The Blog Action Day Post

So it's all about poverty today. This will be slightly tangential to my normal subject matter but based around my observations in India. This may also come across as a little controversial, if you're not up for that, look away now.

Ladakhi market, August 2008
Farming seems to be a communal activity in the area, even if land may be individually owned

During the course of just a couple of weeks, I saw two very different (maybe 3) sides of India. Ladakh is a very pleasant place: beautiful country, pleasant weather (at least in summer) and a Buddhist culture that is tolerant and cooperative. There was also the extravagant excesses of the Taj Mahal and the Mughal palaces.

Delhi shanty, August 2008

And then there is the poverty - the depressing, grinding poverty of newsreel. the worst part of the poverty, however (and something on which every visitor to India comments) is the squalor. Outside of Ladakh, the areas we saw were, quite frankly, filthy and piled with rubbish. Not another poor area in the world looks as bad as this, regardless of the levels of poverty.

Open plan living, India, August 2008
Ramshackle, untidy houses seemed to be the norm out in the country villages

Civic cleanliness seems to be the first step in alleviating poverty. Which leads to my point. Is the ability to raise out of poverty, connected to a communal desire to do so? Places that seem to improve, also seem to have people coming together to help keep the place nice. When there is no longer care about the surroundings (and by inference, the well-being of neighbours' environment), then there develops the downward spiral. Whilst there are signs of India developing economically, it seems to be individually centred. I cannot recall anywhere else where brand new shopping malls get built between shanty towns. Total development of areas (or total neglect) seem to be the norm elsewhere.

New shopping mall, India, August 2008
On the next plot was a shanty town. This was a single beacon to consumerism in an obviously deprived area.

If we want to end poverty, maybe we all need to take more care of our surroundings and pass the good habits on. It may seem simplistic, but I believe that the desire to improve things for others, as well as ourselves, is the first step to making them happen.

While you're at it, why not go read what some others have to say on the subject?

Karmic cement

Prayer Perch, Ladakh, August 2008

I've been posting a few images from my Ladakh trek as part of my Processes of Nature project. the simple reason is that the Himalaya are a great place to observe the processes that go into making and breaking mountains. I've travelled, by various means, through mountainous country all over the World and yet nowhere have I felt as close to the cycle of creation, growth and destruction of such mountains as much as I did in Ladakh (volcanic regions notwithstanding).

The shot here is a case in point. Our trek leader quipped that these monastic outposts must be held together with karmic cement, being built on apparently the most friable outcrops to be found. They've probably been around for centuries. Distinctly permanent buildings from a human perspective but a mere fleeting fancy in geologic time. But even with the slow process of mountain building, there were signs of the trails collapsing and the river valley changing in real-time. The path was frequently moved to deal with a new collapse or change in the river path.

We take it as a matter of faith that the mountains will be around forever but that is only a human scale. The Universe is much less constant over long periods.

More unexpected success

Jeevak hospital, India, August 2008

I've been working through the processing on my Ladakh photos, largely the scans of the film I shot. At the same time I've been reading Paul Butzi's recent posts (here and here) on his efforts closer to home. Quite a contrast in outcomes, I think.

Loading the Tuk Tuk, India, August 2008

For me, I've been constantly surprised at how well my images are turning out. I didn't have too much hope but I'm getting a lot of decent shots - a much higher rate than with digital. Of course, I don't shoot a lot of multiples with film, but it is nice to see so many successful. In this context I'm taking the first pass through, where success is judged by me capturing the subject in the way I intended. Whether that ultimately leads to a long-term keeper is another matter. (Like Paul, I tend to post on-going photo work, rather than the best.)

School's out, India, August 2008

This naturally leads me to think about the differences between digital and film. A point that Doug Plummer made in a comment to Paul. With the long feedback cycle and lack of multiples, I think maybe film imposes a slightly more selective approach. I was still shooting at quite a rate when I had the film camera in my hand - about a roll and hour. But I did keep my subject matter quite focussed and had the camera set up for classic RF working (zone focus, manual exposure, fast film). With this direction, I can accept a lower level of technical quality in favour of subject - this is something I think we tend not to do with digital. Then again, I don't do the same kind of street photography with the DSLR as I do with the RF - maybe I need to slap a prime on and try that.

So, success - a combination of tools, techniques and subject matter.

Blog Action Day

A bit of a digression, picked up via Statcounter: next week there is "Blog Action Day" - aimed at getting all bloggers posting on a single topic to raise awareness of a specific issue.

This year it's all about global poverty. A bit of a coincidence for me as I had a post planned along those lines. Without getting into the politics of initiatives like this, I think it is an interesting concept to try and use the medium of blogging for mass communication in this way. Worth taking part just from that perspective.

So, if you think it's an interesting idea, get involved.

Available darkness

Gas light series, Ladakh, August 2008

A series of shots I took on the Ladakh trip. Just hanging out, drinking chocolate & talking.

All shot on HP5+, easily a couple of stops under (thus shot around EI 1600), with the Voigtlander 40 f/1.4 single coated.

I wasn't sure I'd get anything but turns out to be a really nice combo for shooting at close to pitch-black.

Words to remember

Life's greatest blessing, Ladakh, August 2008

All along the Ladakhi trails there are signs like this painted onto walls and rocks. It's not always immediately clear who wrote them: possibly monks or local school children. However they came to be, they are always thoughtful words to meditate; distinctly Buddhist.

Divergence

TOP is running a poll on views of the merge of video and stills capability - gauging reaction in the great "convergence" debate.

Meanwhile I read the posts on the subject over at Drew Gardner's blog (linked at LuLa). 2 really interesting bits caught my eye.
from a Canon preview event

The audience was mainly press photographers from what was formally known as 'Fleet Street'
Some of the comments I heard on the night....
'What a disaster! Canon have messed it it up again'
'Good camera apart from the video facility, why the F**** do I need that?'
'21 mega pixels? I wanted 14! at 10 frames a second!
'Canon have missed an open goal, video is for people who have no imagination'

and from Photokina

The Canon 5d mk2, along with the remarkable Vincent Laforet video, which was running on a loop in the centre of the Canon stand (so few people seemed to be paying any attention to this, sometimes I,m baffled)

So with the poll results and these comments I glean this big fact: the buying public just aren't very interested in, leaning towards hostile to, the idea of yet another useless function being added to their camera. I think Drew Gardner has completely misjudged the reactions he saw (he would, he's a fan of convergence).

Effectively the audience for the 5DmkII is saying: we want a better stills camera, with a load of other improvements, please. Video just doesn't interest us. And I see their point. If this is supposed to be a PJ tool, why has it got resolution and responsiveness more in line with landscape work, and if it is aimed at landscape (much like its predecessor seemed to be), why on earth the video at all?

So many commenters on digital cameras are crying out for stills improvements (dynamic range seems to be top of the current list). I think video is becoming an apology for not fixing the stills cameras, a distraction from the fact that the underlying device isn't actually getting any better.

Unexpected success

Living room, Kristiansund, July 2008

The images I've been completing recently, as in the last post and current PotD, have been quite a surprise to me.

