Rangefound

f8 and Be There

2011-11-21T14:34:00.008Z

There aren't too many of us who have pockets large enough to walk about with a large format view camera upon our persons. By the same token almost everyone has a portable telephone that can be used to take pictures (even if it can't be used very well to make calls). They probably represent the extremes of photographic portability (I'm not counting here the wheelie-bin full of lenses, laptops, lighting and latte-makers that studio work demands). Both are trade-offs. One for quality and the other for Angry Birds.

The demise of the compact camera has been forecast for some time now, as more and more compromise and settle for the shampoo commercial approach to photography - "Take two image capture devices into the streets? Not me!" I do believe there continues to be a niche for a high quality compact camera that handles like a compact camera and not like a frozen slab of raspberry panna cotta. I have long said that I will take portable telephones seriously as an image capture device when they start showing up with tripod sockets but even I cannot fault some of the photos that come out from the likes of the Nokia N8 and others.

They are not cameras though, any more than a Swiss Army knife is a kitchen tool. It can do many of the tasks that you need in a kitchen but you would not use it to cook day in, day out because it is a compromise and an uncomfortable one at that. The last bastion of the compact camera is and will remain for some time the "high end compact". This has always been a rarefied and slightly odd niche, populated in years past by companies such as Rollei with the 35 and Contax with the T series. Everyone jumped on the bandwagon at some time - who can forget the Nikon 35ti and its beautiful dials? They were designed to be as much expressions of wealth as picture taking machines - nobody who used a gold Rollei 35 could ever seriously describe it as the easiest camera they had ever used to take a snap of their Persian cat...

The current crop is all digital, of course, and there are some crackers out there. The Canon G11 and Nikon P7100 represent the "prosumer" end of things - cameras that are big and complex enough to be almost as capable as their big DSLR brothers while still being portable (perhaps "luggable" is a better term). Leica has the D-Lux 5 and Panasonic its LX sibling while Olympus have the XZ-1. All are well thought of and all have zooms large and small.

Then there is Ricoh... They appear to follow their own trajectory, largely untroubled by such niceties as fashion and the latest trends. I was a Ricoh user many years ago, when they produced a quietly excellent SLR called the XR-X which took Pentax lenses. Today I already own a GXR with the M-Mount module that allows me to put Leica LTM, M or R lenses in front of an APS sized sensor and snap away to my hearts' content. Recently and as a result of my experiences with this setup I also acquired a GR Digital III. This is the penultimate expression of a line of cameras that echoes back to the film-consuming GR1 and continues with the recently released GRD IV. I picked my III up cheaply due to its having been superseded, at least in the minds of the marketing men and the early adopters for whom the next shiny thing is their sole raison d'etre.

Right from the early days the GR and now GRD line have been characterised by two key attributes - small size and a 28mm lens. The computation of that lens has changed over the years but there is still a striking family resemblance from first to last. Oh, the other defining characteristic worthy of a mention is the quality of the output, easily belying the size of the unit. The GRD is small, light and discreet. In use it reminds me of nothing less than my Leica II - almost instinctive to use and capable of punching well above its weight in all but the most exotic of company.

One of the simple joys of the GRD is its black and white performance. It really does produce outputs reminiscent of film. We don't all want to render the world all the time in razor sharpness or in shortbread tin hues and the little GRD is ideal for those who are more concerned with the image than their image. I am sure that the more recent GRD IV is better in all sorts of interesting ways but the III works for me.

Which brings me to the point of today's sermon. I have a number of cameras, all in regular use. If leaving the house on business or pleasure I always pop one into a pocket, a briefcase or a bag. Over the years my "camera I bring when I don't want to use a camera" has varied from an Olympus Mju-II to a Rollei 35, from a Yashica T4 to a Contax T2, from a Minox B to a Leica D-Lux 4 with a few others along the way. Today it is the Ricoh. It is not a Leica, it is not even a Nikon, but it is more than capable of acting as my visual notebook. If I had not been carrying it the other day I wouldn't have got this shot. If I hadn't got this shot I wouldn't have felt moved to write this piece.

What goes around...

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

Replacement therapy

2011-10-07T15:20:00.008+01:00

More thoughts on the GXR and the M Module...

The more I use this combination with Leica lenses the more I am growing accustomed to it and the more it resonates with an earlier experience. As I said in my last, it is not a replacement for an M, or a Barnack. It could never be that. What it is, however, is very evocative of my first "real" digital camera, the Panasonic LC-1. The LC-1 was of course the sexy black bodied version of the Leica Digilux 2, which was otherwise only available with a "silver chrome" top-plate. The estimable Thorsten Overgaard's views on this remarkable camera can be found here. Thorsten refers to the camera as a "New Classic" and I have to say that I understand where he was coming from with those words. The LC-1/Digilux 2 was an oddity in many ways - although both variants were manufactured by Panasonic the Leica DNA was clearly evident from the shape and handling to the remarkable "28-90"mm Vario-Summicron that to this day knocks more recent lenses into a cocked hat with its rendition.

I loved my LC-1, which worked like a dream up to the day that it suffered the dreaded sensor death (and subsequent resurrection after a bit of a barney with Panasonic UK). But it is a number of generations behind the curve now - something that matters far more with digital cameras than film - and I regretfully sold it on last year. The LC-1/D2 was one of those cameras that comes along occasionally that is more than the sum of its parts and thus becomes the perfect tool by supporting and encouraging the realisation of the photographer's vision rather than by acting as a lump of plastic that simply gets in the way. This is an experience I have only had a few times in my life; the M Leicas, of course, share this attribute by virtue of their handling and their pellucidly clear viewfinder. My Leica II is also a pleasure to use in the same way (although strangely enough not my IIIc which it replaced). Otherwise the only other camera that I can think of that has ever fallen into this category for me was my Contax RX.

LC1/D2... sheer enjoyment - in the old style

What made the LC1/D2 great was not one thing, it was a combination of things, mostly related to handling and rendition, as I have already said. It felt balanced in the hand, and was light enough to be carried around all day without getting a stiff neck. The shutter - effectively silent - was almost sensual with its soft, caressing snick to tell you - if you were listening carefully - that the shot was in the bag. And that lens... The fact that the zoom was manual was pleasurable enough, but that you also got an aperture ring and a manual focus ring that felt like those on a "real" camera were the icing on an already admirable cake. Digital snapping suddenly felt less like using a computer with a bottle on the front and more like "real" photography.

Finally, a word on the outputs. The raw files were a delight - easy to work on and immensely rewarding - but more importantly the LC1/D2 delivered jpegs straight out of camera that were not only usable but delicately beautiful in their own right.

As an aside I have a real issue with the school of thought that says jpeg is for cissies and real men use raw - it harks back to the "good old days" when "amateurs" had their photos developed in Boots the Chemist and "real photographers" spent all their time in the darkroom and smelled of hypo. The modern equivalent is those photographers who spend all their evenings using Lightroom, endlessly twiddling sliders and polishing their pixels - I can only conclude that they are the children of those men who avoided speaking to their wives by spending their leisure time in the bathroom and under-stairs darkrooms of the 1960s - which does make you wonder how they were conceived in the first place... What I think is lacking these days is the digital equivalent of Kodachrome - so much better than the prints from Boots but without the hassle of self-developing.

But enough of that, back to the plot. The more I have used the GXR the more I have found myself settling back into the metre and rhythm of those halcyon days spent with my LC-1. The controls fall easily to hand, the viewfinder, although irritatingly detachable and about as discreet as Quasimodo's hump, is a leap ahead from that of the LC-1. The handling is similar - well it is bound to be with a lump of Leica glass stuck on the front. Most similar in that respect is the 60mm Elmarit-R 2.8 which of course equates to approximately 90mm on the APS-sized sensor once the crop factor is taken into consideration. In fact the physically more bulky R lenses in general are more evocative of the handling of old than the M glass, even the smaller 28mm Elmarit-R.

R-glass, Leitax, Novoflex... very reminiscent

But what, I hear you say, about the output? Well, it is still early days but... the more I use this combination the more that the sheer quality of the Leica glass shines through. The much bigger sensor (5mp vs 12mp) makes a huge difference of course, but I am increasingly impressed by the quality of the out-of-camera jpegs. I shoot raw+jpeg at the moment but there has so far been only one shot that has cried out for the slider twiddling treatment.

The journey continues, but the scenery thus far is most enjoyable...

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

New lamps for old...

2011-09-30T14:46:00.010+01:00

Ironically, I started this blog with a review, and here I am a couple of years later writing another. The world has moved on, however, and now I am writing about a different concept, one that did not exist when I started.

I have recently acquired a Ricoh GXR in anticipation of the introduction of the M-Module A12. This module allows the mounting of Leica M (and other) lenses to the Ricoh body. An interesting concept that, if it lives up to its promise, could offer considerable scope and flexibility not to say a new lease of life for older lenses. The GXR itself has been around now for about 18 months, with a small set of dedicated "Lensors" - lenses and sensors combined into a single "dust free" unit. The GXR system is not cheap, and the four Lensors thus far available have themselves been quite pricey. The GXR concept is intriguing, but for a long time has looked like a solution in search of a problem. The GXR body is rugged and well-made and by all accounts designed by photographers for photographers but it has enjoyed only modest sales success in a market that seems awash with mirrorless interchangable compacts - Micro Four Thirds and others - from Sony, Samsung, Olympus, Panasonic, Nikon and now (amusingly) Nikon. Against that backdrop the Ricoh has been seen as innovative but just a bit odd - a bit like Saabs used to be before they were assimilated by GM.

The GXR kit I picked up came with the 28-300 lensor (I added the VF-2 viewfinder soon thereafter). This little setup is a competent but frankly lacklustre "travel zoom" that produces ok results but nothing to write home about. Ideal for slipping in a pocket and handing to a waiter in the beach restaurant to catch that snap of you and your loved one partly hidden behind unfeasibly large cocktails. Honestly, if this was all there was to the system the answer would be no. The two prime lenses (28 and 50mm) come with bigger sensors and are reputed to be a lot better, but I have neither tried them nor intend to.

I rummaged around looking for a UK price for the module and ended up visiting my friendly neighbourhood local "crack dealer". London Camera Exchange in Guildford has been my primary source for all things Leica for many years, both new and secondhand. The manager there knows me and was more than happy to give me first dibs on the first M Module that he was able to get his hands on. A week or three later the phone rang and I trundled over on a sunny Saturday afternoon with a bagful of lenses.

It was busy as usual in the shop but one of the staff handed over the box and they left me to it. First surprise, the Lensor once attached prompts you through a firmware upgrade - none of that sticking a file on an SD card and loading it up. The upgrade gave my GXR body the necessary changes to menus etc to accommodate the M Module. It fits like a glove, of course, with a bulge that doesn't appear on the other Lensors which actually adds to the handling. My first, hurried shots in and outside the shop were what you would expect - crap - but good enough to show promise. Card details were provided and I walked out with another of those brown cardboard Ricoh boxes that looks as if it has been recycled from old cereal packets - very green, very now.

Apart from the Lensor, the box contains a sheaf of instruction books and stuff and a little bit of plastic that resembles one of those drain sieves that stops bits of carrot from blocking the U bend in the kitchen. This neat device is actually a "lens gauge" that allows the user to check if their lenses will mount without fouling the sensor. First (but not unexpected) disappointment - my three collapsible lenses, 5cm Elmar, 50mm Elmar M and 90mm Elmarit, cannot be mounted and collapsed - c'est la vie, but a shame since two of that three are my favourites.

Lenses that do mount, I am here to tell you, do so with a satisfying snick - there is no play in this mount. So far I have tried it with a range of lenses from Leica, Zeiss and Voigtlander and have yet to be disappointed. M Mount lenses fit and perform of course, but so do LTM (Leica Thread Mount, or Screwmount, or "Barnack") lenses such as the tiny 3.5cm Elmar and the 15mm Cosina Voigtlander Color Heliar. No accessory viewfinders needed, of course, since the view, on the rear screen or through the Electronic Viewfinder ("EVF") is WYSIWYG (TTL). I have tried it so far with focal lengths of 15, 28, 35, 50, 60 90 and 135mm and have yet to observe any significant vignetting, darkening or colour shift at the corners.

You notice I listed 60mm in there - that's not M, but R... I have three Leica R Mount Elmarit lenses - 28, 60 (macro) and 135mm - that I have already converted with Leitax mounts to use upon Nikon bodies (in my case an FM3A). With the addition of a Novoflex "Lem/Nik" converter from the nice people at SRB Griturn, they can also be mounted to the M Mount and thus the GXR body. The same would be true, of course, of any Nikon AI, AIS, AF or AFD lens although you could not mount the G lenses with this combination without losing aperture control. (By the way I initially tried a "cheap" mount that I found on eBay. It was looser than a footballer's morals; the lens drooped from the mount like the "before" metaphor in an impotence advert. The Novoflex, on the other hand, is tighter than a 10th generation Scotsman's sporran clip; proof of the old adage "buy cheap, buy twice"...)

So, I have a single platform that is able to take any Leica LTM, M or R mount lens (with a litttle prior adaptation). I can use glass from the 1920s to 2011 with a modern, APS-C sized sensor. As a backup this is ideal, but it also has advantages as a primary system under certain circumstances.

So, what's it like to use and does it deliver the results?

We all get there, Sonnar or later...

The most important thing for me is that this combination allows the character of each lens to come through. I have chosen the lens "palette" that I have for good reasons - each performs differently and delivers a different rendition. The GXR sensor does not get in the way but instead delivers a faithful result. Each focal length is multiplied by 1.5x, of course but in practice this is workable and certainly won't come as a surprise to those who come to the GXR from the M8, M8.2 or Epson R-D1. Where the little GXR scores over the M8 of course is that it doesn't require UV/IR filters, let alone dedicated viewfinders for the wider focal lengths. That, coupled with the ability to take lenses of greater than 135mm focal length, starts to add up to a compelling package.

Handling takes a little getting used to. The need to grip the body while manually focussing the lens means that one has to think about where to put one's fingers... Initially I found myself regularly pressing buttons on the rear with my right thumb - irritating, but soom remedied with some self-discipline. Larger lenses are heavier, of course, but not unduly so. The offset tripod socket may be a little irritating, however and for lenses larger than the 135mm Elmarit R I think I would be happier with a tripod mount on the lens rather than relying upon the body.

Focussing is via two different Modes - much has been written about these already from a technical standpoint so I will focus (pun intended) on the practicalities. Mode 1 provides a "marching ants" white dotted outline around anything within the plane of focus. It offers the advantage of maintaining a "natural" view of your subject, in colour (if set) but is not that easy to use, particularly in very bright or low light. Mode 2 provides a monochrome view that again highlights the plane of focus with whiteness but this time against a grey background. Although less "realistic", I find this easier to use in all conditions. A half-press of the shutter release gives you a normal view and I find myself toggling between the two easily. For critical focussing applications it is possible to enlarge the view, either as a central "picture in picture" or filling the screen. I have tried this but don't find it particularly useful. Focussing close up with the Macro Elmarit is particularly interesting with Mode 2; it's easy to rock back and forth and watch the plane of focus wash across your subject until it is were you want it to be.

Overall, how easy is it to focus? Here is a very subjective, very personal league table - you may be able to relate to it, but then again, maybe not...

M2 - simply the clearest of all
MP/M7 - mine are both .85. My MP only has four framelines so is marginally clearer than the M7
Contax RX - about the best film SLR I ever owned
Nikon FM3A with R lenses
M6 "classic" - I've had a couple of .72 Too many framelines for my taste
Epson R-D1
Ricoh GXR with M Module
Leica II
Leica IIIc
Olympus XA
Panasonic LC-1 (Digilux 2)
D-Lux 4
Olympus E-P1 with M lenses

So far I have not had the time or opportunity to do much more than scratch the surface with the M Module. All of my shots have been test shots, with no "soul". I'll address that in the weeks and months to come. For now, you can see the fruits of my experimentation here, together with a bit of "camera porn" that shows a number of lenses mounted, either directly or with the Novoflex adaptor.

So... the verdict so far is a qualified but approving thumbs-up. The GXR system comes of age with the M Module and it will be fascinating to look back in about 12 months time and see what has developed next. For now, the GXR has a firm place in my kit bag. It does not replace my M or Barnack cameras but it augments them well and gives my Leica glass - all my Leica glass - a strong digital platform.

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

Me and my shadow

2011-06-02T14:18:00.011+01:00

Boo!

Did you jump at that? Are you the sort of person that worries about what's around the next corner? Do you lose sleep over losing sleep? Above all, do you worry about using your expensive camera equipment out of doors?

Stop laughing at the back there - this is a serious question. In the Northern hemisphere at least, it is Summer and the holiday season. Many are thinking of packing their bags and going somewhere new and hopefully worth a snap or two. They are packing their trunks, their sun cream, a big thick book and... Judging by the number of questions that start "Is [insert location of your choice] safe for my Leica?" or "Should I just take my [insert cheaper kit] to [x]?" there are an awful lot of people who worry about whether they will come back tanned, tubbier and robbed.

I appreciate that when we are talking about an MP, M7 or M9, plus a lens or two, you are looking at a substantial wodge of cash hung around your neck. But what did you buy it for? Do you really only want to use your "investment" in your home town, or worse, within the confines of your own home?

Let's look at this logically. In most parts of the world the average thief is a) an opportunist b) a coward c) ill-informed as to the value of a Leica. What they see is a convertible commodity - a camera that can be converted into cash. It doesn't matter to them whether it is a Holga or an S2 - if they think it has a value it is fair game. Ditto bags. Don't make their lives easy by wandering around in a daze with that split-screen Morris Minor of bags a Fogg over your shoulder - it just screams "more money than sense" - or indeed taste. Equally, don't fall into a false sense of security with your nappy sack/Gap messenger bag. Even the lowliest holdall these days can be relied upon to contain an iPod or it's bloated brother an iPad. Just the fact that you have a bag means you are of interest; your friendly neighbourhood thief can take first, value later if you are careless.
Dangerous or safe? You decide.

So you are by definition a target. Fact. What can you do about it? There are some simple rules.

1. Don't be a victim
A few years ago, a team of clinical psychologists showed photos and videos of people in the street to felons in a local prison. They were simply asked to nominate who they would mug. A clear pattern emerged, with the would-be robbers singling out those who looked like they were least likely to fight back, and those who appeared most unaware of their surroundings. That in and of itself is interesting enough. When the researchers correlated those results with the people pictured they found that many of those would-be victims had already been mugged or had suffered violent assaults ranging from playground bullying through to marital abuse. They concluded, in simple terms, that if you look like a victim you raise your chances of being one. The corollary is straightforward. Val Doonican had it about right. Walk tall, walk straight and look the world right in the eye. Look as if you mean business and you are more likely to be left alone. Look as if you are uneasy or afraid and you are, quite literally, asking for trouble.

