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July 2, 2009 - Reader's comment:

Check out the Sigma SD14, it doesn't have a Bayer filter and the IR cutoff filter is easily removable. I really enjoy my SD14, the detail/colour it produces is out of this world. PopPhoto review.

Okay, there we go, a camera maker thinking outside the box. It's too bad Nikon and Canon have not offered even one SLR in their stable with such features.

July 1, 2009 - Readers' comments:

I do not miss Kodachrome 25, or 64. If the price of progress is to lose K25 in order for me to shoot a D3 with ISO 12800 at near darkness, then so be it. Good bye K25.

The Olympus Pen is an interesting idea, but again, no viewfinder is a problem for the semi-pro or pro users. I would like to see a rangefinder digital body which costs less than the Leica M8 on the lines with the Epson that Cosina-Voigtlander sold a few years ago. Leica could do it but won't lower itself to sell anything that might appear cheap. Meanwhile there are lenses all over the place made by Leica, Voigtlander and old screw mount stuff that could work on such a camera via adapters that are made.

As some have written, B&W film and traditional darkroom printing still has something to the quality that digital has not quite reached, let alone surpass, but for color, there's little doubt that digital has long blown by film.

As I've written before, I still have a hankering for a medium format capable film scanner, but the cost is not easily absorbed given the $3,000 cost, plus the required added cost of a glass film carrier to keep the film flat. I've looked at flatbed scanners and while I may yet still go this route of an Epson V700/V750, it seems folly to me to compromise this way.

You shoot medium format film for the extra quality it affords over 35mm, but to have to scan the film with a flatbed scanner is to throw that quality away, such that I may as well shoot 35mm and scan with a much more affordable Coolscan V or 5000. Then again, why bother, when we can get just as good if not superior quality with a D300 or D700. Move up a notch to a Canon 5D2 and we have quality as well as digital speed and convenience that I wonder why I still hanker for medium format film.

For B&W, it's too bad that no one else has carried on from Kodak's idea to sell a D-SLR without the Bayer color filter. No Bayer or anti-aliasing filter and one wonders what could be achieved with a 21 or 24 MP sensor. For those that don't know, Kodak sold a Nikon F5 based D-SLR some years back that was monochrome only in output. Another tiny niche product that few would appreciate.

Speaking of tiny niche products, how come no one else has followed on Fuji's idea to sell infrared capable cameras and SLRs. Given the cottage industry of infrared conversion, why won't the camera makers produce a nice little infrared capable SLR? I guess I already answered that one: tiny, niche market product.

Which leads us to rangefinder cameras. Epson and Cosina were onto a good thing, it's just too bad that they kept thinking that their camera with an ancient, little 6 MP sensor should be priced like a real Leica. Writing this, I really meant to say "shitty" little 6 MP sensor, but that would be too judgmental given that I've never used the camera ;^)

The rangefinder market, I've little doubt, is larger than the dedicated monochrome and infrared markets combined. There's a huge user base of Leica, Zeiss and Voigtlander lenses established and while many can afford Leica M8 prices, many cannot. It's a market begging to be served by a compentent rangefinder camera in the D300 to D700 price range.

June 30, 2009 - Catching up on some misc. items:

Kodachrome is finally gone with Kodak officially acknowledging what had long been expected, that it will cease production of the venerable color slide film. As a few have already asked, is it worth lamenting? Will Kodachrome be this generation's glass plate? I shot a few rolls back in the day and it always seemed that every second order came back from the Qualex processor with an apology note and a free roll of Kodochrome to atone for the screwed up processing, such as slicing a frame in half. I am not one of those lamenting the demise of the film.

Phase has purchased some assets of the Leaf brand from Kodak, which Kodak in turn received from the purchase of Vancouver-based Creo, which Creo in turn received from purchasing Scitex, which Scitex bought Leaf way back in 1992. This basically leaves two dominant medium format brands and platforms with Hasselblad using its own in-house backs (an asset garnered from the merger of Hasselblad and Imacon) and Phase/Mamiya - although Mamiya still exists nominally independent of Phase, it's telling that Mamiya OEM cameras are also sold as Phase cameras and Phase now has an ownership stake in Mamiya. Mamiya still makes it own backs, but I have to wonder for how long now that Phase is likely running the partnership.