They are some of my favourite recent shots, totally out of the norm from my regular subjects and style. Really they all came about from playing around with various subjects & exposures on rainy days in Norway. All are presented "straight" i.e. pretty much direct from the film. Most have come from end of roll work, shots taken to expose a roll to the end. Not really any sort of deliberate attempt at meaningful pictures.

This is somewhat disappointingly encouraging. The upside is the fact that some good came of the experiments. There is the potential for further work and new subjects and narratives. The downside is that I seem to get my best work from the least effort. When I try, I fail (relatively). The subjects I am most trying to capture are the hardest to reach, and those in which I invest the least interest and effort come out so well.

Am I shooting the wrong subjects, or approahing my subjects with the wrong frame of mind?

Domestic narrative, Kristiansund, July 2008
The collected photos from this brief experiment

Photography: art globalisation

Table lamp, Kristiansund, July 2008

I've been looking at a lot of international photography recently - stuff from all around the world. I've also been reading a history of Japanese photography and also seen quite a lot of older work from various locations. One thing that seems to be evident is the international flavour of photographic styles and development.

Many art forms have developed from local culture, using local materials. Steeped in (pre-)history, similar forms developed independently in the days before wide-spread travel and communications. painting, music, sculpture all come to mind. More contemporary movements may be informed by international developments but there are still strong local cultural ties.

I don't get the same feeling with looking at photographs and certainly the development of photography required travel and communication. As effectively a scientific invention, the photographic process was unlikely to have been spontaneously invented with local materials in several places. It took travellers carrying their equipment around the world to spread the process & art. Materials & equipment are (and always have been) manufactured in a limited number of locations and spread through international trade.

This is what makes it an example of globalisation, for me. This can be seen either positively or negatively. In some ways I feel it is like mathematics: a global language for communicating many ideas. The message may vary but we can all understand the means of communication. This, for me, is why photography has a power in images that few other media can match.

Computers, storage, backup

What a week. Not a single bit of photography work done, either shooting or processing. Why?

First up, I ran out of room on my regular processing disk. Stuffed full. Which then prompted me finally to get the NAS box connected. Which meant learning a bunch about wireless networking. This stuff has to get easier, and more reliable - way too many options and manual configuration just to get it going at all. Right now I'm getting nothing like the full capacity out of the link but at least I can run data transfer as a background activity. Ended up moving about 200GB of data in all.

Then I had to reorganise my archive. With a new archiving mechanism, I realised that it would be better to have bits of the archive stashed away permanently. So all of that to do, and back-up etc. And shifting all that data around made me realise that I needed to do some "regular" maintenance on my system - I was months behind on routine stuff.

Hopefully this time I have a system that is future proof (yeah, right, said that before). At least the network storage mode is expandable independently of my main computer hardware.

And now I've been ale to get down to the backlog of photo work, starting with outstanding scanning. I've had a whole summer's worth of film waiting to be scanned.

I'm sure computers were meant to make life easier, never seems to feel like that.

Mass storage, single instruction

Prayer book, Ladakh, August 2008

A rant about instruction manuals.

I've just finished installing mass storage on a wireless network - a Buffalo TeraStation on an 802.11n wireless, run on Edimax 6504 wireless routers. Now it's working, it's going well. It has taken all day to get the first back-up run, but that's the price one pays for going the slow data route. I have my own reasons for needing to do this wirelessly. But that's not the point here.

The problem I have is with the instructions that come with the various devices. Admittedly I'm doing something a little unusual - tagging a single, Linux OS device on the end of a wireless set-up, without other computers. However, the instructions with both devices assume that I'm going down a very basic set-up and I'm not talking about the quick-install guides but the full-blown manuals. It is as if there is only one way to use the kit, despite the many features and options.

I remember back in the good old DOS days spending days tuning settings with the extensive paper manual in hand. Every option explained - what and why - so that I could figure out how best to put it all together. Of course in this plug-and-play world, life has become easier. but networking is like DOS was 15 years ago - full of fine tuning of setting for specific implementations. optimisation and tweak. I quite enjoy all that. But there is no technical description. The instructions give a step-by-step on what to do and what should happen, but if one step doesn't happen as described there is precious little further help. Certainly nothing like a proper technical breakdown of all the options and their uses. Online "information" sites are little extra use - if you're not doing the standard thing, tough luck.

This doesn't just go for these products - pretty much all technical devices now have instruction manuals designed for 5 year-olds, with no extra help for the tech-savvy amongst us (or merely the user with an above-average IQ), who needs some extra help. I feel like I need learn some secret handshake to get any more.

Fortunately, in the network case, I found an online forum where a guy had done almost the exact thing I have, with the same devices, and described the settings. I pretty much copied them (with a couple of minor adjustments) and it all seemed to work. But I'm sure I could be getting more out of it all.

Validation and motivation

Modern girls, Agra, India, August 2008

This week I had a friend describe my photography as "amazing". Quite a nice compliment but not one that I'll let get to my head. Trouble is, I see lots of great photography out there in Webland and quite frankly, I think I suck. I frequently disappoint myself with the output versus the intention.

However, I just posted to the web a bunch of my images from the Ladakh trip. As part of the exercise I was going back over my work from the past couple of years. (I need to do a massive archiving exercise having just filled a hard disk.)

Turns out I'm getting better (or at least I think I am). I see that the best of my current rejects (the ones that don't quite make it) are better than the worst of my previous selections (the ones that just made it). So overall I may not be any happier with my output than I was but in a side-by-side comparison I think my stuff is a lot better than it was. And that is what keeps me going - the strive to constantly improve, knowing that I'm not as good as I want to be, and then seeing the improvement unfold.

Panasonic Lumix LX3: further observations

Test shot, September 2008
Taken at ISO1600 with the LX3. Minimum processing of RAW in SilkyPix to 16-bit TIFF, NR with Neat Image, slight USM for output.

This is a follow-on from my first impressions post. I've now had the Lumix LX3 about a week and taken several hundred shots with it. There are a number of things I've found in using it that are worth mentioning. I was intending posting earlier but found some strange things in the RAW images which delayed me (I'll keep you in suspense as to what I found until later).

Firstly, however, is a clarification from the earlier post. Juha (who commented on my previous post) has been blogging on his experiences with the LX3. He found the interface to be quite complicated, whereas I found it simple and intuitive. This comes from our different ways of using the camera. I look at the interface from a setting-up the camera perspective. I don't use auto shooting modes and don't care about them (so no views on those here). Virtually all my shooting has been in aperture priority - I'm using this camera like I do my others - and so I'm interested in the LX3 as a serious tool rather than an auto P&S. Bear that in mind when reading my comments.

Most of this post will be in the realm of "things I wish it would do, but doesn't" - quite negative overall but bear with me. Not reams of test shots, as I don't feel I could really convey what I'm writing with web-sized pics. You'll just have to trust what I write (or go some place else).

