To do this testing I used the method suggested by the estimable Bob Atkins in his comprehensive and highly recommended web site.  If you need refreshing, or plain don’t know about a key piece of photo technology – this is a really useful port of call.  Bob’s method is pretty exacting, and similar to that done by major labs.  The reason to do it yourself is that all individual cameras differ – and this was particularly true of the early F550 EXR cameras from Fuji.  The approach used is to take a standard shot from a fixed distance of a set of special test images, as shown on the left.  These images contain sets of parallel lines, at progressively greater numbers of lines per mm.  A set of three images are laid out over a white 15″x22″ background background as shown below, and the camera focal length is set so the test images cover the full frame.  I used a tripod, and as it has been p*ssing it down for the last month, I shot them indoors with flash.

As you can see the individual lines in the shot above are pretty tiny when shot in a layout as on the left from 6 feet away.  The test results are found by looking at the resulting image at 100% and determining which is the finest set of parallel lines that  can be be distinguished for a particular camera.  For example, the 1.25/mm group of lines can be clearly seen in the test card above, but not much smaller than that.   So now here are the test results.  The first chart shows the smallest lines that can be resolved for the centre of the shot, and then the best resolving edge and the worst resolving edge.  The bigger the number (of lines/mm) the better the result.  I did no sharpening or enhancement of the resulting shots by the way, so these results represent the cameras themselves, not afterprocessing effects.

OK, so what does this tell us? Firstly, in RAW, the Fuji F600 is right there with the Panasonic in centre sharpness, but both are a long way off the Sony.  At the edges the Panasonic maintains it’s sharpness very well, but the  F600 loses a bit of sharpness.  The F900 maintains it’s centre to edge sharpness pretty well, and the Sony is again miles ahead.  So overall, the Sony is excellent centre to edge, the Panasonic is also excellent, the F600 is excellent at the centre but is a bit soft at the edges, and the Z900 is pretty consistent across the frame, but a wee bit softer than the Panasonic.  So at this level, it’s true, the Fuji F600 lens is not so good at the edges as the leading travel zoom lens. The Fuji’s results shown are at the 8Mpx resolution by the way, but I also tested at the full 16Mpx (didn’t make much difference).  The shots were all taken reasonably well into the focal range and a stop or two down from wide open so they were not at their worst settings (widest angle setting and wide open aperture is usually going to give some softness no matter how good the lens – see later).

Since we know the magnification, and the size of the sensor let’s look at what the sensor is achieving here – remember, the Fuji’s and the Pansonic’s sensors are tiny by comparison with the Sony’s.

OK, so what we are looking at above is the number of lines resolved per mm by the sensor. You can see from the ‘centre’ and ‘worst edge’ numbers, that the compact cameras are resolving an incredible amount at the sensor level – between 130 and 190 lines/mm.  Quite amazing.  The Sony has to work much less hard to achieve it’s sharpness, getting only 60-70 lines.  By the way, the very best DX or FX lenses and sensors can resolve up to 80 lines per mm.  But that is at pro level with Summicron-quality lenses.

So all is lost then?  A good big’un has been shown to beat the good little’un so do we have to trundle cameras and lenses of the size of the Sony and up to get good shots?  Well possibly not.  The next test I did was to see how these tests worked at the original – full size.  My working PC screen is a  24″  Dell2408WFP screen running at 1920×1280 resolution (or around 90 pixels/inch).  It was the d*g’s b*ll*cks in large screens 4 years ago, and is still highly rated.  I ran the same test as above on the full frame photos displayed at A4 size (rounded to 12″ by 8″) on that screen.  While this is as large as will be shown on the web, the lower resolution of PC LCD screens (at the moment anyway) means the resolution will always be lower.  Printers operate at a much higher resolution  – between 240 and 300 pixels per inch.  At a normal viewing distance, 240 pixels per inch is the highest amount the human eye can resolve, and that’s probably why it is the default print output resolution for Lightroom.  So I also did the test on an A4 print on high quality paper at 240 pixels per inch.  Here are the results.

At practical sizes -  there is essentially no difference between the resolvable sharpness of the cameras.  Whether on an A4 print or on a screen, all the cameras are  equally as sharp at the centre, and within a whisker of each other at the edges.  And this applies to anything likely to be commercially printed except for large format art books and exhibition and advertising prints.  When was the last time you saw a 12″x8″ photo in the National Geographic for example?  If the small difference in edge sharpness of the compacts  bothers you, shoot a little bit wider, and crop 15% or so off the edge.  Then there will be no difference at all.

I had always somehow suspected this.  Whenever you read the forum chatter about sharpness, the proponents of one side or another always have to look at the 1:1 (i.e individual pixel level)  display of the full-sized shot before they can detect the difference.  But no-one except advertising professionals and exhibition photographers ever uses this resolution.  I have always had the feeling that the technology arms race in cameras was like the insane levels of supposed audio resolution in top-end hi-fi systems – where the quality of resistance in the mains cable is alleged to affect the stereo image.  Get out of here!  For bats maybe – not for humans.

So what does this mean?  Well I don’t know about you, but for me this says that for the photographs I am going to take and show or print, I don’t generally need the full resolution offered by the fancier and bigger cameras.  I can capture the image of the moment with the camera I have in my hand, pretty confident that I have got an image as good as it needs to be for all my purposes. I regularly run prints as large as 20″x12″ from my Z900, with excellent sharpness edge to edge.  Of course if more resolution is offered, I’ll take it – so as compact cameras improve over time, I’ll be buying the upgrades.  And when I have time to prepare, and I can carry the equipment, I’ll use the big’un.  Nature shots in the gardens or close to home for example, I’ll use the big’un.  But on the move and on the trek – it’s still going to be the little’un.

OK, there is one more part of this post to do – an examination of all these cameras at their worst, with wide open lenses, and wide open apertures.  I did this because I recently took a shot in London with the F600, lens wide open and at the widest aperture, and it was visibly soft at the edges.  Actually this was the first shot I had noticed like this, and I went back and checked out all the others without seeing the same effect.  Because of course on every other image the lens was zoomed in a bit and the aperture was closed down a stop or two.  Hmm I thought – maybe not as good as I thought.  Wonder what the other three cameras look like?

