The Online Photographer

The Sunday Sermon: The Moo-Fubar

"I'm a photographer, and I used to do a lot of music listening in the darkroom. Nowadays the darkroom is silent too. That's because nowadays things are newfangled and you have to sit at a monitor editing and processing images. And, like the darkroom, this provides an opportunity to listen to music. An opportunity that really should not go to waste. Advantage of computer listening over darkroom listening: no whitish burble of running water in the background masking subtle sonic details. Disadvantage: no dancing. Most people don't know this, but darkrooms are to dancing what shower stalls are to singing. There; the darkroom printer's secret is out..."

Read about my adventure in improving my computer's music-making abilities: "The Moo-Fubar: Improving Computer Sound," this week's nearly-completely-off- topic mini-article. The article is at C60, and if you look to the right when you get there you can see some of the Recent Reviews, too, or click on the main header to visit the main site.

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Mike

Around the Web on a Lazy Saturday

World's Biggest Digital Camera
Charles Simonyi, Bill Gates, and other "geeky philanthropic billionaires" are banding together to build the world's biggest digital camera in the heart of the Andes mountains. Read more about the $400 million Large Synoptic Survey Telescope at The Guardian. Unlike most telescopes, which look deeply into one tiny patch of sky, the LSST is essentially a 3,200-megapixel digital camera that will survey the entire heavens once every three days.

Bildergalerie—Das Digitalkamera-Museum
A brief visual tour of the history of the digital camera, 1975–2002. Text is in German. The caption of the picture at left reads "1975: the first digital camera. In the mid-seventies, Steve Sasson built the first functioning digital camera for Kodak. The unwieldy device weighed 4 kilograms and had a black & white sensor with a resolution of 0.1 megapixels. It took 23 seconds for one frame to be written to the tape drive."

Jim Crow Road?
"In 2007, there's still a place called 'Jim Crow Rd.' It runs through a typical southern neighborhood.... The road crosses behind an Elementary school, right past the playground. One wonders if the kids there are still being taught what Jim Crow means...." Michael David Murphy goes for a photographic walk along this unfortunately-named remnant.

Best Software, 2007
Confused by all the software choices out there? Digital Outback Photo has named the Top Workflow and Editing Tools as of the end of 2007.

Adobe Tutorial Videos
Speaking of software, Adobe has cobbled together a massive library of video tutorials in an elegant web interface. There is no charge to view the videos.

Bjørn Rørslett Nikon D3 Review
Bjørn Rørslett has posted a very detailed and thoughtful review of the D3. It's not at all like dpreview's tests, more a very thorough set of field notes emphasizing the aspects that matter most for his uses. In addition to praising where praise is due, he's very candid about feature and user interface bugs that bother him.

To see it, go here, then click on the words "Nikon D3 review" immediately below the "Today's News" header.

36 Exposures Challenge
In a blast from the past, File magazine is sponsoring an unusual photo contest—you must submit a project idea and shoot it in 36 sequential exposures on a roll of film they send you. The pictures will be published as you shot them. (Please note that although T.O.P. only publicizes contests in which all rights are retained by the entrant photographers, we do not endorse photo contests or indemnify readers against potential difficulties. Proceed on your own.)

Paris Then and Now
The Morning News has a fascinating if all-too-brief slideshow of historic Eugene Atget photographs of Paris along with the same scenes rephotographed recently by Christopher Rauschenberg. (Click on the image above to see it larger.) With an interview.

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Tomorrow on T.O.P.: A brand new Sunday Sermon. Next Week: a new book review by Geoff Wittig, Ctein on a digital camera oddity, and more.

_____________________

Mike  (Thanks to Robert Phillips, Fred Wobus, Stan Banos, John Hogg, Matthew Hollingworth, Oren Grad, David Emerick, and Shahar Dumai)

'No method nor discipline...'

But while we are confined to books, though the most select and classic, and read only particular written languages, which are themselves but dialects and provincial, we are in danger of forgetting the language which all things and events speak without metaphor, which alone is copious and standard. Much is published, but little printed. [...] No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen?

-                                                        —Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Chris Jordan on Video

Chris Jordan explains his work at POP!TECH.

"This series has received a truly astonishing public response, which in my own view far exceeds the actual artistic merit of the work...there are millions of people who have seen my work."

(Thanks to Travis Warren for the link)

The Rumor Mill

Well, the big USA trade show in Vegas, PMA, is less than a month away now—it actually starts in January this year—and already the internets are abuzz with rumors of new camera introductions. I don't follow this stuff very closely, but that's only because I'm jaded and grumpy. So I figured I'd throw out a few of the more reliable-sounding rumors I've heard and let knowledgeable commenters fill in the rest.