The camera

Auto focus - there is a big problem with AF, speed 9or lack thereof). Not good for the decisive moment. Plenty accurate for static shots, however. There is also no way to do snap focus (e.g. a hyperfocal or infinity setting). Even the fast mode is too slow.
It does have a handy continuous mode, whereby the camera focuses as you move between subjects. trouble is it is ruined by the fact that the camera insists on re-focusing when the shutter release is pressed. Why have a camera focus all the time if it is going to focus again on taking the shot?

Manual focus - is my preferred method. I use the focus button when I want AF. Works well and is far more ergonomic that using AF and the AF-lock button. Also mean I can pre-focus or focus and re-compose with ease.
Actual manual focus is quite easy. I think the DoF scale is a bit conservative (I think there's more DoF than indicated) but haven't rigorously tested it yet. Great for hyperfocal or zone focus. I've got into the mode of f/4 and be there (approx equivalent DoF to f/8 on 35mm).

Zoom settings - this is a huge annoyance. There is no way to precisely set zoom point. No scale on the barrel (I can see the marker pen coming out), no step-zoom function and the zoom indicator bar is worse than useless (it shows 3 values - 1x for 24mm-e to about 35mm-e, 2x up to about 55mm-e and 2.5x at full zoom). Why can't I have either an electronic scale showing actual zoom position (in 35mm equivalent), or a scale on the barrel, or a step zoom function or better yet, all three? I reckon the 2 electronic options could be done in firmware, if they (Panasonic) set their minds to it.
The other rubbish thing is it doesn't remember zoom settings. It's not part of the remembered items in Custom mode and when the camera shuts down it always wakes up to fully wide. Madness! The sleep mode is quite good, and wake up is quite fast but not remembering the zoom setting is very annoying.

ISO versus shutter speed can be a bit variable. Sometimes it does a nice job of dropping the shutter speed right down, and sometimes it jumps to a ridiculous ISO. There is no way to set the minimum shutter speed in aperture priority, which is stupid: with the Mega-OIS, I'd be happy down to about 1/10 but it tends not to go further than 1/30 unless the ISO tops out. Of course you can always limit the ISO to lower values.

One big bonus is the camera is very quiet. Taking pics of people in museums, even the noise from a rangefinder was noticeable, no one noticed the LX3 (I've turned off all the beeps bleeps). Even the zoom is remarkably quiet.

Image processing & quality

Of course, this is where the crunch is. There will be a few LX3 images from me in the near future - some of the next PotDs from London will be LX3 shots. I'm liking the output.

The thing that delayed this post was something I was seeing in RAW images at high ISO. I took a load of mixed light, low illumination shots (my hotel room in KL). The JPEGs were nice, decent detail and good noise reduction even at ISO1600. The RAW seemed another matter - hot pixels, impossible to clean-up noise and SilkyPix (the Panasonic RAW software) couldn't touch it. Turns out to be user error (i.e. all my fault).

Once I found the NR settings and got working the software, and looking at the images properly, I have been very pleased.

I'm not going to claim overall image quality is up to DSLR standards, even with many pixels. But results are good. Sometimes WB gets confused, but that's a good reason to use RAW. Out of camera JPEGs are nice, but not a patch on what can be produced from the RAW. I've been using SilkyPix with basic settings to produce a 16-bit TIFF and then touching up in Photoshop. NR isn't bad with SilkyPix but doesn't come close to Neat Image.

And here's the upside - to my eyes noise is as good (maybe better) at high ISO than with my EOS 20D. Yes, you heard that right. I'm getting usable colour results right up to ISO1600 with a little effort. With the 20D, I'm in B&W only at that level. Who'd have thought that small sensors would catch up that well?
One big caveat - expose properly. Under exposing at high ISO and you've got nothing to play with. Those pixels are still coming from small buckets, so underlying noise is going to be high. But a decently exposed high ISO shot is perfectly good. Haven't printed any yet but I reckon 6x8" no problem, maybe even 8x10" from ISO1600. That is far beyond my expectation.
However, I'm normally limiting to ISO400 or 800, especially if there is good light. I think I'll set up the camera Custom modes with high ISOs for low light shooting.

The verdict

I'm just getting on and taking pictures. I like this camera very much. Use it in aperture priority and handle like any other decent camera and the results are very good. It handles naturally and produces good images even in low light. It is not, however, a dummy's P&S - a little care and craft are needed, I feel, to get the most out of its imaging capability but I'm fine with that. If you're a regular RF user, you might well get on with this camera. I can see this camera replacing my DSLRs in a whole host of situations, and might even become my preferred indoor camera.

Art gains its value in execution

Cleaning up after Art, Tate Modern, September 2008
This is the after-effect of a giant-sized graffiti project displayed on the gallery's outer walls

Visiting Tate Modern for the first time at the weekend, I was struck by the amount of current art that can be classed as "conceptual". Back in the good old days, artists sketched out their ideas before committing paint to canvas or chisel to marble. There was a separation between idea and execution. Even composers worked along similar lines. It led to the great works of art that we all admire.

Skip forward a couple of generations and suddenly art seems to be all about the idea and less about the execution. Phooey to that, says I. So much of the newest works that I saw garnered the reaction: "nice idea, now how about a finished product". Works lost value in being, quite frankly, of low product quality. Non-traditional media were the worst offenders: collage, appliqué, film, photography. It seems painters and sculptors still care about craft, pity about the rest.

But is it Art?, Tate Britain, September 2008

Brings me back to the notion that the final product of photography is in the print. The craft of photography finds it's final outlet in a well-executed print.

On a side-note, Tate (Modern & Britain) do photography really poorly. The thematic placing of photographic work didn't fit, the analysis of content method seemed unaware of any sort of photographic history and worst of all were the descriptions of print methods ("black and white photograph on paper" is the equivalent of describing a great oil on canvas as "painting"). Come on, Tate, get it together.

Art: what's in a word?

Something I knew, but hadn't acknowledged, is that in the Dutch language the word fo "art" and "artificial" is the same: kunst. Turns out, the same word can mean "trick". Artifice ("kunstgreep") can literally translate as "grip of art".

Does this mean there is no truth in Art?

Kinesis Journeyman field report

Yours truly in action in Ladakh, August 2008, photo by Caroline le Barbier
Notes on the backpack: on my left, the brown bag carries my tripod, left strap has a carabiner to hold hydration tube in place, right hip has water bottle pouch, strap hanging to my right is the camera stabiliser strap. camera not shown on chest - it's taking the picture.

Following my initial observations on the Kinesis Journeyman backpack system, here is a field report/review after using it on my trip to Ladakh.

How I used it

By way of an introduction, it's worth mentioning how I used the various components throughout the trip. As I mentioned before, I bought a buch of stuff with a number of possible configurations. This is the great strength of the Kinesis gear. As I was new to the kit, and the trekking was a new way to carry gear, I was keen to try as many options as possible.

These are the main uses I had:

Belt & pouches as a walk-around
Hydration pack as a sling pack
Internal pouch as a shoulder bag
Journeyman fully kitted as a daypack

All numbers are the Kinesis product numbers.

