Domke F-802 Review

I love my Domke F-6, but as I've been expanding my kit and preparing to offer my services as a photographer, I've recognized that it's not going to be the best solution for bringing a large kit to a shoot. I don't think it would fit two bodies, a 70-200mm zoom and another medium-sized lens or two, plus lighting gear. Additionally, while I personally like the Ruggedwear finish, I wanted something a bit more business casual, so to speak. I'm still completely happy with my F-6 and wanted to stick with Domke, so I ended up getting the Domke F-802 Reporter's Satchel, a large satchel-style bag, in the normal Sand finish. (Because I'm carrying so much in this bag, I also picked up the Domke Shoulder Pad, which helps keep the weight from getting painful -- highly recommended, and you'll see it in the pictures, but it doesn't come with the bag.)

Domke calls the F-802 a "Reporter's Satchel", but it works quite well as a camera bag. Like all their F-series bags, it's made of a durable but flexible cotton canvas. I was tempted to get one of the J-series satchels, which are made of black ballistic nylon, but there's no J-802 that I can find, and I wanted the larger size more than the different material. I was also considering the F-811 or F-812, which are designed to carry a laptop and a DSLR system, but I couldn't find many reviews of them, and they're about twice as expensive -- I don't plan on needing to transport my laptop to shoots very often, so I ruled them out.

I also could have gotten an F-2, or even an F-1X, but I decided that I wanted a satchel instead of a duffel bag. For one thing, it's less conspicuous: the F-802 could be any large messenger bag. Living and working around Boston, carrying an obvious camera bag would also potentially make me look like a tourist or a student, and thieves are more likely to see them as a target. A satchel might suggest a laptop, but every bag's obviously going to carry something, and I think "maybe a laptop?" is a better risk than "definitely a camera". Not that the F-2 looks a lot like a camera bag, of course.

The slimmer profile of the satchels is also a draw. It keeps more of the gear closer to my body, so there's less a risk of carelessly smacking into something (or someone) because it's sticking out. It does make the F-802 harder to work out of, since the bag is deeper, but I suspect it's just a matter of getting used to a deep space instead of a broad one. On the other hand, I do a lot of shooting bending or even laying down, and I'd be worried about things falling out if it tipped over on the ground with the flap open -- something a duffel wouldn't do.

The bag is built really well. There are no loose threads anywhere, and all the materials are high quality. The strap runs down along the sides and is sewn to the bottom of the bag, so the weight is distributed over the entire bag, and not just on a few square inches at the top. It also has a rubber tread sewn into it, which keeps it secure on your shoulder. The top flap has a handle on it, made of the same thick cotton material as the strap, with a metal reinforcement underneath. I've actually heard of this support wearing through the bag after a few years, but I have no idea if the problem is widespread or not. The clip that secures the flap is very strong, and takes some work to open; I expect it'll ease up in time, but frankly I like that it's not going to pop open too easily.

On the outside, there's a large but thin pocket on the back, which I stick lens caps into while I'm shooting. There are also two zippered front pockets (heavy YKK zippers), large enough for business cards, small notepads, and other small-ish items you want easy access to.

Inside is a lot of storage space. There are two velcroed front pockets, each large enough to carry a Super Clamp and umbrella adapter. Or, though it's a little tight, a 40D with battery grip (and no lens, of course). The velcro patches on these pockets are very large, about the size of a business card, so it's easy to shut them securely. Also, the Domke logo is on the flap of one of these, meaning it's not visible when the main flap is closed -- another way the F-802 avoids standing out as a camera bag. (Though let's be honest: any thief who'd know Domke is a camera bag maker could probably recognize the F-802.)

There's a second thin pocket inside, which could hold a binder or large notepad; I keep some sample 4"x6" prints in here, and would use it for any shoot-related paperwork. Between this and the four pockets, you're probably going to have room for all the cables, filters, spare batteries and other miscellaneous accessories you need for whatever system you're carrying.

The main compartment is sized for a pretty good work system. Its dimension are 14.5"x12"x3", which doesn't account for the natural flex of the fabric. That's the big advantage of Domke bags: they expand or collapse around what they're carrying, so it keeps its balance and comfort whether its packed full or is half empty. The bottom and sides are lightly padded, just enough for the bag to keep its shape empty. It's not enough to protect the contents in case of a serious accident, but if you're getting a Domke, this shouldn't come as a surprise: they're flexible, fast bags that are easy to use, but ultimately you are its best protection from accidents.

One nice detail: the interior padding is olive green, and the unpadded surfaces are of the same material as the exterior (really, they are the exterior), so unless you have a black bag, it's easy to see exactly what's at the bottom of the bag.

Since the F-802 is marketed as a reporter's satchel, it doesn't include any inserts to keep the main compartment organized. I use the Domke FA-230 3 Compartment Insert. With this setup, I can carry the 40D with 70-200mm f/4L IS attached (hood reversed) in one compartment, the old EOS A2 (I haven't gotten a second digital body yet, but wanted to see how one will fit) with 17-40mm f/4L on the other end, and the 100mm f/2.8 Macro in the middle. The 100mm Macro is about as large as will fit between the two main lenses. There's still room on either end of the insert for a flash; I was able to fit the 430EX II and a Vivitar 285HV in, barely, but the Viv is much bulkier than most modern flashes. With these two bodies, three mid-sized lenses, and two flashes, I was still able to fit a 24' TTL cord from FlashZebra in the main compartment. I can also fit the cameras in with their grips attached, though it's a tight fit -- though the A2 is a film camera with a small vertical grip, not a bulkier motor drive or battery grip, and I don't know if a second one of those would fit.

The bodies, with or without grip, are pressed right next to each other like this. I took the side padding out of the FA-230, and will probably reuse it as a divider to keep them from rubbing. Everything else is secure. On that note, I can feel the contents of the bag against my side as I'm carrying it, and I'll probably add a bit of that padding between the insert and the back of the bag for comfort.

