NEC – Kebablog

March 19, 2018March 19, 2018

Show Purchases

Remarkably the discounts (for Fuji – didn’t check others) were decent. Infact in some cases better than the best recent price on CameraPriceBuster.

So, what did I get?

Fuji Goodies from the Photography Show. NEC Birmingham

To recap (like an annoying Channel 5 Documentary) I was looking at the following:

100-400 + TC (Lowest price and current £1490/1649)
18mm (£400/479)
27mm (£319/349)
Fisheye (£212/219)
Battery (£41/46)

Fortunately a Facebook/Forum friend (Alec) offered me the Fisheye for £130 – he was awaiting an Ebay purchaser that never paid up – so a win for me.

A further win was the 100-400 + TC being on offer for £1479, so that was snapped up fairly quick (along with a lens pen and lens wipes for an extra £10).

During the week I was thinking about picking up an X-E3 and 27mm to use as my carry to work camera (not wanting to take my X-Pro 2) – so that combination was grabbed as well. The X-E3 was £100 less and selling for £699 – the 27mm lens wasn’t discounted too well, at £339 it’s just a tenner off the normal price – however if bought with a X series camera another £50 was taken off. I did ask for offers on this combo and they eventually got it down to £969.60.

As I needed a SD card I picked up an Extreme SD card for £16.50.

So all in, I paid Wex £1615.10 as I had £850 in store credit (Total £2465.10)

So with regards to lenses I managed to do a Meatloaf – two out of three ain’t bad. I did have a look at the 23mm and X-E3 bundle, but found the protrusion of that lens a bit too much – Likewise the 18mm was a bit bulky.

I didn’t find any Fuji Batteries at decent prices, so I’ll probably pickup some Hahnel branded ones online – they seem to be a reasonable 3rd party replacement from a recognised brand. I’ll need to pick up a small bag for the X-E3 – I had a look at the show, but couldn’t find anything small/protective enough for my liking.

Overall I enjoyed the show and it was quite an expensive day – but mostly paid for by my Canon trade ins.

March 3, 2014March 3, 2014

The Photography Show – NEC Birmingham

So the annual trip to a photography show is now complete (this year it changed from Focus to ‘The Photography Show’) – actually surprised how busy it was for a weekday. For a change I wasn’t overly bothered about kit, nor did I have any intention of spending large amounts of cash.

The show itself was much the same as Focus on Imaging – which isn’t a bad thing to be honest, though the main difference was a couple of stages where every hour or so Pro togs would talk about their specific genre of photography. I did sit through a wedding show which mainly comprised of the professionalism of the photographer – which was a better talk than it initially sounded.

First up for me, was the Canon stand – like a moth to a flame, or me to an Apple Store I’m drawn towards the Canon Stand – probably some blinded fanboy loyalty, or most likely cos I own a chunk of the Canon Eos system. My only temptation camera wise at present is the EF135mm f/2 L – so I’d thought i’d have a look. The results aren’t anything spectacular (it’s indoors at the NEC!) but I had a brief play…..

Some bloke looking at things, colour down to me not playing with white balance and leaving it on auto – possibly the NEC lights might be an issue also

So there you go, Canon sorted. The one stand I wanted to check out was the Bessel Lighting stand – mainly as I wanted to speak to Tony Rabin who was demonstrating their kit. I’ve met Tony before at YPS and I do plan to visit his studio for Lighting and Model shoots. After a brief chat I finally got round to purchasing a remote trigger. I do own the Canon ST-E2 remote trigger, which is fine – but limited (distance) so I bought a £19.99 remote and £9.99 tripod/hotshot adapter. One trick with this is set the connected flash up as a master and reset as slaves and they all work fine. With this adapter you loose the E-TTL capability and have to use manual, but for studio settings that’s normal anyway. I’m tempted to eBay the ST-E2 and spend the cash on some soft box stuff from Bessel.

The picture above is just a test of the setup. The first EX580 MkII is connected to the hotshot adapter and the remote receiver is connected. This flash is setup as a master (and for space reasons I’ve stuck the front in a roll of packing tape). The other EX580 MkII and EX430 Mk1 are setup as slaves. The primary flash triggers the other two automatically. The 580 MkII’s were set with a flash rating of 1/128th and 430 was set to 1/64th (both at their respective lowest flash setting).

It seems to do the job well enough 🙂

March 4, 2011March 4, 2011

B-Stock (aka refurbs)

Tis the time of year, where the mind goes off on one. So excuse me as i’m pondering once more.

Looking back at last years Focus posts and prices, it seems I missed the rather large elephant waving to me in the room (well not so much room, it was a large hall at the NEC).

So what did said large trunk wielding beast wave at me? Not too sure about the elephant, but the price tag on Jacobs stand read……

Quite Poor Image - iPhone!

For those not used to looking at iPhone high quality imagery it reads “B-Stock” “Eos 5D MkII Show Price £1399”

So that’s £300 cheaper than the ticket price. Now, I’m fairly sure the new kit will retail around £1,550 (assuming the discounts last year are roughly the same), so hoping B-Stock maintains the same price differential I could end up with the camera costing around £1,250 + £200 grip £50 spare battery, so less than a new one. B-Stock is fully guaranteed, so not worries then.

Maybe a new bag and ND10 filter can be bagged at the same time. Chances are though B-Stock may sell out, so Sunday is probably the purchase day for me. Though based on last year the new price hardly moved.