The Online Photographer

Please Don't Forget!

If you're submitting pictures for the "forgotten camera challenge," you must put the words "Forgotten Camera" in the subject line or your email! Very important. The sorting is automatic and I will lose your entry if it doesn't have the proper words in the subject line. You don't know how much email I get! I have trouble finding emails a couple of days old, even when I know what I'm looking for. Without the proper title, I don't even know what I'm searching for.

Thanks!

_____________________

Mike

Forgotten Camera: Mike Fioritto

I recently returned to photography after an absence of more than 15 years. I have been shooting digital and got the bug for a rangefinder camera after looking at some photographs on Flickr. I picked up this Canonet on eBay and ran some Kodak BW400CN (C-41 processing) through it. This is a portrait of my daughter taken with this camera wide-open at ƒ/1.7. Like most camera purchases, this set me down the path to purchasing another—a Voigtländer Bessa R2a with a 40mm ƒ/1.4 lens. I'm shooting Tri-x and processing my own film again, and I am really enjoying it.

Mike Fioritto
Chicago, Illinois

Forgotten Camera: Jamie Pillers

Nikon L35AF

My name is Jamie Pillers; I live in Oakland, California; the camera is a Nikon L35AF. I recently dug the camera out of the attic after I spotted Ken Rockwell's generous comments about it. I bought the camera for my wife when we started dating, but she never used it. So...I now have a lovely new old remembered camera to play with.

B&W Dog

Forgotten Camera: Bill Anderson

Last year I bought this 1930s vintage Zeiss Ikon Ikonta 520 for $25 and gave it a CLA.  It shoots 6x4.5cm format on 120 film.

This magnificent oak tree is in Glenwood Cemetery where Howard Hughes is said to be interred.  Note the stranded steel cables supporting some of the branches.

Bill Anderson, Houston, Texas

_________________________

(I'll be posting more entries over the next few days. Don't forget the Challenge ends Tuesday! —MJ)

Forgotten Camera: Jim Woodard

 
Jim's mystery camera (left), make and year unknown. Nikon F included for scale.

Mike,

I made myself a promise a few years ago, when I discovered Ebay, to shoot at least one roll of film with every camera I bought! That never happened. I bought way too many cameras. So my thanks to you for issuing this "challenge." It was very liberating, for me anyway, to not have to produce "an image"—just take a picture. I will try very hard to not send dozens of pictures from dozens of cameras!

I'm not sure what this camera is. In the picture of it below I included a Nikon for scale and because it too is an SLR, like the black box. It has a Steinheil Munchen Actinar 105mm lens and makes a 6x9 negative on 120 film. It's labeled "DRP no 527505" inside with patents listed for several countries in Europe, U.S. patent pending. I would look through my McKeon's to identify it, but every time I open that book I find something else that looks like I ought to go back to Ebay for!

Digital Ice made few dents on the scratches on the negative, so thanks for that "No Photoshopping" rule—saved me hours of retouching. My subject matter was chosen because it was the contrasty-est scene I could find—to help me attempt to focus. It sure doesn’t have the Nikon's finder!

It's true that everything is bigger in Texas! These are the chickens in our backyard!

Jim

_________________________

(Rules and early entries here. More entries will be posted soon. —MJ)

'World Exclusive' Amateur Photographer Report

SAMSUNG REVEALS NEW HYBRID DIGITAL CAMERA SYSTEM TO RIVAL MICRO FOUR THIRDS—world exclusive AP report

New camera category on way from Samsung • Samsung takes wind from Micro Four Thirds with APS-C 'hybrid' system • New category to short-cut Koreans to top digital position

(It's not April, is it? READ ON at amateurphotographer.co.uk)

_______________________

Mike  (Thanks to Clayton)

Featured Comment from Donald: "RED, also!!"

Noise! There's Noise! I Can See It! There!

Our friend Eolake Stobblehouse wrote to Ctein and me this morning with a couple of links to Imaging-Resource and the following observation:

...Nikon D90, 3200 ISO, default setting;

And with noise reduction off.

And after I used Noise Ninja on the latter.

What made me try Noise Ninja on the uncorrected sample was not so much the noise itself as the hash the camera-correction had made of correcting the picture: it was 'mushy.' Look at the olive oil bottle, both the outline and the rendering of the oil inside. It's not attractive.

I was shocked to discover how poor a job the camera does with noise reduction compared to the computer. Maybe this is well known to some, but I am always reading about cameras and noise and so on and I had no idea, so it seems to me that this aspect is very under-reported.

