The Online Photographer

Fuji X-H1 Images Leaked

Photo: Nokishita Camera

Leaked picture of the upcoming Fuji X-H1. That's the gigantoid
16–55mm (655g) on there, not the wee slender 18–55mm (310g) kit lens.

As you probably know if you're interested, FujiRumors and several Japanese sites such as Nokishita Camera have leaked early pictures of the forthcoming Fuji video model or "Fuji with IBIS," the X-H1, two days ago. The formal rollout is scheduled for February 15th in Tokyo.

The camera is moderately larger than the X-T2 and slightly bigger even than Sony's full-frame A7etc. cameras.

I'm a Fuji owner for whom IBIS is a critical desire, but still, I must counsel some conservatism here. Olympus is the tradcam (traditional camera? I just made that up) leader in this technology. A Panasonic vs. Olympus shootout at DPReview four days ago compared the stabilization of the new G9 to the established champ, the E-M1 Mark II, concluding that "...the G9's stabilization provided slightly better results than the E-M1 II's [...] these two cameras have among of the best stabilization systems on the market." (The overall comparo ended in a draw.)

However, remember that it took Panasonic years and many tries to catch up with Olympus. The other solid company in this technology is Sony, which took over Konica-Minolta's DSLR division, pioneers of the tech in APS-C DSLRs (my first DSLR was the K-M 7D, a lovely camera with highly accurate colors and very effective stabilization).

There's nothing yet to suggest that Fuji will be able to match the new champ Panasonic, its near neck-and-neck rival Olympus, or Sony's FF offerings with its own brand-new, as yet untested in-house tech.

Of course, it is Fuji, which has earned a solid reputation for not being able to do anything wrong since the X100 was into'd in 2012, and the company has the advantage of being able to analyze existing products on the market, not to mention the usually salutary effect of having benchmarks to shoot for.

Still and all, as camera aficionados around the world say all the time about new products, "wait for the reviews."

Mike
(Thanks to Stephen Scharf)

Original contents copyright 2018 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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Michael: "If they are following everybody else, that body is going to cost at least $2k."

Mike replies: Fair guess.

Robert1955: "The leaked press release has €1,899 as the price for the body. If I recall correctly, that is €200 more than the X-T2."

Stephen Scharf: "One of the reasons that Olympus (and subsequently Panasonic) have been able to implement IBIS successfully earlier than Sony or now, Fuji, is that Micro 4/3 sensors are considerably smaller (~225mm^2) than an APS-C (~370mm^2), or FF sensor (864mm^2), and therefore have notably less mass. Less mass makes it easier from an engineering standpoint to stabilize. If Fuji are successful in achieving their claimed stabilization specifications, it will be a significant engineering achievement. If memory serves, the IBIS on FF Sonys is not as effective as on Oly Micro 4/3 cameras, and this makes sense as it's a lot harder, in engineering terms, to pull off IBIS on a significantly more massive sensor. Also it's important to understand that even if one shuts off the IBIS functionality, that sensor is always moving to some degree; it is not physically 'locked down,' so IBIS, like virtually all functionality/features, requires a set of engineering compromises, compromises that may impact absolute image quality in certain use scenarios.

"Its also important to bear in mind IBIS for video is really intended as a feature for amateur or handheld video. Professional videographers use gimbals and external stabilizing rigs and want cameras that have the sensor locked in place...they don't want a sensor that is constantly moving. The new Panasonic GH5S was developed without IBIS specifically for this market segment.

"Lastly, IBIS is only most effective at shorter focal lengths with respect to providing stabilization. For longer focal-length telephotos, optical image stabilization is far more effective than IBIS, does not require a floating, and therefore moving, sensor, and can be optimized for each lens's focal length. This is why Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, and Fuji all utilize OIS in specific lenses: because it's the best way to do it. At the end of the day, optical image stabilization is a more effective stabilization methodology than in-body stabilization, and I am sure why this is why the new Fuji X-T3, which will be targeted more for professional stills photography and photojournalism, will not utilize IBIS."

Steve Jacob: "The problem with IBIS is licensing. I think I am right in guessing that the two initial patent holders for servo and electromagnetic systems were Minolta (now Sony) and Pentax (now Ricoh). Fuji would certainly either have to license this technology, or find a weasel way around the patents, which would hike the price substantially either way. If they license the tech, then it should be fairly robust.

"Olympus got around this by allowing Sony to take a stake in the company, giving them access to the Sony license. This gave them a head-start in the Micro 4/3 market, although I note that Panasonic's combined optical/sensor function works better.

"My initial experiences with Pentax IBIS were mixed to say the least. Random shots taken when IBIS was disabled showed motion blur at quite acceptable shutter speeds, later traced to very specific frequencies relating one assumes to some resonance between shutter and a sensor that is not properly bolted down. Upgrading from my K-10 to a K-7 made it worse, and I ditched Pentax in despair in favour of Nikon. At least I could find lenses in stock, and many had image stabilisation that was more reliable. I noted when the early Olympus and Sony A cameras introduced IBIS that it came with an increase in bulk and several teething issues similar to those of Pentax (later solved by a kludge that involved electronic first curtain).

"I admit to remaining skeptical, not about its effectiveness at low shutter speeds, but about the compromises that it forces one to adopt elsewhere, such as lenses with large image circles and potential sensor alignment. I am also unsure how effectively the sensor can be cooled if it is not rigidly mounted. To me, this seems like a compromise in one direction to improve 'average' hit rates at the expense of ultimate robustness and quality. I find a monopod almost as effective, most of the time, and I much prefer a camera that is predictable rather than over-engineered.

"I hope it does not become a de facto must-have in every body Fuji produce, because I fear that the X-Pro3 would be out of my price range if it were."

Dave: "I like this part of the rumored announcement: 'The internal image stabilization system (IBIS), which is being used in an X Series camera for the first time, features three axial acceleration sensors, three axial gyro sensors and a very powerful dual processor, which performs around 10,000 calculations per second based on the measured data. In combination with the effective compensation mechanism, a particularly precise image stabilization and thus an uncompromising image quality is achieved.'"

Mike replies: That's apparently from an unofficial translation of a leaked press release in German?

I guess I did open the door here, but it's frustrating to try to research rumors. Maybe we should all just wait for the official rollout.

Rhys Phelps: "Four Thirds and Micro 4/3 were developed as digital systems from the ground up. The mount size of the original system was twice the diagonal of the sensor, which itself wasn’t as rectangular [as APS-C] and fitted the mount area more effectively. Fuji made a decision on mount size based on a rejection of IBIS and repeatedly explained that image quality would suffer with the mount size it had chosen. Olympus pioneered [its own] IBIS with the E-510 in 2007. It had nothing to do with Sony and its investment bailout in 2012."

Mike replies: I'm not sure absolute statements either way can be justified. None of us really knows anything about proprietary licensing agreements between Japanese Corporations, after all.

Dogman: "Admittedly, I don't know what the final camera will be like. That said, I'm not exactly excited from the photographs I've seen. While I'm sure there's an exposure compensation method included somewhere on the body, it's no longer in the easy to access and at-a-glance visually confirming position I'm accustomed to on every other Fuji I've used. I would miss that a lot. In fact, I do miss that a lot on my Olympus E-M1 body—a camera that has IBIS but, otherwise, leaves me lukewarm in use. Furthermore, considering the presence of a marked aperture ring and a shutter speed and ISO dial on the body as well as digital displays in the viewfinder, the top deck screen seems redundant.

