Sunday 28 December 2014

This is the strangest Christmas card...

 ....I ever received in my life. But since I got it from my lifelong friend and videographer  Daniel Jouanisson, I am not surprised by his whacky humour:  
It's a photo of a photo, by Jacques-Andre' Boiffard, a surrealist photographer
who has his first exhibition at Centre Pompidou in Paris, where Daniel just went. Check the link!

Here is another couple of shots:

Sensor shift in the New Olympus EM5 Mk.2.


The refresh of this v. successful model by Olympus will be introduced in February, so all I have is some rumors. Movie rate, EVF, many of the features introduced by the latest Olympus models will be there, but the killer feature will be sensor shift (SS).

So far we know v. little: that it takes 8 pictures byf the sensor by 1/2 pixel, and achieves an image of 40 Mpx. We also know that IBIS stabilisation works in a bracket of 5 pixels . Since  1/2x8 = 4 pixels, so my bet is that sensor shift will happen as part of IBIS, with no need of a tripod.


By my early experience with a superresolution program called 'PhotoAcute' I know that you must slightly shift an image after the first so the program can compare pixels, and increase the information as a result. The program, created by a Russian mathematician,  was v. processing intensive, since each pixel of the preceding picture had to be compared with each of the following one.

Thankfully camera processing power doubles each year, so presumably each 8 pictures can be compared in a reasonable time, seconds instead of minutes.

We also know that the 'old' E-M5 could shoot at 10 fps, so again 8 frames can well be taken  within just one second.


The old E-M5 'Its going to be redesigned anyway.

I assume that stotal shutterspeed of the 8 frames shouldn' be more than one second: shutterspeed defines how fast the objects in front of you can move, fluttering leaves in a windy day being the typical problem for the landscapist. The other problem is people moving through the landscape, but freezing that  should be well within the capacity of the new system, provided one operates in fair weather.

What is the rationale for SS? First you don't need to change system anymore to have v. high definition. You don't even need to change lenses with more resolving ones, since the process is sequential.

At any rate the feature is excellent news for landscapists, portrait and macro users, down to PJ. An Editor is always happy to crop pictures (and a noob too).

People are asking if there will be less noise and better colours. Going by PhotoAcute, I'd say that the colours stay the same, but noise is filtered, while the sofware compares pictures.
A user also advocated more Dynamic Range a' La HDR.
But I'd rather bet that exposure is determined by the first shot and doesn't change for the following 7. The opposite would be a loss of time. So HDR will stay a separate feature, like it was in Photoacute.

BTW the E-M5 already has 12 bits of DR, so it's more than enough. Introducing more would mean to lessen the contrast and having flat pictures. Same goes for colour, it probably stays the same of the first picture, so what you earn with SS is really more detail and less noise.

All this was based on a pure deduction a la Sherlock Holmes, (!) but it might be v. different of what Olympus' engineers have concocted. Then wait for February and check how much of this set of assumptions is wrong :)

To me staying with one system only, and only one set of lenses is a remarkable advantage, and SS has stopped me in my tracks while taking an interest in Sony's A7 and having a fit of GAS. So well done, Olympus, with your 40 Mpx! My wallet is grateful...

When you are able to dabble with single pixels, small sensors still have the advantage. Less processing to do, quicker reactions of the camera.
Olympus' genius is to have designed a superresolution device working within IBIS, and therefore avoiding the need for a tripod like the Sony A7r is reported to need.

Now to recap: Sensor shift must work within IBIS.  IBIS shift works within 5 pixels. If so 1/2 px x 8 frames = 4 px, well within IBIS.

EM5 also has a fast 10 fps so all could happen within a second. With a new double speed processor integrating the eight shots shouldn't take more than a handful of seconds, like an Art Filter.The result is more than twice the resolution and less noise.

