The start of something new

Today could have gone in 2 directions, we have now headed into the 2nd direction …

Most of you will know, that after the unbelievable run at the end of the season where Parramatta won 10 of the last 11 to go from nowhere to the grand final has ended in disappointment (figuratively).  As players and fans openly wept in disappointment after perhaps the biggest game of rugby league to date, it’s hard not to be excited for the future. 


Ofcourse we all wanted the fairytale finish, and nobody wanted it more than the carryovers from the 2001 grand final defeat.  The final score isn’t too much different from that game in 2001, but this is different.  2001 left a taste of bitterness and frustration in an embarrassing defeat.  As a result, players left, coaches eventually found new teams, and the eels crashed back into mediocrity.  2009, same spotlight, still a defeat, but as the camera showed the myriad of young faces on the Parramatta squad, you can’t help but be excited for the next few seasons. 

 

The likes of Mortimer, Hayne, Moimoi, Inu, Grothe and Reddy flanked by seasoned vets such as Cayless, Hindmarsh, and Burt already sounds like a promising future.  Let’s not forget the return of much loved centre Timana Tahu, and the additions of Shane Shackleton and Justin Poore starting from next season.

I hope the young players remember this feeling and hold onto it until they win a grand final.  This feeling is what’s going to drive them to victory, it’ll make them work that much harder in training and in the off-season.  And Hindmarsh … well we all just want to see him win.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t do it today.  But we got a great young team, and we’ll give it a good crack next year” Nathan Cayless during the post game ceremony.  All Parra fans should be proud of this team and how far they’ve come, you’ve done us proud and we’ll definitely be there in support come opening game next season.

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It’s an Arms Race (Chapter 1)

Admit it, photography has come a long way. Gone are the days where you pretty much need your own photographic darkroom for processing and development to be called a pro. In fact, pros now have a digital darkroom in a workstation as small as a MacBook Pro. This should make things easier … right?

Well … technically no. I’ll provide a structured series of arguments to sway any doubters, and if there are still doubters after that we can settle it with a bar fight lol.

Before you read on .. make sure you WATCH the videos, they’re awesome. Even if you’ve seen them before you’ll enjoy watching it again.

The Cons of using film:

- overexposed and underexposed negatives when taking the photo is harder to fix
- If you have your own darkroom and do your own developing manually, there is a chance of overdeveloping or underdeveloping the film. Which makes the negs pretty poor quality despite how good you took the photo

- If you use a manual enlarger, there is the change of overexposing or underexposing when transferring the image from the neg to the light sensitive photographic paper

That’s 3 major steps where minor mistakes will affect the desired result out of your images. If you are careful enough, most of the time things go well, but sometimes you just can’t do a whole lot about it. After reading that, it would be safe to assume that being a digital professional is much easier.

In that respect … yes (not to fret, I haven’t changed my mind). Sure I can take photos in RAW format (giving me ample room to fix exposure), and sure if I mess something up in processing I can hit the undo button. Even the printing of photos are neglected as most people would prefer a copy of the images on a CD so they can facebook it. As a result of this, in today’s photographic world, it makes it really hard for an individual to stand out. When people apply for photographic positions, they often get asked what equipment they have. If I was an employer I would favour the candidate with the more serious equipment over the one with basic equipment.

I know what you’re all thinking, it’s the photographer not the equipment. And I would say that you’re correct, however that’s just not the way society works. Many brilliant people get overlooked no matter how good their work is all because their gear wasn’t as serious as the guy next to him. I don’t blame them because that’s just the way it works. When a customer is asking me about DSLRs and he brings up the fact that he used to be a “pro”, I automatically ask what lenses and what bodies he worked with. And sure enough after telling me his life story, he’ll name some of the lenses that he has and I’ll end up thinking “are you serious? That’s some pretty basic stuff” And eventually I would see some photos that he did back in the glory days and I’ll think to myself “If I had a son, and he was 3yrs old, he could take better photos than that”

The problem here is that film SLR pros don’t understand the nature of digital photography. They even undermine it and brush it away, while us digital users do the exact same to film people. I’m not saying there weren’t any great photographers back then, there are … Max Dupain, Kiichiro Ishida to name a few. But there are a lot of people that will think “I can tell this kid I was a pro and he’ll believe me because he’s young enough to be my grandson and that digital photography will never match film photography”.

