Ask Mike

Got any questions?

Mike

UPDATE 1 p.m.: Okay, I've got to cut this off now! I was literally laughing when I posted this...what a dumb idea for a post. At the same time, I thought it might be fun. And it was. Thanks for all the questions, including the ones I didn't answer.

Oh, and I knew right from the start that I was going to get that question about the velocity of the swallow. [g]

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Questions from:

Michael Roche: "Mike, whatever happened to the printer you took delivery of last year?"

Mike replies: It's still sitting in a large box in the middle of the living room floor, I'm sad (and a little ashamed) to say. The living room remodel has to get done before I'll have room to set it up, and that project is just grinding along with painful slowness.

I've hired an organizer, though, and she's coming every week, and she leaves me with "homework" to do on my own. So progress is being made. Just...slowly.

My biggest business problem (and I guess it's nice that I can say this) is that my home office is just critically undersized. I need three times as much room, and six times as much would be put to good use. I just don't know what to do about it...no room to relocate it, no room on the lot for an addition, no money/energy/time for a move. There is no easy solution, and believe me I've been putting my mind to it.

Will: "Why does a good file, shrunk, (almost always) look better than a file that starts that size?"

Mike replies: That answer's too long for this post, but I've got a splendid visual example of this and have been thinking about writing a post about it. I need Ctein to be less busy so that I can confer with him on it, though. Taken under advisement for the future.

Bob Keefer: "Yeah. What do you think the camera marketplace is going to look like in 10 years?"

Mike replies: I don't know. No crystal ball. But see previous post for pessimistic fatalistic angle on it.

Stephen Scharf: "Mike, Any plans to review the new Fuji X100S? Cheers, Stephen."

Mike replies: Yer makin' me feel bad. A reader just offered to let me use his new one for three weeks, and I turned him down. Just too much to do to do it justice. I really could use an assistant, but to hire an assistant I really would need a bigger office...(see above). Every problem is interrelated with every other problem!

Rob: "Can you (and are you willing to) describe your technique for your digital B&W conversions? I flail around trying different things but am rarely happy. Perhaps it's my choice of lighting more than anything else. The B&W photos you posted from the NEX 6 review are good examples of what I'd like to achieve but never seem to be able to to."

Mike replies: Right now I'm using Silver Efex Pro 2, part of the bundle Google just radically lowered the price on (see this post). I finally realized I just wasn't getting what I wanted easily enough with ACR's controls.

The problem with B&W conversion isn't the tools, though, really...it's judgment. That is, you have to know what to look for and what you're after. How to get there isn't as much of a difficulty.

It seems a rather specialized topic, because I'm not sure how many people do B&W conversions (except in the horrid, debased, lowest-common-denominator "let's try to save this frame that's not working out in color" populist way). But maybe I could concentrate on the aesthetic judgments rather than just the technique and make a post or two that are interesting that way. Again, I'll take this under advisement.

Tony Rowlett: "I want to know how your darkroom is going!"

Mike replies: It's nearly done and I've been using it...now and then. Again, my problem is that I have too much I could be doing and not nearly enough time to do it in. Or energy, in the evenings.

I've been remiss in not posting an update for too long. That's probably because I'd have to clean the darkroom up to take pictures of it, and the organizer and I are currently using it as a staging area for all the stuff I have to put on eBay. Comma, when I have time.

[Another] Mike: "Why is it so difficult for digital camera makers to design models with decent manual focusing?"

Mike replies: Probably because most people don't manually focus. DSLR viewfinders are often small mirror-boxes instead of glass prisms, the coverage area is smaller making the viewfinder image smaller and harder to see, and most viewing screens are of the "brightscreen" type to make up for the brightness shortage of the mirrorbox arrangement, and those don't have good "focus snap" (said of focusing screens on which it's easy to see when the image is in focus).

Two recommendations: find a full-frame DSLR that has interchangable focusing screens and research to see if people are liking one particular screen for manual focusing; or, use a Sony with focus-peaking like the NEX I'm in the process of reviewing. They're actually surprisingly good for manual focusing!

James: "What's the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

Mike replies: What do you mean, an African or European swallow?

Mark Sampson: "What's your photo project for spring/summer 2013? By which, of course, I mean 'What subject are you going to photograph with the intent to produce a small, finished project, by the end of the year?'"

Mike replies: I'm not sure if it's grand enough to qualify as a project, but I plan to rent the Zeiss 100mm Makro-Planar for the D800 and do some portraits with it and with the Nikkor 85mm ƒ/1.8G. I've been mulling over various ways of finding portrait subjects. Hey, at least I have a business card to approach people with now.

