Folk Music Roots - From Bluegrass to Acoustic Blues

It's been a while since I picked up and seriously played any of my very small collection of guitars. They're instruments I've acquired through my on-and-off love affair with the guitar, which began when I was sixteen. Like many teenagers back then I was a member of a 'rock' band (The Blue Diamonds) playing covers of Chuck Berry, Rolling Stones and Beatles numbers, until I went back to folk music.

In my mid-teens I had one of those 'Decisive Moments' when I was fortunate enough to join up with a couple of musicians from my local folk club who were into American 'old timey music', New Lost City Ramblers style. We seemed to get on well and one of them suggested forming a Bluegrass band, with yours truly playing simple back up guitar - I was a beginner then, and needed a good deal of help from the Mandolin player to reach a basic standard.

We spent most of our time practising and studying the banjo player's extensive collection of Library of Congress records and old songs on imported Folkways recordings, practising intensely and performing covers of Flatt and Scruggs, Stanley Brothers, BIll Monroe and The Country Gentlemen standards until we fell out and I went on to 'concentrate on earning a decent living'. Listen to the Country Gentlemen's 'Happy, Sunny Side of Life', Earl's Breakdown and the sad 'Bringing Mary Home' to get a flavour of this driving style of banjo, mandolin, bass and guitar music from Appalachia.

I found this photo recently while clearing out the loft. It made me smile. It was taken by our local press, who published an article on our Essex based Bluegrass band in 1967 - quite a novelty in those parts. I'm the skinny one in the middle with what, in colour, would be bright traffic light red hair, attempting to play the double bass.

Having eventually fallen out with the Mandolin player and, after suffering withdrawal symptoms from not being an active musician for a couple of years, I settled down to study 'fingerstyle' guitar more seriously and immersed myself in developing a more ambitious playing style modelled on such greats as John Renbourn, Bert Jansch, Davy Graham, Rev Gary Davis, Big BIll Broonzy, Martin Carthy and Nic Jones, all of whom strongly influenced my playing and ultimate return to British folk music. I made a lot of progress and eventually I put the new skills to work earning extra money teaching at the South East Essex Music College, until I found myself needing a new musical challenge.

In the end I decided that English Traditional Folk was my real love and formed an Acapella Band with two friends from the College. We modelled ourselves on The Young Tradition (Peter Bellamy and Royston and Heather Wood) whose material was a blend of sea shanties, from Cyril Tawney's recordings, farm workers' songs from the traditional music of the Copper Family from Sussex, as well as songs recovered from Medieval times interspersed with instrumentals drawn from Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick. That was a fascinating time. We worked tirelessly for two years to get a repertoire to the right standard, but made only half a dozen performances at local folk clubs before work and study pressures forced us to stop, and stop we did, for over fifteen years!

The next time I was seriously to pick up the instrument was when I decided to turn to Blues and play electric guitars, notably Gibson Les-Pauls and Fender Stratocasters. At that time I was inspired by Robben Ford, who is probably the best technician on the crossover between Blues and Jazz guitar playing I know. Listen to his second half solo on 'Help the Poor' and and the tone he gets on 'He Don't Play Nothin' But the Blues'. Boy that man can play!! I even bought a couple of the same type of Fenders Esprits he used to play, in case some of that 'magic' might rub off on me. Hmmmm - maybe not!

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Botero Museum in Bogota, Colombia

While in Bogota recently, I had the great pleasure to visit the Botero Museum and its superb collection of works by the Colombian artist Fernando Botero. The works are housed in a magnificently restored colonial mansion in the heart of Bogota’s historic La Candelaria area, where the city was founded. It is one of the world's secret treasures.

The permanent exhibition includes more than 120 of Botero’s own paintings, drawings and sculptures as well as 85 original works by such artists as Renoir, Monet, Degas, Matisse, Miro, Chagall, Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec and Dali - all donated by Botero in 2000 when the museum was opened. The Museum itself is a beautiful building in traditional style, well worth a visit in it's own right.

I found Botera's work fascinating, some highlights of which can be seen below.

The Museum is an absolutely ‘must visit’, two hour treat and should be at the very top of every visitor's list – certainly an equal first to the next on your list which should be the Gold Museum, which is in the same part of Bogota, not far from the Botero.

If Botero’s work is unfamiliar (that link loads very slowly), he is among Colombia’s most famous exports. He is the artist who ‘paints fat people’. His love of life and affection for Colombia and its people is revealed in every painting. In the UK, the closest we’ve ever seen to these ‘plump paragons’ is in the work of Beryl Cook from the early seventies. Her work has the very same irreverent sense of fun and 'joy of life' captured on the canvas by Botero and she has a similar preoccupation with the 'larger form' of her protagonists. Although both claim not to paint 'Fat Women'

The painting on the left above is 'Paraja Ballando' by Botero and on the right is 'Tango' by Beryl Cook. Both artists are well worth further study, but back to the Botero Museum. There isn't the space in this article to do full justice to what the exhibition offers. I could almost say that it's worth going all the way to Bogota just to see it. All the work is presented so beautifully.

