Houston -The Dot Has Landed - And Taken Off Again

Well the Leica T is pretty much here - we had a product launch last night with Daniel from Leica showing the camera, lenses, and accessories.

If you want to see it today...you can't. He took it away again. HOWEVER...he and Saul promised that the whole shooting match will be back here in the shop on the 28th of May, in stock, supplies for sale - you bring money, you get camera.

The whole shooting match includes a range of accessories - two lenses are to be made with the T mount right now and more are coming. There is an adapter to let you use Leica M mount lenses on the camera. There are four fitted plastic cases and a leather model. There will be system cases. There is an electronic viewfinder with GPS in it. There will be a new flash. There is the best camera neck strap in the universe available for it and some pretty snazzy coloured wrist straps. The batteries are to be colour-coded for the camera colour - because they feature a metal plate at the end that forms part of the external surface of the camera.

The device itself is elegantly designed and uniquely manufactured. Only two buttons  -shutter and video start/stop. The rest of the commands go through the very large touch screen.

You are not overwhelmed when you turn the screen on - you pick the criteria that you wish to deal with and cache them in your own interface screen. If you are a steady customer you just need a few controls. If you are the type who jitters around a lot you can have a lot of things to fiddle with. Your choice.

As with many modern devices, it Wi's and Fi's and you can control it from your electronic ear warmer, pocket warmer, or lap warmer. If you wish to put it on the end of a pole and wave it over the wall you can fire it from the ground. Do not laugh - someone will.

The strap that we alluded to earlier is the best in the place because it plugs into the camera body with a minimum of fuss - you get to keep your fingernails - and it is a tough, smooth neoprene rubber. Entirely in keeping with the style of the camera.

The " Leica Enthusiast " who worries whether the company has done a good thing can rest assured. They have. It's an elegant but not as expensive option to the big 'ol M camera. It will develop its own line of lenses and followers. The geeks on forums who cannot afford to buy it will bat the idea of it about like they always do, but the people who can afford to buy it will have a wonderful instrument that takes wonderful pictures.

Circle The Wagons - Here Come The Native ISO's

The question about natives is...are they friendly natives?

The answer to this question sometimes depends on which side of he conversation you are on. ie. Don't ask General Sheridan and expect a comfortable answer...

In the case of the native ISO of digital cameras, this seems to be fixed around the 160-200 mark. I suspect that it is a characteristic of the actual component and is a function of the composition of the silicon layer and whatever the current state of division thereof. I have discovered that these sensors are manufactured by a very few companies - and in many cases well-known camera companies are using sensors that are manufactured by business rivals.

And they are all perfectly okay with this as each manufacturer takes the sensor and then does different things with the signal - one optimises it for one thing and one for another.

I was apprised of this by reading a book this weekend - " Mastering the Fujifilm X-E1 and X-Pro1 " by Rico Pfirstinger. It is a Rockynook book obtainable at Boffins Bookstore in William Street.

In the chapter that deals with ISO settings it makes the point that the native ISO of the two cameras it deals with is 200, and the camera always takes its picture at this 200 - even if you set it to ISO 1600 or higher. What it is doing to present you with a picture at that higher ISO is underexposing the image and then dealing with that underexposure through software. And apparently doing it very well.

This strikes me as true of all of them, and explains the improved characteristics of each new model of camera from any one manufacturer - they are not adding a new sensor in many cases - just re-writing the mathematics of the signal processing. Then I realised I was not reading carefully enough...

Fujifilm has a different sensor from others - it really does have a different pattern of receptor sites from most of the others, and can benefit users greatly in the way of resolution and clarity. The X-trans sensor may very well be quite different indeed. But I take it that it still looks at the world at 200 ISO and then just shuffles the electrons to get up to a clean 6400.

Who'da thunk it?

Second Generation Pentax Medium Format Digital

You can draw your own conclusions about buying photo equipment that is in a line of development - whether it is better to buy the first new thing or wait until the second model comes out.

This has been the case for medium-format digital cameras for some time now. One manufacturer brings of model A then model B and model C and so on. Where you climb aboard the trolley is your choice - sometimes that choice is dictated by performance and sometimes by money.

