Photographer By Night | Behind the scenes with Tomasz Wagner » Equipment

TENBA SHOOTOUT SLING BAG REVIEW

Tomasz Wagner — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:21:00 +0000

I don’t usually review equipment, or anything for that matter. But seeing as there wasn’t a single review on the Tenba sling bag anywhere on the Internet, I was still compelled on getting one. There was something about the Tenba bag that stood out for me from the Lowepro’s 300AW boring bulky look and Kata 3N1-20′s cheap and confusing interior design.

Please visit Tenba to read more about the bags features. If you find their sales gimmick a little weird, I’m with you on that one!!
My review doesn’t cover what Tenba has already featured in their video. What I’ll be focusing on is what most of you want to hear about; how’s the quality? Can it hold “these” lenses? How comfortable is it? The short review will also only cover Medium size, not the Small.

Quality: The material used to make these bags is superb, the second you touch you want to learn more about it. The YKK zippers are a little hard to use, but their worth the extra protection from water or snow. There is also plenty of back padding support if you need it.

Design: Very ergonomic, not a lot of zippers or pockets to confuse you. The sling fits really well, only thing it lacks is some padding around the shoulder. Guessing Tenba didn’t add it because I’d constantly get in the way when you swing it back and forth. If your not going to haul as much equipment as me, then I think most people would do just fine.
The depth is just right when you have a medium zoom lens. If won’t fit if you try to drop a Canon 70-200 2.8 with a body attached, but you can settle by laying the camera across or just leaving the lenses down on it’s own. In the main compartment I was able to arrange it so my 5D + Contax 35-70, 17-40, 50 1.4, 70-200 2.8, 580EX, and two pocket wizards fit pretty comfortably. The lens hood of the 70-200 was the most troublesome! I think they only imperfection about the bag is the tripod holder. It swings around to much, maybe adding another brace at the would have helped. I was using the Manffrotto 725B as a test.

Pros:

Material
Design
Weather cover
Zippers
Clean Interior

Cons:

Tripod swings
Lack of padding around the shoulder

Highly Recommended
Tomasz Approved!

CONTAX RTS – STEP INTO THE PAST

Tomasz Wagner — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:54:00 +0000

It was finally time to take my old school Contax RTS out from the storage and put it though it’s pace again. Every year I go through this phase where I have to go back to the roots of photography. Last year I used a Canon EOS3, where as this year I went even further into the past.

Reason why I bought this type of camera was because of it’s heritage. It was highly regarded for it’s time, with the exquisite build quality and it’s compatibility with Zeiss lenses. If you lust for Zeiss’ superb lenses then a Contax is the best place to start. Zeiss were considered the best (along side with Leica), their lens optics are still regarded as the best to this day.

Alright, so where was I…
What makes me go back to film is how it behaves. Film has this texture, you can see it popping out of the page when printed, even more so when a method called cross processing is used to mix colours with a colour space. Film has this look we grew up seeing, but with digital everything changed that. Film wasn’t perfect, but that’s what distinguished it from digital. We can sort of fake the film grain, but what about that dirty bleach look that came with every exposure like red and green broke out into a fight. I LOVE that fight!

Another unique things about film is that it’s not forgiving either. Not only does it cost 0.20 to 0.40 cents per exposure, but you need to shoot off the rest of the role, and pay to get it developed before you even get a chance to see it. With digital, the average person (even myself) have gotten lazy, not to mention everyone including your 82 year old grandma calls herself a “photographer”

For the next 17 days the camera and myself will be inseparable. As they say, joined to the hip; Hip to camera body *nudge nudge* *wink wink* …. forget it! The goal is to target the shooting in a editorial, urban and the homeless type fashion. Just to test the camera out my roommate delightfully volunteered to pose like a moron, thanks Ethan!

5DMII RELEASED IN CHINA

Tomasz Wagner — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 07:41:00 +0000

The 5DM2 has finally landed in China!I can't wait till they hit Canadian stores so I can get my hands on one!

The specs on this camera on amazing!

21 megapixel CMOS sensor (very similar to the sensor in the EOS-1Ds Mark III)
Sensor dust reduction by vibration of filter
ISO 100 – 6400 calibrated range, ISO 50 – 25600 expansion (1Ds Mark III & 5D max ISO 3200)
Auto ISO (100 – 3200) in all modes except manual
3.9 frames per second continuous shooting
DIGIC 4 processor, new menus / interface as per the EOS 50D
Image processing features:
- Highlight tone priority
- Auto lighting optimizer (4 levels)
- High ISO noise reduction (4 levels)
- Lens peripheral illumination correction (vignetting correction)
RAW and SRAW1 (10 MP) / SRAW2 (5 MP)
RAW / JPEG selection made separately
Permanent display of ISO on both top plate and viewfinder displays
AF microadjustment (up to 20 lenses individually)
Three custom modes on command dial, Creative Auto mode
Image copyright metadata support
98% coverage viewfinder (0.71x magnification)
3.0″ 920,000 dot LCD monitor with ‘Clear View’ cover / coatings, 170° viewing angle
Automatic LCD brightness adjustment (ambient light sensor)
Live view with three mode auto-focus (including face detection)
No mirror-flip for exposures in Live View if contrast detect AF selected
Movie recording in live view (1080p H.264 up to 12 minutes, VGA H.264 up to 24 mins per clip)
Two mode silent shooting (in live view)
New jump options in play mode
HDMI and standard composite (AV) video out
Full audio support: built-in mic and speaker, mic-in socket, audio-out over AV (although not HDMI)
IrPort (supports IR remote shutter release using optional RC1 / RC5 controllers)
UDMA CompactFlash support
New 1800 mAh battery with improved battery information / logging
New optional WFT-E4 WiFi / LAN / USB vertical grip
Water resistance: 10 mm rain in 3 minutes