In the morning, i’m off to Nepal, with a nice stop-over in Thailand first.  I shall be giving my camera and equipment a serious workout while i’m away, snapping pics of anything and everything!

When i get back, i plan to do several reviews of various bits and pieces, including my Lowepro Daypack 250 backpack, Canon 50mm 1.8, Vosonic and Nexto storage devices and possibly various other bits and pieces that i’ve put through field tests while i’m away.

So i’ll be back in a few weeks.. It should be awesome, but no doubt, it will fly by!! seeya all soon!

I ended up getting the Vosonic 8860 and the Nexto 2700 Portable Storage Devices.

Nexto 2700 and Vosonic 8860

Vosonic 8860 and Nexto 2700

If you want to know why i got these particular models, and how i came to that decision, then keep on reading!!

In terms of budget, i was looking at spending as little as possible to get the job done right and reliably, and that will hopefully last a while.

In making the decision for what to get to suit my needs, i needed to keep a few things in mind. First and foremost was the reason i needed some kind of device, and as already stated, that was for extra storage space for photo’s while travelling..

Compact Flash Cards are fairly reliable and not all that expensive really, however, quite limiting in terms of storage space for the money. Example. 1 x 8gb for $100au or so, which in RAW, is about 700 photos for me. Not too bad but if i want better value for money in terms of storage space, there’s certainly better choices, especially when you consider the cost of hard drives these days. You’re looking at maybe 160-320gb for less than $100. At least 20 times the storage space of a Compact Flash card for less money. That certainly appealed to me.

Another thing i had to keep in mind was what it was for and how it was going to be used.

For me, i wanted something that was good for travel when i didn’t have access to a computer. I needed a solution that didn’t require me to be plugged into a power point to use it. That unfortunately voided the cheap option of external hard drives and a USB bridge as all the USB bridges i could find weren’t powered, which requires the HDD to be plugged in at the wall. This did seem a viable and reasonably cheap option though if a power source is not a concern.

This basically left the option of Portable Storage Devices. These are basically a portable hard drive with a case that accepts various memory card formats to slot in and transfer files from. Now the question was, which one…

There’s so many to choose from, with various features and options so i needed to do some research. And that’s exactly what i did. I read web page after web page looking at all the in’s and out’s that the various Storage Devices had to offer. Good reviews, bad reviews and everything in between.
There’s ones with screens, ones without screens, ones that play video and or music, ones that have set storage space or ones that you can upgrade with any commonly available laptop hard drive, ones that verify your file transfers and all sorts of other features.

With all these options, i really needed to narrow it down somehow so i thought about what features i really wanted the device to have, what might be a nice bonus but not a must have, and what is completely unnecessary and would be used rarely or not at all.

2 Portable Storage Devices seemed the way to go for my requirements. It would enable me to have 2 backups on seperate devices, and allow me to rotate and reuse my 4 x Flash cards as i needed to. 4 x CF cards is more that enough for me. I won’t shoot that many shots in a day and there’s less chance of me getting confused and mixing them up or losing them. Also, being the computer nerd that I am, one can never have enough HDD space, so i figured they’ll get a lot more general everyday use than 10+ memory cards would after the trip.

Also, since i was looking at 2 devices, then i decided that 1 with a screen to view the pics might be nice, and another without a screen as 2 screened devices was pointless. This didn’t really narrow it down, but did make it more specific to what i was searching for.

Devices with a viewing screen that i checked out included various Epson models, Vosonic (wolverine in US) models, Sanho Hyperdrive models, and a few other Multimedia players. One prerequisite i wanted in my PSD with a screen was that it was capable of viewing RAW files from my Canon dSLR, as i generally shoot all my shots in RAW so if i can’t view them after transferring from the camera, the screen wasn’t much good to me. This narrowed it down quite a bit as most Multimedia players do not support RAW. It’s mostly the devices aimed at photographers that do support RAW. From this, I’d narrowed it down to the Epsons, Vosonics or Hyperdrives.