Sal Santamaura: "Yes, the question I already asked in a comment to your Day 1 Sony + Zeiss post: '...the test I'm hoping you can write up is of Hartblei's 40mm Superrotator on your Dragoon. LensRentals doesn't have it, but maybe TOP world headquarters can arrange for a loan from the manufacturer. At more than twice the Dragoon's cost, you probably wouldn't buy one even though it is your favorite focal length. Seriously, that combination, if it works well, could be what replaces a 4x5 for me as age diminishes my carrying capacity. Please consider trying it out.' So, have you considered it?  ;-) "

Mike replies: Not really. What's wrong with the Lens Corrections > Manual controls in Adobe Camera Raw?

James Hildreth (partial comment) [Ed. Note: See the Comments section for the rest of James's comment. As well as for the questions I'm not going to answer mainly because I don't know the answers or have nothing to say]: "If prize-winning photographs can be taken with DX cameras and lenses (and beat out the FX shots), why does FX continue to be the holy grail? Seems like its just a case of 'bigger is better' and a lot of hype." [Ed Note #2: For anyone who doesn't know, DX is Nikon's term for the reduced APS-C sensor size, and FX is its term for full-frame, 24x36mm sensors.]

Mike replies: Well, I can't answer why other people consider them so, and I don't consider anything to be the "holy grail" myself, but I think there are three reasons to consider full-frame (FX) cameras: 1. Because the camera viewfinders are restored to traditional 35mm-camera sizes and are bigger and easier to see; 2. Because legacy focal lengths and actual legacy lenses (especially on the wide end) are restored to their traditional angles of view and (again, especially on the wide end) their coverage isn't wasted; and 3. Because it's easier to achieve the "shallow depth of field" look that is fashionable in many quarters right now, especially with fast lenses.

I guess a fourth reason is that some people do consider that they have, or potentially have, somewhat higher image quality. My opinion about that is that you generally need to skip a sensor size to see an appreciable difference that matters: that is, APS-C is better than 1", full-frame is an improvement on 4/3, medium format is a real improvement on APS-C; moving up or down just one sensor size really isn't enough of a difference to fire anybody up that much.

I personally think 4/3 or APS-C sensors are the best all-around compromise, all things considered. APS-C is certainly best if you do a lot of long tele work.

 LJ Slater: "Hi Mike! Can I send you every photo I've ever taken and ask you to pick out the keepers for me? This is the worst part of photography. Every couple of months, I 'give up photography forever and this time I mean it.' Also, what's your favorite vintage Nikkor and what should I do with all my slides and should I switch from E6 to C41? Thanks!"

Mike replies: No; why would you do that?; the 45P, the old 55mm ƒ/3.5 Micro-Nikkor, or the 28mm ƒ/2.8 or 85mm ƒ/2 AIS's; put them in archival boxes at least; and, not enough information, but probably.

Kenneth Wajda: "Do you think we are too gear-oriented these days? Seems like gear is in our way, as we incrementally get better cameras, but there's nothing wrong with the ones we have. Does digital feed our gadget-lust, at the expense of making pictures? I feel like it does for me at times. Like this is all just a bunch of noise, the image quality is already great. But wait, there's a new announcement coming...."

Mike replies: Do you need me here? Seems like you answered your own question.

I'm too gear-oriented, but that's because writing about gear is an essential part of how I make my living. I do sometimes pine for life with one camera and a lot of time for shooting, but it's not in the cards for me personally. 

Michel: "Hey Mike, when is the next installment of the TOP photo 'contest'? Unless I missed it there was only one round of the three that had been announced."

Mike replies: And we're back to answer #1...with me feeling sad and a little ashamed again. This is something I periodically revisit, and keep meaning to pick up again...it was so much fun and I would just love to do more with it.

To be honest, the original idea of making a print sale of reader pictures, which is essentially a good idea I think and one that appeals to me, ran into a significant snag. And that is this: with every sale I run, the #1 most important thing to me is whether the photographer is reliable and dependable. Just imagine the hassle and ill-will if we ran a sale, collected all the money, and the photographer failed to follow through with making and shipping the prints. It would be a disaster. And, since it would be a huge time-sink for me, it would also probably be a disaster for TOP, possibly even threatening its existence. I've been accused of only running sales of pictures by my friends, but that's because I'm picking people to work with who I am reasonably well assured are professional and dependable, and will come through for me.

