Art Galleries

I was in Vancouver for the last couple of days for a work conference and decided that after 14 years of continuous attendance I could skip out on one morning session and indulge on a visit to the Vancouver Art Gallery.  Unfortunately I only had about an hour, which wasn't long enough given that there was a lot of photography on exhibit.  A couple of things struck me about the exhibits.   While some of the photographs shown were small (5x7) many were at least 11x14 and some were really big (10x20 feet).  The impact of large prints were something that I just wasn't used too.  I noticed that with large paintings and photographs people tended to stop and stare.  Small images were glanced at, leaned in real tight to, and left.  Large images felt like you could interact with them, even walk into them.  Small ones were more for curious looks.

I have no ability or knowledge about how to print really really huge prints, but I plan on looking into it.  I've heard many of my colleagues speak of large wall print sales, but I always assumed it was a financial motivator being as they could sell them for premium prices.  I never realized that the impact of large prints allowed such awesome displays of your art.

Anyway, I know I'm rambling (thus the name of the blog), but if you have never heard of Scott McFarland his work will be on display there until January 3rd.  You'd be doing yourself a disservice to miss it.  He typically prints large.  And I mean really large.

I also wanted to mention a print I saw by Paul Strand.  I believe it was titled 'Wall Street'.  When you follow the link just realize that it simply does not do the print justice.  I wish I'd written down the process for how he developed the print, but the stark tone, and high contrast really spoke to me.  It was my favorite image in the gallery.  I wanted to pop out my iPhone and take a photo of the description beside it, but I was afraid of all the security guys in the gallery.

While in Vancouver I also popped into Leo's Camera Store on Granville Street.  I like this store as it feels old and the staff don't seem to mind talking shop.  While there I was surprised to see they already had the Panasonic GF-1 in stock with the 20mm pancake lens.  That was pretty cool, and they let me handle it.  It is only marginally bigger than my LX3 and feels very similar.  Definitely a sweet camera though I was disappointed they didn't have the external viewfinder to try.  Had they had that in stock I might have convinced myself to plunk down some money.  I prefer the look and feel of the Olympus EP-1, but I can tell that the Panasonic camera is better with faster focusing.  It is immediately obvious.

So, since I saved myself that money I decided to buy my first graduated ND filter and Cokin filter holder.  I've been wanting to spend some personal time playing with long exposure black and white landscape photography, and now I have the gear that gives me the excuse.  I like the large rectangular filter holder as it lets me move the horizon without moving my camera.  Should be a fun toy and different from my regular portrait and wedding images.

Olympus is apparently making an announcement this October 31st.  I'm hopeful it will be the E4, but it may be the EP-2.  Either way I admit to being curious.  Today the Canon 1DmkIV was announced and it has me drooling all over myself as my ideal camera.  I was considering the 5DmkII, but was hesitant over the slower focus and frame rate.  Seems an extra $2000 answers all my dreams.  Hopefully the E4 is announced, is amazing and saves me money on going with Canon lenses,  allowing me to keep using Olympus ones I own.   Time will tell.

Scott Bourne Reviews the E-P1 and I get more Flash Zebra Stuff

Scott Bourne recently did a review round-up on his blog where he gave his verdict on the E-P1 by Olympus. I have to admit I expected him to tear it apart, but he didn't. Go read it for yourself. I hear a lot about how slow this camera is to focus. It is a bit of a turn-off for me to be honest as slow autofocus is something that just makes me crazy after being used to the super fast E3. Hopefully the E-P2 will have fast autofucus and a viewfinder, two things that are musts for me.

Also wanted to mention that I received another shipment of goodies from Flash Zebra a while ago. This company is still my go to place for any flash accessories. Everything comes well packaged, good quality and at fair prices. Check them out on the dedicated link on the right. I get no money from them, just like them so much I feel the need to spread the word.

Charity Shoot for Nanaimo Lund Trust

Kelli Etheridge is having a charitable family shoot raising money for the Nanaimo Land Trust. She is photographing families and children on Halloween while in their costumes. Find out more HERE.

Kelby vs McNally

OK, this is too good.

Gigapan and a Ghost

I just finished my first Gigapan's.  The first two efforts were upside down.  Some sort of a Mac error when using the Gigapan stitching software and having a dash or underscore in the file name.  Go figure.  Once I finally figured out what was up (or upside down), I was able to upload my first real Gigapan image.  The 'robot' was easy to use and setup.  It was pretty cool too, getting lots of people stopping to have a look.   Definitely a toy I'm looking forward to playing with some more.  One negative.  It chewed through its first set up AA batteries in only three gigapans!

Lastly, I'm not sure if I mentioned it but I just bought an iPhone.  It has taken me a while to finally get one of these, and I've been hearing people talk about them for quite a while.  Well, of course being a gadget geek, I love it.  One of the 'apps' I've put on there is one called 'GhostCam' that inserts a ghost into a photo taken with your iPhone.  See a sample in this post taken in our downstairs hallway.  It scared my wife so bad that she insisted we were moving until I confessed to my prank.  The laughs made it a must have app for me.

Just read a post in Dan Mitchell's blog about things that baffle him about photographers.  I thought it was dead on and worth a read.

What I Would Like in an E3 Upgrade (a Rebuttal)

I'm heading out today to use my new Gigapan for the first time, but as is my habit I spent some time reading blogs and new forums with my morning cup of coffee.  I came across an interesting blog post in Gary Ayton's blog containing his wish list for the (hopefully soon to be released) Olympus E3 replacement.

