Photographic Preservation

There is nothing more distressing than coming across historic images that have been badly damaged by poor storage and handling.

 The papers and emulsions that made up the bulk of photographic records of last century were sturdy enough things to start with but when people failed to take care of them they frequently did not survive the lives of their subjects.

The autochrome on the top of the post is an example -the original plate was made with multi-coloured grains of starch that were dyed dufferent colours and then exposed through a tri-colour filter pack to yield some of the first colours shots. Unfortunately starch is ideal for the growth of mould if there is a damp and warm atmosphere. And it is nearly impossible to remove it without losing the image.

It's not just a matter for the antiques either - you can find paper prints from just a few decades ago that have been left out in the sun, or marked with stains and careless handling in every family photo shoebox - frequently they contain real information that you want but the condition has beteriorated past all saving. And the notorious sticky-sheet albiums of the 1970's and 1980's proved no better.

I will say that the manufacturers of the materials did not help in the mid part of the century. The Kodachrome slides stayed very well, and we can all be grateful for the fastness of the colour of both the original Kodachrome A and the improved Kodachrome II. But the Kodacolor films and particularly the Kodacolor prints avaiable in the 50's contained dyes that have proved so fugitive as to defy even the best restorative programs on the Epson scanner or the computer programs.

Really, when you see the sorts of problems that occur for the dedicated historian or just the family picture collector, you really do have to thank your lucky stars that we are shooting digital these days. We just don't have these sort of problems.

Freeing The Bird From The Nest

Awwww. that sounds so romantic, doesn't it. This should be a meme on Facebook with tiny bluebirds and hearts...instead of a camera shop blog trying to sell you stuff. Well consider the following.

The German, Japanese, or Chinese makers of digital cameras vie with each other for your money. They're not allowed to waylay you at the ATM and demand cash at gunpoint, so they do it by making better and better equipment - and convincing you that you need to buy it. That's also my job - trumpeting the goods.

 When the design departments of said firms think up cameras and lenses they know they need to work well and they need to do it right out of the box. The slightest hesitation or glitch will see the buyer move off to another brand. No names and no pack drill...but camera enthusiasts will remember some of the times when things did not go well in the last few years...

But they do want them to give good performance up front. So they design the cameras with factory default settings that will do it for you about 85% of the time with no further input. Charge the battery, insert a card and format it, and the little optical bird can pretty much sail out of the nest and fly straight away.

Of course there will be areas where pushing the buttons and ringing the changes will make things better for some people - and there are no end of sources of advice for this. The internet, books, camera club meetings, and photo seminars can all be mined for inspiration. Workshops and courses run by Shoot Photography Workshops are potent schools. You gradually learn what controls will do what for your own needs. And then you overdo it...

Don't be ashamed to admit it. We all overcook the egg sometimes. We start changing settings based upon the criteria of several different advisers and pretty soon our images are out beyond where the streetcars run. If we have done this gradually we may actually forget what the real image is and start to see reality as somehow lacking. We think that Heaven has been a bit skimpy with the colour or contrast or sharpening or focus or whatever and in our efforts to improve it we go completely off the boil.

Thank goodness for the design departments, because they understand us. They provide the Prodigal Photographer with a way to come back to reality - they have a "reset" button in the set-up menu. It generally throws out all our wireless and returns the camera to factory defaults...and to that 85% success platform. The bird is back in the nest.

If you have a camera in which every single control, from the lens release button on the front to the beer tap on the back, has been tweaked out of position I suggest you make this experiment:

a. Take a series of pictures - 20 or so of a wide variety of subjects in different lights.

b. Write down or take a screen shot of all the settings as they exist.

c. Find the "reset" button and press it. Go back to factory defaults.

d. Take those 20 pictures again, and then compare the results on your computer.

d. I won't say that all of the images will look better at factory setting, but I'll bet a few do...

Then be brutally honest with yourself - are the fancy tweaks and weird settings really improving your work? Is it time to give the design team their due and working with their recommendations?

"Just Bring Your Camera"

"And I'll give you something for your film".

These two statements were frequently heard in the analog era when someone wanted you to do a professional job of sports, event, or wedding coverage but did not want to pay a professional price for the result. You were foolish if you thought that it was going to excuse you from doing a professional job - that was still the standard. But you were not going to get paid. You were a relative. Or a mate. Or the relative of a mate.