2. Fit in
When in Rome, look like a Roman. When in Birmingham... Well, you get the idea. If you stick out like a sore thumb you will attract attention, potentially unwelcome. This doesn't mean that you have to buy an Armani suit for your next visit to Verona. It does mean that you should try to avoid shouting to the rooftops that you are new in town. When I was in Hanoi a few years ago I learned a useful trick. I certainly couldn't pass for a local - I was nearly 2 feet taller than most - but I could walk slowly. By doing so I gave the impression that I had all the time in the world. I was not obviously a tourist on a schedule ("if this is Tuesday it must be Ho's tomb") I was clearly a visitor, but one who "knew the ropes". As a result, I was largely left alone by the street traders as somebody who had probably heard it all, already. Other useful tips include avoiding socks with sandals, zip off shorts, flip-flops in the city, and any hat with writing upon it. Another trick that works surprisingly well is to carry a local newspaper; the implication that you can understand the language well enough to read about the ins and outs of local bin collection politics infers that you are not a newbie. Try to learn about your destination before you go. Conduct your own "threat assessment" and act accordingly. Don't ask for trouble by being a soft-touch.

3. Think
An ex-mother-in-law of mine used to say that the strange thing about common sense was that it was so uncommon. In that, at the very least, she was right. It's not the hardest thing in the world to keep your wits about you and by extension your property in your possession. Never leave your pride and joy unattended for a moment, no matter how "safe" you feel. A posh hotel lobby is a target-rich environment for the opportunist thief - like shooting fish in a barrel. Likewise keep your kit in sight at all times. Keep your bag over your shoulder or with an arm or a leg through the strap. Hold it at the front, don't sling it at the back. Take it with you to the salad cart - and to the gents. The only person you can trust is you.

4. Don't rely on gadgets
Put very simply, they don't work. cable locks, motion sensitive bag alarms and the like are targeted at the nervous and sold in their millions all around the world. They neither deter the determined thief nor protect your investment for more than a moment. Worst of all are the straps with a steel cable running through an otherwise normal leather or fabric strap. They may defeat the sneak with a sharp knife, but they are a completely suicidal idea in those parts of the world where the preferred modus operandii is to snatch and ride off in a car or on a scooter. You may think you can stand your ground and manfully wrench control of the situation and your camera back from the robbers, but believe me I would rather let go than be dragged along down a cobbled street behind a Fiat Panda.

5. Stand beside a victim
This may sound callous, but it's true. The best way to avoid being bitten by a mosquito is to put on repellent AND stand beside someone who hasn't. If you look like a harder target than the man standing next to you, you improve your chances of being the one that lightning does not hit.

6. Insure
I never cease to be amazed how many people overlook this point. When all else fails, claim and buy another one. Don't risk your life for a camera, no matter how valuable. Hand it over with a smile, report the crime, get a police report number and file a claim. I would rather be a living insurance claimant than a dead have-a-go hero.

Oh, and while I am in advice-dispensing mode, one more point. It's easy to laugh at and ridicule those who ask such questions and seek such advice, but we must remember that not everybody is a well-travelled man (or woman) of the world with the chameleon-like ability to blend in wherever they find themselves. Not everybody is 6'3". Not everybody is young, or steady on their feet, or even just confident. It takes all sorts to make a world, and it is up to those with that confidence to try to share it with those for whom taking their kit out of doors is a genuine worry.

So, there we have it. Whether you are roaming through Italy, or peeking at China, the ground rules are the same. Don't look like an easy target, keep your wits about you and take out insurance. Above all, don't be afraid of your own shadow - it's actually quite photogenic...

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

Tantric Photography?

2011-02-15T13:00:00.003Z

What (or indeed who) springs to mind if I say “tantric sex”? (No sniggering at the back there...) For most people of a certain age, in the UK at least, it is Sting and Trudie Styler. Sting was once famously quoted as saying that the couple enjoyed hours of tantric lovemaking. An image was conjured up of Mr and Mrs Sumner lying intimately entwined in a protracted state of ecstacy, each on the brink of a wardrobe-trembling climax, holding the same position for ages in order to prolong the moment until, when it – and they – came, it provided the ultimate high. This slightly disturbing image was shattered forever years later when in another interview, Sting confessed that the hours of tantric sex alluded to actually encompassed going to a movie, followed by a decent dinner and a bit of begging on his part.

Seldom has an illusion been cruelly and totally shattered; women the world over sighed and resigned themselves to forever muttering “No, its alright, you tried, you couldn't help it” and men smirked in the confirmation that their sexual stamina was not going to be compared unfavourably any more to that of the great Mr Sumner.

Which of course brings us, as you knew it would, to the world of photography. Since the dawning of the Age of Digital (AD) photographers have become hopelessly addicted to the siren lure of instant gratification. In the past, the only way to hold the image in your hand shortly after exposure was to invest in a Polaroid camera, film or back. The slightly ridiculous looking act of shaking the print worked the necessary chemical magic and in moments you could find yourself holding the end result. Of course the great advantage of the instant camera was cutting out the middleman – the processor – and hence keeping your sordid little snaps to yourself. It was said that Edwin Land, the inventor of the Polaroid camera refused to include a self-timer in any of his products in order to dissuade their use for immoral purposes.

Whatever.

The reality was that Polaroids were a niche product, and it wasn't until digital image capture really took off that instant photography came into its element. Suddenly you could take a photo of granny and show her the immediate result (bifocals permitting). Suddenly you could fire off a snap of kids in the street (PCSOs permitting) and show them the immediate result, to their delight (assuming they didn't try to up their ASBO count by stealing your camera). Above all, suddenly you could take a photo and see for yourself if it was blurred, poorly exposed, or just plain crap.

Enter the “chimp”.

I don't know who first coined the phrase, but they had clearly spent time observing both apes and humans; perhaps on the same zoo trip. “Chimping” perfectly describes the act of snap-check-snap-check-snap-check that the inexperienced or insecure indulge in. Some risk repetitive strain injuries as they whip their heads up and down. No thought is given to the very real risk of missing what is going on now while checking what has happened in the immediate past. Chimpers, in effect, spend more time living in the past than capturing the present. The hunt-peck, hunt-peck action is actually reminiscent of an inexperienced typist – maybe the eponymous chimp was one of those employed to knock out the works of Shakespeare...

Back to the plot. The problem with instant gratification, as is well known by anyone who has succumbed to the lure of a bag of sweets, is that a moment of pleasure is followed by an anticlimax. The moment has passed, and the only way to recapture it, to get that high again is to have another

and another...

and another.

Before you know it you feel both mildly nauseous and forever dissatisfied. Instant gratification has devalued the experience for you, reduced it to a ho-hum norm. You are engorged and unhappy, and worst of all, a suspiciously porky looking Jamie Oliver is contemplating visiting you to make an infotainment programme pour encourager les autres.

As with bags of sweets, so with digital photographers. Just before the mighty SD card swept all before it, the high-street processors battling for your business were offering ever shorter turnarounds on your prints of little Tarquin and Tasmin. Modern machinery such as the Fuji Frontier series reduced an already rapid one hour service to 30 minutes, then 20 and in some cases 15. I don't know about you, but I struggle to drink a cup of tea in 15 minutes let alone dip, dunk, develop, print and cut to CD. At one point you could walk into some branches of Sainsburys, drop your films at the dry cleaners just inside the door and receive a text to tell you your snaps were ready before you had even got past the cake ingredients – well, certainly long before you got to the wines and spirits.

Queen once released a song called I Want It Now. This elegant bit of pomp-rock could have been penned as the theme tune to today's cash-rich, time-poor, need it yesterday consumers. The entire concept of patience being a virtue has been devalued to the point of parity with the Zimbabwean Pound.

The nearest I get to phallic symbolism...

And therein lies my point. In sales, there is a concept rather unpleasantly but graphically referred to as “the whores dilemma”. In simple terms this states that there is no point in asking for the money after the product or service has been provided; the act of provision has in effect reduced if not eliminated your customer's willingness to pay for something that is already in their possession. The immediate availability of the image on the back of the digital camera reduces both the enjoyment of “rediscovery” hours or days after the event and the likelihood of the image ever being printed at all. At best it may be shared with “m8s” on Facebook, at worst it is consigned to a computer hard-drive or never taken off the card at all. The print, on the other hand can be displayed, passed around, touched, felt, put in a drawer, forgotten then rediscovered months or years later. It can be written upon, front or back, or stained with tears of sorrow or joy. It exists, therefore it is.

Call me old-fashioned (it wouldn't be the first time) but the instant nature of digital photography has impoverished the photographic experience. Tantric photography is as much about the journey as the destination; tantalising expectation is part of that journey. Sometimes it is truly better to travel than to arrive.

And sometimes you should seek to prolong, not just preserve, the decisive moment. Try it – think Tantric. But please don't stand so close to me...

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

Great expectations...

2010-09-21T19:08:00.007+01:00

Well, two years have flown by and another Photokina is upon us. The Techno-Tubbies and up-before-the-dawn Early Adopters have been wetting themselves with excitement for weeks at the thought of some tasty new bit of bloatware or “shiny thing”. The internet fora have been rife with onanistic speculation as to what would be served up to the eager faithful. With camera product cycles now measured in weeks and rapidly approaching something that would compare to the life of an average mayfly, the expectations placed upon camera manufacturers are now more unrealistic than a TV advert for mascara.

In order to feed this insatiable appetite for the novel, manufacturers are forced into unnatural acts of marketing hype. “Innovations” that would never have been deemed as newsworthy a few years ago are now trumpeted to the World with all the zeal of the Second Coming. Even the venerable Leica cannot ignore the “need” to feed. Unfortunately the NIRN (Need It Right NOW) Brigade, brought up on a diet of instant gratification – from mashed potato to fame – do not share the same planet as the Gnomes of Solms. Leica have always pursued a policy - either deliberately or through Teutonic indifference to the more excitable elements of society - of “never apologise, never explain”. Now this works if you are an absolute monarch, or an absolute bastard, but is not what sits well with the posters in the opinion-rich, patience-poor online communities to which Leica is both paramour and pariah.

The howls of indignant and righteous frustration that have greeted the announcement of the M9 Titanium special edition would put a cuckolded husband to shame. Never have I seen so many middle-aged men united in universal derision and condemnation of a product launch. You would have thought that Dr Kaufmann and Stefan Daniel had stood up and announced the joint development of a nuclear-powered electronic viewfinder M10 with Iraq and North Korea – the axis of EVIL itself – rather than a simple special edition. In the stream of thoughtless bandwagon-jumping vituperation few seem to have stopped to consider that this is effectively a "concept camera" a mule, or testbed for "new" ideas. The clever bit is that Leica are offering those with more money than sense the opportunity to own something limited to just 500 pieces worldwide. Leica have been offering luxury versions of standard models since the Luxus in 1929 - at least this is more than just some gold-plating and a lizardskin cover.

What did people expect? It is only just over a year since the M9 saw the light of day. The factory has been going flat out to meet demand, not only for that but for M lenses and the ugly duckling X1. The fact that Leica has managed to introduce anything significantly novel at all should be applauded rather than derided.

But no.

“...embarrassment...”

"...betrayal...”

“...ugly...”

“...obscene...”

“...unreal...”

These and many other brickbats have been hurled like so many cups and saucers in a domestic tiff. Messrs Mills and Boon will never run out of authors; all they need do is sign up some of the more waspish internet commentators and they will have an endless supply of melodramatic hissy fitters to fill their pages.

Don't get me wrong – Leica is not squeaky-clean in all this. Their biggest “mistake” (for which read “tactical error”) is not that they are not listening to their faithful followers, it is that they are not being seen to listen. Middle-aged men make toddlers look sanguine in their ability to pout, stamp their Mephisto-shod feet and hold their breath until they turn HDR-sky blue. Middle-aged men regard it as their God-given right to hold forth on their opinions and be listened to in rapt attention. It is a consequence of having nobody to order about now that their children are old enough to tell them where to go. Hell hath no fury like a middle-aged man scorned by the object of their affections.

And make no mistake, “affections” is the right word, It is clear that the wailing and gnashing of teeth is coming from those who feel that they have been cruelly betrayed by the love of their life. How DARE Leica not make a camera EXACTLY to their fantasy specifications? How DARE they make a camera that is more expensive than a diamond-tipped dental drill? How DARE they put that red dot on the front? It is only their corporate logo, after all. Do hip-hop chaps complain, I wonder, when Nike puts their swoosh on the side of their latest gym-shoe? I think not. The only reason the faithful take issue with a red dot on a titanium camera is because they know how hard it is to find titanium-coloured insulating tape.

At least they are trying to break out of the straitjacket of expectation and traditionalist inertia that is both their greatest asset and biggest millstone. Leica MUST innovate to survive, but they forever tread the unreasonable tightrope of expectation. In the past you didn't buy a Leica; you took it into your life, nurtured it and shared decisive moments with it. In time you passed it on to a new carer - a younger relative, or a stranger - and it lived on. But now we are in a new Millennium - expectations have changed, Leica must change - and so must its followers.

I shall continue to watch this soap opera with interest; the week is still young...

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

Rules are made to be...

2010-09-02T17:05:00.007+01:00

...broken?

Maybe... But to be honest life gets a little tedious (and potentially truncated) if you spend all your time in nihilist mode. We all go through a teenage phase in which we rebel against authority - any authority - just because. Rule breaking can range from the subversive - graffiti, or leaving the toilet seat up when you go to visit Granny - to downright stupid - driving on the wrong side of the road, for example, or not wearing a seat-belt in Reading. Most of us grow out of it, unless we are middle-aged, male and the owner of an expensive camera, a demographic that appears to have ripped up the rulebook on tolerance and courtesy, particularly when participating on internet fora.

Blindly following the rules is however as counter-productive as a total disregard. Some rules are downright pointless, some are outmoded and some are simply stifling. Consider the "compensation culture" that came to its pointless peak under the last government. Rules were put in place in every avenue of daily life to mitigate often unquantifiable and statistically insignificant risk in order to avoid the attentions of the ambulance chasers. Unquestioning adherence to rules is for the unimaginative, the risk averse and the habitual wearers of an inordinate amount of beige.

Let me offer an alternative approach to the rule.

Rules are made to be understood and disregarded if appropriate.

This more enlightened approach comes with age and experience. When we are children it is a rule not to touch the top of the stove. We do not have the nous to do anything other than obey the rule, or we will be hurt. When we are older, we understand that the rule only has meaning within a contextual framework; is the stove hot or cold? Can I touch it for an instant without harm? These levels of subtlety - of interpretation - can only come by understanding the rule and then interpreting - over-riding - it when it is safe or advisable to do so.

Issac Asimov built a whole career as an author on writing three simple rules, and then finding ways and means to subvert and interpret them in an entertaining manner. His Three Laws of Robotics:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2.A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

...are a case in point. Each "Law" is actually open to interpretation and subversion dependent upon context. Ultimately they can be bent, but not broken without terminal consequences. Thus, gravity can be defied, but never ignored. Exposure can be adjusted but not wilfully disregarded. F2.0 is F2.0, 1/1000 is 1/1000 and so on.

Today's techno-marvel digital cameras carry enough processing power to target a missile strike. But they are simply automata that blindly follow pre-set rules, partly defined by the laws of physics and partly by a team of programmers in the Far East. The photographer who places his images in the "hands" of his camera instead of taking control himself does so at his peril. It's a bit like those lorry drivers who find themselves wedged in a small village street having blindly followed their dashboard sat-nav. They have ignored the (sometimes literal) warning signs and simply let the machine take them up a blind alley.

Don't play with fire...

In the 1982 Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan, there is a memorable scene where the Enterprise is under heavy attack by another starship manned by renegades. Kirk, by now old and wily, uses a little-known command protocol to lower the other ships' shields before he delivers a decisive counter-attack. His explanatory line to a younger officer - "You have got to learn why things work on a starship..." is the perfect example of the benefit of applied experience over blind reliance on technology.

There is no harm per se in relying upon automated features as long as a) you understand what they are doing b) you know how they will behave in a given situation and c) you know how - and when - to over-ride and take direct control. The harm is in adopting the "fire and forget" approach, in which your only contribution to the process of taking the photo is being there and pointing the camera in the right direction. You may as well have acted as chauffeur for a mate who snaps in the direction you are pointing. Dumbing down only happens to those who are dumb enough in the first place to embrace without question the talent-numbing excesses of do-it-for-you technology.

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

T for three...

2010-08-29T17:01:00.010+01:00

Ask any photographer about the three Ts and he will look at you blankly. And yet the three Ts – Talent, Technique and Technology – are contributing factors, in varying degree, to every photograph ever taken. Mastering the relationship between the three is key to mastering both one's equipment and oneself.

Let me explore each element in human terms. At one extreme we will find the Techno-Tubbies, whose unswerving devotion to the essential rightness of every technological advance is breathtaking in its thoughtless, naive simplicity. Bloatware bingers and feature-creepers to a man (and indeed exclusively male), many if not most are early adopters, eager to consume the latest and greatest even if it is barely teetering on the bleeding edge.

Technique is far less important than Technology, and Talent hardly figures at all. Why bother to learn the basics when you can rely on your whizz-bang, state of next-week's art, CaNikOny camera to do it all for you? Why concentrate on the essentials of getting a single shot right, when you can hose down your subject and pick the shot that works best? In the mind of the Techno-Tubby, quantity has a quality all of it's own, a bit like going large on your Big Mac – more must be better – mustn't it? Time spent at a location taking photos is kept to an absolute minimum in favour of time spent in front of Lightroom, Aperture or Photoshop, deciding on which shot is “best” and then “improving” it.

Our second group of extremists is the Techniquerats. To them, Technology is merely a tool and Talent something random, capricious and intangible and hence to be distrusted and downplayed. Like the Techno-Tubbies, they crave the newest and best, but only because it provides them with a platform to achieve a higher, purer state of nerdy Nirvana. The Techniquerats obsession is less with the tools and more with the sterile perfection of the end result. The Techniquerat spends hours poring over MTF graphs and debating which is sharper – a Global kitchen knife or a 50mm Summilux ASPH.

The Über Techniquerats of course eschew all forms of manufacturer or third party testing in favour of their own painstaking research, haunting hardware stores and stationers hunting down the optimum ruler to act as their unwilling subject in their quest for front (or back) focussing. Never as vociferous, as thin-skinned or as cocky as the Techno-Tubbies, a Techniquerat, if cornered, will adopt a pained expression and retreat to his shed with cries of “You just don't understand”

A splinter group of Techniquerats, the Bokeh Barons, obsess over out of focus areas, seeking the meaning of life, the universe and everything in each swirl and blur. The biggest frustration for the Bokeh Barons is that their particular fetish is in and of itself hard to quantify in objective terms so they are looked down on by the rest of the metronomically precise Techniquerat community. This causes them to sulk and to play with FSU lenses in fruitless attempts to prove them optically equivalent to Leica's finest.

Our third and final group, the Talent Scouts, are loathed and distrusted by the Techno-Tubbies and the Techniquerats in equal measure – and for good reason. The true Talent Scout lives in his right-brain to the extent of struggling with mundane and insignifiant matters like teabags, doorknobs and light-switches. Unworldly to a degree not seen since the glory days of Woodstock, the Talent Scouts make the capture of an eyeball-achingly beautiful image seem like child's play. It doesn't matter what camera they use – a Box Brownie, a Leica MP, a mobile 'phone or a webcam, everything is just – right.

A Talent Scout is always in the right place at the right time, blessed by lighting that Michaelangelo would have given Venus de Milo's right arm for. Every shot is pin sharp and perfectly exposed, except of course those that are deliberately and artfully out of focus or darker than an economist's heart. If you ask a Talent Scout what camera or lens or exposure he used he won't be able to tell you, simply because to him it really doesn't matter. Corner a Talent Scout and he really won't care.