Well, I can only bleat, plaintively, that I try to report it. (What I mean is that I bitch about it from time to time, and am roundly ignored.) First of all, forum denizens who carp about noise and don't have Noise Ninja or Neat Image or FixerLabs NoiseFixer (Photoshop does a pretty good job itself now) or one of the other good noise-reduction apps or plug-ins are being foolish (note, that's not ad hominem: I didn't say they were fools, I said they are being foolish). What you do is, you run a few tests with your DSLR at various ISOs, run your anti-noise program on them, decide at which setting either the noise or the noise-reduction artifacts start to seem a bit obtrusive to you, and then stick to one setting lower than that unless faced with extraordinary circumstances. If that "last good setting" is too low, buy yourself a better camera that does okay at a higher setting.

I have never understood the obsessive fascination with noise. It used to be a problem, granted. It's still a problem with some small-sensor cameras—okay. But digital SLRs are very good now. I suspect most other film-era holdovers don't get it either—we had to get used to grain, and grain was worse. (I do remember being allergic to grain, in the beginning. I learned to live with it. To love it, even.) The fact is, I don't mind noise. It just doesn't get in the way of seeing the picture, at least with the kind of pictures I take. Sometimes it's even pretty. I suspect that some "newbies" are hyper-sensitive to it because it's not a feature of the world in front of their cameras and they're affronted by traces of it in their pictures. Okay, but that's only partly an actual problem—the other part is in their heads: it's that they need to get over it.

In spite of all that, noise reduction software is really, really good. Really. So my advice is to buy one and learn how to use it, like Eolake has. And you'll be just fine. Noise really is one of the biggest non-issues in all of digital photography, IMNSHO.

Ctein may wish to chime in here, and if he does, I'll publish his thoughts just below.

_____________________

Mike  (Thanks to Eolake )

Ctein adds: Dear Eolake, Nothing surprising, nor (I don't think) any kind of secret. The camera's trying to do, in a  small fraction of a second, with less than a watt of power, what your computer is taking many seconds or minutes to do, consuming tens of watts of power. Even allowing for dedicated signal processor chips in the camera, there's just no way the camera can throw anywhere as much processing power at the problem.

The amount of internal signal processing and computing in the camera makes a huge difference in image quality. Look at my latest column reviewing the Fuji camera, and look at how much difference there is in the JPEGs between the S6000 and the S100, even though the S6000 has an inherent advantage in raw sensor noise; entirely due to computing power.

Featured Comment by Thom Hogan: "Ctein, I think you're a bit off the mark here. Dedicated imaging ASICs are every bit as powerful as a computer-based approach. Indeed, DIGIC and EXPEED both use the same underlying code and algorithms as their desktop equivalents, and are faster. That's why you create ASICs. The difference is in flexibility. If you don't like the regular profile you can create your own with Neat Image, et.al. Indeed, if you shoot slightly off in exposure, shoot in slightly different light balances (mixed light, especially), and a host of other small differences, then you may be better off using raw and a third party noise reducer. But for the situations they were designed for, a good in-camera ASIC is going to be as good as using that same code externally in a computer, and faster to boot.

"One issue that comes up is when the ASIC was designed and how often it is iterated. Companies like Canon and Nikon get advantages in terms of scale. When you're shipping fewer units you have a tough choice: eat the development cost over fewer units (e.g. higher product cost), or iterate less often."

Featured Comment by Adam Isler: "Just yesterday I was processing some high ISO photos taken with my Nikon D300 in the New York subway. I had used the adjustment brush in LR to boost the exposure on some faces and was erasing some of my clumsy initial strokes so had zoomed way in. And I was thinking how lovely and film-grain-like the noise was.

"And then I stopped and had to wonder how and why I thought like that. I mean, it's not like film grain is 'natural.' But that's how we act. Like somehow film grain is an organic, all-natural product but digital noise is some nasty, artificial pollution. I think there's a nostalgic circuit in our brains that operates below the level of consciousness.

"Last summer I tried shooting with my Minolta 7D, boosted to its highest ISO setting, trying to get a pointillist effect, to no avail—just couldn't get enough noise—but I didn't want to just use Photoshop to create the noise—that felt like it would be cheating. Another example of some bizarre cognitive activity imposing utterly meaningless constraints on picture taking and picture making...."

Canon 50D Due in October

Having mentioned the Nikon D90, I'd be remiss if I were not to mention the Canon 50D, announced in advance of Photokina and said to be due for shipment in October.

As far as I can tell, the excitement here is the sensor and software...otherwise, it's a conservative incremental upgrade of the 40D, just as the Nikon is (apart from its video capability) a conservative incremental upgrade of the D80. The 50D's 15-MP sensor will correct the rather strange situation-normal in Canon's lineup whereby the entry-level cameras had more pixels than the mid-level ones. The 50D has about the number of pixels that Pentax's K20D does, and upstages Nikon's 12-MP comfort level on that count.

