Category: Photography

Many people thought Sony would be the first to produce a mirrorless professional full frame camera and it was a big surprise when Leica got there first with the Leica SL, but Leica have not had the party to themselves for long as now Sony now release there model; the new Sony A9.  With twenty frames a second and no viewfinder blackout (a big bugbear of mine with mirrorless), its a technical tour-de-force and I am sure for many people their dream mirrorless camera.

Its now over to Canon and Nikon, will one of the big boys have a go?

As you may be aware if you have kept up with this blog, the Leica M10 was announced on the 19th January.  Tomorrow will be three months and I will have been on the waiting list since the announcement.  Hopefully soon i’ll have it in my hand.

Here in the UK its a national Bank Holiday so we all have the day off, unless you work in a shop, the leisure industry or care and emergency services.

My twitter feed of people I follow is a very strange mix of friends, models, photographers, the leaders of the main political parties and also religious leaders of the main groups – yep an odd mix.

One thing that struck me today is the number of angry atheists having a go at people who this day means a great deal.  Come on people, you made your choice and except others have made a different choice.

Lincoln is now a very metropolitan city, the rural nature of the county and the crops needing seasonal cheap labour has brought many eastern europeans into the city with their families.

The university as well as bringing in young people from across the UK also brings in a lot of young European students and even students from China.

It certainly opens up the photographic opportunities, and has also improved the food thats available in the city.

The Leica T had a refresh recently, now called the TL but we are still hearing rumours of a new TL code 5370 coming in the next few months.  Details are few but the thing that people are saying is while small it will be slightly larger then the current TL and have 24 MP resolution.

If they can release a new TL with EVF about the size of the Leica Q and drop the price of the current TL that would be a good move, but we could all be wrong and this new camera could be the Leica X replacement.

If you shoot a lot on tripods then you should be familiar with Arca Swiss plates.

Traditionally cameras have a screw hole in the base which you attach either a quick release plate or direct to the tripod.  Most connections are quite poor.  You can buy tripod heads that have the Arca Swiss and dedicated plates to connect to your camera.

This gives a secure connection and quick release ability.  I have Arca Swiss feet on my 70-200mm f/2.8 zoom and my 300mm f/2.8 and an Area Swiss plate on the bottom of my Nikon D200, D800, my Hasselblad medium format camera and my Ebony large format cameras.

Really Right Stuff do a range of Arca Swiss compatible tripod heads, and plates, and now I see they do a replacement bottom place for the Leica M.  So if your a Landscape shooter who uses the Leica M system for portability  this should be on your list of things to look at.

With all the current interest in Medium Format, driven from the two new ‘budget’, ‘small’, and ‘light’ mirrorless bodies from Hasselblad and Fuji, there have been a few articles arguing the pros and cons for the smaller formats and the larger.

In my opinion a lot of the articles written can be put straight into the bin. There are mostly people justifying their own choices.

The biggest reason to pick a format is for its look.  MicroFourThirds, 35mm Full Frame, Medium Format etc, all have a different look, portray tonally differently, and the biggest is depth of field.  The problem with theses differences like look and depth of field; is that some people say one is better and others say the other is better.  This is wrong.  They are different and depending on the look you are after one may suit better then the other.

Why would a professional choose medium format over the rest considering the high cost.  Well 100 megapixels are available, 200 megapixels with pixel shift.  That makes the camera incredibly flexible for cropping in post production.  Dynamic range in challenging light, the DR is far higher then other format, also colour bit depth is far higher then any other format; the files are also very robust, you can edit, and edit, and edit again.  The files are hard to break.  Basically it gives you lots and lots of options in post production, your not limited and do not have to go back and reshoot.

So the big things people quote are noise, resolution, depth of field and dynamic range.

First we assume that technology is level.  Not a true assumption as the smaller formats do tend to advance faster then the larger formats.

Small Format – Postive

• Lots of Depth of Field
• Smaller lighter glass
• Higher resolution proportionally to sensor size
• Low Noise *1 (true but not in theory)

Small Format – Negative

• Little selective Depth of Field
• Smaller lens have to be built to higher tolerances
• Diffraction effects when stopped down
• Poor Colour Depth and Dynamic Range
• Low resolution

Larger Format – Postive

• Highly selective Depth of Field
• Lens can be built to lower tolerances and give better results
• Little diffraction effects when stopped down
• Maximum Colour Depth and Dynamic Range
• High Resolution
• More robust RAW files that can be pushed harder.

Larger Format – Negative

• Size and Weight
• High Cost
• Generally behind in Technology
• Slow performance

Now many of these pros and cons can be offset with technology.  Bracketing and HDR, Pixel shifting, stitching images, focus bracketing.  With regard to note *1, in theory the larger the sensor the better noise this this should be an advantage to large format, but I have put this down to small format.  In general 35mm full frame has the best noise results but this is because the technology is moving faster then for the other formats.  In theory the bigger the sensor the less noise if the pixel density is kept the same and the technology is at the same point, in actual reality 35mm full frame wins the noise war, with medium format next and micro four thirds at the bottom but still good enough for the majority of people.

Of course there is also the major disadvantage of larger formats and the is performance in getting the image.  Try getting a picture of a young child at a birthday party with a medium format camera.  I know many photographers in that instance would want to reach for a Pro Nikon/Canon DSLR in order to try and keep up!