Small Spruce on Black Pond (Olympus E 510, Zuiko 11-22mm f2.8)

 

 Cross Country Skiing???…that’s too much work.

I am fortunate to reside in a portion of the eastern Pennsylvania Mountains (hills, really) where snow is fairly reliable from January through March. I also have a residence in the High Peaks region of the Adirondack Park in northern New York, where one can generally add a month on each end of the Pennsylvania snow season.

Since childhood, I have enjoyed snow sports of all kinds, but for the last thirty years, skiing, has been a dominant winter activity. It’s pleasant, that in both of the locales where I reside, that most of, my friends are also skiers.

I have been an avid downhill and Telemark skier in the past, but a bum left knee has left me somewhat hobbled in this regard. While allowing a few years to pass prior to undergoing knee replacement, I continue to at least be able to cross-country ski, which in some ways I enjoy more than its more glamorous sister sports.

Cross Country Skiing has several advantages. First, it’s cheap, both in terms of equipment and venue costs. To get fully outfitted for downhill skiing (skis, boots, bindings, and poles) could cost US$600-1000. I can find a nice touring cross-country set up ( the kind of skis you’d use on your local golf course or hiking trail) for between US $250-350.

Then there’s the clothing. Alpine skiers tend to use different clothing (warmer, less emphasis on breathability, more emphasis on style) whereas, if you’re already hiking in all seasons, cross-country garb tends to be an extension of your typical outdoor layering clothing strategy.

Some of my crusty old friends still insist on skiing in wool sweaters, and knickers with knee socks like we used to do thirty years ago.  Oddly enough, wool works pretty well, except that everything tends to stick to it. You look like a snowman if you fall.

Then there is the venue. In the Adirondacks, a day of skiing at two Olympic skiing sites varies rather widely. At the time this was written (2011) a downhill ski lift pass at Whiteface Mountain is around US $80. By comparison, to ski at the Van  Hoevenburg, Cross Country Ski Center (as well-groomed and full featured as anywhere in the country), costs a relatively modest US$20. Its trail system connects to the equally lovely Cascade Ski Center where a ticket is an even more reasonable US$12. In truth, resorts such as these are a luxury.  Most of the time, I end up “backcountry” skiing on public land where typically there is no fee.

 

When I bring up the topic of cross-country skiing to someone who has never tried it, the invariable comment is something like: “that’s a lot of work”. Actually once you learn the technique, moving at a brisk pace over level or even rolling ground is fairly easy. Like all forms of athletic activity though, if pursued with vigor, it’s a formidable workout.

Photography from skis can be very fruitful. Whether on alpine gear at a downhill resort, or on a tour on Nordic skis, the surrounding scenery tends to be rather striking.

Doing photography however, while pursuing any athletic activity has its problems.  Active muscle tone and a bounding heartbeat can make obtaining sharp images a challenge. Camera stabilization is very important. Something as simple pausing for five minutes after exertion to allow your heart rate and “contractility” to subside a bit can help to avoid camera shake. Ski poles, tripods and, in fact any fixed object you encounter can be helpful.

It can be intimidating to carry hundreds, if not thousands of dollars worth of camera gear in a pack if you are not a confident skier. Hone your ski skills before packing up your most valuable gear before a challenging run. Until your pretty sure you’re not going to fall onto and crush your brand new point and shoot ( or fall on your D3 , and injure yourself), pack along more expendable equipment. If you’re not yet ready to ski with your camera equipment, snowshoes can be another, somewhat easier way to venture into the winter wilds.

I really like the Panasonic G-series cameras for skiing because they are light, moderately priced but can still capture high quality images. They are also fairly sturdy, but I still think that they would deform in an accident, sparing my spleen.

I tend to carry camera gear in a large “fanny pack” with a shoulder strap over my left shoulder, and the hip belt tight enough to inhibit bag migration. When I want to shoot, I loosen the belt, and swing the band over my right hip, towards the front, where all of the contents are convenient to access. The Mountainsmith pack that I use fits a G series camera with several lenses, extra batteries and memory, a water bottle, plus room to carry a shed layer, all without disturbing my sense of balance.

Longer, more ambitious winter trips require gear that will only fit in a larger backpack. In this case, a smaller fanny pack can be carried up front, for quick access to your camera gear.