Then there are the rest of us. The mere mortals that strive to balance all three sides of the equation in order to achieve an aesthetically pleasing end result. If we rely too heavily on non-existent talent, our images will turn out dull, uninteresting and as tedious to their audiences as a National Trust guidebook on the dry stone walls of England and Wales. If we overcompensate for our lack of talent with vast and expensive injections of technology we will end up with equipment that does everything for us including think. We will not learn, grow or improve because the technology will act as a crutch. Laziness will result, and will culminate in the watching of X-Factor catch-up shows on overcast Tuesday afternoons.

Consider for a moment the dubious benefits of “Auto-”; autofocus, auto-exposure, auto-iso, auto-color (sic), auto-levels, etc. Every element in an image averaged out, all randomness eliminated and with it all personality, verve, style and individuality. Or the levelling power of the burst-mode; no need to wait for the decisive moment, no need to concentrate, to observe, to develop a sense of timing – just put your finger on the trigger and pump away like an over-excited Bandido on Che's birthday. Pick the best later, eh, in the comfort of your own batchelor pad, with a Bud in one hand and a reheated pizza at your elbow.

The power of Three; keep them in balance, eh?

Technique – true technique – is something to be nurtured, practiced and perfected, and balanced with Talent and Technology. Learning how exposure works, either by using a basic camera or by turning your Hokey-Cokey 2000 to “manual” - is not just a liberating experience, it is a revelation. Learning to rely upon yourself instead of a faceless programmer in Osaka is part of growing up as a photographer and fulfilling your potential.

In the UK, at least, it is possible to learn to drive on an automatic car only. Your licence is truncated, what you can drive is restricted. You can only ever have the gears changed for you by a CPU. Never will you feel that moment of adrenaline-fuelled satisfaction when you time a gearchange to the instant, dropping down at just the right moment to maximise the power of the engine as you sweep through that challenging set of curves, clipping the apex of each and powering out to the next straight. It's the same with photography – the sense of satisfaction that ensues when you finally see the photo that you made all the choices on is far greater than that when you pick from the lucky-dip SD card the shot that is infinitesimally better than the five before, and the 28 after.

Finesse is an art, not a range of beauty products. Timing is a skill, not a menu setting. A moment is singular, not plural. The true photographer picks his moment, plucks it from the stream of time, visualises it in his mind and captures it in his camera because he has decided, then and there, that it is special, worthy of preservation and of later display.

The lesson is simple – everything in moderation, especially moderation. Balance the triangle of the three Ts and satisfy your inner photographer.

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

The weakest link

2010-08-13T10:12:00.012+01:00

In today's mindlessly competitive world, a lot of rubbish is talked about what is the best... The best lens, the best camera, the best film, the best memory card, the best processing software, the best printer and so on. Internet fora thrive (if not exist) on this type of discussion (and uninformed speculation). There is a particular type of grown man who spends hours painstakingly photographing brick walls, newspapers, book spines and rulers to prove that the lens that they have spent a young fortune on is infinitesimally better (or unacceptably worse) than another. Similarly there are others who will blindly chant the sales straplines of their chosen "team" like the worst sort of football supporter. Insults and ad hominem attacks abound as the debate rages - Nikon vs Canon, Summicron vs Summilux, GF-1 vs EP-2, Sandisk vs Lexar, Aliens vs Predator, and so on.

There are three fundamental flaws in the vast majority of these arguments. The first is clear. "Best" is a relative, not an absolute concept, qualified and informed by the simple question "Best for what?". Context is vital, as is intended use. One man's best is therefore another man's "you must be joking".

The second flaw is more subtle, but clear once you focus upon it. Having the best of anything does not in or of itself deliver the best end result. This is of course nothing new - the realisation that "a chain is no stronger than it's weakest link" has been around as long as, well as long as chain. In photography, the optical "supply chain" has to be optimised just like any other. It's no good having the "best" lens if the film or sensor is not up to snuff. Similarly, the whole thing falls apart if you drop your films into the local high street chemist or or photo dealer currently offering "advice for life" (They don't, by the way - I asked an assistant in my local branch how I could eat more healthily and he offered me a Canon Ixus) or process your digital images with the freeware that you downloaded off a mirror of a mirror of a mirror site in Ulan Bator.

In business systems implementations, the current fad is to speak in terms of process flows; "Procure to Pay", "Hire to Retire", "Order to Cash", etc. Each flow is made up of a series of standardised and proven steps. Do a step well and the process is improved. Do all the steps well and the process is optimised. The same logic can be applied in the photographic world.

So. It's simple, isn't it? The image excellence flow is:

Lens=>camera=>capture medium=>post processing=>output medium

In fact, let's be more snappy and call it "Snap to Show". Optimise every one of these elements and everything will be fine.

Won't it?

No.

Because there are other contributory elements. You could be using an MP or M9 with a 50mm Summilux and if you stick a hokey-cokey filter on the front, or if you don't use a lens-hood you have compromised your carefully thought through Snap to Show flow at the outset. Similarly, step through all the other stages in good order and only show off your finest photos as "optimised for web" and you may as well be using a Box Brownie. One interesting aspect of this particular chain is that if you get it wrong at an early stage, there is little or no opportunity to get it right later. A poorly exposed negative, or badly captured file is a recipe for later misery; you truly cannot turn out a silk purse from a sow's ear.

Okay, let's say we've got those bits right... what else? Now it gets interesting. Having the best is not the same as being the best. The single most important influencing factor on the quality of your photos is you. Do you know how to handle your equipment, how to get the best from it? How do you feel? A bit hung-over? A bit out of breath from walking up all those steps, perhaps? Should you have had that second expresso at lunch? Looking a bit shaky there... Oops... It's started to rain - and you without a coat...

...and so on.

I'm not suggesting that photography becomes an Olympic event - Heaven forbid - I cannot envisage photographers the world over eschewing lie-ins, beer and cigarettes and embarking on intensive fitness regimes to compete to achieve the ultimate cat snap - but why put so much thought and money into the camera and lens then skimp on such a key element? There are easy things you can do - avoid stimulants, catch your breath before trying to handhold a shot - you are a basic part of the equation.

You see where I am going with this... EVERY contributing factor must be taken into account, it's virtues and drawbacks weighed up, and the decision made. The holy trinity of flexibility - portability - image quality cannot be ignored, otherwise we would all be carrying around large format cameras on studio stands, but each and every one of us has to decide what, and how much, to compromise to achieve the desired result.

It's all in the mind...

The last flaw is so basic, so elemental, that if you do not get it right you may as well throw away all your gear and buy a postcard. The most optimised Snap to Show flow in the World will not enable you to turn out a decent photo if there is a creative gap between your ears - if you are unable to "see" in the first place. A boring photo is a boring photo. It may be technically excellent, but if the subject matter itself is more tedious than a late night chat show on Belgian TV in August nothing will save you. It really is as simple as "Garbage in, garbage out". If you cannot see - or edit - to save your life, then it's true.

You are the weakest link.

Goodbye.

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

Tools for the job

2010-05-21T15:36:00.006+01:00

Consider for a moment the humble bottle-opener. An unsung hero of the kitchen drawer, found in a million hotel rooms worldwide. Simple, effective and downright essential at times. It is basic, in a good way. Pared to it's bare functional essentials it is all that one needs to open a bottle. A shaped hole at one end, and a corkscrew that, more often than not, folds out.

Simple. It does the job.

Or does it? Type the words "bottle opener" into Amazon and you get an astonishing twenty-six thousand, five hundred and fifty-six hits. The cheapest is 49 pence and the most expensive (by Le Creuset) an eye-watering £99.00. Both will open a bottle, so why the difference? Why such disparity?

Manufacturing cost is one answer, of course. One is made of chrome-plated steel, the other of aircraft grade aluminium. Quality is a factor, as is aesthetics and design. But a bottle is a bottle is a bottle. It doesn't care if you use a high-end tool or something that you got free out of a cracker. Both are tools for the job.

It's a short step from bottle-openers to clasp knives. Another tool to do a straightforward job. You would think, wouldn't you? Consider the Opinel "No. 7"; a single blade, a simple beechwood handle, 9cm long. Then consider the Victorinox "Swiss Champ XLT" - 50 functions crammed into the same 9cm length. Both will cut things for you, from a piece of string to your finger, but they are worlds apart both in design and concept, quite apart from the fact that one sounds like a lipstick and the other a turbocharged Gruyère cheeseburger.

The Opinel is spartan in it's simplicity - no more than a sharp blade in a simple handle. The handle is organically ergonomic, offering a firm, sure and comfortable grip. The only "advanced technology" in the entire design is the simple locking collar that prevents the blade from closing on your fingers in use. It is simple, light and will last a lifetime. The Champ is on the other hand the exact polar opposite in concept and execution. Weighing in at a pocket-straining quarter of a kilo, it is packed with features and functions, ranging from a large blade to a toothpick, via assorted screwdrivers (flat and cross-head) torx bits, wood and metal saws, a fish scaler and disgorger and of course a "pharmaceutical spatula".

The two tools represent extreme approaches to the same requirement - the provision of a portable tool. Whilst it is true to say that the Champ offers by far the more functions, it does so in a heavy, unwieldy package that sits uncomfortably both in the pocket and in the hand. Have you ever tried to use a Swiss Army Knife for more than a minute or so to cut through something? The corkscrew digs into the palm of your hand. Great when you have a break and want to open that bottle of Chateau Lafitte, but bloody annoying when you are cutting through one length of carpet after another.

The Opinel on the other (less sore) hand does just one thing and it does it extremely well. It is a knife. It cuts things. If you want to cut things (as opposed to scaling fish) it is by far the better choice.

And that brings me to camera design (you knew I would get there in the end...) Consider the Opinel as a Leica M. It fits in the hand like a glove. It's basic design has remained unchanged for over half a century. It does what it sets out to do, without compromise or digression. It does not have autofocus, face recognition (nay, not even Pentax's pet face recognition), or HDR. It eschews little-used features in favour of giving the experienced, confident photographer what he wants - a tool to do the job.

"Leica" vs "Canon" - simplicity vs. stuff...

You can manage aperture, shutter speed and ISO; balancing the three will result in a correctly exposed image under most circumstances - all you have to do is point the camera at the right thing, at the right time and press the shutter at the right moment. How hard is that? Consider now the Champ as a Canon or Nikon DSLR - large, heavy, a "master of all trades" - albeit you need a jack to lift it. It doesn't quite cut boxes as well as a box-cutter, nor cut wood as well as a rip saw. It isn't quite as good at pruning roses as secateurs and the pharmaceutical spatula is very hard to sterilise, but what the hey, it's ALL IN ONE!

Mediocrity of design reached it's apogee in the 1980s with the myriad of jellymould designs that followed in the wake of the Ford Sierra. For a time 90% of the cars on the road looked the same - half-melted metal boxes. The designers claimed it was because form followed function - this was the result of wind tunnel testing to achieve the best drag co-efficient. But it was BORING and counter-productive. Over time diversity reared it's beautiful head once again and cars today are again easily differentiated from 50 feet away.

Canon, Nikon and the rest produce fine products that aim to be all things to all men, provided those men have the patience to read through a 300 page manual (actually the theory falls apart right there, doesn't it?), have the biceps of a bodybuilder or a live-in chiropractor. Leica produces pared-down, minimalist cameras for photographers who know how to use a camera.

Simple.

Bill

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

Humble

2010-03-25T17:22:00.005Z

No, not in a Uriah Heep way.

Humility is a rare commodity in middle-aged males. We have spent years cultivating an air of omniscient superiority second only to politicians, or maybe Bible-belt preachers. We KNOW we are right; we KNOW we are good at what we do, and we KNOW women find a 0ne-pack irresistible, otherwise we would all look like Arnie...

...that's why it comes as a shock when one realises that one is confronted with evidence of one's own mediocrity.

Well, maybe mediocrity is too strong a term, but it is a sobering experience when it is graphically demonstrated that in one's chosen pastime there are those who can knock out a snap that makes anything you can do look pedestrian.

I am currently editing the Leica User Forum Charity Book. This very worthy project has already raised over seven thousand pounds for an international cancer charity, AICR. The idea is simple; members of the Leica User Forum community have been invited to submit up to three photos of their choice in one of a number of categories - effectively the chapter headings. Each entry "cost" the entrant ten pounds to the charity; a maximum of thirty pounds in all. The first surprise was those who donated more - in some cases much more - than the required sums; I am honestly proud to be a member of the human race at times like this.

The second surprise was the sheer volume of entries; over 600 photos to choose from, and whittle down into the 140-odd that would make it into the final version of the book. A team of sub-editors, every one with a better eye than my own, worked hard for weeks to make their selections.

The third surprise is the eye-searing, jaw-dropping downright stunning quality of the final submissions. For weeks now I have been downloading them, one by one, in full-size file format for insertion in the book. I am therefore privileged to be the first to see the photos selected for the book in all their glory.

And glory is not too strong a word. I am truly humbled (you knew I would get to the point in the end) by the quality of these photos. Images from all around the world, captured using cameras from the latest state of the art M9 all the way back to 50+ year old Barnacks. Images of people, of events, of landscapes, architecture... Images of the world, and of how we live in it today. There is not a duffer among them.

Every year I buy a copy of the World Press Photo Yearbook - I have them going back to 1993, the year my Son was born. My idea is to give them all to him on his 21st birthday - a unique photographic record of the world that he has grown up in. The Charity Book - this book made up largely of the work of of passionate amateurs, of hobbyists, of those who view photography as a pastime rather than a career, will take a similar place on my bookshelf.

It is a book of snapshots, and in so being, a snapshot of the world in it's own right. I am honoured to have instigated it, and humbled to be a part of the project.

This will be the first entry to this blog that does not have an illustrative photo. There's a reason for that - nothing I have is good enough to illustrate this topic.

When the book is ready to be purchased, I will let you know. Please buy it; not just because every book sold raises more money for AICR, but because you too can see what I have seen - true quality.

It does the soul good occasionally to be reminded - even as a know-all middle-aged man - that you do not have all the answers. Most, maybe - but not all. It will certainly make me think - and hopefully raise my game - the next time I raise my camera to my eye.

Bill

--0-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

Tiger, Tiger burning bright...

2010-02-10T15:48:00.006Z

Change.

A six letter word. Surely that makes it 50% better than a 4-letter word... or is it 50% worse? What's your gut reaction when confronted by change? Do you embrace it, or shy away? Do you see it as a good thing, or bad? Or does it not touch you at all? There are many types of change - climate..., small..., ...for the better, ...for worse. How we react to change is a measure not only of our own stability and confidence, but our own mutability, and the extent to which external events can touch us within.

This is a time of change for me. I have already changed cars; in the next week I shall also change job, phone, email - each in itself is not a major thing, but added together, the faff factor is significant. But am I bothered?

No.

Quite the contrary. This change has been a long time coming; it's time has come and I am both ready and eager for it. Those of you who have asked - or wondered - about my avatar, follow the next bit carefully; the 14th of February is the start of the Chinese Year of the Tiger; my own sign. The following day I start my new job. Tiger years are years of change; they pass in a whirlwind of activity. You either run like the wind, or get blown away by it. I intend to do the former.

Which will you do?

Hold that tiger...

I was on a course once, which addressed personality types in meetings. The presenter made it simple for us. He explained that there are only four basic types of behaviour to watch out for:

The Tiger - knows how to play the game, and plays it;
the Owl - knows how to play the game, but chooses to sit back and watch;
the Donkey - thinks he knows how to play the game, and tries to do so;
and the Sheep - doesn't even realise there is a game, and becomes a plaything for the others...

As in meetings, so in life. Some play the game, some spectate, and some are the ball.

So what does all this have to do with photography in general, and Leica photography in particular?

Good question. Give me a moment...

...only joking.

There was a massive upheaval in the world of Leica last September - 09/09/09, to be exact - when the M9 hit the streets. The first full-frame digital camera, it caused a minor riot. Pent up demand exploded, and as I write the waiting list is measured in weeks if not months. The evolutionary dead-end that is the M8 was deserted in droves as the early adopters vied with each other to be the first kid on the block with the new shiny thing. Those who embraced change led the charge, while others sat back, happy with what they had, unable to afford (or justify) the expenditure, or simply unconvinced that the M9 was really the sine qua non.

What has been surprising has been the extent to which we have seen the armchair CEOs and kitchen-table designers pour scorn on the M9. There have been a number of voices raised expressing dissatisfaction with the new Leica, and "designing" the M10 already.

Why?

I think that there are two reasons. First is a "disappointment" - the M9 did not go "far enough" for some. These are the same people who want the M10 to more closely resemble a Canon DSLR than a Barnack. Their philosophy is simple - "newest is best" and anyone who disagrees risks being branded a "Luddite". Change cannot happen fast enough for them; their greatest frustration is that they are not driving the pace. "The Disappointed" run the risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater; there is genuinely a faction that believes autofocus can be added with minimal upheaval. Their answer to the "Luddites" who do not want it is that it can be turned off.

Yeh right.

The second group is more complex, more nuanced, in their thinking. These are those who will always say that they are waiting for the next thing, because it is safer than embracing the current change. When the M10 comes out they will assiduously justify why it isn't quite what they need, and why they will be saving their pennies for the M11. On the surface, they look like The Disappointed, but they are even harder to please - we will call them "The Dissatisfied". Their expressed frustration for Leica not having delivered what they want is just the tip of the iceberg. Their entire lives will be characterised by a general feeling of unhappiness with everything they own and encounter - nothing will be quite good enough, nothing quite up to their standards. They resist change by calling for more, more more - and never quite getting there.

Change is a fact of life. You can embrace it, become part of it and shape it, or you can resist it and like the rock on the seashore, eventually get worn away. Change is not to be feared, but does have to be understood and guided. If you ignore it, you cannot complain when the change affects you in a way and at a time not of your choosing.

So, whether you say Gong Xi Fa Cai or Gong Hey Fat Choy, in this, of all years, ride the Tiger of change - don't let him ride you.

Bill

--0-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

Hell, no, we won't logo...

2010-01-28T15:24:00.008Z

I was buying a new car recently and I was asked if I wanted it "debadged". I'm aware of this "service", of course - a bit like having your hair cut or liposuction it is one of the few services in which you pay more to walk away with less - but it has always slightly mystified me. I have no particular desire to hide the model of car I am buying, so why bother? The salesman smiled. "Very well Sir", he said. and was going to leave it at that.

Out of curiosity, I asked him what sort of customer said yes. His answer was an interesting object lesson in reverse psychology. It seems that debadging is most popular with those buying base models. They opt for it so that they do not have anything on the back of their cars that declares they have gone for the cheaper option. The irony is, the salesman continued, that it is for the most part only those buying base models who choose to debadge - those who can afford the top of the range have no issue in "flaunting it". Thus, he pointed out with a certain degree of schadenfreude, if you see a debadged car, it is almost by definition equipped with cloth seats, small wheels and a socially inept owner.

This led me to thinking. One of the stranger sub-plots in the world of Leica is the desire to eliminate the red dot; remove from the front of the camera that which proclaims most loudly that you are using a high-end piece of photographic equipment. There are regular threads on fora seeking views on the best tape to use, or the best means to eliminate not just the dot but also the white lettering. Gaffer, duck, duct, insulating, etc - all have their adherents (sorry!).

