The Online Photographer

Regarding the post below, bear in mind that reviews are really just signposts. Hopefully they might serve to point you in a particular direction. (Assuming you intend to go somewhere, that is.) But these postings I've been writing about these four cameras are not the final word. Being able to use these cameras for a week or two gives me much more insight into them than you could get standing at the counter in a camera store (and some of us don't have that pleasure these days, at least not as often), but it doesn't make me a deep expert on every facet of their operation and capability. Heck, the first night I used the D700 I could barely work some of the controls—I switched the viewing screen from full view to histogram mode by accident, and it took me ten minutes to figure out what button to push to switch it back. After two weeks I get things down pretty well, but it's not like I know everything there is to know.

One of the interesting aspects of photographic technique is that you can pretty much keep learning for as long as you want to. Even if you own a particular model of camera and use it continually over a long period of time, you can still go on learning about it indefinitely. New firmware might come along, a new raw converter might come out that does better with your camera's files, you might hear a tip about settings or software that helps solve a problem you've had; a new card might make it faster, a new printer might provide a profiling option that improves your prints. You can certainly learn enough about your equipment and materials, but you can never truly learn everything.

And the thing is, photography's always been like that. I remember an article Howard Bond wrote for Photo Techniques about his film holders. Howard is a very accomplished large format photographer and printer who had been using an 8x10 for many years. But he occasionally noticed some softness in his negatives that mystified him. One day he got an idea, and devised a little tool with which to measure the distance between where the film holder seated against the camera and where it held the film...and he quickly discovered to his amazement that about a third of his film holders were significantly out of spec. In many cases he'd had enough depth of focus to cover up the discrepancy, but in some cases it would show up as unsharpness. So here's a guy who's very experienced, knows his equipment like the back of his hand, and who really is a very fine craftsman, and yet he still had something to learn about his equipment after using it for years and years. (He ended up throwing away something like three out of ten of his holders. That's according to my memory, which also throws away about a third of what it once contained, so please take that figure as provisional.)

The picture up above is Howard's.

_______________________

Mike

P.S. It's possible I might be able to get Howard to participate in one of our print offers. He's not a braggart, and would never say such a thing about himself, but I really think he's one of the best printers alive. And if you've never seen a print made from an 8x10" negative, well...just imagine, oh, maybe an 800-megapixel digital camera.

I'll keep you posted.

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...That is, the A900 vs. the D3/D700 vs. the 5D Mark II.

I admit to feeling considerably unhappy about having to summarize my own use of these three cameras "in public." I'm sure to disappoint almost everyone. "Brand partisans" being what they are these days, I'm probably going to take it on the chin, too. I'm even a bit miffed at myself, actually. Of all the tiresome endless squabbles in photography's little corner of the internet, the hoary old "Canon vs. Nikon" debate probably ranks as #1, and I kinda promised myself I was never going to get into it. How exactly did I, then?

Anyway, I've decided that rather than carefully annotate all of my tests and trials, which wouldn't begin to convince anybody anyway, I'll just come out with it and say what I think. But you've got to promise me you'll read this next bit and remember it as you go along, please: I'm not the arbiter. I don't get the final say. I'm just one photographer...one more, out of many. And I haven't bought, and am not going to buy, any of these cameras, so anything I say is not brand partisanship on my part, or self-congratulatory pride of ownership, or anxiety that I might have made the wrong choice, or insecurity that somebody else might own something better than mine, or fear that having a "less than the best" camera might reflect on my bad photography, or any of the other motives that fuel all the passionate nattering.

Sigh. The above is not going to protect me, I know. Had to try. For the record, I don't care to name a "best" because I'm not all about status, and I could care less whatever anyone personally chooses to use. It's the picture that counts.

And now, I gotta do what I gotta do.

The ultimate in image quality: Belongs to the Sony A900. That's assuming you're someone who knows how to use it and is willing to use it as it's intended to be used—it's not perfect for every style of work. But between its staggering resolution and very good dynamic range, its willing response to the Exposure and Recovery sliders, and its more "photographic" image quality (more on this later) and lack of digital artifacts—and despite its less-than-accurate color—it's the IQ emperor for now, among these four (i.e., the three under discussion and the D3). Downside: ya gotta need (or crave) that resolution. Otherwise it's just an also-ran. But if you do, you're just not going to get more impressive image files out of a 35mm-styled and -sized camera body.

The most recommendable: This prize goes to the Nikon D700. Given its sensible size compared to the D3, robust build, fast autofocus, overall responsiveness, superior ergonomics, unmatched high-ISO performance, and perfectly sensible file size, it's going to be the most bang for the buck for more photographers than either of the others. The Nikon is flat-out a better camera than the Canon, a point exemplified by its clearly superior autofocus performance (the 5D Mark II, when asked to autofocus, is sort of like "Huh? Oh, right," whereas the Nikon is a snappy "Yessir!") Its image quality is really pretty, and its files are superbly printable, and my feeling is that it would help more photographers take better pictures in more situations than either of the other two.

 The best compromise: And here's where we come to the Canon 5D Mark II. No, the Canon does not have the A900's ungodly resolving power; but it comes reasonably close. And no, sorry, no matter what you've heard here, there, and everywhere, the Canon does not match the Nikon's high-ISO performance. Don't just look at the noise; look at the pictures. (I say that having made myself bleary-eyed poring over the most inane "test shots"—something I also once promised myself I'd do as little of as possible.) But it's pretty close. And here's the thing: it has much more resolution than the Nikon, and much better high-ISO capability than the Sony. So its win over the Nikon where resolution is concerned is bigger than the margin by which it loses to the Sony in the same department, and its win over the Sony in high-ISO performance is much more decisive than the margin by which it loses to the Nikon on that score. As they say in auto racing, when you're really good but not quite the best, what they call you is second—but strong seconds in two categories could be a good thing.

My personal choice: ...Would be to take the plunge, be a mensch, and make the call between the D700 and the A900, with their opposing but unsurpassed strengths. For many others, I'm sure, the Canon's "strong compromise" will be the way to go. (And bear in mind I've completely ignored the Canon's video capability, which many shoppers will not do.)

And to put myself on the hot seat rather than take the fence-sitter's way out ("all three cameras are fine devices with formidable imaging capabilities, and all three deserve your strong consideration"), I had to ask myself the question two ways. First, if I were spending my own scarce, hard-earned money? That would probably tilt me towards the Nikon—better support, more mindshare, greater corporate stability (at least in the camera division—once burned, and all that), much better market penetration, probably more robust resale value—plus I'm seduced by the D700's lovely B&W abilities. But if somebody put all three cameras with their respective 35mm ƒ/2 lenses on a platter and invited me to take one, I don't think I could resist the siren call of the beautiful Sony. It's a bit of a head/heart split.

In very low light at some friends' Christmas party, the 5D Mark II and 35/1.4 acquitted themselves splendidly, giving the D700 an Alydar-like run for the money.

Artifacts
Here we go.