Skiing into remote areas allows one to observe and photograph even familiar territory in a whole new light, and get some wonderful winter exercise.

 And it’s really not that much work.

 

Pennsylvania Winter Farm (Nikon D7000, Nikkor 16-85mm f3.5)

 

Occasionally, a budding photographer will approach me for advice on how to capture better images.

I think that my answer must disappoint them. I’m sure most beginners really hope that I can direct them towards the purchase of a particularly sexy piece of gear, such as a camera body, or a particular lens that will set their photography afire.

They want to talk about gear. I want to talk about composition, and technique. Particularly, I want to talk about rather mundane basics such as the nature of optics, shooting discipine, and camera, and lens support.

Not that there aren’t some great photographs blurred by subject motion, or camera movements.

Most great images are sharp, even if it is at a narrow point of focus selected by the shooter.

 Generally, for an image to be sharp, the camera and lens need to be still relative to the subject, as the shutter is released.

Now, there are many ways to properly stabilize a camera.

My first rule would be: the human body unaided, is at best, only a fair camera support.  Now true enough, a practiced pro shooter can hand-hold, and certainly achieve great results, usually far better  than an amateur. There are reasons for this. First, the pro is practiced at taking still images, much in the way a fine marksman, can draw a bead and hold very steadily on his target. It takes concentration and lots of repetition. There are places to learn this: here, and here.

 Most amateurs have lousy technique. They think that they can hold a camera, arms akimbo, far out from the body, trying to shoot a telephoto shot through a slow zoom lens, at an impossibly slow shutter speed, and still achieve Sports Illustrated quality shots of their precious soccer-playing offspring. It doesn’t work that way.

A pro understands that the proper shooting technique is to hold the arms close in to the body elbows braced against the chest or abdomen, and the viewfinder pressed against the face. Holding as modern digital camera out away from you while you frame with the viewfinder, is generally going to lead to fair snapshots, but lousy fine art prints.

Also, often pro camera gear, is heavier. This means that the poke of the finger on the shutter, and the movement of the mirror and shutter, on an SLR, is working against the greater mass of, for instance,  a heavy, metal-bodied  camera such as a Canon 1Ds mark II, rather than a diminutive plastic consumer grade Digital Rebel. It thus creates less blur-inducing movement.

 Most landscape purists use tripods… period. Many shoot large-format cameras that are too unwieldy to be practical for anything but tripod mounting.  The true purist would use, very heavy tripods with equally beefy camera mounts that add mass to the camera body and couple it rigidly to the floor or ground, essentially eliminating camera movement.

Tripods are great for detailed images. They are less useful when for hiking long distances, for discreet shooting and sometimes, for spontaneity.

 Obviously, there are available, stabilized lenses, known as IS lenses for Canon,OIS for Panasonic, and VR lenses for Nikkor. These can partially make up for camera shake. Modern Sony, Olympus, and Pentax SLR lenses are generally stabilized by the camera body itself. Whether in the lens or body, stabilization is a useful feature, but can only be counted on to compensate for modest camera movements at reasonably fast shutter speeds.

Combining a heavy tripod with a remote shutter release (or releasing the shutter by using the camera self timer) is still the best way to obtain sharp, enlargable landscape prints.  This is especially true when shooting moving water, or in low light situations.  We should probably all do this, all the time.

In fact, good technique and less megapixels, will sometimes trump bad technique with more megapixels in terms of fine detail reproduction.

I have walked, snowshoed, and skied many miles with a tripods strapped to my pack. In a target-rich photographic environment, I sometimes leave the body and lens attached to the tripod, and travel with the combination over my shoulder, much like the way Huck Finn would carry a fishin’ pole.

 Lately though, I have changed tactics.  I found that sometimes setting up all the gear to work as a purist means that there are shots you won’t take because, it’s too much trouble. I still do use a tripod on formal shooting days. But for more casual opportunities, or for situations where I think that the neighbors will react badly to my presence, I use other techniques.

Cross-country skiing is one example. I have two ski poles in hand, and often, no where convenient to carry a monopod. I will then have to improvise.

