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If you don’t want to shoot a weeding, just let everyone shoot themselves.
I’m getting to the age where everyone of my friends is getting married. So naturally I get asked if I could “do some shots” at the wedding. Even if I get paid, I hate shooting weddings to be honest. The concept of a photobooth is nothing new. But I wanted something that is easy to carry around and to set up. In addition to that I wanted that everyone, even your grandma, could operate it after setup. And it needed to be locked up, so I wouldn’t need to worry when I’m not around. Therefore I decided just to build a relatively small box: Introducing my Photobox.
I bought two basic wooden boxes and connected those with two metal hinges. Added a hinge for a lock and four legs. On the front I added a nice piece of wood with two cut outs for the lens and an iPad. Inside I mounted the camera with a little clamp construction. The camera is equipped with a Yongnuo R603 to remotely activate the shutter, an Elinchrom Skyport to remotely trigger the flash and two SD-Cards, one of them being an Eye-Fi card to transmit Jpegs to the Ipad. The Ipad is running the Eye-Fi app on iOs6 in Kiosk mode (this means you can only operate one app on the iPad, everything else is locked with a passcode).
The photobox will be set up on a table with the flash (most of the times an Elinchrom Ranger Quadra and an umbrella) on a stand next to it. Triggering the camera with the Yongnuo remote will take a picture and record it on one card and send a preview via Wifi to the iPad. The Eye-Fi is unfortunately not very fast, but it gets the job done for a small price and is relatively easy to set up. Operating an iPad feels quite natural to most people, so reviewing pictures on the mounted ipad will be easy for everyone.
My Photobox will have it’s first run in a couple of weeks on the first wedding.
I’ll be going to Indonesia in a couple of weeks, so it’s time for another “What’s in my bag” post.
Most of the stuff shown here is actually also part of my Every Day Carry pack (EDC). Let’s start from top left going left to right:
- Lowepro Card case with five SanDisk Extreme SDHC 16GB 45mb/s cards and a couple of “old” SanDisk Ultra 4GB cards
- Muji leather card case with my ID and a couple of cards that do not necessarily need to be inside my wallet
- Moleskin Reporterstyle Notebook
- couple of pens including a permanent marker for stickers and stuff
- small Muji netcase with extra batteries, lensshade and lenscap for my Fuji XE-1
- little small survival pack (in a sticky situation I probably would not have any idea how to use it though)
- eBay Noname flashlight (cheap but great LED flaashlight. Saving up for a Surefire or Fenix)
- Miltec Assault Pack (great value military style pack. Going to exchange it for a TAD Fast Litespeed pack in the future)
- a couple of business cards
- Jimi Wallet. Perfect slim frontpocket wallet. Protects my cards from getting bend and keeps everything organized.
- Leatherman Style CS Multitool. Nothing for the woods but in an urban environment the bottle opener, scissors and knife are essential.
- Keys
- OCZ ATV USB-Stick 4GB: This one is a great almost indestructible USB Stick. Not only does it write and read fast, but also you can actually wash it with your clothes or boil it in hot water if you like.
- Fuji XE-1 with 35mm. Check out the camera review here and the lens review here.
- iPhone wall charger
- Eneloop mobile booster. A small battery with two USB ports to fully charge an iPhone twice
- iPhone 5 cable
- headphone cable extension
- USB cable
- Firewire 800 to Firewire 400 adapter
- Firewire 400 to Firewire 800 adapter
- small screwdrivers
- Headphone splitter
- Flight headphone adapter. I hate using the inflight headphones.
- Kindle. Check out the review here.
- iPad 2 32GB. When I am working I’ll take my Macbook Pro instead. But for this trip I want to travel as light as possible.
- iPhone 5 32GB
- iPod Nano 16GB
- Urban Ears Platan headphones
Some things not on this photo:
- Nikon D7000 with 18-70mm and 35mm
- Rode VideoMic
- iPad Camera Connection Kit
- Lacie rugged Harddrive
So equipment wise that’s almost about it. This is what I will bring on my three week trip to Indonesia. I’ll probably wont use the Nikon that much. I’m on vacation and I just don’t want to bother with carrying too much of equipment.
So what’s in your bag? Especially for personal projects on vacation.
In preparation for my up coming trip to Indonesia I ordered two SanDisk Extreme SDHC 16GB Cards with 45mb/s, but what I received was not what I expected.
I wanted to order them from trusty Amazon. Unfortunately only Marketplace seller had the cards available (at least for an appealing price). Blinded by the Amazon appearance I ordered these two cards without realizing that they’d be sent from HongKong. After approximately a week I received my package with the two cards. Everything looked good from the outside, but after opening I realized something odd. All my other cards have SanDisk engraved on the back, moreover the case wasn’t translucent like my other cases. I found that quite odd, so I did an internet research on fake SanDisk SD Cards.
The new card is on the left.
The information on the net fueled my fear of having bought two fake cards. But they also explained how to check the read and write speeds to confirm if they are fake or not. Using the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test I checked the read and write speeds of the new cards, and surprisingly the cards had the promised 45mb/s specs. Another test was the H2testw (windows) or the F3 (Mac). These tests basically fill the card up with 1GB files and afterwards read and check the written files for corruption. On mac you have to do some Terminal command magic, so go over here for some detailed instructions. So in this test my cards could be filled up completely and all files were ok (if it would have been a fake card, you might only be able to fill up 1GB instead of 16GB or end up with a bunch of corrupted files).
All these test were more or less proving that the card is working alright, but I couldn’t shake of the feeling of having a fake card that might fail on me during my trip or even during a job. A working but fake card could have been build with cheap parts that might fail after a just a couple of times use (I’m not saying a SanDisk or other big brand card is fail-prove, but at least you have some assurance that they have some quality control).
