Mike Broadway – PhotoBlog

The Temporary Mark Of Civilization,, Second Visit - Bull Creek, Austin

I took stock of my Nikon glass a couple of weeks back and recognized a serious lack of imagination in which lenses I choose to use. My full bag has contained the same optics for the last seven or eight years but one of them has been the overlooked step child virtually since the day it was purchased. On paper I can cover the full range from 18mm to 300mm (FX equivalent), everything a typical landscape photographer might wish for. In practice, the 12-24mm F4 DX lens rarely got to experience the fresh air outside of its pouch.

The 70-200mm VR is saddled up for abstracted distant horizon landscapes, cloudscapes and the rare rock festival; maybe accounting for 20 or 25 percent of the shots I have taken since it was obtained. But it is the thoroughly plastic and slightly wobbly 18-70mm that has hogged the driving seat of my D300, only giving up its place when forced to. Now, the 18-70mm is not a bad lens; it is great for a day walking around Santa Fee (for example) without triggering back ache in the evening, but it has become a bad habit. A lazy habit.

So two weeks ago I made a point of starting my visit to the drought dry bed of Bull Creek, Austin, with the wide angle on the camera. I kept it there for all but a handful of shots where a six inch deep, twenty foot wide, “puddle” kept me too far from my subject. Today I went back to the same location, under the gray clouds of another failed promise of rain, to shoot the same scene in low contrast light instead of the high contrast bleach out of the first occasion. The puddle has gone the way of all the other water in Texas and the 12-24mm was the only glass I used.

I love this lens. Why on earth I have I left it in the bag all these years? I knew it was a quality design when I paid for it; why haven’t I use it more? Well, that won’t be a problem from now on. At this rate, I may have to rediscover the mid range in a couple of years.

Behind us, Arboretum, Austin

If I can escape from the house early enough, my favorite thing to do on a Sunday morning is to get to the nearby Starbucks or La Madeleine, before the crowds, to drink coffee and read without the threat of interruption from high school math or physics homework questions. Usually, I throw the Panasonic GF1 into the book bag so that I won’t regret a missed opportunity for a photograph.

We come to greet you, Arboretum, Austin

The surreal and sometimes sinister quality of store windows around the Arboretum area of Austin has long been a draw to me and this morning’s high contrast morning sun brought out a new twist in their potential for interpretation. It seemed as though the aliens from some 1950’s fanzine cover had been caught hiding in plain sight, observing the humans passing by from behind the glass.

Reach, Arboretum, Austin

The GF1 is both perfect and frustrating in these circumstances. Perfect for being small and at hand, frustrating for the lack of detail in the viewfinder – “is the mannequin’s foot in the frame or not?” It was hard to be sure. I was happy enough with the view finder when I first obtained the camera but now, in the knowledge that the state of the art in EVFs has moved rapidly and far forward, I am less forgiving. On the other hand, the image quality produced by the GF1 and 20mm lens is most satisfactory.

We stand ready, Arboretum, Austin

Still Death, Bull Creek, Austin

I read Kirk Tuck’s post on The Online Photographer today in which he described his experiences writing what sounded to be the perfect photography blog, The Visual Science Lab. By perfect I mean that it is exactly the kind of blog that I want to read where gear comes second to the process and inspiration for making photographs. So I followed the link and started to scan the page.

I must have been living under the proverbial rock! Not only is it indeed the kind of blog that I want to read but the man lives in my town. Today’s post on using the Nikon V1 is illustrated with images from the 5th and Lamar neighborhood that I work in, and his text is litered with references to places and events I know.

Kirk Tuck likes the V1 too and that makes me feel smarter for sticking up for it. It’s hard not to like someone that makes you feel smarter :-)

The Visual Science Lab will join The Online Photographer as part of my daily fare.

A Small Window Of Opportunity, Laguna Gloria, Austin

Back in September I dissed Sony for their historically poor interface design while wondering if the NEX-7 might stretch my loyalty to Panasonic and Micro 4/3 for street camera work. Since then both Michael Reichmann (of Luminous Landscape fame) and Steve Huff have written strong reviews / previews of the NEX-7. Of the handling, Steve Huff’s video review described the camera as “about damn near perfect” so it appears that I may owe Sony an apology.

Where Michael Reichmann only had a two days or so with a pre-production model, Steve Huff has had the camera for a couple of weeks and has written an extensive report complete with 18 minute video covering the camera’s controls. His conclusions after real world use are a half notch down from “near perfect” to “it’s damn good” coupled with “All in all, this is a killer camera system and the NEX line has now matured into a camera that most of us have been asking for over the past 2-3 years.”