The photo above shows how you are greeted by Botero's 'El Estudio' as you go into one of the main galleries. Botero is said to have painted himself into this particular piece (the artist on the left!).

My photo of Botero's 'Monalisa', above, just captures the artist's very smooth painting style, best revealed in his skin tones. Below is a shot of Salvador Dali's 'Bust - Retrospective of a Woman' which is beautifully displayed in one of the many alcove displays one comes across during a tour of the galleries.

Finally, in this short review, I ought to mention the superb collection of sculptures which accompany the many paintings. The 'Hombre. Mujer y Nino', shown below, is just one example of the extraordinary work on offer.

Unlike the Royal Academy of Arts in London, The Botero Museum is happy for visitors to photograph the art, provided that no flash is used, so it's possible to come away with some quality images to remember the wonderful experience to be had here. There were no guide books available in English, at the time, but there is an online gallery here. Well worth a second visit whenever I'm next in Bogota!

For those who would like to understand Botero's points of view, there is an interesting TED talk:

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London At Night with a Nikon Df

a new, 'old' nikon Df

Last year, like many photographers, I'd been reviewing the most recent crop of cameras. I'd been using the Leica M9 for three years, on and off, and loved it for what it is, but the fact remains that, while I loved the images I can create with it, the sensor is now somewhat out of date.

So, I had looked at, invested in, experimented with and disposed of the Sony A7 and the Sony A7s, not the A7R, as Sony have still not fixed its shutter vibration issues. I also looked at Nikon's latest product at the time, the much heralded, retro-styled Nikon Df.

For several months after its announcement, the Nikon Df had been splitting opinion. OK, it's an odd combination of marketing inspired nonsense and some genuine qualities, among which is a super smooth image quality. I agree. I could happily see through all the hype though, so that didn't concern me. Is it a good camera? Yes - no doubt!

I like, for example, some of the 'retro' controls, but hate the front rotation button with a passion - what numbskull thought of that one!? Under pressure, in aperture priority mode, concentrating on focusing, that front button is practically useless for all intents and purposes. Aperture control has to be reassigned to the command rotator on the rear of the camera - of course it would - and so the problem is solved.

After a couple of weeks of using it that was about the only thing that really managed to frustrate me. Everything else about the Nikon Df seems pretty much, well, OK. Any other 'niggles' are really fairly easy to adjust to and I've been genuinely impressed by what I think is the Df's best feature of all - the full frame, 16 megapixel D4 sensor. It's just, well, superb - there's no other word for it!

There are lots of reviews, both technical and real world on the internet to dig into. You can drive yourself crazy with all the detail, but my principal interest is in using the camera in real project situations. In particular, I was very, very interested in a Df and Zeiss prime lens combination. Now, if you are only interested in auto-focus lenses and 'P mode' auto-almost everything, then the Nikon Df is probably not your best choice, but, in keeping with their 'back to basics' theme, I felt the camera might just make a good medium sized working combination with highly reputed Zeiss glass. For that recommendation I'm obliged to Lloyd Chambers, who has done a serious amount of testing on these lenses.

So, I followed his recommendations and recently tried both a Zeiss 21mm f2.8 ZF.2 Distagon Lens and their superb Zeiss 135mm f2 ZF.2 APO Sonnar lenses on a couple of projects. The image set here is from a visit to London, at night, mostly shot around Chinatown behind Leicester Square. My imagination was caught by just how many people, in each situation I found myself in, were intently focused on their phones and in particular with taking snaps - wherever they were!

The shot below is one of my favourites. Considering the ISO was so high the tonal ramge in this image is very nice. The sensor in this camera is undoubtedly its best asset. The Zeiss 21mm has done a great job with this scene, taken at the entrance to Burlington Arcade. It just shows that a 16Mp camera can still produce wonderful images with enough resolution to meet most printing needs and the rendering of this combination is well, just, beautiful.

Anyway, it's an example of what might be done with a Nikon Df and the two Zeiss prime, manual focus lenses - shot deliberately at very high ISOs - some at ISO 6400 and the rest at 12800; all hand-held, straight 'out of the box'. Mostly all taken with the lenses wide open. Also all but two are heavily cropped, for compositional reasons. So this Df does great work - in any light and shows you can deal with night street work with huge dynamic range challenges and get a very useable result.

