Photographs, Photographers and Photography

January 27, 2010

iPad – first reactions

Filed under: iPad — Thomas Pindelski @ 3:43 pm

Blah.

I put my predictions on the line yesterday and blew it in two major respects – the price (I reckoned on $1,000) and the lack of Blutetooth (iPad has it).

Having watched today’s presentation and read the tech specs of Apple’s new touch screen tablet computer, here are my first reactions:

    The Good:

  • Great entry price at $499+tax
  • 802.11n high speed wifi
  • I make the full diagonal to be 12.13″ so the 9.7″ claimed for the display area is likely true – that’s a good size
  • IPS screen technology will be great for accurate color photograph display if it can be profiled properly
  • 1.5lb light weight – but no mention of how much the charger weighs – I assume it takes forever to charge through a low current USB cable connection
  • Claimed 10 hour battery life – though I have difficulty believing that
  • Integrated with iTunes store for books, magazines, movies, music
  • If you have an iPhone/Touch you already know how to use it
  • Lots of apps already available though most will have to be rewritten to take advantage of the full definition
  • Bluetooth – let’s hope it works with existing wireless keyboards
  • No need to pay twice for tunes and apps if I read that right – the iPhone version can also be loaded on the iPad at no extra cost
  • Nice looking iBook application
  • iWork and iLife upgraded for touchscreen use
  • Components of iWork may be separately purchased
  • iPhone OS – lean, mean and hopefully fast
  • Claimed ‘instant on’
  • Monthly 3G telco plan available – no long term contract

    The Bad:

  • Glossy screen
  • No iChat camera
  • Poor storage capacity (16gB in base model – that’s only 1,600 RAW files – not much for an extended trip) but maybe the USB port is not crippled and will allow use of external HDDs
  • Uses AT&T not Verizon in the 3G (add $130) versions
  • No indication whether you can upload Lightroom or similar apps and whether the custom CPU can handle it
  • If it doesn’t run Excel and Word say goodbye to any corporate sales. Like it or not, these are the standard
  • No touch screen feedback when keys are activated
  • No indication whether the telco chip will support Verizon technology
  • No SDHC/SDXC card slot – bad oversight – more things to forget for your next trip
  • 4:3 screen not 16:9 – who makes movies on 4:3 any more?

    The Ugly:

  • Dumb as a brick name – “Honey, where’s the iPod?” said with an American accent reminds me of this
  • Ugly broad black bezel
  • Lower margin in an attempt to grab netbook market share – bad for the stock?
  • Probably fragile – a big expanse of bendable glass and lots of fingerprints to contend with on that glossy screen, not to mention your own reflection when in use
  • No support for Adobe Flash – whether you like it or not, that’s the default application for much video on the web

I would like to have seen more emphasis in today’s weak, self congratulatory presentation on other uses, like universal remote functionality, ability to host a business projection, photography, etc.

However, at that price, if the virtual keyboard works reasonably well and if the dockable external keyboard is well priced, this will be a significant challenger to low margin netbooks made by the competition unless the system is so locked that you cannot use applications of choice. Who in their right mind, for example, prefers iWork Numbers to Microsoft Excel for serious number crunching or Pages to Word for heavy duty word processing? My sense is that the old “never buy v1.0 of anything” rule applies strongly here and that my $400 netbook with its 500gB HDD, 802.11n and an SDHC reader, not to mention a real keyboard, just got a new lease on life. Even if it weighs one pound more – worth it for the matte screen alone.

Disclosure: No AAPL positions.

January 26, 2010

iSlate predictions

Filed under: iPad — Thomas Pindelski @ 8:58 am

Hype day is tomorrow.

Because I am both a user and an investor, Apple products interest me. Tomorrow, Steve Jobs will ladle additional hype on what is already the most over-hyped product since the iPhone.

I believe that the iSlate tablet will be a technological tour de force …. and a near-term commercial failure.

iSlate – artist’s impression

But first, let me pitch in my 3 cents’ worth (50% more valuable than the average out there, but still largely worthless) and guess at the tech specs. Much of this is pretty obvious based on leaks from suppliers. Either way, you can check me against tomorrow’s hyperama:

    Hardware: 