"But my main disappointment is the design, size and weight. My reasons for moving to Fuji after almost 20 years with Canon included the Fuji simple design, user-friendly handling and smaller size and lower weight. These were the distinctive characteristics that set Fuji apart from other cameras in my eyes. This new camera moves away from those distinctive characteristics in favor of a single new, admittedly useful, feature—IBIS."

XKCD 1952

If you have camera-bag-itis, you'll need to see this. Especially the bar graph at the end.  :-)

This is one photographic compulsion I seem to have completely escaped. I owned one wholly inadequate (but very expensive) camera bag for about 25 years; replacing it, I tried a few, quickly settled on the Tenba Large Messenger bag (now discontinued), and have remained perfectly happy with that.

I just figure that bags are like tripods—they can't be optimized because they're fundamentally frustrating, in that they have at least two design parameters that are diametrically opposed. In the case of tripods, you want them to be conveniently tall and rock-solid when set up, but small, portable and lightweight when being transported. With bags, you want them to hold everything securely, yet also be small, featherweight, and wieldy (that's the opposite of unwieldy), and keep everything easily accessible. Ergo, I accept that I'm never going to be satisfied with any tripod or camera bag. Quixotically, this allows me to be perfectly sanguine about owning less than optimal examples of both breeds of products (although my tripod, a carbon fiber Gitzo, is wildly better than my ancient all-metal one. And, come to think, my Tenba is much better than my yeoman Billingham bought during the Reagan Administration, too).

Mike
(Thanks to Ian Goodrick)

Original contents copyright 2018 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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Avo Koplimae: "Back in the mists of time, I recall a camera store clerk helping me with the purchase of a tripod. He explained that there were three desirable qualities to look for. A tripod should be sturdy, lightweight, and inexpensive and that I could have any two of those choices. I certainly haven't been able to disprove that statement in all these years."

Doug Thacker: "Avo, that could have been me you talked to. That's exactly what I used to tell all my tripod-shopping customers when I worked in a camera store. And it's still true today, as Mike points out with his own tripod. The nice thing about tripods, though, is that if you buy right, you might only have to buy once. There aren't too many things you can say that about.

"I used to have a closet full of camera bags. Backpacks, waistpacks, messenger bags, shoulder bags, you name it. I even tried my hand at my own design, with the intention of having it made. About four years ago, I discovered the Lowepro Passport Sling, and that's the only bag I've needed ever since. The Lowepro Sling combines the best features of a backpack, a messenger bag, and a shoulder bag, and there's not much you could do to improve on it. It has two padded compartments—I usually put a camera in each—as well as a large, unpadded space. I often have an additional lens or two inside this space, each of them in its own padded Lowepro lens case. The bag can also be expanded by unzipping it in front, but I almost never have to do do that. Without expanding it, the Sling holds two XT bodies, each with a lens attached, two additional lenses, each in its own case, a Ricoh GR, and enough extra batteries and cards to get through a full day of shooting. It's not perfect, but it's the closest thing to perfect I've yet found in a bag."

Marc Lawrence: "Some years ago, early in my photography obsession, I bought a Lowepro backback, and I can't argue that it is a very good, well-built photography backpack, probably. But I never, or rarely, used it. I do now—it perfectly holds a Nespresso coffee machine, frother and coffee supplies when we go roadtripping, because I need my first-thing-in-the-morning latte (it’s okay, I hate myself a little bit too). I just bought my partner a drone camera backpack from Lowepro—I wonder if it might hold an icecream maker and waffle grill...?"

MikeR: "This made me laugh! Just last night I surveyed my own collection of compromises, and re-activated a Lowepro Slingshot 100 that has been empty for at least six years. And of tripods, I have a few, including a carbon fiber Manfrotto, which I love, but rarely use cause it's such a beast to carry around. My latest object of covetousness is a Benro 'footed' monopod with a video head. Thank you for putting into words the conundrum of tripods and bags."

Eolake: "I also have a carbon fibre Manfrotto. I agree, it’s amazing. The weight difference from my old metal Manfrotto is startling."

Mike replies: I think this is the one I have. I have to admit it almost destroys my "opposing parameters" theory because it's both very light, and tall and sturdy as well. Good thing, because I tend to keep my tripods for 30 years. It doesn't break Avo K.'s adage, though.

Curt Gerston: "Thank you Mike. Very wise words...but where was this post 17 bags ago?"

Gordon Lewis: "On the other hand, there is no law that says you can only have one tripod or camera bag. I have a large, super-sturdy tripod I use for home studio work and a very portable tabletop tripod I use for travel. Same with bags: Big padded bag to protect equipment during rough transport vs. small, lightly padded shoulder bag for street shooting."

Greg Heins: "This is often overlooked, but the camera bag to tripod (includes monopods) ratio is crucial. It is best kept at or near 1:1. By means of some judicious pruning, I’m right there with about a half-dozen of each. When the ratio goes awry, your photographs suffer. As I say, often overlooked...."

Mike replies: Dual-purpose rationalization. Efficient. I like it.

Mark Kinsman: "I have the perfect messenger bag...it only needs to be a few inches taller and wider to be even more perfect. Oh, and a little lighter too. Actually that’s true of all 11 bags and backpacks I own."

Benjamin Marks: "I first bought the largest bag I could afford. Then I bought the largest bag I could carry. Then I bought the smallest bag I could stand. Then for hikes I bought a small back pack. Then I realized that I could pack differently depending my mode of transportation:

• Bicycle: one camera, one lens
• Airplane: one camera bag plus a smaller satchel for walking about.
• Train: Two camera bags Car: Three camera bags
• Walking in NYC with an 8x10: a Dolt backpack strapped to a folding handtruck.

"Oh, and bungees. Lots of bungees. Don't get me started on tripods. My rule: the largest possible, given the circumstances. For travel, a mini Manfrotto. For home: a maxi Reis. And everything in between. I have swooned for carbon, but settled for aluminum."

Ian [who sent me the link —MJ]: "What made this even funnier was I had just agonised over a non-camera backpack, to replace one I bought at the turn of the millennium."

World Premiere!

Later this month, something new and unusual—the World Premiere of a brand-new, never-before-seen original film! I'm pleased and honored that my friend Bob Burnett has chosen The Online Photographer as the venue for the first public presentation of his new short film "Edward Hopper and Marshall's House."

You might recall that Bob wrote a post about Marshall's House here in 2015. After a working life creating short films for a far-flung clientele, this was a personal project for Bob.

Coming your way this month. Something to look forward to. (Let this also be the annual reminder to the forgetful amongst ye that Valentine's Day fast approacheth. "Forget it not.")

No comment
Speaking of comments, as I was in the previous post, yesterday we passed 200,000 of them. But that count doesn't include the featured comments, so it's low by one or two tens of thousands or so. A big blanket thank-you to everyone who has taken time to share their thoughtfulness with the rest of us across the years.

We had a lovely soft snowfall all day yesterday. However, you
should not shovel your driveway twice when you have the flu!

Finally, a further bit of housekeeping: I have been working (with TypePad's help) on transitioning to a mobile-friendly design. It will change the look of TOP and some of its features. But TOP is a great deep creaky edifice, a hodgepodge built helter-skelter. If, in the coming weeks, it disappears permanently, you'll know that we broke it and could not un-break it (and that Yr. Humbl. Ed., plunged into silence, is plummeting into penury with the velocity of a hawk falling on a rabbit). Keep your fingers crossed...that being as effective a hedge against disaster as anything.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 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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Yonatan K: "With the goal of increasing the comment count even further, I offer up this question...is the velocity of a hawk plunging on a rabbit the same as the velocity of a European sparrow tied to a coconut?"