With all this gear packed, the main flap still shuts easily, since the clasp comes up between the front two cargo pockets. The sides of the compartment are completely covered, so I'm not worried about rain or snow getting in, like I was with the F-6. The canvas finish is probably less water-resistant than the Ruggedwear, but canvas is pretty good at keeping the contents dry, and there's multiple layers of it around the electronic stuff in the main compartment.

All in all, I'm as happy with the F-802 as I am with the F-6. I'm still using the F-6 when I'm out on a photo walk, especially doing macro work with bugs, where I don't need to carry my entire work kit with me. For carrying everything though, I'm very happy with the F-802. If in the future I ever have more gear than this bag can carry, I don't think I would be using a single bag for it.

By the way: Purchases made through the links provided here support this site and my photography. Please be sure that I stand by my recommendations, and only ever suggest items that I would spend my own money on.

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM Review

Making myself available as a photographer has meant investing in new gear. Some things I need to fill in certain gaps, like focal lengths that my 50mm and 100mm macro don't cover, and others to provide durability (or at least redundancy) that I don't currently have. It's expensive, but necessary, and as far as business start-up costs go, I think I have it pretty easy, since I don't need to worry about real estate or vehicles or anything scary-expensive like that.

The first big upgrade is the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM, a wide-angle zoom. I decided to get this lens first for a couple of reasons: I don't have anything in that focal range, it's the cheapest of the lens/camera upgrades I want to make, and I can use it as a wide-standard zoom on my 40D (I think I have to put off an upgrade to the 5D II until last).

This is my first L lens, and it's pretty clearly in a different class than the other lenses I have. Rather than give the same review focusing on technical details that you can find everywhere else on the internet, I'd like to pass over the image quality and instead talk about my first experience using it on a crop body.

It feels solid in the hand, though it's not a massive lens. It balances very well with the 40D, and I imagine it would with the heavier bodies, too. The front element is huge -- it has a 77mm filter diameter while being only 97mm long -- and dark. You can see down into the body of my other lenses, this one has more of a "black box" appearance to it. I was surprised at the slight resistance and muffled click when I mounted it for the first time, until I realized that it was due to the rubber o-ring that seals the mount against water and dust.

The USM autofocus is very snappy, nearly silent, and from what I've seen so far, pretty accurate. The zoom ring and focus ring are both smooth and quiet, without the dry scratchy sound of inexpensive lenses. I will say that I've never had a zoom lens that doesn't change length while zooming, and that was a bit of a surprise, being one of the little details that had slipped my mind. It also keeps an f/4 aperture through the zoom range, as opposed to others that drop a full stop after zooming in by 1mm from wide open.

I was aware of something with this lens that I've never consciously felt before: that this is a piece of equipment that my imagery deserves, and on the flip side, it is not one that I can hide behind when a shot doesn't come out how I'd wanted. Don't get me wrong, I am NOT one to mistake quality gear for quality photography. But holding it in my hand for the first time, that was my gut response. It's definitely true, of course, but it's also true of my 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro, and probably even the 50mm f/1.8 II -- the difference is in the build quality and cosmetic design, and I have no doubt that this is exactly the impression Canon wants to give.

We had some reasonable weather the day after I got the lens, so I went out for a photowalk -- no flash, no bag, just the 17-40mm on the 40D. With the crop factor, it's acting as a 28-64mm zoom, which for me is a great focal length. It's funny that 95% of the time I've been shooting with a prime between 50mm and 100mm (both telephoto on the 40D), but I really connect with the wide/standard perspective. I like having that depth without necessarily going ultrawide.

As I said, I don't want to get too deep into the image quality side of it (this lens has been around for years and I doubt I could say anything original there) but I do think it's important to say that my initial impression, that this is a lens my images deserve, stands up once I was actually looking at the results. I would comfortable printing a 100% crop from this lens. Color is great, detail is great, contrast is great. This is a lens whose quality you can see by looking through the camera's viewfinder.

I think what I was really feeling when I pulled the lens out of its box was a sense of confidence: I can rely on this lens. It's a sense that I don't have to baby it. It's not fragile, it's not plastic, and I'm not worried that some delicate mechanism inside is about to snap if I swing it around too quickly. Obviously I'm going to be careful with it, but I don't have the nagging voice in the back of my mind that's monitoring how I'm handling it while I'm shooting. Having actually shot a bit with it, I still feel the same, and the images I'm getting from it back that up.

That's one less distraction, and to me it's the most important reason for getting pro-grade gear: if I'm going to book half my day (and possibly half of someone else's day too) to a shoot out on location, I need to have confidence that my gear won't let me down in any way. I also need to know that it's not going to spontaneously die the day after the warranty expires. That peace of mind is what you're really paying for with L glass.

Macro bracket, part 5 : flash resolved

As I mentioned before, I wasn't sure if I was going to keep on using a Vivitar 285HV as my light source or not. I wanted to upgrade to a TTL flash for better consistency and rear-curtain sync, but funds are limited. A couple things have led me to order a 430EX II this morning, though.

First, I found that the guide numbers of the Yongnuo flash I was considering was understated by about a stop. This isn't really a big deal to me, except for the fact that it meant I'd have to use a higher power setting than I really want to, which means a longer flash pulse. When I considered that along with the uneven build quality, lack of a real warranty, and the other minor uncertainties that come with buying a third-party flash, I decided that I wasn't confident in putting my money there. All the little uncertainties add up to too much of a risk -- the YN-465 is about $15-$20 out of my comfort zone. (I will definitely say that the YN-460 II is not, and if I were looking for a manual flash right now, it'd be at the top of my list.)

The other thing is that I've noticed the foot of my Vivitar is starting to crack apart.  My off-camera cord has a slightly wobbly hotshoe, and the back-and-forth movement has put enough torque on the foot to start peeling away one of the flanges.  I've shimmed the hotshoe so it won't move anymore, but now the flash moves on its own.  It'll be fine as a remote flash, laying on its side with a receiver on the foot, but I don't trust it mounted to anything where the cracked flange has to support its weight.

