I’ve had a love hate relationship with hammocks for years. I love the simplicity of hammocks and being up off the ground. You feel a little bit more connected to your surroundings swinging gently in the air. But I’m a roller and just can’t get a good night sleep in the confines of a hammock. On my recent trip to Exmoor I knew the terrain would only support a hammock so I ordered the Lawson Blue Ridge in the hopes of finding a better night’s sleep. I found it and have upgraded the separator poles to lightweight carbon fibre…
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I had the rare opportunity to hang out with my teenage daughter the other day and we headed out to Hyde Park with the GoPro Gimbal…
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While most GoPro gimbals on the market are made for drone use, there are a number of hand held units. While researching I came across the Z1-Rider which separates the controller board from the motors and provides a cabled power/controller. This turned out to be perfect for my intended application which was to mount the GoPro at the end of a long boom pole – sort of a selfie-stick on steroids.
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I’ve been meaning to do a post about this for a while. Over the summer I picked up one of these gimbals for use with my 5D3. It’s a seriously fun bit of kit. I’ve longed for a decent camera stabiliser for some time and have had limited success with a couple of different manual (counter balanced) steadicams. The manual variety require a lot of patience to balance and a good amount of practice to master (something I’m a long ways off achieving)…
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In my review of the Optix auto focus confirmation chip, I mentioned how most modern cameras use focus screens optimised for auto focus lenses and therefore lack some of the focussing aids found in older film cameras such as split prisms. I also said I was content using the focus auto confirm with my manual lenses but I’ve been growing more and more frustrated lately when the auto confirm fails to sound…
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Probably the single biggest challenge using a manual focus lens on a modern DSLR camera is finding the sharpest focus point. The focus screen seen inside the viewfinder of modern cameras tends to be optimised for auto-focus lenses and therefore lacks some of the manual focus aids (like split prisms) found on camera bodies past…
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I took my new (ancient) Helios 44-2 out for a quick spin and have posted a video complete with obligatory Russian folk music…mute now if you don’t want the Tetris theme to be stuck in your head for the next 48 hours.
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I recently picked up a Soviet Helios 44-2 58mm made in 1977 in order to obtain a more vintage look for film and stills. Sloppily crafted by prisoners with designs taken from a Carl Zeiss factory after WW2, the optics of this lens are every bit as flawed as the ideology from which it was born. And therein lies its charm…an artistic …
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