Neither news item is of much concern to most of us, because most of us have gone digital with digicams and SLRs, so Kodachrome is a yawner. Phase taking over some Leaf assets is kinda like taking note of which multinational car company has taken over ownership of Ferrari or Bentley; interesting to a degree, but the products are priced so sky-high that there's no chance of ownership unless you hit that 1-in-14 million chance at the Lotto 6/49 or receive an inheritance from a rich, reclusive uncle (I still hold out for the latter 8^)

The more I read of some initial reports about the new Olympus PEN, the more I think that it's close, very close, but did not quite hit the mark. I recall reading somewhere that Olympus designed the PEN as a step-up for the digicam crowd, which explains some of the features, or lack thereof and is yet another example of a camera company missing the enthusiast target.

I can't blame Olympus though, given the economic times and the need to make some good sales to recover costs. However, this does provide an opening for Nikon and Canon to roll out enthusiast oriented serious compacts of their own. Unfortunately, I'm not holding my breath on it, as we are finding that camera companies simply cannot afford to tailor products for a small, albeit vocal, market.

June 29, 2009 - Well, I'm back, sort of. I'll be taking it a bit easy the next week or so, as my right eye recovers from the surgery performed last Thursday morning.

What you see at right is a sanitized look at my puffy and swollen eye. This is taken two days after the surgery (self portrait, using a bathroom mirror). As I write this update on Sunday evening, I'm now able to have the right eye open without any impediment.

If I posted a photo of my eye open with the eye lids pulled up and down, you would probably be grossed out at the literally, bloody mess the eye is now.

As far as the surgery, other than not being able to see anything, it went well. Don't worry, not being able to see is normal due to the aforementioned blood inside the eye, as well as to a gas bubble injected inside to help keep the retina in place. It could take a few weeks before the eye clears up and the vision starts to come back.

The surgery was not as long as I expected at 45 minutes and I was not put under a general, but just a local anesthetic, meaning I was awake the whole time. It was a rather odd feeling having the doctor mess around with the eye and doing all that he had to do while I was awake and not feeling anything at all.

To recap, I had two problems to deal with, a cataract and a detached retina with the latter being the more serious issue to deal with. In order to see how bad the retinal tear was, the cataract had to be removed. No lens was inserted to replace the cataract, so I will have another procedure when the eye has healed and the doctor can do some measurements to figure out what kind of lens to insert.

With the dense cataract out, the doctor could see that the tear was not as bad as feared. A buckle was still used to mechanically attach the retina to the back of the eye and a laser to close the tear. Instead of silicone oil, the doctor injected a gas bubble, which applies some pressure on the retina to reattach.

The gas bubble led to some discomfort, as I had to keep my head faced down as much as I could for three days. My back started to ache from lying on my stomach, and trying to sleep while face down is just about impossible.

During my face-down time, the iPod Touch became my best friend as I listened to music, watched some movies, did a bit of web surfing, and could take a gander at some emails here and there. I also spent a fair bit of time with the AKG K701 headphones and now feel that I have a good measure of how it sounds compare to my old standby, the Sennheiser HD650s.

I'll be working on that review, as well trying to get caught up with a book review assignment. You'll forgive me if postings are a bit light the next week ;-)

June 24, 2009 - Reader's comment:

Read your cool comments about nodal points and panos etc. My wife and I are HUGE pano nuts and I can't recommend highly enough "AutoPano Pro" and "AutoPano Giga" software from Kolor. This software does the most astounding job of merging photos together, and now even will go HDR panos. And the part that blows my socks off is that the product comes with the Windows, Mac and Linux version on the same CD - and the entire company is 3 guys working in an attic office in France. It is just amazing what these 3 guys have done. An excellent review of the product is here.

Thanks for the tip. I hope to get into doing real photography, including panos just as soon as I deal with some personal stuff, including finding a new house by the end of the month as well as resolving an issue with my right eye, which requires some treatment.

Being a photographer you can imagine what it might be like to have your vision severely affected. All I can suggest is that if you experience what I experience, get your eyes checked immediately.

About three weeks ago, I was at work when all of a sudden I experienced a major flashing in my right eye. I'm sure most of you have probably experienced seeing brief, bright flashes in the peripheral vision of your eyes. And all of you have floaters streaming across the field of vision. Both are natural occurrances and part of the aging process as the vitreous gel at the back of the eye tugs against the retina. The tugging results in the bright flashes you see and for the most part, there's nothing of concern.

However, what I experienced was not just a tiny pin prick of light, but a flashing that resembled lightning bolts flashing on both sides of my peripheral vision. Immediately after the flashing I saw a huge increase in floaters. I could see the remnants of the flashing for about an hour after, somewhat similar to seeing a bright light and then having the impression in your eyes, even with your eyes closed. The floaters dissipated, but over a few days and afterwards I didn't too much about it. Big mistake!