The 50D also follows the recent unspoken trend of alternating price brackets with Nikon—its price is expected to fall about midway between the D90 and D300, at $1,400 to start.

_____________________

Mike

Is Jazz Still Popular?

By Ken Tanaka

A fellow named Theodore Walter Rollins...I think they call him "Sonny"...kicked off the 30th Annual Chicago Jazz Festival at Chicago's Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park on Thursday night (August 28th). Living across the street from the Park, and having spent countless hours there since it opened in 2004 I can tell you that the crowd for this concert must have easily been among the largest to-date. Not only was the main seating filled but the entire Great Lawn under the sound canopy was also packed.  This was the scene ten minutes into the concert. (I think this is exactly what Frank Gehry had in mind as he designed the Pavilion, too.)



And what a superb performance. Sonny Rollins is nearly 80 (and his band is not far behind) but you'd never know it from their performance. They began playing at 6:30 pm and played straight through until 8:30 pm.  No happy talk b.s., no union potty breaks. Just two hours of some of the most smooth, delicious, old-school jazz that you'll ever hear delivered over the Pavilion's 21st century sound envelope system. I got the impression that, on this mild summer night, they could have played until dawn. It was magic.

I am no jazz scholar but I sure know a true living legend when I hear one. That's exactly what this enormous crowd came to hear Thursday night...for free!

____________________

Ken

Moore's Law Shock; Life in the 21st Century

This is an old, hackneyed trope, I know, I know—expressing amazement over Moore's Law. But I just I don't know whether this or this is the more impressive. Check those prices. Whew. I think I exist in a persistent state of Moore's Law Shock. (There should be a better term for that.)

I put the cards in the "Recommended By M.J." box on the right. I don't need any cards, and it's killing me. (Six-seventy per gigabyte, with free shipping!) I realize probably nobody else needs any cards either, but somebody should get that great deal, if I can't.

My sister-in-law, Barbara, is a really, really good shopper. Whenever she says, "Guess how much I paid for this?" my rule is, take the lowest price I could ever envision myself paying, and cut it in half. Most of the time, my guess is too high. It's like that with memory and storage now.

And about the free shipping you can get for those cards (speaking of truckin'): I recently ordered a set of inks for my inkjet printer. The nine ink cartridges, each appreciably smaller and lighter than a pack of cards, were sent in no less than three separate shipments. Three times, the big Fed-Ex truck pulled up outside my house and the driver hopped out carrying a wee little package for me. I don't know how they do that and still make any money, but I think this means that my next stretch of inkjet prints are going to have really heavy carbon footprints. Life in the 21st century.

Then again, maybe I do know how they do that and still make money: ASAP-Inkjet.com recently calculated that if you were to fill up the gas tank of a Ford Expedition SUV with average-priced inkjet printer ink, it would cost you $386,070!

I sure wish Moore's law applied to printer ink.

__________________________

Mike

Featured Comment by Huw Morgan: "As I was reading your post, the low ink reminder screen popped up on my monitor. Sigh."

Pictures Worth 1000s of Words I Can't Read, Dept.

As Albano said when he sent me this link, "In Spanish, but you'll understand the photos."

__________________________

Mike  (Thanks to Albano Garcia)

Featured Comment by Ville-Matti: "Did you guys see this panorama?"

Mike replies: That is way cool. Naturally, there are always a couple of wise-guys making faces and ruining the group shot!

Fujifilm Finepix S100FS Review, Part 2

By Ctein

In Part 1 of this review, I reported that there was almost no difference in image quality between the Fuji Finepix S100FS and the Nikon D200 at ISO 100, despite a 2.5X difference in sensor dimensions. Low-light noise was a different matter. I needed to drop the S100FS down to ISO 800 to match the shadow noise qualities of the Nikon at ISO 1600. Based purely on the 6X difference in pixel area, that's nowhere near as big a difference as one would expect if all things were equal. But as I point out frequently (even obsessively) things are never technologically entirely equal between cameras and generations.

What about my Fuji S6000fd? RAW images looked about like one would expect; the smaller pixels in the S100FS cost about half a stop in speed, relative to the S6000, above ISO 800. You can see this in illustrations 1 through 4, comparing ISO 1600 and 3200 performance of the S6000fd and the S100FS. Below 800, the superior imaging and noise characteristics of the S100FS won out.

1. This RAW photograph was made with the S6000fd at ISO 1600. Click on the image for 100% scale. Compare it to illustrations 2, 3 and 4.

2. This RAW photograph was made with the S6000fd at ISO 3200. Click on the image for 100% scale.

3. This RAW photograph was made with the S100FS at ISO 1600. The S100FS has more pixels, so this opens at 75% scale, to make the S6000fd and S100FS illustrations correspond to same-size prints. It's midway in quality between the S6000fd's ISO 1600 and 3200 RAW images.

