What's New

Are you interested in the Pentax 645D? A lot of photographers are. With a weatherproof body, the ability to take all previous Pentax 645 lenses, and a 40MP Kodak CCD sensor without an AA filter, all at less than US $10,000, there's a lot to potentially like.

And, unlike Mamiya, with their similar but ill-fated ZD camera of several years ago, Pentax at least has some considerable digital expertise of their own because of their DSLRs.

Our colleague Bernard Languillier lives in Tokyo and today gives us his first impressions as well as an exclusive interview with Pentax Product Planning executive Yasuyuki Maekawa who shared some interesting information about the philosophy of the 645D and background behind some key design decisions.

Confused and frustrated by all the claims and counterclaims found on the Net about image quality, DSLR vs Medium Format, this bit of technology vs that bit of technology? Ya. Me too.

Today we have an essay titled The Top Two Things You Can't Do On the Internet written by one of the industry's most knowledgable sales executives.

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The winner of last week's Contest is Spyros Triantos of Richmond, MA. Congratulations Spyros! We'll be sending you a full boxed copy of Adobe Lightroom 3 as soon as it ships.

Who will be next week's winner? It could be you!

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UPDATE

Interested in the new Pentax 645D? This fascinating new cameras was shown in production form last week at the CP-Plus show in Yokohama, Japan, and our intrepid reporter Bernard LANGUILLIER was there. We'll have his observations as well as an exclusive interview about the camera with Pentax's Product Planning executive here tomorrow – and yes, the 645D will be eventually available outside of Japan.

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Readers who purchase our current Lightroom 2 tutorial
will be eligible for a discount on our future Lightroom 3 tutorial.

Today's new tutorial, by our regular contributor Alain Briot, is titled Composing With Color, Part II.

"Video Journal 19, one of the best. Interesting and relevant topics, knowledgeable engaging guests, and a host that gently guides the conversation through terrain I want to explore. And more, it's beautifully shot in a clean, no tricks style that keeps the conversation in focus. Well done all! This one is worth twice the price".

– paul b. kramarchyk

Yesterday's review here by Mark Dubovoy titled Hasselblad H3D 50 II Multishot  Versus Phase One P65+ / 645AF generated some considerable discussion on this site's forum, particularly with regard to the issue of dynamic range. Though he found the Hasselblad and the Phase backs to be very similar in dynamic range, he also wrote "The dynamic range of a typical high-end professional 35 mm DSLR is around 7 F/stops. Medium Format cameras are closer to 13 F/stops of dynamic range," and the cat was among the pidgeons.

The issue seems to be contentious because different people use different definitions of dynamic range. As one person put it, "It's like comparing apples with cassaba melons."

I have therefore just added an Editor's Note to Mark's review with my observation on the subject. Hopefully it will clarify a debate that has been  murky for some time.

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Readers who purchase our current Lightroom 2 tutorial
will be eligible for a discount on our future Lightroom 3 tutorial.

The air is thin at the top. Whether it's Ferrari vs Lamborghini, or, of interest to photographers – Hasselblad vs Phase One – the two remaining leaders of the medium format world.

Every now and then it's fun to pitch top contenders against each other, and when they are both kings of their respective hills, all the more so.

Today we have an exclusive review by our regular contributor Mark Dubovoy titled Hasselblad H3D 50 II Multishot  Versus Phase One P65+ / 645AF.

What makes this particularly interesting is that the 50II back from Hasselblad is a multi-shot, in theory a technology able to produce higher image quality than that from a Bayer array, as used in the Phase One P65+. But the Phase is a higher resolution back, so how will it all work out?

I'll bet you'll be surprised.

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As you may have read previously here I have no field workshops planned during 2010. This is a sabbatical year for me, focusing on other business and personal projects.

But there are some very fine teachers and trips available which I can recommend.

My friend David Burren has an Antarctic Photographic Expedition planned for this coming November. The initerary includes the Falkland Islands as well as South George Island.

