Weekend twofer: Using the NEX-5N with off-camera flash and a legacy Vivitar 28mm f2.8 lens.

I have been wanting to test drive the Vivitar 28mm f2.8 lens that I received this week, and have also been wanting to put a little more mileage on the flash gear that I recently purchased.

So I figured - why not do both at once?

For these photos I'm using the Vivitar 28mm f2.8 lens (via the FOTGA MD to NEX adapter), Cowboy Studio NPT-04 wireless flash triggers (via the JJC MSA-10 hot shoe adapter), a Yongnuo 560-II manual flash, a Westcott Apollo 28" softbox, and of course - the Sony NEX-5N.

That's a mouthful.  :)  But outside of the camera itself, everything else including the lens is less than 250 bucks in gear. And could have been done for less (I could have gone cheaper on the softbox).  It's kind of amazing what you can do for very little money these days.

Anyway, it's just me and my kiddo at home today, so she posed for some pix.  Our dog was at our feet as usual, so he got into the pix too.

Here's what's interesting about using flash.  I do far less post processing with off-camera flash than just shooting available light. The pix are pretty much just there without having to do as much work.  It's kinda nice.  It makes shooting more fun when you aren't looking at your LCD thinking, "Well, I can tweak that later..."

For these photos, in Adobe Camera Raw I added a touch of sharpening (because all RAW pix need sharpened), and for my personal taste I bumped up the vibrance and clarity a small amount, added a touch more vignette, and that's it.

It's a pretty basic setup.  The light is on camera left, about 45deg left and 45deg up.  I turned the light to feather it away from the back wall just a bit.  I wanted the bricks to go a little darker.  I shot a few test photos until I had the exposure where I wanted it, and then brought my daughter in (interrupted her weekend cartoons).  She let me take pix for about 10 minutes before getting too bored with me.

Here are some highlights.

So, of course I couldn't take pix of her without her wanting to take some pix of me. So I (yikes!) handed over the camera to my 3-year old.  I prefocused the camera and put a little toddler chair on the floor. I told her to sit in the chair, and put the camera strap around her neck to prevent accidental drops.  I knew if she took pix from that toddler seat, and I was in the other chair, that they'd be in focus.  And (miracles will never cease) they were!

I could tell when the lens was pointing at me, so I kept telling her point the camera higher! lower! to help her compose the shot.  :)  And then she'd shoot whenever she wanted to.  It was pretty entertaining.  

So, here I am, as photographed by my 3-yr old.

[Edit:  I forgot to put in the pix of the lens.  Enjoy.]

FOTGA MD to NEX adapter on the Sony NEX-5N

A friend asked for some details on what adapter I use for Minolta lenses on the NEX system.

This is a FOTGA MD to NEX adapter. I'm not familiar with the brand outside of using this adapter.  It was sold to me for $10 from the same friend that sold me a couple of lenses, and I thought it was fine to roll the dice and buy the adapter without knowing much about it since the price is so low, and I trusted the seller.

So, my review:  It's an adapter and it works.  The fit when mounting it to the camera body is a bit snug, but mounts easily enough.  The fit between the adapter and the lenses is perfect.  When all are attached, including that Minolta 135mm lens (which is a bit on the heavy side), there is no perceptible wobble.

It's all metal and seems well made.  There are no electronics, so I chuckled when I read the fine print underneath the FOTGA name:  "Digital Adapter."  (Really? OK, I guess you're adapting the lens for a digital camera, but the adapter itself is purely mechanical.)

The small metal pin is the lens release button.  Press in the pin and turn the lens to remove.

As I said, it works!  I haven't used any other adapters yet, so I can't really say how this compares.

Minolta 135mm f3.5 Celtic lens on the NEX-5N

I received a new (old) lens in the mail yesterday - a Minolta 135mm f3.5 Celtic lens. From what I've gleaned online, the Celtic line of lenses is similar to the Minolta Rokkor lenses, possibly with the same optics, but was a more budget-oriented line. These days they're both inexpensive on eBay.  I bought mine from a friend on Google+ for $20.

It's all manual of course - you set the aperture with the aperture ring and focus manually, just like a 35mm film camera.

I took it for a walk around the neighborhood with the family this evening. It's a tricky focal length to walk around and try to get candid pix of your kids. The magnification is pretty high and (at least for me) takes some futzing to get a good shot.  Prior to this, my longest lens only went up to 55mm.

I totally tanked a pile of shots - missed the focus by a mile because of my rapidly moving targets, and I was shooting wide open (f3.5).  But I got a handful that I liked.  Even of the ones I liked, only a few were actually what I'd call sharp focus.

The lens itself makes sharp images. But my manual focusing abilities are about 10 years out of date. :)

How I managed to catch him roughly (if not exactly) in focus while biking toward me can only be considered a small miracle.

This one was fairly sharp. Ish.

Bokeh test. :)

So, it's a fun lens. Excited to train myself how to use it better with more experience.

[Edit: I've taken a few photos of the lens.  I'm adding them below.]

With the integrated lens hood extended.

Trying out NEX-5N hot shoe adapters - JJC MSA-10 and NEEWER HOT-F7S

So, I've got a fancy new flash. I need a better way to trigger it than relying on optical slave.  One of my goals is to use the flash in bright sunlight (I'll explain why some other time), so I want to use wireless radio triggers. For that, I could either use one of a couple of triggers available that are designed to fit the proprietary port on top of the camera, or I could buy a hot shoe adapter and use standard triggers that would work with the NEX or other camera systems if I ever need.  I opted for the latter option.