It always went the same way. The cost of the film and processing was never fully paid - they gave you something but that something was based upon their recollection of the price of a roll of Kodak Gold  or Sakura film seen at the checkout of the local supermarket. If you presented them with the actual cost of the pro neg film and the processing at the pro lab they recoiled in horror and accused you of being a gouger.

Once the pictures were delivered they asked for the negs, and then they took them off and used the pictures without any credits or thank-yous. But they would pass you onto their mates at a party to do the same thing for them...at the same rates. It was like being a football - the boots that kicked you changed but the sensation was still the same.

Well, now everything has changed. Now with the digital era the mates of mates realise that there are no more films to be bought and no more lab fees to be paid...so they no longer have to offer anything in compensation. They are entitled under their rules of the game to demand all the RAW files, all the jpeg files, and frequently the memory card as well.  You'll sometimes be offered a drink - and that is rare - and sometimes be offered "exposure".

Exposure is the method the ancient Greeks used to dispose of unwanted infants on hillsides and it is equally effective on modern photographers. The only difference is the modern mates of mates will then tell the mates of their mates that you'll do their weddings/sports carnivals/car shoots/parties for free, and you can die on that hillside repeatedly.

"Just bring your camera".

The Flirty Thirty: the Sigma 30 mm f:1.4 DC Art lens

Well what the heck. We have talked about 50mm focal length lenses as "The Nifty Fifty" for years. Why not push the linguistic boat out, eh?

Why not indeed. And there are good mathematical reasons why you should consider this focal length. As mathematics are the food of the photographer let us begin the feast.

The standard focal length of a lens for a 35mm camera used to be stated as 50mm. It also used to be stated that the standard focal length was the diagonal length of the gate in the film plane. Here's where the two statements differed: the diagonal of the 35mm frame is about 43.4 mm. Thus if you were shooting with a 50 mm, 52 mm, or 55 mm said to be standard you were really shooting with a very mild telephoto...

That's enough to disturb some people so we'll pause while they breathe into a paper bag or lie down briefly.

There were some manufacturers - like Voigtländer - who put out good fast lenses close to this focal length - you could still get them a few years ago for the Nikon mounting and they were cracker sharp affairs. And just that bit wider than the 50 mm jobs. In many cases that were considered just perfect for universal use.

Roll on the digital time and the APS-C camera sensor...and the 18 mm x 24 mm sensor size approximating the half-frame of the  film era, but not hoiked vertically. ( Separate blog post will be coming on the naming conventions and sales mystique of sensors in the near future. Prepare to be infuriated...). If we apply the mathematics to this sensor that we did to the film gate we get a standard measurement of 30 mm...and we arrive at the subject of this post:

the Sigma 30 mm f:1.4 DC Art lens

It's only for the small frame cameras - the DC defines that - but there are no restrictions after that. It is MEANT to be the standard lens for a small DSLR and to do that job superbly.

Sigma have immensely improved their lenses in the last few years, in both optical design and barrel construction. They offer a full two-year warranty. They can compete with in-house branded lenses from the major body makers and users can confidently use them as their complete kit.

My investigations with this lens were via a mirrorless camera and adapter - this has been explained before. Thus I cannot comment on autofocus performance - but they were completely successful as far as resolution and freedom from the various forms of colour and shape distortion. So extrapolating my experience for those who have Sony, Nikon, Canon, or Pentax bodies, you can go for it with full confidence - you're not restricted to your own optical paddock.

The Big Camera For The Big Picture

Well, I saw it.

There it was in the Fridays Studio last night - Monday as it happened - the new Hasselblad H6D camera in both 50 megapixel and 100 megapixel versions. And a table of Hasselblad lenses that fit onto the camera. Also a setup with a computer, projector, and two professional strobe lights with soft boxes. All it needed was a very patient young woman as model and a professional fashion photographer to wring the new camera through its paces.

Well, he'd actually had a chance to have a go before the evening's presentation with some fashion shooting and was able to shows some of the results - large prints on the walls of the studio with amazing sharpens in the details. As the 100 megapixel camera is the industry leader at present for this sort of resolution, we had the privilege of seeing the cutting edge without getting hurt.

This new evocation of the Hasselblad HD system has added any number of conveniences and improvements - an improved range of ISO settings, 4K video, dual card slots, increased dynamic range ( 15 stops!), and a thoroughly better LCD screen with touch control.

Things is faster with USB 3.0 throughout and they have even taken to such of the fashionable modern improvements as the Q button - you get 8 vital functions displayed on that LCD screen at once.

