Half full or Half Empty and other.

[CollBaxter]

As to photography . I also have not done much fro a while. I did go out yesterday an d try and get some stuff . Well yesterday was one of those days that I should have slept through. I went out early and got to the reserve quite late due to traffic. (8.00) When I got there the was only one person in the hide. Well it must have been one of te worst birding day ever there was zip nothing bugger all worth taking. The other person in the hide was a pro who does weddings and functions to pay for his passion which is wildlife. Any way with no activity we started talk about camera's. I was talking with my hands and swung around and knocked the E-5 + EC14 + 90-250 of the ledge. ( About 1m drop) and it came crashing down on the floor. All I heard other than the ting and crash was "that going to be expensive." . In my panic while I was checking out the lens I knocked the body onto the floor. (Another 1m) Ieeeeesh .

Well the out come was no real damage to any of the equipment . ( A scuff on the grip to balance the other scuffs) The lens hood which is made of machined alloy was out of shape . That thing is tough , I had to use BIG G clamps to get it back into shape again.

I suppose when they call the body a pro body and the lens a pro lens and you pay a lot of money for it that is what you are getting. If it was the bigma I would have had 2 bits of lens.

Well it did not stop there . When I got home I need to format a CF ( I normally format in camera) card and being a IT professional when the system ( Storage Manager) warned that I was going to delete a partition. I mumble. "Do you think I am an idiot." . Well I landed up losing 2TB of pictures ( 600,000 jpgs and raws ) . I am now recovering the drive . I have a backup but its about a month old. Get Data back has found all of it and now its a case of time , the data is on a 6TB freenas device which is dog slow.

So the question is was it a bad day or was it my lucky day . I am a half full type of person so I consider myself lucky to have got out of all this self inflicted strife with minimal damage. It at the end of the day was a lucky day. Also if you have suffered from insomnia and got to sleep a 3 and up at 6 , don't touch anything breakable.

AS to the other . Th Pro I was with was using a 5DMKIII 300 f /2.8 and a 2X converter. He was bitching about the focus as he lost of shoots ( Very small birds very far away ) . He eventually gave up and took the 2X converter off. His ***** then was that he could not get a decent view for tracking , selective focus and comp with the big screen and tiny bird although he could crop later he found some of the stuff OFF especially the stuff surrounded by junk. . He does not use a 7D as he prefers the DR of the 5D and a 1Dx is out of his reach to use for a pat time use . He said after taking tho some canon people there is apparently a 7DMKII in the pipeline which which will be a mini 1XD with similar with slightly less performance that the 1Dx but using a cropped sensor on a very new 20-24MP sensor. I mention this for interest sake as we often have this debate about full frame vs Crop for wild life.

On a sad point and fate when its not your day its not your day. A few weeks ago I saw our cat sitting and staring at the weir at the pool. I went for a swim the next day and went to check the weir as I have to put a brick on the bypass valve to stop a vortex effect. When I opened the weir there as a tiny mouse on the brick which had fallen in the pool and swum to the weir and onto the brick. I Grabbed it and while I was carrying it to the compost heap where I think it lived it jumped off my hand and scampered away. Well I though that it was a good ending. Except that night the cat presented us with one tiny mouse ( Unfortunately dead) . When its not your day it not your day and when its time its time. :-(

So I was not fated to break the camera and or lens yesterday or its a pity the mouse was not built like the E series PRO/SHG lenses and cameras. :-|

I got total junk yesterday , which I will post on the Sunday Bird.

--
Collin
(Aficionado Olympus DSLR )
http://collinbaxter.zenfolio.com/
http://www.pbase.com/collinbaxter
http://www.outdoorphoto.co.za/gallery/showgallery.php?ppuser=21652&username=collin
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. (George Carlin)
New Seventh Wonder of the World.
http://www.pbase.com/collinbaxter/image/95297052.jpg

 

[Hans H. Siegrist]

I got total junk yesterday , which I will post on the Sunday Bird.

Now I'm nor sure if Richard will like this...

I did the same yesterday. Glorious day here in Switzerland for an outing with the E-5 (yes, still that one in preference to the E-M1) and the ZD 2.8/300mm (I dropped that lens a few months ago from 1.5 meters, thankfully on the carpet with no functional damage but a dent in the front ring around the LARGE front lens).

