In The Picture

Sizing up the Nikon 1 and Fuji X10 image sensors

Two new oddball sensors in two months – where is the upside?   

I’m a simple soul, easily confused by technology. Image sensors in digital cameras have long confused me, but just lately I began to feel that I had a handle on them. That’s when Fujifilm announced the X10, little brother to the runaway-success X100, with a 2/3” size image sensor. And now it’s Nikon and the CX sensor on the Nikon 1 EVIL system. Oddball sizes, oddball crop factors – in Nikon’s case 2.7, for Fuji it’s just under 4.

The Fuji X10 is another cute retro camera, better-looking than the X100 I think, with full manual controls, optical viewfinder, manual zoom lens, 28-112mm in 35mm speak, f2 to 2.8 at the long end (that is tremendous), 10-FPS in continuous drive and 1080P video. It shoots RAW as well.http://www.eoshd.com/content/3886/fuji-x10-compact-first-impressions-and-iso-test

Crunching the numbers

I want to thank a very helpful individual for shedding new light on this subject but, sadly, I don’t know his or her name. All I know is that they updated the sensor comparison chart on Wikipedia to include both the new Fujifilm x10 and Nikon CX sensor. Here it is:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_sensor_format (not true to scale)

Heaven only knows why digicam makers persevere with those arcane Imperial measures. To keep us in the dark? However, we can easily see from the graphic that the Fuji x10 sensor is the biggest kid on the digicam block. Most sensors there are 1/2.3” (yes, very confusing), while ‘serious’ models like the Canon G12 and Panny XL5 and Nikon P7100 tend to use 1/1.7” sensors.

Fuji went one better with a sensor that’s 35% ‘bigger’ than the premium digicams. I put bigger in quotation marks because the sensor is still tiny, just a little less tiny than its competitors. Fuji also resisted the temptation to load it up with 16 megapixels like its consumer models. At 12mp, the pixel density of the X10’s sensor is a lower than the current 10mp premium digicams with their 1/1.7” sensors, so it should handle noise a little better. 

The Nitty-Gritty

Our kind soul at Wikipedia has also given us a new chart with all the relevant numbers:

  Area (mm) is the number that matters here, and now we can see a few things quite clearly:

• The Fuji X10 2/3” sensor is over twice as big as the typical 1/2.3” digicam sensor
• The Nikon CX sensor is about twice the size of the Fuji X10
• The M43 sensor is twice as big as the Nikon CX sensor
• The Nikon DX sensor is over 3 times the size of the CX sensor, and 65% bigger than the M43 item
• The Nikon FX sensor is more than twice the size of the DX sensor

Crop factors

The key point here is that the crop factor is a misleading indicator of image size – when you look at 1.5 for DX and 2.7 for CX, you’re inclined to think that DX is less than twice the size. Wrong. It’s the total area that tells you how big sensors are.

Crop factors are more about the Field of View we get from a given sensor and lens. I got a headache thinking about how to work this, until I saw that Thom Hogan had already done it except for the Fuji (http://bythom.com/2011%20Nikon%20News.htm): 

• Standing at the same position, the equivalent focal length for a particular angle of view is X, 1.5X, 2X and 2.7X.
• Put a different way, an FX shooter would be using 300mm, a DX shooter 200mm, an m4/3 shooter 150mm and a 1 shooter 110mm.
• Standing at the same position with the equivalent focal length lens for the same angle of view, the equivalent DOF also changes: FX = f/4, DX = f/2.8, m4/3 = f/2, 1 = f/1.4.
• Standing at the same position with the equivalent focal length for a particular angle of view and the same number pixels (and the same fill ratio), about the same amount of photons should be captured by FX at f/5.6, DX at f/4, m4/3 at f/2.8, 1 at f/2.

The Pricing Muddle

As I said in my last piece on the Nikon 1 system, the current pricing is a dog's breakfast http://briard.typepad.com/get_the_picture/2011/09/nikon-1-you-want-lip-gloss-to-match-that-camera.html . In fact, that statement applies to the whole $500 - $900 dollar camera segment. At present, this price bracket is crowded with

• high-end digicams like the Canon G12/S100, Olympus ZX-1 and soon the Fuji x10
• EVIL cameras like the Sony NEX-C3 and -5N, several Panasonic models, three new Olympus PEN models, Samsung’s NX20, NX100 and NX200, and soon Nikon’s 1 system
• A dozen entry-level DSLRs from Canon, Nikon and Pentax ranging from $600 – 800.

In its press release, Nikon said the 1 system was designed to bridge the gap between its Coolpix range and its consumer DSLR range.

Problem is: the Nikon J1 kit is dearer than a D3100 kit, and the V1 costs more than the D5100. Olympus has left no price gap between the ZX-1 and the PEN E-PM1, and there are still PEN E-PL2 cameras in the retail channel, also priced at around $500. Sony’s CX3 also cuts across its high-end digicams, and the A35/55 DSLRs occupy the same price patch as the NX-5N.