4. This RAW photograph was made with the S100FS at ISO 3200. The S100FS has more pixels, so this opens at 75% scale, to make the S6000fd and S100FS illustrations correspond to same-size prints.

But, when I photographed JPEGs (illustrations numbered 5 through 8), the ranking changed! The JPEGs from the S100FS had over a full stop speed advantage on the S6000. Vastly better signal processing in the S100 does a much more sophisticated job of retaining detail and fine image structure. Yes, the S100FS JPEGs are noisier, but they're a lot more acceptable than the S6000's combination of mushed out detail, smeary grain, and salt and pepper shot noise.

5. A highest-quality JPEG made with the S6000fd at ISO 1600. Click on the image for 100% scale. Compare it to illustrations 6, 7 and 8.

6. A highest-quality JPEG made with the S100FS at ISO 1600. The illustration (opened) is at 75% scale, to correspond to same-size prints from both cameras. It's vastly better than the S6000fd's JPEG.

7. A highest-quality JPEG made with the S100FS at ISO 3200. The illustration opens at 75% scale. Still beats out an ISO 1600 JPEG from the S6000fd.

8. A highest-quality JPEG made with the S100FS at ISO 6400. The opened illustration is at 100% scale, because the S100FS is binning pixels down to 6 MP. Better detail but more noise than an ISO 1600 JPEG from the S6000fd.

I assumed the ISO 6400 (6 MP reduced resolution) and ISO 10,000 (3 MP reduced resolution) JPEG modes would be a joke. While I still consider ISO 10,000 to be an act of desperation, the ISO 6400 setting actually served me well when I was photographing a collection of musician friends performing for each other. A big part of the reason was the camera's burst mode.

The S100FS can buffer seven highest-quality JPEGs or three RAW images. The S100FS accepts xD and SD(HC) storage cards. Avoid xDs, though; they're a lot more expensive and slower. Writing a RAW file to an xD-H card took 7.5 seconds vs. 2.5 sec for a 60X SDHC card. In normal use, camera cycle time was a little under one second. With a 60X SDHC card, that meant I could make five RAW exposures as fast as the camera would cycle before I had to wait while it cleared the buffer. In JPEG mode, I never had to wait.

In burst mode the S100FS photographs three RAW or seven JPEG images in one second. Then the camera needs to take a breath while it writes the data out (around seven seconds on the SDHC card). I used this in combination with the ISO 6400 JPEG setting to capture my musician friends' fleeting expressions with considerable success.

JPEG burst mode can capture 7 frames in a second. It's great for photographing performers, pets, and other fast-moving critters. This burst was made at ISO 6400 with –1 stop exposure compensation.

There's also a free-running burst mode, where the camera just keeps shoving exposures into the buffer until you release the shutter. Then it saves the last second's worth of photos.

Auto-bracketing burst mode was my favorite. Set the bracket interval in 1/3 stops up to +/– 1 stop, press the shutter button and in one second it captures three exposures on setting, plus the interval, and minus the interval. Faced with really extreme luminance ranges, I found it less distracting to just grab a burst and waste some storage space than fiddle with the exposure. I wish auto-bracketing went to +/–2 stops. That would be great for HDR.

Camera controls and other issues
Many (not all) of the controls are well-located. Just behind the shutter release are two buttons that bring up the ISO and the exposure information displays. Just behind them, conveniently positioned for one's thumb, is a control wheel that changes the ISO or the exposure compensation.

If neither button is pressed, spinning the wheel changes exposure settings. In Program mode, it trades off aperture for shutter speed. Using that in combination with exposure compensation, I wound up doing almost all my photography in Program mode, hardly needing to use either Shutter or Aperture priority.

Image stabilization works as advertised. Dynamic Range Expansion works, but at a price. Going from DR100 (the normal default setting) to DR200 forces the ISO up to 200 and going to DR400 forces that up to 400. DR400 will add about two stops to the range of a JPEG and somewhere between one and two stops to the range of a RAW image but with substantially increased noise. With 11 RAW stops at ISO 100 I doubt I'll care about DRE.

The LCD screen on the back of the camera has decent enough image quality that one can actually use it for sorting and previewing photographs. Pull it out at a 45-degree angle for comfortable viewing of the screen while the camera sits on the table in front of you.

Still to come...
All in all, I enjoyed using the camera, and I loved the innate image quality. The various exposure and burst modes made it easier to make many of my photographs and got me a higher percentage of successes. So, why did I keep flipping between loving and hating this camera? Tune in next time for the exciting conclusion of this three-part review. Here there be dragons!

