Photo Equipment
Anything interesting to note down about the camera gear is here.
Background
In about 1988 I went to Taiwan on business, and only after I got back
did it occur to me that perhaps I should own a camera! (Prior to that
I had been vaguely against the whole idea.) I was somewhat familiar
with a Minolta SRT-101 my dad had so I thought I'd probably want one
of the then-new autofocus SLR's, but I was unwilling to pony up the
bucks for one only to find that I wasn't using it. So I bought a
Nikon point-and-shoot as an inexpensive trial. I used it a fair
amount, but kept running into things it would/could not do that I knew
how to do with the Minolta. This was frustrating, so I decided to
step up.
I wanted the new autofocus gear rather than older, less-expensive
stuff. At the time I was very much taken with Nikon's glass, due to
their general reputation and in particular the work of John Shaw. I
didn't think much of Minolta's Maxxum line due to what I thought of as
their focus (ahem!) on bells and whistles at the expense of the
basics, and I hated the Canon EOS due to a vacation with a
girlfriend who had a 650. She hadn't brought along the manual and I
couldn't figure out how to use it except in point-and-shoot mode, and
it was just as frustrating to me as my little Nikon. (Worse, as
I knew the SLR could let you prioritize shutter
speed, but neither of us knew how.) Had I my dad's Minolta I would
have easily been able to get the pictures I wanted, yet the Canon
stymied me. (And with a film camera, on vacation, you can't just
screw around with it and see whether or not it's working the way you
want, especially if there is already film in it.)
So I went SLR shopping, with a heavy Nikon bias. Well, it was funny,
but having read all the literature during the shopping process it
turns out that I was very impressed with the engineering in the Canon
line. Not only was it somewhat less expensive than Nikon, the optics
had a very good reputation and the autofocus system simply kicked ass.
(Their per-lens dedicated motors made for comparatively fast and quiet
operation.) Once you knew how it worked it was just as easy to use as
anything else; I was hooked! I ended up buying the newly-released Canon
EOS 620 and a 50mm f/1.8 lens at the local camera store (Huppins), and
have never regretted the decision.
I ended up giving EOS cameras (used ones, as I recall) to all the
other members of my immediate family as Christmas gifts, over time, so
that they'd have good cameras and so that we could share lenses and
accessories, if required.
When family members started getting married I volunteered to take
candid photographs as wedding gifts. I picked up a Mamiya C330 TLR
and a Sunpak 622 Super flash, along with a Quantum Turbo battery to
power the flashes. This gear worked very well, in conjunction with
the Canon. Medium format (in this case 6×6) is stunning!
In time I bought an EOS RT, with the fixed pellicle mirror, because it
had no mirror vibration, was tres cool, and could be extremely quiet.
(I never really used it much, though, and it ultimately represented a
waste of money.) Once the EOS 1N came out, with a mirror pre-fire
function, I upgraded to it from the 620. Also over time I bought
numerous SLR lenses, good ones.
When digital came along I tested the waters with a used Olympus D300L,
arguably the first 'pro-sumer' digital camera. It was much like that
Nikon I'd started with, but digital. It was perfectly suited for
taking photos for the web, but did not have removable media. It held
about a film roll's worth of photos before you had to offload them
through the serial port, a process that did not always go smoothly.
After a miserable session of trying to take macro photos with the
Olympus, using a 50mm SLR lens reversed in front of it, handheld, as a
macro adapter, I decided to jump into the digital SLR world by way of
a Digital Rebel that a co-worker was selling. I did not want
a crop-sensor camera, but the full-frame cameras were much too
expensive to justify and the continued inability to use all my SLR
glass for digital was growing increasngly frustrating. With the Rebel
I could again use all my lenses, including the 50mm and 100mm macro
lenses, while I waited for the prices of full-frame bodies to drop
into my budget range.
Log (belated)
...
Monday, September 6, 2010
Labor day, and I'm to take pictures of the Cd'A symphony in concert in
the park. (A volunteer effort, they get what they pay for.) I dusted
off the Quantum Turbo battery and recharged it. It's been neglected
of late, and that has not done it any favors. (Lead-acid batteries
don't like to sit discharged.) While it's now pretty weak, some
exercising over the last few days has resurrected it to some degree.
I really should open it up and put in a new battery. I find, though,
that Canon, in their infinite wisdom, has made my stopgap Rebel
digital camera incompatible with their old line of flashes,
specifically my workhorse 430EZ. It fared so poorly that I got out
the Sunpak 622 and used that for fill-flash instead, using the flash's
own auto-exposure setting. I had to put the camera on full manual,
though, which was less satisfying. (Film photography with the
1N/430EZ combination under these conditions was always highly
satisfactory, basically using it as a point and shoot. Canon's film
fill-flash algorithms are excellent.) I took quite a few photographs,
most of them discards. (A lot of exposure problems.) I cycled mostly
between my two favorite lenses: the 20–35 f/2.8 and the
80–200 f/2.8. I'd brought others, but didn't end up using
them. My main complaints are two: the camera's reduced-size sensor
means that my favorite wide-angle lens isn't really very wide-angle,
and the flash situation. And, of course, there's the Rebel's mediocre
shot-to-shot time.
