what photography related item did you buy this week?

[John King]

JJC hood for my “new” 75-300mmii. Worried it might be a tight fit, but it’s just fine. Happy days!

Mine was a bit tight, Rob. Actually did not quite fit. A little careful work with an Olfa knife fixed it up fine. Couple of alignment marks with liquid paper and it works like a charm. Other lens hoods I've bought from JJC were all perfect out of the box.

 

[Diamondback]

Purchased an IR conversion for my now rarely used E-M1.1 from Life Pixel. Opted for the standard 720 IR filter. Eagerly awaiting its return so I can try out this new to me genre of photography.

 

[ektar]

You’re going to dig it. Invest in an Expodisc. Believe it or not, WB matters for B&W IR photography.

 

[Egregius V]

G.A.S. attack! E-M1 III, extra battery, and remote release cable coming my way! I responded to a can't-say-no offer at an event promoted by Olympus and Panasonic. The retailer is local to me (Hunt's), so this will probably get worse.

 

[Michael Meissner]

G.A.S. attack! E-M1 III, extra battery, and remote release cable coming my way! I responded to a can't-say-no offer at an event promoted by Olympus and Panasonic. The retailer is local to me (Hunt's), so this will probably get worse.

Hunts is one of the top Olympus sellers in the nation. I bought several of my cameras there, including the E-m5 mark III last February. They also have what appear to be interesting photo walks from time to time (at least they did, pre-covid). Unfortunately due to various circumstances, I've not done any except an eagle festival last February.

Very occasionally, they will have used Olympus or Panasonic lenses also.

But I try not to indulge in new cameras until I've paid off the previous new shiny (I have a few months to go to pay off the E-m5 mark III and 12-200mm)

 

[Mack]

Been trying to get organized better for shooting sessions as my yellow legal pads are a mess to understand a week later. Too many notes to dig through.

So I made up a style sheet. Went to Office Depot and found a neat $22 carrier that can hold them for referral or to make up a new one. Has a calculator on it too for things like Guide Number calculations.

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[Mack]

From the above style sheet using a couple of Adorama Flashpoint (i.e. Godox AD-600 TTL Pro) flashes for the new bird studio in back yard, I found the birds were hesitant to get near the things. Decided to try and wrap them with a fabric skin as camouflage. Woman at fabric store said the design was called "Snake Skin" so maybe it wasn't the best choice, but they are less afraid of it than the big black reflectors. Time will tell...

Aside, I did find the HSS mode of 1/320 sec. does not resonate as large a "Boom" when in HSS mode that scares them off. It's more of a "Click" in HSS given less powerful flash but a longer flash duration.

Uncovered and a camouflaged reflector cover below. A 60 degree grid came with the Phottix reflector which keeps the light off the background and renders it deeper/darker in color. Need to find a better cover suited to the birds.

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[BosseBe]

Since I got DxO PL4 and realised the the new DeepPRIME NR takes a long time on my present PC, I have been researching a new one.
Since this is Black Friday week some good prices could be found.

New PC workstation ordered in parts:

Chassie	Fractal Design Define R7	$150​
PSU	Corsair RM750X 750W v2 Gold	$162​
CPU Cooler	Noctua NH-D15	$109​
MB	MSI X570 MAG TOMAHAWK WIFI	$279​
M2 disk	WD Black SN850 Gen 4 SSD 1TB	$290​
Graphics	MSI Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB Mech OC	$278​
RAM	Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 32GB (2x16GB)	$170​
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3,6MHz 36MB	$348​
Cost	Total	$1785​

I hope it will be a lot faster!

 

[camit34]

Purchased a Panny 100-400 and a 8-18 from a member of the board. Pretty stoked for these to arrive!

 

[Diamondback]

You’re going to dig it. Invest in an Expodisc. Believe it or not, WB matters for B&W IR photography.

Thanks Don. I will check it out.

 

[Michael Meissner]

i just purchased a 2 pairs of glasses to replace 2 of my 3 current glasses from Zenni Optical. I bought bi-focals for distance and reading, one photochromic (i.e. change from light to dark) and the other polarized. Since I have to wear masks due to Covid, I've been really bothered by my glasses fogging up. While I primarily am getting the new glasses for normal life, I did have several times this fall where my glasses fogging up dampened my photography. In fact, I found myself having to take off the glasses to shoot. I did not replace my 3rd pair (computer and reading), since I don't wear that pair of glasses with the mask.

