what photography related item did you buy this week?

[Sleepy Capybara]

View attachment 834198
Here's the bottom of the bracket if it's of any help. I never really understood the Arca Swiss and Quick Release Plates systems, I dislike tripods and almost never use them.
Though I do miss the very long exposure, astrophotography and nighscapes but like most bad things in my life I can blame my job for them.

Thanks for the link, I might considere it buying at a later date, once I change my job and actually have a life to walk in the daylight like you non-vampire humies
I haven't done any landscape trips in years.

Finally it arrived today:

View attachment 833648
(DAMN IT, I think the website hates ALL mobile devices, the picture was made with the iPad and it still doesn’t display properly, anywho) Finally got an L-Bracket for E-M1 Mark III, just a cheap (-ish, it was 10 quid) off eBay from China.

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The reason why I bought it is to make the camera a few millimetres taller so my pinky actually sits on the grip. It’s so much more comfortable hold it, it just adds a big of extra grip and stability and I don’t even care about the L actually and just kept the I instead.

Also a few days ago I added a red ribbon to the left strap slug (first time in my life where I found a use for that thing), I got the ribbon from a friend and I named my camera after her: Karen (YES, I am that kind of “nutter” that gives names and personifies objects [YES, my loneliness and depression is that severe ])

This cheapo bracket just made my $200 RRS bracket obsolete? You didn’t have to do it

 

[Robstar1963]

My E-M5 arrived today.
It looks unused and it appears the only thing missing is the little piece of wire that holds the battery charging lead tidy.
Everything looks pristine and (although I've not checked yet) the shutter count is supposed to be 367.
That's more than being quoted in the other threads for brand new cameras.
Just gotta sort an SD card out now.
And did I mention the price?
A whopping £185 with 12 month warranty.
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Shock, horror.
Just realised there's no strap.

No doubt someone will now tell me the very, very best design.
Though I don't think I can afford the Peak Design one.
Suggestions welcome.

Great buy - well spotted still a great camera !

 

[John King]

My E-M5 arrived today.
It looks unused and it appears the only thing missing is the little piece of wire that holds the battery charging lead tidy.
Everything looks pristine and (although I've not checked yet) the shutter count is supposed to be 367.
That's more than being quoted in the other threads for brand new cameras.
Just gotta sort an SD card out now.
And did I mention the price?
A whopping £185 with 12 month warranty.
View attachment 834188 View attachment 834190


Shock, horror.
Just realised there's no strap.

No doubt someone will now tell me the very, very best design.
Though I don't think I can afford the Peak Design one.
Suggestions welcome.

Brilliant, Brian. Great buy.

The Sony sensor in that is better for noise (etc) than my E-M1 MkI, and I have no complaints about the shots I take with it!

Enjoy, mate .

 

[Mack]

Having brand new car getting hit by a large semi-truck, decided the car will get a couple of cameras.

IROAD X10 UHD 4K dual camera setup.

Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

 

[Macroramphosis]

Cleaning kit for my GX8 sensor. It was starting to look like the window of a sweet shop on pocket-money day. Works out that I will be able to do four cleans at home for the price of one in the nearest camera shop (bloody miles away - and it doesn't even have any m4/3 kit in it, sigh. But perhaps that is a good thing).

 

[John King]

Having brand new car getting hit by a large semi-truck, decided the car will get a couple of cameras.

IROAD X10 UHD 4K dual camera setup.

View attachment 834238

What a bugger, Mack!

 

[L0n3Gr3yW0lf]

Being Aluminium it should file down very easily.
Looks like you have some sort of skin on the camera, could that be adding extra thickness preventing the battery door fully opening?
Never seen anything like that, Just did a google looks like a "life guard" product. Looks very nice but hard to put on correctly. Can it be remove for servicing?

I haven't thought about the skin, it's not that thick, a couple of millimeters at most but you might be right about that. It should still be doable to grind down to help the door open up a bit more. Yus, the product is Life+Guard. I wrote an (I think) useful review on them (for E-M1 Mark III, and Oly 7-14 & 12-40) in the review section of the forum if you are interested. I gave reasoning why I chose to do so but it won't be applicable for others (as I've noticed the consensus around the internet for such products). The skin is very easy to put on because the pieces are quite well fragmented to make the process easy (there are some smaller/thinner sections but it's doable with a pair of tweezers). I haven't taken it off yet (I might give it a try next March for the benefit of sharing with the community here on how it goes, though it might be an expensive endeavor, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible.