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Art Wolfe needs no introduction to anyone interested in nature photography. His work is recognized around the world. What you may not know is that Art is also a very fine teacher, and does a large number of lectures and field workshops world-wide.

Click here for further information, including a list of cities in the U.S. and Canada where Art will be speaking in the next few months.

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How do you get ready to do your photography? Jack Graham shares his thoughts in an essay titled Preparation Comes First.

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Sean Reid at Reid Reveiws has just published a thorough review of the Canon 85/1.2 L II (including extensive comparisons with the Canon 85/1.8).  He also has a previous review that compares the Zeiss ZE 85/1.4 with the Canon 85/1.8, as well, so the whole trio of fast EOS mount 85s is now covered on the site. Reid Reviews is a subscription site.

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The winner of last week's Contest is Marc McDonald of Boulder, CO. Congratulations Mark! We'll be sending you a full boxed copy of Adobe Lightroom 3 as soon as it ships.

Who will be next week's winner? It could be you!

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Readers who purchase our current Lightroom 2 tutorial
will be eligible for a discount on our future Lightroom 3 tutorial.

When I do portfolio reviews with students and I discuss an image of theirs that I don't feel has been successful, the question that I ask is – What is it about? This seemingly innocent question is, in my experience, one which causes any photographer to reflect on their own work in a way that is necessarily part of the creative process.

A new essay titled What is it About? – Deconstructing an Image uses today's Home Page photograph as an example of how this process is done.

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Phase One has just announced the continuation of  PODAS – the Phase One Digital Artist Series, workshops to be held around the world this year that you will want to learn more about. I'll have more to discuss about these in the weeks ahead.

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Leica Camera has announced that it will bring the latest and newest Leica products to major North American cities as part of the first-ever Leica North American Road Show. Leica’s product specialists will visit 26 cities over the course of 14 weeks; the road show will commence on March 18, 2010 in Miami, Florida and conclude on June 23, 2010 in Nashville, Tennessee.  The series is designed to enhance participants’ knowledge of and familiarity with the M and S Systems.

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Readers who purchase our current Lightroom 2 tutorial
will be eligible for a discount on our future Lightroom 3 tutorial.

Well, the PMA show opened yesterday, what few new products that were not announced earlier in the month were introduced, and life goes on.

Since the photographic industry has become indistinguishable from the consumer electronics industry we have come to expect a rush of new products even six months, or less. But the world-wide recession of the past year combined with a slowing in the rate of change in the digital revolution, means that recent developments are more cosmetic and superficial than significant. In any event, it's also a Photokina year (Sept., 2010) and so we're likely to see the next round of significant product announcements then.

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Phase One has announced the release of Version 5.1 of their Capture One software. Though it would appear to be a dot release, it's much more than that, with significant new features, capabilities and camera support. Current C1 users can download a free update, and everyone else can download a free, fully functional, 30 day trial copy.

I am currently preparing a major multi-hour video tutorial on Capture One 5.1 along with Walter Borchenko, the world's leading expert on C1 software and training. Watch for it here this Spring.

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I have been spending most of the month of February, 2010 in San Miguel Allende, Mexico. I have now started a new page containing a few of the photographs resulting from this trip. These are also appearing on the Home Page from time to time. The San Miguel portfolio page will be updated periodically during February and March.

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"Video Journal 19, one of the best. Interesting and relevant topics, knowledgeable engaging guests, and a host that gently guides the conversation through terrain I want to explore. And more, it's beautifully shot in a clean, no tricks style that keeps the conversation in focus. Well done all! This one is worth twice the price".

– paul b. kramarchyk

Today's winner in our Lightroom 3 Winter Cheer-Up Contest is Karin De Winter of Antwerp, Belgium. Congratulations Karin, and I must say a most appropriate name for this particular contest.

Who will be next week's winner? You can be if you purchase any of our download video tutorials or Video Journals. Each purchase made is another entry in the competition. There are a total of 10 prizes to be won. A new winner is announced approximately every week.

