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Tutorial: Replacing a Novatron Flash Tube

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

A standard Novatron P/N 2100C Flash Head

If you own a Novatron lighting system there is a good possibility that sooner or later you will need to replace a flash tube. Fortunately it’s not often they burn out (I have only had one burn out in several years), but it happens. I have also broken one being careless while trying to install a massive Photoflex Softbox.

The first time I had to replace one I looked for some kind of tutorial in the Internet to no avail. There were plenty of people who had accomplished the task, but no one who shared any knowledge of how it was completed.

This time I decided to make a tutorial of my own.

Novatron Flash Tube as Mailed

The first thing you need to do is find a replacement tube. There are at least two sellers on eBay who have them. I found the best deal from:

Genesis Lamp

Lights 64 also carries them albeit at a slightly higher cost:

Lights 64

Lights 64 is a top rated seller, so if you’re more comfortable with a seller with 20K+ sales then perhaps paying a buck or two more is not important. I went with Genesis Lamp and I received my tube very well packaged only a few days after placing my order.

the Necessary tools

The next thing you want to do is to assemble the necessary tools. You will need a small Phillips screwdriver, a pair of needle nosed pliers, some wire snips and a soldier iron and soldier.

Now to begin. With the Phillips screwdriver and the pliers remove the screws holding the reflector to the protective case. Once this is completed you will see that the reflector only comes out as far as the wires will allow it (see the top picture).

Nylon Collar in Place

Turn the unit over and find where the cable connects to the unit. There is a black nylon collar that keeps the cable locked in place. Use the needle nosed pliers to squeeze the lock in and pull the collar out. Remove the collar and slip the cable though the body allowing you to move the reflector from the case.

the Collar after Being Removed

Familiarize yourself with the wiring. There is a red shield and a black shield that connect to there corresponding areas on the circuit board. On the opposite side is a brown wire that will connect to the outer wire on the flash tube.

the Flash Head Opened

Use the wire cutters to cut both the red and black wires at the edge of the ceramic insulator tubes which protrude from the rear of the reflector. Make sure you gently pull the red and black shields away exposing the wire before cutting. You will need to reuse these shields. Remove them and put them aside.

Red and Black wires Oppose the Brown Wire

For the brown wire you will want to cut it on the tube side of the shield. Pull it through to the back and remove any excess soldier. Strip the end of the wire and twist the wire so the end is smooth.

If you haven’t already plugged in your soldier iron do so now. Once it has heated up use it to heat the soldier points where the wires you removed the red and black shields from are connected. Gently pull them though trying to leave the holes in the circuit board open.

Connecting the Brown Wire to the Exposed Tube Wire

Tin the end of the brown wire. Tinning is accomplished by heating the exposed wire and melting a tiny bit of soldier on it. Slide the brown wire back through the ceramic tube. Twist the end around the exposed outer wire on the tube. Do this as close to the tube as you dare. You will not want this contact to touch either the modeling bulb or the reflector at any time. Cut the excess wire from the tube.

Push the other two contacts through the other two ceramic insulator tubes. Turn the unit over and replace the red and black shields. Bend the wire so you can push them through the corresponding holes on the circuit board. Pull them into place and make sure the tube is positioned correctly. Once you have done this soldier both connections.

Soldiering the Red and Black Connections

Cut the excess wire. Look over your work and make sure everything looks exactly how it looked before you began. Pull the cable through the case and realign the reflector. Reinstall the screws. Slide the black nylon collar up the cable and install it on the cable in the exact place it was at before. Squeeze the lock down and slide it into place.

the Finished Product

Insert the model light and make sure nothing is touch where it shouldn’t be touch. Plug in the unit and test it. Everything should be in working order.

Viola. You’re finished!

Posted in Photography, Studio, Tips, Tutorial | 3 Comments »

Crop Factor Defined

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

A typical Canon x0D's Crop

In my last post relating to cameras, I explained Depth of Field in a manner understandable to the new photographer. I included a sidebar that mentioned something called the Crop Factor. I admit the term had me somewhat confused when I first started looking into the purchase of a DSLR six years ago.