I have to admit I have some mild reservations about the 5D Mark II's image quality. It's very good, no question: Canon has hit the "what consumers want" targets on the nose: More Megapixels! Less Noise! (Great Taste, Less Filling). But there's at least a partial price to pay for all that tasty goodness. It shows up in the form of what I'd group under the heading "artifacts."

It's been eight or 10 years since "purple fringing" (also called "CA," not entirely accurately) first heaved into our collective consciousness as a peculiarly digital anomaly, and since then, other artifacts have been dealt with in their turn. I don't see much in the way of purple fringing at all from the 5D Mark II, but there's what Carl Weese calls "blue replacement," by which narrow objects imaged against a brighter background change from their own color into a darkish pastel hue. You see it most often in twigs and telephone lines. The 5D Mark II isn't particularly bad, but it shows up a lot more than it does from the D700. And its susceptibility to blue replacement makes it a candidate for a lovely lens aberration that I'd never actually seen before in a picture I've taken myself—longitudinal chromatic aberration (LoCA), which shifts objects in front of the plane of best focus to magenta and those in back of the plane to green.

Canon EF 35mm ƒ/1.4 LoCA on the 5D Mark II

Then there's the quality of the Canon's noise. It's a bit tilted towards the chroma type, and it has a weird, blotchy character. (I don't read the forums—is the consensus that Canon is applying noise reduction to the raw file?) Note that the following is a small section of a much larger picture.

The 5D Mark II at ISO 5000 and, after you click on this image to open it, 100%

Here's a section at 300% (again, that's after you open it) to show the character of the noise:

Of course, this is pure pixel-peepery...you're never going to see the character of the noise even in imposingly large prints. I'm less sanguine, however, about the Canon's color performance at high ISOs. It seems to resist correction more than I'm used to, at least in ACR.

Then there's an entirely new artifact that, as far as I know, is unique to the 5D Mark II: sometimes you'll see black fringing next to blown highlights, but only on the right-hand side. Weird. This shows up fairly often in the shooting I've been doing at night that includes Christmas lights.

You can see it in the detail of this shot, from near the left edge. Look at the highlights at the top and bottom of this detail:

This doesn't bother me at all—you'd never see it in prints and you probably wouldn't notice it if it were visible—but hey, I'm just a reporter, I gotta report what I see.

I think we can be reasonably certain that Canon will fix this in a future firmware update.

Finally, there's highlight clipping. This is probably my most serious reservation about the Canon because it really does affect the look of pictures. Here I have to go back to the Sony A900, which is particularly good in this respect. This is a detail (maybe 30%) of a larger image, and this is somewhat behind the plane of focus (the subject was a girl lying on the bed*), so don't expect it to be sharp—just look at the tonality (luminance values):

Sony A900 detail

It's just a screen shot from ACR, no corrections applied. Now look at the same section with some judicious use of the "Exposure" slider and the "Recovery" slider slammed all the way to the right (you can see that it's picked up a bit more blue, for one thing):

Nothing startling. But the above is a pictorially convincing result to me. The transitions are soft, natural, the rendition of the bright light convincing. You expect the area near a lamp to be somewhat blown out...there are three areas here that remain blown out, but they all transition naturally, and you even see just enough detail in the stem of the lamp below the shade (which is white, even) to indicate visually what it is. Tonally, I can't say I'd demand more than the above from Tri-X, which is high praise for a digital camera. This is one of the real strengths of the A900 and one of a number of reasons why I give it my personal palm for IQ.

The 5D Mark II's transitions to blown highlights, by comparison, seem to be more like a throwback to the era when 6-MP DSLRs were the SOTA**. They tend to be harsh and abrupt, and less fixable.

Canon conclusion
The 5D Mark II is a brilliant camera in many ways. It has more, and better, of most of the good things we like. But my holistic overall impression is that its images just look more digital, in some fundamental way, rather than just "photographic."

To test that impression, I compared it with what is becoming my "Old Trusty," the Pentax K20D, a currently $810 camera with a really good APS-C sized sensor (and which I also don't own, N.B.) The 5D Mark II is better than the 14.6-megapixel K20D. But it's not that much better. If the 5D Mark II lags behind the D700 by not-quite-a-stop in high-ISO noise, then the K20D lags behind the 5D Mark II also by not-quite-a-stop—certainly it looks at least as good at ISO 1250 as the Canon looks at ISO 2500 (and yes, I ran the tests). And the Canon does indeed have more resolution—but not that much more resolution. A paper size, maybe? Maybe a tad less?

In my very personal estimation (remember what you promised in the third paragraph of this post!), the A900 and D700 seem like game-changers. They both strike me as enough better than the prevailing standard that they create new paradigms—in very different ways. The Canon 5D Mark II can simply be looked at in two ways. From the positive side, it gives you the lion's share of what the other two cameras do best. And that's good. And from the negative side, it sort of seems like just another digital SLR, only better (and please don't quote that line out of context). Which way will you see it? That I can't say. All three cameras are fine devices with formidable imaging capabilities, and all three deserve your strong consideration....

____________________

Mike

*A canine girl. Don't get excited.

**state-of-the-art

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Featured Comment by Jeff Baker: "After reading every reviewer's opinions, it seems a leap of faith must still be made, by each shopper individually, and then the real fun begins. There are subtle differences that 100 reviewers might not notice that may make or break your world. The camera is the front end of the workflow, and a lot can be done downstream to enhance, fix, or adjust whatever issues these cameras might have.

"I have an original 5D, and the more I read, the less inclined I am to upgrade to anything. I'm pretty much convinced my 5D has some magic qualities I've not seen elsewhere, and it produces prints up to at least 2x3 ft. without problem. Not sure what else I need. Yep, it doesn't like to focus in very low light, and maybe has other issues, but there's lots of other places to spend money."

Featured Comment by sfwrtr: "Interesting article. I did note that you used ACR to do the Canon 5D Mark II conversion. I have discovered massive defects in the ACR 5.2 release in regards to this camera. The bundled Canon DPP application, though unwieldy, does a better conversion from RAW with significantly fewer artifacts and improved tonality. I don't know about the fringing, but CA compensation is part of the DPP process and it might handle the green and purple problem (dunno). You might want to check it out. I must say I am annoyed at Adobe for releasing my beloved ACR converter too soon, and so is the Canon rep I've spoken to. By the way, I've posted an example of the difference as an animated GIF.

Mr. David Pogue, estimable technology guru of The New York Times and auteur (author or producer) of many excellent computer instruction manuals, has declared this camera to be the very best digicam (i.e., digital point-and-shoot) money can buy, at least under $300. (It's $246.95). I can't argue with that.

______________________

Mike "I'm Just Sayin'" J.

By Carl Weese

Light, natural or artificial, indoors or out, is constantly variable. We notice the warm, reddish light of sunrise and sunset, but there are subtle variations all the time. We generally don’t notice the color of ambient light because our eye/mind perceptual system adapts, much as it adapts to changes in light intensity. For example, from outdoors on a dark day, the windows of a house will look yellow if there are tungsten lights inside. The observer standing outside is adapted to the color of daylight and sees the yellow color of the interior light, but if we enter the house we adapt almost immediately. From inside, the room light seems normal while the view out a window can look bright blue. Concentrate on what you see through the window, and the color will quickly look right again.

