photography

As Ben Goldacre has pointed out, programmes for nerds and those with nerdish tendencies, are few and far between on television. The same is true of photography. We live in an age where ownership of photographic tools is widespread.  Camera phones and compact digital cameras are ubiquitous. Many people don’t realise the degree to which, in terms of artistic capability, the type of camera is irrelevant. Good photos are good photos.

Chase Jarvis demonstrates this with his book of iPhone photography: The Best Camera is The One That’s with You (picked up on via Ken Rockwell). Most photographers, in my experience (I’m not a photographer, I’m a hobby master), use particular kit because it makes their job easier, but given a camera phone, or compact digital camera, will produce photographs with artistic merit. Because the greatest common factor between the camera phone or compact, and the professional kit, is the photographer. A pro may require particular professional kit to do their job, but without the underlying skill, it’s irrelevant.

Most, if not all, contemporary technology shows focus on the latest gadgets, rather than what people actually own. It would be a truly wonderful thing if there was a photography show that engages and interacts with an audience, with a particular emphasis on technology that everyone owns. I say interacts because a major part of the show could be viewer submitted pictures.

A magazine format hosted by people with a genuine interest in photography. The show could focus on things common to all photography: lighting, location, composition and colour. So it’s relevant to people regardless of the camera they own. Segments on things like The Rule of Thirds, how time of a day affects a photograph, etc., and, at the end of the show, solicit picture from viewers using things discussed in the programme. Using whatever they have at hand.

There could be segments on professional photography, and photographers. Giving viewers an insight into the world of professional photography. Covering things like fashion photography, commercial photography, wildlife photography, landscape photography, (s)urban photography, paparazzi celebrity photography, and so on. Even photographic history could be examined.

I don’t know, maybe I’m being all old fashioned and Reithian about it. It’d be perfect for the BBC. But I really hope someone commissions a show like that. I claim no ownership of the idea (take it! take it! I have about five to ten ideas a day), it seems obvious to me, and could be talking bollocks. It is, after all, the internet.

I had a few minutes spare. I used a Canon A590 IS and a Nikon D90, and took pictures of a small shrub.

I wanted to see how the pictures look in fully automatic mode, and then how the pictures look in each cameras Program mode. Program mode is often quite like Auto mode, with the exception that the camera operator can change the Exposure Compensation. Exposure Compensation is simple – it tells the camera to expose the image more or less.

In my experience the auto modes of many cameras over-expose the image. Leading to washed out colours and/or the brightest parts of the image becoming solid white.

All images featured in the post are exactly as from the camera, saved via Photoshop to save some bandwidth. Click on a image to see it full size.

Here’s the Auto Mode images from both cameras. They have EXIF data, which you can use to view the exact settings.

Canon A590 IS:

Nikon D90:

I think both images are a little washed-out, and far from optimal.

Here are the images taken with Program mode.

Canon A590 IS (P Mode, -1 exposure compensation):

Nikon D90 (P Mode, -2/3 exposure compensation):

The Canon shot is a bit too dark. That was my fault. -1 exposure compensation was a bit too much. I also think the camera chose the wrong aperture.

The next shot was taken with the Canon A590 IS in Aperture Priority Mode (-2/3 exposure compensation):

Conclusions:

There are several hundred dollars or pounds difference in the price of the Canon A590 IS and the Nikon D90.

In the above circumstances, taking five minutes to photograph a shrub, Auto Mode, for both cameras, produces a mediocre shot.

All beginners should learn how to use P-Mode with exposure compensation. Digital compact or DSLR.  They will produce some great shots with minimum effort.

All my cool photo friends are shooting medium and large format (film). I think I’m now reasonably competent with 35mm SLRs (sorry for not scanning pictures – I can’t be arsed), manual metering etc. – so – on an impulse (it seemed appropriate to bold that) I put a bid on a medium format camera on eBay. The canonical medium format camera (see note 1). Problem was/is that I can’t afford it without cutting back on food, bills, and other things that are generally considered necessary for life. I thought “what the hell! Fuck it, I’ll eat lentils for six months, food and social bollocks are overrated” (e.g. even more of a skinny, back pain ridden, asocial recluse).

The problem was that with eBay you enter the maximum you are prepared to bid. I looked up second hand prices etc. worked out the price somewhere in the lower quartile, and then did something really fucking stupid. I didn’t check the price before I bid. I missed a decimal place. I usually bid with a decimal like seven pence – meaning anyone going for the same price rounded loses. You cannot lower your maximum bid.

My bowels rumbled like the shockwave from a sonic boom, because it would mean borrowing money, from relatives, or banks, and I hate that. Or retracting the bid – which I didn’t want to do because it was still a reasonable price, and retracting a bid seemed a bit silly. Getting loans from banks these days is like getting an income tax rebate. That you have to pay back. With interest. (see note 2)

Luckily it seems medium format camera owners are right up there (down there?) with Leica owners, and someone outbid me. Remember no matter how much of a cunt you feel, there are always bigger cunts than you. That’s, after all, how babies are made. If I was outbid by Ken Rockwell, or people who I think are good, notable, or nice, I renounce the cunt bit.