The Epsons:
These are generally very highly regarded and recommended by pro photographers. The 680 x 480 screen is supposed to be stunning.. good enough to show clients images straight away at the shoot, although, i haven’t seen one personally. The Epson p3000 and p5000 could go up to 120gb, and i’m not sure how large the newer p6000 and p7000, however, these Epson devices cost almost an arm and a leg. I couldn’t find one, even an older version, and get it here to Australia for less than $500AU, and that would have still needed a HDD upgrade bringing the cost up even more. It’s bonus’s however also included photo editing, playing video, music and output to a TV. Still, a very pricey option, a bit too luxurious for me.

The Vosonics:
The Vosonics, also known under the brand Wolverine in the US i believe, and are much less known and regarded, with a lot less information and reviews available. Most of the reviews i found were on the Vosonic forum, and, well, lets just say, it wasn’t sounding good. However, i always keep in mind that people generally post when things go wrong, not when things go right, so it’s not a reliable measure of quality.

There’s various Vosonic models available. The main models i looked at was the 8860, 8390 and 5700.
The 8860 is the newest of the bunch, released earlier this year. It’s screen rivals the Epsons for photo viewing with an awesome 800 x 480 LCD screen. It unfortunately doesn’t have TV output, however it does play video, music, radio, record TV (yes, TV input, no output.. i know, strange!) and have a built in voice recorder and upgradable hard drive using any SATA laptop HDD. All for the low price of about $300AU without HDD.. although i found a store that included a spare battery, 160gb HDD and free shipping for $360AU (about $310US for you Americans reading, and yes, that includes free shipping overseas).
The 8390 has a nice OLED screen rather than LCD. It’s the same as the 8360 but OLED, not LCD. It however isn’t anywhere near as high in resolution and cost’s a lot more. It does have TV out, however, i want one for photos on the go, so would rather a nicer viewing screen than the option to project them out, if i had to choose.
The 5700 (updated version of 5500) didn’t get too much consideration. The screen was nothing special, the extras were nothing special, and it wasn’t much cheaper than the new 8860 which offers a lot more.
So Vosonic 8860 was looking like it had quite a few ticks to it’s name. Good price, good screen, nice extras that could be handy while travelling…. hmm

The Hyperdrives:
These get a lot of good reviews and recommendations also, any model. New versions of the Colorspace and Colorspace 0 can be upgraded with laptop HDD’s allowing up to 500gb currently. They are primarily for photo’s and do not play video, however, do have a good file verification and file recovery system. The screens are ok, but nothing special. Not all that much better than the LCD on my camera which certainly influenced my decision. The major selling point of these devices is the fast file transfer speeds, a lot faster than both Epson and Vosonic’s PSD’s. Also the battery life and how much you can transfer per charge, which is great for travel and limited electricity situations. However battery life for me wasn’t a huge factor.. there were spare battery and battery pack options available for all PSD’s. The price wasn’t too cheap though after shipping to Australia, especially for it’s basic functions and average screen. And nowhere in Aus offers them cheaper than getting them from the manufacturer overseas. Just to get the Colorspace 0 shipped with no HDD was looking at about $360AU. I just don’t think i could justify that when there’s better value for money options.

Ok, now what about devices without a viewing screen??
Again, there was a large selection and i needed to narrow it down somehow. So again, i listed my requirements that i desired. The main one was that without a screen to view images on to make sure the pics had copied over, i wanted some way to be sure the transfer was successful. So file verification was something i wanted my non-viewing screen PSD to do. Also, interchangable 2.5″ laptop HDD would be good for cheap storage space.

Straight away, this narrowed it down to the Hyperdrive Space or even the old HD80, and the Nexto series of PSD’s.  A bonus was that the same AA battery pack and power supply can be used for the Nexto’s, the Hyperdrives AND the Vosonics (please note: i haven’t confirmed this with the Hyperdrives, however have confirmed it for most models of Vosonic and Nexto compatibility, and have tried it personally with my Vosonic 8860 and Nexto 2700 and yes, same power input. But please double check voltage before blowing up your Hyperdrives on my behalf). This was great as that meant I only need to bring just the one battery pack and charger to power both PSD’s. Less to carry is always welcome when traveling.

