Journals71
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I got nothing
1 min read
This space needed updating, but I really have nothing profound/pithy/funny/amusing to say.
But at least this space got updated. 
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Reflecting on the Sony NEX 5N
7 min read
I used to shoot a Pentax DSLR. Complete with battery grip and fast zoom lenses. A lot of them. They had two non-endearing qualities. They were heavy and they were big. This is good in the fact that a camera with some heft to it is easier to shoot with than a really small, really light camera. BUt it's a bear to lug that stuff around.
Why does the size and weight matter to me now when for years it didn't? Read on.
On September 1, 2007 my life was irrevocably changed. It started out as a nice day. I went for a motorcycle ride. By days end I had also scored a ride in a helicopter to the hospital. The final score?
1 totaled 650 V-Strom motorcycle
1 lost toenail
1 badly sprained ankle
1 partially torn ACL in my left knee
1 broken collar bone
1 compression fracture to my L1 vertebrae
6 broken ribs
1 concussion bad enough that to this day I remember nothing from 3 hours before the accident to nearly a week after.
If I tried really hard I could probably piece together 15-30 minutes of my hospital stay. Maybe.
Fast forward ten and a half months to July 11, 2008. Guess what? I totaled another V-Strom. Didn't break any bones this time, but even though I was wearing every piece of protective gear conceivable I lost some skin on my forearm.
Thus ended my motorcycling career. I could probably still ride, but I like being married more than I like riding motorcycles.
To add insult to injury in August of 2009 I contracted necrotizing pancreatitis as the result of gall stones blocking and then blowing out my common bile duct. After nearly two months in the hospital I was deemed likely to survive outside the hospital and sent home.
So, two major accidents and a life threatening illness in two years later I was no longer the robust young man I once was. Something needed to change. It was no longer comfortable carrying that large, heavy DSLR kit anymore.
My search brought me to the NEX, the 5N in particular. It was small, it was light, it had 16 Megapixels of photographic nirvana. I fell in love. Two zooms and the 16mm lens later I'm a picture taking fool again. The zooms worked (and still do) very well, constantly surprising me with the image quality that they can produce.
The 16mm and I did not bond. I had no idea why at the time, though I think I know why now. So the search for a comparable replacement focal length lens began. I discovered the Cosina Voigtländer (CV) Super-Wide Heliar 15mm f/4.5 lens. It was designed for 35mm film rangefinder cameras.
It was small. It was a manual focus lens. The NEX bodies a very easy to manual focus. This works! It led to the CV 21/4. And then the CV35/2.5 and CV50/2.5. A Minolta M-Rokkor 90/4 showed up in my mailbox. A fisheye from Rokinon joined the troop. Then a CV28 made its way to my camera bag, followed by a CV12/5.6. Wow, I have this small manual focus prime lens thing pretty well covered I think!
I was very pleased with my new kit, to the point that I finally sold my DSLR body and a couple of remaining lenses and became a NEX only shooter. Since I mostly shoot flowers and landscape type shots I do a lot of work off a tripod. The swiveling LCD and articulated EVF of the 5N make this very easy and enjoyable.
I had reached the point where I was shooting almost exclusively with manual focus lenses. The I started to shoot some hand held stuff and I discovered why the 16mm and I had never bonded. It's too small to handhold comfortably.
Combined with the small body of the 5N, the small 16mm just wasn't that easy to shoot at eye level. Wasn't bad held at waist level, but for tracking moving stuff I need to be an eye level shooter. Because I wear progressive lens eyeglasses shooting at eye level with the LCD is a non-starter.
This small lens/small camera issue was brought home to me recently when I started shooting with my remaining DSLR zoom lens. It's huge compared to the CV rangefinder lenses. I can hold it and not the camera and still focus easily. This was the issue with the 16mm- too small to hang onto, forcing me to use my right hand to support the camera.
Let's be honest here, there isn't much real estate on the 5 series grip to really grip the camera one handed without mashing one to the buttons you don't want to be mashing when you're trying to shoot. There's a finite amount of space to place fingers on the camera and lens. If the lens is a physically small specimen it just makes things worse.
Using the Sony lenses isn't an issue as they are large enough to allow you to cradle the lens/body in your left hand, leaving your right hand to steady the camera and operate the shutter button. This is what I discovered shooting the DSLR zoom- hand holding the 5N with really small lenses is a PITA!
