Day #111 @ Photography Project 365

I ordered one of those RF flash triggers (a.k.a. eBay triggers) a couple of weeks ago - before I left for Helsinki. Thanks to the photography magazines I purchased in UK, I've recently been having an urge for flash photography. The amazing samples displayed and relatively simple tutorials illustrated really made me want to be a "strobist". While I'm not prepared to make any huge investment in that area yet, I felt that an RF trigger is the least I could do.

I bought a Blazzeo SLT-4 trigger for about 25 EUR on eBay (incl. shipping). Perhaps I was expecting too much but I'm a little disappointed with them. They don't work perfectly with my Nikon Speedlight SB-600 flash. The Blazzeo SLT-4 causes my flash to misfire a lot. I eventually found out that leaving the flash unlocked reduces misfire significantly, although it still does happen occasionally.

I surfed the Internet looking for fellow comrades who were suffering from similar issues but didn't really find any. Based on the information I found, I eventually came to the conclusion that these triggers work very well with third-party "manual" flashes such as those from Vivitar and Nissin but tend to be less compatible with automatic flashes (those with TTL).

joel@shutteria.com

Review of Slik Pro 400DX Tripod

When I was just starting out, a colleague of mine told me that a good tripod is essential for serious photography. I was pretty skeptical at first. I simply couldn't imagine that there would be much difference between these three-legged beasts. After all, their function is to simply hold the camera steady. The key word here is of course "steady" - some tripods do a better job of holding a camera steady than others, especially under rugged outdoor conditions. Of course, they need to be portable too. It doesn't make sense having a steady tripod that weighs a ton. It'd be spending more time at home than out on photo shoots. The key word this time is "portable" - some tripods are lighter but just as steady as their heavier counterparts. So, steadiness and portability are the two main aspects that distinguish tripods.

When looking for a Tripod, Manfrotto is probably one of the first names to come to mind. Most people I know who invested in one have no regrets. I have never owned one myself but have played around with a few before. Manfrotto does indeed make very good tripods that excel in both steadiness and portability. I was seriously considering getting either the Manfrotto 190XPROB or Manfrotto 055XPROB. The only thing that held me back from investing in one was its price.

I totally agree that a good tripod is a worthwhile, long-term investment. However, having a background in Sales and Product Management made me wonder how much of the retail price actually goes to its production. In the case of Manfrotto, I expect that their cost of sales (advertising, branding, commissions, etc.) and margins are pretty high. So, I decided to look into some lesser known, but reputable brands. I started looking at Slik.

Slik is in fact a renowned brand for tripods. There aren't as many retailers carrying their products as compared to Manfrotto though. However, since I do much of my shopping on Amazon (and they do carry Slik products), it wasn't a problem for me at all. I googled for some reviews (which were actually quite scarce) and finally decided that the Slik Pro 400DX was the one for me. I bought it through Amazon and as usual, it arrived within a couple of days. At that time, the Slik Pro 400DX was about half the price of the Manfrotto 190XPROB. I felt that the difference would be better spent on some other camera gear such as lenses.

Anyway, here are some photos of and thoughts about my Slik Pro 400DX tripod.
The Slik Pro 400DX has a maximum height of 1.55 m with its neck extended to the maximum. Without extending its neck, it has a maximum height of 1.28 m. As you can see from the photos above, its legs have three sections.
Its legs can be further spread apart to get it lower - this is shown in the photos above. There is a locking mechanism in place to ensure that the tripod holds steady when this is done. The Slik Pro 400DX has a minimum height of 33 cm.

However, if 33 cm isn't low enough, you can pull out the center piece through the top and push it in from the bottom. This will allow you to lower your camera even further. Using this approach, you are able to lower your camera all the way to the floor.
When folded, the Slik Pro 400DX has a length of 65 cm, making a 75 cm tripod bag ideal for it. I bought my Kalahari tripod bad from eBay for just under 30 EUR.

