Photographs, Photographers and Photography

Archive for November, 2006 - click any heading for the full Article

30 Nov 2006

A tale of two lenses

Some empirical tests deliver surprising results.
Being the ’serious’ photographer in the family, the sad responsibility of selling off everyone’s film cameras naturally falls on my shoulders as we all move on to the world of digital picture taking.
I made mention of my mother-in-law’s magnificent Kodak Medalist II earlier, at which time I also sold her […]

29 Nov 2006

HP ink costs

The old HP 12C helps out.
In my piece on framing Really Big Prints I guessed at the cost of ink used by that frugal beast, the Hewlett Packard DesignJet 90 printer.
Well, in the HP engineering spirit, I whipped out the old 12C and set to work.

Checking the ink levels on the printer showed the following:
Yellow […]

28 Nov 2006

The Christmas snap

It cannot get any simpler than this.
Almost a year ago I wrote why I believe it makes no sense for a photographer to process his own small prints.
I am more convinced than ever that this is true.
Here’s a time line for this year’s annual family picture mailed to all our friends:
11:30 am - Family commences […]

27 Nov 2006

A fool and his money….

Don’t be a Red Dot Fool.
Despite all the publicity telling the world that all Leicas, save the M8, are made by Panasonic, there are still a lot of Red Dot Fools out there. You know, camera buyers who buy a Panasonic digital which Leica has emblazoned with its name and added a 2 cent […]

26 Nov 2006

One hundred yards - Part III

Some of the best pictures are one hundred yards from your doorstep. Or less..
Given how much time we spend in our homes, it’s surprising that many photographers feel they have to journey to remote, exotic locations in search of picture opportunities. They arrive tired, are in a strange location which they have no […]

25 Nov 2006

Aperture for monochrome pictures - Part II

In Part I I looked at the use of the Highlights & Shadows adjustments to make a wan sky more dramatic, after having converted the color original to monochrome using the default settings of Aperture’s Monochrom Mixer in the Adjustments HUD.
The approach for selectively darkening colors in this journal entry is more powerful and more […]

24 Nov 2006

The Leica M8 debacle

A product recall so soon?
The premature release of a flawed camera by Leica, their M8 digital rangefinder, is coming to a very unhapp