It’s only a problem on paper, though, since consumers will choose the style of camera that appeals to them – digicams for pocketability/ease of use, EVIL systems for their novelty and chic, and DSLRs for predictable performance. If only camera makers would stop telling stories about ‘bridging gaps’ or building bridges between camera ranges. Why not be happy with giving us punter much more choice? We are, aren’t we?

Kim

 

The beauty of China, an old Hasselblad and Fuji Velvia film

Once in a while, you run into a photographer who takes you inside a world that is like none you've ever seen. Oleg Novikov is one of those.

There are plenty more breathtaking images on Oleg's website and blog

http://www.olegnovikov.com/whatsnew.shtml

http://www.olegnovikov.com/index.shtml  

There are also practical reviews of camera gear and lenses. Oleg is Russian but you wouldn't know that from the way he writes English. Here is what he says about himself:

'Photography, without a doubt, is an art. I, however, have always wondered whether we only take aesthetically beautiful pictures or whether photographs, in some way, can reflect the author's character and vision of the world. While arranging images for the Web site I discovered that there was a perceptible consistency between the collection presented here and my inner self. This relationship, however, is not necessarily readily apparent to a detached viewer. My long–term artistic goal, therefore, is narrowing this gap to the extent whereby my work truly bears my signature.

At the same time, photography, as well as the way I practice it, is a sort of a refuge, a kind of a buffer that can cushion potential volatility and possible impacts in other, more outer–world–dependent, aspects of life.

Containing more than one hundred photographs (some posted together with essays), the Gallery is constantly evolving as I gradually develop as a photographer and replace some of the images with better ones. It thus represents my aesthetic perception and level of technical skill at this particular time.

My work has been published in various international magazines (and not only). Among notable publications I would like to mention an article on my work in the Photographer magazine (in Russian), and that two of my photographs were included in the Hasselblad 2010 calendar.

I love Far East. Though a Russian national, I have lived, studied, worked and traveled in Mainland China for over fifteen years. As of now, most photographs on this Web site were taken here. Consequently, they present not only images as such, but, indirectly, a long–term commitment to this country. I hope that this Web site might be of interest not only to my friends and those interested in photography, but also to anyone related to The Middle Kingdom in any way, be it through a one–week trip or a life–long academic quest.'

Nothing to add from me, except for one more image:

Thanks for sharing these images, Oleg!

Kim

Financial crises - beware of the IMF

A wrecking ball in disguise

It often comes as a surprise that the World Bank and the International Monitory Fund (IMF) still rule, given all the scandals they've brought upeon themselves. The IMF came to hold virtual neo-colonial control over developing countries as a result of the Third World ‘debt crisis’ of the 1980s. That crisis came about in much the same way as today’s debt crisis: too much money (petro dollars in those days) saw banks offer large loans to developing countries, in Africa for example.

Africa –  victim of the IMF

As interest rates went up, and money got tight, many countries began to default on their loans – to commercial banks and to the World Bank. The IMF was kind of the World Bank’s enforcers, Wolfensohn’s wolves. No matter what the situation, whether it was Niger or Zimbabwe, they prescribed the same harsh medicine: Structural Adjustment programs, known as SAPs or ‘golden handcuffs’. Loan extensions were offered on the condition that countries cut their public sector programs – education, healthcare infrastructure and agriculture.

The results were predictable: Ordinary people suffered and many starved. Education or health services, already inadequate, became more so. The economies of these countries suffered terminal damage. This was what turned Mugabe against the west – Zimbabwe was a prosperous country before being stitched up by an IMF SAP. Same with Kenya, Tanzania etc. The new South Africa was offered IMF money in 1994 but was smart enough to refuse. 

The Asian Tigers – felled by the IMF’s sword

With the strong encouragement of the IMF and the World Bank, many Asian countries liberalised their financial sectors, maintained high domestic interest rates in order to suck in portfolio investment and bank capital, and pegged their national currencies to the greenback to reassure foreign investors against currency risk. As a result, foreign capital flowed in but it was mostly short-term, highly speculative money flowing into high-yield, fast-turn-around sectors such as the stock market, consumer finance and real estate.

Early in 1997, the Thai government decided it had enough and floated the baht, cutting its peg to the U.S. dollar. The baht crashed, with roll-on effects on other countries in the region, and foreign investors got the jitters and took their money and ran. The IMF moved in and immediately made its usual demands of austerity, which resulted in the virtual collapse of several economies.

Indonesia was one of the worst affected. It's economy was healthy but the currency crashed, and food and fuel prices rose dramatically. There were riots in the streets.

Joseph Stiglitz – lone crusader

Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz had recently become chief economist at the World Bank, and promptly took the IMF to task for what he saw as its indiscriminate insistence on the wrong measures. ‘’These are crises in confidence,' he said as economies collapsed across Asia early in 1998. 'You don't want to push these countries into severe recession. One ought to focus ... on things that cause the crisis, not on things that make it more difficult to deal with.'

