One fine sunny day, I went down to Poslaju KL Sentral to pick up a package. Yes, a package shipped all the way from Canada!

The Peleng 8mm F3.5 circular fisheye lens for M42 mount.

I also ordered an M42 to Minolta AF A-mount adapter over eBay.

With the lens on the adapter, on the Sony A100. Note that Menu – Gear – Page 2 – Shutter lock must be set to Off: no lens to shoot, as the Sony A100 does not detect any lens on it and otherwise would not shoot.

Sadly, the fisheye was misaligned; the markings were on the right-side of it. It cannot turn clockwise anymore in its M42 screw mount.

So what does an 8mm M42 mount fisheye do? 180 degrees of insane wideness, and distortion like no other.

Why didn’t I get the Sony 16mm diagonal fisheye, which has auto-focus, then? I wanted to use the much cheaper M42 mount lens on all my film SLRs. The package was supposed to include the Nikon F-mount and Pentax K-mount adapters, and color filters (screwed on the back of the lens) but none of that was included. Thus, I would not highly recommend Kremlin Optics, the online shop where I bought this, just yet.

Fortunately, the lens that came was well-coated, and was good and sharp. Russian-made lenses are solid. This was made in Belarus. The only sign of weakness would be the lens cap, which many have warned will lose its tightness.

Because it has 180 degrees of coverage there is simply no place for a lens hood. There’s no way you can put filters in front unless they were shaped like the front element.

Since it was an M42 mount lens, there was no way for the camera to tell the lens to stop down, thus you had to stop it down yourself by turning the Unlock-Lock ring as far as it would go. A separate aperture ring limits how far the Unlock-Lock ring will travel.

There is also a focus ring, but this lens, having such a short focal length, has such great depth of field that I rarely ever have to touch it. Considering the hyperfocal distance at F3.5 wide open is 1 meter, I can get everything from 50cm to infinity in focus by turning the infinity marker to the rear F3.5 mark.

If I stopped down to F16 (which doesn’t have any noticeable diffraction, wow) and set the infinity marker to the F3.5 mark, I’d have everything from under 10cm to infinity in focus. Interestingly, I could turn it way beyond the rear F16 mark (looping into the front F11 mark).

It would be pretty hard to conduct a test with a ruler extended to see how much DOF I can get close up, as the ruler would look pretty much in focus everywhere!

Left to right, top to bottom: Sony 16mm F2.8 with Tamron 1.4x teleconverter for 24mm F4.0; Sony 16mm F2.8; Peleng 8mm F3.5 with Tamron 1.4x teleconverter (for 12mm F5.0, note that the vignetting is gone); Peleng 8mm F3.5; Sony KLCC with the Sony 16mm F2.8; Peleng 8mm F3.5 represents what a fisheye is all about.

If vignetting is a big deal, a 1.4x teleconverter can solve that at one stop of light loss. The Sony 16mm diagonal fisheye would be great on a full-frame body, but is unfortunately not as fisheye as expected.

The Peleng is a sharp, sharp lens. Everything is already in focus; stopping down just sharpens the image. F8 is the recommended aperture for decent all-round crispiness.

A crop of the previous image. This was at F16. Blistering! I can feel my whiteheads.

A fisheye is a very interesting effect; it affects near and far objects differently; curved and straight objects differently; objects near the side and smack center distort differently. This shot of KLCC shows how skinny it can make something.

It also has uh… practical use, as I uh… took a picture of my phone.

Get in the action! Sony HVL-F56AM wireless flash fired to ceiling at 1/4th power, held up with left hand, camera in right hand.

So how does the Peleng do on my infrared-modded Fujifilm Digital Q1? Left is my Canon Powershot A520 at 35mm equivalent, and right is the Peleng on the Q1, for 8mm x 6x digital crop factor for 48mm equivalent. Except that it doesn’t look it, as it seems the fisheye is wider than a rectilinear lens of the same focal length.

Both shots are at ISO100 and F8. The Q1 got 1/500th of a second with all the infrared bouncing around, and the A520 did 1/50th of a second.

The fisheye can remove curves! KL Performing Arts Center actually had a curved dome, which has been straightened by the distortion.

Point-less photography. This cannot be any more convenient. Just hold the camera in the general direction and shoot. In this case, the HVL-F56AM wireless flash bounced against the cabinet walls.

We needed was a serial number off the back of the casing.

With the fisheye, you have to get close to get stronger distortion.

Note my shoe; it is quite impossible to get a shot of the floor without your feet unless you jump forwards, am free-falling or have mastered the art of levitation.

30 seconds, ISO100, F16, I think. The original was overexposed by 2 stops and was brought down in Photoshop. I haven’t seen enough clear night skies though. 🙁

Interestingly, the lens I am holding in my left hand is used to remove distortion by tilting and shifting the lens; the lens I have in my right hand is its worst enemy.

Yes, it’s the 85mm F2.8 PC Micro-Nikkor tilt-shift lens. I don’t quite get why perspective correction would need such a zoomed lens; a wide-angle tilt-shift would make more sense to the architectural photographers out there.

It is quite challenging to get flare with the Peleng. This was at F16. Because I had to stop it down before shooting, the sun wasn’t too glaring (though it would still be unsafe.)

