One lens is all you need.

~ R.W. McKenzie ~ Leave a comment

As the title suggests one lens is all you need right? Well yes .. maybe.

Theres a school of thought and any number of YouTube videos that suggest the same thing and it got me thinking.

This is the Pentax version of the Chinon f1.19 that I have for my Pentax film cameras and its a good lens.

In the film days when 35mm SLR’s were the in camera, most came with a 50mm lens attached. Depending upon the model they generally ranged from f1.4 to f 2.8, were manual focus  and manual aperture.  This changed with the arrival of  auto focus cameras and the introduction of consumer grade short telephoto lenses usually in the range of 28 mm to 90 mm ( today’s versions would be 16 -50mm or similar.) and were generally inferior in the optics that they used. Thats not to say they were totally horrendous but merely of lesser quality than the standard 50 mm prime that normally arrived with your SLR.

Thinking about this brought me to my favourite style of shooting images. I like flexibility, but I dont like having to swap out lenses all the time, nor do I like having to tote around a bag full of lenses. What I want to do is capture the image. This is what attracted me to the manual focus Fuji bridgecameras like my HS20. I was happy to trade a bit of image quality for the convenience and flexibility a single telephoto lens could provide.

However as time went by I found I didnt always need the long end of the lens and was often a little let down with the resulting images. Having had DSLR’s in two or three lens combo’s I found that although I had traded up on functionality and image quality I had gone backwards on my desire to be unencumbered  from having excess weight in my gear-bag.

Until I decide and have funds available to purchase what may be my forever camera, I traded the digitals apart from my HS20 for a couple of Pentax SLR camera bodies, namely the MZ-6 and the MZ-30. Depending upon circumstance I will normally have the 50mm on the MZ-6 for everyday photography and the MZ-30 for road trip work as the MZ-30 sports the well regarded Tamron AF aspherical xr di ld if 28-300 mm macro. (Note this is the 35mm film version not one of the later versions that you see on some DSLR’s .)

The Beauty of the Tamron is its range. It is considerably heavier than a lot of lenses but the ability to give a large all in one option is very handy. By contrast the MZ-6 with the 50mm onboard is feather light and just right for those occasions where you have lots of people around or perhaps you just want a lightweight option for the day.

So are you limiting yourself by considering the one lens option? I’d argue that you arent, especially when you consider that the average smartphone has a single focal length and people  love the images they get from these short focal lengths. Its only in the higher end phones that we see more options focal length wise. This video shows some of what you can achieve using just a 50mm lens.

Do yourself a favour and try this as an option on your next photo excursion. You might just be surprised at what you can do.

 

 

Fuji Releases the XA-7

~ R.W. McKenzie ~ Leave a comment

With very little fanfare Fuji has released the latest XA camera, the XA-7.

First impressions are that this is what the XA-5 should perhaps have looked like. With a new 24 megapixel APSC sensor and a 3.5 inch 16:9 format full tilt and swivel screen this is what many of the Fugi faithful have been waiting for.

Click on this image to see the preliminary impressions from DPreview.

After looking over the specs and viewing current limited video reviews theres nothing to dislike about this camera if you have a modest budget, want excellent photo imagery, good if not stellar 4k video.

As some have stated, in some areas it borrows from the XT30 and in others it out points it as in the 2.7 meg oled LCD. Oh and it has a touch screen as well, plus it has the inclusion of the joystick in place of the older four way control pad on the rear of the body. A very grownup feature.

As a former XA-2 user this is the first XA camera that could entice me back into the Fuji fold. Recently I have gone to more budget friendly camera gear, not because I no longer like Fuji gear but simply because it was becoming beyond my budgets reach to entertain having even well used Fuji camera gear and theres a lot I miss from no longer having my Fuji camera in the APSC class.

The introductory review video from Lensvid.com covers a lot of the main points about the new camera. If this trend  is continued within the XT lineup of cameras we are looking at the start of what could be a whole new design philosophy and design concept from Fuji going forward into new generations of cameras. In many ways I see this camera as considerably more rounded and geared towards people who are less concerned about specs and more concerned with making decent videos and being able to take great images, share them quickly and shoot them off to their favourite print house for some great printed photos.