Saturday 6 December 2014

About the difference between Oriental and Western Perspective


A Picture of Mount Fuji by Karel van Wolferen

I use here the word Oriental, instead of Asian, because Atmospheric Perspective, as against the Linear Perspective of the West, belongs to the history of China and Japan. Nowadays in Asia they use a camera with built in linear perspective like everybody else on the planet!
Differently from Linear Perspecive that relies on the diminishing size of objects towards the horizon along converging lines Atmospheric Perspective conveys the impression of depth through a colour shift to blue in the distance, and the use of atmospheric haze. You can still observe in Leonardo's portraits, but it is still a factor in more modern painting like Turner's. The fact is that Asians didn't use Linear Perpective until the arrival of the Westerners, notably the Dutch in Japan, which might have imported their camera obscura and the first lenses.

As an introduction I will post a seminal article from Luminous Landscape: The Synthesis of Chinese Landscape Painting and Photography  By George DeWolfe & Lydia Goetze, and their first diagram here:

3 plane diagram. Please check also Lydia Goetze lovely pictures in China.

By comparison this is the well known linear perspective, that we obtain from cameras:

So, three planes, or stages,  instead of lines converging at the infinite distance. One must remember that the Camera Obscura, was originally invented as an optical help after Giotto, in order to help the painter to dispose objects at a distance in a logical, hierarchical order. Before that, even in Europe all objects (saints, their churches, the countryside) were either on the same plane, or two. Therefore they looked very flat.
China being a Confucian country, kept traditionalist views much longer, and transmitted them from the Ming Court to Japan, by the way of trade.

A Japanese view by Ten-Yu Shokei, 15th CE.

George DeWolfe & Lydia Goetze also insist on the role of Negative Space in Chinese Imagery. I have a theory that this is related to the Taoist and Buddhist views of creative emptiness. How could things simply be if they had no empty space and time in which to flow? And since they are so fleeting, what sort of reality do they have? Thus we are introduced to the world of Samsara, appearance, from which the hermit struggles to reach enlightnment, through the intermediate stage of emptiness, distancing from the ego and from there going to the permanent Self, which is Nirvana. Thus the origin of Negative Space.

I find corroboration of this in the Chinese travelogues of John Blofeld, a Western Buddhist who visited most of the ten sacred mountains of China in the 1930s. Look at Amazon for the Wheel of Life, or Journey in Mystic  China.
Blofeld makes landscape descriptions from the mountains which are almost exact equivalents of the hermit view. They are usually plunging views from a mountain shrine offering the colours of dawn, a rainbow of pure saturated colours, from peach coloured to deep purple, before the retreating shadows,For the fasting hermit nature beauty is already a foreboding of Nirvana.
This plunging perspective on coloured peaks which dominates the foreest, above mists rising from the valley (negative space) while human activity awakes in the foreground is almost exactly the theme of many landscape Chinese and Japanese watercolours


Fisherman by Hirosige


Pilgrim by Kumi Yoshi

The lightness of the paintbrush can evoke a contour with just a line, and use colour patches to suggest the material world. The light touch of the watercolour is not going against the subtle perception of meditation. 
In some landscapes you will also see a tiny line of men in the distance climbing steep passes: they are the pilgrims nearing a sanctuary. While the diagonal line conveys a sense of movement and depth it also shows the pious effort the pilgrims to ascend and reach the steep sancuary of their faith. Note that personal effort is the key of buddhism, where it is also known as 'accumulation of merit'.
Can modern photography even catch such subdued and spiritual feelings? Curiously the photographer I find nearest is Andreas Gurtsky, because he uses masterly the dual aspect of material reality and illusion which is specific of Photography. 


Andreas Gurtsky, Engadine

 Thus I contend that there is a lot to learn in Oriental painting even for a modern photographer. There are also some young Chinese photographers that I follow on flickr, which seem to still use traditional iconography. Let those forgive me if I use some of their pics for didactic use.

Chinese Landscape by  五味雑陳


by  五味雑陳 flickr

In both you will notice the importance of Negative Space.
I do suspect that the mists they make use for Atmospheric Perspective, might be in some cases simply be heavy pollution. Never mind it is still part of reality. :) But enormous rivers like the Yang Tse can also contribute, with their evaporation to plunge the plains in mists.
Let me end here by some other striking difference between our worldviews.
Linear Perspective has emphasized the separation between objects, which are disposed like troops for a review in front of a general.
In so doing it has reinforced our modern sense o duality between subject and object and between matter and spirit (or soul) which is the exact opposite of the Asian concept of Wu Wei: let things be, let them flow, be part of them. 

