Around the Web on a Wednesday

• It worked, Canon: In recent years the "Digital Rebel" has gotten quite confusing by becoming a mini-marque of its own, like the Prius brand from Toyota. The lineup is confusing and difficult to differentiate for non-aficionados, not only because of variations within the tier but because of the succession of updates.

So the story is that Canon has created a "new tier" in between the entry level and mid-range cameras, the first new camera in the new tier being the 77D. The thing is, it's not actually very new...as Bryan Carnathan helpfully untangles it for everyone in an extensive review at The-Digital-Picture, it's essentially the successor to the Rebel T6s, "containing a superset of the features found in the Rebel T7i." Canon is "breaking this camera out of the Rebel lineup for better differentiation," Bryan says. Like a sheepdog cutting a single ewe out of the flock.

But you know what? It's working. The 77D has gotten a lot of attention around the Web.

And rightfully so...those who haven't paid any attention for a while will be pleased to discover what the lower-end Canons currently have to offer. A lot.

Photo by Marie Cosindas

• Marie Cosindas 1923–2017: When I was "coming of age in photography"—my serious interest ignited in 1980 when I was asked to do a family portrait for some relatives—the name Marie Cosindas was one that most people knew. When acceptance of color photography in the art world was in its infancy she became known for her sensitive, classical color work. She seemed to be included in every survey and overview and brought up in any discussion of color photographers in the '70s and into the '80s.

Marie died in Boston on May 25th at the age of 93.

The New York Times obituary ends with a wonderful quote, something she said to the Christian Science Monitor in 1979: "I want to evoke the mystery of color itself. I photograph late in the day, the time Rembrandt favored for painting, so that the subtlest hues surface. They are as complex as any person, perhaps more so. It’s that lyricism, that mystery of color itself—that’s my signature."

Bill Jay, Marie Cosindas with John Szarkowski
at George Eastman House, 1990

• Kenneth Tanaka's highrise muse: Our friend Ken Tanaka wrote a comment the other day in which he admitted that among his "muses" in photography is his view. Which should come as no surprise to those who remember his TOP Print Sale, which featured a view from his view. He lives in a high-rise in downtown Chicago, Illinois.

For those of you from other countries who might not have been there, Chicago is a magnificent city today. It was long known as the "Second City," because it was second in size to New York City (now third, having been overtaken by Los Angeles). It's a northern city on the banks of America's "inland sea," Lake Michigan. Because of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the city had to be rebuilt during a particularly dynamic time in the history of the U.S., and became known for innovative architecture and progressive city planning. I think it's fair to say that the city of Chicago is another of Ken's muses...I keep pestering him to publish a book of his work called "Ken Tanaka's Chicago" and market it locally in the city.

But I digress. On June third, Ken wrote, "My view is my frequent 'muse.' In my current process of moving and re-imagining my website I decided it's time to just come out of that closet and show some of that work. See the 'From Here' gallery. Lots more coming."

I personally think it's going to be interesting to see the great variety of different pictures that can be made from the top of one building. I'll bet the variety is going to be dynamic.

• 'She have a nice button': Do you Instagram? Some guy named Chris is in a fair amount of trouble with his girlfriend Ashley for "liking" a picture taken from, um, behind of a person known as "Emrata." Ashley wants to know why Chris would "like" it. Heterosexual males might make the best sleuths* in solving that mystery. Moral: maybe don't always "like" what you like.

• The progress of the Nikon's-in-trouble meme: Human beings evolved to evaluate information based on quantity—how many times they hear something—as much as the quality of the source. And the more alarming or sensational the information is the more we sit up and take note. If there were sabre-toothed tigers over there, you needed to know it. This property of our "lizard brains" has been exploited by advertisers and demagogues, distorting our assumptions and our politics. But the flip side of this, which the Internet is uniquely situated to exploit, is that sometimes an idea that has a particular appeal for some mysterious reason will take on a life of its own. The idea that aliens would arrive in space ships that looked like saucers, for instance, had an incredibly innocuous beginning, an almost offhand mention from a single source. But the idea caught on. Or the idea that you should drink eight glasses of water a day—not true, never true, and there isn't the slightest bit of evidence to back up the claim. It's a so-called "old wives' tale." But it caught on, and it's widely repeated.

