus! What kind of dumbass engineers are coming up with all these stupid camera designs? I guess they're too busy playing with WiFi and coding their stupid apps for instagram upload. Wait, am I ranting?... Whatever. Another feature that I just thought of. I need to be able to completely disable any image stabilization. I would gladly fetch a camera without any IS at all but they all have it nowadays. 2 additional "bonus" features: Exposure meter readout in Manual mode. Burst mode / Continuous shooting, in Manual exposure mode, with focus lock. The faster - the better, at least 12 frames total before the buffer chokes (preferably in RAW). So, NOW, are we on the same page? I mentioned 12MP, no IS, and no WiFi, so, maybe there's something for me from, like, 10 years ago? I don't think I'd buy "used" but "refurbished" - probably. Would still prefer something from recent times, in case I fall in love and want to buy another. Thanks!

Never noticed there wasn't a dedicated P&S forum, so, I guess I'm posting here. I need something "flat", no zoom. Wide lens, probably 28mm equivalent. ISO range - don't care. Stabilization - don't care. Touch screen don't - don't care. Mechanical shutter - don't care. Would pay a lot extra for RAW but, I guess, I could do without it. Full Manual exposure mode - at least the shutter speed, if the aperture can't be changed. Focus lock that can stay locked throughout a panorama / HDR sequence (without putting the camera in some weird/idiot mode) OR manual focus. Flash that doesn't go off unless I tell it to (or no flash) Selectable WB that doesn't have a mind of its own. Tripod socket. Bonus: Long exposures up to 30 or 15 seconds in Manual mode. Shutter delay or really short self-timer. USB charging. EVF or rangefinder. Price: $300. Could push it to $400, if it looks good. So? What's out there? Thanks!

