All posts by Thomas Pindelski

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Women Photographers

Photographers

A questionable categorization

I came across a book named ‘Women Photographers’ the other day and couldn’t but wonder at the arrogance of the title. To in some way suggest that gender distinction was worthy of a book simply raised my hackles. A good photograph is just that. A good photograph. To try to ladle distinction on a subset of the species just because it happens to include pictures made solely by women seems specious.

But it did get me thinking, I confess. Click on ‘Photography Books’ below and you will see what’s currently in my library. I see monographs on Barbara Morgan, Germaine Krull, Joyce Tenneson, Imogen Cunningham, Ilse Bing, Margaret Bourke-White, Mary Ellen Mark, Regina Relang and Tina Modotti. Yet not a one of these was bought because the photographer was a woman. They were bought for the simple reason that the photography was special and unique.

Strangely I seem not to have anything by Dorothea Lange, so here’s a reminder of what she did and a mental note to fix that omission at the earliest occasion.


Migrant Mother. The most famous Depression era picture

Lange snapped this in Nipomo, CA, just a few miles south of the old estate. Lange was a great photographer who just happened to be a woman.

Getting greedy

Micro Four-Thirds, Photography

What the future holds

If I am right that Panasonic will be surprised about the number of pros and serious snappers buying their G1 as a second camera, then they are thinking very hard right now how to further poach on Canon’s and Nikon’s up-market turf.

Look at how they have got to where they are.

First, they link up with Leica to design lenses for their point-and-shoots. Instant credibility with rich old guys and journalists, though ‘credibility’ and ‘journalist’ probably make no sense used in one sentence. They download Leica’s intellectual property on traditional lens design, then move on. It’s no accident that the word ‘Leica’ is notable for its absence from the splendid kit lens on the G1. Leica is on record as saying that they disapprove of software correction of optical defects (these guys would be a shoo-in at the Pentagon with that sort of intellectual firepower) and Panny, of course, knows better. They simply fix what ails the very compact 14-45mm kit zoom at the back end. The result is a near total absence of the two bugaboos of the Leica lens on my LX-1 – barrel distortion at the wide end and chromatic aberration everywhere. It’s the Software, Stupid.

Second. they make a few trial runs at Electronic View Finders which are better forgotten – like the one in the Lumix L1 – using full size, clunky and heavy Leica lenses. They realize that their state-of-the-art technology in their professional movie cameras is the answer, so they invent micro four-thirds and incorporate that EVF technology into the next two designs, the G1 and the GH1 (a G1 with video added). Now they have a great finder system, no mirror and no prism required.

Third, they state that the G1 is positioned for the upgrade amateur market. Last I checked, the Japanese are not stupid, and I do not necessarily buy that spin. On reflection, it seems to me that the G1 is as much a Trojan Horse as the original two door Honda Insight with its small 3 cylinder engine was to the car business. The Insight, a rolling test bed sold at a loss and proved the viability of a hybrid battery/internal combustion power plant as much as the G1 will convert skeptical advanced photographers to EVFs.

Fourth …. what is fourth? I don’t think that needs much of a crystal ball, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Panny already had working prototypes. Remember how they said they were retaining the prism hump in the G1 to make users feel comfortable? After all, all the ‘prosumer’ DSLRs from the competition come with one and if you are Johnny Come Lately to the game, you might as well start out by looking like the competition before you change the world. Remember also how Panny said that they could have made the G1 significantly smaller but decided not to? Partly because, I suspect, big equals good for the American consumer and partly because you can only make the body so small before it becomes hard to handle. The G1 is at the cusp on that point. So they can make the G1 a little larger, drop that dumb pentaprism hump and make it with a full frame sensor. Add credit card sized, long life flat batteries along the lines of the ones used in the latest Apple notebook computers and convert all those dated Leica full frame lens designs to lighter, smaller, aberration loaded variants with software taking out the defects and you have a shot straight at the big Canons and Nikons. (I suppose I should add Sony, but they are not really a player in the pro leagues, innovation having seemingly deserted the company). Only Canon, Samsung and Sony have the capital to compete and both Canon and Sony have access to high quality EVFs in their professional video cameras used extensively by the news media. So, I suppose it really boils down to Canon being the target as I see Nikon pretty much dead on the vine for lack of capital. Camera design as it is played today dictates that capital is king.

Imagine that new camera. With one body, a 1,000 exposure battery and maybe two or three IS lenses – 14-28mm, 28-90mm and 90-400mm, the lot weighing maybe 4 lbs., with a 7 fps exposure rate and an even better, faster EVF than the one found in the G1. A world beater. And who cares if the lenses say Leica on the front or not? Based on my early experience with the kit lens in the G1, Panasonic have got modern lens design down cold.

I am getting greedy, it’s true. Greed, as always, has a price.


Burger king. G1, kit lens @ 14mm, 1/640, f/4.5, ISO 100

I’m hoping the X1 full frame Panny with an EVF will be a tad slimmer.

A note on the manufacturing location of the G1: As with many new products designed by the Japanese, early production is in Japan by local workers. Eventually this frequently changes to China, Taiwan or some other place with lower quality standards – just like with Hondas and Toyotas. Both the body and lens in my G1 kit say “Made in Japan” so I would encourage you to look for those labels if you are a buyer. After all, you no more want a Chinese made G1 than you want an American made Honda.

Snap!