So, I bit the bullet and ordered the 430EX II from Beach Camera's eBay store, which had the lowest price of any Canon authorized dealers after cashback.  I wish I'd noticed the damage to the Vivitar last week, when there was a $15 rebate, but what can you do...

I considered replacing the off-camera cord, which is the old "Canon Off Camera Shoe Cord 2" that was replaced by the OC-E3, but I think I've fixed the wobble (kind of a rotating looseness in the metal part of the hotshoe) by shimming it with thick paper.

Once the new flash arrives, I'll make a diffuser that fits on it in the same style as the one I made for the Vivitar, and I think I'll have my bracket finished.  I'll post photos explaining everything then.  In the meantime, I'll finish going through all the photos I took last week while I was visiting family in upstate New York.  I've already uploaded a whole gallery of sawfly photos, which I'm quite happy with -- my first real macros at a magnification higher than 1:1.  More very soon, I hope.

Designing a Macro Bracket, pt.4

Continued from Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

I still have a few minor things to overcome with the bracket -- the raised post on the end comes off, but the screw is too long to mount anything to without it. I'm considering a few possible ways to work around this, but I've spent a lot of time talking about the bracket, and I'd like to move on. I'll definitely mention what I've got when I have a final solution.

So, the next phase is lighting. This is the whole point of the macro rig: dump enough light on the subject to get a good exposure, and dump it in an aesthetically appealing way. There are over-the-counter macro lighting solutions that work quite well, some of them better than what I'm making here. The MT-14EX ring light and MT-24EX twin light are quite good, but they're really, really expensive. I love macro photography, and as long as there's something to shoot at 1:1 my 100mm macro lens doesn't really come off the camera, but I can't justify spending hundreds of dollars on something I can only use for macro. So I use traditional flash units, which are less expensive and very versatile.

I already have a Vivitar 285HV, a cheap and popular manual-only flash. I'm considering upgrading it, if budget allows, but that's not certain yet. The ideal flash for this rig is lightweight, for obvious reasons, with enough power to get a fast flash pulse, and has TTL metering. A flash will give you hard, ugly light, so it also needs a diffuser of some kind.

The flash pulse is important for freezing motion: I shoot a lot of bugs, which are very active and very fast. Basically the lighting scenario I'm in most often is one where I'm shooting with a shutter speed close to my camera's fastest sync speed, or around 1/250, with an aperture of at least f/8, and usually f/11 to f/14, on an ISO of 100 to 200; the flash fires at 1/16th power, because it's so close to the subject. Without a flash, these settings would give you an unexposed black frame, except on the brightest of days.

So imagine, in slow-motion, what happens as you press the shutter with these settings: For a long 1/250th of a second, almost no light is falling on the sensor. Then, the flash fires a burst of light, and for the 1/16,000th of a second that it's pulsing, light floods into the camera and the sensor records that image, which by itself is a full exposure. The flash turns off, and the sensor is no longer receiving any light. At the end of that 1/250th of a second, the shutter closes, and the sensor sends its data -- all of it recorded in that 1/16,000th of a second -- to the camera's image processor.

The pulse duration of a powerful flash on a low setting is going to be much better at freezing motion than the fastest shutter speed your camera can do. Unfortunately, Canon doesn't release its speedlites' flash pulse duration, and even for the third-party companies that do, there are different ways of measuring it. So there's a bit of guesswork here; I think the only real thing we can do is assume that any moderately powerful flash is going to be fast enough, and choose between them on other grounds. It probably rules out small low-power flashes, and it definitely rules out constant light sources like LED lamps.

TTL isn't critical, and I don't feel like I need it at all for my non-macro stuff. It would be nice so I don't have to adjust the power level if I'm shooting a little further back, or decide to use a circular polarizer, for example. E-TTL 2 can make finer adjustments than just the one-stop power levels of the Vivitar 285HV. It also offers rear-curtain sync -- that would let me slow the shutter speed down to let more ambient in, and capture motion trails to show movement. These are generally convenience things, but I'd like to have them.

Two things I don't care about: Electronic zoom heads are a complete non-factor for me. High-speed sync is actually something I want to avoid using. It sounds like a great idea, using ambient as the main light, and high-speed sync as fill, but the way it works is to use thousands of low-power pulses through the entire exposure; when the subject is a fast-moving insect, that'll give a blurred picture -- like a strobe effect, but probably too close together to look cool.

Considering these things, I'd like to upgrade to the 430EX II if I can afford it. I go back and forth on the Yongnuo YN-465 and YN-467; I'd like to see a comparison to an official Canon flash in terms of build quality and reliability. Considering they cost less than half as much as the 430EX II, I'm willing to cut them a little slack, but I want good odds of getting more than a single season out of them before I drop money on one. Really it's the international shipping that gets me: if there were a supplier in the US who would handle replacements under warranty, I'd be much more likely to buy one. This all depends on my job situation, too, which is either seriously improving or completely disappearing in the next few weeks, and I don't have any idea which yet. No new toys if I'm unemployed. Fortunately for me, the flash I have works fine -- this is an entirely optional upgrade for me. (I wouldn't get the Vivitar as a macro flash if I were doing it again, though: it's too heavy, it has a beveled head that's hard to mount things on, and it's expensive compared to more modern competitors. On a super-tight budget, I'd go with the manual YN-460 or YN-460 II as a first flash, or on one of the E-TTL flashes I mentioned above.)

As for the diffuser, that's important for controlling the quality of the light. If you're already familiar with Strobist-style lighting, you know this already, and it's true for macro as well. The diffuser -- basically a small softbox -- is important because it makes the light bigger. The greater the angular size of the light source, the softer the shadows it makes. It also 'spreads out' the intensity of the lighting, so you can capture more detail in reflective surfaces without getting blown-out highlights. The plastic caps, like the Gary Fong-type diffusers, are no good here. They're designed for indoor use, and send light out in every direction to bounce back onto the subject. Outside, with nothing to bounce light off of at macro scales, they're just sending perfectly good light off into the void.