In knowing this, i was quite happy with either device.. so i looked at what set them apart.

The Nexto’s:
The range of Nexto PSD’s take various HDD types depending on which model.. the newer 2700 takes large, cheap, readily available SATA HDD’s so that’s which model i mainly looked at. The Nexto’s are meant to be as fast as it gets in terms of file transfer from memory card speeds and also file verification. The Nexto’s have an inbuilt battery with no memory so you don’t have to worry about when you charge it. The Nexto seemed to have more features than the Hyperdrives like USB OTG (OnTheGo) allowing you to use the Nexto as a bridge to connect USB device to USB device through the Nexto. One version even has SATA out (as well as USB) for super-speedy downloads to your PC.

The Hyperdrives:
The Hyperdrive Space and HD80 only take the older IDE hard drives. Only the newer versions with screens take the more common SATA HDD’s.  The Hyperdrive’s i believe are slightly better in the battery life department but not quite as fast in the transfer and verification departments. The Hyperdrives have interchangable batteries, however, need to be opened up to get to so not very convenient.

They seemed to be the main differences.. Still, after all this, i would have been happy with either a Nexto or Hyperdrive, however, the latest Nexto 2700 did seem like it was beating the competition.  So the deciding factor for me was price.. How much would it cost me to get either device and decent sized HDD… and the clear winner here was Nexto. I was able to get a Nexto 2700 + battery pack to power my Nexto AND Vosonic sent from overseas for about $200AU which Hyperdrive couldn’t compete with, no matter where i looked at buying them from. So it was an obvious choice for what seemed to be a better and newer device for less money. I still would have been happy with either though.

So that brings me towards the end of this ridiculously long write-up. Well done, by the way, if you’ve made it this far… i certainly hope it’s helped you in your PSD decision making!

So my conclusion i came to:
For a Portable Storage Device with a viewing screen with support for RAW files:
The Vosonic 8860 was standing out for value for money with a nice mix of features.
If money is no limit, and you want the best screen and a tried and trusted device, get an Epson p7000 i guess.
If transfer speed and battery life and reliability is main factors for you, Hyperdrive Colorspace should definitely be looked into.

For a Portable Storage Device without a viewing screen, but with support for upgradeable HDD and File Verification.
The Nexto 2700 stood out for value for money with good features, with other Nexto models varying in suitability and features.
The Hyperdrive Space or HD80 are still great contenders though, even though their age is getting on now.

So for about $500au, i got a fantastic Vosonic 8860 device with a stunning 800x 480 pixel screen, 320gb space to transfer and store photos on, watch movies, listen to music, record tv and radio and voice
AND
a reliable Nexto 2700 with 160gb of storage space and file verification, and an external AA battery pack for backup power to both devices.

This may seem excessive to some, and well, others i know wouldn’t do without 2 backups.. I am part of the latter group.
The peace of mind of being able to shoot as many photos as i like and knowing they’re securely stored, twice, is more than worth the price. Holidays won’t last forever but the irreplaceable photo’s will so make sure they’re safe.

Thanks for reading!!! I hope you’ve found it useful and or interesting at least.. Feel free to leave your comments, questions, opinions, views, experiences etc in the comments below! And stay tuned for actual product reviews after i give them a real workout in Nepal.

You can see more in the full post or check out the Photo Gallery.

A month or so later, i get a phonecall from a lovely lady named Leah from Sony to let me know that i’ve been chosen as 1 of 5 runner up’s in this competition i’d entered, and therefore, had won a Sony PSP and Buzz game pack! I couldn’t believe it, and almost didn’t until this week, when in the mail i recieved..