One of the Camera Electronic staff questioned me about the size of the sensors - it turns out that the 50 megapixel model runs to a 33mm x 44mm sensor while the 100 megapixel variety has a sensor that is 40 mm x 54 mm. This is quite reminiscent of the 645 sized sensors of the film era A16 backs.

The new lenses for this class of camera have also been updated to include a faster 1/2000 second shutter speed and the flash shooters will be delighted to see that the X - synch speed can go all the way up to that top speed. Daytime flash fill could not be easier.

The photo demonstration, with the patient young lady, went well, as the ability to dial down the overexposures using the dynamic range was amply demonstrated. The camera is best suited to Phocus software...in this case the 3.0 version...though output can be sent to any number of other formats. Even rather harsh direct flash could not phase the system, and the obvious speed of the camera in processing the RAW files enabled the fashion shoot to flow very swiftly. Apparently the new tethered cable has a great deal to do with this - the simple fact of being more flexible and better connected makes a workflow difference. There is probably a fair bit of wireless capability there as well since they spoke of sending images to iPads while studio shooting is going on.

I think the high speed capture of the device is also at the top of the market, if a video that was shown is anything to go by. I was rather distracted by the photographer's use of cans of paint thrown in the air to make patterns of colour...spectacular, and possibly artistic, but probably the messiest use of a studio I have ever seen.

Let's hope the Fridays Studio never has to undergo that sort of cleanup...

Selling You - To You - For A Price You Can Afford

If the idea that you are a marketable commodity is a little startling, consider this; you buy things every day that are the essence of other people. Clothes, perfumes, wines, air compressor valves...all the items that make up the world are in some form the people who made them. When you buy a camera or a lens you buy quite a few people in one package - and if you buy one of the Japanese packages it is likely to be packed extremely well.

There is a dark side to this thought - you may think you are buying what you want to buy, but in reality you are buying what the designers and manufacturers want you to buy. That is all they offer. With the exception of the Leica bespoke camera section, you can't rock up and put in an order for your very own special gear - indeed you can do more of this at McDonalds than you can with camera equipment - you take what they make and the only choice is the combination of choices that are ready-made.

Okay - where DO you get to buy...you? If the gear is all ready-made off the rack what part of photography is made to measure? Answer; education.

You know what you like. You know what interests you. If you are lucky, you know what you know and what you don't know. If you can admit this to yourself, and want it to change, we can sell that change of you... to you. Wow.

Shoot Photography Workshops. It's not Uni and it's not TAFE and it's not your local camera club. Unlike the first it does not swallow up months of your life - unlike the second it does not put you in the company of career-seekers half your age - and unlike the last it does not subject you to people trying to beat you in a photo contest every month. It is a unique window into knowledge without pressure.

Every quarter something is offered that would suit a rank amateur - equally, every quarter there are offerings that would suit the rankest of professionals...basic courses, advanced courses, specific courses, and mist-vague artistic courses are there. The premises are conveniently located so that you can come and kill time in the shop between lectures. There is coffee, tea, soft drink, and decent biscuits.

There are lecturers who know whereof they speak. In some cases they are working professional photographers who have been going at it for years and have not starved yet - a good sign that they know what they are doing. There are enthusiasts who know technical subjects to perfection - you would be horrified to have them attach themselves to you at a barbeque but in the context of a lecture theatre they are brilliant. Get the newest information or time-honoured techniques and benefit.

It costs - Lord knows it costs - but so does every worthwhile thing these days. And it doesn't cost the earth. Shannon is the lady who runs the place and she is available on the web at :

shannon@shootworkshops.com.au

or on the telephone at:

9228 8232

and as the schedule and menu of knowledge is always changing, we suggest you call her up and watch the computer.

Note: My personal experience with one of the Shoot courses was very good - it took three weeks ( one evening per week ) and it equipped me to handle one of the image-editing programs for my computer. I've never looked back - this was enough to make paid professional work easy and possible.

One Of These Things Is Not Like Others

Oddly enough, all of these things do the same job - when inserted into the appropriate cameras they all take 250 images.

In the case of the Canon 250 shot magazine the camera you will need is a one of the F1 film cameras with a 250-shot reporter back. None for sale new, of course, and very few made when they were new in 1971, but you can always haunt ebay or Boris...You'll need a 100' roll of film to charge it, another 250 shot cartridge to receive the film, and a darkroom to get the stuff spooled up. It might be a good idea to go speak to the pro lab to see if their processing machine will cope with the length of the film you use. All up, figure about $1800 minimum for your 250 shots. Plus negative sleeves...