Huff and Reichmann are much better qualified to write about cameras than I am so I recommend that you follow the links read what they have to say.

It will be least three months before I will be in a position to upgrade my GF1 so Panasonic still has a window of time in which to counter Sony’s seductive call. Sadly, the strong rumor is that the GX1 (or GF Pro) to be announced (maybe) this Friday will not have a built in viewfinder à la NEX-7. It will (they say) have a low noise 16 mega pixel sensor and an optional 1.4 mega pixel attachable finder. Sony’s 24 mega-pixels in a APC sized sensor does seem to have sacrificed some high ISO noise quality so Panasonic has probably made the right decision there (especially for the smaller 4/3 silicon) but the lack of a built in viewfinder feels like a huge mistake. The extra mega pixel of resolution in Sony’s finder is not to be sneezed at either.

See 4/3 Rumors (ignore the fake picture) and Pocket-lint for more details on the GX1 rumors.

Sidewalk Satellites

“Don’t look down!” is a cliché of Holywood and TV thriller dialog from Hitchcock’s Vertigo, to Shrek, to Dr Who. It’s not bad advice when you are crossing a busy street at rush hour either. But if you do look down when you walk the streets of a city you find new landscapes for the imagination every 20 feet.

By the strange math of fractals, a crack in the concrete is indistinguishable from a satellite photo of a rift valley. The spray paint markings of utility repair surveyors are the crop circle communication of aliens preparing to invade. A piece of string or wire echoes the lines of a Miro painting.

Modernist and minimalist painters have given our minds permission to see the ground under our feet as athestic forms. Post modern philosphers and semioticians have retrained us so see signs with double and triple meaning, to read it all as quotes and opportunities for deconstruction.

Viewed with an open mind, the sidewalk we cross to reach our morning Starbucks fix becomes a source of beauty and pleasure.

Wounded, Laguna Gloria, Austin

Wikipedia, in a nice turn of phrase, describes Sturm und Drang as an 18th Century German artistic movement in which:

“individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment.”

The Sturm und Drang in the photographic world this week has been over the announcement of the Nikon 1 System, Nikon’s entry into the the mirrorless interchangeable lens camera (ILC) battleground. Enthusiast photographers have reacted en masse with disappointment, horror, derision, despair, disgust, a resounding collective raspberry and predictions of the fall of Nikon. The sensor is smaller than they expected, the lens apertures are slower than they wanted, and there are not enough buttons and wheels – no M, P, S, A dial. Clearly, they say, Nikon missed the mark and missed badly.

But hold the phone. Did Nikon really tie on a blind fold and jump off a cliff?

All this negativity reminds me of the reaction of some of my fellow software developers to the original iPad launch; they wanted all the bells and whistles of their Mac Book Pros in a compact tablet form factor and therefore considered the iPad a failure and a lost opportunity. I thought that they had missed the point; we all know how it turned out. Apple understood that the market for the iPad was not professional software technologists, and Nikon understands the that the high volume, high profit market segment for mirrorless ILCs is not enthusiasts looking for a second camera.

I, an enthusiast, complained recently about the lack of an upgrade path from my Panasonic GF1 / Leica M9 surrogate, the ultimate cause of which is that Panasonic is prioritizing the same market that Nikon is aiming for. To wit, the much larger number of point-and-shoot users that hanker for something more capable without the perceived learning curve and bulk of an SLR. Nikon sees Panasonic, Olympus, Sony and Samsung threatening to take away its entry level SLR audience and it is fighting back with a camera that can take 60 frames a second and let you select the one keeper with the perfect smile. Eat that Cartier-Bresson!

Would I buy an Nikon V1 for myself? Probably not. Would I advise my dad to consider one? That’s a definite yes. Would I buy one for each of my artist daughters as a graduation present? I might well. The Nikon V1 looks to be a talented single shot camera with excellent video capabilities that will allow my non-expert but motivated family and friends to produce great photographs and movies. I might not purchase one for myself but I can think of a dozen people I could influence in that direction.

Thom Hogan, a well connected and insightful observer of Nikon developments, offered a balanced and detailed “Don’t Undersell What the Nikon 1 Can Do” commentary on his by thom site. And dpreview.com has offered an explanation for Why make a small-sensor mirrorless camera?, acknowledging that Nikon might perceive some good reasons to do so.

Meanwhile, what is an enthusiast to do? Thom Hogan has a quote for that too:

“Everyone’s looking for redemption in a new camera. The old ones work pretty well.”