Diffraction and Fraud in Digicams « Petavoxel - why the high megapixel numbers in compact cameras with mini chips are physically nonsense. Then even a high-end name on the lens won't help - and this also makes it clear why Canon (with the G11) and Panasonic (e.g. with the LX3) start to reduce the megapixel number.
fotografie - 5.3.2009 - 20.1.2010
Voigtlaender - The official homepage - Bessa III medium format camera - and then the manufacturer link with German text. 2000 Euros. Ouch.
Voigtlander Bessa III - the camera completely passed me by during my Photokina visit. I was probably too focused on digital. Voigtlander (ok, Cosina) and Fuji are bringing out a new 6x6 and 6x7 (switchable!) folding camera! Medium format! With all the bells and whistles you're used to from rangefinder cameras today - parallax correction (even with frame size adjustment!), distance measurement (optical only, no AF here), exposure measurement. Great. It makes you want to shoot roll film again (especially since 6x7 is really the ideal format). I have my old Fuji folding camera at home, but unfortunately it's defective in the bellows (no longer light-tight). However, the price is quite steep at over 2000 US$ ... (and the future security of roll film is rather questionable)
HDR photo software & plugin for Lightroom, Aperture & Photoshop - Tone Mapping, Exposure Fusion & HDR Imaging for photography - might be interesting at some point and the software is available for Mac and Windows. And there is also a plugin for Lightroom for integration.
Panasonic Lumix GF1 Field Test — 16 Days in the Himalayas - very nice review with a lot of practical reference and good example photos. Better than the usual pixel peepers and newspaper photographers.
Leica X1 Review: 27. Conclusion: Digital Photography Review - one does wonder, when reading the "Cons", what Leica was thinking with this camera. Sure, the criticism isn't devastating, but we're talking about a €2000 camera here. Things like "Accurate manual focus impossible" and "Live histogram unreliable" or "Camera locks up completely when buffer is full" are simply unacceptable.
Making light - Wouter Brandsma received a Ricoh GXR with the 50mm macro module as a test unit and is currently trying it out.
Played Tabblo once
I took these pictures in the Clemens Church in Münster to show the Church of Juliana. And during my search on the internet, I realized that there are hardly any really nice programs for freely arranging pictures on a page - Tabblo was the most convenient. Somehow strange, it seems that almost everything is focused on presenting pictures in some form of slideshow - in this case, however, I want to create a "loose panorama", i.e. arrange the pictures approximately as they correspond to the actual room. If anyone knows a good software for the Mac that can create such type of websites locally, I would be grateful for tips (possibly it works somehow with iPhoto or iWeb, but maybe there is also something more streamlined).
Basically, I like the idea of Tabblo to make pictures freely arrangeable and to shape them with text (optional) into small picture stories. Something like this as a locally hosted project might also be quite interesting, because somehow the pure slideshow is often quite boring.
Ricoh GXR Hands on Preview - interesting, albeit strange concept: a camera body without camera function, but with lens modules with integrated chip. This way, chip and lens can be perfectly adjusted to each other, but the user always has the same body operation. Actually quite clever, let's see how the results are in reality - I am very satisfied with my Ricoh GRD II. And compact chip cameras are of course potentially a good deal smaller than even my Micro 4/3 equipment. The price is of course exorbitant.
GRDIII vs. GRDII vs. GRD - B&W side by side photos - interesting for pixel peepers, how contrast, sharpening, and noise reduction have different effects on the image in the three GRD models.
Panasonic Leica 45mm F2.8 Macro OIS Lens Review - not exactly cheap. The specs read quite nicely.
Münsterland Giro
Münsterland Giro
Just because I still find the picture of racing cyclists on the Prinzipalmarkt quite strange. I really should be used to it by now, it's been happening for several years.
My final Ricoh GR Digital III impressions - interesting, as Wouter just takes photos and doesn't look at pixels. If he says he was a bit disappointed with the image quality, then you can take it seriously in the sense of "it would also affect me if I used it". But in any case, it will be the 20mm for the GH1 first, which is compact enough for starters.
Official Google Blog: Picasa 3.5, now with name tags and more - and this is then the worst Picasa-for-Mac release I have seen in a long time. When adding folders, the thing kept crashing and it doesn't even find all the folders in subfolders and completely ignores some, the sorting into the flat folder display is completely incomprehensible and chaotic, and sometimes the thing just quits when you look at it. Sure, the face search is cute (though I rarely photograph people, so it doesn't really help me much), but it consumes resources endlessly during import.
Panasonic Lumix G 20mm F1.7 ASPH Lens Review - hello upcoming Christmas bonus, meet your purpose. Haven't been this excited about a piece of glass in a long time.
Hurtigruten 2009 with the MS Lofoten once again - as promised, here is the better album with larger pictures and without Flash. These are the same pictures as on the other link.
Hurtigruten 2009 with the MS Lofoten - a small Flash gallery of pictures I took during the trip. Only small image sizes, because it already took hours to upload to MobileMe. MobileMe sucks. I'll probably finish another gallery and put it somewhere else (likely Dropbox again, it's somehow much nicer), also without Flash (that was just a test of the Lightroom gallery stuff) and with larger pictures.
Leica M9 Hands-on Preview: 1. Introduction: Digital Photography Review - well, it does have the full-frame sensor to itself and still has an acceptable size. However, I'm not so sure anymore that full-frame sensors are really the ultimate solution. I mean, realistically speaking: the 35mm format that we so highly praise today was just an emergency format at its inception, not really comparable to the more common roll film and large format cameras of the time. So what is really "full-frame"? Just because Oskar Barnack halved a 70mm film and used it for his compact camera? And whether I would buy a manual focus camera today is rather doubtful - which has less to do with the quality of an M (I have always preferred the split-rangefinder - I still have my M6), but more to do with the performance of my eyes (which are definitely more affected by quality loss over time than my cameras).