The Slik Pro 400DX is able to support a maximum load of 4.5 kg, which is quite a lot. This is definitely sufficient for my use. My Nikon D60 (mode replaced by Nikon D3000) fits very comfortably on it. I'm pretty sure that I won't have any problem using this tripod with a 70-200 or 70-300 lens either. The Slik Pro 400DX weighs about 2.5 kg. It is reasonable to take this tripod with you when traveling and I have done this several times. I have never actually taken it hiking (I'm not much of a hiker) but I believe that it would be reasonable for that too.

If I had one complaint about the Slik Pro 400DX, it'd be the fact that it doesn't have spikes - it only has rubber feet. However, the Manfrotto 190XPROB (and I believe the Manfrotto 055XPROB as well) doesn't have spikes either. So, going for a Manfrotto wouldn't have helped in that regard. Another thing missing is a water level but I don't think that this is a big deal. You can either purchase a water level that fits onto your camera's flash shoe separately or simply adjust the alignment of your photos in post-processing. I use both approaches.

Overall, I am pleased with my Slik Pro 400DX tripod. It's sturdy and portable, which are the key requirements of a good tripod, and at about half the price of a Manfrotto, it's definitely affordable too. In short, it's excellent value for money and I'd gladly recommend it. If you have any further questions, do send me an email or drop a comment.

joel@shutteria.com

Nikon 35mm lens

I went back to Malaysia for a weekend some weeks ago. I was in Jakarta on business for a couple of weeks and decided to fly over to Malaysia for the weekend. It was a short but pleasant trip. I had the chance to see my family, play with and photograph my adorable nephews, enjoy some local food and... guess what? I got myself a Nikon AF-S 35mm f1.8 lens! Well actually, my parents got it for me as a birthday present. Boy, oh boy am I pleased with it.

I haven't used a prime (fixed focal length) lens for some time now. Some people often herald the benefits of prime lenses over more conventional zoom lenses. Ok, zoom lenses used to be a rarity but it has been the norm for some time now. Old 35mm cameras such as the Yashica FX-3 SLR that I had, came with prime lenses - usually 50mm. 50mm lenses (35mm equivalent) are often called normal lenses because they generate images that generally look natural to an observer under normal viewing conditions. By the way, that's the Wikipedia description.

The Nikon or should I say Nikkor AF-S 35mm f1.8 lens is a normal lens when paired with a Nikon DSLR with an APS-C sensor (non full-frame sensor). Nikon DSLRs such as my D60 have a cropping factor of 1.5. So, a 35mm lens on these cameras is equivalent to ~50mm (i.e. 35mm x 1.5 = 52.5mm) on a 35mm / full-frame camera.

I decided on this lens for three reasons. First and foremost, I wanted a fast lens for low light photography. A fast lens is one with a large aperture (small f-stop number). There is a good article on Digital Photography School about fast lenses if you'd like to know more - click here. I've tried photographing kids indoor with my zoom lens and unless I use a flash or really bump up the ISO (which results in noisy pictures) the images usually turn out soft because the shutter is too slow. With a large aperture, I figured that I'd be able to use a faster shutter speed and avoid soft images. While I have found this to be true, the large aperture also results in a very narrow depth of field and you have to be careful when focusing to ensure sharp images.

I have found this lens to be a little soft and blurry when used at its maximum aperture of f1.8. I recommend stopping it down to at least f2.0 to get the best shots. The picture below, which was taken at f1.8 is rather soft.

Secondly, I wanted a fast lens to get the bokeh effect in my shots, especially portraits. Bokeh refers to the part of an image that is rendered out of focus on purpose by using a narrow depth of field (large aperture, small f-stop). This is often done to isolate the subject from a distracting background and / or foreground. There's a good article about bokeh on Wikipedia - click here.

Finally, I wanted a prime lens. Prime lenses typically produce better photos than equivalently priced zoom lenses. However, you sacrifice some flexibility and convenience since you have to "zoom" with your feet. I find that with this lens the color reproduction is better and my shots are sharper than with my AF-s 18-105 VR zoom lens.