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Have you ever taken a photographic workshop? If you are passionate about photography this can be one of the best ways of improving your craft, inspiring your art and extending your community.

Our Workshops listing page contains a small group of some of the world's finest photographic educators. I can unreservedly recommend each of them because I have taught and worked with them each over the years. Two of them, Jay Maisel and Alain Briot, have also just announced new programs.

And, in response to many requests, I'll simply reiterate that I am taking 2010 off from tours and workshops, devoting my time to personal travel and projects. I still though am doing One-On-One sessions at my gallery / studio in Toronto.

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Readers who purchase our current Lightroom 2 tutorial
will be eligible for a discount on our future Lightroom 3 tutorial.

It's been far too long since we've had an essay by our regular columnist Alain Briot. The fault is mine.

Alain's latest is Part One of a new series titled Composing With Color.

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Readers who purchase our current Lightroom 2 tutorial
will be eligible for a discount on our future Lightroom 3 tutorial.

The Micro Four-Thirds format continues to strengthen. Olympus is now shipping its updated E-P2, and I have just finished several weeks of field testing, including on a recent shoot in Joshua Tree National Park. My Olympus E-P2 Field Review is now online.

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Ironically, while Olympus decided to tone down the cosmetics of their MFT cameras, with the E-P2 styled in a more subdued black finish rather than the E-P1's white, Panasonic this week announced that their GF1, a direct competitor to the new E-P2, will be available in pink in certain markets. Yes, my friends, pink. I will say no more.

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I will be in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, for the next two weeks. If any regular readers live there and would like to say "Hi," drop me a line.

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Readers who purchase our current Lightroom 2 tutorial
will be eligible for a discount on our future Lightroom 3 tutorial.

Photography can be about literal record making or it can be about interpretation and emotion. In The Light Fantastic – Capturing the Inner Sense of the Scottish Landscape by Ted Leeming & Morag Paterson, we find a sophisticated visual and written examination of how and why to make images that stir the imagination.

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The past couple of days have seen the introduction of a number of new high-end products, including Version 3 of Apple's Aperture, a new Canon Rebel, and new lenses from Nikon. Since I don't usually publish press releases you may want to visit one of the major camera review sites that does to find out more about these.

More announcements are due over the next few days, leading up to the PMA show later this month.

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Photojournalist Peter Turnley has just returned from Haiti with a powerful photo essay, which is being hosted by The Online Photographer. Congratulations to publisher Mike Johnston for placing this online and especially to Peter for his excellent work.

If you have not already made a contribution to Haiti relief may I suggest that you do so though any of your local relief agencies, or via The American Red Cross.

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When you're ready to really learn Lightroom, here's the most painless way to do so. Purchase and download our Lightroom 2 video tutorial and automatically receive a discount on our Lightroom 3 tutorial when it becomes available.

You will also be automatically entered in our latest contest and win one of 10 weekly prizes.

"If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be worth a thousand pictures.
 
Just to let you know that I found your Lightroom Tutorial most helpful in understanding, not only which buttons to push, but the gestalt behind the program.  Especially helpful was the orgainzation.
 
All in all the best $40.00 I have spent recently".

– Jim Cassatt

Many photographers obsess over proper white balance. But what is more important – accuracy or looking good? My take on this is found in our latest essay – A Question of White Balance.

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We're pleased to announce the first of ten winners in our Winter 2010 Cheer-Up Contest. This week's winner is Mirek Elsner, of Bellevue, WA. Congratulations Mirek.

There will be nine more winners in the weeks ahead. You could be one of them. Any purchase of one of our video tutorials or Video Journals is a qualifying entry. Find out more.

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Readers who purchase our current Lightroom 2 tutorial
will be eligible for a discount on our future Lightroom 3 tutorial.

One good thing about the lousy economy, it's leading to reduced prices on cameras. Two that were just announced in anticipation of the PMA show  later this month are the Hasselblad H4D-40 at some U.S. $20,000 and the Olympus E-PL2 at about $600 – both very aggressively priced in their respective catagories.