So I put off getting a medium format camera until I can afford a cheap but reasonable one. I will eat.

Note 1: If any medium format camera manufacturers, or PR companies on their behalf, such as Mamiya, Hasselblad, Pentax, Alpa, Contax, or other, are willing to gift me a camera, we can come to some kind of arrangement. I’ll wear a t-shirt or something. Maybe have the company name tattooed on my knob, and do some tasteful self-shot artistic nudes (in black and white or sepia, and get a nose ring, so it’s art). This doesn’t apply to Seagull or Lomo cameras. Seagull are not awful, but Lomo users are the bizzaro world Leica owners.

Note 2: If any city fat cats want to feel less guilty about being partially responsible for the biggest financial crisis since the fall of communism (which didn’t affect us), and want to do something about your bad karma, see note 1 – minus the t-shirt, tattoo and the nudes. You’ve probably got a Hasselbad in the loft with loads of lenses, going unused – an unwanted stocking filler, or novelty item in banker’s Christmas crackers. Contact me, between bathing in poor peoples tears and eating ocelot.

CLICK HERE. Hull is near David Davis’ constituency.  Yet another innocent photographer been bothered by the police.  Labour – preventing terrorism by letting innocent photographers be hassled and intimidated by the police.  This is what Prime Minister Gordon Brown must of meant when he said  we need “21st century methods to deal with 21st century challenges”.  Hassling innocent photographers.  Look forward to a piece from David Aaronovitch defending this sort of thing, in the form of a “if you don’t want Nazis don’t vote for them” argument, that conveniently overlooks the way the Nazis seized power, in a blur of Brown nosing.  If you have UK citizenship Send David Davis money.  There’s PayPal – it takes less than ten minutes from start to finish.  There are very few politicians who’ll fight this sort of thing, much less any that would quit.  So it’s worth a few quid just to get the issues in the press.

Vote anyone but Labour or the BNP.  There is convergence in their attitudes towards policing.

Edit:

I’d just like to point out that this sort of thing isn’t the fault of the police.  The police enforce laws, they don’t create or regulate them.

APOLLO-11 Hasselblad cameras.

With that in mind:  Lunar Conspiracy &tc.  Didn’t people dress funny.  Look forward to nineties themed parties in seven years time.  If not already every Friday night in the provinces.

When you’ve been awake for quite some time, and the world is a bit weird, and your eyes are heavy, and you’re falling asleep, then waking, in quick jerks, like an insomniac baby, the last thing you want to do is blog. Sentences get out of hand. So I’m going to dedicate roughly, by which I mean exactly, one paragraph to blog posts I thought about writing but can’t be arsed. Although (in retrospect it’s easy) 2 is a bit more than one paragraph.

1. I’m prejudiced. Generally, when British talent goes to America, and achieves some kind of success, they become boring. But Russell Brand is an exception. Rather than go down the route of “I’m famous now, so I’ll play it safe”, he’s gone down the route of “I’m famous now, so I can say what I want”. In other words, he’s managed to stay funny in the face of success. Listen here. It’s very funny. Rather than ratcheting down he’s ratcheting up.
2. It annoys me when people knock vegetarians. I’m not a vegetarian. But I can understand it. The idea that there isn’t good vegetarian and vegan food is bullshit (for example see here and a lot of the world’s cuisine). I can buy the arguments about the efficiency of producing meat and its impact on the environment. It’s inefficient. But in terms of environmental impact – it’s not a uniquely meat problem, and it applies as much to produce in general. Moral objection to killing animals is reasonable. The health thing is debateable.
   But there are some smug vegetarians. I met one recently.
   They were also very smug about their bicycle. Their poop smells probably smells worse than mine. I expect they get less constipation because of the high fibre associated with a vegetarian diet. I bet they feel smug about that too. So I hope they inexplicably get hemorrhoids. And the road is really bumpy when they’re out cycling.
   If they’re reading this, they probably realise, deep down, that their smuggery last week didn’t impress me.
3. I’ve got fuck-loads of lithium batteries in my bedroom. BP-511(s) (which all weigh around 80 grammes) , EN-EL3e(s) (inexplicably I didn’t weigh these) and some laptop ones (which I did weigh but I am too tired to remember the weight), If, after a day or two awake, you weigh batteries to make sure they weigh the same, you’ve gone wrong.
4. Minicab offices are fucked up. This would not be a paragraph if it wasn’t for this sentence and the next couple, in which I say why. They’re like doctor’s waiting rooms used to dealing with the best and worst of people, and everything in-between, like doctors, but without the medical training, and a propensity to smoke. There was a slot machine.

I’ve gotten into quite a few arguments about Scientology. Because, with a few caveats, I think adults should be able to spend their money on whatever they like and I think Scientology is a religion. As I outlined here. But now Scientology (or people acting in their name) have plumbed new depths of stupidity.

Do you remember the video of Tom Cruise (since hosted by Gawker here) that was removed from YouTube? The one that prompted global protests against Scientology?