Of course, as we all know, dynamic range for any sensor reduces as ISO increases. I guess because the signal data is being amplified at low levels to give increased apparent sensitivity but at the same time the top end filled capacity of the pixel's 'light wells' is fixed, so inevitably shadows get amplified but highlights can't get any brighter so the range of levels between shadows and highlights decreases with increasing ISO and hence you get decreased dynamic range available. You can see this in the images in this post but, frankly, the result is still very useable. You lose some of the 'depth' in the rendering, which you can see in the people's clothing and skin tones but think about what we are doing here - we are working in the dark in 'natural light'!

I was honestly surprised at the image quality, given the ISO settings, the untreated noise in the RAW files was very film-like and reminded me so much of pushed Tri-X grain from the 'old days'. Very photogenic. Each image was processed from RAW in Nikon Capture NX2, this time. To give some smoothing, Noiseware Professional was used to tone down the noise levels a little with a touch of output sharpening as the final step. Given it was my first outing with the camera and lens combination, as a night 'street' / candid shoot, I was pretty impressed with the outcome. Practice makes perfect, of course - or just 'better' in my case.

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Zeiss Sonnar 85mm f2 ZM Lens Review with Leica M9

This is a revised and extended version of my Zeiss 85mm Sonnar lens review article which was originally published on Steve Huff's very popular photography blog in December 2010. I've included more images and new technical content gained from further research on the lens and also added some full size image download options for those who would like to review selected images at full size.

Over the past few months I've transitioned from Nikon DSLRs to the Leica M9 for almost all of my ‘candid’ photography, reserving my Nikon D3 and long telephoto lenses for the sport and racing photography I still do in the summer. Even after three months, I am still somewhat surprised by what can be achieved with the Leica M9. There is just something very special about the images it can produce together with Leica's superb optics. In these early months I've been working predominantly with Leica's superb 24mm and 50mm Summilux ASPH lenses and also with some wonderful Zeiss 35mm and 50mm optics.

More recently, I've been adding lenses, and I'd read that, due to it's narrow angle range-finding system, a rangefinder camera has technical limitations on the longest focal length lens it can accurately focus. Despite Leica and others offering 135mm lenses, several writers suggest the practical limit to be 90mm, and having got very used to my Nikon telephoto lenses in the past, I felt I needed a longer throw lens for those ‘can’t quite get close enough’ shots or for more effectively isolating subjects from their background and foreground.

I did quite a lot of homework on the choices from 75mm to 90mm, reading whatever I could find on the usual forums and websites, but was still not entirely sure what I should go for. There is a very insightful debate on this very question in this Leica forum post. Then, my excellent local Leica dealer Robert White’s Stuart Culley, while apologising for the generally poor availability of Leica 90mm lens stock, suggested a Zeiss f/2.0 85mm Sonnar as another option; particularly good, he thought, for portraits and full length people shots. That resonated, particularly because of some excellent images I'd seen at the end of Steve Huff’s article on the Leica 75mm Summicron, shot on the Zeiss, in a comparison to the Leica.

This suggestion set me off on another search for comparative reviews. I found Erwin Puts' review of a selection of short telephoto lenses, including the Zeiss 85mm Sonnar, here; but, alas, supported by very few images. However, Sean Reid's subscription site, Reid Reviews, also has excellent, illustrated reviews on all relevant Voigtlander, Zeiss and Leica choices.

For those enthusiasts interested in the development of the Sonnar lens design there is an excellent, though brief, article on it's historical evolution by Frank Mechelhoff here, and a little on Wikipedia, here.

Steve Huff and other writers have been impressed with the Zeiss and so, when I needed to make a final decision for a forthcoming trip, I decided on the Zeiss. When it finally arrived, I made some quick test shots to get to know it and was quietly impressed with the way it draws, its colour and just the overall quality of the imagery. Then I took it with me to Venice for a couple of days and these are my first impressions of the combination. First, the initial test shots.

Yes, I know - is this a boring shot or what? Well, this was the very first image from the lens and I kept it in because of the superb, subtle tones in the car's hood and bright metalwork. This colour is difficult to capture, but the full size non-jpeg version, processed, is stunning. It's a simple, nondescript image but it signposts the lens's capabilities. I was encouraged.

However, when I took some contra-jour images to see how it would cope with flare, I was somewhat surprised by the colour fringing on the burnt out highlights in some of the test images. Here you can see, on the left above, a 100 percent centre crop from an image taken at f/2.8 versus that on the right at f5.6. You can see purple fringing around the very high contrast edges until the lens is stopped down past f2.8, as it is on the right. Hmmm.

As you can see above, this fringing is more exaggerated when you inadvertently overexpose the image at very wide apertures, as I did above, while experimenting with the bracketing of exposures. Ooops. Well, after this first test shoot, and even though I had contributed to the effect myself by overexposing some images, I was keen to understand more about it, so I revisited the articles I'd previously read to see if others had found the same. Yup, in his 90mm RF Lenses test on the M8, Sean Reid noted the same issue on his pre-production sample, finding more Chromatic Aberration than he expected at apertures greater than f4. Also, in his test on the ZF version of the same design his test shots show similar aberration levels on images from wide open to f4. For those interested, there is a great article on Chromatic Aberration at Paul van Walree's site here.