Right now I'm using the DIY flash diffusers described here on Myrmecos, albeit using a larger yogurt cup for my larger flash. It may be a bit too large, so I might remake it soon to be a bit shorter, but I'm getting great light from it. I'm using translucent vellum paper ($0.25 per sheet at my local stationary store) as the diffusion material, though Roscoe makes some professional materials for this exact purpose. That would be more durable, and more heat resistant as well -- though the general idea is to get the diffusion surface far enough away from the flash head to catch light from a wide area, so I'm not too concerned about the heat.

Designing a Macro Bracket, pt. 3

Continued from Part 1 and Part 2

In my previous post, I mentioned that I was considering using a cheap straight flash bracket in my macro rig this year, instead of something like the thick stainless steel plates I've been using. I ended up ordering this aftermarket Metz flash bracket, and received it this afternoon.

I'm glad I did. The bracket was $7 shipped, so it's technically a few times as expensive as the steel plates, but it's also a few times as effective. The screws are thumbscrews, so I don't need a screwdriver to secure or remove any part of the rig. The surface is non-slip, so I can use it in portrait orientation with the flash slipping down. The length is adjustable, which is great. I'm convinced that to get these qualities from a purely DIY solution would end up costing much more than $7 in tools, even if I'd be saving in materials.

My mini-ballhead won't fit on the flash end of the bracket (there's a raised bit that I assume has some function for Metz flashes), so I've got that end of my off-camera cord screwed onto it. Honestly, I'm also reconsidering how wise the ballhead is in the first place: the adjustability is nice, but the increased height leaves a lot of deep shadows puddled under most subjects. Having the flash a little lower will probably be okay, and the hotshoe can still rotate a bit without coming loose when I'm shooting at a longer working distance.

Playing with the bracket, I've found that it's long enough to put it on the right side of the camera and still leave room for my hand. This improves the balance quite a bit, since I'm basically holding onto the center of gravity, and it lets me get to the lens more easily if I need to adjust the focus distance. I can also use the vertical buttons on the camera grip this way to shoot in portrait.

So this solves a number of problems, even though it means changing some of my original concept. That's fine, since I'll end up with a better macro rig this year for it.

The last question I have to address is the flash itself, and proper diffusion. That's the most expensive part of the rig that I have to think about this year, and it'll depend on some work stuff that should be getting sorted out in the next week or so. If all goes well, I'd like to upgrade to a TTL flash. More on this in the next post.

Designing a Macro Bracket, pt.2

Continued from Part 1

I'm sort-of coming to the conclusion that it's not worth making the plate myself. There are several straight brackets, some with cold shoes (or even hot shoes, with a PC terminal) for under $10 on Amazon and eBay. I feel like they'd be a lot more secure than the pre-drilled metal braces I've been using, and lighter, for only a few dollars more. I'm still looking for a good inflexible plastic plate, though.

I'm looking at brackets like this: a cheap Opteka and this Nikon. They're designed for a compact camera to use as a plate. I'm guessing that this is the sort of thing I'll be able to get for cheap on eBay, from a Fotodiox or one of the Hong Kong distributors.

Having a shoe on a store-bought bracket is actually not a selling point for me. I don't want the flash to be fixed in one spot, and I've been using a mini-ballhead, with the flash mounted on a short TTL coil cord. I'd like to keep using that, although I don't have a TTL flash. For one thing, it's very adjustable. For another, the connection is much more secure than a PC sync cord, which slips out of the camera's terminal very easily. I'm also hoping to move up to a TTL flash this summer, but I'll post on that separately.

Designing a Macro Bracket

I'm starting to think about my macro rig for 2010, now the weather's getting nice enough to go outside again. I have a good general idea of what I want to do, given my budget constraints and what worked or didn't work last year.

(In my head, what I call the "rig" is everything involved: the camera, the lens and any tubes/rings/diopters that get you to macro magnifications, the flash(es) and related modifiers and cords, and the bracket that ties it all together.)

If you're just thinking about a macro bracket for the first time, it's a pretty simple build. It's basically the part of the rig that connects everything: usually a long flat plate that screws into the camera's tripod mount, with some sort of mount for the flash on the other end. The value comes from getting the flash away from the lens axis, to add depth and texture to the subject. The trade-off you're trying to minimize is the added weight of an off-axis light, and the hand-shake and fatigue that it introduces.

Over the next few weeks I'll build the thing, but here are my general parameters that I'm starting from:

Ergonomics
It has to have good balance. This is key. Wrist and finger strain are the number one reasons I'll pack it in before I get the shots I want. I picked up a Zeikos battery grip, partly to get my pinky in on the action and partly to move the center of gravity closer to my hand. I think I might get a hand strap as well -- that actually would help a lot, since it would take a lot of work away from the fingers.

Even with good balance, it still has to be relatively lightweight. I think a plastic plate will work better than the stainless steel ones I've been using. I could also drill my own mounting holes very easily. The trick would be finding one that's strong and inflexible.

Another problem with the stainless steel plate is that they scratch the camera body. I've already covered the one from last year with black duct tape -- it looks pretty good.

The bracket can't slip. The weight of the speedlight provides a lot of torque when it's moving, and it'll unscrew the plate from the camera and the flash mount. Part of my problem last year was using flat-head screws on plates with beveled mounting holes, or bevel-headed screws on flat mounting holes. This wasn't by choice: I was using pre-drilled plates from the hardware store and had to work with what they had. I tried to counter this with rubber grip tape, but that costs a few turns of the screw into the tripod mount -- again, insecure.

Utility
The bracket should hold the flash in a good position: about 10 o'clock or so. This hasn't been a big problem for me. The mount for the flash should be adjustable; I've been using a mini-ballhead, and may replace it with a cheap geared umbrella adapter for more stability and fine control. It would be nice if the distance from the camera could be adjusted, too, and I'll be thinking about that when I look at brackets.

