The Friedman Archives Blog

Top 10 Best (and Worst) Minolta Cameras Ever

2012-02-29T15:33:00.000-08:00

Also in this issue:

How I shot the video
Copenhagen, Colorado, and California Seminars are happening!
A65 / A77 book is out, and timeline for the new NEX 7 book

The Top 10 Best (and Worst) Minolta Cameras Ever

I'm starting to expand into video. This show-and-tell piece turned out to be so large that it's being split into two parts. Watch Part I below:

Things I Neglected to Mention

The XD-11 had a viewfinder as big and bright as the Sony Alpha 900's. (Only it was a teensy weensy camera body.)
The Minolta Maxxum 9's pop-up flash was there to trigger the wireless flash. None of the media critics could figure that out, since none of the camera's competitors could do that.
The XK Motor was actually sold for about $1000 USD when it came out in 1976, not $10000. (Although if you adjust for inflation it probably works out to that amount...)

How I Shot the Above Video

My humble portrait studio is being pushed to its limits as there's barely enough room in there for video lights and THREE video cameras. And my pull-down shade, while perfect for head-and-shoulders portraits, was barely wide enough to accommodate the scene I was shooting. Had I zoomed out just 1mm more (so I could have some breathing room above my head) you would have seen the left and right edges of the white screen. And I couldn't have moved the cameras back any further. So for this video I decided to keep my head cropped (which isn't so bad - besides, there's some precedent).

The three cameras I used were the Sony Alpha 77, 65, and 55. The 77 and 65 made use of their Manual Exposure for Movie modes, while I had to trick the Alpha 55 into overexposing so the exposure and white balance for all three cameras came out the same. I had one camera set to the wide shot, one fixed for close-ups (that was the A77, and I moved its articulated screen to the top so I could see how high to hold the camera for the close-up shots). The third camera was a medium shot somewhere between the two, which I ended up not using.

Three cameras shooting simultaneously. The A77's screen (bottom camera) was positioned so I could see where to hold the camera on close-ups.

I went cheap on the lights. My first hope was that I could retrofit my existing softboxes and diffusers which I use for the wireless flash and just put in some constant light source. Too difficult. So instead I sprung for an inexpensive kit on ebay. The kit is decent for what it does, and while a good value, they weren't designed for the kind of high-key lighting I was attempting. (While great for green screen shooting, they weren't bright enough to get the background looking bright at f/8. I had to use f/4 and bump the ISO to 800.)

Now, for sound... The built-in mics on those cameras just won't do - they're too far away and you'll pick up all the room acoustics. I do have some professional microphones which I could plug directly into one of the cameras, however those of you who own my books on any of the aforementioned cameras already know that there's no way to turn off the automatic gain control on the sound. So plugging in a good mic would just result in some very high quality hiss during the silent portions.

There are two ways around this: 1) BeachTek makes a device which accepts all professional microphones (and provides monitoring too) and generates an inaudible 20 kHz tone as part of the audio feed. Too low a frequency to be recorded, but enough to fool the Automatic Gain Control circuitry and keep it from bumping up the audio during quiet parts.

2) The other way is to do what Hollywood filmmakers have been doing since the 1930's: Record the sound separately, then add it in post. So I grabbed my Zoom H4n digital audio recorder (which I now use for all my Xaphoon recordings), plugged in the mic, set the levels manually, and placed the mic in front of the table, just below the frame:

The entire 15-minute presentation was done with one continuous take, with all three cameras rolling at once. Switching between the different cameras was done on my computer after-the-fact. Sony Vegas (which is actually really good software) has a mode where you can take up to four pre-recorded video feeds, synchronize them together (along with the audio) and then switch between them as they're playing back like a live director would do. Not bad.

A fisheye view from the presenter's perspective.

Seminars - Copenhagen, California, and Colorado

While it's true we're doing fewer seminars this year, the first three of the four are going full steam ahead! Right now the seminars for Copenhagen, Santa Monica California, and Durango Colorado are all open for registration.