Holding crossed ski (or hiking) poles with my thumb and third to fifth finger, I can improvise a bipod with the pair. My index finger can then encircle the barrel of the lens which rests in the cross. This works pretty well.

Trees when well located can be used to stabilize things, either by leaning against them, or bracing the camera hard against the bark. A small sandbag in your bag is helpful to facilitate the latter.

Any firm stable object can be useful. Fence post and bridge rails make fine camera supports. With SLRs, it is useful to press the camera into the support, to damp the movement of the mirror. Again a sandbag is useful to position the camera on a hard surface.

Logs, the hood of your car, your mountain bike seat, even rocks in the middle of a stream, can offer a shooting platform, as well as a non-intuitive, but unique shooting viewpoint. The Panasonic G 1-G1h- G2h-series cameras are great for this as they have an articulating view screen for framing at weird angles, are physically small, and have no mirror, and thus no “mirror slap” to dampen.

Finally, most often lately, I use a monopod.  Mine is a steel Bogen-Manfrotto unit with a sturdy ballhead mounted, a ballhead similar to, if less robust than the one on my good Gitzo tripod. Both ballheads use the same camera shoe so that I can switch back quickly between support options.

The monopod is a solid, heavy steel unit. The weight is an advantage when mechanically coupled to the camera, and then to the ground. There is a rubber foot, which can be slipped off to reveal a metal spike.

It makes a robust hiking pole. I keep it in my car wedged between the passenger seat and the console where it is readily available for “grab shots”. I have also suspected it would make a formidable self-defense weapon.

For landscape photography, I extend the monopod to the length I need. I make sure all of the joints are tightly locked. I position the camera with the ball head and then lock it down tight. I find that placing some weight on the camera-monopod assembly and making sure it if firmly engaged with the ground before tripping the shutter, allows me to take very sharp images even at marginal shutter speeds. I can grab good shots very quickly with a monopod in situations where a tripod would be slow and cumbersome.

If you aspire to create photographic images beyond the average, you need to spend time learning the basics. 

These methods may seem tedious and even stifling. Always remember that good camera technique and save you from opening your compositional masterwork, the one you hiked hours to capture, only to find is a blurred, unprintable mess.

Take the time and trouble.

It’s worth it.

 

Red and Orange (Panasonic GH1, Lumix 20mm f 1.7)

 

On a day off, especially if I am awakening in the morning during a photogenic season, or in a scenic place, I have to make a decision.

Do I get up, grab my photo gear and go out early, or do I “sleep in”. This is a decision that I usually make based on the weather.

If it’s cloudy, I stay in bed, knowing that the same shooting conditions that I would encounter at 6 AM will exist at 11. I can sleep a bit, have breakfast and coffee, and still get good light.

If it’s clear, I think about it. You have to get up very early, arguably before sunrise, to catch the very best light. If I can look out the window and can already see that it’s clear, I probably already missed the best shooting. Have to wait until sunset.

If it’s foggy however, particularly if there’s no rain, I’m up instantly. For fogs, or mists, in many ways and in their many forms provide a wonderful backdrop for landscape photography.

Landscape photographers need to try to understand the weather. It’s helpful to anticipate the atmosphere’s behavior in order to be present for the best shooting conditions. I’m not a meteorologist, but I know a few things:

I know that in the fall of the year, when a cold front passes after a period of warmth, fog will form in valleys, particularly in river valleys, while the surrounding ridges will be clear. The amount of fog will depend on the “dew point” of the atmosphere.

I know that a similar phenomenon occurs anytime cool moist air passes over warmer surfaces.

I know that it is not unlikely to have fog, when there is an ice storm in the winter.

I know that fog will occur at times I cannot predict.

Fog is like free bokeh (see definition here) provided by the atmosphere. When it is thin, it blurs and deemphasizes the background detail, focusing one’s attention on the subject.

When it is thick, it can transform the commonplace into the abstract. It can change a pedestrian scene, into a more magical vision.

It helps to have equipment that is relatively moisture resistant. Don’t underestimate the pernicious effect  of water vapor on electronics. Don’t bring warm cameras out into cool moist environments. If you do, water will condense onto the electronics, and lenses will fog. At the least, it helps to have a lens cloth available.  

Better yet, let the equipment equalize to the ambient temperature (I usually leave my gear overnight in a place where that can happen). Typically then, there will be few issues.