The yellow/amber light from a standard light bulb has a lower color temperature than daylight. Why is it referred to as temperature? A black body radiator (think of an iron bar or fireplace poker) gives off energy in the form of light when it is heated. First it glows ruby red. When it is heated to a temperature of 3200 Kelvin, it gives off light the same color as a typical studio photoflood, so the studio lamp is said to have a color temperature of 3200 Kelvin and that’s the calibration for a typical tungsten color film. Sunlight is the color given off by a black body radiator heated to 5000–5500K so that’s the color temperature daylight film is calibrated for. The color temperature of overcast sky is in the range of 5800 to 7000K, while open shade under a clear blue sky can hit 9000–12000K. That's why a "warming filter" is needed to keep pictures in shade from looking bright blue on slide film. At the other end, low wattage light bulbs in a living room lamp can be way down around 2000K and candlelight is lower still. These light sources, like the heated iron bar, produce a continuous spectrum of light. The lower temperatures make warmer, redder light, and the higher temperatures produce cooler, bluer, light.

Fluorescent tubes, sodium-vapor lamps, and other forms of high efficiency energy-saving lighting usually produce a discontinuous spectrum. This means that while the light from a “daylight” fluorescent looks somewhat similar to real daylight, it is deficient in specific wavelengths, mostly in the magenta area. Our eyes don’t adapt to this deficiency as well as to different temperatures of a continuous spectrum, which is why these light sources often look unpleasant and unnatural to us. Color film without correction records fluorescent light with a strong green cast and sodium-vapor with an even more obnoxious green/brown palette.

Photographic recording media—film, or digital sensors—do not have our ability to adapt to the color of ambient light. That’s why color transparency film has always been made in both daylight and tungsten versions. Color negative films can be adjusted with filtration when they are printed in order to compensate for different color temperature light sources with a high degree of success. Magenta filtration over the camera lens does a good job of taking out the green cast transparency film registers from magenta-deficient fluorescents, though the filter costs a stop or more in light transmission.

Sophisticated color meters like the Minolta unit introduced in the 1980s gave two readings of incident light—color temperature in degrees Kelvin, and a second reading on “the green/magenta axis” of a theoretical color wheel. After reading the light and consulting a filter chart, a combination of a warming or cooling filter with a green or magenta one would closely match the light to the film and so provide the most accurate color possible. Basically, with the right filters, the ambient light would be converted to the nominal 5000° of daylight film, or 3200° of tungsten film. This was a lot of work, and expensive too. The meter with additional flash-reading head cost over $1,000 and a workable set of fragile gel filters cost hundreds more. But it allowed for accurate color recording of subjects either in studio or out on location.

Now, with digital capture, the problem is still there, but we can deal with it in software. The sensor can’t change its sensitivity to match different sources of ambient light, but the software that interprets the sensor data either to make in-camera JPEGs or to develop RAW files on the computer can adapt. Not only is it much easier than the old days, but no filters are required and you don’t have to buy a color meter. With RAW files, you can get accurate color simply by shooting a reference exposure of a test target each time the light changes. With JPEG files you really need to set the white balance properly before shooting because a severe WB error will be beyond the adjustment possible to the 8-bit JPEG without major quality loss. Setting a custom white balance is essential here, and luckily it’s not too difficult, though some cameras facilitate this better than others. Digital cameras all have built-in software that attempts to get the white balance right, and this ability is steadily improving as new cameras are introduced, but no auto white balance system is right all the time.

When you bring a RAW file into ACR (the RAW file interpreter for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom: other RAW processors will have equivalent tools but PS is what I use so it will serve for examples) the top section of the working window (a hint that this is the first thing you should do) is a panel with two sliders, called Temp and Tint. This should be familiar to anyone who spent years working with that Minolta color meter. Temp is our old friend color temperature, expressed in degrees Kelvin, while Tint is that green/magenta axis expressed in arbitrary units. If you have recorded a file of a test target like the WhiBal shown below, to achieve the most accurate color your camera system is capable of you just need to adjust those two sliders until you have a perfectly neutral rgb reading from the target. In fact, you don’t need to use the sliders but can instead use the eyedropper tool to click on the test target and ACR instantly sets the sliders. Then apply that white balance to all of the pictures you shot under those conditions. So, no meters, no filters, just remember to shoot a frame of the reference target each time your subject or ambient light conditions change.

One problem that even digital capture white balance can’t fix is "mixed lighting." If a room is illuminated with a combination of windows, tungsten light bulbs, and fluorescent fixtures, there is no single white balance that will correct for all of them at once, though sometimes you can hit a compromise that's quite pleasant. Here’s an example:

The large armory building housing a model railroad exhibit had lots of fluorescent lights up in the rafters, and lots of daylight pouring through high windows. The camera's auto white balance has tried to compensate—it looks a lot better than unfiltered slide film would—but the result still has a nasty green cast.

I've selected the test frame and a picture I'm interested in, then held down the shift key to turn the cursor into the eyedropper, and clicked on the light gray area of the WhiBal card. The White Balance sliders adjust for neutral balance on both files.

Next I can tweak some of the other settings to improve the tone of the "real picture" file. Because of the mixed light, the color was different around the room depending on how much daylight and how much fluorescent was present. Half a dozen test exposures of the WhiBal made it much easier to get realistic looking color from shots made in different parts of the space.

What’s so important about accurate color? Well, it depends on what you’re trying to do with your pictures. An obvious example where accuracy matters would be a commercial photograph that is meant to show potential customers what a subject looks like. Architecture, fashion, a product that features a “trademark color,” all might need the most accurate possible rendition. Reproductions of works of art would be another perfect example. Portraits generally benefit from getting the subject’s skin, hair, and eye color right. Documentation of anything from storm damage to nature specimens will be more useful the more correctly it renders subject colors. And nobody likes that telltale fluorescent green cast.

All photographic systems have color reproduction shortcomings. None are fully accurate even under ideal conditions. But with an exposure of a reference target and one quick maneuver at the beginning of RAW development you can be sure that you are giving your system its best shot at accurate color.

Should you always strive for technically accurate color in your pictures? That’s the topic of Part II, so stay tuned.

_______________________

Carl

A limited number of places are still available for Carl Weese's next Platinum/Palladium Workshop at Daytona Beach, Florida, in April 2009. Click here for more information.

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Featured Comment by Tim (excerpt): "From my own experience of product photography, I find camera sensors react differently to different colors. If I photograph three colored objects at the same time, for instance, red, green and purple. I find it almost impossible to match at least one of the colors regardless of white balance. It's like doing a puzzle, you'll get the red correct and the purple will be wrong. Any thoughts on this?"

