Comments (0) Lets see… where shall I go this saturday? Yahoo weather says
thunderstorms in the afternoon. Some sunlight. OK. Mind made up. Will be
at the Shanghai south long distance bus station early Sat morning to
catch a bus to Ningbo. Report to come later.
Ok, going to go around shanghai today by foot. Bringing a jack bauer-ish nikon tote bag, filled with my usual Ricoh GRD kit and Nikon D2H and the 40mm Voigtlander as default, and 25-50 and 50-135 AIS lenses as backup. An SB800 sits in the bag just in case. To handle the weight, the shoulder strap from my large Lowepro bag is grafted onto the tote.
9:49 am: It will be 11 mins to the opening time, and the queue at the xiao loong bao (little dumplings Shanghai is famous for) is starting to form. Crazy fellas. I am at the most tourist infested place in Shanghai, YuYuan gardens. Made it here after 2 hours going thru the old city, which unfortunately, looks like its going to be gone in matter of months and replaced with yet another monster office building or mall. Guess I’ll get a dozen dumplings for lunch today. Got slinged on my next the GRD with the 21mm lens attached and set on b&w mode with med contrast. D2H is in the bag, sunlight too strong this morning, with hi dynamic range so not good for shooting digital.
I don’t know a lot of people using Sony’s rebadged Konica-Minolta DSLR, in fact I don’t anyone at all using that line, but one thing is for sure… Here in Shanghai, the number of shop with the large orange display for the Alpha is just staggering. Any photo shop you go into, you are bound to see it, ranks after Nikon and Canon for visibility. But still, I don’t see a lot of users out there.
Found some proxy site from http://www.anonymousinet.com/ that allowed me to configure my browser to access websites (like mine) that’s blocked by the Chinese over-zealous proxy server. I can access my site, but I’m not sure if its fast enough for me to upload huge files. Anyway, there’s a need to try all the transparent proxy on the list, and one of them should work. I guess the server list will be updated frequently, so for sure this site will be bookmarked.
Just for the fun of it, I did a test of my 3 prime lenses, shooting some
old buildings out my apartment window on a clear day in Shanghai. The 3
suspects are:
Nothing too scientific. A D2H mounts those lenses, and bolted down to a
Kirk BH3 ballhead and a Manfrotto aluminium tripod and triggered via
cabled release. All major aperture stops are tested. Half stops on the
Voigtlander are avoided as far as possible since they are not registered
on the EXIF. File format is RAW of course.
Nikkor 35mm f1.4:
f1.4 has the hazy look to it. Worse off when the subject is in the
distance, and a little less so nearer. But image is soft, and probably
only useful when you REALLY need to use f1.4. Definitely not something I
want to use when I can avoid.
f2.0, the hazy look starts the clear up, and photo starts to get
sharper, both for corner and center of image. Sharpness improves as you
move to f2.8.
f4.0, peak sharpness for center seems to start from here and remains up
to f11.
f5.6, peak sharpness for corner for my sample seems to be at f5.6 onwards.
f16, sharpness starts to deteriorate compared to f11, both at center and
corner.
Voigtlander 40mm f2 Ultron:
Nothing much to report here, all apertures seems to return same
sharpness, but f2.8 seems to be a little sharper than f2.0 but that’s
very very minor. Could even be of vibration from wind. Sharpness from
center to edge is excellent. At f2 and 2.8 it seems to beat the 35mm
f1.4, but at f4 nothing can touch the 35mm Nikkor, which seems to be in
a class of its own. However contrast from this lens seems to be slightly
better than the Nikkor. Could be because of the intermittent cloud
cover, but I’ll trust my eyes on this one.
Nikkor 105mm f2.5 AIS:
f2.5: Sharpness in centre is quite good. Wanted to say the same amount
of detail as the Ultron, but its not comparable due to very differing
magnification. Still, very usable wide open.
f2.8: A little improvement in the level of detail in the photo. Like
going from very good to excellent.
f4.0: Looks like the peak sharpness and level of detail in the photo at
this aperture. Sharpness looks maintained up to f11.
f16: Reduction in sharpness due to refraction can be seen at this
aperture. Reduction continues to f22, which is a little worse off than
f2.5. Somehow the corner and center seems to perform equally for this
lens, unlike the 35mm.
Had the chance to test out this lens as my primary lens during an outing yesterday to Hangzhou. It fits nicely on a D2H, and like the look where the camera body is much bigger than the lens that’s mounted on it. The 40mm is about a cm shorter than the popular Nikkor 50mm f1.8 AFD. But feels a lot heavier since its made fully of metal, reminding me of the AIS lenses of yesteryears. The clicks on the aperture ring is tight and assuring. You get half-stops in lower aperture stops (didn’t notice others since I was using >f8 the whole day). Focus ring is nicely dampened, feels just like a good condition AIS lens. If you look into the lens there’s a 9 blade aperture, which I’ve not seen for some time.
The result coming off the lens is quite good, once I sort out the misfocused photos (manual lenses!! Arrghh!), which forms quite a few of my total shots. Usually I will use the focus indicator on the D2H, but sometimes when I need to take it quick, I use the eye, and this is where most of the problem is. The shots are reasonably sharp, doesn’t look as sharp as my 70-180mm micro lens which I brought with me as well. There were some shots that was very nice looking, and others were purely misfocused.