Litte Grebe (male)

and his better half

I'll decide tomorrow morning if I post some pictures on Richard's thread.

Cheers!

--
Hans H. Siegrist

Hans H. Siegrist Photography

wildlife photography animals plants digital nature conservation

hhsiegrist.zenfolio.com

Nature Photo Blog: http://hhsiegrist.wordpress.com

 

[Messier Object]

Well Collin, I've got to say that when you finally give up photography you should write a book of your memoirs. Stuff like this is priceless. :-D

As for the pro with the Canon rig, since I shoot with that combo as well as my Oly gear, I have to say it does a fine job, especially for hand-held work, but (a point I tried to make -unsuccessfully- in a thread during the week) it seems that with wildlife shooting, and especially birds, we seem often to be operating close to the edge of the equipment performance envelope. Better gear just seems to make us want to shoot more difficult things, in tougher conditions, and we end up complaining just as bad as we did with our older gear. As for that 7D Mk II - definitely on my wish list

I hope you get some good shoots soon, and nothing else gets dropped.

Peter

 

[Wu Jiaqiu]

i calibrated my 500mm lens on Thursday, woke up to a lovely bright day and decided to head to the River Avon at Stratford to get some bird pictures to test my 500mm calibration out, the day was so foggy it was unbelievable, i got a couple of ok shots, most have any detail robbed from them by the mist....but....my lens is bob on.

here is a shot looking downstream to Holy Trinity church...Shakespeare's final resting place :-D

(not sure the horizon is level though)

 

[CollBaxter]

i calibrated my 500mm lens on Thursday, woke up to a lovely bright day and decided to head to the River Avon at Stratford to get some bird pictures to test my 500mm calibration out, the day was so foggy it was unbelievable, i got a couple of ok shots, most have any detail robbed from them by the mist....but....my lens is bob on.

here is a shot looking downstream to Holy Trinity church...Shakespeare's final resting place :-D

(not sure the horizon is level though)

Greta DR.

Love ait and thanks.

--
Collin
(Aficionado Olympus DSLR )

http://collinbaxter.zenfolio.com/

Galleries by Collin Baxter

www.pbase.com

http://www.outdoorphoto.co.za/gallery/showgallery.php?ppuser=21652&username=collin

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. (George Carlin)
New Seventh Wonder of the World.

http://www.pbase.com/collinbaxter/image/95297052.jpg

 

[veroman]

Considering how you respond with such calm to these otherwise very disturbing incidents, I would say that your glass is very much Half Full. Admirable, instructive to others and a great read. Thanks for posting.

 

[CollBaxter]

Well Collin, I've got to say that when you finally give up photography you should write a book of your memoirs. Stuff like this is priceless. :-D

It would be called " Memoirs if a bumbling fool." My wife could write a book called " Being married to the village idiot."

As for the pro with the Canon rig, since I shoot with that combo as well as my Oly gear, I have to say it does a fine job, especially for hand-held work, but (a point I tried to make -unsuccessfully- in a thread during the week) it seems that with wildlife shooting, and especially birds, we seem often to be operating close to the edge of the equipment performance envelope. Better gear just seems to make us want to shoot more difficult things, in tougher conditions, and we end up complaining just as bad as we did with our older gear. As for that 7D Mk II - definitely on my wish list

Yep agreed on the equipment thing. The problem with wild life is it on the fly so one needs firstly skill and secondly equipment that functions. We do push the equipment to its limits as to function ( And in some cases physically as well ) A lot of other stuff allows you to bracket , use a tripod , try multiple approaches etc. And if that's not right you can oten come back and do it again tomorrow.

When you get some thing better one will exploit it to its maximum. That's why there has been an issue with the E-M1 and focus for some people. I often get the impression that its a case of the ( us) "pesky" birders making trouble with their demands. We use our equipment to the limits or within its limitations , always demanding more and not less as its not a want but a requirement.

I Know you shoot with the same gear as the pro was using , and it surprised me when he bitched about the focus with the 2X converter. I was taking shoots that were sort of in focus where he was battling to get focus , especially when there was junk in the way. As to the cropping thing and his desire for a cropped sensor for wild life , its some thing I have always said was an advantage. one of the kings of wildlife cameras ( Here in any case) are still the Older 1DMKIII/IV's . ( These use a cropped sensor 1.3 ) A few shoot with the 1Dx's , and D4's . But these guys normally use 400mm- 500mm lenses these rigs are out of the reach of mortal men. So a lot of people will say whats the difference between a 400mm view ( 1.3) and a 300mm view ( full frame) well as you know when you are trying to find and target a small object often moving it matters a lot.