The 35mm cassettes will go in any 35mm camera so you might luck out there. Pick up an old compact for $ 80 and add the film...$ 90...and the processing...$ 125...well you'll be a lot better off for your  250 negatives. You'll only spend $ 295 for negatives.

Of course if you elect to get a new small compact camera and the 8 GB card you can also set 250 shots for about $ 209...but you can keep on snapping after that - the card will hold a lot more shots. They'll be in colour, but most computers will let you see them in black and white and you can even invert the image files if you are a freak for negatives.

I haven't costed out two and a half tablets of artist-quality drawing paper and a handful of pencils but I'll bet it is about the same price...if you draw in negative you'll need more pencils.

Note: the 250 shot magazine is a second hand item, but the Hoodman memory cards and the Kodak T-Max film are both new and readily available in-store or on our online shop.

Turn The Saturation Up To 11

Impelled by a sense of curiosity, I grabbed a half a dozen or so sample magazines that had been dumped on the lunch table at Camera Electronic and took them home. There were two free sample DVDs included with them so I got to play them as well.

It is a delicate matter for one writer to write about the writings of another writer. It can take on the flavour of undiscriminating fandom...or bitchy jealousy. I tried to look at the mags with an open eye.

It was an eye that watered. Not because of bad journalism or ugly photography - indeed most of the images printed in these magazines were really well done.The main problem was the overpowering intensity of the colour. The saturation, vibrancy, and detail were slid  way over to the right...and that was just in the advertisements. The actual editorial stuff was vibrating sideways off the page. It's hard to do that with a shot of a shingle beach in Yorkshire, but they managed to do it...

Okay. This is in contrast to the Australian Would-Be Professional Photographers Magazine Printed In Singapore. The AWBPPMPIS, as it is known in the trade, has an editorial policy - indeed it has an automatic program - that desaturates every image shown. This is to give an extra sense of drama, professionalism, and retro hip, and to save on the more expensive printing inks. These can be kept in reserve for the advertisements. It's a necessary economy these days. Fortunately web-based publication can still give full rein to the entire sRGB spectrum and the advertisers count on you having the screen set to laser-intensity anyway.

I did enjoy the DVDs - they were bright, simple, and gave a useful bit of information in each section. The fact that the information was aimed at the dumb end of the market is neither here nor there - that is my neighbourhood. Besides, even if you found that they were telling you something that you should have known but didn't, the fact that you could view it unbeknownst to your professional rivals means that you never need to admit to ignorance. Like voting in a federal election - as you are all alone there in the cardboard booth no-one need to know that that you endorse the local wacko party candidate.

Are they as good as the dear old publications of the analog era? Are they, as British magazines, as good as their American or Australia rivals? Yes and no. If they seem heavy on trick photography and computer manipulation, take comfort that you can emulate what they do with the images without the need for plumbing or organic solvent developers. You might fall prey to the occasional blue screen but you won't break out in eczema while doing it.

But they are a signpost to another thought about photographic knowledge - and we'll explore that in the next post.

" Everyone Who Has A DSLR Is A Photographer Now..."

Smile when you say that, pardner...

Unfortunately the man who said it to me this week wasn't smiling - he was glum because he felt that his expertise in the photographic business was being eroded by the new technologies. He was becoming discouraged.

He really shouldn't have been. He has top-notch gear himself and a wealth of experience. He has a name. And he is still young enough to remember it without looking at a name tag pinned to his collar...

While there is life there is hope. If he finds younger photographers grasping at areas he had to himself formerly...well that will be the case forever. Those young photographers will also have to do things that he would be frantic to avoid, and that is their punishment. God knows I have ventured into some of these events and now have learned my lesson.

It is inevitable that the dumbing-down of any art form or technical skill will meet eventually with the level of the unskilled worker. We saw it with the film era - the same shop that sold the Leica M3 sold the Kodak Retina and one lot of people bought one thing and one lot of people bought another - they both went to the film cabinet and got 35mm film cassettes. But their pathways diverged from there.

The paying clients in the end knew that the man using the Leica was going to do the job - the man using the Retina could please himself but was not going to be required to please others. They hired the Leica man.

They will hire the skilled chap I saw earlier this week - if he remains confident. And smiles.

Light The Blue Touch Paper And Retire

In the dear old days of film photography we used this fine product to do many things:

Cleaning dust from the inside of mirror boxes and rangefinder housings.
Cleaning dust from negatives on the holder in the enlarger.
Preliminary dust blasting for the outside of bodies and lenses.
Making soap bubbles in product shots.
Annoying other darkroom workers.