The Peleng’s wide coverage will make any outdoor shot have extreme highlights and shadows. The Sony A100 chooses to underexpose, in which case it is wise to tap the AEL/Slow Sync button to spot-meter the scene. Alternatively I use Shutter Priority to have a quickly adjustable shutter speed, and use Aperture Priority with +1 exposure compensation.

There is a real macro mode if I remove the rear glass filter, making it short-sighted. Spot my feet!

TTL wireless flash almost certainly causes a spotlight effect, as with ultra-wide-angle lenses, unless the flash is placed far back or bounced to have wider coverage. This was at Cheah Repair, Mutiara Complex, Jalan Ipoh. I was testing my Minolta 70-210mm F4 beercan with the Tamron 1.4x teleconverter on a Minolta Dynax 5xi to see if it had the same compatibility problems with my Tamron 1.4x teleconverter.

It didn’t, so I went to Futuromic in Dataran Sunway one Saturday morning to find out if my Tamron could be rechipped. No, it could not, but at least while waiting for it to open I met the managing director, and we had a nice long chat while waiting for the technician. Futuromic brings in Tamron, Pentax, Ricoh and Nikon stuff, among others. Even the Pro Tama 0.7x wide-angle converter I had was brought in by them!

Nope, no scoop on the Tamron 70-200mm F2.8 price, though it will not come with any image stabilization so we know which systems will benefit from such a (presumably) well-priced lens.

I pitched to him the idea of having a weekday off and opening on a Saturday (they were only there because there was training) to cater to photography enthusiasts who have day jobs. I think a lot of old-timer camera shops could do with such an approach, getting more casual customers on weekends.

Walking on the moon.

Subtle distortion.

Draw a straight path from A to B…

How does the Sony A100’s Super-Steady Shot fare with such a short focal length?

Or rather, does it even know what the focal length of the lens is, and how does it compensate?

A shot in Aperture Priority, Auto ISO would wield 1/15s, ISO320, or 1/5s ISO100. Auto ISO works by increasing the ISO up to 400 if the shutter speed is slower than the inverse of the focal length.

Thus, the camera assumes that the focal length is 5 divided by 1.5 crop factor, 10/3 or 3.33mm.

Surprisingly, much longer lenses like the Sony 500mm F8 reflex lens on my Tamron 1.4x teleconverter (making a 750mm F11) still get stable at 1/80s despite the camera not detecting the lens (due to incompatible teleconverter.)

I simply have no idea how that works.

Anyway, I have yet to encounter handshake with the fisheye. Then again, I haven’t shot much near 1 second handheld, though the formula for Super-Steady Shot promises 1 second.

Now on to shots with the Pentax P30t on Fujifilm Superia ASA400 film! I brought the Pentax out while picking up the lens so I could test the full-frame glory, but alas the adapter was not in the package as promised!

This was actually overexposed due to the P30t being cranky. Amazingly I could bring it down from its 1 second exposure.

I also tried the Pentax 10-17mm fisheye-wideangle zoom on my P30t!

The Peleng 8mm F3.5 circular fisheye has to be one of the best buys I’d ever made. You don’t get any wider than this (except the 6mm F5.6 Nikkor that does 220 degrees and catches your hands holding the camera in the shot). Plus, the immense depth of field means no more focusing lag. The immense field of view means no more pointing. The only thing I’d need to concentrate on doing is to get the camera into the heat of the action, at which point holding the camera on a tripod and aiming it like a mike boom with a shutter release cable would work.

After currency conversion, the lens and adapter came up to under RM1400.

I would not recommend using M42 lenses for auto-focus SLRs, digital or otherwise unless you:

– have changed the viewfinder to a split-prism viewfinder for easier manual focusing
– can live with manual focusing in dark conditions and am not in any hurry
– have no money, but want a 85mm F2.0 lens

If you have to get M42 lenses, get the wider ones like the Peleng 8mm F3.5 circular fisheye or the Zenitar 16mm F2.8 diagonal fisheye.

Guess what lens this was made with!

Or this!

And this!

Or Cherrie‘s massive teddy-bling phone!

Yes, that’s right; it’s the Sony A100 with Tamron 1.4x teleconverter and Minolta 50mm F1.4 lens and Pro Tama 0.7x wide-angle converter!

This particular picture includes a +2 and +4 closeup filter for even more macro softness. However, in most cases I won’t shoot macro with this combo; or rather, the 1.4x teleconverter keeps the minimum focusing distance while multiplying focal length, so you can get more magnification even without a closeup filter.

Another way to deck it out is to stick a 77mm CPL in front of it.

I took it out for a spin in the neighborhood playground.

All shots are wide-open (the 50mm F1.4 would become a 75mm F2.0) for maximum softness. I could still stop down the lens and get quite a lot of softness.

“I’ll help you down.”

As long as there were highlights, the HDR-like look seen in Half-Life 2 can be seen.

How does it compare to the Minolta/Sony 135mm F2.8 Smooth Transition Focus? Honestly, nothing is like the STF lens; the STF lens is manual focus only, with the depth of field of a 135mm F2.8 lens but with the transmission of a F4.5 lens (meaning that it lets in less light). Turning the aperture ring from T4.5 to T6.7 results in the right-side image. Note that the bokeh is never harsh or hard, and very very creamy.

