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Monitor cleaning spray

Nov 152016

Monitor cleaning spray

I sit in front of the computer for years, and if I wanted to clean it (with a wet cloth normally), usually I was not really successful. I don’t know how but got this monitor cleaning spray (see above). It does the job perfectly. I can recommend it wholeheartedly. Just makes the monitor perfectly clean. I don’t see any reviews about monitor cleaning equipments or products just got this.

Perhaps it is not a big relevation for most people, but perhaps there are some out there who like me. If you have some tips/experience in this matter, you can share it in the comments.
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Sigma 85mm f1.4 Art

lenses, Sigma No Responses »

Oct 182016

Sigma 85mm f1.4 Art

The long awaited Sigma 85mm 1.4 Art is almost here. The lens accepts 86mm filters, and bigger and heavier than the competition. It comes after the very popular, high performance Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art or the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 Art lenses.

Why is this lens is so awaited ? Because it is the classical short telephoto portrait focal length, when we can create very nice creamy background blur. Most professional photographers are portrait or wedding photographer, and this lens is one of their workhorse lenses (the others can be a 24-70 or 70-200mm). Before this lens Sigma released the also very interesting Sigma 50-100mm f/1.8 Art lens which can be also very interesting for portrait photographers.

Sigma 85mm f1.4 Art official name

The official name of the lens is Sigma 85mm f1.4 DG HSM Art

DG – Digital
HSM – Hypersonic focusing motor
Art – the new line of Sigma lenses, usually with bright aperture

Sigma 85mm f1.4 Art specification

Mounts: Sigma, Canon, Nikon
Filter size: 86mm
Weight: Not specified, seems this a weak point, I guess around 0.8kg or little more. The Nikon is 591g, the Canon 85mm 1.2 II is 1025g for reference.
Lens elements: 14 elements in 12 groups
Max magnification: 1:8,5
Min. focusing distance: 85cm / 33″
Dimensions: 94.7mmx126.2mm / 3.7in. x 5.0in.
Price: 1199 USD
Updated Af system with 3x torque
Stellar optical performance
USB dock, MC11 compatible

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What’s new here

The Sigma Art line lenses has great build quality, with high unique optical performance usually, as we seen this in several such lenses in the past. The optical design as you can see below is quite complex, with many lens elements. It is designed and tested for the new, high megapixel cameras.

The Forest man of India

Inspiring stories, interesting No Responses »

Oct 132016

The forest man of India

Click on the next image to see the video. This is just a jpg with no link.
I like trees very much, and I plant some trees as well single handedly. But the man in this story exceeds any imagination. He’s name is Jadav Payeng. See the story in more detail in the following video.

Jadav lives in the island of Majuli which once was covered with thick vegetation. Unfortunately the area become flat later, without trees or other vegetation. Jadav single-handedly built 1200 hectare forest himself, 37 years ago. He spent his last 30 years of life to plant this forest, which is now a home of 5 Tigers, included in the migratory route of Elephants and home of many creatures.

Nikon keymission 360 action cameras

Action cameras, Nikon, Nikon news No Responses »

Sep 222016

Nikon keymission 360 action cameras

Nikon keymission action cameras

Nikon soon will release several action cameras. These sports or action cameras are started by Gopro filming action like biking, ski, underwater action and such things. The 360 obviously refer to the 360 degree view, for this the camera has 2 lens, first lens in front and the other at the back. These cameras are waterproof, shockproof (both at certain level of course) to expand the possibilities.

There are several models the number refers to the lens angle (360,170,80).

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The specs of the Nikon keymission 360 is the following

This camera has 2 lens and record 360 degree view.

Capture Spherical Video in UHD (3840×1080) 4K at 24p (this is the ‘film look’)
Dual-Lens Capture and Internal Stitching, looks little unusual until you understand it
the camera can also records 1080 p24 and 1440×960 p25/30 rate
Built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as well
Shockproof, Freeze-proof, and Dust-proof
100 ft Waterproof Without Housing
Built-In Vibration Reduction (1080p)
29MP Still-Image Capture
Nikon Nikkor Glass Lens
Control & Playback App for iOS/Android

The specs of the Nikon keymission 170 specs

This camera records in 170 degree angle

Capture UHD 4K 25/30p with 170° View
1080p at up to 120 fps; Hi-Res Stills
720p at Super-Slow-Motion 200/240 fps
33ft Waterproof without Housing Required
Built-In Vibration Reduction (1080/720p)
Nikon Nikkor Glass Lens
1.5″ Real-Time Monitoring & Playback LCD
Control & Playback App for iOS/Android
Built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
Shockproof, Freezeproof, and Dustproof

Gopro 5 and Karma Drone

Action cameras, Gopro No Responses »

Sep 212016

Gopro 5

Gopro 5 Black edition

Here you have it the best Gopro ever as they advertising it, 4K video at 30fps, 12 Mp stills photos even in Raw format for the Black edition. This version also has a GPS and a 2 inch Touchscreen. The camera can record HD videos at 120 frames per second rate and 1440p videos at 60 frames per second rate.