PSP, Buzz and Win Letter

I’ve always been one of those people that think ‘i never win anything’ but that’s stopped this week. I won a PSP! I do actually have one already, so this new one will most likely end up Ebay to pay for more photography stuff.

So big thanks to Sony.. i was already a fan of their games consoles and this will certainly reinforce that!

The Phottix Timer Remote

This remote control allows you to do time-lapse photography, and also allows you easier and more precise control with long exposures (bulb).  It also functions as a basic remote if you want to keep your hands off the camera while shooting from a tripod.

There is an official Canon Timer Remote, the TC-80N3, however it costs a lot more and the input plug would need to be modified to fit with my EOS 400d/Rebel XTi,  so i decided to try this 3rd party one out. I scored it from Ebay for about $55AU including postage. I’m pretty sure there are versions available for other non-Canon users too.

My initial impressions out of the box were that it was quite large, larger than i expected (see photo with it in hand further in post), however this really doesn’t bother me as it’s a comfortable size to hold, and not easy to lose.  It’s made out of plastic but seems to be quite well built and solid, but not overly heavy, even with batteries inside. Also, it wasn’t long before i realised there’s no way to turn off the device! A strange feature exclusion i thought, but ah well, not a major hassle by any means.

But enough about how it looks, how does it work and how does it perform i hear you asking..  Well keep reading..

The remote is powered by 2 x standard AAA batteries and claims that these will last for 60 days of continuous shooting. I’m not sure how ‘continuous’ that would be (do they mean something like 1 shot every second for 60 days or maybe 1 shot every day for 60 days?), but generally, i imagine the limit’s would depend on your camera battery life and photo memory space as much as remote battery life.

The batteries are easy to insert/remove, so as mentioned before, the hassle of no power button is really not that big of a deal. Once batteries are inserted, the device automatically powers up, ready for use.

There’s really not much to the remote to get too confused over. It basically consists of a few simple buttons that all serve basic purposes and an LCD screen with a navigation menu across the top. It’s pretty easy to figure out.

The Phottix Timer Remote Close Up

There is a LIGHT/LOCK button. This button serves 2 purposes. Pressing this will turn on the backlight for the LCD so you can see in dark situations.  The light automatically turns itself off.  Holding the LIGHT/LOCK button will lock the remote so that accidental button presses won’t effect it.  Holding the button down again will unlock the remote.

In the middle of the remote is a directional button with up, down, left, right and a SET button in the centre.  This is used to change and set the various settings or the timer remote.  I’ll get onto what the settings are and what they do in a bit more detail further on.

Next to settings button, you have the TIMER START/STOP button. Again, pretty self-explanatory. Pressing it starts the camera to take photographs according to the settings you have set.  Pressing it again stops it.

Last but not least, you have the remote SHUTTER button and Hold feature.  This acts the same as the shutter button on your camera. Half press to focus, full press to take the shot.  The Hold feature is used for BULB exposures. You can press the shutter down and then put it on hold so you don’t need to keep your finger on the button. Take it off hold when you want to finish the shot, or take over with your finger again. A nice feature to have, although, if you know how long you want the shutter open for, i’d just use the timer.. after all, that’s what it’s made for!  Another nice bonus of the shutter button is that you can take a shot even while during a time-lapse session. Say, for instance, that you were photographing a plant growing and you notice a bee has landed on it, but the next photo isn’t due for another 15 minutes, well, just press the shutter button and take one in between.. your time-lapse session will continue as per normal.

To use the remote, there’s a couple of things to remember. If you want to use the remote with the remote determining the length of the shot, then you must set your camera to BULB mode. This can usually be found by putting your camera on MANUAL settings, and changing the shutter speed to slower than 30 seconds. You can ignore this if you plan to use the cameras settings to control the shutter speed, use SHUTTER PRIORITY or MANUAL instead.

The Phottix Timer Remote and Canon EOS 400d

Ok, now onto the settings. There are various settings you can set including the delay before each shot is taken, the duration (shutter speed) of each shot, the interval between each shot and how many shots to take.

