29 Aug 2010
Most of us enjoy helping one another. That's one of the reasons why internet photo forums are so popular. Sure, there are people who want to show off, and aggressive little twerps who post things that they'd never dare say to someone's face, but by and large, people help.
I have to say, though, that I hesitate when faced with a post devoid of capital letters, festooned with smileys, or using '4U' for 'for you'. The standard excuse is that for many on the internet, English is their second language. The truth, however, is that while people for whom English is a second language may make mistakes, they are rarely as careless, lazy and stupid as those for whom English (or American) is their first language.
As a schoolboy, I was always told to re-read what I had written before I handed it in. At home, I was always told to 'ask nicely'. Both pieces of advice might be useful to those who actually want answers to their questions. Or 2 they're Qs.
15 Aug 2010
There is an old Chinese proverb to the effect that it is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness. Well, yes, no-one can argue with the metaphor. Do what you can, even if it doesn't amount to much, rather than complain that no-one else is doing anything.
In a literal photographic sense it's quite interesting too. A single candle can actually be quite attractive, but there's not much light, and it's very contrasty, so a bounce (reflector) to fill the shadows is a good idea. Also, the colour temperature is very low: about 1750K. Set 3200K on your digital camera, or use tungsten film, and you'll still have a warm picture.
Most people, of course, won't go to this trouble. They will just use on-camera flash. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, this will give them a truly hideous picture, with a burned-out foreground, a murky background and impressively ugly shadows. So if you can't light a candle, maybe it's better to curse the darkness than to use on-camera flash.
5 Aug 2010
Inspiration can be both positive and negative. As well as the little voice that says, "It might be a good idea to try that," there should always be another one that says, "But not that." For proof, look at old photo magazines.
They will show you that while photographers don't change much, fashions do. What has become of that 1950s staple, Spanish fishermen mending their nets? Or their contemporaries, the curiously pubeless nudes under sunlight shining through slatted blinds? Or indeed crying children, who are mercifully less common today than in the 1930s, at least in pictures?
Count the ratio of good pictures to bad: there was at least as much dross in the past as there is today. There was never a Golden Age of photography; or if there is, we are living in it.
Next, weed out the competent but 'me-too' pictures, or the ones that look 'me-too' after a few decades, and often, there is very little there. Now look at some of today's magazines...
28 Jul 2010
Some photographers like simple cameras, with the minimum of modes, programs, features and options. I am one of them.
Again and again, though, people say to me, "You don't have to use all those options. You can still use it manually if you want." They say it triumphantly, as if it were a clinching argument.
But it isn't. I don't want a camera where, if I press the wrong button, I suddenly get Low Light Sports Mode. I don't want Low Light Sports Mode at all, ever, nor a button for selecting it. I want a focusing ring, an aperture ring and a shutter speed dial. If there's a meter, I want an ISO setting control. On a digital camera, it's true, I need a few more controls such as View and Delete. Otherwise, what ain't there can't go wrong - and better still, what ain't there can't lead me into a sub-menu I can't get out of, usually when I least expect it.
18 Jul 2010
For some reason, photographers love torturing themselves with hypothetical questions. One of the favourites is, "If you could only have one camera and lens, what would you choose?"
There are only two possibilities here. One is that you can't afford more than one camera and one lens, and the other is that you can. Either way, the question is pointless: you buy what you want and can afford.
What, though, if you cannot afford even the cheapest second-hand approximation to the camera you really want? Well, how serious are you about your photography? People give film cameras away nowadays. You're bound to find something usable.
And if you have plenty of money, but don't know what camera you want, it's not hard to find out. Stop whining and asking pointless questions. Instead, go and take pictures with what you've got. Ask yourself what it's stopping you doing. Then go and buy a camera that lets you do it.
10 Jul 2010
Until the arrival of the now-ubiquitous window in the camera back, a problem that was never really solved was film reminders. Was the camera loaded with black and white or colour? Negative or reversal? Twenty or 36 exposure? What was the film speed? Some old Kodak cameras got around it by listing Kodak films on the reminder dial, but even if you used only Kodak film, you had a problem when they introduced new ones. Other reminders mostly rely on your remembering which arrow applies to which speed: ISO 400 colour or 650 black and white?
