I managed to find myself at one of the very few spots where the total solar eclipse was visible in the Faroé Islands. The spot was close to the sea on the island of Vagar, in a little village called Sandavagur. After more than an hour in the rain and strong wind, the clouds finally opened up during totality, enough time for me to make those photos and enjoy the spectacle.

Pentax 645Z medium format, 400mm lens

Leica M, 50mm summilux lens. A friend mentioned that the cloud under the sun actually resembles a polar bear. If you look carefully, it quite does, so I named this image “Ursa Major”.

So Prez Obama is visiting Burma, right now. He’s going to meet Thein Sein, the president.
He might also meet this guy, one of the two VPs, whom I shot earlier in January in a remote area:

There was a lot of military personnel, police, and TV crews to cover all that.

And they were really interested in us, those TV crews.
Most of us foreigners got interviewed and were given seats in the VIP tribune and were greeted by the authorities, VP included.

It became obvious that it was all a big PR show, so I stopped covering the event and went back to shoot the local tribe people inst

ead, it was way more interesting and that’s why I went there anyway.

The whole thing was big news on burmese TV, we discovered that later on as we saw ourselves on TV when we got back to “civilization” (as in: stranded in a place that has a bar with a TV set). The takeaway message from TV news was “look at that, we’re opening up and making good progress on reform.. even in really remote areas, the tourists are free to come here, etc”.
Well… free, my arse. We were essentially locked up in a village.

A friend and I tried to go visit another village than the one we were parked into. No way. The whole area was blocked by the army, from which we wouldn’t get clearance.
We tried to arrange two motorcycles and drivers to sneak through the net and go visit nearby villages, but it became clear that it was not really worth taking the risk of getting in trouble with the authorities in this part of the world.
So much for the evening news’ PR message.

Still with me?
The point is this: It’s great that Obama is visiting the country. The lady is now free, and it’s true that Burma is opening up. Great news, especially for business people.
But please, whenever Burmese authorities say they are taking big steps toward more freedom, take it with a pinch of salt. I hate to be a party pooper, but…
Things are improving, of course, but an awful lot remains to be done, especially when it comes to the people themselves.
How about the borders? How about the Brown and Black zones, the ones that are under control of the army to various degrees?
How about all those political prisoners?
How about the Rohingya and other minorities?
What’s going on in Kachin, Karen, and Rakhine states? In the golden triangle?
How is “reform” affecting the lives of ordinary people?
I’m sure president O will not only go there for Realpolitik and drop a few business cards, and will ask those questions too. Or not.

I’m selling my trusty D3S, revised by Nikon Switzerland.
I take care of my equipment, but I also shoot pictures, I’m not a collector. So it has some scuffs and a few little scars, but is in great condition.
Comes complete with its original box and an extra battery.
If you are interested in such a tool, you probably already know everything about it, but if you don’t here are the specs.
Please email me at pierre@hotpixel.ch if interested.
I’ve picked a few images from my library to show what this camera can do in the areas of portrait/photojournalism, landscape, and low light.

Just got this in my email today, shot by fellow traveler Valerie in a monastery in Nagaland, Burma.
Wondered where the term “chimping” came from? Well, here’s the answer…

I don’t do much of those (I think it’s the 2nd in almost 10 years), but here’s a self-portrait.

I joined an early hot air balloon ride, and we glided over the Bagan valley and its myriad temples at sunrise. It was pure magic.

I’m trying to do pictures that tell a story. But sometimes, the message is not obvious enough, so I’ll explain this one.
Burma is pretty much a rural country, its economy is mainly agriculture. It’s been torn for over 50 years of mismanagement and civil war.
But things are changing fast – the lady’s out, there’s a new “civilian” (…) government, the country is slowly opening up, western powers are pushing to get in.
Western influence starts to show up in remote areas, kids dress up differently and things like this, and to me this image represents the generation gap between rural farmers and their kids who most probably are going to live in a more westernized form of society and culture.
Whether that’s a good thing or not is anyone call, but I saw there are two worlds colliding in this image, and that’s why I shot it.
They say if you have to explain a joke, then it was a better idea to not crack it in the first place, but here you go

I had two boat engine failures with two differents boats on two consecutive days.
On both occasions, I waved the next boat on the river, and was allowed to hop on board to complete both journeys.
I shot this while the two boys driving my boat were trying to fix the engine, in the first such incident.