Toshiba FlashAir W-04 64GB (Make sure it's a "W-04" when buying one): Tests in my Nikon D850: In-camera write speed: ~62 MB/s Wireless transfer: ~9 MB/s (megaBYTES) The card isn't Eye-Fi-ready out of the box. You have to activate the Eye-Fi mode via the software (which you D/L from their site). Once you go through the procedure, the FlashAir card begins to behave like an Eye-Fi card (sort of). There are several settings that can be changed via the software and you can use just a regular SD-card reader. Whatever you do, the instructions must be followed very carefully. You will be required to (safely) remove and reinsert the card several times and if you make one mistake the card will become corrupted and will have to be reinitialized. Photo transfer: Connecting to the card via a web browser is simple and is useful for casually browsing through small JPEG files in a tablet or a smartphone (I assume, I don't have any of those). I was able to view all the photos in Firefox on my Windows PC but accessing them that way means that you have to load them one-by-one and right-click to save. It's a nightmare and it's not what I had in mind. Luckily, Toshiba provides FlashAirDrive software which allows you to access the contents of the card in Windows Explorer. I was able to map a Network drive and have FlashAirDrive auto-load on Windows startup. *FlashAirDrive NEEDS to see an active Wi-Fi adapter, otherwise it just crashes. No error message with a code or an explanation of any sort, just a hard crash. Also, apparently, in Windows 7 at least, there is a cap of 50MB on network file sizes. You will get an error if you try to transfer anything larger. RAW files from my D850 are often larger than 50MB, so, it was an issue for me. A simple registry modification was able to address this problem. With FlashAirDrive I have no problem accessing JPEG or RAW photos as if they were sitting on a regular network drive. I can create folders, delete files, open them in photo software right from the card, copy them to my computer and so on. The speed, however, is unbearable. With 9MB/s you're not gonna get far trying to do any kind of work. All the photos are kept on the card until you request them from the computer. Who can work like that? Obviously, one should first copy all the files to a local drive but with a hundred photos or so it can take a while. That's not what I had in mind when I was purchasing this product. There's a solution for that too. Apparently there are all sorts of 3rd-party, free software, in varying stages of development. Best I found is Snowy. Snowy It's a work in progress and the software itself is somewhat quirky and a little buggy but it gets the job done for me. You can set it to check for any new photos on the FlashAir card and d/l them on the go. I set the interval to 2 seconds, which means that after clicking the shutter and by the time I get from my studio to my desktop, a full-res JPEG is already there, waiting for me (along with everything else I've shot up to that point). The most sensible method and the way that I do it is to shoot RAW+JPEG. I save my NEFs to an XQD card while the JPEGs are saved to the FlashAir, in the SD slot. Snowy can't really handle my NEFs. It just crashes after a few photos. You can still shoot RAW+JPEG even if you have just the FlashAir or even just one SD card slot in the camera. There's a setting in Snowy that will tell it to only D/L JPEGs and leave anything else alone. You'll be shooting RAW while viewing the results (JPEGs) on your computer. Overall, I'm pretty happy with this setup, especially considering the stupid problems I was having with my firewall constantly blocking the original 16GB Eye-Fi card. This one works fairly well with my D850 and my old D800 (which is now converted to Infrared and is not used indoors but I tested it anyway). 2 or 3 times my camera just froze. It wouldn't turn off, so, I had to remove and reinsert the battery. The card access indicator was on, so, I know it was the FlashAir. I'm not sure but I think it happens because of some time-out. A couple of annoying quirks in Snowy: You can set Snowy to save all the photos to a location of your choice and organize them "neatly" in separate folders, by-date. However, it will not maintain the original folder structure. It is somewhat of a problem for me because I create new (numbered) folders all the time, as I go. Snowy will have all the photos just bunched up together in the same folder. Another annoyance is that if you delete a photo in the computer, Snowy will immediately re-download it from the card Apparently, it doesn't keep a record of what's been transferred and the photos on the card itself are not flagged in any way. Deleting some photos on the card and then trying to delete the same ones on the computer can turn into a serious mess very quickly, so I just don't delete any of them. I mostly just use this wireless transfer for viewing full-res JPEGs to "get a better sense" of what I'm shooting, which is what I wanted out of FlashAir all along. With a couple of cards slots and, especially, an Eye-Fi enabled camera the Toshiba FlashAir is a very powerful and versatile tool. The applications are endless. Just one example of what I'm talking about (and I've tried it myself): You can take a regular memory card with photos even from a different camera and do an in-camera file copy to the FlashAir card. You then will be able to transmit those photos wirelessly to a location of your choice. This could be very helpful if you or your (WiFi) device does not have the appropriate card reader and you can't get a hold of a matching USB cable for your camera, OR if you just need to display a few photos on a huge-screen smartTV in some conference room. Given the ~2MB/s transfer rates of the original Eye-Fi, I am fairly impressed with the performance I'm getting out of FlashAir. With its 9 MB/s it certainly beats even most cameras that have built-in, dedicated (and functioning) WiFi, while not limiting the photos to JPEGs only. And with the Eye-Fi turned off (in-camera) FlashAir becomes a nice little SD card that can be used as a backup. With its 62 MB/s write speed it can keep up with almost everything that I shoot. I couldn't measure the in-camera read speed but I can say that it's FAST in my D850. Browsing through the photos (even NEFs) is a breeze. Did I say it's made in Japan?

Would have to disagree with you there a little. I get a pretty sweet 420mm lens whenever I put that TC on my 300mm Nikkor. Image quality is surprisingly good, even by my standards, just, apparently, not in the IR light range. Personally, I have no business doing IR with that TC on the 300mm or the 70-200 lens but I realize that some people would actually consider a similar setup for doing some different kind of IR work. So, I thought I'd mention it. Anyway, so far, I'm having excellent results completely clearing the hot spots using my usual method in Rawtherapee. I've always applied custom flat frames to pretty much all of my scenics, to remove the vignetting. Now, the same technique takes care of the hot spots as well. I get clean photos with no additions to my long-established workflow. Pretty happy with the conversion and the fact that I can just use my existing lenses. But maybe it's too early to be excited, since I haven't really done all that much IR shooting. At any rate, dealing with a monochrome image, life is so much simpler for me. Those who do false color IR are in much deeper water with regards to hot spots (and other stuff).

