Odds and Ends

 photo by Herb Ritts

I just spent ten days in and around LA, my daughter was graduating from CalArts, and I had the chance to check out the Herb Ritts: L.A. Style exhibition at the Getty Museum. Ritts was mostly known as a fashion and celebrity photographer that worked in LA from the 1970s until his death in 2002 from complications of AIDS. The Getty exhibit focuses on the three main areas of his photography, fashion, celebrities, and nudes. It's a fascinating overview of his career and features most of his well-known images. Seeing Ritts's work in person gave me a greater appreciation for his photography. These are wonderful black-and-white prints. His nudes covered much of the same ground as Robert Mapplethorpe did, but avoids the more extreme aspects of Mapplethorpe. But Ritts's photographs of women are truly beautiful and even transcendent. If you find yourself in LA, be sure to check it out. It's well worth it, especially if you haven't been to the Getty, which is one of the most beautiful museums in the country. It goes until August 26.

photo by Herb Ritts

Scarab Labs has introduced Scarab Darkrooms, a RAW converter for Windows-based computers. For now, this converter is free to download and you can do that here. If you are on a budget, this is a great deal. Many new cameras are included like the Canon 5D Mark III and the Sony NEX-7, but the Olympus OM-D EM-5 isn't supported for now. I'm sure this will be covered sooner or later. I downloaded the converter and messed around on it and it seems to work well. The fill function works well without adding halos, but it doesn't allow for black-and-white conversions, which I use a lot in Lightroom. Maybe this will change. I hope so.

A new website has been announced: The Most Talented People in the World. It features interviews with photographers, cinematographers, and writers, and actually interviews with a wide range of professionals. This website and blog looks at what it takes to succeed in life, school, art, and business, and acknowledges that knowing the history and tradition in any given field of study is just as important as knowing the latest tech involved in that area. The people featured on the site have interesting stories to tell. Check them out.

In the next week or two, I will post some of the photos I took down in LA. Stay tuned.

New Leica Camera

Well, actually there are a few new cameras that have been announced from Leica. There is the V-Lux40, a 20x compact digicam. The X2 with a 16 MP sensor and a 36mm equivalent f/2.8 lens that will sell for around $2000. The limited edition, deluxe M9-P Hermes, which is the regular M9-P, but with silver chrome finish and ocre-colored calfskin trim. It will come with matching 50mm lens and a matching calfskin strap for $25,000. There's also a three lens kit with a Hermes camera bag for $50,000, if you want to go all the way.

The "big" news is the M-Monochrom, a variant of the M9-P. As its name implies, the M-Monochrom will be a black-and-white only digital camera. Its 18 MP sensor will not capture any color info and because of that, it will have extended ISO settings up to 10,000 ISO, the regular M9-P only goes up to 2,500, and it will be capable of capturing substantially higher resolution. The M-Monochrom body will sell for a bit less than $8000.

So is this the ultimate black-and-white shooting machine? Maybe. Purists will likely applaud this move as it allows photographers to shoot as if they were using B&W film and use color filters like they used to do. But it's definitely a niche camera with limited appeal among most photographers. But then you could say that about most Leica cameras. And the price will keep it out of the hands of most photographers, as it is for most Leica products. As a long time B&W photographer, I've come to appreciate the flexibility of digital when it comes to creating B&W images, like being able to individually adjust the tonal response of colors within a scene, similar to how colored filters change tonal relationships in B&W film, but being able to manipulate several different colors at once. You could never do that with film and I like that ability. Anyway, kudos to Leica for going their own way and not being afraid to try something different, even if it is a bit old fashioned.

Odds and Ends

There are a few things of note are happening in photography today, so here they are.

Keith Richards by Albert Watson

First, the latest issue of PhotoMedia is out with my profile/article on NYC photographer Albert Watson. He's a powerhouse of a photographer that has few peers at this point in time. The photographers that came closest were Richard Avedon and Irving Penn, who are both deceased. He was a fun and intense interview subject and was vastly more cooperative with the interview process than most busy photographers can allow themselves to be. Extremely accomplished and gracious, too. Just like you want your heroes to be. Watson is not your average high-end photographer. His interests are too varied to settle into one kind of specialty and he insists on having a hand in every image that leaves his studio. He does the final image manipulations in Photoshop and he personally makes every black & white print in his darkroom. His integrity and commitment is inspiring. So, pick up a copy of PhotoMedia today.

