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February 7, 2017

December congrats -- Melissa is angry -- Hasselblad news -- Solar Safety

HNL-SQ-02-08-2017_110.jpgere are some of the topics and news items we're tracking for our community this week.


Nikonians Contest Coordinator David Summers (dm1dave) has posted the results of the December contests. Congratulations to our winners!

Specials congratulations go to Scott Ashley (Scottashley) who took top honors in two categories for the month of December.

Check our winning images legend below and scroll down for the names of the winners. Each photo title serves as a link, which will lead you to explanations behind some of the photographs and an overall look at the competition.

Contest-December-2016-H_900.jpg

1. -- Wildlife - "Winter & Wildlife" theme winner Scott Ashley (Scottashley), from Colorado, USA with his image titled Red fox peering over snow.

2. -- Landscape -  "Best of 2016" theme winner Scott Ashley  (Scottashley), from Colorado, USA with his image titled Spotlit trees in the Smokies.

3. -- Macro - "Your Personal Best of 2016" theme winner Geoff Baylis (GBaylis) from The United Kingdom, England with his image titled Abutilon Pictum.

4. -- Travel  - "Into the Shadows" theme winner Huw Thomas (HUW) from New South Wales, Australia with his image titled Into the Shed.

5. -- Digital Artistry -  "Holiday" theme winner James Buch (jimray) from Oregon, USA  with his image titled Father Frost Needs Help.

6. -- Assignment  -  "Bottles" theme winner Dan Wiedbrauk (domer2760) from Michigan, USA with his image titled Wavy Glass.

Interested in submitting your photos?

If you want to participate, please be sure to enter one of the monthly competitions listed in David Summers' contest guide.

The Online Photo Assignments category is coordinated by Rob Migliaccio (rmigliaccio) from Rhode Island, USA. You can check his recap of past winners here.

The current (January) assignment is "You Decide" - and this one lets us choose our own artistic direction.

Here is Rob's description:

February is a short month. Rather than burden you with a specific assignment that you may or may not be able to perform during this short month, I am instead letting you decide what your subject will be. The assignment is wide open - you decide! Shoot anything you want. Have fun with the assignment, but make sure the image is wall worthy.

Melissa is angry

Silver member Melissa OGarr from Western Australia is a bit mad (actually she used a much stronger descriptive) with her Nikon D3300.

It seems the camera has gone "dead" on her and she's not happy with any of her fixing options.

D3300-Hammer_400.jpg

Here's a small (condensed) portion of her post:

I wanted a good Macro camera, and was advised to buy Nikon. The Nikon is terrible at macro, see a previous post, now I'm stuck with four lenses that are no good to me at all and severely out of pocket). Now the hardware seems to be failing and I haven't even had it a year! I bought it in China, so getting warranty in Australia could prove difficult.

Two days ago, this Nikon stopped being able to download any pictures onto my laptop or PC. We have tried everything, to find out what's gone wrong. The cable has charge, the camera works, but I can't get any communication between camera and computer. I tried taking out the card (which I initially thought was the problem as my Canon card (only 4mths old - just suddenly died two days earlier) it was able to be read on a friend's PC, but I have no card reader on my PC or laptop. I'm a pensioner so a $300 charge and a cost to drive 400km to Perth to get it repaired is out of the question. I also thought that maybe there was a driver/windows conflict - so downloaded over 2GB worth of drivers from Nikon, which put me over my monthly data limit and now I'm throttled at a slow crawl.  None of those drivers were of any use, so it was back to square one.What the hell do I do now? The camera is USELESS if I can't access the photos.

This problem has caught the attention of many of our members and we're expecting someone to come up with the best answer at any time. If you had a similar experience -- Check it out.

Hasselblad changing hands

Hass-Dron_350.jpg

The Nikonians community has always held quality gear from other manufacturers in great regard. Industry legends like Leica and Hasselblad are not only respected but also owned by some of our members. That is one of the reasons we found this discussion, led by founder Bo Stahlbrandt (bgs) of interest:

In case you have missed it, Swedish Hasselblad now Chinese, going the way Volvo and other iconic Swedish manufacturers went.

When will we see the first Hassi with integrated propellers?

More info over at luminous landscape by Kevin Raber.

Kevin's article includes this important disclaimer: Information relayed in this article was obtained from numerous credible and reliable sources.  

Although the final conclusion has not yet been confirmed by Hasselblad or DJI, I am confident in my sources and believe that a formal announcement is forthcoming.

As the discussion progressed, it was highlighted by a bit of industry background provided by Gold member Steven Licht (SteveDotNet) from New York, USA. If legendary gear is one of your passions, join the conversation.  One more thing -- our image of a camera under a drone is pure imagination. 

Sun Shooting Safety

We have more members planning to shoot the Solar eclipse in August, and now the conversation is shifting towards safe filters. The consensus so far comes from those who are advising extreme caution.

D500-Sun-Helmet_325.jpg

Here are some samples:

● Don't even think about using anything but real, purpose-built solar filters. Many are available from the astrophotography world.

● It's worse to use the wrong filter than to use no filter at all. Some ND filters do not block the full spectrum of IR and UV light. Some filters are drop in filters positioned at the back of the lens stack so light and heat is not blocked until passing through the lens.

● I would strongly recommend an external filter. While the internal filter would prevent damage to your sensor, everything "in front" of the filter could still be damaged by heat or IR.

If you have ever aimed your camera at the sun for an extended period of time, this discussion is a must read

Posted by flashdeadline at February 7, 2017 6:09 PM