A body and two lenses.

You would sling the camera over your neck with the short lens on the body. The other lens, the medium length one, went in the shoulder bag. And that little outfit would be all you needed to go around the world.

Back in 1973 it consisted of a Leica, 35mm and 90mm lenses. Changing from one to the other was second nature and you never messed with the silliness of lens caps – just another impediment to a swift lens change.

And I found myself reliving that experience the other day only this time everything was automatic, the lenses were zooms covering 28mm through 400mm (!) and my camera could take 600+ RAW images at a sitting at a level of quality and capability which leaves that lovely Leica in the museum where it belongs.

Lost in thought.

Lonely guy.

Copper sunset.

All pictures on the Panasonic G1 with the 14-45mm and 45-200mm lenses.

In a year or two it will all be in an even smaller package and the results even less dependent on technical skill. That seems right to me. Anything that gets in the way of the picture is a bad thing. Which means automation is a good thing – for what I want to accomplish.

Thanks to the US military

The US military may last have checked the ‘win’ column some 60-plus years ago, but not all is bad. This taxpayer got a bit of his own back by picking up a handy ex-military bag from the local Army & Navy surplus store. Have you ever wondered what happens to Air Force surplus, by the way?

The problem with most camera gear bags is that they scream ‘camera’, invariably being emblazoned ‘Tenba’, ‘Domke’, ‘Lowepro’ and the like – all brand labels beloved of the light fingered set. They are also invariably obscenely expensive – $75-150 for, let’s face it, some canvas and stitching, made in China. Neither issue arises here for this is an ex-Army canvas map bag, has no markings and costs …. wait for it, all of $12.

The three compartments hold the Panasonic G1 with either the kit lens or the 45-200mm, the other lens goes in the center divider and my mobile back-up drive goes in the front. If needed, the rear compartment will accommodate my netbook computer. In that case the camera with one lens goes in the middle and the other lens moves to a jacket pocket – the G1’s lenses are so small this is simply not an issue. The ‘ears’ keep the rain out and there’s even room for a sandwich and a bottle of water.

Check your local surplus store for any number of similar choices. I like that it looks so shabby and amateur (unlike our military), the last thing a thief would be interested in. It is also superbly effective (also unlike our military). Probably not made in China, which may well turn your crank, to boot. And you can always console yourself with the near certainty that the thing cost the US Army hundreds of dollars when originally procured from our patriotic military contractors.

Update April 3, 2010 – iPad day: My iPad fits perfectly in this bag. Forget the $120 asked for a piece of nylon with a logo – get one of these.

Celebrity endorsement trash.

Why would anyone think that celebrity endorsements make sense?

Will I be able to drive like Schumacher by buying a Ferrari? Ride like that shyster Lance Armstrong on a Trek? Play like Tiger with those clubs?

So I weep when I see a truly great actor like Kevin Spacey touting a camera in one of the most condescending ads made in recent memory.

The one thing we do not see is Spacey’s pictures. Why not? I mean, he is advertising a camera, no?

The inverted snobbery (“Don’t be a tourist”), the denigration, the put downs – it’s all about as wrong as you can get. Tell me that the camera is sweet and elegant like almost everything Olympus makes, fits in your purse or pocket, encourages you to take it anywhere, makes for glorious pictures, and I am there. Tell me I have a shot at being the next Doisneau or Cartier-Bresson with it and my check book comes out. Tell me it’s what Bailey uses before making out with his latest discovery and I’ll buy two.

But where, pray, Mr. Spacey, are your pictures?

Frank Rich of the NYT writes eloquently about the credibility of another celebrity endorser:

“What’s striking instead is the exceptional, Enron-sized gap between this golfer’s public image as a paragon of businesslike discipline and focus and the maniacally reckless life we now know he led. What’s equally striking, if not shocking, is that the American establishment and news media — all of it, not just golf writers or celebrity tabloids — fell for the Woods myth as hard as any fan and actively helped sustain and enhance it.”