The flashing and increase in floaters is the first sign of a retinal detachment and requires immediate attention. I left it alone and last week I noticed a tiny little shadow in the very extreme of my peripheral vision near my nose. At first I thought I was just seeing a wierd shadow of my nose, but over three days the shadow increased in size. Visiting my optometrist led to a sameday referral to an opthamologist who confirmed the retinal detachment and scheduled me for surgery.

He has to put buckles (silicone bands) inside the eye to close the hole and allow the retina to re-attach. My eye will be also be injected with silicone oil, which will help with holding the retina in place. As he described it, it will be a long and nasty bit of surgery, but at this stage, it has to be done to give my right eye a change to regain vision. As it stands now, I've lost about 1/3 of the vision in my eye. And, that's not the end of it, as I also have a cataract in the same eye, but the retinal problem is more pressing and needs to be dealt with first. At least the operation will get rid of the cataract, but from what I know of cataracts, I'll need another procedure to put in a replacement lens.

Being visual people, I just wanted to pass along this experience so that you will treat your eyes better than I did this month. Given my history with my right eye (yes, there's even more that's happened with this eye in my past), there has been many a time that I feel like I've been cursed with the eye of an old man, because these are generally things that happen to senior citizens and not to a man less than forty years old.

June 23, 2009 - Reader's comment:

For a long time I have also wished for something sort of like a Canon G10 with an APS-C sensor. Of course, as you say, it would have to have a less ambitious zoom range. I have sort of been thinking that an Olympus E-420 or the new Olympus E-450 DSLR might be half way reasonable as a small camera. Not a RF-like camera, but they are pretty small:

Olympus E-420: 129.5mm x 91mm x 53mm; 380g
Olympus E-P1: 121mm x 70mm x 36mm; 335g
Canon G10: 109mm x 78mm x 46mm; 350g

There is a 25mm f2.8 pancake lens that could be added.

I'm currently favouring the Panasonic G1 or GH2 as my preferred small camera, but since I'm in no rush, I can wait and see what the reviews are like for the Olympus PEN.

Scott Kelby's blog post about going to Italy without his camera gear was rather interesting. Without his usual travel kit, he bought himself a D5000 kit in Italy and wrote that this little gem has even better high ISO than the D300. Intriguing, and for a Nikon user, I should perhaps not be so hasty to cast a covetous eye on mine neighbour's camera.

Check out Thom Hogan's current comments about Nikon missing the boat on the PEN and Panasonic G series. Add Canon and Sony to the mix too though.

Just read the July Stereophile's review of the new Sennheiser HD800 headphones and boy, are they reading like they're the best cans ever. And, for USD $1400, they had better be, but while the price seems very high, the HD800 are not even close to what the most expensive headphones cost. Sennheiser's own custom Orpheus from a decade or two past, probably set the standard for bespoke pricing.

Interestingly for AKG K701 users, the reviewer stated that a few hundred hours of break-in time is needed for the K701s to sing - a set of K701s with custom cabling is the reviewer's reference set of headphones. Thus, another reason for me not to rush my own look at the K701s. I'm now burning them in again with the iPod on continuous playback for probably at least 24/5, before I give them another serious listen and compare to the Sennheiser HD650s.

June 22, 2009 - Reader's comment:

I looked at the specs and reviews for the new Olympus Pen digital. Looks good but the lack of a viewfinder bothers me. Recently bought the Ricoh R10 to carry around and leave in my briefcase. The LCD is clear but I still prefer the viewfinder. I use it by holding it close with locked elbows. I can't get over when I see people using a point and shoot at arms length with the LCD and complaining about fuzzy photos. Lets see how the Pen fares in the marketplace.

I'm thinking it's going to do gangbusters in the initial going, because a lot of people will buy on the belief that it will meet their pent up desire and demand for a high quality, yet compact camera.

To the reader that submitted the baby possum photo last week: I need your name for the photo credit. My email response to you bounced back.

Back in 2005, due to the influence of a co-worker, I got back into audiophilia. Well, actually, I became an observant bystander by subscribing to the Absolute Sound and Stereophile magazines. These days, trying to afford any of the big-buck components reviewed in the magazines is to dream the impossible. However, I did hook onto the headphone scene, wherein, for much less money, you can have excellent sound that is personal and a lot less disruptive to your family and neighbours.

