Soundimageplus

UK Weather

2012-01-27T15:46:00.000Z

All images ©David and Ann Taylor-Hughes - Pentax 645 Transparency film Nikon LS9000 scanner

We may constantly grumble about the weather in the UK, but in the midst of all the gloom and the drizzle it occasionally does the most wonderful things.

Film Sensibility

2012-01-26T08:33:00.000Z

All images - Pentax 645 Transparency film Nikon LS9000 scanner

In my last post I used the phrase "Film sensibility", so what does this mean? Is it pretentious BS or does it mean something?

Well it does actually mean something and its a shorthand phrase for what Ann and I were doing with our photography back in our film days. As I have said often before , film in the digital age isn't easy to work with, with scanning and editing its a time consuming and difficult process.

When it was universally used for picture reproduction, which pre-internet meant virtually 100% print reproduction, it did make sense. Transparencies were sent here there and everywhere and the task of getting the image into print was undertaken by repro. houses. So with labs developing the film, as photographers we only had to get some rudimentary captioning done and make sure that the material got to the right place.

However there was a cost to this. For example a two week trip to France when I was running my travel picture library would cost around £1500 in film and processing costs. Roughly around £1 per picture. As you can imagine, knowing that every time we clicked the shutter there was a quite steep cost, we would make sure that we were getting something worthwhile. No "I'll give this a try, and if it doesn't work I'll delete it, or try to fix it in Photoshop" experimentation, as happens with digital. No firing off countless frames from every angle with every lens.

On the lens and camera front, medium-format particularly, was expensive big and heavy, mostly involving prime lenses. Carrying a bag full of them was out of the question.

So consequently, what you are seeing with all these film scan posts is the result of a selective, disciplined approach, that is the complete opposite to a snapshot, shutter pressing frenzied, "there must be something decent in this lot" way of working.

So, a kind of pre-editing, if you like. As a result of this, there was obviously a higher success rate and the images that we would return with, were the result of a much more considered and concentrated decision making process. True, there were occasions when something may have been missed, as digital has proved that often unpromising situations can produce surprisingly good shots, but on the whole this approach worked very well. Certainly going through the material as I am currently, has revealed very consistent batches of images.

Much of what I learnt then has crossed over into digital. Much of what you see posted is the result of using a two prime lens kit, and as you will be aware, that is very often my outfit of choice. I also spend a long time considering each image. Its why I'll never be any good as a street photographer, since by the time I've checked my exposure and composition a few times, as I invariably do, the "decisive moment" is long gone.

However one thing that digital has changed, is I now have a tendency to shoot far too much. The liberation of not having to calculate how much all of the shots are going to cost, has meant that I take far too many pictures in any given situation. Plus as my Photoshop skills have increased, I find that I can get a satisfactory image out of virtually anything I shoot. Consequently, during my busy times in the summer, I constantly have 1000's of images that need editing and uploading, and I only usually get them all sorted in the winter, which is the case at the moment.

I've always promised myself that I must be more selective, but until recently I haven't been able to keep that promise. However going through all this film material is finally making the point for me. Looking at sheet after sheet of transparencies has shown me that being more selctive works. It raises the quality, and actually makes editing a pleasure instead of a chore. Currently I can't wait to get to the next batch of slides, to see what we came up with. Certainly it has made the daunting task of going through all this film material a source of anticipation, rather than the mind numbing task I thought it was going to be.

So, to sum up, use less gear and be more selective, is actually what I mean by "film sensibility", but then that doesn't sound quite as good does it?

All images taken in the English Lake District. Images are © David and Ann Taylor-Hughes

Forum free

2012-01-24T07:42:00.006Z

I haven't been near an internet photographic forum for quite some time now, and I must admit its having its benefits. I'm getting a lot more work done, thinking much more about photography rather than gear, and I'm certainly a lot calmer!

So do I miss the bickering, the ignorance, the bad temper and the misinformation? Well no, I really don't. Much of them seem to involve an endless recycling of the same old opinions anyway (including mine!) , and after hanging around them for a while, I definitely get a strong sense of deja vu about much of what is being written.

