Phottix BP-D300 - a MB-D10 clone

After using a D300 with the Nikon battery grip (MB-D10) a couple of times, I started wanting one :) The battery grip makes it much easier to take portrait orientation shots because the camera is easier to hold and it has an extra shutter button. The grip also has an extra 4-way controller and an AF-On - which come in handy sometimes.

Also, and maybe more importantly for some kind of shoots like weddings, is that it allows the D300 to run at 8 frames per second as opposed to 6 fps and it allows using extra batteries (either an extra EN-EL3e, 8x AA's, or EN-EL4).

Now, the problem is that what is essentially a piece of molded plastic with a couple of buttons is very expensive. It's $250 from Adorama and B&H [plus $40 shipping to Australia], and grey import it's about $270 (ex GST). I dunno what it would be from a bricks & mortar camera store, but probably around $400 would be my guess! For that kind of money you can buy a lot of lens or even a good 2nd hand entry level DSLR body. What a rip!

So - it's been on my wish list for a while, and wasn't looking like it was going to be marked off... But, about a week ago a Phottix BP-D300 appeared in one of my ebay alerts. The Phottix BP-D300 is essentially an exact clone of the real deal Nikon MB-D10, but at about a third of the price. Let's just say I didn't have to think very hard about making the purchase. I've also got a Phottix Timer Remote (clone of the Nikon MC-36) which has been excellent.

The BP-D300 arrived on Friday and I attached it to the D300. Initial impressions are that the plastic is not quite as good as the Nikon, but certainly not too bad. The BP-D300 comes with two battery trays, one for the extra EN-EL3e, and one that holds the 8 x AA's. It certainly makes the camera a lot bigger and heavier, as well as making it look more professional (and expensive). All the buttons work as advertised and the camera detects it as an MB-D10. There are a few negatives though:
1. The shutter button doesn't feel anywhere near as good as the one on the camera body. The half press feels quite weird - it's like pressing a button, not just getting to the first stage of a press. And when pressed fully you get a loud click.
2. When loading the AA battery tray, the clip doesn't lock easily - you have to push the tray in harder than you'd expect to.
3. The plastic... as mentioned above.

The other minor niggle, is that you can wiggle the battery grip very sightly independently of the body. I would guess that the Nikon MB-D10 would be similar because of how it's designed, but I'll check this next time I use the genuine one.

The BP-D300 also comes with a cigarette lighter adapter which the packaging claims to recharge the EN-EL3e. I haven't tested this out and I don't think I ever will as I prefer and trust the charger that came with the camera.

Summary: I've got no regrets - it's a great addition to the D300. Buy one now and save heaps of money over the MB-D10 to get something almost as good.

Feet together, sit up straight, SMILE!

For the last couple of weeks I've been working on the weekend for a local media company taking individual portraits and team shots of sporting teams. Today started with some "tiny tots" - under 4's, and I'm pretty sure there were quite a few kids under 3 years old. Let's just say it was pretty hard work making the little brats kids sit up straight, look at the camera, and smile.

It's all good experience though - and particularly for weddings, as getting a bridal party to do what you want has amazing similarities with a group of eight year old giggling boys and girls. Today I was "trained" in doing the group shots. Usually about 4 kids sitting down on stools, with the coach and manager on either side, and then usually about 5 kids standing behind them. Some groups are fantastic: they listen to what you say, sit and stand quietly, and smile (nicely) when asked. But, some other groups are the complete opposite! And when I say trained, it really means that I helped out for the first couple of group shots, and then Pat says "Ok, your turn now".

I'm booked in again for Sunday morning at 7:30 tomorrow and then next Saturday... I'm not sure how many more times I'll do it because it's pretty draining work, with absolutely no creativity, and crap money ($20/h).

Competition Night

Just had another competition night at the Canberra Photographic Society. Unfortunately I got done for speeding on the way home... which certainly puts a dampener on the mood.

Anyway, here's the images I submitted and some of the judges comments that I remember.


I presented this image as quite a large print at 24" wide. The judge commented that she didn't know if it was a photograph of the bush, or of the hut (she didn't call it a hut, but I can't remember the word she used). She liked the colour and the afternoon light falling on the grass, but was distracted by the sign and the tree to the left of the hut. She also felt that it was tilted a bit to the left - I've never noticed this but I just checked in Lightroom with the straighten tool and she's right. Scored 3 out of 5.


She commented that it seemed to be lit with studio lights (right), shot outside (right) and a picture of the bike (wrong... it's a portrait of the rider and his passenger...geez). She was distracted by the leaf (I think the leaf looks cool...) and felt there was not enough space to the left of the handlebar (agree, and the way the mat board was cut, it was extremely close to the edge). She didn't comment on the expressions on the people's faces which I found a bit strange, especially considering how much time she spent talking about expressions with other photos. Score 3.


She liked this photo, mainly because she couldn't work out what it was I think. She thought the mangrove roots were twigs, but liked the water. Score 4.


She had a lot of good things to say about this photo - colour, child, birds, sea (it's actually a lake, but does look like the sea). She described her emotions when she looked at the photo and had nothing negative to say about it. I'm dissapointed that she had no negative comments considering it's low score. Score 3.

