Camera mishap!

zorba

About a month ago, I had an "accident" with my Sony DSLR. Getting forgetful in my old age, I had been taking some pix of the Jeep, and left it on the front bumper...

Yep, you know what happened next. About 2 miles from the house, slowing down to a stop sign on a slight downhill. Recovered the camera. It had broken the battery door and battery latch off, smashed the lens, ejected the CF card off to Goddess knows where, and put a few scrapes on the body...

I was *VERY* lucky. The rear LCD was intact, the buttons and controls were intact, and the lens was a $50 "kit lens", *NOT* my uber expensive Sigma wide angle or other lenses I have - from "fairly cheap" to very pricey!

I bought the camera in 2008. Being that its a digital device, it's worth nothing today - so I made that work for me. I bought a parts body for $26, that probably works Ok, but I removed the damaged parts from it to refurbish mine. In addition, I bought the next newer model for $65, and it came with a somewhat better kit lens that covers the same focal range as the broken one - plus some.

But it gets better. The next newer model has the capability of accepting a vertical grip - something I remember wanting for my original back in the day - so I went shopping. $150 for a used vertical grip - except for a brand new one located in our "favorite Asian country". What it was doing there, I don't know, but it was $50/shipped. It arrived today, and its fantastic!

This actually turned into a blessing in disguise:

Sheet of paper under the cameras is the instruction sheet for the vertical grip - in Russian and several Oriental languages! Had to look it up online to get the English version.

Camera to the left in both shots is the original, Sony Alpha 100, with the Sigma 17-35 lens; to the right is the new(er) Sony Alpha 200, with an original Minolta Maxxum 70-210 "Prosumer" constant F4 lens from 1985.

I only wish I had Zee's talents!

earlyagain

Maybe that jeep can take you to some opportunity?

I see things every day that would make for great pics. It would be extremely hazardous to attempt photos from my vantage point.

GunNut

Sweet setup!  I’m still plugging along with my Nikon D90 rig.  I might have to start thinking upgrades but the darn iPhone camera and editing capabilities are getting so good I have a hard time spending any money on a dedicated camera.

zorba

If I had it to do over *now*, I'd probably get something like the Panasonic I saw recently with a 12-1200 lens (!!) which would probably be just fine for a tyro like me. But what with the investment I've made over many years in the Minolta **** Sony system, that ain't happening.

Your D90 should be just fine, its a nudge higher in resolution than mine are - 12 MP according to Google, vs. 10.1 for these particular Sonys. But I take 98% of my pix with the 5MP setting which gives far more resolution than I actually end up using. Hell, the above pix of the 2 cameras were taken with a  late 90s era 2MP Kodak point and shoot I inherited from my late Father, and even it takes perfectly adequate pictures under most conditions.

iPhones have excellent cameras, albeit with no lens interchangeability, but software can overcome much. Make the lens as wide angle as possible, and crank up the resolution for "digital zoom", and its a good combination. What's the widest aperture on cell phone cams these days?

zorba

earlyagain said:

Maybe that jeep can take you to some opportunity?

I see things every day that would make for great pics. It would be extremely hazardous to attempt photos from my vantage point.

That's the hopeful idea - but I've recently found out, much to my surprise, that most reputable photographers recommend hauling one's camera gear *inside* the Jeep!

dld

zorba said:

If I had it to do over *now*, I'd probably get something like the Panasonic I saw recently with a 12-1200 lens (!!) 

I got the Nikon P1000 35-3000 zoom which is fantastic for a carry around camera. I don't have to carry my good cameras all the time

zorba

Wow, 35-3000? How the *HELL* do they do that? What's the F-stop range?

CHIRO1989

Did it take any pictures before it came to a stop?

zorba

CHIRO1989 said:

Did it take any pictures before it came to a stop?

If it did, I have no way of knowing as it self-ejected the CF card which flew off into LEO, apparently. In any event, I wasn't able to find it despite a pretty intense search for it on both sides of the road, blah, blah, blah. Only a couple of pix were lost, I'm pretty good about offloading the camera quickly. I was able to re-create the lost pictures as they'd only been taken a few minutes before (with the previously mentioned older Kodak).