There were some that I enjoyed, and there are certainly some good people out there, but in the main they seem to be a vehicle for people to either justify their own purchases and / or criticise the purchases of others.

I really did think that I would get withdrawal symptoms, and at the beginning of this hiatus I had to force myself not to see what was being posted in those forums I used to frequent the most, but as time goes by I find myself far less interested.

Its yet another benefit of this heavy duty scanning of old material that I've started. I'm remembering a time before the internet, and before digital cameras when things were simpler, and more focused on the photography rather than the cameras.

Its also having implications on what I'm contemplating using in the future and even the pictures I'm planning to take. Its a process of re-introducing what might be described as a "film sensibility" into a digital workflow, and as time goes on I will explain what I mean by that. I have only just realised that this is happening, and I feel very positive about it.

Finally here are a few pictures that I was planning to post together with a piece on silhouettes, sunsets and backlight. However I've decided to shelve that, since all I was going to say about it was that I like taking shots "against the light", as I suspect do many photographers, but in terms of stock photography sales they aren't very popular at all.

So rather than elaborate, I've decided to leave it at that.

The continuing appeal of m4/3 (A moderately serious post)

2012-01-23T09:24:00.002Z

Panasonic GX1 Olympus 12mm f/2 45mm f/1.8 lenses

Cute aren't they! Despite all my adventures with the Sony NEX system and my liking for the handling, design and file quality, I'm still very attracted to the m4/3 system. Its actually quite difficult to explain why, but despite everything else I use, I keep coming back to it.

I think its a combination of many different things, none of which makes the system "better" for me, but which put together means that I enjoy using it and the pictures it produces. I should, I suppose, be using my NEX-7 all the time, as it produces the biggest files, and there's no doubt that its a more well-featured camera than anything that m4/3 has come up with so far, but I still need my m4/3 fix every now and then.

So whats the appeal?

Panasonic GX1 Olympus 12mm f/2

The 4:3 ratio is something I like. As can be seen from all the Pentax 645 film scans I'm posting, its a format I like and have used for many years.

The depth of field advantage is very useful for someone who shoots travel/landscape and architecture. I very rarely use differential focus, and generally need my images to all be in sharp focus. Using the Olympus 12mm, for example, means that I can happily use f/4 and f/5.6, knowing that I will be getting similar DOF results to using a 24mm lens at f/8 or f/11 on a 35mm / FF system. This allows me to use faster shutter speeds when I'm hand holding resulting in sharper images. This was a tremendous advantage yesterday when I was shooting these castle images, as I was working in a gale, and was almost blown off my feet a few times. Without being able to use wide apertures and fast shutter speeds I would have had real trouble getting sharp pictures.

I obviously appreciate the size and weight advantages, and there is no doubt that the system has the best balance between between lens and bodies of all the CSC systems. It also has by far the most comprehensive lens range.

Panasonic GX1 Olympus 45mm f/1.8 lens

Panasonic GX1 Olympus 45mm f/1.8 lens + Polarising filter

There's also no doubt that at low ISO's the Panasonic m4/3 sensors produce very high quality files. I've learnt to deal with the luminance noise that the 16MP sensor produces even at base ISO, and I've always liked the colour and overall look of the images. Plus the fact that the sensor seems to use a lighter anti-aliasing / low pass filter than the NEX system makes the images look sharper on the screen.

Panasonic GX1 Olympus 12mm f/2

Panasonic GX1 Olympus 45mm f/1.8 lens

And then of course there are the aesthetics of the camera and lenses themselves.

Late last year I was becoming heavily involved with the NEX-5n, and was using it virtually exclusively. However, I still couldn't resist the GX1. My long standing love / hate relationship with the Olympus Pens has been well documented here and just when I thought I'd got the Japanese corporate answer to the Sopranos out of my system, they have to go and come up with this.

OK, I know this is a fake, but its not going to look radically different to this.

Olympus sure know how to push my buttons. These are my favourite camera designs of all time.