Peter Hollbaum-Hansen of LOF-SKOLEN University (he's orchestrating the Copenhagen events) have a full week of activities planned. Here's a quick rundown:

April 21-22 The Actual Seminar
^{April 24 7-9 Lecture on my days as a NASA engineer}

^{April 25 7-10 An evening hosted by Sony Denmark}

^{April 27 6-10 Refresher Course}

^{April 28 10-5 Field Workshop}

^{This should be a fun week (and I'm sure I'll be exhausted when it's over) and I'll have some more tricks up my sleeve if the light is as bad as it was during my first visit in 2010. :-) Here are some links for you if you want to learn more:}

Learn more about Day 1
Learn more about Day 2
Learn more about the Refresher Course
Learn more about the Field Workshop
Learn more about the NASA lecture

The Santa Monica, California seminar will be held on June 9-10, and a 1-day field workshop on June 16th. Learn more and sign up here.

The Durango, Colorado event is being hosted by the Durango Photo Club, and there will be three events: A technical lecture, a 2-day seminar, and a 2-day Field Workshop all happening between July 12 and July 22nd. Learn More and Sign Up here

The final seminar for the year, to take place in London (well, Sussex) is still on the horizon for September, 2012, just after the Olympics. Just haven't had any time to work on logistics. Stay tuned.

Ebook News

Well, at long last my ebook on the Alpha 65 and 77 is out, and the reviews have been pretty positive - even from readers of previous books. (I worked very hard to make sure these folks would not be disappointed!) Unlike my previous books (which were designed to be viewed on a horizontal computer screen), this one is being optimized for viewing on iPads and e-readers (hence the vertical format). Purchasers of the .pdf file will also get a FREE .mobi version so they can read it on their Kindle ebook reader too. (Nook and other e-reader owners: an epub version is available but it's still being polished. Email me privately for more info.)

My next book will be on the NEX-7, which I would have started already if I only had one in my hands. :-( It turns out I ordered the Kit version back in September, 2011 and as luck would have it those have been delayed by the Thailand floods the most. (Who knew?) Adorama estimates a delivery time frame of July. I've appealed to a local Sony rep who seems empathetic and willing to help. Can't wait to get my hands on one!

Until next time...
Yours Truly, Gary Friedman

============= Learn how to take "Wow!"-type images the NASA way! http://www.FriedmanArchives.com/seminars

A Family Portrait with Uncooperative Children

2012-01-02T21:41:00.000-08:00

Also in this issue:

Flash Exposure Accuracy with the A77 and A65
A Pitch for a Cable Show
Seminars for 2012
Other Stuff

A Family Portrait with Uncooperative Children

The above shot was probably the most difficult family portrait I've ever had to shoot. Part of the problem is I'm in the shot, but the significantly bigger problem is that there are three grandchildren in the picture, two of whom don't know anything about sitting still or posing, and the third absolutely, positively refuses to pose or even smile for the camera. And there was no photographer on hand to provide a distraction and shoot at the decisive moment when everyone's looking. What to do?

Mind you, all three have grown up in front of the camera, are used to it and really enjoy seeing themselves immediately. But despite that, it's next to impossible to get a portrait of the oldest one. Take the classic shot below, for example. I had set up my wireless flash (with softbox) on the right, set my ambient exposure so it would be about two stops underexposed (gives a very classic look to dramatic light without it being pure black), and put the stool right where the good light was. Well, to him everything's a game. He might sit on the stool but the minute I pick up the camera he'll run away. He'll sit anywhere but where the good light was. He'd give anything but a natural smile. (Click on the thumbnails for some outtakes. :-) ) He's a challenge indeed. I took about 30 shots before I got this "good" one.

And getting a shot of all three of them together? Forget about it! I've tried. I've tried in the studio. I've tried out in the backyard. I could never get more than one to look good (or even face the camera) at any given time. I've tried flashing lights, an occasional whistle, and a parent standing behind the camera with distractions. I could show you a book full of bad shots.

Then last week a miracle happened: I managed to get ONE great shot of all three of them looking natural, happy, facing the camera, and with decent fill light using the A65's pop-up flash!

So here I was, everyone was together and available for a family portrait. The kids had all had their naps and were in a good mood (for the time being), we were all dressed to match, I had scouted out a good shady place to shoot and I only had about a 15 minute window to get the shot before someone got too fussy or the fog started to roll in. It might be months before everyone would be together again. Oh, and the oldest grandchild was in a poor mood and wanted nothing to do with it. No stress, right?