So let's say we pick three great pictures from three different photographers and arrange a sale of all three. In all three cases the photographers would essentially be strangers to me. I wouldn't have as much assurance that they would come through with their end of the bargain. Mass producing and shipping large numbers of prints is a significantly difficult task; it takes a lot of time and effort over a short span of time (because the prints have to be delivered in a timely fashion). I'd be chancing it, hoping that each of the photographers are going to come through with their end of the bargain. But it's a significant risk, and a significant worry. And, with three prints by three different photographers in the sale, I'd be multiplying my risk by three! At least in the past when we offer two or three or four or six prints, they're all from the same photographer.

See the problem? It stopped me up, at the time.

Now I think I have a solution to the problem. What we'd do is just hire Ctein to make the prints and then do the fulfillment from here (I'd hire people to do it, I wouldn't do it myself). Ctein is a superb professional—he may be a hippie to the bone and be into alternative lifestyles et cet., but don't succumb to stereotyping—he is supremely organized and utterly dependable, as professional as any pro I've ever known. He's written 280 columns for this site (well, 281 if you count next week's), and I'm hard pressed to think if he's ever missed his deadline even once. If it was once it was only once. His columns have been late to go up a handful of times, but in each case it's been my fault, or the fault of circumstances beyond our control.

And there are two more problems with having Ctein make the prints and doing the fulfillment ourselves. First, what if the photographer is actually a fine printmaker? I've contacted a few people and sounded them out about the prospect of a print sale, and they've answered, "Cool, where should I get the prints made?" Mighty Ctein to the rescue there. But, for real printmakers, the printmaking is part of the art, and buyers would understandably want to purchase a print made by the artist.

And the second problem is that when you start talking about having Ctein make the prints and me do the bookkeeping, money collection, and fulfillment, what you're really talking about is me running an entire small business from here. Because that's what it would be. I'd have to get a shopping cart built, do all the customer service, purchase the packaging, keep the books, hire the people to pack and ship the prints Ctein makes...on and on.

Understand, I could spend an entire 40-hour work week just writing posts. Literally...just doing the writing for TOP could be a full-time job. (Of course, then the writing [and the research that goes into it] would be a lot better.) Never mind keeping up with emails, moderating all the comments, doing ad sales and administration, keeping the books, doing my own IT, et cetera ad infinitum. You see the problem. All of which works fine for very high-energy individuals like, say, David Pogue and Thom Hogan. But I am decidedly a low-energy individual!

However, I think I may have hit on a solution that's workable all around. Stay tuned for more at some point in the future. But don't hold me to a timeline...and you probably shouldn't hold your breath.

William Flowers: "Would love to hear you comment on photographs and photographers that have influenced you in some way. It would certainly be a great column or series of columns."

Mike replies: I've actually been thinking of this too. Will take it under advisement. Thanks.

Michael Farrell: "I'm fairly sure you use traditional Photoshop rather than Lightroom. Any reason? I found Lightroom, when I made the switch, to be more 'photographer-friendly' overall. Have you ever considered using it?"

Mike replies: Not really. I'm not good with computers, and distinctly poor at learning new software (I pick it up easily enough, I just don't retain it). I've been using Photoshop since about 1996 and I've achieved a reasonable degree of facility with it, and I just don't want to change. (Although in a sense I have changed, since I would say my main image editing program now is ACR.)

I do think the majority of photography enthusiasts are now using Lightroom.

mark: "Shooting any film these days?"

Mike replies: The last time was October or November, with the Rollei. I've been strenuously resisting splurging on the new Canon 35mm ƒ/2 IS, which I could use with a film Canon for shooting XP2. Must...not...succumb...must...not...succumb....

Ed Hawco: "Mike, does your Olympus OM-D seem to have a mind of its own? I just got back from a 10-day trip, much of which was spent with my OM-D around my neck (a departure; I generally use a wrist strap). Over the 10 days, the OM-D unilaterally decided to change focus points at least a dozen times. I prefer one focus point in the middle (old school; focus and recompose), but it was randomly assigning focus points in random places, and once or twice simply chose a different focus scheme entirely. One time it randomly threw itself into 'cloudy' white balance mode (I generally keep it on 'auto'). I also had two or three lock-ups (turn off, turn on to fix). Are you (or anyone else reading) experiencing this?"

Mike replies: YES, it does have a mind of its own, and it's a devious little bugger and not to be trusted. Just when you think you've got it doing one thing, you find out it's doing another.

I'm only half kidding....

Adrian: "What happened to your Mamiya 7?"