The small SLR design with a pentaprism and a silver / black colour scheme makes me go weak at the knees, always has. It may have something to do with the fact the my first "serious" camera was the Pentax ME Super, pictured above, but I've been waiting for a decent equivalent of this for ages. It looks that Olympus are about to do just that with their heavily leaked OM-D. Not only have they seduced me with the look, but they have finally (FINALLY!) decided to use a bigger sensor and have also decided to make it a more robust, weather-sealed body. I guess the 12-50mm weather-sealed lens was a pretty heavy clue that a comparable body was arriving, since what use is a sealed lens without a sealed body.

There is no way I will be able to resist this, no way I won't have my name down for a pre-order the moment I'm able to do that and no way, I fear, that I won't probably love it to bits and use it despite all its shortcomings, which being an Olympus it will probably have.

If I wasn't taking pictures for a living, I would be using an E-P3 exclusively. I wouldn't care that the images a bit "grainy" at low ISO's, that its got a sluggish shutter button, which tends to make the lighting fast AF a bit redundant, that its got a "peculiar" menu system and that its only 12MP. Despite all my reservations, I loved using it. Its a miracle I managed to sell it, since I tried several times putting it on ebay and then always took it off again. I was about to do the same last time, when someone inconveniently bought it!!

However now I have the OM-D to dream about. I just can't help myself. Of all the cameras announced over the past few years, this is the one that has excited me most. It won't have the best image quality, it won't have the best handling, but if its anything like I think its going to be, it will sure look gorgeous.

Olympus, I hate you! (But I love your cameras)

SOPA - again.

2012-01-22T15:56:00.001Z

So the internet vested interest lobby has temporarily stopped the U.S. Congress legislation.

There is a very good article on it here:-

http://www.pcworld.com/article/248525/sopa_pipa_stalled_meet_the_open_act.html

Quote of the piece:-

“The people who run [Hollywood] are so mean and so politically connected that they could do a lot of damage to civil liberties and the world economy on the way down. It would therefore be a good thing if competitors hastened their demise,” reads a post on Y Combinator’s website, which also argues that file-sharing isn’t going to be what kills movies and TV, better ways to entertain people will"

I'd be fascinated to know "what better ways to entertain people" are? Getting off your face and posting the pictures of your inane behaviour on facebook presumably.

Landscape Photography

2012-01-22T10:13:00.002Z

All pictures - Pentax 645 Transparency film Nikon LS9000 scanner

I saw an article advertised, on a website I visit frequently, about landscape photography. I had a look at the link, and was greeted by an image of a dull grey seascape with a horizon that wasn't level. I didn't read on.

For me, a landscape photograph should be special. Like the images I've posted here, I want to be able to look at it in 20 years time and get the memories flooding back. If I get it right I can remember how it felt to be there and the excitement I felt at the time.

Beautiful and wild places shaped by nature are often accessible to us all, and give us a welcome break from the mundane paved functionality in which most of us exist. Many of them aren't places to live, but places to visit and experience, for just a short while, the unregulated power of the forces that have created this planet.

When I photograph places like that, I want them to look special and at their best. Its why I can't understand this fascination with long exposure shots of the sea on dull days. I'm not particularly keen to view an image of a process, its whats in the picture thats important to me, not how it was created.

While I work in colour exclusively, I do occasionally try images in B/W, often to see what kind of impact the composition has. I believe a good landscape image should work in both colour and black and white, and while I much prefer the colour version in almost all cases, its a useful exercise to see if the contrast and framing have worked.

I'm as guilty as most, in that when I'm out with my camera, I want to press the shutter as often as possible. However over the years I've learnt to exercise a little more patience. I've sometimes waited years to "get the shot" and I still have a list of places that I'm planning to revisit, as I'm not satisfied with what I have.

Thats why I was somewhat disappointed with the shot I mentioned at the top of the piece. I was also disappointed that someone would see this as a representaion of their work, and even more disappointed that they would then go on to lecture others as to how to create good landscape imagery. If only I was that easily satisfied.

