Possibly the best time lapse. Ever.

 Time lapse is ubiquitous.

And quite rightly so.

Along with it's cousin super slow motion, I cannot think of a better way of capturing the passing of time.

I like many others tend to use it as a quirky bit of fun instead of using it as a narrative.

In fact examples of time lapse that truly tell a story are relatively few and far between.

When the space shuttle flew into Los Angeles for the last time it made one of the great photo ops of the year.

The juxtaposition of something big and that is normally in space was a sight to behold.

Bryan Chan pho editor and photographer at the 'La Times' shot a multi view time lapse of the shuttles final journey.

It really is outstanding.

He tells the story here in the LA Times blog.

http://framework.latimes.com/2012/10/18/behind-the-lens-shooting-the-endeavo
ur-time-lapse-video/

As you will read planning is all.

Time lapse can be child's play, but when used to tell a story of an historic journey it is a very powerful tool.

Hands on and samples from the Phase One 28mm and 240mm LS lenses.

I was fortunate enough to get some hands on and real world experience with the 28mm and 240mm LS lenses, the two latest pieces in the jigsaw puzzle from Phase One.

One that I knew I wanted and had been hoping they would make, the other a lens which I did not know I wanted until I used it.

In my forest series I have often used the quite brilliant 28mm F4.5 lens which is very sharp and remarkably little distortion. Importantly it gives full coverage of Phase One's biggest sensors, which is not the case with Hasselblad's offering, and played a small but significant part in my switch to Phase One a few years back.

 28 mm LS f/4.5 Aspherical

I used it on the Zebra shoot.

I have been in many situations where my widest lens was not quite wide enough and I hankered for a 28mm.

It has very low distortion for a medium format lens of its focal length too.

For all its strengths it did have one glaring shortcoming, in my eyes at least.

It had no leaf shutter, meaning I was stuck at 125th sec with my Elinchrom Rangers and on occasion it could be very frustrating.

A few years back when I suggested they make a version with leaf shutter I have to admit they did look at me somewhat sideways in a sort of 'why on earth would you want one of those? kind of way.

Well now they have done it and it is wonderful.

What photo opportunity did Phase One come up with to demonstrate the benefits of the 28mm with a leaf shutter?

Simple.

Phase One CEO Henrik Hankonsson would put some sort of nasty flammable liquid in his mouth and breath fire, hopefully without setting himself or me on fire.

It might look like quite simple but it was a bit scary.

Its difficult to imagine another CEO of any company at all doing this for a photo and it does give you some sort of idea of the man AND the company.

Here is a 100 percent screen grab.

It was a little bit windy and the consequences of the fire blowing back into HH's face did not bear thinking about, so the location chosen for the shoot was a sheltered area in a former Danish military installation dating back to the Cold War.

It was one of those shoots where we had to get it right, I did not want to hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons...

The area was a bit on the tight side as you can see so the 28mm was just the tool for the job, the leaf shutter meant I could shoot at 500th sec with big flash.

I lit the shot with two Profo 7B's.

Key light from the left with the back light on axis, the key light with a soft box, the back light bare bulb, using the built in kill spill.

I located them both very close to the walls of the bunker to give maximum stability and safety.

I will admit this shot took a couple of attempts.

When we all climbed back into the car unscathed I breathed a BIG sigh of relief.

Time then to get some hands on with the Phase One Schneider LS 240 mm f/4.5 the longest available telephoto lens for the Phase One 645DF camera. 

There has been a telephoto sized gap in the Phase lens line up and this lens was keenly awaited.

240 MM LS F/4.5 IF

Which at first glance, a slightly curious focal length lens, I can't think of another 240mm very easily.

The boffins at Phase were particularly interested to see what I made of it for a couple of reasons.

It was designed as a 240mm as this was found to be the optimum during the design process.

The resulting performance is remarkable.

When shooting on medium format I normally don't gravitate to the telephoto view, I tend to hover around the 120mm and wider, so while interested I did not think I would be THAT interested.

A brief walk around the streets of Copenhagen had me thinking a little differently though.

This is a really super sharp lovely lens with beautiful bokeh.

Here is 100 percent screen grab.

The internal focus mechanism works a treat and though it is not the lightest of lenses, weighing in at 1.6 kg/3.53lb's hand holds very well indeed, making a very stable package with the Phase One DF.

The AF seemed very snappy too, and on the new DF+, which I have not tried yet, one would imagine it would be even better.

One of the major failings of medium format lenses of this focal length is that they do not focus close enough.

This one does.

A close focusing distance of 170cm/5ft takes it well into the realms of a creative portrait lens.