Now we are in the digital age and the uses become a little more vague. We can only think of a few.

External  dusting of cameras.
Dusting off the glass plates of flat-bed scanners.
Annoying other computer room workers.

Our technician recoils in horror at the idea of anyone blasting one of these air/propellant bombs at the surface of a digital sensor - and rightly so. The amount of gudgey damage and contamination you could do would be tremendous. Urrrg. Aaack.

So we would be delighted if our readers of the blog or the Facebook page would write in and tell us what we can do with our Dust-Off.

Go on. You know you want to.

I Want A New Lens - Which One Do I Think I Want?

Well, that's quite a question - but you can bet every photographer who ever snapped a shutter has asked it of themselves. Sometimes it was a good question and sometimes it wasn't...

We all had a first camera - in many cases the lens on it could not be changed. Our choice of which lens to use was that one or nothing. So we learned to use that one -when we wanted a wider view we stepped back - when we wanted to see a close up we stepped forward. In many cases we kept the sun to our backs and the squinting eyes of or subjects in front of us. At night we used a flash, or held the shutter open for a long time. There was Elvis, dinosaurs, and 50¢ hot dogs - it was a good time...

Then we ran into the limitations of the gear - the closeup went blurry when we moved under 3 feet. The landscape picture was nowhere near as wide as our own vision. Sports pictures had tiny little figures in the middle of a vast playing space - we could see them better with the naked eye.

We bought supplementary lenses to clip onto the lens - we could go a little closer with one, or get a little wider view or a little more enlarged view with another...and had all the perils of Pythagoras trying to figure out how to aim the cameras effectively once the new lenses were on. There was a lot of trial and error and language.

Now we have interchangeable lenses - we can start our career with a moderate zoom lens that sees a multitude of angle of view. It can focus far closer than the older film lens. It can see under vastly poorer light conditions. And we needn't make two trips to he chemist and a week's time to discover whether we got the shot. We can see it in a second - repeat the trial if necessary. But we still want a new lens...

Two recommendations: if you want the landscape buy a prime lens for your camera that is the widest one they make. If you want sports results get a medium telephoto lens for your camera. Take off your first lens, put on the new one, and go shoot for a solid month.

You'll see the world anew - you can go back to the old lens afterwards and see the world anew again.

Do this as many times as you feel the need - you'll gradually add to your own visual acumen and the armamentarium of glass. We'll be happy too - we're a camera shop!

Camera Electronic's Big Rack O' Volts - Promaster

If ever you needed a spare battery for your digital camera, now is the time to come in and get it. We have just put up a rack of Promaster rechargeable batteries that is about half the size of Tasmania.

There are modern batteries as well as slightly historic ones in the selection - and some from manufacturers that no longer make cameras. Altogether we have 95 pegs out with far more than 95 different types.

They are at an advantageous price and carry thee no-quibble Promaster warranty.

The really surprising thing is when you turn to the more ordinary battery rack on a side wall. There are the familiar D, C, AA, and AAA batteries that we all put into torches and kid's toys. There are the little flat 9 volt batteries that go into calculators. And the little silver cells that power cameras. All pretty standard sizes, and most camera manufacturers used to configure their products to take them readily.

So when did the camera designers thing it was a good idea to make the new gear with 95+ different types of battery?

Ah, well, philosophy aside, there are plenty of batteries for everybody now. Grab a spare before you go on your holiday or to the drag races. Or the drag show. Or Tasmania.

Killing Yourself Softly With Digital Photography

We try to provide helpful advice on a number of photographic subjects here in this column - a service to the profession and the trade...and all the rest. One of areas that may have been neglected up to now is how to injure yourself with digital photography.

Now we're not talking about harming your reputation with bad technique, dodgy subject matter, or dubious business practices - feel free to make your own way to perdition just as you wish. Be assured, you will have company on the road...

No. it's more physical than moral harm that we are concerned with here. And the news is not good - digital photography work is nowhere near as easy a path to destruction as the one with the older chemical processes.

In the dear old days you could poison yourself real good, real quick - if you were using mercury fumes or cyanide washes or ether vapour in the same space as a candle flame you could expect a prompt cessation to further care. Later on the black and white chemistry got safer but the advent of colour work with the organic solvents and dire bleaches and carcinogens brought the statistics back up.

You could also do wonderful things in a very short period of time with some of the early  electrical connections, safelights, pools of water, and metal workbenches.