Pastry Cooks by Irving Penn

Speaking of Irving Penn, The Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) has announced the creation of the Irving Penn Archives. Penn was one of the greatest 20th Century photographers and one of my personal favorites. When he passed away, he willed his archives to the AIC and now it is online and ready for visitors. If you don't know his work, allow yourself the opportunity and the time to experience it. He is worth it. You can find the archive here.

Marvel's The Avengers

If you were one of the millions who saw Marvel's The Avengers this past weekend, you were also seeing film footage shot with Canon DSLRs.In addition to film and digital movie cameras, the cinematographer used 5D Mark II and 7D cameras for POV action shots and for unusual angles that would be difficult to get with regular movie cameras. The footage shot with these cameras blended seamlessly with the regular movie cameras. Pretty cool, huh?

What Do We Call Micro 4/3 Cameras?

Yesterday, a friend of mine, Kim, pointed out an infuriating and bone-headed mistake he caught in a recent B&H catalog. I think this mistake is a good illustration of why the problem of creating a new class and format of camera, and then not having a good name for it, is a real challenge. Lots of mistakes and misinformation can result. In a short essay explaining the differences between DSLRs, like the Nikon D800, and the newer Micro 4/3s cameras like the Olympus E-P3 or the Panasonic GX1, they labelled the new cameras as "Mirrorless DSLRs." It's almost like they don't know what "SLR" stands for, which is a profound bit of nonsense that can only confuse people. It is about the same as calling digital cameras, "filmless film cameras." It just really doesn't make sense.

In the 20th Century, several camera formats came into being. View cameras meant that you view straight through the camera, seeing the direct image projected by the camera lens. TLR, or Twin Lens Reflex, meant that there were 2 lenses on the camera, one for taking pictures and one for viewing. The "Reflex" part of the name referred to the mirror that reflected the image from the viewing lens upwards into a ground glass screen so that the photographer looked straight down into the camera as they used it. Rangefinder cameras referred to the rangefinder mechanism linked to the lens focusing which superimposed two images, so that when an object's two images lined up, that meant the focus for that object and distance was achieved. And finally, there were SLRs, which stood for Single Lens Reflex. These cameras were the mainstay of most photographers and combined the aspects of the other focusing methods into one usable and flexible style. In an SLR, the photographer looked through the taking lens, the image from that lens was reflected by a mirror into a ground glass screen and then channeled through a glass pentaprism and other glass elements to the photographer's eye. The term "Reflex" referred to the mirror used to reflect the image into a ground glass screen. In cameras, "Reflex" always refers to a mirror, and that is why calling a camera a Mirrorless DSLR is so ridiculous.

Since the advent of digital cameras, the "D" was added in front of SLR to mean a Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera and that is fine. But we don't have an easy and simple designation for the new format of cameras, even though many companies are making them. Sometimes they are called "mirrorless cameras," which is okay but kind of vague. None of the digital point-and-shoots have mirrors, either, but they aren't really the same kind or level of camera, so that could be confusing. Some people have even suggested calling this new format, EVIL, which stands for Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens. While clever, it seems like a marketing nightmare guaranteed to alienate certain folks. Who wants an EVIL camera? I guess I'd suggest a variation of SLR, which would be SLM, or Single Lens Mirrorless. It's simple and fits the nature of the cameras in question. From now on, that's what I'll be calling them. And B&H? Come on, you can do better than that!

First Impressions: Fuji X-Pro1

Last night I had the opportunity to see and handle the new Fuji X-Pro1 camera with its 3 lenses. When this camera was first announced, it seemed to have the answers for most of what ails digital cameras these days. Well, after taking a closer look at it, that was probably an overly optimistic view of this camera. Honestly, I don't think any camera, whether film or digital, can be the perfect answer for any and all situations. Some just are better fits for some specific problems, not all of them. So let's break down what I saw and experienced. Bear in mind that I didn't get a chance to shoot any images. I was looking at images taken and supplied by Fuji, so these can be assumed to be best-case examples of what the camera can do. What it actually does may be quite different in the real world.

The X-Pro1 is a bit of a mixed bag. My first impression on looking at it is that it's kind of big for what it is. I'm talking about the camera body itself. Keeping in mind that it uses an APS-C size sensor, it's nearly the same size as a Leica M9 and not that far from a full-sized DSLR, minus the penta-prism hump, of course. I was surprised. When I picked it up, though, it was surprisingly light. Almost suspiciously light. I know the body is made of mostly magnesium, but it felt very light as if it was made of plastic. The larger-than-expected size coupled with the feather-like weight created a strange disconnect for me. I'm used to pro-oriented cameras having a certain amount of heft, a substantial quality to them and the X-Pro1 doesn't have this. Of course, who am I to complain about a light weight camera? Anyway, moving on.