I'm amazed that the camera survived the fall - I think it was because the lens took the initial hit, but it tumbled afterwards. The battery ended up 25 feet or so away from the camera body. Thank Goddess there weren't any other cars that came along at that particular point - which was a minor miracle in itself. I was very lucky (and stupid!).

What made it even worse was that this was the SECOND instance of my leaving something on the front bumper and driving off that SAME day! Earlier I had left a bottle of radiator stop leak there, which fell off in the street in front of my house and was waiting for me when I got back from a test drive. That flat front bumper is a great place to put tools and "stuff" when I'm working on the Jeep...

CHIRO1989

zorba said:

CHIRO1989 said:

Did it take any pictures before it came to a stop?

What made it even worse was that this was the SECOND instance of my leaving something on the front bumper and driving off that SAME day! Earlier I had left a bottle of radiator stop leak there, which fell off in the street in front of my house and was waiting for me when I got back from a test drive. That flat front bumper is a great place to put tools and "stuff" when I'm working on the Jeep...

God tapping you on the shoulder saying heads up...

zorba

CHIRO1989 said:

zorba said:

CHIRO1989 said:

Did it take any pictures before it came to a stop?

What made it even worse was that this was the SECOND instance of my leaving something on the front bumper and driving off that SAME day! Earlier I had left a bottle of radiator stop leak there, which fell off in the street in front of my house and was waiting for me when I got back from a test drive. That flat front bumper is a great place to put tools and "stuff" when I'm working on the Jeep...

God tapping you on the shoulder saying heads up...

Yea, pretty much! Like 'Hey stupid, pay attention!'

ilove22s

a new toy is always nice to have....

I would like to get a better camera for my travels, but i like  my PnS for compactness and ease of carry.  

whats the saying goes, the best camera is the one in your hand.  So thats why i do what i do and have what i have.

my bro did the same with one of his hunting rifles, but instead of putting it on a bumper, it was leaning against his car and drover over it.

but thats has my bro written all over it.

zorba

ilove22s said:

my bro did the same with one of his hunting rifles, but instead of putting it on a bumper, it was leaning against his car and drover over it.

Oooh! That makes me cringe. I do recall losing my TI-30 calculator in a similar fashion years back. My late father was famous for this as well, a gallon of milk and a pair of channel locks comes to mind. In fact, I have the channel locks - he went back to get them and got into an argument with some guy over whose they were...

zorba

I just now had occasion to use my flash unit, and remembered I had an older Minolta flash as well, so here they are "on":

Thank Goddess the Sony flash on the RH camera wasn't on the LH camera "that day"! The older Minolta flash on the LH camera is only partially compatible with the Sony digicams. It works, but only fires full power, not proportional like it would on an old film camera or as the RH flash does. That's OK, I usually use it (the Minolta flash) in bounce mode anyway.

And yes, that's my fone under the lens of the RH camera.

GunNut

zorba said:

I just now had occasion to use my flash unit, and remembered I had an older Minolta flash as well, so here they are "on":

Thank Goddess the Sony flash on the RH camera wasn't on the LH camera "that day"! The older Minolta flash on the LH camera is only partially compatible with the Sony digicams. It works, but only fires full power, not proportional like it would on an old film camera or as the RH flash does. That's OK, I usually use it (the Minolta flash) in bounce mode anyway.

And yes, that's my fone under the lens of the RH camera.

Nice setup!  I don't recognize a phone anywhere in the picture 

zorba

Yea, yea, yea!

Asking outta curiosity - what's the specs on your iPhone camera lens? F-stop, Equiv. focal length, etc?

Linefinder

Can't match your story, but I once left a Case Trapper on the rear bumper of my truck and drove 30 miles @ 70 mph down I-20 (not the best interstate in the world), and it was still there the next morning.

Worst that could have happened though was I would have been out $35 and somebody else might have been out a tire.

Mike

zorba

That reminds me of another story...

