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Summer is over, autumn has begun, the circus festival has come and gone and the clocks have changed – what else is there?

Firstly the festival was a blast – some very good spectacles this year (this helps erase the memories of people wearing nappies on their heads etc. from last year) and I’m happy with the results.

We’ve had a particularly mild Autumn so far – doesn’t really seem that Christmas is around the corner with temperatures in the low 20’s. After our last foray into Scotland, and looking at the quality of the images I was able to produce with the Z6ll, I decided to do something I’ve never done before – buy a ‘grey’ import camera.

Grey imports are items generally purchased in the Far East or at least countries that have little or no purchase tax, which are then sold in Europe at massive discounts. The items are fully functioning models, not copies or with different specifications – they just have to ‘official’ right to an after sales service (repairs under guarantee etc.) so you have to be careful choosing.

Financially the difference was pretty impressive – this camera body normally sells for 2799€ in France but NIKON have a reduction at the moment and it retails at 2299€. I paid 1500€ and as far as I can see, this is a fully functioning camera body with no defects – the seller (based in France) simply orders from vendors in China who buy locally – very often there are items missing – battery chargeurs, no French/European charging cable etc. but this wasn’t the case here. Interestingly, for customs, the camera was listed as an « image recorder » with a respectively low value…

My choice was a brand new Z7ll

No different externally from the Z6ll – but the sensor is twice the pixel density – 45Mp instead of 24Mp. As an example, the following image was created from a 48Mp RAW file on the Z7ll – on the Z6ll the file would have been roughly 29Mp

Just for fun, I checked the shutter count with this first image…(This is the sequential file number recorded into the EXIF information of each image file, which cannot be modified, so effectively shows the actual shutter count of the camera)

Reassuring ! At least I know the camera is brand new. To test this new beauty, I’m going to use the 14-24 f/2.8 wide-angle zoom – this lens is a particularly good choice as it has an extremely high definition and will show up any defects. (Another good one is the 24-70 f/4 – a very good quality lens for an f/4, and much more compact)

More when I’ve made some images…

Just arrived home after a week exploring Paris. Took an APS-C camera (small and discrete, and just a couple of lenses – one being a 6,5mm fish-eye (Click on the images to enlarge)

AstrHori 6,5mm f/2.0 Fish-Eye

I also had a ‘standard’ 12-28 (18-35 equivalent) NIKON zoom – that worked well too

NIKKOR 12-28 f/3,5 – 5,6 zoom

This said, I had the iPhone in my pocket all the time, and frankly the 13mm wide-angle works really very well – quite impressed.

iPhone 14 Pro – wide-angle (13mm)

The great thing about the telephone is that it just slips in ones pocket – and the resulting images are really very good (for travel/web images)

We visited everything we’d planed for, and a few other sights – and walked on average 15 km per day !

Here are a few more shots from the trip:-

Had a great time – time went by incredibly fast though – we’ll have to go again…

Strange situation regarding firmware updates at NIKON.

The new 3.0 Update for the Z8 has just been announced, with a few new features, and corrections etc. What’s interesting is that none of what has been announced is (yet) availlable on the flagship Z9 model?

NIKON Z8

It’s almost as if the Z9 is being ‘held back’ (possibly due to a future Z9ll announcement) in favour of the Z8.

NIKON Z9

I freely admit that I’m much more likely to chose to take a Z8 with me in preference to the Z9, not because of the firmware updates, more due to the sheer weight of the Z9! It’s a truly versatile camera, and certainly perfectly adapted to my style of shooting, but then so is the Z8 and when it comes down to convenience, the difference in weight is what will make me chose one over the other.