The original SLR cameras were 35mm film cameras and used a piece of film 36mm wide and 24mm high. SLR is an acronym for Single-Lens Reflex. What this means is that when you look through the viewfinder you are looking through the same lens the negative will be exposed to. The way this works is that there is a mirror inside and when you press the shutter release that mirror pops out of the way, the shutter opens and the film is exposed.

A Nikon D80's Crop

The DSLR is essentially a digital version of a 35mm SLR camera. Both use interchangeable lenses and both work in an almost identical manner. The main difference being that with a DSLR there is an optical sensor where on the SLR there is that aforementioned frame of 35mm film.

The size of that optical sensor varies in a DSLR. With a full frame DSLR the size of the sensor is the same as a piece of 35mm film. But with the DSLR sold for consumer use, the sensors are smaller. Hence, with the sensor being smaller, it crops off a portion of what a 35mm film camera would see through the same lens.

This is where the term crop factor comes from.

In the images below picture shown is the full frame representation of a 35mm SLR or a full framed DSRL such as a Canon 1DS or a Nikon D3. The green line represents a 1.3 crop factor of a Canon 1D Mark III. The yellow line represents the1.5 crop of the average Nikon, such as a D80 or a D200. The orange line represents a 1.6 crop factor of a Canon 40D or 50D

So, why aren’t all DSRLs made Full Frame? Evidently, the machine that’s used to make the digital sensors must make more than one pass to create a larger chip. In order to make cameras more affordable, a sensor that is made with a single pass is the necessary sacrifice.

Many people actually prefer the crop factor. I’m not one of them. While some people claim that a camera with a smaller sensor has better depth of field I don’t agree. After all, it’s a matter of preference whether a deeper depth of field is better than a shallow one. For certain situations it may be, such as in landscapes, but with portraits it isn’t.

Vertical Crops

I also believe that by cropping off the outer edge of a lens you are changing its natural behavior. With an erratic wide angle lens that shows aberrations this probably isn’t a bad thing, but what if you want to experience a fish eye lens for the full 180 degree angle it may be capable of. Not any more. On today’s average consumer model DSLR you’re lucky if you’ll see 120 degrees.

On the other hand, if you are going out to shoot birds with the local Audubon Chapter that extra little reach a cropped DSLR can offer may be just what the doctor ordered.

In the end it’s all preference, but it is nice to know what alternatives are available.

Tags: crop, digital, dslr, factor
Posted in Cameras, Lenses, Personal, Photography, Tips, Tutorial | 6 Comments »

Working with Depth of Field

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

Greater DOF (Note sharpness throughout) Devil's Postpile near Yosemite

Depth of Field (or D.O.F.) is one of the terms used in photography that can be somewhat confusing, especially to the new user. Depth of Field refers to the area in a photographic image that is acceptably sharp. Remember, the closer something is to the focal point, the sharper it will appear.

A greater Depth of Field will appear sharp and in focus throughout the image from items in the foreground to items in the distant background. This is desirable in most landscape photographs.

A shallow Depth of Field will have the main subject sharp and in focus with everything else somewhat blurry. This is desirable for portraits and in situations where you may wish to reduce distractions.

Generally speaking, the larger your aperture the more shallow your depth of field will be. In other words if your lens has a maximum aperture of f/2.8, shooting at that f/stop will make your depth of field its most shallow. In contrast, the smaller your aperture, say for example, f/22, the greater your Depth of Field will be.

Note: most current DSLR cameras have what is referred to as a crop factor. In essence, the DSLR is permanently zoomed in and sees only about 60 to 65% what the lens is capable of seeing.

Without getting too deep into this here, what this is doing is cropping off the outer edge of what the lens sees. This can be useful in many situations. But to the true affectionado this plays havoc to a lens’s true behavior. More on this in the future.

