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Cheap As Chips Remote

MC-30? (Tiny lens? Yes, it was a quick shot and the camera hasn't a lens fitted)
MC-30? (Tiny lens? Yes, it was a quick shot and the camera hasn’t a lens fitted)

For a while I’ve been meaning to get a cable remote for my D810, something simple that I just connect to the 10-pin socket on the front and just has a shutter button. I already have a Hahnel Giga T Pro II Wireless Remote that can also be used as a wired remote but not only does it need a battery but also switches off after 1 minute of not being used, hence the need for something simple.

Just a cable and a button.

Nikon offer the MC-30A which is exactly that, a 10-pin socket, 80cm of cable and a button. Perfect you might think? Well, not at almost £70 it isn’t.

There was no way I was going to pay £70 for something I could probably make myself for a few quid.

Then I stumbled on Ebay and come across something called the “Shoot Remote Switch MC-30”, yep, the Chinese didn’t even come up with their own model number. Guess what, although it actual unit is a different design, it’s essentially a 10-pin socket, 80cm of cable and a button. It even has a trigger lock just like the original.

Half the price you might think? Try less than £3!!!! Yes, £2.97 with free postage. It was in the UK too and took 2 days to be delivered.

I’ve only had a quick test and it’s actually nice, the button is two stage (half press focus) and has quite nice feedback with a firm spring.

Could it let you down? Who knows, only time will tell and I’m not expecting it to still be working after 30 years (or even 30 months). I’ll only be using it when I need to have the camera very steady on a tripod, night sky shots for instance, so if it mis-fires, it’s not the end of the world. To be honest, at the price, I could always carry 20 spares and it would still cost less than the Nikon trigger.

Waning Gibbous at 93% Visibility

As some may know, I have a fascination of the night sky so you can imagine how gutted I was getting up at 3:30am a few nights back to have quite thick fog obstructing the Super Blood Moon Eclipse. Luckily, I could see the red Moon through the fog quite clearly, however, it wasn’t worth pointing the camera at as it couldn’t pick any detail out.

So tonight with the sky totally clear, I thought I’d try out the Nikon TC-20e III 2x Teleconverter on my Nikon 300mm f/2.8 VR II. This Teleconverter takes the lens to a 600mm. Teleconverters are known to loose detail, however, the Nikon ones are known to work very well with the Nikon 300mm f/2.8 lenses and this shot clearly shows that there is still a high amount of quality detail hitting the camera sensor.

This has been cropped in quite tight too. I think the combination of D810, 300mm f/2.8 VR II and TC-20e III is a winner, certainly when it comes to a very bright object like the Moon.

Anyone else think it looks a bit Egg shaped tonight?

{Click image for a higher resolution, click Flickr Link in caption to view photo on Flickr}
Waning Gibbous (93%)
Egg Moon – D810, AF-S 300mm f/2.8 with TC-20e III @ 500mm, f/11, ISO64, 1/50sec – {Flickr Link}

Temporary Reflection Pool Setup

Update: Since this post I have now built a large permanent Reflection Pool. Blog post available HERE.

You may remember a post a few days back where I said that I’d bought a Greenhouse Tray. Well it was to build a temporary Reflection Pool in the garden.

I set it up tonight, excuse the photos as it was starting to get dark when I finished (6:30pm and it’s starting to get dark!!! Grrrrr!).

As you can see from the photos the tray is mounted on some DIY A-Frames and I’ve made a shallow area in which I hope the birds will visit. At the back out of sight I’ve put some Suet and Peanuts to try and tempt them. It’s setup near the bird feeders, so hopefully, it’ll be an easy temptation.

The only thing that worries me is that the tray isn’t long enough and either I can’t fit a full reflection in or you’ll see the front edge of the tray in shot.

DIY Reflection Pool
DIY Reflection Pool
Shallow end
Shallow end
Food to tempt the birds
Food to tempt the birds



I’ll leave it for a day or two for the birds to get used to it and then see what I get.

Here’s an idea on what a Reflection Pool gives, again, not great quality as it was really bad light.

Reflection Pool
Reflection Pool
Reflection Pool
Reflection Pool

Automatically Back Up Lightroom Catalogues When You Logoff From Windows (Video)

If like me you have many different catalogues within Lightroom then you might get lazy when it comes to backing up your Lightroom Catalogues. As you may know, the catalogue stores all of the non-destructive editing carried out on your photos. Lose the catalogue and you lose the edits. Catalogues have to be stored locally and therefore is not easy to have them stored on resilent network storage such as a NAS.

I was getting concerned that I didn’t backup my catalogues often enough and decided to fix it once and for all and even turn off the backup notifications in Lightroom. I created a simple method to automatically backup any changes to my catalogues each time I log off or shut down my PC, please note, it doesn’t run if you just sleep or hibernate. As I’ve got an SSD in my PC it boots so quickly that I always shut it down when not using it.

Yes, this is important, I said “my PC”, I’m not a MAC user so this is not relevant to MACs but I suspect there is something similar available. Although I’m using Windows 10, this method should still work for 7 and 8. Please note, you require access to the Group Policy Editor, this is not available in “Home” versions of Windows and requires you are running a “Pro” version of Windows.

I’ve recorded a How To Video complete with written instructions below

Continue reading >>

Thanks Nikon for Standardising Batteries

MH-25a Charger (Photo from Nikon Europe's Website)
MH-25a Charger (Photo from Nikon Europe’s Website)
I’m booked on a triple hide day tomorrow with Nikon School and Chris Gomersall. I’m taking both the D810 (with the 300mm with 1.7x and 2x Teleconverters) and D7100 (with 80-400mm) as a backup. As I use battery grips on both cameras it means 4 batteries in total to charge.

So I get both chargers out and set them up to charge. I plugged the MH-25a (supplied with the D810) in and inserted a battery and although it charges, there is a loud sparking noise coming from it and a nice smell of burning electronics.

Luckily, the D810 and D7100 both use the same EN-EL15 Battery so the MH-25 charger that comes with the D7100 (notice the “a” missing, I’m led to believe it just has a slightly lower power output) can charge all 4 batteries.

So a big thanks to Nikon for standardising their batteries throughout their range. I’ll give Wex Photographic a call to get this charger sent off for repair/replacement.

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