  • 10.1″ glossy, diagonal touchscreen
  • ARM 1gHz low power consumption CPU
  • 6 hr (10 hr in JobsSpeak) flat, non-user changeable battery
  • 2.5mm standard headphone jack
  • Crappy built-in speakers (”Greatest sound since Carnegie Hall” – SJ)
  • Virtual keyboard with vibration touch feedback
  • 64gB SSD (”Huge” – SJ)
  • SDXC slot card reader
  • iPhone socket, no USB sockets, to preserve connectivity premium
  • Aluminum rear case
  • Appearance like a large iPhone (”A design revolution” – SJ)
  • Fragile glass screen which will break as soon as you look at it (”Titanium tough” – SJ)
  • Broadcomm multi-carrier processor (VZ/TMO/T) for 3G
  • 802/11n (let’s hope) wifi
  • No Bluetooth
  • Universal remote capability
  • Under 2 lbs with charger (”Weightless” – SJ)

    Software:

  • iPhone OS, not OS X
  • iWork and iLife adapted to touch technology
  • iTunes integrated to include books, magazines, enhanced games and newspapers
  • Lightroom Touch (just kidding – it will take sleepy Adobe 2 years)

After the hype dies down, however, I believe the device will be a near-term commercial failure. There are a couple of reasons. First, I believe Apple will not include Bluetooth, making it impossible to use an external keyboard. To do otherwise would be to cannibalize their laptop offerings. So long term typing will be impossible on a flat, virtual keyboard, just like on the iPhone.

But the biggest cause of failure will be the price. Apple enjoys fabulously high profit margins on its costly hardware and cannot afford to sacrifice those or the stock, already priced for perfection, falls out of bed. So add up the component prices and you get $999 at a 35-40% margin. Absent the rabid fans, who in his right mind, in an economy headed for the toilet (or going deeper into the toilet, if you prefer) is going to blow a big one on a device like this when he already has an iPhone/Touch and a MacBook? Sure, give me Bluetooth and this is the perfect replacement for my netbook. But I simply don’t Bluetooth happening for reasons explained above.

Fine, so there will be two versions, like with the iPhone/Touch. The $999 wifi only one and a $599 one with 3G and a carrier subsidy. Now that carrier will charge the user $50-60 monthly for the 3G connection, so now your $600 toy has suddenly cost you over $2000. And you want yet another monthly bill in our post-Armageddon economy?

So my guess is that the technology in the device will be wonderful and, as the introduction will include promises that books etc. will be available through iTunes (content is King), near term hype will push Apple’s stock along and the fans will line up come the July availability date. But I fail to see how Apple will sell many of these in this economy at $999.

In a year or two the price will drop significantly, content will have grown, the fragile screen and bad code and overheating issues and carrier bottlenecks will have been addressed and Bluetooth will be added. Then it will start making serious money and the laptop computer as we know it will become a tablet device.

Disclosure: Long AAPL call options.

January 25, 2010

Audrey and Leica

Filed under: Photography — Thomas Pindelski @ 8:30 pm

Just watch.

And, yes, North by Northwest is a favorite for the train scene, amongst many other good things.

January 22, 2010

A Mighty Mouse replacement

Filed under: Hardware — Thomas Pindelski @ 4:42 pm

Microsoft? Are you crazy?

I’m on my third Apple Mighty Mouse – the one with the neat little scroll wheel. The first was wired and the last two have been wireless. Each failed for the same reason. The small scroll wheel gets clogged with grease and debris and eventually ceases to function properly. Apple’s recommended cleaning method is to place the mouse upside down on a clean sheet of paper, bear down hard and move it around. Certainly that works a few times and dirt comes out but after a while the fix fails, even if you soak the paper with isopropyl alcohol.

I tried the new Magic Mouse and was unimpressed. Transverse finger swipes are anything but natural for horizontal scrolling and the lack of the Mighty Mouse’s side buttons takes away the biggest feature of the Mighty Mouse for me – the ability to jump to the desktop, which is immensely useful for drag and drop of pictures into emails and the like.

After a bit of research I narrowed my choice down to a couple of competing products which were reputed to work well with OS X on the Mac. I finally decided on the …. wait for it …. Microsoft 6000. Yes, a product from the Beast of Redmond, at half the price of the one from Cupertino.

The 6000 comes with a DVD disc of software and, unsurprisingly, installation failed on my Mac Pro. Nothing changes.

However, I went to System Preferences->Mouse and found the Apple utility works fine (OS 10.6.2 – Snow Leopard) and that the buttons were set identically to those for my Mighty Mouse. I turned down the pointer speed which was crazy fast and everything was sweetness and light.

The (not so) Mighty Mouse and the Microsoft 6000 for comparison.