Stiglitz defended the Asian governments' fiscal performance in the face of IMF demands for immediate interest-rate hikes and budget cuts. His attacks on the IMF, the World Bank and the US Treasury for pushing economic liberalization and global market integration won praise from many outsiders but caused tension with Wolfensohn, IMF boss Michel Camdessus and other senior IMF officials. Stiglitz accused them of protecting investors and  protecting firms that gambled' on currency markets. 'Who is paying the price?’ he asked. ‘Workers who are going to be put out of jobs.’

The GFC – the socialisation of sovereign debt

Sound familiar? Sure does. After the GFC, workers paid the price while the guys who did the damage got off scot-free with the loot. That's what socialisation of sovereign debt means. No one went to jail except for Bernard Madoff who ran a simple Ponzi scheme.

Stiglitz wasn’t alone by any means. As Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs pointed out, ‘whatever the problems of the Asian economies, it is clear that the problem was not profligate governments - yet the IMF imposed its standard budget-cutting demands nonetheless. In countries whose currencies were under speculative attack, IMF-ordered removal of price controls led to sudden rises of food and fuel prices, exacerbating economic hardship and causing avoidable malnutrition and suffering ...

IMF admits its mistakes – and is rewarded with more power

I’ll end with a couple of quotes form outspoken sources: ‘In early 1998, the IMF admitted in internal documents that it had made the financial crisis worse. But this did not lead the IMF to scale back its operations. To the contrary, it sought to use the crisis to expand its power. Then-IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus repeatedly referred to the crisis "as a blessing in disguise", as it would enable the Fund to impose conditions on Asian countries, and force them to reduce the role of government intervention in the economy.’ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2465/is_6_30/ai_65653646/

‘When the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank announced at their 1999 annual meeting that poverty reduction would henceforth be their overarching goal, this sudden "conversion" provoked justifiable skepticism. The history of the IMF shows that it has consistently elevated the need for financial and monetary "stability" above any other concern. Through its notorious structural adjustment programs (SAPs), it has imposed harsh economic reforms in over 100 countries in the developing and former communist worlds, throwing hundreds of millions of people deeper into poverty.’

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/IMF_WB/IMF_Formula_PrescripPover.html

'Don't follow leaders, wtach your parking meters.' Bob Dylan, Subterranean homesick blues

Kim

Must Read: Globalization and Its Discontents, Joseph Stiglitz

http://books.google.com/books/about/Globalization_and_Its_Discontents.html?id=geN6MUthHdkC

 

Nikon 1 – you want lip gloss to match that camera?

It’s the market, stupid. The fashion accessory market.

Now that the dust is settling, strange lumps and bumps in Nikon’s new system are revealed. The size of the lenses is an obvious one. They say a picture’s worth a thousand words:

 

I thought Nikon had opted for a smaller sensor so that this system would have smaller lenses. As we can see here, there’s not much in it when we compare it to the Oly E-PL3, and most of the lenses in this new system are bigger than the compact 10-30.

  So we still have the same problem I’ve raised more than once: super compact bodies spoilt by lumpy lenses and accessories. There are no fast lenses here either, just big ones - the zooms start at f/3.5 to 4.5, and the 10mm prime is f/2.8 not 1.8. By the time you grab a couple of lenses and a flash, you’ll need a decent size carry bag.

You might as well get real and carry a small DSLR, but then this system isn’t about ‘real’. Not real photography anyway.

The Pricing is whacky too. $650 for the J1, $900 for the V1, both with the 10-30mm kit lens. Nikon says these cameras will bridge the gap between its Coolpix range and its consumer DSLRs. That rubbish. Not at those prices. A D5100 18-55 kit is less than $800, the same D3100 kit less than $600. Is Nikon going to raise the prices for its entry-level DSLRs? 

The oddball sensor size is the next puzzle. It’s bad enough having to work with a 1.5 crop factor, but 2.7? The kit lens is 10-30mm, giving it a Field Of View of 27 – 81mm in 35mm equivalent terms, or 18-55mm in DX speak. If the lenses aren’t much smaller, why invent a new sensor size? Why not go with the M43 sensor, and the M43 lens mount? The M43 coalition has a lot to offer: http://www.four-thirds.org/en/microft/lense.html

There are currently 2 standards in EVIL cameras: Micro 43 (Panasonic and Olympus) and APS-C (Sony and Samsung). Why come up with a third one, and a proprietary one at that? I suspect when Canon jumps into this crowded fishpond, as it soon will, it’ll produce another oddball sensor.

In the PC world, we have Open systems. It means lots of choice with anything from motherboards to disk drives and screens. The M43 coalition is open in a modest kind of way: the lenses are interchangeable between Panasonic and Olympus bodies. Nikon could’ve opened up the M43 market, offering its customers more choice, and offering Nikon lenses to Panny and Oly users. A real opportunity missed. 

F-mount adaptor

Needless to say, the Nikon 1 system is compatible with Nikon lenses, if nothing else, via the usual huge adaptor. That oddball sensor size throws a big spanner into the works. Just trying to convert DX lenses to the new FOV is giving me a headache. Here is the new body with adaptor and the 24-120 FX lens I think, which would end up giving an FOV of 120 – 320mm in 35mm terms. Would you actually want to do that?

