Reuters is now banning photos that were processed from RAW files. They’re only accepting original JPG files, hoping it will discourage unethical post-processing.
A Reuters spokesperson has confirmed this policy change with PetaPixel, and says that the decision was made to increase both ethics and speed.
I came to a realization early on Tuesday morning. I was in a Dupont Circle soup kitchen taking portraits with Jen for an annual report she’s been working on. I was shooting with my Nikon D7000 and she was shooting with a borrowed Canon 7D. The results I was getting were just not as clean or as sharp as hers. A big part of this, as I admitted later, was due to the skill of the photographer: Jen has an innate knack for framing and shooting people that I don’t naturally possess, and was immediately connecting with her subjects and knocking off professional shots with ease. But another big part of this was the feel of the shots I was getting and how they differ from the shots I’ve seen and taken with the Canon–they just look better to my eye in a way I can’t describe.
This could be due to several factors. The photographer, as mentioned. The glass, which is the key difference in quality: She was shooting with a full-frame f/1.4 L lens, which is a full order of magnitude better than the crop-sensor f/1.8 lens on my Nikon. Faster, sharper, and better. It also could be shiny new toy disease, wherein some small part of my lizard brain convinces the rest of it that we’d be much happier with that more expensive thing over there instead of what we’ve got in our hands.
I’m curious if the camera body is as important as the glass. I’m considering the rental of a Nikon full-frame body and FX lens to see if I like the results–I’ve always liked Nikon’s approach to ergonomics and user experience more than Canon’s annoying scroll-wheel/joystick controls, and the way things work is very important to me. I haven’t given up on Nikon yet, but I’m seriously evaluating a (costly) migration to Canon full-frame gear.
One thing I didn’t mention about last weekend was the fact that I picked up another 100+ bricks from Second Chance for the front walkway. For the grand total of $50 I got a bunch of oversized, weathered brick that then got cut down to size (adding a $45 rental fee) and stacked under the back porch. If the weather holds out this weekend, I’ll get the supplies needed, rip out the hedges on either side of the walkway, and get the last of the brick installed before the ground freezes up.
The other major project I’m hoping to tackle is getting the hardtop back on the Scout while it’s still somewhat warm. I spent a good bit of time last weekend attempting to get her started, to the point where I ran the battery down. It just wouldn’t get any gas into the carburetor. Then, after taking 10 minutes to cool off, I dumped a gallon of gas into the tank, jumped it from the Accord, and it fired right up. I must have backed it into the garage on fumes before I left for Abu Dhabi.
I’ve been noticing some blur in shots I’ve taken with the f/1.4 lens I bought last week, and decided to test it head-to-head against the f/2.0 lens I got earlier this year. The first example is imperfect because I’m mounting it to the Fuji with a $20 adapter. I set it up on a tripod and shot both pictures at f/2, but because one lens is a 55mm and the other is a 50mm, the pictures are slightly different. I focused on the silver handle mount to detail the pebble texturing, figuring it would be the best place to pick up detail.
Looked OK, but not great. I brought the D80 home from work and set it up the same way:
The result? I can’t really tell yet. It looks undefined and fuzzy to me, but I don’t know if it’s the lens or the camera yet. I think I’d like to see some shots through this lens with the D7000, a newer camera with a better sensor, before I decide anything. I’m going to send it out for the mod so that I can mount it properly and do another test.
One of the things I’ve been keeping my eye out for since I upgraded my Nikon kit is something Nikon hasn’t made in 20 years: a non-AI (manual) f/1.4 lens. Non-AI lens means there is no autofocus: the user has to manually adjust both aperture and focus. Nikon has been making F-mount lenses since the beginning of time, so most pre-digital glass will work with modern Nikon bodies, which can be lots of fun. Nikon DSLRs won’t focus for you but have a focus indicator in the viewfinder which lets you know you’re in the ballpark.
This past week, a dinged-up f/1.4 lens showed up on my local Craigslist for the kingly sum of $30, which meant that fucked up or not, I was buying it. Jen and I met the guy at a pizza joint by the train station on Friday night and I made the deal based on how it worked with WRI’s older D80 body: it fit perfectly and took good, clear shots.
