Terrible...

I am terrible at updating this space. Despite advice from Andrew at Acts of Minor Treason (which he follows brilliantly)

Now, I like to post photographic-related stuff here, and having none to report... other than having picked up a Rokkor 58 1.4 and SMC Takumar 150/4 for myself (both are awesome btw, I feel that I should at least share SOMETHING.

Here goes...

HENRY'S SPRING 2010 PHOTO SHOW

Dates and Times

The 2010 Photographic, Video & Digital Imaging Show opens on Friday, May 14th, 2010 and runs until Sunday, May 16th, 2010 at the International Centre in Mississauga. For directions click here.
Hours

Friday, May 14: 10am - 7pm
Saturday, May 15: 10am - 7pm
Sunday, May 16: 11am - 5pm

We look forward to seeing you there!

Tickets

Tickets for admission to the 2010 Spring Photographic, Video & Digital Imaging Show can be purchased at the door at the time of entry.

Admission prices are as follows:

Adults: $15.00
Children under 12: Free!

One time admission is valid for entry to the Show all weekend!
Bring your camera along for the fun!

Please note you will be asked to register your equipment before entering the Show.

This first part makes me laugh.
By TTC? really?

Small Tip: take a cab.
I've had to make the trip to the airport area before by Transit and it's NOT fun. Actually, I'll be blunt and say it flat-out. IT SUCKS.

Travel Directions
By Public Transit

Copies of the TTC, GO Train and Mississauga Transit schedules can be found in the Information Display Case located in the Hall 1 Main Lobby, next to the Security Desk. For additional information, please click on the above links or visit the Directions & Parking section of this website.

Directions by Car

Travelling East on Highway 401

* Take Hwy. 401 or QEW to Hwy. 427 North.
* Follow Hwy. 427 North and exit at Dixon Road.
* Turn left at the traffic lights at Dixon Road.
* Follow Dixon Road (which becomes Airport Road) for approximately 4 kilometres.
* The International Centre will be located on your right.

Highway 407

* Take Hwy. 407 and exit at Airport Road.
* Turn south at the traffic lights at Airport Road.
* Follow Airport Road for approximately 5 kilometres.
* The International Centre will be located on your left.

Parking Lot

All main entrances have a designated number of signed parking spaces in close proximity to the entrance area(s). Ramp curb cuts are available at all main entrances for your convenience.
Entrances with Wheelchair Accessibility

All main entrances are equipped with power-operated doors. All lobby entrances have either a flat surface and/or a wheelchair ramp for your convenience.

Having given this information, i am now going to go into bloghiding once again. See you in... another month and a half.

Thanks for reading!

editor's note: should i post sooner than that, then... i was lying the whole time. :P
Seriously, I need to write more. Maybe I should make a habbit of encorporating photo-walks into journal entries. Hmmm...

Cross-Platform... Adapting to old lenses...

In the digital age, one cannot resist the ability to do more with their camera. I know I can't.

Having said that, there are many individuals out there that have taken to adapting or using adapters for their own lenses. In some rare cases, the camera's have been adapted to take older lenses. The advantage of adapting is that you are able to re-purpose your old film lenses. The disadvantage is, not all lenses are adaptable - but there's two sides to that unfortunate coin.

One is that, the register distance is quite different. The other is, the image circle is different.

Now, there are some cases, where a smaller lens can be adapted to a larger mount, but the results aren't always inspiring. This is the rarer of the two cases unfortunately. The more common problem in cross-platforming is the register issue.

Now, many mechanical adapters are out there, ready to allow you to mount Lens A to Camera B. For the most part, the more successful cross-platform matings belong to Canon, Nikon, Leica, Olympus and Pentax. I don't really know much about the other brands, but from what I understand, Nikon's and Olympus's are generally the other favourites. Leica cameras are often hideously expensive, so anyone wanting to adapt something to that kind of camera, most likely has the money to do so. :P

As for Canon... Canon has a register distance of 44mm, which is pretty short by modern standards, however, it is still longer than older standards. This means that, if you want to mount an older lens on a Canon, you're going to lose infinity focus. Alternatively, if you use a lens that's native to a longer register, you end up winning in infinity focus, but probably lose in minimum focus. No one really talks about that, so I'm only speculating on that. (stands to reason, right?)

Additionally to the shorter register, is the fact/possibility that older lenses will extend into the body, thus introducing the possibility of damaging your mirror.
There are examples of adapters for those kinds of lenses that maintain infinity focus and prevent mirror damage, but there is a cost... Image Quality. These kinds of adapters introduce (diopter) glass that acts as a weak teleconverter. In quite a few cases, I've read that 2/3rds of a stop are lost - sometimes more. No matter how good that lens is, losing that much is generally considered not worth the investment. Plus, the quality of said glass may be poor, so it ends up being money flushed down the toilet.