Observations on the small stuff

Belt kit - comfortable, stable and easily set-up. I'd prefer the attachment points to be aligned so I can fit a triple-wide (like the internal pouch) central on the belt. Having said that, I'm inclined to get a double wide anyway (see more on that later). typically I used just an A126 pouch and water bottle.

Hydration pack - I attached a shoulder strap from another bag, and added the water bottle pouch to the outside. This made a useful sling-pack, good for carrying food/water, light jacket etc on a short day, or for a spot of shopping around town.

Internal pouch (Vo90)- a nice, all-day touristing shoulder bag. Again I used a shoulder strap from another bag. I carried the Zeiss Ikon, 20D, 2nd lens, water, light jacket plus usual small stuff (batteries, cards, film etc). Worked well - nice size for a small outfit. I could have easily added the small pouch for some extra storage.

The Journeyman pack in action

Fitting & size - I found the fitting to be a bit on the large size but comfortable. I'd reckon that you need to be about 2" taller than Kinesis recommends for the large harness. Likewise belt sizes are generous by about 2".

Weight distribution - excellent. The pack is stable, the belt sits nicely on the hips and the overall pack seems to get more comfortable with increasing load. Being able to attach the inner pouch at the top of the sack is a huge bonus for weight distribution.

Tripod - straps nicely to the side. i stuck the feet into the mesh pocket. I was carrying a Gitzo 0540 tripod (one of the really small ones) to cut domw on weight, but trials with my 3540LS have been successful, too. I'm not sure I'll ever use the feet pouch (T164).

Camera strap on harness - this was the big bonus. Having the camera always to hand meant I took more photos. It also meant I wasn't constantly removing the pack, which made it more comfortable. having it attached to the shoulder straps made the weight diappear. using a longer lens (like my 70-200 f/4) was a bit cumbersome when climbing as the lens hangs down a bit, but great with the 17-55.

Water carrying - using a hydration pack inside the sack meant i drank more during the day (a good thing, especially in hot weather at altitude) and again meant less pack removal. In cooler climes (like the UK) I wouldn't bother with the extra water bottle.

Overall comfort - probably the most comfortable day pack I've ever used (and I've owned a whole bunch). It carries a load of gear, is great for weight distribution and has enough options for any photographer. I'm really looking forward to my next LF outing as a result. Don't worry about the size, though - the cinch straps make light work of shrinking the thing when lightly loaded.

Other stuff - it was a breeze to strip down for airlines. I took off the belt and aluminium stays, giving a full-size carry-on. I could easily have stripped it down further if needed. I'm inclined to get a lens pouch to put on the hip belt. Then I can have easy access to a 17-55 and a 70-200. With an LF in tow as well, that would be a good set-up.

Negative points

Not many, really. I wish there was a way to attach pouches inside the front pocket. It's qutie a large space and small stuff rattles around a bit.
Sizing guidance is a bit off - I was OK but definitely borderline despite what Kinesis say.
Personally I prefer a sack with a top lid rather than zip closure, but I'm willing to compromise on that point.

Conclusions

An absolutely top pack. Rugged, well made, comfortable and good for photo gear plus your regular walking kit. As close to my ideal pack as I think I could get without building it myself. thoroughly recommended for those of you who like to do some serious walking and lug a bunch of camera gear around at the same time.

A question for Lightroom users

Is there anyone out there who can help me?

I'm looking at Adobe Lightroom for a number of reasons, one being batch processing. I can't seem to find the info I want, however.

What I want to be able to do, in a script or similar is the following batch process:
1. Standard set of editting tools (brightness/contrast/basic curve)
2. Resize
3. Change colour space
4. Save from 16-bit TIFF to 8-bit JPEG
5. Rename & refile the batch by rules

Would I need plug-ins or prgramming to make it happen?

This is all based around my post to the web workflow. Thing is I can't seem to determine if I can combine these actions together. I see evidence of being able to do each step individually, but that doesn't really help me.

As I say, this is just one component of the reasons that I'm looking at Lightroom but is a big one.

Call me a techno grouch

I just read the preview of the Canon 5D II over at Luminous Landscape. Michael Reichmann has been a predictor and fan of stills/video integration for a while now. And he seems excited about this one, too.

I don't get it, really I don't. (In fact, I really like Kjell's observations.)

The LL preview says this is a really great thing, then goes on to point out a whole series of technical and handling flaws that make the camera useless as a proper video camera: poor handling, clumsy mode setting, no AF, rubbish sound. Not to mention the huge data rates and the fact that it eats batteries. So I get a device that generates more data than I can cope with, requires me to have a bag full of power and still only returns basic video clips.

Just because we can merge the technologies, doesn't mean we should. Video and stills are 2 different skill sets, with different audiences and uses.

I can't be the only photographer with zero interest in shooting movies, or am I in such a minority that I'll get left out? Perhaps I'm as much a camera dinosaur as I am with telephones.

Competitions and your rights

It's an ever increasing problem: companies running photo competitions that then demand you hand over your rights to the images. Imagine my surprise when I found an exception.

The Daily Telegraph in the UK runs a couple of travel photo competitions - usual stuff: post your best travel shots and win a prize. Interestingly, however, is the honouring of the photographers' copyright. The rules state that the entrant agrees to a limited release for the purposes of the competition, for a limited time period. Pretty much the minimum you'd have to do.

I thought I'd see if this attitude spanned across newspapers. Unfortunately not.

I checked out the other UK quality papers: The Times, Guardian and Independent. The last doesn't seem to do photo comps. As for The Times and Guardian, pretty much the usual rights grab on effectively the same sort of competition as the DT. In both cases they claim full, royalty free rights across their entire publishing groups in perpetuity.

Makes me wonder how they treat the paid photographers. If the amateur competitions are a measure of the way they treat the pros, there's only one publication in this group I'd want to work for.

Batman: a turing point in the camera market?

Went to see the new Batman movie "The Dark Knight" last week Good movie, a little long and very, very psychologically dark. probably the best Batman yet, if you're a fan of the comic books.

But that's not the point here. One thing that jumped out at me was that, for the first time I can remember, Canon was the photo sponsor. Until now virtually all movie camera gear has been Nikon (save for the occasional period piece or Leica RF). Certainly holds for all the big-budget, product placement stuff. And now Canon are in their.

Does this relate in some way to the tonking they're getting in the pro market? For sure the Olympics were a big turn-up, first time I can remember significant Nikon gear on the touchlines. And advertising follows a need to sell. Perhaps Canon are feeling the pinch. Competition can only be good for us, the poor old consumers.

Photography and Buddhism

No, not a post about religion but a couple of interesting thoughts about photography that came from some recent reading.

The area in India that I visited was the northern Ladakh region, a largely Buddhist area, very Tibetan in culture. I picked up a book there: "A journey in Ladakh" by Andrew Harvey about his spiritual journey in the region. I can't say the book is to be recommended, although I found it very interesting.

The point here, though, come from a couple of quotes in the book:

...everyone here...is hoarding something, storing something of what we see and feel here. We are all...taking photographs, inward photographs. We are all guilty [of exploiting]. As long as we do perceive things purely we are guilty. And who perceives things purely...without desire or judgement?