Given that the real-world photo resolution tests above were more interesting than the 1:1 line resolution tests (which are also very time consuming), I did a test as done by many of the camera reviewers, of a row of books on a bookshelf.  Again all the cameras were tripod mounted, and the photos were taken with flash.  The different brightnesses are due to the different flash strengths by the way.  I then took a crop of the full sized image of the right hand side of the frame.  In all cases I adjusted the image size so that the row of books was the same dimensions (8″ from leftmost book to rightmost) in all cases.  The shot represents around 2/3rds of the image, with the edge being on the far right i.e the full shots were about 12×8.

You can see the results below (click ‘FS’ in the bottom right hand of the image box to see at full screen size).  I have not identified the cameras directly.  Now for each image, have a look  at the text on the spine of the  far right book ‘Quickie – Ledwig’,  then look on the next book at  ‘Thomas E Ricks’.  Then finally have a look at the text in the middle of the shot ‘Nine Dragons’.  Which do you like best overall of the four images?  You can see which camera is which by clicking on the ‘i’ icon in the top right had corner.  I am not sure personally that I have a favorite at full screen.  But I can tell you that even under these rather less flattering circumstances I really like the image from the F600.  And with the edge cropped off, it’s the best of these I think.  By the way,you will also note that the £300 Sony lens is demonstrably soft at the edge.  It’s somewhat known for it by the way, but it shows you should not expect miracles from any camera lens except the pro quality ones.

Resolution comparison shots

F600 f3.5 4.4mm
NX-5 f3.5 18mm
Z900 f3.9 5mm
ZS-3 f3.3 4.1mm

Finally, here is the photograph that caused me to do this testing.  I was walking across Hungerford bridge across to the South bank Centre, and the sun burst out of the previously threatening sky.  The light looked interesting, and of course, I had a camera to hand – my little F600.  As I was shooting various (unsuccessful) views, a rainbow appeared over St Pauls, set against the lowering sky. The shot I took was with the lens at its widest, and at maximum aperture.  As a result the edge of the frame was a bit soft.  So I cropped it and got the shot below.   I really quite like this photograph, and I am much happier with the shot I got with the camera in my hand, than having the perfect camera at home and missing the moment. As ever, click on the photo to see a larger and better view.

Fuji Z900 EXR

I was first drawn to this camera by a knockout review in one of my favorite enthusiast sites, Photography Blog , which despite it’s name is a full fledged and respected review website. Image quality is their  primary rating factor, and of this camera they said: “Image quality on the Fujifilm FinePix Z900EXR digital compact camera is very good in real life situations. What we mean is that for everyday use, you’ll find that the Z900EXR gives cracking shots.”  They also said in their conclusion: “It’s a shame that there isn’t a Camera that looks like a budget model but performs like a prosumer award because the Fujifilm Finepix Z900EXR is a strong contender. It looks a lot less than it delivers because of the unassuming exterior “.  And that’s more or less what I found when I bought the camera.  It takes really excellent shots, which I have printed up to 18″x12″ with superb clarity (in fact these ones from the Otter trail).  And the EXR features, if used according to the guidance from Kim Lektman work really well, in particular helping resist blown hightlights using the DR capability.  Incredibly it’s available in blue on Amazon for £97.66 (why 66 pence?), while in black it’s £166 (why nearly £70 more expensive when black?).  The Canon Powershot S100, in my view it’s closest rival, is currently £381 (not far off the price of an entry-level DSLR!), so the blue Fuji is a considerable bargain  – this is probably a temporary stock thing,so the link and the price may not be valid in a few months time.

The lens delivers a 5x zoom, and is completely contained inside the case even at full zoom, so it’s very compact in use also.  It’s pretty sharp from the centre to the edge, and reasonably fast at f3.5 max aperture.  It only takes photos in JPG, but I have found that editing these in Lightroom provides a surprising amount of headroom for highlights and shadows.

Other good points are the extremely strong metal body,   tiny overall dimensions, and built-in panorama function (something the Canon does not possess), plus HD video.  The camera is completely operated from a huge touch screen, and that has some positives in that all the controls are easily accessed.  It can be a bit tedious  to change deeper settings, but I found I rapidly got used to it.  The batteries are tiny, but seem to last a reasonably long time unless the panorama function is used a lot.   OEM spare batteries are cheaply available, so I have 3 batteries in total to enable zillions of shots when away from a power point.  On the downside there is no histogram function – which makes tracking blown highlights a bit more difficult – but most people don’t bother with this, and I only occasionally need it.

Cases

You may have noticed I am more than a little obsessed about camera cases.  Why? Because the wrong case in practice not only makes the camera bigger than it needs to be when moving around, but can also render it vulnerable (e.g not waterproof).  The Fuji custom cases for both the Z900 and the F600 fail on both these counts.  I have now switched to using the excellent Acme Sleek cases.  Warning! the shiny ones have the same name as the matt coloured ones, but seem to be quite a bit smaller.  However that makes the smaller case perfect for the F900, and the large case perfect for the  F600.  The keen observer will however notice that while the Z900 case is a little narrower, it is exactly the same width and height as the F600.  Which is why I now take the F600 everywhere I go as my ‘handy camera of choice’.  Lets have a deeper look at this great camera.

Fuji F600EXR

This camera has exactly the same sensor as the Z900, but in a larger body with manual controls (no touch screen), a 15x lens and most importantly RAW capture.  RAW collects the entire data set produced by the camera, and lets you extract the most from it, as opposed to JPG, where processing is done in-camera, and many of the decisions made in that process such as dynamic range, noise, and white balance cannot be altered.  Thanks to Kim Lektman’s great work, Fuji RAW is supported by Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, and in these programs, much more can be extracted from the images without a great deal of extra effort (in the case of Lightroom at least).

