Nikon Zf
Nikkor Z 35mm f/1.8 S
35mm, 1/2500 Sec at f/1.8, ISO100
Post Processed in Adobe Lightroom Classic V15.1
Photo of the Month – December
Snowy Week
This week has been cold and snowy at the beginning of the week and wet and cold towards the end.
The few times the sun came out I grabbed the camera and took a few snaps. Nothing special but you never know when a great scene may come your way.
Black and White Deep tone
Many people like Fuji because of their film presets, and while other cameras offer them, its been Fuji that have captured the imagination of photographers.
Nikon have custom picture controls and now with their cloud service its even easier to create and share your presets.
The shot above is a simple high contrast image with the preset Black and White Deep Tone applied. Great for dark and moody pictures like this.
Of course shooting RAW you can take an image anyway you want. The above image had the contrast lowered and just enhanced for Brook’s hair.
Of course in the studio lighting can be used to enhance or reduce contrast like in this image of Kimberly.
Leica’s next generation sensor will be developed in house
I am seeing rumours about how Leica will develop their next sensor in house. Reports also mention that the current sensor is ‘just’ a Sony sensor.
Those who follow Leica will understand that they have been working closely and have been developing in conjunction with a number of Germain Universities sensor technology for a while now. Sony the sensor company have a number of base designs that you can order from them and put your own tech into; and they will also fabricate custom designs of your own. The sensor manufacture division of Sony is very different to the division that makes and runs Sony cameras which they bought from Minolta, they are a customer of the sensor division just like anyone else. Buying a Sony camera with a Sony sensor will not be the same sensor tech as other camera manufactures. For the high end cameras its often a unique sensor being made just for that company.
New Nikon Kit Zoom 24-105mm
Nikon announced the new Nikon 24-105mm f/4 to f/7.1 non S lens.
This is a nice budget kit lens and a reasonable travel lens for people who like to travel light.
This shot of Kimberly was taken with a 105 prime at f/8 so a beginner could make good use of this lens within the 50 – 105mm range and shoot in the studio at f/8 or f/11.
The weight is good and its about half the weight of the 24-120mm f/4 S and much cheaper.
The chat on the internet is as you would expect very negative towards this lens. It’s cheap, small and light, something has to give and it’s that variable aperture. An f/7.1 at 105 is pretty slow, but in the studio no issues, and with modern high ISO performance not too much to worry about. Yes the 24-70mm f/4 S is better and so is the 24-120mm f/4 S; but they’re not coming in at anything like this price. unless you consider secondhand. If you can afford the S lens then get them, if not start with this or pick up some nice second hand primes. Choice is good, don’t criticise a lens just because its not for you.
I would never buy this but if it came in a kit with a Nikon Z5II as a starter system and I was getting into the photography this is a great option for newbies.
How do you listen to Music
I am seeing more and more people on line talking about getting rid of a certain music streaming service.
Vinyl is also making a comeback as well as CD’s. There was a recent report about Vinyl now being the number one seller of physical media in the UK. If you go by price that is correct but not numbers, CD’s can be anywhere from £5 to £25, but vinyl tends to start at £20 now. Many are buying to collect and not play.
Many people are getting back into more focused listening. Sitting down, and actually choosing to listen to an album. While I have all my CD’s ripped to my Roon server, I’ll often sit back at night, pop a CD into the draw and just listen to a whole album.
I also see DAP’s (Digital Music Players) even making a come back. If I do not want to be disturbed I’ll pull out my old hard disk based iPod classic and listen to an Album. Cutting myself off from my phone and notifications is a blessing sometimes.
I cannot see physical media beating streaming, and having streaming available for finding new music and seeing if I like it is the best thing about it.
One thing I would like to see is people making a choice about what streaming service they use. Some do pay more to the artists and if you like a song then buy it.
