The Russians Are Coming!

Hartblei is a name that is not very well know on this side of the pond. This Ukrainian lens maker recently moved it headquarters to Munich, Germany. And struck a major deal with Medium Format Digital Back giant, Phase One, producing the tilt-shift lens for their Phase One Medium Format camera. I recently acquired one of their older models, the Hartblei 45 mm f/3.5 Super Rotator in a Nikon mount. I am now learning the ins and outs of this fascinating lens.

Tilt/Shift lenses are used to control perspective, allowing a photographer to prevent parallax error when photographing tall buildings for instance, control Depth of Field, allowing the photographer to shoot close-ups at odd angles and still maintain proper focus, and to shoot panoramic images that are very easy to stitch together as they have no barrel or pincushion distortion due to lens panning: the lens shifts (horizontally or vertically) and multiple images are gathered without rotating the camera.

Here is a quickie panorama I made of my desk:

Over the next few weeks I will be taking this big fellow out and trying it's various functions. I will post follow-ups when I have them ready.

Hartblei has released a new set of T/S lenses in many different mounts. T/S lenses are completely manual (the front half and back half of the lens is not directly connected to allow the tilt/shift/swing movements) so the camera will have to be operated manually. More info about Hartblei's new lenses can be found here.

PAW Week #2 - Jedi Knight

Jedi Knight Originally uploaded by Carlos Echenique

This week's image required the use of my tripod (Manfrotto 190XDB + Gitzo 1278M + RRS B2 Pro Clamp), RRS L-Plate on my D300, Nikon ML-3 Wireless Remote Trigger, Nikon D300 + Nikkor 35mm f/2 and my Parks Lightsaber (Volition Grip + Blue Phase Blade). Image was captured RAW and processed in Aperture 2 + Viveza (for contrast tweaks).

Macworld and the lack of Steve

Wow. Just got through possibly the worst coverage of Macworld I have ever seen. One can see that Steve Jobs is truly the dynamic force behind the scenes in Cupertino. To wit: No Steve = No live video feed No Steve = No Snow Leopard update No Steve = No Blu-ray support announcement No Steve = No Mac Mini refresh No Steve = No netbook sized MacBook (MacBook Mini? MacNote?) No Steve = No vid card refresh for Mac Pro No Steve = No Cinema Display refresh Top that all off with MacRumors' live coverage getting hacked ("STEVE JOBS JUST DIED" was inserted into their comment stream by person(s) unknown) and then their site went down. Now, don't get me wrong, I know better than most people how dangerous anything happening to the pancreas is (I am a survivor of necrotizing pancreatitis - which has a 2% survival rate in 1 month vs, pancreatic cancer's 20% the first year), and I do not begrudge Mr. Jobs looking after his health. It just without Steve, Apple loses quite a bit of its zing. On a positive note, two new MacBook Pro models were introduced and the 17-inch unit looks amazing. I am going to have to head over to my favorite Apple store to get a gander at one. The thinness and high-gamut display bode well for photographers in the field, especially with photographer-centric Windows laptops already on the market (expect my review of the Lenovo W700 this week). The new iLife and iWork are worthy upgrades considering the amount of utility people get for the price and I am glad to see that Apple finally realizes that there is more to the net than MobileMe.