I was all excited a couple of days ago (doesnt take much), when i received a bit of friendly spam in my inbox - to tell me that national geographic has setup a print ordering/publishing site.
I nearly wet my pants. Now i could own, with proper copyright, all of my favourite ever photos, give them to friends, buy them for my wall.... starting with the whole of David Alan Harvey's cuba series ... possibly my favourite ever photo essay.
It took me two whole days to get onto the site - it seems like their servers have been cracking up under the demand. And so finally, tonight, i got on.... and..... well.... it's great - if you like landscapes and wildlife. But i'm all about the people, and there are none.
All i can think is that maybe the photographers didnt get model releases.. i thought everybody needed to have them these days... it's a huge disappointment.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Sunday, October 28, 2007
digital and back
About 3 weeks ago i tried really hard to wean myself off film.
film, really, is a hassle. you dont know what you've shot till you develop it, the film costs, as does a proper scanner to give you good results.
after reading a million reviews - well, the ones that matter, like dpreview.com, photo.net, and random comments from some well respected people like Mike Johnston, i bought a Fuji f31fd.
this camera is, in no uncertain terms, a piece of shit. the problem is that it's not even really returnable for the kind of shitness it serves up. you see, for the most part it is a decent camera - 6mp, good low-light capabilities, manual controls, smallish, and actually quite cheap for its supposed genius.
I bought it as a camera i could use as a point & shoot, but also, when i felt like it, to get out the manual controls and really give it a spanking. the problem is that the pictures i got in the manual modes (and trust me i've tried every combination) are just terrible.
in fact, the pictures from this ..thing.. are noiser and less sharp than the pictures i took on my lowly 4mp canon a85 that i took with me around brazil. god forbid.
and then i started reading the reviews i'd missed. there aren't many... less than 10% of the total.. but just lots of people saying how they'd found the camera nowhere near the rave reviews that they'd read. and gee,...nowhere near as good as the pictures that i've seen posted online.. in places like flickr etc.
so..
it's back to my xa and b&w film.
and to be honest, this is not such a bad place to be. i dont know really why i ever thought to go anywhere else. There is the annoyance of having to develop film. and also the annoyance of scanning - my scanner isnt great, and conventional b&w film doesnt scan that well anyway. and i'm using hp5 to boot - so im going to have to be really careful about my grain.
on the plus size is something that very few compacts out there can compete with - it has a fixed 28mm lens, and its sharp. i'm sick of things not being sharp with the fuji. i mean, it's sharp enough for snapshots,... but nowhere near what i need it to be.
the xa kicks its ass. by lots, and naturally a fixed lens camera should.
i'd really love to be shooting slide film on this thing.. but at my rate of about 3 good shots per 36 shot roll, it's not very cost effective.
the other thing that i'd really like to do is to try and fix my rollei 35. the rewind mechanism doesnt work. neither does the light meter. i'd just like to see what it can do. people rave about it so much that it'd just be really fun. dunno about the manual metering tho.
**
and finally my pentax k100d slr. bit of a love/hate relationship at the moment. and it's all to do with focus. i've been using manual lenses on the camera for the last little while. and while i know they're incredibly sharp, i cant get the focus right.
so i bought a split-focus screen off ebay and it works well enough... but i cant calibrate it near enough to get the shots i want... so i've been not using it much lately.
***
flash stuff. my ebay wireless triggers have been really patchy - nowhere near reliable enough to want to take them out and actually shoot something. i need to get some time to troubleshoot the buggers. i mean i dont expect much for £15, but do give me a bit of a break. i'd really like to get them fixed.. and there's a couple of good threads on flickr.