I had preview comments (under NDA) on each of these in preparation, but since both products were leaked well in advance by other sites I've decided to save my breath. In any event, I am hoping to review them when they become available for testing. For the time being you can read about them on the major camera review sites.

What I am shooting with and field testing at the moment is the Olympus E-P2, which is turning out to be a much more enjoyable camera than I had anticipated. Look for a review soon.

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"Video Journal 19, one of the best. Interesting and relevant topics, knowledgeable engaging guests, and a host that gently guides the conversation through terrain I want to explore. And more, it's beautifully shot in a clean, no tricks style that keeps the conversation in focus. Well done all! This one is worth twice the price".

– paul b. kramarchyk

Toronto Pearson International Airport is broken and the fault lies with the GTAA. This may not be of interest to you unless you live in Canada's largest city and fly to the U.S., but if you do you need to read my latest essay titled Toronto / U.S. Travel Outrage.

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UPDATE

In the half day since Toronto / U.S. Travel Outrage was first published I have received more e-mail about it than anything else that I have ever written on this site in the past 11 years.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts, support and suggestions. Unfortunately because I am traveling in the U.S this week on a shoot (which is why this was all reported on in the first place), I am constrained in my ability to reply as I would like. So please accept this as my thanks for the communications.

I would also like to point out that I received a call from a senior representative of the GTAA and we spoke for about a half hour. He was very concerned as well as understanding, and indicated that he would be investigating all of the issues that were raised, and also would reply to them in due course. I believe that the GTAA is well aware of the problems that exists but in large measure finding solutions is difficult because the airport is subject to at least a half dozen government and administrative jurisdictions, and they don't all play nicely together, even in the face of consumer outrage.

That being the case, I have decided that I will not be flying to the U.S. out of Toronto Pearson until the current situation is fixed. Porter from the Island airport is one solution, as is driving to Buffalo, which also has  less expensive air fares. And, there's always simply accepting the fact that air travel has become a major pain in the butt, and simply isn't worth the hassle anymore except when absolutely necessary.

How can we become better photographers? Craft and equipment have their roles, but seeing trumps everything else.

Today's new essay is by author and regular contributor George Barr, and is titled Learning From The Best Images – Yours, Mine, and History’s.

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Today's Home Page photograph is the last from a series shot on the island of La Gomera, Spain last month. I have now collected these on this page for those that might be interested, since several of them don't appear anywhere else on this site once they disappear from the Home Page.

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I am now on a private shoot for a few days in the desert in Southern California, with Chris Sanderson and Jeff Schewe. We are working on our next video tutorials, and this trip will provide both fresh images to work on and location discussions.

I'll be working with my Phase One DF camera and P65+ back, and also field testing the just-released Olympus E-P2. My report on this new small Micro-Four-Thirds Olympus will appear here later in the month.

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Readers who purchase our current Lightroom 2 tutorial
will be eligible for a discount on our future Lightroom 3 tutorial.

It's contest time again. Every once in a while we run a promotional contest to remind people that we publish several unique training videos, including The Luminous Landscape Guide to Camera Raw, From Camera to Print, our Guide to Asset Management, our Adobe Lightroom Tutorial, and nineteen different issues of our unique video magazine, The Luminous Landscape Video Journal.

The prices are reasonable, the content is terrific, and your purchases help support the existence of this site.

Our new contest offers ten chances to win a full boxed version of Adobe Lightroom 3, compliments of Adobe. Every purchase of one of our products, any product, is another chance to win. Purchases made thus far in January already count toward the contest.

There will be a new winner announced roughly every week for the next few months. One of them could be you.

Thanks for your support.

What will it all mean? Clearly the Apple iPad will be a game-changing device for the publishing industry as well as consumers. For many it will be all the computer that they need, offering small size, low price, and simplicity of operation.

For others it will become their main tool for web surfing, email, as well as reading newspapers, books and magazines. It also looks to be a pretty decent game machine.