I bought a Musical Fidelity X-Can v3 tube headphone amp, Sennheiser HD650 headphones and Benchmark DAC-1 as my key components for headphone listening. I bought some other smaller amps and accessories along the way, but the three components were the jewels.

Eventually, the bug to change things around bit me and I sold the X-Can amp and DAC-1. Instead of having two components taking up space and precious power outlets, I wanted a single box with DAC and amp built-in. The DAC-1 actually has a headphone amp built-in, but I wanted more functionality from the DAC-1.

I looked at the Grace M902, which has the desired functionality, but costs quite dearly at around CAD $2,000. Benchmark upgraded the DAC-1 to offer my desired functionality with a DAC-1 Pre version, but this version costs nearly as much as the M902.

What makes the DAC-1 Pre more desirable is that it offers a set of analog inputs, a USB input, a pre amp function, and an output defeatable headphone jack.

Analog inputs allows for connecting a non-digital source to the DAC-1, such as an iPod – I don’t always listen to music through the computer and it’s nice to be able to have music in the background from a non-computer source
USB input – for most occasions, I would use a computer and having a USB input allows for a direct connection instead of having to use adapters or auxiliary USB-to-digital boxes that I had to use with my old DAC-1
Pre amp function allows the DAC-1 to control the volume with a set of powered speakers
Output defeatable headphone jack allows you to plug in a headphone and mute the output to the powered speakers so you don’t have to turn off the speakers whenever you want to do some private listening

$2,000 is a fair bit of change to blow on an amp/DAC-1 combo and I wanted something less costly. I bought a HeadRoom Portable Amp, which is an amp and DAC in a conveniently small package. Nice build quality and good sound at a much lower price point, but alas, I discovered after purchase that this particular amp only works on battery power. There is no ability to keep it running on just AC power and running continuously on battery power will drain the battery after about 20 hours.

I bought another HeadRoom amp, the Micro, which is also in the same small package as the Portable, but this time as an AC-powered amp without a DAC. I bought a Blue Circle Thingee to provide the DAC function.

In hindsight, with the money spent, I should have just bought a HeadRoom Desktop amp/DAC combo, which would have done everything I want and probably still come out ahead in cost. Ah well, you live and learn.

So, no more money spent on amps and DACs for the time being, but maybe another set of headphones…

Ever since reading about the AKG K701 cans, I’ve been very curious and wondered if they might be the ideal compromise headphones. The Sennheiser HD650s are great cans that would be on the warmer, darker side of the tonal spectrum. Great bass impact, which helps to provide a solid foundation for rock and classical music. Comfort wise, the headband pinches a bit, so probably not the best for those with larger heads.

I used to have a set of Grado SR100 cans. Compared to the Sennheiser HD650s, Grados fit on the other spectrum of the tonal range with the brand sound being fast but lean and bass not being as fully extended – note: I write this with not a huge amount of experience with Grado cans. While I’ve listened through a set of RS-1 cans, I’ve not listened through the old HP series, which some consider the best to come from Grado.

AKG cans seem to straddle the middle ground between Sennheiser and Grado; more open in the high frequencies than Sennheiser, but not as strident as Grado.

While interested, I did not expect to buy a set of K701s anytime soon. However, after being asked to do some book reviews and posting the reviews on the main Amazon.com website, I was “forced” to buy the K701s (yah, my rubber arm got all twisted up).

I discovered that I have to be a customer of Amazon.com in order to post reviews. I’m already a customer of Amazon Canada and have bought many books in the last few years, but unfortunately, the two websites are separate and purchasing histories are not shared. In order for me to fulfill my book reviewing obligations, I had to become a customer of the big Amazon website.

Thus, I surfed around the site trying to find something simple and affordable to buy. Music downloads seemed ideal, until the site popped up a message stating no sales to Canada allowed. Curses!

With nothing else of interest, I decided to check out the headphones and there I saw the K701s selling for USD $262. Add in another $41 for S&H and I paid USD $303 for the cans, which translates into CAD $350. I thought, hey, not too bad for cans that used to sell for $500 plus. Then a friend told me about his brother buying a set of K701s at close out from a local high-end audio store for CAD $250. Curses!

Curiously, the reseller, who shall go nameless, had no problem selling the K701 to a Canadian, while other Amazon retailers refused to due to distribution rights and restrictions. A buck is a buck in this global village and it astounds me that some companies still don’t get this global economy thing, although governments do with all their hefty taxes and duties charged on imported goods.

