That megapixel race...

A friend recently asked me my opinion about image quality differences between the three Canon 5D full frame camera models.  He seems to love an apparently vast improvement in clarity having moved from the first 5D to the MkII, and he wondered if there would be a similar improvement in moving to the MkIII.


The question deserved an answer as I think people in general might not appreciate or understand what's really going on with sensor sizes.

Camera manufacturers fuel discussions about mega-pixels and sensor qualities.  There are testing labs that compares camera sensors and lenses.  Large forums are devoted to discussing the minutia of every camera and lens ever made. Readers follow these sources of information very closely looking for an edge.  They seem to be looking for something that will add a bit of spark to their image making.  Or perhaps instead they feel the need for bragging rights in some kind of photographic horsepower competition?

Yet, if we were completely honest with each-other, everyone would fail to be able to tell you what camera, sensor size, and lens were used between one image and another without looking at the EXIF information.  So, to answer my friend's question, here is what I said:


Do you want the truth?  Here it goes.

Your 5D at 12 mega-pixels gives you image sizes of 4368x2912.

Your 5D MkII at 21 mega-pixels gives image sizes of 5616x3744.

A print at 300 DPI out-resolves the human eye.  Anything more than this is throwing away resolution and is completely and utterly useless. 

Dividing the long dimension of each image size, we find that:

5D 300dpi images print 14.5inches in the long dimension and with image quality exceeding the limit of human vision.

5D MkII 300DPI images print 18 inches in the long dimension with the same resolution limitations.

Can you really tell any difference between 3.5inches worth of resolution?  I doubt it.  Seriously. If we think we see a difference, it's in our mind's eye and desire to believe something is better than another.

That's just the way it is.


Which is why I'm not ready to move to another camera unless I break one or Canon comes out with an affordable 50+mpixel image monster and insanity gets the better of me.

After replying to my friend, I remembered a short conversation I had with Kerik Kouklis.  He pointed out that some of his best work had been made using a 12 megapixel Canon 5D.  Up to that point, he'd been using (and I believe he still does use) very large format film cameras.  The digital negative 5D images contact printed to 20x24inches pleased him.  He told me it was difficult to tell the difference between an original film contacts and his digital contact prints.

That was way back when 12 megapixels were the most affordable thing in Full Frame digital.  Oh, yes, that was only six years ago.  Whew! time flies.

OK.  So I continue to beat the Cameras are Tools drum.  Sorry.

Shaping ideas which shape images...

A Wandering Mind is a sometimes fascinating thing to watch as it meanders from idea to thought to stumble across what ever is found on the path.  Particularly when it's my own mind.

I friend, Pascal Jappy of Dear Susan blog fame, told me about his latest photographic project.

"Click" went my mind.  "On" went some deeply recessed part of my brain.


I recalled making platinum/palladium prints from digital negatives printed to Pictorico OHP Transparency Film using a pigment printer.  Platinum/palladium prints, when properly prepared, are thought to be very archival.  It was an enjoyable, simple process.  A little UV light.  A little very expensive Pt/Pd solution.  Certain papers.  A brush.  A contact print frame.  And away you go.  Hmmm... OK... so maybe it wasn't so simple, but it was enjoyable.  Print quality can be truly outstanding, as my friend Ray Bidegain's work attests to.

Making Pt/Pd images put me in the mood to emulate early large aperture long exposure photography.  I love the way light works through the alternative process print and bounced back to the viewer in subtle and gorgeous ways.  I also liked the idea of allowing a scene, as rendered by large aperture optics, to move from extremely sharp, narrowly defined areas into smooth, soft out of focus regions.


It is this last effect that I've been giving a lot of thought to since moving to digital capture.  When I shot large format (4x5inch to 12x20inch view cameras, or what the French call les grandes chambres), optic effects were quite easy to achieve.  Just take a long focal length optic and shoot it wide open.  Or better yet, take an early portrait lens of long focal length and large (for it's time) aperture and watch as the magic manifests.

For me, it has been important to remember that what many people "feel" early photographs were like is actually not the case.  I see where photographers make an emulation of an "early" print by using toy camera lenses that are not sharp, and give harsh out of focus area rendition.

Historically, you will see that even the earliest photographic images are extremely sharp on the plane of focus.  Wander the aisles of any open air brocante in Paris and you will perhaps see what I mean.


I worried (nay, obsessed) over how to achieve similar results using APS-C and Full Frame digital cameras.   I looked at buying an adapter that allowed me to take large format lenses to shoot sections of a scene using a digital camera and to later stitch together a scene.  While the approach was promising, it would mean re-purchasing camera equipment that I long ago sold.  It also meant I would be limited to shooting static scenes requiring the use of a tripod.  The whole setup begged to simply return to shooting film, which is not really viable, given our current living situation.

Thoughts, never giving up hope and faster than a speeding bollide, turned to see what kind of aperture I needed in Full Frame digital to match, say, a 300mm/12inch lens shot at f/11 on 8x10inch film format.  That aperture setting is fairly bright on the format.  I have a contact print I made of an image I shot of my father holding a classical guitar he built.  It was shot on 8x10inch film using a Kodak 12inch Commercial Ektar f/6.3 with it's aperture set to f/11.  Talk about a narrow depth of field!   It's a gorgeous image, if I may say so myself (though it sits in storage in the US and I never scanned it to digital to share... oh well...).