So I set everything up: A900, Aperture Priority mode at f/7.1, Minolta 80-200 f/2.8 G lens, Exposure Compensation -0.3, 58 flash, tripod, wired cable release, ISO 200, RAW + JPG mode. My strategy was to run to the cable release (which wasn't long enough to reach the group), press the button (initiating a 10-second self-timer), run back in place, and do this about 10 times to give myself something to work with. (An infrared wireless remote would not have worked in this bright environment.) I took one shot which came out decent but the young 'uns faces were pointed in random, non-camera directions.

Then my wife had a brilliant idea: "Why don't you just use the remote and put the camera into continuous shooting mode?" She had seen me do this countless times when trying to photograph lightning. Not a bad idea, although I don't think I've ever did it with a flash before. The 58 might overheat if I run it full blast for too long.

Turns out it was a GREAT idea, since the kids started to stare intently at the flash that kept going off in machine-gun mode. Then they thought it was funny and started to smile. And their heads actually stayed relatively still for most of of these shots, which would make things easier later on. 119 pictures later I figured we had enough to work with and stopped it. Neither the 58 nor the A900 overheated. :-)

Three hours and a sushi dinner later (hey, we don't get together all that often!) I was back at my computer and had a close look at the results. It turns out I had one good face for everybody, but not all in one shot. (This won't be a straight-from-the-camera portrait as I had done back in 2009!) So I used the time-honored face replacement technique which I demonstrated in an earlier blog. and ended up replacing five of the 9 faces. Voila! Click on the image below to see an animated .gif of the faces before and after.

Click to see before and after faces that were replaced.

Flash Exposure Accuracy with the A77 and A65

"A900? Why didn't you take that family portrait with the A77?", I hear you ask.

The official reason was I was using my 80-200 f/2.8 Minolta G lens for this shot, and in order to take that shot with the A77 I'd have to have the camera further away because of the 1.5x crop factor. That would mean the flash would be working harder and/or be less effective, and I wanted to get the best light I could.

But there's another, less official reason. I'm still not comfortable with the A77's flash exposure algorithms. (The A65 too.) Both cameras tend to overexpose the subject by about one stop compared to all previous cameras, regardless of the flash being used. It happens weather I'm using the pop-up flash, the 58, or 56 flashes. It happens indoors and outdoors, bounced or not, with the electronic first curtain shutter feature enabled or disabled, ADI or TTL. Firmware version 1.03 AND 1.04. (It's frustrating, I tell you!)

Here are some controlled studio test shots using the pop-up flash, the 58 flash mounted on the hot shoe, and the 56 flash set off wirelessly. The first row is the A77, the second row is the A65, and the third row is the A55 (but the last row could have been any other Sony or Minolta camera I own). See the difference?

The problem doesn't always happen. One of the first tests I did was to shoot a grey card with multiple cameras (and with multiple white balances, to test for a possible different issue that turned out to not be an issue):

Here I'm comparing an A700, A900, A55, A65, and A77 - all had perfectly consistent flash exposures. (The only surprise there was the A55, 65, and 77 exposed the ambient (left column) and flash (right three columns) differently. But the flash shots were all consistent!)

Wait, it gets worse. Out of the box the flash exposure accuracy can be all over the map. (See more examples below.) The variation amongst these shots (all with the same settings, all taken seconds apart) is much wider than what should be acceptable.

Since it happens across cameras and across flashes I'm tempted to say it's a firmware problem, but a quick check with the Sony DSLR Forum on dpreview revealed that while some people shared this problem in a big way, others had perfectly exposed and consistent flash exposures at all times. (Scholarly comment: "Hmmmph!")

So while I'm not sure what the root of the problem could be, I have found a solution. (Mostly.) When I set the Flash Exposure Compensation to -1.0 or -1.3, the flash exposures match what the previous cameras produce (hence it behaves the way I expect it to), plus the large deviations in flash exposures goes away almost completely. I can now shoot important events with confidence. But on the day of the family portrait, my comfort level wasn't as high, and I didn't want to take any risks on such an important shot.