THe easy way is get a gazillion MP sensor put a wide angle lens on it and fire away and crop later.

I hope you get some good shoots soon, and nothing else gets dropped.

On the point of focus have you seen the targeting thing on the new Olympus supper zoom.

Hmmm that would be nice.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/2014/01/29/olympus-announces-stylus-sp-100-superzoom-with-dot-sight

I also hope to get better shots but I need to go to better places and stop being lazy an walk a lot further . As you know in our game you have to put in the miles/km to get decent stuff.

Peter

--
Collin
(Aficionado Olympus DSLR )
http://collinbaxter.zenfolio.com/
http://www.pbase.com/collinbaxter
http://www.outdoorphoto.co.za/gallery/showgallery.php?ppuser=21652&username=collin
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. (George Carlin)
New Seventh Wonder of the World.
http://www.pbase.com/collinbaxter/image/95297052.jpg

 

[Canadian Club]

From my point of view I think it was your lucky day. If your equipment had been smashed beyond repair you would consider the other events as minor. Your glass is full.

CC

 

[Skeeterbytes]

Jeez Coll, you're a one-man human highlight reel. I suggest some quiet sofa time for a bit.

I would have a cow if I sent a 90-250 to the planet surface. As it is, I've already dropped an hours-old E-M1 and lens to the floor, luckily be-rugged and in a soft case. Even so, I tried it out and found the AF wasn't working ("Crap, I've only had it three hours!") and after much monkeying around discovered the focus ring had shifted to manual mode. Wonder how many more times I'll fool myself with that stunt?

Have a better day!

Rick

 

[Roger Engelken]

Half full is the only way to look at life. The alternative is just too damn depressing. :-D

I once accidently dropped a camera with the ZD 35-100 (not a big drop) and the lens hit my laptop. The laptop got a nice dent but the ZD 35-100 was untouched. Those lenses are well made to be sure.

 

[jkrumm]

Collin you should write a book of your adventures. Always fun to read.

Sounds like for a brief moment your glass was only a third full or so, but then maybe some of your sweat dripped into it as you picked up your gear and filled it to half.

 

[emsig]

Half full I would say. And let us fill up completely!

One of my stories (there are others but not for today). Last year we went to a concert with contemporary music. The music hall was equiped with a ramp with simple seats. At about the sixth row up I wanted to place the E-5 with 12-60mm lens temporarely on one seat and to my horror it disapeared in a second, falling more than 2 meters down to the hard floor underneath. I went down for getting the cam not knowing in what condition I would find my gear.

Well, at first glimps everything seemed ok but later I found out that the zoom range could not be used for more than the half way. The camera did well ever since, the hot shoe a bit blessed but not too bad.

But the story goes on. I had the lens sent by my photo dealer for reapair to Olympus and it came back a few weeks later working fine. Well, working fine until last november when the zoom ring stuck again for no particular reason. I had my dealer to send the lens for repair again - and it dissapeard again, this time for good. It was sent away but never arrived at the Olympus repair center (in Germany).

What's with the glass? I would say 3/4 full. Because I had in parallel to the repair order bought a E-M1 with 12-40mm. So I'm missing the good old 12-60mm just a little, but not too much. I still have Panaleicas 14-150mm and 14-50mm as substitutes. Now I just have less redundancy and got a refund for the lost lens (waiting for the 40-150 Pro).

I would say lucky me.

Cheers

Emilio

 

[Ravenwing Photo]

Colin, some days you eat the bear, and some days the bear eats you. Half full? Half empty? No worries, have another glass!

--
Nate

 

[goblin]

Technically, the glass is always full. With differing parts of water and air

 

[mikee219]

Great post. Glad the equipment survived. RIP, Mr. Mouse.

 

[CollBaxter]

Technically, the glass is always full. With differing parts of water and air

That is a positive way of looking at it.