A depth of field calculator was found and I proceeded to investigate various lens speed/focal length combinations.  It appeared my existing, inexpensively acquired (cheap!!!) Nikon Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 (pre-Ai) and Nikkor 85mm f/2 Ai lenses, shot wide open, could emulate the old large format solution.  These are sharp optics.  I sifted through a small stack of renowned lenses, rejecting a Nikkor 55mm f/1.2 as well as Nikon's highly vaunted fanboy vintage glass, the 85mm f/1.8 H (while fine stopped down, frankly, it was soft wide open), for find this pair of gorgeous image makers. I was looking for an excuse to use these lenses and that excuse had been found.

Putting the shout out for a model (better models should easily be found, but they're not), I found a lighting configuration that emulated early photographic tent studio light, set up a backdrop, calculated the exposure, arranged the materials, and away I shot.

When I started processing the images, I felt my now typical heavily textured approach would be a great way to express what I "felt" about vintage photographs... but... I wasn't completely pleased with the results.  I had over-processed my work.


It turns out, direct, nearly straight out of the camera was closest to what I wanted to achieve.  I fiddled with the curves just a bit and applied a tint taken from an early print.  No sharpening nor blurring were needed.

Will I make Pt/Pd digital negative prints from these?  I doubt it.  I'm very pleased with the results as they stand.  I may, however, try to find an imprimateur who can supply these printed on a good heavy weight cotton pigment digital print stock.  You see, there is a photo-show coming up that I might want to display some of this work in.

What puzzles me, though, is why this simple, easy to achieve, quick to implement solution to my photographic problem took seven years and numerous complex investigations to solve?

Tools... getting smaller...

Well, Canon has gone and done it.  The Wee-Beastie has been released into the wild.


The small size of the Canon SL1 is the thing that really catches my eye.  Gizmondo's article shows just how small this DLSR really is.  Sony followers are doing their best to believe in their heart of hearts that Canon will take nothing away from the NEX mirrorless market.

Positives of the new Canon, from my perspective, include -

• Extremely small size
• Every AF EOS lens known to man will work on it, including and particularly my hugely expensive and rather large L-glass
• Nikon, Leica, and Pentax manual focus SLR lenses can easily and cheaply be adapted
• 18mpixel image quality (remember when pro-level Canon's 1Ds was the "cat's meow" at 16mpixel?)

Negatives include -

• No WiFi to move data to Nexus/Samsung/iPad tablets for quick processing and upload to the 'net
• No articulated LCD

Note: I don't yet know how accurately the AF system will allow big aperture lenses to be focused when using a chipped adapter (such as I use with my old Nikkor manual focus SLR lenses that date from the Age of Dinosaurs). When a f/1.4 lens is used on the 7D, accurate focus can be achieved in 90 percent of the cases.  When the same lens is used on a 5D MkII, I experience a 20 percent "hit rate". I think the chipped AF adapter focus success has to do with the 7D's outstanding AF system.  How the new SL1 performs will need to be seen.

I love my Sony NEX5(original) cameras.  They are world class image making machines.  I bought a pair of NEX5 cameras refurbished off Amazon when they became available for cheap.  So I split my camera system into two.  The DSLRs are used where focusing performance (ie: birds in flight - BIG) and studio light controls (ie: Einstein and Elinchrom monolights into huge light modifiers) are required.  The mirrorless system where wandering the streets and playing "tourist" is the Game Plan of the Day.

To me, Sony NEX system up-sides include  -

• Incredibly small size and extremely light weight
• Somewhat articulated LCD (flip-up only, still, it's enough for many situations I find myself in)
• AF system is decent for contrast detect
• Shallow flange to sensor distance that allows just about any lens ever made for any application to be used on these cameras (including 16mm cine optics, if you're into that kind of thing)
• The Sony NEX "peaking" function is pretty sweet for focusing old optics
• WiFi connectivity has been added to the NEX5 and NEX6 cameras

Sony NEX downsides include -

• Sony's optical performance could be improved.  The 16mm and 18-55mm kit lenses show obvious distortions and chromatic aberrations at all apertures.
• Slow to non-existant AF focus when used with the 18-200SEL at long focal lengths.  There is far too much hunting going on for my taste.  I've missed shots because of this.  
• Camera buttons and controls are so closely set that I constantly change settings unintentionally.  I really have to pay attention to what I'm doing when I'm trying to work quickly because I all too often bump something causing my setup to change.  These cameras a nearly too small for their own good.
• "Peaking" focusing with my Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 Ai at wide open is very "hit or miss". I resort to magnifying a scene to more carefully focus large aperture lenses when shooting wide open.  Which means using the NEX as limited DOF situations is dodgy and time consuming at best.
• I really have to work at making the NEX cameras work in studio environment and there's no possibility of tracking BIF.  This is why I use them for Wandering Around photography only.

Comparing the costs of the two systems, there is little difference between them.  800USD for the SL1 with a kit lens is 150USD more than a NEX5r with it's kit-optic, and the equal to a new NEX6 with the newer 16-50SEL kit lens.

As you can likely tell, I've been considering selling the NEX to go with the new Canon.  I invested a certain amount of money to go with the Sony mirrorless equipment.  This necessitated my duplicating lenses and batteries and adapters to make the portable kit work.  It became rather expensive (particularly when I purchased the 18-200SEL and added a second camera).  I really only need one small body and a good zoom lens.


