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June 2021

09 Jun

Posted at 08:53h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

They may see a stranger across a crowded room - and somehow they'll know, even then, that they'll be photographing them again and again. But there's a problem - Sam has been welding pipelines for years while Janet has been the usher at the local Roxy - as a result of their jobs Sam can't see any colours duller than 90 on the saturation slider and Janet can practically see in the dark. They are continually fighting with each other over who left the seat up on the Photoshop program last. It gets worse. Sam has a big old DSLR that is practically glued to the factory program settings - he's managed to reset the colour and the rendering to ultra-vivid but other than that he just takes what it writes. It seems natural to him. Janet, on the other hand, has fine-tuned her mirrorless compact camera to see just above the threshold of vision - with a fine nuance of what might be red, blue, or green. No-one else is sure as the pictures look like barely tinted monochromes - we just...

07 Jun

Posted at 08:00h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Today I am off to the WAMED ( Western Australian Middle Eastern Dance ) Grand Bazaar show at Victoria Hall in Fremantle. I've been asked to take pictures of the stage show for this last day of their big dance weekend. The hall is a great old Victorian theatre with a big balcony at the rear - it's hardly used for this sort of market and show so I can perch up there with a tripod and one of the Fujifilms ( also with a sandwich and a bottle of beer ) and record the acts pretty well undisturbed. This benefits the audience as well - I don't have to do my regular trick of balancing on a big Pelican case halfway down the aisle of the hall and get in everyone's line of sight. This year I did some comparison tests between the output of the Fujifilm X-Pro1 and the X-T2 and have decided that the optical viewfinder of the former makes it a better dance camera than the EVF of the latter. You can see the peak action of a...

04 Jun

Posted at 09:19h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

Sounds like a 1930's race car, doesn't it? Nearly as good - this is a Panasonic full-frame race car of a camera - slotting into their lineup as a more compact version of their big S1. Hard sometimes to equate the outside sizes of some photo equipment with the contents - we've seen very large bodies and lenses feeding into quite small sensors and vice versa - this camera is tending toward the latter design. It still doesn't make the sensor larger than the actual camera body, but I'll bet there is someone in a design bureau that is doodling with that. Remember that designers have given us the Goggomobile Dart before and they can do it again. Okay - 24mm x 36mm sensor - 24megapixel. Compact body. L mount. Very fast autofocus, extensively concentrating on head, face, and eye detection. Full video suite - dual card slot. Extended number of shots per charge. A real all-rounder that can do professional-quality video work as well as stills. I found it in the cabinet paired with a Sigma 45mm f:2.8 lens of remarkably compact...

02 Jun

Posted at 08:21h in Blog, Dick's Rant by [social_share]

If you were able to buy a 2017 motor car from a dealer right now - a car that had been introduced that year but was sitting - unused- on the dealer's floor today - would you do it? WHAT IF IT WAS A GREAT CAR? That's not as foolish a question as I could ask ( Stick with me - I've got sillier ones. ), but it does come to mind looking at today's featured camera. Like it or not, a new model of the Panasonic Lumix GH5 - a Mark II - is shortly due. It's been announced by CE management complete with the opportunity to pre-order. Which leaves the GH5 in an invidious position; who is it going to appeal to? The same people to whom it appealed these last five years. All-round photographers. I'm the last person to be writing for them - I'm not well-rounded. I slump to one side and veer off whenever they loosen the shackles. But I recognise that there are people who wish to be equally proficient with video work as with still shots,...