The easiest answer with pre-window-in-the-back cameras is just to write the film type on the camera. Most chrome finishes are rough enough to accept pencil; on paint, a wax pencil works. As far as I know, the only manufacturer to try this 'officially' by providing a blank space on the camera was Leica: the film reminder on the M4P has ASA (6-6.4K) and DIN (9-29) marked in a circle with a blank space in the middle. Unfortunately it doesn't accept pencil. All they needed was a chrome disk!
15 Jun 2010
An accusation often levelled against digital photography is that it's too easy to take too many pictures. There is at least one area, though, in which most of us took more pictures on film, and that's when we got near the end of a roll. Rather than just wind off the last few frames, we'd try things. Backlighting. High- and low-angle shots. Ultra close-ups. Heavy filtration. Basically, anything we'd read about recently in the photo magazines, or had seen in a book somewhere, or had been meaning to try and had not got around to.
Without the perceived necessity of finishing the roll - with a digital camera we can download eight pictures, or eighty, and then re-use the card - there is far less incentive than there used to be to do this sort of thing. Also, because the medium is 'free', there is less of a disincentive to 'waste' pictures. Because we have to pay for every single frame of the film, whether we use it or not, those last two or three frames on the roll have a value, which the next two or three digital frames don't.
So here's a modest suggestion for digital camera users. Before you pull the memory card out of your camera, unless it's completely full, imagine that the next three or four frames are the end of the roll; that you have to finish them; and that you don't want to waste them. It might be an interesting exercise.
4 Jun 2010
Many amateurs buy the same camera over and over again. Some do it literally: exactly the same camera. I know of one who has had three Hasselblad
outfits, and another who has had four Leica M7s. They buy them; use them for a while; sell them; miss them; buy them again... Others buy cameras that are functionally identical, but from different manufacturers: a Pentax, then a Nikon, then a Canon, then back to a
Pentax again. Of course, they have to change all their lenses and many of their accessories each time they change systems. Professionals don't work that way. When they start, they buy into a versatile, reliable system, and usually, they stick with it. Sure, they may
change. But not often. Nor do they normally worry about the latest and most feature-packed cameras. With the exception of the medium and large format pictures, every single picture in the stack of books above could have been taken with the
cameras in the illustration; admittedly, with a choice of lenses. It's not the kit you own. It's what you do with it. 25 May 2010 There's no doubt about it: cameras can be a form of jewellery, designed to enhance the wearer's status by advertising his (rarely her) wealth
and good taste. But does it work? Probably not. Rich photographers mostly buy cameras for the same reasons as the rest of us: because they think they are good cameras. To say that a good camera is 'wasted' on a rich photographer is therefore nonsense. There are just as many bad, poor photographers as bad, rich
photographers. Probably more, because there are more poor photographers. Besides, what can 'wasted' possibly mean? If you can afford it, and you
enjoy it, where's the 'waste'? In fact, the only time that carrying expensive cameras is really much use in establishing your status is in a camera store, or at a camera club.