Up until now, Pentax medium format users have been working with the very good Pentax 645D. Performance reminiscent of the Pentax 645 but with the convenience and performance of a large digital sensor. The users of this camera have remarked on the similarities to the other Pentax range in the convenience and ease of use.

Well, we've swung into the second generation - the Pentax people have just announced that the new Pentax 645Z is ready for release.

That convenience and ease of use has been preserved, and to some extent improved upon with a tilting 3.2" LCD screen at the rear. Think waist-level finder in the studio. No more aching-back shoots!

The specs are good - 51.4 effective megapixels in the sensor - 3 FPS - full HD and 4K interval shooting. USB 3.0 connectivity.

The sensor is 43.8mm x 32.8mm so you are getting a great deal of information into your files - this is coupled with a new light metering system for success even in difficult exposure conditions.

And final joy - it is a weather-esealed body. Go into the field with confidence.

Watch This Space - Bookshop On The Move

We don't normally advertise other people's business here at the shop, but here is an exception for our photographic customers:

Boffins Bookstore is in the process of shifting its premises in Perth. It has occupied a position on Hay Street for decades and has established itself as the premier technical bookstore in the state. Actually it has outlasted most of its competitors, but done so by dint of good stock and good service.

I believe it is going to open again in William Street in the central block opposite Wesley Church with larger floor space and more departments. As I pass the site on the bus in the morning I eagerly look to see when it will open. Hurry, guys, hurry...

All this being said, I would encourage all of the Camera Electronic clients to look down the back of our place at the book shelf near the back door. We will be stocking it with lots of odd secondhand titles that pertain to photography. You can get a lot of ideas - some of them good ones - from books, and you can learn far more than the limited attention-space of the internet will present.

Note: I must confess a personal interest in Boffins. My daughter spent years working with them when she was a student and I have spent hours and dollars in there. My bookshelves at home groan with the produce of this shopping. No book has ever been unprofitable...

Get Outta Town With Panasonic Lumix GX-7

We sometimes poo poo the programs that major Japanese manufacturers put into their consumer-oriented cameras. You know - the miniature effect or the star filters or the forced HDR. Kid stuff, Mum and Dad concepts, nowhere near as sophisticated as we hot shot iconic international superstar mentor legends can be before breakfast. Poo. Poo.

Well, I have decided to keep my poo to myself in the future. I was given a Panasonic Lumix GX-7 camera to use for a recent trip to Japan - also courtesy of the Panasonic people. We went up on a Wednesday evening to the top of the Roppongi Hills Tower to see Tokyo at sunset. Fortunately it was clear - heavy weather set in the next day and the heading image shot would have been impossible.

The windows are big - wide and tall - and crowded with tourists looking to see that last flash of sun and the "blue moment" just as it sets. They are packed all along the windows of the observation deck. Fortunately they are small people and I am tall. And I have long arms. So it was easy to swing out the LCD screen from the back of the GX-7, angle it down, and raise it way high up over the rest of the shooters.

The camera was set on one of the special art settings - called "dramatic" or something like that. It was dead set easy to shoot and the picture you see here is just a jpeg straight out of the box. No big computer time. No colour changing by me.

Okay. Perfect setup and timing, luck of the draw. Good special program for this sort of thing. Whatever did it, I am happy  with the result and can readily recommend the camera to anyone. It was a delight to use.

I Pressed The Print Button, But Why Does It Look Like That?

It looks like that for any number of reasons:

a. It is an autochrome. Made up of dyed grains of starch bound onto a glass plate. With an autochrome any image is a good image and if it has survived the last 100 years without cracking or fungus you have a museum piece.

b. Your print heads are clogged. Run a nozzle check on your epson printer. if the little pattern of checking squares has missing segments, run a head clean cycle. Check again and repeat if necessary. Eventually you will have a full checking pattern and a clean print.

c. You have got a massive imbalance between what you see on your computer screen and what your printer is being instructed to do. Have you calibrated the monitor screen lately? if not, try one of the Datacolor Spyder range of monitor calibrators. Do it regularly.

d. Is your printer confused as to who is in control? Have you given it double instructions with your image programming fighting with the in-built printer control. Choose one. Turn the other off.

e. Is your printer aware what sort of paper you've dropped in it?  You could probably print on sultana bread toast if you set the printer head high enough, but would it make a baby portrait look good? Be sensible with your paper choice and load the appropriate profile into the printer before you start. If in doubt, stick to the manufacturer's own paper.

f. It's your eyes. Visine in each one and a night's sleep. If your image in the mirror in the morning looks as bad as the print, see your opthalmic specialist. If he looks as bad as the print, you may have to be content with life as it is.

