Amateur Photographer - UK (2021-01-16)

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YOUR LETTERS

superb landscape,
beautifully printed, taken
in the Lake District. You
could have heard a pin
drop when the
photographer, on being
asked which camera he’d
used, pulled a humble
little Lubitel II from his
bag. My late Scottish
grandad often used the
puzzling expression ‘that’s
put their gas at a peep’
and after that night I
knew exactly what that
term meant. 
S. Smith

I shot the cover
You recently printed a
letter from Rod Williams
(AP 10 October) whose
picture graced the cover of
an AP issue from 1967
and you asked if anyone
could beat that. I took the
photo on the cover of your
12 October 1960 issue

• of Carole ‘with an e’.
  Dennis Davis

Standardisation
I really enjoyed the letter
from Chris Newman on
the advantage of
standardisation of lens
mounts. I would go
further. Would it not be
better for everyone if
camera chargers and
laptop power cables were
standardised too, as well

as the computer to

camera connection?

I realise the convenience

of Wi-Fi, but it is not

always available.

Jim Dey

I can see the benet but

also the drawback. There

is already standardisation

with connections like USB

and HDMI; in fact on the

latest cameras, USB-C

does almost exactly what

you describe. But if no one

was allowed to innovate

and compete to nd

different and better ways

to do things, progress

would stop, consumer

choice would suffer and

there would be much less

price variation between

products.

Modern cameras

Reading Roger Braga’s

letter (AP 14 November)

about the incredible

complexity of modern

cameras, I have just been

given a Sony Alpha 7C. It’s

an incredible camera

which produces superb

results straight out of the

box. However a 661-page

manual is overwhelming,

and one gets somewhat

drowned in icons and

menus etc. Then I

remembered the

instructions from my rst

Canon SLR: ‘This camera

has many features and

functions but you will only

use one or two of them.’

This is worth

remembering as one tries

to grasp the complications

of the modern camera.

Peter Miller

Shooting the moon

I currently use a Sigma

150-600mm

Contemporary zoom lens

on my Nikon D850 mainly

for shooting the moon.

When using a 1.4x tele

extender it will still

autofocus, but using a 2x

extender I have to revert

to manual focusing – not

easy shooting handheld.

The problem, as I

understand it, is the lack

of light due to the

effective maximum

aperture reducing from

f/9 to f/13. The new

Nikon Z 6 and Z 7 are

reported to have ‘far

superior AF, especially in

low light conditions. Could

this superiority overcome

the effect of the reduced

aperture and restore the

AF function?

Peter M Kent

Mirrorless cameras can

autofocus at smaller

effective apertures than

DSLRs can, so the Z 7

would probably be able to

autofocus your 150-

600mm and 2x TC

combination. This is

nothing to do with the

amount of light

being gathered by the

lens, though, it’s about the

design of the AF sensors

in DSLRs compared to the

on-chip phase detection of

mirrorless cameras. But

you should really be using

a lens that big on a tripod,

not handheld. Focus

manually in live view and

use a geared head to

follow the movement of

the moon – something

like the Benro GD3WH.

Problem solved for much

less than the price of a Z 7.

Andy Westlake,

Technical Editor

Dennis Davis shot the cover image for this 1960 issue