So I emailed SanDisk for a conclusive confirmation on these cards. I send them pictures and the serialnumber of the cards, asking on information if some SanDisk cards do not have the engraved SanDisk logo and even use completely different card cases. Their answer was as followed:
“Thank you for contacting SanDisk Technical Support. It is our goal to make sure you have all the resources you need to get the most from your product.
We have reviewed your case and can inform you that your card is an original SanDisk product. The variation in the card case is due to manufacturing reasons.
Thank you for your kind cooperation and for your trust in SanDisk products.”
To be honest: This was unexpected, but very good news at least for me and for this case. I have purchased original and working SD-Cards. The bad news is, that it is probably really difficult knowing if you purchased an original or a fake SanDisk SD-card without actually doing the read and write tests. I guess the only way knowing for sure, is to buy of an authorized SanDisk reseller for a higher price.
Any of you had the same or a worse experience with fake cards? Maybe with a different brand? Moreover which card brand do you prefer and why?
This is a short hands on review for those who prefer reading hardcover books and are on the fence about buying a Kindle.
I love reading and I almost exclusively buy only hardcover books. I prefer the feel of a hardcover book over the flimsy softcover books. But hardcover books are a two sided sword. Being that solid and most of the time also bigger, they are of course heavier and wont fit a bag already filled with a bunch of work stuff. In my case I tend to leave the books at home and I read a lot less than I want to.
I already own an ipad, so of course the first thought was to read on the ipad via the kindle app or the ibooks app. But strangely reading an ebook on the iPad (opposite to reading websites or blogs on flipboard) seems to be more exhausting to my eyes. Although reading websites do not strain my eyes that much. I believe the straining to my eyes is due to the backlighting.
The lack of backlighting and it’s reputation for looking like paper, put an epaper reader on my radar. I guess I am an Amazon addict, so the Kindle with it’s more than appealing pricetag of 79€ was the most obvious choice. Sure you’re locked in the Amazon cosmos, but hey…I am an addict anyway. Click. Thank you for buying the kindle.
Unfortunately DHL “lost” my first Kindle order, but Amazon sent a replacement Kindle right away. After using it a couple of days I must say: I am not disappointed. The screen is comfortable to read. It is light and small to carry in my jacket’s pocket. I have no idea about battery life yet. But after about six hours constant use with Wifi activated it’s still on 90% charge on the first charge.
You have to remember that the 79€ Kindle is more or less a beginners e-reader or an introduction into the Kindle world. For that price the build quality is good but not perfect. Though it is light and comfortable to hold, the case does not feel completely solid and therefore makes some squeaky noises if you push it here or there. That is not a deal breaker in my opinion. The page advance buttons could be better. You need to push them from the top or slightly in an angle. But maybe this is intended so that you do not push that button accidentally.
The Kindle is a great addition to all my gadgets, but I won’t stop buying and reading hardcovers. One request for Amazon would be to give me an option to get kindle books cheaper or even for free with every printed book that I purchased at Amazon. That would make the kindle perfect.
It has been a couple of weeks now since I’ve been using the Fuji X-E1 with the 35mm f1.4. This camera is incredible (read some of my initial thoughts here), and so is the 35mm f1.4!
This lens is super sharp and produces some great colors. The all metal construction has a great build quality. It feels solid, but it is not too heavy. Autofocus is alright, but not comparable to a DSLR of course. The autofocus is crippled by the contrast detection. And since I haven’t had any other X-Mount lens to compare yet, I have no idea if a different lens (i.e. the new 18-55mm) is actually focusing faster. The manual focus is a focus by wire system. So manual focus is smooth, but quite “slow”. You turn it quite long to get from infinity to close focus (In MF you can use the AE-L / AF-L button to initiate AF and then do some manual focus adjustments though). The good thing is that you can actually decide in which direction you want to focus to infinity. In other words either a Nikon or a Canon user can feel right at home.
On my Nikon I own a couple of f1.8 fixed lenses. Those lenses are incredible and I always thought f1.8 is “good enough”, but having used this Fuji f1.4 lens I’m now having this WOW moment. The shallow depth of field is incredible. The high ISO capabilities of the X-E1 alone are incredible, but with f1.4 I almost can see in the dark (look here and here for more high iso examples).
The lens comes with a nice rectangle metal lenshood. I’m usually a huge advocate on using lenshoods. It protects the lens and it improves image quality. But one reason why I bought the Fuji X-E1 with the 35mm was the compact formfactor. With the hood attached I just think the overall size is a tad to long. Moreover the provided rubber cap for the lens hood looks nice but falls of quite easily.
The X-Series cameras are APS-C cameras. These cameras have a cropped sensor, so a 35mm sensor is actually 1,5 times bigger. Therefore the field of view of the 35mm will be 52,5mm – The so called nifty fifty. This is quite a useful field of view, and with the added macro abilities the Fuji 35mm f1.4 turns into a quite nice allrounder for a lot of things.
Before it is completely too late: Happy New Year!
I documented my rather laidback new year’s eve with the Fuji X-E1 without even realizing my high ISO setting. Except for one or two all shoots were made with ISO 3200. Together with the f1.4 I was almost able to see in the dark. In my opinion all files (especially when down resized for web) are all usable. For highresolution prints this might be argueable, but for my purposes and my intended grainy analog look this is more than usable. And don’t forget: This is a crop sensor and not a full frame camera, which makes the high ISO capabilities even more impressive.
Also check out my first hands on review here.
