Morning Paper 1

Photographs

Mooching about in the Bay Area

This one’s a tad unusual for me.

First, I actually used the LCD screen to frame it on the Lumix LX1; indoors, it’s usable.

Second, the reason I had to use it is that my glued on viewfinder only frames accurately (well, sort of in the ballpark, if you get my drift) at the 28mm setting and here I had to zoom the lens all the way out to 100mm to get the composition right.

Shades of the Leica M2 and the 90mm, but much quieter!

I cranked the ISO up to 200 (400 is really too grainy) and held the camera as steady as I could.


Lumix LX1, 200 ISO, 1/13th, f/4.9. Processed in Aperture.

The Panasonic’s image stabilizer did its job as best it could and the result is more pointillist than blurred; the palm in the foreground was pure luck and the Lumix’s native 16:9 aspect ratio doesn’t hurt either.

Well, I didn’t know what would come out and the sparse color palette is my sort of thing.

Go where the money is

Software

Economics 101 and Photoshop CS3

Well, the glowing reviews are coming in from the big magazines extolling the genius of Photoshop CS3.

So, what are you going to do? Trash your biggest advertiser? I don’t think so.

Heads up, class, for Dr. Pindelski’s Three Rules of Economics:

  • All control drives up price
  • A fool and his money are easily parted
  • When wondering about decision making, always go where the money is

I have been using Photoshop CS3 in beta form for some four months now so let me write in clear, unconflicted language.

This remains the hardest to use, worst user interface, clunkiest photography software available. Rather than improve on previous versions it just gets worse. The menu structure is so poorly organized we now have new options like “Show all menu items” in drop down lists of umpteen selections! Just try to find something basic like Image->Contrast/Brightness without this option.

Increasingly, real world photographers – those who prefer to take pictures rather than process them – are adopting user friendly products like Aperture and Lightroom. For the average person who does not need a zillion variables applied to his snaps, CS3 is simply God’s way of telling you that you have too much money, time or both.