The camera is really nice looking, easy to handle, and only very slightly larger than the Z900.  It’s amazingly compact for what it provides, which is full RAW, manual controls, auto panorama, and full HD video.  Oh, by the way, it’s also got GPS, which appears to work very nicely, and has got some good reviews.  But I should warn you – this camera, or rather it’s predecessor, has some history.  The first model of this series, the F550, introduced all theses features, but was shipped with somewhat variable quality control where the lens was pretty soft towards the edge.  Several of these models found their way into reviewers hands, and the camera often got heavily panned in the press.  But most of the people who bought one loved it, and Kim Lektman plugged away extolling it’s virtues and those of the EXR technology.  It’s clear from subsequent reviews that the lens quality problem got fixed in the F600 and later cameras, and that is no longer an issue.  But it has made me a bit edgy about the lens quality – so in the next post I am going to cover it in great detail.  From knowledgeable reviewers, who know about EXR, the F600EXR gets high marks as in this well written piece from Expert Reviews where the summary is: “Ignore the 16-megapixel mode and treat this as an 8-megapixel camera, and it will take gorgeous photos at breakneck speed”.  Exactly (and true for the Z900 also).

In almost every respect I love this camera.  It’s small, light (280g),  fast, and the zoom takes it to places that you could not otherwise get to.  In a recent post I showed some photos that I took with it – all using the long zoom, and taken in RAW.  The image quality as tested by DxO labs is equivalent to that the best of the current compact cameras (see Part 3).  And the camera is very good value: on Amazon at the moment it’s listed at £170 in black, the same price as the Z900 in black (sadly no giant discount for the blue one).  That compares well with the two best reviewed zoom travel compacts, the Sony HX9V (20x zoom but no RAW) at £280, and the Canon SX230 (14x zoom, but no RAW or auto pano) at £205. There are a few niggling downsides with the F600  – the mode dial is easy to jog, and while there is a histogram function, it has to be set for each session as opposed to being a standard feature.  But for me at least, that’s about it.

In summary, if you want a travel zoom, with RAW shooting and auto pano function (both essentials for me), this is the only game in town.  It’s not perfect, but it’s a very nice camera, and with care it will produce lovely images.  By the way, you may come across its successor, the F770EXR.  This has a 20x zoom, and a rather attractive new body.  However it has got also some indifferent reviews, is a great deal more expensive than the F600, and it is also currently not supported by Adobe, so processing the RAW files is a pain.  Having said that the great Kim Lektman has done a huge (16 parts and rising!) set of reviews of it, and he seems to like the camera (and has a hack to convert the files for Lightroom).   However, given the F770EXR’s higher price  – I would say stick with the F600 if you want a a great camera at a great price.

In the next part of this series I will cover how I laid my concerns about lens quality on my F600 to rest.  And in the final one, I’ll sum it all up with some thoughts about the perfect, money no object choice for handy and not so handy cameras..

EXR is an attempt by Fuji to improve on their specialisation in low light and dynamic range, which they have majored on almost since their first entry into the market.  While there are no vendor unique miracles in the sensor or processing technology (by and large), it is possible to play with the arrangement of the sensors.  The pixels in a Digital Camera are laid out in all other cameras in a fairly regular grid,(the Bayer array) as shown on the left . Thanks to the excellent DPReview from where these images came.  Note that there are more green pixels than blue or red because the human eye is more sensitive to green, so doubling up on these reduces the overall noise and improves detail.

Fuji played with the standard array by rotating it by 45 degrees, and rearranging the grid to ensure that there are always two pixels of the same colour right next to each other.   In the Bayer array, there is always for example a green pixel between two blue pixels (see above). It turns out that placing two pixels of the same colour next to each other allows you to do processing that can improve sensitivity, or increase dynamic range. Why?  Because you can, when you need to, treat the two adjacent pixels as one ‘super pixel’.

For improved dynamic range EXR cameras do a clever trick of taking two more or less simultaneous shots, using a different set of adjacent pixels each time.  Each shot is at different exposures, and these are then combined  into a single frame with improved dynamic range. While other cameras can bracket exposures, or automatically take successive bracketing shots, only EXR compact cameras can take a more or less instantaneous and completely automatic DR shot and do it in hardware.

To get better low-light sensitivity, EXR cameras combine two adjacent pixels into one, a technique known as ‘pixel binning’.  This is rare in digital compacts, and although it can be done, the Bayer sensor that all other cameras use, reduces colour accuracy and resolution.

The effect of the EXR technology is therefore to give the output performance of a much larger sensor.  Why not just have a larger sensor?  Well for me the main reason is that with large sensors come large lenses, and cameras that you no longer have in your hand (or to hand anyway).  So getting the best performance from a smaller sensor is a very worthwhile goal.

So if this technology is so clever, why has it not swept the world before it?  Well for two reasons.  Firstly, Fuji has had problems with marketing and positioning these cameras.  It should be apparent from the above, that for the technology to work, you actually need to shoot at a pixel count of half the maximum (because the pixels are doubled up to take the shot). By the way, this does not mean half the resolution since, as I will show later, resolution does not depend on pixel count.

However, because of the ‘pixel race’, Fuji marketed the cameras at their full resolution  – i.e 16 Mega pixels (Mp) for the two cameras I use.  Secondly, instead of making the 8Mp mode the default in the camera controls, it provided it as just one of the many options available.  As a result, most users and almost all testers run it at 16Mp, and don’t use the EXR settings correctly if at all.   So for almost all lab tests (done on the standard auto at 16Mp), the Fujis do not look different from the rest of the pack.  This was compounded by Fuji issuing the F550EXR (the predecessor to the F600EXR) with variable lens quality control, and that also impacted test results, and sales.  The quality problems seems to have gone away with the current crop of cameras, as the bulletin boards and forums show, and as confirmed by my own testing. 

As a matter of interest, even without the EXR functions, these cameras punch well above their weight.  The doyenne (they are French) of camera testing is  DXO labs, and they do a comprehensive suite of tests of the basic sensor capability of all serious cameras.  Here is the F600 (currently priced at £160 on Amazon) compared to the current leader of the pack in compact cameras, the Canon S100 (with a sensor 43% bigger by area than the Fuji and £350 on Amazon), and its rival the Panasonic Lumix LX-5  (60% bigger sensor and £330 on Amazon).