I remember when the Minolta 7D first came out and they had a similar problem with flash accuracy. It had something to do with the fixed amount of output for the pre-flash not being calibrated with enough precision for digital. The solution was to send the camera and flash back to the factory to have them calibrated to each other. And as soon as my book for the A65 and A77 is finished (and I'm on track to be done by the end of January - let me know if you'd like to be notified) I'll be contacting Sony repair in Laredo, Texas and seeing if they'll even acknowledge the problem.

If any of you ever thought I was a Fanboy / Paid Mouthpiece / Shill for Sony, and/or I had inside contacts within the organization, this post should dispell that notion (and will probably also prevent any future Sony relationships from forming! :-) )

======================

A Pitch for a Cable Show

Does anyone know of a production company looking for killer content? I have a great, low-budget yet highly entertaining idea for a TV/Cable/New Media outlet.

Tony Phillips (tonyphillips.org) and I have aspirations for doing a cable show on travel photography, but with a twist. In addition to the usual travel locations and adventures, we each have to take great images using the crappiest cameras we can find. Disposable cameras, Lomography, Holgas, you name it. This means (here comes the theme) we have to rely on great light and composition, which are far more important than expensive cameras. Adventure, intrigue, and education (with a little "Top Gear" attitude thrown in) all in 30 minutes!

Can't pull this off on my own, but the two of us have great on-camera chemistry and the show would be highly entertaining indeed. Let me know if you have any industry contacts that can help develop this idea properly.

Seminars for 2012

As mentioned last month, we're cutting back to doing only four seminars this year. Here's what the schedule looks like:

Currently Scheduled Seminars:

Copenhagen	Seminar April 21-22, 2012 (There will also be a Field Workshop and a separate lecture on my days as a NASA engineer)	Learn more about Day 1 Learn more about Day 2 Learn more about the Refresher Course Learn more about the Field Workshop Learn more about the NASA lecture
Santa Monica, California	Sometime in June, 2012	Click here to register interest
Durango, Colorado	Lecture Thursday night, July 12th Seminar July 14-15 Field Workshop July 21-22	Click here to register interest
London	September, 2012 - University of Sussex	Click here to register interest

Other Stuff

I recently pushed out updates to the NEX 3/C3/5/5N ebook. You should have been notified of the free update. Those of you who purchased the printed version of that book and registered your purchase with me are entitled to a free .pdf file as well. If you didn't get the notifications, please forward your purchase receipt to me and I'll provide the updated .pdf file to you, too.
Updates to the Spanish version of the Alpha 33 / 35 / 55 ebook were pushed out as well. Same rules as above - let me know if you didn't get the updated version.
The Alpha 65 and 77 ebook will be out by the end of January. If you send me an email I'll let you know the very day it's released.
Next month's blog post will be highly unusual. :-)

Until then...
Yours truly, Gary Friedman

My search for a Point-and-Shoot

2011-12-02T16:30:00.001-08:00

Also in this issue:

Evolution of the Seminars
A Parting Shot

My Search for a Point-and-Shoot

I carry a point-and-shoot with me almost all the time. My motto is "the camera you have with you is infinitely more valuable than the big, expensive one you left home because you didn't want to schlep it around." And last May my ancient and pocketable Sony DSC-T10 died. Well, not so much as died as the optical stabilization mechanism went haywire and it was oscillating full-tilt all the time. (Actually I took advantage of it to get some neat nighttime images like the one above.) Time to re-acquaint myself with the current offerings and spend way more time than I have trying to select one that's good for my needs.

But what are my needs?

Must be pocketable (otherwise it won't be with me everywhere).
Must be responsive (I shoot grandchildren a lot).
The image quality must not suck with reasonably good light (about the healthiest expectation you can set for yourself when approaching a point-and-shoot).
Some sort of manual control is essential - at the very least an exposure compensation control that's not buried 5-menus deep.

Seriously, that's it! RAW would be nice, but as a rule point-and-shoots are not for pixel peepers. As I tell people in my seminars (more about those in a minute), if you have good light and good composition, then RAW won't matter that much and you should be able to take "Wow!" type pictures even with a pedestrian point-and-shoot.