I would like my Wandering Around camera body to be WiFi connected so that I could implement a faster creativity stream.  I would like to see what it's like to move from image capture, through image processing, to upload while I'm working live and on-site.  While I'm yet unclear what value this kind of speed would add to my artistic ability, the approach might yield something unexpected.

As an experiment to see if I could achieve clarity about moving to the new Canon SL1, I took my old Sony NEX5 with 18-55mm lens into a cathedral to see what I could come away with.  Using the flip-out LCD, setting the ISO to 200, the aperture to f/11, using a small table-top tripod, and using the remote commander trigger controls I came away with some potentially stunning work.

If I buy the new Canon, I'll need to find something other than my NEX to sell to pay for the SL1.  My Sonys continue to enable my present level of creativity in ways I find compelling, even if the optics suffer under the scrutiny of pixel-peeping. 

Which means I'll likely stay where I am with my equipment selections.  For now, at least.

Tools... they're just tools!

Gods! I love watching the photo-industry, following the rumors, and thinking about my current setup.


You see, it's a distraction from actually going out and making images.  Isn't it so?  Or perhaps it's what I do between shoots.

Canon looks to release a super small mini-Rebel DSLR.  They'll do this perhaps tomorrow or the next day.

It'll be a very sweet treat for people invested in Canon DSLR, looking for a very small camera, and not wanting to sell (at a loss) to buy into a mirrorless system, like Panasonic/Olympus or Sony.

While I love my Sony NEX5 first generation cameras, there's something that attracts me to the idea of a small DSLR.  I can't explain it.  First I complain about the size of DSLRs and buy into a mirrorless system.  Then I wish for a small DSLR and think about selling the mirrorless gear.  Then I worry and wonder about Sony's yet to be announced full-frame NEX that is rumored to cost more than their current RX1 with the fixed mount Wonder Zeiss.


I have too much time on my hands and am left thinking and rethinking, hashing, and rehashing my image making tool choices.

I find myself in this silly though spiral after spending nearly three weeks processing a few rather tasty images from a photoshoot I had with Fracture.  She came over from London to spend a weekend here in Paris.  We worked a theme of Noir Victorian Gothic and it was a great experience.  Now that I'm finished with the first big pass through the material, my mind has turned back to the mundane.  Tools.

I know what would happen, too.  I'd buy the new Wonder Toy.  I'd be happy for a few weeks.  But when the next photoshoot came up, I'd grab the 5D MkII and 7D and dive back into the studio to make more images.  I trust these cameras as they've been with me for going on five years now and there is still nothing demonstrably better on the market today.

Last night, before I dropped off into the Land of Nod, I read in Reponses Photo #253 a letter that mirrored back to me the silliness of my emotions.

A person had been using a Canon 20D since they were introduced.  They seem to limit their tool choices to two lenses, a 50mm f/1.4 and a 300mm f/4.  The writer was bemoaning the fact his beloved camera suffered serious heart failure (as in deep electronics "went south") and they needed to replace the boite with something new.


I think back to my old film days.  First I'd own a Canon AE1.  Then I'd sell it and buy a Nikon FM.  I'd sell the Nikon FM to buy a Pentax MX.  Then I'd sell the Pentax MX to buy a Canon F1.  Oh, such a circle it was.  Predictably, I had very little to show for it.  And this was before I wandered down the large format film camera road, which was a Minor Insanity all it's own.  All the while admiring those artists who used their Leicas and Sinar systems for decades on end.

This morning I stood back and looked at my chosen tools of image making and know, intellectually, that I can't make any better image by acquiring more or by changing the mix of what I already have.

Still, it's fun looking through "what's new" and wonder.

I must be Mad.  Really.  I must be.

My only hope, in the Deepest Darkest Night, is that I have a few images to show for all this Thrashing Madness after all is said and done.

Rumor Mill Cranking Away...

I love rumors.  They drive speculation and specsmanship in weird and odd ways.  People seem to love talking about things that may never ever be true.  I must be one of them.

There's a rumor concerning Sony's yet to be announced full frame (FF) NEX costing more than 3000USD when it comes out (sometime in 2014?).  It's gotten tongues wagging.



I love the idea of moving away from my current Canon FF DSLR. The camera body is heavy and the lenses are quite large.  The system retains it's world class image quality and overall system performance.  My cameras and lenses still crank out work that is the equal of just about anything Phase One makes in medium format sensored systems (Mamiya and Fujiblad come to mind).

Yet, projecting into the future, I can see I would have more than a few questions about a new Sony FF mirrorless camera.  Yes, it could be small.  Yes, it could be light.  But...

If a Sony FF NEX mirrorless camera is introduced costing more than 3000USD, it had better have a LOT of compelling features to get me to switch.  I have a lot of money invested in the current system.  So the important question will be, what differentiates a FF NEX from non-mirrorless?  Something that neither Canon nor Nikon FF DSLR already have years of product development behind?  It's difficult to see that happening from this point of view.



If, OTOH, Sony took a huge leap and dropped the Android OS onto their FF mirrorless with full WiFi, then they'd have my attention.  I have blogged a little about the impact of portability and the availability of image processing software for iPhones and Android-based mobiles.  I continue to feel the opportunity to edit and upload work onto the 'net straight off the camera is ripe and appropriate for high-end excellent image quality photographic systems.

