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2011-05-22T15:22:00.000-07:00

Wapiti Straps: Simple Perfection

2010-01-13T23:01:00.001-08:00

Sometimes, the more simple a product is, the harder it is to get just right. Such is the case with camera straps. For a product that is essentially a tether, straps have a lot of variations. Back in the day they were leather, then various forms of cloth, especially nylon, and few years back neoprene arrived at the party.

Beyond material differences are the questions of width and padding. Straps started out narrow but by the time that belts started getting wide, so did straps. I can recall my first SLR (a Minolta with a lovely 45mm prime) came with a really wide strap that I didn't know enough to replace. Interestingly, not much changed from the mid 70s until pretty recently.

Now that neoprene is so widely used, the sight of cameras bouncing along as if they were jumping on trampolines is common. I like soft, stretchy material as much as the next guy but not on my camera strap.

I stumbled across Wapiti after a lot of searching. The original strap on my Canon 50D was hateful; sticky on the back and looked like a billboard. Before the Wapiti, I tried the Crumpler Industry Disgrace. That oddly named strap is very comfortable, but in the end I simply found it too wide and bulky (I like to travel light) and so my search continued, until I found David Grubbs' and Wapiti.

When I first saw the strap on Grubbs' website I thought, "Ah, not too wide!" The next thing I noticed was the fact that the strap looked quite understated. There's nothing trendy about the Wapiti, nothing to go out of style. The strap is backed with Montana elk. I did wonder about the choice of a kind of leather for the backing. My primary fear was that it could tend to be rather slick. But, when my strap arrived I could see that the elk hide actually had a great feel and that it stays in place without sticking.

I did make one modification, though, and it's something you can see in the photos of the Wapiti on my 50D: I put black shrink wrap around the D-Rings. Why? Mostly paranoia; a rank amateur's fear of the metal D-Rings smacking into his camera or putting a mark on his LCD. Anyway, it was a quick and easy fix for a minor problem. On my wish list to David Grubbs and Wapiti is some version of his strap designed for compact cameras. Based upon my experience with his standard strap. I'd buy one right now!

The Wapiti strike a great balance between its own light weight and the amount and kind of padding it provides. I'm very likely to own it for a lot longer than I own my current DSLR. For me, it's simply perfect.

Wapiti Straps

Disney Hall Lobby (Tamron 10-24 / Canon 30D)

2009-11-14T23:04:00.000-08:00

Lumix G1: Initial Impressions

2009-11-12T21:21:00.000-08:00

I picked up a new G1 this evening. I am thinking it might take a place between my Canon 30D and my Ricoh GRD II . The 30D is heavy enough to be occasionally left at home when I hike, and that's a bad thing. The GRD is always at hand, but has its limitations, even if I am often hesitant to admit it.

The Lumix G1 is a bit of a wild card, as is the whole Micro 4/3 thing. Even though I now own one, it's gonna take a bit doing to get me to admit that this is going to work for me.

Anyway, let me share some of my initial (the battery is still charging) impressions:

I could tell that the G1 was made in China just by handling its packing materials. They reminded me of the packing that delivered my GRD II, which is also made in China. I confess that this is a tad disappointing, even though I have found the GRD to be a solidly built and reliable device. Why am I disappointed?

Simple. I know that the only reason for a Japanese company to build their stuff anywhere but Japan is labor costs. We can argue all day about how there are skilled workers everywhere, but the fact is that Canon makes their humble XS in Japan yet Panasonic makes their somewhat less than humble G1 in China.

Panasonic saves a yen or two and we hope that the quality matches what can be done in Japan. Maybe someday but not today. By the way, the kit lens is made in Japan. The jury is out on whether the XS or the G1 represents the better value , but that's another subject for another time.

The G1 is fairly well put together and the plastic and rubber surfaces have a nice feel to them. The little, tiny kit lens is cute as all get out (is that a good thing?) but doesn't strike me as being any better made, or comprised of higher quality materials than the ubiquitous Canon 18-55 kit lens.

Even with the lens mounted, the G1 is both light and small, something like half the weight of my 30D and its usual partner, the Tamron 17-50. This little beauty will fit anywhere. I am thinking that a tidy, little belt pouch would be perfect .