Mike replies: It's the type of rabbit that's the problem. Some rabbits are no ordinary rabbits. They're the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodents you ever set eyes on.

Learn Something New Every...Post

Well, it's going to take me a long time today to catch up with all the comments from yesterday (sorry; I've got the flu), but I have to say that I learn something with almost every single post here. Who knew that there was a little tiny button on the address bar of my very own browser called "Enter Reader View"—

Which turns this—

Into this—

I spend roughly a fifth of my life in my browser, but I didn't know that*. I can't say there's any site I would consign to the purgatory of Reader View permanently (you can do that)—I want to see their special contents—but whenever I start to get irritated by the whirring and whizzing and blasting and zinging on some random page somewhere, that little pebble of knowledge is likely to be a godsend.

Thanks, specific readers, and thanks, vast brilliant TOP-reader Cloud (VBTRC). TOP readers are seriously the smartest people on the Web. Not just in subset photorelated.

(Another question for the VBTRC: What was that site that every year does an elaborate infographic about the state of the photo/camera industry in the year just past? I've been trying to remember and/or find it for days but I can't come up with it. Does anyone recall?)

As a last word on the "ruination" of the Internet, this quote from Maria Popova of Brain Pickings: "The internet—its beauty is that it's a self-perfecting organism, right? But as long as it’s an ad-supported medium, the motive will be to perfect commercial interest, to perfect the art of the listicle, the endless slideshow, the infinitely paginated article, and not to perfect the human spirit of the reader or the writer." (Thanks to Merle for that.)

We'll continue to be part of the semi-pricipled semi-resistance,  :-)   in favor of the human spirit of the reader and the writer. 

Mike

*Every smart person is aware of the dim reaches of his or her own ignorance. In the beautiful alleged words of Isaac Newton, "I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." (But read this. It's still a beautiful quote.)

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No featured comments yet—please check back soon!

P.S.

...I've been sick for pretty much the last week. Classic, full-bore, multi-stage cold/flu, whatever it is (IANAD). Have not been at or near 100%.

I'm starting to feel better though. I'm at that aftermath stage where you have that lingering occasional cough, and residual congestion, and feel weak and tired. Right at this moment, I have a pretty strong urge to go lie down. At 10:19 in the morning. Even though I just got up three hours ago.

No biggie. I'll be fine real soon.

—Mike the Ed. of many hats

P.S. to the P.S.: On the good side, my voice was low and growly-smooth like Nat King Cole's for two or three days. That was fun. Still couldn't sing, of course.

Open Mike: Are They Ruining the Internet?

"Conservative" gospel holds that the marketplace is a perfect engine, that whatever people most want, capitalism will provide, and that whatever that may be is inevitably the most desirable consequence or outcome out of all possible consequences or outcomes.

I hold the exact opposite view, which is that commercialism and unregulated capitalism inevitably ruins everything.

But, vague heretical generalities aside: is the Internet being ruined? My email inbox, once a pristine parade of original personal messages from real people, is now glutted with a revolting stew of fundraising come-ons, commercial advertisements, spam, cunning or clumsy attempts to cheat or defraud me, robo-drek, PR and other dispiriting species of junk. And more and more, whenever I go try to simply read a page of text on the Internet, the visual prospect I'm met with is an appalling minefield of interruptions and obfuscations, little turd-bombs of crap all over everywhere that I don't want to see or pay attention to...but must contend with anyway.

I open a page. Takes longer than it should because the text waits to load until the ad servers get the ads in place. I start to read. The text suddenly grays out and a central box pops up that says, Hey, you're on our site, let us capture your name and email so we can bombard you with all the sh*t we want to, anytime! Dismiss that, resume reading. But the text keeps jumping up and down because the ads in the header are changing and the text adjusts. Suddenly, thumping music and inane blathering start up out of nowhere—it's an ad video I've innocently triggered by inadvertently moving my mouse to the wrong spot. Get that turned off, resume reading. Off to the side, next to the text column, a distracting video is flashing frantically at a rate of several cuts per second. It's like a silent infection of low-level anxiety. But I can't make it go away. I have to try to ignore it. Read on. The frantic video moves down with me as I scroll. Then, every two or three paragraphs, the column of text I'm still trying to read is interrupted with a bright link to a different article on the same site, in line with the article I'm trying to read. It takes a split-second to register that these links are not relevant to the text I'm reading. But then the text jitters again because the ad at the top of the page, now out of sight, is replaced with a new one. 

I make it three-quarters of the way through the article, feeling like George Bergeron with the Handicapper-General's transmitter in his ear, when another blast of superficial music-product and frenetic ad-copy chatter comes through the speakers. This time I can't figure out where it's coming from, so I close the tab to make it stop.

I'm left there idly thinking, gee, I would have liked to have read that article to the end...but oh well, never mind, I guess it wasn't that important anyway. I'm already distracted by a page full of click-bait links that my browser shows me in place of the home page I tried to program it to show.

Advertising, having thoroughly ruined television long ago, is now making a concerted assault on the Internet. Where will we all go next, to simply communicate and attempt to form some semblance of a community?

Mike

["Open Mike" is the Editorial Page of The Online Photographer, where we let Editor Mike J. stray off the reservation even more than usual. It appears, when the stars align, on Wednesdays.]

Original contents copyright 2018 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.

Some silent, non-flashing, video-free, uninsistent,
unobtrusive, purely volitional ads:

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Curt Gerston: "As I read your description, I could picture every one of the distractions and interruptions you mentioned, and I realized how inured to the whole thing I've become, how much I've accepted it as part of life on the Internet; I've become like the proverbial frog in the pan of warming water. Not sure what to do about it. I don't think I can just quit the Internet. Sigh...Ribbit."

Stan B.: "Watching 'The Gilded Age' on American Experience last night, I was taken aback to see that even J. P. Morgan realized the limits of capitalism when he pushed to consolidate the railroads."

Mike replies: Even Adam Smith believed that a necessary condition of capitalism was that it be counterbalanced by Christian morality.

Dennis (partial comment): "I don't get it. You blog for a living. You post content, but wouldn't spend so much time doing so if you couldn't monetize it. Now you're complaining about advertisements while reading content that someone else has provided. The question is: what content would there be if nobody made money on it?"

Mike replies: I'm complaining about advertisements actively interfering with my ability to access the content, by annoying, irritating, and frustrating me.

For my site, I have a simple standard. The ads shouldn't annoy visitors, intrude upon the text, or be distracting. In 2009, the ad agency of a major camera manufacturer contacted me wanting to buy a large ad on TOP for a lot of money. I sorely needed the money. But they insisted it be a flashing .GIF administered by them. I said sorry, no flashing ads—link ads with static images only. They stopped returning my emails and I've never heard from them again.

A few people still complain sometimes that my site is too commercial.

Dave Reidel: "So how much would you (or I or anyone) be willing to pay to eliminate all that clutter so you just get the stuff you want to see?"

Mike replies: It might not help. I pay a stiff price for XM radio in the car, but lately commercials have been proliferating on all the popular channels anyway.