  Thom Hogan thinks there’s a market for it: ‘... you shoot for a sports Web site ... you never post anything bigger than 800 pixels. Now put an 85mm f/1.4G on the Nikon 1 and go to your next event. You're shooting two stops faster than the 70-200mm guy and 52 frames per second faster. Say what? Could that be useful? You bet it could be.’

The 85mm f/1.4 is a $1,000 lens, from memory, and here it would provides a FOV of 230mm. Is a sports shooter really going to be happy with that tiny sensor, and the handling limitations of these compact bodies? For over 2 grand? More likely he will buy the Sony a77 for about the same money as the awkward JV1/Nikon F-Mount adaptor/85mm f/1.4 combo.

Thom’s next market is soccer moms wanting to shoot their kids in sports action. ‘Let's see, they've got a 1080P TV, the Nikon 1 shoots 1080P stills at 60 fps, it's got reasonable low light credibility, stick some fast F-mount lenses on it and it suddenly becomes a camera you might be able to shoot from the stands with.’ Nikon guru Thom Hogan lives here http://bythom.com/ . 

I don’t know what Thom’s been smoking - I suspect that most soccer mums or dads won’t want to shell out that much dough, or schlepp around that much gear – they’ll more likely settle for a pocket Casio EX-FH100 or FX100, which can shoot 40 frames per second at almost full resolution (9/10-megapixels), has decent video and HDR, anti-shake, low light mode and panorama, for $300. Their zoom lenses go from 24-300mm in the old film speak.

http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/EXFH100/EXFH100A.HTM

http://www.ephotozine.com/article/casio-exilim-zr100-compact-zoom-review-16697

Other new stuff

The Nikon 1 has 600 megapixels per second internal throughput, faster than D3x. It takes photos / videos before and after you press the shutter. Motion snapshot (MSS) takes slow motion video and photo at the same time. Nikon call this the ‘Living picture’: It allows you to capture a second of movie footage and a still image each time the shutter is pressed. The Motion Snapshot is played back on the camera's LCD, with the video shown in slow motion over the course of 2.5 seconds, ending with the still image. Music themes can be chosen before or after Motion Snapshot capture.

Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? Tells us a lot about the market too. Just the ticket for taking a quick video of you and your friends eating pizza and popping it on your Facebook page with a pop tune. Smart Photo Selector is another new trick: it takes 30 photos at 30fps at the full 10mp resolution. The camera filters the best 5 photos out of 30 shots. The Smart Photo Selector mode...allows you to choose the best one manually, or have the camera choose the best image for you, based on composition, focus, blur, face detection, smile and blink detection.

Video is clearly important in this market. The new sensor supports lots of video modes, such as 1080i/60, 1080P/30, and 720P/60. HD, of course. 60fps continuous shooting is also an option, at full resolution, for up to 12 shots with the J1, and 30 shots with the V1. The real news is that Nikon has built both phase and contrast detection into the sensor. There’s a short interview with a Nikon rep here: http://www.ephotozine.com/article/nikon-1-series-presentation-and-questions-with-nikon-17475 .

Summing up

Nikon is going for the consumer electronics market here, and all that stuff about bridging the gap between the Coolpix and DSLR ranges is rubbish. The main market for EVIL cameras is Japan, and it’s a fashion accessory market. Therefore the Paris Hilton colours. You want lip-gloss to match that camera?

Nikon threw in the V1 and some new tech to give the company’s more serious fans some meat to chew on. All of this OK, if Nikon wants a part of the EVIL market, but it begs the question once more: why not go with the M43 sensor? It’s a good size, good enough for decent image quality with a bit of Nikon finessing – Olympus and Panasonic have been a bit slack in this respect.

The answer is that the target audience probably doesn’t give a toss what’s inside these toys. Le chic is more important. Still, Nikon could’ve made itself a whole lot of new friends, and built an inviting bridge to a whole lot of new customers in Micro 4/3 land. In that sense, the Nikon 1 is a big opportunity missed.

Kim

 

How Fosters and Southcorp trashed Australia’s greatest wine brands

 Another Aussie icon fell into foreign hands today – Fosters. I’m not crying into my beer, because I never liked Fosters or VB or Crown Lager. Ghastly stuff. I like European beers like Grolsch and Pilsener Urquell and König Pilsener.

Foster’s beer revenue has been falling for years. They lowered the alcohol, says John Elliott, big mistake. Not a word about improving the horrid brew. Australians have become more demanding. Sadly, Fosters acquired most of the great Australian wine brands in the last couple of decades. The company didn’t improve any of them either, instead they milked some and trashed others and then gave the game away.

3 continents, 54 brands, 12,000 hectares

That’s the banner slogan on the website of Treasury Wine Estates http://www.treasurywineestates.com.au/ . Never heard of this outfit? The company was created and spun off by parent Fosters Group earlier this year in a ‘demerger’. In explaining the reasons, Fosters CEO John Pollaers described the wine business as a ‘distraction’ to Fosters’ beer business. 

