Zoom Zoom

Over in the technical essays section I have exhaustively covered my recent thinking on landscape photography and it’s very different needs to street/portraiture and travel.

My thoughts on zoom lenses would be clear to any long time readers of this blog. I don’t generally like them on a number of levels.

Lazy framing. There are a lot of forces at work when composing an image. We have to be aware of them to avoid becoming a slave to the limitations of our technology. Auto focus, eye level viewing and zooming all tend to distract the photographer from more important compositional considerations such as timing, angle, perspective and interaction.

Sticking a big zoom up to your face may seem to be true “immersion” in the subject, but are you thinking of angles, are you missing shots while micro managing framing and is the intimidating contraption in front of your face creating a barrier between you and your subject?

A small prime can be used intuitively. The user becomes used the angle of view, the lens offers, pre-visualising the end product before the image is made because they do not have to guess an enormous amount of possible framing options. yes you can pre select a focal length on the barrel and use the zoom like a prime, but who does. The forced limitations of the prime lens makes you learn it rather than the zoom coming to your demands. This is how we learn to frame, use perspective and become flexible (less distracted) in our photography.

Inconsistency. Generally a zoom lens will have good and bad points. Anything with variations will vary. Makes sense, but it can be hard to swallow when you get unexpectedly bad results out of the blue right next a good image at a slightly different focal length and aperture taken seconds before.

Prime lenses have generally even and predictable temperaments. If they have weaknesses, they are often part of the design choice, not the necessary evil of compromising some of the range for the betterment of the whole.

Bokeh can be an important part of lens choice. A zoom lens can have good, even great Bokeh, but like other performance parameters, it will vary though the zoom range, making it useful only on a case by case basis, not predictably, so not creatively.

Speed. Zooms can be and are getting ever faster in maximum aperture. The Canon 24-70 f2 coming for the new mirrorless range is a “next step” lens for zoom users. The humble 50mm f1.8 offers the same or better shallow DOF and light gathering for 1/10th the price and weight (or less) and in a low profile option. It will always be the way that lens speed will be easier to obtain with a prime lens. As zooms get better/faster, primes do to. As a micro 4/3 user, I can use any aperture available in a practical way. My f1.8 is the full frame users f2.8, so too-shallow-to-use DOF is never an issue and wider choices are employed often. Slow zooms for me are generally of little use.

The strong separation the 75mm gives me at f1.8

Here is the contradiction.

My ideal landscape lens can be;

Big and heavy. I will be moving slowly, interacting with inanimate objects and I will appreciate a little lens bulk for added stability when shooting on a tripod in windy conditions.

A zoom. The practical value of 100% useable framing is far more appealing than sifting through a clutch of primes to find a “near enough” focal length, then cropping away precious pixels later. Add to this the constant changing of expensive filters every time you change lenses and primes loose their gloss quickly in field conditions.

A good to average lens. I will not be using high stress wide apertures, but the more useful and usually better middle apertures. Most lenses, even cheap kit ones are good enough at f5.6-11.

Taken on a safe aperture with a “crappy” kit lens

A slow lens because speed (see above) is not an issue.

The ideal for me at the moment is the 12-100 f4 Pro Olympus.

It is according, to my fairly sloppy, lets call it “field conditions” testing, better than or equal to most of it’s competition, especially across the frame which is important for landscapes. The only two lenses that gave it a run were the Olympus 45mm that I own and the Panasonic 15mm Leica, which tied for quality, but had a nice smooth look (could have been the ever changing light). The 15mm was limiting in range (I already have a decent 17mm), so it was never really a contender. The 100% framing with reliable cross frame performance are a boon. Most reviewers put the lens roughly equal to the 12-40 (some higher, some lower), which is near enough for me.

It has for me the ideal range. Never a big fan of super wide angle lenses, a 24-200 equivalent range is perfect and my 75-300 is a good enough extension when needed giving me an excellent 24-450 and decent 450-600 range.

It has a better than average macro focus. I seldom shoot true macro, but often take detail images.

It is fast enough to be useful and importantly is still good at f8-11 (f16-32 equiv), which can be the starting point of diffraction limitation on M43 lenses. It also has a brilliant stabiliser, which will get those fleeting images tripod users sometimes miss.

It is weather sealed, although my Pen F is not. The back up camera is an OMD body for really bad weather and the plan is to upgrade to an EM5 mk3 next year some time, switching the Pen to street use.

The Bokeh is rated as generally equal to or better than the 12-40, which will be better than the 40-150 pro. Not a big consideration, but if it is good it will be used.

Seems a no brainer and my wife is happy to turn a blind eye to the cost. Perfect.

Now I just have to justify it by using it.

Pointless

Some images defy logical explanation, but still work on some level.

Pen F 25mm

Sloping oddly, flawed compositionally, colour bland and basically pointless. It still talked to me (maybe only me) on some level. Maybe you literally had to be there.

The end is nigh (or bring out your dead)

last week the camera industry reached a turning point.

Was it a momentous as pre canned 35mm film or auto focus being used for the first time? Maybe, but it is efinately as momentous as the introduction of the mirrored SLR 60 odd years ago.

It is the beginning of the end of the mirrored SLR.

Big statement? No not really, only common sense.

The mirror in the SLR camera was a huge leap forward for the film camera. For the first time, the photographer could frame accurately, using the same view the film had, with the intimacy and immediacy of right way up and “real” looking viewing, not a funny little off-set window or back to front-upside down, ground glass view all of the other cameras forced on us.

The PENTAprism and refleX mirror (see what I did there?) was indeed a great idea. Thanks to these developments cameras became both more likeable and more practical. The thing we need to remember is the mirror was a need of the film era. You cannot see through film, so you have to see around it. This need has changed.

All was not perfect though as the mirror forced a series of compromises;

1. What you see is not necessarily what you get. Only well travelled old hands could accurately guess exposure compensation and motion blurring through years of experience. The rest of us had to be saved by good labs, tolerant (not always) films, luck or just had to get used to binning our mistakes.

   The what-you-see-is-what-you-get, live time view mirrorless cameras offer is obviously the preferred way of viewing the world photographically. Why would you look that logical and creative gift horse in the mouth?

2. Lens design was compromised. The fact is a lens maker is happier if the light path to the sensor/film plane is unobstructed and the distance from lens formula to said image plane is of their choosing. Shoving an unwanted inch of mirror into that space forced a rethink of many lens designs (although long lenses became doable).

