The Online Photographer

At Pixchannel, a brief, idiosyncratic, but entertaining short interview with the inimitable and illimitable Duane Michals. (I admit I got a few smug snorts out of his comments about big prints.)

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Mike  (Thanks to José Luis Gonzalez)

Featured Comment by mcananeya: "Meh. My tolerance for people (no matter how much I otherwise respect them) taking pot shots at 'fine' art, art criticism, art school, today's aspiring artists and the art market is extremely low. We have all heard the same complaints and jokes thousands of times before. It isn't original, or even funny; it's lazy. Doesn't mean that I don't agree with him on the big prints. Also, I have seen 'Death Comes to the Old Lady' before, but the video reminded me of how much I like it. Mike, can you recommend a book of his? And don't say Duane Michals' Foto Follies: How Photography Lost Its Virginity on the Way to the Bank!"

Mike replies: Rats, that's the one I was going to suggest. (Only kidding—I didn't even know it was a real book—I thought you were joking.) I'm afraid I don't have a recommendation for him, although I have a book of his around here someplace that I haven't really looked at yet. I'll try to find it and have a serious look.

The internet makes peoples' attitudes and concerns around new product announcements transparent. I suppose these reactions have been going on for as long as product introductions have been going on; it's just that, outside of a few carefully controlled focus groups, we never heard them until lately.

Since yesterday I've read (well, scanned) a great big pile of speculations about the Micro Four-Thirds announcement, and—even more than usual—it runs the gamut from The Second Coming to The Sky Is Falling. What very few people are saying is that this isn't a camera or cameras yet—it's just a standard. It basically specifies a flange distance and a lensmount, as well as a few related technical parameters. But we don't know a lot more. Despite this, people (okay, me included, in a few aspects) are speculating wildly about a wide range of issues.

About the most intelligent speculation I've read is Dave Etchells' analysis. He assumes the viewfinders will be the EVF type (this includes "live view" on the viewing screen) and that AF will be the contrast-detect type, and he's probably right—at least for the near term. But even if he is, neither of those things are part of the standard, so they're not set in stone for future products. He also points out that Panasonic is likely to be the lead player in the new products when they do come along, since Panasonic has almost no DSLR bodies or lenses currently and thus has a much larger void to fill. He could well be right about that too.

Still, it's important to remember that: a) we don't know which company is really behind the standard, or if only one of them is really driving it; b) we don't know that they have in mind; c) we don't know what the target market is; d) we don't know what the target market's response will be; e) we don't know what the planned launch products are or what they will look like; f) implementation (design) details like viewfinders and AF aren't part of the standard, and while we can make some intelligent guesses, guesses is all they are; g) we don't know the effect of the new products on the old product lines; h) we don't know what the suitable uses of the coming products might be; i) we don't know what the products will be like to use or what image quality they will yield; and j) we don't know when the sun will explode and bring life on Earth to an end, rendering all speculations about Micro Four-Thirds moot.

And those are just a few of the things we don't know. So, my point is, why get all lathered now? Yes, it's exciting news; yes, Photokina will probably bring more news, and that's just around the corner now; and yes, I'll be watching with as much anticipation as anybody, if not a little more.

It can be fun to speculate and fantasize, but perhaps we ought to keep it firmly in mind that that's all we're doing.

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Mike

P.S. An open suggestion to Olympus and Panasonic (yeah, right, like they'll be reading this): You really should decide on, and promote, a single abbreviation for "Micro Four-Thirds." I've already seen about nine different variants. One thing's for sure: if you leave it to evolve by consensus, the eventual accepted designation will be the ugliest of the available alternatives.

Featured Comment by Matthew Allen: "Not that anyone cares what I think but to me the most elegant abbreviation of Micro Four-Thirds would be M43. It harks back to the M42 mount which was itself an impressive piece of standardization and unlike MFT or other letters-only abbreviations it doesn't have multiple meanings. Of course then someone will think it's a 43mm mount but since Four Thirds is itself a bizarrely arcane expression of format size who cares if the new one makes even less sense?"

When you go away on a vacation and deliberately stay out of touch with what's going on, you half expect the world to have changed by the time you get back—and sometimes it's nice when it really does. (Sometimes it's not nice at all: war between Russia and Georgia? I didn't see that coming.) 