This weekend I’ll be covering a music festival and there’s no way I’ll be lugging the Z9 around all night! It’s true that the huge battery is an advantage on the Z9 as it can last me all night – but a couple of smaller EN-EL15’s for the Z8 in my pocket can do this too

The sensors are identical, and all the options I use on one can be found on the other – it does make me wonder why I keep both. Frankly a single Z8 would be perfectly adequate…

Back to my original question – are you listening NIKON? There are a whole load of professional Z9 users out there who have invested time and money in a system that is supposed to evolve to include updates and modernisation…these people don’t expect to have to buy another camera body every 3 years just to keep up with the changes…

My niece is 17 years old, which, here in France means that this year she passes the ‘bac’ or baccalaureate (the equivalent to the UK’s A levels).

She’s certainly not a stupid girl, and works hard (as can be seen by her continuous assessment scores throughout the year.) Tuesday was the day for her English oral exam – and at 10am we got the news…

Her English tutor had advised them on their choice of discours etc. and the class had made their arguments etc. etc. She, and some others, had chosen to discuss global warming. The point of the exercise is to see how the students develop, and present, their arguments in a foreign language (in this case, English).

The clock was started and she started her presentation – only to be stopped halfway through (with the examiner pausing the clock) to be criticized for her choice of subject, and the fact that she had criticized Donald Trump. It turns out that the (anonymous) examiner was a young American woman, supporter of the Trump and also a fervent critic of global warming.

The clock was restarted and my niece finished her discours. She related this to her mother who then passed it on to the family – we were astonished – this simply will not do – the examiner is there to judge the students capacities, not opinions.

Sadly, despite a brief search, I can’t (yet) find out who this person is – I would dearly like to ‘discuss’ things with her.

We will learn her marks on the 5th of July – fortunately these will be aggregated with her continuous assessment scores, so with a bit of luck she won’t suffer too much. It’s sad, because she doesn’t deserve this kind of treatment, but it goes to show that Trump gets everywhere – and manages to screw more up than we could ever have imagined….

Not a lot going on at the present time – aside from « The Trump » causing havoc worldwide – hopefully that will all calm down once someone louder than him convinces the few people who seem to protect him that he’s a dangerous child…

Leica news. I’ve never been a fan, principally due to the extortionate prices, but the quality cannot be denied. Despite my criticism, the people in Wetzlar have just released the Leica M-11 P Safari and it’s got me drooling…

« If I said you had a lovely body would you hold it against me? »

I simply can’t get used to the rangefinder focusing, and for what I do, this would be a deal breaker. Sad but true (well, ok, I don’t have the cash either) 9250€ without a lens…(It’s worth mentioning that the lens shown here actually costs 3850€ itself…which makes the whole package worth roughly 13,000€)

Ona much more realistic level – certainly price wise, AstrHori are busy packing up my latest lens purchase which will soon be on it’s way to me for the modique sum of 120€

This is the 6,5mm f/2 Fisheye 192 degree field of view, as can be imagined by on of their publicity shots

This is going to be fun! This is designed for APS-C cameras so will go very nicely with the Z30 – can’t wait.

This weekend is Déclic – 15th edition – more on all of this later…

The first of April we launched this years Marathon Photo Déclic – so far, after just over 2 weeks we have 24 people signed up – hopefully this will evolve over the next three weeks of inscriptions.

We even had an article in the Dépêche, which, for once, was actually accurate… (Though I’m certainly not convinced by the photo !)

We’re staying local this year – and despite the fact that everyone will want to climb up to the ‘haute’ ville for each thème, it’s really not necessary – there’s loads of ways to realise your photos in the ‘basse’ ville…

Had some ideas for next years themes already … 🙂

Well I suppose it had to happen one day – the powers that be who now own FLICKR have decided to limit the size of any possible downloads to 1024 x 680 – they ‘accuse’ people of using FLICKR as a useful cloud-based storage system.

To some extent this is true, but realistically with the possibility of storing 1000 images I don’t see this as a really viable alternative to dedicated storage systems (Backblaze, for example)

FLICKR now charge 73$ US for a years ‘subscription’ – this is not totally unreasonable, but the downside is that nothing is transparent, and anyone can download a decent sized image and claim it as their own.