In a perfect world, the bracket and flash mount would be so secure that I could shoot in portrait orientation without having anything slip or sag. The challenge here is that the weight of the flash will often turn the mounting screws counter-clockwise...

The rig should include a diffuser for the flash, basically a mini-softbox. I've just built a new one that I have high hopes for, out of a large yogurt container and some translucent vellum paper. This will get its own post once I've really seen how it works, but the key is getting a large apparent size for the light in a design that stays securely in the flash head. If I end up using an umbrella adapter, I may consider building something like a small umbrella.

The flash should be close enough and strong enough to use a low power level - ideally around 1/4 or 1/16 at ISO 100, f/8-f/14. This is to get a very fast flash pulse, which in macro lighting acts as the shutter speed -- the faster the flash, the better it freezes the image. With my 40D, I'm willing to go up to ISO 200, and in fact shot there all last summer.

Value
The DIY parts of the rig should be no more expensive than a store-bought solution, and it should be as reliable as one of equivalent cost.

Off-the-shelf components should be inexpensive. If they're not, they should be of very good quality and should be usable in non-macro photography.

It should be stable and sturdy enough that I won't need to tweak the design or replace parts over the summer.

The parts, especially the plate, should be made of easily available materials. I don't want to get something custom milled at ridiculous cost. Ideally something from the hardware store that I can cut or drill myself. But no false economy, either: I don't want to pay half-price for a half-assed solution.


Part 2: More thoughts on the bracket.
Part 3: Bracket solved.

2:1 magnification

I picked up a set of super inexpensive Pro Optic Extension Tubes. They feel pretty cheap and I doubt they'll last for years and years, but they come with electrical connections at half the price of the Opteka, a third the price of the Kenko, and a hell of a lot cheaper than Canon's.  If I could afford the Kenko tubes, I'd probably have gone with them, since they'll last a lot longer, but as long as they keep the lens on the camera and pass through information to stop down the aperture, extension tubes don't need to be fancy.  There's no glass in them: they work by moving the lens farther from the sensor, so it projects a larger image.  It's a lot like a film or slide projector, where the farther it is from the wall, the larger the picture.  But dimmer too: you have a fixed amount of light making up the image, and the larger that image, the 'thinner' it's going to be.

We're covered in snow and slush here in Boston, so my macro expeditions have been limited to the far corners of the kitchen, where I found the exotic Chlorophytum comosum: the spider plant.  With the 100mm f/2.8 USM macro lens, the full set of tubes gives about 2:1 magnification.  At this point, you really need buckets of light in order to get an aperture with a reasonable depth of field: my flash was set to 1/4 power and was only a few inches away.  Unlike bugs, spider plants don't run away from the camera, so I used a tripod to make these a bit easier.

Domke F-6 Ruggedwear review

I don't have a huge camera kit, so when I came to the conclusion recently that I needed a better way of transporting my gear than an old messenger bag with a widening hole in one of the seams, I opted for the modestly-sized Domke F-6 Little Bit Smaller Ruggedwear Bag. The practical design caught my eye, and so did the simple, unassuming appearance -- it's nice to look at, but it doesn't draw attention to itself. The "I am not a camera bag" bags may not look like neoprene lunchboxes with $4000 worth of gear in them, but people are still going to notice them. I guess you could say the F-6 is more classy than stylish.

Now, I have to admit, I can compare the Ruggedwear model to the regular Domke F-6 Little Bit Smaller Bag because I was a bit dumb when I bought it. I ordered the plain F-6 (black, since olive was out of stock) to help me schlep my stuff back home from New York, where I was visiting family for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, I had the bag shipped to my home in Boston, where it was not going to do me much good, and in the half-hour it took me to realize this, Amazon had already prepared it for shipping. So I had to order a second bag, and thought again about spending the extra money on the Ruggedwear model. The two bags are identical, except for the color and finish, so most of this review applies to both.

The "Ruggedwear" material is a cotton canvas treated with paraffin wax for water resistance. It's the same as their "Waxwear" treated bags, which I believe were only offered as a limited run. It's a dark brown color, and looks in photos like it would have a soft, suede-like feel to it, but it's a tough, flexible fabric to the touch. Not that it's abrasive at all; it's quite smooth, and there's no oily smell or residue. The logo is a subtle tan color on the front; the black canvas F-6 has a bright red logo, which frankly I don't like at all.

I've heard that normal canvas bags tend to shed small fibers as they age, which can get on DSLR sensors. The waxwear bags are so new, I don't know if they've been around long enough to tell whether they suffer from this problem or not.

Water beads on the surface, but it's not watertight -- the sides near the strap rings are a bit exposed, and I would expect some water to get in if you're caught in a driving rain. Folding the sides of the top down after you close it will nearly eliminate the gap, but it won't quite do this on its own. I'm not sure how much water the bag will wick off of the gear its carrying, but probably less than a normal canvas Domke. From what I hear, even the normal Domkes are at least a little water resistant as well. I hope you'll forgive me for not doing an exhaustive test comparing the two, but I think if absolute waterproofing is a high priority for you, you're looking at a whole different class of bags anyway.

The F-6 is built well, and feels like a heavy-duty camera bag. There's no padding, except for the bottom and the insert, so the lenses are pretty well protected, and they're the most fragile bits anyway. The insert has four sections, and the Canon 100mm f/2.8 USM macro lens (non-L) with reversed hood fits exactly in one to give you an idea of the size. There's a zippered pocket on the underside of the top, and on the front. The clips that close the bag are amazingly strong, and take some effort to open, which I like. The strap has a pair of rubber treads along the underside, for traction on your shoulder, and adjusts easily to a comfortable length. It also has a removable hand strap.