To set the settings, you use the sideways buttons to navigate through the different settings, and the up and down buttons to change the settings.  Pretty straight forward?

The first setting is DELAY. It’s for setting the delay before the time-lapse session is taken. I’m not exactly sure of when this setting comes in handy. I guess it’s if you want to start the time-lapse session going in 2 hours and 48 minutes and 15 seconds time, rather than straight away, then this is how you can do that.  I usually just leave it on 00:00:00 so it starts straight away.

Second setting across is LONG. This is for how long the shutter stays open for each shot. Unfortunately, the lowest time is 1 second, however, if you want each shot to be at a faster speed than 1 second, you can use the in-camera shot settings on Manual or Shutter Priority modes. I imagine Aperture Priority works too, however i haven’t tested this out yet. Very handy for long exposures of a specific length, even just single shots, not part of a time-lapse.

Next along is INTERVAL. This is the time between each shot. One thing to remember about this is that it includes the LONG setting, so you need to keep this in mind when setting it. Example. Say i’d set my LONG at 5 seconds, and i wanted shots taken every 20 seconds, then i’d set my INTERVAL at 20 seconds, not 15 seconds like I originally thought. It’s the entire interval, not just the gap inbetween shots.

Next you have N which i assume stands for number. This is the amount of shots you want to take at the previous settings. For some reason, it will do between 1-399 shots or infinity.  Not sure why you can’t choose up to 999. Again, not too much of a hassle really, and if you really need a specific amount of shots, then some simple maths should figure out how long to shoot for at whatever settings.

Last and well, least, is the SOUND setting.. Basically you can have the remote beep to let you know when it’s going to take a pic, or not.  And that’s basically it to the settings.

Setting the settings is easy, setting the right settings for the situation, now that’s a different story altogether, and one that will have to wait till later, when i figure it out

I haven’t had much of a chance to test it out too much yet, but i’ve given it a quick go and it works great so far, performing as it’s supposed to with no problems whatsoever.

So to wrap up this write up, here’s a couple of test-run time-lapse vids taken with my Canon EOS400d/Rebel XTi and shiny new Phottix Timer Remote.

The Brisbane River getting dark .. about 30 frames, each being 2 seconds long and 20 seconds apart, played back at 8 fps.

Cassy, the Aussie Tarantula (Phlogius crassipes) .. about 90 frames, 2 seconds apart played back at 6fps.

So what do i think of the Phottix Timer Remote overall?? I think it’s great, and i don’t see any need to spend more on the official Canon Timer Remote TC-80N3.  Save the money for those other camera items where you actually do get what you pay for.

If you know of any of the difference between the official Canon remote and the Phottix version, please let us know in the comments!  Same goes for if you’ve had experience with this remote or another version, good or bad.  Thanks for reading!

Gethin

It’s called Afrika and is a safari game where you are a photographer and are given various missions to go and capture specific shots throughout the wide open land of ‘Afrika’. It will take advantage of the PS3’s sixaxis motion controlled controller, where if you aren’t holding it steady, it will show in the photo results, just like in real life.  Better photo’s will earn better cash, allowing you to upgrade your camera equipment.

Sony’s camera division have worked closely with Rhino Studios (the makers of the game) to incorporate the Sony Alpha series of dSLR cameras into the game in detail, down to shutter sound and lens operation.

National Geographic have also been involved in the project, with editors of the magazine supervising the in-game animal antics such as behavior and animations, and also allowing use of their videos and photos for the in-game animal encyclopedia.