So what is going through these people's minds? The most oft-expressed desire is to make the camera more "stealthy"; to present a more ninja-like face to the world. The theory goes that the red dot catches the eye and the "decisive moment" is lost.

Bollocks.

What catches people's eye is a 160-lb bloke dressing like Action Man night-stalker, making sudden movements as if he has mallards in his underpants and waving a camera in their direction. The red dot, or lack of it, has no bearing in this situation.

Let's move on to justification #2 - "I don't want to attract the attention of thieves". In this case our taper has moved to a specific class of people by whom he doesn't want to be noticed. That red dot just SCREAMS money, doesn't it?

Bollocks (again).

The average street thief is a) opportunist b) unaware of the Leica price list c) not choosy. A camera is a camera. The thought of someone initiating a mugging and then saying - "oh sorry, mate, didn't realise that was a Niktax 3000P - thought it was the far more valuable 30xls. Sorry to bother you, mind how you go..." - is not really credible, is it? A camera is a camera - it is something you have, that they do not, and something that they can sell for money. It's that simple.

Red, and proud of it...

Sooo... Justification #3 - "I don't want to be seen using an expensive camera to shoot poor people." ...I love this one. Anyone who follows this philosophy really shouldn't be allowed out on their own. Let's turn it on it's head - a great way to test any argument - "I only want to be seen shooting poor people with a cheap camera." - Well, let me put it this way; if I were pushing a Lidl trolley along the embankment, dragging my cardboard after me and swigging from a meths bottle and two photographers approached, one with a cheap disposable, and the other with an M9, I know which is more likely to catch my good side - that's the one without the suppurating sores and alopecia. If this is truly an issue to you, just stick to shooting the sort of still-lifes and landscapes so beloved of Amateur Photographer - nice, safe, anodyne and completely non-confrontational.

...and that brings me neatly on to justification #4...

Aesthetics.

Yes, aesthetics matter. And to some extent, this is the one justification with which I have some sympathy. Here's my confession - I don't like logos. If a company would like to pay me for advertising their product, I will gladly do so, but I am neither famous nor high profile enough to be sponsored, so that isn't going to happen.

I had a splendid dispute with a car salesman (yes, another one) a few years ago. I was buying a Land Rover Discovery; the Series II model that still had the spare wheel on the back door. Now, I object to advertising a dealership, so asked politely for a plain spare wheel cover. Not only was this request refused (I later bought one myself) but also my request for no cover at all; I was told that the Sales Director would not allow a car to be driven off their forecourt without a suitably tacky cover shouting their name.

In the event, and having nearly cancelled my order, I came to what I saw as a suitable compromise; I collected the car, complete with stencilled cover, drove it all of one yard across the forecourt, got out and removed the offending article, before frisbeeing it up on to the showroom roof. It described a graceful arc, and settled somewhere highly visible but inconvenient. The salesman smiled - his responsibility was discharged - and my vehicle was no longer a 4x4 billboard.

But that's one thing, and easily dealt with. I would never dream of buying an article of clothing that proclaimed "Nike" or "O'Neill", or any of a number of other brand names. I may be a Bill, but I am not a board. However, I have never let a logo stand in the way of ownership either. I have never bothered about having "Olympus" or "Leica" on a pentaprism, and I am not about to start now. It is an integral part of the design, an integral part of the product. Nobody removes the Spirit of Ecstacy from a Rolls Royce, so why worry about that little red dot?

For those to whom it really matters, there is one simple alternative - buy a Leica old enough not to have the dot - suddenly all your problems are solved. Ok, it won't be digital, but for many who seem to care about such ephemeral matters, I have a sneaking suspicion that it won't really matter - it's all about appearances. After all - who actually takes pictures with anything other than a cameraphone these days...?

Bill

--0-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

Tag, you're it...

2010-01-12T15:41:00.007Z

I have in the past few days learned all about the joys of "Geotagging". For the uninitiated, this is the process by which you can augment the EXIF data of your photos with the physical location that they were taken. Small, relatively cheap GPS receivers are used to track your travels and the record that they keep can then be combined on your computer with the images that you have taken (usually by means of timestamping) so that you can append the co-ordinates of each photo.

That's the theory - great, isn't it?

When I first heard about it, my Inner Geek got all excited - the propeller on the top of his head whirred so fast he nearly took off. A new shiny thing! A new means of enhancing the joys of photography! I can RECORD where I took each photo! I can, within a few tens of yards, say EXACTLY where I was standing! Inner Geek immediately started conducting internet searches for Geotagging gizmos. Prices were compared, baskets were added to, complete with free postage.

Then my Inner Pragmatist rubbed his chin and chimed in with an awkward question.

"Why?"

Inner Geek froze, his spiny fingers just inches from the wallet.

"Pardon?"

"What will you use it for?"

Inner Geek excitedly rattled off the rationale. Inner Pragmatist shook his head.

"No. What will YOU use it for...?"

Inner Geek sagged, and shuffled back to looking for the best deals on Babylon 5 boxed sets.

Now don't get me wrong. I can see a multitude of applications for professional, technical and commercial uses. The ability to provide locational information - or proof - would be very useful in many situations, including stock photography.

What I cannot quite get my head around is the unseemly excitement this technology seems to generate in otherwise sane photographers of a certain age. It seems to be the self same men who would not dream of stopping the car and asking for directions but are happy to let the mellifluous tones of an in-car satnav direct them the wrong way down a newly one-way street. I think it is the same phenomenon that leads to the wearing of those fancy Breitling emergency watches by those who never go further out of their depth than the bathtub. "The big boys have it so therefore I must have it too!"

Me, I use a Moleskine - no batteries, no chargers, no upgrades, no wi-fi, no SIM, no bluetooth, no firmware, no fixes, no GPS, no calibration, no hassle. Multifunctional, always on, compact, fits in a pocket or a corner of your bag, there when you need it, interfaces seamlessly with pen or pencil...

...and you can use it during take-off and landing...

It's all I need - seriously. And it is all that 99.9% of us "need", if truth be told. There is a simple pleasure to using a map - a paper map, that is - and marking it with a pencil. There is enjoyment to be had actually writing about a location rather than just double-clicking it on a screen. A couple of years ago I went to Seville for the first time. No photo, no exif data, no tag could bring again to mind the smell of the orange blossom in the same way that my notes - made at the time, in a pavement cafe - can.

Old-school "geotagging"...

Finally, there is one other aspect to geotagging that bothers me - the invasion of privacy. This has many facets - many of which are distasteful at best, and downright dangerous at worst. Imagine as geotagging becomes more mainstream, the mayhem that will result when the first mistress is tracked to her back garden by a wronged and embittered wife. Or the first battered ex-wife is tracked down by her abusive ex-husband from the embedded data in an otherwise innocent snap on Facebook... Imagine the consequences when the whistle-blower in the witness protection programme has their new life blown apart.

...it goes on.

The genie is out of the bottle, I know. Pandora has nothing on Panasonic. We cannot retreat from this latest "advance" - and no more should we - but we can be circumspect about it's use and cognisant of the risks...

...can't we?

Bill

--0-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

A room with a view?

2009-12-16T16:31:00.006Z

When we go on holiday, we have to pay extra for a "room with a view" - of the sea, the mountains, whatever. Never mind that sometimes the "view" requires one to stand on tiptoe hanging from the balcony rail whilst our loved one(s) hang on to our belts. Book a cruise on a modern liner and it seems that they manage to distort space itself to ensure that nobody, no matter how close to the bilges their ocean-going broom closet is, is without a sea view.

So - the view is important to us, for so many reasons. Would you be happy if you stayed in a hotel room with no windows, no outside view, save for an LCD tv?

No.

Of course not.

So why do today's camera manufacturers persist in producing even high-end digital compact cameras with no direct vision viewfinder? The technology exists, and has done for many years. The compact albada-type viewfinder has been with us in various forms since being introduced by Zeiss on the Contaflex in 1935. This simple evolution of the original Galilean finder gave us an optically projected image that showed the edges of the viewing field within the viewfinder assembly. Minox introduced parallax compensation way back in 1939 and of course it was Leica that gave the world the first viewfinder that combined parallax compensation, projected framelines and a rangefinder all in one, on the M3.

So the technology is not only proven, it has a fine pedigree - so why do so few of today's cameras have this little window on the world?

Let us examine the debate for and against.

"Too expensive" runs a common argument - it simply costs too much to put in a viewfinder. Funny then that Olympus managed to produce 10 million or so Olympus Trips at a reasonable price for so long.

"People don't want it" - ah. Now there is a splendid piece of circular logic. It's not there, so people don't want it, so it's not there.

"People like LCDs" - So do I, for some uses, like changing a setting. But using one in bright sunlight? Forget it. And use in the dark is not much better. Not only do you ruin your night vision but the ghostly glow in which you are bathed attracts unwelcome attention.

I have two theories as to the real reasons why we find ourselves viewfinderless. Firstly the rise of the mobile telephone with a picture-taking ability. As good as they are becoming, there are three things they have never had, and I suspect never will - a hotshoe, a tripod socket or a viewfinder. Whether we like it or not, cameraphones are now not only a commonplace piece of equipment for most people, they are in many cases the only camera that they own. The compact camera will eventually go the way of the dinosaur unless it learns to evolve and do new tricks - Nikon's recent projector-camera is a good example of this. So people are getting used to not having a viewfinder and see it's absence as a small price to pay for convenience.

Through the round, er, oblong window...

My second theory is a little more controversial. The act of bringing a camera to one's eye clearly indicates that you are about to take a photo. There is no other reason for doing so. This alerts others to the fact that their picture is to be taken. Some strike a pose, others object, some just don't notice, or don't care. With an LCD display in "Goldilocks light" (not too bright, not too dark...) the screen would appear to the uninitiated to give an edge - suddenly you can take a photo without raising the camera to your eye! Suddenly you can capture images discreetly, without running the risk of a confrontation! To many, this would be an advantage, especially in today's paranoid society, where every photographer is regarded as a terrorist or pedophile, guilty until proven innocent.

The reality is of course not so simple. For one thing, discreet photography without the camera at eye-level has been practiced for years. One of my favourite books, now sadly many years out of print, is "Shots From The Hip", by "Johnny Stiletto". Mr. Stiletto - at one time a regular contributor to Amateur Photographer in the days when it had relevance and balls - was known for shooting a roll a day of street subjects. He encouraged "shots from the hip" - breaking free from convention to give more dynamic and engaging results.

Secondly, the digital photographer with his LCD viewing screen is typically far from inconspicuous. The camera is held out at arms' length, like a baby with a particularly snotty nose. This is most noticeable in middle-aged men, whose eyesight has started to deteriorate. All pretence at discretion is lost by this stance, and any advantage goes with it.

A viewfinder does not have to be complex, nor even particularly informative. The add-on viewfinders are for the most part throwbacks to an earlier age - a simple means of framing up the image with no clutter, complication or extraneous information. Those cameras with accessory shoes allow their fitment. I use one myself, on my D-Lux 4. In my case it's a 50 year old SBOOI - a 50mm Leica finder that happens to give the same angle of view as the 60mm setting on the D-Lux. To me, this combination of old and new just underlines the ridiculousness of the situation - come on, chaps - just build the bloody thing in again. You'd be surprised at the number of people who would cheer.

Speaking of cheering, 'tis the season to be jolly and all that, so let me take this opportunity to say something that I have always wanted to say since my days of reading Tiger, Sparky, Eagle, Valiant and the like as a child:

A very Merry Christmas to all my readers!

...and a happy and prosperous New Year to you all.

Bill

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

Rapid weight loss...

2009-10-30T13:46:00.006Z

Back from sunny Malta, I've been thinking...

I am struck by the recent rapid growth in the availability of "good things in small packages". Hot on the heels of Four-Thirds - itself a move in the small direction - Olympus and Panasonic have forged ahead with Micro Four-Thirds, and Sigma and Leica have gone down the large-sensor-small-body route to give big camera performance in a smaller body. Even "ordinary" high-end digital compacts with small sensors such as the G-11, D-Lux 4 et al offer a "power to weight" ratio that would have been unthinkable just 24 months ago. The photographer no longer needs to carry a large "pro-spec" camera everywhere to guarantee a decent image.

History repeats itself, of course. The digital size/quality ratio improvement is just following the same trajectory as that of film many years ago.

But why?

What drives the urge to miniaturise? Is there truly a demand, or is it a vanity development on behalf of the manufacturers? Portability is a very strong argument, of course, and something that I have written about in the past. The smaller, lighter and more compact your camera the more likely you are to have it with you when you need it. That's a simple equation. But I think that there are other forces - dark forces - at work.

Ever since 9/11, passenger air travel has become a trial of patience and a challenge to the traveller's ingenuity. Ever tighter security restrictions have not just reduced the amount of hand baggage but altered it's very composition. Changes in airline pricing structure, encouraging hand-baggage only by imposing a premium on hold baggage has squeezed from the other direction. The travelling photographer wanting to cover all eventualities on a long weekend city break has to fit everything he needs in a bag measuring 56x45x25 centimetres. Being slightly oversized is not an option, unless you want to run the risk of having your bag taken off you at the departures gate and shoved in the hold - don't even try to argue with the gate staff...

All this is old news for the Leica M and LTM user, of course. They have long enjoyed the advantages of a high quality, compact camera system. With the advent of digital, the need to pack multiple rolls of film has been largely circumvented (only to be replaced by the necessary chargers, spare batteries, spare memory cards and a backup storage device, of course...).

All you need? Not quite - yet...

I recently travelled to Malta for a long weekend. Beyond the clothes on my back, everything else, including three cameras, fitted in a Tamrac photo backpack. I recommend the type with the built-in laptop compartment, by the way - it's great for "flatpack" items such as shirts and trousers. Once "in theatre", everything "domestic" can be unpacked and left in your hotel, and your "luggage" becomes an ideal daypack while exploring. I'll do the same when I go to Budapest later this year. I couldn't have dreamed of doing that a few years ago, when I carried a big SLR with matching lenses - that WAS my hand-baggage. I might have fitted a spare pair of socks in the bag besides, but only if I used them as lens pouches. But the encouragement to travel light is powerful, and now we have the high quality compact camera equipment to match.

Compactness is no substitute for planning ahead though - don't for a moment think it is. I have never forgotten traveling all the way to Hawaii and finding myself with no more than a 135mm lens while trying to shoot a pod of whales from a catamaran. I did the best I could, but I was "outgunned" by those who had lugged something a little longer. Not a single decent shot that day, because I hadn't planned. Lesson learned. Now I think about what to take, and squeeze in a longer lens if absolutely necessary.

For the most part though, a decent kit these days takes up little more room than a pair of shoes (alright, I have large feet) and takes far better pictures.

So there we have it. Darwinian evolution is at work. The days of the bulky (D)SLR for travel snaps are numbered, thanks to the cold hand of Al Qaeda. Think of that the next time you heft your camera to your eye...

Bill

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.
- More imagery at: Lightmancer

There can be only One (Challenge)...

2009-10-13T16:58:00.005+01:00

Now.

By the time you read this I shall be in sunny Malta, for this year's One Challenge. This was a competition wot I invented six years ago exclusively for the users of Leica cameras that frequent the Leica User Forum. That first year, twelve die-hard souls met up in the Chandos pub in St Martins' Lane, London, on a dank and dreary December day. Some lunch and convivial chat followed, then everyone made their way out into the gathering gloom to shoot 36 exposures in one hour, with one camera, one lens, one ISO, one focal length and one aim in view - to capture the essence of the place.

How far we have travelled since that first gathering - literally. Subsequent One Challenges have taken place in Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Krakow and now Valetta. The shooting time is now two hours, but the other rules have remained the same; short, simple and truly challenging. Amateurs and pros alike are tested by the rules, by the strange surroundings and by the time constraint. It is not as easy as it sounds to capture the essence of a whole city in such a short space of time. After the event, the entrant has to select one of their thirty-six shots to put up for the public vote - the most nerve-wracking part of the whole thing. We have had some close-run voting in the past, but the winner has invariably been more than worthy.

It's not about the money, either. The "entry fee" has stood at ten Euros for the past six years. That forms the "pot" - winner takes all. Nobody is going to get rich winning The One, but they will have the satisfaction of knowing that their carefully captured and selected shot has won them the acclaim of their peers. On a number of occasions, the prize money has been donated to charity by the winner - a grand gesture that is in keeping with the spirit of Leica.

The One Challenge was always meant to be as much about the opportunity to socialise as about the competition. In recent years that too has evolved from a quick pint at the pub to drinks the evening before, lunch immediately before, dinner the evening after... it's a never-ending social whirl! It's great to meet up with old friends each year, and to put faces to new names. Long-suffering partners come along too, and make the evening dinner far less Leica-focussed - thank goodness!

The One Challenge has also spawned it's own offspring - The Uno Challenge in Los Angeles, and other spin-offs worldwide. It has been featured in the LFI, and has attracted sponsorship in the form of prizes from Leica and this year from Red Dot Cameras in London. Ivor, the owner has very kindly donated a D-Lux 4 to this year's winner - a tremendous prize and one well worth going the extra mile to win.

So. The One Challenge is now a healthy, active 6-year old, that shows no sign of slowing down. When we meet this year, we will discuss where to go in 2010 - that's half the fun of it. My thanks to the organisers, both for this year and past years, who took up the original mantle and have helped The One to be the fun event it is today.

Yes, I am proud of The One Challenge, but most of all I am proud of my third placing in 2007 - the best I have done so far!

Bill

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.
- More imagery at: Lightmancer

Snob value...?

2009-10-03T22:11:00.015+01:00

If I had a Pound (or a Euro, or a Dollar, etc.) for every terabyte of server space devoted to the subject of snobbery - particularly pertaining to photo equipment - I would almost have enough to afford an M9. I mention the M9 because as a brand Leica seems to attract more snobbery - both real and inverted - than any other brand of equipment with a lens on the front.

One of those ghastly on-line dictionaries - you know, the ones that claim that "lense" is a word - defines snobbery as "...the trait of condescending to those of lower social status". In this context "social status" is defined not by birth but by financial clout. There is no such thing as a "cheap" Leica; even second-hand they command a premium over comparable equipment - assuming that anything comparable exists, which is frequently not the case anyway.

So why are Leicas so expensive? And why do people with more money than sense buy them? Finally, why does Leica ownership inspire such envy in others?

To understand this phenomenon we have to understand the unique place that the Leica camera holds in both history and mythology. Long ago, it ceased to be just a picture-taking machine. It became a lifestyle choice, before the term was even invented. When Leitz Camera introduced the Luxus in the 1930s it set the tone for years to come. Never let anyone tell you that the Leica was a professionals' camera that has been adopted by well-heeled amateurs - the well-heeled amateurs got there first, at the time the professionals were still using bulky full- half- and quarter-plate folders and 120 rollfilm and looking down their noses at the new-fangled "miniature" format as inadequate for serious use.

It didn't take long, however, for canny pros to realise that those pesky amateurs were on to something worthwhile; the light and compact Leica and its contemporaries taking 35mm film loads were turning up all over the place and producing publishable results. From the Arctic to the Antarctic, from the gondola of a Zeppelin to the pyramids of Egypt, the world was being viewed through a small viewfinder and captured through an Elmar.

