Category Archives: Photo

What to think of pocket digicams

Once you have used a digital SLR (DSLR) with a nice, clean, large, low-noise sensor, the poor image quality of most compact digicams becomes hard to tolerate. This is in contrast with film, where a $70 Olympus Stylus Epic can … Continue reading

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MacWorld SF roundup

I work a mere four blocks away from the Moscone Center, where the annual MacWorld SF trade show is held, so naturally I just drift there during my lunch break, possibly extended… Here is a list of strange and wonderful … Continue reading

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Trigonometry for photographers, or not

The photography world learned yesterday the sad but not entirely unexpected news of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s demise. Cartier-Bresson was 96 years old, and had prepared his legacy by setting up a retrospective and foundation in Paris. The is one of the … Continue reading

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Going all loopy about loupes

Harking back to Kodachrome My father took most of my childhood photos (like these) on Kodachrome slide film. Kodachrome was the only color game in town for a long time, but was eventually superseded in the marketplace by C41 color … Continue reading

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Shutterbabe

Deborah Copaken Kogan Random House, ISBN: 0375758682  Publisher,  I picked up the hardcover edition of this book from the sale bin at Stacey’s Booksellers, as the Leica on the cover just beckoned to me. This is an autobiography by an American … Continue reading

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Is the Nikon D70 NEF (RAW) format truly lossless?

Many digital photographers (including myself) prefer shooting in so-called RAW mode. In theory, the camera saves the data exactly as it is read off the sensor, in a proprietary format that can later be processed on a PC or Mac … Continue reading

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The megapixel myth – a pixel too far?

Revised introduction This article remains popular thanks to Google and the like, but it was written 7 years ago and the models described are ancient history. The general principles remain, you are often better off with a camera that has … Continue reading

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First steps in Medium Format

I bought a used Hasselblad 500 C/M last week. I took my first shots last week-end (this is my first medium format camera, and I had to learn how to load it and process 120 format roll film). Today I … Continue reading

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Bombay Bits

The Economist once called Bombay “The most expensive slum in the world”. When I was a child, we used to fly to India every year, stopping for a day on the way there and back at my uncle’s place in … Continue reading

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Inkjet printers revisited

In a recent post, I railed at the Inkjet racket. Lest I be perceived as doctrinaire, I do believe there are some good reasons to use inkjet printers, just that price is not one of them. Here are the cases … Continue reading

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