The first chart is sensor noise measured at the industry standard reflectance of 18%.  The higher the line the better.

The second is Dynamic Range.  Here the higher the line is also the better.

The Fuji sits in the middle – a really respectable performance, against the two best reviewed cameras of the present time.  But wait!  DxO used the standard settings, not the EXR settings for these tests.  Had those been used, the 2 stop advantage of EXR would have pushed the little F600 well above the other two (by the way – no getting away from it, the Canon S100 is a stonking camera, but on the other hand it’s very expensive).  By the way, this may be an obvious point, but what do these charts tell us is the most powerful way to improve picture quality? Keep the ISO low!

So does the EXR system actually work?  When tested by a lab that understands the above points, it does very well.  It got a full 5 stars in this Expert Reviews test for example.

It’s not difficult to set up a Fuji correctly to get really good results, and the guru on this is the estimable Kim Lektman, a Canadian technology buff, and one who has been a staunch supporter and investigator of the technology for many years.  This link provides all you will need to know about how to set up the cameras.  Endless debates roll on on the forums about how and if the various aspects of EXR actually work, and Fuji are badly at fault by being extremely opaque on the specifics.   Having said that, here is an example of someone getting 3 stops out of a picture by using EXR settings properly.  Specifically, the ‘correct’ exposure settings for a London scene were then overexposed by 3 stops, and it was clear that the blown highlights could be pretty much fully recovered.  I’ve experienced this kind of improvement myself, and can confirm the effect.

Finally let me put this into perspective.  You cannot perform miracles with small-sensor cameras. Here is the F600 (and as you saw above, the Canon and Panasonic are very similar) compared on the same DxO benchmarks to the APSC sized Sony Nex-5, and Nikon D7000.

As they say in boxing, a good little’un is always going to lose out to a good big’un.  But what is critical for me is to be able to take photographs with the camera I have to hand.  When you know in advance that you are going to need a camera, and the shot is important, the big’un is best.  But when you don’t know in advance, the little’un in your hand is better than the big’un in your cupboard.  And the EXR technology makes my Fujis some of the best little’uns around.

In the next post in this series, I’ll take a brief look at the Z900 and the F600, and finally show some of my own test results.

It’s unique in that it is the most colourful, and most personal of the four.  I had expected it to be monochorome and depressing – in fact the red, orange and yellow of the setting sun over the hill at  Ekeberg near Oslo, are brilliant and make a startling contrast with the sombre blues and blacks of the fjiord.  And the centerpiece, of the wraith-like face caught in its shriek, is hypnotising.  The catastrophes that followed the creation of the Scream have rendered it iconic in world art.  Not many people could name another Munch painting, and indeed there are another 4 at the show, which do not receive (or frankly, merit) anything like the same attention.  Munch wrote in his diary in 1892 “I was walking along a path with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature”.

Having spent a wet weekend in Oslo myself, I think I can appreciate the feeling.  Bloody Saturday night.  Elk burger. Again.

The exhibition is focused in a very dramatic way on this single painting.  But there is a great deal more to see,  including a superb Gaugin, “cabine sur les abres”, shown on the left, as well as six Magrittes, a Chagall, “coq rouge dans la nuit”, and a smattering of Picassos, Miros, a very nice Dali, and too many more to mention.

Except one.  Tucked away around the corner from the Scream and the Picassos et al, is one of the most important Francis Bacon pictures to surface in recent years, “Figure Writing Reflected in Mirror”.  It really took my breath away, in a way that no other painting in the show had done.  It is pretty much full size, and is completely arresting.  It doesn’t look beautiful in this small picture on the left, but it is extraordinarily moving in the flesh.  Bacons have set records for post-war prices – the last one was bought by Roman Abramovitch for an incredible $86.3m.  Sotherby’s estimate this one at between $30-$40m.  In any other show the Bacon would be the start of the show.  In this wonderful exhibition, it is just tucked away in a side gallery, one of dozens of superb pictures on display.

This show ends on Sunday 15/3 at 5pm.  The security around it is extraordinary (three separate scans!), and the lines will get quite large I suspect as word gets round.  But don’t miss it.

OK, on to the cameras.  I am going to cover them in the order that I bought them, since that provides a sort of logic to the content (and also may allay your possible impression that I randomly purchase gadgets as the whim takes me – which is only partially true).

Panasonic Lumix ZS-3 ( TZ-7 in Europe)

I have always had a soft spot for Panasonic since their tie-up with Leica.  In fact the LX series of cameras were actually re badged as Leicas and sold at a significantly higher price (I had the LX-2 and it was a lovely camera).  The ZS-3 was regarded by some as the best compact super-zoom of it’s day (2009).  It had a 12x zoom lens of very good quality, and was one of the first full HD cameras with Blu-ray compression (AVCHD), leading to much  smaller video file sizes.  I got this camera for it’s zoom range and also for it’s video capability.  In fact I went to a great deal of trouble to get the US model (ZS-3), as it shot at the NTSC frame rate of 30 fps instead of the European PAL at 25 fps, which I thought would lead to smoother pans.  I absolutely loved and still love this camera.  It’s latest incarnation, the ZS-20 (TZ-30) has just won the rare 5-star award at one of my favorite review sites, so the series is still a great buy.  There were only a few minor downsides to the camera.  Firstly, due to the small sensor size, the dynamic range was limited (only compared to a DSLR mind you).  As I was shooting in bright sunlight on treks, I got quite a few blown highlights.  For the same reason, noise was a problem above around ISO 400.  And the camera only recorded stills in JPG, so there was no way of extracting more detail from the shots.  Finally, it was just a wee bit too bulky to carry around in it’s case in my shoulder bag.  For all that, it was and is a classic camera, and one which I recommended to several friends who are all as delighted as I was with it’s performance.  The photset from Nar-Phu was taken with this camera, and I think they came out well (and processed in Lightroom 4, there were few issues with dynamic range actually).  But I wanted better quality, which led me to the………………

