17Oct SDHC to CF adapter, are they any good?
I was looking for a new SDHC card reader this morning after accidentally stepping on my spare and I came across this SDHC to CF card adapter. I have no idea how well something like this would work, but it seems like it could be handy to be able to adapt the same memory across several different cameras. Anyone given one of these a try? I might have to through away $12 to give this a try.
15Oct On-Stage 6500 padded light truss bag to haul your camera equipment.
I’ve used this On-stage 6500 bag for almost 5 years, both for camera gear and music equipment. The bag has quit a bit more padding then those included with most lower price tripods and heavy duty shoulder strap and handles. I’ve had good luck with durability, the only point to fail over the years of heavy use is the threads that keep the zipper attached. Twice I’ve had to stitch it back to the bag, but for $30 it’s hard to complain.
The On-Stage 6500 padded bag has enough room to hold two tripod stands, the Konova Slider, and an extra fluid head with plenty of room to spare. Or you can easily fit 6 mic stands, cables, and mics for a group talk, podcast or speaking event. Although I don’t use this bag for lighting, it could easily double as a padded lighting bag if you needed. The bag has 3/4 inch padding which also handles quit a bit of weight. Over all it’s a good buy for $30. I just finished unpacking this bag for a shoot tonight, time to start filming.
14Oct New Item for the Noob store, the Advanced Zoom h1 shock mount.
The new printer has paid off with an update to the Zoom h1 shock mount. This upgraded version of the shock mount gives you 3 extra cold shoes around the outside of the unit and a thicker frame to handle the extra weight.
If you’re wondering why you might need the outside cold shoe adapters on your shock mount, this example allows you to mount a wireless mic and the RODE Videomic in one place and feed both inputs into the Zoom h1. This of course could be used with anything you could think of.
The Advanced Zoom h1 shock mount will set you back $14 plus shipping, which is a little more then the original, but considering other options that run almost $50, I think it’s still a pretty good deal. The first run of these guys will be limited, but more will be on there way soon.
13Oct Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS, the lens I’ve been dreaming about.
The Canon 70-200mm f2.8 II is a lens I’ve always wanted to own. If you have a crop sensor camera like the Canon 7d then the 70-200mm ends up being a 112-320mm equivalent. I’ve had more then one chance to play around with it, and a few times I’ve actually been able to take it out for a day. At 200mm (320mm equivalent) f2.8 gives you a very shallow depth of field and the built in IS does a great job of keeping the lenses stable, the auto focus feels fast and smooth, the build feels great and everything about the lens screams buy me.
Sure you could pick up a lens like the Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 and you’ll end up saving around $800 with the same focal length, but once you’ve handled the Canon 70-200mm f2.8 and the Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 you’ll understand the difference in feel. I wish I’d been able to handle both of these lenses at the same time, but sadly I spent a day with the Canon one weekend and a day with the Sigma another weekend. I can’t set them side by side, but even with the weekends between lenses It really seemed like the focus on the Canon 70-200mm out preformed anything I was able to get with the Sigma.
Both lenses are very large and I don’t normally enjoy the look of a white lens, but the feel of the Canon 70-200mm was a step up from the Sigma, the focus rings moves smoother, the IS switch feels better and over all the image quality of the Canon 70-200mm f2.8 II seemed to be better. When I say “better” for the most part I mean auto focus, it seemed like no matter what I tried the Sigma would always end up giving me a soft image. With the Canon 70-200mm it seemed like almost ever shot I took was ultra sharp.
Tamron also makes a 70-200mm f2.8 model that I haven’t had a chance to play around with, so I have no idea how it stacks up against these other lenses. Tamron’s offering is around $400 less then Sigma’s and I think I might need to find a someone who is willing to let me play around with it.
The Canon 70-200mm f2.8 II feels nice and does a great job, but I wonder, once the honey moon is over, will I just go back to using my favorite prime lenses and have something like the 70-200mm lens wasting space in my bag. It’s hard to imagine packing light with a lens that weighs over 3 pounds and adds 12 plus inches to your camera body.
