Category Archives: Photography

A revolutionary decade

Photography

The 2000s will forever be the decade film died.

There’s a strong case to be made that photography experienced only one game changing technology in the 112 years leading to the end of the millennium, and that technology was the invention of roll film.

While dry plates were already in use when George Eastman introduced roll film in 1888, the change was revolutionary, taking the making of pictures – heretofore the province of an affluent few – from ‘artists’ and placing the enabling technology in the hands of everyman.

The first Kodak – 1888

I would go further and add that Kodak’s invention of Kodachrome – which did for color what the Brownie had done for monochrome – was a technological sea change of almost equal significance. Color was now available to anyone at modest cost with consistently assured results, thanks to Kodak’s outstanding quality control.

Kodachrome

Some might even argue that the invention of small cameras was as big a technological leap, one made possible by the existence of roll film. The Leica may not have been the first camera to bring high capacity exposure capability to photographers, but it brought an engineering standard that gave much the same guarantee of results as did Kodak’s roll films.

Thereafter much of what changed was simply variations on a theme. Rangefinders came and went. The pentaprism and flapping mirror (both on their last legs) – a mechanism surely invented by Rube Goldberg – prevailed for much of the last four decades of the twentieth century, but what lay underneath was still the same old roll film camera. There was still the agonizing wait while Rochester processed your Kodachrome, although always cured by the exciting arrival of the mail with that small yellow box of slides. I doubt that postmen have ever been as popular since.

There was, of course, one other technological breakthrough of enormous magnitude, but ultimately of little significance, and it too was the brainchild of one man. Edwin Land gave the affluent consumer instant results, first in black and white, later in color in the guise of Polaroid film. The process was rendered obsolete by the one hour lab which could deliver 36 beautifully printed snaps in one hour or less, making the extremely high cost of Polaroid film a thing of the past. Americans may be impatient, but they also know the value of a buck, and at a buck a shot compared to a buck for ten, the math did not solve for Polaroid.

But the first decade of the new millennium, which ends today, saw the first really significant change in mass market photographic technology since 1888, so you could argue that roll film is amongst the longest lived modern technologies known to man. Daguerrotypes, wax cylinders, shellac discs, vinyl LPs, CDs, DVDs, Cathode Ray Tubes, carburetors, propellers, drum brakes, magnetic tape, typewriters, recording tape, cassettes for film, movies and sound – all are dead or dying and none lasted more than a few decades.

That revolutionary change, of course, was the introduction of mass market digital technology and while I do not recall ever complaining that 36 exposures on a roll were too few, now a thousand or more on a postage stamp-sized memory card is viewed as the norm. And if that’s not enough, movie capability is taken for granted. In the short space of a decade, digital technology has largely equalled or exceeded anything available to its predecessors in quality, flexibility, size, price, speed, you name it.

Canon’s first DSLR – the D30 of 2000

You can read all about the first Canon-branded ‘serious’ DSLR at DPReview which recommended it highly in August, 2000. Today even the cheapest point and shoot exceeds the D30’s specs at a fraction of the cost.

I, for one, embrace digital with open arms. Its democratizing features – everyone can press the button if few can actually take a good photograph – means there is much more noise in imagery today than ever, but for photographers seeking ever less interference between vision and result it would be quixotic to deny the superiority of digital over film in every respect. None of that denies that there remain a few superb craftsmen getting the very last iota of quality from traditional wet darkroom processes, but that’s largely a decision based in the love of process rather than in the love of results. There are still folks who use hand tools for woodwork and bamboo split cane rods for angling. For them it’s the tool not just the result.

What is startling is the rate of change. In a very short time the digital camera has gone from expensive plaything with poor image quality to dominating every image making sector from point-and-shoot to professional gear for billboard-sized images. Three things make it possible – the first two are the development of sensors and the invention of low energy display panels – plasma, LCD, whatever. Curiously, the latter have thrown photographers back to the very early days of the creative process where the image was viewed at some distance – albeit under a dark cloth – on a screen during the composition stage. But more importantly, those screens in large sizes – as big as your wallet permits – have obsoleted the wall print. While consumer ink jet printers are at a level of perfection seemingly hard to improve, they are about as obsolete as roll film. Who needs a printer when the TV screen beckons as the display medium of choice? Why spend huge sums on matting and framing when a $5 connecting cable works just as well? Sure, I’m a huge fan of big prints, but the cost makes little sense for most applications.