Being a manual-focus lens with an effective F4.5 brightness however, it is limited to portrait shots in bright daylight. (Be sure to put some greenery behind the subject.)

Left: Minolta 50mm F1.4 lens alone; right: softie combo, which seems just a bit longer.

On to impromptu camwhoring!

Yes yes this corny effect can be duplicated in Photoshop, but nothing beats seeing it right out of the camera.

Beer ad. Yum yum.

Alright, it has been a while since the last camera geek out post. Here goes!

Build your own flash snoot to concentrate your flash light into a tiny spot. Bottom-left shows the flash zoomed to 85mm; bottom-right shows the flash with snoot.

The cardboard was packed too tightly and it was too long. It made too small a flash spot for my liking.

Albert Cheah of Cheah Camera Repair, Mutiara Complex, Jalan Ipoh. Friendly and knowledgeable guy, who does a heck of a great job defungusing lenses. He also has an array of rangefinders for sale in a glass case.

His workspace is open for all to see, which assures you that he is the expert tinkerer.

I’ve sent two cameras to Desmond of YL Camera, Pudu Plaza, but they could not completely be fixed and had some residue kinks. (My Olympus OM-2000 can shoot frames even with the film winder locked, and my Pentax P30t often swallows frames… so I have to wind the film again although I have not shot.) To be fair, I don’t know if it’s the cameras that were beyond repair.

Clockwise from top-left: Tarquin’s Canon EF 100mm F2.8 life-size macro lens next to WKCheang‘s Nikkor 105mm F2.8 VR life-size macro lens; Tarquin rolling a 120 black-and-white film; a Canon 7 rangefinder with a 50mm F0.95 lens; WKCheang’s Nikon D200 with the cute Sigma 30mm F1.4 lens.

Jenhan models my infrared-modded Fujifilm Digital Q1 with the Soligor 70-220mm F3.5 OM-mount lens. With the Vivitar 2x teleconverter, it gives an insane 2640mm equivalent focal length.

At YL Camera, I tried the Tamron 17-50mm F2.8 lens for Minolta/Sony A-mount. It is easy to see why this sells well; people love bright, reasonably-priced lenses. It wasn’t soft wide-open, and decently sharp (I only shot at F2.8 though.) This was at 50mm.

Would I buy it for my Sony Alpha 100 if my Sony 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 kit lens got eaten by an Earth Elemental? Yep.

The classic Tamron/Minolta 28-75mm F2.8 lens would be given due consideration, too. I could pop a 0.7x wide-angle converter to get the 18mm feel on digital SLR crop.

However, the temptation to get wider is strong, and skip the in-between focal lengths. The Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 lens, with 1.5x digital crop, would give a 15mm view on my Sony A100. It accepts 77mm filters, which is a bonus for polarizers and infrared filters. However, the Tamron/Sony 11-18mm F4.5-5.6 is quite viable, having a 77mm filter thread and the ability to be used on a Minolta film SLR or the upcoming Sony full-frame digital SLR with no vignetting at 15mm. The Tokina 12-24mm F4 is lacking in this department; its vignetting is gone only at 16mm, and there is a huge difference between 10, 11 and 12mm.

For truly wide rectilinear shots, a film SLR with the Sigma 12-24mm F4.5-5.6 full-frame lens is superb. However, the lack of a filter thread means I can’t put it on digital and shoot infrared. 🙁

I got myself a 55-77mm step-up ring for RM25 and a Sakar 77mm circular polarizer for RM55. (Two CPLs side-by-side reflect different colors when rotated.) These things are amazingly cheap at Digicolor, Mutiara Complex! You can see my Canon Powershot A520 with lens adapter, 52-55mm step up ring, 55-77mm step-up ring and 77mm CPL; the other setup has a 55-58mm step-up ring and 58mm Pro Tama 0.7x wide-angle converter for 24.5mm feel. There’s also the Sony A100 with Sony 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 lens, 55-77mm step-up ring and 77mm CPL, and a wide variant with 55-58mm step-up ring and 58mm Pro Tama 0.7x wide-angle converter for 18mm feel.

Have you seen one of these pop-up books? Awesome. This one was very educational, with all sorts of gimmicks to teach photography principles.

Tarquin’s Yashica-Mat with 80mm F3.5 lens and 80mm F3.2 viewing lens!

The Yashica MG-1 rangefinder with 45mm F2.8 lens.

My Pentax P30t with K-mount to M49 adapter, and the Olympus Zuiko 50mm F1.8 OM lens reversed on it. This is not my recommended method of shooting life-size macro though. I’d rather you reverse this lens on another lens as it is safer and gives you more flexibility.

Similiar setup, but with my Fujifilm Q1 with homemade Olympus OM adapter stuck to it. Yes, the Q1 can actually see something.

The great Minolta 7000 wearing my Minolta 70-210mm F4 beercan lens! It was the first properly-implemented auto-focus SLR. For its time, it was the fastest; I still find it pretty alright, though the motor sounds like a Tamiya motor, and when it advances the film it sounds like it’s ripping it apart.