This cheapo bracket just made my $200 RRS bracket obsolete? You didn’t have to do it

Oh dear, soooweeeee about that. But if you are a tripod lover (I might trademark that for my first porn movie ) your RRS bracket is a lot better then mine. My need was purely to give more room for my pinky (that will definitely bee the title of my 2nd porn movie :X )

Cleaning kit for my GX8 sensor. It was starting to look like the window of a sweet shop on pocket-money day. Works out that I will be able to do four cleans at home for the price of one in the nearest camera shop (bloody miles away - and it doesn't even have any m4/3 kit in it, sigh. But perhaps that is a good thing).

Cleaning kits are hard to find these days (in my opinion and experience) since the market is focusing on 35mm Full Frame and a tiny bit on APS-C size sensors. The horror stories that some places have about leaving streaks on the sensor makes me a bit apprehensive about some of them.
Anywho, I have noticed Panasonic's Dust Busters are not even close to being effective compared to Olympus's SSW, In about 3 years I haven't seen dust in my pictures of any of the Olympus cameras (I owned 3 of them so far) while with my Panasonic GX7 it because basically unusable after 2 years (and no amount of cleaning myself or professionally done seem to have worked) and I had similar issues with Panasonic G1 and G2. Maybe the newest models have improved on that.

 

[Sleepy Capybara]

Cleaning kit for my GX8 sensor. It was starting to look like the window of a sweet shop on pocket-money day. Works out that I will be able to do four cleans at home for the price of one in the nearest camera shop (bloody miles away - and it doesn't even have any m4/3 kit in it, sigh. But perhaps that is a good thing).

Those sensor clean-ups are rather expensive!

I use this:https://www.amazon.com/VSGO-Mirrorless-Panasonic-Olympus-DDR-12/dp/B07HCM1XBR

for 1 time cleaning, I had to use 2 swabs but still worth it. It must be noted that that it wasn’t my Olympus EM1.2 that I have used everywhere but the GM1 that had dust specs which hardly ever saw any shooting in anything but perfect conditions. I don’t even remember changing lenses on that body out in the open because I would mostly use it as p&s camera with DJI 15mm attached to it.

 

[L0n3Gr3yW0lf]

Those sensor clean-ups are rather expensive!

I use this:https://www.amazon.com/VSGO-Mirrorless-Panasonic-Olympus-DDR-12/dp/B07HCM1XBR

for 1 time cleaning, I had to use 2 swabs but still worth it. It must be noted that that it wasn’t my Olympus EM1.2 that I have used everywhere but the GM1 that had dust specs which hardly ever saw any shooting in anything but perfect conditions. I don’t even remember changing lenses on that body out in the open because I would mostly use it as p&s camera with DJI 15mm attached to it.

What seems to be confusing these days is the fact that mirrorless design for lenses have moved away from circular/ring motors to linear ones, meaning the optical assembly moves only forwards and backwards. Be it prime or zoom lens linear motor has a pumping action inside the lens and it doesn't matter if its internal zooming or internal focusing air moves inside the lens and the camera body even if you don't change the lens. The smaller lens or the faster the AF motor the more air it moves, that's why (according to Lens Rentals, I can look up the specific blog post if people wish for that) even primes gather dust in their optical assembly (some primes even more then zoom lenses because zoom lenses have more dust absorption prevention design then prime lenses (they circulate air in and out of the lens).

 

[John King]

What seems to be confusing these days is the fact that mirrorless design for lenses have moved away from circular/ring motors to linear ones, meaning the optical assembly moves only forwards and backwards. Be it prime or zoom lens linear motor has a pumping action inside the lens and it doesn't matter if its internal zooming or internal focusing air moves inside the lens and the camera body even if you don't change the lens. The smaller lens or the faster the AF motor the more air it moves, that's why (according to Lens Rentals, I can look up the specific blog post if people wish for that) even primes gather dust in their optical assembly (some primes even more then zoom lenses because zoom lenses have more dust absorption prevention design then prime lenses (they circulate air in and out of the lens).

Ovidiu, that's why Olympus weather / dust sealed lenses have so many different methods for excluding dust and moisture particles.

 

[L0n3Gr3yW0lf]

Ovidiu, that's why Olympus weather / dust sealed lenses have so many different methods for excluding dust and moisture particles.

