With
the advent of digital photography, not only has the notion of
film gone out the window (camera), but so has the monopoly of
formats dependent on 35 mm or 120 mm film. No longer is the width
of film imposing on camera manufacturers what the proportions
of any images should be. We are starting to see transformations
that would have not been possible earlier in the analog era.
Of course lenses are now also being designed so that such variables
can be increased together with the chips that capture the images.
|
Baker
and his wife in Pingyao.
Pedro Meyer © 2006 |
|
Forbidden
City Beijing.
Pedro Meyer © 2006 |
One such example is with the new Panasonic DCM- LX2 camera, that
not only offers one but three size options.... 4:3 ratio, 3:2
ratio and the 16:9 ratio so identified with Wide Screen Cinematography
or the new HI Definition Video. Such a wide screen ratios, was
something you could do previously with the dedicated Hasselbald
Xspan 35 mm camera, 24 mm high x 65 mm wide, however, I found
the Panasonic format of 16:9 slightly easier on the composition
side and the camera, including a Leica Vario-Elmarit lens, the
camera costs only about $500 US (for a 10.2 megapixel file) a
lot less than the Hasselblad option, isn't it?
|
These sort of transformations, with less costs and greater variables,
together with increased file size are the dream come true for
creative individuals willing to explore all that there is to offer
in this digital era. I wrote last month of the CASIO, 10 megapixel
camera. I now have to add to our arsenal of light cameras to travel
with, this new LUMIX from Panasonic that is just as nice to handle
as the CASIO and offers very different and new alternatives as
well.
One of the problems of being on the forefront of such new options
is that it doesn't all work as one would like it. For instance,
the Lumix, although it offers a 10.2 megapixlel RAW file, it does
so only for the 16:9 ratio and does not open yet with any of the
known applications for digital images. One is not able, as I write
this, to use it with Photoshop, for instance. Panasonic offers
you a software application to open up their RAW files that leaves
a lot to be desired, especially if you work with a Macintosh.
In short, the option of using RAW format files is not yet available
in a practical way so we are missing the key ingredient of a RAW
plug-in that works. Yet, these things also change very quickly
and one simply has to remain alert to when the solution has been
added to your preferred software package.
|
Pedro Meyer © 2006 |
However, you can work using JPEG compression. So, while we work
out how to use the Panasonic LX-2 RAW files, we will be using
a JPEG option. The images are sharp and feel very well exposed
and above all, offer new creative alternatives that are very attractive.
I have been alternating between taking pictures with a Nikon 200
and a wide angle and the LX-2 and in some instances I am getting
better results with the LX-2. By the way, the new Nikon 80, which
is also a wonderful new addition to the arsenal of digital cameras,
has a new RAW format that equally to the LX-2 has yet to be made
compatible with all the usual imagining software we are using.
As you might know Sony acquired the line of Minolta-Konica
cameras and combined them into the new ALPHA series, altogether
with their own technologies, so we have a very successful new
line of cameras, which produce very high quality images, and yet
do this with an interchangeable lens camera, that is very light
weight. I still do not understand why the Canon semi professional
and professional cameras are made to weigh more than any other
cameras. It would seem their design department, would be put through
a terrific test if they were given the limit in weight of let
us say a Sony Alpha camera. Nikon is increasingly doing just that.
We
are told that the number of cameras used world wide -standalone
and embedded (as in a telephone)- has increased 600% in just the
past four years, and it will double again over the next five years.
The total number of cameras sold worldwide, of all kinds, in 2000
was 85 million units. For 2008 the projected sales are ONE BILLION
cameras.
There is no question that the increase in the number of cameras
has also increased the number of images recorded. The internet
has become the most rapidly expanding form of making those images
available to everyone, so let us then ask, how is photography
going to be transformed by all these changes that are presently
underway? How is in fact, is culture being transformed by the
phenomenal growth of photography?
I
give you of many examples. I was visiting the tombs of the Ming
Dynasty near Beijing, and found myself photographing a group of
people from Manchuria, in their costumes and special attire that
looked to me quite interesting. They were at that moment, tourists
just as I was, when all of a sudden a very friendly man with very
powerful hands and arms, pulls me over without saying a word,
and me not knowing what was going on, was very hesitant at first
to follow his lead. But I soon realized that he had good intentions,
as with a broad smile he told me in a very broken english: "picture".
I imagined that he just wanted me to take a picture of him, but
no, that was not how it was going to be, he wanted to be photographed
together with me, by one of his people who happened to pull out
a digital camera from underneath the folds of her dress. We had
become empowered by the digital camera, to photograph each other
as equals, as surely I was as exotic to them, as they would be
to me. No longer was the power of the photographer what it used
to be (just because we had the instrument, and they did not, with
which to make the images). We both were now on equal footing.
|
Tourists from Manchuria I.
Pedro Meyer © 2006 |
|
Tourists from Manchuria II.
Pedro Meyer © 2006 |
One
last thing, the boy in this picture was making his homework by
the roadside, next to his mother who was selling some candy, in
Pingyao. The kid would continue doing his home work of learning
and writing Chinese characters, only when a car or motorbike would
come by and shine the lights of the vehicle in his direction,
otherwise it was too dark to see. I believe the dedication and
commitment this little boy had to make his homework, no matter
what the conditions were, can be a humbling example for all of
us who work with new technologies, I know it was for me.
|
Boy doing his homework. Pingyao.
Pedro Meyer © 2006 |
Pedro Meyer
Beijing, China
September 2006