Mike replies: The lens died. Leaky oil from the aperture blades, which has vaporized and deposited itself on the inner elements of the lens. So, a question back to you: would you a) get a new lens; b) try to get the lens fixed; c) sell the camera body without the lens; or d) throw the camera in the back of the cabinet and worry about it some other day?

I chose "d."

Rob Atkins: "Mike, would you like to comment on the following quote of yours, made on TOP some time ago? 'I'm seriously considering a photo project on all the weird places you can buy unhealthy crap to stuff your face with in America—there is a candy aisle at the office supply store, fer chrissakes.'"

Mike replies: Sure. I mean this in the gentlest possible way: I think the food industry is trying to kill us.

They don't have anything against any of us personally, mind you. If a bunch of juvenile delinquents throw an old tire off a freeway overpass, and it happens to kill a driver passing down below, it doesn't necessarily mean they had any antipathy towards that particular person...specifically.

"Ground zero for fat, salt, and sugar as food groups": the Iowa State Fair.
Photo by Mike Plews.

But they've learned—following good sound economic principles to maximize their business, as outlined in Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson—that they can induce continual cravings in otherwise normal people by continually force-feeding us massive overdoses of salt, sugar, and fat, preferably all at once. Sugar in particular is the absolutely perfect industrial foodstuff: it's plentiful, it has a high perceived value so it can be priced high, it produces mild dependency and cravings in people who eat too much of it, and it doesn't spoil. Ideal!

Slight downside: laboratory rats, when given a choice of healthy food or sugar water, will consume sugar water until they die of malnutirition. This is apparently also true of human beings, although the ways in which we shorten our lives by this method are somewhat more complex.

This is a hot button topic for me, so I'd better stop before I get too far into it. But I recommend Michael Moss's Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us if you want to know more (I haven't read it yet, though).

Oh, and I haven't gotten yelled at for taking a picture in a retail establishment yet, although the NEX-6 is much better for this than the D800.

psu (partial comment): "Hmmm. A question. How about this: Why prints? Why go through all the trouble when in a couple of years you'll be able to look at your picture at 300 dpi on a 27-inch LCD screen that has a wider brightness and color range than that printer can do anyway? What is it about the human psyche that makes us emotionally attach ourselves to processes versus results? How's that?"

Mike replies: Depends if you like prints better and appreciate them more. I tend to.

Also, a print is potentially a better or more stable record of what the artist/creator intended the picture to look like. I can't really insure that when you look at some screen somewhere, you're really seeing what I intend. But if I make a reasonably stable print, I don't need to be there to monitor it throughout its life: I've "published" it (in effect) as I want it to be, and future viewers can look at it and get a good idea of what I intended for it.

Further: you can trade in objects. You can't trade in electrons. There would be no art market for photographs if there were no objects.

Then try this: go to a good art museum and look carefully and closely at a number of oil paintings. Then go home and look up the same paintings in Google image search. Pay close attention to your feelings between the different experiences. That difference is usually there to some degree when looking at original artifacts or some remote representation of them. Whether this makes a difference to you is for you to decide.

Your choice, your call. But to me, the print is the thing. Of course, it's better that most photographs aren't prints (very few of mine are).

•     •     •

[That's all I have time for today. Gotta get back to the NEX-6 summary. Thanks for the questions! I've left the comments open but I don't think I'll be answering any more questions. Should we do this again sometime? Maybe I should get Ctein to do one some day. —Mike]

Comments

[Richard Tugwell]

HI MIke

You've said before that no great photo ever depended on sharpness, so I'm tempted to add that "no great photo ever depended on sensor high dynamic range" or "low noise high ISO+". So why are we fixated on these things, and why does almost every camera review these days concentrate on comparing these factors, and whether they rae better on the latest model, or whether the holy grail is just around the corner? Has the concept of taking the next "great photo" simply disappeared?

[Richard]

What is the total circumference of the earth, and if one were to take a photo of the total globe what distance would one need to be for any given lens, I am planning a trip next summer. :)

More seriously:

Tell me something I don't know.

That might sound a bit arrogant but what I mean to say is that photography is less about finding answers to your questions but more about learning of questions you should be asking. I look forward to reading the questions as I bet there are a few I never even thought about.

[Scott]

What are the essential user differences between CLS and ETTLII, every time I think I have my head around it I stumble. iTTL-BL, fill flash for bright scenes, is automatic with Canon in Aperture priority mode, right? So what does a Nikon do in iTTL and Aperture mode at different EV's?

Probably not the sort of question you were after Mike, but food for a web search or twenty!