I began...to see and know what Ananda..had told me of the Hinayana meditation technique, known as Vipassyana, 'Seeing without discrimination', 'Open seeing'.
'One moment of pure seeing,' he had said, 'is the beginning of Liberation. If you can see for one moment, one flower, one face, one dog, as they are in themselves and for themselves, you have begun to be free enough to love.'

In some ways these conflict and in others I think can give some insights into what we are trying to achieve with photography. What are our motives for taking pictures? Is it a selfish "stealing" of the moment/thought/view or driven by a generous need to share or part of a personal journey of understanding?

Food for thought for us all. I can't say I could offer answers to these questions for my own motives but the ideas are certainly make me think further beyond the immediacy of picture making.

Panasonic Lumix LX3: first impressions

I went out and splurged on a shiny new Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 this evening (got to love those Malaysian prices) - completely against my normal late adopter strategy (e.g. my DSLRs were both bought just a couple of weeks before their successors were announced). I thought I'd get some of my first impressions reported - I've had it all of 2h now. This is by no means a full review, I'm going to focus on the things that I felt were important in buying it.

Look and feel: solid little camera. Nice weight and size. Solidly built for a small camera. Nice lens cap, and it comes with a lens-cap keeper (a little cord to attach it to the camera). Positive feeling buttons. All give the aura of a quality product.

Interface: nice and intuitive. I've run it through most of the modes available without yet opening the manual. I've handled Panasonic Lumix cameras in the past and I like the way their interface is put together, the LX3 is no different. All the manual modes are also intuitive: easy to get aperture, Ev compensation, focus etc working from the off. I also love the live histogram and easy access to Ev compensation - very quick and easy to get good exposure.

Image quality: unscientifically, very good. I've been pushing it hard in rubbish lighting around the hotel and a quick review of the JPEGs (not got the RAW software loaded) shows good detail retention and acceptable noise for reasonable prints up to ISO1600. This is all I had hoped for it - I was going to be happy with that level of performance at ISO400. I've been shooting everything in RAW+JPEG so I can review the differences later.

Now the good stuff: manual operation and RAW.

First, shooting speed. Buffer is 3 RAW (or RAW+JPEG) deep, but truly continuous in single shot mode. Once an image is saved you're good to go for another. Buffer clearing with a slow 4GB card takes about 1.5s by my estimate. The first 3 can be shot as fast as you can push the button (about 1 shot every 0.5s). Very good performance. Burst mode is a bit different - push to button, get 3 shots in quick succession but then you have to wait for the buffer to clear before shooting again. I will be sticking to single shot mode. Haven't tried JPEG only, not interested quite frankly.

Manual focus is very intuitive, running off a little joystick. This is actually a pleasure to use even for such a small controller. Just the right balance of response and feel so that it is very difficult to inadvertently push it in the wrong direction: I'm finding it better than Canon's DLSR multi-controller. There are 3 manual focus modes - no assist (straight off the LCD), centre assist (small patch is zoomed to help focus) and large assist (small patch is enlarged to fill the screen). I find the middle option best. From my quick reviews, focus accuracy is good. In manual mode, pushing the focus button activates AF - I'm not seeing a whole lot of point in switching into AF mode. Focus speed is quite good. At the moment I haven't found a way to lock focus point when switching from MF to AF, so snap or zone focus are tricky. May have to get the manual out.

So what do I think - first impressions: the Lumix LX3 is exceeding my expectations in ease of use, speed and image quality. Definitely a worthwhile purchase.

UPDATE 28/9/08: I've now posted my further observations here.

Things have been a bit slow

...because I've been on the road again. I had a couple of weeks in the UK visiting my parents and now I'm in Kuala Lumpur on business for a few days (currently a nice view from half way up the twin towers). I've not picked up a camera in 3 weeks or more.

Have no fear, there is plenty of stuff to come. I'm planning quite a number of posts but need access to my on computer for pics and time to sit and write them. Lots to follow on my trip to India, together with some more equipment stuff and the usual random blathering.

What do we need in a digital camera?

Following the rant in my last post, what is it that we really need in a digital camera? Why don't we start from the basic cameras and work up.

How about a camera along the lines of the old manual cameras, something akin to the Olympus OM or Nikon FM? Or maybe the basics of the rangefinders. Maybe not fully manual, let's throw in auto exposure.

So, four controls: aperture, shutter speed, ISO (the 3rd variable in digital) and focus. For AE, a highlight priority indicator that shows if we've blown the highlights - maybe a little histogram screen but could also be a Leica-like needle indicator. What more is really needed? If the camera records RAW only, then we don't need image manipulation (including WB), we don't need a review screen etc etc. From the outside it could quite happily look like a film camera - no screen, limited knobs and dials. No massive manu driven control systems, with enough options to launch a spaceship.

Why such a simple thing? Travel. The great bug bear of travelling photographers who may be weeks from electricity is the utter reliance on batteries. If we stripped out a lot of the fripperies, kept it simple, a camera that gets 2000+ images on a single charge should be easily possible (yet another area where current cameras are not progressing). Not too many megapixels (say 8-10 MP).

So there it is, my counter-rant against the trend for ever more complex camera control systems.

Bah humbug to new cameras

Warning: grumpy rant content.

It's Photokina time, there's a flurry of new cameras being announced. Of course there's been the micro 4/3 announcement but no cameras, and a nice departure from the norm in the Panasonic LX3 (which I might well be buying). Buit for the rest, I'm left pretty cold.

Most of the new digicams continue the ridiculous trend of more megapixels, more dumb-ass features for idiots (face & smile recognition etc). Then there's the new DSLRs. Canon announced to 50D, fully justifying my recent 40D purchase - no features I want, a slew I don't (including the extra megapixels) and nothing that represents an improvement as a photographic tool. Then Nikon go ahead with the D90, inculding video. Some seem to be getting excited by this (Michael Reichmann right up there), not me.

A photo camera is for stills. I'm not a videographer and don't want to be. With so many other improvements missing that I do want (mirror lock-up button, higher dynamic range, large VF etc etc), this is just adding a bunch of useless nonsense that dis-improves (what's a good antonym of improve?) rather than enhances the camera as a tool, IMO.

I've been using my Zeiss Ikon a lot recently, and it's far more satisfying to use than most other cameras, with simple control that get to the heart of the matter. Why can't digital cameras be that simple? (More of which later)

Rant over.

I went to Ladakh and all I got...

...was this lousy photo.

Grand scale, Ladakh, August 2008

Actually, quite a good shot to illustrate a point, that I'll come to later.

2 weeks trekking in the Indian Himalaya. An outstanding trip, good weather, great company, well organised. I did the Markha Valley trek (a classic in the region) with KE Adventure (highly recommended trekking company). I'm sure I'll be posting more photos from the trip once I've got through the stack.