All the shots in this post were taken with my D60 and Nikkor AF-S 35mm f1.8 lens - judge for yourselves. Overall, I'm very pleased with this lens and would gladly recommend it.

joel@shutteria.com

Deciding on my "Kitt"

Kitt - isn't that the name of the car in Night Rider? Anyway, now you know that I have a Nikon D60. Like most of you who are thinking of getting into photography, I did a lot of online research and asked around for a lot of tips before settling for the D60. At first I was considering either the Nikon D60 or Canon's EOS 450D. I have to say that I always favored having a Nikon. Probably because I know many people who use Nikon and also because I've seen many photojournalists using Nikons on TV. For me, it felt like Nikon was always the first choice for SLRs and photography in general. However, I have colleague who's a Canonite (in case you don't know what I'm talking about, read "Canon fan"). He told me that Canon is by far a much bigger camera manufacturer. They have much higher volumes and this is translated to better costs. In his opinion, Canon offered excellent value for money and I have to agree that he is right. On a feature level, you would probably get more from a Canon than an equivalently priced Nikon. However, I think that we would all agree that photography is not about features. It's art, not science.

Another question I asked myself was, "Which brand would I prefer to stick to all my life?" A great thing about having a digital SLR is that you can usually reuse lenses, flashes and other accessories when you upgrade the camera body as long as you stick to the same manufacturer. This greatly encourages people to stick to one manufacturer for life. In this respect, I was in favor of Nikon.

Anyway, I looked for lots of photography tips on the two and probably read every major review about them before deciding in favor of the Nikon D60. Digital Photography Review is probably one of the best online resources for such reviews and product-specific photography tips. I have to say that I was a little pissed off that almost every D-SLR by Canon or Nikon gets a "Highly Recommended" rating. While this doesn't help the decision process, I think that it truly reflects the state of digital photography these days. It is now a mature industry and manufacturers have improved their offerings so much that as a beginner, you can't really go wrong with any of them (as long as you stick to well-known, reputable makes like Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sony and so forth) . Anyway, back to my decision. I think that it should be noted that the Canon EOS 450D is more expensive than the D60 and definitely has a great set of features that I would have loved to see on my D60 as well. Nonetheless, between the two, I decided on the D60.

However, I soon started comparing the D60 against its bigger brother, the D90. I started looking for reviews and photography tips on the D90. The D90 has all the major features the EOS 450D has to offer and more, it has excellent reviews, it has a built-in motor that would allow the use of a wider range or lenses (some lenses supported by the D90 and not on the D60 are cheaper and in the long run the total cost of ownership may be less with the D90 - or so I argued) and additionally, it was brand new.

I had a chat with my colleague about this new alternative. He didn't recommend one over the other but he gave me some tips and said something that really stuck with me. He told me that in photography, it's very important to invest into the whole kit and not just the camera body. In fact, he added that it's much better to have a good lens on an entry-level body than the other way around. He also encouraged me to immediately invest in a reasonably good flash and tripod. I would rank this as one of the top photography tips I've ever received. I started looking at my investment from a more holistic perspective and realized that if I went for the D90, I would have to cut back on the other things. So, I decided to invest in a good entry level "kit" instead to kick-off my photography.

I bought my D60 together with the Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-105MM F/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens (kit lens for the D90), a Nikon SB-600 flash, a Tamrac bag and a Hoya UV filter. Recently, I added a Slik Pro 400DX tripod to my kit. I'm really glad that I decided on this kit and saw things holistically and beyond just the camera body. I have taken many nice pictures that I could never have had if I had decided to invest in a higher-end body and miss out on a good flash and tripod. Indoor pictures taken at night look best when you can fire a flash off a white ceiling and outdoor landscapes taken during sunrise or sunset look best when you can use a very small aperture (you will need to use a slow shutter speed and to mount the camera on a tripod).

There you have it - that's how I decided on my kit. I hope I offered you some practical advice and tips you don't typically get from reviews.