Long exposure 2/2 day

Over the years I was asked what my tricks for long exposure where under certain circumstances.
It all depends on the circumstances!
First of all, the problem with long exposure is that there are neither cameras nor light meters made for this task.

In this post, I would like to cover the day-time aspect of long exposures.
The content of which I assign a new rule to, the 10-stop rule.

For day-time long exposure, many different filters could be used. Some cameras have got a 3-stop ND-filter builtin, but this post is not about 3 stops...
10 stop ND-filters are known by many names. Just make sure your's actually attenuates by 10 stops.
Here's the maths (equivalent exposures), constant ISO assumed:

• 0: 1s/1000
• 1: 1s/500
• 2: 1s/250
• 3: 1s/125
• 4: 1s/ 60
• 5: 1s/30
• 6: 1s/15
• 7: 1s/8
• 8: 1s/4
• 9: 1s/2
• 10: 1s/1

OK, what does that mean when putting a 10-stop filter in front of a camera?

It means that when your light-meter indicates 1s/1000, you should set your camera to 1s, in order to get a regular exposure.

So, your scene would require a and exposure of 1s/1000, without any filter, the addition of a 10-stop filter, will get you to 1s for the same exposure.

So, if your exposure would call for a 1s/500, you obviously would like to expose for 2s.

Consequently, the exposure can be calculated as follows, with S being the shutter time of the light-meter reading:

Exposure time in seconds = 1000 * S

Example:
The meter calls for 1s/15 exposure, you would set the camera to 66s.

To smear out any sort of traffic, a minute should be plenty. Mind you, this kind of photography would usually ask for an aperture between f/8 and f/11.

Long exposure 1/2 night

Over the years I was asked what my tricks for long exposure where under certain circumstances.
It all depends on the circumstances!
First of all, the problem with long exposure is that there are neither cameras nor light meters made for this task.

In this post, I would like to cover the night-time aspect of long exposures. The content of which is also known as the 6-stop rule, converting second into minutes.

This technique involves at least a digital camera having ISO 6400.

Lets have a look at equivalent exposures shutter vs. ISO:

• 0: 1s - 6400
• 1: 2s - 3200
• 2: 4s - 1600
• 3: 8s - 800
• 4: 15s - 400
• 5: 30s - 200
• 6: 60s - 100

The 6-stop rule converts seconds into minutes when using ISO100 rather than ISO6400. Why is that important? Many Astro-photographer are using ISO100 film. Therefore, a quick estimation can be made with an ISO6400 digital camera, before spending hours of waisting film.

Portable Dual Screen Setup

My latest twist on being mobile is neither novel, nor unexpected.
People who know me, know that I, years ago, bought an iPad mini. The proclaimed integration of iOS to OS-X "Mavericks" was the trigger. And guess what, I was totally disappointed! The iPad hence ended up being a YouTube watching device only.

Some months ago, I learned about the software Duet Display. Today, finally, I gave myself a push and purchased the iOS app.

Why could my post be any interesting to any photographer?
Lightroom can be set to show a live display on a second screen. Nothing new here either. That second screen could be an iPad, when using Duet Display.
And here comes the interesting bit. Assuming your main computer's screen is color calibrated and the iPad is not, the iPad could provide an impression how a photograph will look when viewed (online) with regular equipment, while the main screen will provide color of the image being printed.

My present dual screen setup is pretty portable: 11in MacBook Air + iPad mini. Probably the smallest available kit for the functionality.

Travelling (Ultra) Light

Travelling in not my thing! This statement needs to be taken as a preamble to the whole thing I am about to write now.

Neither the journey, nor the travel bothers me, its the luggage one hauls about, e.g. I hate waiting for a suitcase carried on a conveyor to come out the little hole in the wall... terrible!

Years ago, I reduced the stuff to travel with such that it would fit in a cabin case. Although this prevents me from standing at the conveyor, there is still this aggravating wait until one can reach the overhead compartments to collect the cabin case.

Just as an experiment, I decided to travel really light during my next 1 week trip.

Actually, I followed some tips from Eric Kim and this lady.

While Eric mentions, next to camera and bag choice, synthetic clothes. The lady explains in detail how to clean the synthetic fabric cloths and, in particular, how to dry those quickly.

As to Eric, there are 2 cameras which join me on my travel, either the Ricoh GR (as Eric mentions) or, more often, the Samsung NXmini. Both cameras have the advantage of being chargeable via USB. More and more hotels around the world offer USB wall sockets to charge mobile phones, perfect for such cameras! 

In this respect, the Fujifilm X70 and X100T come in mind too.

Eric keeps referring to a MacBook Air. Yep, that's what I choose too. However, there might be some room to improve. My MacBook Air got a 128GB SSD only, hence, in order to store data, I do need to carry an external HDD too (several thumb-drives might do the same job too). Despite the fact that this HDD is also used for TM-Backups, which is a good thing, it is still annoying to carry it about.

So, here we go with just another idea from another light traveller: Jens Lennartsson. 

Jens is certainly more the Social Media / Cloud kinda guy... but... what's wring with that?

His video was inspiring enough, so I ordered the folding keyboard (quite happy with it!). Concerning the devices I use it with, I am not sure if I would like to go as small as Jens. To my disposal is a Windows Phone (somewhat larger than an iPhone) and an iPad mini. While the Windows Phone is a very good device to have phone calls with, I am not so sure about the table function, size-wise. However, the iPad mini seems still too large to carry, despite being just half the size of the MacBook Air. 

