Recently in General Rants Category

Well, once again a huge gap has gone by since my last post. I’ve also made no updates to the site since, well, ages ago. There are a host of reasons for this. Some are technical. Due to a particular software vendor being more than willing to take my money, but less keen to supply a working product, or even to answer emails (I do apologise if Mark Liback is actually dead. It’s the only legitimate excuse), my photo gallery upload and maintenance system is kaput. I’m also in something of a limbo regarding web hosting, as my current provider, the hype-heavy, customer service-free Active24 (NOT recommended) is invoicing me for a product they have no description for, and no published price list. And on top of all that, Moveable Type is frankly become a bloated mess of a product which is impossible to work with on anything less than a full time basis.

On top of all that, the day job, which long ago went into “Death March” mode despite several clear warnings from several people, is sucking al life from me. So I don’t suppose things are going to be fixed for a while.

And you know what else ? I’m not actually terribly good at photography, beyond the basic mechanics - and even then, I’m borderline at best. Check out my Flickr stream, which is one thing I do update, for the sad evidence.

So, if you are actually reading this, and you would like to see some great photography, as well as some extremely nice and well presented slideshow podcasts, I suggest you stop reading this and put your valuable time to better use at Bruce Percy’s The Light and The Land website. Adieu.

Photography has being going by the board recently (strange expression... wonder where it comes from ?). I haven't even got around to writing much about my early March Iceland stuff, still less posting any of it except on Flickr.

However, last week, we spent a few days at the heavenly haven of Casa Bolsinina, Tuscany, being looked after by Maria Pia and Marcello. Although I can't say I was feeling particularly motivated, I took a few bits and pieces of gear with me (only 4 cameras), and intended to get up at least once at 4am for a Tuscan dawn.

Well, one morning I set the alarm for 4am, which given that I got to sleep at 1am was a bit drastic. And when 4am came around, I dragged myself out of bed, far enough to see that the sky was completely clear. This, in context, is bad news. Ideally there would be a thick ground mist, which can be used to artfully used to conceal the less attractive parts of the Tuscan landscape.

So I went back to bed.

And felt guilty.

Finally, at 5am I decided to give it a go. By this point, the sky was lightening, and I decided to head in the direction of Val d'Orcia, since getting to the Crete Senese ridge would (a) take too long, and (b) was pointless given the lack of mist.

At some point I glanced around and saw I'd struck oil - a new crescent moon was just rising. All I needed to do was to find a suitable framing for it. Fast. A "this is better than nothing" opportunity arose just outside Buonconvento, and here it is ...

Before Photoshop...

...after Photoshop

Footnote

In some cultures, a new moon is an invitation to make a wish for the coming month. Well, I didn't make one, but I had been hoping to see a porcupine (or two). And I did. Unfortunately, it was plastered all over the road - a long, straight stretch of road, where some doubtless petrol-head Italian had been compensating for his frustrating relationship with his underpants by bravely travelling at 180kmh.

I have calmed down a bit since, and at the risk of offending my many Italian friends, really, what the F&*% happens to Italian men's brains when they get behind a steering wheel ? Why do almost all of these courteous, educated, polite and cultured people turn into brainless, arrogant, rude homicidal maniacs ?

Same reason the Germans, British, French, etc do I guess.

Sometimes nothing seems to move. Everybody is pushing for something, everything, now or sooner. And it gets past the point when it matters. A sort of a post stress status where the things that really matter reclaim the center stage they've been patiently waiting for.

The evenings out here are waiting to be rediscovered. They won't wait for ever.

The screen shot says it all really...

"The current does not have administrator's privileges"

Well, Mr Olympus-San, a) yes he has, and b) why the hell does he need to log on as admin to run a bloody (third-rate) photo management application ?

The anoraks over at DPReview's Olympus forum have gone into righteous outrage mode over a recent article by veteran commentator Thom Hogan, who, one would assume from said outrage, had compared Olympus' new E-3 with the spawn of Satan.

So what was this provocative article all about ? Well, in fact, it was a well reasoned outsider analysis of Olympus' declared ambition to grab 20% of the DSLR market. Hogan (correctly, in my opinion) describes this as "dreaming", pointing out that the only realistic way Olympus would make up the 12 to 14% shortfall they need to meet their target would be to steal it from Canon.

Are the likely to do this ? Well, one would hope that even the most blinkered zealot would be forced to answer "probably not". However good the current Olympus range is - and it is good enough for me - it would have be near miraculous to overturn Canon's inertia in the market, even if Canon's offering was poor, which it clearly is not.

Does it actually matter, to an Olympus customer who just wants to take photos ? I would say only if Olympus' market share were to drop so far that their position would be untenable, and that seems equally unlikely. Sure, people with an investment in the E-System want it to stick around, and the anoraks in particular want new toys to buy every few months, to make measurements with. But whatever, the E-System won't be around forever. Probably neither will Canon's EOS. Nothing lasts forever, but I doubt that Olympus is going to exit the market tomorrow, and even if they did, the cameras and lenses are not going to stop working. However, if you really want future proofing, it is undeniable that Nikon has by far the best record in the SLR market, with Pentax and Leica not too far behind.

But did Hogan, a Nikon fan, point that out ? Nope. He said that the E-510 and E-3 are nice cameras, but they're not going to provoke a cataclysmic shift in the market. A view worthy of derogation, scorn, and insults ? Apparently so.

Thank God for the Internet...