Given any reservations I might have about a Sony FF mirrorless, what I see is that they could help FF DSLR users transition away from Canon/Nikon if they offered a small interchangeable lens FF NEX that undercut the cost of the 6D/D600 cameras.  That way people could throw a Sony FF NEX into their bag and not take such a huge hit in transition costs to a new system all at once.

AND, this is extremely important to me, any new FF mirrorless would have to perform at least as good as my current systems in a studio.  This includes being able to easily trigger lighting systems as well as being able to focus accurately in low light (the typical background light intensity that I use so as to no contribute to the effect of the light setup).



As I said at the outset, this is all speculation.  Sony is known to be in the process of roto-tilling it's imaging system roadmap.  The success of their NEX and RX1 cameras and the sagging sales of their DLSRs seem to be the prompt.  We shall see what we shall see, eh?

Side note:  The images posted along with this blog entry were made using one of my two Sony NEX5 APS-C sized sensored cameras.  I mounted large aperture Nikon manual focus lenses (pre-AiS) to the NEX and wandered the Louvre.  In this setting, the image quality is truly outstanding as I have the time to focus accurately and there is enough light to allow low ISO to be used, even at these wide aperture settings.

Meaningful resolution - from my old website

I needed to re-enter this information as I got wrapped around the axle and lost the first post of this just a moment ago.  Flying fingers and all that -

How to calculate visible resolution limits

Bob Wheeler implied that there should be some minimal requirements for enlargements being made from LF and MF equipment (at least this is what I think he was implying). We can calculate these requirements as follows:

{line/mm eye resolves} x {neg/trans enlargement factor} = {minimum l/mm required to fully resolve what the eye can perceive on final print}

This will give a good starting reference for establishing the minimal system resolution requirements. Indirectly, one can use this to determine if their photo system is capable of delivering the desired resolution.

If we assume full frame enlargements (no cropping), a tripod is used in all cases (to eliminate shake from the system), a 'good' enlarging system (no loss of resolution from neg/trans to print), and the fact 'young' human eyes are reported to be able to resolve 7 lines/mm, the following can be assumed:

For 4x5 negatives and transparencies:

• 8x10 inch prints require a system to resolve 14 lines/mm
• 16x20 inch prints require a system to resolve 28 lines/mm

For 6x6 negatives and transparencies:

• 8x10 inch prints require a system to resolve 28 lines/mm
• 16x20 inch prints require a system to resolve 61 lines/mm

For 6x7 negatives and transparencies:

• 8x10 inch prints require a system to resolve 25 lines/mm
• 16x20 inch prints require a system to resolve 51 lines/mm

Several things become immediately apparent:

1. To make a 16x20 print from 6x6 requires all the resolution that many of the MF systems Mike, Kerry, and I tested can deliver.

2. It would take a really poor LF lens to resolve the 28 l/mm required to enlarge from 4x5

3. If one works in 6x7 the requirements are less stringent than 6x6 to reach 16x20, but a system must still be 'pretty good'.

4. When reviewing our tests on folding cameras (specifically the Balda and Kodak Special Six20) one can see there is adequate resolution for most tasks. _For me_ this means portability of photo equipment when working in field need not become a consideration as long as I don't mind using just one lens (ala Henry Cartier-Bresson :-).

5. Almost any camera can resolve the numbers required to print a great looking 8x10... :-)

I hope this helps...
- Chris

The End Times

I made the mistake of taking a look at a few on-line image processors.  Yes.  It was a mistake.  There is every indication that it is right to continue to wonder at the place and purpose of the increasingly rare art photographer.


The state of web-based image manipulation software has advanced to the place where they can in some important ways supplant my favorite on-notebook computer driven Gimp.

Color balance/fine tuning?  Got it.

B&W film grain effects?  Got it.

HDR?  Got it.

Cross processing?  Got it.

Lomo effects?  Got it.

Grunge borders (complete with wet-plate collodion edges)?  Got it.

The only thing missing is that ultimate sense of flexibility.  These are "canned" applications and provide the effects and image manipulations "as is".  You can't for instance, take a texture you like and apply it to the image you're working on.  Layers and masks don't yet seem to be available.  Not yet, at least.


Are these the End Times for art photography?  Certainly as it has been "traditionally" practiced, it might well be.

The barriers to fine art and the ability to create it have disappeared.  Anyone with a little vision and understanding of lighting and composition is capable of some pretty stunning work.

Here is a short list of the applications I tried.  I can't vouch for any of them.  I'm only here to say, YIKES!  If the applications running on iPhones and Android powered devices are more powerful than these...  Whew!

• Pic Monkey
• Pixlr
• Hipstamatic
• BeFunky

There are a LOT more software applications to choose from.  Google top rated Android image editing and you'll be faced with a perhaps daunting list of possible creativity suites.


I can clearly see on the near-event horizon a shift in my own image making processes.  A WiFi camera, an Nexus-somethingorother, and connectivity straight to the on-line web-based image repository and blogging sites that I maintain.  I realize there are folks who already do this.  In fact, someone even photographed the entire 2012 Tour de France bicycle race using a networked iPad.  I just need a little more image editing software capability and I'll "be there" too.