   It is no coincidence that the crop of super fast (f0.95 or f1) lenses dating back to the 60’s with Leica, Contax, Canon and other mirrorless range finder camera makers, nearly disappeared until resurfacing again in the last 6 years with the advent of, again, in a new form, mirrorless cameras. The new Canon “R” is I think a safe, pedestrian camera entry, but have a look at their first of it’s type full frame f2 zoom and improved f1 prime lenses. The same goes for Nikon’s “Z” cameras and “S” lenses with their pending 0.95 offering.

3. Form Factor and operation. The mirror is a fragile, hard to make, noisy and vibration prone bit of mechanical wizardry. My enemy through my early years was mirror vibration. Most serious high resolution photographers got around this by using cameras that had no mirror, suffering from all of the other issues these forced on them instead.

   Mirrorless cameras can be smaller, less fragile, cheaper to build and more design flexible. They can be specifically designed to task and the introduction of electronic shutters has led to a “next level” quality expectation (See; Sony A7r mk1 compared to the mk3 shutter vibration issues).

4. Lens calibration, always denied by the manufacturers until the digital age gave us the tools to prove what we suspected, has always been a minor to major issue for many. Forcing a camera to use one light path light for focus, but a different (direct) light path to take the image adds a huge variable into the mix. Last week I spent a morning with a client’s two full frame DSLR cameras and pro lens, trying to get to the bottom of some genuinely limiting focussing issues. The culprit turned out to be a zoom lens that needed -10 micron adjustment on one camera and a little less on the other! Add to this the very real likelihood that a lens could be fine at one focussing distance and off at another and you have a recipe for frustration. This was one factor that drove me out of SLR’s.

   A camera that focusses off it’s sensor, be it mirrorless or an SLR in live view cannot be out of calibration. The image on the sensor simply is or is not in focus regardless of camera or lens manufacturing tolerances.

5. Focussing. After 30 years, manual focussing was at a pretty high stage of technical development. Bright, clear and accurate laser matte or split screens (My F1n with laser mat screen-perfection).

   Then auto focus arrived and manual focus had to take a back seat, as over the next 20 or so years AF went from unfairly dominant to actually tenable. I think we lost something there and the industry was as much at fault as we the users. Lenses dropped or down graded the MF ring (just look at Canons first 13 “ugly duckling” EOS lenses). SLR screens also became “AF calibrated”, making them near useless for manual focus with fast lenses, unless you could fit an optional MF screen, often at the expense of AF performance!

   Focussing cannot read minds, but our slavish adherence to AF and it’s short comings has made many (some, most?) photographers “framing lazy”. For some, it is just easier to accept what the camera could find easily than fight it. If you take a look at a lot of older photographers work, they use the whole frame instinctively. One of the first things we address when teaching is focus control. In the early courses the simple statement “now focus on the tree in the foreground” was often met by “what if my camera likes the bigger tree behind?” and don’t get me started on the difficulties of shooting through something.

   Canon offered the eye control idea and thumb toggle controls became ever more useful, but nothing (except maybe a more mature eye control technology?) could choose your preferred point of focus nearly as well as you could want.

   Live view or mirrorless cameras (MLV) offer a variety of focussing options that are getting us ever closer to true “intuitive” focussing. Subject face/eye detection so sensitive you can specify which eye, touch focus-and-shoot and live-touch screen focus are just a few ideas that have been developed over a surprisingly short time. MLV focussing has gone from compact camera speeds to fastest available in only a few short camera generations and the technical possibilities, unlike phase detection based mirror focus, are virtually unlimited. Just look at the focus point and processor upgrade the Fuji XT3 has over the very capable and relatively new XT2, then go back a few years to the X100!

   Eye focus (your eye not the subject’s), subject selective or even non DOF limited focussing are all likely as processors and sensor technology get ever better.

   Even manual focus (irony warning!) is back with a vengeance.

6. Video. Simply not possible with a mirror down, so a mirrorless necessity rather than a benefit.

There is no doubt that Canon and Nikon entering the fray has legitimised the mirrorless movement, making it a road map to the future rather than just a philosophical argument between a school of hungry sharks and a pair of bloated, slow to change whales. Further evidence of this is the urgency they have both shown to gain legitimacy with full and solid release schedules and a brutal cutting out of their previous efforts (who would want to turn up dressed as the EOS M1 or Nikon V series at the “mirrorless is now” party).

The early adopters have a generational edge and have carved out good names for themselves making the camera market vibrant and alive again rather than a bland and slow moving two horse race. I adopted mirrorless over five years ago and accepted at that time the limitations that meant (I tried 4 brands, sticking with the only one that met my needs at the time), but what I gained still out weighed the negatives.

I think we are now at the stage where any serious shooter needs to think hard before they jump into a multi thousand dollar DSLR system and those that are committed should look hard at both paths when next purchasing.

Lets see if the future proves me wrong.

Thoughts on Teaching, helping, selling and guidance

Recently, I have come “back to the fold”. I am now associated again with the camera shop (yep bricks and mortar, going strong) in both a sales and training capacity.

The sales side is still feeling a bit alien to me. Odd as I have 35 years retail and more recently 10 years at the same camera shop, but it is amazing how quickly you can loose your knowledge edge when dealing with a vast and ever changing flow of gear. The area most surprising is in lenses, especially for ranges I have little interest in (SLR’s), as I love lenses and have been in the past a walking data bank on the subject. It will come, but I will have to apply my self.

The more exciting news (for me) is in the training/teaching/event management side.

Over the last three or four months I have been rolling out an ever changing range of camera and photo technique courses (some of the support materiel is in the tutorial page). My learning curve has been steep, but affirming. The things I have learned about teaching after a 3 year break, have helped me as much as my students. It is amazing how core concepts can slip into habit, sometimes bad habits, until you have to face them directly, explaining them to someone else in a clear and logical manor.

My intention in our basic course and when doing a 1:1 session with someone is to talk about the “triangle” of exposure, ISO and Shutter speed. Their relation and relevance and their creative or trouble shooting options. What I have found or been reminded of though is when someone is new to serious SLR or mirrorless photography, the controls of the average camera are ridiculously over thought.