Long And Low At the Hot Rod Show - with Fuji and Nikon and Metz

The great experiment conducted over the six months regarding a camera for hot rod photography has yielded results. The Fuji/Nikon/Metz lash-up does pretty near everything that the Nikon/Nikon/ Stroboframe outfit did, and it does it easily enough that an old guy can carry it round in the sun all day.

If I am prepared to carry a second Nikon SB 700 on a little Manfrotto stand I can get great illustration of the front grille and the side panel of even the long cars. Of course, if you are dealing with something white like the '59 Impala you can get a lot more value out of those flashes.

How does this help you? If you are going to go out and climb Bluff Knoll with a camera kit bouncing in your backpack, consider whether you want that camera kit to weigh 3.5 Kg or 1 Kg. It's your back going up and it's your back coming down, and it's your back sitting in the chiropractor's waiting room...And those of you who have spent a fortnight on Ibruprofen and Voltaren can back me up...

Also consider whether you need to go to a shoot with 5 lenses. I used to do just this in the dear dead Hasselblad wedding days. Everything in the HB box including the 250mm tele lens in case the bride escaped and I needed to shoot her before she got over the horizon...My assistant, Igor, used to hump the bag and the tripod and the extra flashes and the film and the bag of rocks...( I never actually told him about the bag of rocks...) and never complained. Fainted occasionally, but never complained.

Eventually I discovered that I was using two lenses for the whole wedding. An 80mm and a 50mm, and the 50 only came out of the massive case for 5 exposures. I eventually rationalised the whole thing by leaving out half of the glass and most of the fancy little accessories. It freed up a lot of space in the case...for more rocks.

That is history - the Hasselblad outfit is long retired and recently sold, and the new owners can risk their vertebrae at their leisure. Weddings still need extra gear for back-up safety, but this can be hauled in a roller bag. Lithium AA cells power all three flashes and these are light weight. Igor looks healthier, and after-shoot processing is so much faster.

I still pack a bag of rocks but these are only in case the bride proves sluggish. And I never throw rocks at hot rod shows. Some things are sacred, you know...

Moral of this tale: Buy right, pack light, allow for wind direction when throwing rocks.

To Market, To Market To Buy A Fat Lens...

Did goe to the Photographic Markets yesterday and was greatly entertained.

The view from the seller's side of the table is different than from that of the buyer's. It reminded me of diagrams I have seen of the circulation of the blood - the individuals representing the red corpuscles drifting by. Occasionally pausing, and sometimes aggregating. Which is a nice way of saying acting like clots.

For the most part people are very nice. They look at the gear, hoist it round, put it down, move on. Or ask the price. I have learned to make a large sign with the price on it, so that we are both able to see it - it saves a deal of misunderstanding.

Of course, the nature of a market being what it is, some wish to bargain it down. I am not offended by this, though I generally pitch my prices low enough that this is not necessary. And I have learned to politely maintain my pricing...it works out well in the end. I have also learned never to offer anything that is not good value for money, nor anything that is unreliable. Better to throw it away at home than offer to sell it if it is going to disappoint someone else.

A couple of words of advice to those who would be buyers...you will get better reception for your bargaining if you do not attempt to talk down the equipment you are bargaining for. In the case of gear that has been personally owned and used by the seller, they understand it far better than you, and have at least some residual interest in it. If you pooh pooh it you are effectively criticising them...they may take umbrage.

Likewise do not try the old trick of bad ears...where you ask the price and then echo it but subtly alter it down to something that sounds the same but is 10% lower...hoping that the seller will be confused and agree. Particularly don't try this is you have a large printed sign in front of you...it won't work. Not even if you do it in a heavy accent.

When someone has no price tag on an item, you can legitimately ask "What is the price?" or " What will you take?". You cannot use this latter question if there is a printed sign - you would be asking the seller to start bidding themselves down while you stand back. By all means haggle -  but do your own haggling and don't expect them to do it for you.