I could actually walk around with this, since I had with my Sony A100 and Minolta 50mm F1.4 (giving a 75mm equivalent, which isn’t as wide.)

Left: The Minolta 7000 came with a Minolta 28-85mm F3.5-4.5 lens with macro switch. Interestingly, the macro switch allows you to zoom out to get macro, instead of zooming in to get macro like every other lens. 1:4 magnification is possible, though working distance is small at 28mm. On the plus side, it’s F3.5 and there will be less shake. I did not buy this; I’m holding back for a less noisy Minolta AF film body. Within minutes I could figure out the 7000’s controls. Very user-friendly!

Right: The famous Pentax SMC-FA 77mm F1.8 Limited pancake lens. Tiny, bright, and very desirable. Very very sharp wide-open, with a 3D pop to images. Also has a velvet inlay. Sweet.

The Minolta 7000 could use my Sony 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 lens at 24mm without vignetting, which was cool.

Man spotted next to Pudu Jail. I have no idea what he was collecting.

I headed to Keat Camera to get myself the rare Tamron-F 1.4x Auto-Focus 5-pin teleconverter for Minolta AF mount. It would multiply the lens’ focal length by 1.4x and decrease its maximum aperture by 1 stop.

It is a screw-mount teleconverter, which means it will transfer the focus screw turns to the lens. It will not work with Minolta/Sony G lenses which have focus motors in the lens itself; for that, the Minolta/Sony teleconverter should be used instead.

This picture shows my softie combo; the Minolta 50mm F1.4 has the teleconverter on its back and a wide-angle converter in front (which cancels each other out but exaggerates spherical aberration.)

Sadly, AF would only work completely on the Minolta 50mm F1.4 (which now was an effective 75mm F2.0 according to the EXIF data). AF on the Minolta 70-210mm F4 would work at 210mm and infinity, but when I tried to focus and it turned towards close focus, or when I tried to zoom out, it would ‘disconnect‘ the lens and be unable to send the aperture to the Sony A100.

It would read the aperture as “–” and be manual-focus only. I would not recommend stopping down due to exposure errors, and because whatever lens you’re putting on is going to be darker.

However, the beercan on the teleconverter worked fine with the Minolta 7000, as the teleconverter manual promised.

Now you may ask, why does the teleconverter report 75mm instead of 50mm x 1.4 = 70mm?

I tried my Sony 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 and zoomed it to 70mm, focused on infinity (to prevent focus from changing focal length), shot a frame, then popped the 50mm with 1.4x teleconverter, focused on infinity, and found the 50mm combo to be more zoomed in. Thus, the 1.4x teleconverter really had a 1.5x focal length multiplier.

Still, it does not rob from the beercan’s sharpness; it becomes a usable 300mm F5.6 lens (as reported by camera EXIF). I was pleasantly surprised to see how sharp it was. The teleconverter had 4 elements, and did not add to the reputedly bad chromatic aberration of the beercan. It also did not add spherical aberration, unlike what it did to the Minolta 50mm F1.4!

Another 300mm F5.6 shot.

A crop.

Excited, I headed over to Sony, KLCC to try my teleconverter. I tried the Sony 500mm F8 Auto-focus Reflex lens, which became a 750mm F11 (sadly, no aperture reading, so it was manual-focus only).

The shot in the bottom-right corner, however, was with the Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 135mm F1.8 ZA lens. (Also no aperture reading, due to old teleconverter being mostly incompatible with digital bodies.)

CZ 135mm F1.8 with teleconverter. The Carl Zeiss is so sharp, the teleconverter’s effect is minimal. It is still razor-shave sharp (or rather, it makes it obvious you haven’t shaved.)

The math says it becomes a 200mm F2.5. Yes, 200mm F2.5! Not just some 200mm F2.8.

Without the teleconverter. Pardon the focusing point difference.

If I could get a newer teleconverter that was guaranteed to work on the screw-mount lenses on a Sony A100, this would be a very practical option.

Would I get a 70-200mm F2.8? Not likely. The 70-210mm F4 beercan, 1.4x teleconverter and CZ 135mm F1.8 make the best, light tag team. Any 70-200mm F2.8 will weigh at least 1.3kg and cause photographers to whine of sprained arms. The 135mm F1.8 however, is the brightest and longest prime (by dividing 135/1.8 = 75mm). It is beaten only by the 300mm F2.8.

It also looks stumpy and short without the lens hood, and a lot less suspicious than the 70-200mm F2.8.

Why not a more practical 85mm F1.4 then?

I already have a 50mm F1.4, with 1.4x teleconverter to make a 75mm F2.0. It would be a bit redundant, plus I find myself zooming in, using the end nearer to 210mm on my beercan.

Jenhan is surprised to see how crispy the Carl Zeiss 135mm F1.8 lens is.

I am practically sold on this chunk of solid metal. It feels like a sawed-off shotgun. A black cannon.

The 135mm F1.8 also renders near-focus areas differently; it is sharper and makes the depth-of-field seem deeper than my 50mm F1.4. The Sony 70-200mm F2.8 is no doubt creamy, with good subject isolation, but I already have the lightweight beercan for that.

I don’t tire of holding the beercan; it weighs under 700 grams, and I can switch to portrait orientation without feeling the strain.