Every once in a while, Mother Nature helps us with our craft.

Take advantage of it.

October 18, 2010

Alright , I admit it. I screwed up A number of our readers pointed out that the real danger of condensation on camera lenses, and in camera bodies occurs when cold equipment is brought into warm environments. Bang, you got me. In my own defense however, I would say that I was trying to warn my gentle readers about the perils of using electronic equipment, in ultra-humid environments.

I am greatful that people are paying attention.

 I hope you’ll continue.

 

This is an image taken in 2007 with my D2x and a Nikkor 18 -200 f3.5-5 VR.

It was taken in Lake Placid New York in early October of that year at “John Brown’s Farm”.

This is the resting place of the abolitionist (and leader of the rebelllion at Harper’s Ferry). It is is now an National Monument. 

The image depicts the contrast of “peak” leaf color at the farm’s 1800 ft of elevation, against a backdrop of the much higher terrain of Algonquin, and Wright’s Peak, which had already seen their first snow cover of the season.

It will will always be a striking memory of the beauty of the Adirondacks.

  

 Sometimes an image will surprise you in small but delightful ways.

   Sometimes it will be the inclusion of an unnoticed detail in a corner of the image that adds interest to the eye.

  When shooting on the water, it can be a feature under the surface, unseen through the viewfinder, but revealed courtesy of the polarizing filter you thoughtfully placed on the lens.

   In my case recently, it was blue light.

  I was camping with my daughter Brigid, a sort of last attempt to bond before she escapes to college life. We paddled our kayaks to an island in the Saranac Lake chain of upstate New York.

  Truth be told, she wasn’t real happy about this. Her brother escaped “dad duty” as he had brought two friends with him on our trip up north, and there weren’t enough kayaks. His time will come.

  I was going one way or another, and I’d like to think if anything, Brigid went to make sure that I didn’t capsize and drown.

 This particular trip is lovely.  You “put in” at a state sponsored site on the Saranac River and paddle through a series of ”ponds” prior to emerging into the vast waters of Lower Saranac lake. This is a large convoluted body of water, connected to the Middle Saranac Lake again by the Saranac River which reappears at the southwestern end of the lake. Multiple islands erupt from the lake floor. They vary in size from single rocks harboring a small pad of soil and a few conifers, to multiple acre-sized landforms covered in White Pine and northern hardwoods. This makes Lower Saranac a pleasant, visually interesting, largely sheltered place to paddle, though we did encounter fairly fresh winds and chop over the open sections we had to traverse.

   As they were loaded with gear, the ‘yaks rode lower in the water than usual, and it was somewhat difficult to “beach” them on the steep and slippery gneiss shoreline on the island we had chosen. Once secured, we unloaded and set up camp.

The NYS DEC maintain this area nicely. There are nice wide open tenting areas. There is even a privy available (definitely necessary, as these are busy sites)

Each site has a concrete fireplace, correctly designed to provide reflected heat for the cool Adirondack nights (thirty to forty degree nights would not be uncommon).

  I removed my Panasonic GH1 and two lenses from the dry bag where they resided for the trip over and waited for the light to get interesting.

  I had thought about taking some video, especially if the lake’s loons cooperated by calling prominently, but they were quiet that night. A few of their mournful cries were audible, but only in the distance. We contented ourselves with the warbling of wood thrushes, the chittering of the islands sole red squirel, and the occasional sound of passing powerboat.

   Periodically, dark clouds appeared, threatening rain. Happily it held off until much later, when we were finally zipped into the tent for the night.

  At dusk, the temperature dropped and fire seemed like a nice idea. I gathered wood and using the bark from a birch log we found already at the site, started one fairly easily.

  I spent a lot of time in the hour around sunset, shooting from various vantage points before returning to the campsite for good.

   There, Brigid and I sat around the fire as the light faded. The glow of the fireplace was evocative. I had no tripod on the trip ( yes, I know, big faux pas) so I was forced to set the camera at ISO 1600 (not the GH1’s best strength) to get reasonable shutter speeds.