But rumors, when they concern companies just as when they concern individuals, are not harmless. Everybody knows the camera industry has been contracting in recent years (the peak was 2012) after more than a decade of furious growth, and one idea that seems to have caught on is that Nikon is in trouble. Well, we don't know, do we? The most recent meme, ignited in recent days, is that the Japanese government has asked Fuji to step in to bail out Nikon. Why? A magazine apparently said so. I might just point out that the articles that started the "sh*tstorm"—their word—here in the English-speaking U.S. comes from a site with the word "rumors" in its very name, and it's one that partisan for, well, Fuji. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

It might be true. Or it might not. I think I'll wait till Thom Hogan weighs in. He keeps a close eye on Nikon. Thom's not always right, but he admits it when he isn't, and he's tended to fall on the side of caution about these sensationalistic stories in the past. When he says it's true, then I'll consider believing it.

[Note: See D. Hufford's remarks on this issue in the Comments section. He lives in Japan, reads Japanese, and has looked around for news reports there. Many thanks to him for going to the trouble. —Ed.]

• Canon full-frame mirrorless coming: Speaking of Thom, a rumor he does believe in enough to repeat is that bear-sleeping-in-the-woods** Canon, stung by Sony's (and Leica's) success with full-frame mirrorless, will dip a paw into that honeypot, thank you very much. He says "Canon is targeting a full frame EF mount mirrorless camera for 2018, probably for Photokina." So if you're a Canon DSLR user and have been thinking about a Sony A7 or A9 series camera, you might want to hold off.

....Although TOP will just gently point out that news of a coming FF Canon mirrorless would be the perfect rumor to create FUD*** in the minds of Canon DSLR users tempted to defect from Canon by Sony's new flagship A9.

Just sayin'.  

Photo by Cecilia Wessels. Full picture here.

• A new definition of 'nonchalant': This picture (click to see the full frame) has been making the viral rounds recently. It was taken by the wife of Theunis Wessels as he cut the grass in their backyard...despite the obvious presence of a nearby tornado. According to the story in The Washington Post, the tornado was larger and thus more distant than it looks, but still, if you see a shark, you come in from swimming, right? At least most people would. The picture illustrates two old photographers' aphorisms: the value of being there, and the idea that you never know when you'll see new pictures in places you're very familiar with.

Even your own backyard.

• Issues with the Panasonic GX8: Just so you know, the Panasonic GX8 is on sale again: you get $200 off plus a free 12–60mm zoom lens. No, not the superduper new Leica-branded one; the slower one. Predictably, these free incentive lenses are also for sale, new or newish, for very cheap prices, on eBay: as low as $250, which is half off the new price. So, oddly, the lens is a better deal than the camera, because the glut of unwanted lenses makes it harder to buy the kit and sell off the lens. It's tough to recommend the otherwise appealing 14–42mm, for instance, when you can get the more capable 12–60mm for the same price.

I love this camera.

Incidentally, my used GX8 went back to the seller. I could not make the Dual I.S. play nice with my zoom; I didn't track down the problem past that.  I suspect it was just a 'sample' issue.

I might write soon on the subject of tracking down problems with equipment and techniques. It's something I've been doing since my earliest darkroom days, when a cheap triplet enlarging lens helpfully announced that it was badly decentered by leaving one corner of every enlargement flagrantly blurry. Later, as the Summer lab manager for the Corcoran's darkrooms, I was grateful, in retrospect, for the education it gave me in enlarger lenses and alignment. Thirty-five years later and I'm still tracking down problems. But I'll stop now, and save that topic for a later date.

• Rumors of its death exaggerated: And finally, speaking of Panasonic, we heard from them, and no, the GX85 is not being discontinued, despite the body-only option being listed as "discontinued" at B&H Photo. Panasonic tells us they just aren't "marketing" the body-only option at the moment, in favor of the high-value, great-bargain kits currently on offer.

