News Bites

• Talk about developing a style quickly...Aaron Hobson first picked up a camera only a little more than a year ago, and he's already coined a workable keyword for his work ("Cinemascapes") and created a recognizable style that's gotten him published in magazines around the globe (including a feature in French PHOTO coming up in November). His first New York show opens at the end of the month. (Note also that he uses modest equipment—an Olympus E-300 and 14–45mm lens. His panoramas are stitched together from multiple frames.)

• photo.net, an enthusiast site with more than 600,000 registered members (and for which I wrote for a while) has been sold, to a company called NameMedia. "As the owner of one of the largest portfolios of domain names, NameMedia is focused on acquiring, developing and selling digital real estate." photo.net began in 1993 as the personal home page of Philip Greenspun of M.I.T.

• Kodak has reformulated T-Max 400 film, which they now tout as the "World's Sharpest." I was one of the original beta testers for TMY—I was sent a precious roll from the very first batch ever released—and liked it so little that I refrained from writing about it. That was not a team-player move on my part, and my contact at Kodak (long gone from there now) did not very often darken my door thereafter. Nice to see they're still working on getting it right, anyway.

• A friend wrote to say, "That was quite a nice cookie Pierce tossed you in his October Nuts & Bolts column," and indeed it is. Thanks, Pierce (Pierce, given name Bill, prefers to be called only by his last name). If perhaps you're here looking for the article he mentioned, "Creative Livings," it was published on September 9th, 2007.

• Bojidar Dmitrov's excellent Pentax K-Mount equipment site turned ten years old on October 12th. Traditional Pentax fans have very good resources on the web, thanks in no small part to Boz's extensive, outstanding, and very complete information pages. Plus, there can't be very many such sites with such a long, continuous record. Happy Anniversary to Boz!

• Paul Worthington has posted a long interview with Adobe about computational photography (among other things) at 6sightblog.com.

• Harman Technology Ltd., which owns Ilford, has purchased Kentmere, the British photo paper manufacturer. Kentmere was formerly imported into the U.S. by Luminos, until Luminos was bought by Hahnemühle, which quickly closed down the photo paper arm to concentrate on inkjet products. Kentmere and Ilford will continue as separate brands, but with improved marketing and distribution synergies. 

• Michelle Martin (who was responsible for the famous ad of the Optio camera in the Altoids tin) tells me that Ned Bunnell (right) has just been promoted to President of Pentax Imaging in the U.S. The Imaging Division is in charge of "digital SLR and compact cameras, lenses, flash units, binoculars, scopes, eyepieces, continuous form and mobile printers, and scanners." Ned, who is unusual in that he's an enthusiastic photographer himself and participates on Pentax forums, will report to Pentax of America President Ko Torigoe. Congratulations to Ned!

• Ever wanted stats on your own shooting? Now you can have it with ExposurePlot.

• 4-3system.com has linked to some early samples from the new Olympus E-3  here, here, and here. The latter pages include ISO 800 and focus-tracking samples. Also, Ian Burley has published a hands-on report at dpnow.com. And incidentally, whoever was responsible for the official U.S. E-3 flash site did an outstanding job—it's a slick, robust, and informative set of web pages—and I appreciate the product photos being posted right out in the open where I can find 'em. Speaking of the official website, has anyone noticed that Olympus seems to have launched its own version of NPS and CPS for pro users? Check out the "Elite Club" at the E-3 site.

• The East Village Collective and the Woodstock Film Festival are apparently having a show of Al Satterwhite's portraits of the late Hunter S. Thompson ...somewhere. If you can figure out where the show is from the show announcement page, you're more gonzo than I am. Try showing up in the East Village, dropping a few tabs of windowpane and wandering around.

The East Village Collective is actually in Woodstock, New York, so even the acid wouldn't help if you were in the East Village. Thanks to several readers for this information. I still say it should be on the show announcement page.

