The garden has done well this year, an excellent crop of potatoes, onions and garlic. Once again the peas and beans were disappointing I think the pigeons get to them before we do!
Its looking like an expensive week a head, we have the car and Caroline’s motorcycle booked in to be looked at. The car is now thirteen years old and we have now passed one hundred thousand miles, the Honda motorcycle is now seventeen years old and last week overheated with clouds of steam being given out.
The car we think just needs the ABS looking at and the throttle, the motorcycle I think is just a broken fan so hopefully they will both be sorted soon.
I am having a really good look at AppleWatch OS3 and the new devices.
It’s one of those devices that I want but do not need. Like the iPad I waited until an app appeared that would make the device useful for Photography, with the watch I’ll be spending the next week looking into the apps to see if its a device I can truly get something out of. So fitness, walking and possibly sailing, kayaking and swimming. I can also think of a few uses for work.
If I decide to get one then which model. I should get the sport model as its the cheapest but I do really like the black stainless steal but I’ll find it hard to justify the cost, so might just go with the black sport model.
So there we have it, the new iPhone 7. I actually found it quite impressive, better colour gamut for both screen and camera, colour management, and the ability to shoot in RAW using Adobe DNG, not a proprietary format like Canon and Nikon.
With phones now getting this good, the small sensor compact is dead.
The watch also I thought was a good improvement, thinner screen, 30% bigger battery, nearly twice the performance. With waterproofing and gps, I can now log my walks, runs, etc without having to carry my phone and not worry when I swim, kayak or sail.
Not long now to Photokina, and the latest Leica rumour is definitely two cameras will be announced including the Leica T replacement, possibly called the TL but the second will not be the M.
Looks like my wallet can take a breather.
Will the other camera be the new X, and will it be fixed lens or Vario. Hope its the fixed lens with built in viewfinder, basically a mini Q would go down well.
While I have done a little kayaking in the past I have never sailed before but it is something I have always wanted to try.
This weekend North Hykeham sailing club had a taster session day so this Saturday I visited them and had a go at sailing for the first time.
We were placed either singly or in pairs with an experienced helm.
For the first session I went out in an RS Vision. I was at the front handling the jib sail, while my instructor handled the main sail and rudder.
The basic manoeuvres of tacking and gybe were demonstrated and after a while we switched positions.
With me in the rear I handled the rudder while my instructor handled both sails, and we practiced the tack and gybe again. Once I got the hang of that I took over the main sail as well as the rudder.
In total we had three good sessions and I got to try a GP14 and hanging out over the side as you in when people race.
It was a fun if somewhat wet day and I would recommend it to anyone.
Native Leica TL LensWhen the Leica T was released, a unibody DX cropped sensor compact, it was quite a revelation, it showed Leica were into pushing technology forward, and while it had issues (slow and no built in viewfinder), as each new firmware was released it got better and better.
The Leica T with its T mount did interest people because the mount was huge, yet the sensor in the T was just DX, people hoped that this meant a full frame version was coming. Well that arrived with the Leica SL and the T mount was renamed the L mount, with the lens for the T re-branded TL.
The T has now become officially discontinued but this week saw the release of a new TL lens, a DX crop 60mm macro. I think its safe to say that the T system will continue for now in both DX and full frame forms, with a new T coming soon and the SL its mirrorsless big brother giving people the choice between 35mm crop DX and full frame autofocus cameras and lens and the equipment size and depth of field options this gives.
I was reading Thom Hogan website and his thoughts on mirrorless cameras. His view is that Sony, Olympus and Canon are now the big players and that Nikon are dropping fast.
While I find the Nikon Series 1 system interesting its never going to compete against the other mirrorless options, its because of that I have always considered it my ‘compact’ camera and less of a real mirrorless solution. When I want small and mirrorless I always grab my Leica M and its in this vain that I think Sony are likely to be top of the mirrorless pile.
The original Nikon V1 was overpriced (I got a good deal and all the lens thrown in), but had some nice features. It was the first fast focusing mirrorless camera with dedicated photo sites on the sensor to improve focus performance, and had a built in viewfinder, which I found actually better then a Sony Nex-7 at the time.
The ergonomics of the camera were terrible but I could forgive that for the small nature of the system, good quality images and excellent viewfinder.
I kept hoping for the issues to be fixed but it never did really get much better, certainly not good enough for me to spend any more cash on.
The V2 never really improved things, but the V3 did make a number of improvements but they lost the built in viewfinder which was what stopped me from buying it.
Thom thinks the Series 1 system is now dead and with Nikons recently announced large sensor compacts offering far more its really hard to justify spending any more cash on them.
Coffee and Cameras – Nikon V1 10mm f/2.8
If I was advising someone now what mirrorless system to buy into, I would say get microfourthirds. The Olympus and Panasonics are hard to beat and offer a good compromise on size and performance.
What will I get next? I keep thinking about a Panasonic GX8 or Olympus OM10, but having a selection of Leica M glass (and M glass does work well on microfourthirds), I keep wondering what Leica will replace the Leica T with. If it ends up like a mini SL with viewfinder I would be extremely tempted.
This is an old shot from back in February. I am currently going through my back catalogue and making sure the keywords and metadata is correct before getting finally filed away.
I recently changed my filing system so its a good excuse to check my older photographs.
I try and go for a walk round Lincoln at least once or twice a week and a trip up to the cathedral and Bailgate region at least once every couple of months.
If any of you were up there this August bank holiday you would have had quite a treat as it was the annual steam punk festival.
We decided to take it easy this bank holiday and just potter around the village making chutney and jam from the glut of marrows we currently have in the garden and frequent long walks with Timmy together with the odd trip to the village pub to check out this weeks guest beer.
I was reading a long term review the other day of one of the current state of the art high megapixel full frame mirrorless cameras. The article linked to another photographer who as a bit of fun had published a few old shots from fifteen years ago taken on medium format film.
Fuji Velvia Film Scanned & processed in LR4
He had recently taken again the same shots with his new mirrorless camera and there was not a lot in it, but the new digital state of the art mirrorless did just pip it.
We are now in a new golden age of photography where kit costing a fraction of the tens of thousands of pounds professional photographers used years ago, can produce better images.
Even better, those of us who like using old classic film cameras like the Ebony, and Hasselblad V (see the first two shots above, third shot is cropped sensor mirrorless), can pick them up a fraction of the cost as people get rid of them to upgrade to digital.
