Equipment Review

Kodak DCS ProSLR/c

Unfortunately, I am not photographing at the moment so to keep my passion going I got a new toy. I have always wanted a Kodak DCS ProSLR/c digital full frame when they first appeared in March of 2004. This camera has the Canon EF lens mount so I can use all my Canon lenses and, at the time, was the highest mega-pixel Canon digital SLR at 14 million pixels. This Kodak camera is housed in a Sigma custom magnesium produced body which solidifies the whole professional Kodak/Canon package.

Technical specifications are a 14 mega-pixel CMOS sensor, ISO calibrated rating of 6-800, with a non-calibrated ISO extended range 1000 to 1600 using DCS raw files. Not sure if a DCS raw file is any different than a standard Canon raw file but I am sure I will find out. This camera also has a blazing fast (kidding) 1.7 frames per second image capture.

Kodak uses Canon’s great E-TTL flash metering system so you can use your EX flashes with the same great Canon advantage.

I plan to test this Kodak DCS ProSLR/c camera out when I have time and will share the images with you. For more information on this camera, click here.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright Ben Gundy and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Ben Gundy.

admin :: Dec.16.2012 :: Equipment Review :: No Comments »

“The Vested Interest” Photographers Vest

Last year (2010) I was on the Moab Photo Tours workshop to Cedar Mesa and Monument Valley. On a Wednesday morning, it was time to hike up to Moonhouse, the most strenuous hike of the workshop. Everyone put on their photo back pack and off we went. Well, this was quite the hike and hiking with a loaded photo back pack threw me off balance while climbing and descending the steep mesas. The leader, Jon Fuller, was wearing a photo vest by “The Vested Interest”, made by a parachute company (Storrie Parachute Works, Inc) that makes these great photo vests on the side. He explained that when wearing the vest, all the weight is evenly distributed around your body, which takes the stress off your back and helps you balance better. Since I was going to take this workshop again this year (2011), you never get all your shots on one trip you know, I promised myself to get one of these great vests.

I called John Storrie at “The Vested Interest” a month before leaving for the workshop and ordered a vest over the phone. There are three styles of vests you can choose from and you can mix and match features from all three to suit your photographic style. I chose a Magnum front with a Khumbu back. This all means, at least for me, that the front has one deep pocket to hold a Canon 5DII w/grip or 1Ds body and another pocket to hold my Canon 70-200mm f4L lens. The top pockets held my 580EX flash and misc batteries and cleaning supplies. The huge back pocket was designed to carry either a Canon or Nikon 500mm lens but of course can carry a series 3 tripod by different manufactures. The pockets on either side of this huge center pocket carried my water bottle and Canon 70-300mm f4.5-5.6L zoom. There was also enough room on the vest to carry my little Canon G12 camera. The photo on the right shows myself and the vest all loaded up ready to head out.

The photo on the left shows the huge rear pocket with the side two pockets, one on each side, to hold your water bottle or lens. Again the large pocket is designed to hold your Canon or Nikon 500mm lens or a tripod. I have the optional ground cloth, it is a piece of water repellent nylon pack cloth that is the same width as the back of the vest and 24″ long. It is sewn along the bottom rear of the vest and is rolled up and secured with two Velcro tabs. It is great for sitting on wet ground. I also have the optional fully adjustable, detachable, and padded hip belt for those heavier loads, this keeps some of the weight off your shoulders.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright Ben Gundy and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Ben Gundy.

admin :: Mar.03.2012 :: Equipment Review :: 1 Comment »

Carbon Fiber and Alloy Tripods – A Minor Rant

I love tripods, not that I like to use them that much, but just the simple design and so called sturdiness when a camera is mounted to it. I have eight and just ordered my ninth, they are like camera bags to me, love them but just one won’t exactly do what I want it to in different situations. In my inventory, I have small ones, medium ones, tall ones, carbon fiber ones, and alloy (aluminum) ones. All have their place for the type of photography I do. My small ones for a 35mm body and macro lens to get very close to the ground, medium ones for 35mm with up to 300mm lens attached and medium format cameras, tall sturdy ones for 35mm with big lenses and my 4×5 field camera, when I owned one.

In reading today’s manufacture’s marketing lingo, of course to get you to buy one of the newer tripods, I scratch my head thinking, most of the big manufacturers make both carbon fiber and alloy tripods these days and that is a good thing for us. One of my pet peeves, as the manufactures want you to believe, is that alloy tripods have vibration due to their alloy legs supposedly blurring your image while the carbon fiber tripods don’t, due to their carbon fiber legs. It is very true that a carbon fiber tube absorbs vibration, while a alloy tube doesn’t, but conducts it. However, I have never heard of a professional photographer in 40+ years say that he or she lost a bunch of images because of tripod vibration on their old Gitzo or Bogen alloy legs. There are just too many other components on a tripod that would absorb any vibration before it gets to your camera and image.

