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So no new photos this time, I’ll post some snaps from my west coast trip last weekend sooner or later. In the mean time I’ve had the opportunity to do some test prints on the new Fujifilm Pearl paper and I have to say I’m very impressed. This came about by chance as I was going to catch up with a friend who has just started work at a different lab and they’d only just got some of the paper in and loaded it into a magazine. At the moment they only have it in 12″ rolls and it’s a bit more expensive than standard matte/gloss but is really worth the extra dollars. Finish-wise, it’s similar to the Kodak metallic paper, maybe slightly less “metallic” though. Colours look much the same as normal gloss but certain tones really pop out and anything metallic in photographs looks amazing. I’m sure blue skies and water will look amazing too.
On another interesting note, I’ve just bought a copy of a very cool little program called PTLens which is a useful little tool for doing lens distortion and perspective corrections. It delivers a much more accurate result than Photoshop’s lens correction tool and is calibrated for each camera/lens/focal length. What’s more, it can be launched as an external editor in Lightroom thus eliminating the need to keep Photoshop open at the same time. For a very reasonable $25 USD it’s a worthy purchase for anyone requiring lens corrections.
As for other things, I’m shooting a wedding later today and have a car shoot and some calendars to do tomorrow, should be good.
And for those of you who’ve found my website though the Selwyn libraries bookmark, thanks for visiting! If you’re interested in purchasing a print they’re $150 for a 12×18″ print on glossy paper or $170 on pearl paper. I can also supply them professionally matted and framed in a black, wooden frame with a white mat for an extra $164. (All prices NZD)
Hedgehogs are cool critters, though most of the time you only see them when they’re a bit squished on the road. Douglas here has taken up residence in my backyard and he (or she) doesn’t seem to mind me too much so I had to snap a few photos. Yes, that’s a dead bird he’s eating! Lovely.
 
Well I hope everyone had a mint Guy Fawkes, I know I did. This year I decided to skip the overcrowded public displays with fun-killing alcohol bans and have some fireworks fun at home. After all, what’s better than sharing a BBQ, a game of cricket, quite a few beers, a bonfire and a box of slightly aged fireworks with some friends and family? Needless to say it was a good bonfire and we could still see the Rolleston fireworks while enjoying a few cold bottles of Kingfisher.
  
  
Not the best photos, but we were drunk and it was dark!
Other than burning things I’ve been busy shooting with Paul’s Nikon 12-24 lens which has been quite entertaining. It certainly gives a different perspective on things, one that I’ve become quite fond of. I like the ability to still zoom into 24mm for shots that require a slightly tighter composition. I have a few quality reservations about the lens though, the sharpness is OK, nothing to get excited over even when shot at ƒ8. The corners never seem to sharpen up quite enough, this is of particular concern to me as I’m shooting a lot of things with flat surfaces at the moment. There’s quite a bit of barrel distortion, though it is mostly correctable in Photoshop (Please Adobe, put lens corrections in Lightroom 3!) Chromatic aberrations are also an issue but at least they’re easy enough to correct in Lightroom. The handling of the lens is very good, the zoom is nicely spaced and the whole lens is sealed so nothing moves in or out while zooming or focusing. I haven’t noticed much issue with vignetting either though I’ve mostly been shooting stopped down in daylight. I can’t comment on lens flares since I didn’t have the lens hood for it, flare was certainly an issue without it. Would I buy one? Probably not to be perfectly honest, the sharpness I don’t feel is up to what a 10+ megapixel SLR can put out, I’m sure it was more than fine back in 6 megapixel days but just doesn’t deliver the standard I expect—especially at the price. That said I am interested in taking a look at the Tokina 11-16 ƒ2.8 since it’s cheaper and supposed to be sharper. Still, I did enjoy using it, I hope I’ll get another chance this week to shoot with it.
  