The package arrived courtesy of USPS and Canada Post and I had myself a nice, new set of AKG 701s, since superseded by the K702s and given how cheaply the K702s sell for these days, I wonder if K703s are due anytime now.

The K701s are classic Apple iPod-friendly white in finish. Unfortunately, my classic white iPod died a few months back after four years of mostly fine service (with two DIY fixes to keep it running the last two years). No matter, and with apologies to Martin Luther King, it’s not the color on the outside, but the quality and character inside.

The K701 ear pads are circles compared to the ovals of the HD650. Both cans have nice, comfortable cushioning that wrap around the ear as opposed to fitting on top of the ear like Grado headphone do.

Whereas the HD650’s headband is one piece, the K701 is two pieces with an outer, dual wire frame for rigidity and an internal, padded leather headband. The K701 look a bit retro to me and remind me of the cheap and awful headphones used by my elementary school. Thankfully, they sound anything but cheap and awful.

I did no serious listening until at least 50 hours of burn-in time had past, which was primarily done using an iPod on continuous play mode, outputting to the HeadRoom Micro Amp set for a robust volume (not bleedingly loud, but loud enough I could easily discern every note and lyric from three feet away).

Putting the K701 on my head felt very comfortable without the slight pinch of the HD650s or from my former Grado SR100s. First listen gave me a lively sound that I could tell is more open and airy than the HD650s, but they also seemed a bit damped in the bass. I don’t get quite the bass impact and wallop as from the HD650s. It’s not to say that there’s no bass, which is very much the old Grado SR100s; there is bass and there can be good impact felt, but the weight is not there.

It’s like listening to a set of full range speakers that can plumb the nether regions of the bass in the low 20 Hz range and then listening to a speaker that only goes down to about 40 Hz. The full range speaker will provide the music with a solid foundation and if you’ll excuse the term, there’s just more there, there.

One trepidation I had with the K701 is that they would be brighter than I would prefer. However, I was relieved that while more sparkly in the treble, the K701 is not strident as my memory keeps telling me about Grado headphones – strident to the point of unlistenable with much pop and rock that are not known for high fidelity sound engineering.

As with everything else, I seem to be promising a review at some point down the road. My only defence is that it does take a while of regular use to come to terms with what a product offers. Case in point, my Epson Artisan 800 printer. Great specs, but there are aspects of use that I don’t like. If I had just written a review during the honeymoon period, I’d be writing a review that would not be of much use to anyone. So, more detailed review of the AKG K701 headphones coming down the road.

June 20, 2009 - The new Olympus camera is the latest “buzz” on the net with many hoping that finally, a major brand finally gets it and has produced a small, mostly pocketable, but no-compromise camera.

To rehash the old desires, many have longed for a camera with certain feature sets and ergonomics, such as available with Canon’s highly regarded G series of digicams. However, what many do not want is a tiny image sensor to be placed in that digicam sized camera, as is the case with the Canon G series and marks their biggest weakness.

Yes, digicams can produce very nice image quality when used at the lowest ISO settings and if you went so far as to use a tripod, the enlargement capability might even surprise you, but how many of us actually want to use a digicam at ISO 80 mounted on a tripod? Didn’t think so.

If Canon would do something sensible, such as put in a DX sized sensor in the G10, it would be a hit. Certainly, some compromises would have to be factored in with the main one being very conservative with the lens used. You would not have a wide to telephoto reach anymore with the larger sensor, but if Canon used a short, 28-50mm lens with a reasonably fast aperture, say f2.8, that would not be so bad, especially since ISO 1600 would not be a huge compromise. If Canon took it further and created a new mount and a small set of interchangeable lenses, well, now we’re talking. If the new Olympus E-P1 takes off, how soon before Canon gets on board with such an offering?

Notice I don’t mention Nikon, because it’s been so many years since Nikon has done anything innovative in the digicam market. Nikon used to be a leader when it introduced the unique twisting lens design in the long gone Coolpix 9xx series of cameras. While there have been some interesting Coolpix cameras the last year or two, none seem able to challenge Canon’s dominance in the higher end digicam market. Even Panasonic is producing more laudable digicams, such as the LX-3 with a true wide-angle view of 24mm, and Panasonic has its own small, serious camera offering with the G1 and GH1 pseudo SLRs (no mirror box and pentaprism, thus not true SLRs).

It’s not that Nikon couldn’t wow us with something special, such as a rangefinder type of small camera. Nikon has a long history of making fine rangefinder cameras and to me, this is what Nikon should do to make a very distinctive splash in the emerging serious small camera market that Panasonic and Olympus are embracing.