Creating on opposite ends of the spectrum...

I have two friends who create amazing images using old techniques.  In their cases, they create art using wet-plate collodion, platinum/palladium and gum bichromate processes.  These are early photographic techniques that lends themselves to creating some rather interesting images.

To me, Ted Mishima and Ray Bidegain are photographic artists worth looking up to.

I have watched their work evolve over the years and their most recent images are simply over the top stunning.  Well, to me at least.


What I find interesting is that they both work in an "artist's" way of life.  They worry over details.  They concern themselves with how work will be received.  They try to find markets for their images.  They apply themselves to their craft with a passion and energy that I find refreshing.

I wish I had half their creativity.

Screaming back into the Present Time at the Speed of Digital, I see that more WiFi capable digital cameras are now hitting the market.  Here is a short (but growing) list of potentially interesting image makers -

• Canon S110 point and shoot
• Canon 6D full frame DSLR
• Canon PowerShot N

• Sony NEX5r and NEX6 (mirrorless APS-C)

• Samsung Smart Camera (point and shoot)
• Samsung NX series (mirrorless APS-C)

I know there are more (the Consumer Electronics Show has just ended).  The cameras on the list above seem the most capable to me.


I've fallen in love with the Sony mirrorless cameras and look forward to seeing if their full frame NEX (rumored to see the light of day in late 2013) has WiFi.  If it does, I may have a new studio camera.  Or not, depending on what Canon does with it's pro-level DSLRs (like the 6D, which sorely temps me - hence the highlighted items above).

... not this time around...

In several earlier posts I suggested it would be very interesting to see Samsung take it's NX mirrorless camera series and see them layer the Android OS on top of the normal camera functions.  Well, the next-gen Samsung is announced and there is no mention of the Android OS.

As you'll recall, I feel it would be very interesting to see a large sensored image maker introduced with the ability to run "creativity apps" right there on the camera.  Such a system could eliminate the need for a computer to process images and, at the same time, allow better than iPhone quality images to be created and posted to the 'net in near real-time.

I have been of the thought that if photography has become the primary means of sharing experiences as they happen, why not speed up the creativity process too?  After all, some people's creativity flows more like a continual stream of ideas and exploration.  Not all art takes time to layer each and every brush stroke, nor does it take a hammer and chisel years of delicate work to create objects of ever lasting beauty.

Re-reading a recent journal of photography in French, I stumbled on something interesting.

It seems that Canon's new low-ish cost 6D full-frame DSLR comes complete with integrated GPS and WiFi.  While I can certainly do without the GPS, the WiFi feature could prove useful.

For example, I have in my mind's eye a series of images of still life worked in a manner of early 20th century platinum or late 19th century wet-plate collodion.  If I had a camera connected to a local area network (LAN), I could make an image, pass it to the computer as the scene is captured, turn immediately to the computer to manipulate the scene, and after expressing what I "see" from an artistic perspective, work could be shared to Flickr or Picasa or Facebook.  All in a matter of a few moments.

Not everyone will feel the need for such speed in creativity.  In fact, I many times feel that some people judge work as "valuable" only if it takes a long time and a lot of physical effort to create.  I hear this sometimes from artists themselves who work in oil paint, stone or metal sculpture, or photographers who use early image making processes.

Perhaps we have yet another opportunity to free ourselves from the confines of ideas and cultural frameworks of our own creation?  A new world of creative possibilities is opening right before our eyes.

... from Art to Experience back to Art?

Sony has taken to putting WiFi into their NEX5 and NEX6 mirrorless cameras.  Check it out.

 Multiverse Tarot Carte ~ The Four of Airships

I had been thinking about Samsung's NX-series cameras and hoped the rumor that the Android OS would be put into the third round of cameras, which should be released some time next year, is true.  Having the Android OS in a large sensored mirrorless camera would have a LOT of advantages.  A person could process their images and upload the results directly to the 'net without the need of a computer.

Sony's approach is currently something in between the old proprietary software language ASIC driven function selections and capabilities, and Samsung's current point and shoot Android-on-camera offering.  Apparently, with Sony's latest cameras, you can transfer images to your mobile phone and apply the image manipulations there before uploading the results to the 'net from the phone.

Multiverse Tarot Carte ~ The High Priestess

I'm pretty old fashioned.  I don't carry a full-function mobile.  In fact, our phone sits unused on the shelf in our living room.  No.  It's not an invitation to steal it.  You wouldn't want it.  Rather, it's my way of saying that I'm not sure how I could use Sony's WiFi capabilities while leveraging my current electronic infrastructure.

In similar time, I've been thinking about how to share my portfolios of images without printing copies and carrying an old fashioned book.  I have a lot of new work which I would love to share, and printing everything takes time and space.  A book has it's advantages, not the least of which is the images are archival and won't disappear unless physically destroyed.  There is a certain look and feel to an image printed to 300+gsm 100 percent cotton rag.  I think images are gorgeous when presented that way.

Google has a new device that looks pretty darned interesting.  It's called the NEXUS 10.

 Multiverse Tarot Carte ~ The Magician

I can see how a tablet device could provide a flexible image presentation platform.  Tablets can run the image manipulation software that many iPhone and Android mobiles do, with the benefit of having a larger display.  Which could be good for these older aging eyes a benefit to be able to see what I'm doing before dumping something to the 'net.