My only slight reservation is the lack of a separate tripod mount for the lens.

I did not have chance to try the lens mounted on a tripod but the engineers at Phase One assured me this was not an issue due to the balance of the camera back /combo.

Lenses of this quality and calibre don't come cheap, and while I'm unsure of the final pricing of them, but I have never bought a Phase One LS lens and regretted it.

I have placed my order for the 28mm LS and look forward to shooting some more forest shots on it soon.

Purple fringing and the iPhone 5

Like many, I have been following the launch of the iPhone 5 with great interest.

I must stress I do not have one but it seems like a fine piece of kit, indeed everyone I know who has one is generally very happy.

There does not seem to be a day that goes by with out some new glitch being seized upon by commentators, some very valid-like the iOS6 maps which really do need quite a lot of work to bring them up to scratch( I looked for Whitstable on maps the other day three times and it just would not take me there)

But there are others which, I feel are a little unfair or unrealistic.

Which brings me on to Purple Fringing the latest 'Achilles heel' of the iPhone 5.

Since the dawn if digital photography I have owned many Camera's and lenses which have been susceptible to purple fringing.

In no particular order Canon DCS520, Canon G series (up to G5) and one of my favourite lenses the 'L' Series 85mm F1.2 has its moments when used wide open.

I'm not picking on Canon, it's just what I have owned and used.

Purple fringing or different chromatic aberrations did not make any of these Camera's or lenses 'bad' but merely a fact of life that with a little manipulation one could get over relatively easily

(Capture One has a great 'Remove purple fringing' option which often works very well indeed)

So why bother talking about it?

I find it amusing that as the Camera's in phones improve all the time, people have sky high expectations of them and really need to do a reality check.

It is a camera and is subject to the same photographic laws as any other camera.

There have been chromatic aberrations since the dawn of photography so we might as well all just get on with enjoying this amazing technology at out fingertips.











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Hasselblad's Lunar Moment

Anyone who follows my blog will know that I am a big fan and friend of Phase One.

But before Phase I owned a Hasselblad H1 and H2, not to mention a lovely 503CX.

I crossed the floor to Phase One as Hasselblad made it clear that any future Camera's would not support the Phase One back.

The back and the software really are the important bits....

It left myself and other pro's wondering what the future held for this fantastic company which I have more than a little affection for.

After a torrid few years struggling to make a profit they were bought by venture capital fund Ventizz.

When they acquired Hasselblad they said they would be exploring 'exploring new markets' or words to that effect.

You did not need to be Einstein to work out what that would mean, I'm just surprised that Sony are the bed fellows, my money was on Fuji, they do after all make the body and lenses for the H series for Hasselblad.

There was even rumour (unsubstantiated) doing the rounds at one point that the Fuji X100 was meant to wear an Hasselblad badge.

The camera's from what I can tell, on the first models anyhow, seem to be very heavily based on Sony offerings, the NEX nonetheless,which have been given the 'luxury' touch, as Hasselblad's own press release says

'The Lunar embraces the traditional Hasselblad state-of-the-art image capture combined with stunning Italian design features. For the first time we are using carbon fiber, titanium, wood, leather and precious metals - including gold'

And then we have the Sony/Hasselblad planned foray into the DSLR market.

Goodness me.

It has a very erm...'special' look.

Taking styling cues from the Hasselblad 500, even mimicking its flip up waist level finder.

I will leave it to you to decide whether this design is made in heaven or hell.

Badge engineering is a very dangerous route to take, having the potential to send all the wrong messages out to existing customers, in its existing market segments.

Which leads me to the H series.

It received a Ferrari Red paint job by way of update last Photokina, this time around it seems to have received a bit of black paint, with a few detail changes to the spec and nothing more.

And that is what bothers me.

There has been much talk of new market segments but precious little has been said about their long term commitment to the medium format market.

Does this matter?

To me it does.

Great they are trying different ways to bring the brand to a larger market but if it comes at the expense of its existing heartland.

Why do I care? I am after all a Phase One user.

There are effectively only two players left in the medium format market.

Watching them push one another along to greater things has led to some positive developments which have benefitted pro photographers.

If Hasselblad were to turn its back on its existing and loyal customers to chase the glittering prize of a prosumer market for €5000 rebodied Sony NEX, which may not even exist, it would be a very sad day indeed.

The Lunar, and the questionably styled forthcoming DSLR, has the potential to take Hasselblad to a whole new planet or into a black hole.

Time alone will tell.

I will leave you with the promo video which made me feel a little sad.