Are you free to offer advice to other buyers while you are standing there on the buyer's side  about buying or rejecting something on offer? Yes, it is a free country. Of course the seller may then suggest that you are doing this for your own benefit, and raise suspicions of you being either a shill or vulture. If the feathers sound like they fit, be prepared to wear them...

All the above being said, the morning can be fun. The people who purchased some of my surplus equipment are intelligent and artistic people who will benefit from their purchases. I will benefit from the return of cash. We are both happy. And the coffee stall always has some very good home-made baked goods.

Baked goods are also necessary for the circulation of the blood.

Uncle Dick

Authentic Photography

A few years ago I decided to be an Authentic Photographer. So I went out and bought things to make myself look like I was living in the 1950's. It was an easy choice - I still had a number of inherited articles of clothing from the time in my wardrobe and they were not worn-out yet so all I needed to add was the camera and film and darkroom equipment and film and chemistry of the period.

I chose a Crown Graphic camera and a Graphic View with lenses and shutters from the same company - I think the glass was by Wollensack. I chose Ilford HP5 and Kodak Portra 160 sheet film. I used Rodinal developer and Fuji's version of C-41 chemicals. the paper was Ilford Multigrade IV. I ate pastrami sandwiches and drank cups of tea.

I include the last reference because I haven't have a big breakfast and I'm hungry. It is equally authentic and equally false. The photography of the 1950's had nothing to do with me - any more than it had to do with C-41 chemistry from Fuji or Multigrade IV. I never encountered pastrami in the 1950's - we called it corned beef - and I didn't drink tea. The whole attempt at being authentic was actually playing at being someone else.

So I sat and thought what would be " authentic ". I could go out and capture the universe on a Kodak Starflash camera if I care to - you can find them at junk sales and on eBay. I could wind the clock forward to 1966 and get myself an Asahi Pentax SV and some Plus X and  Kodachrome II. Or not, as the Kodak case may be...

Would my pictures look better? Would I be able to go to the hot rod show and bring back certain results? Would I spend 5 x the amount of money and time getting 1/5 of the results? I think I know the answer to that question...

This train of thought was occasioned by seeing a van on the road this morning with the sign " Authentic Bathroom Renovations ". It caused me to ask myself what an inauthentic bathroom renovation would look like...probably a lot like me with a Crown Graphic camera.

A New Year's Resolution

New Year. New financial fear. Added to accounting for a new calendar year, new religious year, and new car license year...every year...it is a wonder that we can remember anything that we have resolved. I have taken to putting stickers around the house to remind myself, but I sometimes forget where I put the stickers...

Never mind. If we are enjoined o make moral resolutions for the religious new year and practical ones for the calendar new year, I guess we can make financial ones this month. Here goes.

I have a bundle of old camera equipment that is sitting in the studio and the safe - unused for 5 or more years. If it was socks there would be moth holes in them - as it is there is figurative dust accumulating. It is time to turn these still-fine items into new items that I actually will use.

I'm lucky - I have gear that still has some intrinsic value - not much, but a little. I can offer it for sale knowing that there are actual customers for it. My resolution is that I will get off my rusty and actually do it. The return of some money will be one thing, but the real benefit will be that it will clear the mind of sitting and wondering what to do with it. Once gone and converted to a new lens I will be off to new adventures.

May I suggest the same to you? If your old gear is truly old junque...I realise these are strong terms, but we are adults now...give it to a charity. Or take it to the Workshop Camera Club camera market and set up a stall and learn a great deal about human nature in the space of a morning. One tip - sniff. If granddad's dear old 35mm Flapoflex or your automatic film compact smells like vinegar or old socks or a rabbit hutch in hot weather, ditch it in the bin.

If it is not bad and not cheap and not broken, a professional dealer may express some interest - but generally only if it will have a profitable resale. Be honest with yourselves - if no-one wants to buy it from the newspaper or Gumtree or the camera market, they are not going to buy it from a shop. Time to be realistic. Bin.

So where has this blog gone? Round in a circle, I daresay, but at a tangent from that circle will be some benefit from the turnover of the gear that is just sitting there. I am sentimental about it, but then I am sentimental about Curtis Lemay and the 21st USAAF and that never gets me noticed at parties either.