I need to think about this some more and make sure the software applications are powerful enough to meet my needs, but it seems that the combination of Sony NEX/Nexus tablet could be rather interesting.  And if Canon's next "pro-sumer" grade full frame 40+ mpixel DSLR had the ability to connect to a WiFi network, I'd be "covered" from field to studio to 'net fairly seamlessly.

Art and Experience [part five]

I LOVE reading equipment articles and reviews.  I used to be an engineer, after all.  So the attraction to equipment is deep in my blood.  Very deep.

I'm very much looking forward to the next significant steps in the integration of optical, sensor, networked information technologies.

Is it too early to hope for a FF sensored interchangable lensed on-camera editing capable fully LAN connected image capture device?  The speed of image making might just barely keep up with the things I "see" and want to share.

... from Art to Experience? [part four]

The "meaning" and purpose of photography has changed.  Radically changed.  In just a few years.


As I've said in the first three installments on this topic, photography has moved from being important as an "object" (something to have and to hold, to display and to enjoy) to being an expression of experience.  Cell phone based cameras have flooded the internet with all manner of cruft and junk photography.  250 million images were uploaded to Facebook in 2011 alone.  Of this outpouring of images, few could be considered "objects", though some (perhaps very little?) fine work has been turned out.

Most (mobile phone based) photography is now 1) see something 2) snap a picture 3) upload it to the internet to share with the world.  All this in the span of just a few moments.

I have spent a fair amount of my free time over the past 40 years working on the craft and practice of photographic image making.  I come from a time of film, cameras (sometimes very very large cameras), lenses (sometimes very large and very old lenses), and chemical processes (sometimes nearly alchemically arcane).  I have studie William Mortensen where I have worked to understand lighting and composition.  I have worked to experience how it is to have one's work hung in nationally recognized galleries and published in international journals of photography.  Making images has never come easy to me, yet I enjoy making images immensely.


It boggles my mind to think of all the images being dumped into the world.  All for, seemingly, a passing glance.  How do you get "eyeballs" in this new crazy world of image image image image image image image..?

I can't help but think of painters at the advent of photography.  Paint artists must have felt their world had changed forever.  Yet painting remains in the world as a serious pursuit, a serious interest, where some people feel there is great value in certain artist's work.

So it may be with "traditional" photography as "object" as well. Early photographic techniques will still be deployed to make new photographic expressions by some artists.  Film and chemical processes have yet to disappear.  Digital image making... well... that's where I see an open field, even if that field will be empty of most of the human race... who might be looking for photography as an art "object"...


American Tintype from Matt Morris Films on Vimeo.

Realizing the scale of the changes that have taken place, I come to a place once again to where I need to realistically consider what the meaning and purpose of photography is in my life.

My pursuit of creativity seems to follow a stream of nearly endless ideas and pursuits.  It's like jumping into a sometimes raging river.  I go where inspiration and ideas take me.  With an, some might say overly, active mind, inspiration and ideas lead me all over the place.  My work unfolds as an expression of my creative experience.

I feel my work is unique.  I prefer it this way.  I can't stand making "straight" photographs for myself and my own images.  Though, I can and do appreciate excellent creative work that seems to come straight out of a camera.  No, where I go has to please me.  It has to fit whatever inner "vision" comes to me.  It has to "be" because it needs to "be".  It has to come from the inside (of me) out (to be seen).  For this reason, some of my work must seem a little odd to viewers.  I'm willing to take the risk of confusing or unsettling viewers.  A work emerges because, as I just said, it must emerge.


For me, the question of viewership is one that is quickly and easily answered.    On Flickr my work has already received approaching one and a half MILLION views.  Using software technologies and internet platforms, I will follow the "experience" path of rapid image creation and sharing.  Photographs as objects will certainly remain available, but the concentration will be on electronic distribution.  I will use places like Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, Flickr, and many other such sites.  The promise of technology will be fulfilled if I can harness "eyeballs" in these ways and through those social sharing web-communities.

I want to see where all this can lead.

I enjoy the feeling of making order out of a chaotic universe.  In the deepest darkest night of the soul, all I'm left with is doing or choosing to not do.  Which reminds me.  A nice Belgium beer awaits on this cold winter eve...

... from Art to Experience? [part three]

Photography has become a means of experience sharing.  Photographs are no longer just objects that are viewed and sometimes hung on a wall for some small part of the world to admire.  How we approach photographic works has an opportunity to change.


Image capture manufacturers seem to have taken notice.  I saw two items from the recent Photokina camera show in Germany that showed me this might be the case.  The first is a new camera offering from Sony.  The second is a new camera offering from Samsung.

For many years, images passed through a process (chemical or computer) before emerging as a final "work".  The final "work" was an "object" in the tradition of classic art "objects".

With the advent of mobile telephones, image making is suddenly connected directly to the vast network of information sharing.  The new image making process is one of 1) see scene 2) image scene 3) manipulate scene (using various creativity applications) 4) share scene across the internet.  No film.  No chemicals.  No computer.  No costly software applications.  No costly "professional" image making gadgets.

Mobile telephone cameras have not been of particularly high quality.  Yet some brilliant work has been done using these relatively simple low resolution image making devices.  I wonder what could happen if higher quality image could be produced using networked devices.  While I don't believe that higher quality images would have a significant impact on what we see on the web, good high resolution images might be made and shared between people who care about image qualities where large prints or publication is concerned. 



