Studio Photography w. setup & lighting diagram

Studio Photography w. setup & lighting diagram, a set by Stefan Tell on Flickr.

Stefan has a wonderful flickr collection on lighting setup for studio photography.

Olympus E-PL1

I have used this camera for a couple of weeks now, with the newer version of the M.Zuiko14-42mm II R lens and some Nikon manual focus lenses. The camera is capable of producing very sharp pictures, especially at the low ISO (e.g., 200). The JPEG engine is very good. The default white balance setting gives very warm colors, pleasing to the eye (but may not be faithful to reality).

But there are a few things that make this camera really difficult to use:

1. The camera has terrible shutter lag. This makes it extremely difficult to capture moving target (such as a baby). It is hopeless to focus on a child on a swing.

2. Focus is hard. It takes many presses of the buttons to choose the correct focus point. If I let camera chooses the focus point, often it will choose the wrong subject. I am still learning. It has face-detection, but that is very confusing. Sometimes, the camera detects a face, but when I press the shutter release button, the camera will focus on something else.

3. LCD is almost not usable under sun light. I bought a VF-2 electronic viewfinder (price new is $225?! I bought it used). I bought the camera relatively cheap ($150), but with the lens and VF-2, the entire package is close to $500. That is no longer cheap. VF-2 works, but in general, electronic viewfinder does not look as good as the viewfinder on a DSLR.

4. Flare under strong sun light (could be due to the lens, the camera, or both). I bought a lens hood. Which is optional and sells for $25 separately?! I bought a third-party one from eBay. What Olympus is thinking? Anyway, the lens hood cannot eliminate the flare, it could also be focus issue. Hard to pinpoint the cause of this.

5. Not good for indoor when the light is not good (high iso performance is OK, but not as good as DSLRs).

So basically, if everything is right (the weather is greater, sunny, but not too sunny; the subject is not moving; etc.), the camera can produce very sharp and warm colored pictures. But it is very challenging. It might be good for scenic.

Nikon D600?

nikonrumors.com just started a rumor about the next full frame Nikon DSLR--Nikon D600. The speculation are that it will use a 24MP sensor, but it probably will not have an internal focus motor. If this turns out to be true, and the price is around $1500. That will be an instant hit.

My feeling is that the speculations about the sensor and other specs are reasonable, but I doubt it will be that cheap. My guess is that the price will be around $2000. With D600, Nikon's FF line will be complete, D4 ($6000), D800 ($3000), D600 ($1500-2000).

Of course, it will be great if it turns out to be $1500 or less. It is not totally impossible, given there is rumor that the sensor will be made by another supplier (not Sony). If you think about it, D5100's price is only $700, if Nikon put a FF sensor into D5100's body, $1500 is a reasonable price. It is just we have never seen FF body that cheap before. That will be a game changer.

On the DX side, Nikon just released the entry level D3200 ($700 with kit lens). Nikon will update at least one of D5100 or D7000, maybe both (then the D5200 and D7100 will be priced at $900 and $1200?). Or better, Nikon can replace D7000 with a D400. Then the DX line will also be very appealing.

The only problem is whether Nikon can actually keep up with producing 6 DSLRs as well as the DCs and J1/V1.

I am not a real photographer, but I like to read camera reviews/tests. Comparing specs on paper is a lot of fun :).

70-200mm VR II + TC-20E III + Kenko Teleplus Pro 300

70-200mm VR II + TC-20E III + Kenko Teleplus Pro 300, a photo by ggyy@mitbbs on Flickr.

It seems that even with TC-20E III and on a DX crop sensor, the 70-200mm VR II is not long enough for shooting birds in the tree. (I've heard you actually don't want to shoot birds in trees. You want to bait them (?) so that you can get closer.)

Anyway, I thought how to further increase the "reach". I cannot mount 70-300mm VR on TC-20E III and I don't have other telephoto lenses. Then I remembered that I had a Kenko Teleplus Pro 300. So I stacked the TC-20E III  on it, with 70-200mm VR II on TC-20E III.

It worked! Sure, the focus hunted, but eventually it locked. If you click the above image and go to flickr, you can see the original picture. I think it is quite impressive. I turned off CA correction in Capture NX 2, only adjusted the exposure (+2) and curve, since the photo was much underexposed.