The first adapter I ordered was the NEEWER HOT-F7S on Amazon for under $7.  It arrived quickly, seemed well built, and mounted securely to the camera.  I could mount the Yongnuo 560-II flash to the hot shoe, and it would fire the flash every time.  Seemed like a good option.

That is, until I received the Yongnuo RF-603 C3 wireless triggers that I also ordered.  These would NOT slide into the hot shoe adapter.  It didn't seem to be a problem with the fit of the shoe itself, but the pins were hanging up on the plastic edge of the adapter.  So I was never able to test whether  these triggers worked with this adapter, simply because they wouldn't mount to it.

I also have an older flash - a Metz 45 CT-4 that my father gave me. It had the same problem - the plug wouldn't slide onto the adapter.  Just didn't seem to fit.  So I decided it must be a problem with the adapter.  I did a ridiculous amount of digging through online forums (considering I was trying to buy a roughly $10 product) and decided on the JJC MSA-10.

If you're a digital photographer and you don't regularly visit www.dpreview.com, stop reading this and go there now. There is a wealth of information not only in the product reviews, but the forums are rich in information and helpful people.  It was there that I found several other users of my camera that had tried out various adapters.  Several people used the JJC adapter with good results, so I gave it a shot.

The JJC adapter mounted easily to my camera. Some users reported it took a little pressure to get it to slide into the Sony port, and that was true for me too, but not what I felt was an unreasonable or unusual amount.  The adapter comes with a ridiculously tiny screwdriver that you can't even really use to mount this thing to your camera.  Throw that away, or toss it in a drawer if you ever need to fix your glasses.  I grabbed a slightly larger screwdriver and used it to mount the adapter to my camera.

The fit is very secure, no perceptible wobble.  And it is considerably smaller than the NEEWER adapter.  I like that.  See pix below comparing the size of the two adapters.  Also, the JJC is black, so it matches the camera better. Not a big deal, but it looks just a bit more like it's supposed to be there.

I would consider leaving this mounted to the camera all the time, as it wouldn't be in the way.  The downside is that you can't remove it without a screwdriver.  Other adapters use a thumbscrew for mounting, for easy removal on the fly. If you wanted to mount the Sony flash that comes with the camera, or the optional external microphone for video recording (which I have), you'd need a screwdriver to take this off first.

SO, how does it work?  Well, just like the NEEWER adapter, my Yongnuo flash mounts to it easily, and fires the flash.  The Yongnuo wireless triggers slide onto it, no problem.  And the Metz flash also connects to it, and fires every time.  Seems to work great.

Any problems?  Yes, one.  My wireless triggers would NOT fire.  They also never seemed to talk to each other.  If you press the trigger button on one, the LED on the other should (in theory) light up to indicate it received the signal.  They didn't do that.  When connected to the flash and my camera, the flashes wouldn't fire.

To fire, the adapter and flash use the large center pin contact, along with the outside edges of the hot shoe to fire.  Those are the only connections that need to be made.  The Yongnuo triggers have several pins even though they are manual-only triggers (no TTL or fancy automatic settings). I have no idea what those other pins were for.  But long story short, the triggers didn't work.  I'm not sure if I got a defective set.  I returned them to Amazon, and literally the day after I sent the prepaid UPS package back to Amazon, the purchase was refunded to my credit card. Lovely.

I've ordered a new set of triggers for about the same price.  I'll report on those once they arrive...

In the meantime, enjoy these suitable-for-framing (ha!) photos that compare the adapters.  The NEEWER adapters is on the left, the JJC on the right.

Here's that Metz 45 CT-4 flash connected, working fine.

Street photo

Just a quick street photo shot at an arts festival in Carmel, IN. I only took 4 or 5 shots that day and liked this one. He was walking to camera left, and apparently changed his mind - he stopped short, did a 180 and started walking the other way.  I caught him as he was turning.  I liked that he was stepping out of the shadow into the sun, and the little hint of his shadow behind his legs.

I also did a little toning - I pushed the highlights toward yellow and the shadows toward purple. Why? Thought it looked cool that day.  :)

Using the NEX-5N with off-camera flash.

When I bought my NEX-5N, I thought I'd have absolutely no interest in flash photography.

Guess what?  I got into flash photography. :)

I attended Scott Kelby's Shoot Like a Pro tour in Indianapolis last month. I was re-inspired in photography in general and wanted to jump into photography with Speedlights.  On his recommendation, I purchased a Yongnuo 560-II flash.  

So far I've been using it in optical slave mode, triggering it with the pop-up flash on top of my NEX.  To avoid the NEX's flash interfering with my shots, I wrapped a small piece of paper around the flash and used a rubber band to hold it in place.  That kept the camera's flash from showing up at all in the shots, and still triggered the Yongnuo.  Awesome.

Also around the same time I received as a gift a Westcott Apollo 28" softbox.  The combo of the speedlight and softbox is great.

Here are some shots using only the Yongnuo and softbox, triggered by the flash on top of the camera.

This little shoot with my kids was done as a test of the new equipment, basically just a big experiment.  I turned on a microphone and ran some effects on it (delay/echo) and the kids are endlessly entertained by shouting/screaming/meowing/making noise into the mic and hearing it back out of the speakers with an echo.  So I took pix with my new toys while they played with theirs.