One other thing I've discovered is that you can't just buy a camera on specs. You have to actually use it for awhile. And that's why it can really pay to buy from a big-box retailer with a generous return policy. So far I've plowed through six different cameras, five of which I ended up returning for various reasons. Let me briefly share my experiences with you here:

1) and 2) My first approach was one of "I'm only going to shoot with good light and so I'm going to go with the most pockatable P&S I can find". So one day I took home two to try out: The Canon Powershot Elph 300HS and the Sony DSC-W570. And while the image quality in daylight wasn't horrible, the snapshots I took at my nephew's graduation party (mostly indoors) were just pathetic. Both got returned within a week.

Even when the light was good, I felt the image quality from the low-end point-and-shoots was just too low. (This one was the Canon Powershot Elph 300HS.)

3) I always heard great things about the Lumix series of cameras, and so I thought I'd go higher-end and get their ZS10. The image quality was great! And it was pretty responsive. But it really wasn't that pocketable. (Size and image quality are eternal tradeoffs, aren't they? :-) )

The image quality from the Lumix ZS10 was outstanding. And I would have happily kept it too if it wasn't for...

And there was another issue: Shortly after I bought the Lumix dpreview.com came out with their review / comparison of six high-end travel zooms, one of which was the ZS10 that I was so pleased with. After much details and reports of real-world usefulness they ended up ranking one camera "best" in 3/3 categories. That camera was...

4) The Canon SX230 HS. And since it was a little more pocketable than the Lumix I was using, I decided to return the Panasonic and bought the Canon. Big mistake. It reminded me of the folly of relying too much on online reviews. The problem I had was the sluggishness. It was MUCH more sluggish than the Lumix for both focusing and zooming, and it just tended to blow out the whites a lot. (I tested it at a family wedding that weekend - a perfect opportunity for great snapshots. I had to permanently set the exposure compensation to -0.7 EV just to get decent shots when outdoors.)

This pre-visualized shot was taken by the Canon which I eventually returned.

5) What to try next? Convinced that my values were very different from dpreview's, and because it had sweep panorama and other cool features that my bigger Sony cameras had, I sprung for the Sony HX7V (which is slightly more pocketable than the HX9V which gets all the attention). Let me just say that while the image quality was great, the sluggishness for anything other than zooming and shooting was just abysmal. Much worse than the Canon. Switching between playback and shooting took 5-7 seconds. Similar delays occurred when changing modes. And I thought I'd be OK with that until one Halloween night when, again, I was shooting grandchildren and I missed every expression because I was waiting for the camera to do something. My other motto is, "If a camera stresses you out, it's time to change cameras".

The Sony HX7V's image quality was great - and Manual mode means I could handle tricky stage lighting easily. This was taken at the Paul Simon concert (Paul's on the right). I would have been thrown out of the venue if I had brought my A77 and 80-200 f/2.8 G lens. The guy in the middle playing the Xaphoon is Paul's music director, Mark Stewart. I hand-picked that Xaphoon for him. Makes me proud to see it used this way! :-)

6) My latest camera is extremely responsive and has great image quality. It's the Fujifilm Finepix F500 which I'm really quite happy with so far. (Although to be fair it hasn't seen much use - I've been using my A77 and A65 for everything because I'm working feverishly on the book.) If I still like it in a month I might return this camera too and get this camera's older brother, the Finepix F550 which offers RAW mode plus a few other features (but is not available from the big-box retailer with the generous return policy).

So this is how I've been spending my limited spare time. :-) A part of me feels a little guilty - after all, am I not slightly abusing the retailer's generosity in order to try these cameras out? The two answers to that question are 1) The retailer doesn't care - every returned camera gets returned to the supplier and it doesn't cost the retailer anything. 2) The retailer knows full well that this kind of policy, while it might cost some sales here or there in the short term, results in a significantly greater return in customer loyalty which will pay off with future purchases. It's one of those small-investment-high-payoff kinds of policies. It certainly has worked that way for me.

Evolution of the Seminars

I originally started the Friedman Archives High-Impact Photography Seminars because I got tired of seeing so much poor advice disseminated on the online discussion forums when a beginner would ask how to improve their photography. “Start shooting in Aperture priority mode”, one person would opine. “Learn Photoshop” blurted another. “Examine the EXIF information of pictures you like online and see what they did!” And the most ill-prescribed advice which I see all too often: “Shoot RAW!”