My main approach is to take a lot of shots of the pre-concert
rehearsal, wandering in and around the orchestra, then move to the
edges and into the crowd during the concert. The only problem with
that is that the orchestra (and any soloists) aren't usually fully
dressed, or even necessarily all there, in the close-in shots.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Last Monday I dug out the camera gear to take semi-official
photographs at the CdA orchestra's free Labor Day concert. It'd been
awhile since I got out the big L lenses (80–200/2.8 and 300/4),
which worked well, and took the bulk of the 288 shots I kept. What
did not work well was the flash. Because the 430 EZ
doesn't work with the digital camera I had to resort to the Sunpak 622
that I use on the Mamiya C330 6×6, which meant I was running
'open-loop' on exposure. I had to set the camera to Manual exposure
(around 1/200 and f/2.8) and set the flash on automatic. That meant
there were a lot of overexposed shots—whenever the ambient light
got bright. (I really need to get the 550 EX flash!)
Anyway, this all worked as expected, what did not work well
was the Quantum Turbo Battery. It had been neglected for too long and
didn't want to take much of a charge. (It's supposed to be recharged
every three months. It's probably been charged only half a dozen
times over the last ten years.) I didn't start charging it until that
morning, which was much too late. I tried to rig an inverter in the
truck so I could continue charging on the trip there, but it only blew
the cigar lighter fuse—too much inrush current. I had it
charging again once I got to the park, but it still didn't hold much
usable charge by the time I needed it. Good thing I'd brought some C
cells for the flash's alkaline battery carrier. I'd never used it
before but it worked very well here.
Anyway, since then I've been charging and 'using' the Turbo to try to
exercise the cobwebs away. It seems to have recovered somewhat, but
it probably needs new lead-acid cells installed. (Last I heard this
was around $100 to have Quantum do, probably less than half that to do
it myself, assuming I can find suitable cells.) Today I put it all
away, cleaning the lenses and such. I cleaned the 20–35/2.8
zoom which has desperately needed it for awhile; the big glass was OK.
I removed and bagged the alkaline batteries from the flashes in the
camera bags, and stowed everything. The batteries in the bag's pencil
flashlight had leaked, so it took some time to disassemble and clean
it and get it working again. At least you can disassemble
and clean a Mag-lite. I wiped the pictures from the camera's CF card,
they've already been transferred to CD and given to Jill.
I got some good pictures anyway, but I had a lot of exposure problems,
and some focus problems. A fair number of composition and shake
failures too, because the camera/lens/flash combination was so big and
heavy. It got fatiguing to hold. I consider the exercise to be a
qualified success nonetheless.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Recently a Canon 1Ds-II showed up on craigslist. I made a $1500
offer, which they accepted. (That being about the going rate for
these now. New, six years ago, they were some $5000 or so.) I met
the guy today and made the exchange. The camera looked to be in very
good shape, but has been well-used. (Not a closet queen, in other
words.) The guy's wife is a professional photographer, and found the
weight of the camera to be a bit much. She'd gotten one of the newer,
lighter bodies (5D?) and was well-pleased by it. The 1Ds-II was then
sitting on a closet shelf, devaluing by the month. I, however, wanted
'the beast'. The heft is nice and it has the features I've wanted;
I've been waiting for an affordable one for years. This is the first
camera Canon made that feels like a suitable successor to my film 1N.
(Solidly built, full-frame sensor, fast shot-to-shot time, high
resolution. Everything that my stopgap Rebel is not.)
The camera was mostly complete, and came with two Pelican cases (for
CF cards) and two batteries, along with the original box and packing
materials. (It's missing the software that should have come with it.)
There is a two-battery charger, and a power supply for use in-studio.
We have a pile of 8GB CF cards at work that we'd pulled out of some
systems due to reliability concerns. (These were the main filesystems
on some just-developed network gear, and we'd had some problems on a
couple of systems. When a customer is to pay in excess of $250,000
for a piece of gear they expect it to behave itself, so we'd just
replaced all the suspect CF's with better ones to be safe. We had
experienced no problems with any of these particular CF's,
and in my camera they'll be loafing when compared to being a primary
Linux filesystem—I anticipate zero problems.) I grabbed a dozen
and formatted them, and filled the two Pelican cases. It's probably a
lifetime supply, for me.
Friday, February 14, 2011
I finally caved in and bought a Canon 580 EX II flash on
eBay, about $420 brand new. It came today. I'm still angry that my
good 430 EZ is essentially unusable on Canon's digital bodies.
There are a few advantages to this flash, besides that it
works:
- Built-in wide-angle diffuser lens, and white bounce card.
- Nice hot-shoe toggle lock.
- Ability to turn off the internal inverter when using external HV
pack, saving battery life.
I guess that I can still use the 430 EZ as an optically-triggered
studio fill strobe, old-school. (And, of course, on the film bodies.)