Because it's been awhile, I'm not sure if anyone is still interested. If yes, let me know and I will share my (mostly positive) experience with the FlashAir 64GB.

Instead of posting some 'subjective' desert landscapes/tests, here's what I came up with: So, there are definitely some hot spots but they are not horrible, especially if you don't stop down beyond f/8-f/11. My Tammy 70-200/2.8 G2 looks VERY similar. * Their Teleconverter (TC1.4) makes things much worse. My old Nikkor 300/4 AF-S IF ED is a gem for IR. No hot spots whatsoever but pair it with the said TC and things begin to go south very quickly. I hope this is helpful.

99% it's got something to do with your memory card. Try using a different one.

Sure, man. It's gonna take a while though. Getting the service done is one thing, going out into the desert to try and take 'actual photos' I can't tell right now when it's gonna be. But yeah, sure thing, if I still remember by then.

My old Nikkor 50/1.8D suffers from a "mild" hot spot in the visible light range. I first noticed it when I started using the lens with a digital camera. It was the same with the D70s, D80, D300s and the D800. Never used it with my new D850 and why would I? The lens is pretty sucky anyway. What happens is you begin to notice "something" in the center of the frame right around F/11. At F/16 it's much more obvious and at F/22 it's like "right there", a small but a very distinct bright spot. Never saw anything like it with either one of my F5's. So, what else can it be but the shiny sensor? No wonder that everywhere it says that this lens sucks big time for IR. So, I'm feeling optimistic about by second-generation "Tammy" 24-70 and I think that I will place my order with Lifepixel for the 830 nm, uncoated filter conversion. Just in case this is my last post in this thread: Thank you all for your time.

My point exactly, I get a non-AR filter and there are hot spots - I feel stupid. I send the camera in for a new, coated filter AND there are still hot spots - I'm a colossal moron who's also out of (additional) 500 bucks... Thank you for explaining to me the bit where the light might bounce off of the filter and find itself bouncing back in as non image-forming light. I don't know why I haven't thought of it as I'm all too familiar with the same issue in non-IR photography. Old lenses, designed in the age of film did not take into account the reflectivity of a digital sensor. I've seen some horrendous ghosting and other weird stuff with old Nikkors and Sigmas, because of this very issue. With regards to coated IR filters, I don't think that that theory is sound simply because the very reflective sensor is still there. Yes, it's behind the "black" filter but it's infrared light so it can come back out no problem. Maybe the side that's towards the sensor is the one that's coated, or maybe both... I don't know, man. Daniel Malkin of LifePixel insists that the hot spots form inside the lens, so, there's no way to "filter them out", which is what I was saying. On Lifepixel's site there is an extensive explanation and comparisons that form a strong argument against having AR coating on the in-camera IR filter. How convenient... But still. So, I dunno, right now I'm leaning towards getting a non-coated filter installed because at this point, I think those hot spots will be there with or without it. As per the lenses - you're right, I don't know that my Tammy will be good for IR. I'll just have to wait and see how this thing plays out for me. At this point I am not committing myself to IR photography. I'm merely converting an old camera body of mine for not that much money. If I see that it all turns out to be a total mess, with hot spots, muddy lenses and what not, I'll give it up altogether. I have so much on my plate as it is and I really don't need the extra hassle.