Sony NEX-5

A short while after I bought the ZS-3, Panasonic and Olympus joined together to create a new standard for high-end compact cameras, which combined a much larger sensor with interchangeable lenses. Known as the “Four Thirds” system (so-called for the format of it’s sensor) this caused a sensation in the industry, and has led to all major manufacturers (with the exception of Canon) creating interchangeable-lens compacts.  Something held me back from getting one of the first of these cameras, not least the increased size of the overall camera.  However, when Sony came out with the NEX series around 18 months later I could not resist.  There were a few reasons that pushed me their way.  Firstly the sensor in the Sony was APSC-sized, as used in most non-pro DSLRs, and was 1.6x bigger than the 4/3rds sensors.  The image quality as a result was excellent, and in particular, the dynamic range (the recordable range between deep shadows and highlights) was at DSLR levels or above.  And finally it had a wonderful sweep zoom function that allowed you to take high-res panoramas in a single flow.  At the time I had given up on video as a way of recording mountain vistas, and so the pano function was very tempting.  I bought the zoom 3x lens to start with (18-55mm) and added a 16mm wide-angle pancake later.  And I have to say the camera has been a joy to use.  The images are excellent, the pano function superb, and for it’s quality, it really is small.  The 2011 pictures from my Cape Town garden, were mostly taken with this camera and a superb 200mm Nikkor prime at least 50 years old.  On the downside, the large sensor means larger lenses than small sensor or 4/3rds cameras.  The longer zooms are huge, and remove all advantage of the small body.  So it is only really competitively small for zooms up to 3-4x (or max 80mm equivalent on a 35mm camera) and pancake prime lenses, and that limits the range of places I would use it.  But for all that it’s still an extremely compact system.  It was well reviewed by some at the time, and it’s successor, the more expensive NEX-7 has received raves.

One other item attracted me.  Sony adapted it’s focusing system so that manual focus was particularly effective.  And adapters were available that let you attach older, top quality, but very keenly priced prime lenses to the camera.  Suddenly people were attaching Summicrons and getting Leica quality shots for a fraction of the cost.  At that time, a close friend had tragically died, and his wife asked me to dispose of his old Nikon lenses.  It occurred to me that these would fit the Sony, and so I spent a happy few months last year taking nature shots with the Sony/Nikon combo, and seeing how sharp I could get a photo.  After a while I started to see how great those Nikkor lenses were, and thought what I really needed was a real Nikon to attach them to.  Which led to………………….

Nikon D7000

As I already had a Canon DSLR, this was entering my 3rd set of incompatible interchangeable lenses. Nonetheless I don’t regret the purchase. When the D7000 came out it was and is heralded as one of the best high-end amateur DSLRs available, with excellent image quality, DR, and focussing speed. Indeed it presses closely on the semi-pro models like the D700. Although I had a head start with the wonderful Nikkors of my late friend, I also bought the excellent 18-200mm VR DX zoom, which I use as the standard lens. I spent a while seeing if was practical to walk with the camera and this lens, and tried various cases and slings. Sadly, for me , it’s a non starter, largely because of the zoom. The weight of the camera means the zoom hangs vertically down, and in this position the zoom gradually extends, until it is fully out (this was addressed in the latest version of the lens, but not fully fixed). That’s both bad for the lens and for practicality. Primes don’t do this of course, but that then requires me to walk around with a case of lenses – which I refuse to do. For me the 7000 can only be used in a static or semi-static position, and is best on a tripod. In that mode it is magnificent. It has excellent remote triggering capabilities, and via Lightroom can be operated in “tethered” mode, i. e. via an attached PC. I have had a great deal of fun in this manner doing bird and other nature shots, and if it can be lugged into position it is unparalleled. But unless you are a dedicated Nikon shooter, it is an also an overly complex camera. There are 13 separate buttons or controls on the the camera, as well as two data screens of great detail. Its not hard to master this, but for a codger like me, its difficult to remember it. Moving between the Nikon and other cameras is hard work. I’ll keep it for best, but like best suits, it will only be brought out occasionally, for special occasions.  I shot these pictures of the Cape Argus race last year with the Nikon, using it’s excellent focus speed and nice depth of field in particular.

So I had now moved up the scale from the small to the gargantuan, and the best camera was almost never in my hand. In fact it often wasn’t even in the same country, as you don’t want to put your prized Nikon system in the hold when flying, and its massive size (particularly when the camera and lenses were in their cases) really pressured my hand baggage space. Then I saw a review for the Fuji Z900EXR compact, and my quest for portable snappiness took a different turn.

Well my goodness – look at the time and the length of this post! I think that I will stop here and continue the story of the Fujis in a separate installment – appropriately in fact as this most recent stage represents a quite different (but no less crazed) approach to the problem of the camera in your hand.

There is an adage, almost as old as photography itself, that “the best camera is the one in your hand”.  Very true except when appropriated as has happened recently by some marketing tw*t from Apple in the context of the iPhone.  Looking for the actual source, I was sure that it was from Robert Capa, who was the source of some wonderful quotes, including “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough”, and “It’s not enough to have talent, you also have to be Hungarian” (and if you haven’t read it, take a moment to check out my post about the brilliant Hungarian photographers of the mid-20th century).  Sadly it wasn’t Capa who made the original quote.  In fact I cannot attribute it to any of the photography greats.  In the context of many of them, the quote is not even true as they lugged massive arrays of heavy equipment around with them to get the best shots.

But for me, portability is the defining element of the usefulness of a camera (and possibly what marks me as an amateur).  On treks I have seen people with camera kit so massive they needed a separate porter to carry it.  And while they may have got some great photographs, the act of taking them really seemed to interfere with the simplicity of the trek itself.  Similarly, on the street, unless you have a bona-fide pressman air about you, the wearing of a 35mm DSLR around your neck  says ‘prat’ in a profound and public way.  But what is the meaning of ‘portable’ in a camera?  For me, it is ‘practicably and unobtrusively wearable’.  There is no camera, (including my phone) that can be practically kept in a trouser pocket without great discomfort, and free from damage from keys, coins etc.  So it must either be portable on my waist, or in a shoulder bag.  I am  using 5 cameras at the moment, and in the shot below, here they all are laid out in order of portability.