Carl replies: This is exactly the point of setting a neutral white balance. All systems have deficiencies and color rendering errors, and they'll do better with some colors than with others. If you attempt to correct the color that's rendered the worst, it can make other colors go crazy, so it becomes a garden path leading right down a rabbit hole. With a neutral balance you get the closest possible "across the board" correction for a given system, but the deficiencies are still there.

I have to admit this has been a hard week for me. And today's a tough day. My cousin Amy died last Wednesday, the first of my blood cousins to go (I lost a step-cousin, Amy's half-brother Joe, a boyhood friend, many years ago). She was one of the youngest of us. She was only 42.

She was the cousin of mine I knew least well. She had been an alcoholic most of her life—all her adult life, certainly, and through some part of her teens. Yet when I saw her only a little more than a month ago, at the funeral of our aunt, she was doing well—she looked healthy, attractive, relaxed—even happy. We talked for thirty or forty minutes in my aunt's kitchen, and I heard the latest update of her story. After an earlier false start at sobriety she'd fallen off the wagon, and then clawed her way back on again. She told me she'd been sober for a year, going to meetings every day, talking with her sponsor often. "I've really struggled with it," she said—I'm sure a monumental understatement.

Unfortunately she had also broken one of the cardinal admonitions of A.A.: never get involved in a new relationship in your first year sober. (Or your first three, was what I was told when I was at that stage.) She had met a man at the lake, in August, and he had come from the city where he lived to spend several weekends with her since then. When I saw her, she was just about to make her first commute to the Southwest to get together with him on his home turf. I heard nothing in her voice or manner to suggest she saw even a hint of trouble coming.

The relationship blew up in her face during that trip, somehow. Something to do with his ex-wife finding out. Not only did she get dumped, but he turned on her, cruelly, behaving in that incomprehensibly infantile, selfish, and self-indulgent fashion that for some reason certain people feel is a justifiable way to act in the context of relationships. She tried to escape, changed her cellphone number twice. Somehow, the guy simply couldn't find it within himself to act in a halfway civilized way, conduct himself with ordinary decency. No: too much to ask.

Newly sober, happier, healthier, full of hope, it only makes sense that people like Amy want to start fresh, get on with interrupted lives, find a partner. But the danger is huge, of course, because new relationships are volatile, the emotions raw, and new sobriety so very fragile. You just need some practice at it, some time to stabilize in a new way of being—crucially, you need some time sober to build up some resilience—to learn how to cope with setbacks without the aid and medication of your addictions. 

I don't know how it happened, in the end. Amy tried for several weeks to endure the anguish of her latest loss, and she held on for a while. I don't know how the end came about...whether she started drinking again and just couldn't face either path that awaited her then (either sobriety again, from Day One, or drunkenness again, a new tumble into an all-too-familiar hole), or whether her ending was more premeditated and the first dose was the fatal one. I don't know if what she did was suicide, or just suicidal; intentional, or just expressive. At any rate, she took an overdose of pills and liquor, and landed in the hospital. Her kidneys failed. (I don't know the timeline.) She spent several days in a deep coma, kept alive on a respirator. Another cousin who saw her in intensive care said her appearance was "shocking." The doctors tested for brain activity, found nothing, and finally withdrew her from life support.

She's being buried today, in frozen ground, and I wish I could be there, to pay my respects. I know there are some of us who are viewing this as inevitable, perhaps partly as a comfort, and if that's a comfort to some then so be it. But I think it could have been different for her. I wish it had been. I wish she had never met that bastard who contributed to her final flameout; I wish she had been able to keep going, going to dull meetings, day upon day, establish herself in her sobriety for a second year, a third, a fourth before she had to face down such a deathly discouragement. I am very proud of her for her one brave year, and I sorely wish I could be there today, to help honor her courage, and her despair.

___________________

Mike

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CODA: Thanks to everyone for the generous, kind, and sympathetic comments, and to those who shared their own experiences. I'll pass them along to Amy's brother, thence her immediate families.

After the final no there comes a yes
And on that yes the future world depends.
No was the night. Yes is this present sun.
If the rejected things, the things denied,
Slid over the western cataract, yet one,
One only, one thing that was firm, even
No greater than a cricket's horn, no more
Than a thought to be rehearsed all day, a speech
Of the self that must sustain itself on speech,
One thing remaining, infallible, would be
Enough. Ah! douce campagna of that thing!
Ah! douce campagna, honey in the heart,
Green in the body, out of a petty phrase,
Out of a thing believed, a thing affirmed:
The form on the pillow humming while one sleeps,
The aureole above the humming house...
It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.

"The Well Dressed Man With a Beard"
Wallace Stevens

You can forgive yourself if you choose to ignore this. Lots of people ignore me when I talk about this. It's okay. I'm used to it.

However, that's not going to stop me from saying it again (and I've said it many times before): one of the most essential possessions you need as a photographer —one of the most-needed accessories, both for editing and for printing—is a viewing station. Used to be true in the darkroom, and it's still true in your workspace.

You can buy one of these if you want—if you have a lot of space, and a lot of money (note the price!). We had something like this where I used to work, and it was nice. Although things like this always seem to be around the corner or down the hall, and that's not where you need a viewing station to be—you want it to be right there, easily viewable from wherever you spend a lot of time. It should be easy for you to look at your pictures.

My viewing station is right next to my desk. I need to turn my head ninety degrees to the right. I admit, that's just where it happened to fit (TOP World Headquarters being a tad, um, cramped), but it works.

Like all my possessions, my own viewing station is ultra-deluxe, customized, super-duper, and whoa expensive. Okay, no it isn't. It's cheap, small, and basic. It consists of a $27.99 cork board from Office Max (I really should have bought the bigger one) and a $79.95 Verilux Original Natural Spectrum Deluxe Clamp Lamp.

But actually, this is fancier than a viewing station has to be. Mark Power used to recommend a sheet of 4x8' homosote nailed to the wall and painted. Whenever it gets too many pinholes in it, just paint it again—the pinholes fill in with paint. Cost, maybe $8. Plus paint.

I've had plenty of viewing stations with no special kind of lighting—windowlight works nicely if you've got enough—but the days in Wisconsin seem to be about five hours long this time of year and the light in my office at night is dim and yellow, and I'm doing more color now. At one school where I worked I'd just wander around with the tray with my print it in. I'd look at it under all sorts of light—in classrooms, in colleagues' offices, in the stairwell. Everyone thought I was eccentric.

The best viewing light I ever had, at a school where I taught (long ago and far away) had both a fluorescent tube and an incandescent bulb. I'm sure it wouldn't have measured very well, but it told me what I needed to know.

I just got the Verilux. I like it pretty well. The color seems good, although I have no way to measure it. It's not terribly bright, which actually suits me fine—about three to four feet away puts the right amount of light on the prints, and that's about where I had a handy place to clamp the lamp's clamp.

There can be problems using a 100% fluorescent light source to view pictures with. Mainly, fluorescents can excite brighteners in papers that have them, making them look too bright or giving them a color cast, usually (but not always) bluish. I don't like papers with brightening agents added, so a fluorescent light is a plus for me—if the light makes the paper look wonky, I stop using that paper. After years of evaluating brighteners in darkroom papers, I don't trust any paper with brighteners in it.

