This morning I saw an article over at The Online Photographer(which you should be following) about a particular camera/lens combination and the process of doing a quick and informal test of that gear… right there in the kitchen.
I read a lot of photography questions about how this or that thing works, which setting is “best” for a particular result, what shutter speed range works for hand-held photography, how much the shadows can be pushed, whether a lens is sharp enough for some particular usage, and much more. Folks are often looking for quick answers — and who wouldn’t in most cases. However, the quick answers often turn out to be less clear than they might like, and sometimes the simplest questions can end up in controversy.
A simple answer is to simply try it out yourself!
The answers to many of the questions that we ask are too complex to lend themselves to absolute answers. Yet, we can often get a very good and quite accurate feeling for these things by just giving them a try. In some cases the “testing” can be very informal, while in others it might require just a bit more care and organization. But in our modern photographic world of digital cameras and computer post-processing and display the testing is much easier than it might have been in the past, and it is well within our grasp to do it ourselves.
Those of you shooting with one of the excellent Fujifilm X-Trans sensor cameras (X-E1, X-E2, X-Pro1, X-T1) should take a look at the current promotion on Fujifilm XF lenses and Fujifilm camera bodies. The offer includes a bunch of desirable prime and zoom lenses, including some of the newest ones, with savings of between $100 and $200.
There is also a $100 reduction on the X-T1, the flagship camera from Fujifilm, and the fixed-lens X100S has been reduced by $200.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
I returned a couple of days ago from several days photographing fall color in the Sierra Nevada, something I’ve been doing now for quite a few years. At first, not knowing much about this astonishing annual transition, I worked to figure out the “best” places and times to find aspen color — but I worked, as I so often do, by looking around and speculating more than by doing research. I certainly did find the iconic color locations, but my slow and personal process led me to many places that are not necessarily on the “fall color map” in the Sierra.
It also turns out that the “most beautiful spots” are not necessarily the most beautiful spots! The most special places for me are often in odd little locations that I found by some combination of accident, persistence, and guessing — and they have become special partly because of the whole experience of finding and visiting them.
Recently someone posed — for the 11,535th time — a question about camera brands: Who is truly winning when it comes to the sensor game?
The context of the question had to do with recent advances in digital camera sensors from Sony, found in certain Sony cameras and in Nikon DSLR bodies. (These recent sensors have pushed a few boundaries forward, as always happens when new components are developed and released. In this case, they increase the photo site density and dynamic range.)
As a sometime Bay Area baseball fan, I understand that the concept of “who is winning?” is a nebulous and ephemeral one. Take the Oakland A’s, one of my SF Bay Area teams. A few months ago no one could touch them — they were on a record-breaking winning streak and were the hard-scrabble, underdog heroes of baseball. By the end of the season they couldn’t win and they slipped inexorably from a sure bet to “ain’t gonna happen,” barely scraping out a chance to get one wild-card playoff game… which they lost.
The other Bay Area team, the SF Giants (my emotional favorite, since I grew up following them) was up, was down, and never, even at their best, looked like a sure bet for anything. They had been in the lead, but not by that much, and in the end they came out just a bit behind the (evil, nefarious) Dodgers… but also qualified for a wildcard spot. And they won that wildcard game in fine fashion and go on to a division playoff today. (Giants fans have a word for this, though the full context perhaps only makes sense to those who have watched the team for a while: Torture.)
So, the answer to “who is winning?” is either a very much “in the moment” answer that means virtually nothing over the long run OR there could be some final competitive event at which a final winner is determined… for this year. And then the process starts all over again, and someone else “is winning.”
Extrapolated to photography equipment, right now I would say that Nikon is something like one of the two teams in our California Giants/Dodgers rivalry. Depending on which week you check, one of them is doing better than the other in some ways, but neither will ever be proven (says the Giants fan… ;-) to win in a a final, ultimate, never-to-be-challenged way. Ahead? Yes. How long? Probably not very? The winner? No.
Right now Nikon has an edge by some measure. On the basis of other factors, it doesn’t. A few months or a year from now… who knows? And, really, when it comes to photography — as differentiated from fawning over gear specifications — who cares?
But, yes, the Dodgers won the division title. This year. I’m not bitter. Yet.
Morning Musings are somewhat irregular posts in which I write about whatever is on my mind at the moment. Connections to photography may be tenuous at times!
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.
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