Now, onto the new Olympus Pen; it certainly looks like a rangefinder in its basic styling, but there is no rangefinder or any type of viewfinder, whether it be optical or electronic. This surprises me and is the biggest question mark I have about what otherwise looks like a very nice, but very serious camera. Although, I do have to wonder about the efficacy of those Art filters and that e-Portrait feature to smooth away blemishes – if there’s a filter that will make me look 30 lbs lighter, I’m all over that like I usually am on a bowl of ice cream, hence why I need to look 30 lbs lighter.

The movie mode is a nice convenience, but since I’m not a movie guy, I’ll just consider it the cherry on top of the sundae…mmm, ice cream sundae.

There’s only two lenses from Olympus to support the new Pen, so same issue with the Panasonic G series and a limited selection of lenses. While you can use older and larger 4/3 lenses via an adapter, that takes away from the purpose and ideal of a small camera. There hints of more lenses to come, but will they be some compact primes, zooms or both?

External viewfinders can be mounted to the flash shoe, but I don’t know about this, as it takes away from the clean, sleek lines and portability of the camera, which gets back to the lack of viewfinder. Are you really suppose to hold the Pen out in front of you like everyone else does using digicams, which results in compromised stability?

However, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater and wait to see what the reviews state about the ergonomics and usability of the new Pen. As we’ve seen with the Sigma DP series, there are people willing to accept less than stellar usability and ergonomics for the promise of excellent image quality (when fate allows for all the planets and moons to be in alignment).

June 18, 2009 - Readers' comments:

It is a misnomer to call it Digital X-ray, or digital camera for that matter.

There are hundreds of analog amplifiers attached to each channel of the Digital X ray machine to process, condition, and somehow manipulate the signals into a data converter such that a DSP can wrestle with it.

It is amazing how much analog it takes to make that digital X ray possible.

Okay, you lost me at "...hundreds of analog amplifiers attached to each channel..." 'cause I'm liable to think about audio and the DAC process when listening to digital files 8^)

Edwin, have a look at the Markins ball heads.

I've seen the Markins ball heads come up on the Nikonians site years ago, when one of the founders of Nikonians appeared to be distributor. They look like nice ball heads, but as with the RRS BH-55, I'm doing good with my old school Arca Swiss B1. However, the Markins price for its top ball head is quite a bit cheaper than a new Arca Swiss Z1 ball head. Interestingly, the North American distributor for Markins is located in a suburb of Vancouver.

The Arca Swiss Z1 with lever lock and dual panning action looks pretty sweet, but costs dearly at nearly CAD $800. The only thing you would need to do panoramas with this head would be a nodal rail. However, cost-wise, it's probably a wash between the RRS BH-55 with PCL-1 panning clamp or the Z1 DP with the lever lock.

June 17, 2009 - I did an eye check up the other day and marvelled at how digital technology makes life easier for the optometrist. Before I went in for the usual eye exam, where the doctor flips in and out lenses of varying degrees, his assistant took photos of my eyes.

Once inside the exam room, the doctor pulled up the digital images on his screen and was able to look at both eyes at the same time. The photos allow him to look right to the rear of the eye where the optical nerves meet before branching out to the brain.

This detailed view of the rear of the eye is a way to detect conditions such as macular degeneration, which is something to be concerned about the older you get due to it being the leading cause of blindness amongst senior citizens. The digital image of the eye does not mean the end of the optometrist doing a physical check of the eyes though, as he still peered into my eyes using his bright light.

As I looked at the digital image, it was quite reassuring to see that my left eye is in fine shape, because on the weekend, I took a blow to that eye when one of the extended family kids accidentally smacked me in the face during a game of ball hockey. The eye went red due to burst blood vessels and looked a lot worse than it really was (like I’d been crying the entire weekend). No damage, although I did officially discover that the left eye could use a small bit of correction, but the doctor said no glasses needed just yet.

On a related note, my dentist is also digital with the x-rays taken of my teeth. The x-ray machine does not look much different then when I was a kid, but now there’s no waiting a half hour for the film to be developed. The x-rays are also taken digitally and the dentist comes in immediately after to view the images on the computer screen. He can pull various images from a row of smaller images at the bottom of the screen and drag them up to the larger portion of the application’s window for a detailed look; kinda like a much simplified Adobe Bridge.