The Verilux clamp lamp comes in two colors: "ivory" (off white plastic) or "graphite" (dark gray plastic). The clampy part evidently used to be plastic but is now made of metal. The bulb is supposed to have a life of 10,000 hours, so you probably don't need to buy an extra one.

It's amazing how much you learn about your pictures from looking at them. And presumably you find it enjoyable, too. Maybe I'm narcissistic, but I enjoy admiring my creations.

A viewing station of some sort, deluxe or basic, expensive or cheap, carefully designed or seat-o'-the-pants, is far more important than another lens, a new printer, a bigger card or newer software, or another camera bag or flash unit.

There, that was easy—and now you don't have to worry about me writing anything about this for another year or so.

____________________

Mike

P.S. I forgot to mention that two further advantages of the Verilux lamp—and note that I am not claiming that it is the best possible lighting option—is that it is flicker-free and, importantly for me, noise-free...that is, it doesn't buzz.

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Featured Comment by Antonis: "Looks like the comments to this post will become a very useful list of suggestions and alternative setups for viewing prints. So, let me add a few of mine, for the sake of completeness in the research:

"Solux—worth a read, even if you don't "buy into" it.

"Then there are scores of 5000K fluorescents, such as from Philips, Sylvania, and Westinghouse. [Note that the Philips Colortone 50, GE Chroma 50, and Sylvania Design 50 may be the same bulb. Note too that Philips seems not to be using the name "Colortone" any more—the new "Alto" tubes come in "Natural Daylight" (5000K) —Ed.] These need replacement every few years if you'd like consistency in your lighting. In theory the higher the CRI [Color Rendering Index —Ed.] the better.

"The other approach is to visit a decent gallery and find out what type tungsten bulbs they use in their tracks. Then, take an exposure meter and read the actual luminance at the wall surface. Replicate both the bulbs and the level of light on the print for your viewing 'booth.'

"It's best not to have too hard focused a light (i.e. use a diffuse source or multiple narrow beams) because our eyes are easily fooled. Ditto for avoiding too bright or too dim a light (which will result in darker- or lighter-than-usual prints). Avoiding glare, hot spots or uneven intensity across the surface of large prints or multiple smaller ones can be challenging.

"Ideally the color temp and intensity of the viewing light should be matched to the monitor—even if both are not in the same field of view.

"If you are testing new inks or processes for metamerism, it's essential to also view prints in daylight (and compare to fluorescent and tungsten of different flavors).

"And finally—I am sure this is an old trick—to weed out papers with OBAs (UV brightners) it's easiest to use a black light.

"So, there's my check list...."

Mike adds: I'm of two minds about the gallery-lighting trick. I measured a number of galleries in Washington. D.C. the 1980s and found that there is no resemblance of a standard—different galleries and museums have wildly different types and intensities of lighting, so keying your home setup to just one gallery might end up being misleading. Secondly, I found that for my tastes, gallery lighting is too bright for the home, where ambient light levels are generally quite low at night, and certainly too bright for the darkroom. I tend to use a strong light but one that is somewhat lower in intensity than gallery levels.

Black light is indeed useful for detecting OBAs (optical brightening agents). I once did a test where I washed a number of black-and-white photo papers for one, two, four, and eight hours, looking at them under black light at the end of those intervals. Some of the papers were positively garish under the black light—after two hours, one print had bright streaks across it because the OBAs were half gone! My response was to relentlessly minimize the wet times of black-and-white papers during processing. Ilford now claims that the OBAs it uses do not wash out of its fiber papers under long lead times, but I simply prefer papers that don't have OBAs in them at all—and that goes for inkjet papers too. No good can come of brightening agents, he said darkly.

Featured Comment by Tom: "Another vote for Solux (if you can afford it).  I saw the Solux-illuminated Pete Turner exhibit at the Eastman House in Rochester and it was certainly the most impressive display I'd ever seen. Turner's prints with their striking use of color, framed in white, illuminated with spot lighting and hung on a mat black wall. The prints looked more like transparencies on a light table. You can get an idea of the effect at the Solux site.

My own station consists of our 1950s vintage metal kitchen cabinets illuminated by daylight fluorescents. The prints are held by neodymium magnets. Total cost about $20 and an occasional objection from my wife. Here's the display:

Note how well the daylight fluorescent light matches the daylight through the window; the fluorescents around the corner from the prints are standard "kitchen and bath." I can also introduce tungsten from lights not seen. So, after an evening of printing, the first thing I see on my way to the coffee pot is my previous night's work with any lighting source I want. For anyone who wants to use magnets, but is without a handy metal wall, there is magnetic paint available which would allow the use of magnets on any wall painted with same; I haven't tried it yet.

P.S. Mike, I used one your favorite lenses for one of the shots: a 50mm SMC Takumar ƒ/1.4.

Featured Comment by Mike [not Mike J.]: "Great post, as proper viewing conditions has been something I've fought with for 25 years, from (as you mentioned) the darkroom to the computer desk.

"The daylight balanced booths are a standard in the printing industry so that everyone, from the photographer to the graphic artist to the guy running the RIP to the printer can all (supposedly) have a standard light source for viewing the various stages of the project. So if you're in that industry, then great.

"I also figured that it would be better to view by tungsten, since that's what's in most homes. However, I ran around my 80-year-old house with a light meter and discovered that, during the day, boatloads of sunlight are coming in and illuminating the stuff on my walls, even indirectly. So it's hard to establish a standard for seeing what others will see.

"I have a number of daylight CFLs in my fixtures at home, so I'm as guilty as any, but if someone wants to put my work in an office with funky fluorescents, they're on their own. :)

"All that said, I use an Ott Lite next to my desk, and occasionally walk around with prints into other rooms. But the most important (to me) part of having a controlled light source for viewing is to see if my prints match my monitor, and if my inkjet prints match lab prints, because I do both. You really want that viewing source to be the same day after day for consistency. For those of us with home viewing stations, keeping a steady light level is a pain.

"By the way, there are standards for museum lighting, but it depends on what they're displaying. Temporary exhibits of modern photography will be illuminated more brightly than exhibits of old work, or paintings, or especially textiles. You can look up those museum illumination levels if you like, but I guarantee they're much dimmer than in the home. The reason they may 'look bright' in a museum is because the rest of the room is lit even more dimly."

I finally threw the 5D Mark II and the D700 on the ol' Pelouze last night. The D700 with AF-Nikkor 35mm ƒ/2 weighs in at 2 lbs., 14.2 oz., while the 5D Mark II with EF 35mm ƒ/2 tilts the scale at 2 lbs., 6.7 oz. Both cruiser-class. The Canon with the larger EF 35mm ƒ/1.4L lens weighs 3 lbs., 4.4 oz.

For you Europeans, that's 1310g, 1097g, and 1485g respectively, give or take half a gram.

