Velkomin til Islands

in General Rants , Monday, June 27, 2005

Iceland beckons again in the coming weeks. I don't know if this should be in the photography section or somewhere else, as photography is not by any means the main point of the journey. I am absolutely captivated by Iceland, the nature, the culture and the people, and have been trying to teach myself some Icelandic when I really should be learning German. It is maybe significant that when I was in high school, maybe 15 or 16, and we had to produce a multimedia presentation (quite something in itself, for 1976-ish), I picked the mythic Ultima Thule of Pytheas of Massilia as my subject. It was quite something, all teenage significant intonations set to Pink Floyd's Echoes. I remember that my classmate's judgements were mixed. Some liked it, some were not so happy with the decadant anglophile rock music. Funny how things come back to you. Anyway, Iceland 2005 should be a less frantic experience than 2004. We're going to spend time in Skaftafell National Park, drop by Jokulsarlon, and head across the Highlands to Myvatn by way of Askja. Maybe head back by way of Kerlingjafoll. Sure, I have packed cameras, the usual E-1 and Xpan combination, but the laptop will stay at home, in favour of a new Epson P2000 for backups. But if I was given the choice between not going and no photography, the cameras would stay at home. I guess some nice photos might emerge, but for now I don't really mind... [Posted from the scene with hblogger 2.0]

Andy Rouse…photographer ?

in General Rants , Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Some time ago I wrote a brief but complimentary entry about Andy Rouse. I'm beginning to wonder if he isn't actually being a bit of a pillock, to be honest. He's now heavily involved in Pixmantec's mega-hyped RawShooter, intially as a endorser, he uses nothing else (in which case I can understand if his sales are dropping off), but now apparently as a core member of the company - from Pixmantec's latest mailing: "Many of you will know Andy Rouse by his reputation as a wildlife photographer but few will know that before this career path he was a software marketer. This, coupled with his knowledge of RAW workflow and his digital profile in the press, has led to him working for Pixmantec as our Marketing Director." Ok, but why do I think this makes him a pillock ? First because he is seriously undermining any claim he may have to impartiality, and since he does a fair amount of product reviewing, this matters. Amateur phtographers presumeably are supposed to feel comfortable that a product endorsed by Andy Rouse is a good one, rather than one in which he has a financial stake. Second, because he's associating himself with a product which is still unproven, relying on Rent-A-Quotes from fellow hacks like Martin Evening (author of the most over-rated Photoshop book ever, IMHO), is a shameless rip off of another product (CaptureOne) which Andy used to endorse...er, no, sorry, still does endorse ("C1 is my product of choice" -- at least get your ducks in a row, Andy), and which is so firmly entrenched in the Microsoft camp that their newsletter states: "Be aware that links in Pixmantec NEWS may only function when using Microsoft Internet Explorer." (why ? so the embedded campaigns.com spyware can run properly ?) A startup tech company like Pixmantec, even when it has another company (PhaseOne) to do their R&D for them, needs totally dedicated top-flight marketing (I know this from very painful recent experience). I cannot see how a pro wildlife photographer can supply this. And why does Andy Rouse matter ? Because he is arguably one of the very best wildlife photographers working today (personally I'd put him in the top 3, and joining one of his workshops is a recurring daydream), not because he used to be one of the UK's army of mindless corporate IT suits. Although his recent writings on Nature Photography Network indicate that his creativity is alive and well, I'd seriously examine my priorities if I was him. Have I actually used RawShooter ? Nope. I'm a Mac user, and it doesn't run on Macs. I upgraded to Microsoft VirtualPC 7 expressly to try it, and it didn't work. Why not ? Dunno, CaptureOne works fine under VPC7 emulation, so I cannot see any good reason, save poor design, why RawShooter couldn't. I'd get out and do some photography if I were you, Andy.

depression cure

in General Rants , Monday, March 15, 2004

I think I've been reading far to many photography magazines and far too many web sites, and getting depressed about the (low) quality of my photography. Somehow everybody composes photos better, has better colour, better sharpness, better subjects. And all this landscape stuff, finally it isn't very creative is it ?

But... so many people say that they find inspiring and interesting things just outside their door. So on Sunday I went out, just a little way, with no plan, and ended up near a small stream I'd never really noticed before, but which was transformed by the melting snow. I ended up with 80 photos (praise the Lord for digital cameras) some of which are quite nice.

I'm still pretty sure that I don't have much of a clue, but at least I enjoyed myself!

Photography Magazines (part 2)

in General Rants , Wednesday, August 06, 2003

I couldn't resist a quick extra rant on the topic of poor reviews in magazines when I saw the latest issue of Practical Photography (UK).
This issue reviews the Kodak DCS Pro 14n, a camera that has had mixed reviews in general (and I'm being polite). PP do not appear to particularly mind that a camera listed at £4224 has a viewfinder you can't even get your eye up to - the "Handling" score, with the comment "The main camera controls are there, but there are plenty of niggles", is 86%! How many "niggles" do you need to reach 70% - or even 50% ? How bad a camera would plumb such depths ? At least the main controls are there - hey, for £4000+ I would tend to expect them to pretty well glued on too! Image Quality..."Superb from the RAW files at low ISOs, less impressive from the JPEGs" - this is worth 93%! I suppose a Canon EOS 1Ds would get 150% then ? I could go on (and on), but the total score for a camera which is generally reckoned by informed experts to be just a few feathers short of a turkey is 88%. One note though: the article repeatedly states that the 14n was designed for portrait and wedding photographers (good thing they don't need viewfinders..do they?). This seemed suspicious, so I checked on Kodak's web site. Indeed, Kodak do say this (actually they say exactly what PP say, demonstrating PP's skill with Cut & Paste). I digged further and found that they were saying this back before launch too. So, in this context, scathing comments in certain wildlife / landscape oriented reviews were maybe a bit unfair too.
However, as for PP - I could get over it if it was an isolated case, but in the very same issue we are presented with a two page review of the Rollei 35MF rangefinder. Not once -despite picking on the price as a weak point - do they point out the fundamental fact that this overpriced vanity object is nothing other than a badged engineered Cosina, er, sorry, Voigtlander.

Frankly I find this reporting irresponsible at best and dishonest at worst. Practical Photography is actually one of the best photographer magazines in the English language, with great columnists such as David Noton and Andy Rouse, but their so-called reviews do them a serious discredit and are cynically disregarding of their readers.

Ink costs

in General Rants , Monday, July 21, 2003

The Register today notes that a Dutch consumer group has been forced to reverse it's public position on boycotting Epson printers () due to to so-called deceptive chipped ink cartridges. Elsewhere, The Register has an article which claims that inkjet ink is 7 times more expensive than Dom Perignon. Well so what ? You can't make very good prints with Dom Perignon. I could also compare with the cost of Coca Cola - the point is that it is completely irrelevant. I have to say I've seen little to zero complaint from serious photographers about the running costs of Epson photo quality printers. Sure they're expensive - but they are much more practical and cheaper than any previous method of printing archival-quality colour photographs. So it's really not so clear why all these bystanders are making such a fuss...