HASSELBLAD - Lunar from Claim | branding value on Vimeo.

Blogging Radio Silence

Where on earth have I been?

Why no posts?

I have not done a Rob Galbraith (his voice on the web will be sorely missed)

But it has been a rather packed and trying couple of months to say the very least.

July was taken up with a massive advertising shoot on a big scale, which required me to hire a tube train carriage. When the wraps come off I would love to talk about it, needless to say it took over my life for a while, leaving little room for anything else.

Then it was August and family holidays and I just wanted to kick back and do nothing.

It was at about this time that my body told me in no uncertain terms that I had been burning the candle every which way and it wasn't going to have it anymore and I got sick.

Bit of a scare for me if I'm honest, but I came down with hepatitis - bought on by glandular fever.

I'm on the mend now and feel like blogging again so I'm back on the scene.

With some super shoots ahead too.

If you are about to buy a new Macbook Pro.....beware.

I love Apple products and I have spent many, many thousands of pounds on their products over the years.

My home and office have become an inadvertent Apple shrine.

But I'm a little concerned that their level of success has made them a little less customer focused in the area of customer care.

Let me explain.

I have a 5 year old Macbook Pro which still works well.

The other day when using it I noticed it did not sit flat on the table anymore.

Upon closer inspection I saw the battery has 'puffed up' like a balloon.

With a fair bit of prizing I managed to remove the battery.

I popped into the Apple rent street store and I went to see an Apple representative.

I showed him the battery and he said 'its what they are designed to do if there is a fault'

I told him that I thought the battery was probably out of warranty and he said they would not replace it.

He was unmoved when I said I accepted the failure but not the distorted and cracked open casing.

Surely it should not do this?

'You can buy one if you like but I'm not replacing it' was his response.

Perfectly within Apple's rights but I have come to expect better than this.

In fact this HAS happened before and they were kind enough to give me a replacement.

I can't help but think that Apple has a new mentality which is most unfortunate, in my opinion.

But let's just think, if you buy a Macbook Pro, one of the new super slim Retina screen models,
what would happen to your beautiful new purchase if this happened? bearing in mind you cannot remove the battery?

I put this to the Apple rep in store and he said 'it would be OK'

Now I don't know much about the internal design of laptops but surely this level of expansion would have some kind of impact on such a wafer thin design.

The new Macbook Pro IS brilliant but bear in mind if this happened to you on a big shoot you would be able to do little about it.

Canon plays it safe

Announced out of the blue the Canon EOS M is a late comer to the mirrorless market.

That does not make it bad - far from it.

Canon has a track record of following competitor products and doing a much better job.

Will anyone ever remember that Canon followed Minolta into auto focus and even trailed Nikon into video, albeit by a few weeks.

I have no doubt that it will be a fine offering, spoiling quite a few mirrorless parties that it's competitors are having, particularly as it has the largest sensor of any mirrorless camera, bringing low light performance that others have struggled with in this arena.

The design is very safe and won't win any awards for pushing the envelope for innovation.

Though I'm betting the touch screen user interface will be particularly good.

Build quality I suspect will be fine too with its metal construction.

It's not quite the camera I hoped for though.

You can't bring it up to your eye, so no '3 points of contact'

I'm guessing that Fuji in particular will be breathing a sigh of relief that Canon have played it relatively safe with this offering - leaving only themselves and Leica (who would have thought it?) in the retro/heritage market, with the the higher margins associated with being niche.

There lies the rub for me.

I feel the EOS M will be a good camera and a big sales hit, but in a sea of 'me too' mirrorless offerings will find itself slugging it out in terms of price instead of perceived quality.


Which brings me back to the Fuji X100 - a camera which regular readers of this blog will know I have had a Love/HATE relationship with (think of a camera version of an Alfa Romeo and you won't be so very far off)

At the moment, following a particularly effective firmware upgrade I'm in a 'Love' phase with the camera.

Which seems to have made the most of the good bits and helped the bad bits (autofocus in particular) and for all it's quirks and annoyances, it remains a firm favourite, and possibly the first digital camera I have had some sort of 'connection' with.

If someone were to build a 'heritage' camera which had better autofocus, speed, less weirdness with cards and a more intuitive menu they would do very well indeed.

I have suggested as much in previous posts.

As much as I would love Canon to come up with some kind of offering I sort of hope that they don't.

For as daft as the Fuji X100 is at times, it would be sad to see the demise of another film manufacturer, particularly one who was able to innovate in a retro kind of way and think outside of the box, giving the photographic world a flawed but brilliant gem - creating a Leica for the 'masses'