I’ve had the Tokina AF 19-35mm for a few years now, and often see it on the internet that the Tamron/Promaster/Cosina/Phoenix/Vivitar lenses of the same focal length are all the same lens just rebranded. Looking at pictures individually, they look the same, all sell for similar peanuts price & I believed it. Based on this info and having seen mine, my dad snapped up a Vivitar S1 version a few years ago when offered for £40.

It’s then suddenly when you are graced with both in your hands you can see clearly they are not the same lens. For a start the Tokina is bigger and weights a good 50% more than the Vivitar, the Vivitar is noticeably cheap plastic, the Tokina, whilst not of more modern Tok 12-24 build quality, is better built than a lot of other cheap lenses I’ve handled (budget Sigmas, Canon kit lenses etc) and there is various construction differences. One of the first of these is that on the Tokina, the filter thead holder is fixed, and the lens zooms & focuses within (great for filter users), but on the Vivitar the lens & filter holder are the same unit and zoom together & it rotates during focusing (very bad for filter users).

It’s tricky to see on the pics, but on the Tokina you can just see where the lens centre is zoomed up 2mm above the filter holder which stays fixed. On the Vivitar the whole top section zomes/rotates together.

At the rear again you can see internal differences, but I’ve no idea of any difference this makes to actual pictures.

At some point in the future if I’m feeling mind numbingly bored, I’ll find do part 2 of the test & put them on my 5D and compare optical quality, however I’d recommend buying the Tokina over the others just for the improved build quality anyway, and I’m more tempted to test the Tokina vs the Canon 17-40 to see if it’s worth me upgrading. For now though I’m sticking with the Tokina, it cost me £65 4 years ago and it’s delivering shots like this on the Canon 5D (mk1)

Chatsworth Reflected

When I first saw the image results from a fisheye lens I wanted one, ordered one, and in that nagging doubt that “it’s a one trick pony” whilst the order took a month, I cancelled and ordered a more versatile superwide. A few years later I eventually got a used copy of the superb Tokina 10-17mm Fisheye for my 400D, and I think it’s telling, that 6 months later when I upgraded to the full frame Canon EOS 5D, there was no doubt in my mind and a Canon EF 15mm F/2.8 Fisheye was ordered to arrive at the same time.

The usage is backed up in Lightroom too, instead of being a ‘one trick pony’, it has been used for nearly 40% of my shots, the Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 just pips it at 44%, but suspect those figures will soon be reversed. Favourites though, the fisheye is a clear winner, not just for myself, but evidently very popular amongst my Flickr viewers too.

Snout

Like everything on a full frame camera, it vignettes wide open, but it soon goes as you start stopping down, not that I care much as I usually like it, and if you don’t it can be quickly fixed in Lightroom. It’s also sharp, I’ve not looked closely at 100% samples, but The Digital Picture spend a lot of time looking at those things so I don’t have too.

One unexpected downside is limbs, from the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye, I knew fisheyes were wide, but the Canon 15mm is a few degrees wider in Canon mount and it’s quite easy to get your own elbow in shot when bracing, or your knee, or your backback, legs are pretty much expected on most days. The flip side of this is of course how close you can be to a building and still get it all in shot, usually you can pretty much take a few steps out of the door, turn around and you’ll fit it in neatly demonstrated below, this was taken from within the boundary of the Gherkin in London (about 20′), and you can see it’s managed to capture in the whole building.

The Gherkin

Genuine bad bits about the lens, the focus motor is one of the older micro motor lenses and it’s a bit slow, and, but more annoyingly the push on lens cap doesn’t have quite enough grip, and is prone to falling off in the bag, I’ve taken to holding it on the lens with an elastic band till I find a more permanent solution.

Of course all that is forgotten the moment you pick it up, bung it on the camera and start smiling at the results you’ve got. Worried about getting one? Don’t be. They’re excellent fun and a great addition to the kit bag. If you are using one of the many crop sensor bodies though, I would thoroughly recommend the Tokina 10-17mm fisheye which is just as superb.