Saturday, July 8, 2011
I've recently been reading about all the uses to which one can put a
fisheye lens in these days of digital, it seemed to me that it was no
longer a limited-use lens. Since I'm such a wide-angle fan I decided
to get one. Recently one turned up semi-locally on craigslist and I
bought it for $575. (Actually we bought it last Tuesday. My wife was
headed to Seattle and stopped off in Moses Lake to purchase the lens
at her favorite coffee stop. She tried it on the Rebel I sent along
with her to prove that it worked before buying it. She's had it with
her since then and I only just today got it.) The lens is in perfect
condition, with box, and works nicely on the 1Ds II. Very
interesting just as it sits, I don't yet have any software to do
rectilinear or virtual-reality conversions, or panoramic stitching.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Labor day, and I'm again to take pictures of the Cd'A symphony in
concert in the park. This year I have more suitable equipment: the
1Ds-II and a mating 580 EX flash. The Quantum Turbo was again
dusted off, on the smaller flash it worked pretty well in spite of its
decrepitude. I brought along three lenses: my favorite
20–35 f/2.8 and 80–200 f/2.8, and the new-to-me
15 f/2.8 fisheye. Between the full-frame sensor on the camera
and the new fisheye I'm very much better equipped on the
wide-angle front this year. On the whole the process went better than
last year, though I don't think I got that many good pictures. One
problem was that I forgot to check the camera's ISO setting, something
I never had to do with my film cameras, and I'd managed to leave it on
ISO 3200 for a daylight event! Many shots are noisy, it's
surprising that things weren't worse than that. I need to be more
diligent about checking this when using digital bodies. The camera
body sporadically has problems holding focus in one-shot mode in my
usual focus-then-compose technique. I'm not sure if it's defective,
or I'm using it wrong. It's disturbing, nonetheless. (The problem is
accompanied by a lot of half-lit AF sensor marks in the viewfinder,
that's weird enough to make me think it's defective. I hope not, the
camera is long out of warrantee.) I took a lot of shots using the
fisheye from a ladder over the conductor's head, I like the effect but
I have yet to get a very good one. I also used the fisheye to take a
lot of shots of the crowd. Most of the photographs were taken on the
camera's lowest resolution setting, Jill said that this would be just
fine. (The smaller files are a lot easier to work with.)
I used my squeezer script (below) to make a screen-friendly synopsis
folder of the results, and burned the whole mess to a CD for Jill.
#!/bin/bash
#
# Usage: skrunch <dir> [<destdir>]
#
# Takes a directory tree full of camera JPEGs and squeezes them to
# screen-viewable size, while leaving the originals in a "fullsize"
# subdirectory (unless an alternate destination is specified). The
# directory structure of the source is maintained in the destination.
# If a destination is supplied, it may NOT be within the source dir!
#
function errexit() {
echo $1
exit 1
}
function skrunchfile() {
IN=$1
OUT=$2
MAXW=800
MAXH=600
echo Processing $IN to $OUT...
set `djpeg $IN | sed -n 2p`
WIDTH=$1
HEIGHT=$2
FACTOR=1
while [ $WIDTH -gt $MAXW -o $HEIGHT -gt $MAXH ]; do
let WIDTH=$WIDTH/2
let HEIGHT=$HEIGHT/2
let FACTOR=$FACTOR*2
done
< $IN djpeg -scale 1/$FACTOR | cjpeg > $OUT
touch -am -r $IN $OUT
}
[ $# == 1 -o $# == 2 ] || errexit "Usage: $0 <dir> [<destdir>]"
DIR=$1
if [ $# == 1 ]; then
DESTDIR=$DIR/smallsize
[ -d $DIR/fullsize ] && errexit "Pre-existing $DIR/fullsize directory, won't continue"
else
DESTDIR=$2
fi
[ -d $DIR ] || errexit "$DIR must be a directory"
[ -d $DESTDIR ] && errexit "Pre-existing $DESTDIR directory, won't continue"
mkdir $DESTDIR || errexit "Can't make $DESTDIR directory"
if [ $# == 1 ]; then
cd $DIR || errexit "Can't cd to $DIR"
find . \( -name smallsize -prune \) -o \( ! -name . -type d -print \) -exec mkdir smallsize/{} \;
find . \( -name smallsize -prune \) -o \( \( -name '*.[Jj][Pp][Gg]' -o -name '*.[Jj][Pp][Ee][Gg]' \) -type f -print \) | while read file; do
skrunchfile $file smallsize/$file
done
mkdir fullsize || errexit "Can't make $DIR/fullsize directory"
find . ! \( -name fullsize -o -name smallsize -o -name . \) -maxdepth 1 -exec mv {} fullsize \;
mv smallsize/* .
rmdir smallsize
else
(cd $DIR && find . \( ! -name . -type d -print \)) | sed s@^@$DESTDIR/@ | xargs mkdir
(cd $DIR && find . \( \( -name '*.[Jj][Pp][Gg]' -o -name '*.[Jj][Pp][Ee][Gg]' \) -type f -print \)) | while read file; do
skrunchfile $DIR/$file $DESTDIR/$file
done
fi
Saturday, September 17, 2011
A couple of days ago I bought a Vivitar 283 flash, $2 at the thrift
shop. It was in beautiful condition and was made in Japan. S/N
3097050. These have high-voltage and trigger jacks on the side, when
I got it I was thinking about inexpensive fill flash, either portable
on a Quantum Turbo or studio on wall power. I knew the 283 is well
thought of for these purposes and this one was certainly cheap enough.
Today I opened it, just to see what's in there. The photoflash
capacitor is 1100 µF, 350 V, and fills the knuckle. I
hooked 6 V to the battery posts and turned it on, it made odd
noises for awhile (probably while re-forming the capacitor) and then
made the usual charging-up whine. Interestingly, as it hits about
310 V on the main capacitor the inverter chops on and off as it
holds it there, and the neon Ready lamp flashes in time with the
inverter. Pushing the lamp button fired the flash normally. After a
flash the residual capacitor voltage is about 68 V.