  
  
  
Some more Shots with the Nikon 12-24 ƒ4
My final photographic observation for the day is how good the new Canon S90 is, it’s probably the first compact camera I’ve been genuinely impressed with in a while. In my books its much better than the G11, being pocket sized is the clincher for me. What’s the point of a camera thats too big to fit in your pocket but only delivers compact quality? That said, the S90 seemed to produce damn good results, I must say I only had about 15 minutes of shooting before the battery went flat but the shots I got in that time had wonderful, vibrant colour (I was using the positive film simulation mode) and decent dynamic range for a compact. Sharpness was good, viewed at 100% the images were some of the best I’ve seen from a compact and it produced all but flawless 6×4″ glossies (isn’t this what compacts are for after all?). I wouldn’t expect stunning poster prints from it but I would suspect a well taken shot would look crisp at 10×12″. I didn’t bother testing the ISOs, I know it’ll be sucky like all compacts, anything over 400 and you’re wasting your time for good prints—this is no different to 35mm days though, remember how crap the 800 ISO films in disposable cameras are? Handling wise, it blows the G11 and any other compact I’ve used out of the water, once I had it set up right it just flew. Exposure compensation is easy via the rear wheel, I have the programable button set up for ISO and the front ring for focal length settings; being able to flick between 28, 35, 50, 85 and 105mm is great and it even remembers your set position. The screen seemed great too, no problems in daylight for me. I’ve gotta say I’m pleased that Canon pulled out all the stops on this camera, I do think that small sensored compacts have a future because all the micro four thirds and APS-C sized compacts are just too big to fit in your jeans pocket. Maybe one day this will change but for now, there’s no better option for a serious photographers compact that actually fits in your pocket. Pity it costs so damn much!
Sunday’s MR2 club run was somewhat more low key than last month’s extravaganza of craziness with six cars showing up; 3 AWs, 1 SW, 1 Spyder and 1 Porsche Cayman S. One year on from a last trip to Pegasus we took another trip out to see how the developments were progressing and surprisingly a reasonable amount has happened despite the somewhat frosty economic conditions. With many more roads laid there was much more to explore and the man-made lake is finished and almost full (quite a sight to see). There’s also a big, flash bridge across it but it wasn’t quite ready to be opened yet. Still, living there in a manufactured community really doesn’t appeal to the yokel in me, apparently you aren’t allowed a washing line…
  
  
  
MR2s and one Porsche at Pegasus
As for new toys to play with, well it’s not mine but I’m borrowing Paul’s 12-24mm Nikkor lens which is an interesting experience, particularly for the kind of shooting I’m doing at the moment. So far I’ve found it quite cool, I’m hoping to use it more over the next few days once I get my car warranted. Shooting ultra wide is an interesting experience, before now the widest lenses i’ve ever used are my 16-85mm Nikkor and a 45mm Pentax 67 lens. I suppose my main reason is I never felt the need to go wider until now. Sharpness wise the 12-24 is pretty good, not as sharp as the 16-85 I don’t think, though more testing is required to find out what the sharpest aperture is etc. I’d like to buy an ultra wide lens though I’m tossing up if it’s worth the coin or not, (I can always stitch a couple of shots, what I’m doing at the moment doesn’t call for speed) and if I want to invest money in glass that won’t work on full frame. This is a hard one because it’s impossible to say where the industry is heading in the next few years, I don’t want to sink a grand on a lens only to discover that Nikon doesn’t make a successor to the D300s with an APS-C sensor—there’s no way I could trade down to a D90 level camera.
     