Yes, I already have the lens but there is something that I (supposedly) do have some degree of control over. I'm am still talking about the Anti-Reflective coating on the in-camera filter. Judging by the number of responses on the subject, which is zero, I'd say that it is a very uncommon feature to have. I myself, have only just found out about it, whilst shopping around for an IR conversion. I was like, "Wait, something actually CAN be done about the hot spots??????". I dunno..., nobody's saying anything... What I'm trying to find out is, first of all, if such anti-reflective coating helps at all with stray IR light or is it just a gimmick to rake in some extra dough. For starters, I couldn't begin to imagine by what type of mechanism a hot spot would be reduced. Does the IR light become polarized or change its properties in some other way as it's reflected off surfaces inside the lens? I mean, IR light is what we need to form the actual image, so, how can you separate one from the other when the two are the same and are mixed together? Evidently, the price of such "coating" isn't cheap, so maybe there is something to it. So, my other question is: Does the AR coating itself introduce any adverse side effects? Again, I don't even have a starting point to begin processing something like that. So, If the answer to my first question is Yes and to the second: No, then it makes a whole lotta sense to invest the extra $100 and here's a strong argument for it: My D800 body isn't new by any means. I honestly, don't know how many clicks it's got left in it, so spending a lot of money upgrading it doesn't make much sense, especially it being just a "D800". But, let's suppose that I do pay the extra money for the coating, and it's working wonders and the camera just keeps clicking away. In that scenario I am actually, in a way, "future-proofing" myself by adding the AR coating. Let's suppose that my 24-70 G2 does not produce any hot spots at all, with or without a coated filter, who's to say that it'll be the only lens that I'll ever use for shooting IR? I will, most certainly, purchase new glass for my 'regular' photography in the future and I will, most likely, want to use some of those new lenses in my IR escapades as well. Now, those lenses may or may not turn out to be horrible, as far as IR hot spots go. In a scenario where I choose to install an uncoated IR filter I am the jerk who couldn't pay a little extra for a 'proper' IR conversion, now stuck with just his beat-up 24-70 for a lens and his worn-down Nikon D800 which isn't worth servicing anymore. If it were only about the money, I'd shell out the extra shillings but, again, I need to know what the AR coating does to the image exactly, more importantly, the adverse effects.

I wish there was an EVF in my D800 but it is what it is and it is what I have available. Having electronic shutter wouldn't be bad either. If I keep doing IR, I'll most likely dedicate a mirrorless body to it in the future. In the meantime, I'll be using the OVF for composition and the LCD for acquiring and confirming focus and checking the histograms... somehow. Please do no recommend me any weird gadgets that go over the LCD, I know all about it. Andrew, I've seen the data on the first generation 24-70 myself but assuming that the G2 is "also fine" based solely on that would be very foolish of me. It's all about what type of "paint" they chose to use and NOT whether they kept the original optical formula. I know you know this and I'm merely illustrating a point to everyone else that there has to be solid "data" to know something like that to a certainty. So, not much help really so far but, people, do keep chiming in. In the meantime I think I'll email Lifepixel and ask them if they have any AR coating on their 830nm filter. And, Peter, thanks but no, to all of it.

Strangely there's no "Infra Red" forum, so, I guess, I'm posting here. So, basically, I've dabbled with the IR in the past, right around 2006. It was the simplest of setups: my old D70s + a Cokin plastic IR filter. Needless to say, I didn't get very far with it, mostly because focusing was next to impossible. Not being very serious about the thing, I had to give up IR. But now that I have a "spare" D800 just laying around, collecting dust, I thought I'd put it to good use. I like to think that I'm quite knowledgeable in the field of IR photography (even considered getting into it in the days of film), however, my personal experience with it is very limited. When it comes to making "artsy" photos I consider myself somewhat of a purist, so, all that "false color" stuff is just not for me. I'll be shooting in a desert environment where there are lotsa rocks, mountains, canyons and hardly any vegetation, which is a good thing because I'm not crazy about the "white trees". I'm all about dramatic B&W tonality and strong contrast between the rocks, the clouds and the black sky, not weird-looking aspens. So, I want the maximum possible effect on the sky and I really do not want to fumble with any filters on the lens. Naturally, I need to install a ~830 nm filter at the sensor. I was able to find and investigate 2 possible routes I could go: Lifepixel and Kolari Vision. First of all, how sharp is a filter like that anyway? I think both of them claim "German glass" but what does that translate to in terms of image sharpness, granted that "deep infra red" requires some serious "filtration". At Kolari Vision, in addition to the "Industry-standard", they also offer 2 "coated" versions of the same filter (which is rated at 850 nm, as opposed to 830 nm, btw). I am somewhat concerned about the hot spots, especially that there's no information regarding the 2 lenses that I plan to be shooting with. How effective would be that kind of coating against IR hot spots, if at all? I mean, it is a hundred bucks extra but if paying it means saving even a couple of, otherwise ruined, gorgeous "keepers" then I'm all for it. Again, does that "coating" affect the image sharpness in a negative way? My current go-to lenses for any outdoor excursions are the Tamron 24-70/2.8 G2 and the Tamron 70-200/2.8 G2. Sadly, no hot spot data on any of them but maybe someone will care to chime in. And lastly, the Auto-Focus. I'm familiar with the problem all too well. Luckily, we live in the age of Live View photography. Needless to say, I'll be focusing exclusively via LV, so I should be fine. Am I right or am I missing something? Because at LifePixel they make you choose the type of AF calibration even for Live View. It says "Universal (For Live View cameras). Are they even doing anything to the AF system or is that option there to simply tell them to leave it alone? So, there. What do you think?