Sony introduced two cameras this year that caught my attention.  They are part of their NEX camera series.  One is the NEX5r and the other is the NEX6.  What is significant about these 16.6mega-pixel cameras is that they can be connected directly to a LAN on the internet and Sony is promising software that allows for the creative manipulation of images before they leave the camera.

I love Sony's NEX cameras.  These cameras are small, light, and just as powerful in making quality images as many DSLRs.  Creativity and image manipulation can now take place right on the image making device.  I think this is a wonderful opportunity to ditch the computer for image processing. 

The second camera that caught my attention is Samsung's new 16mega-pixel Android-based point and shoot camera.  If I understand the capabilities correctly, we will now have a high quality image making device that is tied directly 3G and 4G telephone networks.  More importantly, if Samsung has built their new Galaxy camera correctly, image makers will have instant access to the thousands of already available mobile-phone-based image making creativity software applications.


I like the idea of a camera company using Android as the base operating system.  It is based on Linux, the Open Source software that was started by Linus Torvalds many years ago.  The open standard means that the ability to create new software is nearly unlimited.

Up to this point in technology history, camera manufacturers have written closed system software that drives camera internals (menuing, metering, focusing, creativity selections, and the like) that is sometimes based on VxWorks (in high-end professional cameras), manytimes based on their own proprietary software solutions (for pocket cameras and low-end DSLRs with firmware that ingrates into company proprietary ASIC-based engines).  If you know anything about VxWorks, you will quickly realize just how limited it is in it's ability to connect seamlessly to quickly evolving network communications standards.  Proprietary software would be an even more challenging problem to try and network, particularly if the languages used to program these cameras is based on non-extensible standards where network communication software protocols are not readily available (as is widely the case).




While the market may initially not know what to do with the Samsung Android camera/not-mobile-phone, I can see that on-camera image processing is currently at the front edge of a new and potentially exciting capability.  In fact, I just read a rumor that suggested that Samsung might move it's NX mirrorless cameras to the Android-based operating system.  I find this very exciting.

To my way of thinking, the new level of software integration on-camera can lead only to one thing: More creative images widely shared at the speed of experience.

... from Art to Experience? [part two]

Having grown up wishing I could attend an Ansel Adams seminar in Yosemite Valley taught by St Ansel himself, having made special trips to view Edward Weston original prints in Newport Beach, having worked as a black and white print technician in Hollyweird, having watched the death of the Great Yellow Father (Kodak), and having witnessed the transition from photography as something to hang on the wall and admire into photography as an immediate means of sharing experience, the scope of this short span of history is more than a little mind-boggling.


For years, the measures and gold standards of photography as "art" included being shown in a significant gallery and selling a great many images for as much as the market would bear.

Alas, very few photographers have ever really been able to achieve these goals.  Edward Weston died after some time suffering from Parkinson's disease.  Ansel Adams never really saw much money from his artistic endeavors.  Modern day photographers have made money by being commercial artists, where very few have made money from their art.  Annie Leibowitz, while claiming to make $1Million a year, is essentially broke and may have sold all rights to her prior work to cover her enormous debts.  Christopher Burkett, the incredible color print artist, while doing well financially, is largely unknown on the world stage.


The rise of the camera as a creative tool of artistic expression has morphed into something completely unexpected and is now very different from what many of us thought would be possible.

Think for a moment.  If what the Facebook CEO says is right and if 250MILLION photographs have been uploaded onto the social networking site in the year 2011, and if the majority of those images were made using mobile telephones,  the very nature of what photography "means" has changed.

Gone, likely forever, are the days where it mattered what you used as a camera and how your tended your technical, as well as creative, processes, including all the energy it took to nurture the relationships of who you knew in the publishing industry and gallery art worlds.

It's as if the mad painter Van Gogh were able to multiply his already prolific output by hundreds of millions of times.  If you'll  recall, Van Gogh's last three years of his life were filled with artistic creations of spectacular success and heart-wrenching hard to believe failures.


It's as if the potential for sculpting  incredibly good and incredibly bad marble had suddenly reached the planet Earth's 3 billion inhabitants, and every single one of these creatures could make something, according to their abilities, desires, and whims.

And so it is with photographic image making.  You get a few brilliant images and a lot of just plain rubbish.  Yet, all of it is meaningful to someone somewhere somehow.  All billions and billions of images of it.  All being cranked out at the speed of networked telecommunications.

The Peter Brook Wired Magazine article that I linked in part one of this series solidified, for me, where we are in the "state of things".  I agree for most of society that we have moved from a photograph being an object to photographs being experiences.  Re-read M. Brook's thoughts and see if you don't agree.

... from Art to Experience?

I have been  wondering about the direction of image making for quite some time now.


Looking back over the 160 year history of photography, the transition from hand-made chemical processes (typically with egg whites and silver nitrate) to dry plate film (thank you Great Yellow Father Kodak) brought image making to a larger population of potential artists.  Dry plate film has only recently (in geologic time) been replaced by digital technologies.  Here too, the transition has brought image making to a larger population of potential artists.