Tomorrow, with any luck, it won't rain. My plan is to get out and get a few shots of downtown Los Angeles and maybe a few in Pasadena. With a lot of luck, I'll get out for a hike over the weekend and will try the G1 in what should be its natural habitat...out on the trail.

I am assuming (hoping?) that the comments and reviews lauding the IQ of the G1 and its lens are true. Still, what I really need is for the G1 to shoot, handle and feel right. I've got my fingers crossed about the G1's EVF, too.

Look. No camera is going to make me a better photographer, but I am hoping that the G1 makes shooting on the go a bit more pleasant.

Stay tuned.

Untitled

2009-10-28T21:51:00.000-07:00

Looking southeast from the Santa Susanna Mountains close to dusk...Fall is here.

Orcutt Ranch Greenhouse

2009-10-28T21:50:00.000-07:00

I do have an affinity for backlighting.

Caltech Dusk

2009-10-28T21:47:00.000-07:00

I wanted to get this building while more of the sun was on the southwest of the structure. It was a little too late on this effort.

Crowley Lake

2009-08-31T23:04:00.000-07:00

The Long Way To the Perfect Point & Shoot

2009-06-17T17:58:00.001-07:00

No, not perfect. Don’t be so literal, I’m telling a story here: A long time ago I loved photography. I was young and the light of the world just seemed there for me to capture. By the time I was 13, I had my own B&W darkroom and an SLR. What could be better? Not much, in fact. From then until my college days I took scores of pictures and became a passable if not gifted photographer.

Over the years, life found me leaving my camera at home more and more. Then one day I decided that I just had to get back into photography and since it was the 90s, I decided to reject most of my luddite inclinations and go digital.

My simplistic thought at the time was that digital was all about the megapixels (somewhat like the promise of perfect sound forever in the days of the first audio CDs). So, off I went to Costco and bought their very finest point and shoot, the Minolta DiMage F100 (a brand fondly recalled from the days of my XG-7 and even earlier my SRT-201). The brick-shaped Minolta was a 4MP camera and it struck me as slow and unresponsive. The images, though, were quite lovely. Since I’d never owned a camera with AF I found myself with a greater sense of assurance when it came to composition. It felt that that little silver brick let me be more of a photographer and less of a camera operator.

Oh, yeah, for a while maybe…but there had to be something better, surely. The new cameras soon had way more MP and more was surely better, or so I thought. I Ebayed the silver brick and bought myself a Nikon P5100. I wasn’t even smart enough to know what I’d given up. For the next year I struggled with the lack of a certain organic quality with the images that the Nikon captured. They weren’t bad, but they didn’t make me recall the scenes the way the silver brick had. The P5100 was the first camera to make me think that perhaps MP were not all that you needed to have to a good digital camera and that was a rather disquieting thought, to be honest.

That’s when I made my biggest mistake, albeit one that provides ongoing amusement. I began to lurk at photography sites on the Internet. Now, of course, enthusiast sites are all pretty much all the same. They’re inhabited by a bunch of generally well meaning people who by and large know less than they say they know (myself included) and who very likely spend more time on the internet cyber-talking about their passion than actually expressing their passion.

By this time, I had bought my first DSLR, a Canon XS, and quickly acquired a handful of lenses. I love that rig, but all those years of either no camera or a point & shoot made that camera, one of the smallest and lightest DSLRs on the market, seem burdensome and ungainly. There had to be a point & shoot that filled my needs so I decided to try a number of them, most acquired used so that I could minimize the cost of my study, and see if I could find the perfect point & shoot.

The Canon G10 was my first target, and I had to buy one new. I got mine at Circuit City right before they went tennis-up, and I even used a $50 off coupon to sweeten the deal. The G10 is a fascinating product and a superb camera. It presents this attractive blend of old and new that just makes it fun to use. Also, it has a somewhat serious countenance to it. I’ve not used or felt another point & shoot that was its rival in that regard. On the other hand, the G10 is simply too bulky, too un-pocketable, for a DSLR stand-in camera. That said, if I could only own one camera it would be a G10. It simply does so many things well, and produces such solid images, that in cannot be ignored as a serious camera.

After that, I stayed in the Canon realm but went downsize and bought a Canon SD880. Yes, I confess (readily even) that I bought the SD880 largely on the strength of Ken Rockwell’s rave-review of it. The little fella (the 880, not Rockwell) is really a fine camera. Its big 3” LCD made using it outdoors pretty easy, even without an optical viewfinder. But, the real problem with that it was both too small and fumbly and my right thumb always wanted to rest right on top of the mode wheel so I found myself constantly (though unintentionally) toggling between P and A modes.

I cannot recall why I bought a used Sony CyberShot W50 from Adorama (a store I strongly dislike). Maybe my PayPal account was flush, or maybe I was just bored. Anyway, for $60 I bought this little gem with no expectations whatsoever. When it arrived I was immediately struck by just how small yet non-fumbly it was. The W50 is easily held and shot in one hand without fear of executing the very sad point & shoot toss. Even better, the images were quite good and the Sony user interface was superb, easily the best I’ve used. This was truly a camera that could be used without an instruction manual. The W50 only had 6MP, but they were clean MPs, and created very natural colors. The little Sony was betrayed by its slightly too narrow zoom. Both the G10 and the SD880 had led to my addiction to a wider lens.

I did a very brief catch and release on a nifty, black Leica C-Lux 2 but it was so, so, so small and fumbly that it was on its way out before I even had a chance to get to know it. That said, I did find the very few photos that I did take with it to be somewhat watery and soft. But, that got me thinking about a Panasonic Lumix LX3.

The LX3 looked promising, but that funky removable lens cap made it look silly and full of pretense. Even worse, they were (and are) next to impossible to find on the used market and the idea of paying over retail is anathema to my study. So, I decided to see if I could get the flavor of the LX3 by grabbing a used LX2. I quickly found a perfect used copy on Ebay and within a couple days it was on my porch.

I don’t know how much of the heavy lifting in the Lumix series was done by Leica and how much by Panasonic but I can attest to the fact that they know how to build a really fine and sensible camera. The controls are clean and business-like. There’s no sense of electronic clutter. The buttons and slider switches are a joy to use and I just loved its 16:9 aspect ratio. Still, the LX2 is oddly bulky. It’s really only a little more pocket-friendly than the girthy G10. Worst of all is that kludgy looking and feeling lens cap. You’d think that a DSLR user would be used to a lens cap, but we know when we have a point and shoot in our hands and we know that point and shoots have automatic lens caps. The pop-up flash I could live with, the controls I loved, the optics I respected but that goofy lens cap was a deal killer.

Now, I have to confess that the winner of the study and the camera that I’m going to talk about now first found its way into my hands somewhere after the G10 and before the LX2. It is, at least for me, the ultimate point and shoot...the Ricoh GRD II. I had demoed one a while back and its uniqueness really threw me off. So, when the time came to send it back (or have the dealer send me a new one) I rather just hung back and thought about it before I made my decision.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with it, the Ricoh GRD II is a fixed lens point and shoot with an equivalent 28mm lens with a maximum aperture of f 2.8. It is a visually understated camera. There are no loud graphics to announce it, just a purposeful look. Once you pick up a GRD II it not only fits easily in the hand, but much of its body is clad in a synthetic material that strikes the perfect balance of smoothness and tack. It is as slim as the Canon SD880 but slightly longer and has more open real estate on the back for your fingers. If you’re a thrill seeker you could use it without the wrist strap and shoot one handed for a very long time without a handling mishap.

Before I tried it, I was dubious about the fixed lens but now I see its glory clearly. Frankly, you don’t need a zoom lens in a point and shoot even though everyone wants one. Why? Because the relative lack of the ability to create a shallow DOF image makes a foot zoom preferable in a point and shoot. A few steps this way, or a few that way and I have composed the shot just the way I want with a 28mm lens. If I want to crop the image later, it’s no problem. For the most part, I’m not thinking DOF with a point and shoot unless I am coaxing it into action as a portrait or people shooter out of desperation. In that case, I can only hope that f 2.8 is fast enough to get the results I want.

Still, if all the GRD II had was good handling and a fixed lens it might not be enough to earn its title, but it also has clever functional features like a level indicator that works when the camera is held both vertically and horizontally. There’s also the GRD’s slick way that it encourages user control (most notably with its two user-defined My Settings mode) and simplicity through the logical layout of its controls and use of its two Adjust wheels. It simply looks and feels like camera that was designed to be used rather than merely marketed.

The images that come out of the Ricoh are impressive. They have a photojournalistic quality to them, some have called it gritty. Colors are well saturated but also organic. Images are never overblown the way some point and shoot images can be. The greens and blues (and I know I am being overly simplistic here) are especially good.

As the saying goes, the best camera is the one you have with you. The Ricoh GRD II is the best point and shoot camera for me because I know that it’s the one that I am most likely to have with me and that is the most enjoyable to use.

Long live the king.

AC Cobra at Field's Market Friday Car Show

2009-05-20T22:43:00.000-07:00

Not much of a Cobra fan, but I like the blue and the fact that Carroll Shelby signed the glove box door.

Ken Rockwell: The relevant irreverent...

2009-02-26T10:05:00.000-08:00

When my long hibernating interest in photography first began to rouse Ken Rockwell's website was one of the first I visited. As a long time blogger on high end audio and golf, I was impressed by what he had accomplished from the perspective of web relevance.

Just how web relevant is Rockwell?

Consider this: My favorite photography web site, Photo.net has something over 80,000 inbound links, which is impressive. Photo.net is run by a pretty big bunch of people and has thousands of members who contribute scores of images and forum posts every day. In contrast, Ken Rockwell's site has about 40,000 inbound links. The fact that Rockwell can boast 50% of the web relevance of photo.net in no way denigrates photo.net or the fine work of its founder, Philip Greenspun. It does, though, suggest that Ken Rockwell is doing something very, very right even if he's sometimes wrong.

Back in the 90s, I worked full time in high end audio. My day job was to handle the marketing and advertising for a handful of small but very highly regarded companies. I enjoyed the work and loved the industry, especially in the international markets. When the internet hit its stride, the high end changed forever. Sure, home theater changed it significantly, too, but it was really the web that caused the sands to shift most drastically. What the web did was something that no print magazine could ever do, it got audiophiles out of their listening rooms and onto their keyboards (computer keyboards, that is). Audio-geeks around the world quickly found that it was even more fun to surf the web about audio than it was to listen to music.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but...

Before long the web was clogged with hundreds of audio experts bent on spreading their own neurosis on audio (and sometimes music) and succeeding to an often frightening degree. The web, as it often does, minimized the relevance of the expert opinion in favor of collective belief. It may seem that I have digressed but this is really getting back to Rockwell, I promise.

The value of Rockwell's site is that it plainly and unambiguously presents the view of a single expert in a way that is easily accessible and comprehensive. This is a man who understands the web, photography and language. Rockwell knows how to use a phrase to make readers think, if not simply agree with him. One example is when he says that zoom lenses are for lazy people who don't like to move. When I read that I thought to myself, is that right? Well, it's kinda right. Rockwell's point was that photographers can move, sometimes more readily than their subjects so why not do that instead of carrying a heavier lens?

It was rather liberating (for a minute, anyway) to think that maybe I didn't need that new zoom lens after all (the one I just bought). Rockwell doesn't always need to be right to achieve his mission. But, when I simply want to get a quick, clear technical take on something I tend to visit his site first. I may go elsewhere for more information afterward, but not always. In a way, Rockwell is photography's version of an anti-wikipedia. In Rockwell's world, consensus is not always very persuasive.

Rockwell is far less a cynic than an iconoclast, one who challenges us to qualify and quantify our choices and beliefs. In the end, of course, he is selling his site and its link relevance but while he's doing that for his own financial gain he is providing information that is at once meaningful and well presented.

I am often surprised by the vigor bordering on outright animosity directed at Rockwell. Rockwell wrote, "Sharpness is the most overrated aspect of lens performance." Now, I'm sure a lot of guys who own very sharp lenses got pretty rankled by that. Of course, I want my own lenses to be sharp but I'm not going to worry too much if they aren't the sharpest.

From a philosophical standpoint I do worry that the guy who is truly concerned about ultimate lens sharpness may not be spending enough time actually taking photos. That kind of guy reminds me a bit too much of the high end audio guys who quickly found it more satisfying to lurk audio websites rather listen to music. In a way, Rockwell mocks without mocking the hundreds of posts about this lens versus that lens or whether the Mark II version of whatever should really have been designated as a Mark I Improved instead. If that's true, Rockwell is often taking a shot at me, and I'm OK with that, too.

Rockwell's site holds the enviable position of being able to tell his readers that their gear doesn't matter while simultaneously functioning as a conduit to a bunch of sites where readers can buy the very same gear Rockwell just finished telling them they don't need. Ken Rockwell is, then, something of a contradiction, even to me. I am very likely to continue to disagree with some of what he says, but it would be a very big mistake to call him irrelevant.

B&W Collie

2009-02-03T00:29:00.001-08:00

Backlit House

2009-01-11T19:27:00.001-08:00

How it was supposed to Look

2009-01-11T19:25:00.001-08:00

An Odd Effect of the Sun

2009-01-11T19:22:00.000-08:00

Silly Mini...Trying to Hide Behind a Tree & Two Rocks

2009-01-02T18:32:00.000-08:00

The Power of the Cell Phone Camera...

2009-01-01T19:31:00.000-08:00

Don't Text While Driving; OK to take Photos, though. Hollywood Freeway Christmas Eve

2008-12-26T19:42:00.001-08:00

5th & Flower

2008-12-16T22:47:00.001-08:00

Beneath the Falls at Eaton Canyon

2008-12-15T20:20:00.001-08:00

Union Station

2008-11-10T20:53:00.000-08:00

8th & Fig...Looking North-East

2008-11-10T20:51:00.001-08:00

Poppy Panorama

2008-10-16T23:55:00.000-07:00

2008 was not a great year for poppies but I still like this picture taken just before sunset after the poppies had gone to sleep for the day.

Leaves

2008-10-16T23:52:00.000-07:00

This was done at about 6 feet with massive amounts of digital zoom and lots of shade. The intent was to flatten the images and make the concrete look like something other than concrete.

A Now for Something Completely Different

2008-10-16T23:43:00.001-07:00

This picture is derived from a shot take out the window of my car at about 20 MPH while turning. Fun. The original was so blah that I cropped it severely thinking that the data loss would lead to a grain that almost resembled a painting. Very lucky...

Mt. Whitney Foothills

2008-10-16T23:38:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite times of day in one of my favorite places. These are the foothills South of Mt. Whitney just before dusk in the late summer of 2004.

Bishop Sky2

2008-06-29T17:53:00.000-07:00

Bishop Sky

2008-06-29T16:59:00.000-07:00

The town of Bishop, California is one of my favorite places. OK, it's not the town I like but rather the view that it can give of the Southern Sierra, especially close to sunset.

Looking North from 7th & Figueroa

2008-05-19T20:55:00.000-07:00

818 7th is the classic Renaissance Revival building that was home to the main Barker Bros. furniture store. Back in the day, they had a pipe-organist in the 3 story high lobby for the pleasure of the furniture shoppers. It was restored a few years back. Behind that is the HSBC Tower and the City National Tower.

Trees on Slope

2008-05-12T17:36:00.000-07:00

Looking North from the Trail

2008-05-12T17:32:00.000-07:00

Not enough light but I liked the way the trail, the flowers & the mountains framed all of this on their own...

Toward the West

2008-05-12T17:30:00.000-07:00

Liked it when I took it and I still do...

Wetlands

2008-05-12T17:27:00.000-07:00

Looking South toward the wetlands of the reservoir...

SE Across the Reservoir

2008-05-12T17:22:00.000-07:00

A very low light shot looking South-East across the Chatsworth Reservoir. 30 minutes before dusk...

California Live Oaks at Night

2008-05-12T17:19:00.000-07:00

These oaks are at the back of the range of the Oak Tree Gun Club in Sylmar, CA. I like how starkly they stood out from the hills behind them in the artificial light.

Flag / 818 7th Street

2007-12-10T21:47:00.000-08:00

Just a shot I have been meaning to try. Didn't quite get it right but I will try again when the weather and the flag will cooperate.

Aon Tower / Standard Hotel

2007-12-10T21:41:00.000-08:00

I liked the way the sun peeked around the building but I wish the flag had been a bit more animated.