Change.

Caught In The Web - Who Owns What?

I knew a man once in a gun club who drove an old, expensive motor car. As he derived his income largely from diving into the public charity purse, I was amazed that he would sacrifice so much of this for that old car. His excuse was that the car "owed" him too much money to abandon. In the time that I was acquainted the overage and overstressed nature of the car increased this debt to him alarmingly.

He did not own the car. It owned him. He had mentally lashed his wrists to the steering wheel and no matter how many people told him it was foolish, he did not see this.

Go look into your studio, or your camera bag. Is there something there that " owes " you money? Are you keeping it until it apologises to you and pays up? Put your ear down close to the piece of old equipment and demand your money. What do you hear?

If something is occupying space that could better be used for some other purpose - if something demands constant attention and maintenance but is never returning the price of the maintenance - if something is long passé and you truly are never going to make use of it again...then retention of it is not just pointless, but actually harmful.

Consider my own case - because I am just as great a fool as my erstwhile companion at the gun club. I have a full-house Hasselblad 500-series outfit - two bodies, four lenses, bellows, prisms, accessories and flashes - that used to be the mainstay of my wedding shoots. Times has changed - I shoot Nikon digital now and do more for less expense and in a great deal more comfort. But I still retain the Hasselblad outfit against the day when digital backs for it will come down to $ 45.83 in price. Not that I need it even then, but it " owes" me soooo much. I seem to have got older without getting smarter...

The Linhof monorail system I own is another case in point, though I do think there are a few uses yet for it in my studio. I try the historic photo bit every now and then, and monochrome sheet film is easy to develop. I also suspect that the tilt/shift capability of the system is still a good idea for tabletops.

So what is lurking in your outfit that you should abandon? Sell it, if you can - there are markets and ebay and Gumtree and such if we cannot help you. Be prepared to put something up on a shelf and admit to yourself that it is just a keepsake, but for heaven's sake don't put the entire 1967 Flapoflex system with bellows, stereo slide. and duplicating stand in your camera room where a useful hard drive or scanner could be. Worship not the god of old aluminium and fogged glass.

Uncle Dick

Many Thanks

A cheerful thank-you to the phone caller who explained what synch cords are. I have been puzzling about what those things are since 1965. By Golly, you learn something every day...

Apparently these cord things go from a radio trigger to a flash gun. I am amazed, because I normally use lycopodium power spread out in a tray and ignited with a flintlock mechanism to provide the studio flashes. The idea of hooking up one of Mr. Marconi's wireless sets to this seems revolutionary.

Quite how the Packard shutter on the studio Calotype camera operates the transmitting key of the Marconi machine is still unclear. I daresay the young man will explain it when he comes in later in the day.

I hope he remembers to shout into my ear trumpet...

The Wurst-Käse Scenario

Many people have seen the uniforms of troops in the German army and noticed the various pouches and attachments that they have on their gear, ammunition pouches, entrenching tools, gas mask containers, etc. Few know the significance of the small sealed box on the upper left hand strap of the 1917-model field webbing.

It is seen in old photographs of the period and can sometimes be offered in militaria auctions. Rarely is it seen in the unopened form, but recently at Denby's in El Paso one of these originals showed up and after it was sold the collector who had bought it agreed to open it for the camera. It contained the  remains of three small sausages and a block of extremely hard cheese - the seal must have been good enough to prevent total spoilage over the the last 90-odd years.

The collector explained that this was the emergency ration of the observation-corps soldier, to be used only if all other rations had been expended, he was trapped far behind enemy lines, and on the point of death from starvation - the seal was to keep the food edible but there was a military law that forbid breaking it under any other circumstances.

It was the the sort of dire situation that gave rise to the Wurst-Käse scenario...

Which brings us to the topic of this post. Most people come into the shop looking for the best camera. They all ask for it. They all search for it on the internet. They all know someone who has advised them to get it...

Hardly anyone comes in looking for the worst camera. Oh, there are a few who do - they are very special people. Very. Special. And they have got me thinking that their approach to the art and science of photography might be a good test for the rest of us.

To that end, I shall be proposing a small contest later in the year - open to amateur and professional alike. There will be publicity, prizes, and probably art. Or artillery. Either way, there will be sausages and cheese.