What Was Under Your Tree?

So what'd ya get for Christmas? Or Hanukkah or the holiday you celebrated? Anything photo-related you're chuffed* about?

(I got myself a pool shed. Although not fundamentally photo-related, it's scheduled to be transformed into an exhibition space next Summer, or possibly the Summer of '22 if funds don't allow it this year. I think it counts.)

Mike

*Speaking English now. The word translates into American as "very pleased."

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Book of interest this week:

Picture This: How Pictures Work, By Molly Bang
(clicking on the link above takes you to Amazon from TOP)

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Comments

[Soeren Engelbrecht]

I got a subscription to the UK "Black & White" magazine from my wife. Very chuffed, indeed :-)

[Steve Biro]

A Fujifilm X-S10 with 16-80mm f/4 zoom. And due to a sudden change in my financial circumstances by New Year's Day, it'll be the last photographic addition I get for quite a while.

[Zack Schindler]

For Xmas I got myself an AM/FM/HD Radio tuner to hook up to my stereo. It is the Sony XDR-F1HD (long out of production) and is considered by many to be the best FM tuner ever made. My copy has been heavily modified by the XDRguy https://www.xdrguy.com/

[David Lee]

My son came to spend christmas with me. That was my present. But I also got an Egon Schiele book. Very nice, printed by Taschen.

[HVJ]

*Speaking English now. The word translates into American as "very pleased."

Ahem, British English, as opposed American English. 8^)

[Sylvain G.]

A totally unknown to me japanese little lens : a silver Avenon/Kobalux LTM 28mm f3.5 first edition in absolutely pristine condition that I will glue (figuratively!) on my Minolta CLE for a while. Apart from the unmatching silver on black body, they look like they were made for each other. Compact little gems!
Mike, get yourself a CLE back before they're 1500 USD... in just two-three years, its price has almost doubled !

An article about it : https://casualphotophile.com/2020/07/01/kobalux-wide-28mm-f-3-5-ltm-lens-review/

Can't wait to see the first roll.

[Patrick Dodds]

Some wellies and waterproof trousers. Yes, they're photography related (think photo walks on the Welsh / English border) but unfortunately I am trapped in London by a Tier V lockdown (I think we're up to V now - I've kinda lost count a bit).
Happy New Year to you Mike - enjoy your pool hall.

[Peter Nigos]

"Chuffed" is technically slang used in England (not Scotland or Wales).
Example would be "You must be chuffed not to have caught the virus."
English is a spoken language with a distinct vocabulary - free of slang - established and updated by usage and academic dictionaries.
The equivalent slang used in the USA might be "whoopty." Example might be "The Prez went whoopty watching TV of the attack on the Capital."

[Robert]

I got myself a densitometer and some chemistry, a scanning frame (to duplicate old negatives with my DSRL), couple of old Leicas (cheap, SLR-line complete), a tele with teleconverter for X1D and a teleconveter for H6D. You see, rather a lot to do this year, but I am one extraordinarily chuffed retiree ;-) Oh yea, and two negative carriers 4x5 from Chamonix - they are so wonderfully light!

[Albert Smith]

Being single, I'm my own Santa. I bought a Fujifilm XF 23mm f/1.4 lens with optional square hood (petal hood juts out too much for me).

I also bought a new X-T3. I figure it won't be available for much longer and since I don't shoot video and I already have 8 batteries that will fit it, the X-T4 was not any benefit to me.

Now if only I could go further than my small downtown to take pictures... oh well, there's always next Christmas.

[Thank you, I didn't know about that hood. I think I want one. --Mike]

[Peter Baglole]

Santa got me a trinocular microscope to which my X-H1 is often attached. There sure are a lot of crazy cool things to photograph or video in a drop of pond water.

[James H.]

I got my wife the excellent new Peter Turnley book A New York - Paris Visual Diary. A somewhat selfish gift, I acknowledge, although she's a fan of his too.

She got me a Solarcan pinhole camera ( https://solarcan.co.uk ) that will be in the back yard for the next six months. Can't wait to see what it captures!

[John Shriver]

New "M1" MacBook Air. Really really sweet machine, great value.

[John W]

A Fuji X-S10 to go with the bag full of Fuji lenses and upgrade my much loved X-T1. Next on my list is the 16-80mm. The X-S10 is one sweet little camera that punches way above its weight. Also got a copy of Peter Turnley's new book "A New York - Paris Visual Diary"... his best book to date I think.

