Small is beautiful

After a few years with a Contax G2, I have to say I miss the rangefinder thing. You either love it or you hate it. I can understand that. Even so, manufacturers are beginning to see photographers hankering after them again. What we want is the quality of Leica, but not the price. It can be done and the old film camera manufacturers did it with Voigtlander, Contax, and Epson. Not to leave out the Zeiss Ikon.

Panasonic started the ball rolling along with Leica by marketing the LX3 and DLux 4 respectively, and Olympus have done a good job with the EP-1 PEN. The problem with them IMHO is none have dedicated built-in optical viewfinders. From the point of view that purchasers of the rangefinder camera will be experienced rangefinder photographers and not beginners - although they might be up for one - you'd think these companies would consider what it was that we rangefinder users want. Me? Well you can forget built in flash. What I want is a camera that has two nice primes - a wide and a standard equivalent, and a decent optical viewfinder linked to the focal range of lenses I want to use. In truth, most rangefinder users are happy with a wide, a standard, and maybe a 90mm. That's all.

The Olympus EP1 PEN is quite exciting, but not yet up to the mark for me. This sketch below is what I would like to see the EP-2 looking like face on. I hope it does, but somehow think it won't.

RAW

Lots of photographers are now enjoying the benefits of using RAW files with their cameras. Once the darling of the pro camera fraternity, it is now becoming the norm even in small point and shoot cameras that have incredible 10.1 mega pixel sensors these days. And why not? There are hundreds of good, well seasoned amateur photographers out there who like to carry a small camera on occasions, and they still want to get the best from their images as they do when they take out their heavy DSLR's. Nothing wrong with that.



I have a Panasonic Lumix LX3 which I have adopted for my street candid photography. It's light, convenient, in as much that it is unobtrusive, and I don't have to carry a bag on my shoulder all day long.



So what's the problem? The problem is that to shoot RAW I must either work with the user unfriendly Silkypix converter that comes with the LX3, or upgrade my perfectly adequate CS2 edit software to CS4 to enable Adobe Camera Raw to read the files. Why should I? Using an EOS 5d, I already have two Raw converters on my computer, and that doesn't include Silkypix which I don't use anyway. And if I decided to buy a Nikon, I would have to have their brand of converter software on my computer too. What nonsense all this is.



Adobe have already created a universal answer to the problem - the digital negative file. DNG has been available to all manufacturers gratis free for a few years now. It would solve the problem of getting your RAW files to the edit suite of your choice once and for all, without the frustration of non-recognition. NO! Manufacturers are far to protective of their products to allow such a move. But hasn't anyone told them yet? It's what their customers want. It's about time that RAW users pushed manufacturers to stop holding them to ransom and start thinking of their customers needs. After all, we never had this problem with different film cameras. A roll of 35mm film fitted everything from a cheap point and shoot to an expensive Leica, or Hasselblad.



So come on manufacturers. Pull your finger out.

Have you ever wondered?

Well have you? Have you ever wondered how people can afford their dream cameras, computers, cars etc, etc? It really amazes me when you hear reports from the press how some expensive consumer items have sold so fast that availability and waiting times to get hold of the item for some is almost impossible. This happened to me when I decided to buy the Panasonic LX3 to use as my candid street camera. One photographic store had me on their waiting list for months because they just couldn't get them in stock. I got so fed up that I purchased from a large Department Store - one who didn't specialise in photographic equipment I might add - simply because they were Panasonic's main buyer in the UK. Yes, the store were box shifters and obviously selling a lot of boxes.

This state of affairs meant being subjected to full retail price. There wouldn't be any deals because there was no competition. John Lewis, the offending store (and where I bought mine in the end) had more than 10 units in stock while everyone else couldn't get them. This, so many blogs revealed, was a world-wide phenomenon. Some had them in stock at inflated prices, and others didn't.

This is now happening with my dream camera - the Leica M9. As soon as Leica revealed the for- sale date, these things apparently sprouted wings and flew off the shelves. It was reported that pro DSLR users were selling up their heavy Canon and Nikon gear to put their investment into the M9. Now, Leica may be rubbing their hands with glee as the old M series collectors begin to mothball the first few batches of the camera, and pros ditch their old manufacturers for this new baby, but where does that leave the rest of us?

There is a good few months wait for an M9 if you join the list. Leica will be in no rush to supply the stores either. Leica have always had a policy of exclusivity, and that means keep the people waiting. It's a carrot and stick philosophy. And one that works every time. Anything percieved as exclusive will have a matching a price tag to go with it, so make it scarce, make it expensive, and you're onto a winner. Panasonic have recently learnt this trick from Leica with their LX3 no doubt. If you have one, and others can't get one, then you will feel quite secure and snobby about owning one. That's the name of the exclusive marketing game.

If Leica needed to compete in the real world of photographic commerce and sell to the ordinary man on the street, they wouldn't last five minutes. Their street cred would disappear at a stroke. At one point however, it was nearly game over for them. What is admirable about Leica is that they pulled themselves back from the brink of disaster to produce a digital range of cameras that we all believe we might die for to own - or so the marketing men have led us to believe. They have expertly convinced us photographers that their cameras beat all other competition hands down and are the ultimate picture making machine to own. One that we should all aspire towards. Yes, even I, the biggest cynic on the face of the planet earth believes this to be true. It goes to show you just how powerful clever marketing can be.

The big question of course is, would I buy into one of these cameras? The big answer is, YES. Only two small things are holding me back from doing so: money and availability. I know envy and coveting are mortal sins, but how I envy those who use one already, and had the dosh to part with without fear of a pending divorce. I must have done something wrong with my life not to be able to have one. Perhaps I just don't deserve it.

Why I hate digital photography

Well actually I don't. It's not that I hate it as much as can't understand why I want to move back to film again with all the costs involved. People keep telling me that film has a different look to it even when it has been digitalised and degraded via scanning. I can agree with this to a degree, but if it is so different as to make film incredibly superior, how come the files I have seen and printed that come from my EOS 5d and one L series lens that I own are more than merely excellent digital images? They have as much life and texture as any silver halide print I have seen. And let's be honest, most scans from film are done on cheap flatbeds anyway, and I can't understand why film shooters keep harping on about how superior their thumbnails are over those from digital cameras when displayed on the Net!

One has to ask if it is all nostalgic rubbish, and of course 80% of the argument is nostalgic. Some film people just can't understand us digital people because we want to get our digital b/w images to look like film. I guess it is because we still hold film up as a benchmark for our own humble conversions in 'Photoshop'. Ah, 'Photoshop' ! That is also a dirty word to the film enthusiast. But 'Photoshop' is one of those developments that has truly helped and encouraged photographers of both media to achieve some outstanding imagery.

In truth, it would be easier to say I hate film. But I don't. I love both film and digital. What I hate is the fact that going back to using film after a year or two of free digital shooting would put an economic pressure on me that just doesn't exist otherwise. I am so acutely aware that every frame of film I ditch will cost me around 30p here in the UK, and that is a lot of money over ten rolls of film. If I only get 10 keepers per roll, apart from the purchase of the film in the first place and then the processing, diy, or professionally, I would be out of pocket. Apart from that, would I gain very much considering my amateur status? Maybe a tad, knowing I can touch and hold the original source material to the window, or look at it on a light box. But as a 15x10 print, or a page in a photo book? I don't think so somehow.

Nope..! I will just have to press on with my digital photography for a while longer and see what happens in the market place that will be enough to convince and encourage me to move back to film.