In Taoism the observer is always part of what he sees. The only Western equivalent that comes to my mind are some descriptions of solitude in the wild in Walden, by Thoreau.
But  he too had to become a hermit, and restrict consumption, to enjoy fusion with nature.
This 'being part of the whole' also helps other photographic genres. It's only when you stop feeling separate from things and beings that you begin perceiving  what is happening. Seeing situations instead  of mere objects.
Because of this fusion with the flowing reality you will soon be able to predict in advance how the flow will progress. Blofeld explained very well how hermits found clairvoyance a very minor consequence of their years of meditation. 
It is not a coincidence then if HCB quoted the book the Zen and the Art of the Archery, to explain his extraordinary awareness. It really has to do little with intellectual perception, the body is involved too in total perception of the whole.
HCB's was Magnum emissary to Asia, and he made good his encounters there. The decisive moment is nothing else than a Zen moment, he discovered. And Negative Space in photography is the canvas of illusion on which you project an image. Thus there is a lot to learn from Oriental painting, especially because it relies on a different worldview from the West.


Henri Cartier-Bresson - Women of Srinagar

Just to make an example, in some languages, Chinese I suspect, one  would never say that one 'shoots' a person or a landscape. It would seem a very unlucky thing to say. And yet Buddhist believe in the instant nature of reality, so meditation is no restriction to the instantaneousness of Photography. One must feel connected.

If one does not feel connected to the landscape one is facing, perhaps a moment or two of meditation might obviate the separation. There is really no separation between Self and landscape if one can suspend exploitative, aggressive attitudes, and concentrate on vision only.
 That might be the teaching of Oriental Art to a mechanical world that got caught in the dualism between subject and object.


To conclude, don't miss this fascinating feature about Nature in Chinese Culture, from the Department of Asian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, here:
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cnat/hd_cnat.htm

Note 

 American Postmodern photographer Jeff Wall makes a peculiar use of a 19th century Japanese print by Hokusai, patiently rebuilding  a windy day  for a photograph, as discussed in my article on Postmodernism



A fleeting world really, which took ONE year to re-compose by computer, by placing each leaflet in a consistent way! Quite a different concept from the original Wu Wei!





Tuesday 25 November 2014

The GM5 or the Personal Jewelry trend



Am I being unfair in treating such a powerhouse as the GM5 as a  Personal Jewelry item? 
Perhaps, but admit that at $ 999 (€ 800)  with the 12-32 it needs to be not a camera only but something you can display proudly. BTW if you buy it with the Leica 15/1.7 it will make even a bigger hole in your pocket. But it is a match made in heaven, which will bring you even bigger kudos.
I found the orange version even more gay and attractive, but here I am stopped by other considerations. Won't it attract too much attention in the street? Compare to the black GM5 :





Or the silver one with with the 15/1.7 (€ 1100)



The GM5 is v. similar to the GM1 I reviewed time ago, and which has not been discontinued:
There was an interesting comparison with a Canon dSLR:


The GM5 is slightly bigger than the GM1, probably because it now sports an EVF, but it is still a whole different proposition than an ordinary camera. It is the smallest ILS (EVIL) camera to do so. It has also some additional new features in its v. powerful engine, i.e.:

"The casual snap mode creates video snapshots of 2, 4, 6 or 8 seconds. Several different effects are included, including several fade in/out: black, white and color fades. We found the most interesting effect mode to be the rack focus feature, which allows you to select two spots using the touchscreen, then rack the focus from one to the other smoothly. The efect was pretty neat." Imaging Resource says.

The GM5 has also an enhanced panorama mode, integrated time lapse and some 20 ways to personalize Jpegs, what Oly calls Art Modes, so it is really a full blown art tool, despite the size. No need to go RAW, you modify the Jpegs in camera and see the effect in the EVF, even before shooting.