The World Through my Fisheye

This month it is the British Heart Foundation ‘National Heart Month‘, to help promote this BHF arranged for attractions arround the country to be turned red. Up in Sheffield it was arranged to be the Peace Gardens & Wheel of Sheffield.

To begin it all went well, I arranged to finish work early to get up there for dusk, even managed to get payroll done early so I could. Got up to Sheffield, went into the Peace Gardens as they were being turned red from dusk and started firing some test shots, and then it all went horribly wrong, a hair appeared on the pics stuck to the sensor.

I’ve been using a Canon EOS 400D for the last 3 years, which has a built in sensor cleaner which will shift most crap off the sensor, but I’ve moved to a camera that lacks this feature, and haven’t got round to carrying a blower. No problems I’m quite adept at blowing crap off the lenses, I know you shouldn’t, but I’ll just do it manually. Big mistake.

The time when it’s really crucial you don’t spray, you do. Now the hairs gone, but I’ve got a wet sensor. Bad times. Very bad times. It’s 5:10pm on a Monday, it’s dusk shortly, it’s rush hour, homes an hour round trip at a good time, which it isn’t, and the event kicks off at 6pm.

Now I’m not one to sing Jessops praises, but I knew there was one not to far away, so I rushed round there in the hope they’d have a sensor cleaning kit, preferbly a wet cleaning kit. Didn’t get lucky on the latter, but did manage to pick up a “Lenspen SensorKlear Pro” kit for £34, expensive, especially when it’s £18 at Amazon, but at this point the choices were go home, or get the camera clean and cover the event, so took the plunge. Time was ticking on, asked the staff if I was ok do this right here on the counter, this was a good move I think I could at a push use Eclipse out in the field, but the Lenspen sensor cleaner is a tricky to use, and not that fast cleaner, especially not for the mess I’d made of the sensor. The staff gave me plenty of time and space to just get the job done properly and no problems not locking up bang on the 5:30 close time, so many thanks to the Jessops staff for that. 5:35 I’d managed to get the sensor just about acceptable, and head back out to shoot. This kit comes with an extra rocket blower, I’ll make sure I’m carrying this on me in the future now. Not making that mistake twice.

The work & heartache was worth it in the end though. Whilst the Peace Gardens weren’t that successful lit, the Wheel of Sheffield worked really well esp on long exposures, and managed to get some shots I’m really happy with

Wheel of Sheffield in Red

The SensorKlear didn’t fully shift the water marks off the sensor, and I prefer the theory of the Eclipse cleaners, trying to shift dirt is easier with a wet wipe, and I used a swap and Eclipse once I got home to shift a stubborn water mark I hadn’t shifted with the SensorKlear, but luckily it didn’t really affect any shots.

Back in the days of film, upgrades for most of us amateurs were few and far between. I upgraded after a few years from a camera with only aperture priority, to a multiprogram 3FPS camera, but, that was my lot. I kept the kit lens, and ran with a fairly nice 70-210 F3.5 zoom. Today, no sooner have we bought something, than we’re being told the whole lot is junk, and you won’t be happy unless you have the latest piece of kit. To be honest I try and avoid most of that. I rarely ‘pixel peep’ my images at 100%, unless trying to work out which of 3 identical looking shots I should go for. If something looks good at full screen I’m generally happy, I still manage to fall into the upgrade trap from time to time though.

I started with a Canon D30, the first ‘consumer’ digital SLR, a paltry 3mp but showed what a DSLR could give you, and being old tech, cheap. Then the shutter failed so I went and bought a brand new Canon EOS 400D, 10mp, 2.5″ screen (big wow back then), and the self cleaning sensor. I really wanted the 30D, but at another £300 on top of the 400Ds £475, not something at the time I could afford, and the only real gain of the 30D was the better build.