Speaking of the eyes though, as I’ve gotten older and creep ever closer to the milestone 4th decade anniversary, I notice that my eyes no longer focus in as close as before. Ten years ago, my minimum focusing distance was around six inches, but today, that distance has increased to around 10 inches. It’s not I cannot see closer than 10 inches, I can, but doing so seems to cause headaches and things don’t snap into clarity like they do when I hold the book or paper out at 10 inches.

I also get headaches trying to read fine print now. The catch-22 is that I need to bring in the small print close to see the text, but because I cannot really focus in comfortably, my eyes get strained, which will ultimately lead to a headache if I don’t stop. Move the text to a comfortable distance and it may end up being too small to read. How soon before I need to get reading glasses that will perch midway down my nose so that I can read regular books and newspapers?

And, how about all those vitreous bits, aka, floaters that dance before your field of vision? Do you ever see flashes in your peripheral vision? The older you get the more they occur and the more floaters you’ll get as a result, as the flashes indicate that the vitreous gel at the back of the eye is shrinking and separating from the retina. The joys of getting old.

June 15, 2009 - Reader's comment:

Your comments about selling used photographic equipment are true. Seems as soon as the camera leaves the store its work about half. I have rarely sold old equipment. It just doesn't bring enough to merit it.

Most of my digital stuff is done with the D 80. I kept the D 50 and D70 as spare bodies but I still use them because I find that the MP really does not make much of a difference for most shots unless you want to get really large.

Well, speaking of making really large prints...

The last few years, I’ve seen a lot more references to stitching and creating panoramas. It seems to me that the trend towards massive prints (brought on by the relative ease of creating leviathan prints with the large Epson pro printers) has had a role in this trend. In order to print large, you need a lot of resolution, but not everyone can afford to spend $30,000 on a digital back (without even the camera or lenses to go with it). Even with an ultra expensive digital back, the resolution (back in the day of 16-22 MP backs) would still have not been enough to produce that 60-inch print. Thus, photographing a scene and considering it just one segment of a larger scene became a way to obtain the resolution that technology could not give us.

I recall Tim Fitzharris, in one of his PopPhoto columns, wrote about upgrading to a Mamiya 645 kit with a Phase One digital back. This in itself is no surprise since Fitzharris takes a lot of landscape photos for stock, but what did surprise me was him mentioning his experiment to take multiple photos and stitching them together. I think Alain Briot has done similar stitching of photos using a medium format back. My surprise is that a high-priced, high resolution back is still not enough for some pros.

The simplest panorama is a single row picture in which you pan a levelled camera horizontally and then merge the photos together using software, such as Photoshop. Sounds simple enough…

Back in January 2008, I loaned my then D200 and 18-200 lens to a co-worker for his family trip to Mexico and Disneyland. On the cruise to Mexico, he took several horizontal photos of a quaint Mexican tourist town and merged them together using a consumer-quality photo editor. He gave me his JPEGs and I created a panorama using Photoshop. Below is the original, massively long pano, as well as my more modest crop of the most interesting part of the original.

It seemed to work well, but when I started reviewing image more closely, I could see that there were joints that did not mesh well at all and I had to do some editing to clean up where Photoshop was unable to align the photos together. I was less than impressed at Photoshop’s capabilities, but today, I realize the reason why Photoshop did not do so well: parallax distortion. The Mexican panorama was created from a series of handheld photos for which there would have been no hope of keeping the nodal point consistent shot to shot.

Parallax? Nodal point? Groan!

As I researched the way to properly create a panorama from many discrete photos, I realized that some pretty pennies would have to be spent in order to have the right tools to create even a simple, single row panorama photo. Or, maybe I was just looking for an excuse to finally buy something from Really Right Stuff ;^)

Over the years, most of my Arca Swiss compatible camera and lens plates have been bought from Kirk Enterprises in the USA (I bet they’re a bunch of Trekkers down in Indiana). Kirk has/is a popular vendor for accessories catering to serious amateur and professional photographers; however, over the years Really Right Stuff seems to have overtaken Kirk as a purveyor of high quality Arca Swiss compatible camera and lens plates, as well as Arca Swiss compatible ball heads.

The RRS BH-55 tripod head is probably the finest ball head derived from the venerable Swiss ball head made, God knows how many years past. It’s not that I know anything about the BH-55 head, since I’ve only seen it once in person, but it certainly seems like most of the big name pros have adopted it. It used to be that pros like Moose Peterson and John Shaw migrated from the original Arca Swiss to the Kirk copy of the ball head to the RRS copy.