This camera just seems to shout  “Use Me”. Theres an element of what smartphones have been bringing to the consumer in terms of sheer usability and results, something that few camera manufacturers have truly brought to the market as yet. Once again Fuji may well have stolen the show with this seemly innocuous and understated camera … but full  sensor cover phase detect auto focus points, in a entry level camera sounds very good to me.

Happy Snappin’

Ist Day Of Spring

~ R.W. McKenzie ~ Leave a comment

We finally get a fine day after suffering a month or more of wet and unpredictable weather. There has been precious little that has been camera worthy over the winter months and although the weather forecast is for more wet and unsettled weather over the next week or two (typical spring weather ) it was nice to have two consecutive fine and sunny days. Even the bees and wasps were out and about. But as usual they weren’t being co-operative and eluded most of my efforts.

I meandered about the garden looking for a suitable macro opportunity, my trusty HS20 in hand and managed to snap one image worth considering a keeper. After a modest edit in Photoscape I decided to print the image on both 4 x 6 and 8 x 10 photo print paper. Below you can see the original image, the finished version and an image of the two prints. While my phone camera didn’t do the prints justice I was more than happy with the output from the Epson Ecotank L 365, which is now getting a little long in the tooth. Its not communicating via wireless connection so all our tablets, phones and WiFi  connected devices cant print anything which is becoming annoying. I have a feeling this was caused by a mild power surge after a particularly nasty thunderstorm a few weeks back.

This is the original unedited file.

It still prints well as its attached to my photo editing PC via USB connection, so it will become a dedicated photo printer. We will get a better model in the Ecotank series. If funds are available I may well look at getting a A3+ printer, and donate the current printer to a student photographer.

The image below is a 40% crop of the original and has had one of the Photoscape film emulation filters applied to bring up shadow detail and improve colour and contrast.

This is the edited version ready to print.

And this is how they look printed as a standard 4 x 6  print and as an 8 x 10. The HS20 has more than enough resolution for images this size and certainly up to A3.

This image taken with my smartphone, as can be seen the phone didnt do the images justice. The fine detail is really very good on both prints.

 

Happy Snappin’

 

 

Linux & Windows – Photoscape update.

~ R.W. McKenzie ~ Leave a comment

Since the July article Linux and Software for Windows I’ve continued to use Both Windows 7 & 10 operating systems using VirtualBox.

I can now report that there has been a few issues, some which I haven’t found an answer too as yet. Most likely this is due to be not being particularly well versed in the finer points of using VirtualBox.

Win7.

My focus has been on using both the standard and windows 10 versions of Photoscape as this is Freeware and available to all Linux users. On my native Linux operating system I use Photoscape V3.7 and run it using the MS software emulation Q4Wine and it runs pretty well if a little slower than on a native Windows system. Running the same version Photoscape V3.7 on VirtualBox 5.2.32 was the same as running under Win7 native install. The only issue with this was my printer was not recognised by VirtualBox no matter what I did. But for editing files and placing them in an edits folder for printing later was a seamless and fast operation. Performance of Photoscape V3.7 was excellent.

Win10.

Running Photoscape X in Virtual Box with windows 10 was very good as well, however I had exactly the same issue with VirtualBox and my printer, so again it was edit the files, save them then print from my Linux OS.

Photoscape X has all the power that V3.7 has but with a good deal more tools available and there are even more tools available should you choose to purchase the full Pro version and the cost is minimal especially compared to what some of the more Pro level editors can set you back. One irritation with Photoscape X is the Clone Stamp tool.

In the 3.7 version this is a standard tool, where as in the X version its considered a Pro level tool and you have to pay for the Pro Version to be able to use this tool. Make up your own minds about this, but for me it is enough for me to for go using this version as earlier versions included this for free.

Of the three ways that I can run Photoscape, I find the best result is from Photoscape V3.7 running in Win7 via VirtualBox. The operation and performance of Photoscape is fast and seamless and feels exactly like it did when I run it purely in a full windows PC.

I also tried running both Windows OS’s in the latest Version (6.10.1) of VirtualBox and unfortunately Photoscape wouldn’t run at all, so there appears to be some issue(s) surrounding the latest version and its extension that have yet to be sorted out so for now I will continue using the earlier version of VirtualBox.

Edited using Photoscape V3.7 in Win7 via VirtualBox

As for printing, thats currently being done from my native Linux OS which I will detail with in a later update.