The Leica was never cheap. It was hand-made with quality materials and for years represented the acme of German manufacturing ingenuity. Have a look at a Leitz product catalogue from 80 years ago and you can see that the camera itself was just at the tip of an ever-increasing iceberg of accessories and attachments, each identified by its' own five-letter designation - LYCAN, FODOR, FODIS, VALOY and of course my all time favourite, NOOKY. The complexity of the system of course appealed to the boy within the man - it's the same thing you see today with modern gadgets - iphones, bluetooth headphones, GPS keyrings, Nespresso coffee makers - boy toys one and all. The Gnomes of Solms (well, the Gnomes of Wetzlar at that time) were quick to realise that the acquisition of the kit was as important to the experience as the end result.

Fast forward to today; Leica is no longer at the bleeding edge of camera design; instead the company and its' products occupy a niche that was until recently almost unassailable - the cost of entry is prohibitive to all but the most resourceful - or obsessed. Nikon, Canon, Olympus and the rest have left Leica to it, abandoning the rangefinder as the SLR moved into the ascendant. And with a few notable exceptions - Voigtlander, Epson, Contax, Zeiss, Rollei (has anyone actually SEEN a Rollei m-mount rangefinder?) that is the way it has largely stayed. Only with the advent of micro four-thirds has there been a resurgence of the non-SLR "serious" camera as - belatedly - the big boys have realised once again that there is a market for small, high quality interchangeable lens system cameras.

Snobbery abounds there too, though. When Panasonic announced the GF-1 interchangeable lens micro four-thirds camera it took about 24 hours before it was being derided on the internet as the "GirlFriend-1" - a camera that no "serious" photographer would be seen dead with. This is of course bollocks, but sadly is a school of thought to be found almost exclusively among middle-aged men with more money than sense.

...and there is the crux of the problem. Like many quality items in this world - expensive sports-cars, high-end watches, bespoke tailoring - Leica ownership is not a young man's game. Forking out the thick end of £5000 for a camera body is not something that the average thirtysomething trying to bring up a young family is going to regard as a high priority.

Snobbery - or is it passive aggressive racism? also surfaces in the form of the perennial "Where is it made?" question. To some, it is not a Leica if it isn't made in Germany. Leitz Midland in Canada and the Portuguese facility are dismissed as not quite good enough, and heaven help a lens made under licence in Japan! The highest opprobrium is reserved, however, for the products of the partnership with Panasonic. Derided as "Panaleicas", they are regarded as the bastard spawn of a desperate marketing manager's wet dream. The reality - that they are built in close co-operation to a high standard, that they bring in a newer, younger clientele that would otherwise never go near Leica, and the fact that they provide an "on-ramp" for new customers who graduate to the more expensive products - is conveniently ignored. This has reached new heights with the recent announcement of the X1 - the very thought that a Japanese company may have had a hand in its' manufacture sends some into a fit of the vapours.

Lastly, we have the "It's good but it's not a Leica" snobbery that is displayed at the sight of a non-Leica lens mounted to a Leica body. Cosina Voigtlander (CV) and Zeiss have brought to market some groundbreaking lenses in recent years. They may not be the match of the equivalent Leica glass, but more often than not they are not specifically designed to go toe-to-toe with Solms' finest. Until very recently, there was no overlap at all between the CV and Leica lens ranges. Either focal length, aperture or both varied. To this day Leica still do not offer a 12mm lens, for example, or a 40mm 1.4, both of which CV introduced. Above all, CV revitalised the screw-mount ("LTM" or "Barnack") market with a slew of new lenses, offering modern glass in the classic mount and bringing a new lease of life to the older bodies alongside their own offerings. Lenses should be regarded as a palette, or perhaps more accurately as a selection of brushes; each delivers a different result, in support of the photographer's vision. Sharpness may be a quantifiable absolute, but since when was photography about absolute technical perfection?

So.

There are Leica snobs - elitism is rife. But does that explain the bitchiness and envy that abounds? Every time Leica puts a foot wrong - or even dares to go quiet for a time - the nay-sayers and doom-mongers gather. Every time somebody dares to praise the company or its' products there are those who will crawl out of the woodwork to point out that somebody else does it better/cheaper/faster. Buyers are derided for spending so much money on something that is far more capable than they are.

It seems to me that, like Montblanc, Rolex, Porsche etc. Leica has fallen into the "lifestyle" niche - a discretionary purchase that says as much about the purchaser as it performs the task it is designed for. iPods are egalitarian - everyone has one and they are cheap and plentiful. Leicas are elitist because they are expensive and (relatively) rare.

Posh "porn" - Montblanc and Leica...

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. If you can afford it, buy it. Personally, I have a simple philosophy - "buy cheap, buy twice". I bought my M7 new back in 2002 when they were first introduced. Since then I have lost count of number of SLRs and DSLRs and compacts (with various innards) that have sat alongside it in my gadget bag. It has long since paid for itself, and will continue to do so for as long as I can get film to feed it. It has been joined in recent years by an M2 and a II - neither of them in the first flush of youth, but both capable of superlative photography for years to come.

Snobbery? No. Lifestyle choice? Maybe. Lifelong choice? Yes.

Bill

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.
- More imagery at: Lightmancer

Thinking past the end of your lens

2009-09-23T13:54:00.003+01:00

We all do it.

Get our priorities skewed, I mean. If you read any of the multitude of internet fora devoted to the subject of photography, they are all about the kit, not the image. People who get all bent out of shape debating the relative merits of a concave vs a convex screw-in soft release button tend to forget that they first started "getting serious" about photography not because of the sexy high tech equipment, but because of the desire to take better photos.

But techno-lust is insidious. It is all too easy to jump on the treadmill of technological advance in the (mistaken) belief that buying a better camera will result in better images. It won't. How many of us actually test our existing equipment (and ourselves) to the limits? Far too many of us walk around with a neckful of exotic glass that we can never do justice to, because our skills and expertise are just too limited.

Go on.

Admit it.

There, doesn't that feel better?

Since the advent of the digital age, the treadmill has moved faster than ever. Product cycles that used to be measured in lustrua now make the average mayfly look like Methuselah. That, combined with the ability to machine gun your subject at minimal cost then choose the "best" (ie least worst) slices from the salami of studied mediocrity is turning more than a few amateurs from being an average photographer to a poor editor.

But.

There are cheaper ways to improve your photography, both in terms of quality and personal satisfaction. Look at it this way; which is more gratifying - to sit there at your pc after the event and spot your favourite "image capture" from in amongst the myriad of infinitesimally different shots? Or is it to behave more like a sniper - wait, watch, plan, anticipate, and squeeze the shutter release at just the right moment?

The (galloping) gourmand approach to photography is all about quantity, in the fond but sadly mistaken belief that quantity has a quality all of it's own. The gourmet approach, on the other hand, is about using the finest ingredients - camera, lens, film, location, subject, timing, skill - to conjure something that captures only the most fleeting of instants, but that has the power to linger in the mind for years to come.

The key to this, I believe, is for the photographer to think ahead, and to visualise the world beyond the end of their lens hood before they even rest a finger on the shutter release. It doesn't mean that all life becomes still life - far from it - but training the mind and the eye to see shots before they are taken - before the decisive moment occurs - is a deeply satisfying experience.

(Apologies for a moment to my overseas readers - this analogy won't mean much to you, but it is the best I can think of)

Think for a moment of the Channel 4 station idents that are often broadcast before a programme starts. A selection of disparate items - buildings, cranes, etc - physically far removed from each other, are brought into juxtaposition for a moment by a change of viewpoint. For a split second the Channel 4 logo is formed, then gone again.

As in "art" so in life - watch any crowd of people; they are constantly on the move. But there are usually discernible and ultimately predictable patterns to their movement - eddies, swirls, caused by the physical strictures of the environment, by the time of day, by the announcement of the next train to Portsmouth. By tuning in on the movement, going with the flow, the photographer can capture moments of juxtaposition as they occur, because they have seen them coming. This is not some Nostradamus-like precognition at work, but just the application of observation coupled with commonsense.

In the natural world too, the same applies. Identifying just when an otherwise drab and meaningless scene will turn into an eye catching image through the play of light requires exactly the same sort of previsualisation skills as street photography. As the old gag goes, "Timing is the essence of good comedy" - it's also the attribute that, once mastered, sorts the photographers from the snappers.

Bald bod and balloon - coincidence? You decide...

So, in a nutshell you already own the most valuable and important piece of equipment that will improve your photography. It's right there, between your ears, and has been all your life. Just like the camera in your hands, you have never used it to it's full potential.

It's never too late to start...

Bill

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

Early adopting for beginners

2009-09-01T15:36:00.004+01:00

The Leica - indeed the high-end amateur and professional photographic - world was set alight just over a week ago with the introduction - not just announcement, mark you, but actual, bodies-flying-off-shelves introduction - of the full-frame M9 digital rangefinder camera.

Leica conducted a masterful guerrilla marketing campaign which mixed absolutely watertight secrecy with the odd accidental leak so viral it made the Black Death look like the work of an amateur. The eager faithful were tantalised and teased with details, images, flashes of websites, word leaking out from impatient (and imprudent) dealers. In the meantime the trusted few were wandering around with M9s slung around their necks disguised as M8s.

I have always been clear in my personal dislike of the M8. I thought it was a remarkable achievement for a small company to bring to market a digital rangefinder given the technological challenges; "ye cannae fight the laws of physics" as a famous Scotsman will say in 200 years or so. But the M8 was flawed; the problems with sensor, rangefinder and other aspects of the design all pointed toward something that was brought together in a rush and held together by inspiration, genius and hope. Mark Norton famously dissected one to show how it was made and what it was made from - not a pretty sight. The M8 also attracted to the Leica brand culture a whole new user demographic, many of whom had never used a film Leica and for whom the M8 represented their first exposure to the world of the rangefinder. They brought with them different attitudes, different expectations. They looked on the M8 not as the latest evolution in a long line of excellent cameras but as a computer with a lens on the front that would boot up first time, every time. The MTV generation met the M rangefinder with a bang...

Leica learned a huge amount from the M8, not just in terms of the product itself, but also the need to handle the digital rangefinder user base in a very different fashion. You don't have to go back too many years to the days when nobody knew what problems anybody else was having with their camera; all communication was "hub and spoke" - a one to one relationship between user and manufacturer. In today's internet-savvy world companies such as Leica constantly find themselves in the dock of "public opinion" where a few verbose and opinionated individuals can make their voices heard out of all proportion to the significance of what they have to say.

That is not to say that openness is wrong; Leica have the benefit of being able to look into a strong and vibrant user forum that is for the most part populated with intelligent and experienced people. Sensible requests and suggestions are given the weight of popular support and no doubt have an influence on thinking in Solms. I am sure that, like most, they can tune out the sometimes high signal to noise ratio and ignore the trolls and armchair CEOs that appear to be attracted to the brand like flies to fresh shit.

The early adopter of the title is a particularly important component part of the Leica (indeed of any) community. They are those who will not - do not - cannot - wait for somebody else to form and communicate an opinion. They are those who long to be the first kid on the block with the new "toy". Sometimes it is purely and simply about bragging rights - "I have enough money to buy this expensive camera without batting an eyelid"; sometimes it is out of genuine curiosity, or pent-up demand, sometimes an altruistic desire to find out, and share the experience with others. Two weeks down the line it looks like Leica, in the M9, have a real hit on their hands. There has yet to be any shock-horror revelation such as the need for UV/IR filters that so crippled the M8, and long may that be the case. The M9 is a far more serious proposition than the M8 - a finished product brought to market when it is ready. The early teething problems appear more concerned with firmware and third party editing software than with fundamental optical or hardware issues.

So what of the early adopters of yesterday? Those hardy souls who dropped coin on the M8 and who lived with, and through, its spotty adolescence. They seem to have divided into three camps. Those who are (rightly) content with their M8s and M8.2s - they have a mature product that produces images as well as it did the day before the M9 was announced. They are happy with what they have and see no reason to change. In that they find themselves much like the film Leica users when the M8 first arrived who were not swayed by the lure of digital. Then there are the serial early adopters - those who live their entire lives on the bleeding edge. They have resigned their previously "perfect" M8s to the bottom of the camera bag or to the hands of a dealer in order that they can embrace the new best thing in the world.

Bless 'em. Patience is as alien to them as stilettos on a bullfrog. They probably stand at home in front of the microwave shouting "hurry!"

The third group is those who have an M8 but would really like to be over there with the cool kids fondling a new M9. Some will extol the virtues of what they have, but a small and vocal minority will rubbish the new product, either by querying the need for it, or by saying that they will wait for the M10. They will damn the product and the company with faint praise, while at the same time muttering darkly under their breath. They feel, bizarrely that they are no longer "in the mainstream" and they resent it.

The M2... Did M3 owners gnash their teeth when it came out, I wonder...?

Finally, we really ought to spare a thought for the trailing-edgers - those who bought into the outgoing product just as the new one hit the streets. The adults among them will shrug and accept the situation - they bought the M8 recently because they could finally afford it, or because they felt that the time was right. They have no right to feel aggrieved because the M9 has arrived - but some do. There are actually people out there who are angry with Leica for bringing out a new product without warning...

...I'm glad I don't live in their world...

For me, I held off from the M8 for all sorts of good reasons. At times I have been made to feel like the man at the party who says that he doesn't like football - there must be something odd about him - he doesn't "get it". The M9 - full frame, no UV/IR filters, robust and well-thought through - is the digital rangefinder that I have been waiting for and as soon as someone hits the "Buy It Now" button on my Granny on eBay I shall be in the queue at my local dealer...

Bill

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

What should I take...

2009-08-24T16:34:00.005+01:00

I have commented before about the phenomenon that sees ordinary, otherwise sensible people apparently turn into blathering, indecisive jellies when confronted with a keyboard, an internet connection and an audience on a photo forum. There is a particular variant of that malady that tends to manifest itself in the Summer months - the thread that starts "I'm going to [insert as applicable] and I can't decide whether to just take [insert interminably long list of equipment] or whether I should also take [insert equally long list of equipment] what do you think?"

Leaving aside the probability that:

a) The audience doesn't know a lot about the poster in terms of their tastes, skills etc.,

b) Most of said audience doesn't know anything material about the proposed holiday destination either,

c) The destination given ("Europe", "China", "South America"...) is so vague that no answer can be meaningful,

and

d) Most of said audience only ever give the same answer to any such query based upon their own tastes and preferences.

The quality and usefulness of response is going to be dubious at best and bloody useless at worst.

So why (oh why) do people persist in these ridiculous threads? There can be only one answer.

They're boasting.

Yes.

That's it. They are simply taking the opportunity for a spot of self-aggrandisement. In fact, the seemingly innocent "holiday question" is a great 2 for 1:

a) I am going somewhere special/expensive/hard to get to

b) I have lots of expensive kit

This last is a particularly modern form of hubris. In the ancient world, excessive pride was a crime. Crowing over one's peers, or indeed one's vanquished foes, was regarded as very bad form indeed, much as owning an f1 Noctilux today and openly musing as to the benefits of adding a f.0.95 Noctilux to your collection of humidity-controlled dust-gatherers is guaranteed to reduce any right-thinking fellow photographer (for which read "real photographer") to acts of mindless irritation. The "autosignature" is a particular refinement of this phoenomenon, enabling the poster to re-state their entire palette of toys with the press of a button. I do wonder at the mentality of those whose signature is both longer and more interesting than their posts, however.

The only form of this question that makes any real sense is "From your own direct experience, what is [location x] like?". Any photographer with half a brain can do their own online research these days; the likes of Flickr and Google Earth provide the opportunity to find out what others have done, and what a given location looks like. The old advice used to be to go to a newsagents on arrival and look at the postcards - now with the "global village" we can browse through others' snaps, tagged - geotagged, even - without leaving the comfort of our own armchairs.

What is invaluable is "local knowledge" - places to eat, to sit, where photography is encouraged, where it is frowned upon, where and how the scam artists operate, how to get around, where the best beer is to be found. All of the above come from personal experience. People who have been there, or even better, live there -in other words, those least likely to be impressed by your ability to travel there.

I chose the lens, body, aperture, shutter speed and destination all by myself...

I don't want or need someone to pick my kit for me. I don't want someone to oo and ah over my equipment - unless they are particularly attractive, of course - I don't need people to be impressed by my choice of destination, or by the size of my wallet. It's useful to know that the lighting in museum x is particularly low, or that the queues for art gallery y only get bad after 10AM, but telling me that I absolutely must take a wide-angle or I will miss some great shots is about as useful as a photograph of a rope to a drowning man.

No, I don't care how much you have spent on where you are going, or the money you have invested in what you might take, but if I've been there before, I'll gladly give you my opinion on the place - provided you aren't just boasting, of course...

Bill

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

Great Photo! Great camera...?

2009-08-20T16:01:00.008+01:00

We have all been there, at one time or another. It is usually absolutely genuinely meant. It may come from a friend, or a relative, or a total stranger. When you hear those words, though, it is like fingernails on a blackboard for the photographer concerned.

"What a lovely photo! You must have a very good camera..."

What on Earth is an appropriate answer?

"Indeed I have - my sole contribution to the creative process was buying it in the first place..."

"No, it's a cheap piece of crap, but I have the compositional skills of Raphael."

...or something in between?

over the years I have been as guilty as anyone of the typical English passive aggressive non-response in such circumstances - smile, shrug and back away while simultaneously listening to the little inner voice chanting "Blood, blood, blood"... Of course it's hard to be rude when a) someone genuinely thinks they are paying you a compliment and b) they are either elderly or attractive. The natural impulse to snap back is repressed - bad for the blood pressure, I know, but good for the inheritance/prospects of a good night out.

Of course in many cases it is true. It is hard to find a truly bad camera these days. Even the cheapest digi-compact can turn out a halfway decent result if handled right. However, I think it is worth exploring what triggers such a comment. Look at it from the point of view of the other person - your photo has moved them in some way. Why? What was it that drove them to say something? I think in many cases it comes down to what they are used to seeing, and the results that they feel they can produce themselves.

The photos that I find get a strong reaction are those that either have a strong motif, or a particular "look" - that might be a macro shot, or one dominated by a single strong colour, or a powerful monochrome image, or, particularly, one with very shallow depth of focus. That last fascinates me - and I think it is because it is simply not available to anyone using a cameraphone, small sensor digicam or slow-lensed film compact that it is so worthy of comment. It smacks the viewer in the eye, because it isn't the way they see the world, or have been able to capture it themselves.

Okay bokeh?

Do the particpants and professional practitioners of other pursuits have to put up with this, I wonder? Does Gordon Ramsay get told his meals are delicious because of his great pans, or does Elton John get complimented on his choice of piano? I think not. Maybe it is because everyone fancies that they can take a photo, but that you need a "better" camera than the one they have to take a "better" photo than they can.

We aren't going to change the world overnight, though. So what to do? Now I am more grumpy old, than angry young man, I have more of an inclination towards the "mission to inform" approach. I try - gently - to explain that yes, I do have a good camera, but that it does need me to carry it from place to place, aim it in the right direction, decide what settings to use, where to put the point of focus, etc. I try not to sound condescending, but instead try to build a rapport, and generate some genuine interest in how I have achieved an image worthy of their comment, and how they could do the same.

