I am happy to announce that I am now represented in Bali by LVDK Productions.

I have received a few questions on various forums about upgrading the standard Rollei NiCd battery. First of all, thanks to various contributors at the Rollei forum on photo.net for their assistance.

Rollei 6000 battery

Why change anything? When the Rollei 6000 platform was released with the 6006 model in 1983, battery technology was very different from today. The cells used were 500mAh NiCd cells from Sanyo. These work, of course, but have quite limited capacity. I would often have to change batteries mid-shoot. An unwelcome interruption.

Today, NiMH cells of 1500mAh capacity or more are readily available, in the same specification as the original cells. The upgrade is simply a matter of rebuilding the battery by replacing the older cells with modern NiMH equivalents.

This is how the battery looks on the inside:

Inside the Rollei 6000 battery

As you can see, adjacent cells are connected by spot-welded tabs. It is essential that the battery is rebuilt the same way. The cells only just squeeze into the casing and soldered contacts are too large and will NOT allow the cells to fit. I’m talking from experience here

The labour to rebuild the battery cost $16. The Intellect 1600mAh cells I use cost $2ea plus shipping. You can get them from rcmart.com and many other places. You will need 8 of them.

After the upgrade, I was curious to see how many shots the new battery would last for. So I sat on my couch and took 1,000 shots before I gave up. The battery showed no signs of slowing down and was still full-strength on the 6008AF’s battery indicator. I haven’t had a shoot interrupted by the battery since, and it’s good for peace of mind to have that much extra capacity in case you need it. (I am about the rebuild a second battery to give me more than I’ll ever need, and a backup in case of failure).

Warning: The original Rollei charger is designed only for NiCd cells, and is not compatible with the upgraded battery! You will need to use one of many available ‘intelligent’ battery chargers to charge the new battery. This is also not a bad thing as many of these chargers will condition a battery properly and maximize its lifespan. I happen to use a Maha MH-C777Plus-II, but there may be better options out there.

Photoshop CS4

I’ve been running Photoshop CS4 for a day now. It has quite a few improvements of interest to a photographer. It is more of an upgrade than CS3 was, imo.

The focus blending is an obvious example - it does just what Helicon Focus did (but it seems without the fine control of parameters). It looks like the stitching is improved too.

The ’save for web’ feature is very different and solves some of the problems with using the old feature. You can now change colour profile and image size all in this menu without changing the underlying image first. You can also keep EXIF data intact. All very welcome improvements.

The display looks good at all magnifications now, rather than just 25%, 50%, 100% as before. Much better! You can even zoom smoothly in and out. This is all thanks to the harnessing of the computer’s GPU and OpenGL.

The ‘replace colour’ function seems much better- it now leaves you with a selection which you can modify in any way as normal, rather than being limited to the modifications within the tool menu. And you can choose to select only colours within a local area (using a slider), rather than selecting every similar blue across the whole image, for example.

You can now share your screen with a remote colleague or two.

Much more flexible masking (this is a big deal. Try it!)

Improved RAW conversion (so they claim)

Tabbed windows

Rotating view (non-destructive). I think this is for tablet users who like to draw.

Content aware scaling. This is the big WOW feature but it seems gimmicky because it doesn’t work reliably.  tried it on a photo of a person and the body quickly looked alien.

Improved dodging/burning (you can now opt to preserve the tones).

Wow, the “bird’s eye view” is a great feature. Hold down the H button and click on the image. It will zoom out to a “fit in window” view, with a rectangle showing the part of the image you were last zoomed into. Change the position of the rectangle to anywhere you like and you will zoom in to that part of the image at the same scale. Great time saver, and just makes the program a more enjoyable experience.

Changing brushes is faster now too: on the Mac hold down Control+Alt (Windows Alt+Right click) click and drag and you will see the brush tip change size. Drag to the left or right to change the size. Choose Control+Alt+Cmd (Ctrl + Shift on Windows) to change the softness. Try it - that is a huge productivity booster.

Plus there are lots of little improvements which I can’t list. Perhaps I will add more comments after I have had more time with the program.

I am happy to announce that I am now represented by an agent - Fonte - in the Finish market.

Details are still scarce but Leica today confirmed a fast new medium format digital camera, the S2. What we do know so far:

- 37.5 megapixel

- 30×45mm sensor

- 9 new lenses will start the system, including ultrawide, macro and tilt/shift. These seem to be focal plane shutter lenses (offering up to 1/500 flash sync), and the body will also have a focal plane shutter to allow for faster shutter speeds up to 1/4000.

- they promise the fastest autofocus and frame rate of any medium format camera. We will see.

- small and light

- the software will be provided by Phase One

There’s a new Flickr group about the Leica S.

UPDATE:

The lenses will be:
* Summarit-S 70mm f/2.5 CS ASPH
* Summarit-S 35mm f/2.5 CS ASPH
* APO-Macro-Summarit-S 120mm f/2.5 CS
* APO-Elmar-S 180mm f/3.5 CS
* Elmarit-S 24mm f/2.8 ASPH
* APO-Tele-Elmar-S 350mm f/3.5
* Vario-Elmar-S 30-90mm f/3.5 ASPH
* Elmar-S 30mm f/3.5 Tilt-Shift
* Elmarit-S 100mm f/3.5 ASPH

(where CS designates a lens with central shutter)

Medium format ultra wide has a new king!

Manufacturer Linos/Rodenstock
Product HR Digaron-S 5.6/23 mm (introduction 2008/2009)
Details Shutter: Copal 0
Aperture: f 5.6 - f 32
Image circle at full aperture: 70 mm
Image circle at f 11: 70 mm
Max. angle: 112 °
Distance settings: 0.25 m - infinity

That’s equivalent to about 17mm (in 35mm terms) on my (48×36mm) sensor, but the image circle is large enough to cover a 56mm by 42mm sensor (i.e. full 645 frame) in which case it would be equivalent to about 15mm.

I was recently interviewed by Colours Magazine (UK). You can read the article online here.

Looks very nice indeed! The new 1/10th stop increments and 10 stop range are welcome improvements over the older generators.

2400 Ws recycle time of 0.9 secs (which drops for lower power settings of course)
10 f-stop power range in 1/10th increments (5 W/s - 2400 W/s)
Flash duration of 1/1,600 (full) - 1/12,000 (min)
Color temp varies less than 160 deg K from min to max
Shot-to-shot stability of less than 1/50th of an f-stop
Full asymmetry
Supports up to 1000W modeling bulbs
Built-in Profoto Air transceiver

Read more at the Profoto website

Exciting new back from Sinar. Even though it uses the slightly small sensor size of 33×44mm (same as Phase One P30) which is not so interesting to me, there are some very welcome improvements. A 3″ VGA LCD screen promises to be the best medium format back screen to date. It is joined by a simpler user interface with fewer buttons. The back also processes JPGs internally, giving medium format users access to fast and easy previews for the first time. The internal raw format will be DNG, also eliminating a stage in the normal workflow. And finally the colour scheme seems to match the Hy6 camera body. Great!

Read more at Sinar’s website

I’ve listened to the whole set of studiolighting.net podcasts and many of them are interesting. Mostly the show consists of a brief news section followed by an interview with a photographer who talks about his approach to lighting and some tricks of the trade. Worth a try if you’re interested in hearing how other photographers think.

All the podcasts and show notes can be found at http://www.studiolighting.net