Images taken by and © David and Ann Taylor-Hughes in Spain (Asturias), Scotland (Argyll and Skye) and England (Cornwall)

Simplicity

2012-01-21T04:44:00.003Z

All pictures - Pentax 645 Transparency film Nikon LS9000 scanner

Sometimes a subject needs to "speak for itself" and all you have to do is hone it down until what caught your eye in the first place almost composes itself. Theres nothing wrong with simplicity, and nothing wrong with deliberately not letting any "art" interfere with the image. Then whats in the picture becomes more important and significant than the picture itself.

It may require a certain passitivity on the part of us as photographers, and we are certainly more "taking" than "making" a picture. But creative decisions as to what to leave out are often more important than what to include.

Photographing the light

2012-01-20T08:11:00.000Z

All pictures - Pentax 645 Transparency film Nikon LS9000 scanner

I've often read descriptions from landscape photographers that include the phrase "I photographed the light". While I understand what they are saying, it seems to ignore the most important element in a landscape photograph, the landscape itself.

For me, its always been about the place first. Success in landscape photography for me is all about being in the right place at the right time, and my feet, my eyes and my map-reading skills are just as important as my cameras and lenses.

For the most part, we get what we can. Many photographers talk about the magic hours of dawn and dusk, but a decent photographer should be able to take a decent photograph at any time of day. However, there is no denying that there are special times to photograph special places. Unfortunately there wouldn't be enough time in many lifetimes to photograph all those special places I've visited, in the special light I can imagine. So I just have to make do with what I've got, and leave the rest to everybody else.

The above images were taken in the Picos de Europa National Park, Spain and on the west coast of Ireland, County Cork.

Is this the Olympus OM-D?

2012-01-20T07:22:00.000Z

Is this, or something like it, the heavily rumoured and Olympus "teased" digital version of the OM film camera series?

Source - http://photorumors.com/2012/01/18/is-this-the-olympus-om-d/

Absolutely irresistible.

SOPA

2012-01-18T14:40:00.000Z

Once again I'm being bombarded with propaganda about the evils of proposed US congress legislation about protecting copyright infringement on the internet. Once again its being promoted as some kind of good versus evil, freedom versus repression argument. And once again I think its a travesty.

The notion that its OK to steal from artists, film makers, musicians and photographers and that people can go on downloading stuff illegally for free, makes me very angry. This is after all my living. The notion that this legislation somehow gives governments the power to stifle free speech is crazy. Isn't anyone aware that governments, including the US and UK have enormous power anyway. Should they wish to do so they can arrest anyone on suspicion of anything and lock them away for a very long time without any recourse to assistance. That somehow slipped through without any problem. I didn't vote for that, but many did.

Somehow media companies like film companies, record companies, publishers etc, are the bad guys and equally huge companies like Google and Facebook, who actually spy on you and track what you are doing on the internet, are the good guys. What on earth is going on? These "freedom fighters of the internet" are nothing of the sort, and are equally as determined to part you from your money as are the likes of Rupert Murdoch.

Personally I wouldn't be the slightest bit concerned if Google and Facebook disappeared tomorrow, and no I wouldn't care if this blog disappeared. What would happen is something would appear in its place immediately, and if that something had some kind of ethical belief that creativity by the artistic community is something to be treasured and rewarded, instead of ripped off, then so much the better.

Torrent sites are an abomination, they steal income from creative people, and does anyone really think that they give a damn about freedom of speech. And who do you think sends you all that spam?

Its not my country, but rather than just accept that one lot of corporate greedy b******s are better than another lot of corporate greedy b******s, why not actually work towards getting some decent legislation that protects artistic and intellectual copyright and gets rid of the crooks and the criminals, without giving governments the power to shut us all up.

Finally we did actually manage to survive without Facebook, Twitter and Google. The US seemed to be able to have a revolution without mobile phones and twitter and the notion of continuing to let the internet giants quietly go about their business of learning absolutely everything about us, and what we do every minute of the day, strikes me as more "Big Brother" than anything this legislation proposes.

Old School

2012-01-18T10:47:00.000Z

Pentax 645 Transparency film Nikon LS9000 scanner

One of the nice things about scanning all this material, taken by Ann and myself many years ago, is that it has refocused me much more on the images and away from the gear. Adding in the fact that I'm VERY happy with my current camera / lens combinations, and there has certainly been a shift of emphasis round here, which will be reflected by what gets written and posted in this blog.