When all else failed, you could fall over in the dark and pull the enlarger down on yourself.

Now in the digital realm it gets harder...no more chemistry. The computers are all sealed and earthed and you rarely use them in the sink with an inch of water round the bottom. You could swallow a lithium ion battery and harm yourself but it takes some doing. Hitting yourself on the side of the head with a 120-400mm zoom lens is difficult to do more than once.

Sitting in front of a monitor for 15 hours straight might be bad for you, but then so many people are trained to do this by their years of television that they won't notice.

Possibly the best result will be if you set the digital camera on a tripod and put it onto interval shooting and then link it straight to your Facebook account. Eventually your friends will get so sick of seeing you on their feed that they will band together to come round your house and beat you up.

It Never Happened - But We Were Absolutely Prepared Anyway

As the owner of a perfectly good set of digital cameras and lenses ( Fujifilm, as it happens.)
it might seem foolish of me to complain of what might have been in other times. Let's face it, when the photography world rolled round from silvered plates to glass sheets to flexible films to little weeny electric sensors there were a lot of things that could have happened, but didn't.

The two I mourn were the film cassette-shaped digital converter that was promised and the cheap 4" x 5" digital sensor.

The first came out as a mock-up and set of promises at an America photo and electronics show and got into the American photo press at the time. Apparently it was going to allow us to make digital cameras out of our 35mm film cameras. It sank without a trace and none of the lifeboats have yet washed up on shore. Our senior technician has assured me it would never have worked but that is little comfort - I WANTED it to work.

The promise of a cheap digital sensor for the 4" x 5" studio camera was also mooted at the time. We were told that things were set to become cheaper all the time in an exponential curve and that oriental manufacturers would ride in with a $ 25 sensor back for the Linhof and we would get 5000 megabyte files for free...Yeah, that happened big time. Let me show you the unicorn  pictures I took with the free plastic prototype that came in the Wheaties packet...

It is no different in the car world. That automatic plastic road that had the jet car with the bubble top in which I was scheduled to zoom to work while playing cards seems to have been mysteriously delayed - I do manage with a Suzuki Swift on Berwick Street and I pass my time dodging cyclists and wandering pedestrians.

I think the debt of gratitude that I owe to the advertisers of future marvels is starting to accumulate interest...

Yay! It's Here! Nikon D750 In-Store Right Now

Big news for the morning is:

The new Nikon D750 - the newest FX camera from Nikon - has just arrived in the shop.

Looks good, feels good, solid build, compact dimensions with a steady grip. Tilting screen. Highly specified and highly desirable.

If you have a lonely Nikon FX lens that is pining for some body...we're open until 5:30 every afternoon this week.

Time to Send Your Pics To The Show

Looks as though the Royal Show* is on again this year...as it is every year. Rides, sheep, tractors, hot chips, and photo competitions.

Regardless of your feeling about district displays or the cat show, do investigate entering the photo competition. It has changed dramatically this year as they've gone digital. Almost. The entries will be digital and those selected in the first round will be asked for in matted print form.

This allows the best of both worlds - you can put your best pixel forward and then the visitors at the show will get to see a classic print exhibition. Nowadays the inkjet means that everyone can be a printer...and you can buy pre-made matts. All you need to do is make the original picture.

There are several sections:

Youth
Open Colour Prints
Nature Prints
Australian Rural Life Prints
Creative/Altered Reality Prints
Open Monochrome Prints

And there are lots of prizes:

In each section 1st prize is $ 300 - 2nd prize is $ 150 - 3rd prize is $ 100.
Most Successful Exhibitor Overall - $ 500.
People's Choice Award - $250.
Best Print - APS Silver Plaque.
Best Youth - APS Herbert Medallion.
Most Successful WA Exhibitor ( Sponsored by WAPF ) $ 250.

I must say that the People's Choice one confused me because one part of the announcement promised $ 250 for this and another portion mentioned $ 500. Whatever - if you're popular, you get money...

Here's the links to find your way:

Main Competition page:

http://www.perthroyalshow.com.au/best-in-show/competition-entries.aspx

Perth National Photographic Competition page:

http://www.perthroyalshow.com.au/best-in-show/competition-entries/photography.aspx

On-Line Entry page:

https://s-perthroyalshow.com.au/oe/oelogin.aspx?sectionname=ph

We hope you will all have a great time with this - we'll be sauntering by with a handful of hot cashews and a showbag.

*IGA Perth Royal Show, apparently...

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...