_______________________

Ctein

Letter from Rio

From Salviano Junior

After reading Carl and Mike's Pentax 35mm DA Macro review on Photo.net, and as a Pentax K200D/35mm DA Macro owner, I invited people to participate in a test with the purpose of investigating the correlations between MTF numbers/graphs and images. We have now had a variety of participants, and I want to publish the results here.

My conclusion after all is said and done:

MTF numbers are an objective measure of optical quality. The bigger the number, the better the optical quality of the glass. But is hard—if not impossible—to do exact measures of the impact of this optical quality in "real" photos, even when using an accurate technique. (But not scientific—a photographer don't need to be a scientist).

In this experiment, the relative difference in MTF numbers of 43% (border) and 38% (center) was easily identifiable. But the differences of 3%, 10%, or even 24% didn't give a solid argument—and was not translated,  in practical terms—to theoretical optical superiority.

Probably, it is not a good idea to take the MTF numbers so seriously. It's a measure of optical quality but not a guarantee of  superior visual results (that is to say...optical results).  There are too many unmeasurable factors involved, beyond the optical quality of the glass to control, and each one of them affects in some degree the visual result.

And if one experienced photographer tests a lens and gives to it his highest rating, and another experienced lens reviewer tests the same lens, but doesn't demonstrate such enthusiasm—?

Well, I don't see any contradiction. It's a matter of preferences, subjective opinions. A matter of distinctive point of views, but not different languages (regarding optical quality), therefore both are valid.

My subjective opinion is: I agree with Mike Johnston and Carl Weese when they rated the Pentax 35mm DA 35mm Macro Limited as "An Optical Paragon."

And thanks to Klaus Schroiff for providing the MTF numbers—in my opinion, these numbers don't contradict the Mike/Carl "thesis"—so no disagreement there either.

Want a second opinion? Take the test yourself. Follow this URL:

http://www.salviano.info/temp/reslut/results.htm

I provided the untouched RAW-DNG files under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Brasil License.

Kind regards,

Salviano Junior
Rio de Janeiro

Chase Jarvis on the Nikon D90

Check out Chase Jarvis's blog with, as he says, lots of "tasty morsels" about the new D90.

________________________

Mike  (Thanks to Chase)

Farewell to 加油*

By James Fallows, theatlantic.com

"Note in the shot below the Chinese participants who I think edge out the opening-ceremony cheerleaders for the gold medal in stoicism. During the entire match, they had to look constantly into the crowd. This was presumably to be on guard if  anyone tried to charge the field or—much worse!—take out some kind of banner. How you could sneak a banner in through the security screenings is mystery on its own. Not once did I see a one of them turn around, even when the crowd roared and the stadium seemed to pulse with excitement. They didn't move or flinch at all. Assuming that they were actual people and not mannequins, I say: Well done! Jia you!

"(Note also the optical illusion in the shot: with the curved lines, it looks as if the picture is a trapezoid, with the bottom edge sloping up toward the right, rather than a rectangle. Or maybe the Games have destroyed my eyes and mind.)"

(From James Fallows' blog at theAtlantic.com. Note also the link to Zach Honig's photos on popphoto.com.)

*Jia you!, which translates roughly to "let's go," was the de facto motto of the Games.

_________________________

Mike

Fujifilm Finepix S100FS Review, Part 1

The S100FS produces photographs with a very attractive tonality and color rendition. Exposure range is extremely good in RAW mode.

By Ctein

I have an ongoing relationship with all-in-one cameras. The basic rule of cameras is that the camera I have with me makes much better photographs than the one I left at home. I'm much more likely to put my Fujica GA645 in my shoulder bag than my Pentax 67, let alone the latter's bevy of accessories and lenses. Still, quality counts: if the photos don't make me happy, then they're just not good enough. The main reason I have a GA645 is that mere 35mm film quality doesn't curl my toes.

My carry-'round digital's been a 6 MP Fujifilm Finepix S6000fd, the best camera I could find under $400 that had decent low-light performance (I never use flash) and RAW mode. The average image quality (especially in low light) is better than I could get from 35mm film point-and-shoots, adequate for 8x10's. Exposure range in RAW mode is a useful (not stellar) eight stops. I'm not delirious, but I'm satisfied.

The Fujifilm Finepix S100FS is a clear descendant of the S6000, but, with a $700 street price, it's in DSLR turf. Should an all-in-one camera even try to compete with an SLR? Fuji claimed it was the best "consumer" digital camera they'd ever made. Okay, how could I resist checking that out?

I wound up making something like 1000 photos and spending a full month figuring out whether I loved or hated this beast. Just why it proved so difficult makes for a tale.

The Basics
Specifications won't tell you if a camera makes good photographs, only if it has the features you want. Recitations are boring, so I'll mention just a handful. For an exhaustive list check out dpreview.