On the other hand, the lenses are surprisingly substantial and well-made. Aside from Leica and Zeiss lenses, I haven't picked up a lens like these in years. Even the focusing is smooth and well-damped like a well-made manual focus lens. But, that's where the similarities end. The operation of manual focusing these lenses is frustrating and unresponsive. Seems like you turn the focusing ring forever without getting anywhere. I was told they were an improvement over the focusing in the earlier model, the X100. If this is so, wow. Really?

So enough complaining, what was good about the camera and lenses? Well, the images for sure. The 35mm f/1.4 was clearly the best of the three lenses, with the 60mm f/2.4 coming close to it. These two lenses have the ideal combination of fine detail and sharp images with creamy, smooth out of focus characteristics that manage to provide enough hints of detail for the out of focus areas to hang together and not fall apart. The out of focus backgrounds and foregrounds don't turn to mush or have weird, distracting highlights, they still have a lot of character. Not every lens can do this. Images from the 35mm lens were especially three-dimensional. However, the images from the 18mm f/2 lens seemed kind of flat in comparison. It wasn't nearly as sharp.

A lot of the image quality probably is due to two things, the X-Pro1's sensor and processor. I leafed through a large stack of images printed to 8x12 and most had enough similarities to draw some conclusions. Overall, I'd say the images from the X-Pro1 were more immediately film-like than most digital cameras produce. There was a smoothness in the tonal gradations without losing sharpness in the detail that I used to associate with medium and large format color images. The image quality is first-rate, as good or better than anything out there.

The operation of the camera is simple, direct, and refreshingly old school with a shutter speed dial on top of the camera and each lens having their own aperture rings. Both have "A" or automatic settings, too. Add the exposure compensation dial next to the shutter speed dial and the shutter release and you have all you need to control the shooting. The hybrid viewfinder is pretty nice, too. A bit of visual drag with the LCD option, but it's not bad at all. Very livable. Using the camera proved to be intuitive and fast.

Despite my concerns and complaints, I enjoyed the X-Pro1 quite a bit. Before seeing and handling the X-Pro1, I was even toying  with the idea of selling my Canon equipment and just jumping into the Fuji X-system, but now that I have seen it up close and got a chance to see how it works, I'm probably going to stay put. But I will keep my eyes open to see where Fuji takes this new camera system. I have the feeling that the X-Pro2 will be something really special.

New Camera Blues

Canon has posted a new firmware 1.1.2 update for the 5D Mark III which addresses several problems and issues. You can download it here. Canon has also stopped shipments of the new camera until they can fix an exposure problem. It seems that if you are shooting in extremely low light conditions and use the top LCD illumination feature, which most people tend to do in that situation, this will throw off your exposure, probably in the direction of under-exposure. Canon has also issued a product advisory to 5D Mark III owners about this glitch and starting in mid-May will inspect owner's cameras free of charge to see if this is happening to their cameras. Whether this means they will also repair or adjust the cameras for free is unclear at this time. Most new cameras have a few glitches to work out after introductions, but I have the feeling that this won't help sell the 5D Mark III.

Blackmagic Cinema Camera

Blackmagic Design has announced their first camera, the Blackmagic Cinema Camera. This will be a very interesting camera for people who are into movie-making. Blackmagic Design has up to now been more involved in the post-production side of things, making hardware and software for editing and such.

The Cinema Camera will be a 2.5K camera in terms of resolution, regular HD has basically 1K resolution, with a dynamic range of 13 stops, which approaches the dynamic range of film stock. The major goal for the camera is to produce the best possible footage in terms of image quality, which is a high goal indeed. It also uses the Canon EF lens mount, which is bound to of interest to filmmakers using Canon DSLR's like the 5d Mark II, and now the 5D Mark III, and the upcoming EOS-1D C, which is specifically geared towards filmmaking. And on the back of the camera is a 5-inch touchscreen for viewing, which dedicated controls for recording and playback. It will record onto interchangeable SSD hardrives or you can use a Thunderbolt cable and record straight to your computer. To sweeten the pot, so to speak, its price will come in around $3000, which puts it $500 less than a new 5D Mark III body, and it should be available in July.

As you can tell from its design, this camera is not trying to be anything other than a movie camera. It's not trying to be both a still camera and a movie camera. It's for making movies. I have the feeling that these will be very popular when they are available. You can find out more about the Blackmagic Cinema Camera here.