Sony NEX-7 Zeiss 24mm f/1.8

Pentax 645 Transparency film Nikon LS9000 scanner

I've never wanted this to be a gear review site. I have no desire to become Dpreview, Imaging Resource and the like, and while I try to present my "reviews" as user experiences and ongoing reports on how gear works for me, with the tests and presentation of comparison material, on many days you could be forgiven for thinking that you had stumbled on yet another equipment test and evaluation site.

However, first and foremost I am a photographer. Yes, I test equipment to see how it works for me, and the publishing of the results of those tests does make the process a little more bearable, but in all truth, not much more. It is a tedious process comparing settings, lenses, sensor performance and the like, and as time goes on and more and more equipment gets released, the more I realise that there are actually not great differences between all of this anyway. These days there really isn't a huge difference between using a m4/3 camera with a kit lens and a Sony NEX-7 with a Leica lens, though its obviously in the interests of the sites that make money out of reviewing cameras and lenses, to make out that there is.

Sony NEX-7 Voigtlander 28mm f/2 Ultron

Also the more time passes, the more things start to revert back to how they were before. Just as the design of the electric guitar was just about sorted out by 1958 do we really need to redesign the camera? Do we really need much more than a Leica M or a Nikon F in terms of design? The nouveau retro that is all around us currently has some of its origins in fashion yes, but a lot of it is that this works, it always has worked, and it probably always will. Fuji have just brought out the X-Pro 1, Olympus are apparently working on a digital OM camera. Leica are doing great business, and the faux rangefinder, lookaleicas are everywhere. Despite manufacturers trying to persuade us that we don't need viewfinders, we keep insisting we do, we like knobs, dials and many of us even like to manually focus our lenses and decide on ou own exposures. They keep trying to do all of this for us, but somehow we don't seem to want to tow the line, and keep insisting that we would like more control, on the grounds that we know what we want and a microchip doesn't!

Sony NEX-7 Zeiss 24mm f/1.8

So recently I've been working with my NEX-7 and mostly prime lenses. I've found a nice set in my Voigtlander 28mm f/2, which I've found a solution to the magenta cast and vignetting for, by using Cornerfix.The lens is also much sharper when I use it for real, than when I test it. I have no explanation for this, but it is. This paired with my Voigtlander 75mm f/2.5 makes a great combination.

I've currently been deciding what exactly I want to keep out of all the cameras I've currently got. Its not a lot! I'm very happy with the NEX-7 and it gives me the results I want and handles the way that I want. It works very well for me. If something comes along I think is better, then I'll buy it. If not I wont.

I've dusted off my polarisers and they give me a nice option. So to a large extent, I'm back in the late 80's - early 90's, hence "old school". You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to realise that this is not unrelated to my scanning activities.

I'm not going to go into a glorification of film and how wonderful it is, because in the digital age, it isn't. There isn't a snowballs chance in hell that I will ever go back to it. It just happens that I (we) have these images that we really like that were taken with it. There is no way that we can go back and reshoot everything digitally, so scanning is the only answer.

What it does make clear however is that manual focus, rudimentary functionality and much more control of what the camera is doing is no handicap to producing good photography. We actually don't need as much help as camera manufacturers think we do. I'm using just a fraction of what my NEX-7 can do, but most of it is unnecessary for me anyway. Ultimately its what we see and record that is important and the camera is merely the means of achieving that. There are a whole host of pieces of gear that can do that for me and my choice is purely one of personal preference.

So from now on its less gear and more photography. And you can't get more "old school" than that.

Pentax 645 Transparency film Nikon LS9000 scanner

Sony NEX-7 18-55mm

That "film look"

2012-01-15T08:36:00.000Z

Sony NEX-7 Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 lens

When talking about how punchy and colourful the film scans that I've been posting recently look, I had of course forgotten that many of them were taken with filters in place. I had a whole set of grad. filters, warm ups of various strengths, and of course, obligatory for every 1990's "coffee table book" landscaper, a set of circular polarising filters.