[Trevor Buss]

Do you have any recommendations on exposing and developing black and white negative film specifically for purposes of scanning the film to create digital files? Would it be the same as exposing for darkroom printing, or are there other aspects of scanning that could benefit from a different exposure?

Also, as a man of books, I'm curious if you have any references that you could recommend on the topic of photogrammetry. I'm an engineer who uses photogrammetric analysis for forensic purposes, and I'm always looking to learn a bit more.

Thanks for the great blog, I enjoy it daily and have learned a great deal from yourself and your contributors.

[James Sinks]

Who was the best Black Flag singer?

[Harrison Cronbi]

When can I expect to be able to buy another compendium of your writing? Maybe even just a selection of the longest/best TOP articles? Lenses and the Light Tight Box and The Empirical Photographer are absolute favourites of mine.

When are you going to produce a nice monograph of your 35mm black and white work? Have you considered entering into any sort of editorial partnership to gain an external perspective?

Have you considered adding a forum to TOP? Your comments and commentators provide some of the appeal of the site, but in this format it's easy for interesting topics to die out, and true conversations between readers are hard.

Have you considered a classifieds section on TOP? You could charge a fixed small fee to post an advert for a camera or book or print? People around here have similar (exemplary) taste in these things.

What are the five most common questions you get asked (from non-photography site readers) about buying a new camera? I'm in the process of developing a website as a side project, to guide people who don't want to read dozens of reviews and hundreds of posts before choosing a digital camera.

[James Hildreth]

If prize-winning photographs can be taken with DX cameras and lenses (and beat out the FX shots), why does FX continue to be the holy grail? Seems like its just a case of "bigger is better" and a lot of hype. If Nikon or Canon made DX cameras with the all the bells and whistles of a D4 or 5DMkIII would anyone need FX? With the advent of M4/3 its been shown that small sensors don't necessarily mean lesser quality. Pros especially can appreciate the lower weight burden so why cling to those big and bulky cameras? If pros started adopting smaller sensor cameras no one would buy FX. I think that time is coming based on the response to cameras like the OMD's, NEX's and Fuji's on various pro blogs.

I know you love that big dragoon and over on Thom's site it will probably win his version of March Madness but that's exactly what it seems to me - madness to cling to the past with FX.

Then again, it makes more money for the manufacturers so maybe it keeps DX costs lower. I'll shut up, now.

[Chris Pisarra]

You've shared that you found out just a day in advance that you were to be a single father. That sounds like an interesting story. Can you add some more details?

[John Y.]

I've got a Panasonic GF-1 tht I'm generally happy with, but I'd like to be able to stretch to higher ISOs a bit to better handhold in low light. Will moving to the GX-1 get me much, or should I be looking to the Oly E-PL5?

If it matters, the only lens I use (or have interest in) is the 20/1.7.

[Bill Lewis]

In regard to your comment reply re b+w conversion:

" But maybe I could concentrate on the aesthetic judgments rather than just the technique and make a post or two that are interesting that way. Again, I'll take this under advisement."

I think this is a great idea that would appeal to many b+w enthusiasts.

[Doug Howk]

Does a digital monochrome camera such as the Leica M9-Mono handle the subject brightness range as with B&W film, or do you have to bracket/multiple exposure as with other digital cameras?

[James Sinks]

Mike, I can give two additional answers to James Hildreth's question: noise and focal lengths (for people buying into Canikon, anyway).

My first DSLR was FF because I shoot at night and my first lens was going to be a 100mm-ish stabilized macro. I seriously considered buying a crop sensor camera, but I knew I was going to have trouble with the 100mm's FOV on a crop sensor.

Most of the black backdrop photos in my creatures gallery ( http://www.dementlieu.com/galleries/creatures_1.0/ ) could not have been shot with a crop sensor camera--with a light in one hand and the camera in the other, I was seriously constrained by how far I could be from my subjects.

When it comes to noise, I've shot a lot with both the 5D Mark II and a 7D, and the 5D has a clear advantage at ISO 800, it demolishes the 7D at ISO 1600, and higher than that and the 7D is not even worth considering.

For long exposures, I haven't used the 7D enough to get a good feel for it, but my gut says that the 7D is about a stop noisier than the 5D for 30-120 second exposures with dark frame on.

[Rod Graham]

Concerning your trying to figure out ways to find portrait subjects: How about turning to your readership here? Surely there are a lot of TOP regulars within a reasonable distance of TOP World Headquarters who would be willing to make the trek on their own dime to have their portrait taken by you and the Big Dragoon?? It would be an interesting series of posts too, to see some of the faces behind the names. Worth a shot.