   I asked Brigid to stay very still, and shot several frames with her in the foreground, counting on the image stabilization to keep things sharp. It was important to if anything, over-expose a bit (with a fire as the bright point it doesn’t matter so much), to avoid shadow noise. I looked at the image on the LCD in camp, it looked OK, and I put the equipment away for the night.

   I shot a few more images in the morning before we left the next morning but the sky was cloudy and the light mostly unremarkable. Still… there were moments.

   When I got back to my computer and was able to view the images in Photoshop, I noticed something I hadn’t seen in camp. In sharp contrast to reds and oranges of the firelight, was a soft blue glow evident through the trees at the shoreline, the fading blue of the night sky reflected in the water of the lake. I played with raw image a bit, pushing the exposure to a point that enhanced this effect (but only a bit). I was surprised and impressed with the camera’s dynamic range and metering which had allowed all of this to be recorded.

I like this picture. It reminds me of the numerous, and largely anonymous campfire scenes one sees for sale at souvenir shops throughout the Adirondacks.

  More importantly, it will always remind me of a very pleasant memory of time spent with my daughter before she embarks on a new phase of her young life.

BTW Brigid, Happy 18th.

  

Creating interesting images in midsummer, in the northeastern United States is sometimes a struggle. 

 Now I’m not saying that there aren’t subjects to shoot. There certainly are. 

    Streams, waterfalls, lakes, sunrises and sunsets all are available in midsummer the way they are the rest of the year. It’s just that everything is a fairly uniform green. And one day looks like the next. 

   There’s little change or evolution in the landscape, like in the fall with the leaves that seem to change almost day-by-day; or more obviously in the winter, when a snowstorm can utterly transform the scenery overnight. 

   There is however, a pattern of subtle, but predictable events in rural landscapes. There is for instance, the reliable blooming of summer flowers. If one pays attention during the year, you can begin to date an image by what blooms are present. 

  In early July for instance, here in the Moosic Mountains, purple thistles decorate the sunny edges of dirt roads throughout the region. Three weeks later, the seeds and their white parachutes are grasping at currents of air. 

Cardinal flowers decorate the channels of ephemeral streams that have dried up in the warm dry summer air. Blueberries, their blossoms long gone, ripen on the branches of trailside shrubs. 

  Sunflower blooms appear on their towering stalks sometime later, generally in August, and often well into September, their appearance roughly corresponding to the eruption of yellow in fields of goldenrod, the scourge of allergy sufferers everywhere. 

    On local farms, hay is being cut, depending on the summer weather, for the second or third time. This applies a sweet aroma to the summer breezes. 

   Sweet corn starts to be harvested. Heavy green fruit begins to pull the thin branches of tomato plants downward. Vast armies of wheat stalks bend in unison, to the wind of midsummer storms. 

   For me the goal of scenic summer photography, and for that matter, all seasonal photography is to capture the essence…the feeling of the moment that I and others experience in our little nook of the world. 

    I want my audience to view an image with all their senses, and share the full experience; for instance, the chill of a distinctly cool August morning in the Adirondacks, after a cold front passes. I surely want then to see the glory of the sun as it burns through the early morning fog.  But I want them to inhabit the scene, and to imagine the fresh smell of the dew-laden grasses, and to hear, as I heard that morning,  the distant sound of a loon on this obscure little lake, shrouded in mist (I guess now that I have a GH1, I could just take some video). 

   I want to convey the feeling as a rivulet of sweat runs down the back of your neck, in the lingering heat of a summer evening, on an uphill walk to an old abandoned farm. 

 Or the satisfaction of a quick Saturday afternoon mountain bike ride to a reservoir high in the surrounding hills. 

 Or the joy of a paddle on the Susquehanna River as the sun sets over the surrounding mountains. 

  I want to evoke the memory of hunting woodchucks at a friend’s farm on an August afternoon…or the joy of the amusements and food at a volunteer fire department “bazaar”. 

Images shouldn’t always just be technically competent and well composed. 

 I believe they need to tell a story.

   Like most people, I lust for the newest and best, whether we’re talking about cars, computers, smart phones or of course, photo gear.

I absolutely lust for a Leica S2, the new 37.5 MP, near medium format DSLR that, sadly, with a single “normal” 70mm lens runs roughly $28,000 dollars.