A couple of observations. The 6000 uses 2.4gHz Radio Frequency to transmit the signal, not Bluetooth, requiring the (included) receiver (the size of a dime) be plugged in to a USB port on your computer. So if you need to use it on another computer, you will need to transplant the receiver first. Scrolling is not quite as smooth as on the Mighty Mouse but close enough. Pointer movement is fine – I do not use pointer acceleration and cannot comment on it, preferring a ‘hard coupled’ feel. Fit and finish is excellent and Microsoft claims a 10 month life for the (included – alkaline, not lithium) single AA battery. We will see. While there’s an on-off switch, I’m leaving mine ‘on’ permanently and will see how long the battery lasts. Finally, if you do switch the 6000 off, the cursor appears immediately when the mouse is switched back on, unlike the multi-second delay with Bluetooth.

The ergonomics are fine. This is not a big mouse. I have an average sized palm and long fingers and the mouse fits well. Users with really large hands may find it too small. Those with smaller hands will probably feel right at home. The feel is slightly superior to that of the Mighty Mouse, the position of the side click buttons slightly worse – they are too high. The scroll wheel is smooth, unlike on Microsoft’s cheaper mice and also tilts from side to side for (dead slow) sideways scrolling. Finally, a first for Microsoft – their product does what they advertise. The 6000 scrolls smoothly on every surface I tried – glass, vinyl, rough carpet. Why, it even works on a mouse pad. The physical shape is symmetrical so ‘lefties’ should have no issues.

Some reviews have stated that the receiver overheats and blows but, so far, mine is running at room temperature.

Given my simply awful experience over many years with Apple’s unreliable hardware, I can’t help thinking the computing world would be a better place if Apple stuck to making software and Microsoft only made hardware.

That’s an awful lot of words about something as simple as a mouse but when they are focused on one of the primary interfaces with your photographs in Lightroom or Photoshop, it may make sense to get into so much detail, detail in which the devil resides. In the spirit of fairness let me conclude with words I thought I would only use when that same devil’s residence froze over: “Well done, Microsoft”.

Battery life update – March 30, 2010:

The red tell tale light started flashing through the top of the mouse today meaning I got some 9 weeks of use from the single alkaline battery – I use the mouse some 3-4 hours a day and never switch it off. I replaced it with one AA Lithium – it takes only one – and expect to get some 30+ weeks from it. When you install the new battery a green light shines through the top of the mouse for a few seconds telling you all is well. I remain delighted with the device.

I also managed to install the Microsoft software from their site and side scrolling now works properly; the software shipped with the mouse did not work.

Second battery update – July 1, 2010:

The second Lithium AA battery just died – so 12 weeks of hard use from that one. Impressive, and it only takes one battery. I remain very pleased with the performance of this mouse at a fraction of the cost of Apple’s jewelry alternative.

Better vertical scrolling – July 2, 2010:

The Microsoft Intellimouse mouse software is not very good at providing smooth vertical scrolling. To improve this, uninstall Intellimouse software (Applications->Utilities) and install SteerMouse in its place. All button functions are retained and remain programmable, and vertical scrolling is smoother. You can optionally switch on scrolling acceleration if you like.

Even better vertical scrolling – july 9, 2010:

Well, it turns out the SteerMouse people want $30 for their software which is too much. Shopping around I came across SmartScroll whose version 3.7 works with OS Snow Leopard 10.6.4 and improves significantly on Steer Mouse. Vertical scrolling is now even smoother, lateral scrolling is preserved and it comes with a free trial period, $19 if you buy. Further, the occasional erratic behavior of the mouse cursor I have experienced with SteerMouse is gone. A superior product.

Get it in white: The white version makes for a nice match with the Kensington Mac wired keyboard I use (a far superior feel to the ‘chicklet’ keys used on Apple keyboard and it doesn’t fail. Half the price, obviously, need I add?) right down to the matching chrome strips on both. Further, unlike the glossy black version which is a fingerprint magnet, the white one is matte and has no such issues.

Microsoft wireless mouse in white – a superior product

January 21, 2010

Get closer ….

Filed under: Photographers — Thomas Pindelski @ 3:00 am

Oh! dear.

Robert Capa famously remarked that if your pictures are not good enough, you are not close enough.

Maybe this lady photographer needs to get in a bit closer. Certainly, her man must have heard my thoughts – just mouse over the image for a bit of fun (requires Safari or Chrome browser to render).


Honey, I got it. G1, kit lens.

Snapped opposite the old Transamerica Building on Columbus Avenue in San Francisco.

January 20, 2010

Brands and investments

Filed under: G1/G2, Hardware — Thomas Pindelski @ 9:43 am

I don’t get it.

Every time some new hardware format appears you hear the usual carping along the lines of “Why do we need another lens mount”, “Why do we need another manufacturer”, “Why do we need another storage format” and so on. This is invariably followed up with “I have too big an investment in Brand X” and “Brand Y does not know how to make cameras”.

