Category Archives: Hardware

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Pentax does it right

Cameras

How vibration reduction should be done

I have made no secret of my admiration for the camera designers at Pentax, having owned a Pentax ME Super and a Pentax 6×7 over the years.

The ME Super was my New York street camera during the years 1980-1987, when I lived in what was then a pretty dangerous New York City. Not caring to lose my Leica M3 to a chain snatcher, I acquired an inexpensive ME Super and a couple of lenses – a very compact 20mm ultra-wide, a 28mm wide and that miniscule 40mm ‘Pancake’ standard. A sweet outfit, with the added benefit of exposure automation.

The 6×7 represented my first foray into landscape photography and while it went off like Dirty Harry’s Magnum when you pressed the button, there was no arguing with the quality of the negatives that resulted.

The other day I was thinking about changes in camera design which made things so much easier for today’s picture taker. Small 35mm cameras, greatly improved film emulsions, ever better lenses and that sort of thing. But clearly digital imaging was the watershed that made everything much faster yet, to my mind, vibration reduction has saved more snaps from the reject bin than any feature since automatic exposure and focus. If your goal in life is big prints, then the old saw that the slowest shutter speed should be no slower than the reciprocal of the focal length for hand held pictures is simply wrong. You think you can get shake free pictures with your standard lens at 1/50th second good enough for an 18” x 24” print? I don’t think so.

I don’t know who came up with the idea of vibration compensating mechanisms and circuitry in still cameras – the Steadicam for film makers, after all, has been around for some 25 years, famously used by Stanley Kubrick in ‘The Shining’ in 1980 – but I was very conscious of its availability in some Canon lenses when I sprung for the EOS 5D. Most importantly, the ‘standard’ lens I chose – the 24-105mm ‘L’ – has this feature and it adds wonderfully to definition. Canon says it’s good for three shutter speeds slower than normal, meaning that the modest f/4 maximum aperture of the lens is not as limiting as you might think.

Similarly, my Panasonic LX-1 comes with Panasonic’s version of vibration reduction in a very compact package and Nikon has offered the feature on some of its more exotic lenses for a while. However, with both Nikon and Canon, the execution is not well thought out when it comes to their interchangeable lens cameras. The problem is that the vibration reduction circuitry is part of the lens, not the camera, meaning only certain lenses have it.

It took a smart designer at Pentax to finally get this right. His answer? Simple. Build the circuitry into the body, not the lens, which they have just done with the newly announced K100D.

In this way, any lens, however adapted to the camera’s body, benefits from this wonderful feature, and you don’t have to double up on lens bulk as no lens contains any related mechanisms or circuitry. Now is that clever or what?

Not really luck

Panasonic, Photographs

You make your luck. It doesn’t just find you.

I pride myself on knowing the charming town of Burlingame in the South Bay of San Francisco pretty well, so imagine my surprise the other day when a passer-by asked her for directions to the ‘English Village’.

It turns out that this is a collection of fifteen or so homes just around the corner from where she was at the time. Small homes, some 1500 square feet each, but each with an impeccable garden and lots of mock Tudor style.

So it didn’t need much encouragement on my part to leash up that wild beast, Bertie the Border Terrrier, and ankle around to said location. And, it has to be admitted, the place oozed charm like a politician looking for campaign donations, albeit with a lot more class. Needless to say, that little gem the Leica DP was in my trouser pocket, so it was a moment’s work to catch some nice details:

Round the corner and there’s another one:

And a third:

The old admonition to Always Carry a Camera fell into disuse with this photographer as nothing this small was this good until now. Even the Leica rangefinder was not small enough to permit this cavalier attitude. Once you have one of these modern digital gems, however, there really is no excuse for not carrying it with you at all times.

Recapturing the Leica spirit

Panasonic

The ‘go anywhere’ Leica DP does it

I mentioned in my earlier columns on the Leica DP (click the caption in the right hand column) that this camera was a rational digital replacement for the film-based rangefinder Leica, not only because image quality was comparable, courtesy of the Leica lens fitted, but also because its small size (much, much smaller than an M with a 35mm lens fitted) and near silent shutter (nearly imperceptible if the built in ‘clack’ is switched off and dramatically quieter than the M) allowed it to be taken pretty much anywhere without arousing suspicion.

In the true Leica ‘available light’ spirit, here is a snap taken the other day at a south San Francisco Bay area American Music concert of Thomas Hansen performing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. The camera was set to its full aperture of f/2.8 at the widest lens setting of 28mm with ISO at 400 and using the RAW format:

Earlier, the intermission had yielded this passing snap:

I couldn’t help thinking that this sort of thing is a throwback to the early Leica days when available light photography was all the rage. By the way, the camera does such a great job of automatic white balance control that no color temperature adjustments had to be made to these images. The built in vibration reduction is good for two shutter speeds, so f/2.8 becmes an effective f/1.4.

The most fun I ever had taking pictures

Leica, Photographers, Photography

Before digital came along, that is!

