Category: Photography

We are seeing some big pushes recently, as more and more manufacturers come out with full frame cameras.  As I mentioned in a previous article even high end compacts are getting bigger sensors, but is full frame the best.

If you go back fifty-sixty years or so most people shot medium format or large format. Cameras with negatives 6 cm x 6 cm or in the case of large format 5 inch x 4 inch or larger. Gradually though more and more people switched to the lighter and smaller formats as the technology got better and the image quality improved.

With the larger formats, depth of field was always what photographers wanted, there was even a club called the F-SixtyFour Club, where it was considered that all photographs should be taken at f/64 or greater. Some of my Large Format Lens actually go to f/128, where as modern 35mm lens tend to stop at f/16.

As formats get smaller then due to the physics of optics the depth of field gets greater, together with the advantage of the cameras being smaller and lighter. For many uses the greater depth of field gives many advantages.

Today the fashion seems to be out of focus backgrounds, a particular craze among Leica photographers currently with their advantage of full frame 35mm sensors and fast glass. Its even something I indulge in myself as can be seen from this months picture of the month.

But I hope we continue to get the option, smaller sensors like CX format in the Nikon Series One with its 2.7 crop do offer some types of photography an advantage. So let there be more cameras like the Full Frame Sony RX-1 but also more cameras with smaller sensors like MicroFourThirds, Nikon One, and even the little Fuji’s like the X10 with its tiny sensor.

Give us well built bodies, and direct controls but also options, so if I can use the right tool for the right job.

Most people think of the standard lens as the old 50mm, but what do we mean by a standard lens. Well there are a number of definitions.

Most of the books state that a standard lens is one that produces a field of view similar the human eye.

A simple statement except that the human eye and brain is a decidedly different concept. We can concentrate on a small object in the landscape or sweep our eyes across a majestic vista. This gives us the impression of going from a telephoto to a wide angle in a single moment. The camera is a much more simple affair.

One is often better to consider perspective. It turns out that a lens of a focal equal to that of the diagonal of the 35mm piece of film (or full frame sensor) produces a very natural perspective and field of view.

So what focal length should a standard lens be; well it turns out its about 43mm. As far as I am aware only one manufacture made a 43mm lens and that was Pentax.

So a standard lens could be considered either a 35mm or 50mm lens. Depending on whether you want something slightly wider or longer.

For Medium Format users then they generally use a 75mm standard lens, and for Large format users, well thats a topic for another post.

If your after a very high quality compact camera then the Sony RX1 is the king, but with a full frame DSLR price tag.

For me its biggest shortfall is the lack of a built in viewfinder.

One of the best Compacts around has been the Fuji X100, it had issues with focus speed but with the latest firmware its a good little camera but out classed in the focusing stakes by just about every other manufacturers offerings.

Well we are promised that they now have the best focusing around with the recently announced X100s.

I love its traditional format and optical viewfinder, lets hope that the third party RAW processors get better as it now has the latest iteration of the X Trans sensor.

Check out the following site for more details:

www.cbphotoblog.com/

If your interested in more information on the sensor and some background in the processing of its RAW file then check out:

http://chromasoft.blogspot.co.uk

Profiling is considered by many to be a bit of a dark art. I experimented recently with creating some custom camera profiles and comparing them with the camera profile built into Adobe Lightroom.

It always used to be the case that to get the best, a home built profile always gave you the best results, but now I like the results with the default Adobe Profile. I am not sure if it is better or if my test card is getting a bit faded and needs replacing. They recommend replacing every year, but mine is about five years old now. I’ll borrow a new one and retest, I have also run off a few prints using both profiles to see which I like best.

 

These two close ups have been calibrated for the web on a sRGB profile but even so I prefer Adobe’s profile, but to my eyes, both look a little off, with the Adobe profile being a little to Magenta and the Custom profile being to yellow.

While doing these tests it made me think about all the elements of profiling from Camera, Print and Screen, its an area that many struggle with. I’ll write some more about this soon.

With the announcement this week of the new Nikon Coolpix A, most camera manufacturers now have a high end fixed lens compact.

The best of the bunch is the Sony RX1, and the Fuji X100.  I had a play with the RX1 a few months ago and apart from needing a viewfinder Sony have gotten just about everything right with this camera.  Its expensive and not coming with a lens hood or battery charger is just ridiculous, but it is a very good camera.  Personally I like the Fuji better, but then I have a thing about optical viewfinders.

Some manufacturers seem to get it but others are not quite there yet.  The Nikon is a little disappointing.  Focal length wise 28mm is a good option but is playing it safe.  I would personally want 35mm or 24mm; 28mm is really a compromise option that I am not personally keen on.  Then there is the lens speed, it really should have been f/2 at least.  Still its good to see more options available, and once again Nikon have taken the brave option of not including a low pass filter, the anti-aliaising filter to stop moire.

As the cameras in phones get better and better, then compacts are going to have to go beyond just being a simple small sensor’ed point and shoot.