A key point to remember here, the salient point, is that the removal of a newsworthy video sparked protest.

Well. The same thing has just happened to Mark Bunker of XenuTV fame (the guy that released the Jason Beghe video):

Mark Bunker’s statement.

I didn’t photograph the last anonymous protests in London because I had bad guts and third demonstrations are less interesting than first and second demonstrations. People are usually bored by the third demonstration (see second London demonstration pics by me here).

Removing Mark Bunker’s videos is an almost guaranteed way to reinvigorate the protests and bring in even more protestors.

Heck, even I feel like protesting (rather than just taking pictures) and I don’t even feel that strongly about Scientology. As for YouTube: This is yet another example of how they’ll cave in at the first opportunity rather than give their users the respect they deserve.

Web 2.0 is about making money from the talent of your users and showing them little or no respect over profits.

If this sort of thing is tolerated it could happen to you next. Send Mark Bunker’s video, as linked above, to people. They should know.

Check this link out. Then check out the prices below.

I heard an impassioned debate about those lens in a shop today. I don’t quite get it.

Last few weeks I’ve been doing some reading about photography and have had the pleasure of consulting a few experts. Pro-photographers, by and large, have a few requirements that casual(ish) photographers don’t have: specifically lens build quality, auto-focus speed/accuracy, and lens speed. If they miss a shot it costs them money and they operate in environments like sports venues, or hanging around waiting for some female celebrity’s tit to pop out. Ergo there is sound economic value in professionals spending upwards of £1000 on a lens.

In the world of home audio there are a group of people commonly referred to as audiophiles. Some audiophiles think things like $7250 audio cables produce higher quality audio than cables costing a fraction of the price. Even though it is highly improbable they do. Lenses can’t be directly compared to that situation, but there’s a point to be made nonetheless. With lenses things can be measured (see here). However, the real-world differences, on a standard sized photographic print, or even on a standard LCD monitor, may be difficult to distinguish unless the viewer is a photographer or familiar with the lens. Unless it’s a truly terrible lens.

For instance certain types of lens tend to have greater variance across price brackets. Often, but not always, the differences among zoom lenses are more apparent than fixed focal length lenses. Although that is a bit misleading: as ever the biggest factor in any photograph is what you are photographing. An interesting photograph taken with a mediocre lens is still interesting, while a boring photograph taken with an excellent lens is still boring. Fixed length lenses are interesting in terms of cost/performance.

Case in point 50mm prime (=fixed focal length) lens for Canon and Nikon digital SLRs (DSLRs). As looked at in the forum post linked above. Here’s the Canon prices:

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 MK II < £75
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM ~ £250
Canon EF 50mm f/1L USM ~ £1000

Here’s the Nikon prices:

Nikon AF 50mm f/1.8D ~ £80
Nikon AF 50mm f/1.4D ~ £250

The build quality between the cheap lenses and more expensive lenses is quite pronounced. Particularly with Canon’s F/1 from their top of the line L range. I question how many casual DSLR users require that sort of build quality. Ardent casual photographers may benefit from the lenses in the £250 bracket. But I question whether that is clear cut. If, at a guestimate, the cheaper lenses break twice as often as the ~£250 lenses, and presuming it happens outside of warranty (making lenses that often break down during the warranty period makes no sense) , buying another cheap lens (or even having a spare or two) works out cheaper than the original cost of buying the ~£250 lens. That’s a scenario, quite frankly, pulled out of my arse, but a big question is how often the cheaper lenses break down under the usage of an average DSLR owner. I don’t know. But I wouldn’t place a bet either way whether the cumulative life of three cheap lenses (costing less in total) would outlast the ~£250 lenses or vice versa. MTBF info and the like is difficult to find.

There is a stop difference between the ~£250 lenses and the cheap lenses. In some situations that could be the difference between a sharp shot and blurred shots in low light conditions. On the other-hand it’s an issue somewhat mitigated by camera burst mode and acceptable ISO-300+ exposures on DSLRs. The +3 stop images stabilization of newer Canon (IS) and Nikon (VR) shake reduction is an indication of what is considered significant in terms of gaining stops in the age of DSLR/sensor based photography.

So I guess it’s nice if you’ve got the spare cash, but to hear the argument I overheard today you’d think a lens was the only factor in taking a photo. I’m no expert, or even a serious amateur, or even that good a photographer, I’m a hobby master, but I’ve listened to enough people to know that lens quality beyond ‘acceptable’ isn’t the most important thing about taking a picture. And that some pointless arguments go on in camera shops and that there’s a lot of unnecessary snobbery and lusting after lenses among amateur photographers. Check out this comparison with a $5000 vs. a $150 camera.

See also: My views on Scientology.

And more pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Jack.Toerson

Picture a derelict store with a glass front.  Sitting in the window is a tripoded digital SLR camera, with a 50mm f/1.4 lens, powered by an AC adapter, set to continuous focus, on aperture priority mode, and linked to motion detection software running on a laptop (probably a Mac – artists are wankers).   Every time someone peers in the window to look at it the camera takes a shot.   The funniest looking people are then put on the internets for all to see.