BTW I haven't found many reviews. You can try those:

Photography Blog, which is a full review

Imaging Resource here, which is a pre-review:

ePhotozine, a short review, here:

Plus you will find various interesting user reviews at the DPR's m4/3 forum. Owners are usually quite happy with the GM5, if not starry eyed.
Only complaint I heard was short lived battery (210 shots officially), slippery shape, slow flash synchro (1/50). I would probably keep it as a second camera anyway., and batteries are cheap and small, so hardly a problem. 

The beauty of m4/3 is being 'scalable', meaning you can use the same sensor size through different body sizes, so why not take advantage? I have a small equivalent, the E-PM2, that I bought for a song as a display unit. 

I use basically in Program and with either the P17/2.8 or the P14/2.5, without even looking at the screen since I have learned to frame by heart, and I don't want to attract undue attention in the street, by raising the camera to my eye.
By knowing my frame, and trusting the camera exposure I can approach a subject down to one meter, without him/her noticing.

The advantage the GM5 has is a real EVF, although some complained that it does tunnel vision. Never mind in the Summer it is probably a godsend , or when you want to frame exactly a landscape (with the E-PM2 I have my add on VF-2 for that).

Now to return to the initial concept let me show you some sylish variations of a German design studio of the GM1. I suppose they'll do the same with the GM5, if people enjoy them. Do you? Despite what some say a camera is not only a tool, but an object of enjoyment, and in fact the GM5 is both. So why not have some fun?




This is a concept by  WertelOberfell and 3D printing company Materialise .

Finally, if I had a stroke of luck I would buy the GM5 in kit with the Leica 17/1.7, which is a lens with a lovable rendering that I could use on both the diminutive GM5 and, say, my E-M5, for more serious shooting. 
That is where scalable comes into play again. the E-M5, contrary to the GM5 has a 5 axis IBIS, and that in landscape counts a lot. No need of a tripod. Just stop down and use shutter speeds down to 1/8!
No IBIS means that you'll need a v. firm hand with the GM5, and either add a rubber grip or use a tripod. Please notice however that the 12-32/3.5-5.6 kit lens is stabilized.

Nevertheless  I am a firm believer in v. small cameras. If Leica seize was the standard for small rangefinder in the 1950s, 60 years later electronics allows half the size for the same IQ. 
Watch out not to drop the GM5 on the floor, it is nowhere as sturdy as its ancestor. But it is pocketable, where the Leica never was. And you can still get a Leica lens in kit with it :)



Message to Navigators



Hello, long time no see :) As you noticed the refresh rate of posts has declined considerably since last June.

That is a period I have been in and out of hospital for some checks, and I will have to undergo some surgery soon. So this  has prevented me to update this blog.

The post about the GM5 will probably be my parting gift for the next 2 months.
I have my sights on the Sony A7 II and the A9 with Sony's 50 Mpx sensor. January will seee the new EM-5 II. There might be also a fixed lens Olympus

However here was also another motive for slowing down the blog. In 8 months existence, I haven't seen a single cent, either in donations or Amazon commissions, despite messages of support.

I think that most don't understand the nature of Internet work: it is not free, it must be paid somehow. The advantage is a large public doesn't need to pay much, but some it must, otherwise the flowers will wither.

So, after convalescence I'll have to take some decisions. Perhaps to beef up the Amazon regional access, say add the  Italy logo, explore AdSense icons, or  beef up camera reviews, but password protect them.

Meanwhile you could decide if you want to do a donation for the past blogs.

Next, I have in mind a new long post about the Oriental Landscape tradition, which is very different from the Western one. It is indeed related with the buddhist and taoist tradition of hermits, and Wu Wei - the spontaeous mindless activity of nature. Instead of linear perspective, it relies on atmospheric perspective, the same we had in Europe before Giotto. It is centered on mountainous landscapes, sinking in fleeting mists, as seen by the hermits. Can photography convey such deep feelings?

So if all goes well, we'll have some very interesting stuff for January of February. Meanwhile please enjoy what has already been done, and think about how to finance the blog. I am open to suggestions, since in the same period I'll have to take decisions on how to modify the blog.

Sunday 12 October 2014

Return to the real?

Frieda Khalo and Tina Modotti


I was surprised to find that under 'Realism' Wikipedia had nothing. To me, Realism was the very stance that guaranteed the relevance of photography.