From left to right, they are, Fuji Z900 EXR, Fuji F600 EXR, Panasonic ZS-3, Sony Nex-5, and Nikon D7000.  As you can see, they range from the (almost) pocketable, to the very large.

More telling is how wide they are, as this determines how far they stick out if you have them on a belt clip, or how big a bag you need. So here’s a view from the top.

This top-down shot starts to show how practical some cameras are for carrying around compared to others.  I bought the Sony because it has a very large sensor (24x16mm, the same size as the Nikon, and 12x the area of the Fujis), but a very compact body.  However the geometry of the optics means that a zoom lens has to be much deeper (to be able to focus) than the smaller cameras.  The 3x zoom on the Sony extends nearly 4 inches out, compared to the 5x zoom on the little Fuji, and the 15x zoom of its bigger brother. As a result the Sony Nex-5 is only borderline practical for walking around.  The Nikon is completely impractical, as I will describe later.

Finally, every camera needs to be in a protective case in the real world.  The two elements of the case are: how big is it, and how easy is it to quickly extract the camera to take a shot?  Oddly the ideal of the smallest possible protective case, combined with the easiest possible removal of the camera is something that most vendors completely miss.  I’ve had to look quite hard, and in each case below, I think I have the best case that meets my criteria.  Here’s how they look from above.  I have included a bottle of Tesco full cream milk for a size comparison.

This is where the size differences really start to show.  The two Fujis are completely viable for traveling and walking around.  The Panasonic (in the middle) is just usable. I have taken it on many treks and it worked fine along all with the other encumbrances, but in the street in London, it is just a wee bit too big and obvious for me.  The Sony can only be carried round the neck, which might work but the custom Sony case is quite ridiculous, leaving you with bits of the thing to remove and somehow store while taking a shot.  And the Nikon case is only really sensible as a compact protective cover to move the camera from one static position to another.

Now this of course is only my view.  Pros and keen amateurs think nothing of having not just one but several camera round their necks, often with additional lenses also.  I have tried this, but it doesn’t work for me, and I feel with technology where it is, it should not be necessary.  Each camera has its individual merits, and I use all the models shown above – but I use the two Fujis the most because of their size.  Now the key question for me is – what are the merits of the different cameras and sizes, and specifically – what do you lose by having a sensor that is less than 10% of the size of the two high-end systems?  And why Fujis?  All will be explained in the next two posts, the first of which will give a short overview of each camera, and the second of which will deal with some specific testing of the effect of the sensor size on picture resolution.

A brief word about Nar and Phu first.  These are two settlements at the end of a remote, and only recently accessible valley in Northern Nepal, close to the Tibetan border.  The remoteness and closed access has meant that the largely Tibetan lifestyle and dwellings are essentially unchanged from medieval times.  This is especially true of Phu, the more remote of the two settlements.  This article from the Nepal times gives a little more background.

As ever, a better view of the images can be gained by clicking on them, and the best way of all to see them is to also click on SL and FS (for slide show and full screen).  Info on some of the photographs and titles for them all can be seen by pressing the little ‘i’ in the top right hand corner.

Nar Phu colour rebalanced

Khatmandu: The chariot of ‘Rato Machhendra Nath’
This amazing 4-story high chariot is built every year just around the corner from where we were staying in Durbar Marg. It carries ‘Rato Machhendra Nath’, a powerful god of rain, for a long festival in Patan.En-route on the Annapurna circuit
Paddy fields
Hand cut timber
Lady with her goat
Dusk on the Annpurna circuit
Sunset on the goat-shed
Looking up the valley
Dusk looking up the valley
Behind the waterfall
Trees on the slope
The camera was horizontal, it's the trees that were at an anglePrayer stones
First sight of Phu
This legendary mud city is built on the side of a huge glaciated valley in an almost completely arid regionOur quarters in Phu
Mother and son
Evening cooking in Phu
Mother and son II
and son alone
Buzzard over Nar citadel
J*y surveys downtown vista
Heading back down the valley
Dusk
Nar at dusk
Nar at dawn
Looking back up the valley
Our superb guide of many treks, Lakba
J*y communes with the nature
Ladies en-route
Water collection in Patan

On my first two treks, to K2 and Kilimanjaro, I put together giant slide shows, and copied them to recordable CDs.  Getting the CDs to autostart and run on any PC was a pain, and it probably wasn’t seen by too many of the people I gave it to.  On subsequent treks I also wrestled with the problems of showing vast mountain ranges on a normal camera.   Initially I used multiple panning shots, stitched together with specialised panoramic software.  The downside of that approach was the difficulty of taking the pano sweep while wearing gloves and burdened by backpacks etc, combined with the inevitable distortion of the actual perspective caused by taking a 180 view and flattening it.

At that time digital HD video was becoming affordable, so for a few treks I took along a Canon HD camera and shot video footage, firstly of the key panorama views, but later of the whole trek.  This then was assembled into quite long and complex movies, with a soundtrack, titling, and scenes.  While undoubtedly successful, these movies took literally months to produce, and used considerable horse-power to process.  In fact I had to buy (to the extent that this could be regarded as an essential purchase) a water cooled 4-core PC to get the performance to render the video in acceptable times.  I am still very pleased with those movies, but they are huge (over 1 GB), long ( up to 1 hour), and impossible to show via the internet, although I might try a vimeo-like streaming method for shorter segments.

A further problem arose after the third  video.  Sadly, one magnificent Himalayan vista looks pretty much like another.  So the videos started looking pretty much identical.  Not much point investing huge amounts of time for something that is not markedly different-looking from the previous effort.  From that time on I while I still took lots of photographs, I then more or less left them to moulder permanently on disk. But I did make progress on photographing mountain ranges, as I was able to use the recently developed auto-pano feature of Sony and Fuji cameras which allowed effortless panoramic recording of vistas, with some ability to correct perspective via software.