I can fit a lot of stuff in this bag: a 40D with battery grip, the 100mm macro, the 28-105 f/3.5-4.5, a Helios 44-2, an old K-mount 135mm f/2.8, Vivitar flash, short off-camera cord, Cactus radio triggers, battery and charger, circular polarizer filter, a baggy with flash gels, some spare batteries, lens pen, the 40D's battery and charger, a case of business cards, and a mini-tripod. With this load, the bag is still very comfortable to carry. It's perfectly balanced, and doesn't tip forwards or backwards when you pick it up. It's incredibly easy to access the gear you're carrying; the balance is not affected by whether the top is closed or open, and it's simple to just grab what you want. There's no need to unsling the bag and unpack everything just to get a different lens or filter.

This is a great bag for carrying around a modest kit. If I had more big gear to haul, it wouldn't be able to carry everything, but it's not meant for the role of "whole studio on your back" anyway. I'm a big fan of carrying minimal amounts of stuff, and this is an ideal walkaround bag, or even storage bag for medium-sized kits. There's not much room for me to grow into this bag, but I'll definitely pick up a Domke 700-02A F-2 Bag (Brown Waxwear Finish) once I have the need.

As for the Ruggedwear vs. normal canvas, I'm glad I spent the extra money. I think I'd like the olive or sand color better than the black, but I do really love the weathered brown color of the waxed canvas. And I shoot in damp and drippy environments often enough that the extra touch of protection is probably going to be useful.

Update: One month later, I still love the bag, and I'm no longer concerned about the possibility of gaps along the side of the lid.  This weekend I brought my gear with me to work, in a commute that involved, I kid you not, a ~1 mile walk through blizzard conditions each way.  Despite the cakes of snow I had to brush off the lid before I could get to my camera once I got indoors, everything in the bag was perfectly dry.

Update 2: I've found that removing the padding from the sides of the insert lets the bag collapse in a bit better when it's partially empty.

By the way: Purchases made through the links provided here support this site and my photography. Please be sure that I stand by my recommendations, and only ever suggest items that I would spend my own money on.

Domke F-6 Little Bit Smaller Ruggedwear Bag
Domke F-6 Little Bit Smaller Bag (Olive)
Domke 700-02A F-2 Bag (Brown Waxwear Finish)

ISO 102400

Canon and Nikon have both released cameras recently that have ridiculous ISO ranges. My 40D can get up to ISO 3200; the just-announced-today 1D Mark IV gets a full five more stops of sensitivity. I haven't seen any samples yet, though Vincent Laforet says the camera can basically see in the dark, and that ISO 6400 is at least as good as what we expect from ISO 1600.

And then think of some of the new image stabilization technology. Canon's new 100mm Macro has a new system that apparently can work well at 1:1 magnification. I don't know how well, but even if it works respectably well, that might give us another two stops.

I think this is going to enable some tremendously interesting things for macro shooters -- it will let us take some of the weight off the camera, which means staying out longer and being able to move the camera easily for better compositions. Imagine a rig designed for daylight shooting, with, instead of a heavy flash and diffuser, a scrim and a reflector on flexible mounts to modify the natural light. Or lightweight flashes with low guide numbers that are working at low/fast power levels. Both of these will still be able to shoot around f/11 or so, without having to pay nearly as much in noise.

Hopefully, this technology will filter down to my personal price range sooner rather than later...

Flash pulse duration

Chuck Westfall's October Tech Tips is out, and he answers a question regarding the flash pulse duration of Canon's speedlites. Canon doesn't publish these numbers so there's quite a bit of speculation, but he points out one thing that I didn't know: at lower power levels, the xenon bulbs used in the flashes are not as efficient as they are at high power. Therefore, a flash firing at 1/16th isn't necessarily firing 16 times faster than it does at full power, since it's putting out less than 1/16th as much light per millisecond.

Without actual numbers or the tools to do some testing, it's impossible to say how much it matters. It's probably still firing faster than it would at 1/4 or 1/8, which is important in flash-based macro because your flash pulse duration is, effectively, your shutter speed.

The bit I find most interesting is where he says "I suspect that if you use a higher power setting on the 430EX to match the output of the 550EX, the flash durations from both Speedlites will end up being very similar if not identical." I've been considering the 430EX II over the 270EX, on the assumption that they'd have similar pulse durations at full power, and therefore the 430EX II would be faster since I'd be using it at lower power levels. It may be that the 270EX at 1/2 or 1/4 power isn't as much of a compromise in speed as I had thought; in terms of price and weight, it's obviously the better choice for macro.

This may seem like nitpicking, but it does have real application for the small animal photography I like to do. On a warm, sunny day, it's simply not possible to get a sharp image of a fast-moving insect without a flash pulse fast enough to freeze its motion. 1/250th of a second is a looong time in that shooting scenario.

Another cheap DIY flash bracket for macro

This is my second macro rig design. It has better balance than the first, though it's slightly less adjustable -- in practice, I found I rarely took advantage of the flexibility of the first one, and the center of gravity was too far forward. Weight and balance is still an issue with this design, but not nearly as much, and the bracket doesn't begin to droop over time. A lighter flash (i.e., practically anything but the Vivitar 285HV) would address both those problems.

Like the first design, this uses pretty cheap but sturdy parts. Instead of a flat mounting plate mounted to a ballhead under the camera, this one is an angle bracket mounted directly to the camera, with the flash on a ballhead. It's a lot like the famous butterfly bracket, but the actual metal bracket is pre-built. I got it at the hardware store for about $3. Unfortunately, I don't see one for that price on Amazon to link to, but I doubt it would be too difficult to find at most hardware stores. It's basically a straight bar of metal, bent at a right angle in the middle, with holes drilled down the middle for screws. I've seen them called angle brackets, mending plates, corner plates, etc. Look for one that's small and lightweight, with holes that will fit 1/4-20 screws -- and you'll need two of those, obviously not the kind with the sharpened tip.

The angle bracket is screwed on one to the tripod mount under the camera. If you have some thin rubber or plastic, I'd suggest using that as a protective layer so the bottom doesn't get scratched. I screwed a mini-ballhead to the other end of the bracket, and attached an off-camera cord to the ballhead. Then I just mount the flash on the ballhead, adjust it for the correct angle, and plug the cord into the camera's hotshoe. That's it. Total cost of parts, not counting the flash or the camera, is about $30-$40.