For all the slagging off people give the smaller SLRs on forums, I could never really fault its performance. The only negative for me is with the smaller size and the buttons on the rear, I’m left eyed and so my nose conveniently lines up with the ISO & metering buttons. This unfortunately would mean at various times I’d find myself on ISO 1600, and on a bright day this could mean overexposed & ruined shots. That alone has been pushing me to look at a new camera body, so I’ve been looking at the Canon 50D and 7D for a few months, with the occasional glance towards the 5D mk2, then realising the body alone is well out of budget before even consider lens upgrades. I’d been careful not to amass too many ‘crop sensor’ lenses, but had ended up with both the Tokina 10-17 fisheye, and the Tokina 12-24mm, and both were amongst my fave lenses. Then my dad dropped a suggetion, he knew I really wanted a full frame 5D, why don’t you swap one of my 30Ds for your Tokina 12-24mm? This upgrades your ‘backup body’ cheaply, then sell the 400D & the 10-17 covers the cost of a new Canon 15mm fisheye, and a used mk1 5D is not much more than a 50D. Mmm.

(Canon EOS 5D with Canon EF 15mm F2.8 Fisheye + Canon EOS 30D)

So the deal was quickly done, I already knew someone after a Tokina 10-17 so that was that wrapped up quickly, the 400D went onto eBay, and give or take £50 I’d covered the cost of the new Canon 15mm fisheye. A small amount of hunting later I’d narrowed down my choice of 5Ds. Unfortunately the first shop wasn’t so quite accurate with the description, took one look at the battered hotshoe & the general condition & sent it back. In the time I had to wait, half the other 5Ds I’d selected got sold. Research redone, I phoned Bob Rigbys, explained that I wanted a close to mint 5D, and the following day I had one. Result.

The net of this is I’ve gone from a 400D, to both a 30D & a 5D, and I’ve spent somewhere between the cost of a 50D & a 7D. Not a bad result really. Both the 30D & 5D give me all the pixels I need for printing the sizes I’m likely to need (A2 canvas will do me nicely), both are much better built, the viewfinder on the 5 is huge after 4 years with a crop sensor, wow, and both of course give less noisy images. Might be tempted to push beyond 400ISO a bit more often now. I have no interest in video, and live view only has a passing interest.

OK I’ve lost the Tokina 12-24mm, but my early investment keeping with full frame lenses meant I’d hung on to the Tokina 19-35mm that I’d bought for £60 and is reckoned to be a reasonable 17-40L contender, though this is yet to be fully put to the test. I suspect that’ll be next years upgrade as I think the Tok 12-24 trounced it. We shall see, I’ve not actually fired a frame with it yet, the fisheye has taken it’s place on the front of the 5D and hasn’t really moved yet. As Dale Photographic also listed a BG-E4 grip cheap, I’ve snaffled that for the 5D so it now looks proper serious.

Now I’d better pull my finger out and take some worthy pictures.

Nelsons Monument, Derbyshire. Canon EOS 5D with Canon EF 15mm F/2.8 Fisheye

All through the year the British Heart Foundation runs various fund raising events, come December that take a bit of a more light hearted feel, when they do a short ‘Santa Jogs‘ around the country. The premise is simple, pay £10, run round the block in the provided Santa Outfit (or other fancy dress of your choice), have a laugh, raise some money, and actually do some exercise for once on a Sunday morning. You don’t even have to run, quite a few just walk the short course.

Two years ago I went along with the camera to do some photography, came back with some great pictures including the rather fun “Synchronised Santa’s”

Synchronised Santa's

which the BHF are using on their promotional materials for the event (inc the application form). Details of the Sheffield event on the 20th December are here on the British Heart Foundation website.