The key to this approach is the counter question - keep it in mind, chant it like a mantra, so that you are ready for the next time.

Ok?

Ready?

Here we go...

"What makes you think that?"

Try it - it works, and is far less likely to get you arrested than clobbering an old lady around the head with a Leica...

Bill

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

Unplugged...

2009-08-07T18:05:00.005+01:00

I think it was MTV that first made popular the "unplugged" approach to music performance. It came as a reaction to the at the time almost inescapable use of electric this, synth that. I particularly remember the acoustic version of Layla by Eric Clapton - still recognisably the same song, but completely re-interpreted. Different. Fresh. What interests me about the very concept of doing something "unplugged" is that it implies a state of plugged-in-ness preceding it - less unplugged than post-plugged.

A musician performing acapella with nothing but an acoustic guitar is in effect putting their talent on the line. They cannot hide behind producers with mixing desks, or digital enhancement. It is them, their capabilities, their instrument and the music. It separates the men (and women) from the boys (and, er, girls). Not everyone can do it. Not everyone, to be fair, feels the need. Those that do, however, show a new dimension to their skills, and earn the respect of their peers and audience as a result.

In the photographic world, the relentless drive to bigger, faster, better digital cameras has led to an explosion of innovation. Product cycles have dropped from years to months or even weeks. From nowhere, it is now possible to buy, for considerably less than the price of a decent weekend break, a digital SLR that produces clean, high quality images without a film in sight. It is all so easy, quick, predictable, efficient, clean, clinical... did I mention soul-less?

I have in the past owned some of the finest film equipment in the world - Nikon, Leica and Contax SLRs and rangefinders, with lenses that were (and are) second to none. When digital happened, I joined the bandwagon after a while, then sat out a few rounds of innovation before rejoining in the shape of an Olympus DSLR. It does all that I ask of it and more, but like the most sophisticated film cameras, you are not always sure what it is doing, or, more crucially, why. There is so much inherent complexity in the modern DSLR - any modern DSLR, not just the Olympus - that it is indeed possible to get yourself caught at the bottom of a sub-menu and trapped there forever until your air runs out and you drown. The modern viewfinder is now more like a dashboard than an optical instrument, with head-up displays and overlays.

*sigh*

I had been aware of screwmount Leicas for as long as I had been aware of the brand. I knew they were the precursors to the M, and much more primitive for that. Separate view and rangefinders, the need for accessory finders for anything other than 50mm focal length, even the need to trim the leader - none of this was lost on me. It all seemed a bit old-fashioned, a bit anachronistic - even, for modern use, a bit masochistic. Why, I thought, would I ever want to use something that didn't even have a built-in meter? Where's the fun in that?

It was about two and a half years ago that I succumbed and bought my first "Barnack". My local dealer had a IIIc in the window, complete with 3.5cm Elmar - still the most compact lens in that focal length ever produced by Leica. It winked at me through the window like a rascally old lady - past her prime but still full of charm, fun and joie de vivre. It took minimal thought for me to go in, plant down my money and walk out with it in my pocket.

I resolved from the outset to go the whole hog and live the Barnack experience - I didn't own a handheld meter, so I decided to rely upon "Sunny 16". I also decided, to make my life a little easier, to only feed the old girl a limited diet - Kodak 400CN. Reasonably fast to compensate for the slow lens, easy to get developed in the high street (even today, if you know where to go), plenty of latitude and somehow black and white just seemed appropriate.

I cheated a little - I used a Panasonic digicam as a back-up to my exposure guesstimation at first, treating it as a meter that could take photos. I kidded myself that I was carrying it as a backup, but I soon realised that I didn't need it - practically or psychologically.

A couple of rolls of film through the gate also made me realise that, in the UK at least, Sunny-16 is nearer to Sunny-12. The little IIIc became my constant companion, in my bag, briefcase or pocket at all times - partly because it was small enough, and partly because it was really just that much fun to use. I got used to the poky rangefinder, and with switching over to the viewfinder for composition. Mostly I used it for "street photography"... I lived the HCB dream, or at least I wandered about with a Leica and snapped people doing vaguely interesting stuff in the street.

Caught with a camera older than you and me put together...

Continuing with the unplugged analogy, if the IIIc is equivalent to an acoustic guitar, then the II that followed is probably nearer to a lute. The II was an impulse buy, from the US via eBay. You know what I mean - I put in a bid and went to bed, and woke up with less money and a parcel on the way. When it arrived it was, er, "crispy" to say the least. Years of gunge meant it handled like a chewy toffee and the view and rangefinders were "atmospheric". A trip to CRR in Luton soon sorted that out, and a new chapter began.

My II is actually a I - it started life in 1930, and was factory-upgraded in 1934. It is both a demanding mistress and a delight - there is nothing between me and my subjects except a thin layer of brass and glass. I don't miss the slow speeds at all, and I find the wider spacing of the view- and rangefinders actually, if anything, make life easier. There are (many) days when it is the only camera I carry.

So does it take more skill to use a Barnack than a modern DSLR? In some respects, I would contend that it does. If you nail it - if everything comes together and you get it right - then the resultant image is all your own work. When you trip the shutter on an old Leica gears whir, springs contract and silk curtains part. When you press the shutter release on the DSLR, you send a command to the CPU that in turn starts a process that...

Let me conclude with this thought; the 40th anniversary of the Beatles' Sgt Pepper album has been marked by some of today's "stars" going into the studios at Abbey Road, using the original analogue 4-track equipment to record cover versions of the songs from the album. Their only recourse to getting it wrong was to re-record... Again, and again, and again... Without the aid of the Antares Autotune - the technology that ensures that however sharp or flat your voice is, you can appear pitch perfect when you "perform" (we have it to blame for the Spice Girls and many others) - the "Talent" struggled to rise to the occasion...

Enough said.

Bill

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

Objective, subjective... selective...?

2009-07-23T17:37:00.007+01:00

A lot has been written about whether or not a photographer can ever truly be objective in his treatment of a subject. Can a war photographer, for example, ever produce an image that does not have a bias of some sort? If they show soldiers celebrating a famous victory they can be accused of triumphalism, if they turn their cameras on the wounded and dying they can equally be accused of batting for the other side and undermining morale.

The first really media-savvy war of what could euphemistically be called "the present day" (i.e. during my lifetime...) was Vietnam. Photojournalists were given unprecedented access to the front lines. Reputations were made the hard way by men such as Philip Jones-Griffiths, Tim Page and Don McCullin. They found themselves, as young men, documenting the lives and deaths of other young men, going into battle alongside them in Hueys, armed with a Nikon or a Leica instead of an Armalite, but just as much in harm's way. For a flavour of the lives they led, pick up a copy of "Nam" by Tim Page. Don't just look at the pictures and read the words, feel the rhythm of the book - Page brings those days to life in a very personal way.

The saturation coverage backfired, of course. The US lost the war, not in the paddy fields of the Mekong Delta but in the hearts and minds of the people at home, who were fed, day after day, a diet of the horrors of war; US troops and Viet civilians alike ripped apart by explosive ordnance or flayed alive by napalm.

By the time the Falklands War came around, establishment attitudes, at least in the United Kingdom, had hardened. There was a recognition that open access meant that information could not be controlled; once the genie was out of the bottle it could not be forced back in and the "bad" would be shown alongside the "good". The government of the day were keen to keep things low key. Who can forget Ian McDonald, the MOD spokesman who appeared night after night on the BBC and ITN news, delivering carefully worded briefings in a wooden monotone? The very distances involved helped in the delay and censorship of images of course; if you are on a naval warship in the South Atlantic your options, back in those days, for getting your film back to shore, were strictly limited. It was the Falklands War that ended Don McCullin's career as a war correspondent - he was denied passage to the theatre of war, it is said, because Margaret Thatcher specifically objected to his ability to depict the horror of conflict. McCullin decided not to cover any further wars, but thankfully turned his lens in other directions.

During the Gulf War(s), journalists were "embedded" - a term that first found currency in the Iraq invasion. The military machine embraced those journalists along for the ride, swaddling them so tightly that they were again, stifled. The old saying about holding your friends close and your enemies closer was never more clearly illustrated. Today, in the Afghan conflict, there is no concurrent front-line reporting at all; "news" is stale before it is ever transmitted or printed.

All of this has had two effects; firstly, the coverage of such "events" - if war can be couched in such terms - has, except for a few honourable exceptions, become anodyne and detached - subservient to the establishment. Cartoonish images of smart bombs falling on baddies, interspersed with marginally less cartoonish animations of military advances and deployments replace real, eyewitness accounts and images. The low-tech Panorama sandbox filled with Airfix tanks of the Yom Kippur War has been replaced by the high tech Newsnight computer simulation, but it is just as detached from reality. The detachment serves to make the horror of war seem somehow less real, less threatening. Soon wars will come, like movies in the cinema, with ratings - "contains mild peril and threat" for a "police action" up to "extreme action and scenes of a violent nature" for a full-blown war.

The second, and equally worrying consequence is that photojournalists - indeed any journalists - are no longer seen as impartial observers, their actions of equal benefit to both sides. Rightly or wrongly they are seen as instruments of the state, reporting what they are told, and therefore as much a fair target as anyone else on the battlefield. The net effect is clear - the more photojournalists are seen as being directly in harm's way, the less they will be free to show what is clearly going on.

So can a photographer - can a photograph - ever truly be objective? subtext and message free? Independent of all that is going on?

Peacekeeper or warmonger...?

No.

I have looked at this primarily from the point of view of a war correspondent, because it makes it easier to illustrate the point, but the same principles hold true in other fields too.

Just picking a subject makes it subjective. Pointing your camera in a direction is a conscious decision. The longer you take on composition, the more thought you put into it, the further the eventual photo becomes. Even your choice of exposure - dark or light - and colour - or monochrome - puts your own "spin" on your output. There is no such thing as a "straight record shot" - the narrative that is in your head, conscious or subconscious, comes out when you press the button. The art is to recognise that and to channel it in your work. Every photo tells a story - just make sure it is telling the story you want it to.

Bill

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.

Sharp is not the only fruit

2009-07-17T16:31:00.008+01:00

In the realm of photography, much is made of the merits of good glass. And quite right too. If you want a tack-sharp rendition of your chosen subject, with "perfect" microcontrast and no coma, flare, vignetting, spherical aberrations, etc., then, like so many things in life, you gets what you pays for.

Things are certainly better than they used to be, of course. These days, even the worst cheap kit zoom is better than the average milk bottle thanks to modern formulations of glass, computer aided optical design and better quality materials, assembled by "infallible" machines to tight tolerances. Zoom lenses in particular, covering wide- to tele- ranges that would have been unthinkable a few years ago can now be produced to a "decent" quality at a "reasonable" cost. There are few, if any, "lemons" that can still be bought new.

So.

If "decent" is within easy reach, why do so many photographers still spend staggering amounts of money in pursuit of the dernier cri in optical excellence? It's a fairly safe bet that many (though by no means all) of the pursuers are not sufficiently talented to make the most of the optical qualities of the glass that they aspire to - and in many cases buy. A clear case of the unjustifiable in pursuit of the unfocusable.

In general, the wider or faster the lens, the more expensive it is. The lens speed "arms race" has pretty well been won for now by Leica with it's superlative 50mm Summilux f1.4 and frankly incredible 50mm Noctilux 0.95. They are not the first to build a lens this fast, of course, but you can count on them being among the last of a dying breed - the purveyors of "quality at any cost". What I find hard to believe, let alone understand, is those for whom the 0.95 represents a "must have" lens regardless of the fact that they already have it's predecessor, the f1.0. Are they truly good enough to push this lens to it's limits, or do they just have an overinflated bank balance to match their overinflated egos?

But I digress... Let us return to sharpness.

Much is made on internet fora about the "need" to have the most up to date, highest performing lens to get the best out of the sensor/film. Much is made about the "need" to have something sharp enough to shave with in order to produce "worthwhile" images. Leaving aside for a moment the need for talent in the equation, the "sharp is best" school of narrow-mindedness ignores a whole world of options. The more worldly photographer views the lenses in his bag not in technical terms - Xmm wideangle, fnn tele - with more letters after it's name than a 1970's Ford (GTXLR, anyone?) but as a palette of possibilities, or perhaps more appropriately as a selection of "paintbrushes" which can be used appropriately, to make the most of the subject at the time. Ask not an experienced photographer (as opposed to an "expert" photographer...) how many lenses he has of different focal lengths, ask instead how many he has in his favourite focal length.

For my part, I "see" the world in 50mm terms. I have a (big) fast one, a (compact and collapsible) slow one, and some in between. Some are sharp, with the ability to resolve individual eyelashes at ten paces, some softer, giving a more "rounded" image. I carry and use them according to whim, destination, subject matter and expected light levels. I could probably achieve similar results with a single Summilux and some plug-in Photoshoppery, but where's the fun, the creative enjoyment - in that?

Taken handheld, with an Elmar old enough to be my grand-dad - better sharper?

...not to me.

My favourite 50 by far is an ancient and crispy 5cm Elmar f3.5. It first saw the light of day when Zeppelins were in the skies, Frozen food was a novelty and wireless was something you listened to the BBC on, transmitting from Crystal Palace in dinner jackets and brilliantine. It is a soft, low contrast, old lady, that renders out of focus highlights with a gentle glow, while at the same time giving a modern kit zoom a run for it's money on a sunny day. It is generations behind the current wonderkinds, but it still has a place. Above all, the older, less "perfect" lenses have that indefinable something that I shall, for the want of anything better, refer to as "character" - something that the more clinical "scalpels", for all their carefully engineered and computer-optimised perfection, lack.

No, sharpness is not the be all and end all. It has it's place, as does fillet steak. But who would want to live on that every day...?

Bill

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.
- I don't care how good it is, I'd want more than just a knife if I was in the Swiss Army.

Great capture!!!

2009-07-15T20:07:00.006+01:00

WOW! What a great image!!! Phantastic Foto!!

...and so on.

Give me a break.

One of the unexpected and largely unwanted by-products of the internet age is the ability to comment upon the work of others in a simplistic and anodyne fashion. Flickr and other photo sharing sites are the worst, by far, but the pernicious plague spreads far and wide to otherwise sensible corners of the web. The almost hysterical shriek of GREAT CAPTURE! leaps from the screen like a pair of fluorescent chartreuse cycle shorts on a middle-aged sumo wrestler. It's the electronic equivalent of a "high five", or chummy slap on the back, and generally has the same tea-spitting effect as the latter.

Do other pastimes have the equivalent, I wonder? Do watercolourists run around each other in circles shouting WOOT! at the sight of a well-rendered landscape? Do quilters experience orgasmic glee when confronted by a particularly, er, well-filled, one?

Now, you will probably by this point be thinking of me as a bit of a curmudgeon. Why shouldn't people be encouraging (and encouraged), I hear you say. What's wrong with a bit of heartfelt enthusiasm?

There's the rub.

What's missing for me, 99.9 times out of 100, is the little matter of "sincerity". Let's dwell on that thought for a moment. The origins of the word give us a clue as to what it is all about. It is from the Latin, "sin cere", meaning "without wax". I understand (I wasn't there...) that an unscrupulous sculptor back in the days of the Roman Empire might use an inferior quality of marble, or cover up careless chisel marks, by using wax as a filler. This worked well as a cunning ruse to fool the unwary art lover right up to the point that their newly acquired household god, tasteful nude or priapic faun was hit by the warming rays of the sun as it streamed across the Aventine. The wax would melt, leaving our hapless purchaser with something that looked like a large tabby had sharpened their claws on it. The sculpture was revealed as not genuine. The real thing was "sin cere"...

A genuine comment, truly meant, is worth a thousand times more than something that has been cut'n'pasted a dozen times already in that browsing session alone. I swear that some people leave such comments like some sort of electronic paper trail, just to prove that they have been there. They are probably the same people who had "I-Spy" books as children, bought to keep them quiet on long journeys as they assiduously ticked off each type of lorry, tree, pylon or whatever. Big Chief I-Spy has heap much to answer for, I fear.

I'm not saying don't comment - but if you have nothing genuine to say, then I don't think I'm alone in saying that I'd rather you said nothing at all. If you have the time, the inclination and the mastery of your keyboard to use the q,y,i,o,s,d,f,h,j,k*,l,z,x,v,b,n and m keys in addition to those that go to make up that most empty of plaudits, please do so. The best comments are thought-provoking. They make the photographer look at their own image afresh, to see it with new eyes. The vast majority of photographers are terrible self-editors, who need all the help they can get to separate their wheat from the chaff. Thoughtless praise for mediocrity, lightly given, simply encourages more mediocrity.

Like it? Loathe it? Let me know. But DON'T say "Great capture!"

Original is here: Berlin

There is another dimension to this. There seems to be an almost paranoid fear of causing offense. Critical comments, especially constructive and well-composed ones, are so rare that the WWF are starting an appeal. I suspect that this is in part because it is easier to carpet-bomb with smileys than snarlys (Is that a word? It deserves to be). Constructive criticism, or critique, is HARD, because it requires TIME and THOUGHT. Those are increasingly precious commodities in the modern World, where Apple and Blackberry are now communication devices instead of something that goes well with crumble and custard.

So.

Please - comment away, but do so with your mind in gear, not your rubber stamp in hand.

Bill

*I'm assuming that you are not one of those who think it's cute to spell capture with a K...

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.
- This Blog entry has been brought to you by the Provisional wing of the Popular Front for the Promulgation and Preservation of Constructive Criticism.

Smart Metering?

2009-07-10T16:16:00.001+01:00

Much has been made in recent weeks of the forthcoming introduction of "Smart Meters" for domestic use. Depending on the hue of your morning paper this is either a necessary thing (broadsheets) a costly thing (red tops) or a filthy communist plot to spy on our domestic energy consumption (The Daily Mail). All this hot air, however, has set me thinking about the a type of metering much closer to my heart.

Don't read this expecting a technical paper - these are (as usual) my personal views, based on the journey I have taken over the years.

Like many, I started off by really not understanding metering, beyond the basics of too much light = overexposure, too little light = underexposure. I relied heavily at first on built in metering (centre-weighted, of course) and aperture priority auto and gradually fumbled my way into a broader understanding of light and exposure. The greatest lesson I remember learning in those early years was that there is no such thing as "correct exposure" - there is only the exposure that gives you the end result that you are happy with. That may be too dark for some, too high-key for others, but hey, that's their problem.

The next thing that moved me forward was spot metering, combined with the use of slide film. Suddenly not only could I expose easily for the element of the subject that I wanted, but I could also see the end results as I indended without the well-meaning intervention of a spotty youth tweaking the processing machine in my local branch of Boots.

Not averagely metered...

Matrix metering - great if you are not very experienced, if you are feeling lazy, or if you are Keanu Reeves (you may of course be all of the above, in which case welcome, Mr Reeves, and when are you going to make a decent movie?) I have had various cameras with matrix metering or some variation thereon, and have generally found it to be akin to trying to get through the day wearing gardening gloves - I can still do what I want, but I cannot feel anything; subtlety is lost.

So.