If you had a Canon SLR, I would whole-heartedly recommend the Canon 70-200mm F4L IS USM with Canon 135mm F2L USM combo. (You could whine about not having F2.8 but you guys got clean CMOS sensors so pump up your ISO!)

Finally, Tan Yee Hou, Tan Yee Wei and I could drive to a market and open shop.

I don’t even know where to start labelling; there’s a Pentax P30t SLR, Olympus IS-1000 zoom lens reflex, Ricoh 500G rangefinder, Olympus OM-2000 SLR, Canon EOS 650 SLR, Seagull SA84 twin lens reflex, Canon Powershot A520 digital camera, Ricoh XR-10 SLR and a Fujifilm Digital Q1 amongst various lenses. Missing is an Olympus mju, a Panasonic FZ-30, and my Sony Alpha 100 used to shoot this.

With my collection of cameras of different mounts and brands, a worrying thought came:

If I ever get stinking rich, I might possibly practice polygamy. Legally, of course.

I sold out.

I got myself a Sony HVL-F56AM strobe flash for RM1180 at Boeing Camera, Sg. Wang Plaza.

On one hand, there is the proud owner of a Minolta 50mm F1.4 on a Sony A100, able to shoot in darker conditions with Super SteadyShot without flash and without having my cover blown…

And on the other hand, there is the experimenting geek who has been reading Strobist.

Don’t flash me!

Wireless flash ad. Minolta invented wireless flash, and its technologies were bought over by Sony.

I can dial in exposure compensation, and it will transmit the signal to the wireless flash. Amazing!

Strobe mode; 40mm F9 0.8 seconds ISO100. I can’t remember the Hertz and how many strobes were on the flash itself.

45mm F36 1/40s ISO100. Flash pointed at ground below the shrub. The shrub might’ve been lit by the wireless flash signal. (The camera’s flash must be up to send the signal… and the signal itself has a tiny amount of light.)

18mm F22 1/125s ISO100.

These pictures were taken to show the full power of the HVL-F56AM, which has a guide number of 56 meters at ISO100, 85mm zoom. I set it to manual mode, full 1/1 power, 85mm zoom. On the Sony A100 SuperSteadyShot was turned off so I could use 1/160s flash sync without having to rely on High Speed Synchronization (which decreases apparent flash power). All shots at 50mm F1.4 ISO1600. Left column obviously without flash, right column with.

First four pairs of shots were taken from the balcony of Burger King, Rainforest side of the new wing of 1 Utama. The smog impairs the ability to tell how far the flash really can go. In the 4th pair, you can actually discern the people smoking in the middle.

The flash should reach… the guide number (56 meters) divided by the aperture (F1.4) multiplied by the square root of ISO (ISO1600) divided by ISO10 at 85mm zoom… or 56m/1.4*40/10 = 160 meters!

Same setup, without flash…

With!

And now, at F5.6. They must’ve thought it was lightning.

I used my Nikon SB-28 connected to my Sony A100 via the remote-shutter-release-cable/flash-trigger in conjunction with the HVL-F56AM to fire both.

Full power flash. 70mm F16 1/4s ISO100. Transformers Classics Optimus Prime.

Does a full power discharge have enough to overcome the infrared-blocking filter of the Sony A100?

Yes. 50mm F1.4 1/125s ISO100. I used crossed polarizers for this. Note that there is just enough flash power for macro infrared shots but nothing else.

Note that 1/1 power will almost always blow you away.

Optimus sees the light.

All shots except the first two were taken using smashpOp‘s HVL-F56AM flash back when I borrowed it for a test run.

My stance on (flash) photography still remains; make it look natural, or the complete opposite as a special effect. That might explain why some of my gig shots look normal, while others are madly saturated to complement the colored lighting. No point trying to hack the white balance to make a performer have normal skin tones when there are pretty red and green lights pointing on him/her, yes?

The quick-release mechanism invented by Minolta, with wireless flash, are very handy when I want to quickly switch from landscape to portrait orientation. Just press the button on the flash, slide it off, pull up the flash on the camera, and turn the camera!

No more beheaded flashes.

It also helps when the ceiling is high, so I can point the flash at a white wall instead of having to reorient the flashhead while still stuck on the camera. I am no longer limited to the angles the flashhead allows you to pivot it!

And now, for a family portrait clockwise from middle: Sony A100 with Minolta 50mm F1.4 and Sony HVL-F56AM flash, Olympus OM-2000 with Olympus 50mm F1.8 lens and Nikon SB-28 Speedlight flash, infrared-modded Fujifilm Digital Q1 with Vivitar 24mm F2.0 lens, Pentax P30t with Auto Chinon 135mm F2.8 lens, Minolta X300 with Seagull 50mm F1.8 lens and Canon 580EX Speedlite flash.

(Yes, another new member; the X300 is sadly a Minolta MD mount and can’t use my Minolta AF/Sony lenses.)

So I went for a Sony Flash Workshop, with thanks to George of Sony, Ted Adnan, one heck of a cool photographer, the two models Joell and Joshua, and thanks to Muzium Telekomunikasi Negara. We learnt how to use the Sony HVL-F56AM strobe flashgun, with techniques to balance ambient light, bounce light, and wireless flash.