I always think of it as a half glass of water which allows me to pour a couple of shoots of scotch with it. Actually and empty glass is better as I can then pour in the scotch no water with a bit of ice . Or just scotch in one glass with a glass of water to sip with it.

Hmmm . That brings up a thought.

 

[CollBaxter]

Considering how you respond with such calm to these otherwise very disturbing incidents, I would say that your glass is very much Half Full. Admirable, instructive to others and a great read. Thanks for posting.

I though about it this way. A bad day would have been a broken camera and/or a lens and a hard drive that failed and I could not recover.

All things considering seeing that all these woes where self inflicted it was a lucky day as I could recover from them with a little effort.

 

[CollBaxter]

From my point of view I think it was your lucky day. If your equipment had been smashed beyond repair you would consider the other events as minor. Your glass is full.

CC

Yep I came to the same conclusion. Thanks for posting.

 

[CollBaxter]

Jeez Coll, you're a one-man human highlight reel. I suggest some quiet sofa time for a bit.

I would have a cow if I sent a 90-250 to the planet surface. As it is, I've already dropped an hours-old E-M1 and lens to the floor, luckily be-rugged and in a soft case. Even so, I tried it out and found the AF wasn't working ("Crap, I've only had it three hours!") and after much monkeying around discovered the focus ring had shifted to manual mode. Wonder how many more times I'll fool myself with that stunt?

Have a better day!

I some times think I am a human lightning / Indecent conductor.

My wife says I don't have bad luck as most of what I called bad luck luck is pure stupidity and self inflicted on my behalf and that I am irresponsible , selfish ( As regards doing stupid things) pig headed , stubborn and a lot of other things . Oh yes and impetuous ( Hmmmm nice word someone called me that on this forum. I had to look it up but parts of it fit.)

As to the lenses a lot of them are tough , I did not close my camera bag ( Twice ) . The first time the 135-400 fell out when I swung it up to my shoulder. It fell out but landed on the filter ring which had a filter on.I had to use a bottle top remover and a lot of force to get off. The second time the Rokinon 8MM FE shoot out the bag and went bouncing down the tiles in the passage. Just a scuff on the hood and a crack in the lens cap which I fixed with super glue.

Since then I use Lowpro Flipside Bags for the main stuff which you have to close to put on your back. I use/used sling shots where you can forget to zip the flap up and there in lies the problem due to my sloppiness.

Said Damage.

Damaged Filter removal tool.

That was a $70 filter . I suppose its better than the lens.

--
Collin
(Aficionado Olympus DSLR )

http://collinbaxter.zenfolio.com/

Galleries by Collin Baxter

www.pbase.com

http://www.outdoorphoto.co.za/gallery/showgallery.php?ppuser=21652&username=collin

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. (George Carlin)
New Seventh Wonder of the World.

http://www.pbase.com/collinbaxter/image/95297052.jpg

 

[CollBaxter]

Half full is the only way to look at life. The alternative is just too damn depressing. :-D

I once accidently dropped a camera with the ZD 35-100 (not a big drop) and the lens hit my laptop. The laptop got a nice dent but the ZD 35-100 was untouched. Those lenses are well made to be sure.

The only lens I have had bad luck with are the 70-300. Well sort of bad luck. The first one had a ribbon cable problem which caused aperture problems. The second one my son was using in Kruger. It was early in the morning and dark we where walking to the car and he stepped into a badger hole and fell and snapped the lens in half. He also damaged the E-520 which has a non functioning viewfinder display and flash and a cracked back display. Other than that it works OK. I sent the two lenses off to be repaired hopping to make one out of the 2 bits. They then reassembled the 2 bits and I got back a lens which had no aperture control. OK I did take the first one apart to see how it worked so I can't really blame the repair company. I then spoke to the insurance company and they replaced the lens. So I am on my third. The first was the sharpest , it was also made in Japan.

As to luck or bad luck my son is not lucky with MY cameras. There was this camera and lens. Then the bag he lost in the Kruger with 2 lenses and a Pair of expensive Lynx binoculars. Being the doting father we all are ( With your wife twisting your arm behind your back , and saying " aw shame " ) I then gave him the E-510 with the 2 kit lenses . He then managed to get these stolen. I then lent him a E-500 with the soft 14-45 . He then went and bought some Nikon equipment which he has not had stolen or broken yet.

I want the E-500 back some time or other. I still have one though but want it back.