One really difficult thing about photographing the area is scale. There is much that looks like other parts of the world but the scale is much, much larger. This is my first time in the high mountains, and it is very difficult to comprehend the size of everything without being there. If you click to see the larger version of the image above, you'll see in the centre one of the group walking ahead of me (look close). It is one of the shots I have that truly shows the sense of scale of the place. We were really in the lower altitude Himalaya, peaks not much above 6000m (18500'). The path above is at about 3500m (11500'). For most parts of the world, this is high, up there it's everyday. Truly big Nature.

A brief hiatus

Another pause in blogging from me, I'm off on vacation for a couple of weeks far, far from civilization and the digital world.

More on my return...

The job of Auto Focus

With all the discussion going on in web land about Rob Galbraith's analysis of Canon 1D III AF performance, I have been missing one important thing: objective analysis of whether this is expected behaviour or not, and how it relates to the tolerance of the system. I've mentioned this before. This is the engineer in me wanting to analyse the thing and see if it's doing what I'd expect and thence, what changes would be needed to make it do what I want (if possible). This is a general discussion, applicable to any camera. It will be fairly technical but I hope even non-scientists will be able to follow it.

This got me to thinking, what exactly is an AF system doing and what results should we expect? This, then, is the result of me breaking down the job of AF so I can get a feel for how much we should expect. I figured readers might find it interesting, hence the post. Please, if you find any factual errors, leave a comment and I'll make corrections.

I will not talking about how focus is measured. I am going to assume that whatever AF is implemented, there is an objective, measurable system for determining focus that is in place. There are a two main ways of achieving this (phase detection and contrast detection) and from the perspective of AF, the actual focus measurement method is irrelevant here (as will become clear).

Defining terms

First of all, there are some important terms I'm going to use in the discussion, and some abbreviations.

Focus Tolerance (AFTol) - the range in which the subject is determined to be in focus by the AF
Focus Accuracy (AFAcc) - the degree to which the focus approaches optimal focus
Sample Frequency (FSamp) - the rate at which the AF system checks for focus

The red dot is the subject, the solid line is plane of focus, dotted lines represent focus tolerance (AFTol). Gap from solid line to red dot is the AFAcc.

Open loop - a system of control where a measurement is taken, error calculated and the controller moved to desired position. There is no feedback whether the point that the controller moved to is correct. This is how most AF works in SLRs: degree of out of focus is determined and the lens moved to where the AF thinks focus is.
Closed loop - a system of control where the degree of error is constantly checked. For AF, this involves moving the lens and then rechecking whether focus has been achieved.
Feed forward - A system of control where the measurement predicts into the future and then moves the controller where is expects the system to be needed. For AF of moving subjects, this would be the system employed for predictive AF, where the subject speed is determined and the focus moved to predicted next location. it can be applied in either open or closed loop mode.

The gamut of AF

Next up, what are the situations we need the system to cover? I reckon we've got three of them: static subjects, slow approaching subjects, fast approaching subjects (a retreating subject is just a negative approach). For the moving cases there are also steady and erratic speeds. We also need to consider AF under single shot and rapid fire. So that's a lot of operating cases to cover.

In the industrial world with a wide variety of operating modes, we would normally expect either to cover each case with a separate control scheme, or accept compromises in performance on the lesser ones, to hit the important ones. With cameras, that's going to be difficult: who's to say what's important? A landscape photographer is going to want different things from a sports shooter.

Allied to this are the AF control modes used to achieve the desired results. In general, there are 3 types: single shot, continuous and predictive. In the first case, focus is acquired once and applied to all shots in a sequence (which may have just 1 frame), the second checks focus for each frame, the third tries to get ahead of things with moving subjects by predicting where the subject will be on the next frame. In any case, open or closed loop may be applied but it is normal for current systems to use open loop control (i.e. measure once, move as desired).

Let's go through the main cases:

Static subject - fairly simple. Subject sits there, nice and steady, focus is achieved, shutter gets pressed. Think mountains, castles, cooperative portrait subjects. Focus needs only be achieved once.

Slow approach - subject moves forward slowly relative to the response of the camera. It is important to consider relative speed, compared to the camera, rather than absolute speed. More on this later.

Fast approach - subject moves relatively quickly relative to the sped of the camera. Of course high absolute speeds will be involved but the point when a subject moves from being slow to being fast will vary from camera to camera.

And now a quick look at the main AF modes

Single shot, single frame - focus is achieved once, there is one press of the shutter. Best used for static subjects. If open loop control is in place it will be almost impossible to catch moving subjects in this mode.

Continuous focus, multiple frames - With open loop control, the focus is acquired between each frame, producing a continuous shift of focus across the frames.

Predictive focus, multiple frames - The AF feeds forward the estimated speed to move the focus to where it expects the subject to be. This will require at least 2 measurements of focus (and therefore subject) position to be able to sense motion.

What are the implications?

OK, so we know what it's all doing, how does this work in practice? And how do things change as camera specs change?

First up is the notion of focus tolerance versus desired accuracy. A camera will think that a subject is in focus if it lies in the the tolerance bands. If it moves within the bands, the AF is likely to be unable to detect the motion (important later on). If, however, we can perceive, in the final picture, out of focus even within the tolerance range, then the tolerance isn't tight enough. In general, as megapixel count goes up, so this discrepancy gets bigger (manufacturers don't move their definitions of tolerance much).

Then we come to the relationship of subject speed and focus speed. If a subject moves slowly relative to the focus tolerance, then it may be hard to detect the motion (see figure below). If the first couple of points are within tolerance, it would take a third for motion to be detected. This would then lead to over-compensation 9front focus) as the subject is deemed to have moved twice as much as it actually has.

Slow movement relative to focus tolerance. Subject moves 1-2-3 but system only detects movement 1-3, shifting focus A-B for point 4 (now front focussed).

If rate of fire (fps) increases, then the speed that is "slow" in relation to the focus actually increases - the subject moves less between shots. Implication is that higher fps cameras have harder job with approaching subjects that may have been OK for slower models. Just slowing shutter speed may not help as the sample frequency won't change, unless the camera is set up to spend more time on focus for slower modes.

For relatively fast motion, things are better because the motion can be detected between frames (see below).

Fast speed - subject moves 1-2-3. AF detects motion 1-2 and moves A-B for point 3. Subject is in focus for subsequent shots.

If fps goes up, however, the fastest speed that can be focussed may go down as it is harder to move the lens between frames.

My conclusion

Faster camera, with higher resolution actually make focus worse, unless the focus tolerance is changed. Doing anything else won't help much. As fps increases, AF has less and less time to react, and will find it harder and harder to detect subject movement, unless tolerance is smaller or focus is able to detect movement within the range of focus tolerance. Resolution will make focus appear less and less precise.
Closed loop control doesn't help if the AF ha the same tolerance as open-loop. all it would do is minimise the chance of overshoot and provide a chance to correct, but that takes longer than just controlling to a more accurate position in the first place.

Image qualities aren't necessarily measurable

Some great points at the Landscapist on the techno-weenie discussions on-going about micro 4/3. Summed up: the mockers state that IQ will be poor due to smaller than other sized sensors.

There's not a thing as "Image Quality", there are image qualities, and because they are qualities (rather than quantities) they are by nature subjective.