I shot over 4.500 pictures over 3 weeks in asia. 2/3 of those with the Nikon D3S, the rest with the Leica M9.
Out of those, I got the exact same proportion of keepers. I hear you mumble “so what?”. Well, that means something to me, considering :

• I’m a lot more used to shooting the Nikon and other DSLRs than the M9
• I had only the M9 for less than 6 months, and am still doing the hours on it. I’m far from being as quick with the M9 than I am with a DSLR
• The Nikon has autofocus, can shoot in the dark, has live view, and packs a whole lot of whizzbang features
• The Leica is a minimalist rangefinder camera, and is all manual
• I brought three nikon lenses : a 24-70, a 70-200 and a 50mm prime
• The Leica was used with 50mm and 21mm prime lenses (I don’t even own a viewfinder for my 21, so I compose by guessing)

So, logically, I would have expected the Nikon to have an edge here, and turn out more keepers, comparatively speaking, right? Right?
Except it didn’t, and I find that both pleasing and surprising.
Pleasing because it means I was quite right in buying this Leica. I was attracted amongst other things by its discretion, its performance as a travel camera that can turn out excellent images despite a small size, and frankly the results exceed my expectations. Surprising, because, well, it is surprising. No?

So I hope I continue climbing up this M9 learning curve, and maybe one day I’ll be able to travel with only this one camera in a small bag if I want to.
That would be great – My back and neck would thank me.

Leica M9 + Summilux 50mm wide open at 1.4

Nikon D3S + 24-70 wide open at 2.8

Disclaimer – I don’t have one.

Today, Nikon released a D800-E, which has two interesting characteristics:

First, it’s 36 megapixels. That’s twice the pixel count of my Leica M9, and thrice that of my D3S – but on the same surface (24x36mm).

Second, no Anti-Aliasing filter in front of the sensor. That’s bold. I will not go into specifics, so if you never heard of that, all you need to know is that an AA filter is also sometimes referred to as a blur filter. Now that should ring an alarm bell somewhere down your cortex if you like detailed, rich images. Thing is, an AA filter does not really blur – but it does remove information, so you lose some sharpness and some resolution. Its purpose is to avoid moiré effects, which I do not care at all about because it does not happen very often. On the rare occasions it does, it can be dealt with in post-production anyway.

Q: do you really want a layer of glass in front of your expensive camera’s sensor that will – by default – remove some information from ALL your images ?
A: maybe you do, but I don’t. I want my camera to record everything it can, with as little junk in between me and the subject as possible. I don’t want a silly piece of glass that messes around with my photons. I want to get the most out of my sensor, and deal with what it produces. I don’t want to rely on the guy who designed the camera’s firmware or the junk in front of the camera’s sensor to decide what’s best for me. Which is one of the reason I got a Leica M9, by the way – no AA filter- it’s plain and simple, an excellent camera.
So for me, the lack of AA filter is indeed a most welcome thing in a Nikon.

Now, the funny thing is – a high pixel count AND no AA filter are two characteristics of top-notch MF cameras or digital backs. Thus one can imagine Nikon is trying to position this into the MF market. I have read a few raving articles today explaining how this was a breakthrough, and this would be a MF camera killer. Well, I think it ain’t.

Since I own a nice bunch of expensive Nikon lenses, I’d like to believe the hype, and I hate to be a party pooper, but… Good luck to this. As much as I’d really like a 3.200 USD Nikon to deliver the same as a 20.000 hasselblad in terms of image quality, I think it’s not going to happen, for at least two reasons :

1. those nice nikon pixels are on the same surface as before, the chip is still the same size. MF cameras and digital backs use sensors that are larger.
Higher pixel density (and thus smaller pixels) usually results in problems (higher noise, impaired low light performance, etc) that are usually fixed by the camera’s firmware doing extra work to fix things up. Thing is, they can be fixed up to a point. Thus, I’d expect only a marginal bonus from the absence of an AA filter.

2. let’s say you’re Nikon, and you just found some brilliant new technology that lets you venture into MF territory, and really challenge some of the biggies in the game. Your biggest competitor has an equivalent product for 20 grand. Why on earth would you market your new Nikon at 3 if you know that it would fly off the shelves at twice (or more) this price? Seriously?

Bottom line is – unless Nikon really has managed to squeeze some seriously groundbreaking technology in this D800E, I don’t think we’ll see MF image quality at Nikon prices this year. This said, if you don’t expect it to replace your hasselblad or phase one back with this camera and get the same results, it will probably will be a landmark DSLR capable of doing crazy things in the studio or for landscapes.

For the record and the curious, here is one example of what a medium format back can produce, straight out of camera. And that was with 7 year old technology, mind you. If this new D800E can match this, please Nikon send me one for a review