Author: Richard

This year has seen be do little personal photography, so recently I have been getting into the habit of taking a camera with me on my local walks. Even if its just a local dog walk.

I have to admit that Ted as was Timmy, is very photogenic.

The original Leica SL was derided on its release. Now we have a number of manufactures who have released full frame 35 mirrorless bodies with fast AF lens.

The issue people had with the SL was they thought it too large and the lens too large. Now its being seen in a new light and has become very popular. With the new alternatives also large, people have realised you cannot break the laws of physics with lens optics.

If you want something smaller Sony have DX cropped bodies and lens and now Nikon have released the Z50 also with the DX cropped factor.

If you really want small then MicroFourThirds is still the best compromise; or take my route and use a Leica M system, if you can put up with manual focus and a range finder.

The new SL2 has been leaked and is rumoured to have 47 MP. That puts it up against the new Sony and the Nikon D850.

With Nikon releasing the new Nikkor Z 58mm f/0.95 Noct, I am seeing a lot of interest in fast glass again and reduced depth of field.

One of the biggest complaints people make of small format sensors formats is that there is too much depth of field, something I have discussed in the past.

When one thinks of fast glass the old classic Canon f/1 comes to mind but the one that is always top of the list is the Leica range of Noct lens.

The complaint with fast glass is the cost, though we cannot really complain, its a niche product and one that is difficult to produce. The new Nikon is over £8000, which puts it in a similar price range.

The big thing about these lens is the unique look they give to your shots, and many who have used the Leica Noctilux actually prefer the look over the older one.

I have never owned a Micro Four Thirds camera, but the Olympus Pen series have always come close to making me purchase one.

The best Pen was the Pen F and I had a good play with one a few years ago at a Photography show when it was first released. I was surprised and somewhat saddened to hear its now been discontinued.

It was a great little camera. Over priced but a good camera never the less.

With Panasonic adopting the L mount to go full frame, Sony pushing full frame and Nikon and Canon getting in on the full frame mirrorless scene, many feel that Micro Four Thirds is a dead end. I disagree and feel that it has a place, as does the cropped DX format and medium format. They all bring something to the party and have pros and cons.

The new firmware for my Leica M10 was released this month, I have been monitoring the forums over the last few weeks and I am not hearing any issues so last weekend I finally updated.

Companies like Leica and Fuji have been very good at keeping up with firmware updates even older cameras which gives one confidence.

With digital cameras the colour red can be an issue. When you think of a Bayer, the four square matrix is made of you a green filtered pixel, a red filtered pixel, a blue filtered pixel and then one more green that is used to capture the luminance, information. That is why a 4 MP camera can be thought of as a 1 MP camera as only one pixel in four has the luminance information.

The red pixel though has an issue. The red filter is much darker, and lets in less light and thus is prone to underexpose. When shooting a scene with a lot of red the camera in software and the photographer tend to counter this with over exposure and often end up blowing the red channel. It looks fine on the little screen on the back of the camera but when you come to edit it there is no real detail in the red channel.

Photography for me is not my primary job, its mainly a hobby but I undertake professional commissions through the year. In order to keep things fresh I like to set a challenge every now and again.

As you can see from the lack of posts this year, my personal photography work has been pretty much at a standstill. So it was time for a challenge to get the creative juices flowing. What better then a challenge in Red!

I decided to work in a controlled environment so the location was my favourite local studio in Worksop, Nottinghamshire. I also picked one of my favourite amateur models who happens to have dramatic dyed red hair. Add to that a red background and lots of red fabric a bit of flash also pointing at the camera to try and produce a bit of artistic flare and I was on course for a shooting nightmare.