I must say that despite its weight, the 5D Mark II with the 35/1.4L makes a particularly appealing package, trim and comfy. It falls right to hand for me. I never understood what the heck people were talking about when they say a heavy lens "balances" well on a camera, but with the 5D Mark II and 35/1.4L I think I finally get it.

Soon I will even start remembering how to turn the camera on. My brain's gonna get it. I'm waiting.

This morning was even prettier than yesterday, but I hafta tell ya, I'm not much for suffering for my art—it was four. Four degrees. Time to break out the winter coats.

____________________

Mike

Featured Comment by Stuart: "How to switch it on? Just don't switch it off! I've been doing that with my 5D, you just set auto power off to 1 min, and forget about the on/off switch. It wakes instantly with a half press on the shutter button."

Mike replies: Neat. See, this is just the kind of thing you need a brain trust (i.e., collective online wisdom) for. I never would have figured that out in two weeks with the camera.

Oh, and this is funny...it turns out the loaner camera is already set up that way. I just didn't know it.

I listen and learn.

Featured Comment by Evil_Sheep: "Voigtländer Bessa R2A, 430g; Voigtländer 35mm ƒ/1.4, 200g; TOTAL = 630g...as compared to 1485g for the same focal length/aperture combination on that Canon. And that 630g is all metal, baby! When did cameras get so friggin' bloated and why does no one except Mike J. seem to care? And where is my (affordable for mere mortals) digital rangefinder??"

Unscared of the dark: The amazing D700 at ISO 2500. Last night.

This morning I've been out gathering data. Most people would call this "shooting," but I'm feeling the weight of responsibility on my shoulders: I'm supposed to be out testing the Canon 5D Mark II. People are waiting. Drumming their fingers. Holding their tongues and their pent-up opinionations (well...). 

Fortunately we had a beautiful dawn, clear and cold, and the latest snow is still pretty new. Here's the entrance of South High School just a few minutes after I dropped my son off this morning. That might actually be his friend Alex loitering on the second story. Looks like Alex, anyway. Alex gets there early—his Dad's a FedEx driver.

South High School, Waukesha, Wisconsin. Canon 5D Mark II, ISO 800. This morning.

I'm struggling against "early closure" where the 5D Mark II is concerned. Remember how I was talking a few weeks ago about how reviewers sometimes find out "all they need to know" pretty early on, but just aren't willing to cop to it in public because they haven't done the work to prove it? Well, having shot the Sony A900, Nikon D3, Nikon D700, and Canon 5D Mark II in quick succession, I'm feeling like I've zeroed in pretty quickly on where they all fit relative to each other. I'm aware, though, that I haven't done enough shooting with the 5D Mark II yet, though, so I'm going to spend more time with it.

If I can keep my hands off the Nikon, that is. The camera that eats dark for dinner.

First Baptist Church of Waukesha just before dawn. Canon 5D Mark II, ISO 800.

The First Baptist Church, like a lot of buildings hereabouts, is made of Lannon stone quarried only a few miles from the church. I keep meaning to go take some pictures of the quarry.

The comments to the first Canon 5D Mark II post, two posts below this one, left me feeling a little nervous...I was surprised that so much debate was ignited, considering I hadn't actually said anything. I know that our comments section is sedate and reasonable compared to the hubbub out on the wild'n'woolly internet—all the same, scaredy-cat that I am, I felt like a mob was gathering outside the window and, like a cold draft on the back of my neck, I imagined I felt the crowd's mood turning ominous. So even though I don't want to say much yet, I feel like I have an obligation to say something, if only to forestall the shouting and cursing and rending of garments.

So let me just say this. I don't find a thing to complain about with regard to the build-quality of the 5D Mark II body. You have to realize, however, that I consider lightness in a camera to be an asset, not a liability. When I wrote a long review on this site of the Zeiss Ikon ZI, for instance, I counted that camera's lower price and lighter weight as plusses compared to the relevant Leica comp cameras; but I was well aware that some people felt otherwise. Some people felt strongly otherwise. So, the Canon body is lighter than the Nikon's—that's good, if you ask me. I count it as a feature. I rank lightness higher than heaviness. Others might feel differently.

To me, the Canon is just a little more comfortable, just a little nicer to hold.

Just as nice to look through, too. The viewfinders are nearly identical. The Canon's is a little cooler, the Nikon's a little warmer (that might be the respective lenses, too, or the lenses might contribute). The Nikon seems to have a bit better eye relief, although the Canon isn't bad. (There. Some facts. Ahh.)

I was also quite interested to learn from my friend Gordon—also in those comments—about the peculiarity in Canon's configuration of control dials. But (man, am I painting myself as a bad reviewer?) I'm afraid I don't care about that, either. You see, I just assume—I mean I take it as a given—that all cameras have idiosyncrasies when it comes to control and layout configurations, and I take it as a given that anyone who buys a certain camera will familiarize him- or herself with that camera thoroughly, practice with it, and learn how to use it, and become expert with it, and then whatever the camera's control layout happens to be will become second nature to that photographer in due course. Of course, if I have a strong preference, I will let you know about that. But the underlying assumption there is that it's going to be an individual thing. I had friends who stayed mad for years when Leica changed the direction the shutter-speed dial turned, though, so I know that often people have strong opinions about how they like the camera's controls to be arranged—and, sure enough, we heard (in the comments) from one person who said he could never get used to Canon's dials and from another who called it "a complete non-issue." Now, you might say that a reviewer has a duty to point out the difference so that people are alerted to it, but then, on cameras that have a zillion controls and 4,680 configurations, exactly where would you stop doing this? Would you have to mention every control that's different from every other camera? It'd be like cataloguing the nine billion names of God.

Oh, and even though I'm going to hold back talking about image quality for now, one more little point: I was sitting in my easy chair the night the Canon got here, puzzling out the controls, and I happened to idly snap a shot at a very high ISO of my bookcase, in very low, very tepid light. The picture, of course, looked much better than the real scene, and I when I enlarged the image I was able to read all but the smallest print on the spines of the books. I can't do that in life—with my eyes, I mean. So this camera, like the Sony and the Nikon before it, sees better than I do, too.

Amazement mode still switched on. Appreciation mode, too.

More anon.

____________________

Mike

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Microtek, a leading manufacturer of film and flatbed scanners, has announced that it will stop selling its products in North America to develop "an exclusive emphasis on developing OEM relationships and vertical market opportunities."

Among the landmarks claimed by Microtek:

• First affordable black-and-white scanner equipped with complete set of desktop publishing tools
• First affordable grayscale flatbed scanner
• First affordable film scanner
• First affordable color flatbed scanner
• First 36-bit color flatbed scanner
• First stand-alone scanning appliance
• First to introduce emulsion-direct scanning technology for glassless film scanning with a flatbed scanner
• First flatbed scanner with integrated DIGITAL ICE Photo Print Technology

More information here.

_____________________

Mike  (Thanks to Oren)

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What with all the attention I've been paying to the Sony A900 and the Nikon D3 and D700 recently, it seemed only fair to include Canon's latest star in the festivities. I was initially surprised to find that the new Canon 5D Mark II is modestly but noticeably smaller (and seems lighter, though I haven't thrown them on the scale yet) than the D700.