So as a conclusion, I think handling wise, I dont think there is another lens that’s better than it. At least nothing I’ve used yet so far. Image quality wise, it is definitely capable of a good picture. The aspherical glass in the lens keeps distortion to a minimum. What I need to do soon is to perform some test on the performance on all aperture stops to find the optimum stop. Will need to check the bokeh blur effects as well. Heard from some websites that the bokeh is harsh, whatever that means, because of the aspherical lens. I agree its not as smooth as other lenses I’ve seen, but I think its still not too bad. The 9 aperture blade should allow for nice rounded blurs.
I did a day trip today to the city of Hangzhou to the south of Shanghai. Primary aim is to roam around the famous west lake of Hangzhou. And planning the trip took visits to Wikipedia, Travelpedia and finally a check on Google Earth to make sure I know what the whole place looks like before going there. The plan was to get to Hangzhou main Train Station (there’s a second station to the east) and then take a 1km walk to the lake front and do a clockwise tour of the lake. On the map, I estimated about 7km distance around the lake, and I should have about 5-6 hours to do it.
The most important thing about going for a day raid is to be well equipped. I wanted to take this trip for photographing the lake and the ecosystem around it, so I brought along my Lowepro Orion camera backpack for this trip. Two camera would be ideal here, so I packed the Ricoh GR Digital with 21mm adapter for closeup street shots, and the D2H with a 20mm f2.8 AFD, Voigtlander 40mm f2 SL, 105mm f2.5 AIS and for macro work, 70-180mm f4.5-5.6 AFD. For safe measures an SB800 was packed as well, as I knew I would be spending most of the time shooting in harsh noon sunlight. For the survival kit, I had my Garmin Vista GPS with fresh batteries, my Sony Clie made it along for blogging but Graffiti 2 just pisses me off again, a mobile phone in case I get lost, loads of mineral water stashed to the side pocket of the Lowepro. The pack was quite heavy, but everything I need (and I’m sure more than what I need) was in there.
Continue reading 'Travels: Hangzhou Daytrip August 2007'»
Interesting day today. I actually see clouds and blue skies over Shanghai! =
Usually its covered in a cloud of strange air, strange because its either =
pollution or a geographically specific phenom, but usually grey and misty =
coloured and difficult to breathe in. Today its actually a fine day by any =
standards!
Shot this tonight at Xintiandi. The original uncropped picture has a lot
more coverage than the one below. Shot at ISO800, B&W mode to maximise
the grain like luminance noise, f2.4 and at the most 1/20s. Focus is
preset at infinity in order to be able to shoot stealthily like a
rangefinder. An optical viewfinder on this thing would be ideal!
Some months back the famed huang loong bai huo camera place near the main railway station was closed for renovation. its still in the same location, with some new granite floors and what looks like a new layout, and larger looking shops. The first floor is still littered with counters selling tidbits and nothing of interest. Not sure of the point of it all.
Camera gears still start from the second floor onwards.
2nd & 3rd floor now has run of mill shops selling standard photo crap from major marques. There are a couple of medium and large format shops, but surprisingly only 1 used photo equipment shop.
4th floor sells only wedding dresses and make up kits. 5th floor nothing yet, all empty.
Overall impression was lukewarm. This place starts to look like a typical photo shop carrying the major brands, thus not too exciting. No voigtlander, no cosina. Unless they start stocking the 5th floor with used equipment shops, I’ll stick to the store at xietu lu/luban lu.
Ok, managed to get a SU800 here in Tokyo, so my flash system is now up to 1 SU800, 2 SB800s and an R1 system. Hmm… plenty of fire power, not just have to get it to work properly. Too bad this week in Tokyo I only have the SU800, so no time to test out everything.
Spent this Japanese weekend going to Hakone to look for Mount Fuji. The last trip was raining when we went to Kamakura, so no Mount Fuji. The last weekend, it was foggy the whole day in the mountains so we didn’t see Mount Fuji again!
But what I got this time as a discreet shooter was a Ricoh GR Digital. Heard about this little camera for sometime already, and there’s a niche market here in Japan for that kind of camera. Went over to MAP camera at Shinjuku and saw at least 10 samples for sale in the second hand shop. Got one nice quality one (realised later that the mode selector is a little finicky between A and M mode, but its a small problem). Accessories for this GR is just expensive as hell. There’s an optical viewfinder that goes for 150USD! Does nothing other than letting you shoot without using the LCD viewfinder.
Compared the GR to the new GX100, but eventually went for the GR even if its just 28mm fixed lens without a zoom. The GR just feels better with the twin dial control like on DSLRs. THe GX100 has 2 as well, but the horizontal scroll wheel is more like a rocker dial rather than a full spinning dial. Anyway, beginning to love the GR in B&W mode and high ISO… reminds me of film and a little of Kodak 400TX. Will be testing this little camera to see what its capable of. Great when I dont have the chance to whip out the D2H.
I hate graffiti 2 that comes with the new Palm OS machines. After using Graffiti 1 for the last 7 years, and now having to use 2 strokes for some characters, plus some problems entering t’s and o’s I decided to bite the bullet and replace it back with Graffiti 1 using utilities I have found online. Unfortunately on my Japanese Clie TH55, it crashed the thing and I can’t restart it anymore until I do a hard reset!!
Panorama theme by Themocracy