   Likewise for a Nikon D3x the 24mp DSLR which body only can be had for a more reasonable, but still rather princely sum of $7400. Given the state of the economy, and a kid going to college, it’s just not happening.

D3x Image by Nikon

   Having huge amounts of real resolution on a very high quality, big pixel imager has wonderful advantages in terms of maximum print size, and allows the photographer great latitude in terms of cropping. With so much data, you can crop away half the image and still make a respectable print.

Bodies such as the Leica and the  D3x are built for professionals and can tolerate a lot of abuse in the field. They handle wonderfully, and are designed to facilitate rapid changes in settings, mainly through external buttons and controls.

  With these wonderful attributes, there are also demands placed on the photographer who uses such wonderful gear. High resolution imagers require high quality glass.  You can’t just slap on the 18-55mm “kit lens” you got with your D40 on a D3x. In fact, that particular DX format lens will only illuminate a portion of the D3x’s FX format imager. To utilize the power of this fine instrument, you will need excellent quality full frame lenses.  Price-wise, think $1500+ for Nikkor zooms, though excellent primes can be had for much less. Leica glass is much more expensive.

  A second issue has to do with technique. High resolution means that fine detail is visible in the image, particularly the  details of how you screwed up. Failing to prevent minute camera movements caused by clumsily stabbing the shutter and/or by so-called “Mirror Slap” can reduce the preservation of details to the point where the capture resembles a much lower resolution image. Factor in to the price of the camera, the cost of a very high quality tripod and head, sturdy enough to handle this heavy camera body/lens combo and perhaps a remote shutter release, and you can easily add $800 to the price tag.

  Nonetheless, do I want these cameras? Yes, I do.

 Do I need them? Probably, I do not.

 First I can only print photos in my studio at 16”x22” or smaller. I have never been asked by a client for a print larger than 24”x 30”. High quality 12 MP imagers, well utilized, can provide very nice files for such prints.

 Enter another Nikon body… the D2x.

    I already own one of these, having purchased it roughly three years ago as a “Factory Refurb” for about 3K (it retailed for around $5000). Much to my chagrin, I now see them “lightly used”, on EBay for $800-$900.

The D2x was introduced in 2005. It was hailed at the time as a breakthrough product, and brought a lot of pro shooters back from Canon to Nikon.

 The body design formed the basis for the current D3 series cameras and thus is very similar in design, and equally stout.

It looks to be the last of the pro-level DX format cameras which means that it can utilize all of the lenses I own, whether FX or DX. Because of the 1.5x crop factor, it makes makes the long zooms shoot even longer. Dx imagers also have increased apparent depth of field compared to larger sensors which is great for landscapes, but can be a problem at times, for portrait work.

    Wide angle lenses on DX are another story, as they inconveniently get longer too.  There are however, some wonderfull 11-12mm wide zoom options available for DX format, getting us down to a 17-18mm field of view (full frame equivelent). 

    Another piece of good news for DX: their smaller sensors utilize only the center portion of a full frame lens. This tends to make good lenses shoot great.

IThe D2x has a cropped mode shooting 7MP files (more than enough for most photojournalism) at 8 frames per second, or it will shoot a full 12 MP image at 5ffp. This performance lags behind current pro Nikon offerings, but who cares…8 frames per second sounds like a machine gun.

It has extremely fast and accurate auto focus, and very reliable metering. It is compatible with Nikon’s newest flashguns using the i-TTL system.

  And, when used thoughtfully, it captures beautiful, detailed images. I tend to use it for landscape photography, but it is particularly useful for shooting sports in outdoor venues where the light is good.

It’s big disadvantage has to do with low light shooting. It produces nice work up to about ISO 800, when noise begins to set in. Later Nikon DX offerings like the D-300 do better with this, and the FX Nikons, such as my D-700, do much better. Happily, the noise seen in high ISO D2x images has a nice fine luminance noise (rather than blotchy color noise) that resembles the “grain” in old high sensitivity black and white film.

It’s really well built and sealed. I’ve stood on the sideline of a football game in heavy rain shooting the D2x paired with the equally rugged Nikkor 70-200mm VR with nary a worry about the equipment. When the rain stops, you just towel everything off, and keep shooting.

There are lots of other features that make “pro level” Nikons so wonderful to use.

So why talk about an old camera?