Mike
(Thanks to John Camp, Gordon Lewis, Stephen Scharf, Hugh Crawford, and numerous tipsters and friends)

*I learned the word "sleuth," meaning detective, from the Hardy Boys Mysteries, which were antique even when I was a boy. Turns out it's short for sleuthhound, another word for bloodhound.
**The old joke is, "Where does a bear sleep in the woods?", the answer being, "Anywhere it wants to."
***Fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

Original contents copyright 2017 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 Comments from:

Bill Mitchell: "Thank you for the update on dear little Marie Cosindas, a true force of nature. Some interesting facts: 'Princess, with Doves' and 'Sailors, Key West' [two of her most famous pictures—there are more here —Ed.] were made in a house of ill-repute in that naughty town. When asked what she was doing there, Marie would just grin and change the subject.

"She once taught at Ansel Adams' Yosemite workshop, and was forever pissed at him because he never paid her.

"Because she worked in Polaroid, in order to reproduce her images they had to be copied and printed in another medium. She insisted on the best, which was Kodak's dye transfer process. But she was so demanding, that almost of the commercial dye printers refused to work with her!"

Mike adds: Here is Marie's most famous book, the one that was in every photo library in the '80s.

Stephen Scharf: "As a professional scientist and a hardcore data-driven kind of guy, I think to be fully accurate, it's important to point out there are rumor sites for virtually all the major brands, not just FujiRumors. It's also salient to point out that FujiRumors has, historically, had quite a high 'accuracy' rate, measured as 'percent of rumors turning out to be true.' FujiRumors founder/moderator Patrick deVino is fully transparrent about the 'rumors' posted and tracks and reports the site's rumor 'accuracy' quarterly or thereabouts. For the last coupla three years or so, Fujirumors accuracy has been ~90% or so. For example, for the entirety of 2016, 91% of rumors reported have turned out to be accurate. So, yes, while the site has the word 'rumors' in the name, statistically speaking, the 'confidence intervals' for FujiRumors has turned out to be purdy dang good. For those interested in the results for Q1, 2017, the link is here.

"I fully agree, though, that it would be useful to see when and if Thom Hogan weighs in."

D. Hufford: "Yes, we'll have to wait and see about the Nikon rumor. Since that would likely be rather big business news here in Japan, it should be easy to find. Oddly enough, a quick search of Google News (Japanese) gives me no results concerning this. In fact, searching for Nikon and Fujifilm together gave me no results dated later than April. Even a search in English finds nothing except foreign reports from camera/tech sites with no links to reliable sources. Guess that's why it's still called a rumor."

Comments

[Speed]

View From Above ... Two summers ago I climbed to the top of the Little Point Sable Lighthouse on Lake Michigan to find a photograph or two. One that I was pleased with showed the view looking almost directly down at the scene on the ground. A few weeks later I showed it, without introduction, to a friend who said, "Oh, you bought a drone."

[hetero male]

I'm with Ashley. Unless Emily Ratajkowski wants to look like Kim Kardashian, she shouldn't turn her back on wide angle lenses.

[brad]

Ken;
Is that water being blown to create waves on the tennis court photo? The Windy City?

[Dan Gorman]

Re the Marie Cosindas post: Holy smoke - what gorgeous work! Not exactly my thing photographically, but well worth a few minutes time to browse online. The NYT obit also terrific.

Good reminder of two things: 1. Tack-sharp focus isn't everything; and 2. If you want to create beautiful photographs, it's the light, the light, the light!

Thanks, Mike, for the introduction. (More like this, please!)

Cheers,
Dan

[Lyle]

Funny, Marie Cosindas was a walk-on visitor to the '81 Adams' Workshop at Yosemite and she carried an ancient (by then) Nikon rangefinder.

[Gordon Lewis]

Yo Mike,

If you're still into Panasonic, can live without the tilting eye-level viewfinder, and want a body that definitely works well with Dual I.S., then you should check out the LUMIX G85. (No, not the GX85, the G85. I'm not the one who thought up their numbering scheme.)

[John Camp]

Really liked Ken Tanaka's "From Here," with the exception of one shot -- and even that shot is pretty interesting. His photo of the surrounding skyscrapers, partly in focus and partly out of focus, creates havoc with my eyesight. I wear progressive lenses, and I kept trying to get the out-of-focus parts in focus by moving my eyes and head, and I couldn't stop doing it. I eventually had to move on to other photos because I could feel that I was developing eyestrain, just from a few minutes of looking at it.