This year I’m entering too, though I’m not actually intending to do the run, I’m just going to do the photoshoot in Santa outfit instead for a laugh. But come along too, join in, these events need support and entry to survive (last years had to be cancelled), if you can’t make the Sheffield event on the 20th, see the British Heart Foundation site for events in your area.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I have a long standing series of photographs staring a Gremlins ‘Gizmo’ plush toy, and a few (growing) number of friends. Looking out at the melting snow a few February’s ago, I thought “what I should have done is get Gizmo a Santa hat, take some pictures of him in the snow, and make it my custom Christmas card” for the coming Christmas. That single thought gradually built up through the year until I ended up finishing off with a full nativity scene of them and the following year wasn’t much more sensible when I had them as Santa & Reindeers.

Well I’m happy to say it doesn’t get any more sensible this year, because this year we had a huge snow fall in Feb, and, I already had Santa hats for them, and I had a day off to go up into the peaks to find some snow the kids hadn’t, so this years cards will be loosely based around…

Gizmo & Furby in the Show

Also like to make a special mention to Moo Printing at this point, as they’ve been through their printers twice trying to get the colours right on the cards, as I’d managed to select some text (the cards will have Merry Xmas on them) that CMYK printing really doesn’t like.

Fingers crossed the next batch will be bang on, and cards should be landing on some peoples door mats soon.

Last month visited the Crich Tramway Museum for it’s spooky ‘Starlight Halloween’ night. The Halloween decor was a bit on the cheap & nasty side, but that wasn’t the reason for going, instead short of going to Blackpool, the Crich Tramway Museum is one of the few places you can see trams operating, and the Halloween night gives a rare opportunity to do some long exposure night time shots for added affect. That Blackpool is a 300mile round trip & Crich a 30mile trip just helps to seal the deal. As an added bonus if you gift aid your entry admission, then your tickets are valid for 12months, bargain, so shall be going back to get some more ‘summery’ shots. Some period cobble stones, pub, cars etc all help towards maintaining a little piece of history at this working museum.

30second exposure, tram was moving for approx 20sec then painted the front end in with a few pops of flash to help freeze the front end of the tram after it had stopped. Pushed the raw white balance around which helped towards the period processing.

This shot is simpler than many think at first look. Basically it’s a stationary tram up front with another passing behind it during a 30second exposure.

This shot quickly got back a comment on twitter ‘”Oh WOW! I live about 7 miles from Crich but I’ve never been… you may have tempted me though.. Great photo…”

On Oct 14th 1066, King Harold was defeated during the Battle of Hastings by William the Conqueror. What’s that got to do do with the photoblog? Well it’s just a twist on how my mind works, back in January when out trialling the new macro lens I found some conkers

New Beginnings

nothing too unusual there, but then my mind puts the ‘twisted cousin’ together with William the Conqueror. Quick bit of research says this is months away, so pockets a handful of conkers and puts them into the props for later pile. Last night I finally got round to actually putting the shot together, which is lucky, as otherwise I’d have had to save them for another year again. So here we have

William the Conkeror

Beyond Limits is an anual scultpture exhibition in the ground of Chatsworth House, Derbyshire. I was meant to be helping a friend clear out a garage but last minute change of plan left me with a spare day and a spare BOGOF ticket offer to Chatsworth thanks to an earlier visit to Keddleston (so if your a NT member worth dropping in just for the ticket en route), making it a slightly more pocket friendly £12 for two around the house & gardens.

It can be all too easy at these events to just ‘shoot the scultpure’ which can leave with shots not to dissimlar to the catalogue shots for the exhibition, or even worse. The first exhibit we came to was the substantial bronze “Eros Bendato Screpolato”, which was being backlit by harsh September afternoon sun. Not a great start. Having looked for a few different angles from the lit sides and coming up with nothing, I decided to pull out the Canon 580EX and my 3m OC-E3 (off camera flash cable). First shot I knew I was onto something, and after a few changes of camera & flash angle, I got this…

which is much more dramatic than anything else of this sculpture I’ve seen, see Google and see for yourself.