This thinking has me puzzled. My daily snapper currently comes from a company better known for washing machines and toasters, Panasonic. It has a unique lens mount and a unique format in the G1. Yes, I can adapt just about every lens known to man to fit but it makes no sense to do so as the camera then loses many of the automated features which make it so appealing.

When I bought it I didn’t think making toasters and washing machines was a problem. In fact, given the maker’s reputation, I saw it as a positive. And as for that ‘investment’ thinking, please. A camera is a consumer (not very) durable and depreciates daily. There is no investment aspect to it unless you are a collector of antiques, which are useless for photography. It’s simply a tool which loses value over time.

Given that I will likely dump the G1 for something better soon, I couldn’t be better pleased with my return on ‘investment’ which will look something like this:

Pictures taken: 10,000
Pictures retained: 2,000
Loss on resale of body: $250

Thus, my ‘cost per keeper’ is some 12 cents or so.

If you ask me, at the price of a couple of really nice dinners that’s the bargain of the decade, but it sure as heck is not an investment.

Dummy. (Depreciated) G1, kit lens in Little Italy, San Francisco.

January 19, 2010

Jeff Bridges

Filed under: Photographers — Thomas Pindelski @ 3:00 am

The real thing.

Unless something goes awfully wrong with the universe, Jeff Bridges will win the Best Actor Oscar this coming March 7 for Crazy Heart, the story of a washed-up Country and Western musician.

Now while I would generally pay serious money to avoid having to hear C&W music ever again, I make an exception here for one who is as good an actor as there is.

What I did not know is that Bridges is an accomplished doumentary photographer and you can see his images from both Crazy Heart and Ironman at JeffBridges.com. Like the man the site is funny, unpredictable, interesting and completely without pretense. Go to the Photography section and it’s clear just how hard making a movie really is and how many people work behind the scenes. Thanks to my mother-in-law for sending me there. His wonderfully quirky web site is just lots of fun and well worth a visit. Click the picture below to go to a video of him singing country music – he also did his own singing in the movie. One talented man.

January 18, 2010

Autoviewer

Filed under: Software — Thomas Pindelski @ 1:14 pm

A fast web display application.

I chanced upon the free application Autoviewer the other day which, once downloaded, can be used as a web display generator using iPhoto or Lightroom and comes in Windows and OS X versions.

I tried it with Lightroom 2 using the ‘Web’ module (first time I have ever gone there, believe it or not) into which Autoviewer integrates elegantly and within 30 minutes had uploaded a 42 slide presentation of recent street snaps which you can see by clicking the picture below.

San Francisco street snaps July, 2009 – January, 2010

Autoviewer uses Adobe Flash technology so it may be a bit poky on older machines. However, I used my netbook with its slow Atom CPU and it does fine. There are also SimpleViewer (tabular presentation) and PostcardViewer (what is says) options available through Lightroom 2, though the full screen approach seems to work best for formal presentation of photographs.

I know I have to edit this selection down, but thought a quick first look would be of interest, as I’m beginning to think that a slide show presentation is superior to the clickable thumbnails I have traditionally used on my web site.

January 17, 2010

HDR for street snappers

Filed under: Technique — Thomas Pindelski @ 3:00 am

If it moves, forget it.

I gushed on about High Dynamic Range photography ages ago here, meaning that the curative aspects of time have done their thing and forced me to reconsider.

You see, unless you have one of those blitzoid megabuck Nikons which take a bazillion snaps in the blink of an eye, HDR is useless if your subject moves. And this is not just the case with the street snapper’s target. A wavering leaf or a flying bird – if the images differ in subject matter, forget HDR. They cannot be merged without ghastly ghosting effects.

And as I’m a street snapper at heart, traditional HDR techniques do not work. Heck, it’s tough enough getting one good snap, let alone the three or more dictated by HDR. So, somewhat unconsciously, I have found that I am using the localized adjustment tools in Lightroom 2 a lot more. When I have a subject with challenging dynamic range, I will underexpose by a stop or two to tame the highlights and then bring back the shadows with a spot of localized exposure adjustment.

Here’s an example of what I am talking about. The underexposed original saw me bringing back the detail in the vendor’s face while leaving the reflective sculpture alone:

Chrome vendor, Maiden Lane, San Francisco. G1, kit lens.

So yes, this is still HDR, albeit with a street snapper’s twist.

January 16, 2010

Epson’s EVF

Filed under: Cameras — Thomas Pindelski @ 7:41 am

Now in quantity production.