Colin Work: "There is an assumption by some that the 'net has to generate money to survive.' Yet the 'net—and the web—evolved in the research/academic environment. Content was freely given, with no thought of reward. Indeed, Wikipedia demonstrates that this willingness to give information for free still lives on. Commercialization of the 'net came through the (surprisingly slow) realisation that there were lots of eyes out there which could be turned into revenue, not from a need to generate revenue. Can the worms be put back in the can? I very much doubt it. But we can individually boycott those sites which cause most offence. Does this work? To some extent yes. Look at some very early web pages through the Wayback Machine, and you'll find endless examples of irritation—flashing text, psychedelic backgrounds—that you seldom see anymore, because people stopped visiting irritating pages. Maybe there is room for a commercial-free domain on the 'net (a kind of PBS or BBC)."

Michael: "There is an app called Pocket which allows you to save a webpage for reading later (in their app or a browser). It completely strips out all advertising and shows just the article text and pictures within the text. It is excellent and available on all platforms. Highly recommended."

Mark Porter: "I couldn't agree more. And it's gotten noticeably worse the last few years, as far as I can tell. You expect it from Perez Hilton, but not The Atlantic. It's unfathomable."

psu: "The Internet has been in the process of being ruined ever since the very first days of its existence. Here is a thing I wrote more than 10 years ago about how it had been ruined. A lot of people look at the current state of 'the net' through a misty-eyed nostalgia for a system that was allegedly built with a purpose higher than pure commerce in mind (it wasn't)...and like to opine that maybe that was so when it was a purely academic project (not really). The truth is that the Internet is the people who use it. And when you get enough people together the majority effect is usually terrible (see twitter). So it will always be in the process of being ruined, but within that huge mountain of sh*t will always be little bits of beauty. It takes a lot of work to find it and to maintain it, but it's there. Philosophical debates about whether it's better or worse than it should be feel irrelevant to me. It is what it is, it is what we made it. Oh. And I use ad blockers. Except at sites that can prove to me that they are not using ads that track me. I prefer to give money to people directly, no through surveillance."

Will: "I always know when my wife is experiencing this 'drek,' by the loud salty language. I can't block that."

Frank Figlozzi: "I felt my blood pressure rising while I read your post. You have described my experience exactly. My email inbox is filled with marketplace debris every day: messages that I immediately delete, because I never asked for them in the first place. Every one of these messages acts as if the entity behind it is worthy of occupying my entire life. I have nothing else to do with my time but focus on its needs, whims and desires. You touched a tender spot in my psyche."

Ben: "Use an ad blocker, and whitelist sites (like TOP) that use unobtrusive advertising. I use https://www.ghostery.com. Not affiliated, just a happy user. There are plenty of options for iOS now, too. I don't know if there's a better way to act on our collective frustration with what you are right to point out is a degenerating situation.

"Anyway, I thought trolls already ruined the Internet, and we're just surfing through some post-apocalyptic dystopia?"

Unique Camera vs. Plain Tool

George Feucht sent a very interesting comment yesterday: speaking of the Sean Flynn M2, he wrote:

I own my dream camera: A plain-jane Leica M6 with ZERO history. Zero significance. Zero collectability. Limited production run? Hell no! These are tools. The magic goes away when the master goes away. If you offered me HCB's Leica at a standard price, I'd say 'Hmmmmm...no built-in meter, right?'

He brings up an interesting point. Some photographers are happy to use unique, exotic, or unusual equipment. Others, like George, prefer to use common, standard, easily replaceable tools so that if something goes wrong or breaks or gets lost, they're not "out" anything more than money. They just get a replacement and carry on. I knew one pro once who refused to use any lens unless he could get a brand new one overnighted from B&H Photo, in case anything happened to the one he had. He wanted to use equipment that was common—commonly available, easily repairable, and readily replaceable.

I was going to ask you if you have a preference along these lines, but I'm not sure if this kind of thinking even pertains with digital cameras. Don't we think of cameras now not as durable goods, but as consumables? Aren't they essentially disposable? Does anything really gives a digital picture a special "look" such that we might need to use specific equipment to make more pictures that match it?

I don't know if this is better or worse, but the days when a certain specific set of equipment and materials was integral to the "signature look" of someone's finished work seems to be increasingly a thing of the past. Do you agree? If you drop your Leica S2 off a cliff, just buy an S 007. If your X-Pro1 is stolen, just buy an X-Pro2. Or is there still any reason to use specific cameras or lenses to help maintain the "look" and the integrity of your finished work?

Mike
(Thanks to George)

Original contents copyright 2018 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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Keith: "This brings up an interesting question I've been thinking about. And you are likely one of the most qualified people to answer. The Internet seems to suggest that the 'magic' of the 16 MP Fuji X-Trans sensor (especially for black-and-white images) is not quite there in the 24 MP version. Since you have both; is this just internet hyperbole, or do you see a difference?"

Mike replies: You know, I would like to investigate that. Unfortunately the world here is nothing but white at the moment, but I'll try to get to it.

George Feucht: "Haha, I didn't expect to set off a whole new discussion. Interesting question, Mike. Also with 'HCB' I was talking about Harold C. Brown—his Leica is in terrible shape and the meter doesn't work. (Kidding.)

"I was talking about collectibles and the false projected value on them. I've never asked for an autograph, because it just really doesn't mean that much to me. I'd much rather have a 10 minute chat over coffee with a hero than some artifact. The same with a famous photographer's camera.

"Here's an interesting encounter that fueled this opinion: I was at a person's house and they had a beautiful Leica M3 on a display shelf. I asked about it, and the woman said it was her (deceased) father's camera. It was sentimental to her, but all I could think was 'That poor camera. It will never have a roll of film through it again, because it's now an artifact.' I clicked off the 50mm rigid Summicron, popped it on my digital Leica, and took a portrait of her. I showed it to her and said 'Your dad's lens still works beautifully.' It was a hint, but that camera will never leave its safe display case because they are too afraid to shoot with it.

"As for your question: Sensors are the new film stocks and lens signatures will always be regarded. However, the democratization of photography with digital means that lighting and compositions are more important than ever. If you can fuzz out your background on an iPhone like you could only do with a 135mm ƒ/2 before, you need to rely on vision and talent instead of gear."

Bryan Willman: "This is one of the things that drove me to sell all my Leica gear and go to Fuji X-mount. I want another body, I want another lens, I can just go and buy it, and I'm not competing with looney collectors."

Richard Skoonberg: "Professional photographers need standardization in the backup equipment they have to have. If a camera fails, a lens is dropped, or a strobe breaks in the middle of a shoot or during a wedding, it is important that everything remains consistent. If not, this can impact the overall quality of the delivered product. So there is a risk involved if you are using one-of-a-kind cameras and lenses in a professional setting."

Dennis Mook: "With modern and highly sophisticated image editing programs, with some exceptions, you can pretty much match any other camera and lens combination’s 'look' if you are willing to learn the software and put in the time. As a 'simple' example, one aspect of my Fujifilm X-T2 and Fujifilm lenses I like most is the 'look' of the images in regards to color palate. I was able to pretty much match each of the Fujifilm film simulations as Lightroom presets for my Olympus E-M1 Mark II image files. They are not exact but very close so now when I use my Olympus, the files look like the Fujifilm files. I’m only an amateur at this but companies such as Alienskin with their Exposure X3 editing software, DXO, the NIK plug-ins, etc., who are experts at this, in my opinion, could easily duplicate any film, digital camera or lens 'look.' The answer for me is buy what feels the best and works the best for you and if you want your images to look a certain way, put in the time and effort to learn how to edit them to appear that way."

