Category Archives: Photographs

No looking back

Photographs, Photography

An interesting exchange with a reader.

A friend of the blog left an interesting Comment/question the other day which I was pleased to debate. Absent a digital point-and-shoot, Michel is still largely a film user of all formats from 35mm to 4″ x 5″, with Leica M6 and R hardware as well as a Hasselblad 501. He’s thinking about a G series Panny for the same reason I took the leap – small, decent sensor, good lenses. Our exchange is repeated below, with Michel’s permission.

The M6 – an exemplar of the last generation of film cameras.

Michel – interesting question.

Full frame cameras:

First I cannot go back to a heavy full frame camera owing to wrist and back pain. Second, I cannot adopt an M9 owing to absence of autofocus and silly pricing. Lenses have a decent life expectancy, sensors do not, so $7k for an already obsolete sensor fails my basic test of economics and useful life. Case in point, I took a beating on the sale of the 5D whereas all my Canon lenses sold at 80-90% of my cost of 5 years ago.

Until/if FF cameras get much lighter, I have no interest in one. Equally, had you told me five years ago that I would be selling the 5D for an MFT sensor (which did not exist at the time) I would have laughed. So ‘never-say-never’. The design genius residing in Japan is quite capable of crafting a Full Frame body which takes a series of compact, high spec lenses and has a superb EVF which is, even in the G1, superior to anything on any Leica RF in poor light. However, if the Japanese continue to perceive there is too small a market for those, we will never see one. Great design and consumer demand/profits are not the same thing.

Small sensors:

I expect small sensor cameras to only improve over the next few years. Case in point, tests (not mine, as I have yet to try it) suggest that the second ever sensor made for MFT cameras (all Panasonic and Olympus models have used the same sensor until now), the one found in the costly Panasonic GH2, is noticeably better than the original model in the G1, EP-1, etc. I wrote off the MFT format when it was introduced and I was dead wrong. (Well, I did call the iPad right, buying two on the first day!)

The most used camera:

I just read today in MacWorld that the most used camera on Flickr is about to be …. the iPhone4. So I am not alone in wanting small, light and take-it-with-you-without-excuses gear. Interestingly the big body DSLRs seem to be peaking, looking at the chart below.

Cameras and trucks and prints:

A while back Steve Jobs said that the desktop PC (and, by inference, the traditional laptop) will become the ‘truck’ of the computing world. It will be a limited use, special tool for the few power users who need it. I believe the full frame and medium format digital cameras of today are already heading in the same direction. Those who need big enlargements will continue to justify putting up with the bulk, weight, noise and cost of the gear. But given that even the cheapest point-and-shoot more than adequately fills a 50″ LCD screen at home and with a little care will yield 13″ x 19″ enlargement (the maximum the ‘prosumer’ printer can do) and that paying just a little more gets you an excellent APS-C Nikon/Canon or MFT Panny/Oly which can scale to 18″ x 24″ paper prints without too much difficulty, who needs more? How many prints larger than that does the average consumer have at home on the wall? I would bet none. There’s is a growing case to be made for the argument that the traditional photo print is, in fact, dead.

One size fits all:

You make the valid point that Ansel Adams might not be the right candidate for a small sensor digital. Agreed. His descendants will happily continue using trucks. And you don’t need me to tell you that ‘One size fits all’ seldom works. Choose the right tool. However, given my avocation for street snaps and the occasional studio portrait, rather than the other way around, MFT works fine for me and I’m sure if I did the research there are some APS-C bodies every bit as capable. Pentax is a master at miniaturization and has produced some nice small APS-C bodies and lenses. Let’s hope that overpriced baubles like the Fuji X100 (yes, I am on the waiting list!) will spur the big boys into competitive action.

Tattoo you

Photographs

Ugh!

I used to think that tattoos were the province of the dregs of society. You know, white trash. (They tend to show poorly on non-white skin ….) Then many years ago I learned that Kind Edward VII of England sported one on the royal behind and realized that poor taste was classless and universal.

The problem for those making a commitment to being voluntarily scarred for life is that the things are very hard to remove. Further, you had better be sure about your loved ones because that tribute to ‘Violet – ’til death do us part’ tends to get a bit old when you find her in bed with your best friend, and the heart on your chest lovingly pierced with an arrow proclaiming ‘Mother’ takes on a new meaning when you find that when the old lady croaked, she left her not inconsiderable pile to the local humane shelter, dashing your visions of that new sports car.