Lethbridge, Alberta

Well, that kind of advice may be well-meaning, but it's not useful to a beginner. Never in my life have I seen a rank beginner switch to RAW (or shoot in Aperture Priority mode) and then suddenly start producing "Wow!" type images. Clearly the secret to high-impact images must lie elsewhere. And so I thought it was time to share the (seemingly) forgotten knowledge that all successful Kodachrome shooters knew back in the day – how to take pictures that make other people say “Wow!” with nothing more than a point-and-shoot.

I guess I was a little surprised at the response to the seminars – people LOVED it. (Even those who had been shooting for 30 years. Even those who had attended many other photo seminars in the past.) It must have been a combination of revealing forgotten truths and my usual level of enthusiasm for my subject matter. I’ve had repeat attendees when the seminar returned to a city. I’ve had people fly in from several states away (half a world away in one case) just to attend. Whatever I was doing, it seemed to resonate with people, regardless of the level of experience they had.

Amsterdam

Then people started to ask for more. “The seminars are wonderful, but there’s so much information to absorb… I wish we could have some time out in the field to reinforce what we’ve learned!”.

A reasonable request, to be sure, But it turns out to be a tall order – this means that every city we visit will require not one but two weekends (unless a three-day weekend was at hand, which are rare) and participants would have to be free for two consecutive weekends. I’d have to assemble a reasonably interesting walking or driving itinerary of each city without really having the benefit of being there to know what I’m planning or whether the light will be good there for that time of day. I had to make a “Plan B” for each city in case the weather turned bad. And for practical purposes we had to limit the number of participants in these “field workshops” to 12 people to keep the herding manageable. This meant considerably more work. It’s worth it, though, when you consistently hear how much people enjoy it. The field workshops fostered a bond between participants that apparently is unusual for such photographic events. As one attendee wrote, “As great as the seminar is, your Field Workshop is the best part of the Friedman Archives Experience!”

Copenhagen

The seminars have been very good to me – they have brought me and my wife all over the world and allowed us to meet people with whom we would become very good friends. Synergy occurred when I would also add to my stock photography archive on every trip. Greatest of all is the satisfaction of knowing that there are many, many people who now have an intuitive understanding of what’s really important in photography, and the seminar has improved their images and their enjoyment of the craft forever.

Alas, I find myself with too much of a good thing. In 2011 we conducted a total of 7 seminars in 10 months, and found ourselves traveling for 2 1/2 weeks out of every month for several consecutive months. That's fine once in awhile, but we had too many too close together, and it has begun to take its toll. Not enough time to write or spend time with family. There was stress when there should have been joy. A change is needed.

Pubnico, Nova Scotia

And so, we are making the painful decision of scaling back the ambitions of the Friedman Archives Seminars. We’ll only be planning and promoting at most 4 seminars a year. Priority will be given to to photo clubs who would like us to bring the seminars to their part of the world. Photo clubs that have hosted the seminars in the past continue to ask us back, because of the unique way I approach the subject and the revitalization it brings to the club – even several months later. People talk about new techniques. Meetings see more attendance. You get the idea. Send me an email if you’re a member of such a photo club and would like to bring the seminar to you.

2012 will only see three seminars (Copenhagen, Durango Colorado, and London.) (Maybe Los Angeles in the summer also if I get enough emails from people asking for it.) And right now there are four slots available for 2013. So let me hear from you! (Especially if you're in Australia or New Zealand. :-) )

As always, the current schedule (with links to register or register interest) can be found at FriedmanArchives.com/seminars .

A Parting Shot

Wireless flashes are just too much fun. The image above used only two of them: one which the subject held in his right hand, and the other placed directly behind his head, creating the same halo around his head as I described last year for one of my signature shots.

===========

That's it for this month. My next book is the A65 and A77 book which I hope will be finished by late January. Send me an email (Gary at Friedman Archives dot com) if you'd like to be on the announcement list when it's ready.

Until next time...

Yours Truly, Gary Friedman