A reader sent me a link to Epson’s press release with details of their new Electronic View Finder. What’s significant about this is that smaller camera makers like Ricoh and Pentax who lack the capital to develop something similar will be able to buy the part at reasonable cost.

Click the picture for more.

January 15, 2010

G1 discontinued?

Filed under: G1/G2 — Thomas Pindelski @ 9:45 am

Let’s hope for a GF2.

The 43Rumors site speculates that the Panasonic G1 has been discontinued.

That wouldn’t surprise me. The camera lacks the GH1’s movie mode (not a factor for me but doubtless bad in those tabular comparisons beloved of gearhead sites) and two years in a field with rapidly changing technology is probably as long a life as anyone can expect.

What would make me trade? Well, I’m hoping for a GF2 – meaning a body shaped like the GF1 with the deletion of the pop-up flash, this being replaced by the G1’s excellent electronic viewfinder – much in the same location as on the rangefinder Leica M models. The EVF can only get better and marvelous as the G1’s finder is, Panny can improve on its tendency to blow out bright lights as well as reduce the noise in lower lighting. The noise thing is, however, way exaggerated by the mass media. Which would you prefer? A near invisible traditional DSLR view or a noisy but bright one from an EVF?

Come to think of it, why not a slimmed down version of Panny’s own failed L1 which was overpriced and offered mediocre sensor quality and a lousy EVF in an oversized package? I would think that by now Panny has realized that the original marketing focus on point-and-shoot upgraders is too narrow and that the whole micro-four thirds thing is now becoming a very serious threat to all those gargantuan DSLRs out there.

The GH2/G2 – take an L1 and remove 30% of the bulk and weight.

And while you are at it Panny, please add a real click stopped ISO dial on the top plate and make that darned wheel less easy to depress so that I cease constantly going into exposure correction mode when all I want to do is change the aperture or shutter speed.

If, on the other hand, the G2 is just a warmed over thing with more buttons, I can see adding another G1 as a back-up when the body only price drops to $300.

January 14, 2010

Blurring the lines

Filed under: Photographs — Thomas Pindelski @ 3:00 am

Where does graphic arts start?

The hardliner in me loves Alcatraz. It’s what a prison should be, compounding a remote location which dares the prisoner to escape on pain of death by hypothermia, with the ultimate cruelty – a view of one of the world’s great cities whose sounds you can hear when the wind blows right. Thus heightening the meaning of incarceration, freedom just out of reach, is true punishment.

But the liberal in me sees those same factors as nothing more or less than cruel and unusual punishment, for no matter how heinous the crime, civilization can do better than that. Visit Alcatraz, look around you and listen to the excellent tour tape and you will know what I mean.

So the other day finding myself on the Marina at the north western end of San Francisco, I naturally couldn’t resist a snap of this forbidding, long unused, fortress by the bay. The icy, biting wind may make northerners laugh with scorn but it reminded me why you wouldn’t want to try to swim from the island to the shore.

As it was a blustery day and the haze and water mist were conspiring against visibility, I didn’t expect much and not much was what I got.

Alcatraz lost in the mist. G1, 45-200 @ 91mm, ISO 320.

But later, sitting at the monitor and thawing out, I thought I would try to make something of it. It took a while, masking this and enhancing that, but the whole process reminded me that nothing is real any more. And, candidly, I have no qualms making something half decent out of an image that would ordinarily head straight for the trash. The final version, antique coloring and all, works for me. The lines between photograph and illustration are now so blurred that nothing is real any longer.

Alcatraz prison in all its threatening splendor.

January 13, 2010

Bacall then and now

Filed under: Photographs — Thomas Pindelski @ 3:00 am

Neat idea.

Here’s an ad in the current Harper’s Bazaar that caught my eye:

The imitation.

And here’s the real thing:

The real Bacall.

Neither photographer, sadly, is known.

January 12, 2010

Cull ratios

Filed under: Photography — Thomas Pindelski @ 3:00 am

Digital doesn’t translate into lower retention rates.

I’m mostly a street snapper so when I return to my computer and insert the memory card from the camera, I have learned not to be too quick to hit the Delete button.

Coming off the high of another street session, it’s easy to let poor judgement rule so I have found it’s best to wait a day or two befrore culling pictures.

Now culling, for the most part is, I believe, a good thing. Storage is no longer a valid reason to cull losers as disk space is impossibly inexpensive, but the time spent on not having to keyword all those images and the greater ease in cataloging and retrieval make keeping only the winners the rational thing to do. A great image which cannot be found for all the noise created by hundreds of losers has less chance of ever seeing the light of day, after all.