Self-portrait of camera with photographer. The S100FS is not a light nor small all-in-one camera, even with the lens fully retracted.

The bulky S100FS weighs a kilogram and measures 14 x 10 x 15 cm. Its 28–400mm (equivalent) ƒ/2.8–5.3 zoom lens has a minimum aperture of ƒ/11 and focuses down to 1 cm in macro or super-macro mode (unfortunately only at 28mm). It has multiple-zone, average, and spot metering (about 1% of the field) and shutter speeds from 1/4000 second up to 30 sec plus bulb. There's a hot shoe and a PC-style flash connector, so you can tether this camera to an external flash or studio rig.

The 75,000 (full-color) pixel display LCD on the camera back is readable in sunlight. It pulls out and tilts, so I can use the camera at chest level (the most comfortable and stable position for me), waist level and even upside-down overhead for "Hail Mary" photos.

The S100's novel eye-level viewfinder displays sequential RGB color at 65,000 full-color pixels. I liked the clear, relatively detailed image that was usable in sunlight. Quick movements produce momentary rainbow fringing, but I didn't find it bothersome. While not remotely as good as an optical finder, it's functional.

Pixel counts and sensor sizes provide only the very crudest guide to image quality. Honestly, price correlates better! But if you must know, there are 11 megapixels in a Bayer sensor approximately one fourth of 35mm size (the S6000 has 6 megapixels in a 1/5th scale sensor). By comparison, a 10 MP Nikon D200 has a sensor 2.5X larger.

The Good
I used Adobe Camera RAW for importing all test images. I loved the "look" of the photographs this camera produced (see top picture). The tonality and color looked very nice and natural to me, and I'm considered to have a pretty good eye for these things (he said immodestly). But, as I'll explain later, loving this camera proved more difficult than I expected.

I decided to compare the S100FS image quality to the Nikon D200. The price of a used D200 (or a new D80) body is roughly the same as the S100, so I think they're plausible competition when deciding whether to go system or all-in-one. Besides, my friend David Dyer-Bennett conveniently owns a D200.

3. Full-frame image from the Fuji S100. Compare this to the picture below, made with a Nikon D200. Allowing for about 1/3 stop difference in exposure, they've got identical exposure ranges. In RAW, both cameras can capture 11 stops at ISO 100!

4. The companion to the picture above, made with a Nikon D200. Both imported into Photoshop with Adobe Camera RAW, using identical settings.

We made RAW exposure series that compared the exposure ranges and overall image quality at ISO 100 and noise performance at ISO 1600. I imported everything using identical ACR settings that would reasonably maximize tonal range while producing a pleasing image. With a modest recovery of highlight detail in ACR, both cameras were capable of conveying an identical and surprising 11 stops of subject luminance range.

Overall ISO 100 image quality was comparable, though not identical (see 3. and 4., above). In matched 7" x 10" prints, the differences were just about invisible. They were evident in close viewing of 14 x 20" prints. Fuji did a better job of holding fine, low-contrast detail, especially in the highlights; certain kinds of repeating structures that confused the D200 were rendered well by the S100. On the other hand, fine detail in the shadows was better in the D200 (picture 6). Overall, the Nikon image looked noiseless, while the Fuji showed fine noise, even in highlights.

5. A 100%-scale section of picture 3, from the Fuji S100. There is very well-rendered fine detail in the highlights, along with slight noise.

6. A 100%-scale section of Figure 4, from the Nikon D200. Less noise than the S100FS but also less highlight detail, and there are artifacts in the window screen, which is rendered poorly.

But, here's a twist! I ran the Fuji photo through Neat Image to suppress midtone and highlight noise to match the Nikon (picture 7). When I did that, it lost just enough fine, low-contrast detail to make the D200 and S100FS photographs nearly indentical, except in the deep shadows. I conclude the differences have more to do with an aesthetic "design philosophy" than sensor quality: Nikon emphasizes suppression of noise, while Fuji emphasizes retention of fine detail.

7. This is picture 5, after massaging with Neat Image to make the noise comparable to picture 6. Now there's very little difference in detail between the Nikon and the Fuji photographs.

This from a sensor only 40% as big. Take that, you size-queens, you!

Next time, low light, and some warts.