I might have to rent all three of these lenses for a week and give them a full set of tests before I decide to spend my tax return on a lens in this price range. The thought of switching over to Ramen Noodles for a few months didn’t seem like a bad idea when I held the Canon 70-200mm f2.8 in my hand. Maybe I’ll hunt around for a and get the price down around the cost of Sigma’s offering.
11Oct Back again, Reprap 3d printer took over the last week of my life.
You might have noticed my lack of posts over the last week, and above is the basic reason, with 7 days of work and 1 day off for October fest. Sometimes I get sucked into a project and don’t stop until I’ve finished, this has taken more hours then I wanted to spend, but hopefully soon you will see the rewards of my time off in the Noob Store.
If you decide to get a 3d printer and want to go with something like the Makergear Prusa, It might be a good idea to consider ordering the electronics board assembled, if you don’t have a good soldering iron and the skills to put something like this together, you’ll end up spend more then $50 worth of your own time trying to build things up, then fixing the problems you’ve created.
I also ended up making a few more modifications during the build then I had expected, that chunk of cloth sitting on top of the extruder is from one of my shirts, and the hard to see glass plate on the bed is from one of the 8×10 picture frames in the house. I also added to all of the moving parts, and I can safely say this is one of the quietest machines in the house.
It might have taken up a week, but sometimes it’s worth it to dig into a project like this and see it through to the end. Now that it seems to be working properly (after a quick firmware upgrade), I should be back to my regular posting schedule, and I should be able to design and print much bigger items.
I’ve also received a lot of e-mail over the last week, so I’ll be getting back to as many of you as I can, and try to get caught back up with most of your questions soon. It’s been a fun week of building things, but I’m glad to be done, more then a week on a project like this and it starts to seem like work.
03Oct Next 3d printer build
My next 3d printer showed up a few days ago and i’m 3/4 of the way through the build. The Makergear Prusa isn’t quit as easy to assemble as the Makerbot and it takes a lot of searching to figure out what needs to happen next. I’m about to start on the electronics and still trying to find the pin out for the stepper motors. I’ll have to do a little more reading, but hopefully I’ll have it up and running by the end of the week. If any of you decide to go this route, adjustments are a pain, I spent hours trying to get things to move smoothly and ended up replacing all of the bearings with . Once I added proper linear bearings things started to work out much better. You save money on the Makergear Prusa but you’ll have to spend a lot more time sorting things out.
Hopefully once this is finished I’ll be able to add a few more things to the Noob Store. I’ll keep you posted.
30Sep Matin Outlast leather DSLR hand strap – Review
You might know from this previous post, that I have a soft spot for DSLR hand straps, and I’ve been happy with the $7.49 hand strap I picked up a few months back, but after seeing the Matin Outlast leather hand grip pop up on Amazon a last month, I decided to pull the trigger on this arguably classier looking model. Unfortunately Amazon only sells this in black, but I noticed while thumbing through the pictures that the same company did make one in brown. I scouted around on ebay and finally found the Matin Outlast hand grip in brown for about $12 cheaper. The price drop is nice but of course it took almost 4 weeks get here.
Open the package and you’ll find a nicely stitched leather hand pad in a soft microfiber case with brass buckles and a nice low profile metal 1/4 20 plate. Two extra little leather hoops are included to help manage your strap and an extra brass adapter is also included.
The 3 hole brass adapter is a nice extra touch, it allows you to attach a neck strap if you need an extra layer of protection. I like to use a quick release on my camera straps and this seems like a good place for my quick release buckles to hang.
The Matin leather DSLR hand strap is much easier to adjust and the pad is noticeably more comfortable then the Opteka hand straps. The pad is also much wider and easily covers the length of the back of my hand. The only part not made out of leather is the lighter colored portion of the hand strap which feels like it might be made out of a Canvas material. It feels very well made overall and it looks nice.
If you don’t mind waiting, you can find the (with shipping), but if you want it faster the Matin Leather hand grip is available (black only) on Amazon for $48. I’ll probably end up buying one of these for the rest of my cameras, it’s a very nice hand grip.
30Sep Field recorders a short round up.
When I pitted the Zoom h1 against the Tascam DR-05, I had planned to sell one of them off, but as of yet I haven’t taken the time to do it. Four hand held field recorders are probably two too many. I generally need a very small unit for quick and easy audio work, and a larger unit for Pod casting, voice over work and other random tasks that XLR inputs are better suited to preform.