After doing more research on this issue, with a wide range of sources, I learned that lateral Chromatic Aberration is more common than you would think, and it's often seen on relatively fast lenses when used at or near their maximum apertures at very high contrast edges. Witness the same purple fringing on even the fabulous $11,000 Leica 50mm Noctilux-M ASPH lens in Thorsten Overgaard's review here, which also needs to be stopped down to avoid the same effects in very contrasty lighting. This post at the Leica Forum also contains an extensive discussion and images on this whole issue. In another Leica forum post here there is a very extensive discussion on the issue in relation to the Leica 50mm f/0.95 Noctilux which explores its causes, the practical remedies and the realities and compromises in very fast lens design and Erwin Puts' article here illustrates it in context with further explanation.

From these and other sources it also seems that sensor 'bloom' effects may exacerbate purple fringing where the highlight boundary is very overexposed and out of sharp focus, which is what I did. The remedy is, if you detect the fringing in a preview, stop down slightly so that the various wavelengths of light come to focus within the depth of field and thus reduce the artifact. Capture One, the RAW converter, is said to be able to remove the artifact in the conversion workflow. However, a simple Cardinal Rule is - I know, it's the obvious one - don't overexpose at very high contrast edges.

Somewhat refreshed by all this background research, I finally ended up re-reading Sean's closing remarks in his much later comparative test of 90mm Leica. Zeiss and Voigtlander lenses, where he also re-tests a production Sonnar, he concludes;... 'it's really impossible to ignore the exceptional performance of the Zeiss 85/2.0 Sonnar. This is a first rate optic.... (it) may, in terms of technical performance, be the best telephoto lens I have yet tested.'. CA was still visible with the production sample, but not excessive. Phew!

When you look at the technical details from Zeiss on this lens you can see some remarkable claims. For instance, the MTF charts for the lens are outstanding:-

On the right hand chart above you can see that the MTF for the 40 line pairs/mm (the lowest pair of solid and dashed lines representing high frequency data, micro contrast and apparent sharpness) are up at the 80% level for much of the field - this represents potentially excellent sharpness and an excellent ability to accurately record fine detail by the time the lens is stopped down to f/4.0. The highest pair of lines for 10 line pairs/mm (low frequency image details and general image contrast) are at the 95% level which suggests superb contrast across the frame at f/4.0. The left hand chart is almost as good at f2/0, still excellent contrast across the frame, but with slightly less ability in fine detailing towards the corners. There are some very helpful articles on MTF by Klaus Schroiff on Photozone here and by Bob Atkins starting here. There is also a useful article by Bob Atkins on testing lens sharpness and resolution here.

So, I was comforted enough to carry on testing, and with renewed enthusiasm aided by a gorgeous sunny day, I set off into the village to get the shots below.

Here you can see what can be achieved with the lens when the exposure is spot on. This is an old, very photogenic cottage in my village. The detail in the building and its roof makes it very useful as a test subject - particularly in bright sunlight together with some deeper shadows under the nearby trees. I just liked the way the Sonnar draws it - and those lovely colours. The image was shot in RAW and minimally converted in ACR. No contrast adjustments or sharpening were done. Click on the image above to download and view the Jpeg version at 100%, which was saved at quality 10 (5.4Mb).

Here are some 100 percent crops from around the centre and edges of the same image - again, all unsharpened and unprocessed except the bare minimum of conversion in ACR. Although this is reputed to be a high contrast lens, all these details are beautifully drawn and they stand out without the need for adding excessive contrast in post processing. The chimney detail crop reveals how beautifully the lens renders the subtle tones in the eathernware pots - great colours again - and if you're concerned about how it captures detail at the edges, check out the fine wire mesh at the top of the right hand chimney pot.

Walking a bit further down the lane, I shot the image below. It's shows an example of a dying craft called 'Pargetting'. This is done by lime plastering a section of wall, or as here a decorative panel, and then drawing into the wet plaster to illustrate a rural scene. It's a technique that was used on many village and civic buildings from the Late Tudor period (1500s to 1600s) right up to the early 1920s. Here you can see local farm workers felling and trimming a tree. Anyway, the image helps to show how the lens captures the textures without having to emphasize them with contrast adjustments.

There is also no trace of the aberrations I detected earlier. The high contrast edges around the windows in the shot below show that all is well when you get the exposure right. No sharpening has been applied to the image.

Here is a 100 percent crop detail from the upper left of the image. No contrast adjustments or sharpening were added. Great colours in the roof tiles.