So I tend to cull aggressively and that practice got me thinking about what I call the Cull Ratio – the ratio of deletions to exposures.

In the days of film there really was little need to cull anything. For a start you kept your film strips as taken and tended to scan the best pictures to disc in any case, keeping the original film as a back-up. Further, volumes tended to be far lower in film days. Bytes are almost free, film and processing anything but.

The other day I happened to notice that I had just taken my 5,000th snap using the Panasonic G1 and that statistic got me thinking about how many of those I have kept, never having taken so many pictures in so short a time with any camera before. I had bought the Panny in early-July, 2009 so clearly I have been merrily banging away since then to hit 5k in a mere 6 months. In turn I wondered what my retention rate has been for earlier days and other gear.

Determining the Cull Ratio for my film days is easy. I simply add up the number of images I have scanned to disc and compare that to the number of rolls of processed film in storage.

For the digital era it’s even easier. As I have my digital cameras set to perpetually record exposures using incremental numbering, I only have to take a look at the number of the last frame taken to get the denominator, and take a quick peek in Lightroom – where all my images, film scans and digital – make their home. That gives me the numerator to determine Cull Ratio which is computed as (1-(Retentions/Exposures))*100%.

So here are my Cull Ratios:

Film – 8/1971-6/2007: 89%
Canon 5D – 2/2006 – 1/2010: 78%
Panasonic G1 – 7/2009-1/2010 : 80%

I confess to some surprise at the Cull Ratio results. Off the top of my head I would have guessed that my Cull Ratio would be far higher with digital than with film when, in fact, the exact opposite is true. I am retaining on average 21% of my digital images whereas with film the retention rate was closer to 11%. That’s almost twice as high a retention rate.

In the film days I know I was far more studied in my approach to pressing the button. Partly because I had little money for the back-end costs and partly because I never liked processing and the attendant unproductive time investment.

In digital days you might argue that I have become less selective, keeping almost twice as many images, but I do not think that is the case. Yes, cost is no longer a consideration but it is not a significant variable either for, were film to be the only choice today, cost would no longer trouble me, and I would simply delegate the processing to save time.

No, I really think that digital has made me a better photographer, based on my Cull Ratio, for the three reasons:

  • Heretofore hopeless images – poorly exposed or lit – can often be saved with digital manipulation, made especially easy by Lightroom.
  • I am more inclined to experiment and take snaps which would never have had a chance of coming out in film days yet which now I take with impugnity, frequently finding I have managed to ‘get away with it’.
  • I think that my eye is better today than 30 years ago.

I’m not advocating any particular cull practice based on the above. Having thought I would write ‘you can never cull enough’ when first ruminating about Cull Ratios, objective data must rule supposition. So I have had to eat my words. And speaking of eating, here’s a recent digital image which would never have made the cut in film days – poorly exposed, poorly composed and awfully lit, it was saved by digital processing.

American grotesque. On upper Fillmore Street in San Francisco. G1, kit lens.

January 11, 2010

Panasonic G1 software updates

Filed under: G1/G2 — Thomas Pindelski @ 10:51 am

An interesting quirk.

As I mentioned in my first article on the Panasonic 45-200mm lens for the G1/GH1/GF1, the first thing I did was to update the software for that lens and the 14-45mm kit lens and, in the process, also separately updated the software for the G1 body when I saw that was also out of date.

I thought no more of those updates until, out of curiosity, I looked in Lightroom to see how many snaps I had retained (post cull) with the 45-200 since getting it. Well, it turns out that, based on the dates of pictures, Lightroom was pretty clueless about which lens had been used on the G1 until those updates were made! Now the lens used is correctly recorded when the picture is taken but until then it’s all ‘Unknown Lens’ – 99% of which will have been with the kit lens in my case. So either the lens or the camera software updates – I don’t know which – did the trick and now I have the comfort of knowing which lens was used.

G1 lens metadata from Lightroom.

Quite what use that information is in practice I’m not quite sure, but at least it is there. So if that sort of thing matters to you, it pays to make the software updates in a timely manner.

As of now I’m only aware of one reason not to make the G1 body software updates. Versions after 1.2 (I’m not dead sure which version but I seem to recall it was 1.3) will not work with non-Panasonic branded aftermarket batteries**. Given that the saving on grey market batteries is trivial, I hardly regard this as an issue but, then again, both my batteries are Panny branded so it’s easy for me to say that.

** If you are bound and determined to save $30 and prepared to accept the risk that the ‘fix’ may be broken with later software updates, you can buy an aftermarket battery for $22 here.

January 10, 2010

The year of the tablet

Filed under: Computing — Thomas Pindelski @ 9:17 am

Everyone is getting on the bandwagon.