There are other factors to take into consideration. With a wide angle lens, creating that sometimes desirable blurry background is often difficult to achieve. Conversely, with a telephoto lens you may be able to blur the background even at a relatively small aperture, such as f/8.

Shallow DOF (Note blurry Background) Lucky Rich World's Most Tattooed Man

A good way to experiment with Depth of Field is to work from extremes. If you’re shooting a portrait of someone in a room full of people start with your lens wide open (whatever the smallest f/stop on your lens is; f/2.8, f/4, etc.) and stop it down from there. Conversely, if you’re shooting a landscape start with f/22 and work your way down. Compare the images on your computer later.

With just a little bit of practice these techniques can make you images much more effective, interesting and appealing.

Most lenses have a small scale near the focusing ring that is there to help you estimate what your DOF should be at a given aperture. There is usually also a button below the lens mount that will stop down the lens showing you how the finished image should look. In my experience these don’t provide much help. Getting to know your equipment through experience is the best manner in learning what results you can expect in any given situation.

Comments have been disabled on this post due to excessive SPAM.

Posted in Cameras, Lenses, Photography, Tips, Tutorial | 11 Comments »

Lens Guide for Beginners

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

50mm f/1.4 Lens

If you’ve already read my Buying a Digital Camera article you know my thoughts on lenses. The lens is the single most important part of a camera.

Cicero said, ‘Ut imago est animi voltus sic indices oculi’, which translated means, ‘the face is a picture of the mind, as the eyes are its interpreter’. Boil this down to its essence and you get, ‘the eyes are the windows of the soul’.

Philosophical or physical, looking in or peering out, it’s all relative.

The three key elements are eyes, window and soul. In its best sense, the photographer provides the soul, the camera its eye and the lens its window. Your eye may function perfectly, but if the window it’s looking through is dirty or distorted you’re view is going to be adversely effected and your soul is going to be inaccurately rendered.

So this article addresses those windows, which more likely, are known as lenses.

Terms discussed in this article are:
• Wide Angle
• Standard
• Telephoto
• Focal Length
• Prime Lens
• Zoom Lens
• Sharper
• Softer
• OOF
• f/stop
• Aperture
• Wide Open
• Stop Down
• Faster

Generally speaking, there are three types of camera lenses. The wide angle, the standard and the telephoto. Each have a special purpose. The wide angle lens is useful when you are in a small room or if you want to be up close and personal with your subject. The standard lens is more less an all purpose lens and the telephoto is useful when you have more distance between you and your subject.

This is not to say each of the lenses can’t be useful in other situations. An example of this would be with the telephoto lens. A telephoto lens is often useful for portraits, because of its ability to blur the background. But in the interest of keeping this simple, we’ll leave those details for further exploration later.

Your question now may be, ‘How do I distinguish a wide angle lens from a standard or a telephoto lens?” As far as physical properties go, usually a wide angle lens will be shorter and stubbier, whereas a telephoto will likely be much long and the standard will fall somewhere between the two.

A much easier way to learn to understand focal lengths. The focal length is the distance between the optical center of the lens and the surface of the film or, in the case of a digital camera, its sensor. A wide angle lens will have a smaller number, usually 35mm or less. A standard lens is somewhere around 50mm and a telephoto 85mm or above.

Canon AE-1

You may ask, “What about my lens, it’s 28—135mm?” A lens with multiple focal lengths is referred to as a zoom. As you zoom in or out the focal length changes by moving the optical center of the lens closer or farther from the film or sensor.

A lens with a fixed focal length is called a Prime Lens. Many purest photographers insist that Prime Lenses are better and I would agree. The argument is that the lens was manufactured to do one thing best and this is usually the case. A zoom lens (especially an inexpensive model) will usually have a sweet spot either at its shortest or longest focal length.