________________________

Ctein

Random Excellence: Paul Crovella

Paul Crovella, Palm Tree

Back in art school when I didn't get enough haircuts and wore my jeans till they fell apart, I used to say my ambition was to take pictures with nothing in them (just being contrary), so you can probably sympathize when I say I love shots like this. It's the "shots like this" part where the mystery lies, however. Twenty years ago—warping into thirty, now, must be—my friend Kim had a legendary radio show on WHFS in Washington, D.C. that centered on new music and unknown bands. Kim is not a man of many or fancy words, but he's wise in the ways of art. He taught me that there's no such thing as "that kind" of art—that within every genre there's the whole gamut, a lot of bad and a lot of average and maybe a little good, too. He'd say he couldn't "hear" music he didn't understand, and he'd listen till he got it. When somebody says something like "I hate abstract expressionism," or "I hate rap," they only mean they've never looked into it and it's still something apart and outside. People who understand, differentiate. They see the landscape of that genre, the ups and downs, the ins and outs. Until you start to get the subtleties, you haven't yet really started to see.

Naturally we only get down to seeing the subtleties of the things we like well enough to look at to begin with. Sympatico precedes affection.

This is a great shot of its kind, I think. On his website, the photographer talks about the "...somewhat humorous sense of isolation of a palm tree on a barren lot behind locked gates." I see what he means, but only because he tells me. I don't read humor. I read this entirely formally. The abstract clumping of the bushes broadcast across the frame, the distinctively different plant centered in the frame standing apart from the pattern, the echo of the slash of sidewalk in that single line in the sky. Those two side-by-side rectangles like frames. Look at the lines, the echoes, the way things touch. Desert sunlight both bright and milky. That one little dab of yellow; if this were a painting, the painter would have stared at his picture for three days, admiring and critical, added that little rectangle, then pronounced his work done.

______________________

Mike

Featured Comment by Robert Roaldi: "This topic about seeing things that the creator didn't intend [being discussed in the comments] is a difficult one. In an interview once, I heard the Canadian author Margaret Atwood say that if the reader spotted something in one of her novels, she'd be happy to take the credit for it (whether she'd intended it or not).

"I looked at that photo and the first thought that came into my mind was 'suburban wasteland.' Was that what the creator intended?

"I don't see how you can ever escape from having viewers (or readers) find things in a work that the creator didn't consciously intend. Points of view are simply too different from each other. I don't think you could ever limit the 'meaning' of a work to only what the creator originally intended either, even if it were possible to strictly determine what that had been. If you asked the photographer what he intended at the moment of creation, and got a coherent answer, that answer might be different from one he might come up with a day later.

"This is a common experience. If you read the same novel several years apart, it's astonishing to see how different the work is the second time round, or third, even though it's the same words.

"The issue is made more difficult by the fact that there is no guarantee that a visual artist is even able to articulate in spoken/written language what it was they were trying to convey. I tend to have a personal prejudice against trying to express verbally what an image is supposed to mean visually."

Featured Comment by John Robison: "The problem is that some of us, like me, are literal-minded. We see what's there, and only what's there. But...if I were to express the first impression that came to my mind it would be HEAT! Hot, unrelenting sun beating down on hot pavement, nowhere to run to cool off, ack, can't breathe, too hot. My feelings about hot weather color everything when I look at this photo."

Un-frappez la merveille

I'm just a one-hit wonder, is all. My sole chart-topper has just been published in French. (I wonder how well the translation works?)

________________________

Mike

Good Show

This is just a rumor, and should be treated as such, but look what surfaced on dpnet.com.cn recently. I don't read Chinese, but the illustrations have an incrementally more believable look than the last mock-up illos we saw for Micro 4/3.

Speaking of the Chinese, didn't they do just a bang-up job on the Olympics? I say we should get them to host the Games every four years. Just splendid. The people of Beijing, the Chinese government, the Olympic organizers, the participants—I think everybody involved should be proud of the fine job they did. Most excellent hosts, and a superb and memorable Games. All that, and they won the medal race decisively, too. Every citizen of China must be very proud in all kinds of ways.

The ping-pong final was a treat. Glad I got to see that.

Now I'm on pins and needles awaiting the world's next great sporting event...the sixth Vendée Globe. If you don't know the Vendée Globe, it's an elegantly simple (and simply brutal) thing: a race of super-light monohull open-plan 60-foot sailboats around the world, non-stop, without help...singlehanded. As in, one skipper, no crew. The middle third of the race, a circumnavigation of Antarctica, takes place entirely in the Southern Ocean, the most savage, remote, and dangerous place on the planet. Beyond a doubt the #1 extreme sporting event in the world. I've been rereading Godforsaken Sea for the third time (a cracking great armchair adventure title by Derek Lundy—see "Recommended By M.J.," right) just to get psyched.

________________________

Mike  (Thanks to Charlie)

Featured Comment by ZooLive: "Hi! The text in Chinese says that it is said to be an imaginary illustration posted by a Japanese amateur, but that it might also be a way for Panasonic to test public reaction to its Micro 4/3 design."

Featured Comment via Mark Roberts: "Bring on the Bitchy Brits," from Slate.