The Camera Hunter's Find

Bellamy Hunt, the man behind Japan Camera Hunter (JCH) in Tokyo, is a sort of antique picker who ferrets out old cameras that have history or provenance, on behalf of a worldwide clientele. Recently he was offered a camera by the family of actor Errol Flynn's son Sean. The story is almost incredible in the vividness and significance of its every detail. Bellamy describes locating and re-homing Vietnam war photographer Sean Flynn's Leica camera as "a once-in-a-career event." Tough to argue with that.

A very short version is that Sean Flynn was kidnapped in Cambodia with photojournalist Dana Stone in 1970 and never seen again. "There were reports that both Flynn and Stone were kidnapped by the Vietcong and then handed to the Khmer Rouge before being executed, but remains were never found. Flynn’s mother spent her life and fortune trying to find a trace of her son, but sadly it was to no avail. Sean Flynn was declared legally dead in 1984," writes Hunt.

Photo: JCH

The camera is a Leica M2 with a steel-rim 35mm Summilux and "a strap that was hand fashioned from a parachute cord and a hand grenade pin" left in Flynn's Paris apartment.

It's a terrific story. You can read it in its entirety and see the eloquent illustrations at the JCH website. The camera will go to a new owner in Saigon.

A camera with history indeed.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 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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Ken Tanaka: "It is indeed a good story that I, coincidentally, read last week. I knew of Sean Flynn and his disappearance but the story filled some holes in my knowledge. He was sort of a later-day Robert Capa.

"Memorabilia has always puzzled me. Being in the presence of so-and-so’s mitt from the 1938 World Series, the brushes used by so-and-so to paint a renowned 15th-century painting, the camera used by so-and-so to take his/her most renowned photos...can certainly give an admirer a tingle. But what real value are these artifacts beyond future resale to some other poor tingler at a profit? And what happens when time eventually extinguishes these tingles? Someone will be left with some very expensive junk!

"But the bigger question: what ephemera of today’s generation will be treated as a devotional artifacts in the future? I really can’t think of anything!"

Mike replies: I have that same sort of conceptual puzzlement about such objects. A number of years ago I owned Jack Lemmon's Leica M6 (along with a letter of provenance). I never could figure out what it should mean to me, and finally decided it meant nothing, really, so I sold it. (I should add that I'm not particularly a Jack Lemmon fan. Don't dislike him, but he means no more to me than any other good actor.) On the other hand, a friend has a 35mm camera that was decorated by his friend, Keith Haring. He continued to use the camera and eventually rubbed off all but the faintest traces of  of the Haring embellishments...a mistake, in my view, as that camera might have been worth a lower-middle-class salary by now. I'd have taken the money. (Maybe he'll see this and speak up with his own thoughts.)

Also a number of years ago, I had the opportunity to buy the Leica enlarging lens that Lee Friedlander had owned and used for many years to enlarge his 35mm work. I still regret not buying it (it wasn't considered L. Friedlander ephemera at the time, or at least only enough to command a bit of a premium, some fraction more than its value as a lens). But why should I feel that way? It's not like the object contains the light that was beamed through it. I really have no clear idea why I wanted it or what I would have done with it.

hugh crawford adds: "Re: that Keith Haring camera. It would probably be worth something if it was signed or had some sort of provenance. As it is, it's just one of many things that we sat around doodling on when Keith was best known as the busboy at danceteria with the glasses he was always re-painting. I once had a lot of stuff he doodled on including that car that you posted a photo of a while back, and even a few drawings, all lost now along with some Andy Warhol drawings on dollar bills and a bunch of similar stuff.

"The only famous-ish previously-owned camera I have is a Canon 1Ds once owned by Matthieu Ricard, 'the happiest man in the world' if you Google it. It’s a long story…don’t think it’s a big deal, but who knows. I also have the wheel that kept Paul Newman from winning LeMans, also a long story. The rest of the car recently sold for 4.4 million dollars (he came in second after the wheel jammed on the axle during a pit stop and it took a half hour to replace the axle) so maybe there is something worthwhile there."

Dave Kerr: "I'm reminded of the time a Vietnamese student came to class with a somewhat beat-up old Nikon. Her father was there in the late '60s, early '70s. She didn't have much of its history other than it once belonged to a famous news reporter. Crudely etched on the base plate was the name 'T. Koppell '66-69.' I photographed it and sent Mr. Koppell a photo and the story, thinking he might want to have it back. No reply. Like you, for a fleeting moment, I thought I would have liked to own it."

Larry Gebhardt: "I bought renowned Miata writer, and sometimes photographer, Mike Johnston's old Miata. I expect the collectors to be lining up at my door any day now. While waiting I'll continue to drive it on nice days."

Mike replies: Now that has provenance!

Geoff Wittig: "Many amateur artists obsess about the tools used by artists they admire. Any skilled painter giving a presentation or workshop will be bombarded with questions about which specific pigments, linen supports or brushes they use, because aspiring painters hope to learn some secret of tools or materials that will reliably lead to a masterpiece. But of course it's the artist's thought process, the thousand decisions over the course of a painting's creation that contain the magic, not the tools. It's no different with cameras and lenses. I could sleep with Henri Cartier-Bresson's Leica under my pillow, but my street photography would still suck."

Ilkka: "Tim Page has written two books that talk quite a bit about Sean Flynn. Page After Page is an autobiography where he describes their adventures as photojournalists in Vietnam. Another, later book, Derailed in Uncle Ho's Victory Garden, talks about when Page went back to Vietnam after the war and spent some time searching for Sean Flynn. Interesting reads both of them."

Gary B: "I read this article when it first appeared on the Japan Camera Hunter website a couple of weeks ago. I'm currently living in Hanoi, so at the weekend whilst passing the recently opened (last year) Leica boutique store I called in to ask when the exhibition of the camera and related photography would open. The staff knew nothing about it!"

Well, What Do You Know (OT)

That was truly the most entertaining Super Bowl in a very long time, maybe ever.

Not the best-played game; how do two teams get that far without either one of them having defenses? It defies conventional wisdom, as well as logic. Still, it made for great entertainment.

The underdog won, the play of the evening was a super-slick trick that came off neat as you please, and the champs went down setting records as they went. Can't beat that.

Now, the NFC East doesn't have Philly to kick around any more, Dick Vermeil has finally been avenged (he took the Eagles to their first Superbowl and lost, for those who don't remember or never knew), and the city of Philadelphia actually has sports heroes who aren't fictional. Previously, the city's greatest sports triumph was a movie character named "Rocky," lovingly commemorated in the city's most famous sports-related public statue. (In the movie, Rocky trains on the steps of the Museum and has a triumphal moment alone at the top when he realizes that yes, he can do it.)

Philly fans went kinda crazy afterward—as usually happens in cities where they're not sure they'll ever get to celebrate again. If Boston had won, there would have been a hundred people dressed in cozy mufflers in Harvard Square sipping hot cocoa and high-fiving each other.

I hope you Philly photographers got out and exercised your cameras' awesome high-ISO capabilities. When the Redskins won—back in the quaint bygone era of telephones tethered to the wall, film cameras, and liberal democracy—I will admit that I failed miserably to get one good picture of the night-of celebrations.