  If you’re a talented amateur, or person getting started on a pro career in photography, you may not have the $4500 to blow on a current Nikon pro body. $800 will barely by you a D-90 which is a very nice plastic bodied 12 megapixel DX camera, but no where near as capable, tunable, or rugged as a D2x. Nice as the consumer Nikons are, is there is an intangible joy to owning an instrument as nicely built and designed as a D2 series camera.

I will admittedly, continue to lurk on EBay, watching for D3x prices to fall into my range. It may be a long wait.

For now however, I’m very content with the Nikons I already own.

Even if you have a couple of digital SLRs, there is always a need for a small but capable camera; one that can be carried with you for unexpected photographic opportunities that crop up when you least expect it.

In the beginning of the digital photography era, digital cameras tended to be compact and fairly expensive, and aimed at photo enthusiasts. Though there were simple point-and –shoot models, there was a good selection of robustly built cameras with full controls and features such as the Nikon Coolpix 990 that I purchased in 2000 for around $900.00. The 990 was made of magnesium, and had controls and features not dissimilar to serious bodies like the F100 pro SLR. It had an unusual twisting body, a fine Nikkor lens with a modest zoom range, and features such as threads for filters. At three megapixels, it had resolution equal or superior to the hyper-expensive DSLRs of the time. To a person familiar with more serious Nikons, the 990 had obvious kinship, and was easy to pick up and use. Ditto the Canon G series (there is still a G 11 avaialble) and the Olympus C series (I owned a C-5050), which were serious compacts available for the users of their film SLRs. All these cameras had relatively large 1 1/8 inch imagers with around 3 million large pixels.

Now before I get too nostalgic, let me say, that these imagers were useful only for relatively small prints, and had very limited low light capabilities. The bodies however were serious, as rugged and controllable enough for pro use.  I saw a lot of photojournalists with Nikon F-5s in hand, but a 990 in their bag.

Serious compact cameras continued to evolve and improve though 2004, but a year earlier, Canon dropped a bomb, a budget digital SLR with an APC sized imager which was far larger than even the 2/3 inch imagers of the best compacts of the time. At about the same money as a Nikon 990, it was hugely more capable with fast autofocus, interchangeable lenses, six megapixels, and wonderful (for the time) high ISO capabilities. It sold like hotcakes. It was followed in 2004 by the even more capable Nikon D-70 with more performance, and a better standard lens. Suddenly, everyone wanted a DSLR. The market for the serious compact dried up and the genre disappeared.

In the years since, serious amateurs gravitated to interchangeable lens SLRs.  More casual photographers were offered a selection of products designed it seemed, by marketing departments with two main attributes: more megapixels, and more zoom capability.

This has resulted in offerings with tiny imagers sporting as much 14 megapixels with 400mm equivalent zoom lenses in plastic bodies the size of an Altoids box, for 3-400 bucks. Serious shooters understand that to be sold at that price point, imagers and lenses with such accelerated specs are unlikely to perform well.

An exception to this was the Fuji F series cameras which sported fine lenses, metal bodies and a unique large 6 MP sensor with unprecedented low light capabilities for small cameras. Still, they were compacts, with limited controls, limited to capturing only compressed jpgs… albeit high quality jpgs.

I used the F series for several years and captured a lot of images with them. The high quality of the lens and sensor was far more capable, than higher MP compacts. I still keep one in my pocket when needed.

Enter Panasonic. In 2008 they introduced the third of their LX series, logically called the LX 3, and serious shooters took notice. Finally, here was a pocket sized camera clearly designed for the serious amateurs and pros.

The LX 3 has several significant advantages over the Fujis. First, it shoots raw format, essentially allowing access to the unmodified data directly from the imager, without any input from the cameras processor. Raw files are unlike jpg files, where things like sharpness, white balance and contrast are “baked in” to the file and are more difficult to modify without image degradation. When I can, I shoot raw files exclusively.

The LX3 has a very rugged metal body, with a flash shoe compatible with my diminutive Olympus FL-30 flash. For an indoor event, I can stow each in a suit coat pocket, and shoot excellent quality flash images without the burden of a camera bag.