***
lastly i want to talk about jpg magazine here.. but i think i might save it for another episode. revolutionary.
film, really, is a hassle. you dont know what you've shot till you develop it, the film costs, as does a proper scanner to give you good results.
after reading a million reviews - well, the ones that matter, like dpreview.com, photo.net, and random comments from some well respected people like Mike Johnston, i bought a Fuji f31fd.
this camera is, in no uncertain terms, a piece of shit. the problem is that it's not even really returnable for the kind of shitness it serves up. you see, for the most part it is a decent camera - 6mp, good low-light capabilities, manual controls, smallish, and actually quite cheap for its supposed genius.
I bought it as a camera i could use as a point & shoot, but also, when i felt like it, to get out the manual controls and really give it a spanking. the problem is that the pictures i got in the manual modes (and trust me i've tried every combination) are just terrible.
in fact, the pictures from this ..thing.. are noiser and less sharp than the pictures i took on my lowly 4mp canon a85 that i took with me around brazil. god forbid.
and then i started reading the reviews i'd missed. there aren't many... less than 10% of the total.. but just lots of people saying how they'd found the camera nowhere near the rave reviews that they'd read. and gee,...nowhere near as good as the pictures that i've seen posted online.. in places like flickr etc.
so..
it's back to my xa and b&w film.
and to be honest, this is not such a bad place to be. i dont know really why i ever thought to go anywhere else. There is the annoyance of having to develop film. and also the annoyance of scanning - my scanner isnt great, and conventional b&w film doesnt scan that well anyway. and i'm using hp5 to boot - so im going to have to be really careful about my grain.
on the plus size is something that very few compacts out there can compete with - it has a fixed 28mm lens, and its sharp. i'm sick of things not being sharp with the fuji. i mean, it's sharp enough for snapshots,... but nowhere near what i need it to be.
the xa kicks its ass. by lots, and naturally a fixed lens camera should.
i'd really love to be shooting slide film on this thing.. but at my rate of about 3 good shots per 36 shot roll, it's not very cost effective.
the other thing that i'd really like to do is to try and fix my rollei 35. the rewind mechanism doesnt work. neither does the light meter. i'd just like to see what it can do. people rave about it so much that it'd just be really fun. dunno about the manual metering tho.
**
and finally my pentax k100d slr. bit of a love/hate relationship at the moment. and it's all to do with focus. i've been using manual lenses on the camera for the last little while. and while i know they're incredibly sharp, i cant get the focus right.
so i bought a split-focus screen off ebay and it works well enough... but i cant calibrate it near enough to get the shots i want... so i've been not using it much lately.
***
flash stuff. my ebay wireless triggers have been really patchy - nowhere near reliable enough to want to take them out and actually shoot something. i need to get some time to troubleshoot the buggers. i mean i dont expect much for £15, but do give me a bit of a break. i'd really like to get them fixed.. and there's a couple of good threads on flickr.
***
lastly i want to talk about jpg magazine here.. but i think i might save it for another episode. revolutionary.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
JPG
I'm a bit excited.
It's all i ever wanted. ever. really.
almost like i dreamed something into existence.
If you love documentary photography, get involved. It's a magazine that publishes contributors work, and the work is incredible.
It has those wonderful qualities of being:
1. community driven, like flickr
2. the possiblity that you could get your photos in print
national geographic has tried to do this for the last a couple of years with its "new look" magazine. Inside front and back covers are now reader photos. But they're individual photos, and how much can that really tell...
the best thing for me is that i've wanted to start doing some documentary photog/essays of my own and have been searching for the impetus.
think i've just found it.
It's all i ever wanted. ever. really.
almost like i dreamed something into existence.
If you love documentary photography, get involved. It's a magazine that publishes contributors work, and the work is incredible.
It has those wonderful qualities of being:
1. community driven, like flickr
2. the possiblity that you could get your photos in print
national geographic has tried to do this for the last a couple of years with its "new look" magazine. Inside front and back covers are now reader photos. But they're individual photos, and how much can that really tell...
the best thing for me is that i've wanted to start doing some documentary photog/essays of my own and have been searching for the impetus.
think i've just found it.
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