I did not have a HVL-F56AM myself, but I’ve borrowed it from smashpOp before for test runs (whose results I have yet to publish, but rest assured I like it very much) and gigs.

Anyway, one bonus was that at the end of the day, each participant would submit two of their best pictures, and the top 3 would win a prize!

They showed the pictures on screen, without identifying who did what, and gave some comments.

Their critique on pictures opened up my eyes quite a bit. Sure, I knew a lot of photographic effects. However, did I apply the effects to the subjects accordingly? I might’ve shot some nice shots, but did I understand why, so I could replicate them?

Anyway, I had a tough time picking between these four shots (only resized, nothing else done in Photoshop):

18mm F3.5 1/60 ISO400 with one HVL-F56AM held with my left hand above and slightly to my right (1 O’ clock position) at 17mm with wide diffuser, and one HVL-F56AM pointing at the wall behind, held by smashpOp. Thanks smashpOp!

18mm F14 1/60 Zone-matching Low-key ISO80 with one HVL-F56AM bounced into an umbrella. Vignetting and light falloff due to Pro Tama 0.7x wide angle converter (giving effectively 18mm without the APS-C crop factor.)

Same exposure data but at F3.5 1/40s instead. Also used the wide-angle converter and the umbrella. I was hesitant to pick this because other than her hand propping up the circle Warner Brothers style, this shot didn’t pop.

90mm F4 1/125 Zone-matching Low-key ISO80 with the umbrella. The only lens I have that does 90mm at F4 is the wonderful Minolta 70-210mm F4 beercan lens. Okay, so it was more of a bokeh appreciation shot than anything else. I was twiddling about with white balance here so it’s a sickly green; the beercan otherwise gives great color.

I used Zone-matching Low-key ISO80 because it makes the Sony A100 use ISO80 for least noise, and Low-key mode retains the shadows so I can see more shadow details on my nVidia-driver-calibrated CRT monitor.

Hi200, or Zone-matching Hi-key ISO200, does the opposite, and prevents highlights from blowing out when the camera processes the curves. Studio shots with a lot of white will benefit from this.

I picked the first and second shot.

The second shot won! Frames within frames, Ted said. If the flare was positioned anywhere else it probably wouldn’t be picked.

I almost picked the beercan ad shot over that one. There’s something off about my shot but I haven’t figured it out… maybe it’s the guy’s face being lit from underneath by a stray HVL-F56AM (we were all using the same channel and were told to turn it off so not to interfere with the umbrella-ed flash.) I’d prefer to make natural-looking flash shots anyway.

And so, I won myself a Sony HDPS-M10 HDD Photo Storage device!

It’s a 40 Gigabyte portable hard disk for photographers taking long trips or vacations, but don’t want to carry a huge laptop to transfer pictures to each time they fill up their memory cards.

What’s good about it?

• Accepts Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO Duo, CompactFlash Type I and II, and Microdrive media
• A single click of a button copies images to the hard disk and archives them
• It has 60 minutes of extended transfer times without an AC adapter. You could do 15 transfers from a 1GB card
• Shock-proof with reinforced corners
• Small LCD shows transfer progress
• Comes with Photo Diary Software to organize photos in calendar format

It works with Linux, too!

Imagine being on a week-long vacation, or being a rock band roadie doing a tour. Feel no guilt shooting in RAW format!

Once home, plug it in to your USB2.0 port and transfer away!

Sadly, I realized, I don’t ever go on week-long vacations or do roadie jobs. I go home every day and transfer my pictures to the computer!

And so, I’m selling this. I need the cash to buy a Sony HVL-F56AM, heh.

The list price online is USD257, or RM900, but to be realistic in accordance to market forces, and what you can get around town nowadays, I’ll sell it for RM500.

I had to open the package to show the contents. There’s an unfilled warranty form.

The Sony HDPS-M10 in comparison to a CD. Its dimensions are 135x92x30mm, weighing 300 grams.

Note that this does not have a big color LCD screen and is not meant to be your pocket picture gallery. You’d pay a lot, lot more for something like that.

Of course, there are Taiwanese brands out there, but you have experienced a Taiwanese brand product, haven’t you? Some of them are great, but some are really wonky. Plus the manuals are in bad English and so are the programs. You’d also only get them fixed by the shop who sold it to you, instead of walking into any Sony shop.

I’ve found Sony service to be quick in turnaround compared to the rest of say, Low Yat Plaza shops. I bought a Taiwanese brand MP3 player a long time ago, and had to come back often for them to fix.

You can get any cheapo brand MP3 player, but a hard disk is something you don’t want screwing up! Especially those external hard disk enclosures that give occasional errors.

So yes, please help me with my aspiration for a Sony HVL-F56AM, and buy my Sony hard disk! (Or at least help me sell it.) While I have always championed taking pictures without flash, I have also championed alternative techniques and effects, including those with flash.

Zap me an email. a-l-b-n-o-k-at-h-o-t-m-a-i-l-dot-c-o-m. Take away them dashes!

The geek in me can’t wait.

Many moons ago, I shot with Fujifilm Velvia 100F on my Olympus OM-2000.