Likely
Sony A200 will replace Sony A100—there are already pictures surfacing.
Pentax K20D—rumors abound about this one, the replacement for the well-received (and good-selling) K10D. Lots of guesspecs on the 'net but nothing really known yet. (Pentax are pretty disciplined about non-disclosure.)
Pentax K200D will replace Pentax K100D.
Canon Rebel XTi replacement. I don't really know anything about this, but that's what they're saying on the dpreview forums. Ahem.
 

Note: Not an official picture, i.e., might be fake.

Possible
Canon 5D replacement is eagerly awaited but might not show up just yet. Or, it might.
Nikon D60 will replace D40x. But it's not certain for PMA.
Leica M9 will replace M8. Probably won't be shipping anytime soon if it does appear. Remember the ultra-dependable old adage: "Leica makes haste slowly."

Another interesting rumor has Leica branding its own version of the E-3. No telling, but if it comes with a corollary promise of prime Summicrons for the 4/3rds system, I'll jump on board and hope along with the best of 'em. Some pipe dreams are too important to be put off by little things like reality.

And what about the full-frame (FX) Nikon 5D competitor that I wrote/salivated about a while back? Not happening. Remember, I predicted at least an 8 month selling window for the D3 before another ff Nikon comes along. (Hey, my crystal ball is right so far, and as long as it's right I'm gonna pretend I actually have a clue.) Thom Hogan thinks it may be longer than that. Thom knows a lot more about the future than I do.

And what about the APS-C compact I keep pining for? Ear pressed hard to ground, but no hoofbeats, alas. But hope springs eternal in the not-so-savage breast. (That's the quote; it's not "beast.")

Sony A900 ff? Don't think so. Too soon.

Point-and-shoots? Like anybody cares.

Note that these are all rumors; the only way I can write about this stuff is because I don't know anything. If I knew anything, I would have had to promise not to say.

How about you? Heard anything else good? (And let's leave out that fantasy rumor about the Nikon M-mount rangefinder, shall we? If anything like that shows up at PMA, I'll eat it. Of course, for me to eat it they'd have to send me one first....)

___________________

Mike

Featured Comment by Ken Tanaka: "A rumor that's been rumbling about for at least a year:

"Canon will enter the medium format world with a new camera, a new line of lenses and a digital back. The price point of a lens/camera/back kit will be in the range of $12,000-$14,000. Whether or not the back will be compatible with existing m.f. cameras (excluding the new Hassies, of course) is unclear. There are people who claim to know people who have tested this product line in the past year or so.

"Of course there are also people who claim to know people who have been abducted by aliens. So who knows. But it makes some sense. There is very little room for Canon to expand in the 35mm DSLR world. The Phase and Leaf products are just begging to be swatted into oblivion. Hassie has closed itself into its private little room. The market is wide open.

"Again, just a rumor."

Ilford? Harman? What's What and Who's Who?

The bankruptcy and reorganization of the old Ilford Imaging company in 2004–2005 led to two outcomes, one happy and the other unfortunate.

The happy result was that buyers were found for the Ilford businesses. Liquidation was avoided, and most of the existing Ilford product lines were saved.

The less-than-happy result was that the Ilford brand is now shared between two newly-independent companies, leading to a fair amount of confusion at the start, and even more now that the two successor companies are competing directly and sharing similar "trade dress" inherited from the old Ilford Imaging.

So, as a TOP public service, and setting aside the arcane details of the company's reorganization, here's the scoop about who is selling what photographic products under the Ilford name today.

Ilford Imaging Switzerland, now wholly owned by Oji Paper of Japan, owns the Ilford factory in Marly, Switzerland, and holds general rights to the Ilford brand.  It manufactures and sells Ilfochrome (formerly Cibachrome) materials for making traditional color prints from transparencies, as well as a wide range of inkjet papers under the Ilford brand.

Harman Technology Limited, a company created by former Ilford managers, owns the Ilford factory in Mobberley, U.K., along with the right to trade as Ilford Photo and to market black-and-white silver halide products under the Ilford name.  Harman continues to manufacture Ilford black and white products, including Multigrade and Galerie black and white papers, in Mobberley.  Harman has recently also introduced its own line of inkjet baryta photo papers under the Harman Inkjet brand, using materials and technology drawn from its traditional photographic products.

Ilford Photo plant, Mobberley, U.K.

So, a recap for those scoring at home:

• Ilford, Switzerland (Japanese ownership), makes Ilfochrome (née Cibachrome) materials and Ilford inkjet papers;

• Harman, U.K., makes Ilford brand B&W materials and Harman inkjet papers.

If you want to buy a fiber-based inkjet paper with a look and feel similar to those of traditional Ilford black and white papers, and manufactured by the same company in the same factory, look for the Harman Inkjet brand.  (It was one of these, Harman Gloss FB AL, that we nominated as our Photo Product of the Year yesterday.) Inkjet papers sold under the Ilford and Ilford Galerie brands are made in Switzerland, and have no relationship to the Ilford black and white product line, or to the Harman inkjet papers.

____________________

Mike  (Thanks to the ghostwriter)