I was most interested in examining the high-voltage plug and how it
tied into the innards. The keyway houses a mechanical link to the
power switch, so when the high voltage (HV) is plugged in the flash is
turned OFF. This is because the power switch is really
just the inverter switch and they don't want it to fight with the
external power supply. It is apparent that the flash doesn't require
battery power to operate, it all runs off the HV. There is a diode
from the step-up transformer to the HV feed bus, said bus is switched
to the socket when the inverter's turned off. (The HV bus is also
diode-isolated from the capacitor so that the capacitor can't
discharge back through the power jack.) I watched the voltage on the
HV feed bus as it charged up, it went right to the capacitor voltage
before it got basically unmeasurable with any normal meter as the
inverter turned on and off. What is interesting is that I read that
the SB-4 puts out 200 V at 4 mA, which is nowhere near the
fully charged voltage. (The keyway side of the HV connector is
positive.)
The sync voltage is about 250 V, so one must be careful what one
hooks this flash to! Few modern cameras will survive this level of
voltage, this flash was designed in an era when the trigger was a
mechanical switch on the shutter. (The Canon 1Ds-II hot shoe won't
tolerate this voltage either, but its PC terminal can.) My main
intention was to plug one of the optical slaves into the side of the
flash. Wein peanut? I already have a shoe-mount optical slave.
(Turns out I also already have a peanut, too.)
There are many vintages of the 283 out there, this is probably
more-or-less the original design from the early 70's. Like my Sunpak
622 Super, it's all high-voltage and no batteries are required when
using the external HV power plug.
I got out my Heathkit IP-17 regulated high-voltage power supply and
used clip leads to attach it to the flash. At 200 V, the
supposed rating of the SP-4 power supply, the flash works fine. At
the 310 V of the internal inverter, however, my Luna-Pro F flash
meter says it puts out 2 stops more light! At 285 V the Ready
light will come on. The SP-4 is rated at 4 mA, the IP-17 will
put out 150 mA and in fact given the way that its current meter
pegs after a flash it might be twice that. The IP-17 has the flash
fully charged in 2 seconds.
I believe a safe (isolated) studio power supply for this flash could
be constructed from a pair of transformer-style AC wall warts
(connected back-to-back) and a diode or three.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Labor day, and I'm again to take pictures of the Cd'A symphony in
concert in the park. The equipment is unchanged from last year, it
works very well. (The Fab-4 f/2.8 lenses, camera, and no flash.) The
attendance was way up, the weather was perfect and Jill had been
working up more publicity for the event. I took about 300 shots,
mostly the crowd and some specific ones that Jill had requested. The
rapid shot-to-shot time of the 1Ds is very nice for this event.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
While photographing Bassoonarama I managed to drop my favorite
20–35L lens on the carpeted floor, from about waist height.
(Waste height? I hope not!) Not all that high and it landed flat,
but no matter: 'twas death anyway. The rear lens group broke loose
from its cam, and rattles around loose. The current new equivalent is
about $1,800 mail-order, and a used one maybe $600. Worth getting
fixed, if possible.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
I dropped the damaged 20–35 lens off at Alpine Camera, a local
shop that fixes such things. Estimate was $185 and a week or two,
more if it needs parts.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
I picked up the repaired 20–35 lens at Alpine Camera. The
total bill was $201.10. (It had been ready more than a week, but I
was busy.) No parts were needed, the rear lens group had jumped out
of its track, and had not gotten damaged. Expensive, perhaps, but
the alternatives all were worse. This is the second repair for this
lens. (The first time the AF switch had come off, and the screw had
dropped down inside the lens.)
Friday, September 26, 2014
Today I found a Vivitar 285 flash to go with
the Vivitar 283 flash, $7 at the thrift shop.
This has a power jack on the side, I'm still thinking about
inexpensive fill flash. (This may never go anywhere.) Turns out this
uses a low-voltage SB-6 power supply, not the high-voltage SB-4 of the
283. (My mistake, I'd thought this was a HV flash, but that's the
285HV! I wouldn't have bought the flash if I'd realized this.)
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Argh! Today the 28–80L plummeted to the pavement after Jill's
concert, from about chest height and landed flat on its side. It
popped off the lens hood and cap and rolled about 20 feet away. At
home I checked it out, the hood and rear cover are scarred, the hood
particularly so—chewed might be a better term. The
plastic filter ring is cracked and deformed, I doubt it would be
usable for filters anymore. There was no glass damage, and nothing
seemed loose. The zoom ring worked OK. I mounted it on the camera,
and it zoomed and focused OK, and I took a picture with it. It all
seemed fine. Dodged a bullet? A vintage replacement is maybe $500.
I've got to be more careful!
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
I answered a Craigslist ad. and came home with a used Canon 1Ds Mark
III, in part because I wanted it and in part so that I can play with
tethering. (Most of the programs only support this camera or newer,
and not my older Mark II.) $600. It turns out the USB port is
broken, and the Mark III no longer has Firewire, so that's a bummer.
This camera was heavily used by a local professional, he'd moved up to
the Canon R. Very similar to the Mark II in capabilities, has
slightly higher resolution but no better low-light capability. The
-III LiON battery system is lighter and longer-lasting than the older
NiMH -II system. The two 1Ds's can serve as backups for each other,
cutting the inferior Rebel out entirely.
Monday, August 19, 2019
I dropped the 1Ds-III off at Camera Care (2317 E 17th Ave, 325-3934).
We'll see what he says about the USB. I got an online estimate (from
a different place) of $158.