[Tim Bradshaw]

Here is an answer to the file size thing from the point of view of the maths of it.

An image file consists of a bunch of buckets (pixels or whatever you want to call them). For a naked file from a camera the contents of those buckets are the (considerably tarted up) values from the sensor's pixels.

Just thinking about a monochrome sensor (a colour one is not conceptually harder, it's just more fiddly), each pixel's value consists of two parts: the actual value of the light it saw, and some random noise added by the pixel (some of that noise being avoidable by better design, some not being so). You want the first of these, but not the second: unfortunately you have to live with the second.

Now, if you "shrink" a file, what this actually means is that (assuming you are not working with some inherently lossy format like JPEG, which makes things stupidly more complicated) you are reducing the number of pixels in the file. What happens to do this is that each new pixel is constructed from a number of old ones. Again there are complexities here which make no real difference, but the way this is done is to make each new pixel the average of a number of old ones.

And now some magic happens: the noise part of the sensor pxel's value is random, and it turns out to be the case that if you add random values the total you expect to get goes up as the square root of the number of values you add. But the part of the sensor pixel's value corresponding to the light which fell on it is not random, and neighbouring pixels are highly correlated. So when adding a number of these values you get a result which goes up roughly linearly.

What this means is that, if you average n pixels, you reduce the noise by a factor of roughly the square root of n. And because the number of pixels goes like the linear dimension of the image (meaning, here, number of pixels the side of the image) squared, this in turn means that noise goes down roughly linearly with a linear scaling of the image: so if you start with an image which is n pixels on a side and reduce it to one which is n/2, you get about half the noise.

Note that this assumes that the original sensor pixels were about as good (ie about as noisy) in the image you have scaled and the image that started out small. That does not have to be the case: there's nothing to stop someone making a sensor with a rather small number of very high-quality pixels. However I suspect that the stupidity of most camera buyers means, sadly, that this does not happen ("my camera has more pixels than yours" being something which seems to be important to people, along with "my camera weighs more than yours" (very important to Leica users), "my lens is bigger than yours", "I have more lenses than you", "my camera is missing the bit which avoids aliasing effects in the image" and all the other idiocies).

[James Sinks]

I should have clarified in my last comment that I meant "speciality" focal lengths, where you need a specific type of lens (macro, tilt shift, f1.4/1.2) at a given FOV.

[Anurag Agnihotri]

Mike, will be great if you could take a look at my pictures and let me know what you liked :)

[psu]

Hmmm. A question. How about this: Why prints? Why go through all the trouble when in a couple of years you'll be able to look at your picture at 300dpi on a 27 inch LCD screen that has a wider brightness and color range than that printer can do anyway? What is it about the human psyche that makes us emotionally attach ourselves to *processes* versus results? How's that?

Also, about "why does FX continue to be the holy grail?"

This might not be the place to offer my own answers... but IMHO FF is a priority for the major makers because

1. It allows a level of sensor performance that is above what crop-sensor cameras were doing around the D3 time frame. This is much less true now. Now even the 4/3rds cameras are close enough to D3 performance that you aren't given up that much by "downgrading" the sensor size. That's why I actually just broke down and sprung for a new Olympus.

2. Allows the development of only a single line of lenses.

Using "full frame" lenses on crop sensor cameras is a bit of a compromise in various ways. But, N and C have both been slow in developing the cropped lens lines because they've been assuming that the ultimate destination is full frame. The result is that you can buy APS-C bodies that are nice and small but then your are burdened with comparatively large lenses that all have the wrong field of view. And, it's hard to find a good wide angle.

[Tuyen Tran]

How come you never, never, EVER, have a typo or grammatical error in your posts? Do you outsource your proof reading to a team in India or something like that?

[That's the nicest comment I've gotten in a while. If you only knew how I do bitter endless battle with the ever-present, ever-insidious typo trolls.... --Mike]

[Roger Bradbury]

@ Mike: "Should we do this again sometime? "

Yes, because it was very entertaining.

[Mark Hespenheide]

@Sal Santamaura:

I have no experience with the Hartblei superrotator, but a more economical alternative is to look at the Mirex tilt-shift adapters (available through mirex.de), which allow you to shoot using medium format lenses on 35mm bodies. If I remember correctly, they have the options of Mamiya 645, Pentax 645, and Hasselblad 6x6 on the front end and Canon, Sony Alpha, and m42 on the back end. You buy one adapter and then can use different lenses with it. I use it with Mamiya lenses stuck on to Sony Alpha. I'm happy with the results, but I think other photographers who use Canon are a bit better off, because of Canon's better implementation of Live View (at least compared the absence on my a850).

