Novoflex Minipod
novoflex minipod aiming a sigma dp2 into a tree hole.
I try to remain as minimalist with my photographic equipment as possible. I loathe tripods, and use them sparingly. One of my go-to bits of gear, if I need a little bit of support, is the Novoflex Minipod. Generally, I just use it without a head, although sometimes I throw on a lightweight macro rail if I’m doing macro work with my Sigma DP2. Above, my DP2 is mounted on the bare Novoflex, with a +4 diopter attachment, pointed into a hole in the base of a tree for a 15 second exposure. The resulting image:
scene inside a tree. sigma dp2, 15″ exposure
While I originally bought the Novoflex for macro shooting my DP2 in the woods, it has found a lot of use outside of this. Despite its small size, Novoflex rates it to support up to 22 pounds. Indeed, it has seen plenty of use with my medium format cameras, and I’ve never really felt like I’m testing it. Even on lightweight duty, it works wonderfully in situations where weaker tabletop tripods would simply not be steady enough, like the three-shots-with-three-different-filters approach of trichrome. One of my favorite uses, however, has been getting close to the water while keeping my M645 dry…
cunningham falls state park, mamiya m645 1000s, 80/4 macro, efke 25
…a task that would be difficult to do with such closeness and intimacy using any other camera support. General usage of the tripod is simple: one large wheel attaches a head or camera body, each leg adjusts individually using twist-locks, and each leg’s ball joint has indents for 30º, 60º, and 90º (full range). Legs hold tight in general usage, but too much fiddling can result in inadvertently putting too much weight on the tripod, causing legs to adjust in frustrating ways. Keeping careful and mindful keeps this to a minimum, and the tripod is generally quick to use. Unfortunately, this does all come at a price — online vendors in the US charge around $200, and a set of extension legs will run another $60. I have no experience with the extension legs, so I can’t speak to their stability. All in all though, if you’re looking for a best-in-class small tripod, the Novoflex can’t be beat.
The Oak Nut
Several years ago, I hatched a plan to start a nonprofit organization existing primarily to fund the publication of a free literary journal for local writers. I threw together a grant proposal probably too quickly, and got a bit sidetracked with other aspects of life once my proposal was rejected. I’d still like to take on this project at some point. This was a sample cover illustration that I included as part of the proposal.
Photographic Toy as Photographic Tool – 3R
Note: this article originally appeared on http://brhefele.brainaxle.com.
There has long been a movement in photography in contrast to the Leica shooters who settle for nothing but the purest glass. These photographers instead opt to embrace the effects of the flaws present in toy cameras with their plastic lenses and light leaks. Some people even put toy camera lenses on their fancy DSLRs. Experimental photographers have long embraced expired film, and processing film improperly (warning, links contain some amount of film snobbery).
When I discovered that I had an old 3R filter (seen above) that would fit on my DP2 (I believe I found the filter years before in a discount filter bin, probably paid about a dollar for it), I initially just cast it aside as a stupid, gimmicky toy. A 3R filter essentially repeats part of an image three times over itself (a 5R five times, a 9R nine times, etc.). To demonstrate further…
…which is, in reality, a photo of one bottlecap. Aside from the obvious tripling of the bottlecap, there’s a subtler tripling of the woodgrain. The wood forming lines through the bottlecaps is even evident (with the contrast pushed rather far).
Eventually I realized that I could probably subvert the 3R and use it as an actual creative tool, albeit an unpredictable one, in the spirit of toy photography. My thought was that by tripling existing, expected patterns (much like the woodgrain above), an exciting illusion can present itself, a convincing fake of a too-perfect pattern. Photos which are, in a sense, simulacra of that which they really are. At first I was lazy about this, but more recently I have tried harder. Lining up the most obvious replications, and allowing the minor patterns to fall where they will. In the above shot, I was particularly careful to adjust the filter (and myself) so that the strong diagonal corner of the rock overlapped itself, leading to a pretty convincing photo at first glance. Only in the details is the repetition made more clear. The cheap optical element, as well as resolution loss due to the prismatic shape of the filter lends so some interesting color, strange blurring, and occasionally exaggerated chromatic aberrations, which help give these photos more of a typical ‘toy camera’ feel as well.
One last photo to point out two more things. First, something which is rather uniform in nature to begin with (such as water) can be pretty convincing without much extra help. Second, the notion of the filter leads to some very interesting shapes in the highlights (see the sparkles on the left), which should mean some interesting bokeh is possible (if you could make a reasonable composition which would also have the opportunity for nice bokeh spots – that would likely be the trick).