The distraction to Fosters’ beer business includes a list of hallowed brands that were the backbone of this country’s wine industry not much more than a generation ago: Leo Buring, Seppelts, Penfolds, Lindemans, Wynns, Saltram, Metala, Seaview, Tollana, and Bailey’s of Glenrowan. They include newer wineries like Mildara-Blass, Rosemount, Rothbury, St Huberts and Yellowglen, along with Stags Leap and Chateau St.Jean in California, and Matua Valley in NZ. More details here http://www.tweglobal.com/our-brands/ . 

 

In a nutshell, Fosters owned the equivalent of half a dozen holy grails, but they were a mere distraction to the barbarians who ran the brewery. How did it come to this?

A little history

Once upon a time, Australia’s established wine companies were owned by the families which had founded them, or their relatives and associates. Until the 1960s, most lived in perfect harmony with each other, and with the growers they’d bought grapes from for decades. Table wine was still an acquired taste, so they made their money from sherry, port and brandy. They didn’t make a fortune, but they weren’t in it for the money.

Photo courtesy of Matt Turner

Suddenly Australia changed. There was a mining boom, and the nation prospered. The stock market went apeshit, real estate prices soared, and regulations were relaxed. Private punters bought shares, companies went public, and public companies went on buying sprees. Along the way, the movers and shakers of this boom discovered table wine, and Australia became the land of long lunches.

Lindemans went public in 1953, Penfolds in 1962. Old families with many relatives who’d lost interest in the core business, demanding to get their share of the loot instead. They sold the farm and cashed in. More farms would be sold. The seventies saw the emergence of US-style entrepreneurs, corporate raiders and asset strippers, experts at the leveraged buy-out (today’s Private Equity consortiums do the same thing). Here are a few examples: 

• In 1972, Phillip Morris bought Lindemans
• In 1972, Allied Vintners, a division of a huge UK distiller, bought Wynns
• In 1976, brewer Tooth & Co bought Penfold’s Wines
• In 1980, Adelaide Steamship turned corporate raider and bought David Jones
• in 1981, David Jones acquired a controlling interest in Tooth and Co
• in 1983, Carlton and United Breweries (Fosters) bought Tooth and Co
• In 1983 Elders IXL purchased Carlton and United, which became the Elders Brewing Group (and the Foster's Group in 1990)
• In 1984, SA Brewing Holdings bought Seppelt & Sons
• In 1985, Penfolds purchased Allied Vintners Group’s Australian holdings which included Wynns, Seaview, JY Tullock and Sons, and Killawarra
• In 1989, Pernod Ricard bought Orlando Wyndham (makers of Jacob's Creek).
• in 1990, Penfolds bought Lindemans
• In 1996, Foster's bought Mildara Blass for $500 million, and Rothbury Estate
• In 2000, Fosters bought Beringer Estates in the USA for almost $3 billion

What is a little more difficult to find out is how SA Brewing was sold to Lion-Nathan, while part of the company retained the Penfolds/Seppelts wine interests and became Southcorp in 1994. The company sure was diversified, with a major stake in the household appliances market, but it sold those interests off by the millennium.

Boom or Bust

In 2001, at the height of Australia’s wine export boom, Southcorp paid Bob Oatley the princely sum of $1.5 billion for Rosemount Estates and became the world's largest premium brand winemaker. From here it all went downhill and, in 2005, Southcorp was bought by Fosters. And now Fosters flicks the greatest wine empire on earth off as a distraction to its boring beer business. 

Somewhere in the late nineties, one of the last families - Thomas Hardy & Sons - merged with Riverland giant Berri Renmano Limited to form BRL Hardy Limited, at the time Australia's second largest wine group. In 2003, BRL Hardy merged with Constellation Brands to create the world's largest international wine business. Here was another company with a stellar list of famous old names: Hardys, Houghton, Stanley Leasingham, Redman and Reynella among them. Gone the way the others did.

On a smaller scale, NZ brewer Lion-Nathan went shopping and ended up with Croser, Bridgewater Mill, Knappstein, Stonier, Smithbrook, Petaluma, Mitchelton, Hillstowe, Tatachilla and St Halletts in the bag. A few of the old family wineries with significant holdings held out against the tide, among them Brown Bros, Henschke, McWilliams, Tyrrells and Yalumba. These wineries have grown tremendously in the last few decades, and still make good wines.

The Bottom Line

After every take-over, the new owners would assure wine lovers that nothing would change – in fact things would improve because of new investments. In almost every case, they ended up doing harm to the brand. I remember back in 1978, after Tooth & Co had bought Penfolds, they flogged it off at a 30% discount - $8.99 a bottle, down from $12.99.

Sanity prevailed with Grange, but the rest of the range is a shadow of its former self – Bin 389, 28 and so on. Great wines no more. The last Bin 28 I bought was the 2,000. It was more than ready to drink after just 7 years, with brown hues and bottle age aromas. They used to last 25 years, and get better and better.

Prime vineyards were sold off, lost forever. Florita in Watervale, where those gorgeous Leo Buring Rieslings came from in the sixties. Quelltaler’s 1984 Riesling was in the same class – gone forever. Lindemans sold the Sunshine and Ben Ean vineyards in the Hunter, the source of those great old Semillions.