Even then, it can backfire. Often, I have an expensive camera around my neck. And there are always people whom you can almost hear thinking,
"Rich idiot. Probably never takes a picture in his life." 17 May 2010 There are those who buy clothes for looks, and those who buy them for comfort. I am firmly in the second camp - and I feel the same way about
cameras. I want clothes that I can put on; that will keep me decent, and either warm in winter or cool in summer; and that do not normally attract
attention by their strangeness or ostentation. This is one reason why I like Leicas. I've been using them for a very long time. I'm comfortable with them. I don't have to think very hard
about using them: no harder than I have to think about putting my slippers on when I'm in the house. That's comfortable. One of the reasons they are comfortable, too, is that I refuse to worry about cosmetics. I buy cameras to use, not to resell, so rubs and knocks
and brassing and scratches just don't worry me. I used to buy and sell cameras, but I don't any more. I just take pictures with them. Maybe that's
a sign of growing up as a photographer. I hope so. 10 May 2010
Health and safety, and recycling, and respect for the environment, are all wonderful things, and highly to be regarded. But
aesthetics are important too. And ugly stickers bearing the logos and symbols of half a score of certifying agencies are hardly aesthetic. A Bosch refrigerator was the first place I encountered these loathsome things, and as the refrigerator cost rather more than many
of the cars I bought in my youth, I was less than enchanted. The sticker on the base of a Leica M8 was what really horrified me, though. A camera
of classic elegance, pared down to the ultimate simplicity; and then, on the bottom plate, a sticker covered in alphanumeric soup, seasoned with
peculiar looking symbols. EMV, D33C66, FC, PC ME95, VC1, inca, CE. Why not put the sticker inside the base-plate, where it doesn't ruin the look of
the camera, and where there is, after all, far less temptation to remove it? Which is what (with some effort, cotton wool and alcohol) I always do. So, apart from the picture above, I don't have any record of
all these wonderful certifying agencies. This rather removes the point of the sticker being there in the first place. 2 May 2010 In the 1960s, Wallace Heaton were among the leading camera dealers in London, and they regularly published a catalogue, the Blue Book. According
to my 1963/4 Blue Book, a Zeiss Contaflex Super B was £124:10s, plus £21:13:7d for the interchangeable back and £6:13s for the ever-ready case:
a grand total of £143:6:7d, or around $400 at the early-to-mid '60s exchange rate of $2.80 to the pound. The UK Retail Price Index tells me that
prices have gone up by a factor of about 16 since then, so the inflation-adjusted price is a truly impressive £2300. At the 1960s exchange rate
this is well over $6000, and even today it is well north of $3500. This is for a leaf-shutter camera with a 50/2.8 standard lens, manually-reset frame counter and non-instant-return mirror. Oh: and a choice of
just three interchangeable front component 'Pro-Tessars', the 35/3.2 (£39:8:2d > £630), 85/3.2 (£41:8:10d > £660) and 115/4 (£43:3:2d)
> £690). Go on. Tell me again about the Good Old Days. 27 Apr 2010 Never mind the nuclear option: what about the unclear option? In the days of mechanical cameras, most controls were self-evident. To be sure, there were tricks like the ring-around-the lens wind-on of the
Werra, the rewind clutch of the Zorkii (concentric with the shutter release, and unmarked) and the self timer of the Pentax SV illustrated above. In the computer age, we are however at the whim of computer nerds. Buttons, switches, dials and ports multiply without number, as do menus,
sub-menus and firmware updates. Install the last, and there is no guarantee that your camera will work tomorrow the same way it did yesterday. Nor
is there any guarantee that your definition of 'improvement' will coincide with that of the computer nerd... 21 Apr 2010 If you are unduly worried about scratching your camera, there are three possibilities. You can't afford it to begin with; or you've got the
wrong camera; or you are an amateur camera dealer rather than a photographer. The reason to buy a camera is to take pictures, not to maintain
resale value. Half cases, anti-scuff stickers for the baseplate, tape everywhere: why? Sure, the first scratch on a pristine camera body is always sad, but it goes with the territory. It doesn't affect the image quality, though,
and image quality is what it's about. If you're constantly swapping cameras, again, why? Can't you find a camera that works; and keep it; and learn
to take pictures? If not, why not? 11 Apr 2010 Lately, Frances has taken to making sock dolls. These are, as their name suggests, a variety of rag doll made from (well-washed) old socks. Then
she makes clothes for them. Recently she held one up (fully clothed, in work blues and a red jumper) and said, "That was really fun. He's got a great personality. And
he can't have taken more than about eight hours to make." Eight hours. Yes. Well, we don't have a television. The point is, I just cannot imagine wasting eight hours on making dolls from old socks and
the contents of the rag basket. Two equally important points are that I don't have to imagine doing it myself, and that it's not time wasted. Not for Frances. Plenty of people