This is one game I’m definitely looking forward to checking out.. Should be great for those video gaming photographers stuck indoors when the weathers bad.. and who hasn’t wanted to go on an African safari!

it’s released on the 28th of this month (August) in Japan, not sure about when for the rest of the world. here’s a video with the trailers.

been busy with workin to save money for my upcoming trip to Nepal in a little over a months time and so haven’t had much time to dedicate to photography.. however, in saying that, i have taken quite a few photo’s and have some to upload to the gallery, im sure, but i haven’t had time to sort through them yet!

also, got my first trojan/virus in quite some time.. somethin called Virtumonde or Vundo. It took a few days to figure out what it was as the only thing it was doing was not allowing me to access certain websites, mainly those requiring cookies such as ebay and facebook and most forums i use, and also not allowing me access to my own websites! crazy virus but its all sorted now.

So i’ll try get onto sorting through these photos so i can post some new stuff up in the gallery.  Also, i have recently aquired some new camera/photography accessories so i plan to start reviewing some of the equipment I own.. I know that i personally like to research things before spending hard earnt money on them, and for some pieces of equipment there’s very little information out there to be found so I figure i’ll do it and hopefully someone out there may find it useful one day.  So keep your eyes out for that..

I took this display of awesome moves as an opportunity to attempt some low light action photography and see if i could capture any of the impressive dance moves. Unfortunately, my current equipment struggles under these difficult conditions, but i did what i could, eventually needing to work my way through to the front to get some decent shots.

Before next years Battle City, i’ll definately be purchasing a better lens for these types of conditions.. most likely the Canon 50mm f1.8 mkII which is one of the cheaper priced Canon lenses available.
Tip: The key to photography in these kinds of conditions is being able to let as much ambient light into the lens quickly as possible so you can use a faster shutter speed to freeze the action. A couple of ways to do this is by using a low aperture, ie f1.8 or by raising the ISO, ie ISO 800 or so.)

I experimented with various setting until i found some that seemed to be working as well as my equipment allowed. I ended up with ISO 800, daylight white balance, and using shutter priority of about 1/50th of a second to allow me to hopefully freeze the action and get a clear, relatively non-blurry shot while still letting in enough light to show up in these dark conditions.

Unfortunately my current lens (18-55mm) is not very good, with an aperture of f3.5 to f5.6 (f3.5 being wide end of the lens, f5.6 when zoomed), i generally used a focal range somewhere in the middle to compromise with getting closer to the action and letting more light into the lens. I also didn’t want to zoom in too far as a lot of the shots were ‘hold the camera and click’ with no chance of looking through the viewfinder at what i was aiming at. Sometimes i was aiming at the roof, sometimes at the floor, and thankfully, sometimes at the stage

Anyway, i’ve uploaded a few of the better shots to the photo gallery. Click any of the thumbs to see the larger version..

If you can help with putting names to faces/bodies, please get in touch! i’d like to give proper credit where its due!

thanks for reading, especially if you got this far!

Also, i decided to sign up online for the Playstation Network to get the multiplayer thing going with my PS3. My ID is “inked3D” for anyone that wants to add me.

i haven’t had much time to post this week, but i’ll add a new post ASAP.

This particular area near me is a mix of grasslands and wetlands, with a creek/inlet/outlet running out to the sea (Moreton Bay).. this makes for an interesting mix of birds from all sorts of different habitats to be seen, and if i’m lucky, photograph. See attached photo below for a pic of the landscape.

(Post-process method - photoshopped out a couple of annoying lamp posts using healing brush, slight saturation adjustment, slight blue gradient to sky, sharpened, resized)

I saw several species of birds while walking… this is usually the case at this location, especially if you have some patience and hang around long enough.
Tip: If theres not a lot of wildlife action around to photograph, sometimes being patient and waiting for the wildlife to come to you can be just as rewarding as walking in search, not to mention a lot less tiring.

Some i managed to photograph are attached in the rest of the post. Keep reading if you want to see them..

(My usual wildlife photograph post-process methods used.. these methods are generally crop (if needed), adjust brightness, contrast, saturation levels (again, if needed), sharpen and resize.)

I’m pretty happy with those results for a local walk down the bike-track.. and it’s certainly good practice if nothing else.

thanks for reading and viewing. feel free to ask any questions or post your thoughts.