Oh, and I'm using a diffuser on the flash, of course. I just taped that together out of cardboard and used a sheet of foam that was used to package some prints I got. I cut a circular shape in the hope that it would improve my specular highlights, but I don't think the foam diffuses enough. It's much better than nothing, but there's not much to say about it :)

So overall, it's a pretty simple system, but I have good control over the flash position for creative adjustments, and the weight and balance aren't too bad. Keeping things lightweight is critical to reduce camera shake; even a little bit at macro scales will translate into softness or even visible blur in the final image. The flash head is close enough to the subject that I'm getting good exposures at 1/16th power, which is important for a short flash duration -- this too reduces softness, because the shorter the flash duration, the less time it has to record any movement of the subject or the camera, and so again reduces softness or blur. Many of the shots I've posted lately have been taken with this design, but I like this one in particular.

If you're building this bracket, find this design useful in your plans, or otherwise appreciate my work on this blog, you can support this site by purchasing some of the basic parts for this design through these links to Amazon.
Zeikos ZE-OCSCC Off Camera Shoe Cord for Canon Flash
Zeikos ZE-OCSCN Off Camera Shoe Cord for Nikon Flash
Professional Ball Head Camera Mount

Common house spider

Finally, a little bit of sun and warmth today. I'm doubly glad of that since this house spider is really the last in my backlog of photos I haven't posted yet. Spent some time with jumping spiders today, so I'll hopefully have some neat new shots of those up soon, and more green metallic bees as well -- those are a new favorite of mine.

I should have spent more time with the bugs, but I got a new Canon A2 in the mail, and much of my afternoon went to cleaning it and picking up some film. The A2 is one of Canon's most popular film cameras, and was in production for about a decade -- which I believe I've read is the longest any of its cameras was on the market. I found one for super cheap on eBay, paying $35 for the body and the VG-10 vertical grip, which is about 20% of what I usually see that combo go for. So far everything seems in working order, but I'm worried that there's something seriously wrong with it for the price. With any luck, it's one of those lucky breaks eBay sometimes sends your way, but we'll see once I get the negatives back.

A simple DIY macro flash bracket, pt. 2

I took the macro flash bracket I built out for a spin today and got some great results. The first thing I did was to move the flash from the left to the right side so it doesn't interfere with my left hand adjusting the focus ring on the lens. I think, in the future at some point, I might pick up a tripod collar mount and attach the bracket to that instead -- that way I can have even more control over the flash location.

I decided to go check out a small local green space -- my neighborhood has a shortage of them, unfortunately -- and found a great carpenter bee about halfway there, gathering pollen from a flowering bush. I slightly missed the focus, but not so badly to lose the photo.

The area I went to is open to the public, but I don't think it's an actual park. There's one rotting tree in particular that always has interesting things living in it, so I went straight there. Immediately, I saw a long insect, vaguely dragonfly-like in form, flying next to it and got in close to take a photo. Two things immediately caught my eye: first, the black and yellow 'warning' coloration of a wasp, and second, the other five or six I was immediately next to.


I didn't remember exactly what they were until I got home: giant ichneumon wasps. This species is remarkable for its parasitoid lifestyle. The female lays her eggs in the wood-dwelling larvae of another wasp species by drilling through the tree and into the larval wasp with a long, sharp ovipositor. The larval ichneumons grow inside the other wasp until pupating -- this is invariably fatal to the other wasp -- and what I came across today was a crowd of males racing to fertilize one or more females still inside the tree.

I got a number of good images of these wasps, enough to post in their own gallery here. (The other photos I took today are in this gallery.)

After moving on, I found another bee on a tree root. It either couldn't fly or didn't want to, though eventually climbed very quickly up the tree. I'm not sure if it was a dark breed of honey bee, or one that had lost most of its hairs, but its abdomen was entirely bald and black.

Leaving the grounds, I decided to take a quick shot of a few small leaves. I almost didn't because it's the kind of shot I've taken many times, but I felt like I should see how well the bracket worked for more still-life types of macro images. Looking at the image on the viewfinder, I was surprised to see a little bug of some kind in perfect focus. I have no idea what it is exactly; maybe an aphid or something.

Coming home, I had a really high percentage of keepers today. A lot of what I tossed were intentional losses -- even at f/14, macro DOF is thin enough that handholding the camera will inevitably mean camera shake moves the focus point off your subject, so I'll often take a couple to improve the odds, and toss all but the best one. Even the second-best shots are generally sharp, in focus, and well defined, and I attribute this to the convenience of having the flash on a macro bracket. Without it, I'd have been shooting in Tv at a high shutter speed, sacrificing ISO and small apertures, and while you can definitely get good shots doing that, my yield was much better today.

A simple DIY macro flash bracket

Update: I like this bracket design better.

Off-camera flash is incredibly useful with macro photography, since at high magnifications you don't have a lot of light coming into the camera, and the high speed of the flash helps to eliminate camera shake. There are a number of products that will enable this -- flash brackets, wireless remotes, etc. -- but the dirty secret of photography is that things like this cost money. Sometimes, serious money. So I made a flash bracket that puts the flash about 8" from the camera, and can provide some adjustment of height as well. This doesn't sound like a lot, especially when thinking in strobist terms, but this is specifically for macro work, and 8" in macro is quite enough.



First, what I had been using was a Cactus V2s wireless radio trigger handheld, mounted on a mini-tripod, or just placed on the ground someplace nearby. The problem with all these is that if I want the flash to get close, I usually have to go handheld, and that sacrifices stability and balance of the camera. The angular size of a light source determines how soft or hard it appears on the subject, so when you're shooting a small insect, an unmodified strobe can work well at low power and a few inches away. Off-strobe modifiers, like diffusers and reflectors that help control the light, are simply not practical most of the time, especially when shooting skittish insects.