As a size comparison, the picture at left is unfair to the Nikon: with the cameras placed back-to-back with the hot shoes lined up, one of the two—the Nikon in this case—will have its larger grip-end closer to you, and will seem much larger as a consequence. But if you can ignore that, look at the height of the two cameras, which is accurately represented.

We've just had our fourth snowstorm in three weeks here, so my timing for camera testing is not good (my motto is related, but not identical, to the postal service motto—it's "Only rain, sleet, snow, and dark of night, and naptime, plus when I'm feeling lazy, shall stay me from my appointed rounds..."). It might take me a couple of days to get a halfway decent amount of shooting time in with the 5D Mark II. Patience.*

____________________

Mike

*That reminds me...when I was teaching photo in the 1980s, I took glow-in-the-dark tape and spelled out "PATIENCE" in big letters on the wall of the film-loading room. Yet another once-commonplace reality of photography now relegated to quaintness.

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Featured Comment by Other MJ: "Is it as amusing to anyone else to see such brandy new, high tech cameras each with '80s era lenses? Optics aside, these lenses are desperately in need of modern build and mechanicals."

Mike replies: Better?

I actually prefer the EF 35mm ƒ/2, because it's smaller. Plus, I've been using 35/2's on the Sony and Nikon. Plus, the EF 35/2 is a current lens in Canon's lineup. If Canon (and Nikon—Sony isn't even making a 35/2 of its own yet; I used a Minolta) don't mind selling "'80s era" lenses, then I don't mind using them. But I'll use this one too (for those who don't recognize it, it's the EF 35mm ƒ/1.4L) for those who are curious. And actually, although it's a little clunky on the shoulder strap, the 5D Mark II and 35/1.4L make a handy, well-balanced combination in the hand and at the eye. Hmm. Very nice, actually. I might have to rethink this a bit. Stay tuned.

Oh, and the Canon EF 35/2 didn't come out until the '90s, unless I'm misremembering.

What MOCA really needs

L.A. city officials need to step in; replacing the museum's board and top executives would be a good first step.

By Tim Rutten, The Los Angeles Times

The Museum of Contemporary Art is more than a civic cultural treasure. Along with its Grand Avenue neighbor—the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the brilliant Esa-Pekka Salonen—it has become one of the essential windows on the restless, searching, cosmopolitan creativity of this city's 21st century spirit.

That's why the financial collapse that currently threatens to engulf and destroy—or irrevocably alter—MOCA is, even in these desperate times, a problem that requires immediate attention from Los Angeles' elected officials. The city has a strong interest in the museum. Though its governing board is made up of private individuals, and private philanthropy has provided its endowment, the city has played a crucial role in MOCA since its inception 30 years ago....

READ ON at latimes.com

Here’s How to Rescue a Museum at the Brink

By Roberta Smith, The New York Times

The first thing to be said about the fiscal crisis facing the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, horrendous as it is, is that it could be a lot worse. The museum regularly overran its budget and dipped into its endowment to cover operating costs, which is scandalously irresponsible.

Monica Almeida, The exterior of the financially struggling Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

But let’s keep some perspective. The museum needs to raise roughly $25 million and embrace a new strategy to stabilize itself. And it can do it.

This institution has to be born again, wrestled into a new phase of its marvelous history by the people who brought it into being in the first place, with help from the rest of the art world....

READ ON at nytimes.com

______________________

David Emerick

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Odd and impossible requests for non-existent photos received by the Hulton Archive. A short film by Laurie Hill in association with the Getty Images Short & Sweet Film Challenge, narrated by Matthew Butson.

_______________________

Mike  (Thanks to Simon Robinson)

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Featured Comment by Hudson: "Reminds me of the Railroad Museum that got a request for photos of the 'Underground Railroad.' "

Our friend Amin Sabet has set up a new forum aimed at users and aficionados of the new generation of Zeiss lenses, including the SLR lenses (ZE for Canon, ZF for Nikon, ZK for Pentax, and ZS for M42 screwmount a.k.a. Pentax screwmount), the ZA lenses for Sony DSLRs, and the ZM lenses in Leica M-mount. There are also fora for Zeiss specialty lenses and vintage Zeisses. The new forums are brand new and are not populated with content yet, but you can expect that to change in due course. 

The forums can be found at ZIforums.com. There is also a Fred Miranda-style Reviews page set up at ZIforums.com/reviews. Again, little content there as of yet, but that will change as visitors come to the new site and contribute. (Why not kick things off yourself?)

Also, don't miss Amin's "Featured Comment" in the "Panasonic LX3 Barrel Distortion Controversy" thread below, about the excellent and high-value Iridient Digital Raw Developer (Mac only).

_____________________

Mike

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__________________________

Mike  (Thanks to Clayton Lofgren)

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ADDENDUM: This clip, from the 2004 movie "Der Untergang" (Downfall), featuring Bruno Ganz as Hitler, has been common fodder for satire on the 'net, having been used for a number of of similar satires previously; I've seen at least two others.

This one was written by Sam Vert, a D3 shooter who spent several hours over the course of several days writing it. Oh, and my apologies to anyone who might take offense at this. It's only meant to spoof of the pricing of the new Nikon D3X. —MJ

Featured Comment by Bahi: "Is there an Oscar for YouTube parodies? I've seen a few of the spoofs based on this clip but this one knocks the spots off the rest. Haven't laughed so much in ages, let along watched one of these things twice over. The scriptwriter has a genius touch and obviously knows the photo forums pretty well. Hilarious and beautifully done. Thanks."

Called I Zwicky 18, this galaxy—some 59 million light-years distant—has a youthful appearance that resembles galaxies typically found only in the early universe. Hubble has now found faint, older stars within this galaxy, suggesting that the galaxy may have formed at the same time as most other galaxies. I Zwicky 18 is classified as a dwarf irregular galaxy and is much smaller than our Milky Way Galaxy. The concentrated bluish-white knots embedded in the heart of the galaxy are two major starburst regions where stars are forming at a furious rate. The wispy blue filaments surrounding the central starburst regions are bubbles of gas that have been blown away by stellar winds and supernovae explosions from a previous generation of hot, young stars. A companion galaxy lies just above and to the left and may be interacting with I Zwicky 18. (NASA, ESA, and A. Aloisi STScI)

Boston.com is putting up one Hubble Space Telescope picture a day to create a spectacular astronomical Advent Calendar. It's not easy for lay people to keep up in any meaningful way with the massive amount of astonishing visual information from Hubble, so it's always gratifying when someone or some site makes it easy for us. Check it out!

______________________

Mike  (Thanks to Hugh Scott-Symonds)

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Featured Comment by Tom: "Neat. I've printed a couple from HubbleSite. I hate to think what they cost in black ink. But it is very cool to print out a 13x19 and look at all the galaxies in the frame.

"There is also this book, which has been showing up on the shelves at Borders and Barnes & Noble and is pretty cool."

A nice mixed-media piece (stills, video, music) created using the D90 by Mike Kobal.