The funny thing about the drop-off was that I mis-remembered the
address, and stopped at 2713 instead of 2317. And noticed on the 2713
porch a package addressed to Camera Care at 2317. When I got to the
correct place I informed Mr. CC and he was very happy that I had
discovered what had happened to his missing parts! Apparently the
mailman is as dyslexic as I am...
Saturday, November 2, 2019
I was thrift-shopping and found a Canon BG-ED3 battery grip for $7.
(No cell service there, so I couldn't look it up to see what it fit.
I figured it had to be worth at least that, so I bit.
Besides, it was for a good cause.) Turns out this fits only the 10D,
or a couple of its less-desirable predecessors. Probably will never
be of use to me. But, 10D's are actually fairly cheap online,
especially if incomplete, and while they don't use EF-S lenses they do
use the same battery/charger as my Digital Rebel, so...
Tuesday, November 5, 2019
Thinking of a Christmas present for Daniel (excuse?), I bought ($43) a
Canon ultrasonic 80–200 (128–320 equiv. on the 10D)
f/4,5–5.6 lens. His new iPhone 11 has an excellent camera, but
its telephoto capabilities are limited. Don't know if he'd really
want this, but we're not talking about a lot of money here. Either
put it on the Rebel and give that to him, or come up with a cheap 10D
(roughly equivalent to the Rebel) to go with the BG-ED3... Either
camera is so much bigger/heavier than his phone, I don't
think the tank-itude of the 10D (compared to the Rebel) would be an
issue. (I.e. wouldn't make the disincentve to use the big camera any
worse.)
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
The 80–200 lens came yesterday and looks good. It seems to work
fine, nice and quiet, but it has a small aperture and doesn't focus
very closely. (There's a reason it's not an expensive lens.) The box
noted that the ET-54 lens hood is what fits this lens, so I ordered
one of those, too, as lens hoods really cut glare and do offer some
protection. About $7.50, shipped.
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
The cheap ($1, plus $15 tax and shipping, $16.31 total) 10D arrived
today. Totally non-functional, Googling suggests that the internal
fuse has blown. It would be an easy fix, except that it is so hard to
get to.
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Camera Care says the 1Ds-III's problems are beyond him, that it needs
re-flashing at the factory. I'm going to check with the PO to see
what's up, if I can.
Thursday, December 12, 2019
I opened up the $1 10D again. This time I wasn't going to take no for
an answer, and was able to liberate the DC/DC board. You have to
unsolder 6 connections on its top to get it out, plus the two power
wires on the bottom. Giant PITA, many screws. Once it was
liberated I was able to unsolder and remove the two shields, and from
there it was fairly easy to find an extremely tiny surface-mount
component labeled F101 near the power wires, with an X on its body.
It is obviously in series with the power wire, on its way to two
substantial surface-mount filter capacitors, and the multimeter
confirmed this. Houston, we have found the fuse. The multimeter says
it is open-circuit, which is exactly what I was expecting.
There is no reason to build the camera this way, that fuse
could have been in-lined in the power wires from the battery, and made
very easy to change. I guess they didn't expect fuse fatigue or
transient faults at the lens mount to be a factor in their design, but
this oversight has rendered many a fine (though a bit dated) camera
into scrap.
My plan is to jumper across the on-board fuse, and put an extra-length
loop into the power wires, and fabricate up some kind of fuse
externally in the loop. (Just underneath one of the easy-to-remove
covers.) If it should happen again, that would make it easy to fix.
If the DC/DC board blows... well, it was scrap to begin with, wasn't it?
The plan proceeded apace. A little loop of fine solder bridged the
ex-fuse, and I attached some fresh red and black wires to the board.
Re-assembly was very fiddly, in spite of some care taking it apart I
was not 100% sure where all the screws went, or in what order. I
suspect that I might have swapped some and there's only one spot that
looks like it should have a screw but does not. Close enough.
Soldering back the flex circuits to the top of the DC/DC board was
probably the trickiest bit. I decided to dispense with any additional
fusing, because I really don't care that much about this camera and I
just wanted to be done. I joined the power wires to the original set
inside the handgrip, just the other side of the wall from the original
battery position.
After several hours I was done, and the camera was together. I
screwed the BG-ED3 on, and inserted both batteries. ...And, it
worked! After I set the date & time, and inserted a CF card, the
camera seemed to work just fine. Even the pop-up flash. I then
ordered a cheap pair of batteries and a USB charger for it, $17.58
with tax and shipping. The camera is still missing the eyecup, and
the rear rubber grip panel. I ordered two eyecups, $5.43 with tax and
shipping, and a rear rubber strip, $6.53 with tax and shipping. (The
special double-sided tape is more money, I'll just use some regular
double-sided tape, or perhaps rubber cement.) I ordered a body cap,
another $1, for storage purposes.
So, the rough total so far is:
Grip: 7
Body: 16
Lens: 43
Hood: 8
Btry: 18
Eyecup: 5
Pad: 7
Cap: 1
==========
Total $105
More than I'd really wanted to spend, but not too much for what it is.
Everything was cheap enough except the lens, which is the only piece
that is not effectively obsolete. In digital cameras 2003 is a
lifetime ago, but this thing is still built like the
$1,500–2,000 item that it was when new. Its only real problem
is the defective fuse design. All I need now is a camera bag to put
it all in. I'm having surprising difficulty finding one of these in
the thrift stream. (And I refuse to buy new for something like this.)