However, I still had no meaningful place for the photos I took.  The challenge for treks, for me at least, is that a faithful photographic record of every stage of the journey is of interest only to those that went on it, and usually only if they actually appear in the shots.  Moreover, the  number of photos needed to fully describe the trip is numbing even for those that are interested, and very difficult to deliver via the web.  But conversely it seems to me that the web is the only place to show such shots – DVDs or the inner recesses of my hard drives are too inaccessible even for me.

The recent Otter trail crystallised how to handle the images.  A full record of the trek runs to around 140 pictures, 60 or so of which I posted here.  Because it was again a bit numbing in extent, I also posted a much smaller set of the images I liked most.  The criterion for these was only that the images looked  interesting or dramatic.  That resulted in a fairly random selection of shots.  Important locations were not shown if they didn’t generate a reasonable photograph.  There could be three images from a single place, and none for the next few places.  But I think as a record of the trail, it works better for most people.  In principle at least, the images are all worth looking at, and there are not too many of them even if they are not.

Re-energised by this, and armed with Lightroom 3.6, which allows very rapid workflow and processing on large numbers of images, I am starting to turn my attention to past treks to wonderful places which have languished in the magnetic records because I didn’t know how to present them.  I am only working on shots that are arresting in some way.  In my next post, I’ll show 30 or so from our 2009 trek to Nar and Phu, selected from the 770 originals.  I hope you will like them.  More will follow (whether you want them to or not).

1. Skeletal System
2. Muscular System
3. Aerobic System
4. Immune System

Any one of these can go sproing independently of any of the others and cause problems either during and after the run.  So I  personally take steps as far as I can to ensure they all work. Now a bit more detail on that….

Skeletal System

Obviously bones and such.  This is the runner’s main problem, but at least pro tempore not one that troubles me today, although it’s been a big problem in the past.  I know people who have had to stop running because of back or knee problems, and other people who say as a mantra, that running is dangerous because it causes back or knee problems.  While these latter are often people who could not actually run even if they didn’t believe that, there is truth in the assertion.  And legions have been written about it.  I don’t get problems myself I think because of the three key preventative steps I take.

Alignment:  Many people just walk and run funny.  Walking funny is usually not a problem, but in particular running with your knee and ankle out of vertical alignment can cause huge increases in the stress on knees and back, as I found about a year after I started running seriously.  The answer for me, was a custom-made pair of orthotic insoles and carefully-chosen running shoes.  There are orthotic charlatans about as I found to my physical and financial cost, but a good place to start is via a Google search of recommendations from running clubs in your area.  I also go to a top-flight chiropractor, and get my back put back into alignment about 2-3 times a year.  I’m happy btw to give the names of my personal chaps for each of these treatments in response to direct emails to me.

Lubrication:  Yes I did mean getting lubed.  In this case, it’s a couple of supplements I take.   I take a good dose of Omega 3 DHA plus glucosamine sulphate every day.  Fish oil capsules of good quality are widely recognized as being good for heart and brain function.  The key ingredient, DHA is also responsible for cell regrowth.  Most fish oil capsules contain around 100 mg of DHA.  I take 2 of Boots highest strength capsules, which each contain 230mg,  giving around 450mg DHA (and 700mg of the also useful EPA) in total.  With that I take the recommended dose of 1500mg of Glucosamine Sulphate.  With these two, I ended the aches and pains that an aging old f*rt tends to get in a wet and cold climate like England’s.

Running style: This is not for everyone, but I read and was attracted by the message in Christopher McDougall’s book Born to Run.  While his emphasis is on barefoot running, which is an unattractive option for many reasons, not all dog-sh*t related, he also talks a lot about running style.  He asserts man was designed to run long distances, and this predated Nike shoes by tens of thousands of years.  Before cushioned running shoes were devised, there were thin shoes or no shoes, and the technique used was not to land on the heel, as you tend to do in cushioned running shoes, but to land on the ball of the foot, using the handy feature of the ankle to absorb the shock. There is now reasonable data to support the contention that frontfoot runners suffer about half the injuries of rear foot runners.   I have been running in this style for about a year now, and had a chance to test it on my recent trip to Cape Town.  In the complexity of packing for the Otter Trail, I forgot my orthotic inserts.  That worryingly then gave me 5 weeks of running with possibly the wrong ankle geometry, which I felt certain would lead to a knee or back problem.  But actually, running deliberately frontfoot on the balls of my feet up and down quite steep hills has resulted after 4 weeks in no problems at all.  And it has given me a nicely turned calf, which I feel is much admired when I coyly choose to display it.

I combine this style with the Alexander Technique, well known for musicians and actors, but less so for runners.  This approach does much of what I outlined before, but also focuses on lengthening the spine upwards as you run, with your head leading the way.  The running style is also lighter and more flowing.  The essence of the Alexander method is that you think about your back lengthening, rather than physically try to stretch it – amazingly, it works very well (for me).

Needless to say this is a lot to think about, and I am not suggesting that you change your own style.  But there is no doubt in my mind that these methods produce a much easier, more enjoyable run, so it’s worth practicing a bit.

Muscular System

Some people are natural runners, and some are not.  I used to be quite fast and fluid in my teens, but then I stopped running for 30 years or so, and when I restarted, I was profoundly no longer natural.  I think easy runners have two key benefits: firstly  very highly defined slow and fast-twitch muscle fibres (slow-twitch are used for long-distance running or lifting weights, fast for sprinting and other quick movements), and secondly a good power to weight ratio.  I’m pretty tall, with quite big bones.  I also find it difficult to build muscle mass whatever the twitching speed.  So my power-to-weight ratio is poor, and in years of running it hasn’t improved much.