I think there are also adapters that will let you do similar things going from 35mm lenses down to Sony NEX, but I don't have any experience with them.

[LJ Slater]

You're an extremely good sport, thank you.

[Bahi]

I'm sorry I missed this. It was fantastic — thanks!

[toto]

Are you dating your organizer? :)

[No, she's happily married, although, by complete coincidence, she happens to be the ex-wife of an old high school friend, and we have friends in common. I had no idea. I found her through a referral on the Internet. --Mike]

[Rod S.]

Mike, it was entertaining. But it all happened between me going to bed and getting up the next morning!

I'm disappointed for you that your Mamiya 7ii 80mm lens died. And so quickly. In all the posts on various sites, including photo.net, that I've read on the Mamiya 7 system covering more than 15 years, I can't recall ever hearing of lubricant fouling the internal elements. (Just to make you feel better!).

I recently had scans done of the B&W rolls I shot with my Mamiya 7ii and 80mm during the the Makalu to Everest traverse I completed two years ago. They make me wish I'd used more B&W instead of E6 colour. Several LF users at my photo club were very impressed. So my suggestion is to buy another 80mm lens. Soon, while you can still get one new. Remember that it's a nice cloning of a Symmar.

[MarkB]

What a great "Spring Cleaning" kind of post! While some questions were pretty specific or esoteric, there are answers in there to the questions I would've asked had I checked the site earlier. Cleaned things up in the dusty corners of "what ever happened to?" and "what does Mike think of...?"

[David Bostedo]

I can't believe that no one asked what the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is. The answer, as we all know, is 42.

[Sarge]

A subtitle (much longer than the entire post) for this blogpost: Things you've always wanted to know about Mike, photography, gear, etc... but were afraid to ask.

Had I stayed up late and caught this post before the first batch of Q&A's were published, I would have been stumped.

Difficult to ask questions without context, given TOP's broad swath.

It's gonna be fun divining the context, subtext, intertext...whatever, of this thread. But that sounds like work.

"Got any questions?" What a pre-text!

[Geoff Goldberg]

As to why prints and the idea of a fixed permanent record of the artist's thoughts:

Years ago I was at a Christies auction in NYC to see an Albers painting go up for sale. At one moment, you could see the painting, the catalog, and the projected image on a screen all at once and compare. I swear I thought they were selling three different pieces, they were so different.

Take your pick, make your choice, but only one thing can be the recording. The rest are mere references.

[Ed]

@Mike,

D) is a very bad choice Mike for three reasons:

1) You're neatness coach will find it....she read your blog and now knows it exists.

2) You have dollars invested in that thing that could be invested in buying gear you use.

3) There are people around that would trade in some bodyparts for a 7

4) You will miss it....sure I miss my Les Paul heritage standard 80 to the day, but it will not be a painfull miss, it will be a miss coupled with the satisfaction of wisdom.

[Ed]

Mike replies: Sure. I mean this in the gentlest possible way: I think the food industry is trying to kill us.

Nope it's a far more ellaborate scheme. First the food industry is driving is un in the hand of the medical industry (if insured of course)....then the insurance industry will try to kill us (damned you can even insure yourself against non-dead personel these days).

Greets, Ed.

[Ed]

@Ed Hawco and @Mike....

User settings change....somewhere in the underdeveloped jungle of a OS is a setting to turn of the rediculous preset (if Oly needs a real nice critical user acceptence tester they should drop me a mail, Japan seems to be nice enough to migrate to) of the 4 ringed buttons to focus area. Now that at least halves the problem.

The problem is caused not by the camera but by the user though. When in sleep mode the buttons are wide awake, for some time. Now when you are a slob like moi and Mike (therefore a natural born user acceptance tester) you have the camera dangling from a leach or in a pouch without actually turning it of. And that is were the magic happens. You push a button and presto....things have changed. But since the display is black and the eye of the beholder is not on the viewfinder but on the scenery, though will not notice, until oogling the next shot....which then is accompanied by a 4 letter word followed by name Olympus. By the way, the G3 my father ownes shot at 6400 iso a day for the same reason and on a G3 that means end of pipe for those efforts, so things can be worse.

Greets, Ed.

[Ed]

@ James Sinks,

I don't know........

http://blog.mingthein.com/2012/09/21/olympus-60-2-8-macro/

Smaller sensor......60 mm micro 4/3 FOV nearly identical to 100 mm on FF.

