The Phoblographer

Ever wonder how a rangefinder camera focuses? I found a video on YouTube that shows exactly how that happens. As you’ll see, certain areas line up with one another. When they’re all perfectly lined up, you know you’re in focus. We reviewed the Leica M9 and Leica M7 cameras here a while back: both are rangefinders. When I say that rangefinder focusing really helps when you’re visually impaired the way I am, I’m not joking. Try focusing with a rangefinder, and then try it with a DSLR: without your glasses. See which one will be more accurate. Yes, there is autofocus, but sometimes it isn’t reliable.

This posting is dedicated to all the rangefinder lovers, those curious about Leica, and to our very own Educational Director Sander-Martijn; who like me is experiencing vision problems. I talked to him about rangefinder focusing the other night.

When I started this website, I thought that The Phoblographer was a pretty rad name. To this day, I still do think so. Granted, it took me a day or two to even spell it correctly and say it correctly. The site is almost a year and half old and to this day PR Reps, Marketing folk, readers, photographers, techies, and others mispronounce or misspell the name. Here is a list of some of the best misspellings I’ve read, seen, and heard.

Look and read carefully.

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According to Nikon Rumors, a new 50mm F/1.8 may be coming soon. That’s cool: but what about something for more of the higher end and professional crowds? Where is their update to the 50mm F/1.2?

When I was in a meeting with some Nikon reps previously, they were very proud that their finally completed their trio of F/1.4 lenses with the 50mm, 35mm and 85mm. But in the back of my head I couldn’t help but think, “Hmmmm, so where are you F/1.2 lenses, huh? Canon has theirs.”

If you head over to Flickr and check out this user’s profile, you’ll see that a lot of the photos were shot with the Nikon 50mm F/1.2 lens. There is even a really large Flickr group dedicated to this lens. But it still begs the question: where is the new one? Will it take longer with the earthquake that happened?

Let us know your thoughts: would you buy a new 50mm F/1.2? If not, what lens would you buy?

Readers of this site have asked for more HDSLR reviews: and so the first one that popped into my mind was the Sony NEX-VG10 and I’m currently working on a review. As another addition to the Sony NEX line of cameras, it’s a powerful camera in a small package: and it makes me want to scream at times. Like the Sony NEX-5 that I reviewed previously, I feel like it is best left in the auto modes and never touched otherwise. But that is only one of my frustrations with the camera. Here’s a list of the seven reasons why I want to throw this camera out the window and the few reasons why I won’t.

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With the Flip about to be put out of its misery, Samsung announced the new W200 pocket camcorder that not only sports an F/2.2 lens, but also features waterproofing. The new camcorder also has a back-illuminated 5MP CMOS sensor (BSI), which when combined with the F/2.2 lens should be able to do a great job with the diminished light underwater for up to 3 meters. That F/2.2 lens also has an anti-fog coating to prevent cloudy images. The only drag I see is the 2.3″ 230K LCD screen, which isn’t that great since we’re so used to higher resolution screens these days. Beyond this, it has art filters:

– Vignetting allows users to fade the edges of shots

- The Fish-Eye setting creates an arty, distorted feel for unique and interesting footage.

So are the ExpoImaging Rogue Flash Benders the best flash modifiers ever? Many photographers would say so, and to be quite honest I couldn’t find a single fault with them. Bendable, pliable, shapable, versatile: the Rogue Flash Benders let you really harness the light output from your flash and give the strobist some of the best control I’ve ever seen. Let’s review what we’ve done.

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