Thanks, I am aware of the existence of various emulators but I did not investigate further simply because that would land me right at the place I've been trying to avoid - SnapBridge. I just need a simple and reliable photo transfer (and just some JPEGs, not hours of video or anything like that). Taking the FlashAir route I should be able to make it work for me. If not, it's only 50 bucks down the drain and then I could try doing it your way. It is a whole lotta hoops to jump though, so, I don't know....

Something like that just isn't for me. I'll keep it in the back of my back head though, so, thanks! I already put an order for a 64GB Flashair card. Back in 2013 a 16GB Eye-Fi cost me around $80, promotional price. I just paid about 50 bucks for this one. Hope it don't turn to be a POS.

Another thing, since we're talking Wi-Fi. I do understand the need for "Airplane mode". It is the ultimate on/off switch for any wireless communication. But do I need it? When I (probably) get the Flashair card I'll just be using the "Eye-Fi ON/OFF" option, which will reside in "My Menu". Isn't that enough for me? I mean, I was trying really hard to make the camera transmit something, anything, without any success. Should I be concerned at all about battery drain if I set the Airplane mode to "off" and leave it like that forever?

Well, then the Wi-Fi on D850 is officially stupid... Yeah, like that hasn't been said before.., only about a million times. Hopefully, in time, Nikon will eventually "snap" out of it and let us use the wifi like normal people. Maybe via a firmware upgrade? I know I should wake up. For me it's settled then. Going back to the middle ages, I guess, which is actually not as bad as having to pull out the card out of the camera. I'm talking about the Toshiba Flashair and I would like other people to chime in on this. The only time I need the wireless photo transfer is when I'm working in the studio, especially doing some tabletop stuff on a tripod. I need to see full-res previews on my 2.5K panel as I go along. The way I was doing it with my D800 is I would shoot NEF+JPEG. The RAW would go to the CF card and the full-res JPEGs to the Eye-Fi card, which would transmit the photos to my desktop in real time. I would be a happy camper with this kind of setup even today, with my new D850, except we all got screwed over by the guys at Eye-Fi, so, that's a no go. But.....I should be able to achieve something very similar with the latest generation Flashair card. I know that at one point there was even some sort of joint action going on between Toshiba and Eye-Fi. In the specs it even says that inside Eye-Fi enabled cameras (like the D850) a W-04 Flashair card will function in many ways like an Eye-Fi card. I would really like to just have all the JPEGs on my desktop by the time I get there, instead of having to pick out which ones I want to view and only then pull them off the camera wirelessly, which will always take some time because the transfer rate should be around only 2 megaBYTES a sec. I dunno, maybe now there's a way to just keep streaming ALL the photos in realtime. At any rate, this solution should work for me. Like I said, though, I am interested in hearing other people's opinions before I pull the trigger on a 64GB W-04 Flashair.