Smaller sensor DOF is bigger so aperture can be bigger (thus (over)-compensating for lesser low light performance....a 50 mm 2.8 delivers the same image as a 100 mm at 5.6 thus needing 4 times less iso (my 800 is youre 3200 James) and correct me if I'm wrong but DOF is something I struggle with in macro.....more being the somewhat desireble commodity over less.

Greets, Ed.

[Ed]

@John Y.

As a previous GF1 owner I know the 1.7 20mm has a small but nasty banding problem with the OM-D on high ISO (above 1600 as I recall) by the way it's software related and Olympus is trying to fix it. I don't know if this is true of the new PEN's as well but I should consider it. If low light performance is what you want, i'd consider a Olympus 17 1,8 coupled to an OM-D or Pen....for a few reasons.

A) Your combination has no image stabilisation what so ever.

B) The Oly 17 is great lens....on my want list so to speak.

C) The IBIS of the OM-D is build by gandalf.

Thus coupling a great lens, with nice camera adding IBIS that can travel to 3200 with no harm and can add three stops to the EV (eh, if the object plays along of course), would be a winner in my book.

Greets, Ed.

[Les Myers]

Yes- do The Answer Man again! These questions and answers are very interesting and helpful. Thanks.

[Thomas Turnbull]

No need to answer this, Mike, but have you considered raising the roof and putting a second story office up there?

(If, however, that would necessitate destroying any oldish growth trees, however, this suggestion never happened!)

Your Bradford Cousin a zillion times removed,

Tom

[James Sinks]

Ed, I had forgotten Panalympus. I do that. Often. In my defense, when I was camera shopping (mid-2009), M43 was very new and there were four serious impediments to the M43 system for macrophotography: questionable future, lousy sensors, lousy autofocus, and no macro lenses (heck, there were hardly any lenses at all except the kits). I'm also not sure if Olysonic had a wireless flash system. They must have, right? I've tried off-shoe cords, and they catch on everything and get tangled up in my subjects.

These days you're correct, M43 could work for my nocturnal field macrophotography. I'd probably prefer the Panasonic 45mm to the Oly 60mm though--120mm equivalent would be a touch tight..

Don't think M43 would be adequate for my other shooting though. Or at least, I would certainly be a very unhappy camper shooting architecture and landscapes without a TS and concerts with a M4/3 sensor. To say nothing of the lack of replacements for my other bread and butter lenses--the Canon 50mm Compact Macro and the 65mm MPE.

Regarding noise, I shoot all my strobed creepy-crawlies at ISO 100 or 200. No worries about noise there, even if I was using a P&S. It's all my other shooting where noise is a worry. My current favorite location is dark enough that my test shots to check composition and focus are 30 seconds wide open at ISO 1600. There have been plenty of nights where my final exposure at ISO 100 was 10, 15, 20, or 30 minutes.

[Marcus]

Do you own a passport and would you consider using it?

[Ed]

Yeps James,

the Panalympus world needs a TS solution...agreed mis it too. I'd even want two a 14 and a 17.....there is talk about a solution based on a Nikon adapter (not the Kippon one which well, is not a solution it is in fact a problem).

Having said I use the extra space in 4/3 frame to simulate a ST lens by using the bottom or the top part of the frame in 2/3 or 16/9 mode. Or I'll get out the Panasaurus and a tripod and shoot the crap out of my OM-D and create Gigapixel landscapes using Autopano Pro.

Long exposures are a bit of a pain indeed noise wise, I agree, there a nice fat FF sensor beats the shit out a DX or a 4/3 sensor.

My Oly has a 3 channel (in fact four with the flash on the hot shoe) infrared wireless system that is fully TTL. Haven't tested it though, no dedicated flash yet to test it with.

Greets, Ed.

[Arnold Crane]

Mike: It's me! Have had a tough couple of years, but am still a camera and lens junkie. He Leica R lenses converted to my nikons, and have Zeis ZF lenses. Still love film, and really don't understand why people need to photoshop so much. Wish we were back in analog times. Am 80, and a few medl. probs., etc., I really miss the old days. Am a member of the Dancing With Speeds group, and have a couple of Aero Ektars on an SG and a Graflex. Photography was and still is my raoson d'etre, Send me an e-mail and I'll give you my schedule. Let me hear from you. Best-Arnold

[Well, well, well! Hello, Arnold! How nice to hear from you. I do count on you resurfacing every now and then. Are you living in Chicago or New York or Paris or--? Such fond memories of seeing your marvelous old penthouse on the lake, stuffed with art of every description! Hope you are well, and yes, I will email you. --Mike]