[Steve Jones]

Recently moved to Chicago’s Near North Side area, having spent time in NYC, Tokyo, Bangkok, DC, Boston, Omaha, and other joints. My last residence was Asheville, NC, followed by a short stint in nearby Madison, WI.

Asheville gets the nod for beer, hipsters, and mountains, but sadly, I’m too old for hipster stuff (except for my rangefinder and B&W film); I stopped drinking before I was of legal age; and I need concrete and people (despite my introverted and misanthropic tendencies). I was one of the few NYC residents who thought Central Park a tepid obstruction.

In Asheville, completing a roll of film would, on average, take about three weeks, with my last roll there taking two months! In Chicago, I’m currently going through about three rolls a week, if not quicker. This will likely slow after the inaugural photo-everything-new period, but as an urban or street photographer (that ugly term), it’s definitely inspirational to be back in a major city, which is certainly my muse.

Tokyo will always be my favorite city, but I’m hoping to settle in Chicago for the long haul. NYC is absurdly expensive, with much of its grit long since lost to either plutocratic encroachment or excessive mainstreaming. I do miss the pizza though.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Mike: Thanks for the heads-up on Marie Cosindas. I know little of her work but plan to change that.

Brad: I assume you're referring to
this image of a tennis court? If so, actually, no. There was no wind involved. Overnight rains left a thin wet sheen that, for just a few moments, reflected the sunrise sky to produce that wild effect.

[DavidB]

RE: A new definition of 'nonchalant'

These types of photos show up on a regular basis. Here's one from last year: Tornado and Prom.

[Geoffrey Heard]

m43 "standard" zooms, i.e. in the 12-100 range. One of the posters to the DPR m43 forum invested some serious slice of his life to bringing together test scores. Interesting results. I have seen stellar tests of the Panasonic 14-42 II; seems the Panasonic f3.5-5.6 12-60 is only a touch behind it, and not that far behind the PL f2.8-4 12-60. Certainly, DPR m43 forum posters think well of the "kit" option. https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/59618399

A terrific grab-bag of a post today, Mike. Marie Cosindas - lovely. Not my style of pic, but lovely. The tornado pic? Great fun -- and an illustration of something only photography can do and which it can do without artifice. Fabulous Chicago pic (and I generally have reservations about pix from tall buildings).

But the best thing was the link to the Instragram discussion. Never looked at Instagram and suspect I never will. What a load of stupid! I sat here gobsmacked. People think they are living trawling through pix like that and clicking on likes? Good grief.

Cheers, Geoff

[Geoffrey Heard]

And never forgetting the ROFLs that will be available as the notion of a mirrorless FF Canon percolates through the diehard DSLR brigade.

Try a shot or two with the Panasonic G85/80 with the new electronic first curtain shutter. So quiet, so refined. SO RIGHT!!!

Cheers, Geoff

[hugh crawford]

geez Mike, you cropped out the part that makes the picture

Pretty much the art school definition of the sublime.

[I didn't even know! This happened once before, with Nick Ut's picture of Paris Hilton. We kept discovering wider and wider versions, and each time I said it was the full picture. Is this one the entire picture? I hope so! :-)

Thanks Hugh. Fixed now, and I added your name to the hat tip list. --Mike]

[David]

At which point was she going to tell her husband about the tornado?
- She already had (but the lawn had to be mowed "gee this lawnmower needs servicing...")
- After the first photo...
- After the last photo (the scene can always get more dramatic)...
- After posting it on-line...
- After the tornado had finished...

[Rene Theberge]

Mike,

Thank you for the tip on Ken Tanaka's high rise work. I really loved looking at it and look forward to seeing more. A agree that he should do a book of these photos! In addition to being an excellent photographer, I want mention that he is also a kind and considerate person. About five years ago he wrote a review on TOP of the Fuji X-10 which I was a step or two away from buying. As somewhat of digital newbie at the time (after many years of film) I emailed him with a question and he responded with the same day with a very detailed and helpful answer.

Rene

[Mark Sampson]

He had to finish the lawn before the rain hit and the grass got wet. No one wants to mow wet grass. ...Don't they say that if you see the funnel cloud moving, it's going away from you? Thankfully I've never seen a tornado in real life.

