« The Healthy Thing I'm Most Ashamed Of (OT) | Main | The Gym Teacher from the Past and the Hipster from the Future »

Friday, 03 February 2023

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Re: front element scratches. I once thought camera gear was delicate, to be handled with the utmost care, prone to breakage at a cross look. That the slightest deviation from pristine glass would destroy any possibility of getting a good image. Then two things happened.

I read a Lens Rentals article about taking apart a 70-200mm lens because there was a fly deep inside it. You've probably read that article. There was a fly inside the lens, and it mostly didn't affect image quality, and in fact they had a tough time getting a photo of the fly.

Then I saw both the images taken by a working pro photographer, and the gear he used. It looked like it had been through the wars. He stuffed lenses back in the bag with no lens caps. He put the camera in a puddle to capture reflections, took it out in the rain and snow. Then I got my own gear, and while I try to take care of it, $#@! happens. My main working camera was on a succession of salt water beaches for a month, day in and day out, and no problems. I don't think I've ever cleaned the sensor, and swab the front elements only if I remember and think I'll be shooting into the sun.

I am now amused by some photographers and their lenses. Taking them off camera, both lens caps on, into the lens bag, into the camera bag, next lens onto the camera and delicately dusting the front element with a dedicated camel hair brush, after cleaning their sensor before every session.

Re From LensRentals: "How Front Element Scratches Affect Your Images."

Of course they don't... but they sure as hell affect the ability to flog the stuff on eBay, or wherever

Check today’s New York Times. A good review of an Avedon show.

No, minor scratches don't matter? Quelle horreur! How will the camera stores continue to flog those multi-coated "protective" filters to "protect your valuable lens." They have pushed this scam for 50+ years. Of course, on the internet, you can always find some camera guy who will proclaim how he dropped his xyz DSLR onto concrete and only his protective filter protected the lens. Must happen millions of times per year......

About front element scratches…

Try doing interiors (ie focussed well short of infinity) with a 17mm stopped down to f11 and tell me you still think it doesn’t matter.

Kodak brushing lacquer would make really big deep scratches pretty much disappear as far as effecting the image.
Putting black paint on the lens as a repair probably would not fly today.

Remember when all the cool lenses had bubbles in them?

[I do! --Mike]

The article by Jaron Schneider "Nikon Is Doing Everything Right" is partly right. His claim that the Z9 blew the doors off the competition is laughable. The Z9 is a good camera and competitive with the opposition.
Using a Sony sensor, it got Nikon back into the game. That's about it.

Re Hugh's comment about bubbles. Several years ago I had the good fortune to be shown around Cooke's factory in Leicester, England. They make no compromise, hugely expensive lenses for cinemaphotography. They source the rough glass from Germany and Japan and none of the manufacturers would guarantee a blank without bubbles. Cooke said that bubbles didn't make any difference, but of course, the buyers wouldn't accept them. The problem was that you couldn't see them in the blanks. They had to make a polished lens first, and if it had a bubble they just threw it away.

The article from PetaPixel, unfortunately, gets it's first point about "the start of Nikons fall" rather wrong in my opinion. The Keymission 170 was, and still is, the best "action camera" I have ever used, especially in terms of user control's. The design was a masterwork in simplicity, two shutter buttons, one for video, one for stills, no changing modes or fiddling around underwater, it was incredibly easy to use. One could also argue that this was not a new area for Nikon, but the logical development of the Nikonos line.

Nikons mistake was in not having the confidence to develop this line further, as well as it's abandonment of the 1" DL series they also announced in 2016. An updated Coolpix A would also have been welcome!

I guess this just shows how people can have very different experiences with cameras, maybe they were just misunderstood!

Hi Mike,

Something to add to the photo news - this article in The Conversation.
“This year marks 50 years since Susan Sontag’s essay Photography was published in the New York Review of Books.”

https://theconversation.com/tourists-in-our-own-reality-susan-sontags-photography-at-50-197615

Oh man.... What a selection of great reads. Farewell to the next few hours! Nevertheless, thanks Mike for the great links.

The comments to this entry are closed.

Portals




Stats


Blog powered by Typepad
Member since 06/2007