Documentation, reportage are the very activities I grew up with, not only with HCB, or Magnum, I certainly grew up with Life, Paris Match, and the lesser illustrated magazines that catered about film stars. 

Images of the Vietnam War and McLaughlin also defined v. well my youth. But suddenly all this was gone, replaced by Postmodernism, a re-photography at best, where the very concept of tangible reality had become doubtful or even disappeared.

I found a useful British site that provides theses,  so let me quote it about Realism:

"Photography was now used extensively in art, and in the new postmodern culture. Postmodernism discarded the idea of finding something new and original and instead focussed on recombining elements from existing culture. Nothing new was being created which soon meant that art had become exhausted. The postmodern culture played ‘with signs of never ending reference, where the more you played the less anyone seemed to know what reality it was touching’ (Bate, 2004a: 31) and we had ‘lost touch with what we thought reality to be’ (Bate, 2004a: 31). The constant referencing and re-referencing had led to us being absorbed in representation. We no longer knew what reality was, and what it was not. We were lost. ‘The fear about postmodern culture was that there was no longer any anchor to reality at all, and that ‘reality’ had disappeared into an endless chain of other representations’ (Bate, 2004a: 31). 

"This never ending reference meant that all grip on reality had disappeared. There was a wish to return to something more stable and basic. There was a need for change, for something new to emerge from the endless trail of reference. In this culture, in which reality was discarded in favour of mass intertextual referencing, there was a desire to return to reality. As David Bate says, there was a, ‘wish for a grittier, ‘closer to reality’ relation through realism’ (Bate, 2004a: 35). Many people wanted a ‘return to the values of modernism (the straight and pure photograph) to contemporary art photography, this is a return to description, originality and actuality – precisely all the things that were strongly rejected by postmodernism’ (Bate, 2004a: 33).

I am not really presuming that with digital you can't do less or better than imitate film.You can with  Fuji's Film Simulation modes, or Olympus Art Filters. To me Kodak's Tri X. or Ektachrome are the very modes in which reality appears.

One knows wowever  perfectly well that in Digital Adobe reigns supreme, and with any of its sliders you can fetch any tone or colour your brain can conceive. So what is real?

There is also a social side of the question. As we saw in Rodchenko life in the streets, or in the city, squares,boulevards, was always meant as a presentation of the workers' life in the open, so it was the result of class struggle and social interaction. It is interesting to see that American humanist realism (The Family of Man) stepped back  from such a socialist endeavour.

For instnce Vivian Maier couldn't be packaged as a socialist photographer, but we can probably use classical photographers like Paul Strand and Tina Modotti, who were part of another interesting institution like the Photographers' League in New York. In the 1930s it put together all the progressive photographers of the era, without many of knowing that it was a Communist project.


March of the Mexican artists by Tina Modotti

Tina is interesting: the daughter of a communist artist in America, she was many things, a model, an actress,  a lover of Weston, a photographer, notably in Mexico, where she made friends with Frieda Kalho. She drifted towards social symbols (see her in the sombrero with sickle and hammer).


Campesina and self portrait, Tina Modotti

 After being expelled in Merxico, Germany and Switzerland she eventually fought in The Spanish Revolution with Moscow envoy Vidali. Although by 1940 she was herself a professional revolutionary, she gave up photography for more clandestine work.
Realism is certainly connected with social awareness in my conception, but not necessarily with communism. In the 1930s however the choice was stark between Nazifascism and communism, so one can't really use the same metrics of today. Just to remind of the times, Tina was actively researched by the Italian Political Police for assassination.

 It was while on a fieldtrip in this class that Strand first visited the 291 art gallery – operated by Stieglitz and Edward Steichen – where exhibitions of work by forward-thinking modernist photographers and painters would move Strand to take his photographic hobby more seriously. Stieglitz would later promote Strand's work in the 291 gallery itself, in his photography publication Camera Work, and in his artwork in the Hieninglatzing studio. Some of this early work, like the well-known "Wall Street," experimented with formal abstractions (influencing, among others, Edward Hopper and his idiosyncratic urban vision). Other of Strand's works reflect his interest in using the camera as a tool for social reform. He was one of the founders of the Photo League, an association of photographers who advocated using their art to promote social and political causes.
Mostly because of the same Internationalism, Paul Strand came to incorporate the same ideals: his portraits in Ghana a or Sardinia wouldn't show only portraits of the individual, but also the social relationships.