What I mean, of course, is the really encouraging news from Olympus and Panasonic about the new Micro Four Thirds standard. My initial reaction is tempered somewhat by the fact that we haven't seen anything about implementation yet, and implementation with digital devices is crucial. But still, it's exciting.

Some of the Olympus materials about Micro Four-Thirds talk about market share, saturation, opportunity, and so forth, and, doubtless, part of what the two companies are doing is trying to wedge open a new niche with the potential to become a big category. In trying to meld together a point-and-shoot body size with the lens interchangeability and image quality of a DSLR, however, one big question is whether they'd rather the result be more like the one or more like the other. Naturally, what comes dancing in front of my eyes when I read about Micro Four-Thirds are exquisitely constructed deluxe little metal gems like miniaturized Leicas, tough and waterproof and with image stabilization and top-quality lenses, and responsiveness as sharp as a razor; but what might be dancing in front of the designers' eyes could be something completely different—like millions of consumers with full wallets who just want slightly better point-and-shoots. Again, implementation is crucial. But when the products are announced, I hope there will be both consumer and "professional" (premium) options right from the start.

Telecentricity requirement relaxed?
One thing that seems probable is that the Micro Four-Thirds lenses will be very small. Jonathan Guilbault writes to tell me that backpackinglight.com has a very interesting article about Micro Four-Thirds by Rick Dreher, based on original interviews with Olympus reps at Outdoor Retailer Summer Market 2008. Unfortunately the article is only available to paid subscribers to the site (you can buy a single article, but only to be mailed to you in hard copy form). However, Jonathan tells me that the article reports that, as part of the new standard, Olympus and Panasonic have decided to relax the strict 100% telecentricity requirement of the full Four-Thirds standard. As you probably know, this part of the standard requires that image-forming light must impinge on the sensor at a perpendicular angle; it's a primary reason why the superb 4/3rds lenses are mostly as large as 35mm lenses (long telephotos excepted). Here's a brief quote from the backpackinglight.com article:

Of great importance, if not well understood, is the relaxation of Four-Thirds' rigid telecentric lens standard. CCD imaging chips used in early digicams need light to hit the chip surface at a perpendicular angle, as their photosites sit in depressions that off-angle light can't reach evenly. This creates havoc that the original Four-Thirds standard addressed by demanding system lenses be perpendicular (telecentric). However, newer NMOS chips new used by Olympus and Panasonic don't suffer fatally from angled light, and advanced in-camera processing can address intensity differences that still occur across the frame.

This allows the Micro Four-Thirds rear lens element to sit closer to the chip which, in turn, allows lenses to be smaller. Thus unleashed, camera and lens designers can now employ classic wide angle lens designs unusable in SLRs, create zooms with rear elements that protrude into the camera body, and shrink many lens parts.

I don't know why this wouldn't be mentioned in the official inaugural publicity about the new Micro Four-Thirds standard. But if it's true, it will be at least as important as the greatly reduced flange distance in allowing dedicated Micro Four-Thirds lenses to be significantly smaller and lighter than 35mm, APS-C, and existing 4/3rds lenses, without sacrificing optical quality.

Wait and watch
How significant is Micro Four-Thirds? Well, I don't know, of course, and I think it's dangerous to guess at this point. I think that potentially it could up-end the entire camera market—which could look very different a year from now as a result. But that one-word qualifier ("potentially") is still important. As robust as it is, the digital-imaging-device  market is still subject to extraordinarily complex volatility. Deeper analysis is probably pointless until we see actual products.

I can tell you one thing for certain. I'll be waiting to see what Olympus and Panasonic have cooking before I buy anything new. After pining in public for several years now for just the sort of camera that one of these could turn out to be, it seems the least I should do.

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Mike  (Thanks to Jonathan)

I've used the "he's baaa-ack" trope too many times now, but I'm back, feeling suitably refreshed and recreated. Funniest sign seen on the trip home: a restaurant called....

JUST BURGERS

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-    ...& More

...which made me laugh, although I didn't take a picture of it. I also noticed on the trip home that the dignified abandoned 19th-century church that I showed a picture of in this post two years ago has since been pressed into service as a community center, complete with a wheelchair ramp made of that greenish pressure-treated wood and giant plywood cut-outs of five-pointed stars adorning its once pious facade. I didn't take a picture of that, either, although it reminded me again of a cardinal principle of the opportunistic shooting of "found" pictures: take the picture you see when you see it, and don't count on coming back another time. The World is a river; it never stays the same.

