Optics, Filmmaking and Triggers

There’s been quite a bit of news lately on various things relating to photography (although, nothing really new or exciting from Canon, apart from more confusion over 5D Mk III film vs still and the inevitable 1Ds Mk IV non-existent camera (*yawn*). But I digress, Gizmodo ran an article on high quality optics with a title I love – “Cameras are for Christmas, lenses are for life” – Amen to that!!

What really surprised me was that the lenses I lusted after are actually the cheapest cine lenses you can buy!! Who would have thought 7 Zeiss compact primes costing $US 21,000 for the set would be called “cheap”!! Still, $C 25,000 for a single Leica Summilux does make the full Zeiss set look like a bargain!!

The article highlights the same advice I give to all photographers who ask me what they should buy – lenses last a lifetime, save your pennies and buy the best glass you can tolerably afford!! It will serve you far longer than any digital body ever will!!

On other things, my camera axe first tests resulted in a note from a reader who mentioned a project on Kickstarter called TriggerTrap. It looks interesting, will be half the price of the Camera Axe, and should have most of the features. I think the one thing that surprised me was that the laser light sensor and a basic piezo microphone are on board – that was the one thing that annoyed me about my old trigger, I had to keep the unit itself close to the action!! Although the ready-built “pro” version is intended to be water resistent, I’ve learnt from bitter experience that the best place for your trigger device is as far away from the action as you can get it!!

On the plus side, the TriggerTrap has a USB interface so that other funky things can be done!! I’m a bit of a tinkerer, so I liked that idea and wish my Camera Axe had the same!

Check out the Kickstarter page and get your hands on one on the cheaps (it closes in a couple of days!)