A macro flash bracket is different that a typical flash bracket used by, say, a wedding photographer. Those raise the flash height just enough to avoid red-eye. It's still basically on the lens-subject axis, just a few degrees off. A macro flash bracket like this is going to be considerably further off-axis when you consider that the subject is about a foot from the camera.

I used the following parts:

* A mini-ballhead from a tripod I already had. These would run like $12 new.
* A flash shoe mount with a 1/4-20 thread on the bottom. At first I used the Cactus V2s receiver, and later switched over to an off-camera cord. A generic cold shoe is like $6 on eBay; anything would work here.
* A trigger of some kind. If you use the off-camera cord, that'll do it and allow TTL; otherwise you'll probably need to use a PC cord terminal and manual mode on the flash. If you don't already have all the right cords and whatnot, just go with a third-party or used off-camera cord for simplicity.
* An 8" mending plate with counter-sunk holes. $2.99 from my local hardware store.
* Two 1/2" screws, 1/4-20. $0.67 each. I got the kind with the beveled head, since the holes in the mounting plate were countersunk. Thumb screws would be spendier but smarter, since you wouldn't have to carry a screwdriver to adjust anything. Whatever you use, make sure it's not the pointy kind :)

Giottos Mini Ballhead
Zeikos Off Camera Shoe Cord for Canon or Nikon
Stanley Hardware 8" Mending Plate
Electro Hardware 1/4-20x1/2 Thumb Screw (But you probably have 1/4-20 screws around the house if you're DIYing anything.)

Purchasing any needed parts through the links will support this site. Disclaimer: I haven't directly used any of them. I use a larger Giottos ballhead and wouldn't hesitate to use one of their mini ballheads here; the off-camera cords are sold through Amazon, who has a good return and exchange policy if they flake out; and the hardware is pretty generic; as long as your screw or bolt has a wide enough head to cover the mending plate holes, or if you use a washer, it's hard to go wrong with any of it. Of course, if you try any of these products based on my suggestion and they fail spectacularly, please let me know.

I mounted the ballhead to one side of the plate, and the receiver to the other. Then it's just a question of attaching the flash to the receiver and the camera to the ballhead. Even if you have none of the parts, you can put this together for about $20 new.



By using the ballhead, I get some control over the position of the flash. I can raise it or lower it a few inches, and of course bring it forward or backwards. The pics only show it side-by-side with the camera, but with a ballhead its position is only limited by the length of the plate and the camera itself. It also keeps the mending plate away from the camera -- the edges aren't terribly sharp, but they could superficially scratch the camera. I stuck some rubber tape over the flash end, even though I doubt I'd hurt myself on it. Also, make sure to line up the ballhead so that its side notches are parallel with the plate -- this will let it travel up and down.

Right now I'm triggering it with a PC sync cord. Even though I'm using the wireless receiver, its battery is starting to go and I'm getting banding at 1/250 shutter speed. I just ordered a used off-camera flash cord for $20 to swap with the receiver -- it'll get me a bottom-threaded shoe mount with better balance, and it should keep TTL functions if I ever decide to get a flash with TTL. Plus, I don't see the point of using wireless triggers this close to the camera.

I'll be really testing this out tomorrow, but I've taken one or two test shots already and it seems to work quite well.

Update: See my notes from my first outing with this bracket here. I've since replaced the Cactus receiver and PC cord with a 2' off-camera TTL cable and it's better in every way -- the balance is better, it's more securely mounted, it doesn't randomly disconnect, it's easier to position on either side, and when/if I can upgrade to a TTL flash, it'll come in even handier.

Helios-44-2

I picked up a Helios-44-2 58mm f/2 lens a week or two ago. It's a lens with an interesting history: when the USSR got their half of Berlin after the end of World War II, they discovered that they were suddenly in possession of a factory that produced Zeiss lenses, one of the masters of the field. [edit: removed some mis-history]

The Helios-44 line is a clone of the Zeiss Biotar lens, and while it's probably not optically identical, it has the advantage of being one of the most mass-produced of any lens throughout history, which means it's cheap and plentiful. I got mine for $12 plus shipping, and it came with a (non-functional) Zenit-E camera to boot. Most of the Helios-44 lenses have the common M42 screw-mount, and adapters that allow you to mount these lenses on Canon EOS cameras are pretty cheap.

So I stuck it on my 40D.

It's a manual lens. This means that you have to set the camera to aperture priority or to full manual mode, and then set the aperture ring on the front of the lens. It's also a preset lens, which means there's a second aperture ring that slides the aperture from wide-open to whatever the aperture is set to -- this is because the viewfinder darkens as you stop down, so it's handy to focus wide open, then quickly slide the aperture down before you take the photo. Modern cameras do this for you, but the Helios is not so modern.

I do find that my 40D's metering is a bit off through this lens. Setting the exposure compensation to +1 helps, and I might try another stop or two higher just to push the histogram further. Focusing is a little tricky and I haven't mastered it yet. I might pick up the manual focusing viewfinder screen for the 40D, since I do a lot of that anyway, especially with ring USM lenses.

I've read that this lens is supposed to be pretty sharp after f/5.8 or so. I'm not really finding that. It could be that my copy is off a bit (quality control on the Soviet lenses was not that consistent), or it could be that people mean it's relatively sharp compared to other lenses of its era, but I find there's a subtle softness to it. This doesn't bother me. I do a lot of plant photography, and for this, it gives some very interesting results.

The color rendition (especially green) is fantastic. Subdued, but saturated. The bokeh, too, is amazing. It's very smooth and fluid, and the transition from focus to bokeh looks great. It's certainly different than my Canon lenses, and I quite like it. The lens is infamous for a strange distortion that appears when stopped down a bit: distant bokeh becomes distorted in a swirly, almost fisheye fashion. It's not displeasing, though it can be surprising or distracting if the photographer doesn't take it into account while making the image. It's definitely interesting -- a good example is the photo of Japanese maple.

I like this lens a lot. For the money, it's a lot of fun, and it's providing some really great images.