Now what? I have a whole bag full of tiny rangefinder lenses that I'm not going to try and sell because I love the pictures they take. So, how do I use the camera for hand held shots and still use manual focus lenses? The answer is simple it seems- use larger manual focus lenses dummy! Sometimes the obvious escapes me.
So, where does that leave me these 18 months after buying the 5N? Right where I was actually. I'll still use the CV lenses as I have been, off the tripod. If I want to shoot manual focus hand held shots I'll use SLR/DSLR lenses instead of the CV lenses.
And I still have the 18-55 and 55-210 AF lenses, to which I'll probably eventually add the 10-18 just so I have AF capability from 10-210mm that I can use when I travel far away from home, when I'm not sure what I'll be shooting or when I cna't physically use a tripod.
So, do I regret ditching the DSLR and buying into the NEX? Nope, not a bit. In all honesty I haven't actually had to shell out any money for my NEX gear. I made enough off selling my DSLR gear to fund the NEX and all my lenses so it was more like a trade rather than buying a whole new system.
Are there times I miss the DSLR? Sure, even with a larger lens on the 5N it's still easier to shoot fast moving stuff with the DSLR, but I don't do that much anyway so it isn't a great loss.
Would I do it all over again? Without a doubt or hesitation. And besides, I do still have that 28-75/2.8 that will fit a new Pentax DSLR if needed.
Why does the size and weight matter to me now when for years it didn't? Read on.
On September 1, 2007 my life was irrevocably changed. It started out as a nice day. I went for a motorcycle ride. By days end I had also scored a ride in a helicopter to the hospital. The final score?
1 totaled 650 V-Strom motorcycle
1 lost toenail
1 badly sprained ankle
1 partially torn ACL in my left knee
1 broken collar bone
1 compression fracture to my L1 vertebrae
6 broken ribs
1 concussion bad enough that to this day I remember nothing from 3 hours before the accident to nearly a week after.
If I tried really hard I could probably piece together 15-30 minutes of my hospital stay. Maybe.
Fast forward ten and a half months to July 11, 2008. Guess what? I totaled another V-Strom. Didn't break any bones this time, but even though I was wearing every piece of protective gear conceivable I lost some skin on my forearm.
Thus ended my motorcycling career. I could probably still ride, but I like being married more than I like riding motorcycles.
To add insult to injury in August of 2009 I contracted necrotizing pancreatitis as the result of gall stones blocking and then blowing out my common bile duct. After nearly two months in the hospital I was deemed likely to survive outside the hospital and sent home.
So, two major accidents and a life threatening illness in two years later I was no longer the robust young man I once was. Something needed to change. It was no longer comfortable carrying that large, heavy DSLR kit anymore.
My search brought me to the NEX, the 5N in particular. It was small, it was light, it had 16 Megapixels of photographic nirvana. I fell in love. Two zooms and the 16mm lens later I'm a picture taking fool again. The zooms worked (and still do) very well, constantly surprising me with the image quality that they can produce.
The 16mm and I did not bond. I had no idea why at the time, though I think I know why now. So the search for a comparable replacement focal length lens began. I discovered the Cosina Voigtländer (CV) Super-Wide Heliar 15mm f/4.5 lens. It was designed for 35mm film rangefinder cameras.
It was small. It was a manual focus lens. The NEX bodies a very easy to manual focus. This works! It led to the CV 21/4. And then the CV35/2.5 and CV50/2.5. A Minolta M-Rokkor 90/4 showed up in my mailbox. A fisheye from Rokinon joined the troop. Then a CV28 made its way to my camera bag, followed by a CV12/5.6. Wow, I have this small manual focus prime lens thing pretty well covered I think!
I was very pleased with my new kit, to the point that I finally sold my DSLR body and a couple of remaining lenses and became a NEX only shooter. Since I mostly shoot flowers and landscape type shots I do a lot of work off a tripod. The swiveling LCD and articulated EVF of the 5N make this very easy and enjoyable.
I had reached the point where I was shooting almost exclusively with manual focus lenses. The I started to shoot some hand held stuff and I discovered why the 16mm and I had never bonded. It's too small to handhold comfortably.
Combined with the small body of the 5N, the small 16mm just wasn't that easy to shoot at eye level. Wasn't bad held at waist level, but for tracking moving stuff I need to be an eye level shooter. Because I wear progressive lens eyeglasses shooting at eye level with the LCD is a non-starter.