Panasonic reversed the trends of compact cameras in two ways. First, they increased the imager size, but reduced the official pixel count to a reasonable 10 MP. For high ISO shooting, it runs neck and neck with my Fuji F-31, which is still an industry standard.

The imager is actually larger than 10 mp. It allows the user to choose three aspect ratios, from a widescreen 16:9 to a square-ish 4:3 with out losing much in the way of pixels, and thus resolution.

Panasonic also used extraordinarily good judgment with the lens choice, specifying a fast f 2.0, 24-60mm equivalent imaged-stabilized Leica Summicron lens. To my eye, the lens is optically excellent, though issues of distortion are corrected digitally.

It also can capture 1280×720 HD video.

There is a large high resolution LCD on the back. Controls are cleverly designed to allow a shocking amount of manual control for a compact. Like the Lumix G series I have written about elsewhere here, there is a real time on-screen histogram, which is very helpful to judge exposure prior to tripping the shutter.

One downfall is the lack of a viewfinder, unfortunately pro forma for compact cameras these days. Panasonic mitigates this somewhat with a simple optical viewfinder, offered as an accessory, which slides into the flash shoe. It is locked into the 24mm focal length but allows you to aim the camera, stabilized properly against your face. It works, but to use it at longer focal lengths, it takes some getting used to.

Now I must say, that compared to the velvety smooth images produced by larger sensor cameras, particularly my D-700, the Panasonic imager is relatively noisy, even at ISO 100. SLRs tend to spoil you for smaller imagers. Small cameras are not the best choice for landscape work.  Still and all, in the hands of a clever photographer who understands its capabilities, features, and limitations, it can create wonderful images where other compacts would fail.

On the Panasonic internet forums, there is a lot of speculation on the LX3’s successor. I for one could care less.

If you can’t take good images with this camera, it’s not Panasonic’s fault.

9/28 11 Read my review of Panasonic’s update, the LX 5, here.

 

 

I reside, as I have mentioned before, in a fairly rural part of eastern Pennsylvania.

As a landscape photographer, I am naturally drawn to certain scenes more than others.  I think like many people, when I drive around on country roads, in my case looking for fresh subjects for my work, my eyes are naturally drawn to farm infrastructure, and most especially, to barns.

  People seem to like barns. Images that contain them tend to be well received in gallery exhibitions, and importantly, they tend to sell.

They seem to evoke pleasant thoughts in viewers. Perhaps it involves a harkening to some imagined ancestral past, a back-to-the-earth sort yearning for the mythical farming life, free of the stresses of the modern workplace. This is absolutely mythical, because farming of any kind is far from stress-free.

   Perhaps it is something about their permanence. Most barns you see tend to be rather old. It‘s easy to imagine them being used by multiple generations of the same family. This is pleasant concept in our increasingly transient lifestyle.

  Often they show off their age. Commonly a barn will, over the years, drift far out of plumb. I will often encounter structures that lean precipitously, yet are still in use.

When they do begin to fail structurally, as often as not, they are allowed to die without intervention. I watched for years, a barn near my home with a pronounced saddle on the main roof line. Over time, and seemingly unnoticed by the farmers, it proceeded to fall in on itself. It was finally finished off by a wet November snowstorm, the wood structure collapsing completely into the stone foundation where it remains to this day.

   It seems to me that barns are all about function rather than esthetics. Gambrel roofs aren’t there to be pretty; they allow a farmer to store more hay in the loft than in a barn with a simple pitch. Cupolas aren’t for decoration, they’re for ventilation.

 Need a new wing to the structure? Build what you can, paint it with whatever pigment you have stored in the loft somewhere. What’s most important is that the new building will serve as a shelter for whatever new equipment or livestock you need to be housed.

I think it is this pragmatic approach to construction that makes barns visually interesting to non-farming folk.

Now all of this having been said, I sometimes feel that photographing barns is somehow cheating. It’s fairly easy to create a pleasant image with a barn as an anchor. Not uncommonly, as I round a bend on a country road and find yet another bucolic barn-containing rural scene, I pause and think. Do I really need this image? Will it add anything to the vast archive of similar bucolic barn-containing rural scenes already residing on my external hard drives? Shouldn’t I be looking for more novel and challenging subjects?

  Oh, but what the hell, it’s just another file for the hard drive.