There are sometime distortions or aberrations found at different focal lengths in inexpensive zoom lenses and this is why the purest will use prime lenses when available. As an example, I use a 17-40mm f/4 lens and the lens is clearly sharper at 17mm than at any other focal length. Is this a reason to use only Prime Lenses? No. There are many instances where using a Zoom Lens is essential.

I have been asked numerous times what Sharper means, in photographic terms. Two terms used in describing a lens are sharpness and softness. When a lens is extra clear when focused it is referred to as sharp. To be tack sharp is to be perfectly focused. On the other hand a lens called soft usually is not perfectly clear when focused—this is not to say it is out of focus. Often times certain situations will call for soft lens, such as in weddings or other portraits where a dreamy effect is desired.

Soft can also be a polite, yet derogatory term for a picture that is out of focus. And speaking of Out of Focus, OOF is an acronym you may come across that means exactly that.

Aperture of 50mm lens at f/4

The next term we need to address is f/stop. There are many debates as to what the f in f/stop means. Some suggest it is an abbreviation for fenestra, which means opening in Latin. Others for something as simple as fraction. Maybe it’s even easier to think of as Focal Length.

The reason I say this is that the Focal Length divided by the number that follows f/ is how wide in diameter the Aperture is going to be. In case you don’t know what an Aperture is it is the opening in the lens that the camera sees through. For example a 50mm f/2 lens when Wide Open will have an Aperture 25 millimeters in diameter.

Now you may be wondering what Wide Open means. Wide Open is when the Aperture is as open as it will get for the particular lens. The opposite is Stopped Down. Think of it as the retina in your eye. When you enter a dark room the retina in your eye gets larger akin to being Wide Open. When you step out into bright sunlight it gets smaller akin to Stopping Down.

Aperture of 50mm lens at f/2.8

Hopefully, all of this makes sense. This next part may be more difficult to understand. f/stop numbers increase as the aperture stops down. Whereas a 50mm f/2 lens is Wide Open at f/2, as the f/stop number increases the Aperture closes. The basic f/stops for this 50mm f/2 lens are f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22.

Over in the corner I can hear someone say, “I’ve got a 50mm lens, but it says f/1.4. What does that mean?” That means that your lens has an extra stop on the f/2 I have been using as an example. That means that your lens is Faster than mine.

Faster is another photographic term that describes a lens’s attributes. Generally speaking the Faster a lens is the better and nine times out of ten the more expensive. A Faster lens has a larger aperture. A larger aperture allows in more light. Remember your eye? In a darker room your retina gets bigger allowing more light in.

That means with the f/1.4’s larger aperture has a bigger retina. And with a bigger retina you have the ability to see in a darker environment. What difference does this make? On an average sunny day, none. In a low light situation, such as a concert, it can make all the difference in the world.

Hopefully this has been a helpful tutorial on lenses.

A few things to keep in mine when considering the purchase of a new lens. Whether you know it or not right now, a lower f/stop number is preferable. Faster is always better. And even though this equates to a more expensive lens, it is a good idea to remember that lenses hold their value long after your DSLR is selling for half of what you paid for it.

Next time I will discuss the effect a crop factor can have on your lenses.

Tags: beginner, defined, digital, lens, novice, Photography, student, terms
Posted in Cameras, Lenses, Photography, Tips, Tutorial | 10 Comments »

Buying a Digital Camera

Monday, January 12th, 2009

Entering the Digital World

Every so often a friend will ask my advice in the purchase of a new digital camera. I’ll usually ask them what they’ll require from their camera. If the answer is, ‘I’m just looking to take family snapshots’, or ‘Something that’s easy to use’, I’ll recommend they get a compact camera.

Compact cameras are often referred to as ‘Point and shoot’, because they usually have a setting where you can just aim it and shoot. Everything is set automatically.

With most compact cameras, there are more advanced settings you can use, but they also have a setting that usually shows a green square or a simple camera. With this setting, you point and click.

