Nikoin PB-6 Bellows Unit
The above unit is a standard Nikon PB-6 bellows unit which I have had for many years and it was excellent to use with the older manual focus Nikon lenses and also with the D-series auto focus lens for extreme close up images. It is not so easy to use with the current G-series lenses. My daughter has a couple of D-series lenses which I can use with it. These bellows have become a collectors item in recent years. The Bellows unit is superbly made and is a fine piece of machinery.
I have often thought that the rail from this Bellows unit would form the basis of an excellent, high quality focusing rail. I had been searching on Ebay for the last month and eventually found someone that was selling one of the tripod base units for this bellows for a few dollars. So I purchased it and now have an excellent multi purpose high quality combination of:
- Bellows Unit,
- Focusing Rail,
- and an excellent Nodal Rail.
All this for a few dollars outlay.
Nikon PB-6 Bellows Modified
Above is the modified rail, which works very well and has a total movement range of around 370mm, with movement in both the the upper graduated rail and also the lower tripod attachment movement.
The adjustment is quite fine, as one full turn of the adjustment knob will move the rail around 27mm, so the rail can be adjusted accurately to less than 1mm.
I can look forward to some focus stacking images and some more accurately stitched panoramas in the near future.
Thanks to all the visitors to my All Digital Photography Blog (6,000 visitors per month now), have a great year in 2012.
Eastern Dwarf Tree Frog (Litoria fallax)
The above image is one of my images that I really have much affinity for.
I captured this image with my D700 camera and 105mm Micro lens at a local park and I find the colours very appealing.
There is much we can do to avoid or make it harder for the thief to steal your images. We can use watermarks, but I do not like these as in my opinion it defaces the image. I like the images I display to be the highest quality for the viewing public.
What if our images do get stolen, should we be proud that someone likes our images enough to steal them or do we get upset , who likes thieves anyway. I certainly do not.
Google Is My Friend
There is an easy way now to find out where your images are on the internet. It is a Google facility called Image Search. I find it extremely accurate to identify where your images are. You simply need to go into Google http://images.google.com/, drag and drop your image into the dialog box.
Once you have dropped the image, then Google will search for all like images on the internet. Surprise, surprise, from the list that shows up by the Google search there are several sites with like images to mine which I have never been involved in.
I can not understand why a professional person or company would just copy images from another site, not only is it theft, but for a company trying to look professional and original, it makes them look like a company that is lacking in respect for other peoples work, does not have any of their own expertise and has no originality. Would you deal with a company with that sort of reputation?
Name and Shame The Thief
I would not like to accuse anyone of stealing my images but the following are several sites where I found very, very similar images, you can be the judge.
Both these sites are Web design businesses and they state on their site that they employ a photographer for original graphic work in their business.
I find it absolutely amazing that their photographer has captured an image identical to mine !!
I have shown some screen captures from the two of these sites below. The two sites seem to be related in some way.
Koost Web Design
Pashley Web Design
I have Emailed these sites to find out what is going on and have also mentioned them on Twitter to bring it to their attention.
Postscript
I have had an Email from the Web sites concerned and they said that they thought the images were open source images. Perhaps they needed to do a bit more research before posting them.
This company said they would remove the images in five days and they have not done this.
I have sent Koost Web Design, several Emails, advising them of the image theft, also I have sent them another Email with an invoice for usage of the image and they have accused me of spamming. They do not seem to want to talk to me. I wonder why.
Update - What Can I Do About My Stolen Image?
Well there is something you can do. You can issue a DMCA complaint to the Company who is hosting the Web site where your stolen image resides. The technicalities of a DMCA complaint is outlined in Wikipedia – Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
It should be noted that this is based on US law and applies to Web pages hosted in the United States, I am not sure where you stand if it is hosted in other countries.
In the complaint you will need to specify details of the complaint as follows:
- The offending Web domain address.
- The IP address of the offending Web site.
- The offending Web page where your image is hosted.
- Outline specific details of the copyright breach and give a link to your Web site where your image belongs.
- It is a very good idea to keep copies of your Raw images as well as the .JPG images, as the Raw image is like a film negative and can be proof that you are the original copyright owner and in possession of the original Raw image.
- You will need to specifically say that you have contacted the web site and they have refused to remove the image.
Send the DMCA complaint to the Web hosting Company.
After you lodge the DMCA complaint what will happen. In the above case the Web sites with the offending image have been blocked by the Hosting Company, a successful end of story from my perspective.
Thanks to Luke (my son), a web software developer, who helped me resolve this issue.