I was only able to try it indoor after dark today. Tomorrow, I can test it outside. But the above photo was pretty decent. I shot it handheld at 1/25s and F/5.6 (effetively, F/8?, Kenko 1.4 does not do the conversion, TC-20E III does).

(I'd since tried a couple of times during day time, but has not got a decent picture with this combination.)

Mirrorless cameras? Not there yet.

A Grandma, a photo by ggyy@mitbbs on Flickr. Taken with Panasonic DMC G3 with Nikon Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 lens.

I owned a Panasonic G3 briefly. At that time, I was looking for a camera that can take good videos. I had a Panasonic LX3 and a Nikon D700. The D700 does not do video and LX3's video file size is huge (though the image quality of the video is not too bad). After some research, I bought the G3, but I was not satisfied with the IQ of either the photos or the videos. The 14-42mm lens is quite decent (the camera does a lot of automatic corrections to remove CA and distortion), but the dynamic range of the sensor is poor (as compared to DSLR), I could only get good results during a bright day, but the scene cannot be too contrasty. If you think about it, there are not many situations where it will work well.

When I bought it, the G3 was quite expensive. With the lens, it's almost as expensive as or more expensive than a Nikon D5100 body (I don't remember the exact prices). I had a 18-70mm lens, and  other Nikon full frame lenses. After some further research, I decided to give D5100 a try. In short, I liked the D5100 much more than the G3. I then sold my G3. That was my first encounter of the mirrorless camera.

There are a lot to like about D5100, the focus speed (for shooting photos), image quality, the high-resolution swirl screen, the battery life, and the fact that I already had many Nikon lenses and didn't have to invest another set of lenses (I did buy a 70-300mm VR with the D5100). The reason that I did not choose D5100 the first time was because I read that the focus speed during video shooting is slow and D5100 does not track moving subject very well. These are true, but the G3 is not much better. I had realized that refocusing during video is not a good idea. The focus will go back and force (that is how contrast-detection autofocus works). Many say GH2 is very good, but it's too pricey. Besides, I need a good camera that shoots videos not a video camera that takes pictures. D5100 with 18-70mm is bigger and heavier than G3 with a 14-42mm. But when I cannot put either one in a pocket, does it matter? D5100 feels much more comfortable in my hand. One thing I really like about D5100 is the video file size. The file size is roughly 1MB per second. So a minute of video is about 60MB. I haven't seen much discussion of this point, but that to me is an ideal file size.

There are a few things that the mirrorless cameras do better than a DSLR. One of them is focusing manual focus lenses. It allows very precise focus, the above photo was taken with the G3 and a Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 manual focus lens. But it was hard to stabilize the camera due to the higher pixel counts (effectively higher magnification factor). I don't quite remember, but I might have put the camera on a table when taking the above picture.

Another tempting idea is that the Olympus mirrorless cameras have shake reduction build into the camera body which supposedly will help any lens mounted on them. I have recently bought a Olympus E-PL1, but the same limitations (noise level, dynamic range, lens choice, etc.) of the G3 still apply (but E-PL1 is not as expensive). If all I want to do is using manual focus lenses, probably, a full frame mirrorless camera (with shake reduction) will be the best choice. But that will not happen anytime soon.

With the introduction of Nikon V1 and the FT1 adaptor. at least I don't have to worry too much about lens choice. It is also tempting to think that we can use mirrorless camera as a way to increase "reach". I read that some people use a V1 with a 70-300mm VR lens for birding. It's tempting, but I have my doubt. I will wait for V1 to drop price or for V2 to come out.

Quick Thoughts about Nikon J1/V1

They are interesting cameras and have many innovative features: phase-detection AF, unprecedented high data throughput. Most importantly, it can take regular sized Nikon lenses through an adaptor.

However, there are a few things that I don't like:

Both cameras are pricey. V1 is more expensive than Nikon D5100, which I believe takes much better pictures. (I don't own a Nikon V1, but the difference in the sensor sizes is obvious.)

The J1 does not have a viewfinder. That will limit its usability in outdoor situations.

The V1 does not have swirl screen. That is a significant drawback. I currently have a Nikon D5100. One of the reasons that I bought it instead of the D7000 is because it has a swirl (articulated) screen. (The other reason is the price.)