If you are one of those people, read on. If you’re not, well … read on anyway.

The game has changed, and if you’re not willing to hop onto the bullet train we’re leaving you behind. Gone are the days where you could win the dunk contest with a tomahawk, these days you’ll need to dress up in green and jump over a 7ft tall superman and complete the dunk to get a good score.

The simple truth is … digital photography has taken photography as an art, as a source of communication and a source of evidence to new heights. With film, 400 ISO provided some pretty grainy photos … on the Canon 5D MkII … what grain? Too dark, cant shoot? Let me just pump up my ISO to 6400 while you sit there and ponder how you’ll get a shot that doesn’t turn out pitch black.

Digital will never reach film? Please, us digital shooters are so multitalented that we can even piece together some hectic short videos shot ENTIRELY on an SLR. Go on, watch the video

What up? That’s another point to the digital crowd.

I won’t overload you with too much info in one go. In fact I haven’t gotten to the heart of my real argument. Think of this as an intro if you must, but things will make more sense as I post up the rest of my beef over the next week or so.

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Name this bug

Camera: Panasonic Lumix LX-3

Settings: ISO 80, 1/50 sec, f/2, manual focus at minimum focussing distance

Since I have a Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro for my SLR, I rarely use the macro function on my compact. This photo here ... I was walking home and saw this little furry bug glued to the glass window outside my door. Me being me, I took a photo (couldn't be bothered to run upstairs to get the SLR).

I switched the camera to manual focus, set it to minimum focussing distance (0.01m), and moved in and out until I got a sharp picture. It took a couple of goes to get a decent photo, and this is definitely harder to do with a compact compared to an SLR. After some basic processing in Lightroom and CS3, I flipped it to B&W to see what it would be like. Interestingly enough, the monochrome made the insect look even more alien the original photo in colour. I still have absolutely no idea what this thing is ... but if a moth had sex with a sea monkey (somehow), this is without a doubt what it would look like.

Being a macro post, I can't end this without mentioning the best (and affordable*) macro kits commercially available (SLR & Compact).

- Nikon D300 + Nikkor AF-S 105mm f2.8 micro ... totals to roughly $4k

- Canon 5D MkII + EF 100mm f2.8 macro ... roughly $4.6k

Compacts are harder to judge, as they tend to give different magnification ratios. From playing around with different types of cameras at work, the compacts that impressed me with their macro include:

- Canon Powershot G10

- Canon Powershot SX10/SX1 IS

- Lumix LX-3

- Ricoh R8

You might notice there aren't any Nikons in the compact list, and it's because I havn't been impressed with a Nikon Coolpix since 2001 (seriously). The P90 arrived in store today, and since it was one of the most hyped up Nikon compacts (EVERYONE asks about them), I decided to crank it out and do a quick hands-on analysis.

I was NOT impressed at all, and I DON'T understand what all the hype is about. First of all, it's an ugly camera, I thought the lens looked flashy but everything else screams 1980 (in a bad way). The rear LCD screen had terrible resolution, compared to some of the newer canon screens anyway (G10). I'm sure the camera had image stabiliser, but it might as well have been non-existant. Colours were a bit cold, but that's ok cos some people like that. Images were not particularly sharp ... and it performed averagely at ISO 800. It's not the most terrible camera, but it's not for me, and definitely not for that price (~$779)

As usual, I went off track near the end of the post but you guys should be used to it by now. I make this up as I go and I'll put down whatever pops into the front of the queue. My mind is a cluttered mess, and not even I know how to sort it out.

p.s. Have a click on the links on this post, the reviews give some good insight into the type of image quality that I'm so picky about.

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