reframing the world one picture at a time
The orange tunnel. Fuji X100
The color is caused by the extreme difference in color temperature of light sources: sodium vapor in the tunnel, evening shade outside. It would be impossible to get the right white balance for both – so a ‘middle value’ produces this effect. A pain when shooting something where color is important, or one of those interesting properties of optics that we photographers exploit from time to time…MT
Spiral. Images are everywhere if you open your eyes. Olympus Pen Mini E-PM1, ZD 12/2.
The unacknowledged cost of development. Leica M8, 35/2 ASPH
One from the archives. Whilst this photo was taken in early 2009, the sentiment is as relevant today as ever – perhaps more so. An old village near the center of town – that’s the Petronas Twin Towers in the background – was demolished to make way for a new commercial complex. I also see the image as a metaphor for development: first take the easy bits, then when that’s not enough, move on to encroaching on nature; finally, end up with a soulless concrete jungle. Who knows what happened to the people who used to live here? If they’re lucky, they’ll be compensated a fraction of the value of their land, and forced to move on elsewhere, splitting up the community and probably creating a gambling or drinking problem because they don’t know what else to do with the money. Most of the traditional way of life is already waning as a consequence of the modern societal drive for ‘more, better’ – the vast majority of people I work with and encounter today are happy to sacrifice plenty in the quest for riches.
Curiously though, the younger generation seems to be rediscovering the importance of passion in work, ethical values and sustainability – or perhaps it’s just the same rebellious antiestablishment thing done by youths everywhere. I think it’s a good thing. People aren’t machines (though many big companies secretly wish they were so, even if they publicly proclaim otherwise) MT
Street Reflections, Kuala Lumpur. After the rain. Nikon D700, AFS 85/1.4 G
Seeing red. Nikon D700, AFS 85/1.4 G
A very feminine gesture. Nikon D700, AFS 85/1.4 G
Thunderstorm in downtown Kuala Lumpur. Great opportunity to both get interesting shots and not be so noticeable to the people you’re shooting, they’re mostly concentrating on getting to their destinations without getting soaked. Curiously, in 2.5 years of ownership, this is the first time I’ve taken the D700 out in such weather – I mean total tropical downpour – and I’m pleased to report that it passed with flying colors. I guess they’re more weather sealed than they claim to be. MT
One out of the archives: From a German’s point of view.
London, Leica M8, 21/1.4 Summilux-M ASPH.
Details in the fabric. Traditional Japanese spring kimono. Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium
Now may also be a good time to share a few quick thoughts on the Leica D-Lux 5 Titanium – it arrived early last week for me to use as a backup/ pocket camera. In short,
The Good:
-Very flexible controls.
-Multi-aspect ratio switch – I’m using it a lot more than I would; it’s now easier to fit the frame to the subject.
-Image quality is excellent up to ISO 400; useable at ISO 800; I wouldn’t go any higher than that.
-It’s one sexy looking camera.
-Battery life seems to go on and on and on – first 200 frames shot, still showing full.
-Sharpness is good throughout the frame, and even at macro distances – cross-frame consistency close up isn’t usually a strong point of compact cameras. This was a big, pleasant surprise.
-Usefully large RAW buffer; i.e. you don’t notice any penalty for using RAW instead of JPEG (which I of course highly encourage).
-Mode dial is much stiffer than its predecessors, and can’t easily be knocked off position.
-Like all leaf-shutter compacts, the flash sync speed is all the way up to its maximum of 1/2000s! (*More on this later – I also shot a food job with it this weekend, which will be the subject of a future article.)
-Like all Panasonic-based cameras, an excellent optical image stabilizer – I can’t quantify this in any way, but I’ve always felt that their IS systems are on par with or even slightly better than the systems Nikon and Canon use on their SLR lenses.
The not so good:
-It is expensive for what it is – the standard D-Lux 5 represents fair value for money, because if you take out the cost of Lightroom (bundled) and the extended warranty, it’s not much more expensive than the Panasonic LX5 it’s based on, but arguably a better looking camera. The Titanium version, on the other hand, isn’t real titanium but commands a hefty premium over the standard one.
-The LCD is pretty poor; in fact it’s difficult to gauge the quality of a shot using it alone. The one on the V-Lux 3 is much better.
-Could be faster – startup feels decidedly leisurely and focusing isn’t as fast as the older Ricoh GR-Digital III. There was a time when these prosumer compacts were much faster than the mirrorless compact system cameras; my Pen Mini blows both of them out of the water.
-The included gray leather case looks cool, but is bulky and totally impractical. It stays at home for storage only.
I’ll be traveling for the rest of the week; depending on internet connection availability, frequency of posts may be reduced (don’t worry, I’ve got some great stuff prepared in advance and auto-scheduled in case I have no internet access at all). MT
The three-legged boy, Kathmandu. Look closer. Nikon D700, 24/1.4
Filling stop.
Why not full stop? Because this was a petrol station, as as consequence of the second image…
I couldn’t decide which image to put up today, so there’ll be two: actually, they’re kinda different sides of the same motoring coin.
Traffic Jam. Just another day in Kuala Lumpur.
Somehow, whenever it rains, people lose the ability to drive or at least keep moving at a constant rate, and everything just grinds to a halt. It’ll take you two hours to cover a distance you normally do in 30min. I drive one of the most efficient turbo diesels on the planet, and I get abysmal mileage here – half of what friends with the same car get in Europe, hell, half of what I get when I drive on clear highways. If the government would do something about driver education and traffic planning, they could probably significantly lower fuel subsidies without affecting the net amount people have to pay. But, seems like nobody ever thought of that – maybe they were too busy cursing the traffic name they were stuck in.
I want to add another note about sufficiency: we’re there. What do I mean by that? Well, if I didn’t tell you both of these images were shot with an iPhone 4 (not even a 4S, which is supposedly even better from a camera point of view), would you know? How about if they were prints? Probably not. I’ve done experiments which show that even 8×10″s aren’t really enough to show cracks – if it’s a solid image, it’ll still look good; which is to say, as always, power of composition comes first. There are 5.0 decent megapixels on the iPhone 4 I’m using – that’s probably close to the same ultimate resolution as the Nikon D2H I used for professional work not so many years ago. I have photos in the Getty Images library which were shot with the iPhone 4. Of course there are plenty of situations where the iPhone won’t work – low light, action, anything other than 28mm etc – but I distinctly recall a time when camera phones were useless for anything but emergency ‘record’ snaps. And that definitely isn’t the case anymore. I’ve shot thousands of frames with my various iPhones; some of which I really, really like – I don’t wish I’d shot them with another camera. The best camera is the one you have with you all the time – and this fulfills the brief, and happens to have a pretty decent 28mm lens, too. Now if only they’d make it spit out a raw file instead of an over processed cartoon color JPEG. MT
Work in progress. Condominiums under construction at an expat enclave in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Ricoh CX4
Behind the scenes videos
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