I have to say that for someone who doesn't own a television (I watched the game online), an abrupt three-hour-plus immersion into television culture was as much a shock to the system as a "polar bear" jump into the waters of a freezing lake. The strange fantastical flurry of bombast, jingoism and marketing manipulation was relentless and exhausting. As far as the commercials were concerned, Dodge got added to my list of "never patronize no matter what" companies for their misappropriation of Dr. King. But not because it was breathtakingly cynical—that's common enough—only because it was breathtakingly clueless. In a sea of tastelessness, it's truly tough to rise above the waves, but Dodge sure did it. Anyway, it's not significant—Dodge was already on my Never Patronize No Matter What list, on account of the fact that I once owned a Dodge.

By this time next year, we will all be asking each other, "who won last year, again?" But it was great fun. The Great Annual American Hooligan Holiday came off in high style.

Mike

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Henry Heerschap: "My first new car was a '78 Dodge Omni, perhaps one of the ten or so worst cars ever made in the US. It had a similar effect on my future buying habits. One of my kids got given a PT Cruiser by my dad and I had similar thoughts, though I really liked the interior layout of that car. Anyway, we've been Mopar-free ever since. Anyway, when I saw the MLK Ram ad, I sat there with my jaw dropping several inches. I suspect some heads are rolling this morning."

Mike replies: One can hope.

My Dodge experience was a Neon Sport, which was a fun and fast car when it was new. However, after six months it was two years old, and by the time three years had gone by it was 15 years old. There are good reasons why you almost never see a Neon (1995–2005) on the road today—they aged in dog years.

Sal Santamaura: "For anyone who finds this entire subject utterly uninteresting, watch the video of last evening's (February 2, 2018) Jeopardy! game. I'd fit right in with those three contestants.  :-)  "

Mike replies: That's hilarious. Like Jaywalking for bookish types. Thanks for the link. (By the way, I knew all five answers.)

psu (partial comment): "I think the lesson of the last three Patriots Superbowls is how thin the margins are between a win and a loss and how densely those margins are populated with luck."

Bob Cook: "It's not often that I agree with you about things social, but your comments on the Dodge commercial are pointedly accurate."

Mike replies: It's good to have someone who doesn't agree with me agree with me.

Stephen F Faust: "Re 'I hope you Philly photographers got out and exercised your cameras' awesome high-ISO capabilities': Yep, and the celebrations were a street photographer's paradise!"

Dave Jenkins: "I didn't watch the game, (although I was pulling for the Patriots) so didn't see the commercial. Sounds as if it was in pretty poor taste. I will, however, speak up on behalf of Dodge automobiles. I'm sorry yours did not serve you well, but we have had terrific service from ours. In 2003, we bought a Grand Caravan which my wife drove until 2008. At that time, we bought a 2007 Grand Caravan for her to drive and I inherited the older one. Last year I sold it with 245,000 miles on the odometer and still running great, because we had bought a Chrysler Town & Country for my wife. So I'm now driving the 2007, which currently registers 207,000 miles and which I plan to drive for several more years. These Dodges have been wonderful cars for us, and we don't baby them."

John Camp: "The thing about the Dodge advertisement was that you started out being only moderately embarrassed, but your embarrassment deepened the longer it went on.... But I looked at it again this morning and found nothing objectionable about the images, and if you close your eyes and only listen to the words, no problem there, either. I think it was the idea of using the speech to make a buck that did the damage."

Mike replies: Perhaps "The issue is not so much who owns King's intellectual property but the uses to which it is put. The estate sometimes seems more inclined to go for the commercial main chance than to get King's words and thoughts disseminated in an appropriate context."

The words are by a writer named Michael Hiltzik, in an article on the LA Times website called "That Dodge trucks Super Bowl ad shows it's time to loosen the King family's grip on MLK's legacy," a web page so occluded and confused with ads—including one for a competing brand of pickup truck—that I had trouble reading the article.

The article notes that the Ram truck ad "...was seen as a landmark in crassness. That was true not least because in the speech excerpted for the ad, a 1968 sermon entitled "The Drum Major Instinct," King spends some considerable time excoriating the advertiser-driven quest for material acquisitions, including cars."

(From the sermon, via kingcenter.org)

Mark Roberts: "Someone's re-edited that Dodge commercial using a different portion of that same MLK speech. The effect is profound."

Steve Jacob: "An old friend of mine has worked as a marketing and branding consultant for several major companies over the years. She defines the habit of swamping consumers with ads as 'dead-horse marketing.' For many brands, dead-horse marketing is counter-productive. Consumers frequently boycott brands that interrupt movies, games, YouTube, or other passive pastimes. Many brands haven't got the message yet. When they do, it will be the end of commercial TV. Unfortunately, it also means more sport will only be available live on pay-per-view or subscription."

anthony reczek: "I watched (as much for the commercials as anything and for the first time this season), and made it through the first half. I had a different response to the Dodge Ram ad—it was wonderful to hear Dr. King's voice and words, like a breath of fresh air in the ad wasteland. The ad itself would have been much more effective if the creators weren't so ham-handed in trying to connect it to their product; a five-second photo and voiceover 'brought to you by...' at the very end would have sufficed. Full disclosure: probably will never buy a Dodge Ram truck (also don't eat Doritos, or drink Pepsi or Bud Light etc., etc.)."

Mike replies: You know, you're absolutely right. A simple "brought to you by" approach would have ennobled the company and earned gratefulness from hearers. It would also have opened King's spoken words up to multiple interpretations for different groups of people—specifically relating to the kneeling protests by black players earlier in the season. People would probably be praising Dodge on the morning after if its agency had taken that approach.

Good on you for imagining that.

Get Benched, Pat Bradley (OT)

This is protected material. Soccer fans and people from Boston should not click through. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

How To Buy Lenses

Before we leave the topic of the smartest way to build a lens kit for generalist, advanced amateur, or art photography, here's a summary—the sum total of the thousands of years of collective experience and the great store of knowledge to be found among the readers of this website. This covers how to rationally acquire a set of lenses for your camera body of choice. (All focal lengths given as 35mm equivalents.)

If you want one lens: choose a single small, light, or fast prime in between 28mm and 58mm in focal length, or a normal zoom. As Peter Gilbert quipped, "Prime for purists, zoom for tourists." Generally, the more experience you have, the more success you will have when your only lens is a zoom.

If you want two lenses (as a reader named Matt said, "One is restrictive, three a hassle"):

a.) The classic kit is two primes, one moderate wide and one moderate telephoto. The standard recommendation is a 35mm and an 85mm, but that can be modified on either end or both ends.

b.) A "nested" two-lens kit consists of one large-range, do everything zoom lens, augmented, because such zooms are often large and heavy, with a small, light prime—ideally but not necessarily a pancake—with a focal length inside the focal-length range of the zoom. That's just so you can carry a much smaller, lighter kit when you don't feel like lugging the zoom around.

c.) A zoom-plus-prime kit with the zoom as the main lens and a prime filling in where the zoom might be lacking. Example: a 24–70mm main lens with a 100mm prime, or a 28–105mm zoom with a 21mm prime.

d.) The "pro" two-lens kit: professionals have to be ready for anything, so they have less personal choice in constructing their lens toolboxes. We actually know pros who get along with two lenses, one a professional wide-angle zoom and the other a professional telephoto zoom. In a full-frame system, for instance, this might be a fast 17–35mm and a fast 80–200mm. (Pros, unlike amateurs, know better than to worry about "covering" the focal lengths in between.)