Leica X1 and brief hands-on - well, the look is good, but whether this "quick through many automatic functions" really means quick in the sense of an M or just sluggish in the sense of an M8, that remains to be seen. And without sample images, you can't say anything, because after all, it's about the images that come out at the end. A price is not yet revealed, which would probably have a deterrent effect. Let's see what comes in January.
Leaked! Leica M9 - Leica is going digital again, a bit. The rumored specs sound good, but the M8 didn't have the problem of the cropped sensor, but the problem of the sensor in general, and the slow handling (startup times of 2 seconds on an M-Leica? Hello? Really?). Oh, and the problem of the purchase resistance of 4500 Euros ... (the X1 sounds like it might be something, but the price will surely be unrealistically high there as well). Sorry, Leica, too late. I think, with the Panasonic Micro-4/3 I have much more fun for much less money. And that they can do it, the GH1 has proven to me in Norway deployment.
Panasonic DMC-GF1 Hands on Preview - "we got our hands on what Panasonic hopes will be the camera to convince those put off by the limitations of the Olympus E-P1." - if this is really it, it would be a hit. Because the E-P1 was already close, just too slow. And the AF was too bad. And the fact that there should be an optional EVF is good - I still find cameras best at the eye.
Panasonic Leica 45mm F2.8 Macro lens with OIS - okay, that sounds like it should eventually end up in my camera bag! A really cute macro lens would be something nice on the GH1.
Panasonic unveils DMC-GF1 Micro four-thirds camera - and my bet on buying the GH1 seems to be paying off. This could be the perfect second body, with the 20mm pancake for in the jacket pocket. I think I'll have a Canon setup to sell sometime next year ...
RFC1437 on the Road: Archive - back in the country and the link has a few pictures from Norway (everything between August 19 and August 30 inclusive)
Panasonic GF1 is leaked - new compact Micro Four Thirds camera - 1001 Noisy Cameras - yes, that sounds already pretty good. Let's see when details come out and how it performs in the test - if Panasonic transfers the experiences and techniques from the GH1/G1 there, it will be very interesting.
Human Dominos - interesting project, human photo dominoes. I am one of them!
Masters of Photography - I should add Cologne to my list of travel destinations for the near future. It would be great for a nice Sunday.
Ricoh GR Digital III Announced - sounds like a sensible product maintenance of the GRD from the GRD II. However, I don't know if it's worth switching - you first have to see the results. 3/4 stop more light alone is not so exciting (the change from 2.4 to 1.9), but the better display, for example, would be exciting.
Olympus E-P1 hands-on impressions - and this was one of the main reasons for me to put the E-P1 aside for now - at least as the sole Micro-4/3 camera. I had the impression more often that his assessments of cameras pretty much match mine. (and for those wondering: yes, the GH1 is comparable in terms of noise, but there were other reasons for the GH1 - 4/3 is better than a super-zoom compact in any case, and I need something as compact as possible with a lot of focal length for the vacation)
The Online Photographer: Olympus E-P1 PEN Review - I'm out of the running with this camera (the Lumix GH1 is the one for me), but maybe it might interest one or two others. However, I do find it a shame that Olympus has once again delivered a compromise device, where some of the compromises didn't have to be.
Franke & Heidecke to close - ouch. Just found out. No more Rollei cameras. After the Samsung buyback, there were still hopes, but that's it then.
C/Y Adapter für 4/3 - and remember this one too, because with the 4/3-to-Micro 4/3 adapter, I could then attach my GH1 to my Contax macro equipment. Much more comfortable than with the Canon at the moment, just because of the live view and the movable screen of the GH1.
Lumix Digital Cameras - G Micro System - H-F007014 - oh, so many toys and so little money ... (and a 20/1.7 is also already announced, that would also be very interesting)
Accessories Digital Cameras - Other - DMW-MA2M - ok, I'll probably only be able to afford that by Christmas because of the vacation, but I think it's planned then. On the one hand, I can use my super-nice 90/4 Elmar (which is of course beautifully small), on the other hand, I could get a decently bright lens that is still compatible. With bright 50mm lenses, manual focus is completely sufficient, and on the GH1 (that's the one I have) it would be a great combination. But I'll spend the vacation with the included rubber lens.
Olympus E-P1 London Launch & Hands-on - interesting because of the handling comparisons with the Ricoh GRD II and the Sigma DP2.
NIK Complete Collection - now fully compatible with Lightroom 2. I could finally take a closer look, some of the tools would be very interesting for me.
Olympus E-P1 'Digital Pen' Officially Announced - looks really nice. I'm looking forward to the first tests - and to see what the price will be in Germany.
Olympus E-P1 Hands-on Preview - at least a preview.
The Online Photographer: Sigma DP2 Review - well, the DP-2 is not what I'm looking for either. Maybe that will be the upcoming Olympus.
Leica ceases R-series production - a shame. It was the only digital SLR with manual focus - somehow a nice, obscure dinosaur. It probably lay in the shelf like lead ... The casual way, in which the demonstrator at the fair back then, in response to my question about dust on the sensor (due to the very open construction), simply pulled a microfiber cloth from his pocket and cleaned the fully coated protective glass in front of the sensor with it - that had a bit of a macho touch ...