_______________________

Mike (Thanks to Thomas K. Whiting)

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An email from Mark Power

Mike,

I wonder if you've noticed the furor surrounding the Panasonic LX3 and the issue of barrel distortion. I just bought an LX3 and only then came across the storm raging over at dpreview which apparently has been going on for months now. Basically, it seems that Leica and Panasonic decided to correct for a rather severe case of barrel distortion (and chromatic aberration) with software rather than correct it in the manufacturing of the lens.

One of the issues is that neither Leica nor Panasonic thought to mention this in their lens specs and it only became obvious when some people opened their LX3 raw files in RAW converters other than the Panasonic-supplied "Silkypix" that comes with the camera. In other words both the in-camera JPEG conversion and the Silkypix RAW processor automatically correct both CA and barrel distortion. I opened up a LX3 raw file in a third-party RAW processor and it immediately became obvious the barrel distortion was being fixed in the Silkypix RAW processor and in the camera by the JPEG processor.

It also seems that Adobe and Panasonic have been going back and forth on this issue; I'm not really smart enough to follow it in any detail; it appears that Adobe and Panasonic/Leica can’t agree on what to do about the software correction in RAW of both barrel distortion and CA.

My first impulse was to repackage the LX3 and send it speeding back, assuming of course I could manage to refit it into the box obviously packaged by a robot and retie all those fiddly plastic bags.

But then I gave it some more thought. Why not fix barrel distortion with software? Is this sleight-of-hand by a distinguished lens manufacturer or clever technology? Maybe that’s the best solution for a very wide lens attached to a tiny sensor. In every other respect the Summicron ƒ/2 24–60mm equivalent is a hell of a lens, and I think it deserves the Summicron name. Would I go for a $600 camera instead of a $400 camera if they corrected the lens in the factory? Probably not, as I already have a decent DSLR (Sony A350) with two lenses.

In other words I hesitated because I am getting some fine pictures with the LX3 and that should be the bottom line. So I guess I've learned something new yet again about this ever-changing digital world: what I have is a computer, not a camera, and I shouldn’t expect it to behave like a camera.

But I have to say it was pretty dumb of Leica and Panasonic not to be more forthcoming about the solution to the problem; most likely it would have avoided a lot of the controversy, but then again, maybe not. It seems the camera aficionados out there—I hesitate to call them photographers—are never happier when they can spot some slight defect in design or execution which they then run into the ground with reams of graphs and mathematical formulas.

By the way I am very pleased with the Sony a350, particularly when hooked up to a Sigma 10–20mm which is a great lens for the kind of shooting I do. I don’t dare try the A900 despite your enthusiasm for the camera because I don't have that kind of money, plus I lament the lack of a movable LCD screen on the A900.

I think you've made this point many times yourself: those of us who started out with an old Leica along with a Weston light meter bigger than my LX3 are perhaps more tolerant of these wonder cameras than those who just came to the party.

I attach a doggie picture, knowing you are partial to same, made with the LX3. This is Mr. Woolford of Edgewater, more popularly known as "Woolley." (Named after a great-uncle, a breeder of pocket beagles.) In the good old days I would have been happy with this level of definition from a medium format camera. And even with a view camera I doubt if I could have gotten this delicacy of tone and color from color film. Particularly considering this picture was made by the light of a single floor lamp, hardly ideal. All I did in processing was to tone down the color a bit, no sharpening at all. To my eye most digital images are overly sharpened. If you want a "film-like" look, stay away from sharpening. Seeing as Adobe hasn't issued a raw converter for the LX3 (see above) what I do is open the RAW LX3 file up in Silkypix, save it as a TIFF without further processing (automatically corrected for barrel distortion not that Mr. Woolford gives a damn because he is quite used to his to his own considerable barrel distortion as I am used to mine!) and then from Bridge re-open the file in CS3 RAW—do whatever work it needs, then open it up in PS for more work if needed and resave the final as a TIFF again. It seems to be a workable go-around until Adobe settles their differences with Panasonic. 

____________________

Mark

My friend Mark Power was one of my teachers at the Photography Department of the Corcoran School of Art (now the Corcoran College of Art and Design) and is a recent recipient of the Bader Fund Grant. I didn't know about the LX3/Silkypix controversy myself so I figured others might be interested too. Thanks to Mark for giving me permission to publish this. —MJ

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UPDATE: Eric Chan of Adobe has posted a response to some of the criticisms of Adobe. See the comments...and thanks to Eric.

Featured Comment by Amin Sabet: "I see two issues here, one general and one specific.

"The specific issue is that some of the major RAW processors (ACR, LR, C1, and Silkypix) do not even give the user the option to leave the barrel distortion intact. I shoot RAW because I want to keep all my options. Leaving the barrel uncorrected on LX3 files gives me the option to have a significantly wider angle of view (correcting it chops out a significant portion of the image) and also allows me to use the barrel distortion and light falloff as an artistic decision.

"The general issue here is that this isn't the first time and sure won't be the last that a company uses software to address a lens flaw. Panasonic has been relatively open about doing this since Venus II. Using optics alone, they couldn't possibly have developed an 18x zoom with good sharpness across the frame and low distortion in the FZ18. Likewise, using optics alone, they couldn't accomplish an ƒ/2–2.8 ultrawide zoom with good sharpness across the frame and low distortion in a camera as compact as the LX3. If you look at the older generation of compacts with ƒ/2–2.x lenses (e.g., Panasonic LC1, early Canon G series, older advanced compacts from Olympus, etc.), they had much larger lenses than the LX3 does, and as a result, they were simply not pocketable.

"I have no problem with manufacturers using software to pull off what would be impossible with optics. In this respect, Panasonic is cutting edge. However, it is important that optical designers don't get lazy as a result of improved software. We can only have the best result if both optical design and software approach are excellent. Also, to reiterate, I'd like the RAW applications to give us as much choice as possible. Ideally, all settings to address lens flaws in post ought to be optional.

"If anyone is looking for a RAW processor that keeps it really real, I highly recommend Raw Developer from Iridient Digital, which is a Mac-only application.

"Raw Developer leaves all options to the user. Beyond that which is inherent in the demosaic process, no sharpening or noise reduction is applied unless one selects to do so in the app. I find that it preserves more detail in all my camera files, from the Nikon D700 to the Panasonic LX3, when compared to Lightroom or Aperture.

"Relevant to the current discussion, Raw Developer leaves the barrel distortion intact in LX3 files. The PT Lens plugin for PS can correct barrel distortion after the fact, but I don't find a need for this in most files.  Raw Developer LX3 files without distortion correction have far more detail than distortion-corrected Silkypix or ACR/LR LX3 files.

"I am not affiliated with Iridient Digital, and I have purchased several RAW apps. RD is the least expensive of the ones I've bought, and it is now my processor of choice for the Nikon D700 (having tried NX2, Aperture, C1 v4, and ACR/LR) and all of my compact cameras. I still prefer C1 for Canon DSLR files, but I no longer have a Canon DSLR."