Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Godox Lux Senior

Well, that might be a first to me, I am actually praising a product. And no, I was not gifted the product. In fact, I had a hard time to purchase it in the first place. All the usual places were out of stock. Actually, one provider reimbursed my prepayment. Finally I was able to procure the device, surprisingly at a very decent discount. 
That made me think that this product fell out of grace somehow.

So, what are we talking about? It is a flash unit, not a speed light. An old style flash unit that you would traditionally feed flash bulbs to, one at the time.... However, there is a modern interpretation of such a device: http://godox.com/product-a/Lux-Senior.html 

When deployed, the circular reflector has a diameter of 11.5cm. In this setting, the flash creates a directed beam of relatively soft light. Not exactly a beauty dish, but not far from it. That's what you see from the interwebs anyway.
However, there is another non-bespoke way of using the flash, namely with the reflector NOT being deployed. Now we are looking at a 180 degrees light source having a tiny portion of a top reflector towards the subject.  Depending on the settings of your reflectors, this opens a ton of opportunities. Not to mention slaves in this scenario.

Using this unit as a slave opens more options that I am willing to describe. 
I hope that Godox will continue this product! This may be the most flexible one ever, in combinations with remote triggers and light modifiers.

Godox, if you read, continue this path (and send me products for testing).


Sunday, December 17, 2023

ups... G.A.S.!

 Well, nostalgia of the modern world got the better of me again. So, I spent some of my funds on yet another outdated 2nd hand camera. This time it had to be a Fujifilm X-E3. 

Before the purchase, I did some "research" about the camera and what would suit me. Regular readers (sorry, I am no longer a regular writer, might need to do something about that) will know that I am a big fan of the X-Pro1, the X-M1, the X-100S and the X70. Two of them have a proper viewfinder. 
Lately, my eyesight suffered a bit. Close distance requires reading glasses. Hence, those displays on the back of cameras are no longer doing the job for me, unless I wear those reading glasses.

For the time being, I ignored the X-E series. My focus was on having the optical viewfinder of the X-Pro1 and the X-100S or the compact size of the X-M1 or X70. Certainly for its size, the X70 will remain one of my favorites. However, as a compromise between size and viewfinder, the X-E series all of a sudden became interesting.

It appears that, with some luck, one can purchase an X-E4. However, many reviewers noted that the X-E4 might be stripped down a little too much. Looking at it, I tend to agree. The X-E3, however, is no longer manufactured and only available on the 2nd hand marked. And that's where I go lucky. In fact, the same place is selling a 2nd hand X-E2. My decision was to have Acros film simulation, hence, the decision.

By now, I did basic tests only. The lens used is a TTArtisan 27/2.8 AF, which works very well with the X-E3 and keeps the setup small.

Now it is time to dive into recipes for this sensor, which is new to my collection of gear. I have high hopes to find some amazing ones that reduce the need of processing images on a PC.


Saturday, December 2, 2023

What is the incentive of the industry?

Are products popular? Are popular products successful for the market/producer?
Questions I wish to through in the air and see what the responses will be.

As an example, I wish to introduce one of my favorite, the Joby Micro Tripod.
I was surprised I found a seller today: https://fotogrijpink.nl/joby-micro-tripod.html
When I bought mine, I paid a forth of the price mentioned. In fact, when I searched the last time, some year ago, I could not find any. 
Now, Joby post on their webpage: https://joby.com/global/griptight-one-micro-stand-black-jb01492-0ww/

It appears the Joby micro is back, when you accept buying something I don't need.
When it all was fresh, I bought those...


Hopefully Joby (and the world) remembers, how cheerful and useful those things are.

Sunday, November 19, 2023

Color Sublimation Prints with Canon's CP400 on Win11

 It has been a while since I posted last, mea culpa. My life, COVID and other things kept my busy. Sorry for that. By the way, I did not do much on my other topics either. So, photography is the first to be revisited.

Folks reading my sermons will know that I love to have prints in my hands. Yes, darkroom stuff I love, have not done much lately though. Anyway, there is an option to get prints a different way, at least postcard sized prints. This could be achieved with the Canon Selphy series of printers. Personally I got a CP400, many years ago. I have not used it much. Now I was a little worried if there were drivers available for Windows 11. 
It turns out that the Windows Vista 64bit drivers still work under Windows 11. Great news in my mind. 
Here is the link to the driver: https://www.usa.canon.com/support/p/selphy-cp400
I have not tried MacOS or Linux yet. Maybe later...