This small lens/small camera issue was brought home to me recently when I started shooting with my remaining DSLR zoom lens. It's huge compared to the CV rangefinder lenses. I can hold it and not the camera and still focus easily. This was the issue with the 16mm- too small to hang onto, forcing me to use my right hand to support the camera.
Let's be honest here, there isn't much real estate on the 5 series grip to really grip the camera one handed without mashing one to the buttons you don't want to be mashing when you're trying to shoot. There's a finite amount of space to place fingers on the camera and lens. If the lens is a physically small specimen it just makes things worse.
Using the Sony lenses isn't an issue as they are large enough to allow you to cradle the lens/body in your left hand, leaving your right hand to steady the camera and operate the shutter button. This is what I discovered shooting the DSLR zoom- hand holding the 5N with really small lenses is a PITA!
Now what? I have a whole bag full of tiny rangefinder lenses that I'm not going to try and sell because I love the pictures they take. So, how do I use the camera for hand held shots and still use manual focus lenses? The answer is simple it seems- use larger manual focus lenses dummy! Sometimes the obvious escapes me.
So, where does that leave me these 18 months after buying the 5N? Right where I was actually. I'll still use the CV lenses as I have been, off the tripod. If I want to shoot manual focus hand held shots I'll use SLR/DSLR lenses instead of the CV lenses.
And I still have the 18-55 and 55-210 AF lenses, to which I'll probably eventually add the 10-18 just so I have AF capability from 10-210mm that I can use when I travel far away from home, when I'm not sure what I'll be shooting or when I cna't physically use a tripod.
So, do I regret ditching the DSLR and buying into the NEX? Nope, not a bit. In all honesty I haven't actually had to shell out any money for my NEX gear. I made enough off selling my DSLR gear to fund the NEX and all my lenses so it was more like a trade rather than buying a whole new system.
Are there times I miss the DSLR? Sure, even with a larger lens on the 5N it's still easier to shoot fast moving stuff with the DSLR, but I don't do that much anyway so it isn't a great loss.
Would I do it all over again? Without a doubt or hesitation. And besides, I do still have that 28-75/2.8 that will fit a new Pentax DSLR if needed.
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everything old is new again
2 min read
Upgraded the iPhones yesterday from 3GS to 5. Nothing wrong with the 3s, just felt it was time to change things up. After panning the Siri commercials we both had to admit that it's a neat feature to have. In many cases it beats the hell out of trying to type long diatribes on the (very) small on-screen keyboard.
Funny how far we've come in the past decade. From the Motorola mobile brick to this. My first phone was a Nokia. I liked it, and it served me well. Saw no reason to upgrade. Until I dropped it off the top of a 10 foot ladder onto a tile covered concrete floor.
Enter a flip phone. Hey, I like this. It's small. It's light. It has a camera (of sorts)! Served me very well for a long time. Then came the second motorcycle crash. Phone no workee correctly. It no longer had the ability to vibrate instead of ring. Sometimes if turned itself off mid-conversation. I put up with it for a year before retiring it.
We both resisted getting smart phones for a long, long time. "What's the point?" we thought. We have computers, we don't need to carry one around all the thime. And that tiny screen? Forget it. Well, guess what? We ended up with the 3GS and never looked back. Took all of a week to have us wondering how in hell we ever got along without these things? Three and a half years later we can't imagine living without a smart phone.
Which brings up the the iPhone 5. It has a bigger screen than the 3 series. Seems lighter, though that may be a visual interpretation since the 5 is taller than the 3. It's flat on the back. A simple thing, but it doesn't rock when you're trying to type on it one handed like the 3 does (that may just be me). The camera is a huge upgrade, to the point that if I had a P&S camera I'd probably get rid of it. For casual snaps it's that good. Maybe for more serious stuff as well, I have yet to see.
And my DA pics look stellar on it too.
Funny how far we've come in the past decade. From the Motorola mobile brick to this. My first phone was a Nokia. I liked it, and it served me well. Saw no reason to upgrade. Until I dropped it off the top of a 10 foot ladder onto a tile covered concrete floor.
Enter a flip phone. Hey, I like this. It's small. It's light. It has a camera (of sorts)! Served me very well for a long time. Then came the second motorcycle crash. Phone no workee correctly. It no longer had the ability to vibrate instead of ring. Sometimes if turned itself off mid-conversation. I put up with it for a year before retiring it.