Why, then, should I buy a camera from you, Mr. Spacey? At least Tiger can play golf, but I haven’t the foggiest idea if you can take a photograph.

Olympus, you can do better. Start by paying someone who can take pictures. I don’t much care if he sleeps around – that’s his business, not mine.

Trust your eyes, not charts.

Frequently one sees performance of digital cameras compared using JPG images. This could not be more useless. Different sharpening algorithms in the cameras being compared render such comparisons meaningless, compounded by the poor dynamic range of the JPG file format. JPG is the fastest way of making a fifty dollar camera out of a thousand dollar one. Add to this technical ‘analysis’ the fact that different lenses at different price points are being used and what you end up is so much noise.

Some try to counter these issues by comparing unprocessed RAW image output. Even worse.

All digital images require anti-aliasing – the process of removing ‘jaggies’ from image details. For example, when the Leica M8 was first ‘tested’ reviewers gushed over the native definition of the RAW images produced by the camera, comparing these favorably with Canon, Pentax and Nikon DSLRs’ output. Chalk and cheese. The Japanese cameras use a strong anti-aliasing filter, placed in front of the sensor. The Leica M8 (and M9) uses none, preferring in-camera software to do the same thing to images rendered with its previous generation Kodak sensor. To get the best out of the Japanese cameras’ RAW images substantial sharpening must be applied in Lightroom (or whatever you use) to get the best from the original file and make a proper comparison.

Reviewers would have it that this makes the Leica image superior as no sharpening is needed, conveniently disregarding the fact that sharpening has been done in camera. They will then compound this misinformation by comparing a fixed focus lens on the Leica (because that’s what they were given to test and are too lazy/ignorant/conflicted to do it right) to a lower quality zoom on the Japanese competitor.

As I have pointed out many times here, the 5D I use – depending on the lens used – mostly needs a sharpening setting of 40-60 in LR. This works fine for the 24-105, 85/1.8, 100 macro and 400/5.6. The 200 f/2.8 ‘L’ is so sharp that it needs a setting of 20 at most. The 20.8 and 50/1.4 I owned (both sold) needed 70 or more at wide apertures. The Panasonic G1 uses so little in-camera RAW processing that it needs even more sharpening – my default import setting for the G1 with the kit lens in LR is 90.

So what’s the right answer to the question : “Is this camera capable of delivering the resolution/speed/handling/whatever that I need?” I’m afraid that, with the host of variables in the digital process, and the broad range of skill sets and needs among users, the only right answer is “Try it and see”.

After all, would you trust a surgeon who never operated before to work on you? Because that’s what these reviewers are – hardly a one of them can take a picture to save his life and what works for you will differ from what works for the guy working for ‘click-through’ advertising dollars using free gear from the manufacturer. He’s not about to bite the hand that feeds him.

So for the reader who asked here the other day “Should I sell my LX-3 and get a G1?” there’s no right answer to that question. How can the needs of, say, a street snapper, compare with those of a macro or sports enthusiast? Depends what you want to use the camera for – there are no Swiss Army Knife solutions.

By all means read the technical reviews to get a sense of the gear but don’t waste your time on comparisons with other makers’ equipment by those unqualified to pontificate. Try it yourself.

Expert camera reviewers. G1, 14mm, f/4, 1/2000, ISO 100

An online camera review reader having just finished yet another mind numbing twenty page special:

The last face lift.

I wish Leica well with its new M9. There’s always a market, however small, for the dowager on her third face lift and no shortage of insecure, wealthy buyers with weak egos craving fame by association. I think of the M9 as the Joan Collins of cameras. Neither is cheap.

The Joan Collins of cameras – the Leica M9.

The best thing to be learned from the M9’s tired makeover of a design that peaked in 1959 with the M2 is that the viewfinder is key. It is the window to the soul of the photographer’s subject, and the less it imposes itself between subject and snap, the better it serves its purpose.