Here are a few things that I have (re) learned lately;

1. Control of focus is fundamental to controlling depth of field and depth of field is fundamental to creative control of photgraphic images. Auto focus cameras, SLR’s especially are good at getting focus somewhere in the frame, but generally poor at placing it where you actually want it.

One of the reasons I really like mirrorless cameras (or high functioning live view on SLR’s) is, they can detect faces/eyes automatically and accurately and offer touch focus. This fixes a lot of the common problems associated with focus accuracy for amateur photographers as friends and family are often their subjects.

The user is bamboozled by a huge range of options and odd terminology, both in the coverage and continuity of focus. Autofocus in a camera cannot mind-read, it just a tool to be controlled (although Canon’s eye control focus of the 90’s came close and Olympus’s thumb touch control on cameras like the Pen F also has potential), making humble manual focus and depth control still the best form for creative space* photographers.

One of the most common issues we come across in the shop when new photographers upgrade is in controlling focus. They go from a simple, centre biased 7-9 point focus system and a slow aperture lens in a camera like a 700D Canon, that generally did what they had learned to expect, to a 50+ point system in a 5D3 flickering, seemingly randomly across the screen, but often not where they want/need with their new shallow depth of field f2.8 zoom.

The first thing I have learned to do for the bulk of subjects is get the user to set “centre spot, single point, single shot focus” so they can actually control what they are shooting at.

A tough subject for many cameras, torn between the off centre, forward subject and the larger, centred background. This would probably split the field focus wise (I know from experience a Canon SLR would usually grab the background), but simply by setting focus to single point/single shot focus and picking the important point, then re-composing you get can what you want. Face detection would have probably worked here also.

The opposite (wide area, continuous tracking) is used only when we are talking about action shooting, where specific point accuracy is less important than general accuracy.

*

2. Exposure Compensation is one of the single most useful controls on any camera. No camera will get metering right all of the time and no camera will ever understand your creative needs or preferences.

Another reason I prefer mirrorless cameras or SLR’s in live view is the “what you see is what you get” exposure preview. Being able to get a pre shot preview of an image gives everyone the same level of exposure control that a national Geographic field photographer has learned over 20+ years of experience and opens up a lot of creative options. Believe me when I say, it takes years of experience, experimentation and close observation to be able to accurately guesstimate the exposure compensation an image needs through an SLR view finder!

It is rarely talked about and is shut out on most automatic settings, so most photographers come to it in a slow and round about way, but if learned early it fixes most exposure error issues that come up regularly and gives the photographer a better feeling of creative control.

Without exposure compensation (-1.5), the camera would try to make this image look like daylight (all light meters in all cameras are set to think that way, to make what they are looking at look like daylight light values) and this image would lose it’s night time, slightly grungy vibe and would likely look washed out.

*

3. Fast lenses. The humble “nifty fifty” though often poorly identified and even more poorly explained is sold in most three lens kits, then usually lost in the bottom of the bag or worse the wardrobe.

The fact of the matter is depth of field is the most creative of all photographic controls and the (lens) aperture control is the primary, easiest and most accessible (although not the only) way of controlling it.

The other side of wider apertures is they let in more light. On average sixteen times more light (4 “f” stops) than a kit zoom at it’s widest aperture setting.

The average kit lens only offers you half of the possible aperture settings available. This means half as many creative controls and none of the wide or shallow ones and has much less light gathering power for low light shooting.

A shot that relies on both low light sensitivity and subject separation (shallow depth of field), both achieved by using an f1.8 aperture on a standard lens. Also requires focussing accuracy (see above). Could it have been taken with a kit zoom? Yes, but at the cost of the clearly defined subject “snap” with the background being less smooth and the noise or grain being more obvious due to a higher ISO (up to 4 settings higher). The ability to focus accurately and use exposure compensation were also factors in the image.

Landscape shooters rejoice. You are covered by the aperture range of f5.6 to f22, but portraitists, sport/action, low light and abstract/artistic photographers who want f1.8 to f2.8 apertures as a creative or low light option are well screwed by the limited aperture choices available.

How hard is it to get this fixed? A $200 dollar 35 or 50mm f1.8 lens and some small understanding of how to use it and the problem is solved. Think about that for a moment. Probably the cheapest accessory after a basic camera bag can double your creative and trouble shooting options.

There are more and I will talk about them in later posts, but these three have become the ones I have had to pay the most attention to. Teaching often reminds you that things you do automatically, can be overlooked when showing others and that was the case here. Strangely, when I am selling a camera, I have usually been good at reminding myself to not take any customer knowledge for granted, explaining things in a clear and logical way , but I lost that thinking when teaching.

Learn by teaching.

* Creative Space photographers are one who use the entire frame to compose an image, often placing the subject off centre or even in the corners.

Giant Killing

I have been doing some fresh work with a familiar subject (a volunteer project, for enjoyment and to help out at my wife's school).

At first I thought I would miss the 40-150 F2.8, but as I was working something struck me. Almost all of the images hanging in the school, be they on signs or in brochures, were taken with my original kit, before I "went pro" with the f2.8 lenses.

Because I will not show the ones of the children (it hurts, because there are some lovely images, I will have to limit myself to images taken of "safe" subjects. EM5 mk1 75-300 at about 200m

The bulk of the work, even indoors is with the 45, 75 and 75-300 slow zoom (!). There was only one image, taken as a "freshener" for an already established project, that was taken with either of the newer lenses. 

I really felt I would miss the combination of length and speed, but the extra separation of the 75mm at f1.8 to f2 gives me more creative and often technically better quality shots.

The true lure of the big lens is the lightning fast AF, that made even my older EM5's perform admirably for indoor sports. 

What I don't miss are the weight, the sometime weird Bokeh and the feeling I need to do something worthy to justify it.

Dead fish and empty bottles

I think I like this simply because the one clearly marked, undamaged side is so well positioned against the mess. A bit like one perfect leaf fallen on a mat of rotten ones.

EM5 mk1 17mm f2

Hope and Sausages

This image stirs in me memories of Italy. Even though I have not been there in a long time, an image hangs on the wall, much loved by my wife (loathed by me for it's technical deficiencies), taken in Rome in similar light with similar composition and colour.

I see more in common between the two from a purely photographic sense than I see differences.  

OMD EM5 mk1 17mm f2. Another example of the eminently useable Bokeh this lens offers shooting with wide apertures in low light. 

This is not the actual one, but one taken at the same time. Canon 450D 35 f1.4L at about f1.4 (back in my "best lenses, cheapest, lightest cameras" period). These images look crude and simple compared to now.

