I’ve just sent a letter to my esteemed local MP to encourage him to protect our photographs:

Today sees the second reading of the Digital Economy Bill. I have today become aware of the potentially very damaging consequences of clause 43 of thus bill which:

• removes the right of each individual creator and copyright owner to market their work to the clients they choose, for the uses they choose, at the price they have set
• In so doing it destroys any guarantee of exclusive use, and
• breaks the contractual ties between models, their agencies, property rights holders, photographers and clients, because
• images will be used in ways that rights holders would have forbidden, had they known beforehand
• says that images can be declared orphan after a “diligent search” for the owner without recognising the practical impossibility of such a search
• proposes that images should be licensed at “the market rate” while ignoring the impossibility of determining such a rate for any specific image
• proposes a scheme for managing orphan works that is not limited to orphan works

Perhaps more disturbingly clause 46 allows the Secretary of State to amend the Act by Statutory Instrument. This is a completely unnecessary step which could allow an unscrupulous future Secretary of State to make changes to the law without democratic accountability.

Please vote against this bill.

Case in point: With film one would expose for the shadows and develop for
the highlights, whereas with digital it\’s the other way around – blow your
highlights and the image is toast (in broad terms) – grossly under-expose
and you\’re throwing away 3/4 of your potential information. Take for example
a typical forest scene consisting of even, but subdued lighting. Most modern
digitals will expose the scene in a way that makes it look pretty realistic
on the built in monitor, but in reality is barely using 1/2 the dynamic
range of the sensor. Trying to lighten some of the shadow areas in
post-processing they quickly come up against limitations of noise and
posterisation – and we hear things like \”these digital cameras are
convenient and cheap, but in terms of image quality they\’re not quite up to
film standards yet. Whereas in reality 90% of the the issue is lack of
understanding of the process – in the above example they needed to
\”over-expose\” to the point where the histogram is maxed out and the sensor
is using all 4096 levels – not just the first 512 – 1024. Done correctly the
in camera review might look hideously over-exposed, but in post-processing
FAR MORE information has been captured and can easily be tamed with lavel
and curve adjustments.

What\’s the point? The point is that many professional old timers making the
switch just don\’t understand things like this – and as a result there\’s a
lot of misinformation out there. By working your way through the likes of
Real World Camera RAW Bruce really hammers home these fundamentals – in my
opinion books like Real World Colour management – and Real World Camera RAW
are worth their weight in gold because of the foundation that they lay.

callmeoblomov posted a reply:

You can probably do this with Photoshop. The cheap way is to use the ‘Auto Levels’ command (on the positive image, not the negative), which will auto-set the white point and black point on your image. Often, this will ‘correct’ a crossprocessed image back to ‘normal’ tones. Someone who knows more about Photoshop may be able to tell you how to do this by hand, in case Auto-Levels (which is kind of a big stick) doesn’t turn out quite the way you want.

”

(Via I Shoot Film’s Discussion Feed.)

Bearing in mind that the R1 is currently on sale with Warehouse Express for £559, I guess that will be roughly how much we will be expected to pay for the new SLR.

I’m excited at the prospect of this new camera and, in particular, the lenses which include, for example, the Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 135mm f/1.8 (heaven only knows what that lens will cost but I expect it to be out of my price range!).

It remains to be seen whether Sony have managed to keep noise levels down to a decent level on the 10 megapixel sensor. From a review of the R1, that camera appears to have been able to hold its own against the EOS 350D and the E-500. The dynamic range of the R1 is not quite so good as that of the 350D (nothing in it at ISO 100 but down to 7.6 EV vs. 5.2 EV at ISO 1600).

Right now, I cannot afford the camera. However, I know exactly what I’m now saving up for, reviews pending.

Macworld: News: Sony to unveil its first DSLR camera next week
Sony will unveil its first, long-awaited digital single lens reflex (DSLR) camera next week, the company said Friday.

The camera, which will carry the Alpha brand-name, will be shown at a news conference in Tokyo on Tuesday.

“Are you afraid to use your Seagull TLR because you don’t know how to set the speed and aperture values to get the right exposition? You don’t need a light meter or another camera to measure the values for a correct exposure, just follow this simply rule and you are ready to take great pictures with your Seagull TLR camera. There are two steps to the rule:
STEP 1: Set your shutter speed equal to your film speed. Examples: 1/60 for film rated at ISO 50; 1/125 for film rated at ISO 100; Note that in most cases, the shutter speed will not exactly equal film speed, but will be set as close as possible to the film speed. It’s simply easier to remember the rule as “Shutter = Film Speed.”

STEP 2: Set your aperture equal to f/16 for sunny sky. What if it’s not sunny? If slightly overcast, open one stop to f/11. If overcast, open two stops to f/8. If deeply overcast, open three stops to f/5.6. How do I distinguish between slightly overcast, overcast and heavy overcast? Examine the shadow detail. If shadows are distinct but soft around the edges, then it’s slightly overcast. If shadows are not distinct, but still visible – very soft – then it’s overcast. If there are no shadows at all, then it’s heavy overcast. Now load your lovely camera and with your favorite film and star shooting with it again, this technique is very accurate, trust me. “

Flickr photograph

I do like the picture but still find it hard to accept that one which represents a style of photography that so largely fails to interest me has beaten my own favourite pictures in to a Tysonesque pulp.

advice and information

Prescap
Prescap is a community facility involved in community arts projects, with a darkroom on site. The darkroom has three B&W enlargers with dish processing up to 20×16 inch, (no roller dryer). Preston Photographic Society also holds a key and has two further reserved enlargers. They are open Mon to Fri, 9:30 to 4:30 with full day sessions at £8/£5 (conc), half day at £4 or £2.50 (conc). They also have a digital suite with three computers, slide scanner, A3 printer and video editing software available for £1 per hour plus printing costs of 75p per A3 sheet of photo paper or 50p per A4 sheet. 5a Walton’s Parade, Preston, Lancashire. England. PR1 8QT. Telephone: 01772 887785. Email: prescap@prescap.fsnet.co.uk

So, yesterday evening I thought to myself that I hadn’t taken any new pictures for Flickr lately. A combination of dull weather and work (or is that dull work and weather) kind of got in the way.

I was sat next to a vase of yellow flowery things (call them ‘tulips’ for the sake of argument) and thought they might make a nice shot.

I took the vase in to the kitchen and then decided that the background (fridge, deep fat fryer, artwork by Hannah, etc.) was a bit fussy. Looking for a bit of card, I discovered something turquoise in Hannah’s craft box. Wedging the card in between a couple of flowers and attaching my camera to the tripod that came free with Amateur Photographer last year appears to have produced yesterday’s 23rd most interesting picture on Flickr.


Which is nice.