The next worry was is dye cartridges and substrates were still available for this dated printer. It appears that those are still manufactured, not only by Canon but also by 3rd party manufacturers. I ordered some 3rd party kits to test those out and compare the results to the Canon kits. 

Today I am happy to report that I was able to print photos with my CP400 using a Windows 11 laptop. All worked well.
I still have 18 substrates and the equivalent amount of original Canon dye foil in my printer. As soon as those are used up, I will be testing 3rd party products. I intend to print some of the same images with either product for comparison. Not sure if there is a way, other than my writing, to report the results. 


Saturday, March 5, 2022

Thrift Store Finds (Yashica T4)

Being successful at thrift store shopping, you should have the habit of visiting such stores on a regular basis. Lately, I got a lot of very interesting photographic equipment from my local store. Today might have just been the best yet. For just €1.95, I got myself a copy of the legendary Yashica T4 in mint condition. The camera is untested up to know. I first will have to shoot the film in yet another thrift store find, so that I can move the battery between the cameras.

Yashica T4 front

Yashica T4, what I paid for

Presently, this is a $500 camera.

In reverse or random order, I might post more of my finds in such stores in the future. Hopefully with images from and taken with said finds. 


Friday, July 16, 2021

I missed somthing, the Huawei P10

The regular reader might remember that I was quite positive about the camera of the Huawei P9, in particular what the monochrome part was concerned. Well, I still stand by that opinion, no questions asked.

Meanwhile I purchased at Huawei P20 pro. The reason being that this was the last phone with a true monochrome camera. And... it did not disappoint.  However, this is a rather large device, so the carrying in a pocket experience was not that good. 

For a reason you don't want to know, I yet bough again a camera, i.e. a Huawei P10. The P10 is again one of this phones having a monochrome camera, the thing I am so keen about.

The Huawei P10 offers a camera that delivers essentially everything one needs. This, while having the size of the Huawei P9. What I am mainly crazed about is the 20MP monochrome images.  The P9 does not provide that resolution while the P20 pro is a lot bigger.

If you are looking for a compact 20MP monochrome camera, the Huawei P10 is your device.


Monday, May 11, 2020

Jsolette Green Sticky Stuff

Some Jsolettes, most actually, suffer from sticky (green) lubricant. This might mainly be a problem with the focus thread but also can affect the shutter at slower shutter speeds.

The fix for the focus thread is pretty simple. You slowly warm the camera up, not hot, just to the touch. This makes the sticky green stuff somewhat softer. Now you want to turn the focus ring back a forth with mild force. If possible, move it all the way to close focus. Now apply some lighter fluid to the threads, this is a solvent that is compatible with optics. I use the one by Zippo with great success. Use gloves if you don’t want temporary white skin. Now move the focus thread in and out, re-apply lighter fluid if needed. Some stickiness will remain, which is a good thing for the focus ring.

If the shutter times are not OK, the process gets a little bit more involved. Now you will have to remove the lens/shutter-assembly from the camera. You will need a lens spanner to remove the retaining ring on the inside of the camera. It is easiest to first fold the camera, loosen the ring (be careful to not damage the bellows). Unfold the camera and remove the retaining ring. The lens assembly will now pop out to the front.
Similar to large format lenses, the lens consists of a front lens group and a back lens group which are screwed into the shutter.
Unscrew both lens groups. The front ground has to a little stop which needs removal first. This provides the chance of giving those groups a good clean (do not use circular motion at all costs!); lighter fluid is a good solvent for that job.
Speaking of lighter fluid, now it is time to give the shutter/iris assembly a good bath in the same. In problem cases, I washed the assembly in hot water first and when still hot, give it a lighter fluid bath. This will remove all lubrication, which is not good either. Once the iris blades and the gears of the shutter are no longer sticky, dry everything as quickly as possible. We don’t want rust to build up. I now tend to apply small portions of petroleum jelly to the gears (not the aperture blades!). Heat is your friend to distribute the petroleum jelly while moving the mechanisms.

When putting it all together, care should be taken to put the front group in the exact same thread as before. The focus worm has 3 threads. Get the wrong one and all photos will be out of focus. I got that wrong once and found myself with 12 out-of-focus negatives once. With an open shutter, a defined short distance to a bright light source and some parchment paper would will be able to find the correct thread should things have gone wrong.