_______________________

Mike  (Thanks to Eamon Hickey, Kent Phelan, Albano Garcia, and especially Oren Grad)

Featured Comment by Pierce: "Mike—The reason everybody calls me Pierce, by my last name rather than my first, is that all the male members of the family are named Bill. Don't ask me why, but I'm something like the seventeenth one. And if you break the tradition, aunts and grandparents peck you to death. So there was Big Bill, Little Bill, Bill Jr., Billy. All the Bills were used up; so, I was Pierce. It's a name that causes much less confusion at family reunions."

Comments

[Rob]

Maybe it is at the East village collective (a local art gallery) at 8 Old Forge road, Woodstock, NY.
http://www.eastvillagecollective.com/home.html

[Randall Teasley]

You have to go to their home page to get the info
Their address and phone number is:
8 Old Forge Road
Woodstock, NY
845-679-2174

[Andre]

RE: Ned Bunnell as President of Pentax Imaging in the U.S.

This really bolsters my confidence in Pentax after its acquisition by Hoya. Not only is Ned a fellow photographer, he's also an active member in the Pentax SLR forum over at dpreview. I'm not sure what other camera maker has a regional president that you can email directly or hang out with at tradeshows. Pentax might now, finally, not only produce good cameras, but also have the marketing department to prove it.

You can see Mr. Bunnel's posts under the handle Ned-B at the URL below.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/postersprofile.asp?poster=hdixiiixhu

or his blog

http://nedbunnell.blogspot.com/

[1001 noisy cameras]

Yes, the B. Dimitrov's Pentax K-mount page is an excellent resource in all things K-mount! A very efficient and practical website full of information! My congratulations as well on their 10-year anniversary!

[Flaneur]

Congrats to Boz!!! In my Pentax (analog) days, it was my favorite site, very informative and organized.
Now in Nikonland, there's no such site, just a lot of unorganized, partial, unclear sites. It's very confusing to get info on some focal lenghts (when you want a simple table with different models thru the years). I want the Nikon equivalent of Boz's Site!!!

Hated Hobson's work, but he'll do very well in magazine ads' business...

[charlie d]

Loved Aaron's work ever since I first saw it.

He comes from a very good photo pedigree (his father posts here on occasion) but is cutting his own way. His skills as a graphic designer clearly gives him an upper hand with the photoshop stuff.

He will do well.

[Scott Kirkpatrick]

"Pierce, given name Bill, prefers to be called only by his last name."

I've read his articles since the 1960s, and never picked that up. Aren't you concerned that you may have given away a precious bit of disguise?

Scott

[mcananeya]

Dear Flaneur,

I have also used Boz's site for a number of purposes and it is indeed a great resource. But I think you are greatly underestimating the resources available for Nikon equipment. In my opinion, these are actually much more complete and extensive than those available for Pentax.

For a list of various Nikon lens models by focal length through the years, see http://www.photosynthesis.co.nz/nikon/lenses.html

For comprehensive info on Nikon film bodies, lenses and accessories, see: http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/photography.htm

For reviews of Nikon lenses, the two most comprehensive sites are:
http://www.naturfotograf.com/lens_surv.html#top1
and
http://www.donferrario.com/ruether/slemn.html
(countless others exists as well).

For those looking for Pentax info, I would also point to: http://stans-photography.info/ , which complements Boz's site well. Although the reported results are highly subjective and not quantified, I have found them exceedingly helpful.

Best,
Adam

[Paul Worthington]

Thanks for the link!

[carpeicthus]

Wow, that's great! Aaron's from my hometown, so I saw his work as he was just starting to develop it; didn't realize he was getting such recognition, though. His father's a well-regarded photographer, so he has good pedigree.

[Flaneur]

Dear Adam,
The fact you have to give me 4 links for Nikon reinforces my comment: There's not a site like Boz's for the Nikon shooter, giving you all the data in one place, clearly organized.
I knew all of the ones you give here, except the first one, with the lens list, very useful, thanks!

I love MIR, but its interface is a nightmare (the most confusing navigation ever, its a huge site).
Thanks again.