The third enabling technology is, of course, the personal computer and that too is reaching a development plateau. Prices are leveling off at a point so low it seems ridiculous. Reliability has never been better so that now one of the greatest challenges facing any hardware manufacturer must surely be the lengthening replacement cycle. Why get a new box when the old one works just fine? The operating systems and application software for home computing are now so cheap, reliable and capable that it seems hard to imagine revolutionary changes which will make photographers want to throw everything out and start again. While we will see more data storage move to the ‘cloud’, remote from the hardware, the core technologies are well developed, cheap and in place.

The computer for the rest of us – it just worked.

But then no one saw digital coming, certainly not Kodak or Fuji, both of whom have been broken by the change. So it’s foolish to say that things are as good as they can get and doubtless there is some new technology around the corner waiting to create the next seismic change. I just can’t see what it is. Within ten years upper end camera hardware will have shaken the silly prism and flapping mirror as surely as CDs shook off the stylus, but that’s evolutionary, not revolutionary. The sensors in the best gear are at a point where it’s pointless to demand more, and while things may get faster and quieter and maybe even cheaper, it’s hard to see what the next revolution will bring. I think it may take a while.

I believe that the next ten years will be the Decade of Broadband. Increasing bandwidth demand for delivery of content – movies, data, commerce of all sorts, art books (finally!), online storage – will see a dramatic increase in bandwidth to the business and home, while competition will see to it that prices continue to fall. AT&T got most of it right in its prescient 1993 advertisements titled “You Will” with a voiceover by Tom Selleck (remember him? Also obsolete). The only thing missing from making all of the telephone company’s ideas really practical is an absence of bandwidth and speed in our transmission systems. It will just take time and money – no technological breakthroughs are needed, just shovels to make trenches for all that optical fibre.

Meanwhile, thanks to the technological revolution of the first decade of this new millennium, there has simply never been a better time to be a photographer.

On a personal note, had you told me on January 1, 2000 that my Leica M2, Leica M3 and Rolleiflex 3.5F would all be disposed of and that I would be using two cameras from a home electronics manufacturer (the Panasonic G1 and LX1) for daily snaps and a Canon 5D for ‘medium format’ quality …. well, I would have pointed you to the local loony bin after suggesting you first sober up. Change or die.

Posts of the Year

Photographers, Photographs, Photography

This has been a productive year for writing about Photographs, Photographers and Photography and I had a blast doing it. I hope you have been stimulated, inspired and, yes, angered from time to time. Without emotion there is no progress.

So, without further ado, here are my favorite posts of the year, in no particular order:

I am delighted to report that the revenue I have derived from this journal in 2009 was identical to that for 2008 and prior, meaning zero. I can assure you that will continue in 2010.

Happy New Year and thanks for dropping by.

Onward and upward:

Falling lives

Cameras

Shorter and shorter.

I used my Leica M3 for some 35 years. It had everything I needed in a street snapper, being small, quiet, sharp and fast. Add a lens or two and you had enough to travel the world. I mostly used it with the 35mm Summaron with those ghastly viewfinder ‘spectacles’.

My M3

My Rollei 3.5F made it through 10 years. Truth be told, I seldom did it justice, never getting comfortable with the reversed waist level image (you were always looking up at people’s chins) but the large negative was nice and the camera even quieter than the Leica.

My Rollei 3.5F

It’s successor was possibly the most accomplished medium format film camera ever, the Rollei 6003 Pro. The designers obviously took pictures and the choice of shutter or aperture priority automation was better executed than anything before or since. The lenses were to die for and the controls near perfect. Too bad it weighed several tons. Five years.

My Rollei 6003 Pro

One other attempt at medium format came and went in a year. The Pentax 6×7 was so loud that there was basically no environment in which I cared to use it.

It made the sound of a gun when the button was pressed

By contrast, the diminutive Pentax ME Super with its sweet 40mm Pancake lens was a dream and served me well on the streets of a tough New York during most of the decade of the 1980s when I lived there. It started as a ‘steal me, I don’t care’ substitute for the Leica and ended up my daily snapper. I left it behind in New York when I moved to Los Angeles. Street snappers were safe there as no one walked.

ME Super with pancake in place – as good as 35mm SLRs got

But my all time favorite of the film years was my Leica M2, which I bought in very sad shape in 1993. I got a dozen very hard years out of it and it always made me regret having bought the M3 back in 1971 when I really should have got the M2. The 35/50/90mm viewfinder was just what the doctor ordered and no bespectacled bulky 35mm lenses were needed, just the wonderful 35mm and 90mm Asph Summicrons. Parting with that one really hurt when I sold it.

My Leica M2 with the 35mm Asph Summicron

My general drift here, however, is that there are no more 5, 10 or 15 year cameras. The rate of change in technology is so startlingly high right now that if you were to tell me that I would be using my Panasonic G1 as my “go to” tool of choice five years hence I would laugh myself silly.