Osaka Station

I find a draw to something that shows a person in a mysterious, poignant way. The fleeting glance, or the look of being lost in thought. If that shares the frame with a contrasting, humorous, even combative element, then that, to me, is even more compelling.

is it stronger because you have to work for it, fighting against deliberate technical rule breaking? Probably not. But it adds another form (contradiction?) to this art form we like to label so easily.

I won't tell you what I see, because that will forever taint your view of the image and it smacks of nervous defence of the un-defendable.

See what you will, take away what you want or simply move on. It should not matter to me as the maker. If it does matter too much, then I am making the image for you, not for me and that is not art, it is manufacture.

Steps

Just for kicks, here is a simple image with a basic work flow applied in Lightroom. Some may find it interesting, others not. The things that are the strongest tools to me are the blue channel in camera calibration, helping to add that deeper colour and the use of selective contrast (blacker blacks/whiter whites) and the brush tool used gently and selectively instead of global sharpening. 

The RAW file with no pre-set applied and cropping. Underexposed, flat and poorly framed, EM5 mk1, 25mm.

Basic import setting with cropping (-50 highlights, +25 whites, -30 black, +30 blue channel in camera calibration). This usually works pretty well on a well exposed file, but not a flatter one.

Added White instead of added exposure (+50 from +25)

Deepened blacks instead of contrast (-50 from -30)

Gentle Brush over the focus area (+20 contrast, +15 clarity and +15 sharpness). Sharpening is otherwise Lightroom standard (+25)

A little added vibrance, to see if it adds or detracts (+30). I can go either way with this one.

Corners and Colour

The 25mm f1.8 wide open, with a little colour depth added (blue channel in Lightroom).

The Magic Wand

I though I should write about one of my all time favourite editing tools, the Lightroom Brush tool. This is not only my favourite Lightroom tool (closely followed by the camera calibration colour panel), but is the main reason I stuck with Lightroom after looking at some contenders.

This is my "hands on" tool. It is, for a self confessed computer shirker, the closest thing I have at hand to a real darkroom manipulation. 

Why do I like it?

One of the strongest weapons we have in photography to get our artistic point across is selective focus and subject placement. Lens focal length and aperture selection, focus point and Bokeh rendering, with some other factors will determine the starting point, but when the image hits our screens the quality needed to really bring out the best in the image, to really push home our intent is often the difference between "just ok" and better.

I find the brush tool while powerful, to be quite gentle and natural looking, where global settings can look harsh very quickly. Even tools such as Clarity and De haze look less aggressive when brushed on selectively. It may be that selective application, but even in direct comparison of areas sharpened globally or brushed, there seems to be (to my eye) a subtle difference.

My work flow has come to the point where I rarely do anything to an image with global tools other than a pre set, relying on a little light brush work to give the image the right emphasis. I would love to say i can do this with perfect camera control, but the reality is I often shoot with a little caution in fast moving scenes, needing to add the fine balance later in post processing.   

The original file with my "Gentle +" pre set (+ contrast, whites and shadows, - blacks and highlights). The pole is clearly the central subject, but it does not jump out from the background. The 17mm lens used has excellent Bokeh coherence and micro contrast, but it's wider focal length can still make things too close in focus plane to work.

Pleasant but not punchy.

After "Gentle Push" and "Soft Bokeh" applied. "Gentle Push" adds only about +10 contrast, sharpness and clarity and Soft bokeh subtracts about the same, but the effect is obvious, like a veil of clarity.

Detail crop showing the natural looking sharpening and softening in harmony. Notice how the woman in the background is less obtrusive, as is the drink machine on the other side.

The same base image with the global settings applied the same as "gentle push" brush settings. The image has more punchy colours and contrast, but is still a bit (or is more?) busy to the eye.

A crop showing the slightly harsher and harder detail also applied to the background.

It is subtle I know (the effect in editing looks stronger tan the blog post shows), but subtlety is good.

Tram Ride

A year or two ago, on a tram ride in Melbourne, I took these images, all from the same seat in the same ten or so minutes (roughly from Spencer Street to Docklands). 

The block below are probably one quarter of the images from that day that I like.

Magic spot, magic light.

All images were taken with an EM5 and 45mm lens

Future proof?

After a two year break from the photo industry, I am back in the fold. At the moment my role is teaching courses and a little sales work as needed, but it is all good.

The other night, I took part in a Canon sponsored event, partly as back-up staff, partly out of curiosity and something instantly struck me. 

The big two have not moved ahead very far in terms of mirrorless thinking. Canon is at the moment the leader of the two in practical Live View application (I believe), but the two reps present were reticent to apply any of this technology, something I found odd as we were doing astro photography. Live View with its automatic mirror-up vibration reduction, exposure preview and focussing benefits (magnification and accurate off the sensor focus) have always seemed to me (especially when using Canon myself), to be a logical feature to use. Little was said on the subject.

There are rumours of better adoption of this technology, but they have lost a lot of ground to the Sony, Fuji, Panasonic/Olympus brands in an area that is not a quaint side line, but the realistic future of camera tech. Lets look at some realities;

It is growing when the industry, generally is not.

Video cannot be shot with a mirror down. As SLR technology improves here, the relevance of the SLR itself lessens, leaving the SLR makers with the quandary of developing the tech at the expense of their own preferred format.

Live View is exactly that, the huge convenience of "what you see is what you get" applied to a field that has always had to put up with a certain amount of user "blindness", due purely to limited technology. Maybe one of the reasons phones are so popular may be this very feature (see it, shoot it - get what you see). The first thing I teach when getting down to the nitty-gritty of better image making is Exposure Compensation. It is infinitely easier when you can see what is going on. I remember being quite afraid of the mystical art of exposure comp. in the film era especially. It was the feature of true pro's. I use it all the time now as the perfect "mind reading" light meter is still a little ways off.

Focussing has more options, is smarter, will be even faster and smarter with near future development and is effectively unlimited as it processor based. Phase detection focus has improved steadily over the years, but relatively slowly compared to the amazing growth of Mirrorless AF systems and is it "better" that we rely on a system that looks for us, not with us? Don't even get me started on calibration and accuracy!                                                                 This seems also to go for silent electronic shutters, super high speed and high frame rates, removing other shutter limitations and vibration. It is not limited to the Mirrorless cameras, but most of the good thinking seems to be coming from there. 