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Thrift shopping yielded a $9 makeup bag that looked a lot like an
older leather camera bag that I guess could do. I wasn't ecstatic
with this choice, so I hit another shop. Nothing. On my way out the
door I noticed an honest-to-God CPC camera bag languishing on the
couches outside, perhaps a recent donation. I brought it in and they
priced it for me: $2.49—pet hair, dirt, and Canon rubber squeeze
bulb blower included. It should clean up nicely. (I donated the
leather makeup bag back to where I bought it, they can keep their $9.)
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
I gave Daniel the 10D camera. He wasn't un-appreciative, but
I don't think it'll get much use. (The primary potential use is for
wildlife telephoto pictures, using his lens or one of the longer
lenses in our arsenal.) Still, this project was as much for me as for
him, and I enjoyed the challenge of making the $1 10D work again. The
total was only $108, this is not a major investment.
Thursday, February 6, 2020
I picked up the 1Ds-III from Camera Care. No charge, he wasn't able to
do anything with it. I told him about my journey with the 10D, and we
chatted briefly about internal camera fuses.
Monday, September 6, 2021
COVID has taken a toll, but the CdA Symphony finally had an outdoor
concert. I dusted off (literally!) the camera (1Ds-II) and took
pictures. One of the two battery packs puked after maybe 10 photos,
but I was able to take the remaining 90-odd photos on the other.
Tuesday, September 7, 2021
Dug out the 1Ds-III and checked the firmware version. Looks to be current,
but I did an upgrade to the latest (1.2.3) anyway.
I also started a battery recondition cycle on the NiMH pack that
failed me yesterday.
Thursday, September 23, 2021
The (new) estimate for replacing the USB port on the 1DS-III is now up
to $225, but I really have to question the value of doing anything
here, as I don't need USB to get the photos off the camera. (In fact,
I have never done so, always using an external CF reader for all my
Canon digicam work.) The only other use would be remote control of
the camera, and while I had that in mind when I bought this camera and
it might be fun to play with, I don't have any actual need. (It would
be different if this camera did video, but it does not.)
Don't. Waste. Money. (Likely I already did, as the -II has met all
my needs so far. It did not need replacement, though another battery
wouldn't have been a bad idea. The Rebel predecessor, on the
other hand...)
Something that is useful is the E1 hand strap that is on the
-II—I love this strap. The -III had no straps at all, and some
quick research showed that the Canon E1 strap is long gone in the
marketplace, replaced by the E2, which is similar but has a tripod
screw on one end. (The hand pad is also a little smaller.) A little
closer look, though, shows that this screw assembly is just tied onto
the strap, and comes off easily—you don't have to use
it. (This strap is also intended for use on cameras that have
optional battery grips, and the quick-release screw allows you to
remove the grip without great effort. However, the 1D cameras don't
need this option.) I have no intention of rendering the -II less
useful by stealing its straps, so I need to procure something for the
-III if they're both to be usable. (A 1Ds-II [-III] is a better
backup for a 1Ds-III [-II] than the Rebel. With these two cameras in
the roster the Rebel can maybe go bye-bye.)
While there are no-name E2 equivalents out there, the reviews of such
are mixed, to say the least. There are also other kinds of hand
straps, but they look like they lock onto your hand, which I don't
want. All I wanted was the friction fit of the E1, which suits me
perfectly. I opted to buy a used Canon E2 strap, which cost me $38
through eBay. It came today, and was complete and looked un-worn,
though it stank of cigarette smoke. I washed it in soapy hot water
and rinsed it out, and dried it. I removed the tripod screw, and what
remained resembled the E1 strap. Using the 1Ds-II as a guide, I put
the strap on the 1Ds-III camera. It took some fiddling, but
eventually I had something that seemed to work pretty well, and looked
tidy. The smaller pad doesn't seem to be significant.
There still was no neck strap, though. Scraping through my memory, I
recalled that the 1N (film camera) had come with a strap, but I'd used
a padded aftermarket strap instead. I had to dig around a bit to find
the 1N's box in storage, but the original Canon strap (made by Domke)
was still in it. I liberated it, and installed it on the 1Ds-III so
that its strapage is very like that of the 1Ds II, with which I've
been very comfortable.
Maybe next time out I'll take the -III instead? (Of course the -II will
be there too, in reserve.)
Friday, October 1, 2021
I've been wanting to get an EOS body that would take videos, using my
existing lenses. For studio use, mostly. (Such is the plan anyway.)
Ideally full-frame so that my favorite wide-angle lenses stay
wide-angle, which meant a 5D Mark II (or newer), or 6D, or 1DX. I'd
been waffling among the choices, trying not to spend too much
money. The 5D-II is the oldest choice, and their first video-capable
EOS camera. (Firstest is rarely bestest, but it was generally the
cheapest in my searches.) All my other EOS digital cameras use CF
cards, which the 6D does not. The 1DX is stupid expensive, as is the
5D-IV. So, really, the practical choice was between the 5D-II and the
5D-III—the -II being significantly cheaper but the -III having
better light sensitivity and more refinement. I kept trying to
convince myself to get the -II, which is currently half the price of
the -III, but...
Recently I caved in, and bought a $675 5D-III, for $730.49 shipped and
taxed through eBay. It came today, I had it delivered to Silverwood
to save $15 in taxes. It came with one battery and its charger,
nothing else. (No cables, manuals, software, etc.) This will do a
better job on video, and is in some ways a better still camera than my
1Ds-II and -III cameras, should I ever wish to use it as such.