I Also have a larg (not pictured) laying around for the few times when I’m just in charge of audio, but anymore I find it more convenient to simply clip my zoom h4n to the base of my boom pole and use a hand held remote, that way i’m not stuck carrying around a bag filled with a 4 channel mixer, field recorder, and all of those batteries.
Anyway, before I get to off track, above (from Largest to smallest) is the Tascam DR-40, Zoom h4n, Tascam DR-05, and the Zoom h1. The h1 is still the hands down winner for size and weight, but the Tascam DR-05 has a better build quality then the h1 but doesn’t offer much more in the way of advanced features and it’s size can be a down side for a lot of people.
I had originally considered the Tascam DR-40 to be a competitor to the Zoom h4n, but after messing around with it a little bit this morning, I’m starting to think that it was intended to compete more with something like the Zoom h2n. Although the H2n is missing XLR inputs, it has quit a few more features then the DR-40 and offers up the same usb audio interface available with the Zoom h4n.
I just saw the Zoom h4n used on amazon for $219, at that price it seems like the Tascam DR-40 should be priced somewhere around the $140 mark if Tascam wants to stay competitive.
29Sep Tascam DR-40 – First impressions
The Tascam DR-40 finally showed up on my door step this morning after several shipping delays. A few of the features seem very interesting, like the ability to record 2 copies of the same audio, each at different levels and the ability to over-dub and extra audio track, but I’ll cover more of those features once I have a chance to do a full review.
The controls on the Tascam DR-40 are almost identical to the Tascam DR-05 with the exception of 3 extra buttons just bellow the large screen and the extra play button above the unit. The DR-40 has a very plastic feel to it and even though the sides have a ruff texture around the area you hold, this texture doesn’t provide a very comfortable hand grip.
Even though the case is made mostly of plastic there is a metal 1/4 20 mount on the back of the DR-40 that should out last the plastic threads of many lower end field recorders. The 3 batteries required to power the DR-40 seems like an odd choice and gives it an strange bulge three quarters of the way up the back side of the of the case. Even with batteries installed it feels quit a bit lighter then the Zoom h4n.
With the Tascam DR-40 and Zoom h4n side by side you’ll notice that the DR-40 is slightly taller and thicker then the h4n, but even though the Zoom h4n is smaller it still feels quit a bit more substantial in your hand. The rounded rubberized corners on the h4n also make it more comfortable to hold and the over all build quality seems a few steps better then the DR-40.
There is a nice dedicated volume control button on the side of the Tascam DR-40 along with a switch to change the input sensitivity and turn on/off Phantom power. I haven’t had a chance to test out the XLR inputs or built in mics yet but I should have time to play around with it some more this weekend.
My first impression is that the build quality is lacking and the size and shape are somewhat awkward, the case feels very plastic and it’s size is larger then the Zoom h4n. I hope the audio quality gives the Tascam DR-40 a good reason to exist, because a refurbished Zoom h4n is only $50 more on amazon right now.
27Sep HDMI Male to Female Swivel Adapter for short cables
I generally like to use shorter 3 foot HDMI to mini cables because I want enough length to hook up a monitor without leaving so much slack that the cable can be ripped out of the camera. HDMI just isn’t as tough of a cable standard as something like SDI which has a nice twist lock BNC style connector and if you destroy your HDMI mini input on your camera it can be $500 or more to fix.
The down side of these short cables is that they aren’t very flexible and often there is strain on the back of the field monitor connection as you try to make the loop back to the mini plug on your camera. That’s were this handy little swivel adapter comes in.
The swivel gives you more play and allows your output cable to be pointed in whatever direction works best. So if you’re using a monitor with a side mount HDMI port like the Sony CLM-V55 (above) or a monitor with an HDMI port at the bottom of the screen like the SmallHD DP4, you end up with a cable that can more easily be snaked through your rig.
I’ve been looking for a version that has a Swivel on both the HDMI and mini side built into a single 3 foot cable, but I haven’t had any luck. If anyone knows a good place to find something like that, let me know and yes I tried monoprice.
