Family, Photography and other misc news
Some interesting announcements from Nikon this week, and if your into long lens the most interesting was the new Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR Zoom. Now f/5.6 may not sound fast and at 200mm its not but its typically what a consumer zoom reaches, but at 500mm its another ball game. f/5.6 is only a stop slower then a serious fast 500mm telephoto.
A very flexible lens and one I am sure will attract a lot of interest.
When it comes to cameras, Special Editions generally run into two camps. Colourful with Leppard print designs or generally interesting, useful, and new but limit appeal features.
Last year we had the Nikon D810A a camera targeting astronomical uses. Yesterday the new Fuji X-T1 IR was announced. A camera sensitive to a wider spectrum then the human eye. Lots of useful scientific uses for cameras like these but I am sure in the hands of Artists we will lots of exciting images.
Its been expected but now Adobe have announced that the latest update for Adobe CS6 is the last, if your a Photoshop user and need camera RAW updates your either going to have bite the bulet and buy an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription or use Lightroom to render the RAW’s to another format and then open in Photoshop.
Leica M8.2
Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 ASPH
24mm, 1/20 Sec at f/4, ISO640
Post Processed in Adobe Lightroom CC2015.1 V6
On a MacPro, OS-X 10.10.4
When Apple Pay was announced there was a lot to like about it. The security model is the key feature with your debit/credit card number never needing to leave your device plus biometric security.
As of now, few UK banks accept it and those that do only to the £20 contact payment limit. Come on banks get with it. I am in the process of changing bank accounts due to my current provider ending interest payments. Thanks, i’ll just change banks thank you very much.
There are a couple of banks currently offering over four percent and its one of those that will likely get my business but which to choose, well it might be the one that offers Apple Pay first.
I love good music and HiFi, since getting my new Mac setup the sound quality was not quite as good as I thought it should be. It was then I remembered that the default output was not as good as it should be. You need to go into the Audio Midi setup program and configure it to the best settings.
See above.
Having the new Mac Desktop I now have the line out direct into the active speakers giving me better sound quality then Apple AirPlay.
Our spare end room over the last few months has been stripped down to bare walls and concrete floor. We have plastered painted and decorated. Including painting the roof and open roof beams.
This weekend we finally laid the new floor.
We just have the beading left to put round the edge and its finished.
Then its new book cases and we can unbox the books and also finally setup my hifi. Then we have a smart new space which we can use as a reading room, music room and when necessary a studio space and even somewhere to layout quilts.
When one hears about people developing their own film one imagines that for most people this is just not an option. Who has the space to create a darkroom, or as used to be common black out the bathroom.
Well it’s traditional printing you need a darkroom for not developing. I taught Caroline how to develop 35mm film in the kitchen using Patterson developing tanks.
We have all the gear for 35mm developing and I want to start again but the driver is large format. The picture above is an insert for Patterson three reel tanks, I have been waiting for a number of months for them to come back in stock, well now they are, so together with my scanner I hope to do a lot more large format Black & White as well as giving my Leica M4 a workout.
The question next is what film?
When the GX7 was released I was very excited, up to that point cameras with viewfinders were few and far between. Now of course there much more common, from the Olympus OM micro four thirds range right up to high end compacts like the new Leica Q.
A few weekends I spent a day with the OM-D M10 a very accomplished little camera, now that the Panasonic GX8 has been announced i’ll be looking at that put also revisiting the GX7, how does it stand up to the modern opposition, if it will do what I want and I can put up with any issues it might have then it might be an option now that prices are sure to drop.
Over the last twenty years I have worked with a lot of models, and I have heard some photographers and many of the general public refer to models as dump blonds, but what is the truth in my experience.
Well for the start 99.9% of models are very hardworking. No matter if their degree students studying to become doctor’s (as was one of my models) or simply modelling for a little extra cash, or want to be a professional model as there long term career; modelling is not easy.
Try standing in front of bright studio lights, producing an expression that the photographer or director has asked for and maintaining it while the studio lights pump kilo-watts of light into your face.
Its challenging work and does require skill. As far as brightness, well models typify the general public some are very intelligent and retire at twenty five after establishing a model agency and selling up to the highest bidder and others are just girls trying to make a living.
All are hard working and in general I think models are above average in intelligence, they certainly tend to have good heads for business, and know what they are doing, where they want to get to and how they are going to get there.