Notice anything here, from my news reader?

Yup, it’s the year of the tablet computer. Quite why all these manufacturers are rushing to market when they have no delivery system for content – books, games and movies – I don’t know, but the one that does, Apple, will announce its version on January 27 and I suspect it will be worth waiting for. Sales are rumored to start in April, 2010. A direct, wireless link to iTunes is a given.

I’m hoping for not just a playback device but also a half-decent computer which will allow processing of pictures in Lightroom or the like. Here’s hoping.

Artist’s rendering.

Disclosure: Long AAPL call options at the time of writing.

January 9, 2010

Goya and snapshots

Filed under: Paintings — Thomas Pindelski @ 8:24 am

The first snapshot artist.

While Spaniards may have hated Napoleon for the invasion of their nation and the destruction of the ruling Bourbon dynasty they should, in fact, have been grateful to the French dictator. By hastening the end of monarchical rule, Napoleon effectively put a simultaneous end to the power of the Catholic church in Spain and ushered in a secular constitution with representatives elected by the people, not by Rome. Poor Spain. We think nothing of damning modern religious dictatorships while conveniently forgetting the cruelest of systems which denied citizens even the basest rights. That system, of course, was the Spanish Inquisition.

Nations of all stripes continue to use similar tactics today to deny people their rights – torture and execution in the name of the state – though the excuse is now national security rather than exorcism of witches. And the actions of our rulers are no more representative of the will of the people than were those of the Bourbon kings of old.

In the thick of all of this back in the days of the Inquisition was the Spaniard Francisco Goya (1746-1828). He was lucky to have died in his bed. While he took on a number of church projects – who wouldn’t when trying to put bread on the table – he was the most secular of painters. In his powerful etchings and sketches of the horrors of war and the Inquisition he documented, as never before, the evils committed in the name of a ruling power. His anti-war work reached a peak never before scaled by Western art in his painting of French soldiers executing loyalists on May 3, 1814. This snapshot-like vision was conjured up from his imagination, as he was too old and too deaf to be traipsing about the streets of Madrid while its citizens were waging guerilla war against the French enemy,

Goya – May 3, 1814, Madrid

Modern times make it far simpler to record the horrors of armed conflict and that fact takes away much of the power of the message. We are numbed by so much of this that it no longer gets through. While the most famous picture of the Vietnam war undoubtedly speeded America’s defeat and exit, few remember it now. It is Eddie Adams’s picture of a Viet Cong having his head blown off.

Unlike Goya’s snapshot, Adams had no need of imagination. He just had to be there. There’s a newsreel of the same event so it’s not like he was the only photographer there or the only one to see this ‘photo op’ coming. And, to his lasting surprise, he helped end a war in much the same way that Goya’s snapshot put paid to the Spanish peoples’ prosecution by church, state and invader. The difference is that Goya was recording with intent whereas Adams was just another guy with a camera.

And while Adams’s picture, in its own way, is no less powerful than Goya’s, I need not ask which you would rather have hanging on your wall.

January 8, 2010

Auto Blur™

Filed under: Software — Thomas Pindelski @ 3:00 am

Auto blur.

With smaller and smaller digital sensors lenses get shorter and depth of field grows. It’s tough to beat the laws of optics but, in my opinion, all those calling for ever faster small lenses to limit depth of field and thus differentiate the subject from its surroundings just don’t get it. That’s yesterday’s technology.

The faster the lens, the larger the lens, which defeats the whole purpose of compactness – the very attribute in a camera that makes you take it with you.

What I think is needed is what I call Auto Blur™. We already have face recognition technology. So why not add technology to blur everything that is not the main subject. Rollover the image to see what I’m talking about (renders fine in Chrome and Safari on my Mac)

Thumbsucker before and (mouseover) after AutoBlur™.

This is a typical G1 image with the kit lens at 18mm fully open at f/3.9. Everything is sharp.

Now, in this case, the background in the mouseover version was tortuously conferred using PS CS2 and the lasso tool – not my idea of fun – but why shouldn’t this be a simple user choice in the camera’s settings?

Software is cheap and weightless. Fast lenses are not.

Note to thieving designers: Auto Blur™ and the Auto Blur concept is a trademark of the author and I will sue your crooked behinds if you use it without paying me gobs of money.

Follow-up: Reader Peter Solmssen has alerted me to a Photoshop plugin from Alien Skin named Bokeh which provides many options for the blurring of backgrounds. However, the plugin is seriously overpriced at $199, as the key step – selection of what is to be blurred – remains the exact same time consuming process in Photoshop which I had to use above. So it’s not a solution. Combining face/shape recognition technology with auto-blurring is the approach for those who favor picture taking over picture processing.