That takes me full-circle. The scales fell from my eyes when I finally, after years of "I can't do that" excuses, I acquired my first totally manual, meterless camera. That was a Leica IIIc, which has subsequently gone on to new owner, but has been replaced in the proverbial gadget bag by a II and an M2. I rushed out and bought a hand-held meter (the tiny Gossen Digisix - accurate and easy to use, but with a frightening appetite for batteries.). I religiously metered each shot for all of half a roll of film, before realising that the reading did not change that often. I metered every other shot, then every 3 shots, then...

Freedom!!! My generally lazy nature combined with the realisation that I could guesstimate the majority of lighting conditions, and rely on the latitude of film allowed me to leave the meter at home. The feeling of walking around with a purely manual camera, adjusting exposure by experience and by eye and getting good results has to be experienced to be believed. Whole rolls of film slid through without a single exposure reading being taken. Sunny-16 became my friend, albeit in the UK at least, it is more like Sunny-12.

Real men don't use meters...

I've mentioned film already, and this is a key part of the equation. My camera food of choice is Kodak 400CN, a chromogenic film that means I can (still) get a 30 min high street dip and dunk and proofs to disc without too much hassle. I don't use anything else, so I have learned how this emulsion behaves under different lighting conditions and how far I can trust it.

But... here's the funny thing - although I can, I don't manually estimate, or indeed manually set, exposure on my other cameras. I am still happy to rely upon automation when it is available, even though I have tasted the fruit of self-reliance. Do I feel guilty because of this? No. No more than I do leaving my car gearbox in auto mode for 95% of my journeys. Sensible, non-invasive automation is an asset, but going "unplugged" is something special.

Bill

--0-O-0--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.
- I'd rather have a week of Fridays than a month of Sundays.

Calm down, Dear, it's only a photo...

2009-07-04T23:04:00.008+01:00

Photographers of every shape and size, amateur, professional, journeyman or craftsman are all as guilty as the average "creative" when it comes to occasionally taking themselves and their outputs just a tad too seriously. I blame Barthes, myself, and that Sontag woman. The problem starts when the "serious" snapper - that is one who takes their photography seriously, either as a hobby or a profession - starts to fret that they do not have a "personal style". HCB did, so did Chatwin, Weston and Adams. So does Rankin, O'Neill, Parr, Myerowicz, McCullin, Salgado - the list is endless.

"I have no recognisable style..." the panicky little inner monologue declaims. "I cannot be a proper photographer, I will not be taken seriously, until I have a recognisable style of my own." This pernicious little thought drives out any concept of learning the craft and letting a style evolve on it's own. Oh no.

The next "logical step" (for which read "hare-brained idea") is to work slavishly to become "the next [insert as applicable]". This leap of blind faith ignores an inconvenient truth - style does not spring full-formed overnight. and certainly cannot be adopted, like donning a suit. Those who our little lost photographer would choose to emulate built their instantly recognisable signature bodies of work over a period of years; their less polarised work has faded, either through time or assiduous editing, from the public consciousness. There is simply no short-cut to greatness, although there is a fairly easy footpath just over there that leads to mediocrity.

The other funny thing about personal style is that it tends to be structured and codified by those around you. For the most part it is their positive (and negative) feedback that encourages the photographer, like a lab rat, to understand that pressing the shutter on a particular camera, using a particular lens, pointing at a particular subject, in particular lighting conditions, results in his getting a "treat", and if he does the same thing over and over again, the treats (or plaudits, or work, or money) just keep coming.

Problems can also arise when inexperienced photographers try to run before they can walk and start to believe a little too much in their still slender abilities. "I am working on a project", they will say with a faraway gleam, or "I am building a portfolio" - just like the big boys. No they're not. They are taking lots of similar pictures in the hope that they might "hang together" in some sort of recognisable theme. At this point, the skill lies not in the execution of the image, but in the editing out of the also-rans. The photographer who declares his mojo found, his style settled, is fooling no-one but himself. No amount of Flickr slideshows or vanity publishing can disguise a lack of talent, ability, or self-awareness.

Don't get me wrong. It is very laudable to try to hone your skills, and to sharpen your eye. A good photographer works, if not with a pre-visualised idea of what he wants, at least with intent. Random snapping is not for him; he can go out with a single camera and a single lens, knowing that the shot he wants can be obtained with just that equipment. Instead of wandering, our boy follows a golden thread, exploring around and beyond it, but keeping one foot firmly on the path. He lets his subjects evolve, rather than trying to ossify and regiment them, safe in the knowledge that he has the skill and the vision to extract what he wants to draw out.

Just a photo. Anything you can "see" in it that relates to walking toward the light, or taking a journey, or striding out, is the product of your own fevered imagination...

There is another trap for the unwary. Not everything has to have a meaning or a reason. Sometimes a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh and a photo is just a photo. No amount of jesuitical debate can bring three dimensional depth to a motif or subject that is inherently shallow. Images that are too weak or diffuse to stand on their own, and require explanation, or any captioning beyond a brief title, to "speak" to the viewer are by definition in and of themselves, mute.

Always remember, there is no shame in being an amateur (or jobbing) snapper. We can't all be first violinists - some of us have to push the wind through the trombone. Don't rush, and don't panic. Your style - if it is truly there within you - will evolve and emerge when it is ready, and you have the maturity and ability to let it come to the surface. In the meantime content yourself with the thought that you are still part of the orchestra...

...even if you are only playing the triangle.

Bill

--0-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.
- If any of this makes you laugh nervously you are probably taking yourself too seriously. Put the project down, back away, go out and take some pictures.

The Invisible Man in the Street

2009-06-29T12:36:00.009+01:00

Many who have tried their hand at "street photography" have surely, at one time or another, wished that they could find a Harry Potter-esque invisibility cloak at their local photo dealer, nestled in alongside the wibbly tripods, card readers and tobacco grad starburst filters. I say "many" rather than "anyone" because there are of course those who go out of their way to influence the scene before them. Like an old-school, tweed-suited wedding photographer, they will not be happy until they have stage-managed the people in shot, getting them to pose and smile. They are probably the same people who, as children, endlessly rearranged their Airfix 1/72nd scale commando platoon in height order by hat size. This type of invasive approach is "portraiture" in my view, not "street photography".

Those of you with a scientific background ( I know you are out there, I can hear your test-tube bubbling) will understand the "Hawthorne Effect" - a form of reactivity (it says here) whereby subjects improve an aspect of their behaviour that is being measured in direct response to the fact that they are being measured. In photographic terms, this is the equivalent of someone noticing that you are framing them up and pulling their stomach in, either voluntarily or involuntarily as a result, in order to make themselves "look better". In so doing they may very well no longer be as "interesting" as they were in the first place, and indeed may no longer be worth tripping the shutter.

So, in the absence of magic cloaks, what is the answer for the photographer who wants to capture life as it happens, without changing, or being a part of, what's going on? The natural coward has a couple of options - use a long lens (which is great if you are in a hide of some sort shooting wild birds, but is still likely to attract unwelcome attention if spotted in your local high street), or, in the finest tradition of the Wild West, shoot 'em in the back. The latter is not a bad technique per se, but if it is the only approach used it does call into question the photographers' motivation, let alone his ability to look people in the eye. No. Unobtrusive discretion is the keyword... er, words. Cartier-Bresson was a big gawky Frenchman, and he got away with it for years, so surely it can't be that hard.

Can it?

Then there is a whole school of thought that theorises that the size of one's equipment has a major influence on whether or not one is noticed. Whilst this may have some truth in the porn movie industry, it is far less relevant to the budding street snapper than many would like to believe. In all honesty, sticking tape over the red dot on your Leica is more likely to arouse curiosity of the "When did you break your camera?" variety. It does not make you look more "street" - it does make you look like an obsessive nerd with issues and too much time on your hands. Of course at the extreme there is a point at which your kit will get you noticed. One of those nice big white zoom lenses for SLRs with a front element the diameter of a Starbucks' super-grande soya latte are hard to avoid - I know, for I have been clouted by one in a crowd in the past.

My personal preference is to blend in, plant myself and keep movement to a minimum. Let the images come to me, rather than go seeking them like a demented ninja. Like any good fisherman you do have to choose what the military would refer to as a "target rich environment", of course - it's no good stationing yourself on a deserted country lane and expecting a decisive moment or two within the lifetime of the average snail. In a busy street the way the human mind works is that you will rapidly become part of the scenery. Even if you are wearing a yellow jerkin of the sort favoured by road-sweepers and lollipop ladies, this will be the case. You are there, and therefore you fade from direct consciousness.

You can enhance this effect by dressing appropriately. Going out in a "photo vest" and a pair of zip-off Rohan trousers, with a camera suspended around your neck on a strap that screams "CANON DIGITAL" in big friendly day-glo letters will make it that bit harder for you to convince people that you have just parked yourself there for a quick cappuchino and a biscotti. In general, people see what they expect to see, and disregard the rest. So if you are at Henley, a stripey blazer will help you to blend in. If you are in the City, a pinstripe suit will probably be more helpful, and so on.

There is also an interesting reverse effect, that relies upon what Douglas Adams christened the "SEP Field", where SEP stands for "Someone Else's Problem". Again, this is a bit of mental sleight of hand that relies upon the laziness of the human brain. People do not tend to look - really look - at certain types of people - "Big Issue" sellers, charity muggers, street workers and urban inhabitants in general. The ubiquitous yellow jerkin previously referred to may make you feel conspicuous when you first don it, but put on some old jeans, a tatty sweater, heavy work boots and said jerkin and notice how quickly you fade from people's consciousness. They will actively go out of their way not to make eye contact, or to "take you in".

There are two other factors to consider in our lexicon of unobtusiveness. Firstly, movement. In very simple terms, a jerky, rapid movement catches the eye, while a slow and deliberate one does not. Don't blame me for that - blame our cave-dwelling ancestors and your primitive "monkey brain". Ug and Og realised that a sabre-toothed tiger tends to move faster, and more belligerently, than a three-toed sloth, so their descendants are hard-wired to this day to notice, and react to, sudden and possibly threatening movements. Swinging your camera to your eye as if you are about to launch a grenade in someone's direction is far more likely to cause a negative reaction than a slow, gentle swing up to your eye and away again. I also have a theory, by the way, that people are getting more and more habituated to the mobile 'phone stance for picture taking - small device held in portrait fashion, up high at half-arm's length, peering at a screen - than a small camera raised to the eye. I have no scientific proof for this, but if you try it out let me know.

I think I was spotted...

Last, but far from least, comes the power of "assumed authority". Con artists rely on this all the time. If you look like you know what you are doing, and that you should be there, people will accept that as the status quo. Again, it relies on the laziness of the human brain - if it looks right, it must be right, and we will look no further. Try wearing a reasonably smart suit on a Saturday and standing still with your hands clasped behind your back in a branch of Austin Reed (or Brooks Brothers, for transatlantic readers). I guarantee that within two minutes someone will come over and ask if you have a shirt in a 14 and a half collar in the stockroom. Similarly, if you handle your camera about as if you know how to use it (I am assuming that you do) and make no effort to hide, or look even remotely furtive, you can get away with murder (and the shot).

My most extreme example of this was at a convention in Brighton for the most ardent followers of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". I was there to shoot the fans, some of whom go to the most extraordinary lengths to dress and make themselves up as their favourite characters. Because I was dressed and looked like a security man's idea of a photographer rather than a fan I was not challenged when I unintentionally passed a "no-entry" sign and found myself in the presence of some of the stars of the show. I quickly asked them to pose, which they did without demur. I got off at least half a dozen shots before my lack of ID badge was noticed and I was politely asked to "buggeroff".

The pictures? Well, I would love to show you, but strangely enough, they were mostly blank. I suppose it must be true what they say about vampires...

Bill

--0-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.
- Why do all cameras, on film or tv, sound like a Nikon F3 with a motordrive?

For...ummmm...

2009-06-24T11:07:00.007+01:00

What is it about posting on internet photo forums that makes otherwise confident people turn into blathering jellies?

Picture the scene - I am sitting at home one evening when my 'phone rings. A voice says:

"Hello. I intend to buy a suit tomorrow. Do you think I should buy a black one or a blue one? And what about pinstripes?"

How should I know? I don't know the chap, I have no idea whether he is tall, short, fat, thin or purple with blue spots. Critically, I don't have an insight into his tastes.

Daft, innit?

So why do otherwise sane (big leap of faith, I know) people go on internet fora to ask total strangers whether they should buy a black or a chrome camera body? Leaving aside for a moment the practical aspects - black paint wears faster than chrome plate, for example - why would anyone think that someone else would have an aesthetic insight that could possibly relate to them? Do they spend their lives in a fog of eternal indecision, wondering whether to have tea or coffee? I think not...

...I hope not.

And another thing.

Why do so many people list their kit in their signatures? I don't mean a quick one liner, I mean a full inventory of every filter, flash lead and viewfinder that occupies their presumably enormous gadget bag? I have lost count of the number of posts that are shorter than their originator's signature. I used to have a mother-in-law (#1, I think) who said "the only difference between men and boys is the size of their toys". In that, at least, I think she had a point. I really couldn't care less how many lenses or bodies someone has. It neither makes them a better person nor gives them any enhanced right to be listened to, but some will persist in listing to the same level of obsessive detail as a ten-year old giving their home address:

15 Railway Cuttings
Chigley
Trumptonshire
England
United Kingdom
Europe
The World
The Solar System...

..and so on.

There is a similar "bragging rights" factor at work when the "Armchair CEO" pitches up. Often more interested in a camera as an investment rather than as a picture taking tool, the Armchair CEO has absolute certitude on his side. He has a lifetime of doing "stuff" in, with, or for companies and he is therefore ideally placed to "save" the unfortunate company that produces the object of his affection. Never mind that he has no access to the books, or that he has never worked in the industry, he and he alone (f0r it is always a he) has THE answer to the company's "problems". He will of course never research before pontificating and heaven help anyone who introduces inconvenient logic into the equation. The Armchair CEO is often congenitally unable to appreciate any point of view other than his own and struggles with dissent "in the ranks". He is also incapable of running any form of search to establish what has been said before. Either that, or he is sure that, if HE says it, everyone will realise how right he is.

Finally, we come full circle to the bag fetishist. They are closely related to those ladies for whom a new pair of shoes is a religious observance, and a platform is not something that trains arrive at. Never mind practicality, the bag fetishist is in search of that holy grail of camera bags - something that almost but not quite says "I'm full of cameras", but only in a language understandable by a select few. They want to be able to flaunt their taste and photographic wealth in such a way that they are completely invisible to anyone that might want to mug them for it. This group are probably responsible, single-handed, for the consumption of more server space than any other.

A bag fetishist's dream - look at all that shiny brass!!

Forum members all. Love 'em, hate 'em, but they keep the world spinning - and bag manufacturers in business.

Bill

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.
- Are Armchair CEOs answerable to a Side Board?

Rangefinding

2009-06-22T10:25:00.004+01:00

I realise that I have been writing this blog now for some time without actually focussing (pun intended) on the personal trajectory that led me here, and to the name of this blog.

I am an unashamed user of rangefinder cameras, predominantly Leica. I use LTM (Leica Thread Mount) and M-mount bodies and a selection of lenses from 15 to 135mm and from Leica, Voigtlander and Canon. I appreciate that this makes me a member of a minority these days, all the more so since I continue to enjoy and use film. I have SLRs of course - there are some things that rangefinders do not do as well as cameras with a mirror prism - but in terms that Mr. Pareto would understand, they can do 80% of what I want, but only get used 20% of the time. In the words of a public service broadcaster, "other brands are available" but I use Leica because I appreciate the quality, heritage and inventiveness that the brand embodies.

Why? What is it that makes a Leica rangefinder camera my tool of choice? There are a number of factors. Some are mechanical, objective, easy to explain and to understand, but others are more subjective and ephemeral.

On the practical side, the rangefinder mechanism puts less between me and my subject. The camera is (often) physically smaller, and the view is more "immediate". The SLR view, even on the best and clearest, looks and feels more like a display screen, flat and two dimensional. The rangefinder image is more three-dimensional, to me at least.

Secondly, the SLR view is "WYSIWYG" - again, the best SLRs provide a 100% view of the subject - exactly what the film sees, and what will be translated to the film plane (or sensor). The Leica M series cameras, in their many variations, often provide a view wider than what the lens sees. This makes it easier to anticipate action and composition, certainly far easier than when looking down the tightly defined SLR "tube".

Thirdly, something to which I have already referred - size. This has two aspects; carrying the bulk and weight of an SLR and a brace of lenses on a hot day is not something I enjoy. Then there is the reaction of somebody who has a large black thing with a 72mm diameter barrel pointed at them. It is hard to do so un-noticed, and once noticed the very presence of an SLR can change the dynamics of the scene that you wanted to capture. A rangefinder is usually much smaller; both less obtrusive and less threatening. In the case of a small LTM "Barnack" camera (so named after it's designer) the reaction, if noticed at all, is more often curiosity or amusement - a much more photogenic result.

Enough of the physical aspects. One of the main reasons I take photos is simply because I enjoy doing so. It is simultaneously a creative and relaxing pursuit. I learned long ago the hard way that if I use a camera I don't feel comfortable with the end results will be lacklustre. I don't have to do this for a living so I have the luxury of choice. To me, using a rangefinder is instinctive, fun and tactile. Most Leicas work well for me in that respect. There are a few that don't, for one reason or another, and good as they may be it rules them out for me as day-to-day tools to use and enjoy. Later LTM cameras, that have the view- and rangefinder windows close together are one example. At the other extreme lies the M8. The benefits of digital are outweighed by the brick-like handling among other things.

Does using a rangefinder make me a better photographer? No, of course not. But it does make me enjoy the process of photography more, in the same way that using a fountain pen or a good quality propelling pencil makes writing more pleasurable than does a ballpoint. Both are capable of being used to capture thought and expression, but one is much more enjoyable to use than the other. For me, the pencil/pen analogy is a good one; the rangefinder camera is a bit old-fashioned, but it's use makes me more considered and measured. Just as my handwriting is better with a fine writing instrument, so my photography flows better with a rangefinder.

Sometimes it is not just about the end result - sometimes the journey - and how you make it - is of equal importance.

Bill

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.
- Is someone who doesn't like having their picture taken photo-sensitive...?

Photo Analysis

2009-06-19T17:49:00.006+01:00

No, I'm not going to write about the aesthetics of photography, about the rule of thirds or any other form of compositional criticism. The "photo analysis" to which I refer is the extent to which you can get inside a photographer's state of mind from the images they capture.

Of course it isn't quite as simple as that... there are a number of "gates" through which the photographer's images must pass before they are available to us for analysis. First, they have to survive "first view" - that's the first time the photographer sees his baby and has a chance to decide whether he likes it or not. In this digital age, first view is often on a small screen on the back of the camera. The more impulsive photographer may jab the delete button there and then - a beginner's mistake if ever there was one. The more considered (For which usually read "experienced" photographer knows better, and will view his outputs calmly some time after the event. The distance of time and space should enable him to be more objective in his editing.

The next big gate is "first edit"- of the images taken at the time, only some will be regarded by the photographer as good enough to be seen by the outside world. The third and final gate is "last edit". This is the big one - which images tell the story, how many should be shown and in what order? Whether a single shot, a tryptich or a complete photo-essay, whether a macro shot of a bug or a happy family snap the weeding process is essentially the same.