It seems that Gary primarily uses an Olympus E510.  Nice camera, but certainly not E3 grade.  Anyway, he wishes for:

• higher frame rate of 8 fps.....I agree, that would be nice.
• HD video mode.....I could care less, but it doesn't matter to me either way.
• Over-sized sensor like in the Panasonic GH1, allowing uncropped 16x9 photos.......Sounds OK to me.
• Higher flash sync of 1/250th of a second.....Um Gary, the E3 has that already.  Put down the E510 and try one.  Personally, being greedy, I'd like to see 1/500th of a second.
• Higher resolution LCD......YES PLEASE, the lcd on the E3 is terrible.
• SD + CF card dual slot instead of XD + CF card slot......sounds good, I like it.
• Keep the weight down.......sounds OK to me so long as it doesn't limit weatherproofing or build quality which is more important than weight to me.
• Competitive Pricing......aaaa a dream, but I'm betting the E4 will be about $400 overpriced out of the gate and come down to earth about 6 months later.
• DNG RAW files.......I like it.
• Image level sensor function like in the Pentax K7......nice, but no big deal for me.
• lens pin additions allowing for contrast detect autofucus.......for me not a big deal, but I bet it would help with the video thing.
• Same battery......OK, fine
• Silent Live View......OK, whatever, never use Live View
• Auto HDR....I would love this, so long as it wrote to DNG or tiff files, not jpg like on the K7.

Gary makes a lot of interesting and common requests.  I've left out one that I think is mandatory for Olympus.  Better dynamic range and high ISO performance.  Essentially, if the ISO isn't as good as the Nikon D300, then they might as well not release it in my opinion.  As for when the E4 will be released, well apparently there is an announcement coming from Olympus October 31st, but I'm betting it will be the EP-2 micro four thirds and will leave us dslr users panicked and speculating on the future of 4:3rds dlsr's.  Hope I'm wrong, but I have a hunch.  Which is fine for me as while I'm certainly keeping my wonderful E3, a full-frame camera is in my near future and will likely consume my camera shopping budget for the next year.

Retinoblastoma

As a photographer you are most likely familiar with the red eyes we get when using direct flash in photography (though we try to avoid it) but if you are like me you might never have heard of white reflections in eyes from flash.  I was recently reading an article in Photo Life magazine about Retinoblastoma which is eye cancer that occurs in children 2 years of age and younger.  It is most often detected from flash photographs where instead of the red eye we all know and hate, there is a white reflection in one or both eyes.  Should you ever see this in one of your photographs, please urge the parents of that child to get an immediate medical check-up for that child.  You could be saving a life or someone's vision.  The survival rate is 96%, but most children suffer vision loss or blindness depending on how early it is discovered.  If not discovered early, treatment often involves removal of the affected eye.  For more information about Retinoblastoma go HERE or HERE.

LX3 and Panasonic Customer Support.

I just returned home from a trip to Vegas where my only camera was the pleasingly small and light Panasonic LX3.  This is a camera that I really don't mind carrying around at all, it is never in the way and is surprisingly responsive despite lacking a much wished for viewfinder.  My only complaints would be that I wish for slightly more zoom without giving up the really good wide angle and ISO 400 is noisy noisy noisy compared to a DSLR of any quality. 

Having said all that I was very interested upon returning home to learn that Panasonic had released a new firmware update that had included several very nice feature enhancements.  It wasn't long after this release that I heard a complaint from a user that the camera already had enough features and more were not needed.  I found myself scratching my head and thinking 'so don't use them' and if this camera is too feature rich for you, maybe it was the wrong choice Mr. Point and Shoot. 

Then Panasonic pulled the firmware update, I'm assuming because there were bugs in the release.  And more criticism came about shoddy products.  Well, honestly I applaud them for quickly admitting a problem existed and pulling the update and promising a new fix.  How many times do companies pump out firmware fixes with bugs and refuse to acknowledge them?  People seem to like to complain. 

The Panasonic L1 dslr that I own had a really good firmware update one time that pretty much introduced enough features to make it a new and interesting camera all over again, and this one seems no different for the LX3.  While I'm sad that the L1 didn't take off (Panasonic's own fault really with head scratching pricing) as I loved the design of the camera body, I am glad to have products from a company that doesn't seem shy about improving them through updates.  Really, people seem to complain mostly just to hear themselves talk.

I just finished my first full wedding season, and while I'm feeling relief at being caught up on my post processing, I definately also find that I'm itching for the next wedding to come!  To all the photographers that hate weddings, I say you are missing something pure, exciting and challenging, but thank-you for passing on your clients to me!   I am shopping for a full-frame camera for next season.  It will probably be the 5D mkII but if the 1Ds MkIII continues to drop in price I may opt for that instead as the slow focus and response of the 5D has me anxious and I'm in no need for video.

Speaking of video. I just did a  job for a large company that changed the job from photography to mostly videography at the last minute.  I agreed to do it, but through that job realized that I really don't like video.  I don't like it clogging up my hard drive, don't like editing it (it's like pulling teeth) and I'm not excited about the end result.  So despite for me that there is a huge convergence going on between video and photography right now, I personally plan on pairing up with a videographer to hire out the video work to them for shared projects.  They are, to me, different skill sets and without the love of your art you will absolutely not produce a good product.  If you happen to live on Vancouver Island and are a dedicated videographer, I'd love to hear from you!

Lastly, the Olympus successor to the E3 is rumored to come out this month.  I'm hopeful.  If so, bet on hearing about it here just as soon as I recieve the camera in my hands.