Paul Strand, Ghana


Paul Strand, Sardinia

In both social relationships jump to the eye. There is no beautification.

In June 1949, Strand left the United States to present Native Land at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in Czechoslovakia. The remaining 27 years of his life were spent in Orgeval, France where, despite never learning the language, he maintained an impressive creative life, assisted by his third wife, fellow photographer Hazel Kingsbury Strand.
Although Strand is best known for his early abstractions, his return to still photography in this later period produced some of his most significant work in the form of six book ‘portraits’ of place: Time in New England (1950), La France de Profil (1952), Un Paese (featuring photographs of Luzzara and the Po River Valley in Italy, 1955), Tir a'Mhurain / Outer Hebrides[2] (1962), Living Egypt (1969) and Ghana: an African portrait (1976).

portrait by Paul Strand

The timing of Strand’s departure to France is coincident with the first libel trial of his friend Alger Hiss, with whom he maintained a correspondence until his death. Although he was never officially a member of the Communist Party, many of Strand’s collaborators were either Party members (James Aldridge; Cesare Zavattini) or were prominent socialist writers and activists (Basil Davidson). Many of his friends were also Communists or were suspected of being so (MP DN Pritt; film director Joseph Losey; Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid; actor Alex McCrindle). Strand was also closely involved with Frontier Films, one of more than twenty organizations that were identified as "subversive" and "un-American" by the US Attorney General.
Strand also insisted that his books should be printed in Leipzig, East Germany, even if this meant that they were initially prohibited from the American market on account of their Communist provenance. De-classified intelligence files, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and now lodged at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, reveal that Strand’s movements around Europe were closely monitored by the security services.

All This took place under the auspices of the Photo League in New York (wikipedia):
The League’s origins traced back to a project of the Workers International Relief (WIR), which was a Communist association based in Berlin. In 1930 the WIR established the Worker’s Camera League in New York City, which soon came to be known as the Film and Photo League. The goals of the Film and Photo League were to “struggle against and expose reactionary film; to produce documentary films reflecting the lives and struggles of the American workers; and to spread and popularize the great artistic and revolutionary Soviet productions.”[1]
In 1934 the still photographers and the filmmakers in the League began having differences of opinion over social and production interests, and by 1936 they had formed separate groups. Paul Strand and Ralph Steiner established Frontier Films, to continue promoting the original goals, while at the same time Strand and Berenice Abbott renamed the original group to simply “The Photo League”. The two organizations remained friendly, with members from one group often participating in activities of the other. The goal of the newly reformed Photo League was to “put the camera back into the hands of honest photographers who ... use it to photograph America.”
The League quickly became active in the new field of socially conscious photography. Unlike other photography organizations, it did not espouse a particular visual style but instead focused on “integrating formal elements of design and visual aesthetics with the powerful and sympathetic evidence of the human condition.” It also offered basic and advanced classes in photography when there were few such courses in colleges or trade schools. A newsletter, called Photo Notes, was printed on a somewhat random schedule depending upon who was available to do the work and if they could afford the printing costs. More than anything else, though, the League was a gathering place for photographers to share and experience their common artistic and social interests
Among its members were co-founders Sol Libsohn and Sid Grossman (director of the Photo League School); Walter Rosenblum, editor of the Photo League Photo Notes; Eliot Elisofon, a LIFE photographer; Morris Engel (since 1936); Jerome Liebling, who joined in 1947; Aaron Siskind; Jack Manning, a member of the Harlem Document Group of the League and a New York Times photographer; Dan Weiner; Bill Witt; Martin Elkort; Lou Bernstein; Arthur Leipzig (since 1942); Sy Kattelson; Louis Stettner; Lester Talkington (from 1947); Lisette Model; and Ruth Orkin, a member from 1947.[4]
In the early 1940s the list of notable photographers who were active in the League or supported their activities also included Margaret Bourke-White, W. Eugene Smith, Helen Levitt, FSA photographer Arthur Rothstein, Beaumont Newhall, Nancy Newhall, Richard Avedon, Weegee, Robert Frank, Harold Feinstein, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Minor White. The League was the caretaker of the Lewis Hine Memorial Collection, which Hine's son had given the League in recognition of their role in fostering social activism through photography as his father had done.[
Most of the members who joined before the end of World War II were first-generation Americans who strongly believed in progressive political and social causes. Few were aware of the political origins of the movement of the communist "Workers as Photographers" (Arbeiterfotografen) in Berlin. This had in fact little to do with what the organization did as it evolved, but helped its downfall after the war, when it was accused by the FBI of being communist and "subversive and anti-American." In 1947 the League was formally declared subversive and placed on the U.S. Department of Justice blacklist by Attorney General Tom C. Clark. At first the League fought back and mounted an impressive This Is the Photo League exhibition in 1948, but after its member and long-time FBI informer Angela Calomiris had testified in May 1949 that the League was a front organization for the Communist Party, the Photo League was finished. Recruitment dried up and old members left, including one of its founders and former president, Paul Strand, as well as Louis Stettner. The League disbanded in 1951.By chance however I discovered that there was an exhibition at the Jewish Museum of New York, witnessing how much the European migrants had made for the city, between the two WWars.  Robert Frank was one of the most notable, although he would end persecuted himself:


by Robert Frank
Now can witness that in just one century the direction of photography changed completely: From social sensitivity to unbridled fantasy and reprophotography of Postmodernism. The question that matters, methinks, is if there is any advantage in going back to simpler times, where people mattered for what they did,  for the useful work they did, and not the money of the equipment they manipulated.

by Robert Frank

by Robert Frank
                                                      *

PS  check the Paul Strand exhibition just opening at Philadelphia, an anthology not to be missed:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/oct/13/paul-strand-photography-masterworks-philadelphia-retrospective-in-pictures

Sunday 7 September 2014

The Pen Light Saga

Detail of the Olympus E-PL7, with the lovely 17/2.8 pancake.
The first annoucement to anticipate the coming Photokina is the E- PL7 by Olympus. It has been dubbed the Selfie Pen, for its tilt down screen, allowing an optimal, plunging angle of view. The sensor is the by now unremarkable, but excellent 16 Mpx sensor that has been gracing Oly for the last three years. It has almost 13 stops of Dynamic Range,  25600 sensitivity limit, and a per pixel sharpness that rivals Full Frames like Leica.

Please see two excellent reviews here:



However the real news is for the Europeans. While the PL7 with kit will cost $ 700 in the US, ilt will be only € 499 in the EU, this reflecting the true exchange rate - a first however for Olympus.



The E-PL7 with selfie screen. Note the pancake zoom, and the second wheel around the shutter button, under the index. Body only the camera is € 399!

This reminded me that  the PL1, the first of the saga, was my first buy into m4/3 and mirrorless, some 4 or 5 yrs ago (how time passes!) for € 350. Before that the Pen line had been an unapproachable € 900!

Additionally it had a plug for an EVF, which changed completely the useability of the little one. Yes it was also much smaller, it came only in black like the Ford T, and it was with it that I began the joys of Street Shooting, nobody taking any notice of the little 'toy' sized camera.


the E-PL1. CC by Benoit Marvhal. The Ugly Duck, now in Silver :)

The PL1 was a big success, followed by the PL2, PL3 (I had that one too) all 12 MPx, and then followed by the 16 Mpx PLs.

The Pen Lights rested on a paradox. Designed for P&S, thy had a secret software switch, which made them  serious second cameras, by showing the full configurability of the camera in the menus.

They rested on another paradox. While marketed in the West as Volkscameras, Cameras for the People, they were bought by adventurous males - but in fact they had been designed in Japan, especially for Camera Joshi, the Girls with A Camera!
I tried to divulge the notion but it was v. poorly received by Western machos at DPR  :)

Whatever, today the Pen Lights are the mirrorless top sellers in Japan, and by now I can hardly walk in Rome without seeing a Camera Joshi tourist with one!