The seventies were a truly miserable time to be in England. Administrations alternated between the senile Conservatives, devoid of ideas and wedded to the status quo, and the Labor party, its members fuelled by the politics of envy. A weak Conservative Prime Minister, Ted Heath, caved to the blackmailing strikes of the miners. He alternated power with the socialist Harold Wilson who went along merrily with the trades unions funding his party, doing whatever it took to stay in office. Neither ‘leader’ had personal convictions worth a damn.

I had graduated a mechanical engineer from University College, London in 1973 intent on working for Rolls Royce Aircraft. There was only one small snag. The year I graduated Rolls went bankrupt, as ingested birds shattered the innovative carbon fiber turbine blades in its RB211 engine, rendering it useless. The engine was intended for Lockheed’s superb Tristar passenger jet and Rolls almost took Lockheed down with it. Well, the alternative for an engineering graduate who actually wanted to be an engineer was to work for some big government institution or become an academic. Hardly palatable alternatives for one dirt poor, ambitious young man. Realize that this was a country that accorded the sobriquet “engineer” equally to the fellow installing railroad ties and to the chap at Rolls Royce. Still, I suppose the railroad ties did not snap like so much brittle chocolate.

So I decided to emigrate to the greatest country on earth, but there was a small matter of qualifications. The business of America is Business, and I didn’t know a balance sheet from an income statement. Taking advice from a smart merchant banker my mother somehow steered me to, I decided to learn about finance with another degree on the wall. It’s a damnable comment on the English educational system of those times that the very concept of an MBA did not exist, whereas in America it had been around for the best part of a century. It wouldn’t do now, would it, to teach business? Muddling through was the preferred method, preferably aided by good choice of parents.

Well, I had had the privilege of working with Americans as they visited Britain, over on tours from New York or Boston or Chicago, and I learned more from them about business four years firm than in my whole life until then.

The last thing I did before taking that one way flight was to visit Paris. This was in 1977. I had no savings. My most precious asset was my Leica M3 and its 35mm Summaron lens with that clunky viewfinder appendage. So I borrowed fifty pounds from a sister, got on the ferry and next thing I was at Gare du Nord looking for my seedy garret. My first goal was to visit the Louvre, the Jeu de Paume and the Orangerie to feast on three of the world’s greatest art collections. A related interest, of course, was to take pictures, so the M3 and a few rolls of film came along.

There was no draconian security in those days, of course. Photography was permitted everywhere and no one really minded very much. Especially if you were reasonably discreet. The Leica and I were a seasoned pair by now. We had been recognized time and again in the photographic press, culminating with the award of the Photographer of the Year prize by Photography magazine, the leading UK monthly, and, better yet, had been published in Leica Fotografie, the house organ where all things Leitz were good.

To whom did I look for inspiration in those days, photographically? Well, that’s easy. Cartier-Bresson, Doisneau, Kertesz, Brassai. In other words, I was a street photography junkie, though I didn’t know that word at the time …. Make it fleeting, let serendipity arrange the forms just so and click. Leica. 35mm lens. TriX. D76. A combination that had seen thousands of photographers through for years on end.

The Louvre was a magical place back then. I. M. Pei, great architect that he is, had yet to con gullible Parisians with the ugly pyramid that defaced one of the world’s great spaces, much as the Pompidou museum had already done a few blocks away. Care to revisit the latter and see how well it has aged? I don’t think so.

The forecourt of the Louvre before I. M. Pei. Leica M3, 35mm Summaron. TriX/D76.

The first and prevailing sense one had on entering the museum through its vast facade was the smell of oil paint. Artists were permitted, encouraged even, to bring their oils and easels and practice by copying the works of the masters. The lighting was, of course, magic, like only Parisian lighting in the spring can be. And as this was before everyone had money, before equality had raised its ugly head, the museum was far from the zooed place that modern art collections have become. In the words of the philistine American to his wife, with but one hour to catch a flight, confronted with a priceless Italian church to view: “OK, honey, you do the inside and I’ll take the outside”. Drive-by tourism. No, people had more time to savor art back then.

What passed for fashion in the seventies. Mona at the Louvre. Leica M3, 35mm Summaron. TriX/D76.

I forget the details, but suspect that I visited the Louvre on all but one day of the week I spent in Paris. And I also took pictures, the Leica by now a part of me. Second nature.

And until good, responsive digital cameras came to market, that’s the most fun I ever had making pictures.

Early porn. Louvre. Leica M3, 35mm Summaron. TriX/D76.

In case you wonder, this painting is of Gabrielle d’Estrees and one of her sisters in the bath, c. 1595, painter (mercifully) unknown. Gabrielle d’Estrees was the mistress of that old Frog, Henry IV. In her hand she holds a ring given to her by the king as a sign of their bond, and her sister is pinching her nipple indicating she is pregnant with the king’s child. Yeah, right. The surrealistic background image is of a servant sewing baby clothes.

Click on the link in the left hand column for details of the book that resulted. That will take you to a written presentation along with my commentary, so you can hear what I really sound like!

Fun with the B&H catalog

Cameras

Everything under the sun in one big book

Say what you may, a notebook computer cannot hold a candle to a book when it comes to browsing. Spill your cocktail on the former and you have just had a $2,000 drink; spill it on the latter and you come back to read a slightly crinkled copy tomorrow. Make the cocktail a gin or vodka martini and your carpet will never know the difference.