Enough of that. I get depressed when I think about what was lost forever so that some passing corporate exec could show a short term gain on the balance sheet of some conglomerate. Fosters ended up with all the great names but couldn’t think of a decent name for love or money – Treasure Wine Estates? Earlier this year, BRL Hardys was bought by the CHAMP private equity company who christened its acuisition ‘Accolade Wines’.

These companies have no idea what they have, or what they’re doing. They know nothing about wine and vineyards, and they know less about marketing. They don’t even know how to craft a decent name and logo, for heaven’s sake. A pox on their houses!

Kim

Nikon 1 EVIL system announced

The worst-kept secret in recent times is out: The Nikon 1, the company’s entry into the EVIL (Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens) fray. Nikon today released two EVIL camera models:

• The Nikon V1 which includes a built-in electronic viewfinder
• The Nikon J1,  a more compact design with a more affordable price tag

Both cameras share a new CX-format image sensor, about a third of the size of the current DX APS-C sensor in Nikon’s consumer DSLRs. It has a 2.7x focal length crop factor and an effective resolution of 10.1 megapixels. There’s a new version of Nikon’s EXPEED image processing engine to go with it. In fact, the Nikon J1 and V1 boast a dual-core EXPEED 3 processor, which is said to have been optimized for noise performance, speed and battery life. Burst shooting is fast at ten frames per second with autofocus enabled, and 60 fps if the focus is locked from the first frame.

The new CMOS image sensor is designed for phase-detection AF, and delivers fast auto-focusing, super-precise focusing according to Nikon, which captures a wide range of subjects flawlessly. Active D-lighting is a surprising addition at this price level. Motion Snapshot mode is a novel idea (and gives us a hint at the intended market for these cameras). It records a still image and a 1-second clip, then plays it back at about 0.4x speed (slow motion) with music

Interesting that Nikon chose a new interim sensor size. It’s about 4 times bigger than the 1/2.3” in most compact cameras, and 2.5x bigger than the 1/1.7" type used in ‘serious digicams like Canon’s S95. It’s about half the size of the M43 camera sensor and almost a quarter the size of the APS-C format sensor in Nikon’s DX cameras. 

I’ve written at length about the huge imbalance of lumpy lenses on small bodies – a feature of EVIL cameras, more pronounced the bigger the sensor and the smaller the body (Sony NEX-5 or -7). Perhaps Nikon recognised that a smaller sensor would allow the design of smaller lenses that balanced much better on these small bodies.

Looking at the pictures of the Nikon 1 and its lenses, I have to say they don't look much smaller than the M43 lenses.

If that is so, why didn't Nikon go with an M43 sensor? With the CX size sensor, there's have to be a trade-off when it comes to image quality, but I suspect the main market for EVIL cameras is more about chic and cool than it is about IQ. Just check out the colours.

We shall see

Kim

More here:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/21/nikon-unveils-v1-and-j1-mirrorless-cameras-10-1mp-cmos-2-7-inc/

http://www.photographyblog.com/news/nikon_1_hands-on_photos/

http://chsvimg.nikon.com/lineup/acil/pdf/Nikon1_Lineup.pdf

THE MAGIC OF FILM WITHOUT THE TEARS

Give your images that classic look with DXO Filmpack-3

They say: we can do the impossible, but miracles take a little longer. Yes, the digital world we now inhabit for better or worse has made things possible we never dreamed of. DxO is a French image processing company with a great site for comparing camera sensors, which I’ve mentioned before http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Cameras/Camera-Sensor-Ratings. They also sell image editing software and some add-ons like the Filmpack http://www.dxo.com/intl/photo

Filmpack-3 is the third evolution of this software, which works as a plugin for PS or stand-alone. I used the stand-alone version since I don't use Photoshop but much prefer ACDSee Pro 4. You can try Filmpack-3 for 30 days for free, and it’s a modest-by-today’s standards 85mb download followed by a straightforward install – at least on Win XP. You then open an image from one of your folders in the program, choose a film type, and éh-voilà: there’s your image rendered in Velbvia or Ektachrome, right in front of your eyes. No darkroom, no chemicals, no mess, no sweat.

To show what this Filmpack-3 can do, I selected an image taken with my Nikon D5000 last summer up on the lookout at George’s Heights where hundreds had gathered to watch Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary depart Sydney Harbour. A wedding couple and their shooter joined the party, and I caught them on the stairs in the late afternoon sun. As always, click on any image for a larger file.

This is the original

Kodak Ektachrome 100

Fuji Velvia 50

The last 2 were colour positive films (for those too young to remember), now we look at colour print film - this is Fuji Superior Reala 100

Kodak Portra 160 VC

This B&W film is Kodak T-Max 100

And this is Ilford Delta 400

When I look at these images, I realize just how good digital cameras have become - I think the original provides the most faithful reproduction of the light and colours I saw on the day. But it can be fun to play around with nostalgic options.