If you want three lenses:

a.) In this case, start with the middle, "normal" lens according to taste—whatever your most-used lens will be—and augment it with a true wide-angle and a telephoto. Because neither end of the range will have to fill in as the everyday normal shooting lens, you become free to make the other two more extreme if you want to (and have the chops for it). Suit to taste.

The Panasonic 35–100mm ƒ/2.8 Micro 4/3 tele zoom (70–200mm-e). (See "b.")

b.) A three lens kit can also profitably be the above but with a zoom in the tele range, because you often have the least choice of standpoint at longer distances. A kit like this might consist of a 35mm normal prime, 24mm wide prime, and 70–200mm.

c.) A three-lens kit could also be one of the above two-lens kits augmented by a specialty lens based on your interests—a macro, tilt-shift, or super tele, say.

If you want four lenses:

a.) The classic photojournalist's kit consists of: one normal prime between 35mm and 50mm, whatever you use most; a true wide angle 24mm, 21mm, or 20mm; a short telephoto prime between 75mm and 105mm; and a longer tele or tele zoom, typically either a 180mm or 200mm, or an 80–200mm or (these days) even longer zoom.

b.) as above, a four lens kit can be either a two-lens kit with two special-purpose lenses added, or a three-lens kit with one special-purpose lens added.

If you want to do professional assignments that don't require you to sherpa all your equipment on your person in a bag: You probably need everything you can conceive of ever needing, which might encompass anything from half a dozen to two dozen lenses, from which you will choose smaller kits on an assignment-by-assignment or project-by-project basis. Expensive, but hey, you can depreciate it.

Or, you can own a nucleus of frequently-used lenses and rent specific lenses for specific jobs when needed. (This might also have the advantage that you can pass along the rental charges to clients.) (Thanks to Stephen Scharf and other resident professionals.)

If you're not a professional and want five or more lenses: You probably have more lenses than you need. Five is kinda the borderline between I need and use everything I have and I have more than I absolutely need. But hey, whatever's fun for you! Just buy 'em through my links, pretty please.  ;-)

General recommendations
• Spend the most money on the lens you will use the most.

• Save weight on the lenses you will use least.

• You probably need fewer lenses than you think you do. But...

• ...There's nothing wrong with owning lots of lenses, if it's fun for you. Reader Cliff Lee shared with us the 12th Rule of Cycling: "The correct number of bikes to own is n + 1. While the minimum number of bikes one should own is three, the correct number is n + 1, where n is the number of bikes currently owned. This equation may also be re-written as s – 1, where s is the number of bikes owned that would result in separation from your partner. Replace bike with lenses, and I feel the rule would apply just as accurately!" Thanks to Cliff for the succinct statement of that principle to live by.  :-)

Finally,

• Never sell a good lens! Lenses have sample variation, and if you get a sweet one that you really like, there's no guarantee that you will be able to replace it by simply buying another one. The next one might not be as good. This is true even if you move away from the mount the lens works on; when mirrorless came in, for instance, suddenly lots of older lenses that had previously been orphaned became usable again, with adaptors. Another example is that some Leica photographers sold off their M lenses when they switched to digital, but then the M8 (and its successors) was introduced and those lenses would have become useful again.

If you have a lens that was a heavily-used favorite at one time, just hang on to it. Because you never know.

This concludes Lens-Kit Week at TOP! Remember "s – 1"...we don't want to cause any domestic disharmony. Have a great weekend.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 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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Simon Miles: "I would second the advice never to sell a good lens, mainly because I have done so repeatedly over the years and always regretted it. To put it another way, I always think I've made up my mind once and for all, so there's no point in keeping anything else, but it always turns out I haven't."

Mike replies: Rueful ditto here.

Tim Bradshaw: "Photographers have it easy: you can get away with dozens of lenses before your partner even notices. You should try being musicians: it's really hard to sneak an extra guitar past your partner, and harder still to acquire yet another guitar amp, mostly because you have to ask them to help you lug the thing up the stairs. (I am fortunate in my partner, who puts up with seven guitars and three amps, although she doesn't yet know about the fourth I am getting made.)"

Michael Mejia: "The selections in this thread seem to emphasize angle of view, that is, what we get edge-to-edge. What fits in the frame seems foremost in composition in two dimensions and, hence, the facility of zooms, and the value of selecting primes.

"However, I hear little mention of how we manage composition in the third dimension, that is, depth. Variable-aperture zooms drastically limit control of depth-of-field. Even the nice constant ƒ/2.8-style zooms, in an APS-C format, have an equivalent depth-of-field of an ƒ/4 lens.

"I like shallow depth-of-field for many shots and many of the lenses suggested cannot do that. So my choices want at least an ƒ/2 or ƒ/1.4."

Mark: "Commenter Tim Bradshaw [above] has struck the proverbial nail. My wife and I were just discussing yesterday my penchant for trading in vehicles when they need an oil change. For switching from Canon to Nikon more times than I care to recall. Then to Sony and now back to Nikon. And Tim is righty-right, as Alex said to his droogs, my wife would never notice acquisitions of lenses, etc. But when I traded in my one-year-young green Honda ATV for a camo Yamaha 700cc Grizzly, that she noticed. She said yesterday as we discussed this, after that, she stopped looking. Oh, and she was with me recently when I traded my Porsche for a Ford Raptor. She’s so cool."

Open Mike: The Photographer Frets

["Open Mike" is the self-indulgent Editorial page of TOP. It appears on Wednesdays except when it's snowing, raining, or clear.]

I'm going on four years now with my Fuji X-T1. Want to buy it?

I usually keep my cameras for three years; also, I've been thinking for more than a year now of switching to a system with IBIS, because my handholding skills (at one time superhuman and legendary...well, okay, let me rephrase that: at one time fairly decent) are deteriorating as I continue to ruin my formerly superb athletic skills by exercising only my typing muscles.

I've also been thinking of two other changes, too:

• One is to accept the iPhone 7+ into my photo equipment kit, deliberately. That makes me shy away a little from  1" and Micro 4/3 cameras. Too close. Those solutions are great if you want a do-it-all jack-of-all-trades camera system, but with the iPhone filling in the lower position as the always-with-me "note-taking" camera, it seems logical to head in the other direction, to something with a little more IQ firepower, at the other extreme—FF or medium format—to counterbalance it. Of course I'm not sure this is logical; maybe it just seems logical.

• The other is that I want to experiment with a longer zoom. This would be new for me. I once wrote a review of the Nikkor 180mm that was sort of jokey and tongue-in-cheek. The article's conclusion was that nothing is far enough away from me that I need a 180mm...not even the moon.

But, as I've mentioned, up here in the Finger Lakes, my former hard-hearted attitude is softening. Pictures do seem farther away. I keep noticing things that might make good pictures that are much smaller crops of the visual world than I'm used to organizing in my mind's eye. I explained that here (ignore the Fuji-loving bits, which are still true. I still do love the Fuji. Never didn't. Don't hate it now. In fact, if you are looking for a huge bargain in a high-end camera, the large amount of depreciation on the X-T1 makes it a stellar money-saving choice right now. You can get a good body for less than $500 if you look around, and it's a hell of a $500 camera. The X-T1 is the Jaguar XJ Supercharged of cameras).

Of course, this consideration directly militates for a Micro 4/3 or 1" camera, because longer tele work is among the strengths of smaller sensors.

