The petition to bring back a CS version of Adobe’s software just broke 1000:

http://www.change.org/petitions/adobe-systems-incorporated-eliminate-the-mandatory-creative-cloud-subscription-model

EDIT: now over 25,000 sigs.

In case it wasn’t obvious from the previous post, yes, I recently upgraded my DX body to a D7100.  I’ll be posting some tests here and sharing any observations.

My first observation shooting stills is that AF is excellent.  It is at least a match for my D700.  That’s a good thing, considering the ordeal I went through with the D7000.  I’d say it’s even a little snappier and more precise than the D300, which I didn’t expect.

So, here’s to the future!  Which seems to have more pixels in it.  (although nothing yet has unseated my D700 for low light work!)

Just picked up a D7100 yesterday and realized: “wait, this 2x crop mode is 15mp?  My GX1 is a 2x crop and about 15mp @2:3.  LET’S COMPARE!

So, I did:

D7100 w/Nikon 35mm/f2

GX1 w/Nikon 35mm/f2

The results aren’t exactly surprising.  They have pretty close to the same pixels covering the same area.  The base ISO of the GX1 is slightly higher, so shutter is slightly different, but: tripod, so who cares?  The D7100 is also slightly taller, so framing is a little off between the two, but I think you can still get the idea from what’s here.  In short, any differences are up to sloppy technique.

It’s too bad that the the crop mode on the D7100 is wonky for video (scaling issues appear to be resulting in low quality video in crop).  If Nikon figures out a fix for that, I’ll be back with a video comparison.  (Scaling wise, I can’t see why they couldn’t, since the GX1 is scaling a very similar amount of pixels to make 1080 video.)

For now, this tells me…well, nothing I couldn’t already guess.  But idle curiosity got the better of me and I had to try it.  Now you know, so you don’t have to waste time trying yourself.  (click the above images for original, unscaled versions).

P.S. for those too lazy to check the EXIF, this was at f4.

Dear Manufacturers of m43s lenses*,
Here’s the lens I dream of for my tiny m43 cameras: a pancake tele. Something in the 100-200mm equivalent range. At least f2.8.

I own the 45mm/1.8 (90mm equiv), and it’s too bulky. I’m thinking closer to the 20mm size. The 75mm is even closer in the reach department, but it’s even bigger than the 45mm. No, I want a true pancake lens. 45mm or longer.

If you can make this happen, it would be a game changer. Truly.

*That’s at least Olympus, Panasonic, and Sigma.

@yyys if you want less phones flying at shows, tell management/venues/security to explicitly allow DSLRs. Problem solved.

— Micah (@photomicah) April 10, 2013

Stop discriminating against us gentle folk who don’t ruin anybody else’s good time by raising our cameras in the air for half the damn show.  They’re just too damned heavy for us to do that!

We don’t need bright flash or bright LCDs.

Boot the phones, let in the SLRs.  That’s all I’m asking.

I thought of an analogy today that I hope will help in the fight to get more people shooting raw.

JPEG : RAW :: Polaroid : Negatives

I don’t personally know any pros out there still shooting jpegs, but I know there are some old salts who just don’t “get it” when it comes to raw.  So here it is.  You wouldn’t give a client a Polaroid test shot, nor would you try to work from one.  So why would you change that behaviour in the digital realm? Continue reading →

It might seem conventional wisdom that a bundle of glass, no matter how robust or “pro” it may have been built, should NOT be dropped.

On pavement.

Several times.

Especially not one that weighs over three pounds and costs two grand to replace.  (even though I paid $1600 brand new–what’s up with that?!)

So over several years I’ve repeatedly dropped my most used lens, and now it’s time to repair it.  I was shooting birds on the Willamette the other day and realized that things weren’t looking sharp until f11.  Having had the lens for about seven years now, I know what a properly working specimen is capable of and this isn’t it.

I brought it to the local authorized repair shop, Associated Camera Repair (more on why that’s the only place that can get parts later), but they looked at it (for a couple weeks) and decided they couldn’t do anything for it.  The lens must just be as good as it gets.

So I took it home and this morning did a little test to prove to myself I’m not crazy (at least in this instance) and illustrate what I think to be the issue.  I think that after dropping it enough, something inside is now out of alignment.  How’d I test this?  Observe:

Notice the smeary-ness, and how it’s on the top edge or the bottom edge?  This is as close to the center of the frame as I could get.  This shouldn’t me asymmetrical at the edge of the frame, let alone center of the frame.

Here’s the test procedure:  The 70-200mm f/2.8 VR (v1) (oh yea, that’s the lens we’re talking about here, sorry) has a tripod mount directly on the lens, which rotates on a collar.  So all I had to do was firmly mount it on a tripod, shoot, rotate and shoot again.  AF was off between shots and VR was off.

So I’m concluding that yes, this is broken, something’s out of line, and it needs to be fixed.  Google didn’t turn up anything, so I’m going to post about my repair experience here.  I suspect that this will require a trip to Nikon USA (not excited about that!), but I’m going to try all the other local shops first.  I’ll report back here as things progress!

(about the title: I’m referencing a G Love and the Special Sauce song, which I seem to get stuck in my head whenever it’s time to bring something in for repair)

Just uploaded a video. Slapped together and laid over a Mark Hollis solo track. Lemme know what’cha think.