But what about for photographers? Are there features there for us? And more importantly, will the changes that the iPad makes to the publishing industry be as seismic as those created by the iPod and the iTunes Store?

I have just published a brief essay titled The Apple iPad – What it Means for Photographers. Some food for thought and hopefully some constructive debate, which I invite you to join on this site's discussion forum.

Clearly Leica is a company whose products are well loved and respected by many. This is the only way to explain the large number of people that have written to me over the past few days with comments and suggestions on my recent Open Letter to Leica. We don't all agree on what we'd like to see next, but the fact that we care speaks volumes for the brand.

I was pleased to receive one yesterday from Thom Hogan, one of the most respected technical writers in the industry, and the leading independant authority on Nikon cameras.

With his permission I have now published his letter as an essay titled Thom Hogan Considers – What's Next For Leica?

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My Open Letter to Leica, published this past week, has as I expected it might, generated quite a bit of comment both on this site's forum and elsewhere online. A bit of browsing the discussions shows about an equal mix of those that think I'm apostate and those that agree with my suggestions. Fine. As long as Leica knows what some of us are looking for – mission accomplished.

My friend Mark Dubovoy, a well known photographer, teacher, and industry pundit, has also written some thoughts on the changes that he would like to see Leica consider for a next-generation camera, and his new essay is now online.

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Speaking of things Leica, Sean Reid has written Part 2 of his Leica S2 review, based on some weeks of using the new system in a Vermont winter. Sean was one of the other journalists invited by Leica to Germany last fall for a preview of the S2 and M9. Sean brings a different perspective than mine to the S2, as he is not normally a medium format digital user. Yet, I found his conclusions to be quit similar to mine in terms of that camera's strengths and weaknesses. Reid Reviews is a subscription web site.

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Wednesday will see the announcement of the much-anticipated Apple Tablet (iPad?). Few doubt that it will be a game-changing product in the way that the iPod and iPhone have been. But will it be a device that offers capabilities of use and interest to photographers? We'll know in a few days, and I expect to have some comments about it here not long afterward.

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"Video Journal 19, one of the best. Interesting and relevant topics, knowledgeable engaging guests, and a host that gently guides the conversation through terrain I want to explore. And more, it's beautifully shot in a clean, no tricks style that keeps the conversation in focus. Well done all! This one is worth twice the price".

– paul b. kramarchyk

After nearly 60 years, has the Leica M series camera finally reached its best before date? Is an optical rangefinder camera a valid holdover or an anachronism?

There's no doubt in my mind that with the Leica M9 that company has produced a digital version of the M that finally is what Leica afficionados have been waiting for. Image quality is nothing short of superb, and with full frame and no need for IR filters what more can we want?

In my Open Letter to Leica, published today for the first time, I look at the question of whether the Leica M9 is the end of that particular road, and if so what can be done to move it to the next generation of technology while not abandoning those things that make it unique among cameras.

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When you're ready to really learn Lightroom, here's the most painless way to do so. Purchase and download our Lightroom 2 video tutorial and automatically receive a discount on our Lightroom 3 tutorial when it becomes available.

"If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be worth a thousand pictures.
 
Just to let you know that I found your Lightroom Tutorial most helpful in understanding, not only which buttons to push, but the gestalt behind the program.  Especially helpful was the orgainzation.
 
All in all the best $40.00 I have spent recently".

– Jim Cassatt

There's good news today for photographers and others that fly from Canada to the U.S. with carry-on on bags. As reported by the site Flying With Fish,  Transport Canada and CATSA have removed their onerous and arbitrary restrictions on carry-on bags, in effect since the fortunately aborted Dec 25 incident.

You can read more about it here. This means that photographers can once again travel with their photographic equipment in approriate bags, such as the Think Airport Security; Pelican 1514; Mountainsmith Parallax; and Gura Gear Kiboko Bag. Weight, of course, is still an issue, but that's always been the case.

Maybe the efforts of sites such as this in recent days, as well as industry associations and individuals who have been putting pressure on the bureacrats in Ottawa, had some small effect.