Here are a few of the more colorful irreversible indiscretions I have chanced on in recent times:

Bikers. G1, kit lens @ 28mm, 1/640, f/7.1, ISO320

The car painter. 5D, 24-105mm @ 90mm, 1/90, f/4.5, ISO 125.

Full throttle death’s head. 5D, 24-105mm @ 100mm, 1/500, f/5.6, ISO250

Oooh! Balenciaga

Photographs

What a show!

One hundred and twenty examples of anything in a show tend to cause overload in the viewer. How many Chinese urns, Renaissance oils or vintage cars can anyone take, after all?

So if I tell you that the Balenciaga show at the de Young museum in San Francisco was too small, that will give you some sense of just how riveting the output of the Basque haute couture master really is. The appeal of the oeuvre of this master designer to any photographer is clear. There is a special combination of art and craft, as seen in the best photographs. It’s not enough to make it. You have to make it fresh and new and original and breathtaking. You have to know how to use color and line and cut. And you have to make it well. It’s a skill which tests many disciplines. And the best of the best attracts the best photographers to record his work for posterity. Irving Penn, John Rawlings, Richard Avedon – a who’s who of fashion photographers did Balenciaga’s miraculous creations justice.

The show was simply thrilling. What was really so extraordinary was to realize just how quintessentially Spanish his designs are. If you know your Goya, El Greco and Zurbaràn, you will see them in the gowns time and again. The absolute show stoppers are the two bolero sequined jackets which are masterpieces of form and design. One is on the right in the first snap, below. And anyone who tells you there is nothing new to be had in the black cocktail dress has not seen the Basque master’s myriad renditions. Just beyond perfection, and made with an unsurpassable commitment to quality. The snaps are not great as the lighting was low and even at ISO 1600 I was struggling to keep the camera steady, plus they had a million guards waiting with arrest warrants if you were caught. What kind of BS is this “no photography” rubbish? Well, in true Spanish tradition, that was simply a red rag to this bull.

Look at the raincoat far right in the second picture – worn by Mona Guinness. Take something old and make it completely new. Stunning. Or the red shawl number in the last picture. (There was a black shrouded version but I couldn’t get a picture – it was like nothing I have ever seen). Can you wonder he kept his designs secret until the last moment to stop the Diors of the world ripping him off?

Severity of line and architectural construction and attention to detail were everywhere. One of the guards, catching me shaking my head in sheer disbelief, even engaged me in conversation and allowed as how he too thought the bolero jackets were the best thing there. The appeal of Balenciaga is universal.

The show was also a reminder of what it took to be a Balenciaga woman:

  • 5′ 6″ minimum
  • Size 6 maximum
  • 110 lbs or less
  • Wasp waisted
  • …. and married to great wealth

It runs through July 4. See it if you can.

1/6th, f/4.4

1/8th, f/4

1/10th, f/3.5

All snapped on the Panny G1, ISO 1600 at 14mm on the kit lens. This is the first time I have rued not having an M9 with a Summilux …. after all, it’s a mere fraction of a Balenciaga original.

If you want a fine book with many pictures taken by Penn, Avedon, Horst, Beaton, Hoyningen-Heune, Rawlings and Cartier-Bresson (!), check here. Or just get the show catalog which is a bargain at some $45.

Sew me

Photographs

Beautiful relics.

This store on Geary Street in San Francisco affects a ‘bespoke English tradition of tailoring’ image; in reality, the stuff inside is trashy clothing for teenagers. But who could fail to be drawn in by this exhibit of classic Singer sewing machines?


G1, kit lens @ 20mm, 1/320, f/2.8 ISO320.

It’s hard to imagine the size of the fortune made by Isaac Singer (1811-1875) with his great invention, which saw standardized parts used to make manufacturing as efficient as possible. Add the availability of installment payment plans and the business went ballistic. In the book “The Wealthy 100“, which computes American fortunes as a fraction of Gross National Product, thus rendering comparison between then and now meaningful, Singer ranks as the 52 wealthiest American ever; his partner, Edward Clark, who came up with the installment sale idea is at #33. Even then the world treated banksters favorably. $5 down and payments for ever on the remaining $95. By comparison, Bill Gates is at #31. Unlike Gates, Singer gave the world something that worked and worked well.

The store clerk told me they have 600 (six hundred!) machines all told and, looking around, I have no reason to doubt that. They were nice enough to let me take a snap from inside which shows the machines, each individually illuminated, at their best. These are objects of great mechanical beauty, as usable today as the day they were created.

The store is named All Saints and is at 140 Geary Street, San Francisco.