Cameras will be smaller, less fragile (no mirror box to shake loose), have smaller lenses/accessories and it's form factor can be re-invented as needed. Just look at the modern return of the view finder style retro clone. Why not as any shape works when the old rules no longer apply.

Photography has always been a slave to technical limitations, but each time these are overcome, we move towards a better way, often with a vocal core of hold-outs for the old ways. I remember or was aware of the transitions to Colour,  Auto Focus, Digital and now Mirrorless technology, each with it's detractors and often with some valid points to hang their arguments on, at least early on, but the only real reason to hold on to old ideas is because you personally want to. You do not need a better excuse, that one is fine. If it wasn't there would have been no painting after photography, no records after CD's and no film after digital.

It becomes a problem, when the big two (not anywhere near as big as they were, but still perceived to be the royalty of the industry) control our perceptions of the natural change coming, it is much like the big oil companies short circuiting the development of natural energy sources. 

When I switched to Olympus from Canon five years ago, it was for practical reasons. The focus speed and accuracy, the sublime sharpness of both the sensor and lenses, in such a small and affordable package all persuaded me over. I even bounced back to Canon in a small way (forgivable after 30+ years with them?), but found the same compromises came up in size, selection of suitable lenses (more, but less reliable, bigger and dearer), body size (tried an EOS 100, but it felt, ironically, too small) and sensor (issues with clarity and highlights).

Not all that glitters is gold.

During my Canon time, in digital at least, the average life of a camera, due to unrest, not reliability, was less than two years and my lens arsenal was much the same. My OMD's are five years and counting. For the first time since film, I am looking at long term life, not waiting for the next big thing (that usually changed nothing).

Did I take ok images with Canon. Of course I did, otherwise i would have given up some time in the 1980's. Is the future the 60+ year old SLR and the brands that cannot break from them? Probably not.

I sometimes get the urge for another system, just to liven things up a bit (spice of life and all that), but every time I look at Canon and Nikon, I personally see a long term dead end. 

Anyway, rant over. Use what you want, they all take good images, but look a little more deeply than the salesman's recommendation of the same old same old. The form factor and usability of the camera you buy should be a major factor in your choice, not just the name on top.

Signed, Anonymous

One thing I really appreciate about bigger cities and something I am acutely aware of not having at home is anonymity. There is a big difference between the freedom of photographing people that are forever destined to be strangers. The city I live in has about 80,000 people, but it is amazing how often you run into people you know and the smaller place does have a feel of being much smaller (often manifesting in suspicion or a heightened awareness of thing "out of place"). The two problems I face with this are directly related. The people you are dealing with are more aware of you, because people doing anything overtly tend to stand out (especially in less busy streets) and conversely, they tend to act in a more contained and conservative manner. Melbourne has all sorts and they are just as happy to be themselves as they are happy to let you do your thing.  

This shared anonymity is an almost friendly barrier to judgement. 

Could I have taken the images below at home? Probably. But it would have been more strained, and stressful* and it would have taken longer than the half an hour or so these took. To be honest it would not have felt worth the effort.

This unfortunately has resulted in my photography becoming sporadic, limited to travel.

Within the last year, I have been verbally abused for including (just) a Harley Davidson motor bike in the front corner of an image of a building, had a Tarrot card reader (doing readings out in the open) chase me through a market to ask what I was up to when I took a wide angle image they were barely recognisable in (I did not even notice them when I composed the shot), had someone in the street stop and demand to see my "peeping Tom" images while photographing flowers in a nearly empty park and been honked at while photographing a leaf pattern on some cracks in the road edge! 

Compare this to 5 trips to Japan and dozens to Melbourne without incident.

Reflections

Always love the light in big cities. Reflected light is particularly beautiful.

Olympus Colour

It is true that in the modern, digital world we can often have what we want.

In photography, the brands we use have always had some small effect on what we produce, but it is true to say also, in the digital world, any decent camera will have the capacity to produce images similar if not identical to any other.

My journey to Olympus was slow and over thought. Coming from Canon, I had a strong, and opinionated colourful palette to compare to. Fuji offered something as brilliant, but different, Sony had a more neutral (Nikon like?) colour look and Olympus was, to be honest, not my favourite by a long shot.

When I was working in a shop, I had the luxury of trying before buying. It sounds wonderful, but talk about paralysis by analysis! I stumbled across part of this analysis the other day. 

The first image came from a Fuji with the 27mm pancake (40mm)

The next image was taken using a 6D and 40mm combination. Here is the colour I grew to love, rich and deep, cool overall, but warm where relevant.

The third image is the base colour from an Olympus RAW file, showing the unnaturally warm/muddy magenta tint that I really do not like (and lets not talk about the "warm" base setting they all come set with).

The last image is the same image with my basic Lightroom import settings applied (added white/reduced highlights, darkened black/boosted shadows, added blue channel and a slight boost in contrast).

I must admit, the Fuji image (a jpeg, not RAW) still appeals, but the Olympus image sits in a nice middle ground between the Fuji and Canon and there is plenty more to find.

The Fuji has a cool colour that I find appealing, although as I process more images from my library I must admit, it does not feel natural anymore, just appealing. Something I have also found frustrating with Fuji is their stubborn adherence to the X-Trans sensor with all of it's processing issues, when I know that the magic is available through normal Bayer array sensors in the XA series and now the tempting XT-100). The key to matching this cooler colour, without loosing strength in warm tones with Olympus (a Canon speciality), using EM5 mk1's, is the camera calibration blue saturation slider in Lightroom. The watery, almost delicate rendering is tougher as the Olympus cameras seem to put more "rubber to the road" in image depth, making their images less "etherial"(fragile and fickle) and more realistic (robust but boring?).

Processing can give you what ever you want, it is just a case of getting over it and accepting the reality that choices have always been a part of photography, not a limitation. 

Here is a bit of a meatball image, processed with a preset I call "Deep Dreamer". This little bike is always found in one of Melbourne's lanes, outside a shop and is a little worse for wear. This colour is what I would call Canon on speed, but taken on an Olympus.

The cooler balance is alluring, but the more I shoot Olympus (with pre-sets added in processing) the more content I am with their naturalness. 

This is another test taken the same day (although I forgot the Fuji until almost too late, hence the different light.