Noisy Miner (Manorina melanocephala)
This Noisy Miner (Manorina Melanocephala) has been captured at Rosser Park, Botanical Gardens, Gold Coast Australia. I really love this park as it is very productive in the images I get there.
This Noisy Miner is feeding on a Grevillea flower. The image was captured with a Nikon D700 and 300mm f/4D lens. Whether you shoot with Nikon or Canon lenses the use of a 300mm f/4 lens is a wonderful size lens for chasing birds, it is smallish, light to handle and with its f/4 aperture is suitable for a variety of lighting conditions.
For this image I used a monopod to help keep the camera outfit steady.
Once lenses get to 400mm or over they become quite heavy and more difficult to hand hold, I find the 300mm ideal. In addition the longer lenses become very costly.
Butterfly, Hinterland Regional Park
Recently I was at a local park looking for some birds to photograph but was amazed to see so many butterflies fluttering around.
Butterflies would be one of the most beautiful insects to photograph. I would normally use my 200mm f/4 Nikon Micro lens for butterflies but I did not have it available at this time, the 200mm Micro will focus down to life size. In this case I used the Nikon 30o0mm f/4 lens, as I was mainly looking for birds, the 300mm does not focus quite so close but appeared to do the job here.
For images such as this, a monopod or tripod can be a great advantage to help get sharper images, also many of the more recent lenses have Vibrtion Reduction or Image Stabilisation to help reduce camera shake, but this does not help with the subject movement.
If you are interested in nature and macro photography please take a look at some of the hints and tips in the categories section of the site.
Rainbow Lorikeet
Recently I went for a short trip to a local park, Rosser Park, Gold Coast, Australia, near to where I live and was fortunate to find a couple of beautiful birds. At this park there is a large lake to attract the water birds and also many native grevilleas and flowering shrubs to attract the native birds and honey-eaters.
Birds are beautiful creatures to photograph, sometimes they are difficult and sometimes easy to find. Generally where the birds are feeding on flower nectar they will come and go very frequently and it is just a matter of waiting until they come near you. In the case of the above Rainbow Lorikeet I used a 300mm f/4.0 lens and a monopod to steady the camera and lens. The birds were frequently moving around from flower to flower and were generally relatively easy to follow.
Sometimes a 300mm lens is not quite long enough for birds, particularly smaller ones. An economical way to get longer is to use a 1.4 times or 2.0 times teleconverter, but using the teleconverter will cause loss of light and this leads to a 300mm f/2.8 lens being better than the 300mm f/4 lens that I used here. The cost of f/2.8 lenses will be significantly more than f/4 lens and this can amount to many thousand dollars.
White-Faced Heron, Immature
The image of the White-faced Heron was quite easy to capture as the bird remained motionless for a considerable time, again this bird was captured with the 300mm f/4 lens. A 300mm lens is plenty for a bird such as this as they are quite large. With the above bird I had to back off a little to fit it into the frame.
For smaller birds telephoto lenses can sometimes never be long enough, but for birds such as the heron above, sometimes even a 200mm lens can be enough.
Selecting a lens is quite complicated as the are some important considerations.
- Do you get an f/2.8, f/4 or f/5.6 lens, this can be driven by cost as the cost will increase greatly for the lower aperture lenses.
- The focal length will depend on how close you can get t0o the subject and also how large the subject is.
- The provision of image stabilisation or vibration reduction can also be a consideration in longer lenses if you will be hand holding the lens.
- Sometimes a cropped camera (camera with an APS-C sensor) is better for bird photography as it gives an equivalent focal length longer than the normal lens focal length.
The possibilities for selecting lenses for this type of bird photography are summarised for both the Nikon system and the Canon system.
Pied Currawong
This Pied Currawong has been photographed at Tweed Heads, Northern, New South Wales. I love the challenge of photographing birds, some birds are quite difficult to get close enough, but these Currawongs are quite easy to capture, being so large and relatively quiet to get close. I liked the positioning of this bird with the ocean in the background and thought it would make a pleasing image. Generally when I set out on a photographic trip I aim for certain subjects and on this trip was not really prepared for birds.
It is relatively easy to get quite close to these Currawongs and for this image I used my Nikon D700 and 24-120mm VR, zoom lens, not really a birding lens as I was really photographing seascapes. For most birding I will use my favourite lens, the 300mm, f/4.0, with a monopod, however the shorter zoom proved to be quite suitable in this case.
The currawong is essentially a bird of the open forest and frequents the Eastern part of Australia.
As I set out to capture a seascape on this trip, I have also included another image from Tweed Heads, as the rocky coastline is beautiful in this area.
Tweed Heads
This image has also been captured with the 24-120mm zoom lens.