Charts 'n' Graphs

It's a fact of life for equipment reviewers that some readers have a greater comfort level with charts and graphs than with discussions of subjective trials. This is true even when the charts and graphs are merely graphic representations of subjective or holistic judgments, and not real data! That’s the principle, for example, behind Popular Photography & Imaging’s "SQF" charts. Although masquerading as data, complete with numbers in boxes carried to a tenth of a point, the charts are really just graphic representations of "subjective quality," which is what the "SQ" in SQF stands for. Pop has never, to my knowledge, related to its readers exactly how it relates hard data to these summary numbers.

Measurements, which might seem more trustworthy on the face of things, can make us overlook the obvious benefits of careful observation. In this thread on photo.net about Carl's and my review of the Pentax 35mm ƒ/2.8 DA Macro, there are a persistent number of belittling comments from a polite, well-mannered fellow named Paul Wilkins. (I'm being facetious—he's not actually terribly polite. At one point he calls me "an incompetent BS merchant," which very much wounds me—I fancy myself a very competent BS merchant, thank you, and I think any of my high school teachers or college professors would attest to that.) Anyway, this fellow grabs on to the fact that he sees serious "vignetting" in my sunset illustration in the review (the correct term is "falloff," but I know what he meant) and then he hangs on to it like a pit bull with a tug-toy.

This doesn't seem like serious lens falloff to me. Others are permitted to disagree.

Er, okay—I like vignetting (here, I mean vignetting). I habitually added it to darkroom prints via edge-burning, and I often add it to digital photographs in Photoshop, as in the photograph below (the darkening on the right is natural—that is, the light was like that—and I added some darkening on the left to balance it).

Catherine, Age 1

I admit that a little vignetting is unlikely to bother me, and it’s certainly possible for two photographers to have differing standards in regards to lens falloff. But the evidence of one sunset shot isn’t telling, for a simple reason—when you’re pointing the camera at the sunset, the sky really does get darker the farther away from the light source you get. So even if the lens is "vignetting" a little, that effect is also mimicking a natural phenomenon that fits the scene, and the resulting picture looks perfectly natural. Such a reading, of course, depends on an ability to see pictures as pictures, as opposed to seeing them as test shots. I doubt any reasonable user would object to the physical falloff of the 35mm DA Macro wide open, although I’m certainly open to letting every user decide for him- or herself. But one shot of a sunset not only isn’t proof, it isn't even evidence.

And here's the saddest thing about that. I've been doing this for so long that I knew before I even posted that illustration that some blowhard would crop up harrumphing about the terrible vignetting they could see in that shot. I've been fielding nitpicks for so long that I know where the nitpicks are going to be coming from before they even exist.

Looking at pictures that are meant to be looked at
It's germane to remember that observation is just as important a scientific principle as measurement. In photography, it especially makes sense, because the main purpose of our results, for the most part, is to be looked at. Observation allows us to concentrate on what’s really important in a picture. What we conclude from our observations will vary with each user, but that’s as it should be. We all respond to effects differently, and we all seek differing properties in differing degrees.

In any event, I have to say that the prejudices and peccadilloes of various interpreters do afford a high amusement value sometimes. Just after our review came out, another review was published on a different site that came to a different conclusion than we did. That one was chock-full of scientific-looking charts and graphs, so some readers used it as a handy means of dismissing everything Carl and I had said. Which is certainly their prerogative. The thing that made me smile, however, was that the "scientific" review started out with the following statement in the very first sentence: "...these lenses are assembled by hand thus resulting in a limited production volume." The only problem with that is that the Pentax "Limited" lenses, despite the name, have never been, and are not now, limited production items—Pentax uses the word "limited" to signify "deluxe." And, all camera lenses are assembled by hand—how else would they be assembled, by little teensy robots, like a miniature automobile assembly line?! But I guess it’s still a better review to some people, despite having this obvious factual howler at the outset, I suspect because it has those all-important charts 'n' graphs.

Someday, I swear, I'm going to try an experiment. I'm going to add totally fake charts and graphs to one of my reviews just to make diehard "objectivists" feel more comfortable with my conclusions. You know, I'll have a chart, for example, showing SPFF—subjective purple fringing factor—graphically, and the chart will assign the lens under test a rating of BM7.13, where "BM," unbeknownst to readers, will secretly stand for "bothers Mike."

Your botheration factor, still and all, might differ.

_____________________

Mike

Featured Comment via tom bullard:

Featured Comment by Bill Pierce: "I don't know if they still do it this way, but years ago when I visited Leitz in Germany they did very specific optical bench testing to analyze specific optical aberrations for the designers. They also posted pictures for the workers to comment on. I asked which was the best way of evaluating performance. I was told if you were a photographer and had the time, best to look at pictures."