[Moose]

1. Computer brain surgery parts:

Old = ASRock Z77 Pro4 MB, Intel i7-3770K 4-core, 32 MB of memory, 500 GB SSD

New = ASRock Z490 Taichi MB, Intel Core i9-10900K ten-core, 64 GB memory, 1TB SSD, mondo CPU cooler, as the MB does allow over-clocking.

Kept box, PS, Video card, etc.

Computation heavy post processing is zippier now.

2. Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 100-400mm f/5-6.3 IS Lens, ordered 11/15, arrived only three days after Christmas. Big, heavy, but does something nothing else does. Hope it's worth it. \;~)>

[Michael]

I got an Olympus OMD-E-M1ii camera with zuiko f4/12-100mm for taking pictures of my Irish Terrier and his buddies. My E-M5ii is far too slow in terms of autofocus. The E-M1ii with the procap feature (recording pictures already before pressing the shutter release) is rather ingeniuos.

[Richard Parkin]

I knew you get some stick for using “English” and “American’ :) . “British English” makes little sense and the English (like me) tend to find it mildly irritating so may I suggest you use “English English” which will please us while educating the Americans and annoying the Scots, Welsh and Irish at the same time, which is always a worthwhile pursuit :-) .

BTW I think “chuffed” is RAF (Royal Air Force) slang and not common now whereas “chuffing” is common but means something else, more vulgar :).

[Yonatan Katznelson]

I bought myself an early holiday gift in the Fall - a Fuji XT3 bundled with the newish 16-80, as well as the 35 f/1.4.

For the holidays proper, my family gifted me with a half case for the camera and a little red button, so I'm totally pimped out now.

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[John Francis Opie]

Bought my daughters Oly 45mm f1.8 lenses for their instagramming activities.

[Terry Burnes]

Santa upgraded my Olympus OMD E-M5 from a ii to a iii. I guess he figured the future availability of Olympus cameras was uncertain, and Santa ought to know. He also brought an Olympus 75-300mm zoom to go with my 14-150 and 9-18 zooms, I guess in support of my new interest in doing some bird photography. How does he know?

But perhaps cooler was our son's gift to his mother, one of the "refurbished" Polaroid 600 cameras now on the market again, with three packs of film, two color, one black and white. The complete opposite of my digital cameras. Fixed lens, no zoom, one simple control, every photo a print. And despite the modest tech (though the chemistry still seems a miracle) always seeming to produce something of interest, at least for awhile. Sort of like watching a print come to life in the darkroom, wondering what it will be. She loves it. Photography doesn't have to be complex to be fun.

[Jim R]

The Mrs bought me a copy of Black Sun by Soren Solkaer. Amazing work and it came with a beautiful print of the starlings swarming a marsh waterway, similar to Fire Island inlet on LI where I used to talk photo walks in the Winter. I couldn’t be happier. I can’t figure out how to post a picture in-line on your site so I emailed it to you. Thanks for your wonderful writing.

[Not THAT Ross Cameron]

Wasn’t under the tree, but the following were bought over the Xmas & NYE period. Just waiting on the mail to deliver.
Managed to land a couple of Nikon speed lights for my SLRs - SB-20 for an FM2n and SB-30 for FM3a.
Also found a decent used 70-300mm in the newest AF-P designation, at a digestible price, for my D750. Should be a nice set with my CV 20/3.5 & 40/2.
I was also reading a book bought in the Black Fri etc sales, and it mentioned using Medium format lenses on FF via tilt shift adapters. I very nearly snapped up a Fotodiox Pentax 67 to Nikon F Tilt Shift adapter on sale. It sent me down the rabbit hole on Pentax lens reviews. I even contemplated a Pentax SMC 67 55-100mm f/4.5 as a zoom tilt shift lens. It only weighs 1.2kg, so I doubt the adapter count hold it - maybe with a tripod collar on the lens the adapter could hold the body :)
Walk away, walk away. I don’t need to start the year with a major GAS/NAS attack. Nor change tack on choosing gear based on being light & portable, to needing a Sherpa.

[Rob Campbell]

Good that you walked away, Ross.

Using a lens designed for a larger format does you no favours when used on a smaller format. I'm currently stuck with using my FF Nikkors on a cut-frame D200 because my FF body died. Using just a portion of the larger format lens to cover the smaller camera format means you are trying to get the same quality from just a portion of that lens's circle to make a final image of the same size as you'd have, ideally, made using the entire area of the larger format camera.

In other words, if you try to make an 8" x10" print using just a part of a given, larger format lens's coverage, you are hoping to compete with making an 8" x 10" print made from using that lens's entire available image area. Can't be done: you are increasing the required magnification request.