Here, first up, the Fuji looks cooler/greener, The Canon nice and clean and the third image (older processed Olympus), warmer and again a little muddy, although on inspection, possibly the most accurate. The last image is a newer processing of the olympus image.

Choices are a part of image making. They always has been. From the designers intent when designing sensors (or film) and algorithms, through their inherent technological limitations, to camera settings, lens coatings, light, viewing media, processing choices and even differences in the viewers environment or eyes, there is no "standard" or untouched image. It is not possible to see the world with an untainted brush, but it is possible, even desirable, to choose the flavour of your image.

Control, both in exercised choices and then in restraint are important.

Blush

In a house we left years ago, there was a magnolia tree that became my garden muse for several seasons. 

550D 35 f1.4L

1Ds Mk2 100 f2.8 macro USM

Through several cameras and over a couple of years, my relationship with it developed and changed.

The Magical Fireworks factory

Not really, but the wood strapped to the trees and the fort like structure make me think of it as something a little cool and a little mystical.

In reality, it is a maintenance storage shed, Philosophers Path style, Kyoto.

New Fast Lenses, Perceptions and Relevance

Just out of curiosity (yeah sure), I have been looking at some of the comparison tests between the new f1.2 Pro Olympus lenses and my stable of, I guess now, "regular" lenses (although the 75mm sits in it's own middle ground for now).

The consensus seems to be;

• The Pro (and Leica) lenses can test sharper, especially wide open and in the corners.
• The Bokeh they produce, predictably as this was one of the design directives, is "better" or at least more. This is obviously in response to the current fashion of modern or luxury Bokeh.
• They are built like the proverbial brick sh*t house and are full frame SLR size and price as a consequence.
• The lesser lenses are all capable of matching the pro lenses in some circumstances, often the logical circumstances for their use and have shown some dignified character even when assailed by their no-holds-barred younger siblings.

My take away from this goes again to interpretations of need, minimum as opposed to maximum quality and perceptions.

Sharpness

When do we need really big files? The two relevant times are big prints (or prints of cropped images) and looking at small parts of an image on a screen, usually just for testing. There are no other relevant uses in most peoples lives for super high resolution gear.

Printing has a few realities to face. Very large prints are rare, expensive and of limited use outside of galleries. I know from years of experience, reading and observing, that camera resolution and lens sharpness suffer badly from the law of diminishing returns as the print process is the limiting factor. Choice of paper, ink type, printer and size are all going to determine the real end product, not just input. Remember that the world's greatest art works were painted with oils on canvas. Resolution was not a factor.

Printing has it's limits. Ming Thein for example spent a lot of time and money creating a series of super resolution prints that resolved the limits of a 36mp sensor. He was limited in shooting, printing and paper options, maximum print size and in his own words "relevance". You cannot do this at home or even through a pro lab. It took direct control of a multi $10,000 professional printing press (and the print maker) using multiple fine droplet passes and taking considerable time and money.

A good image will still be a good image even if technically weaker than one taken with later or better gear. Technical limitations are far less important that the aesthetic value if the image. The Holga crowd even revel in the flaws of their cameras.

If you need to go really big, small differences in sensor resolution and lens sharpness will not make that much real difference. Even if you did a pair of identical prints for comparison (only reason you would?). There are plenty of M43 vs full frame comparisons on line, generally showing that the difference in prints of quite large size (feet not inches) are surprisingly irrelevant. 

I am not saying that sharpness is not a thing, but visual perception of it is more often than not related to micro/macro contrast, focus, depth of field, colour, tonal separation and lighting than pure sharpness. I even remember seeing many images last century that looked sharper because of strong and tight grain.

If a lens shows low resolution, but high contrast, the perceived sharpness of the images it produces are usually better than the reverse. Much of this stands to be changed in post processing anyway. Sometimes too much fine resolution can even take away perceived sharpness from an image.

An old (digitally ancient) image of my niece Lilly (now in her teens). The image is a crop taken with a 10D Canon (about 4mp after the crop). The perceived sharpness of her hair is strong and does not need to be any stronger, especially for this type of image. This image effortlessly prints to A3 with "hair splitting" sharpness. More resolution would define every pore or the peach fuzz on her skin but would it make the image better or just too busy? The Bokeh also shows how less DOF would ruin the image (focus is a little too far forward, grabbing the hair), but F2.8 (F1.8 in M43 format) on an 85mm lens saved it from the trash bin. I sometimes wonder if this camera would still be more than enough for portrait images.

As for 1,2,400% resolution comparisons on screen. They are only for photographers. No one else cares.

Testing sharpness only gets us into the bad habit of ignoring other lens characteristics such as contrast, tonal separation, colour, "draw" or such mundane things as handling.

Bokeh

This one is dangerous ground to enter. Firstly, there is no right or wrong, no perfect or un-useable Bokeh. It just is. When Mike Johnson and John Kennerdell first exposed the western world to the Japanese concept of Bokeh in the 90's, they opened a can of worms, one that I think even they would sometimes like to re-can.

Bokeh is not simply fuzzy round balls of background blur. Some of the early lenses selected out as stellar Bokeh exponents (Leica 32 f2M) often only showed their true power at longer focussing distances, without exaggerated compression or super wide apertures. One of the things I took from the very first articles on the subject was the usefulness and relevance of Bokeh when it created a settled and harmonious transition between the in and out of focus areas of the whole image. The modern trend is to ignore the transition and just go from super sharp to exaggerated blur. Addictive but lacking in real usefulness.

What would be gained from shallower DOF? A speaker as the hero of the story accompanied by lots of soft mush. If I wanted that, I could either get closer or use the 25mm with it's more trendy sharp/soft Bokeh (and find something more interesting than a speaker to shoot).

Super shallow depth of field (as opposed the Bokeh as a whole concept) is very fashionable at the moment, but it can be overused to the point of being sameish, even boring. My best or most useful Bokeh lens is my 17mm f1.8, which is considered by many to be "ugly" or at best "impractical" at Bokeh (as if it was a sport or applied trick), because it holds too much semi-cohesive detail at wide apertures. There was a time, not so long ago, when this was considered a very desirable characteristic.

This image was shot wide open with the 75mm f1.8. If I had f1.2 would I have used it? No, because I needed to balance the amount of blurring with clear rendering of relevant detail. The Bokeh is gentle, sweet and harmonious, but not all pervading. As a practical consideration, f1.8 was tons for a decent ISO and shutter speed combination in evening light. 