Below is a 100 percent crop detail straight from the RAW file from the centre of the image. No contrast adjustments or sharpening were added. Great rendition of the flint wall details too, and again, no trace of chromatic aberrations on the high contrast edges.

So, with that modest, but successful test behind me, I was ready for the real trip - an all too brief, two day vacation in Venice!

venice - a leica and zeiss paradise

This image (below) was my first shot from the balcony of our hotel. It's only about a third of the frame, from the centre - 85mm focal length doesn't really isolate everything at this distance. It was shot at f4.0 at 1/1000th sec at ISO 160 - handheld. I was just trying to get used to the framing at this sort of distance, and framing your shot is a bit of a challenge with this lens. If composition is critical, to use as much of the frame as possible, then you're going to have to practice quite a bit before you get what you were hoping for first time. Even if you dial in an appropriate lens code, you still get the 90mm framelines and they are different enough from the real view that critical composition is quite tricky. I need to practice more, obviously.

If you look closely, you can still see some chromatic aberration on the left shoulder of the gondolier and you can just detect the purple fringing on the near horizontal surface of his shirt, but it's not too bad.

Look at the detail though - even at this modest sized picture you can still see the potential of this lens - finely drawn lines, nice colour and wonderfully subtle tonal gradations. Very nice, and the way it picks up the variety of tones and the translucency of the water, under the gondola and by the oar in the bottom left corner, is also excellent. Again, minimal processing and no sharpening.

Focus was quite tricky - I'm still getting used to it, but I really don't see why Ken Rockwell had quite so much trouble focusing this lens, as he claims, in his otherwise very positive review.

Lots of people have commented on this lens being an ideal portrait lens, including Zeiss themselves. I think I'm right in remembering that they say that, because of deliberately uncorrected spherical aberrations inherent in their design, the lens gives beautiful renderings of slightly soft portraits and so lends itself directly to that kind of work. Well, actually, I was hoping that it might be capable of a greater range of subject matter than that. I think these shots suggest that's very possible. Well then, how about some group shots?

This one is also only half the frame, from the left edge to the centre, so the standing gondolier is imaged on the extreme edge of the lens coverage - beautiful. The lower gondola is at the extreme bottom of the frame - check out the detail in the girl's hair and the beautiful skin tones in her arms. The red haired chap in the bottom right hand corner has a printed T shirt on that is nicely rendered too. The gondola decoration, bottom left, and the water droplets are finely captured as well. Click on the image above to download and view a jpeg version at 100%.

Unexpectedly, I really like this shot because of the 'X' composition of the people, the 'chaos' of detail and its overall sense of humour. Wherever you start looking at the picture, your eye is constantly drawn back in by the many lines of interest in the image. They really look like they were having such great fun! Shot at f/8.0 at 1/350th at ISO 160, handheld.

While I was busy concentrating on the shot above, I could hear someone below me, out of frame, singing the 'Just One Cornetto' Walls advertising campaign song to the tune of 'O Solo Mio'. When I glanced down from the balcony there was this crazy guy singing his head off, in mock Italian, with his arms flung wildly apart at the crescendo of the song. A quick refocus and, pop, I got him. Of course my composition was off, so this crop is from one corner of the frame but, I like it. Not exactly posed, but he got my attention! I like the way all the heads lined up and the way the others are trying to ignore the noisy one; the guy in the grey T shirt is, I think, wishing he were somewhere else. Shot at f/5.6, 1/350th at ISO 160.

Next up was a walk around the Fish and Vegetable Market and here are a couple of shots using the lens at close up range, handheld, in very poor artificial light. Here are some red and green chillies shot at f/11.0, 1/45th at ISO 160. I made no contrast adjustments, nor did I add any sharpening.

This shot, is disgusting. These are some kind of eel, no idea which, but skinned the way they are and such an awkward and subtle colour to capture in the crazy lighting, I think it's a creditable result from the lens. Again shot at close quarters at f/4.0, 1/45th at ISO 160. No sharpening or contrast adjustments - straight off the camera with minimum work in ACR.

Having been exhausted by trudging around a crowded Venice all day, I thought to catch some culture. So my wife and I took in a Vivaldi chamber music concert at a local Chapel that evening. Naturally, I made myself a bit of a nuisance in the interval by periodically popping up and down out of my seat, like a Jack-in-a-Box, to try a get a shot of the artists before they began the second part of the evening. As they were retuning their instruments, I managed this shot at f/2.0, 1/60th at ISO 1250 - handheld. Not a bad result at ISO 1250! The keen eyed among you will notice the aberrations again at the edge of the music's maxed out highlight in the centre of the image. Ah well. Check out the lovely colours in the marble in the background upper left and the rendering of the Cellos on the right.