There are many more film choices - these are just a few of them. The current special offer for the light version is 50 Euros. You can download a trial version of DxO Filmpack-3 here http://www.dxo.com/intl/photo/free_trial_version

Have fun

Kim

EVIL camera update: Panny’s new collapsible zoom

The Panasonic Lumix G X Vario PZ 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 ASPH Power OIS

It’s a mouthful for a tiny lens. I’ve been going on about the lumpy lenses EVIL cameras (Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lenses) have been stuck with. Their bodies kept shrinking while the lenses stuck out like dogs’ balls. Olympus made a retractable zoom but it hardly made much of a dent in the size of the modest zoom lens.

  Panasonic broke new ground when it announced the Lumix Lumix G X Vario PZ 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 ASPH Power OIS. The new lens is a collapsible zoom of about the same size (retracted) as the Lumix G 20mm f/1.7 pancake prime.

  Now that’s neat! The new lens is about the same size as the 20mm pancake lens but delivers a 3x zoom range, 28- 84 in 35mm equivalent terms. Mind you, Panasonic had to toss out the zoom ring mechanism and the manual focus ring, and replace them with levers that operate motors inside the lens barrel. We’re used to that with the ‘power’ zoom lenses on digicams, but this is a first for interchangeable lenses. Sadly, the result still looks a bit lumpy (yes, it will work on other M43 bodies), but it’s a step in the right direction.

  The G X Vario PZ 14-42mm also gets the new 'X' branding. According to Panasonic, lenses with this designation are 'HD' powerzooms, and the x designates a premium line of lenses that will offer better image quality than the existing 14-42mm kit lens and the older Lumix G Vario 14-45mm.

The new lens features Panasonic’s unique nano surface coating technology, optical image stabilisation (POWER O.I.S.) and aspherical and ED glass elements to reduce ghosting and lens flare, delivering optimum image quality in a compact and light design. Cost will be about US $400. More details here:

http://www.dpreview.com/previews/panasonic_x_14-42_3p5-5p6/

Kim

 

Stealing from the Poor, giving to the Rich, and it's legal

Bailing out the bankers, bailing out countries, with our hard-earned money

Ann Pettifor is a fellow of the New Economics Foundation in London, who forecast the GFC five years ago in a book called The Coming First World Debt Crisis. Ann Pettifor was interviewed on ABC 7.30, September 15 2011

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2011/s3318928.htm

‘Let them default. The radical solution to the sovereign debt crisis.’

Pettifor says that there’s is going to be another crash, because the world is still burdened by too much debt and too much leverage. It has to be managed downwards. ‘We can either fold our arms and ... allow the invisible hand to destroy our economies chaotically,’ she says, ‘or, as policymakers we can take action and manage it in as orderly a way as possible. It is gonna be painful. There's gotta be restructuring, there's gotta be rebalancing. It's not gonna be easy, and the bankers will scream blue murder. But we've gotta make our choices.’

It’s good to get some plain speaking on this subject. Steve Keen from the Uni of Western Sydney is another plain speaker, and Satyajit Das is a third. Strangely, they all say the same thing, and they all predicted the global financial crisis five years go. Geniuses like Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke didn’t see it until it ran over them.

Did you see it coming, Ben? photo courtesy of Stephen Morton http://www.stephenmorton.com/

This is great: Bernanke Absolves Greenspan--And Himself

http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/04/loose-monetary-policy-rates-opinions-columnists-wesbury-stein.html

I’m reading Extreme Money by Satyajit DAS right now, who describes in great detail how western countries got into the mess they’re in. In a nutshell:

• Government reduced regulation for finance and other industries
• The derivatives market exploded, but was not subject to any regulation
• Speculation on all money markets became widespread
• Banks were allowed to gamble with our money in risky places
• Banks were allowed to lend more, borrow more, and hold smaller reserves
• Companies turned to speculating with money instead of building useful things
• Too much funny money in the system inflated the perceived value of assets
• Too many people bought and sold highly speculative high risk financial instruments
• When the tide went out, almost everybody was naked.

The investments and super or pension funds of many millions have been destroyed, whole countries have gone broke, and yet no one has gone to jail. And what did our governments do after the 2008 crash? They bailed the banks, merchant banks and investment funds out. It’s called socialising debt. It means the state takes the taxes we pay and gives them to the finance institutions. Instead of being punished, they were rewarded.

’How could it have been done differently?’ Stephen Long asked Ann Pettifor.

‘We could've said to the bankers, "We need to bail you out. This is a systemic crisis. We hate what you've done, but off course we have to bail you out, but there are terms and conditions:

• Thou shalt lend to real businesses doing real productive economic activity
• You will not speculate
• you will lend at very low rates of interest, and
• we will take away your license if you don't
• And by the way, you can't pay yourself bonuses."

We said nothing of the sort. Our governments just simply, in a state of shock, maintained the system as it was prior to crisis.’

That’s the tragedy, isn’t it? They changed nothing, it was business as usual plus bonuses while ordinary people hurt, from the pensioner in Mount Gambier to the investor in Turramurra. And what did President Obama do? Appoint the same people who didn’t see the train wreck coming to run the train system. Again. Bernanke, Geithner and the rest.

