Monthly Archives: July 2010

The state of the art

July 21, 2010CamerasThomas Pindelski

Technology continues to amaze.

Two press releases from Panasonic today, detailing the features of their latest superzoom, the FZ100 and their newest ‘luxury’ compact the LX5 shows how the state of the digital hardware art continues to progress.

But does it make toast and coffee?

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The FZ100 offers a startling zoom range of 25-600mm (FFE) in a one pound body, movie mode and built in flash. The multi-position LCD from the G1 is included, as is 11 frames per second sequential shooting and a 15 megapixel sensor. You get all of this for $500. Whether anyone will ever get sharp pictures at 600mm absent a tripod (how many buyers will spend the necessary $200+ for a really sturdy one?) is debatable, but it’s an awful lot of camera for awfully little money.

At the luxury compact end (meaning you pay up for a Panny lens with a Leica sticker) the LX5 is no less impressive. The camera’s ‘Leica’ lens retains its f/2 maximum aperture but the zoom range is now a truly useful 24-90mm and you can now fit the so-so clip on EVF designed for the GH1.

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That adds bulk and ugly, but you can see how the design experiences from the G1 range are reflected in both cameras.

Which leads me to the inevitable conclusion that the GF2 – a GF1 with the much better G1 EVF – will be here any day soon. A Leica shaped body with superior G1 range lenses and, finally, no faux prism hump.

So until that super zoom adds an f/2 aperture and a big sensor, the GF2 may be the next to see a home chez Pindelski. But the days of interchangeable lens DSLRs are surely numbered.

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Street Snaps 2009-2010

July 20, 2010eBooks, PhotographsThomas Pindelski

My new FREE book.

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Online publishing being the thing of the future, I have created a new book in PDF format which you can download free by clicking the picture below.

All but the first were taken on the Panasonic G1 with its kit lens; the exception was made on the Canon 5D. All snaps were taken during the past year in San Francisco.

You can view these in a browser of your choice on your desktop or laptop or, better still, save (File->Save as…) the downloaded PDF file and drop it on iTunes to sync with your iPad or, even better, if you use GoodReader ($0.99) on your iPad get the free GoodReaderUSB utility, plug your iPad in and drag and drop the PDF onto your iPad where you can then view it in GoodReader. (To mitigate image theft I have disabled right-clicking on this site).

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This PDF was created using the slideshow PDF export capability of Lightroom 2/3. The PDF file was then opened in Preview and the cover and colophon pages, created in iWork Pages and saved as single page PDFs, were dropped in. The whole thing was then saved again as a PDF and uploaded to my server. Lightroom 3 does allow you to add Intro and Ending pages but I didn’t notice that until it was too late!

The file is 14mB and should download fast – 45 seconds here. It is optimized for viewing on the iPad. You can also download the book by clicking on ‘my books’ in the right hand column, under the ‘links’ tab.

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Enjoy!

Update July 21, 2010: Now expanded from 44 to 100 photographs.

Death of the lighthouse

July 19, 2010PhotographsThomas Pindelski

Technology moves on.

To the extent that they are still in use, lighthouses are now mostly automated, using solar batteries and no human labor. GPS and sophisticated guidance technologies killed them. Yet I find I can never resist checking one out when the opportunity arises, and a drive along the California coast offers many such opportunities.

These were snapped at Pigeon Point on Highway One, on the way from San Francisco to Santa Cruz. All snapped on the Panasonic G1 with the kit lens.

Lighthouse keeper’s hut.

Why not make it beautiful?

Weathering.

Ventilation inlets.

A World from my Balcony

July 18, 2010Architecture, PhotographyThomas Pindelski

Thank you Ruth Orkin.

In her now out-of-print book ‘A World through my Window’, photographer Ruth Orkin showcases pictures taken from her Century Park West window, facing New York’s Central Park. Taken over many years and seasons they are an eloquent testimony to the fact that it’s the person pressing the button that matters, not the subject, and that you do not have to travel to exotic locations for great pictures. After all, isn’t New York exotic to anyone not from New York?

I have long been a believer in Orkin’s philosophy and never hesitate to rush to the window with my camera when the opportunity presents itself, wherever I may be. The other day found me in Surfer City, also known as Santa Cruz, a beach town in central California where seemingly 99% of the residents surf and 99.5% are teenagers. The accommodations available are mostly suited to this cross-section of the population but if there is one standout it’s the Dream Inn at the foot of Cliff Drive which is not only the single hotel actually on the beach it is also probably the tallest building in town, at ten stories tall (that’s nine to UK readers).

As luck would have it, not only was the view from the ninth floor window spectacular beyond words, I also just happened to have that little wonder, Panny’s 45-200mm lens for the G1, with me. And cranked out to full extension (equal to 400mm on full frame) you get a myriad of photos presenting itself to your lens. This is a very long focal length lens fully extended so even though there’s shake reduction built in a solid support makes sense to avoid motion blur. I used the balcony’s hand rail!

Yacht and wharf.

Yachting on the harbor.

Is that single ….

…. or double occupancy?

Prayer group? Russian spies? Coven?

Beach sweeper. Only in California ….

More of this sort of thing at my photoblog, Snap! over the next few days.

Meanwhile, if you want to travel light and still have access to a real honker of a long lens with decent large sensor quality, I can recommend the Panasonic G1 and the 45-200mm lens without reservation.

Point Lobos

July 17, 2010PhotographsThomas Pindelski

A magical place.

No great photographer is more associated with Point Lobos, just south of Carmel off Highway One in California than Edward Weston, and while it’s difficult to take a really lousy picture there, no self respecting practitioner can visit this magical place unaware of Weston’s spirit, which haunts it still.

Here are a few snaps taken the other day on my most recent, and certainly not my last, visit there. Taken on the Panasonic G1 with all but one using the superb 14-45mm kit lens, at 160 or 320 ISO: