Toluu

The Online Photographer

T.O.P. Ten Photo Books for Holiday GiftsToday

Lost Balls, Charles Lindsay. Charles Lindsay is a serious photographer of long standing with many fine projects to his credit. Here he's created luminous, masterful and humorous photographs out of situations that most golfers will sympathize with. Ever seen the famous picture of the golfers being chased off the green by an angry bear? It's his, and it's here. Photographers could almost study these pictures as an object lesson in how to compose. The perfect gift for any friend who's both photography enthusiast and golfer.

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Stories from the DarknessToday

One of Jim's workshop participants, shooting with a tripod, while Jim shot handheld.

By Jim Richardson

While most of the discussion concerning digital noise centers around the comparison of one camera with another, I end up feeling that, from an historical perspective, we're missing the boat. I too am one of those geezers who remembers the new wonders of Kodachrome 64. And under Rich Clarkson's tutelage I even remember the era of developing Ektachrome 64 as a negative so we could shoot color at the unheard of speed of 320 (in a desperate pinch).

In a more recent era, shooting for the yellow border magazine, ISO 100 became the norm. All higher speed films were reserved for truly desperate circumstances, and a picture shot on that film was going to have to be really special to overcome the lack of color and snap the editors expected to see.

Which brings me to my point. During that era we pretty much edited reality. We restricted the subjects of photographic inquiries to the brighter parts of world. Essentially w

Leica M Lens to Panasonic G1 AdapterYesterday

I know I've been talking about the Panasonic G1 a lot lately, but I do find it a fascinating thing. Anyway, I think a lot of people are going to find themselves fascinated by this: it's a page from the November, 2008 issue of the Japanese camera magazine Nippon Camera showing adapters that let you use Leica M lenses (right—and, on the left, Canon FD) on the G1.

You can get them from CameraQuest, where they'll be arriving in late December. Cost, $175.

Sure looks like potential gearhead fun!

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Mike  (Thanks to Olivier Giroux)

The Nikon D700: Sensors as Film and Cameras as CamerasYesterday

For my next comments about the Nikon D700, I'd like to ask you to undergo a mental exercise. What I'd like to do is separate the sensor from the camera, and look at them separately.

Some people are likely to have a little trouble with this idea, so let me talk about it a little. This is nothing new at all, but think of sensors as film. For the most part, sensors have replaced film convincingly, in some ways impressively. Sensors surpassed film for color purity pretty early on; for resolution, when they reached about 6 MP; they lagged behind in image size for a while, but when the 12–14 MP sensors came along they surpassed film (what I mean is, I can now make a print with a 14-MP sensor that is not just better but better and bigger than I could have made from a 35mm negative); and for high-ISO quality, digital surpassed film in 2004 or 2005—and has recently lapped it.

The only way that sensors have not yet surpassed film (neg films, anyway) is in dynamic range. They'll get there, I suppose. They just haven't yet.

It's been a Brave New World right along, with each new generation breaking new ground. And all along, of course, sensors have been radically more convenient than film—costing nothing on a shot-by-shot basis and able to be developed in a fraction of a second, if you use the in-camera JPEG converter, or merely

Thanx for the PixYesterday

Just a brief note to say thanks to all the people who have linked to their own pictures in the past few days. Some nice stuff has gone by, and it was good to see it. (I looked at everything.)

And speaking of pix, anyone get a nice shot of the cosmic smiley last night? The one at the left, by Bullit Marquez of the AP, is the one being passed around on Yahoo!.

It was cloudy here.

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Mike