In fact, as I have said many times, Brooks Jensen wrote a wonderful editorial in his LensWork Magazine some time back.  Therein he suggested that there may have been very few "artists" of the early egg-white/silver-nitrate age.  It took a lot of knowledge and practice to string together the long series of steps that it took from "seeing" something of interest to realizing a finished image.  Brooks, if memory serves, felt there were perhaps three or four outstanding "artists" from that age.


In the transition from wet-plate to dry-plate, image making allowed, perhaps, ten to fifteen outstanding "artists" to emerge in any given generation of photographers.  The process of image making was somewhat shorter and more people could grasp all the steps and bend them to their creative purpose.

With the transition to digital image making, "artists" no longer have a need to understand optics, aperture settings, film sensitivities, chemical processors, shutter speeds, and the like.  So much of the "thinking" about the technology of image making has been well integrated into image making devices.  Again, if memory serves, Brooks posited that perhaps ten to fifteen thousand "aritsts" could emerge in this, the age of digital photography.


I enjoyed what he wrote and have used it as a guide for how to navigate the increasingly large sea of images that are being shared across the internet.  From Brook's thoughts, I have fashioned my own ideas of what it means to be a photographic "artist".

I have been fortunate to have worked in a field of technology that allowed me to make money during the week and to make images for pleasure over the weekend.  I have worked hard to make my images the best I can and to realize the things in image that I feel.  It has been an exciting exploration.

Yet, something was evolving in the field and I couldn't quite put my finger on it.  I've watched as Flickr started as a wonderful image sharing site, only to see it languish under Yahoo's ownership and to feel that Flickr has yet to reach it's potential.  I've watched as Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, and other social sites have taken up from where Flickr failed.  I've read that in 2011, ten percent of all images ever made were created in just that single year (according to Facebook's CEO).


The old ideas of what photography "meant" and what it could "do" might need to be replaced.

Just yesterday, I read an eye-opening article on Wired Magazine's site that pieced together various elements of the current state of image making in a coherent manner.

In short, we have moved from photography being a "thing", something to look at, to potentially treasure and hang a copy of on a wall.  We have moved into a new age where photography has become an experience.  The idea has certain merit, to my way of thinking.

The author cited the recent events surrounding the huge earthquake in Japan.  The internet and social sites were flooded with images and videos that people made from their cellphones.  The experience of the earthquake was well documented.  However, few of these images have survived "the test of time" to remain in front of internet viewers.  We experienced the event as it happened and that was pretty much that.


What has become of photographic "art"? I need to think about this and perhaps write a little at some point in the near future.  In short, I feel there will be an increasingly small pool of buyers of "art" to hang on their walls or to store in their vaults.  The value of "art", photography, and image making, has shifted.

Traditional ideas of what constitutes "art" may need to be reexamined.

Photography and image making...

A recent post on Mike Johnson's "The Online Photographer" started me thinking.  Perhaps I'm thinking a bit too hard, but I'm thinking.

The topic is image properties verses image quality.


I feel it's all too easy for photographers to hide behind a camera and assume that the equipment will provide enough quality in an image to make it appreciated by viewers:  Resolution, contrast, color rendition.  It seems all too easy to assume a photographer only has to provide content and all the rest will become "good" if only one had the right camera gear.

If I understand Mike's comments correctly, image quality is not the issue.  Rather, it is the properties of an image that lend it meaningful qualities that we as viewers can appreciate and like.  In general I agree with Mike's sentiments on this topic.


Somewhere in the middle of the article, Mike said "Consider that during the time of the pictorialist movement—and among the amateurs that kept its values alive in its aftermath—the same assumption held sway, except in the reverse. Image unsharpness was the virtue, the accepted convention."


I formulated a short rant about pictorialist photography where I brought William Mortensen into the fray.  Thinking back to Saint Ansel's autobiography, I was shocked to read the violence with which St. Ansel attacked Mr Mortensen's pictorialist approach to image making.  St Adams derided the lack of clarity in Mortensen's images and looked forward to the day when the pictorialist was dead.


It was from this perspective that I responded to Mike's article.  Contrasting modern photographic approaches where image quality is somehow ensued with what I thought Mike was talking about when he mentioned the pictorialist movement.

I said, pick up a copy of William Mortensen's "Pictorial Lighting" and "Pictorial Photography", and you will read nowhere in the entire text anything that extolls "unsharpness" over "sharpness". Quite the contrary. Indeed, the High Priest of Pictorial image making (Mr. Mortensen)stresses the importance of presenting a clear image with a clear vision and a clear result.



Petzval formula lenses (followed by a great many "portrait" lenses) have been in wide use, but even these optical tools provide a sharp image at the point of focus. How the out of focus areas are rendered is part of the optical designs of these kinds of lenses.

The only tools that seem to approach out of focus image making that I'm familiar with are achieved through the use of pinhole "lenses" and zone plates. Yet, it can be argued, even these are not truly "unsharp".

To me (and this was my key point), pictorial image making has more to do with exploring an idea and creating an image that represents that idea, as compared to finding a scene/subject and snapping an image of it.

Mike came back with "Oh, dear. Not even close."



Confused, I used the Force (Google) to look up pictorialist photography.  Now I am even more confused and wonder what people can mean when they use the two words, pictorialist photography.  I know what I mean.  I know what I have read.  I know how I understand the words.  Yet, I'm at sea wondering what I have missed.


There seems to be a rather wide range of interpretations of these two words, pictorialist photography.