Growing up, our '63 1 ton GMC had a very heavy diamond plate bumper that had originally been on a '53 Dodge 1 ton - and for whatever reason, things tended to stay on it. So we were going to spend a weekend about 200 miles away, in our 5th wheel trailer. About 50 miles into the journey, we stopped off on the side of the road to eat lunch. While that was going on, I discovered that my plastic 5-D Radio Shack flashlight had 5 dead D cells in it. So I took the cells out, and set them on end on the truck's bumper. One in the middle, one on each end, and the other two in-between. Hey, I was 16 years old. Anyway, 3 of them made it all the way to our destination, one fell off Goddess knows where, but the other one...

I was riding in the trailer (Legal), and heard a thump. I looked out the back window to see a D cell bounding out from under the trailer and bouncing in 6 foot high leaps. It bounced over into the other lane where a Pinto station wagon tried to avoid it to no avail, it dinged his front passenger fender. I thought my goose was cooked for sure, but the driver didn't figure out where it came from...

10canyon53

zorba said:

CHIRO1989 said:

Did it take any pictures before it came to a stop?

That flat front bumper is a great place to put tools and "stuff" when I'm working on the Jeep...

That's an easy fix.  Duct tape some PVC pipe on the top of the bumper and you won't be able to set things on it anymore. 
Many moons ago when I was a commercial HVAC tech I stopped by my aunt's house to fix her air conditioner.  I left my brand new 18V DeWalt hammer drill on the side of my utility body service truck and drove off.  I remembered it within a block but it had already fallen off and I never found it.  I guess somebody saw it fall and was quicker than I was.

dld

zorba said:

Wow, 35-3000? How the *HELL* do they do that? What's the F-stop range?

f 2.8 - f 8
My largest SLR lens is 800mm, even with a 2x extender it does not come close to the p 1000.
Image quality isn't as good on the p 1000 but you can get shots you would not be able to get.
If you shoot raw like I do you can tweak the focus and come close. 

GunNut

zorba said:

Yea, yea, yea!

Asking outta curiosity - what's the specs on your iPhone camera lens? F-stop, Equiv. focal length, etc?

It's not just the specs that make it attractive, it's also the rest of the ecosystem like automatic cloud backup, sharing over tons of different methods like messaging, email, Air Drop + feature rich full editing software built right into the phone, iPad, Mac, etc. and interesting formats like Portrait mode and lighting that let you get very creative.  GREAT video capabilities etc.

You can do things like this with ease.  You used to need a studio and pro software to play like this.


Notice reflection on my glasses.  That's just a fun selfie right in my backyard.

These are pictures of my nieces I took playing around at their house this past Christmas.




Not even trying that hard.  Just some slight edits to make the colors pop a little.

But as to actual specs, this is from their site:

Dual 12MP Ultra Wide and Wide cameras

Ultra Wide: ƒ/2.4 aperture and 120° field of view

Wide: ƒ/1.8 aperture

2x optical zoom out; digital zoom up to 5x

Portrait mode with advanced bokeh and Depth Control

Portrait Lighting with six effects (Natural, Studio, Contour, Stage, Stage Mono, High-Key Mono)

Optical image stabilization (Wide)

Five‑element lens (Ultra Wide); six‑element lens (Wide)

Brighter True Tone flash with Slow Sync

Panorama (up to 63MP)

Sapphire crystal lens cover

100% Focus Pixels (Wide)

Night mode

Auto Adjustments

Next-generation Smart HDR for photos

Wide color capture for photos and Live Photos

Advanced red‑eye correction

Auto image stabilization

Burst mode

Photo geotagging

Image formats captured: HEIF and JPEG

zorba

That's some good specs - I especially like the wide angle (roughly 10mm equivalent in a 35mm system!) and fast lens. HEIF and WEBP are a bit of a nuisance as the former is only supported by Apple last time I checked, whereas the latter is supported by everybody BUT Apple. I really wish the industry would stop these phallic contests as everybody loses. Both formats are a notch or two above even PNG, and vastly better than JPG - but you already knew that.