I still need to get an AC power supply, for studio use, and choose
(and possibly procure) a lens for it.
Monday, October 4, 2021
I bought (through eBay) a used BG-E11 battery grip for the -III.
$48.65 with extortion and shipping (from India). (It's missing the AA
battery tray.) If I should wish to use the 5D for video not
in the studio, the doubled battery capacity should be very helpful.
(I find it interesting that the BG-ED3 grip for the older 10D would be
better for tripod video in the field, because you can replace the
batteries individually while using it. So, in theory, you
could be charging and swapping batteries while you filmed, or even
just swapping from a bagfull of charged batteries. Not so on the 5D,
the BG-E11 has a carrier tray that must be removed, taking out both
batteries at once and leaving the camera without power during the
swap. Not really an issue for still photography, but for video
potentially a problem.)
I did not really need this, but I find I like the feel of the
fat-handled cameras in the hand. I also bid on and won an aftermarket
AC adapter kit, for $23.73 with shipping and extortion through eBay.
Monday, November 15, 2021
I picked up the BG-11 battery grip at the post office, it had arrived
last Friday. It has a very musty smell, and it rocks slightly when
attached, enough to cause the battery cover safety switch to turn the
camera off. A small wad of paper on the other side, between camera
and grip, prevents this rocking. Deformation? A missing rubber
bumper? Canon is not sloppy enough for it to just be bad design.
With this in place I ordered a 'Kastar' dual battery charger and two
batteries for $30.26, a battery eliminator for $29.71, and a AA
battery tray for the BG-11 for $16.89. Never should need the battery
tray, but in a field emergency? Grab 6 AA's and you're online again,
assuming you brought it in the camera bag.
Friday, November 19, 2021
The AA battery tray for the BG-11 came.
Saturday, November 20, 2021
The two batteries and the charger came. Cheap, cheap stuff.
But it seems to work. So, all done buying equipment and ready to rock
at $856, assuming that I don't need to buy a lens.
Tuesday, March 15, 2022
I finally used the 5D, to record Jill's elementary band/orchestra
concert. (She's student-teaching at Horizon Middle School.) I set it
on a tripod, and used the 28–80mm f/2.8–4L lens from the
still camera to tightly frame the performance. It seemed to record
fine. Observations:
- The battery grip's musty smell is still with us.
- The (fairly cheap) tripod was perched at the top of the bleachers,
for the best perspective of the group. The camera was very
subject to vibration. A better tripod would only help somewhat,
as the bleachers themselves flexed as people moved. The result is
pretty annoying, post-processing (?) will probably be necessary.
- I couldn't get far enough above the heads of the audience to
exclude them properly. A much taller tripod? That could have
been... awkward.
- I had only an 8GB CF card with me, in addition to the 2GB SD card
that was already in the camera. The 8GB seems to hold maybe about
an hour's worth of video. This hobby could get hungry!
I had maybe 5 minute's worth of recording left when the concert
ended.
- Knowing about the 30-minute per-recording time limit, and being
uncertain about how much storage I actually had, I made separate
recordings of each piece, and left out the transitional times.
- The dual battery setup was fine. Didn't even move off the mark.
The camera didn't get particularly warm, there was probably a lot
of battery life left. (I think the choice of the Mark III over
the cheaper Mark II was a good one.)
- The built-in microphone picks up sound all around, in particular
the shutter sounds of my still camera. (I used the 1Ds-III, it's
been working fine the last few photo outings.) To do this stuff
for real a shotgun mic will be necessary. Or, even better, an
external time-synced stereo recording system whose output gets
merged with the video in post-processing.
- Losing access to the 28–80mm f/2.8–4L lens from the
still camera could have been awkward, but wasn't this time. I was
far enough away, and pinned down, so that the 80–200mm
f/2.8L
(MDP)
lens was sufficient for stills. Were I to do a lot of this,
another lens would be called for. Somewhere I have a
28–70mm f/4–5.6 lens that I used on the film cameras,
but I like the shallower DOF effect I got from the faster lens.
The just-visible heads of the audience were softer this way.
Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Googling showed that Final Cut and After Effects, common but expensive
video processing packages, will both do image stabilization. But, so
will iMovie, which we already have! I tried it, and the result was
like magic. The program is rather infuriating to use, as it seems to
have abandoned the document/file paradigm, but it is capable
of doing the work. It seems to use all the CPU cores (though not the
additional hyperthreads) while saving files, which is good.
I used it to:
- Trim off the undesired lead-in.
- Auto-cleanup the white balance. ('Enhance')
- Crop.
- De-jitter.
- Save as both high- and low-resolution MP4 videos, eighteen files
in all.
I noticed during processing that where the white baton crosses over a
dark line in the medium background (a joint between shell panels)
there is a little discontinuity, a 'jag', in the baton image. This is
highly weird, and is in the data as it came from the camera and has
nothing to do with iMovie. In no way does a little fiberglass baton
have a movable kink in it. This resembles a 'rolling shutter' motion
artifact, but it happens even when the baton is essentially
stationary. A glaring failure of the camera's ever-present
compression algorithms, I'd say, though it is possible that
it's the player instead.
The eight low-resolution files occupy about 1.5GB, which fits on the
2GB thumb drive Jill found. So she can take them to school tomorrow.