[Jim]

Into this diverse set of topics, I will add a diverse comment.

I am proud to say that Ms. Cosindas autographed my copy of her book after we met at a dinner party in Boston a decade ago. Dr. Land of Polaroid was basically her patron, and she probably produced the best POlaroid work ever.

I received my Pen-F just about a week ago and find it's "retro" design to be quite ergometric as well as visually pleasing. No complaints on the photos either. I bought iy only after the diacounts started and Adorama ( by way of the TOP link) offered the 14-42 EZ lens at half price - too good to pass up. Like the tiny pancake folding zoom Panasonic you commented on, it's a beaut. Tiny, capable and cheap.

And for the post on getting out and taking photos, I am about to make a big change in scenery. After almost 15 years of living on a rural, mountainous farm in CA, we're headedback to the city, Santa Monica in htis case, 10 blocks from the beach. I sold my Panasonic 100-300 "critter cam" lens and will use the 12-42 for street photos. I am unlikely to see hawks and roadrunners in SM, but we still have hummingbirds and lots of street action.

Sometimes change is stimulating!

[Lorenzo]

Well, those low end Canons still don't can't won't offer the thing they really need: a viewfinder!

[José]

Cosindas book: lovely. Bought it on sale for about 20 bucks at the ICP, about 10 years ago.

Hi Ken! Congrats! On a different note, apologizing in advance for the "pressure", would absolutely love to hear about the Fujifilm GFX 50S. Hope your review is not delayed for much longer. Cheers!

[christer almqvist]

Does anybody know the name of the creator of the sculpture in the picture "Marie Cosindas with John Szarkowski
at George Eastman House" featured above?

[D. Hufford]

Oh, and I was so distracted this morning that I forgot to mention that Ken's photos are quite impressive. That's a Chicago I have never seen, nor even imagined. Sorta makes me wanna go there and visit high places as well as see more of his photos.

And the distraction. I tried to find Sentaku magazine, but my local bookstore does not carry it. I do know of others who know of the magazine, but none so far who actually read it, so I could not find out any details of the Fujifilm "bailing out" Nikon story.

As I mentioned this morning, I could find no news reports on Japan Google News about it (still can't), and none on US Google News, except for those apparently sourcing the rumor site. Perhaps I could find no news about it, because even if what is being rumored is accurate, it is not really news.

I would say it could be possible that the Japanese government is trying to get Fuji and perhaps others to buy Nikon stock in coordination with UFJ to protect it from takeover. Back in the day, cross-shareholding was common among large corporations in the same "keiretsu" (large conglomerations.) It was done in part to protect the individual companies. Though the keiretsu has lost power and influence since the 80s, cross shareholding between companies still exists to some degree.

Just before the 2011 earthquake, I was told by a fellow in a very old, large, and well-known corporation who was in a position to know exactly what he was talking about, of the company's efforts to protect itself from hostile takeovers from foreigners. It was increasing cross shares and considering a "poison pill." He told me that he was certain that "No Japanese shareholder would sell the shares to an outsider no matter how good the offer."

That company is still operating despite very, very severe competition. In spite of the fact that other companies hold shares in it, it still runs its own operations its own way. Nothing changed in the management due to these sale or influence/pressure from the purchasing companies as far as I have heard or can tell.

Since we are just guessing based on a partial sentence posted online and a statement on the rumor site that it was being considered to keep Nikon out of foreign hands, I'd say it wouldn't be such a shockingly unusual thing and would not read too much into it without a lot more detailed information.

[mike plews]

Nice to be reminded of the work of Marie Cosindas. Her pictures are quiet and assured, a real pleasure to revisit.
In a pixel peeping, HDR, oversharpened world they are simply wonderful.

[Clay Olmstead]

I haven't been happy with the reliability of Panasonic lately. I love my GX-7, but the EVF developed an issue after 2 1/2 years. I figured that was a one-off, so I replaced it with a G85, which started having a shutter problem after 3 months. Panasonic has repaired the G85, but it took two months, not in time for the big trip that I bought it for. I realize that's a sample of two out of the millions of cameras that Panasonic has sold, but I'm still miffed.