Camera gear discussions

Discussion in 'Photography and Cameras' started by Bill-P, Oct 15, 2015.

  1. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    By then, there might be an A7C II. I thought about waiting til second gen since I don't have any major travel til next year, but there is enough I wanted to do in the mean time I went ahead and committed.

    I am coming from smartphones and my Sony RX100IV so I don't really have much I can say about the view finder. I honestly never used the one on my RX100IV unless it was super sunny. I think it is fine for me, but I am more a point and shoot with maybe a few tweaks photographer - I only need the viewfinder for framing. I also focus on video when I am out and about now. Work has been crazy so I probably won't be able to truly put the camera through its paces until this weekend.
     
  2. Deep Funk

    Deep Funk Deep thoughts - Friend

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    That looks like a perfect travel system. Well done.
     
  3. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    Do you all use smaller SD cards to potentially minimize catastrophic loss over the course of say a vacation or long shoot, or just a big card and pray?
     
  4. philipmorgan

    philipmorgan Member of the month

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    Casual photographer here, but big card[1] + daily offloads to Lightroom cloud storage + pray

    1: "Big card" = 32GB LOL. Like I said, casual photographer here :) I don't think I've ever filled up a 32GB card with my RAW+JPG photos from my Fuji X100S.
     
  5. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    Lol, I was debating between two 128GB cards or a single 256GB. I shoot alot of 4K vids now, so I gobble up space.
     
  6. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    2 x 512GB or bust.

    Seriously, though, given prices and your penchant for 4k vids, get 2 256GB+ cards and swap constantly.
     
  7. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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  8. Bina

    Bina MOT - Shanling

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    For important trips I actually switch to MicroSD cards and at the end of the day I copy the key photos to my phone.
     
  9. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Good idea! A good reason for using microSD.

    I just have a 128Gb card and use it until it's full. Then I delete stuff, and, at the beginning of a month, reformat.

    I do this at the start of a month so that directories within the month will fall in order.

    I don't do video, so the card can take a few months pics. So far have not had any mishaps (fingers crossed, wood touched).

    For trips I seek a solution copying to a portable had disk, eg

    <Camera>
    <phone>
    <powered hub>
    <hdd>

    This is such a basic requirement, surely it must be doable? Dedicated disc devices are expensive. I don't have a powered hub to play with just now.

    I travel, or did when that word still had meaning, with a phone and android tablet: I do not carry a laptop.
     
  10. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    I will likely find a compact hub and portable hdd that I can use with my phone to do nightly backups when traveling abroad (crossing fingers for 2022).
     
  11. shredical

    shredical Friend

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  12. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    [​IMG]
    Didn't take long before I wanted a different lens from the kit lens. Based on the types of photos and videos I want to take, I went with a 20mm F1.8 G from Sony. The kit lens is 28-60 and I found myself always wanting a wider shot. Still learning the camera and lens, but basically out of the box, I'm getting the shots I was hoping to. Once my fun money account recovers after this initial outlay (probably next year), I have my eye on a 90mm macro lens. I suppose something at the 35-50 walk around focal length prime would be needed but I think that is my least used range right now.
     
  13. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    dual SD cards are a must for me in a camera. Then I go for big cards. If I’m using a camera with one slot I prefer lots of smaller cards. I don’t want to get sued ha
     
  14. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    It's honestly so cheap for camera companies to only include one SD card slot. These things are tiny and a second slot takes up very little space or expense . So make the camera 2mm wider. It makes it so your images are always backed up the moment you take them until you take them home and do your backups at home. No loosing images. Since really all cameras are at least pro-sumer now given how good camera phones are, there's no excuse IMO.
     
  15. Syzygy

    Syzygy Friend

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    Yeah I took my Fujifilm X-100F on vacation, it only has one slot. No worries.

    I've started a thing where I just buy new cards every year for the cameras, that way I can just keep them by-year as sources. The cards are so big that it's unlikely I could hit the limit.

    My other camera has dual slots, but I didn't want to bother with lenses for a short beach vacation.
     
  16. poohlikehoney

    poohlikehoney Facebook Friend

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    Used to own a XT3 which has 2 slots which I dedicate one slot for jpg and another for raw but only really filled up 2 cards for a 3 week trip so having a single slot is no issue especially given the price of high capacity cards these days. But the assurance that at least my jpg or raw are still safe in the event that one of the cards got corrupted is certainly great. Hoping 2 slots become mainstream for all cameras in the near future.

    Love that camera. Cleared some gears earlier this year and was contemplating a x100 or a griii as replacement but ultimately decided to go for the gr for it's size and focal length. Might consider a 2nd hand 100f/v in future.
     
  17. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    Dual slots would definitely be nice, but it was unfortunately one of the things sacrificed to keep things compact on the A7C. I have never owned a camera with dual slots so it isn't something I actively miss. Despite grabbing a not-small prime lens, I still very much appreciate how compact the A7C body is.

    I ended up grabbing two 256GB SD cards that I will rotate and picked up a surprisingly cheap USB C hub that allows me to use my smartphone to transfer data from my SD cards to my portable SSD. I don't typically take a laptop with me on vacation so finding a solution that didn't need one was imperative. I am not getting great transfer speeds, but that might be due to the age of my phone (Note 8).
    [​IMG]
    The hub even has power delivery capability so I can add a power adapter or battery pack to power everything, including the phone. I got it off Amazon for $14: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08V4MMG8D/ I did originally find an external enclosure for 2.5" disks with a built in USB hub, but my phone can only see either the HDD/SSD or the hub - not both at the same time. Could make the whole setup more compact with one of the M2 based portable SSDs, but I had extra SSDs I can use for now. Once I get a shorter cable, I think this is about as compact a non-computer based solution can be for on the go backups without dropping big money on one of the pro solutions.
     
  18. Bina

    Bina MOT - Shanling

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    I got two new cameras recently.

    Firstly, my wife bought me Olympus Pen F for my birthday! It's bit older and some people don't like it, but I always found it to be such lovely camera and perfect smaller companion alongside my EM1ii.
    (Also, it's nice fix for my Fujifilm X100F/V temptation :D )

    And then I put together my first 3D printed camera, Goodman Scura. Ready for a first test roll, to see if there are any light leaks or leftover filaments in the way. Really excited to shoot panorama format images at 24x60!

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
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  19. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    This is so cool! I’ve been wanting someone to make something like this for over a decade. Smartphones are like little computers, they should be abele to do more useful things like this instead of all the mostly cute tricks they enable them to do that aren’t that useful.

    Very cool. This is super empowering for photographing while traveling. You could just take a phone and not a computer. Bring two or thee small hard drives to have multiple backups and you’re good to go. I hope there’s an iPhone version now or at some point when I have use for it. Exciting!
     
  20. james444

    james444 Mad IEM modding wizard level 99

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    I think this should work even without the SSD. If you connect your camera in mass storage mode via USB cable to the hub, you can use your smartphone to copy files from the camera's internal SD card to a backup SD card in the hub's card reader.

    Just tried it with my Sigma FP, works like a charm.
     

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