can't imagine 'wasting' time on photography. Or indeed on reading, when they could be watching television. The bottom line is simple. We all have time when we could be doing something else. Whether it's a sock doll or photography, it must surely be
worth spending as much time as we can afford in doing the things we'd rather do. 5 Apr 2010 Saying that a given camera has a maximum ISO speed of 25,600 is completely pointless, even if it is perfectly true. It just doesn't fit
with the rest of photography. Take shutter speeds, for a start. Look at the traditional 'doubling' (or 'halving') sequence from 1/4 to 1/250: 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30,
1/60, 1/125, 1/250. If they were truly halved, they'd be 1/16, 1/32, 1/64, 1/128, 1/256. But we almost instinctively know that the
difference between 1/250 and 1/256 is trivial. Just like the difference between ISO 25,000 and ISO 25,600. In other words, 'ISO 25,000' would be more than accurate enough, and a lot easier to remember. So why say 25,600? It seems to me that
there are three possibilities. Only the first is honourable and creditable: that if they said '25000' people would think they were
exaggerating, because it's too pat, too round a number. The second possibility is that they're computer nerds who know nothing about
photography and its approximations, and can get all the numbers on an LCD. The third is that they're trying to blind their buyers with
pseudo-precision. I prefer the first possibility. But I'm not convinced. 23 Mar 2010 Time and again, you see plaintive requests on the internet for instruction books for old, mechanical cameras; machines that anyone with
an iota of sense should be able to figure out for themselves, especially if they are armed with the sort of information that is given in
the Basics section of this site. What do they find so difficult? Probably, it's this. They were brought up with computers, and no-one can figure out how a computer works. With mechanical cameras, it
would be an exaggeration to say "If you've seen one, you've seen 'em all," but it would be pretty close to the truth to say,
"If you've seen half a dozen, you've seen most of 'em." So give it a good coat of think, as the old saying goes; don't force the controls; and if there's something you don't understand, that's
the time to go on line and look for an answer to a specific question. But if you really need an instruction book for everything on a
mechanical camera, usually there's either something wrong with (or very unusual about) the camera. Or its operator. 10 Mar 2010 Surprisingly many photographers reckon that taping over the logos on their cameras makes them less obtrusive. It is hard to see
how. If anything, it must make them more obtrusive, quite apart from making the camera less pleasant to handle and (unless you can find exactly
the right sort of tape) forcing you to deal with the unsavoury goo that exudes from the edges of the vast majority of tapes. After all, very few people pay that much attention to the appearance of a camera, even when it's being pointed at them. Ninety-nine
out of a hundred won't notice either way: a camera is a camera is a camera, regardless of what it does or doesn't have written on it. The hundredth
will look at the camera; notice the tape; and wonder why on earth it's there. This is what I mean by its being more obtrusive than an untaped
camera. Is there something wrong with the camera, so that it needs to be taped together? Is the photographer trying to hide something, and if so,
what? Is he ashamed of having an inferior camera? Or is he just a prat? 1 Mar 2010 At least four things jump out at you when you look at old photographic books from the 1950s and before. First, there was often an extraordinary amount of text relative to the illustrations: they were writing about photography, not illustrating it. Second, even though page size is usually small by modern standards, the pictures are even smaller: often, not even half-page. Third, although the technical quality is sometimes very good, most of the time, it's awful: muddy and flat, with no decent blacks. Fourth, the pictures are, for the most part, dire. Of course there are many exceptions, but you can expect vapid portraits; landscapes that are
little better than snapshots; sickeningly coy nudes; and jokey 'table-top' still-lifes with twee little glass figures. So although there is inspiration to be gained, and historical insight to be had, the main thing you get from looking at the majority of old photo
books is gratitude that life is so much better nowadays, and that there is so much more good photography about. 22 Feb 2010 Photography surprisingly often invokes extremist passions. Listen to a devotee of film denigrating digital as soulless and gimmick-laden.
Then listen to an advocate of digital dismissing film users as mindless reactionaries standing in the way of progress. The former sounds like
an old-fashioned hell-fire-and-damnation preacher: the latter, like an equally old-fashioned Stalinist commissar. One would burn his opponents
at the stake: the other would send them to the gulag. Why? Because they are unhappy, and frightened, and narrow-minded, and above all, unimaginative. This is the normal state for extremists, though
most fail to recognize it. They'll swear they're happy in their way. They just can't understand how others can be happy in different ways.
Worse, they want to force everyone to be happy in the way that they think they are. Forcing anyone to do anything is seldom a recipe for
happiness; and attacking the things that do make them happy, provided those things are harmless, must surely be the nastiest of petty sins.