In addition, the no-hopers (like Totshit and all the other bum bandits out there) publish so much dross that the place is fast becoming a real dive – so bye bye losers.

Oh wonderful – FUJI have just announced a wonderful way for our gay friend Titscum to waste more of his retirement pension – the GFX RF

This is a medium format (102Mp) camera with a, wait for it, fixed 35mm lens !! And at only 5499€ a real steal.

Remember that 35mm on a medium format is roughly equivalent to a 28mm lens on a 24×36 format camera. Now as much as I love wide angles, not so much the 28mm which isn’t really wide enough for me, I can’t help thinking that this doesn’t make this camera particularly useful in a general sense.

In addition, the lens is an f/4 which is pretty slow for a modern camera.

This of course won’t make any difference to our friend – he hasn’t yet posted anything remotely ‘photographic’ with his new Leica, so why would that change if/when he buys himself a FUJI….

I really wish someone could explain to me this sudden interest in anything and/or everything to do with film? (I’m talking here about 24×36 not movies)

Retro my are – everyone seems to think that film is THE thing and anything not produced with a film camera isn’t worth anything at all.

I just can’t see it. A local ‘photographer’ (and I use the term politely) recently had an expo at our local psychiatric hospital – the subjects were the patients taking part in workshops etc. and aside from being very boring, the initiative was a good one. The ‘photographer’ was very proud of his work (and why not) and pointing to the film camera around his neck, made a HUGE point that ‘I only use film’

Yeah – and so what? Most digital cameras are equipped with a B&W setting, and more often than not this works very well – this can be further tweaked by adjustments in Photoshop (or any photo treatment software) so what’s the point?

Yes, to some extent I agree it’s nice to « go slowly » and relish the exposure of just a few frames, then the darkroom experience of developing the film, back to the darkroom to enlarge the images etc. etc.

I work a lot with very dynamic circus companies and frankly working within the constraints of a film medium would just not be possible for me. Nothing to do with developing etc. – more the fact that the sensitivity of the camera sensor and the advances in automatic focusing etc. make my life SO much easier – one thing that people see to forget is that while people are spending all their time on settings, I very rarely miss a shot – which, to me at least, is a fundamental which cannot be ignored.

OK it’s not the same for most scenic countryside images, I would be the first to agree – and I’m firmly convinced that black and white photography has a place, and a well deserved one, in current photography.

Leica, never ones to miss an opportunity, have of course produced uniquely B&W digital cameras, one of which doesn’t even have a rear screen – this is going from the sublime to the ridiculous, in my book!

Peter Lindbergh sadly left us back in 2019, but his huge legacy lives on – and frankly it’s so stimulating to look at his work. It’s not simply the case that he managed to attract some really very attractive women infront of his lens, but more the beauty and sincerity of his images.

I recently received his book « Shadows on the Wall » which came out in 2017. This book is made up of images (some of over 37,000 it seems) taken during shooting for the 2017 Pirelli Calendar.

This image shows the sheer size of the book !

The women photographed are not models in the traditional sense, and they’re not treated as such – no make-up (or at least, very limited make-up) and the images – these are actresses for the most part, people we’re used to seeing with make-up, and hair prepared, wearing beautiful clothes…

The individual comments from each person photographed show the warmth and appreciation of Peters approach to image creation – with the most common reflection that he is never stressed, talks little, and just lets the person a huge freedom, both of movement and expression.

This shows in the images – some obviously ‘stronger’ than others, but all beautiful, textured with terrific warmth – faithful to his wish that he prefers black and white photography to colour.

Peter makes the point (in an video about this shoot on YouTube) that he doesn’t use PhotoShop or any other image treatment on a computer – what you see is what you get, in the sense that we see in this book exactly what he saw looking through the eyepiece of his camera – faults and all! Frankly I can find little fault with anything I’ve seen here…

At the moment of writing, the publisher TASCHEN is offering this work (of art, really) at 49€ post free.