30 frames per second time lapse videos are also possible to record with the new camera. There is Wifi, and Bluetooth as well with automatic upload to cloud. Image stabilizer, wind noise reduction and voice control is also built-in the camera. The camera is waterproof up to 10m depth without housing.

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Gopro 5 Session

There are two versions, the cheaper Hero 5 session version is smaller which can shot 10 MP photos, but lacks GPS and the monitor completely.

This cheaper camera has an image stabilizer as well, for steadier, sharper clips, voice control and wind noise reduction system as well. The camera is waterproof without housing until 10m depth. It can record 10MP timelapse videos at 30 frames per second rate.

This is a big improvement compare to the earlier versions as I see, the image stabilizer only makes a huge difference.

Seems no white edition at this time, which was the most popular at the 4 series cameras.

Gopro Karma

Along with the new Gopro 5 cameras, there is a new Drone as well, called Gopro Karma.

The cameras will be available from October 2016 (UK).

The initial price will be 430/330/230 Pounds for the different models. The cheapest is the Gopro Session without 5 in the name.

Learn more at the official site

Clean up the Oceans !

Inspiring stories, interesting No Responses »

Sep 152016

Clean up the Oceans !

There are many news in this world and let’s face it most of them is not positive. Climate change, war, who stole what, etc. This news is very positive though.

The founder

A 22 years old Dutch young men called Boyan Slat wants to clean up the Oceans.
We know the problem there are huge quantity plastic in the Ocean. Boyan faced the situation when he was 16 years old on a family holiday. There were more plastic in the Ocean than fish.
Every year mankind put so much plastic in the Ocean which is like a football field full with plastic and 18 miles high (8 million tons). And this quantity can be duplicated in the future.

Half of this quantity is beleived to be found in US West Coast in a size of Texas state.

The idea

Perhaps at first the whole thing looks unrealistic or even funny but there is a plan as well not just a good intention. The idea is a long floating structure which collect the plastic with the power of the Oceans streams. This is little similar when they collect oil from the Ocean. For the above mentioned huge area a 100km structure is needed, and in 10 years the plastic can be removed or at least closed inside the structure.

The steps

Already many people involved in the ambitious project.
1. Investigation
2. Testing the structure at the North sea, the question how durable is the floating structure, is it strong enough to survive years in the Ocean while collecting garbage ?
3. New test near Japan
4. Clean the big waste in US West coast

Samyang 85mm f1.2 release date

lenses, Photography, Samyang No Responses »

Sep 142016

Samyang 85mm f1.2 release date

A new Samyang manual focus lens is coming targeted more for the premium segment. Samyang is a Korean manufacturer famous for their high quality manual focus lenses. The new lens has manual focusing but with electrical aperture if I understand well. The lens will be available in Canon EF, Nikon F and Sony FE mounts according to recent information.

The lens has a filter diameter of 86mm.

Samyang 85mm f1.2 specifications

Filter size: 86mm
Weight: 1050g
No of aperture blades: 9
Length: 98,4mm
Max diameter: 93mm
Lens construction: 10 elements / 9 groups

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The lens will be released in 2016, no information about the price of the new lens yet. As this is a premium lens, it will be more expensive than the older Samyang lenses, but will be much cheaper than the Canon or Nikon autofocus lens brothers with the same parameters.

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Regarding focal length and aperture it is a tipical portrait lens, which allows to create nice background blur.
Regarding lens construction there is 10 elements in 9 groups see below.

You dropped your Dslr camera in water what to do now ?

Photography No Responses »

Sep 142016

You dropped your Dslr camera in the water what to do now ?

Last week we have a nice time with my family in Siofok which is the most popular place next to Lake Balaton for a summer holiday. I love to take pictures when I am in the water.

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I was asked to bring something for my daughter while I need to walk a bit. After backwards I see a concrete deck which leads to a shallow 1′(30cm) deep water. Without thinking I put my leg on the deck, than I realized that it is very slippery, because it was heavily covered with green material from the water. While slipping, I try to keep on board with little ski and other sports experience, but at the end of the deck I literally fly 🙂 into the water, with my Nikon D7000 in my hand.