Certainly, my 25, 45, 75 and even the 75-300 are obviously more able to produce the accepted perception of modern Bokeh, but so are any long and/or fast lenses. 

I personally want more connection to all parts of my image. Separating out the main subject form the back ground increases the perception of sharpness and "snap", but where is the story?         

I would hate to think I only had two depth of field methods, super Bokeh and landscape deep.

How much blur is enough or too much? If you study the top tier images used by the masters of portraiture, they use many apertures, not just their widest. Go on, fight it. Fight the urge to go to that (literally) two dimensional safe haven of F-razor thin and explore the relationship between your main subject with some, less or even no blur in an image. 

I know if I bought an F1.2 lens, the novelty would wear off pretty quickly, but even worse, I might not like it's Bokeh or rendering for my style of shooting and would then start to resent the weight and price of the new glass. I also would not part with one of my "lesser" lenses as it would be like abandoning a faithful friend.

The 17 and 45mm lenses at F2 to 2.8 are pretty sweet for me (that's F4 to 5.6 in full frame terms), handling the balance of in-to-out of focus elements beautifully and relevantly for their intended applications. Also at that aperture they both stack up so closely to the Pro lenses in sharpness that the differences are effectively irrelevant. The 25mm's also look to be too close to split.

One of the things that drew me to M43 is it's near perfect practical application of apertures and depth of field. Full frame is worshipped as ground zero of photography, but why? It was invented out of convenience (availability of 53mm motion picture film stock), then considered a small and non professional format,that then became the default "senior" digital format. There is not a real difference in quality until you start looking at medium format sensors and even then we come back to perceived want vs practical need. What we (M43 to FF sensor users) need to look out for are the hungry 1" sensors nipping at our heels.

If you need proof, go to DPreview or a similar site, look at the high res comparisons of sensor "X" vs "Y" and ask yourself if, after sound processing, professional printing to a gallery print size, well presented and at sensible viewing distance (not 200% on a screen), whether anyone will judge an image by the camera the took it or the content. if the camera was the main control factor, nothing from years past would have cut it. This is not the case. I remember seeing jaw-dropingly gorgeous images from 35mm images for years before digital and most people who have used them are saying the current M43 sensors produce about the same quality as medium format film.

Character

Totally subjective, but the character of a lens is often a deeply hidden and elusive beast. It cannot be tested any other way than through use and observation.

The trend in recent f1.8 to f1.2 lens comparisons showed a difference in colour from lens to lens. Sometimes the older lens was warmer, sometimes not. Apart from warmer images tending to look less contrasty (i.e. less sharp), the processing of images from a lens becomes habitual and refined. I personally have pre-sets for different lenses tending to make them all fit my preferences, but without sacrificing their own look. It has taken me years of use to start to get a true feel for my lenses, but what it has taught me is that knowledge of the lens (and sensor) in hand really opens your eyes to what each offers.                                                                                                          Dull day, needing a more contrasty and brilliant look? Pen F and 25mm. Strong sun and deep shadows? OMD and 17mm. Brilliant sun, clean lines and metallic surfaces? OMD and 75-300.

When you look this deeply at a lens, it tends to blur the line between better and worse or stronger or weaker. You start to feel every lens, no matter how poor overall has something to offer*. If I had reviewed the 14-42 kit a few years ago, I would have probably been harsh based on it's build and price, but now I see the many character strengths it has. It and the 75-300 help remind me that Bokeh is not a more or less thing, it is a creative element with many degrees of application and colour, sharpness and rendering in general of all types have their place.

A unique 3D look from the 14-42, that none of my other lenses seem to emulate quite this way. High micro contrast and old fashioned, coherent Bokeh rendering limited by a not-able-to-be very fast aperture setting combined to make this. With another lens I would have gone wider, creating a more sharp/soft look. How predictable. 

When the lens is far from poor, slightly better does not hold as much promise.

I have learned that the 17mm is the perfect lens for street grabs. It has the right mechanical and optical characteristics to do the job as I want it done. The Pro 17mm or the Panasonic 15mm may offer similar or better sharpness characteristics, but I doubt they would do that job better.

I learned a similar lesson with Canon gear. The nearly perfect, character filled 85mm f1.8 vs the slow focussing, way too big 85L with it's "one look" trick is a prime (excuse the pun) example.

How would I cope, not being able to rely on my knowledge of the delicate sweetness of the 45mm at F2.2-2.8, the utterly useful 17mm at F2-4 or the surprising quality and forgiving nature of the slow 75-300? Why break something that is working so well. The reality is, if I bought any of the new lenses (money is in the bank), I would most likely still use the old lenses for much of my work, effectively making the lenses twice as expensive as I used them half as much. 

This has already happened with the Pen F, kept in "reserve" while the old OMD EM5's do the bulk of my travel work because they are more expendable, comfortable and more than enough.

I am not expecting this post to change any one's mind about the new glass. I know how hard it is to resist, but maybe my perspective may help sort out some thought processes.

*An old friend of mine and very talented black and white photographer used to buy up all sorts of lens odds and ends, test them and either keep them (often with their apertures super glued to their best setting), or pass them on with detailed health checks. Some of his favourites cost $10 at a flea market. He was a true brand agnostic.

The Dynamic Duo

After looking at my preferred lens kit (4 primes), I think it only fair to give the two zooms I use, more often than even I realised, a quick mini review.

                                                              The Batman                                                                       (Dark Mysterious and often Underestimated)

First up the 75-300 zoom.

It is really hard to over state the power and usefulness of this lens. It has reach, sharpness, nice Bokeh (yes, it is possible for a slow lens to exhibit pleasant Bokeh in the true meaning of the term), brilliant colour and takes images that mathematically seem Bumblebee like* in their improbability. I have had two of these. The first I parted with when I still used Canon for my long lens work, but I caved and got a second, then compared the images it created to both the 400 f5.6L and the 70-200 F4L and realised it lost very little and allowed me to cut the Canon cord.

When given good to average light, it can fool me into thinking I am looking at an image made by the 75mm f1.8.

Giant poster anyone? This is a 50% crop.

Sitting on my back patio, looking at what ever comes. This bee was about 6 feet away. This focal range is excellent for capturing small objects in flight and staying out of their reaction zone.