As far as compact cameras go I don’t recommend any one brand. To be honest, any of the major brands are just as good as the others. Sony, Nikon, Canon, Panasonic and Casio all make great cameras. It’s just a matter of what specific features you need from your camera and how much you you’re willing to spend.

The main problem presented with the digital compact camera is that annoying little delay between the time you press the shutter release and the moment — usually about once second later — that the photo is actually taken.

I had my first digital compact for about thirty minutes before I decided something was going to have to be done. During that one second delay many of the best images are long since lost. Especially, if it’s a scene that involves action. It’s almost impossible to anticipate the exact moment to press the shutter release to capture what will happen one second in the future at the perfect moment.

This situation is going to rear its ugly head many more times that you’d think. For me it happened almost every time I took a picture.

After doing about fifteen minutes of research I discovered the only way to remedy this situation was to purchase a DSLR. DSLR is an acronym for Digital Single Lens Reflex camera.

I had owned a few SLR film cameras over the years so I was familiar with how they worked. When you look through the viewfinder of an SLR you are actually looking through the same lens that the picture will be taken. That is why it is called a single lens reflex. When you press the shutter release button, a mirror pops out of the way and what you were seeing in that mirror is then exposed to the film located behind it.

In the digital world the only thing that has changed is that instead of film being behind that mirror there is now a digital sensor.

Back in early 2003 when I was looking for a DSLR there wasn’t a large selection available. Only Canon and Nikon were making them and the cheapest ‘body only’ kit you were going to find cost $1500. ‘Body only’, means that you will have to purchase the lens Separately.

Canon had just released the 10D and after making serious comparisons between that and what Nikon had to offer, I went with the Canon. I had my 10D for almost three years before I upgraded.

A note on upgrading: It is my belief that if you purchase state of the art now you won’t have to upgrade again for about three years. Three years is about the life expectancy of digital technology with cameras. Advances are made yearly, but they’re so minor that, in reality, upgrading isn’t really necessary. I will blog on this and other available features in more detail later.

Belltower

Back to the subject at hand.

When it comes to buying a new DSLR I don’t necessarily recommend any one brand, including the brand I shoot. In fact, although I love many of the features and the capabilities of the camera I currently use, I have had my issues with the company and I have long since stopped swearing by them.

The truth is that there are several companies making DSLRs these days that are worthy competitors. Of course the two longest rivals are Canon and Nikon, but there are also other many other great bodies made by the likes of Fuji, Pentax, Olympus and of course, Sony.

I think the only difference that really needs to be addressed is what glass is available for said bodies. Glass is a photographer’s term for lens. In my opinion the lens is probably the most important part of a camera.

A good comparison would be this: your head is the camera body and your eyes are the lens. You can have the best mind in the world in your head, but it’s not going to help you to see any better if you are partially blind.

When it comes down to it, Canon and Nikon have the jump on lens manufacture, with Sony threatening to become a real contender in the next few years. Sony bought out Minolta a few years ago and, considering the fact they have been making top notch video equipment since its inception, you can’t disregard what they are offering.

A few years ago when they jumped into the DSRL market a lot of professional photographers scoffed. I never did and I was happy they stepped in. The price of the average DSRL has dropped and continues to drop consistently since. And Sony’s cameras have only gotten better, while they have added dozens of new lenses.

Besides that, before the Play Station came out ten years ago what did Sony have to do with video games? I don’t believe Nintendo was taking them all that seriously then either. But what about now?

When it comes to your choice, all of the aforementioned factors should be considered. When you finally have it narrowed down to two or three choices do a Google search and see what actual owners are saying about those cameras. Add the words complaint and praise to the search and see what that gets you as well.

After all, the best advice you will find will be from someone familiar with the equipment you are considering the purchase of.

Posted in Cameras, Photography, Tips, Tutorial | 4 Comments »

ajpn media blog

Archive for the ‘Tutorial’ Category

Tutorial: Replacing a Novatron Flash Tube

Crop Factor Defined

Working with Depth of Field

Lens Guide for Beginners

Buying a Digital Camera

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