I shot lightly, barely 18 gigs total, from which I'm hopeful of extracting as many as fourteen "keepers," most of which will be family snapshots. I tried two panoramics. This one, taken at sunrise, is Photomerged from 10 or eleven verticals, and encompasses more than a 100-degree view in all. The full file is a whopping 63.26 megapixels and 437 MB—at full printing res (300 ppi), uninterpolated, it would make a print 46 inches long(!). I took it at ISO 800, handheld, with "SR" as my tripod. To me it has a sort of Hudson River School color palette, and I like it, for now. Whether it holds up for more than the duration of The Poop Paradigm remains to be seen.

I'm off to pick up the dog from the kennel, and I can't wait to see her, so that's enough for now. But I have a couple of good stories, several of which have a bearing on photography. I'll have the first one posted by this afternoon or tomorrow at the latest, so please stop back. And I see I was away and incommunicado for one of the most momentous camera announcements of the year, about which I'm very curious to learn more.

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Mike

Well, I've gone fishin'—for real this time. I decided I needed a real vacation, so I'll be offline (gasp!) and away from my computer (double gasp!) for the next week. And actually doing some real fishing. I won't be maintaining the site during that time, and will not be able to post any comments. It remains to be seen whether I can actually survive offline and computerless for that length of time, but then, I could probably go a week without food and water if I had to. (And that might be easier.) I hope if you stop by you can find some tasty stuff in the archives to occupy you. See you l8r!

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Have you ever noticed how television and the movies, whenever a "photographer" trope is called for, press into service old film cameras to carry the symbolic burden? There's a commercial ("advert" in Britspeak) on TV right now for a product called "Aveeno" (evidently a moisturizing lotion) that opens with a young mother carrying a child and an old film Hasselblad through a halcyon meadow. As the product is extolled, vignettes of the glowing young woman handling the camera and peering down into the waist-level viewfinder fade in and out.

Nikon apparently paid for product placement on the popular program "CSI" at least for a while, which explained the inexplicable fact that week after week the Government Team With the Boundless Budget used an endless stream of  different cameras—a big DSLR one week, a small one the next, a mega-zoom digicam the week after that, and so on. And all digital models. But for the most part, TV programs, and commercials especially, that for some reason want to access a photography vibe, use vintage film cameras to do it—even though the driving force behind the desire to include photography in the first place is probably the burgeoning popularity of digital photography.

I know that symbols on TV are just signifiers, and signifiers don't have to be true-to-life. Still, when you notice such things, it jars a bit. Seems off-kilter, somehow.

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Mike

Featured Comment by David Eaves: "Well I might be going off topic here. In the UK at least the symbol for traffic camera always got me wondering why people recognise this so easily. It doesn't look like a Gatso or any any camera I've owned. I'm not even sure it looks like a real camera; what is it?"

Mike replies: Looks like a Graflex SLR (with its finder—the top part—folded down) to me!

Charlie Cramer mentioned to me that he not long ago completed a major overhaul of his famous landscape website. The new website has more than twice as many pictures as before and is now much easier to update, meaning there will be more to come, more frequently.

Charlie was recently featured in a special Phase One brochure about the P45 digital back, and in the book World's Top Photographers: Landscape by Terry Hope. He's one of our leading lyrical landscape photographers, formerly working in 4x5 and dye transfer and now working in digital. (Although Charlie doesn't make dye transfers any more, believing the new technologies to be superior, his website does contain a fascinating description of the old process.) He also offers prints for sale for very reasonable prices.

Whether you respond in particular to this style of photography or just want to see it done surpassingly well, a visit to his new website will be well worth your while. Warmly recommended.

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Mike

Martin Storz of The Public Eye Blog (published in German) writes to say that he's been temporarily locked out of his own Blogger blog—the same thing that happened to T.O.P. in the first days of June 2007, resulting in our move to TypePad. Readers of The Public Eye should be aware that his absence isn't voluntary and he'll be back as soon as his site is reinstated.

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Mike