Yes but dust particles are smaller than even the smallest water drops (they can go down to 1 micron, while typical rain droplets that you most commonly would encounter is from 500 microns upwards). The weather sealing is effective against water ingress but can't fight dust forever. The lens that @Sleepy Capybara mentioned is a DJI/Panasonic/Leica design so it's not as well sealed.
Micro Four Thirds would be more affected by debris between the front lens and the sensor because of the increase Depth of Field compare to 35mm Full Frame (I used to see dust in the images even at f 2.8 on my old Panny GX7, RIP beloved camera). At largest native aperture we are talking about f 2.4 Depth of Field while on Pro zooms it's f 5.6 and on consumer lenses, it's f 7 to f 12 on average, particles would be more noticeable than average but it depends on how big the particles are and the type of lens it is:
https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2011/08/the-apocalypse-of-lens-dust/

 

[John King]

Thanks for that link, Ovidiu.

Here are a couple of further links:

https://petapixel.com/2020/03/13/in-depth-breakdown-shows-how-to-properly-weather-seal-a-camera/

https://www.imaging-resource.com/ne...ather-seal-a-camera-olympus-behind-the-scenes

 

[John King]

Thanks for that link, Ovidiu.

Here are a couple of further links:

https://petapixel.com/2020/03/13/in-depth-breakdown-shows-how-to-properly-weather-seal-a-camera/

https://www.imaging-resource.com/ne...ather-seal-a-camera-olympus-behind-the-scenes

Here is a further link to Imaging Resources testing methodology.

https://www.imaging-resource.com/ne...-testing-cameras-ir-weather-testing-version-1

If one scrolls down the second link in my quoted post, one will find graphics showing the weather sealing in an E-M1 MkII and 12-50 macro, among others. These are amazing. Could be part of the reason that I've never had any dust on my sensors, starting from my 2003 E-1, or in any of my w/d sealed lenses.

 

[L0n3Gr3yW0lf]

Thanks for that link, Ovidiu.

Here are a couple of further links:

https://petapixel.com/2020/03/13/in-depth-breakdown-shows-how-to-properly-weather-seal-a-camera/

https://www.imaging-resource.com/ne...ather-seal-a-camera-olympus-behind-the-scenes

Here is a further link to Imaging Resources testing methodology.

https://www.imaging-resource.com/ne...-testing-cameras-ir-weather-testing-version-1

If one scrolls down the second link in my quoted post, one will find graphics showing the weather sealing in an E-M1 MkII and 12-50 macro, among others. These are amazing. Could be part of the reason that I've never had any dust on my sensors, starting from my 2003 E-1, or in any of my w/d sealed lenses.

Thank you for the links, half of those has been mandatory literature for me when I researched and switched to Olympus 3 years ago. Its also the reason why I have complete confidence in their weather sealing. I didn't knew how effective their SSW system was for sensor dust cleaning but I admit my sample size of experience has been only Pentax K200D, Panasonic G1, G2 and GX7 previously.

 

[John King]

I don't know that any other manufacturer has ever equalled the Olympus SSWF for sensor cleaning. I have never had to clean any of my 5 sensors.

However, my E-M1 MkI came with pre-installed crap on its sensor, but this was cleaned under warranty when the rear wheel problem was repaired and the strap lugs were checked.

 

[Macroramphosis]

Golly - by the sounds of it I think I shall superglue my 30mm to the GX8 and use it as a P&S

 

[Panolyman]

Got to your local camera shop and ask to root around in their camera strap bin. A lot of camera shops have one somewhere that they toss new straps into when they upgrade their customers to whatever the most profitable strap is that they sell.

That sounds a great idea........
if only I had a local camera shop!
The nearest one is in a town I've only been to once in the last 15 years and it's 40 miles away.
Thankfully, this thing called t'internet allows me to splash my hard-earned pension without moving too many muscles.
Good call though Carbonman.

 

[L0n3Gr3yW0lf]

That sounds a great idea........
if only I had a local camera shop!
The nearest one is in a town I've only been to once in the last 15 years and it's 40 miles away.
Thankfully, this thing called t'internet allows me to splash my hard-earned pension without moving too many muscles.
Good call though Carbonman.

Amazon has quite easy returns if you want to try without to much commitment.

 

[RichardC]

M.Zuiko Digital 75-300 mm 1:4.8-6.7 II for less than 250GBP on Amazon UK. Couldn't resist. Time to find new home for my silver O40-150R

It's now back up to £429

 

[Panolyman]

It's now back up to £429

This should be in the thread
'what photography related item did you NOT buy this week'