So when B&H, that estimable New York City business, sent me their big book of photo and related equipment, it was rather fun to browse it in book form rather than searching for something on a computer. Best of all, with a book you come across things you would never think of browsing for at a keyboard, because it would simply never occur to you to look for them.

I suspect B&H sent me the book because I blew all that cash on the Canon EOS 5D a while back, and more power to them. I cannot think of another business with such integrity and client service, and I’m not even Jewish!

So what interesting items are of note browsing these 322 pages? Well first of all, kudos to the team that puts this monster together. With some 15-100 items a page you are talking a lot of work here.

There are sections on everything from Audio/Visual, Computers, Lighting, Photography of course, Podcasting(!), Portable Entertainment (meaning iPod mostly), Satellite radio (where you can get to listen to potty mouthed smut and pay for it), Hard Drive storage, Surveillance Video (honest!) and many more. Here, in no particular order, are some items that caught my eye:

Stupidest, most over-priced item: Easy – page 128. A company named Visible Dust is asking $90 for an ‘Econo Sensor Brush’. No kidding. $90 for a brush. And that’s for the ‘Econo’ model. The Real Thing is $135. Go to the local art store, get a nice camel hair brush, soak it in your vodka supply to clean up any grease, and you have the same thing for $5. A fool and his money…. If things go really badly at the old estate I think I might start selling these. Mine will be the Organic CCD Rendition Improver with French Vodka Enhancement for a mere $75, or a Special on three for $125. The Special would include a bottle of Grey Goose (“A lifetime supply of brush cleaner for you and everyone else in your county”).

The thing no one needs: Page 129. The Zeiss Ikon rangefinder body for film at all of $1,617. True, it makes the Sensor Brush look cheap.

The camera you thought they didn’t make any more: Page 135. A Linhof 6×9 view camera, no lens, for $7,964. Probably made in China, anyway. You can get two EOS 5Ds for that price and have money left for a couple of top notch Canon ‘L’ lenses. Plus your snaps will be sharper.

The truly funky: Page 172. The Sea & Sea marine housing for the EOS 5D, a tad pricey at $2,600. Keeps things dry, I suppose, but what do you do about flash?

The ‘I wish I had one’ item: Page 190. The QT Quick Truss system. No, not for hernia, rather an electric roller system to move your studio backgrounds into place. A bargain at $1,839 for the biggest size, some 11′ square. OK, so maybe it is for hernia after all.

The $300 a fyard tripod: Page 165. $900 gets you the Gitzo Giant which elevates to all of 91.3″. Now that’s tall.

A close runner-up to Visible Dust: Page 267. How about shelling out $290 for a Tecnec LED clock/timer, with 4″ high digits. Let’s see, you can get 20 of those at Target for that amount.

The greatest bargain: Page 286. $22 gets you 50 JVC blank DVD, or 235 gigabytes of storage.

The ‘What were they thinking of?’ award: Piece of cake. Page 305. A gorgeous pair of Leica binoculars, watertight to 16.4 feet (no, not 16.5). $1,795. Ok, not chump change, I grant you, but we are talking Leica glass and my much older Trinovids testify to the sheer pleasure of using such an instrument. But wait. The description goes on to say “Elegant Black Leather”. In a waterproof binocular? Please….

Biggest choice in one category: Well, there are no fewer than some 150 digital cameras listed, from a 3 mp P&S to the mighty Canon 1DS Mark II N with its 17 mp.

“The item I was happiest to sell” winner: Page 143 – the Nikon Super Coolscan 9000 ED film scanner, for $1,900. A horrible use of dollars and desk top space. Hasta la vista, baby.

The “Haven’t you heard of full frame digital, bozo?” award winner: Page 143. The grandly branded Hasselblad Imacon Flextight 848 Drum Scanner, for $14,995. Yes, $14,995. It’s not made by Hasselblad, it’s not a drum scanner, and what the hell is your time worth anyway?

The “No one told me the sixties were over” champ: Page 162. The Cokin #201 Multi-Image filter. Pass the bong.

The gooks only special: Page 213. The Sony Indoor Pendant Mount Housing with Power, the better to hide your spy camera in. $330 for a box and cover. Just don’t ask the CIA for installation instructions. They pay $5,000 for theirs, yet still manage to place them on the wrong continent.

The “What the heck does that do?” gadget: Page 246. The Electrosonics Digital Hybrid Diversity Receiver. Sinister. No price listed. Could this be the answer to getting all those losers off the street in the interests of diversity rather than survival of the fittest? Naah. Probably another CIA budget boondoggle. “Hey, Joe. Check this out. I can get dirty pictures on it even in this lead lined room”.

The “I wish I had one even though I have no earthly use for it” gadget: Page 258. The Sound Devices Portable Digital Recorder with Time Code for $2,375. Shades of John Travolta in ‘Blow Out’.

And I’m just getting started. Anyway, it beats watching some dope read the 6 o’clock teleprompter, laughably masquerading as ‘The News’, while making $15mm a year and being revered by all as an Influential Voice. Reading a Teleprompter….