Nikon 12-24 mm test shots.
So far we’ve seen Canon seems to be committed to making APS-C sensor cameras at the higher end of the market, though I’m not convinced that the 7D offers much in terms of quality over the 50D or even the 40D, the lenses supplied with the cameras certainly aren’t up to the task of dealing with 15, let alone 18 megapixels. That said, I’m yet to see the Canon 15-85, I wonder if it’s on par with my Nikkor? Probably not I would guess, I’m thinking it’ll be to my lens as the Canon 18-200 is to the Nikon 18-200—a distant second.
As for the new G11, I’ve finally had a chance to play with one and to be honest I think I’d take a G10 instead. As best as I can see there’s little tangible gain in ISO quality, maybe a stop. I would guess this could be somewhat offset by pixel binning (14.7 down to 10), shooting RAW and careful noise reduction. I much prefer the G10’s fixed 3″ screen to the new folding unit, it’s smaller and has a hard plastic cover. Unfolding and folding the screen is really just a hassle. I think the days of these tilting screens are numbered anyway, anyone whose seen the screen on the Fujifilm S200 will agree, it’s visible at literally every angle, even almost directly side on you can still see accurate colours and brightness. I’d much prefer this technology to tilting screens. As for the Canon’s tilting screen, my absolute biggest bitch is that it doesn’t fold out 180 degrees, it stops just short so it’s always on a slight angle while you’re shooting with it folded out. This seems to be a pretty stupid oversight from a company with god knows how many years making excellent cameras with these kinds of screens (maybe they forgot after they dumbed down the A series to idiot level?)
The controls are basicly the same, though it does use Canon’s new menu structure (I prefer the old one). It feels good in hand but then so did the G7, 9 and 10, it’s nice to see a continuity between models. As for an overall impression, it’s a nice camera besides the new screen but not really the upgrade people were hoping for, I guess everyone unrealisticly assumed that dropping nearly 5 megapixels would endow it with SLR-like low light performance—it doesn’t. I also think the days of cameras like the G11 are numbered, with larger sensor compacts flooding the market prices will drop, especially as theres precious little price difference between a G11 and an entry level SLR. Since it’s not big enough to really pocket then it doesn’t really appeal to me as a compact anyway, I think the S90 will be a much more interesting camera.
Well I’ve finally got underway on my latest project after much delay. I’m continuing exploring the theme I hinted at earlier in regards to exploring the urban environment thats both close at hand and that goes largely ignored. Most of our time spent in the city is at a superficial level, only ever seeing the façades of buildings, the signage, billboards, advertising, bright neon lights—the faces we put on our environment to make it visually attractive to customers and consumers. Stripping away this superficial shell reveals the true nature of the urban landscape, worn down buildings, cracked concrete, seedy alleyways, haphazard car parks (lots of no parking signs too), graffiti, broken pipes, service entries, brothels, parking buildings and garages, flats, fire exits, rotting balconies, crazy plants and so much more. Looking down from above, it’s quite a surprise to see how many run-down old building there are hidden away in the central city, on land that I would have thought would have been prime real estate. Anyway, here’s a first taste of some of my new works. Many more will come and I hope to continue this project in other cities too.
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
I don’t normally give into random impulse purchases but $3 film at a gas station is too much to resist. When I think about it the last time I shot a roll of 35mm was November last year and the last time I shot any C41 was… well so long ago I can’t remember. Living in a digital age I find the only time I reach for film is to shoot medium format yet there’s still something hard to resist about a bargain—especially when you see how much it costs to buy film these days. Processing costs are scary too, luckily working occasionally at a photolab solves this issue especially since I’m not overly interested in 6×4″ glossies.
Thinking about 35mm, it’s hard to believe how quickly technology changed. It was only about 10 years ago practical digital cameras entered the market at a relatively affordable price, within that time they’ve almost universally replaced 35mm film for home and professional use. The way people use cameras and photographs has changed so much too, I remember as a kid the camera usually only came out for birthdays, christmases, holidays, family events and special occasions—usually just a few rolls a year. Now every night out, day at the beach, lunch with friends and a plethora of self-shots of ourselves obscuring whatever it is we’re standing in front of are rattled off and straight onto facebook. This is fun but sometimes becomes a chore unto itself with endless uploads and tagging, comments and questions. I would hate to think of what patheticly small percentage of photos taken today find their way onto paper, I know photo labs aren’t exactly kept busy despite the fact it’s cheaper to print photographs now than it ever has been before.
Now all I have to do is work out exactly what I’ll use said $3 films for, My F70 has a flat battery and I’m not keen to spend money on it so I may dig out my old Minolta 101b for a few frames, alternatively I could try out my dust-collecting Petri Racer rangefinder, a stunning piece of 1960’s design.
A few weeks ago I was asked if I’d like to put one of my photographs on a new bookmark being printed for the Selwyn Library service so of course I jumped at the chance for some publicity. Apparently about 10-15,000 of them have been printed and the plan is that they are going to be sent out to households across Selwyn. Many thanks to Glen Walker for this. The photograph itself is available as a limited edition print of 30 12×18 inch glossy prints, if you’re interested please drop me an email.
Click the image below to view the original, uncropped image.
And something humourous but totally unrelated I discovered today while playing round on my computer. When I got my MacBook Pro I set up my old Windows XP desktop to be accessible over my wireless network and today I just noticed that the icon for it under Snow Leopard is a picture of an old CRT monitor with the blue screen of death on it!
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