Mois : mars 2020

This name has created havoc, world wide – and I can’t help feeling that we won’t see the end of it for a long while.

It’s the end of March 2020 and people are very scared here on Earth at the moment. It all started just over a month ago in China, and due to the spread, worldwide, of a ‘Corona Virus’ called Covid-19 the world is in lock-down.

It’s amazing what is actually affected by this deadly virus – the effects on humans is very varied – from symptoms akin to a light cold, to people dying in their thousands from respiratory failure., but the global effect is quite amazing.

If people are locked down and can’t go to work, how do they earn money to pay for food? And who stocks the shelves in the shops? Going further, if we’re not allowed out, what happens to bars, restaurants, theatres etc.?

We have been told to work from home – this is relatively easy for people like me who sit staring at a computer for 75% of their working day. But there are many jobs that can’t simply be folded up and taken home…

This is likely to last for a while. The over-optimists want this to be over by Easter (middle of April) but I think this is way over the top – I would expect to be told that we will be in lockdown until at least the start of May.

However, the knock-on effect of all this is going to be interesting. For my work, there are a number of concerts cancelled, and circus performances too, and the Welcome Festival (end of April) has been canceled too. No-one knows when this confinement will end, so it’s very difficult to plan anything at the moment. I’ve even had to cancel the Marathon Photo due in May – but I’ve « invented » a way for the participants to still do this, but from their confinement – this year is going to be interesting!

We’ve been like this for two weeks now – today is J+14 – and with the prospect of another 4 weeks before any changes, it’s going to be a long spring.

Here in France we are only allowed out of our houses for food shopping (alone, not in pairs), to go to the doctors or pharmacy, or to go to work if we can’t work from home. We are also allwoed to go for a maximum of an hours walk, no further than 200m from our houses, once a day. When we do go out, we must take a signed, dated, declaration giving our names, addresses etc. and the TIME we left the house. If we are stopped by the police and we don’t have this form, or if it’s not completed correctly, we face a fine of 135€ – which increases to 200€ if we do it again!

Frankly, even though I have a permanent ‘laisser-passé’ to allow me to go into work to check the servers etc., I think I’ll stay at home for the moment….

I’ve been mulling over the « problem » of battery grips, buttons, etc. etc.

The basic problem, up until recently, has been that for battery grips to have duplicate controls (from the camera body) there have to match up to a series of contacts on the baseplate of the camera….

The recent battery pack for the Nikon Z series is just that – a battery pack, as there are no contacts on the baseplate of the camera to allow activation of the control circuitry in the camera from controls on the grip.

What if you didn’t need contacts?

What if it were all done by….BLUETOOTH?

I feel sure I’m not the first to come up with this stunning solution…but I’m going to pretend I was!

Excuse me while I pen an e-mail to NIKON UK……

UK based photo site « NorthLight Images » has recently discovered a patent application from Canon (popular photocopier manufacturer) that will make many people, like me, who use battery grips on their cameras, very interested/jealous…

This shows a « Universal » battery grip that attaches to different camera bodies with a changeable adapter. Makes you wonder why no-one has ever come up with something like this before – although, Nikon tend to treat there battery grips as a cash cow and price them far too high. It is, after all, only a box with minimal electronics Inside.

Anyway, if this ever sees the light of day, Canon users will really be a step, a leap ahead of other camera users.

Battery grips are not only for holding batteries (with the exception of the MB-N10 for the Z 6 & 7) they also allow you to have extra controls, or rather, duplicate controls to allow a more comfortable grip on the camera when you use it in a vertical position, for example.

To enable the correct connection between these controls and the camera electronics, a series of contacts are available on the camera baseplate, which marry up to similar contacts on the battery grip.

Up until now, each camera series has had these contacts in different positions on the baseplate, allowing Nikon (and Canon) to sell expensive battery grips for each new model. It seems perfectly logical to build a « reasonable » sized battery grip, and then equip it with changeable plates for different camera bodies.

So, a little like the light bulbs that never burn out, will we ever actually see this produced?

or Z8 or ZB or….gawd knows what.

No-one except the designers at Nikon (and a fat American git called « The Angry Pornographer » or some such, over on Youtube…or so he likes to think – enjoy your minority status, dickhead) actually know what the next iteration of the Z series mirrorless cameras will look like, or what controls, programmes they will contain….but it will be black, perhaps….

While I admit it amuses me to read all the speculation, it really doesn’t matter much to me – I won’t be able to afford one anyway – having just kitted myself out with the Z7! The fora are awash with comments from a whole horde of non-camera-owning public who « know » what is going to happen before anyone else…

The rumor-mill is very active at the moment, and it seems likely that the replacement /evolution for both the reflex D850 and the Z7 is likely to have the 60mp Sony sensor which became available recently. So far, the rumors have ‘stated’ dual CFexpress card slots (might be nice if we were actually A: able to buy the cards at sensible prices, and B: that once purchased, they would work in the camera (as only two models do at present) This said, if they are backwards compatible with the Sony XQD format, at least all of us using the existing models would still be able to use our XQD cards.

A GPS (Why oh why? We have smartphones with GPS) and Bluetooth/WiFi seem likely too, according to « the people who know » – the latter two are available anyway – I think a more useful manoeuvre would be to write software that actually USED the WiFi connexions to their fullest, and were able to shift hi-density image files quickly.

Another element is the lack of contacts on the baseplate of the existing Z series – thus making a real vertical grip unworkable. Yes, we have the MB-N10 battery grip, which helps, as batteries can be switched without disturbing operations, but no vertical shutter release or AF-ON button duplication.

Going back to the new Sony sensor, 60mp is far too high density for my work – even with Expeed 6 and future developments in high ISO noise reduction, I doubt I’d get the quality I do with the ancient 12mp D3s or even the 24mp Z6. But it might be nice for landscape work…

So what’s your guess? What will be included in the next model, given that so much of the original series seems to have been right (IMHO)

Suggestions on a postcard please….

Yes, despite the problematic ‘lighting’ (well, actually the lights themselves are perfectly good – but the guy ‘driving’ them would be better off doing something else) I went back to cover a concert last week – I was asked by the group if I would do it, and as the lead singer is quite cute, I obviously had to say « Yes »…

The headliners were a Spanish group called « The Limboos » – as I was the only one there who spoke English, we hit it off and passed a very pleasant couple of hours together – and not unnaturally I stayed on to photograph them too.

As you can see from the first image, the light was essentially on the front of the stage – so Danielle playing the drums spent the entire set in the dark…

I’m not going to let this post degenerate into a constat of the lighting conditions at the Cri’Art (Thank God) so just enjoy the images – the albums or on the main site