Sunday, April 29, 2012

Photography - Past - Present - Future

We are living in era of technology and information.

With the technology changing and improving really fast and new super functional cameras coming in the market every year, us photographers become really picky with the with the current cameras out in the market.

I read the Flickr discussion boards, and people are just discussing about what their cameras can do, how fast does it focus, how many FPS it has, how much noise it gives at 6400 ISO, and looking at these things as minor problems.

It becomes hard for me to understand them and why are they making such small things in to big problems.

Those of you who remember, know or used old cameras will understand and agree.

Lets look back in the time, when photojournalists were using 35mm film and medium format cameras.

They carried one camera with Color film, one camera with B&W high ISO and other camera with B&W low ISO. They used TLR cameras (twin lens reflex), rangefinder cameras.
They didn't have auto focus system, 12 frame per sec.






My favorite sports photograph is take by Neil Leifer.
He used Kodakcrome and medium format camera without metering built in.


He didn't have any of the advantages of todays technological monster cameras.

This photograph is selling for thousands for print.













Nowadays if such thing is happening like the boxing match, the photographers will capture every frame from the last punch till he falls on the floor.

I am not saying this technology is bad, but this technology makes the value of the photograph less specially if it is on internet (The Digital Wasteland)

Now Look where we were and where are we now. 

We don't need to carry 3 different cameras with us.
We don't need an extra bag of Films.
Camera does the focusing and metering.
Focusing can track the subject.
Now they call 4 FPS a slow camera, seriously what is wrong with people.
When I am using a Sinar I spend 1 to 3 minute on focusing only, then I measure the distance between lens and the film and calculate the exposure change, then load the film and take the photograph.


The discussion that I hate the MOST is when some one says D800 has too much pixels and files are too big I barely shoot 150 images in one card . . . seriously ? I can only shoot 10 photos with my Mamiya RZ67 and 36 frames with my Nikon F100.

Everything is perfect but no one is happy. 

Nikon/Cannon Fanboys instead of comparing Cameras and specs, just be happy with what you got, go out there and shoot.

What is the future of photography?
With the technology being so easy to use, and pushing the limits of photography, every one with a DSLR can come up with good results of photographs, and every one can call them selfs photographers.

Who knows maybe in future, Cameras will cook for us and walk our pets in the park.



Thursday, April 26, 2012

Nikon D800 VS Hasselbald H4D-40

Many Nikon fanboys have been waiting for a video like this for some time. I am a nikon user and I don't expect that Nikon to beat Hasselbald or any Mediumformat on a comparison. I don't think that any 35mm DSLR will be better than any Medium format DSLR. I'd chose Mamiya DM22 over D800 (DM22 has 22 Megapixels DUH) 

1. Nikon is 35mm    -   Hasselbald is 6x4.5 and even 6x4.5 I find it small. If they will make a medium format with 6x7 size sensor and revolving back I'll sell my house to get it. Imagine how much I don't like crop sensors in DSLR like Nikon and Cannon 
2. Hasselbald has Leaf aperture so as most of the medium formats, that means Flash sync speed up to 1/1600s flash sync speed up to 1/800 (onH system).  Mamiya and PhaseOne can go up to 1/1600
3. The DoF of medium format is way better than 35mm
4. 35mm DSLR has 14bit raw and medium format digital cameras or digital backs has16bit raw






However I am planning on selling my D700 and buying either D3X or D800 (probably D800+grip cuz of my budget) WHY? Because I need more Pixels. Photographers shooting Fashion and going in to commercial photography industry will never have enough pixels :D 

But my dream camera is 645DF with IQ180 digital back and one day I will buy it, I will buy it with the money I earn from photography, well maybe when that day comes there will be better cameras out there but still I'll buy some awesome camera. 

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Mamiya RZ - RB Focusing Hack

Easy Manual Focusing for Beauty, extreme closeups, macro, Still Life and more the limit is your imagination.

For those of you who used Large Format cameras might know this or understand it really easy.

Have you ever wondered how did the Professional Photographers get in focus crispy sharp images with Medium format Manual focusing cameras, back in the time when a person can only imagine of auto focusing or see it in their dreams?

So in large format camera they put black curtain or blanket or what ever that doesn't allow light pass through, and then they look at the focusing screen and use a magnifying loupe which is around 8x or 10x and with that they focus. (fun thing to do, makes you spend more time to take the photograph and at the end you appreciate it)

However medium format cameras has their own focusing eye piece, or waist level focusing or what ever; but if you remove that you will end up with a smaller version of large format cameras focusing screen. Then just like Large format you can use the Magnifying Loupe.

You can do that with almost every medium format camera with manual focusing.

Here are some photos of what it looks like (For those people lazy to read what I've written above)




So what ever you are taking for example if it is beauty shoot and the model is right infront of the camera, you can look through the loupe and look at her eye and focus in to her iris.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012