Bob Atkins created a nice little table with the different types of lenses out there that can and cannot be adapted to EOS mount. However, I felt that it fell short given the wide range of available lenses out there. (please note: i didn't say a wide range of awesome lenses)

CANON EOS	44.0mm	CAMERA WE'RE MOUNTING THESE LENSES TO
BODY	REGISTER	NOTE		BODY	REGISTER	NOTE
CONTAREX	46.0mm	ADAPTABLE		CANON SCREW (M39)	28.8mm	NAWM
LEICA R	47.0mm	ADAPTABLE		CANON FD	42.0mm	NAWM
NIKON	46.5mm	ADAPTABLE		FUJICA X	43.5mm	NAWM
OLYMPUS OM	45.5mm	ADAPTABLE		KONICA F	40.5mm	NAWM
PENTAX K	45.5mm	ADAPTABLE		MINOLTA MD	43.5mm	NAWM
PENTAX M42	45.5mm	ADAPTABLE		MINOLTA SR	43.5mm	NAWM
YASHICA YUS/DSB	45.5mm	ADAPTABLE		MIRANDA	41.5mm	NAWM
CONTAX/YASHICA	45.5mm	ADAPTABLE		KONICA HEXAR	28.0mm	UNKNOWN
CONTAX RTS	45.5mm	ADAPTABLE		LEICA SCREW (M39)	28.8mm	NAWM
PRAKTICA / HANIMEX	44.4mm	ADAPTABLE		OLYMPUS PEN F	28.95mm	NAWM
K-mount	45.46mm	ADAPTABLE		HASSELBLAD XPAN	34.3mm	UNKNOWN
M42 Screw	45.46mm	ADAPTABLE		CONTAX RF	34.85mm	UNKNOWN
Olympus OM	46.0mm	ADAPTABLE		NIKON RF	34.85mm	UNKNOWN
Arriflex	52.0mm	ADAPTABLE		CANON R/FL/FD	42.0mm	UNKNOWN
Mamiya 645	63.3mm	ADAPTABLE		PAXETTE	44.0mm	UNKNOWN
Pentax 645	70.8mm	ADAPTABLE		SONY ALPHA	44.6mm	PA
Kiev 60/Kiev Six	74.1mm	ADAPTABLE		Nikon F	46.5mm	ADAPTABLE
Hasselblad/Kiev88	82.1mm	ADAPTABLE		Contax N	48.0mm	UNKNOWN
T2 MOUNT	55.0mm	ADAPTABLE		Mamiya RZ	105mm	UNKNOWN
RICOH BAYONET	45.5mm	ADAPTABLE		Mamiya RB	112mm	UNKNOWN
PETRI BAYONET	45.5mm	ADAPTABLE
Legend:	NAWM	NEEDS ADAPTER WITH MULTIPLIER
	PA	POSSIBLY ADAPTABLE

Please note: the availability of adapters isn't exactly solid across the range. Some may need hunting.

If you're a lucky soul that has an older lens that has amazing optics, but is one of those listed as not having the ability to be adapted, don't despair. There are talented individuals out there that can modify the mount of your lens so you can continue using the lens on your dSLR. The more commonly modified/updated lenses tend to be Canon FD's, because there were many amazing lenses made back in the day.

Now... the Cavaet!

Some lenses, while they can be used with an adapter, they cannot be used on Full Frame cameras. They can only be used on crop cameras (EF-S mount [rebel series and xxD]). Always check to make sure that the lens in question is compatible in this way.

DIY Tilt-Shift

Okay, first off... this post is not about how to make yourself your own Tilt-Shift. For lack of better words, this a commentary on how to make a tilt-shit lens. Seriously... It amazes me how many people out there, with a wealth of photographic knowledge can't get this simple concept right. Many confuse Selective Focus for Perspective Control - which, really annoys me.

This... is NOT a tilt-shift lens. (i'll explain below why)
Apologies to where ever these images are originally from. Actually, in this case, I don't apologize... a plunger? seriously?

This people... are Tilt-Shift Lenses. (Canon's 24L and 17L)

Apologies to where ever these images are originally from.
As you can plainly see, they have dials on them. Those are for adjusting the tilt and shift of the lens.