My office music system as you can see from the old picture above is basic, a MacPro running Roon endpoint software, connected via USB to a Schiit Preamp with a USB DAC built into it. Then out to a pair of active RuakAudio desktop speakers.
Sony RX1R III – Full Frame Compacts
I have been looking at large sensor compacts for many years.
Ricoh and Leica were the first with cropped 1.5 sensors, and then Sony released the RX1 with a stunning fixed sensor 35mm lens and an optional EVF. Leica followed with the Q range.
Sony are now back in the game with an updated RX, and Ricoh and Fuji with there cropped sensor compacts are proving popular.
It seems photographers love large sensor compacts.
Database update – WordPress
I host my email service and web hosting in the EU. The last version of Windows I used at home was Windows 2000, as I switched to Linux and Fedora v1 when it was released in 2003.
This blog your reading was running on mysql 5.x, I had tried a few quick updates to the latest version but was encountering errors. So after work today, I set to have another go.
I created a new database and left it a while to settle; last time I think I had rushed it before things were ready.
I then downloaded my latest sql backup and uploaded to the new database. Again left things to settle and then updated my WordPress config file. WordPress connected asked me to update and here we are up to date.
Apart from giving large time gaps between the key steps, everything I did was the same as last time, but this time it seems to have worked.
Using a none windows OS, using other hosting methods other then just putting everything on Facebook, gives you freedom but also can generate issues. Still its worth it.
New Year Resolutions
Its seems since COVID the last few years have been a bit of a blur with family commitments, Ill health, hospital visits.
I have managed recently to go on two wildlife shoots and have also gotten to the studio to photograph new models several times over this year.
Photography wise things are improving.
Fitness I need to do something. Just before COVID I was thinking of starting swimming again so might look into that.
Music, well, I have a new Roon server and recently updated my streamer and amp over the last few years. Next on the list is a new rack and to start looking at a new record deck and speakers.
One thing I have not been doing this last year is playing music. One of the reasons is the end room we use as our music room / library has become a dump it room. We have been decorating one of the guest bedrooms and we ripped out all the built in wardrobes. All this stuff that was in there and the bedroom contents prevented me from getting to the piano. I have a banjo in the office which I have also not touched and for that I have no excuse.
So I have given myself the task of playing for five minutes a day for six days a week for the whole of January. Lets see if we can get back into this which I do love.
Last journalling. I have a cupboard of journals but I stopped a few years ago for no real reason and I miss it, so will start up writing once a week.
What are your plans?
Creating a movie library – ripping your DVD’s
Like many people today, I find streaming highly convenient. The issue is you never own the media, the artist does not get paid as much, and if you, like us, live in a rural area with internet outages and powercuts, having the media locally is of benefit.
For music, I use Roon, but today I am going to talk about video. I have a lifetime license for Plex, and have a small Plex server, connected to my UPS.
The question a lot of people as is how to get your DVD film from a physical format to a file that you can use on your TV/Computer/Tablet or Phone.
One of the more common pieces of software people use is Handbrake, this is available for most operating systems.
Now Handbrake can not read all DVD’s for it to be able to read the majority DVD’s you need to install libdvdcss. For windows is usually a simple dll you download. For older Mac’s you can download the installer. For more modern Macs its a little more difficult and much easier if you install a package manager.
Most people use Brew. I suggest you go to there web page and read up. Basically you open up terminal and follow these instructions.
/bin/bash -c “$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)”
Once installed you need to update the environment variables so Brew can be found on your system.
echo >> /Users/richardbrown/.zprofile
echo ‘eval “$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)”‘ >> /Users/your-user-name/.zprofile
eval “$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)”
You can now install the libdvdcss
brew install libdvdcss
The default location that that brew installs to, is not the location that Handbrake looks so you now need to copy the library to that location.
sudo cp /opt/homebrew/lib/libdvdcss.2.dylib /usr/local/lib/
You can now launch handbrake, rib your DVD’s and create your own locally hosted streaming library with the DVD’s you own.