The following day, I tried again, and while my wife was trying out her new LX5, I experimented with some extreme backlit shots. This is one of my favourites. I can tell you that the upper 25% of this scene was completely washed out in the camera's default jpeg. I kept it in, with the minimum of work in ACR to recover the highlights, to show you just what this lens is capable of in such conditions. The shot has its own grace and atmosphere, capturing the very spirit of the Venitian moment. Once again, check out the details in the distance and the way the scene is drawn - very, very nice stuff. Taken at f/5.6, 1/500th at ISO 160; no sharpening etc.

Just to make the point a little more obviously, here are some 100 percent crops from the same image - straight from the camera.

A little further along, I came across one of those surprise juxtapositions which catches your eye and you then spend the next ten minutes working out how to lay on the ground to get just the right angle to compose everything into the best geometric relationship while passers by step nervously over your prone body; hence this shot. I like the way the chimneys are out of focus but recognisable and the overhanging lamp is tack sharp in contrast. Image shot at f/5.6, 1/1000th at ISO 160 - handheld, on my belly in the dirt! Fabulous blue sky gradations.

As we returned to the hotel, looking across the Grand Canal, I noticed a beautiful, almost completely grey building facade with wonderful detailing caught in acute lighting, greatly emphasizing the texture of its stonework. Hence this shot. Taken at f/5.6, 1/3000th at ISO 160 (loads of light), handheld, with no sharpening or contrast adjustments, its shows what this lens can do right across the frame - it's even caught a flying gull mid-flight on the upward wing beat - perfectly! If you can't see it in the main image take a look at the 100 percent crops below. All straight from the camera.

And now for the humorous moment! This is a hilarious example of exasperated Italian temperament. The gate sign, so my wife tells me, which we just happened to walk past, says - ENOUGH! Stop with the Dog Shit! We are Furious! I'm not sure what the Arabic says below it, but I can guess. Couldn't resist the image, and you can see how the lens has made a first class job of rendering it at close quarters. Taken at f/5.6, 1/180th at ISO 160 - handheld. This shot supports Erwin Puts' conclusion that the Sonnar excels at close distances.

And here is a 100 percent crop from the centre of the image, again, straight from the camera.

So as not to concentrate my efforts entirely on buildings and group shots, I took a few people images. Here is an example from quite a distance, handheld, in mostly shaded lighting. It's only twenty percent of the frame, but the man is very nicely rendered - pity about the dog's head being overexposed. Shot at f/6.7, 1/180th, ISO 160, no sharpening, but white balance and exposure adjusted.

I also managed to catch this lady, with her very swish sun brolly, while she was posing for her friend. This was shot at f8.0, 1/125th at ISO 160 and is only 25% of the frame. The white balance and exposure was corrected, but no sharpening was added. Very smooth subtle colours and the umbrella is just beautifully drawn.

Finally, some monochrome images, the first of which is a contra-jour shot of four gondoliers edging down a narrow canal towards the light. Since most of my work is expressed in monochrome these days, I thought I ought to just put a couple in among this unfamiliar orgy of colour. I just love the way these images are drawn - simple as that. Maybe it's just me, but those subtle tones translate through to monochrome exceptionally well.

Here is another contra-jour shot, again from my balcony, taken at f4, 1/1500th at ISO 160, PP'd in ACR, CS5 and Silver Efex Pro. Click on the image below to download and view a Jpeg version at 100% (5Mb).

conclusions

The comparative size and weight of this lens is substantial. On the camera, however, it feels good with a reassuring balance. Some writers have commented on its unusual conical shape, but if you look through the viewfinder you can see that its shape very effectively reduces the lens's intrusion into the frame (without the hood) when composing - a good thing. Fortunately, because it employs internal focusing, the lens does not extend much when focusing between its closest working distance and infinity, which helps the handling. Colours from the lens are very good, sometimes subtle and muted and at other times pleasingly warm and 'forward'. Resolution and micro contrast is high. The rendering of tonal gradations is superb.

I think, without a shadow of doubt, that this lens is a genuine winner. Although my work is almost exclusively monochrome these days, this lens has a habit of reminding you that colour has it's own intrinsic photographic value and that it can seduce the eye with its own subtle rendering of scenes where colour is a major pictorial element of the overall image. It has a 'personality' - softer rendering when completely wide open, but rapidly rendering pin sharp, contrasty images as you stop down past F/2.8 and is wonderful at F/5.6. Couple this with beautifully subtle colour when it's appropriate and it's ability to record very fine details and I don't think you could be disappointed with this lens.

Of course, it's not a budget lens alternative to a comparable Leica lens and so it has to stand in that company as an equal performer but with a different 'character'. I think it achieves that with plenty to spare.