The current talk that all shot have to be perfectly noise free at the pixel level at EI 1 gazillion, misses the point about qualities of images. back when getting ISO1600 meant grainy black and white, I don't think there was a hankering after ISO25 like smooth tones. The high speed leant itself to particular kinds of situations and images and conferred certain qualities therefrom.

There is one aspect to the digital techno babble that I can relate to (but rarely gets mentioned) and that is about lost changes. By that I mean desirable things left out, or undesirable things added, which mean we are stuck with undesirable results. Mostly this gets talked about in terms of lost resolution or added noise. The point being that once we have an unrecoverable result, there is nothing more we can do. However, there are too few talking about what can be achieved with given parameters. Many "noisy" cameras produce very nice black and white in low light, a digital return to the days of grainy film. It is a different set of qualities conferred on the pictures.

One group who seem to buck the trend are the Sigma DP-1 fans. They seem to talk very much about what the camera can do, rather than what it can't. Of course, if you actually want it to do something it can't, it's not the device for you.

But of course, all that requires thinking, which seems to be the antithesis of modern cameras.

Kinesis Journeyman: first impressions

I've just received my new Kinesis Journeyman backpack system. I'll run through some first impressions, but first some background.

What I want in a photobackpack

I was in the market for a new backpack, my old alpine style one being unsuited for camera gear and the padding long since compressed to nothing.

I've posted before about photo backpacks. I'm disappointed by all the offerings from big names. Pressing a regular backpack into photo service is also a non-starter.

What I need is a 30-40l daypack that can carry my photo gear and my regular stuff (like lunch, water, waterproofs) comfortably in the hills. I can end up carrying 10-15kg easily on a day out. I also need to to carry my tripod and a pair of walking poles, plus all the camera bits and pieces in an organised manner.

I also want to be able to carry the photo gear near the top of the pack for better weight distribution. I prefer the tripod lashed to the side. While this sets the weight a little one-sided (I've often got a side pouch on the other side anyway), it is also closer to my back, which is more important to me.

Must have a proper harness for comfort over longs days in rough terrain.

Where the market falls down

Photo backpacks come in 2 camps: the huge expedition size things or small set-ups. Almost all are designed with only photo gear in mind - clearly not aimed at those of us who hike stuff into the hills. Split compartments always put the photo gear at the bottom. Harnesses are mediocre at best. Weight is high due to all the padding. Quite frankly, I'm just as well off using my Think Tank carry-on.

Regular backpacks are really designed for hiking or climbing only. No real way to put camera gear in well. In the day-pack size there are almost no dual-compartment designs to allow me to stow camera and other gear separately. Lots are also coming with these new ventilated back systems where there's a tensioned mesh against the back and gap to the pack - this moves the weight away from your back which is bad, especially for heavy loads.

I figure in today's world, I don't need to compromise or buy lots to find something suitable. I just keep plugging away until I find someone who's got it together.

Enter Kinesis.

A bit of a one-man-band enterprise, this is a novel line up of photo gear. All modular in away that fits all kinds of packs, pouches, belts and harnesses together in anyway you chose.

Their backpack offering is the Journeyman, which can be combined with all sorts of options to create the perfect set-up for your application. It's a proper backpack, with the ability to hook-in camera pouches. Pole loops & tripod mounts as standard. A host of accessories to add on.

What I ordered

A lot of gear (see picture). Pack, hydration pouch, accessory pouch, interior pouch, straps & doohickies for lashing stuff on. Clip system to attach camera to the harness.

Kinesis Journeyman (centre) and components

Configurations

The stuff I've ordered allows me to do the following:

• Backpack, with or without camera.
• Removable harness, removable belt - great for carry-on.
• Extendible with the hydration pack as an extra pouch.
• Slap everything on for a big day out.
• Hydration pack only.
• Camera pouch & belt as a waist pack. Add hydration pack for a lightweight all-day set-up.
• Camera pouch as a shoulder bag.

Loads of options, great for travelling or sightseeing or hiking.

What do I think

Without using it in anger, here are the thoughts out of the box.

This thing is pretty large. Bigger than I'd expected. Pack measures 55x30x20cm (22"x12"x8"). It's a square shape, too, so you get full volume for your size. Weight is reasonable, not the lightest or heaviest. The harness is good, though, so the weight is light in the shoulders, which is what counts.

Journeyman harness system opened out
Back padding folded down & belt removed to show aluminium struts

Materials and construction are all top quality. harness sizing is pretty large. I would say larger than the website credits. I'm 6' tall, not too fat, and the medium/large harness is cinched right down when I've got it on - the smaller size would have been fine. Even then, the chest strap is at maximum extension. I went down a size on the belt and am glad I did. Side mesh pockets will actually be useful. Most sacks have very flat designs or they're small so everything falls out. Not these - expanding sides, large and a good stiff top band.

The internal pouch is excellent. The lightest I've come across for the size, and it's large. Fits easily my 4x5" field camera or the Mamiya RZ67. It's SLR plus 3 lenses territory - 70-200 stands up easily inside. Top opening is well designed. Most of the padding can be removed which is also useful.

Journeyman opened with inner pouch in place
The Pouch can it attached anywhere through the height of the pack

All of the accessories and pouches snap together easily. This is truly modular design. There are all kinds of ways to do things and I've been spending hours working out which will be best for me.

There are a few negatives. Harness strap design doesn't quite come down over the back of my shoulders as I'd like. I'd prefer the top attachment a bit further down the pack for this - allows better with distribution over the shoulders.
Attaching the inner pouch to the belt for a waist pack has a problem. The pouch is a "triple wide" which means it spans 3 attachment points. Trouble is, the attachments are evenly spaced from the belt centre so the waist pack is offset from centre.
Inner pouch attachment only has one attachment point so it hangs off the fixings. This means it's loose at the bottom which may cause it to swing around or gear to get trapped underneath. Time will tell, but I think a bottom attachment would have been good.
The front pocket, whilst useful for putting small stuff in, has no extra pockets or attachment points. In effect everything has to be loosely stored. even some Velcro strips would be useful.
Colour - it's not uniformly black but I'd like the grey side panels to have a red option. Red is a much better colour for visibility in the hills or poor weather.

I'll follow this up with an in depth review after my up-coming trip to India. It should all get a thorough working over on that one so I'll really know what it can do.

UPDATE 25/9/08: my field report now online.

The moment in time

Cartier-Bresson had his decisive moment. Now comes the Landscapist talking about the notion of freezing time. Interesting idea, that coincided with earlier thoughts I had on "The Americans". Coincidentally, I was studying Frank's book the night before reading Mark Hobson's post. I then went and looked at his new "Shore Light" gallery. As seems to happen to me frequently, these things all came together in a series of thoughts.

When a photograph freezes a moment in time, is it any moment in time, or a very specific moment from a specific time? How is it we are able to place the picture in space and time? We often, consciously or not, derive whole stories, histories from the contents of a single image. Is the photographer helping us in that effort, or deliberately obfuscating to give only a hint or glimpse?