I've seen videos of airnef working with other cameras but this guy right here claims that it also works with the D850: Airnef works with the D500/D850/SnapBridge Before I get into the technicalities: 1. I do not have SnapBridge or own a smartphone (nor intend to get one any time in the next 10 years or so) 2. I would not use an external Wi-Fi transmitter/adapter if I was given one for free. *In the video the fella isn't using one either, nor is there any mention of one with regards to D850. Now, On my D850 there isn't a Wi-Fi ON/OFF setting. There are a couple of dashes next to "Wi-Fi" in the menu and when I tap on it, I get inside all the settings. There is nothing there that says ON or OFF. I'm on Windows 7 and I don't use a wireless router (the Wi-Fi is simply disabled since I don't need to share my Internet connection). Instead I have a pretty good USB Wi-Fi adapter that I've used extensively with my Eye-Fi card on the D800. So, when I turn it on, I immediately get to see all the devices around me that use Wi-Fi. However, no matter what I did, not once did I see my Nikon D850 on that list. Not sure if that even says anything. And BTW, "Network" is greyed out in my camera. But I think it become available only if you connect one of them external transmitters. My D850 is invisible, so, airnef can't see it. Then, how in the hell did the people get it to work? I thought I'd try the Bluetooth route and maybe get this thing to work with qdslrdashboard. I've setup Bluetooth on my system, and again, my computer can't see my camera. But then, in the menu "Bluetooth" is greyed out and is set to OFF. I've tried "Connect to smart device". Not a blip on the radar... Shouldn't I see something in the Bluetooth devices while the camera is attempting to connect to SnapBridge? So, the camera stays invisible and unavailable for Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Something tells me that SnapBridge has to be brought into the picture to "jump start" this functionality. I really hope that I'm wrong though. *Airplane mode was always OFF throughout my endeavor. So, what do you make of this? If you own a D850 and can do wireless downloads to a Windows PC via airnef or qdslrdashboard, I would LOVE to know your secret.

Last time I checked, which was right around 6 years ago, LR did not embed any sort of location data into the NEFs. Perhaps things have changed since then. Anyway, it's worth checking out. I'll do it when I get around to it. Thanks!

LR won't do anything to the original RAW files.

Thanks, man but no. No Macs around my house. Plus, I was talking about automatic geo-synching for a whole bunch of files at once, not going around photo by photo and putting in addresses or whatever. I think I might be good with ViewNX-i, at least for now, if I don't stumble into the issue which made me reject it a year ago, whatever that may be. Right off the bat, though, I'm seeing something I don't like. There's a new sub-folder inside the one with the photos. It's called "NKSC_PARAM" and there are a bunch of new files in it. I think those are sidecars for the actual photos. If I can't disable this kind of behavior in the settings it is going to be a big problem for me. *I hate learning new software.

Huh... Still don't know was wrong with ViewNX-i the first time I had it installed. So, yeah, I'm trying it out and so far it seems to be doing what I need it to. That link where they demonstrate the procedure really helped. So, I think that I'm a happy camper at this point. Thank you all.

And don't you think that it's a mess? I can't make make any sense of it. That's why I came here.

Well, ViewNX 2 is out, was sorta "OK" for my D800 but I can't use it no more, with my new D850. I found an old installation file of Nikon ViewNX-i laying around in a folder "DO NOT INSTALL!". Can't remember what's that about but it can't be good. So, I guess I'll be needing something else for geotagging (geo-synching) the NEFs with the coordinates I get in a file that comes from my GPS unit. What 'sane' software can I do it with? *In ViewNX it was called "Log Matching" and I've managed to use the function successfully despite it being crippled for well over a year now. Also, I used to insert special keywords (in the keyword field) that I call "service codes" into the actual NEF files, so, I need something for that too. *I'm not looking for anything to do my post work in, just those 2 things. There's a bunch of software from Nikon alone, new and old. It is such a mess. Any ideas? Thanks!