A couple of months ago I bought an E-PM2 (for a paltry 150 Euros!) which is the smallest of Oly, not even having a tilting screen, although it has a touch one.

In the recent Pen Lights you can also focus in any point of the screen, and focus/shoot by touch. Priceless! (E-PM2)

Fact is that it has the same 16 Mpx of my Queen, the E-M5, but it is really pocketable, therefore I use it much more!
Even, the PLs suggested me a series called 'Citizens of Rome', based on my shooting blindly from the hip with one of them, and thus becoming the Invisible Man.



Behind its desultory, but shiny appearance, the E-PL7 is a dragster of a camera. It has the fastest AF in the Industry and a pancake 12-42 which is prodigy of design. It has  3 axis IBIS stablization, meaning that your old adapted MF lenses will be stabilized too. It shoots at 8 fps. It has good movie speed at 30 fps, with 3-axis stabilization making it a breeze even without a tripod.

And last but not least it has an array of Art Filters that will allow you to pre-program the camera in all the crazy ways that photographic ingenuity has designed over time.
My favourites are the Pin Hole, like the piccie above, and the Dramatic Tone B&W:


The two new filters the PL7 adds to the array are Partial Colour, and Vintage, resembling Snapseed and Instagram.

In the next episode, I'll review the GM5, which is the Panasonic equivalent of the Pen Light.

It will have the big advantage of a built in EVF, and silent electronic shutter. We'll see however how big and expensive it is. People around the Web are protesting that it might be a replacement for the well loved but bigger GX7.  Unfortunately GX7 sales were spoiled by the OM-D series by Olympus. But Panny might still take a vengeance with the diminutive GM5.

This leads me to  a last consideration.
Smartphone sized, WiFi, connected little cameras are replacing the old dSLR paradigm. Size is not anymore a guarantee of quality. Even, smallish might become not only the trendiest, but also a synonym of the best quality: the true Leicas of the XXIst century.

Camera Joshi discovered it years it ago: Light comes from the East :)

Settings

Here is how I set a Pen Light. First I activate the Super Control Panel (SCP) from the Menus:


This gives me a matrix of controls that I can activate by touch. In P like Program, I leave the defaults, except that I choose Auto ISO, and Center Focus.

Secondly, I usually set the camera for high or low contrast days. This entails correcting  EV for Brightness, and/or setting Auto Gradation, instead of 'Norm', for relighting plugged shadows.

 I also made a preset B&W with high contrast and orange filter.

If I want to go into WoW! territory I use B&W Dramatic tone, or if I am moody, Pinhole or other Art Filters.

Oly's colours out of camera are extraordinary, and I was regularly losing them when doing RAW, so I went back to Jpeg. I am told the same happens with Fuji, and its Film Simulation modes.

I can now activate or not the 'Keep Warm Filter' from the Menu, according to the season. And I can fine tune the WB according t the light, if it's warm or cold: there are may presets, and you can devise yours.

So as you see there's a lot of interpretation allowed even by using the camera controls. You can do all at the scene, and compare with your eyes, if they fit.

Of course I aim to maximum resolution, and can consider increasing brightness to the limit to lighten up shadows, but basically I am after quick content, so I usually rely on auto exposure (ESP), and change settings only after a set of shots, not to create tone or colour discrepancies.

I usually shoot in Jpeg Super Fine, but of course many will be happy to use RAW, or both.

If you are into landscape, don't forget that you can add a VF-4/3 to any Pen:

This 2,36 Megadots beauty should cost you around $ 250 (€ 200?), but you can carry it across bodies when you change cameras. It will show you all the tone subtleties and details of a Landscape. Note that in the menus there is a Tone Control Curve, that can be split in two, for better effect.

Don't forget that by activating the built in  WiFi you can duplicate the camera picture, and use some same controls in your smartphone, as if the camera was tethered to it.

And you can instantly send a Jpeg from the Artic to your friends, if your ship has WiFi! Think a Selfie in front of an Iceberg :)

Enjoy!