There is also a weight issue that bothers me. Yes, carbon fiber tripods are lighter than alloy tripods…we all know that. In what I have seen, a carbon tripod weighs approx less than two pounds from a comparable alloy tripod and that is for the larger tripods. I would say, determining the type of head you put on a tripod is where most of the weight disparity is. I would still rather carry a sturdy tripod into the field than some lightweight tripod, carbon fiber or alloy.

I hope what I have said helps a newbie or at least encourages him or her to ask more questions. I have been to too many workshops where the new photographer has a inferior tripod, as in, they have great equipment but seem to short change themselves when it comes to a tripod.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright Ben Gundy and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Ben Gundy

admin :: Jun.09.2011 :: Equipment Review :: No Comments »

American Avocet on Nest

I went to the South San Francisco Baylands to see if any of the American Avocets had had their babies and to enjoy a nice break in the weather. This was also a great opportunity to try the Mamiya-Sekor C 500mm lens with the 2x tele-converter paired to my Canon 1D Mark III. Please read my two other posts on the subject, the actual Fotodiox lens adapter and the use of the Mamiya 500mm lens with the adapter.

The paired lens and tele-converter gave me a 1000mm at f/11 lens which sounds great! However, you have two problems that you discover right away. The first is, it is pretty dark looking through the viewfinder. Of course you need to focus wide open then stop down your lens to the desired f-stop which is really dark. The second problem is any little movement of the lens/camera destroys the image with a blurry outcome. I had a lens plate on the bottom of the lens, designed to be used with an Arcra-Swiss head of some kind. To this I attached a Bogen plate to use with my Bogen tripod and head. This double lens plate didn’t help the stability any…Out of about twenty shots only one was close enough to my standards to be usable which you see here to the left. I plan to try this whole test again, this time using a gimble head on a sturdy tripod.

I think this image of the Avocet, sitting on the nest surrounded by pickleweed, came out pretty good. I am looking forward to shooting the Avocet with it’s babies in a week or two…we will see!

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright Ben Gundy and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Ben Gundy

Canon EOS 1D Mark III

Mamiya-Sekor C 500mm F5.6

M45 Rokunar 2x Tele-converter

ISO 200, 1/25 sec at f/16

admin :: Jun.06.2011 :: Birds, Equipment Review, Wildlife :: No Comments »

Fotodiox Pro Mamiya 645 – EOS Lens Adapter

I have been using my Mamiya M645 system from the first day they were available in 1975. I have changed bodies throughout the years but have kept my original great lenses. Mamiya in their great thinking, at the time, came out with their ZE-X series 35mm camera body with an accessory lens adapter to use the M645 lenses on the ZE-X body. I was using Minolta 35mm equipment at the time but bought a ZE-X along with the lens adapter as a second body for the Mamiya system if the M645 body went south on me. This only happened to me once in Alaska while photographing the brown bears at Katmai falls. My Mamyia M645 Super stopped working so I used the Mamyia ZE-X on the M645 500mm lens which worked perfectly.

Fast forward to 2010 I found out I could use my Mamiya lenses with my Canon 5D Mark II or any Canon camera that uses EF lenses for that matter. I purchased a Fotodiox Pro adapter and it fits perfectly between the camera body and the Mamyia lens. There is no glass element in this adapter to degrade the image. Since the 6×4.5 cm image circle is almost three times the size of a 35mm image circle you are using the center portion of that 6×4.5 cm image circle with your Canon EOS body. Using a full frame Canon 1Ds or 5D on a Mamiya 500mm lens will get you 500mm, but on a 1.3 crop or 1.6 crop Canon body you would get 650mm on the 1.3 crop body and 800mm on the 1.6 crop body with excellent results…nice. Of course you would lose the autofocus, exposure automation, and the IS but you would gain another set of prime lenses that would be manual focus with stop down metering. For me that is fine as I shoot mostly landscapes now which normally don’t move so I have all the time in the world to set-up and wait for that perfect shot. However that 500mm lens is very nice for most kinds of wildlife…a very big plus. I plan to try this 500mm set-up with my 2x M45 Rokunar Tele Converter and will be a very interesting test.

There is no slop between the adapter and lens and body. Everything is tight but easily removed. As with other adapters best to mount to lens first then the lens/adapter unit to the body as usual. Reverse procedure to remove. You must set the camera to aperture priority (AE) to make everything work right on the camera side and thats it. Set the lens to its widest aperture to focus then stop down the lens to cover your depth of field and shoot. Another plus is that your can use the depth of field scale on the lens, can’t do that with your EF lenses. There are other adapters out there to mount medium format lenses to your Canon body, this review is only for the Fotodiox Pro M645 to EOS body.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright Ben Gundy and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Ben Gundy