Recently in Photography Category

Got this via Presentation Zen, Ken Burns talks about the power of still photographs. He also tells of his meeting with Steve Jobs where they discuss the using of his name for the Ken Burns Effect. Fun excerpt.

I've be troubled lately around my photography. Frustrated really. Since I've moved over to digital, I've felt little creative energy to shoot outside of action photography, where digital really shines. All the auto settings and ISO flexibility offer few constraints. I find I just point and shoot with little to no thought involved. And I take too many photos that have to be culled through. Boring.

I caught this blurb on the Aperture blog recently:

I still love the instant gratification a digital camera gives me, but the images for some reason are just not that interesting to me at the moment. ...So one night, I woke up and had the thought, “why don’t I just shoot some film and have some fun?” This was of course immediately followed by the thought, “How the hell would I do that?” ...So, I sat there and wondered about it for a while. What camera would I use? What type of film? Do they even make the film I used to use anymore?

I can totally relate. After my photo workshop last year where we were shooting 4 x 5 negatives, my interest in film was rekindled. But having never shot medium/large format before, I was at a loss as to where to start. So, I sat on my butt. Recently, several friends have been fueling my inspiration to getting back out there and shooting film. I just dusted off the old 35mm Nikon. The view finder is glorious (bright and large) compared to my digital. I also ordered a cheap 50mm prime and will start shooting some black & white.

I've also started exploring range finder cameras like the Leica M series. Not only are they beutiful from an industrial design perspective, they're simple as hell from a UI perspective. Tried as I might, I couldn't find a digital camera as beautifully designed and simple as a Leica (aside from a Leica M8 which still needs some improving). Why is that? Do photographers really need the hundreds of features in a typical digital SLR? Interacting with all those menus drives me crazy. In any event, I've never shot with range finders and I'd like to start. So, I might see about picking up some sort of 35mm range finder at some point.

Then there's medium format which I've never shot. A friend is going to introduce me to some of the Mamiya cameras. I'd like to experiment with them a bit. Finally, in the fall I'm going to start taking some classes at Photographic Center Northwest. Todd said it's the best way to get out there shooting regularly. Anyone care to join me for Black & White 1?

I've been an Alan Taylor fan as far back when I met him back at Amazon. He was one of the great web developers we had on the staff. About a month ago he launched The Big Picture, a photo blog covering various news events visually with photos versus news articles. It's a great site.

Alan was just interviewed on Waxy.org. If you're interested in learning more about his photo project, it's an interesting read. A few excerpts:

The blog really launched on June 1st (I had a few earlier posts, but hadn't opened it up yet). In its first 20 days of existence, it's almost reached 1.5 million pageviews and over 1,500 comments for just 20 entries. It's also brought out a lot of emotion — commenters can really go crazy on some of these entries. It adds to the mix, that's for sure.

... I had a lot of friends who looked at me like i was crazy when I joined the Boston Globe a few years ago. But it's precisely this sort of opportunity I was hoping for. The access to great storytelling resources, a great platform, and the ability to contribute to that, albeit in a more technical role.

I keep track of camera comparisons via Ken Rockwell. Though, he's a "Nikon guy" so his Canon versus Nikon comparisons are naturally biased towards Nikon. Duncan Davidson pointed to a Canon guy's review of the new Nikon D3 and D300. The most interesting quote...

A friend once said to me that Canons are the best cameras available designed by engineers, and that Nikons are the best cameras one can buy designed by photographers. There may well be some truth to this aphorism.

Lot's more interesting points. Especially liked his comments on sensor size versus noise. A great article if you're looking for detailed comparison between the two systems.

Photos with narration via the NYT on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Strong images, sad tale.

According to the NYTs, the costs of archiving films made digitally are huge.

To store a digital master record of a movie costs about $12,514 a year, versus the $1,059 it costs to keep a conventional film master.

Much worse, to keep the enormous swarm of data produced when a picture is “born digital” — that is, produced using all-electronic processes, rather than relying wholly or partially on film — pushes the cost of preservation to $208,569 a year, vastly higher than the $486 it costs to toss the equivalent camera negatives, audio recordings, on-set photographs and annotated scripts of an all-film production into the cold-storage vault.

...the hardware and storage media — magnetic tapes, disks, whatever — on which a film is encoded are much less enduring than good old film. If not operated occasionally, a hard drive will freeze up in as little as two years. Similarly, DVDs tend to degrade: according to the report, only half of a collection of disks can be expected to last for 15 years...

I remember during my photo workshop last Spring, the instructor (who uses large format film cameras) spent lots of time poo-pooing digital cameras. He said people run around taking pictures like chickens (snapping without thinking). He also mentioned, file formats and storage mechanisms are always changing. Ten years from now, you might not be able to open the photos you've taken today. Still have your floppy, Iomega and Syquest drives? I still have the discs around but the drives are long gone. Yes, film degrades in about 100 years. But it is a very high quality storage vehicle. Now it looks like it may be far more inexpensive than digital equivalents--at least for the time being.

From a teaching perspective, digital is absolutely the way to go. You get immediate feedback on your work. But in terms of picture quality, I find I'm more consistently impressed by film images scanned and uploaded to Flickr than those taken from digital cameras. For me, it's mostly better composition. Also, sometimes digital photos are too over sharpened for my taste. These both apply for my own digital photos.

For 2008, there will be less equipment purchases for me. I've decided I want to focus more on image quality. I'm going to start to experiment with lighting and really learning how to use my existing equipment. I'd also like to do some experiments with medium and large format cameras. I'll report on my adventures.

Damn, the Canon 5D seems the sharpest of the bunch.

Interesting piece by photo journalist Jim Lo Scalzo.

I'm always interested in photojournalists stories which is why I rented The Devil Came on Horseback. But the tragedy about Darfur quickly overtook the photography in the story. One interesting thing they did in the film was use real NPR/press reports about Darfur as narration for sections of the film. Incredibly different seeing images attached to the reports. Makes it impossible to ignore.

It's not a fun subject to watch, but as a world citizen, it's important to learn about.

I didn't expect this. I thought Apple had a lot more penetration with pro photographers.

Aperture Vs. Lightroom: What Do the Pros Use?: "John Nack on a survey of 1,026 professional photographers in North America regarding their RAW processing software:

66.5% using the Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in
23.6% using Lightroom
5.5% using Aperture"

(Via Daring Fireball.)