Yes, that famous positive slide film. The difference between this and a negative, is the chemical processing; slides appear just like the actual shot. Velvia is known for punchy colors and strong contrast.

I used to think that slide film needed a special camera, medium format or something, or needed to be loaded in the dark. Nope. Velvia 100F, in 135 format (35mm format) can be loaded like normal film. It looks and smells like normal film. (No, actually, it smells stronger. I like!) You only need to process it at a lab that can do the E-6 chemical process.

After that, you can also ask them to cut up the film and mount it on slides for a price.

You can also ask them to process it with the C-41 process, which gives different colors and is called cross-processing. The C-41 process is used for normal negative film can be done at any photo shop.

Thanks Yee Hou for sending the film to be developed to the lab in SS2! (There’s another in Pudu Plaza, aptly called E-Six, and Applied Imaging in Taman Tun Dr. Ismail but all are only open during office hours and take a few days to process.)

By opening the back of the OM-2000, and attaching a shutter release cable to the shutter to keep the shutter open in bulb mode, I could project a light through the back and make it project the image on screen!

(Yes, this was shamelessly ripped off Yee Wei‘s method.)

And so, a lamp shone through the slide, onto a white surface.

Turn off the lights, wrap the lamp with a black shirt to avoid light spillage (lowering contrast.)

Top-left: I wrapped a white plastic bag around a tungsten lamp. Unfortunately, it heats the air inside, creating a vacuum, sucking the plastic towards it and ultimately melting it! Top-right: A better version, with A4 paper and less texture being projected. Bottom-left: All that heat eventually melted the lamp. Bottom-right: The coolest solution; put the slide on a diffusing white object, on a plastic bag wrapped around a flourescent table lamp.

This is a sample of a low-contrast image from not completely sealing off light from escaping around the back of the camera.

Overexposure/underexposure kills the shot, on slide film which has a much lower dynamic range.

This, I swear, looks much better on slide. Regretfully some texture of the plastic bag can be seen.

From this point on, I shot the slides using the slide-on-diffuser-on-plastic-bag-on-flourescent-lamp method. I used the Sony A100 with 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 at 45mm, F11 with the Pro Tama 58mm +20 closeup filter to shoot the slides.

Digicolor, Mutiara Complex, Jalan Ipoh.

Outside Mutiara Complex, Jalan Ipoh with the Vivitar 24mm F2.0 lens and 0.7x Pro Tama wide-angle converter.

Note that the KLCC Twin Towers have vanished!

Olympus 50mm F1.8. My favorite sharp lens.

Using the Nikon SB-28 on bounce and manual calculations, results varied from blown-out faces…

…to lucky exposures.

These shots were from the Indie-licious gig.

16mm goodness at Projet Hartamas.

Again, the Olympus 50mm F1.8 does wonders.

Shine some light on us! Share your festive spirit!

High-contrast blast.

What: Screwed
Who: The Oral Stage people
When: 8:30pm 19th-22nd April 2007, 3pm 21st-22nd April 2007
How Much: RM27 (RM17 for students, senior citizens and the disabled)
Where: Pentas 2, KL Performing Arts Centre (03-40479000 for reservations)

Also at The Actors Studio Greenhall, Penang; 8:30pm 4th-5th May 2007, 3pm 6th May 2007, RM25 (RM15 for students, senior citizens and the disabled). For reservations call 04-2635400.

I love The Oral Stage productions; they’re youth-oriented and easier to digest than other plays that insist of weaving themselves some artsy crypticness.

Previously, I’d been for The Breakfast Club, fiftynineminutes and Rojak!.

Anyway, it has been five posts since I last geeked out. Here comes technical data overload!

Flash Photography That Will Blow You Away

I’ve finally figured out how to keep the batteries in my Nikon SB-28. I soldered wires into the battery connectors (not an easy method; dripping melted solder in and poking a wire to see if it sticks). The battery pack must be tied securely, for too much tension could break the wires.

It’s the bomb, isn’t it?

Automatic Zoom SLR Lens!

I found a Minolta Alpha 7xi with 28-105mm F3.5-4.5 lens! (The lens is on the left, my Minolta 50mm F1.4 is on the camera to show how oddly shaped it is.) The xi series had motorized lenses. Rocking the rubber grip would cause the motor to zoom the lens, while pulling back and rocking it would change focus. It had variable speeds like a joystick; however, the fastest speed wasn’t fast enough for me.

Amazingly, it worked on my Sony A100 too.

The major downside? When the shutter is released the lens cannot be zoomed. So no zoom in/out slow exposures!

I did not buy this.

Screw-on 1.4x 58mm Vivitar Teleconverter

I found it in a shop on the ground floor of Ampang Park. From top, Minolta 70-210mm F4 beercan lens at 210mm F4 with 1.4x teleconverter (294mm F5.6 equivalent); 210mm F8 with 1.4x teleconverter (294mm F11 equivalent); 210mm F8 without teleconverter.

This had too much special effect for my liking, such that it managed to kill the beercan’s fantastic bokeh! The F4 image was soft, full of spherical aberration and had bright-line bokeh donuts with blue outlines; the F8 image was less soft, but the bright-line bokeh was even stronger. The plain F8 shot shows the heptagonal bokeh.