I found her judging to be excellent when criticising the technical qualities of the photo (composition, colour, DOF, sharpness, etc), but her scoring seemed a bit inconsistent and biased towards very abstract photos. The vast majority scored 3, and only one photo scored 5. For some photos she had a lot of negative things to say, but then scored it 3 or sometimes even 4... Some examples - a picture of the lake with the carillion in the background scored 3, but it was a very poor photography IMO, and she had very negative things to say about it...eg. poor composition, bad lighting, etc, etc, so why score it 3? Also, a pretty boring picture of a moose scored 4. The composition was boring, and it had a very distracting piece of grass in the way of the moose's face.

Anyway, it's great to get other people's opinions and especially good to get some good technical critique.

Shopping List

Here's my wish list:

Wide Lens: Tokina 11-16mm ATX Pro DX + Filter
Adorama: $569 US
Priority: High
Reason: need a good wide angle for real-estate photography, and just really want a ultra-wide angle... :) I was originally going to get the Tokina 12-24mm because the Nikon equivalent was twice the price, but then the 11-16mm was announced. Seems to still be in short supply as it's listed as out of stock at both Adorama and B&H.

Colour Profiling: X-Rite Eye-One Display 2
Adorama: $210 US
Priority: High
Reason: need to get colour management happening. The mac calibration seems a bit hit & miss. It was the Eye-One or the Spyder3 Pro, but this one seems to have a better reputation and gets better reviews.

Lens Cleaning Kit
Adorama: ~$10 US
Priority: High
Reason: to clean lenses properly... duh!

Filter for Nikon 80-400mm
Price: ?
Priority: High
Reason: Filter that came with the lens causes weird artifacts/striping in the out of focus areas.

D300 Battery Grip: MB-D10
Adorama: $240 US (total + shipping [~$30] + currency =~ $282 AUD)
DDD: $299 AUD (total + shipping [$16] - gst = $287 AUD)
Priority: Medium
Reason: makes portrait shooting much easier and natural, plus of course extended battery life and higher burst rate. Would like it for when I do my first wedding, but not essential.

Memory: 16 or 2 x 8GB Compact Flash cards
Wholesale: ~$150 for 16GB
Adorama: $189 US for 16GB
Priority: Medium
Reason: need at least 28GB of storage when I do my first wedding... you can never have enough memory. The speed of the Extreme III's and IV's are a bit confusing, but I think that either is fast enough.

Macro Lens: Sigma 150mm f/2.8 EX DG APO + Filter
Adorama: $589 US
Priority: Medium
Reason: Really need a macro lens to supplement what I already have, plus makes a good fast telephoto. Other choices were the Tamron 90mm, Nikon 105mm, Sigma 100mm, but chose the Sigma 150mm because of the better working distance and it is internal focusing.

Speedlight: SB-800
DDD: $449
Adorama: $315 US
Priority: Medium
Reason: coupled with the external power, is an ideal speedlite for weddings. Gotta get the SB-800 for the external power connector.

External Power for SB-800: SD-8A
B&H: $139
Adorama: $149, or $139 Grey
Priority: Medium
Reason: faster flash recharge time :) Much cheaper than the 3rd party solutions, and arguably better because it takes standard AA's.

Flash diffuser: Harbor Digital Ultimate Light Box Kit (to fit SB-800)
Adorama: $65 US
Priority: Medium
Reason: need some good diffusion for wedding shots. Still looking around at other options.

Tablet: Wacom PTZ-631W
Wholesale: $495inc (total + shipping - gst =~ $460 AU)
Adorama: $370 US (total + shipping ($30) + currency =~ $425 AU)
Priority: Low
Reason: Make editing in photoshop (and Lightroom 2 when it's released) easier, faster and better. Choose a middle of the range tablet, and went for the wide aspect ratio to match the MacBook Pro 17" wide screen.

Photo Albums
Adorama: A couple of Photo Albums for portfolio, weddings, etc.
Priority: Low
Reason: to both display my portfolio and show as example wedding albums


Ok, so quite a shopping list - there's over $3000 worth of stuff there so I'm not going to splurge in one hit. It's a shame that most things need to come from the US... why can't the Aussie shops be a little more competive, then I could save on the shipping costs :)

August Projected Images Comp.

Somehow I got all confused and thought that the deadline for submitting images for the August Projected Images Competition at the Canberra Photographic Society was Saturday night. I was originally going to submit a set of photos with a water/reflection theme, but didn't feel the images were good as a group and some were not too strong. Instead I picked out some pictures of leaves - they're all the same aspect ratio, obviously themed, and pretty colourful and strong.

Progress

Yes, some progress is being made:

- It looks like I'll be getting about an average of one day a week assisting. Did a half day today at some construction sites photographing good OH&S practices.

- I'm now contracting at my day job, and have the boss's blessing to do photography jobs on the side. Of course I have to give some notice, but the understanding is that the photography assisting work will be an average of one day a week.

- 2nd wedding under the belt (as an assistant). Unfortunately I was still a bit sick (damn can't shake this cough), but the photo shoot after the ceremony was great fun; we shot the wedding party in the front garden of an old house with the paint peeling off in Manuka, a couple of shots between The Lodge and Parliament house, and then some shots in Civic at night.

- I've printed two of my shots of Brandy Flat Hut at 32"x20". They looks pretty good, but a little soft - I should have sharpened them some more, but not bad for 12.3 Megapixels.