Incidentally, you'll of course have noticed that I deliberately didn't shoot any portraits. Ha! I hear you say - it's a portrait lens. Well, that's because I'm now working on the next step, which is how to use the lens as creatively as I can. Having satisfied myself that the Sonnar is a keeper, my challenge now is to see what can be achieved creatively - and I shall begin with a portrait or two. Hmmm.

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Traditional Dancers at Wallingford Festival

Ladies Morris teams are a common site in the villages around Oxfordshire. In fact, it is said in some corners that Morris dancing traditions might have been lost had it not been for may dances and tunes being preserved by enthusiastic women archivists work over the past hundred years or more. This is a shot from a series on Taeppas Tump Ladies Morris side dancing at Wallingford festival this past September. The image was shot with a Leica M9 fitted with a Leica 50mm f1.4 Summilux Lens.

Here's a Plum Jerkum dancer having a puff after running out of puff dancing at Wallingford Bunkfest in early September. Plum Jerkum hails from Warwickshire, their name being derived from a cider made from the local Drooper plum. Apparently it has the local reputation of 'leaving the head crystal clear while paralysing the legs'!

Here’s another image from the same set. This shot was also taken with a Leica M9 with a Leica 50mm f1.4 Summilux lens. It seems the ‘Out of Puff’ image, above, has also been accepted by the Leica Fotographie International Master Shots Gallery for the Leica M9. I feel honoured and very fortunate to have another piece of work selected.

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Nikon D300 Goes Racing

This is an update on a article I originally published in 2010 on the original The Intuitive Lens blog.

Having just invested in the Nikon D500 (2016), I can tell you it's been a very, very long wait for the replacement of themuch earlier and very successful Nikon D300. I've yet to take the D500 out on its first motor-sport shoot, but I know what the benchmark will be against which I will be assessing its image quality and usability. The D300 and its update the D300s is well loved, and for good reason. Here are some images from a shoot at the Snetterton track to set the pace.

This shot is part of a set of images taken at a Formula 3 Single Seat Racing and British GT Car Championship meeting which took place at Snetterton in Norfolk a while back. All of these images were shot on a Nikon D300 DSLR (with the DX sensor), fitted with a Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 VR telephoto zoom lens.

It's just over three years since Nikon announced, in 2007, what was then a major step forward in their DSLR offerings - the Nikon D300. 12.3 MP DX format CMOS sensor, ISO 200 to 3200, fast and accurate 51 point Auto Focus sensor, 3.0" 922,000 pixel LCD monitor with Live View, 6 to 8 frames per second continuous shooting and super fast power up to ready status. At the time, a huge step forward.

Here is what dpreview said about it:-

“My biggest problem writing this conclusion has been picking out the D300’s weak points. The usefulness of Live View would certainly be improved with an articulating LCD monitor (although I’m sure Nikon would argue that this could compromise the integrity of the body), auto white-balance is poor in artificial light (although this isn’t anything unique to the D300) and there’s still no true mirror lock-up feature. But really, these few niggles are really the only things we could pick out as criticism..............
............... There is price, but sometimes the best products demand a premium and the D300 is no exception. Nikon’s biggest problem now will be bettering the D300; it raises the bar to a new high, and represents the state of the art despite strong competition from the likes of Canon, Sony and Olympus. There’s simply no better semi-professional digital SLR on the market.”

Praise indeed; and, as I was to find out in practical application, very well deserved. The full dpreview article is still well worth a read, if only to contrast the capabilities of the D300 against it replacement. It has a lot to live up to.

At the time, I took the dpreview advice, including taking into account the hot debates on the dpreview forums, which were not entirely positive, and purchased the D300 from the very knowledgeable and experienced Stuart Culley at Robert White, my long time supplier of all the Nikon, Leica, Zeiss ad Voigtlander kit.

The D300's first assignment was a Formula 3 and GT race day at Snetterton in Norfolk. The light that day was very, very strong, contrasty and, to make it more difficult, the vantage point I chose was the famous Russel complex, which meant shooting straight into the light for most of the session. The compensation though was some great action shots, and a very red face from excessive sunburn - I forgot to take a hat!

One of the advantages (I would say) of the DX format is its 'problematic' 1.5x crop factor, which, of course, results in an increase in the effective focal length of all your lenses. For wide angle, close in work that's maybe a problem, but for photographing racing cars it's a big win. So, on the day, I coupled the D300 with the longest lens I had available which was the Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 VR Telephoto Zoom lens. The combination gave me an effective focal length of 140mm to 300mm to work with and, shooting from the Russel complex, that gives you quite an opportunity to get in close to the action.

This image was taken at f/11.0, 1/1250th sec, ISO 800 with the lens set at 175mm and is cropped from about thirty percent of the DX frame. What typically happens on this corner is that competitors come in too hot to the first right hander, sometimes in a last minute overtaking maneuver, clip the kerb, which almost always lifts their car into the air, then they try to make the immediate hard left over the vicious, serrated kerb on the other side. Ouch.