No sooner do I write that, though, than I am given pause by the superb Canon 5D. I see no earthly reason to upgrade to the Mark II as the images seem every bit as perfect as anything from medium format film and maybe it will just enjoy a double digit anniversary here. Provided it doesn’t blow and die for lack of digispares. I have recycled a couple of the poorer lenses made by Canon for this body but the rest soldier on as sharp as the day I bought them and newer arrivals preserve backward compatibility so far.

Life’s too short for brand loyalty. I wonder what the Panasonic G2 will bring? Or the Samsung XYZ3? If it works for me you will find it around my neck or, more likely, in my pocket.

“Rich sod” I hear you thinking. Nothing could be further from the truth. My M3, bought in 1971, was the results of My years in retail. The Rollei 3.5F was a real beater which cost very little. Now, film Leicas and Rolleis are super collectible, of course. Pretty much everything else was from trading gear, and I never bought new until digital came along. The reasons are simple. ‘Used’ and ‘digital’ equals ‘obsolete’, as in parts are not available no matter how competent the camera, and repairing them makes little economic sense. Further, digital gear is so much cheaper than the machines of old that it has become very affordable. That $650 G1 would have cost some $100 in 1971 currency when I got that Leica M3. It never ceases to amuse me that the proceeds of my M2, M3 and a small handful of lenses paid for everything I use today. Like with investing, timing the exit right makes a big difference. And loyalty is for dog lovers.

iTablet/iSlate/iWhatever

Computing

Any day now.

That P. T. Barnum of the digital age, Steve Jobs, knows how to milk free publicity. Before being fired from Apple in May, 1985, he joked that Apple was a ship that leaked from the top. He had not yet learned the power of silence.

Then, upon rejoining Apple just over ten years later, he knew better. The less you said the more they wrote and speculated about the next Great Thing, and while I have no idea how much this strategy garnered in free publicity for the iPhone, you can bet the amount was huge. I doubt there was a more anticipated introduction of a consumer gadget in the history of consumer gadgets.

The next Great Thing, the touchscreen iTablet, will likely be introduced on January 27, 2010 and there are so many indicia of the device’s imminent arrival that it’s hardly a long shot prediction.

iSlate/iTablet – artist’s rendering.

Books, magazines and newspapers getting readied, games being redesigned for larger screen resolution, components procured, a meeting hall booked for a January Apple special, leaks from parts suppliers in Taiwan and China and, most recently, disclosure that the iSlate.com domain has been registered in Apple’s name for a couple of years. iSlate sounds pretty neat to me. A nice throwback to the days of Moses delivering the Ten Commandments.

This device is unlikely to be as earth shattering as the iPhone because it will be perceived as costlier, for one. Consumers still naively believe that the iPhone costs $100-$200 when the all in 2 year contract cost is closer to $2,000. But it’s tempting to speculate what the iSlate will cost. My guess is that the $599 number bruited about is unrealistic. The iPhone, with its miniscule screen, would cost that at retail absent the telco’s subsidy.

If the iSlate really is to have a 7-10″ touchscreen in glorious color, 3G, wifi and a long life battery, $1300 is more like it, and that would dictate lower margins than Apple’s existing MacBook Pro. Still, Apple did mention at their last earnings call that they anticipate falling gross margins going forward and it’s unclear whether this reflects an attempt at increased market share (not consonant with their traditional thinking) or, maybe, a lower than usual margin on the iSlate. So I’m guessing $999. That will make it less than the blockbuster expected, the economies of the west still being in recovery from a brush with death, and the effect on the stock will not be a happy one.

This will, I believe, be a “buy the rumor, sell the news” type of investment opportunity.

But I think the device’s relevance to educated consumers (who constitute a small minority of cell phone users, let’s face it) will be great. It will become the news delivery tool of choice for those who prefer not to waste their time on the pap passing for news on the networks or on cable – I’m reminded of the old saying that the front page of any major newspaper has more news than a 30 minute network news broadcast. It will become a powerful marketing tool for those seeking to display pictures, models, sketches, ideas on the fly. Engineers, design professionals, doctors and investment gurus will love it. You will watch movies and play games on it. And it will be a wonderful tool for the display of photographs, maybe with limited processing tools included. Imagine using such a tool in the studio as a preview device connected to your DSLR in live view mode with an art director peering at the screen over your shoulder.

And for a company which never lets form take a back seat to function, you can bet that the iSlate/iTablet/iWhatever will look absolutely fabulous. I can’t wait to see what it’s all about. The introduction date is January 27, 2010.

Disclosure: I am long AAPL call options. If you think this blog is a source of investment advice, I can get you a deal on a bridge in Brooklyn.

Like the old days – not!

Cameras

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.