My wife said funny I do waterski or what she didn’t understand. When I stood on my feet again, look at my camera and realized it was underwater.

You dropped your Dslr camera in the water what to do now ?

This list is not obligatory, do as you want, just an idea, what I think.

0. Pour water out as quick as you can

This step is the most obvious, turn, shake a camera a little bit to get rid of most of the water. Do not spend much time do the next step instead. In fact the 1. step can be really the first, but when you get your camera out of the water obviously you want to remove all water very quickly.

1. Turn off – Remove battery

In my study in the Technical University says this, water leads electricity. If water goes to unwanted areas in your camera it is not a good thing for the camera’s circuitry.

Advanced cameras has a continuous sleeping mode I think, turning off perhaps not enough to switch off electricity totally, remove battery seems more sure for me.

2. You can spend little more time to remove additional water

You can exchange this step with the next if you want depend on importance / preference. To do this I opened all slots on my camera and try to hold it in a dry place. I first I hold against bright sunlight, but perhaps not always the best as sensors not really like overheating.

3. Remove memory card if you want to save the pics you made

If you have very expensive or precious pictures or videos on your camera, this can be the first step even.
Memory cards are usually in safer position than your camera inside, if the memory card slot has a cover, it usually protects the cards.

4. Remove lens if not water sealed

It was funny this was the first time I realized than my Nikkor 16-85mm has water sealing around the mount. Very useful feature I would say, as not many water was in my Dslr camera inside. In my experience the lens as not vulnerable for water, but it can be nasty if it gets inside. Drying here also needed.

5. Put it in a dry place and wait several days depend on the dryness

I put my camera at the top of the wardrobe for 3 days to get dry.

There are tricks to put rice in the camera to absorb water if you can.

What happened with my camera ?

Well after I removed the water, hold it under direct sunlight about 20-30 minutes, At first seem the camera is still working but later get an Err note which stays there even 2 days after the accident.

After at the back LCD has different colors, some parts has white colors others are dark black (looks burned or something) and rainbow colors in between. The situation looks not really promising at all. After I see the Err note I immediately remove the battery (it was needed to do much earlier). I though some reparation is need or other option I will never used the camera again.

After three days the Err massage disappeared and now seems working without any problem. It may not be for every case, I camera had very little water inside, when I removed the lens actually was surprised how little water is inside the camera. Different cameras has different water sealing. I think learn from the steps above if you never experience such a thing and perhaps you will be lucky as well.

Avoid such slippery places if you can 🙂

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Tamron 150-600 G2 Model A022

lenses, Photography, Super telephoto, Tamron No Responses »

Sep 062016

Tamron 150-600 G2

Tamron raise the bar again. When Tamron released the first generation 150-600mm lens in 2013 it was a massive success. Even Tamron was surprised the demand for such a lens, one needed to wait months to get a copy. No such lens was at a comparable price on the market. Focal length of 600mm with very good optical performance for only 1069 USD (if I remember well). A Powerful telephoto not just for the richest.

After Sigma quickly try to save the market with 2 versions of their 150-600mm (Sports and contemporary), and Nikon also got into the business with a 200-500mm, and there were rumors about a new Canon 200-600mm. (Not yet released, wouldn’t be surprised to see a new 10K USD lens)

I like what Tamron did the most, real quality for an affordable price.

After releasing the two 150-600 Sigmas reviewers questioned that the Tamron is not tack sharp at 600mm wide open, although before there were no such or similar lenses for decades.

Now comes with the G2 (second generation) version with:

– Improved optics
– Improved autofocus
– 2.2mm minimum focusing distance (86,6 in.) very nice for macro
– Zoom lock at any position
– two teleconverters (1.4x, 2x specially designed for this lens up to 1200mm
– Improved built
– Higher price (1399 USD)

With the improved price the new Tamron competes with the Sigma 150 600 Sports and the Nikon 200-500 I think with a significantly cheaper, more affordable price, or at least beat the Contemporary 150-600 Sigma.

Tamron 150-600 G2 specs Model A022

Mounts: Canon EF, Nikon F, Sony
Lens construction: 3 LD elements (21 elements / 13 groups)
Filter size: 95mm
Lens weight: 2kg, the Canon version little more, the Nikon is little less
Flex Zoom lock: yes, can be fixed at any position
Full time manual focus override: yes
No of aperture blades: 9
Length:
260.2mm (10.2 in) Canon
257.7mm (10.1 in) Nikon
Vibration compensation: yes

Tamron 150-600 G2 Flex zoom lock mechanism

This feauture sound really cool and very useful, in order to prevent zoom creeping. Usually we want to use the longest zoom setting or we can choose our favoured combination of focal length and aperture. Shorter focal length usually has brighter aperture values. With the new zoom mechanism we can easily fix the zoom at any position simply by pulling the lens.