We both resisted getting smart phones for a long, long time. "What's the point?" we thought. We have computers, we don't need to carry one around all the thime. And that tiny screen? Forget it. Well, guess what? We ended up with the 3GS and never looked back. Took all of a week to have us wondering how in hell we ever got along without these things? Three and a half years later we can't imagine living without a smart phone.
Which brings up the the iPhone 5. It has a bigger screen than the 3 series. Seems lighter, though that may be a visual interpretation since the 5 is taller than the 3. It's flat on the back. A simple thing, but it doesn't rock when you're trying to type on it one handed like the 3 does (that may just be me). The camera is a huge upgrade, to the point that if I had a P&S camera I'd probably get rid of it. For casual snaps it's that good. Maybe for more serious stuff as well, I have yet to see.
And my DA pics look stellar on it too.
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long live the king
2 min read
It's the end of an era. What era you ask? The era of me using a single lens reflex (SLR) camera, digital, or otherwise.
I sold my Pentax K20D last week. There was nothing wrong with it, other than I could no longer comfortably carry the load that was all my DSLR gear. In November of 2011 I sold off several of my little used auto focus (but very popular) lenses to fund the purchase of my Sony NEX 5N and several lenses.
What a revelation! This thing is really light compared to the Pentax. The image quality is a shade better on the 5N, but it is a newer sensor. The Sony is a little bit light on some features and the menu system was NOT created by anyone who ever used a camera, but I can live with it.
I rediscovered the joy of using manual focus lenses with the 5N. What makes it special? Focus peaking makes it special. The camera puts a color outline around contrast change areas to show you what is in focus. Astounding!
Focus peaking brought me back to manual focus lenses. The physical size of old SLR lenses brought me to rangefinder lenses, which are tiny in comparison. I've settled on the Cosina Voigtlander (CV) line in Leica Thread Mount (LTM).
For several decades the 35mm SLR (and their digital cousins) were King in the land of cameras. The old King is dying. It doesn't know it yet, but it's true. Mirrorless system cameras are the future King.
Now I need to get rid of all that old film stuff I've collected over the years. [sigh]
The King is dead, long live the King!
I sold my Pentax K20D last week. There was nothing wrong with it, other than I could no longer comfortably carry the load that was all my DSLR gear. In November of 2011 I sold off several of my little used auto focus (but very popular) lenses to fund the purchase of my Sony NEX 5N and several lenses.
What a revelation! This thing is really light compared to the Pentax. The image quality is a shade better on the 5N, but it is a newer sensor. The Sony is a little bit light on some features and the menu system was NOT created by anyone who ever used a camera, but I can live with it.
I rediscovered the joy of using manual focus lenses with the 5N. What makes it special? Focus peaking makes it special. The camera puts a color outline around contrast change areas to show you what is in focus. Astounding!
Focus peaking brought me back to manual focus lenses. The physical size of old SLR lenses brought me to rangefinder lenses, which are tiny in comparison. I've settled on the Cosina Voigtlander (CV) line in Leica Thread Mount (LTM).
For several decades the 35mm SLR (and their digital cousins) were King in the land of cameras. The old King is dying. It doesn't know it yet, but it's true. Mirrorless system cameras are the future King.
Now I need to get rid of all that old film stuff I've collected over the years. [sigh]
The King is dead, long live the King!
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blessings
1 min read
A time to reflect on the past and look toward the future.
Everyone is in good health, for which we are eternally grateful. It was touch and go for a bit, but everything turned out fine.
We still have a roof over our heads and that's a good thing.
We're warm, we have enough to eat, cable TV and the internet. Things could be worse.
What will the future bring besides uncertainty about the direction our "leaders" are taking this country? Who knows? As Benjamin Franklin once said "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." Count on taxes going up, dying is optional. Up to a point.
So we soldier on in pursuit of… happiness? Fulfillment? Joy? Whatever floats your boat.
Be good. If you can't be good, be fast. If you can't be either good or fast learn to lie convincingly.
Everyone is in good health, for which we are eternally grateful. It was touch and go for a bit, but everything turned out fine.
We still have a roof over our heads and that's a good thing.
We're warm, we have enough to eat, cable TV and the internet. Things could be worse.
What will the future bring besides uncertainty about the direction our "leaders" are taking this country? Who knows? As Benjamin Franklin once said "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." Count on taxes going up, dying is optional. Up to a point.
So we soldier on in pursuit of… happiness? Fulfillment? Joy? Whatever floats your boat.
Be good. If you can't be good, be fast. If you can't be either good or fast learn to lie convincingly.
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