A blow up of the above image showing both the shallowness of the depth of field at extreme magnifications but also the sharpness retained wide open and hand held at the longest (weakest) focal length. Would anyone complain about an A3+ print made from this image?

In less than perfect light, it pulls off the most unlikely images. A purely speculative image taken with a flick of the wrist at about 10 feet in the most atrocious weather. I know for a fact that the previous image was taken across the street, so the lens had to fully refocus in a split second.

A bit like the Pelican, this lens looks ungainly, even inefficient, but it is as graceful as any when allowed to fly.

                                                                  Robin  (or maybe Nightwing?)                                      (The Little Scrapper)

A lens I own due to a re-gifted camera (EPM2) and one that I have only used a couple of times for testing, is the 14-42 f3.5-5.6 11R (the newer non electronic collapsible one).

What can I say? This lens reduces the gear centric thinking that I think controls most of us a bit. It is cheap to buy, cheap feeling and even a little cheap to look at, but the images are anything but cheap. It allows me to scratch the "gear does not matter" itch.

This is the lens (wait for it), that allowed me to sell the 12-40 F2.8 as it filled the seldom used wide-ish angle and even less often needed "all rounder" standard lens roles. Paired with the 45mm, which is the perfect foil for it's main weakness (slow at the long end), or the 75-300, I have either a very pocketable little day kit or an amazingly powerful (for it's size) travel kit especially with the EPM2.

Don't get me wrong. The 12-40 was a lovely lens, but this little gem comes sooo close at equivalent apertures, I do not need to stress that I am cutting irresponsible corners. It is only ever really going to be used for the occasional landscape (best aperture always used) or the even more occasional trip when a camera is really considered optional, but I would have no hesitation using it for either.

The lens has a "fine" sharpness rendering, with lots of micro contrast. It is by far the best cheap, standard lens I have ever used, with only the Fuji 16-50 kit for company. It also brings to my kit a slightly old fashioned rendering, where the 12-40 shared a similar look and dynamic with the 25mm, making them too similar to split, this lens has this in common with the 17mm f1.8.

Wide open at the long end. EM5. Like the 75-300, this lens does not offer "super" Bokeh, but what it does offer is pleasant and reasonably controlled.

For the kind of methodical or light hearted work it will do, it is ideal. If I was working professionally? Not sure. I would probably be too conscious of it's perceived cheapness, but if only the results mattered, then it could be my sneaky secret.

Every extinguished bug's last act is held in fine detail.

A crop of the above image showing the fine detail on offer. This is the kind of quality that used to thrill me from my 35L Canon. How far we have come.

I really appreciate the smooth Bokeh transition. One of the advantages of a slow lens is you shoot with the assumption of good depth of field, not be tempted to push the envelope too much. Ironically DOF still often bites me with M43 because you think you should have plenty, but often don't. The snappy, micro contrast sits well with the pleasant Bokeh.

What I have learned here is;

Modern lenses and cameras are getting better and better, reaching a point of technical sufficiency. More is really excess or to relieve photographer limitations. There is little to be gained from the super lenses on offer unless you are going to really stress them in the specific area they are designed to excel (often fast apertures) and newer cameras are reducing limitations, but in most cases these limitations do not need to be removed.

This is especially evident when the end product is considered. For blogging, book publication, fine art prints up to a size and blogging etc, most cameras and lenses produce better images than needed.

Ask an Olympic sports photographer if they could do with more speed, accuracy and resolution and the answer will be yes, but ask them if they could do their job 20 years ago, they will also answer in the affirmative, it just took more time, planning and skill. They will also be the ones out of a job when the guy in the bleachers can shoot 16k video in the near dark, lifting out award winning images through image saturation alone.

When you have been in the photographic world for long enough it dawns on you that you have been basically looking at the same images over and over for years. Advertisements are the most telling. I remember some amazing shots, taken in the seemingly distant past of great sporting or wild life events on film, without fast motor drives, manually focussed. The quality when viewed in a magazine, glossy brochure or even bill board was/is sufficient to impress. We are now being coerced by ideas not realities. I keep a few ancient (90's) magazines around to remind me.

Can you tell the difference between a 72dpi or 300 dpi A3 print at a normal viewing distance? There are many examples of people educated in the field not being able to. This also goes for cameras. I remember reading a review of the new Canon G9 super compact camera on The Luminous Landscape blog. The reviewer was using it to make record keeping images made with his main camera, a 50mp medium format model. He was so surprised by the quality he made a bunch of prints (fairly big, A2-3?) and showed them to his friends, all fellow photographers.  The only way any of them could tell the difference between the images was the different depth of field rendering of the formats, but they usually could not pick a clear winner or even work out what the trick to question being asked was. Some even preferred the colour from the Compact.

The same site recently compared prints from three Canon cameras (an 8, 20 and 50mp). Yes you could tell the difference between the extremes on close inspection, but at normal viewing distances not really. The things that were not rendered by the 8mp camera (a small red and white sign on a door) were still not perfectly clear (i.e. readable) with the 50mp images. This also bring up the subject of relevance. Would the image be better if you could read the "no parking over driveway" sign?

Ok. I have strayed off topic a bit, but the examples are many, comparing big vs small, real vs perceived, lens A vs B, all leading to the same conclusions; we can now easily measure better than we can see, but measuring is often pointless in the real world. Kudos to you if you just bought that super lens or monster camera, but I warn you, for your own sake, don't go comparing it's results to lesser lenses or even worse ask a non photographer what they think. Their lack of shared enthusiasm can be heart breaking.

Try it yourself. Show a group of average people an image taken with a compact or older SLR of low MP rating and a different image made with a state of the art camera. Be fair and offer up two of your favourites images processed as well as you can, preferably both done recently so your own skill and processing preferences are the same. Don't tell the viewers what they are responding to, just show them the prints. I bet no one will pick or even care what differences there are in the images technically, only aesthetically (remember photo blogs are written for other people with the same interest, but the bulk of the viewing public has no such interest).

On the bright side, all of those older images you took on redundant cameras and formats, are still just as relevant now as when taken. 

Modern photographers are not limited by gear, only ability, skill, practice, time and subject matter.

*

* One of my favourite explanations for the difference between mathematics and science goes something like this;

"Mathematics plots and measures the probable, science proves it". Two examples are the Titanic that "could not be sunk". The first field experiment horribly proved otherwise and the Bumblebee that apparently, mathematically cannot fly.