At the moment, Zenni has a 25% off sale on their glasses through November 29th, and they just started offering an anti-fog coating. According to their help email, you have to use a special cloth (included with the purchase) to refresh the anti-fog coating weekly, and over time, the coating on the glasses becomes less effective, but it should last at least a year. I hope it is more effective than the current so-called solutions of sprays, wipes, etc. which don't work for me. Note, the anti-fog coating doesn't work with some of the other tints and coatings they offer (mirror tints, and coatings to make fingerprints easier to clean off).

I would imagine over time more of the glasses companies will be offering an anti-fog coating, but right now, only zenni and sport-rx seem to be offering it for online sales.

 

[Brodhall]

Just waiting on a second G9 camera house and flash. Probably greedy but it will be nice not to have to swap lenses for different scenarios during shooting

 

[Tapper]

Olympus OMD EM1 III, should be here in 2 days.

I was really hesitant to spend the money, but I sold my Fuji X100F that I wasn't using much last week, which covers half the cost so I did some retail therapy. Will be my upgrade from an EM5 II which I have owned for nearly 6 years, but I will be keeping the EM5 II as a backup.

 

[jimr.pdx]

Just flipped my system. ?
A few months back I decided to go with two bodies, 1big w/splash seals & 1small anywhere cam, and 1 each Lumi & Oly for their unique features. After checking prices and styles I chose GX8/ePL8. The eM1.ii and 5.iii were getting my attention but not my wallet at that time - but used eM1.ii prices have dropped quite a bit since then, and the GX8 isn't bonding with me as I had hoped.

Plan 'B' will arrive soon: eM1.ii and GX7.ii incoming, and off go the other two to (mostly) pay for them. Phase ii of my ii-body team commences! ?

This should also keep dreams of Nikon or Lumix ? bodies at bay!

 

[Brodhall]

Just flipped my system. ?
A few months back I decided to go with two bodies, 1big w/splash seals & 1small anywhere cam, and 1 each Lumi & Oly for their unique features. After checking prices and styles I chose GX8/ePL8. The eM1.ii and 5.iii were getting my attention but not my wallet at that time - but used eM1.ii prices have dropped quite a bit since then, and the GX8 isn't bonding with me as I had hoped.

Plan 'B' will arrive soon: eM1.ii and GX7.ii incoming, and off go the other two to (mostly) pay for them. Phase ii of my ii-body team commences! ?

This should also keep dreams of Nikon or Lumix ? bodies at bay!

Why have one when you can two or more :-D

 

[Bob in Pittsburgh]

I bought a two-year extended warranty for the reconditioned OM-D E-M5 Mk iii I bought in late August.

I am not sure an extended warranty is a cure for a GAS attack.

 

[Egregius V]

Since this is Black Friday week some good prices could be found.

Ugh, you had to say that, Bo? Alas, my computer's showing its age in a bad way! It's fast enough for most things, including PL4, but has become an annoying time sink. I've been troubleshooting problems for a while now, afraid that the time has come to do what you're doing. It's possible I finally fixed it last night - but I guess I could build a new one anyway if stuff's on sale. Come to think of it, I'd better hurry before others beat me to it. I'll just stop by Micro Center on the way to Hunt's on Wednesday...

 

[phigmov]

Nikon 60mm f2.8 Micro-Nikkor - pretty good nick but there is a little smudging on the rear glass. It doesn't look like fungus but I'll have to take a few pics for a second opinion.

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_0008401 by Walter Kernow, on Flickr

 

[Erich_H]

Ha!

Just won a Minolta Dynax SP xi with the 35-80 mm Power Zoom. And in the lot was some filters and 3 SanDisk CF-cards (??) with plastic boxes. The two ones visible were 1GB and 2GB. For US 16 inc. shipping.

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While chatting on MU-43. It's not my fault that no one outbid me. I wasn't even looking. I'm trying to stop! Honest.

 

[Erich_H]

As I just finished watching the 10th season of The Walking Dead (have to admit, every season has been downloaded from, ahem, shall we say, less reputable sources, because I can't watch them in Ultima Thule without the subtitles. The subtitles are hard coded on my service. Won't renew the service. As I got first year free, I'm not losing too much, anyway. Zilch, actually), I've checked for the Blu-ray discs at Black Friday prices today.

And I found S01 to S09 (Season 7 as Limited Steelbook) for US 110:98 at today's rate.

My finger is hovering over the Buy-button....
OK. What the heck. Just pushed that button.
Delivery in 3-5 days.

I can take pictures of the bunch of discs. And if I didn't buy those, I'd just buy cameras for the dosh. Hope that's photo related enough to not be too much off topic for y'all!