Category: Photography

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New Ricoh GR II

Ricoh GRIt nearly slipped my notice but Ricoh have released a new GR II. I has a quick play on Friday with the old model to remind me what it is like.

The new model is basically the old with new firmware and adds Wifi from what I can see.

As a compact this and the Nikon Coolpix A are about the best you can get with their large DX sensors.  I really like the Ricoh have have come close to buying one a number of times but the lack of viewfinder really puts me off.

Tomorrow there is a sponsored photowalk by Olympus, I’ll be borrowing the little OM-D M10 and some consumer glass to use as a compact, this has a viewfinder and may be a better option.

Of course there is the Leica X and Leica Q but optically this Ricoh is very nearly as good, its more down to the viewfinder options and which interface and handling you prefer, if you ignore the price of course!

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The Lincoln Magna Carta

Its been a proud moment for Lincoln as the world celebrates the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta.

Lincoln Cathedral owns one of only four original copies, written by the Bishop of Lincoln’s chief scribe, it is now believed that the Bishop helped negotiate the document between the Barons and the King.

Lincoln has been celebrated all weekend and as part of the celebration it has created the Baron’s Trail. Dotted around the city are twenty hand painted Barons. They are quite a site.

A few weeks ago there was an advance showing and I happened to be around to grab a few shots. If I get the time i’ll have a walk round the city and try and photograph them all In situ.

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Back Side Illumination and Stacked Sensors

BSI and Stacked Sensors

For the last few years digital sensor improvements have been slow but steady.  Its hard to find a bad camera today.

The latest buzzwords are Back Side Illumination and Stacked Sensors.  The Nikon V1 was one of the first cameras to use the new BSI sensors, but what does this mean.

In a typical sensor you have the sensor pits, but the available surface area has also to be shared with the supporting electronics, reducing the area for light collection.  In full frame sensors and medium format the area lost is inconsequential but as the sensor gets smaller the percentage area lost increases.  BSI and Stacked sensors, basically moves more of the supporting electronics underneath allowing more available area for light collection.

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Updated Nikkor 500mm and 600mm f/4 Lens

Nikon-AF-S-NIKKOR-500mm-f4G-ED-VR-Lens-550x250Today Nikon announced some updates to their exotic telephoto’s.  Both the 500mm f/4 and the 600mm f/4 received updates.

The main thing is updated elements containing the new fluorite lens coating which corrects chromatic aberration and allows lighter glass.

 

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The Leica Q – The Real Mini ‘M’?

Leica QWhen the Leica X Vario was announced it was marketed as a Mini M.  With its excelent build quality and image quality, Leica though they had a hit on their hands.  Unfortunately coupled with a slow zoom lens, and the marketing hype, it just could not live up to the expectation.

Today we have a new compact announced, this time the Leica Q.  Think Sony RX1 crossed with the best bits of a Leica X, add a viewfinder and you have the Leica Q.

A very simple fixed lens compact, with the excellent and innovative focusing of the Leica X (Type 113) but with a Leica full frame sensor and finally a EVF.

Leica Q Focusing

One could really call this a mini M.  I have read a couple of reviews and finally we have a Leica where the electronics don’t get in the way or slow down the photographer.

You can check out the reviews at most popular photography sites:

http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2015/06/10/the-leica-q-real-world-camera-review-by-steve-huff/

http://www.slack.co.uk/2015/Hemingway.html

http://blog.mingthein.com/2015/06/10/review-2015-leica-q-typ-116/#more-11294

 

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Lincoln 1940’s Weekend

Leica M8 50mm Summicron
Leica M8 50mm Summicron

One good thing about living near Lincoln is that there always seems to be something going. Whether the Santa Run or Lincoln Christmas Market in the winter to cycle races and Steam Punk events.

Last weekend was Lincoln’s 1940’s weekend and unfortunately I could not make it but from looking at the photographs people have been post on the Internet it looks like it was a fun filled weekend with lots of photographic opportunities.

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Getting a good scan

There are three pieces of advice I can give you for scanning.

  • Scan Once
  • Cleanliness
  • Treat as a RAW file

So what do I mean by this.

Well scanning is time consuming so do the proceedure once at the highest native resolution of your scanner.

Clean your scanner plate with a soft cleaning cloth then clean your slides/film. Once mounted in the frame clean again. Don’t be surprised that after the scan you made need to clean again and rescan.

Maximise the quality of the scan. Your not after something that looks fantastic that’s your usual editing softwares job. You are after a flat low contrast file which you can work with in a flexible way.

ScanAs you can see from the histogram this image is finishing at 232 not 255 so adjust the sliders to maximise the scan over the images histogram range.  I also give the mid tones a slight boost and also turn off sharpening and noise reduction.  Our third party tools offer far better quality and options then what comes with the scanner software.

I quickly flick through all my images in the slide/film holder setting the histogram appropriate for each image.

Lightroom Auto ImportI then select batch scan; I scan to a folder which I set as a watch folder in Adobe Lightroom, once each image is scanned it gets auto imported into Lightroom with my default copyright and develop settings preset I have created for this.

 

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BBC Spring Watch is Back

This year I have not managed to do much wildlife photography but one thing that is sure to inspire me is the start of BBC’s Spring watch program. 

This year I hope to get out to some of the British Isles more remote islands for some landscape photography. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a few good wildlife shots too.