And here is the painful reality once the money is gone: ‘... so what we're having in Britain, the United States and Europe,’ says Pettifor, ‘is a shrinking of economic activity as real businesses, employing real people, doing productive stuff, can't obtain finance. Businesses [who are] into the business of gambling and speculation can get the finance.

STEPHEN LONG: ‘Ann Pettifor says the current debt crisis is an opportunity to reform the financial system, imposing capital controls, credit controls and taxes on speculation to redirect the banks to good, old-fashioned lending. But she's not optimistic.’
ANN PETTIFOR: ‘The really frightening thing is that passivity of our policymakers as the liberalised financial system, after 30 years, finally disintegrates.’

Kim

Sony’s new SLT a65 – giant killer?

A couple of weeks ago, Sony introduced three new cameras. I wrote about the NEX-7 in this post http://briard.typepad.com/get_the_picture/2011/09/its-been-raining-new-evil-cameras.html . The SLT-a77 and SLT-a65 are the subjects of this post. All three models feature the new 24 megapixel sensor, the 2.4mp electronic viewfinder, new Bionz image processing engine and high-end video, so now you can choose the body that suits you without compromising on image quality.

 

We have yet to see the IQ of this sensor, and can only wonder how much Noise Reduction Sony had to stick into the new BIONZ image engine. 24 megapixels? Why, oh why? On a PC monitor at 100%, images will be over two meters wide. What are we gonna do with images that big? Plaster them on the walls of subway stations?

The good news is that the new Sonys have more to offer than megapixels, a pellicle mirror for one which is described as translucent. Mike Johnston at TOP points out that the mirror is actually transparent. He also reminds us that Canon floated this concept years ago but abandoned it when punters didn’t buy it. They worried about the reduced amount of light that reached the film, and loss of sharpness from the light passing through a barrier. http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2011/09/sonys-big-risks.html

Here’s a diagram showing the light go through the pellicle mirror to the sensor, with some of it deflected to the AF sensor above. Mike J. says the loss of light is negligible, and that the image sharpness these cameras deliver may be superior because the Pellicle design does away with moving parts like mirrors that need to flip out of the sensor’s way at high speed. It’s hard to know, and harder to speculate.

The DXOMark sensor comparison below shows three cameras that use the current 16mp Sony sensor. The difference is pretty dramatic, but is that the penalty you pay for the pellicle mirror, or proof that Nikon and Pentax have better image processing firmware?

Hard to tell. A more obvious loss is the conventional viewfinder, which Sony has replaced with a super hi-res OLED EVF. DPReview says: ‘The 'TruFinder' design offers a 64% increase in resolution and ... offers progressive screen updates, rather than refreshing one colour after another, giving a much smoother, more life-like shooting experience.’ http://www.dpreview.com/previews/sonyslt/

The upside is very fast shutter speeds and continuous shooting – 12 fps with the A77, 10 with the  – and better video. Shutter lag is a claimed 20 milliseconds. There’s also the new first curtain mode, which captures images without first closing and then opening the shutter curtain, essentially going from live view to image capture with very little pause. And the cameras offer AVCHD progressive video capture, capable of Full HD 1080p at 60 frames per second.

As DPReview says, the a65 is the sharp end of Sony’s attack on the market. It lacks the a77's magnesium alloy construction, new AF sensor, top-plate LCD, rear control dial and multi-hinge screen, but we’re talking $900, not $1500. In other words, the a65 offers the a77's stand-out features to punters kicking the tyres of Nikon D5100s and Canon 600Ds. Looks like the two big guys had better pull their fingers out.

http://www.pixiq.com/article/camera-exotica-the-pellicle-mirror

No doubt, the EFV will put many off, no matter how sharp it is. But, as Mike J. points out, it has some distinct advantages: ‘When you look through an optical finder you're seeing an image that's always at a wide open aperture setting, and it's beguiling with a narrow depth of field and a bright image. But a great EVF shows you what you're really going to end up with once you push the button. It's reading all the stuff you shoved in ROM and it's finessing the image exactly the way you requested. If you set a color balance manually it's showing you THAT color balance in the finder. No surprises. If you set f/11 or f/1.4 the EVF is showing you the exact DOF you'll end up with.’

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2011/09/sonys-big-risks.html

Now wouldn’t it be nice if Sony were serious about stuffing some bangers under the big bottoms of Canon and Nikon? Wouldn’t it be great if the two big guys had to get off their butts and do something they haven’t done in a long time – innovate? The hands-on preview at DPReview suggests that the SLT-a65 might just do that http://www.dpreview.com/previews/sonyslt/ .

Luminous Landscape has another positive a65 hands-on. Only the cheap 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens brings the show undone for the reviewer: ‘It's hard for me to recommend this lens even given its low price ($100 as part of a kit). I suppose that if one is really pressed financially it's better than no lens at all, but that's about the kindest thing I can say about it. The high image quality that the a65 is capable of simply won't be able to shine through if one is limited to this lens.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/sony__first_impressions.shtml

Watch this space

Kim