Going small should be small but still usable. Not sure where this will get me yet.

Anyway, besides gadgets and all, there is this issue about doing laundry on the fly. Using a mild detergent, e.g. shampoo, was covered by Eric previously. However, the lady from "Howcast" got a very interesting hint here: use a towel and do a towel roll with the laundry inside. And of course, if one towel was not enough, take another one!

This seems trivial, however, I have not thought of it before.

My view on Fujifilm cameras, Apple devices and cameras of other makes.

Fujifilm, for whatever reason, decided to not allow to mount the camera's memory card as a drive. Importing into Photos and Lightroom works fine, even for RAW files. However, not being able to control what is going on with the memory card leaves me with an uneasy uncertainty.

At the end, what I might do is to carry a sufficient amount of memory cards, making the computer redundant.

In that scenario, not having a computer to write the images to, the question of decent back-up devices arose. Price-wise, WD was up to something, with the My Passport Wireless, however, the device is, according to reports on the internet, not ready for reliable backup yet.

Consequently, you might want to travel with synthetic fabric cloths, a camera that charges via USB and enough memory cards to cover your trip.

Fujifilm X70 - finally making sense

Yep, I have been shooting with a Fujifilm X100S for a while, I got the wide angle adapter (and the tele adapter too). Great camera, love it! But, there always has been this gap to the Ricoh GR, in terms of wide angle and being compact.

The Easter Bunny left me with a Fujifilm X70, which got the Fuji-qualities and the angle of view provided by the Ricoh GR. Despite the manual controls and the XTRANS-sensor, the X70 did not add that much...

Until lately!

First, have a look at a veteran street-photographer Harvey Stein:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_f28OMnI3Q

Now I was committed to equip one of my street-cameras with 21mm equivalent optics.
There is an option for the Ricoh GR, however, it is dependent on a rather flimsy adapter, so, for  the time being, I wont consider the Ricoh GW-3.

In contrast to that, Fuji offers the WCL-X70. And you guessed it... I got mine already. The WCL-X70 is a screw on adapter, very sturdy and solid.
Together with the X70, the WCL-X70 provides a 21mm (35mm equivalent) field of view, as recited by Harvey Stein.

The X70 could just be the camera to enable the style of Mr Stein!

Add Your Canon EF and EF-S Lenses to M43

Interesting twist on adding lenses to your micro-4/3 system, active electronic lens adapters.

Having had Canon (D)SLRs for a long time, the lenses I own collected dust for the better part of the last years.
Lately, I learned that some manufacturers created active EF/EF-S to M4/2 adapters, allowing to control the aperture and the autofocus of Canon compatible lenses.
So, finally, I bought a second hand specimen of such an adapter. With the adapter in house, it was time to test it with various combinations of lenses and cameras.

Here are my first experiences:

1. Panasonic Lumix GF5
• Canon 50mm f/1.8 II - autofocus problematic
• Canon 18-55 EF-S kit lens - works perfectly
• Canon 35-80 EF (film) kit lens - works perfectly
• Sigma UC 70-210 EF (film) lens - total fail!
• Sigma 70-300 macro EF - works perfectly
2. Panasonic Lumix G3
• Canon 50mm f/1.8 II - OK
• Canon 18-55 EF-S kit lens - works perfectly
• Canon 35-80 EF (film) kit lens - works perfectly
• Sigma UC 70-210 EF (film) lens - sort of OK, focus might fail, but will grab in a second attempt
• Sigma 70-300 macro EF - works perfectly
3. Olympus OM-D EM5
• Canon 50mm f/1.8 II - good
• Canon 18-55 EF-S kit lens - works perfectly
• Canon 35-80 EF (film) kit lens - not great, but works, aperture displays weird behaviour
• Sigma UC 70-210 EF (film) lens - focuses only on the wide end, aperture weird
• Sigma 70-300 macro EF - works perfectly
4. Olympus E-PM2
• Canon 50mm f/1.8 II - good
• Canon 18-55 EF-S kit lens - works perfectly
• Canon 35-80 EF (film) kit lens - OK-ish
• Sigma UC 70-210 EF (film) lens - focuses on the wide end, aperture weird, shuts down during zooming
• Sigma 70-300 macro EF - works perfectly

Conclusions

The old film EOS (EF) lenses are essentially unusable. Maybe the Canon could be used on the E-PM2. IBIS wont work properly, since the old lenses don't communicate the focal length correctly.

The Nifty-Fifty struggles with the older camera, with the newer ones, it seems to be doing OK and is a usable portrait lens with great bokeh!

The cheap 18-55 seems to be making a great all purpose walk about zoom. The focal length is communicated correctly, so Olympus' IBIS will work fine.

Similar to the Canon 18-55, the Sigma 70-300 macro will communicate the focal length correctly. Autofocus could be better, but, this is a special purpose lens on MFT, reflecting an all purpose wildlife lens in an affordable and portable package.

Would it be worth to buy such an adapter and buy those lenses? I don't think so. Focusing is just too slow. However, if the lenses are already in your possession, such an adapter might be very useful to you.

Flickr

Folks constantly asked me about any publicly available "work" of mine...
Yes, I do have a public flickr account: https://www.flickr.com/photos/112430055@N06/
If that represents "work", I am not too sure about...
Anyway... there it is.