I'm curious. I would expect the wide angle to natively distort the image - but the built-in software would correct it as it would know everything it needed to know to do it accurately. I've seen some beautiful pix come out of cell phones - and yours are nicely done. I won't comment on the subject matter of the first one though!

Edit: The automatic cloud backup can be very useful if you just happen to, say, take a picture then drive off with the camera/phone on the bumper of your Jeep!

zorba

dld said:

zorba said:

Wow, 35-3000? How the *HELL* do they do that? What's the F-stop range?

f 2.8 - f 8
My largest SLR lens is 800mm, even with a 2x extender it does not come close to the p 1000.
Image quality isn't as good on the p 1000 but you can get shots you would not be able to get.
If you shoot raw like I do you can tweak the focus and come close. 

That's darn good specs there too! I just bought one of those cheap Chinee 650-1300 f8 Zooms. With a 2x extender it would still be 400mm short - and at F16!

GunNut

zorba said:

That's some good specs - I especially like the wide angle (roughly 10mm equivalent in a 35mm system!) and fast lens. HEIF and WEBP are a bit of a nuisance as the former is only supported by Apple last time I checked, whereas the latter is supported by everybody BUT Apple. I really wish the industry would stop these phallic contests as everybody loses. Both formats are a notch or two above even PNG, and vastly better than JPG - but you already knew that.

I'm curious. I would expect the wide angle to natively distort the image - but the built-in software would correct it as it would know everything it needed to know to do it accurately. I've seen some beautiful pix come out of cell phones - and yours are nicely done. I won't comment on the subject matter of the first one though!

Edit: The automatic cloud backup can be very useful if you just happen to, say, take a picture then drive off with the camera/phone on the bumper of your Jeep!

I know, it pains you to say it's the coolest old guy you know 

And yes you are correct, the internal software on the phone corrects for the extreme wide angle really well to the point that you really just can't tell.  With the old SLRs the fisheye effect used to trouble me significantly unless I sed it as a dramatic element for a picture.  With the iPhone it's not a factor at all.

The cloud backup is VERY nice since I can take a picture with my iPhone and by the time I get back to my Mac to post a topic here, the picture is already on my desktop library.  Air Drop is next level stuff.  I took all those pics of my nieces, did a little editing and just walked over to my sister in law and put them on her phone without having to even use wi-fi.  It is great for sharing video you just took with folks that are around you since it uses no data plan GBs, which is great for folks with limits on their plans.

zorba

GunNut said:

I know, it pains you to say it's the coolest old guy you know 

I'll only add that that iPhone must have one TOUGH camera to withstand the abuse strain you put it through! Lesser cameras would have shattered!

GunNut

zorba said:

GunNut said:

I know, it pains you to say it's the coolest old guy you know 

I'll only add that that iPhone must have one TOUGH camera to withstand the abuse strain you put it through! Lesser cameras would have shattered!

Come on, just say it.... Coolest old guy... 

zorba

Snort! You crack me up...

10canyon53

I can't believe it.......I think I hear Zorba reaching for his wallet to buy an iPhone!  Not to use it as a phone mind you.....

Zorba, just keep telling yourself it is not a smartphone, it is just a funny looking camera. 

GunNut

10canyon53 said:

I can't believe it.......I think I hear Zorba reaching for his wallet to buy an iPhone!  Not to use it as a phone mind you.....

Zorba, just keep telling yourself it is not a smartphone, it is just a funny looking camera. 

With a kick ass processor, cloud backup abilities and great software that JUST happens to allow Voice and Video conferencing...

NOT a smartphone 

GunNut

zorba said:

Snort! You crack me up...

It was just a matter of time.  I'm like a fungus, I grow on'ya!  

GunNut

Back to pictures here's a few "takes" on my avatar.  All of them quick portrait mode on the iPhone, playing while bored on a conference call exploring the editing/camera capabilities.  Very easy to get creative/excellent results in no time at all.  Grabbed one of my old hats from the hatrack in my office and a bandana from my desk.




The one I settled on.




The one I used briefly... 



I think it's my Facebook profile now.