Tilting is when you alter the lens plane, by swinging the lens' axis away from being center and perpendicular to the film plane. Think of it as an Elephant's trunk. If the Elephant was to hold out it's snout perfectly straight - that would be a normal lens. If the elephant bends his snout upwards or downwards, it would be tilting it. Unfortunately, because of limitations imposed by the mechanicals, tilting is only in the up/down axis. (These lenses do allow you to rotate however) With Tilt-Shift lenses, you are given the ability to adjust the tilt by ±6.5°, as much or as little as you want, as well as as fine as you want. Each little tick mark is probably a quarter of a degree. Though, I must add, I'm unsure if this applies to all the TS-e's or just the 17mm.

Shifting is when you move the lens plane laterally to the film plane. Think of it as a sliding door on a Mini-van. When closed, the door is in it's normal alignment. But, if you open the door and slide it open, you are now shifting the door's placement on the Minivan. Since you have the door open on this proverbial minivan, you might as well look through the glass now... Hmmm... strange. Where was I? Oh yeah... Shifting. On Canon lenses, you can get up to ±12mm of shift. Once again, this figure may only apply to the 17mm TS-e.

Now, when you combine the tilting with the shifting, you are given an amazing amount of control over your shot. In Real Estate and Architectural Photography, this control is translated into making buildings look true to life. In other realms, they are used for miniaturization - which, IMHO, Keith Loutit is the king. If you haven't seen any of his videos yet, go watch them after reading my post. Links at the bottom

So, that's Tilt/Shift.

What's the deal with the plunger? The deal is, there are people out there that think taking a lens, gluing it to a plunger, then mounting the plunger to your camera is going to give you the ability to tilt-shift. They are wrong. At best, you get tilting. In reality, you get a really stupid looking lens modification. Worse still, You lose Infinity-focus, which is rather important for doing Tilt/Shift as you're dealing with Scheimpflug there.

In effect, the plunger-mod will get you results somewhat close to what this guy gets you:

What's that? It's a LENSBABY! (yaaaay!!).

What's a Lensbaby? I dunno, but it's EXTREMELY AWESOME. Lensbaby is made of Creativity, which make your photos grow, which is why you should buy one, because plungers are for Toilets and have you ever seen a picture come out of a toilet? It's got BENDING, super extra bending! and 5 KINDS OF BOKEH*! Which makes your pictures photolicious, unlike other cheap lenses, which are NOT photolicious. Taking pictures with it will make you wonder why you've never had photos that LOOK LIKE EXPLOSIONS!

Woah... I better lay off the Brawndo.

So, as i was trying to say. Lensbabies are an inventive (and properly manufactured) way of doing "Selective Focus". What's selective focus and how does it differ from how lenses normally focus. Selective Focus is when you choose a subject and have the photo so that they are the only thing in focus. How does it differ? Aside from the bending factor, not a whole lot. After all, Focusing is about being selective to begin with, right? So, yeah... I don't have an answer for that second question.

Now... Udi over at diyphotography has come up with an ingenious method of faking the tilt-shift effect. Once again, not really tilt-shift, but closer than the Plunger thing.
Link: http://www.diyphotography.net/create-awesome-tilt-shift-macro-shots-with-old-car-headlights

Now, my suggestion is, if you do his project, use a CPL filter instead of an old filter/stepping ring. Additionally, Udi suggested in his comment section that the lens be mounted off-center. Doing that, and attaching it to a CPL, will allow you to rotate it in whichever direction you want.

Now, combine that with the Plunger idea and you'll probably end up with the craziest DIY lens ever. I can't imagine what the effect will be with the two combined, but I do know that your ability to focus to infinity will be tossed out the window.

-- EDIT--

I have found a DIY T/S that yields closer results than other ideas. Still a plunger, but this one I'm not going to laugh at as much, because Captain Nod put more thought into it. Go Here to check it out. My belief on this one is that he took a few factors into consideration here (like the lack of shifting) and at the bottom, he says he's going to work on a method of controlling the shift as well. The Cavaet here is - his idea is better but it lacks the sharpness of a true T/S but it's still pretty sharp.

Once again, a glorified Lensbaby. ;)

Links!
Lifehacker/Make Magazine Plunger "T/S"
DIYPhotography's Projector Lamp Lens
Foundphotography's Retarded T/S Project
Nikon's PC-E Nikkor 24mm F3.5
Canon's Tilt-Shift Line-up
Lensbaby - Canadian site or If you're American (the website will redirect you depending on which country you're in)
Captain Nod's PlungerCam and in action.

Keith Loutit vids: Bathtub IV, Helpless, Bathtub III, Bathtub II and Beached


* I'm unsure of the Muse and others, but the Lensbaby 2.0 came with several drop in apertures. 2.2, 2.4, 4.0, 5.6, 8.0 and 2 blanks. The creative kit gives you a heart and star, and several more blanks.