Some photographers self-edit very well. They understnd and appreciate that "less is more". Others hold the opposite view. They present an optic-nerve numbing parade of dismally monotonous shots that leave the viewer contemplating feigning death as a means of escape. A few years ago this involved sitting on the sofa at somebody's house with an album balanced on your knees (happy snapper) or a slide show ("advanced" amateur) popping in front of you. Now the bores can invade your desktop and your home via the medium of the internet and photo gallery and sharing sites such as Flickr. I'm not blaming the medium, by the way - it is a tool that can be abused like any other.

So. After all that, we have an image, or better a set of images, to assess. They can immediately communicate to us where the photographer was, how much freedom of movement he had, even, to an extent, how tall he is. To a lesser extent we can deduce what interests him, at least by way of subject matter. And here is where the fun starts. Of course some subjects, and the photographers' treatment of them, are more revealing than others. It is hard to get inside a photographers' head looking at still-life close-ups of flowers (a notable exception being the output of Mapplethorpe, of course - using a young man's bottom as a vase for a lily is a bit of a dead giveaway as to the inner workings of the image-taker).

People shots provide the best material, in my experience. Preferably of the candid, unposed variety. They give us two shots at the photographer's psyche. Firstly in his treatment of his subjects - is he sympathetic (think Doisneau) or aggressive (think Wingogrand) or disdainful (think Parr)? Does he empathise wih his subjects, or treat them as objects? Does he engage, or observe? Secondly is his subjects reaction to being photographed. Are they aware or unaware? If the former, what is their reaction? The way they react - the way they look - can speak volumes as to their feeling about the lens and more significantly the man behind it. Do they feel threatened or flattered? Are they relaxed or tense? Or resentful?

The photographer's "use" of people in a shot is also quite telling. Are they the subject, or an afterthought? Do they form part of a cohesive composition or do they appear uncomfortably out of place? There's no right or wrong here - only the chance to tap into the man (or woman) behind the lens.

It's a powerful tool, that transcends intent and reaches into the subconscious.

Consider this image:

...or this one:

...or indeed this:

I took them all, within a six week period, along with others that are similar in tone and theme. When I took them, in my mind, I was simply experimenting. The open door or portal motif that features in each one, together with the solitary but unrecognisable figure in the middle distance evolved rather than my setting up each shot.

Months after I took, and displayed them, mixed in with other shots, another photographer made the connection and linked them together in his mind and through his perceptive comments, in my own. He said that, to him at least, the images spoke of isolation, of alienation and of a journey, or a rite of passage - through the portal to somewhere else. At the time I was in a period of transition in my life and many of the themes that he felt came to him through the images were exactly in tune with my feelings at the time.

Once I realised this, I looked again at images I had captured at various times in my life, and "linked" them to how I was feeling at the time. The images took on a new and very personal dimension as I realised that the lens was not just pointing at the subject, but was also focussing on me.

It doesn't always work. If you go out, for example, to shoot a simple subject- vintage cars at a show, for instance, there is little of you to be "seen" in the resulting images. People shots are best, as I have already opined, and particularly "street" photography, like the shots above; you are more "in the zone" when taking shots like this. The "higher brain" is bypassed, and the "monkey brain" - that primative sub-cortex that has been with us since trees were desirable residences - takes over the shutter button.

Don't take my word for it - give it a try... you may learn something about yourself.

Bill

--o-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission.
- I'm just a bloke with a blog who takes pictures... if you disagree with any of what I write that's fine by me.

It's not a team sport, is it?

2009-06-17T20:13:00.005+01:00

It never fails to amaze me when I see those advertisements for photo holidays. Go off to some gorgeous location with all your kit and learn from some Jedi Master the art of landscape photography in the company of a dozen total strangers. Perhaps it's me, but I can think of nothing less likely to put me into the zone, at one with my surroundings and the scene before me, than a tripod turf fight with some chap wielding a Canon and a bobble hat.

It's not snobbery - it's a genuine, heartfelt belief that photography is, for the most part, a solitary pastime. I don't mean the "we're-having-a-great-time-on-holiday-go-on-take-a-picture" type of photography - I mean the "I'm-out-to-capture-something-special" stuff.

Now, any photographer who comes as one of a pair, or part of a family, is well aware that he cannot just put himself into the zone and snap away oblivious of the partner beside him or the pushchair in front. He has duties, obligations and responsibilities. He must curb his creative streak until he has the opportunity to focus, in both senses of the word, without irritating anyone else.

When I've been on a trip with a wife or partner, I have always patiently explained that, yes, I love you, yes, I would rather still be in bed, no, I don't need you to come with me, no, I won't be long, yes, I'll be careful as I head out of the hotel room at 7:30AM to capture city X as it wakes up. I have subsequently gone on to explain that no, I am not religious, but cathedrals are very photogenic, and yes I really do need to sit this way around at the pavement cafe so that I can snap the world going by, because people with shopping bags are interesting.

When I've been alone, I have walked around for as long as I have wanted, I have stopped where I want, for as long as I want, and I have not had to explain a single one of my actions. I have pondered angles of view, and lens choices, and "worked" a scene for minutes on end until I have achieved the result I wanted. Nobody to hurry me, none of that silent prickling at the back of my neck because she has walked on 50 yards and I haven't... yet...

Loved-up or lonely? You decide...

Now, I bet you are expecting me now to offer some great insight as to which is "better" - solitary snapping or partnered photography. Well, I've looked at my outputs from periods of my life when I have been in one state or the other and I can honestly say it isn't quite that simple. Generally, my output is more colourful, more, dare I say - cheerful - when I am loved up. When I'm on my own, I tend to take bleaker, but more "complex" images. Do my outputs reflect my state of mind, and the amount of metal on the third finger of my left hand? Probably. Which would I rather be?

Happy.

Wouldn't you?

Of course there is a happy medium, and it is up to you to strike it. Finding a partner who understands your need to not be dragged over to look in the shoe shop window just as you see the perfect street drama unfolding before you is a photographic skill not to be underestimated. Better yet, find one that shares your interest without crowding you and you have it made.

Hold on - perhaps I have got those photographic holidays all wrong... perhaps they are actually hotbeds of coupling and steamy, no-holds-barred monopod-munching as libidinously lusty lens-wielding Leicaphiles get it on with buxom Olympians in the certain knowledge that they have met their soul mates and can double-expose together in perfect harmony for years to come...

The mind boggles...

Bill

--0-O-o--

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission
- What was the best thing before sliced bread?

As if...

2009-06-12T19:28:00.005+01:00

I went out today and shot a couple of rolls of film. Nothing special, just street shots. People going about their daily lives, in public. I didn't get arrested this time, but since the Anti-Terrorism (Enhanced Powers) Act of 2011 I know that I, and others like me, are on borrowed time.

*steps out of time machine*

Scary thought, isn't it? being treated like a criminal for doing something harmless.

Thing is, it's happening today. Tourists being told to delete their photos of bus stations, parents being told that they can't take photos of their own children in public, photojournalists being held without charge for doing their jobs, and of course it is now "illegal" to photograph a policeman in the performance of his duties.

Where did it all go wrong?

As usual, there is no one answer. The horror of 9/11 and the resultant increase in vigilance against terrorism is one contributory factor. The public paranoia about paedophilia is another. A third is the spread of sites such as Flickr, Facebook and MySpace - the fear these days is not just that your photo will be taken but that it will be posted on the internet.

So what?

In the UK at least:

You do not have copyright in your own image.
You do not have a right to privacy in a public place.

It's as simple as that.

Don't get me wrong - there is an etiquette to these things. I detest the working style of someone like Wingogrand, for example, who dehumanises his subjects with an in-yer-face approach and a blast of flash. How many frightened rabbits does he want to catch, I wonder? You must have respect for your subjects. That does not necessarily mean asking everyone in a street cafe if you can take their picture, but it does mean that you do not disturb them by your actions. You can achieve this in one of two ways - discretion, and permission - either works, depending on the circumstances; there is no right or wrong answer on this one.

Thing is, the photographer is an easy target - mooching around, laden down with apparatus, "acting suspiciously". The Police Community Support Officer, or PCSO appears particularly partial to a bit of hassling - at least, most of the recent complaints have involved a PCSO rather than a "real" copper. I suppose that it is easier to pick on a middle-aged bloke with a big gadget bag than the group of half a dozen hoodies across the road...

If challenged, by a member of the public or a member of the public in a stab vest (a PCSO) always stay calm. Explain what you are doing and why. Remember that attitude goes a long way to determining outcome, so if you come across as friendly and open, this will often defuse any hostility. If you are being threatened by a member of the public remove yourself from the situation if you can and/or call the police. If you are being detained by a PCSO or police officer, make sure you make a note of badge numbers and their stated reason for stopping you. Remember that a PCSO has no right to know your name, and can only detain you for 30 minutes or until a proper police officer arrives. Above all, remember that nobody has the right to confiscate your equipment, memory cards or film, and nobody has the right to ask - or force - you to delete or destroy your images.

Finally, not all PCSOs are part of the problem - this cheery pair were content to pose for me in central London not that long ago - after I had chatted to them of course...

--o-O-o--

Bill

- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission
- You know you are getting older when your kids tell you the police are looking younger

Less is more

2009-06-11T19:31:00.011+01:00

It strikes me as I get older that I am carrying less and less by way of camera kit when I go out. Of course when I were a lad I thought nothing of swinging a dirty great LowePro Magnum from one shoulder all day, laden with a couple of bodies, half a dozen lenses, flash, film, notebook, pen, cuddly toy, decanter and glasses, etc. I would yomp over hill and dale, and return home having burned a roll or three, mostly with a single lens and a single body.

There are still occasions to this day when I will go out loaded for bear. The most recent was a Sealed Knot event to which I took:

Digital SLRs - 1
Film SLRs - 1
Digital Compacts - 1
Thumping great fast tele zoom - 1
Almost equally heavy fast standard zoom - 1
50mm lens - 1
1.4x teleconverter - 1
Monopod - 1

Total focal length covered - 24- 560mm

I used the lot, one way and another, although the long setup got the most use because the action was so far away (Did you know that a pike is 16ft long? The crowd is kept at least that far back, just in case one topples...)

For those (k)not in the know, by the way, the Sealed Knot is a bunch of English Civil War re-enactors. They take it all frighteningly seriously, and seem to have a thoroughly good time along the way.

But I digress...

These days my preference is to carry something like a D-Lux 4 or a Leica II, that fits in a pocket or small bag, and can be carried all day, even at my ever-advancing years, without feeling it. The practical aspect is obvious - and my chiropractor approves.

But there is another force at work. Because I carry less, I work harder, look harder. Because I look harder I see more. Because I see more, my hit rate has increased. Oh, not by much, but by enough to notice. The shotgun has been replaced by the target pistol, the bludgeon by the rapier.

Have you ever watched one of those chop-socky movies where the baddie whirls around like a manic Magimix for a few moments then the hero fells him with a single, languid move? That's the effect I'm aiming for.

I'd rather be old and cunning than young and random, anyday.

Bill

--o-O-o--

- All views expressed are my own, even the interesting ones
- All images on this blog are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any format or medium without permission
- Marmite and malt-loaf do not mix

The Indecisive Moment

2009-06-08T13:55:00.006+01:00

In the world of photography, there are some names that stand head and shoulders above the rest. Capa, McCullin, Parkinson, Karsh, Atget, Salgado... Asked to name ten famous photographers any snapper worth their developer will be able to do so without batting an eyelid. The list will vary from person to person, mirroring their likes and dislikes. Ansel Adams is famous, for instance, but I find his images - and his writing - as interesting as watching yogurt ferment and he would not feature on mine.

If I were a betting man, I would say that the name that would appear most frequently is Henri Cartier-Bresson. There is a whole lot of myth and malarky around the tall, well-heeled Frenchman who "invented" the Decisive Moment. Did he or didn't he crop? Did he or didn't he only use a 50mm lens? Some "get" his work, others find it trite, but there is no doubting his impact. I'll wager that any given weekend worldwide hundreds of thousands of photographers go out with one aim in view - to capture their very own Decisive Moment on film (or SD card if that is what floats your boat). There are many more who, once the shutter is pressed, look at the results with the quiet satisfaction of having "nailed it" - there in their hand is their very own slice of time.

But what is that moment, and what makes it decisive? Is there a purity to being in just the right place at the right time - a nobility of spirit and purpose that comes together at the split second of pressing the shutter? Or is that bollocks? Which is nobler? The chap walking around with a screwmount Leica - older than he is, and carrying the patina of tens of years of use, relying on his reflexes to capture the peak of the action - or the man with the state of the art DSLR complete with movie mode, who hoses the action and later, in the privacy of his own lightroom, slices the best image from a hundred thousand others?

Does it matter?

The two approaches are poles apart. The two hypothetical individuals have as much in common as a pikeman and a machine gunner. But they are both after the end result. Both can achieve that result - does the means matter, or just the end?

I'll put my stake firmly in the ground - I'd rather be carrying the Barnack than the bazooka. Part of the pleasure for me comes from achieving more with less. The sense of achievement that comes from getting that shot, knowing that I have captured it through my own reflexes, hand to eye co-ordination and vision, rather than setting a course on the bridge of the starship Canon is part of the pleasure.

Consider this shot. I took it as an entry for a competition. The theme was "The Decisive Moment". I went out with a Barnack Leica with a single aim in view - to capture that elusive slice of time. I came across this street entertainer and burned a roll of film on his antics.

As I worked I repositioned myself to get the best background, and the best view of the action. As I realised what he was planning to do - to throw his hat from his foot and catch it on his head - the statue to the left of the shot suddenly became important - as much a part of the composition as the street performer himself.

It took him three goes to get the hat from foot to head - therefore I had three "decisive moments" to choose from. This is the second of his - our - three attempts, and the only one in which all the elements - for both him and me - came together.

You don't always get time to prepare.

You don't always get a second chance.

...or a third.

Is this a "Decisive Moment"? Enough others thought so for me to win the competition. Was I proud of it? Yes, for I had captured the image with just my reflexes and a basic camera. Could I have taken the same shot with a DSLR? Of course I could. But it would not have been so satisfying. Did I cheat? Ah - there's the question. By having a number of attempts to "practice" on, you could argue that hitting the sweet spot was that much easier for me. Practice makes perfect, after all. No. I don't think I cheated. I still had to get it right, and on another day I may have just produced something worthy of the bin.

I don't want to be HCB.

But it's nice when it all comes together.

Bill

--o-O-o--

You can see a larger version of this image here: Decisive Moment

D-Lux 4 and Beyond....

2009-06-05T15:58:00.008+01:00

I'll start this blog with a review. Please don't think that this is going to just be another review microsite - oh no... I intend to cover a range of subjects in future, that will all have one thing in common - they interest me. But I have been meaning to publish my thoughts on this for some time, and there is no time like the present.

--o-0-o--

I have had a Leica D-Lux 4 since Christmas (2008) and very happy with it I am too. It follows both the Panasonic FX-1 and FX-2 as my carry-around digital and improves significantly on both in terms of image quality and handling. Since I have large hands I have added the Leica Grip to the base of my D-Lux - something you cannot do with the Panasonic FX-3 and a boon to handling. Combined with a simple wrist-strap (in my case an old Olympus one) it enables secure and stable one-handed operation.

D-Lux 4 with Leica Grip:

Now, I am not an accessoriser by nature, or just for the sake of it - I seldom wear a tie these days. But the ability of the D-Lux 4 to take an an adaptor ring on the front, which in turn allows the mounting of tele- and wideangle converters adds to it's flexibility. The trade off of having a wider, faster (24-60mm f2.0) lens than it's predecessors is that it runs out of reach at the top end. so far I have got around this by the simple expedient of carrying another camera - in my case a Canon G7 with the RAW hack. This has some advantages - not least being a general backup - but there are times when I would like to just carry one camera, one lens and work in a simple and uncluttered manner.

My first buy was an adaptor. The Pandabase LA-PLX3 to be exact.

This is a well-made, black anodised tube, with a 46mm female thread on one (the camera) end and a 52mm female thread on the other. It is provided with a robust 52mm snap-cap and a cap-keeper thread. I quickly dispensed with that last - I hate such things and would rather buy a new cap than have it flap around when I am trying to shoot. It is fitted to the D-Lux-4 by removing the black ring on the front around the lens then screwing it to the threads thus revealed.

Once fitted, the Pandabase adaptor is secure and solid, and provides a decent grip for two-handed shooting. In fact, this setup together with the grip makes the D-Lux 4 feel much more like a larger and more substantial camera. The adaptor alone provides other benefits too - it protects the lens once extended from accidental knocks, and at the 60mm end acts as an effective lens shade. I have added to the front a 52mm sky filter for added protection from dust and grimy fingers.

When not in use the Pandabase adaptor, together with a 46mm snap-cap forms a suitable home for my Leitz SBOOI 50mm viewfinder. This viewfinder approximates the field of view of the 60mm lens very well, and is a real boon to anyone who wants to use the camera at full-tele in bright sunny conditions, or simply not rely on the rear display to compose.

So. As already mentioned, the one real drawback of the D-Lux 4 is that it runs out of steam at the tele- end. There are a number of "teleconverters" available through eBay and the like, so I decided to spend the princely sum of nineteen pounds to get hold of one.

The Fujiyama 2.5x Teleconverter is a substantial item, weighing roughly as much as the D-Lux alone. It comes with a rear screw cap,a front push-on cap and a faux suede pouch. It appears well-made and mounts readily to the front of the Pandabase adaptor, adding significantly to the bulk and heft of the camera. By it's nature it is totally useless at the wideangle end, vignetting to the point of providing an interesting circular image.

It is clearly designed only to be used at 60mm, giving, in theory, a 150mm tele equivalent.

Where the wheels come off the wagon is in the results that this combination delivers. Welcome to my "test rose" in my back garden. I'd like to tell you that I have grown it specifically for this purpose but I would be lying like a cheap Swiss watch if I did. Suffice to say that it kept still long enough to be a subject for this test. I altered the camera to subject difference to keep the bloom approximately the same size in each image. No Photoshop changes have been made.

Without teleconverter:

With teleconverter:

100% crop without teleconverter:

100% crop with teleconverter:

Now, I freely admit that I am not a professional reviewer, but I think the results speak for themselves. In a simple test (I have only reproduced one set of results here, for the sake of space and brevity) - believe me the results were consistent - the Fujiyama degrades the image noticably. Apart from a touch of fuzziness there is a colour shift that may or may not show up on your monitor, but is clearly present.

Conclusion - reluctantly - is that, in very simple terms, you gets what you pays for. If you put a £19.00 adaptor on the front of a £600.00 camera you will get £19.00 worth of results. In other words, avoid. There may well be better teleconverters out there - in fact I dont doubt that there are - but this is a lemon of the first order, not even fit for use in a jug of cheap sangria. I'll continue to use the Pandabase adaptor - a simple, elegant and effective add-on that earns it's keep- but for now at least if I want more reach I'll continue to carry a second body.

Bill

--o-0-o--

Notes:

This review has been updated on the 11th June with new test shots.

All images shot on D-Lux 4 with add-on equipment as specified.

No D-Lux 4s were harmed in the making of this review.

To see larger versions of all these images and others please visit: Review Images

All images are copyright Bill Palmer and may not be reproduced in any form without permission.