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Z8 or Z6 mk III ?

The Nikon Z8, a small powerful mirrorless camera with no real compromises. With 45 megapixels it’s quite the all rounder.

So why the question Z8 or the new Z6?

Well the fact is they complement each other quite well. The photograph above was taken a a photography show. Poor light and quite a few shots taken. I took my Leica M for several reasons. Smaller but also at 24 megapixels good low light performance especially when combined with the small fast Leica M lens. Often when shooting events and weddings many photographers including myself prefer 24-36 megapixels to make editing large batches of images quicker.

So if your a Z7,8 or Z9 user and shoot events; especially low light events at higher ISO adding a Z6 to your bag might be a good idea.

Studio work is where high megapixel cameras work best, or landscape work on a tripod. Your not limited by ISO and can maximise image quality.

At events or location photography you may be working fast, not working with a fast f/1.2 or f/1.8 prime but more likely a f/2.8 or f/4 zoom. Light will be lower, may be less space, those ISO settings are going to have to climb. This is where the a camera like the 24 megapixel Nikon Z6 makes more sense.

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New Mac’s 2024

In 2019 I treated myself to a new high end MacBook Pro 16. 32Gb of RAM and 1TB of storage. I actually like the Touch Bar and don’t know why people hated it. Its genuinely useful.

As Adobe keeps updating, tethering and batch processing is getting slower and slower. With the new release of the M4 MacBook Pro I have decided to take the leap. I’ll be getting the 14 inch model to save money, I have an external monitor so a 14 inch screen will work.

This will be my first Mac silicon laptop so I am hoping for a big increase in performance. So what did I pick, it’s the 14 inch model like I said, and I went for the Pro model of the CPU with 48 Gb of RAM, and again a 1 TB disk, which is ample for working away as I have my Lightroom catalogue and working files on an external disk plus a NAS.

My desktop is currently a now 10 year old Mac Pro and this months Lightroom update is not compatible so that will be moved to music server and ripping duties, So this new laptop will be my main machine. I’ll try and keep it very photography focused and not put any crap on it as I still have my 16 inch laptop for every day light use.

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The Suffolk Coast – Bungay

The Suffolk coast has for a long time been a bit of a mystery. Small traditional inland towns and villages, relatively unchanged over the last fifty years, coastal towns like Aldeburgh and Southwold, often cut off in bad weather and in the past more accessible by sea than by land.

Today we find modern industrial ports like Lowestoft, the growing city of Norwich in the county to the North and sea side resorts like Great Yarmouth but these modern islands of metropolis are few and far between.

If you kept to the few main road that cross Norfolk and Suffolk, leading to these modern towns you would think the county was like any other. But you do not have to go far when you come across the old towns and villages seemly untouched by the passing of time. Traditional shops, cafes for tourists and the odd electrical car parking point and mobile phone tower give a hint of some modernity.

If your taking the scenic route to the Suffolk coast from Norfolk you will come across many small towns like Bungay.

A town you would not likely visit unless you knew of the remains of the castle. Though the lovely old churches are worth a visit. Wondering through the old graveyards in the late high contrast autumn sun, while not conducive to good photography is good for ones own well-being.

The old Norman castle was on the losing side of a number of battles but restored after Henry II confiscated the castle when the loyalty of the previous owner was called into question.

It featured in the fictional novel by Elizabeth Bonhôte, published in 1797, set during the first Barron’s war.

When one explores Suffolk, you are continually surprised by the number of traditional Italian restaurants, cafe’s and ice cream parlours.

There is a long history of Italians making homes in area, and good food and coffee is never far away.

Some of the old shops look like they could have been here for years, the modernity given away by ‘wifi here’ signs or the odd neon sign.

So whether it’s the food, the history, or to wonder the antique shops and find out the little fabric and quilting shops. There is something for all, unless you are after the busyness and noise of most places now.

Suffolk, the place of modern port cities, and tranquil towns and villages.

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1006060

And Bungay is certainly a typical small market town of the region and worth a visit.

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Studios and location photography

Trying out new studios and locations is always a slightly nervous affair. Some studios have little height, getting the centre of a brolly or soft box above eye height of the model to give natural looking light with big lighting modifies can be difficult

Some old buildings and farm houses are often hired out as locations. Life style shoots in modern kitchens or boudoir in a bedroom can often be done well but space and light is often an issue.

In older larger buildings you can often get away with a 50mm or longer lens as there is room to get back, but high ISO or portable lighting may be necessary as the light in older buildings is often not good.

In a modern building light is often better but then many modern building are small, leaving you to work tighter to your model and use wider lens, sometimes 35mm or even 28mm or wider that can be tricky to pull off a pleasing composition.

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Aurora – visible in the midlands

I was out walking the dog last night and was surprised to see the northern lights, or the Aurora Borealis was visible. From the village and naked eye a pale ghostly red glow, with an hint of green.

For a moment I wondered if it was light pollution from the near city or the local village tennis courts, but then realised with the positioning it could be none of these things. Finding a dark spot I took out my iPhone and quickly took a few snaps.

With these kind of results you can see why smartphone cameras have killed the cheap compact camera market.

Its low light performance and shake reduction for the long exposure is quite something.

A wonderful sight and something I hope to see again when I am maybe in a darker part of the country with a tripod and my more serious cameras.

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Do you buy music or stream?

Like most people today, I tend to stream music rather than play physical media, but streaming services pay artists very little money.

So I occasionally buy physical media. So far this year I have bought eight new CD’s and a few second hand vinyl albums.

I rip my CD’s to Flac and import them into Roon to manage, thus I can stream them when out on my phone and around the house to any Roon end point.

So every few months I run a report in Roon on my listening, and any artist that comes up high on the list I go out and buy their CD. I have a physical copy and they get paid better.

Recently we had workmen digging up the road and they cut through the main fibre optic cable delivering broadband to the village.

We have very poor mobile phone signal in the village so suddenly no streaming services. With the several hundred CD’s I own ripped to my own media server I could still stream to devices around the house.

I also buy DVD’s still. These are also ripped to file and held on my media server, so we could still stream movies from our own library.