When I got it back home, however, I found that it wouldn’t fit on the D7000 body. The lens itself is a pre’77 K-mount, which means there’s an AI tab on the camera body which prevents the lens from seating correctly, something I hadn’t heard of before. A little research reveals that it’s pretty easy to file down the edge of the lens where the AI tab hits, something I’m not at all hesitant to have done based on what I paid for it. There’s a fellow who does conversions for $25, which I’ll probably take advantage of this week.
One other nice thing is that it fits perfectly on my Fuji with the lens adapter, and I’ve already gotten some great low-light shots in near darkness with the aperture wide open.
I’ve had my Fuji for a couple of weeks now, and I’ve gotten used to most of the differences and quirks compared to my beloved Nikons. While I don’t think I’d go as far to say it’s a replacement for my DSLRs, it’s another nice tool to have in my kit.
My biggest gripe with it right now is the shutter lag. There’s a long enough delay between pushing the button and the shutter closing that it reminds me of my old Canon G3, a distant ancestor of this camera. Even when I’ve got the focus set and the frame composed, there’s 1 loooooooong beat of wait where Finn has moved out of focus or out of frame.
All that said, I’m in love with the quality of the pictures it takes. They are crisp and clean to a degree that even impresses Jen, who complains that all of her Nikon shots are out of focus. The color is great, and the kit lens it came with is better than some of the Nikon glass I’ve got.
I bought a toy for it before we left on vacation: a $20 Nikon lens adapter which allows me to use any of the glass I already own. When shooting in Manual mode, the Fuji has a zoom control that allows me to check the focus within the viewfinder, which is nice; the display has about a million more pixels than any other camera I’ve used but still manages to moire and distort the preview.
So, in short: I’m not ready to sell off all my Nikon gear, but I sure like carrying this around daily instead of a DSLR.
I’ve talked about mirrorless and micro 4/3 cameras here before, and set the idea aside last fall as too expensive to pursue. I do, however, add Craigslist search alerts to things I’m interested in to follow pricing trends over time as new products are released. One of the alerts I set up was for anything Fuji-related, even though their lens system isn’t compatible with M4/3 bodies.
This winter, with all of the extra stuff I was carrying, I left my DSLR home more often than I carried it. Much of that is because I don’t have a lot of opportunity to shoot anything new in my commute, but also because it got to be a hassle to carry. In the meantime, several of my pro photographer friends cycled through various mirrorless camera kits, and recently one upgraded to a Leica (WAY out of my range). He wound up selling his Fuji for way more than I could afford.
This week, a Fuji X-E1 kit showed up in my feed for a very reasonable price, and I dove into researching it. It’s about two steps from the top of their line, but is very well regarded. I decided to give it a try, as I’m pretty sure I can resell it for more than the purchase price. Plus, I’ve been sitting on photo money since I sold my old iPhone, our original Flip, and a pair of unused DX zoom lenses that overlapped with our current lens collection.
It’s a whole different world than a DSLR; the philosophy around the controls is completely different. Where a DSLR is built around getting to the lens and shutter controls with secondary buttons to modify the selection, the Fuji is all about secondary buttons. They did nail the ergonomics of those buttons, though–they are almost perfectly organized and placed on the camera. It doesn’t have an optical viewfinder. There’s a digital screen inside the eyepiece, or you can use the LCD on the back to compose and interact with the camera. It’s tricky getting the unit to autofocus properly, and I’m not used to the slight shutter lag this has.
My unit came with a chunky f/3.5 18-50mm lens, which is too big for my taste; I’d like to swap it for the f/2.8 27mm prime, which is compact and almost in my focal sweet spot. If I suddenly won the jackpot, I’d splurge on the f/1.4 35mm, which is a little bigger but much faster. I’m going to give lensrentals.com a try over our vacation, as they’ve got the 27mm f/2.8 available for a good price.