I still have my Arca Swiss B1 head and while I certainly admire the BH-55 from afar, I don’t see a need to replace the B1 even after a decade of use. Similarly, I’d love to own a carbon fibre tripod, but my nearly decade old aluminum Gitzo 1345 still does the job.

I seem to be digressing…

Anyway, RRS has some great information posted on its website and printed in its product catalogue on how to do panoramas properly. With my initial research, I thought that maybe I could get away with just a focusing rail to use directly on the Arca Swiss B1 head. Kirk makes a nice looking macro focusing rail and Acratech also has a nice looking rail for panoramas.

The reason for a rail, whether for macro work or for panoramas, is to allow for adjusting the camera/lens combo off the ball head’s centre of axis. Normally, when using a non-telephoto lens, you mount the camera on the tripod head so that the camera is on the head’s centre axis. However, with panorama photography, you need to place the lens’ optical centre above the tripod head’s centre of axis. If you don’t do this then you will get parallax error and mismatched stitches during the postproduction edit.

Knowing a lens’ optical centre may take some trial and error and the lens must be perfectly level to eliminate parallax.

Using a tripod is obviously essential to getting a level camera and lens, but when working on uneven ground, you’re probably wanting stability first before levelness so a level base may not be possible with the tripod. However, you can level a tripod’s head using a levelling base, sold by Gitzo and Acratech, amongst others.

Levelling the head allows you to pan the head horizontally. It goes without saying that the tripod head’s clamp must also be level, because you will have defeated the purpose of levelling the head with an accessory base if you do not have the clamp level too.

Thus, there are two points of a traditional ball head to keep level if you intend to use the head to pan horizontally; the entire ball head itself where it mates with the tripod and then the clamp where you place the camera or lens’ quick release plate.

A levelling base sounds like a great idea and I admit to looking at the Acratech model with avaricious eyes, but ultimately, I don’t like the idea of another accessory coming between the ball head and the tripod. I want that union to be as clean and solid as possible. This means having to keep my clamp level as well as providing for a way to pan the camera. If the ball head is not going to be level and I merely level the clamp only, panning the ball head will result in an off kilter set of individual photos for my panorama.

My solution, buying a custom panorama clamp from RRS. I also bought a RRS panorama rail and set of mini clamps for the rail to complete my initial foray into taking and making panorama photos. Total cost, about CAD $600 after currency conversion, S&H and duty. If I had gone whole hog and bought RRS’s ultimate panorama kit, the cost would have been over $1,000. However, after seeing RRS equipment up close and personal, I must say these are beautifully made and exquisite in quality. I almost feel like a Hummer owner that never wants to use the vehicle for its intended purpose of riding off road.

The specific pieces are:

PCL-1 Panning Clamp
PCL-DVTL dove tail adapter for the PCL-1 - being a clamp, the PCL-1 can actually replace the original clamp for your tripod head, but since it's a bit large, I prefer the original B1 clamp, which requires the dove tail adapter in order to be clamped in the B1's head
192 PPP package, which includes an MPR 192 rail and two mini clamps

Side view of the full rig

Top view

PCL-1 Panning Clamp

PCL-1 with the dove tail adapter to allow use with the B1's original clamp

192 PPP package

The mini clamps, which can be adjusted to be parallel or perpendicular to each other for use with telephoto lenses with their own tripod mount or with camera plates

How the kit would be used with a camera mounted - this is just an illustration and does not denote the nodal point for the Canon lens in use. Since it's a zoom lens, it will have a different nodal point for every focal length, which is why I suspect that when I do my own panoramas, I will likely use prime lenses to keep things simple.

My basic kit allows me to do single panoramas. While it would be possible to do multi row panoramas (both vertical and horizontal shots to create a massive single photo) by adjusting the ball head vertically, you have to be sure to keep the vertical orientation perfectly plumb to avoid parallax distortion. I’ll worry about this when I receive a request to print a 60-inch wide photo for wall display J

So, that’s it for now; just a description of my latest accessory. Now to find the time to actually use it…

I started off with an off kilter tripod, as seen in the smaller image above this one. I levelled the Arca Swiss B1's clamp, as seen in the bubble level above. All this means is that my clamp is level only for this specifc position.

Rotating the B1's base (my finger is pointing to that control knob) even slightly results in a non-level clamp.

Returning to the level position again, this time, I rotate the RRS PCL-1 Panning Clamp (finger is pointing to that control knob).

I can now rotate the PCL-1's clamp 360 degrees and still maintain a level base.

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