The stronger thought that came through, however, was the fact that many photographs give a distinct sense of specific place and time both geographically and historically. There is no getting away from the fact that "The Americans" is a slice of 1950s America, and I wrote before that the effort could easily be taken up once a generation without losing impact. It is also clear that "Shore Light" shows a sense of now about the place.

I see two reasons why this is the case. Firstly there are the obvious cultural references - clothes, cars, hairstyles. The second is in photographic style, which is much harder to put a finger on. Some of it comes from materials and technology. Some of it comes from means of presenting the subject. I wondered if this second aspect would work for other subjects? I don't know but it would be interesting to see.

Take a subject well covered over many years but I would think something without an obviously iconic shot. A great landmark that's been photographed since there were photographs. I reckon Mount Fuji in Japan would make a good example. Then take 1000 shots spread across the almost 150 years, and I bet you'd be able to pretty closely mark the timeline. There are obvious differences in processes available from late 19th century to early 21st. But I also think there would be a great deal of difference in the way the subject is presented that would change too. even such a static, simple one as that.

Maybe, then, we are capturing as much about the times of the photographer as the times and moment of the subject.

Manual, what manual?

Picked up via dpreview, this survey about technology bafflement. Doesn't surprise me. Like every bit of technology, the way you're going to get the most out of your camera is to know how to use it properly. trouble is, most people I meet want to be able to pick up the camera, point at the subject, push the button and get a good picture. back to the Instamatic days.

Therein lies the problem. There are 2 types of camera user: the Instamatic crowd who truly want point and shoot (i.e. no functions, adjustments or doodads) and those of us who want full control over everything.

It make me wonder why all those whiz bangs get added to cameras when neither group wants them.

A passing thought - the number one question I get asked by friends about their cameras: how do I turn off the flash? (Yes, I seem to be helpdesk man for cameras because I'm into photography).

Neither here nor there follow up

Following up from yesterday, Wikipedia is already up and running with micro 4/3. Plus, it's got all the lens mount details too.

With this size, looks like an absolute winner for digital RF, given that LTM & M bayonet should be easily adapted.

That's the optimist bit. The pessimist in me thinks that this will never happen and we'll end up with a limited line of camera with crappy interfaces, no optical VF and no hot shoe for accessories either.

Neither here nor there

but somewhere in between.

Quite a bit of buzz on the new micro 4/3 format. RAWsumer thinks it may mark the death of digicams offering RAW, Michael Reichmann thinks it's a dead end. In a "let's weight up the evidence, fair hearing" kind of way, my thoughts (for what they're worth):

It's an interchangeable lens format. Will that really mark the doom of fixed lens cameras? I don't think so. I don't think micro 4/3 will really be small cameras, in the shirt pocket category. Look at the bigger brother: supposedly a smaller DLSR format yet the cameras aren't much smaller than their bigger sensor rivals. No one ever accuse RFs of being pocket cameras, and they're the smallest interchangeable lens cameras available (AFAIK).

I think it might offer an interesting platform for a digital rangefinder. OK, so it's got a 2x crop factor. Plus it uses what seems to be a larger mount than Leica thread mount or M. But the deal with the format is to get around all those nasty edge of sensor problems that The M8 has hit hard. I don't agree with Reichmann that the M8 has proven the way for large sensor RF, quite the opposite. I think it's so beset with inherent problems that different solutions may be needed (many of which may be software, rather than hardware). Still, I think there is potential here.

Will it rival DSLRs? I don't think so, at least not the larger ones. Optical viewfinding is still superior to electronic and this new format removes the possibility of reflex viewing (hence my thought on RF). Might make an interesting alternative to the entry level DLSRs, but I bet it'll never compete on price (which is almost the number one differentiator in brands for real buyers).

That mount is still large, as I've mentioned. Smaller it may be, but only that the big 4/3. Compared to RF mounts, I pretty sure it's jolly large. which starts to preclude really small lenses. For me, a small lens needs to have a small diameter for comfortable holding, not just be pancake flat. I don't think this large mount, aimed at motor driven lenses, will give that small diameter I'm looking for (as a point of comparison with SLRs, I think only the smallest, cheapest, non-IS lenses come close to being small diameter, and optically they're pretty rubbish).

So where do I think it fits: in that medium size, carry all day slot currently held by RF cameras. Give me a small package with a good optical VF and small, fast primes and I think it would be useful. With a decent range zoom as well, it would make a strong travel companion, that might convince me to leave the SLRs at home on trips, especially with the bike. I still want a high quality compact with RAW, for the shirt-pocket option.

Too familiar or too superficial?

Picking up on a running theme of late, and following from Doug Stockdale's comment on my wet weather post, is the idea of becoming over familiar with things.

For residents of Northern Europe, rain is an everyday occurrence (OK, maybe not every day, but pretty frequent), whereas in sunny SoCal it's more like a desert. As Doug points out, rain for him is pretty unusual.

So can I be too familiar with rainy conditions. Have I blocked out the rain effect so that everything looks the same to me wet or dry? Can we start to tune out subtle variations because they are too familiar to us? That may not be a bad thing, instead of observing the superficial differences (in this case the weather), we might be able to get past it and deeper into seeing the subject. On the other hand, it might be that an important part of the character of a subject is lost to us as we've tuned it out.

I think I may have to make an effort to walk familiar streets on a rainy day (and when I've got suitable clothing to hand) to see if I can spot the differences it brings, delving into this conundrum.

Wet weather photography

It's raining here, has been since mid-afternoon yesterday. Not the weather to get me out on the bike (but I enjoyed the sunny morning conditions yesterday), nor is it weather to inspire me to take the camera out.

This is a recurring theme - I don't take photographs in the rain. Even if I happen to be out in the weather, with a camera to hand, I don't press the shutter. Why not? Partly, obviously, is the general desire not to be out getting wet, nor risking screwing up the camera. Main, though, I think it's because I don't really see images in the rain. There aren't subjects that inspire me that wouldn't be done better when it's dry.

What is a wet weather aesthetic anyway? I've seen some stuff done in the wet, and it seems to focus around reflections & puddles. Gets to being the rain equivalent of glorious sunsets.

Anyone out there actually making pictures in the rain? What are the things you're looking for that's particular to the conditions?

The megapixel race is not over

There was much made of the new Panasonic DMC-LX3 camera announcement that stated that sensor had been enlarged (to a whopping 1/1.63") and resolution restricted to 10.1Mp. So is it a slow-down in resolution. Not likely, all the other, more basic, cameras announced at the same time had increased resolution on their predecessors to 14+Mp. Likewise other manufacturers. Until the sales process (from marketing to the stores) can get it into their collective heads that people need better pixels, not more pixels, the more this rubbish will continue.


The good news is we're getting another compact with RAW mode, burst shooting an wide-angle. The lens is even pretty fast. I've seen some (low res) first shots and low light performance seems decent. One wonders if there will be a Leica-branded version, too. For once I'm actually pretty interested from a buying pov in small cameras. Both this and the Ricoh GX200 look like pretty good contenders for my cash.