Having shot a lot with my D7000 and and two 50mm primes–an AF and non-AF, I find it impossible to compose and shoot on the fly at that focal length. I’m always backing up from my subject or running after the kids in order to frame anything worth value; shooting with and adjusting the manual lens is hopeless in all but the most optimal situations. Having an autofocus prime is pretty much key until Finn is in her late teens.
There are a slew of Fuji to Nikon adapters, however, which allow for the use of my Nikon glass on the Fuji body; a manual adapter and several AI adapters. At some point I’ll pick up the cheaper of the two to use my Nikkor f/2 on it. The midrange AI adapter is $100, but I can’t find any reviews on it yet. The more expensive AI adapter is $~500, or equivalent to the f/1.4 Fuji lens, so I’d rather spend that money on new glass.
Overall, I’m impressed; the picture quality is great and the camera is light and easy to use. I’ll be leaving my D7000 at home for the next couple of months and shooting specifically with the Fuji, and we’ll see if the results match a DSLR.
Man, where was This article about underwater photography from the Wirecutter about 10 years ago when I needed it?
File this under “Ain’t that some cheap-ass bullshit:” If you send your film negatives to be processed by any big chain store–Wal Mart, Costco, Walgreens, CVS, etc., they won’t return your original negatives.
Last night I did some consulting for a friend and then came home for a frosty beer. Looking at the half-full, unused Hefeweizen keg, I figured I might as well try fixing it, as I’ve known it’s been leaking for two weeks. I pulled the bad valve post and tried replacing the whole thing with one from my spare shorty keg, but of course it’s a different thread size. Then I remembered I had spare poppet valve stems, swapped the old with a fresh one, reinstalled it, and pressure tested it. It’s holding pressure finally! there’s a lot to be said for stocking spare parts.
I’m in love with the Canon f/1.4 lens we have at work, and I’ve been casually looking at inexpensive alternatives for the Nikon DX gear I’ve got. Most of Nikon’s really sharp AF-S glass is >$300, which is more than I’d like to spend, but it would be great to have a fully automatic lens if that’s what I’m going to pay. I have a 50mm f/1.8 lens which was inexpensive and works great; they make a 50mm f/1.4 for ~$300, but I like the 28-35mm range from a shooting standpoint. Nikon offers a 35mm f/1.8 prime for $200 which would be perfect, and my brother-in-law has one that I’ll have to borrow sometime to try out.
Nikon also made a bunch of razor-sharp manual prime lenses back in the day, an f/1.4 and an f/1.2, which are both compatible with my DX gear. I’m toying with the idea of buying one of the f/1.4s from eBay, if I can get the price down low enough, just to see what it’s like. One of my photographer friends says the local camera shop usually carries a few used copies, so I’ll have to ring them up and see what they’re charging. The f/1.2 is another matter entirely. It routinely sells for ~$300 on eBay, which is a lot of coin for a manual lens but I do see some examples for cheap here and there. I’ll just set up a Craigslist alert and wait it out.
A rough count on our YouTube page shows I’ve shot at least eight finished videos this year. Most of them are simple one-camera setups, which are pretty easy to bang out at this point. Now I’m learning about multi-cam editing in preparation for editing the Forest project videos I shot a while back.
I made a breakthrough on Tuesday after a few weeks of gridlock. I’d shot tons of footage and struggled with exactly how to start piecing it all together. At first I got hung up on the technical challenge of syncing everything together, adding B-roll, and timing it all. Then I realized I didn’t even know what I had, so I stepped way back and started cutting out the junk footage to where all I had was their answers, assembled in rough order. Using this method, I cut rough reels for two subjects and sketched out a workflow.
Then I installed Final Cut Pro on my home machine Tuesday evening so that I can keep working in my spare time, and set up a portable drive to move the project and all its files back and forth. I’m definitely enjoying this.
I saw this in (ahem) my Facebook feed this afternoon. It’s quite amazing; a camera drone that doesn’t need piloting. It’s got a bunch of pre-set modes, and it follows a tracker you carry. Pre-order is $599, and the full price is a cool $1K. Still, I’d have a lot of fun with this toy.