MS Optical Super Triplet Perar 3.5/35 Mark II

MS Optical Super Triplet Perar 3.5/35 Mark II

Japan Exposures has the Perar 3.5/35 Super-Triplet Mark II in stock. Order fast if you want one, the original version sold out quickly.

Video: Early Morning Street Photography

Early Morning Street Photography, originally uploaded by DigitalRevCom.

I always enjoy the videos from DigitalRev. In the latest episode, Kai takes to the streets at 4am and talks about getting outside your photographic comfort zone.

Christian Behr: Senior-Style Portraits

Photo: Christian Behr

The Tamron email newsletter came in today, and there's a nice article, by Jennifer Gidman, about portrait photographer Christian Behr. It's focused on senior portraits. Not too much of a sales pitch, and a little practical advice. It also reminded me how much I sometimes miss being a portrait photographer.

BW Conversion

004_R1173318, originally uploaded by infrar3d.

Playing with the trial of Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.

Camera and Lens Survey

Adobe Bridge CS5

I've got a folder where I save pictures I want to be able to look at again. Maybe for composition, lighting, Photoshop tricks, or maybe just because I like them. It's a mixture of Fashion, Street, Candid, Food...whatever. A lot of these images still have their EXIF data, so as I was looking through them in Bridge the other night I decided to write down all the camera models and focal lengths and put together a survey. I converted all the focal lengths from APS-C, APS-H and Medium Format to 35mm terms just to make it easier to read.

Cameras

20% - Canon EOS 5D Mark II
15% - Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III
9% - Ricoh GR Digital III (this is probably an outlier)
7% - Nikon D3x
5% each - Nikon D3, Panasonic GF1
4% - Phase One P45+
3% each - Canon EOS 1D Mark III , Canon EOS 5D, Nikon D2x
2% each - Canon 1Ds Mark II, Nikon D300, Nikon D700, Nikon D90, Phase One P30+, Phase One P40+, Phase One P65+
1% or less each - Canon 30D, Canon 40D, Canon 450D, Canon 7D, Canon Rebel XS, Canon EOS Digital RebelXSi, Hasselblad H3DII-31, Hasselblad H3DII-39, Leica M8, Leica M9, Nikon D3s, Nikon D70, Nikon D70s, Nikon D80, Nikon D5000, Olympus E-300, Phase One H25, Phase One P25, Ricoh GR Digital II, Ricoh GXR P10, Sinar Hy6/Sinarback eMotion 75II, Sony DSC-F828

Nothing too surprising here, except perhaps the strong showing by Phase One. The GRD3 numbers are probably inflated because I have an interest in the camera. Let's move on the the lenses.

Focal Lengths

17% each - 50mm, 28mm
14% - 70mm
9% - 35mm
8% - 85mm
6% each - 24mm, 40mm
5% - 60mm
4% - 100mm
3% - 90mm
2% - 110mm

Everything else got one percent or less. Although there were a few trends even in that. If you add everything between 90mm and 110mm together, it's about eleven percent. Combined 70mm to 85mm is 24%. And there's another two or three percent bunched somewhere around 150mm. The shortest lens was 12mm and the longest 220mm.

This is all fairly unscientific. None of the images were chosen at random, they're images I like, but they're mostly from professional, working photographers.

NEX-5 Fashion Shots

Yasmin for Ben Trovata, by Rita Zimmermann

There's a great post today at Ben Trovato Blog of Brazilian model Yasmin shot by Rita Zimmermann. Nothing unusual about that, as I've noted before a lot of great photography gets posted there. And they always leave the EXIF data, so that gearheads like me can obsess about it. Which leads me to the unusual part - it looks like the whole story was shot with a Sony NEX-5 and the 18-55mm kit lens.

See the whole story here. Warning - nudity.

And Another Thing

While I was reading the rest of Thom Hogan's post, he also wondered what Nikon could possibly do for their next round of consumer DSLRs in 2012. He thinks the current DX models are so good, and they are good, that Nikon will have a tough time improving them significantly. Here's the quote.

The question that needs to be asked is whether or not this strategy will work for another consumer DSLR generation. Such a generation would start to appear in md-to-late 2012. But what would it have that the current ones don't?

I've got some ideas. How about:

• bringing sensor production in house
• a breakthrough in dynamic range
• multi-format sensors, à la Panasonic
• getting rid of the Bayer array
• a true black and white sensor

That's just off the top of my head. I think there are lots of things Nikon could do. Besides, the lower end of the consumer range will probably get eaten by mirrorless at some point anyway.