I did not buy it.

Shot In The Dark

30 second exposure at F22, with the Nikon SB-28 strobing all over.

More of that, at F8 instead.

Direct Manual Focus Rocks!

Minolta came up with a wonderful idea for their auto-focus lenses; (fake) Direct Manual Focus!

Their other options are like any other SLR; Auto-Focus Single, Auto-Focus Continuous and Auto-Focus Automatic.

Direct Manual Focus disengages the screw motor from the lens when the camera has focused. This lets you finetune the focus. Alternatively, if the camera focuses on the wrong object, you can quickly turn the focus ring.

The other wonderful thing about DMF is that when the screw motor disengages, you can hear it. It’s a different sound from the focusing whirr. It sounds kinda happy and upbeat too! (Why not? The camera is happy it focused. Hooray.)

This is very useful when camwhoring! Just listen for it… and then snap.

If your camera is on focus-priority (meaning it won’t shoot unless it’s in focus) you’ll avoid pressing the shutter all the way, thinking it’s in focus, and finding it doesn’t snap, and trying to catch your breath. If your camera is on release-priority (it will shoot even when out of focus) you’ll avoid out-of-focus shots.

This is great if you’ve disabled the focus confirmation beep like every good camera owner.

AF Assist and Eye-Start Continuous Auto-Focus on Minolta/Sony SLRs

I enable the AF Assist option on my Sony A100. Usually, when half-pressing to auto-focus, with the flash raised, it emits annoying strobes to help the camera auto-focus when it is too dark to see.

However, when I want to flash an object in the dark while avoiding the strobes, I just look through the viewfinder! The Eye-Start Continuous Auto-Focus activates, and the camera starts auto-focusing without the annoying strobes.

I don’t know how Canon dSLRs, without AF Assist lights (and must use the pop-up flash) would circumvent this.

Shutter Priority For Flash!

1/5th of a second, ISO100, F2, 50mm. The 1/5th of a second lets in enough natural light, and the flash fills in just nicely.

On the Sony A100, I usually use Aperture Priority when not using flash, usually to lock it at its brightest aperture or quickly stop down for more depth of field and sharpness, and Shutter Priority when using flash, to control the balance between flash and natural light.

When I don’t have time to switch to Shutter Priority, I just tap the AEL button to activate spot-metering (it’s an option in the menus) while pointing at the subject. This locks my shutter speed while I flash in Aperture Priority.

Manual mode is great in specific conditions, but I won’t use that exclusively because it would be too tedious to adjust when going from extremely bright to extremely dark conditions and vice versa.

Even when shooting with the Olympus OM-2000, which is practically in Manual mode all the time, I think in terms of Shutter Priority (will there be handshake?) versus Aperture Priority (when using flash, so I don’t have to change the power of the flash, just the aperture.)

Yes, ironically, on the OM-2000 I think Aperture Priority with flash, and Shutter Priority when not using flash.

Full Power Internal Flash

I discovered a quick and easy hack to use full 1/1 power of your digital SLR’s internal pop-up flash; use second curtain sync, pre-flash TTL and a slow shutter speed e.g. 1/3rd of a second. Pre-flash TTL means that the camera flashes before the shot, and checks to see if it was too bright or dark, and adjusts accordingly when firing the actual flash.

You can trick it by covering the flash with your hand during the pre-flash (making it think the flash was not bright enough), and quickly removing it before the real flash.

If you don’t, you might just find your hand smelling of fried chicken.

Left: Normal flash; right: 1/1 full power flash.

Second curtain sync is necessary, so the real flash only fires at the end of the exposure. The more skilled you get at this, the faster shutter speeds you can use!

Smoking Flash

I tried the cigarette box flash method, reversing the inner foil of a cigarette box and putting it over my internal pop-up flash to get it to bounce upwards.

Note how it became very spotlight-ish.

From left to right, top to bottom: No flash (1/10s F5.6 ISO400 50mm); 1/80s direct flash; flash with cigarette box head tilted forward; flash with cigarette box upside-down (head facing eyepiece); a Fujifilm ASA400 white canister carved to fit around the internal flash; the same canister tilted 45 degrees; the cigarette box tilted upwards; this space for rent.

Pardon the lack of pictures of the actual cigarette box on the flash, or the film canister; my sister borrowed my digicam and hasn’t returned it.

Anyway, the best results were with the cigarette box held as up straight as possible. If you release it, it will lean forwards on the internal flash (like in the bottom picture.) You can’t tell by the picture, but the internal flash should be popped up, and the cigarette box fits on it.

The film canister isn’t as effective; it does little to soften the shadows, does not change the lighting angle, but it does introduce a pleasant warming effect.

Macro Flash

Often, you may find that when shooting macro, with a SLR and internal flash, that the lens might cast a shadow on the subject, causing a black semi-circle in the lower region of the photo.

You don’t need an external flash!

Just use your outstretched hand as a reflector. It also gives a nice warm sunny tint to the flash!

The blue light was Photoshopped in; Jenifer is pictured using her Canon EOS 350D with Canon EF-S 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 lens with my Pro Tama 58mm +20 closeup filter. (Pardon the inaccurate depiction of the flash path.)