Now one definition of a good run is that I don’t feel fatigued.  Tired possibly, but not fatigued.  Running up (and in fact down) hills can be pretty fatiguing though.  I have developed a method for both this and walking up very steep hills on Himalayan and other treks.   This is based on the fact that the biggest muscle in the body by far is the Gluteous Maximus (or backside).  The muscles most commonly used for running uphill however are the thigh, or quadricep muscles, along with the calves and hamstrings.  Because these are smaller they get fatigued faster, and on a long run, that is hard to recover from.  So I focus on using my glutes more when running. I call it the Khyber method (based on cockney rhyming slang – Khyber pass = *rse.  Helpfully this works with both English english and US english accents).  Doing this results in way less fatigue, and the ability to chug up hills at a steady rate, pretty well indefinitely.  My uphill running style now resembles a startled faun at the road level, due to my forefoot striking method, and a rhinoceros at the *rse level due to my implementation of the Khyber method.  I have seen it gain many admiring glances as I trundle, perspiring, past.

Aerobic System

This is probably the most important of all the systems, but with the fewest clever dodges to fix it.  In addition to feeling fatigued, a bad run for me is when any part of it leaves me out of breath.  Clearly running is an aerobic activity, and requires more oxygen, but when you start uncontrolled panting, you have lost control of the situation (in running as in so many other areas of life).  So I breathe ahead of the hill – as I see a steeper section coming, I’ll increase the frequency and depth of my breathing, so that when I get past it, I can return pretty instantly to relaxed breathing.

I don’t use a fancy method of breathing.  In out, in out etc etc is my basic approach, with as far as possible one leg alternately in front of the other. Greco-Roman, in essence, though without the oiling.

The other thing about aerobic capacity is you ‘use it or lose it’.  You start to lose aerobic capacity after 2-3 weeks of inactivity, and for health it needs topping up at least every other day.  By contrast muscle strength takes about 6 weeks to start degrading, and only needs a once or twice per week workout to keep topped up.  So for the aerobic system to work, you need to keep running or cycling or any activity that causes you to breathe faster.

How can you assess your aerobic levels?  It tuns out that with a top end heart rate monitor, you can determine your aerobic capacity, known as VO2max.  The real test is arduous as it involves running at your maximum level while breathing into an oxymeter (see photo above).  With an HRM you just lie down and it does a fair approximation.  The last time I did it I found I have the aerobic capacity of a fit 25 year old woman.  One day I hope to meet her.

Immune System

This is not as obvious as the other three systems, but just as important I feel. It’s an odd thing, but being super fit does not always equate to being super healthy.  There are many people who are very healthy but only exercise mildly.  Conversely elite athletes are very often susceptible to flu, colds, and other easily caught ailments.  This is because the body takes such a hammering at that level that the immune system is occupied repairing physical damage, and the barriers are lowered to simple ailments.

In my own experience, I found that when I was traveling intensively (I commuted to New York every week for 10 years), if I exercised intensively the day before flying, I usually got a cold from the plane flight.  Similarly,  if I did a long run the day after flying, I usually would sproing something.  This seems to apply to any kind of long journey by the way – even to the 10 hour drive to our French place.  So separating travel and intensive exercise by at least a day is a fundamental rule for me.  Having said that, the only reason I was able to sustain such a long period of traveling, was because I did exercise, but sensibly, and well away from flying dates.  By the way, for the same reason, if I am running a longish distance (upward of 10k say), I  try to avoid places afterwards where I would come into contact with people with colds and running the risk of contacting flying snot in the air.

Are there ways to boost or help the immune system?   After longer runs, I  take 1-2gm of vitamin C and an Echinacea tablet, to boost the immune system.  But as I have recently discovered, Vitamin D also has a very profound effect on the immune system as in many other areas.  What I was formerly attributing to the warmth of Cape Town, I think is actually due to the effect of direct sunlight in making Vitamin D.  The expert on this is Michael Holick, and I really recommend his book, or this super-cheap Kindle short (which gives a lot of info for 99c).  From this I learned that direct sunlight exposure to your body in the hours around mid-day, for a short period is by far the safest and easiest way to improve your vitamin D levels.  Prior to this I had like most people, covered myself up, and used sun-block.  But a Vitamin D test I had done on myself, last year, at the end of 6 weeks in sunny Cape Town showed a level of 22 ng/mL, only just above the deficiency level, and well below the healthy level (a good result is above 30 – more like 50).  And I spent most of my time outdoors, running, walking or loafing!

My strategy now is to wear no sunblock when I run, and when I get back to spend an additional 15 minutes getting sunlight on my chest. Afterwards it’s back to normal with sunblock etc, but I now am careful to get my dose of direct sunlight.  In the UK of course it will be a different story.  I’ll be taking around 1500 units a day of Vitamin D as a supplement when I come back.  I’ll get tested again at the end of this year, and will report results in this blog.  I know you’ll be gagging for the answer.

Finally, a funny effect which I noticed last year in Cape Town, and experienced again this year.  It’s probably not to do with the immune system, but I’ll park it here anyway.  I mentioned in an earlier post  that because probably of the sun and the above effects, I can run longer and more frequently here than I can in the UK.  Because of that, for the last month or so, I’ve been doing a tough 10k every other day.  But there is a subtle effect.  Although all the 4 systems are working fine – no injuries, colds, fatigue, out of breathiness etc, there is one small but important lingering effect.  It is that I feel less cheerful in the late afternoon and evening when doing this.  I used to put it down to being a miserable b*stard.  But while that is true, I am more of one when running regularly running long, than when I am not.  I think it is down to a long-term, sub-level fatigue.  I feel the same way on the occasional periods I am ill or am suffering some pain.  It’s hard to  muster the energy to be pleasant or cheerful while that other stuff is going on.  That’s why people in long-term pain are often grumpy.

In general I would rather be cheerful than feel virtuous (story of my life really).  So I have in the last week or so, I have moved to a 5k for two successive days, then a day break, then repeat.  This has me much more equanimous,  if not yet fully at the agreeable level.

Conclusion

So there you have it.  These concepts have flittered around my mind while running, and I thought I would document them for my own, and possibly your benefit.  There turned out to be much more content than I expected, but you turn out to have read it anyway. It only remains for me to drop dead while running in the next 2 weeks.  If I can live through that, then these notes may possibly have some lasting value.