Tamron 150-600 G2 dedicated teleconverters

There are two dedicated teleconverters especially designed for this lens by Tamron, a 1,4x and 2x teleconverters.

Specifications
Model TC-X14
Magnification* 1.4x
Optical Construction 6 elements in 3 groups
Maximum Diameter φ70mm Canon
φ62.6mm Nikon
Length** 21.4mm (0.8 in) Canon and Nikon
Entire Length*** 34.1mm (1.3 in) Canon
32.3mm (1.3 in) Nikon
Weight 205g (7.2 oz) Canon
180g (6.3 oz) Nikon
Standard Accessories Mount cap, Rear cap, Lens case
Compatible Mounts Canon, Nikon

Model TC-X20
Magnification* 2x
Optical Construction 9 elements in 5 groups
Maximum Diameter φ69.8mm Canon
φ62.3mm Nikon
Length** 53.6mm (2.1 in) Canon and Nikon
Entire Length*** 66.8mm (2.6 in) Canon
65mm (2.6 in) Nikon
Weight 360g (12.7 oz) Canon
305g (10.8 oz) Nikon
Standard Accessories Mount cap, Rear cap, Lens case
Compatible Mounts Canon, Nikon

Tamron 150-600 G2 release date

The new telephoto lens will be available from September 2016.

Official website

Tamron new 150-600mm supertele

Canon EOS C700

Canon news Comments Off

Sep 012016

Canon EOS C700

Claimed 15 f stops dynamic range

Sunset from the water

Photography tips and tutorials No Responses »

Aug 282016

Sunset from the water

Click on the pics to see in proper size.

How to make such a picture ? Go into the water before sunset and try to capture the line where the sun reflect on the water from a low perspective of several inches / centimeters. You can make it easier from a shallow lake than a deep one, especially if the water is cold.

You can play with many things like you hold the camera in normal or portrait position, you can choose what you want in your composition, the angle between the camera and the lens, the focusing distance, the depth of field, if you use longer focal lengths you can blur the background more.

You can also play with exposure, to make the pics darker or lighter. My Nikon camera calculate the light as the image is darker, but with exposure compensation it is easy to make it lighter, this way the people in the background will be more visible.

You can decide as well you want a full sun, half sun or exclude the sun from the frame.

You can also play the angle how to hold the camera, downwards, upwards or in between.

Here in this shot I used wide angle and small aperture for more depth of field and try to focus relatively closely.
After you can crop the pics anywhere you want.

Black and white experiments

Photography, Photography tips and tutorials No Responses »

Aug 242016

Black and white experiments

In some cases when we are amid lot of different colors (for example in a kids playing room) we want to get rid of them. Some cases the too many colors can be disturbing, and can attract our attention away from the main theme. We switch to black and white and we have a much simpler image. We can create black and white photographs multiple ways, either desaturate the colored photographs or simply use BW picture style if we have it in our camera settings. Lately I chosed the BW camera setting on my Nikon d7000 as the ones I desaturated from colored ones doesn’t look like I would like them to look like. At first BW photograps can look awkward, but if we know what we want, we can get very happy with these photographs. Some cases a colored photo looks much better, depend on our preference.

You can click on the pictures to see them in higher resolution, which I prefer over small web size. I like the above photo, not because it is a brilliant view, but looks like the time has stopped for a moment, like a memory. Perhaps the background music can help as well, which I hear. The photo was made next to River Tisza in Hungary, which is the second biggest river in Hungary, where you can find this kind of place. Not many places like that without lighting, pavement and artificial surroundings. This beach is totally natural at this state, nothing just nature, huge trees, not even a stairs, you can reach the shore from steps which is made by dug the natural soil. Not many places like this in the World today, apart from the abandoned areas.

The black and white photographs are much simpler and the shapes and forms, and light level differences are more obvious. Interestingly Ansel Adams used BW for their landscapes, although he could also would have used colored photographs as well.

Retro look / feel

In many cases black and white photographs can look retro as it can resemble the film photographs. What do you think about the photograph below ? When it was taken ? (2016 august)

Portraits

The easy win situation in Black and white is portraits. Either a wedding portrait or other, we can create very nice photographs without strong efforts.

Some points for experimentation

– Strong lights
– Shadows (for example a tunnel)
– Reflection
– Portraits
– Out of focus shots
– Retro objects combined with oof
– Clouds
– Blacks
– Whites

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