So: IBIS, possibly a larger sensor, and availability of a practical longer zoom...all these things together are complicating my choices. And, probably, clouding my judgement.

Recently, I've been investigating the Pentax K-1. According to B&H Photo's cataloguing filters (Pentax brand—>full frame), there are a dozen Pentax lenses available new for the K-1. Twelve. And several of those are legacy lenses designed for film. Some film lenses are not quite ideal for digital, for several reasons. One of those reasons is that film designs often left the innermost element uncoated, because reflection back from the film was not much of a problem. Digital sensors, on the other hand, are reflective, so you can sometimes get anomalous flare when using lenses designed for film on digital cameras. [UPDATE: See Keith B's comment below. —Ed.] That's not to say any of the older Pentax lenses won't work, or won't work in most situations, just that not all of them were specifically designed for digital cameras.

Compare this with 94 lenses that show up when you filter B&H Photo for "Nikon brand—>full frame." That might include a few duplicates. It would take too long to check.

Of course, there's no Nikon DSLR with IBIS.

I'm probably overthinking things. I usually do when it comes to cameras and lenses. I should probably just go with a K-1 and a 43mm, and add something like a nice Tamron 70–200mm zoom. No, actually I should probably just get an Olympus E-M5 Mark II (you can leave them in snowbanks, I hear) and a 12–100mm ƒ/4. (Except I'm officially frightened of Olympus cameras now...they are now more complicated to operate than my formerly impressive hominid brain can handle.) In the meantime I shall go on using my Jaguar XJ Superch...er, my trusty, much-depreciated Fuji X-T1. (Really, you should check out that Jaguar video, it's funny.)

As you can see, I'm no better at camera-buying decisions than you are. As my wise brother Scott once pointed out (he was talking about stereo equipment, but I think it applies to camera gear too), "You're good at giving consumer advice to other people, but bad at knowing what to do for yourself."

Scott knows me better than almost anyone.

So actually, what I will probably do is...just keep using the Fuji X-T1, as I've been doing since I started thinking about replacing it more than a year ago. The paralysis by analysis will continue until I just say the heck with it and buy a GX8.

Mike
(Thanks to all the people with dozens of lenses who made me feel better about myself yesterday)

Original contents copyright 2018 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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Featured Comments from:

Denise Ross: "The Pentax K-1 is the best camera I've owned. No contest, film or digital. Works perfectly in FF mode with all but the widest angle APS-C lenses. Beautiful with some of the old classic lenses. Great battery life. Funky, but wonderful, display screen system, especially if you do a lot of verticals. With a pancake lens, it's not even particularly heavy. Otherwise, however, it can feel like a beast. Still, I'm about your age and I'm pretty sure I'll be happy to tote it around for at least another ten years."

Joe: "While you've discovered that you could go a little more telephoto in your lens choices, I've discovered that I need to go a little wider. My favorite walk around lens used to be the classic 85mm ƒ/1.4, but I discovered that I tended to frame everything too tight. And no matter how many times I told myself that, when I framed through the viewfinder, I never took a few steps back. Only when I got home and looked at the images on the big screen did I see what I should have done. Finally I decided to force the change, and I started carrying a good 50mm ƒ/1.4 (the wonderful Sigma Art) instead of the 85mm. And sure enough, it made a big difference. It made me give my subjects more breathing room, made things more environmental. It worked.

"It's just funny that it took a hardware change to make it happen. Kicking myself wouldn't do it."

William Cook: "This would be amusing if I weren’t going through the same angst myself right now. By the way, word is that Panasonic is about to announce the GX9...."

Mike replies: I looked into the Japanese source, translating it via Google Translate, and it only says Panasonic is "testing" a camera called the GX9. It mentions nothing about an announcement, and nothing about whether the "GX9" being tested is a refresh of the existing GX8. And I've learned over the years not to wait for vaporware, because our minds are too suggestible...in the absence of evidence, we end up believing what we want to believe.

So, I dunno, could happen, but I dunno.

Jim Simmons: "The OIS on the Fuji 55–200mm is quite good. Consider that. This desire to shoot at longer focal lengths could just be a fad for you.  ;-)  "

Stephen: "I would actually be pretty interested to read a series from you documenting your transition to using a longer telephoto. I know how far from your normal preferences that is. I think it'd be fairly interesting to see what it was like for you to get used to using one."

Mike replies: I did this a couple of years ago with the 14mm (21mm-e) on the Fuji. I had never photographed with such a wide lens, never made friends with the focal length. I ended up keeping the lens more or less glued to the camera for six months or so and really made friends with it. And yet for some reason I seldom use the 14mm now. The experience emboldens me to think that I could learn to use a 70-200mm-e and make friends with it, but I'm not sure I'd end up using it as a go-to lens. The proof is in the experience, of course, not in talking about it. 

Dave: "LOL...you realize in 15 days Fuji will be announcing the X-H1, with IBIS. You can read about it here. And it will take all your XT1 lenses.  :-)  "

Mike replies: My belief is that it will be larger than X-T2, cost $2k, and be video-centric. Intended to compete with the GH5. Not sure it will be for me. We'll see.

Cliff Lee: "Borrowing one of the ‘Rules’ of cycling: Rule #12: The correct number of bikes to own is n + 1. While the minimum number of bikes one should own is three, the correct number is n + 1, where n is the number of bikes currently owned. This equation may also be re-written as s – 1, where s is the number of bikes owned that would result in separation from your partner. Replace bike with lenses, and I feel the rule would apply just as accurately!"

John McMillin: "Go for the Pentax, you won't regret it. You liked the Sony a900, and this is the perfection of that, with every feature plus more, and a much better sensor, of course. It won't fire ten frames per second while focusing on a speeding bullet, but that's not your style, either. Fret not about any lack of lenses. Between the few digital-designed lenses and those ancient manual lenses folks gab about, there are wonderful choices, not limited to the lovely Limited lenses. I've relied on the late-film-era F series Pentax lenses, which are sharp, small and well built. (I've never seen any trace of rear element flare on an image. I think that problem is situational, or theoretical.) Then, I've gradually traded up to even better lenses from the current line. If there are sharper lenses than the 28–105mm or the 300mm ƒ/4, I have no use for 'em. The biggest holes in the Pentax Lens lineup come under 20mm and beyond 300mm, but there are third-party choices. Oh, the 300mm crops to 450mm ƒ/4, and still fits in a jacket pocket.

"Knowing Mike's preferences, I think he'd be happy with the 31mm and 77mm Limiteds. The K-1 crops them easily to 46mm and 115mm with the twist of a dial, and can you say SQUARE FRAME? Sure you can, and you can see the results in the finder, too. Once I remember this 'Rolleiflex feature,' my compositional choices blossom."

Keith B: "Mike, I just recently noticed a photographic lens-themed meme propagating on the Interweb, Digital Photography Division: That the rear elements of many common camera lenses are not anti-reflection coated. Remember the one about how 'lenses with fewer elements give better 3D'? This one is even more demonstrably false. Go try to find one [a lens] that isn't [coated on the rear element]...I'll bet that neither you nor anyone else can. As a 62-year-old lens nut who has personally taken a close look at the rear and front elements of many, many hundreds...maybe thousands...of photographic lenses in the past, well...45 years or so, I can tell you that the number of post-WW2 interchangeable camera lenses that had un-AR-coated rear elements probably number between three and five. It just isn't true."

Mike replies: Thanks Keith.