The high-resolution files are about 4GB, and the original source
files are about 7.5GB—this stuff is big!
Saturday, March 19, 2022
I ordered an older SanDisk Extreme Firewire CF reader, $30 off of
eBay. It comes with both -400 and -800 cables, so we'll see if it
reads this stuff faster or not.
Thursday, March 24, 2022
The $30 (eBay) open-box SanDisk Firewire-800 CF reader came today, all
was as expected. (Both cables, etc.) It's definitely faster, which
makes a difference when copying 7.5GB of data (for example). Timing
results of my three CF readers, all to /tmp
on MacPro3:
Reader | Intfc. | Time
|
---|
Lexar RW018C | USB 2 | 53 min
|
---|
Lexar RW019B | FW -400 | 10 min
|
---|
SanDisk SDDRX4-CF | FW -800 | 4.5 min
|
---|
Better than 10× faster than a 'typical' USB reader! Theorizing
that the HD might have been a limiting factor, I implemented an 8GB
RAMdisk and copied to that too:
# diskutil erasevolume HFS+ RD8GB $(hdiutil attach -nomount ram://16777216)
# time rsync -Pav /Volumes/EOS_DIGITAL/DCIM/100EOS5D /Volumes/RD8GB/
It took about the same 4.5 minutes, hitting a peak transfer of about
26MB/s. Not detectably faster, so it's still Firewire that is setting
the pace. (The USB reader runs along at a 'blistering' 2.2MB/s, not
very impressive. The old FW-400 reader manages about 11.5MB/s, quite
a bit better than USB.)
(The cheap 'Jumpshot' CF reader I bought Daniel is from Lexar, and it
turns out that it can only read Lexar-branded cards.
Useless, in other words, and practically worthless. I got rid of it.)
Saturday, December 3, 2022
I tried out the thrift-shop photo light stands I bought some time ago,
for symphony personnel portraiture. It actually worked well, but you
need a third light behind the subject to get rid of the shadows on the
backdrop. Also, need to tape the stands down so that they don't get
kicked over and smash the light bulbs! (Also special daylight
balanced CF bulbs, from the thrift stream. Fortunately replacements
are not that expensive.) I think I probably need to just buy a formal
kit, since my stands are missing the reflecting umbrellae.
Saturday, December 2, 2023
I checked my collection of studio photo accessories, and with the last
procurement of three more light stands, with umbrellae, high- and
low-wattage CF lamps, and a backdrop stand (sans backdrop), I think I
have more than enough gear (once I get a backdrop) to do a very nice
job of symphony portraiture. But, not for this concert, next time.
(Too-short notice.)
One of my two Canon LP-E4 batteries for the 1Ds-III camera went dead.
Charger doesn't even see it now. I was able to photograph the concert
using the other battery, as the Mark III is considerably less
battery-intensive than the Mark II, but now I don't have a backup. (I
have never yet needed the backup battery on the -III, whereas with the
-II I routinely needed to use both batteries.)
Research suggests that one of the three internal cells has gone flat,
and the protection circuit has kicked in. In theory the bad cell can
be replaced, but new aftermarket packs are pretty cheap...
I cracked open the battery pack. (Remove eight screws and two plates,
then pry it open with a wood chisel.) One of the three 18650 cells
was reverse polarity, it is dead-dead-dead. The thermal fuse is still
intact. Game over for this pack. I dug in the junk box and found the
box of Pismo battery packs and loose 18650 cells I'd bought, back when
I was still able to use the Pismo on the web and was trying to figure
out how to extend its service life (now long over), and found a loose
cell that had 3.9V on it. I can put it into this pack, but making
connections to the battery will be the hard part.
Friday, December 15, 2023
A few days ago I ordered an aftermarket (Powerextra LP-E4, $23 via
Amazon) battery, just in case repairs don't go well, and a used
RS-80N3 (Canon, $11.57 via eBay) remote release cable. They came.
The battery takes a charge, and the remote release has a considerably
nicer locking connector than the (compatible) cheap aftermarket timer
release that came with the 5D-III.
With this pack as a spare the motivation for repairing the Canon pack
is substantially reduced...
Sunday, November 10, 2024
Nearly a year (!) later, mostly just to get the mess off my workbench,
I soldered the replacement cell into the Canon battery pack, using
little wire leads soldered (quickly) to the torn tabs using a hot 85W
iron. I charged the cells individually to 4.06V (less than the LiON
4.2V absolute maximum) until the current was negligible, before
reassembling the pack. (The cells need to start out with balanced
charge, and the replacement cell had who-knows-what state of charge.
The pack's two remaining cells were nearly flat.) Before putting it
in its case I put it on the charger, carefully, and it acted normally.
I used alligator clips to attach a small 12V parking lamp to the
battery, and it lit at full brightness, and stayed that way for
awhile. I checked the cell voltages both unloaded and under load.
The open-circuit voltage of the 'new' cell is higher than the old
cells, but under load it's lower, though still well above the 3.0V
minimum voltage of a discharged cell. Definitely unbalanced behavior,
this is not ideal. It seems likely that this pack will not have full
life, but it's certainly got to be better than nothing.
Once reassembled I cycled the 'repaired' pack through the Canon
charger. In the camera it was able to take numerous pictures in
rapid-fire with focus tracking, and the battery indicator stayed at
'charged'. It seems fine now, though it's a bit of a tight fit. I
think it'll be fine as a second spare.
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