Further follow-up: Reader Arun has pointed me to Nik Software’s Viveza 2 – see the Comments to this piece. I see two advantages and one drawback. The advantages are that you do not need Photoshop, as the plug-in will work with Lightroom or Aperture. Further, the selection tool in Viveza 2 is truly amazing – exactly what is missing from Alien Skin’s Bokeh which uses Photoshop’s clunky selection tools which are labor intensive at the best of times. But the key drawback of Viveza 2 is that it does not provide adjustments of sharpness which is what the above piece is all about. Instead (click the link provided at the end of Arun’s Comment) you have to resort to machinations in Photoshop once again. So if only Nik Software could add a sharpness slider to all the other sliders in their tool, that would seem to do the trick until Panasonic or Sony do this with in camera software. Or, even better, if Adobe decides to add this sort of thing to Lightroom – now wouldn’t that be nice?

January 7, 2010

Roy Hammans

Filed under: Photographers — Thomas Pindelski @ 3:00 am

A fine English photographer.

Roy Hammans wrote an interesting piece for this blog some thirty months ago on his experiences with Lightroom. Shortly after that I made the move from Aperture to Lightroom, a decision I have never had cause to regret.

What I have learned in the intervening period is that Roy is a fine photographer whose Ash Clippings site regularly showcases his work. It’s unfair to typecast any photographer by saying he or she is a ’street shooter’ or a ‘landscape expert’ or so on, but I doubt Roy would mind if I pigeonholed him as a fine English photographer because so much of his work features the subtle beauty of England’s countryside, lovingly rendered, whether it be as close as his garden or a Hardy landscape on a grand scale.

What’s most striking about his work is not just the fine eye and technical perfection, it’s also his grasp of a large range of techniques from plate cameras and litho prints to the latest in digital and fish eye gear. If you were to ask me what of Roy’s work speaks to me most it would have to be his Hull Series, as I think of it. Here, he has photographed the hulls of old boats in dry dock, on Mersey Island in Essex, in various stages of discoloration and disrepair and the results are simply an abstract dream. Here’s one of many examples – click the picture for more:

They beauty of abstract work is that the viewer can see whatever his imagination is equal to and this one is so clearly a map of the eastern United States it might as well be the real thing. Suffice it to say that if you like Mark Rothko you will love these.

Roy’s fine eye proves what I have always said – you don’t have to travel to find great subjects. Case in point, look at this lovely, gentle image of a pair of courgettes …. picked from his garden. That guy who did all those peppers would be proud.

Roy’s love of the sculpture of Henry Moore is clear in this beautiful photograph, perfectly lit, composed and rendered.

Again, click the picture for more.

But I started this piece by saying that Roy is a fine English photographer and few pictures could better explain what I mean than this charming, seemingly simple, composition taken in an English garden.

For me there are allusions to that great park scene in ‘Blow Up’, the scent of the English countryside and the sound and feel of a light breeze before the rain.

Be sure to stop by either Roy’s Ash Clippings photo site or his Weeping Ash site where he writes with the benefit of great experience and knowledge about photography and photographers. And if you want to die of envy, check out Roy’s purpose built darkroom/lightroom.

January 6, 2010

Lugs and wombats

Filed under: G1/G2 — Thomas Pindelski @ 8:43 am

Monty Python to the rescue.

One reason the news is always bad is because good news is boring.

Never was this made clearer than by the fellows at Monty Python who, responding to this sad fact, crafted a ‘Good News’ news broadcast. The presenter, big smile and all, repeated variations on the theme ‘And in more good news today, no wombats were killed on the freeway’.

The Wombat Good News is at 2:50 into the clip.

And chat boards are, for the most part just like the news and hospital waiting rooms. Both specialize in bad news. You don’t go there when all is hunky dory.

So it’s difficult to make sense of the fairly common complaint on Panasonic G1/GH1 discussion fora that has it that Panny’s best and brightest suffers from a potentially fatal defect whereby a strap lug will detach itself, leaving your favorite in pieces on the concrete sidewalk. I mean, ‘No strap lug detached itself today’ is right up there in wombat country. You won’t read about it. It’s a skewed sample whose statistical significance is impossible to determine.

Anyway, here’s hoping yours remain attached. Using a wrist strap doubles the load, of course, so I have $650 set aside in case one of my lugs fails and that I fail to prevail over the schmuck warranty lawyers at Panny USA. (It’s not personal Panny – I administer equal opportunity offense to the whole profession).

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