The first twenty years or so of digital camera design will, I believe, go down as the period during which manufacturers’ disregard of the needs of consumers was at an all time high. So enamored did they become of digital this, and LCD that, their design results were some of the slowest, least responsive and unusable cameras ever made. You hardly need me to tell you that. Go to any crowded place on a sunny day and enjoy watching their owners squinting at silly little screens held two feet away from their eyes while taking pictures far worse than their parents managed on the Brownies and Instamatics of yore. Those at least were properly framed and action shots were the order of the day.

At the other extreme from the point-and-shoot set were the ‘professional’ DSLRs which made matters even worse. Like the Leica M9 these depended on fifty year old technology, this time in the guise of flapping mirrors and bulky glass prisms to get the image to the snapper’s eye. But as this is the digital age, these cameras started to sprout dozens of excrescences in the guise of control buttons and yet more ergonomic noise on their miserable LCD screens and ever more cluttered viewfinders. The only significant change in appearance was that the shapes became more organic and free flowing as modern plastics and manufacturing technologies took the sharp edges off. Just look at the original Nikon F for comparison, if you want to see what I’m talking about.

But the innovators in camera design, the Japanese, have woken up. First, they need a new idea to sell more gear to all those current digital owners, be they amateurs or pros. Second, some of them actually use the gear they make and grew up adulating the Leica M as the touchstone of camera and industrial design for, in 1959 when Mr. Yamamoto was knee high to a grasshopper, the Leica M2 was the unique blend of form and function. Small, fast and with decent lenses, it was the traveling companion of choice not just for well heeled amateurs but for pros wanting the best there was. And Yamamoto san, when he finally migrated to longer pants, found that the M2 was his snapper of choice, surrounded as he was by flashing LEDs and beeping buzzers galore.

To cut a long story short, the example set by the Leica M has placed camera design on the cusp of the next revolution. The changes that will bring will be nowhere near as earth shaking as the invention of digital sensors but they will finally make the digital camera the practical tool it has so far largely failed to be. And the most significant of those changes will, simply stated, be in the area where the Leica M once excelled. The viewfinder. The window to the subject’s soul.

I doubt it matters what the sensor size or format will be, for the new crop of digital cameras will come in any size you want. Medium format, full frame 35mm, APS-C, Micro four thirds, microdot – whatever. But what all of these designs will boast will be an absence of the ridiculous pentaprism, flapping mirror and LCD screen, all obsoleted by the growing availability of fast, noise free, bright-in-any-light and superbly compact electronic viewfinders. And they will focus fast with no shutter lag. A whole new selling proposition, rediscovered from those halcyon Leica days.

The maker at the cusp of what I call the Viewfinder Revolution is, of course, Panasonic, with their ground breaking G1/GH1 designs. That will not last long and you can bet that the basements of Nikon, Canon, Sony, Pentax/Samsung, Olympus et alia are a beehive of activity, filled with engineers and lawyers finding workarounds to Panny’s patents.

And their new designs will boldly drop the faux pentaprism hump that Panny felt was needed to introduce users to a new design ethic, will delete all the silly little buttons and will relegate the LCD screen to its rightful place as nothing more than a rarely used configuration display for favored settings. The EVF, whether eye level, waist level or both, will move modern camera design to a place where the wonderful digital sensors of today and tomorrow will finally be wrapped in a body with a viewfinder which can do them justice.

So thanks, Leica, for pointing the way. It’s just too bad that, like our heroine in the first paragraph, you refuse to age gracefully and pass to the museum which is your well deserved resting place.

The Leica M of women – Joan in 1960 and in 2007

Note: The writer used Leica M2/3/6 cameras and lenses almost exclusively in the period 1973-2008 (doubtless all now owned by Yamamoto san) and can assure the reader that the only ‘Leica glow’ he ever felt from all those wonderful lenses was from the red ink on his bank statement. Only those who have paid the asking price of the M9 and its glass will feel that glow, and they will spare no effort telling you about it.