Micro Four-Thirds

At the local coffee shop


G1, kit lens at 45mm, 1/60, f/9, ISO 400, RAW original

Well, I confess that in situations like these, the G1’s LCD rotated for waist level use is just like using that old Rolleiflex, except that the image is no longer reversed and the whole thing is far less obtrusive. Plus, of course, you had to wait for Kodak to process your Kodachrome film, back when it was still available in 120 size.

I simply set the G1 to Auto ISO and let its brain, far superior to mine, do its thing. The light on the subject’s skin is simply lovely.

By the way, I had my netbook with me and the place has wifi. That little computer has an SDHC card slot and runs LR2 just fine, so this piece was completed within about five minutes of taking the snap.

Panasonic G1 grain

Micro Four-Thirds

Not at all bad

To read the whole series on the Panasonic G1, click here

Here’s a snap from a puppet show my son attended the other day. The puppeteer is explaining how he works his magic:


G1, kit lens at 45mm, 1/40, f/5.6, ISO 1250

The sensor was cranked up to ISO 1250 in the poor incandescent indoor lighting, and the lens was at its maximum aperture, fully extended, at f/5.6.

Now here’s a section of that same picture which would make a 28″ x 42″ print – a size hardly anyone is going to print at:


Section of the above

All in all, not at all bad. I’m using firmware version 1.3, the current release and Auto White Balance. IS shake reduction does its job here, the only blur visible being motion blur. The Electronic Viewfinder just shines in this sort of situation, where it seems far more comfortable than outdoors in bright light.

Here, by contrast, is a similar presentation at ISO 100 from yesterday’s piece:


G1, kit lens @ 16mm, 1/80, f/4.5, ISO 100


Section of the above

No grain to speak of.

If big prints are your thing (by ‘big’ I mean the shortest dimension is at least 18″) then the G1 will not disappoint up to ISO 400. After that, fine detail begins to disappear – this is no Canon 5D, whose sensor is almost four times the area of the G1’s. The 5D’s sensor remains the standard to judge by in the digital domain. Some say the 5D Mark II is even better, but absent a broad consensus on this point it makes no difference for other than chart-on-a-lab-wall fiends. Beats me why anyone spends time on this sort of nonsense. I should add that I have not used the 5D Mark II.

An 18″ x 27″ print is an 18x enlargement for the 5D but a 34x ratio for the smaller sensor in the Panasonic G1. If I want super fine detail in large prints at high ISOs, the 5D is the camera to use. Horses for courses.

The Panasonic G1 – Part VIII

Micro Four-Thirds, Photographs

Some field tests

To read the whole series on the Panasonic G1, click here

The ProStrap for the GI finally arrived.


ProStrap fitted to the Panasonic G1

No more excuses for deferring a proper outing for the camera so after attaching the strap I set out for the big city, spare (and very small) Panny battery in my Levis. The strap really does nothing for the handling of the camera which is a good thing. The right hand finger and thumb grip on the body are properly engineered for a secure grip and the left hand cradles the lens from below in traditional fashion. What this little strap confers is enhanced peace of mind that you are not about to drop the camera, and it’s far more functional for my intended use than a shoulder strap emblazoned with the manufacturer’s name.

Before setting out I did a little more checking of the confusing instruction book and made a couple more changes to the settings.

First I switched on AF+MF. This means that when you have locked focus with a first pressure on the shutter button, you can still make manual focus changes with the collar in the lens. When turned this renders the enlarged view in the EVF for fine changes in focus. A quick press and re-press of the shutter button then restores the full image with the focus locked on the new setting. Very clever.

i.Exposure was also turned on – this provides for automatic adjustment of contrast if the contrast range is too high for the sensor to handle. A tacit acknowledgment by Panasonic that things are not yet perfect with digital sensors.

Then I turned on i.ISO. If the subject is moving the ISO is adjusted upward automatically for a faster shutter speed. The electronics can do this as the live sensor video feed continuously measures movement blur. I had already limited the maximum ISO to 800 to mitigate grain/noise as described yesterday so it will be interesting to see how this works out in practice.

Bottom line? I should have things set just so for a very responsive …. point-and-shoot.

The major criticism to be leveled at Panasonic so far is that they have done such a poor job of the instruction manual. Multiple cross references, a near-useless index and a rote recitation of each menu choice and control function. What is needed is an approach which focuses on the user, not the camera. A section for street snappers, a section for the sports crowd, a section for landscape photographers and so on. How can a company making a multi-million dollar investment in wonderfully executed new technologies pay so little attention to the ergonomics of a user manual?

  • The camera is a sweetheart to carry around. Small, quiet, unobtrusive and very fast.
  • I have to learn to avoid depressing the front control wheel to avoid putting it into exposure compensation mode.
  • 2/3rds of a stop underexposure is just perfect for avoiding blown out highlights, with Lightroom’s Fill Light slider doing the rest
  • Based on my knowledge of what my Canon 5D’s sensor will do, any one of these will easily print razor sharp at 18″ x 24″
  • Grain is noticeable at higher ISOs but not obtrusive
  • The lens is simply wonderful. Minimal barrel distortion at the wide end, none elsewhere. Maybe this is Adobe Camera Raw doing software tricks in Lightroom 2.4 to fix things. Who cares? It works. Try saying that about barrel distortion with the Canon 24-105mm ‘L’. Further, there’s no chromatic aberration to speak of. A remarkable piece of optical + software design.

This camera may be the answer for many, like this fan of the magnificent M2 and M3 bodies, looking for that elusive replacement for the Leica M rangefinder.

Simply stated, Panasonic’s G1 is a keeper. I believe it marks a seismic change in quality camera design which will have the competition scrambling to keep up.