The Aston Martin DBR9 image was shot at f/8.0, 1/1250th sec, ISO 400 with the lens at its maximum focal length of 200mm and is also a thirty percent crop. All this rapid change of direction and shifting G-forces throw some cars into great poses - perfect for the camera! Talking of 'perfect for the camera' - how about this treat for sore eyes? It was sitting in the private car park all on its own - aaah.

I think this is a Jaguar XK140. The front grill, amber indicator lights and the bigger front and rear bumpers with larger overriders seems to confirm it's a 140; unless I've got that wrong? Sold in the UK from 1955 to 1957 with a 3.5 litre XK engine, the 140 could pull in the region of 120-125 mph; and it could drive round corners like it was stuck to the road! What a superb example of Jaguar's finest.

This image is an almost 'straight from the D300' shot; just minimal processing in Camera Raw and simple Neutral conversion to monochrome in Silver Efex Pro and no further editing except a resize. Below is an unsharpened, 100 percent crop from the centre of the image, roughly where I think I focused the lens.

You can see the sensor noise on the front wing just where it curves down to the wheel arch. Not unpleasant, quite film-like, but noticeable and, in any case, easily removed with Noiseware Professional or similar. The image was shot on the D300 fitted with the Nikon 70-200mm zoom lens, set at 70mm, taken handheld at f/8.0, 1/1250th sec, ISO 400. A beautiful composition of sensuous curves, don't you think?

Finally, if you want to put an image like this more into context with its time, a little post processing in Camera Raw, Noiseware Professional, Silver Efex Pro and Photoshop CS5, with the slightest hint of Sepia thrown into the mix, you could create a rather more sumptuous, timeless image more suited to the subject. It reminds me of the sort of photos I used to drool over in my Dad's old Autocar magazines that I discovered in the loft as a child but which are now, sadly, long gone. Mmmmm.

If you're already using a Nikon D300 then you already know it's a winner. I see absolutely no reason to ditch mine. In the right circumstances, it's the best body for the job! But, now, there is finally a much lauded replacement, the D500. It will be very interesting to see how they compare under working conditions - never mind the specs!

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Billingham Hadley Pro Camera Bag Review

Having made the decision to add a Leica M9 Rangefinder camera to my options when travelling, I spent a great deal of time looking for a camera bag that would allow me to carry my gear comfortably and safely. One of the issues I face when on the move is the amount of technology I have to carry in connection with my work. It includes two laptops and several disk drives, chargers and cables, so my Tumi roller laptop case is packed to the hilt already. This means that I carry another hold-all kind of bag with my other stuff in it, so I cannot add a separate camera bag and get through check-in without having to consolidate all this into two carry-ons.

I needed something that would hold my rangefinder and two or three lenses that would collapse into nothing when necessary, or which could consolidate itself into my other bags until I arrived at my destination, when it would become a purpose made camera bag again. Yes, I know it's complicated, but it's no joke when you are trying to get so much gear from one place to another on airplanes without breaking it or your own back carrying it all. I looked at several options from Lowepro and Crumpler, but without success.

Then I remembered that I had a couple of very old Billingham bags that I'd bought many years ago which carried my 35mm SLR Film bodies and lenses onto field trips before the days of purpose designed photographic backpacks. I pressed one into service, but soon found that its design was not going to do what I needed. It was too bulky, front to back, which meant that the heavy gear was being carried further away from my body and 'pulling' outwards to make things very uncomfortable after only a short time. Wearing the bag while attempting to take shots was very awkward; so that wasn't the answer. It did remind me to check out Billingham's site though and follow up at a local camera store, where I found just the thing! A Hadley Pro bag.

The video review shows how well it meets my needs. It's thin - only about four inches thick. It's long enough to take a camera and four lenses. It's light enough to sit on the shoulder without 'pulling' itself off while shooting images in the street. Everything can easily be reached and its inner padded compartment can be pulled out and quickly popped into another bag while going through airports until you can put it back into the outer bag. Brilliant. Highly Recommended and four and a half out of five for value and design.

The only improvement I could think of was that a non-slip shoulder pad should have been included in the price, but these 'accessories' are obtainable from Billingham directly, at extra cost.

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Dali Museum in St Petersburg Florida

surreal exhibits - sublime architecture

While in St Petersburg on a first time visit to this part of south west Florida, we had the opportunity to visit the Dali Museum. Now, I’ve seen quite a bit of Mr Dali’s work at various museums around the world over the years, but this venue houses what is probably the most comprehensive collection of his work. I particularity liked the painting of his other half Gala, which at a distance, morphs into a portrait of President Abraham Lincoln!

I can’t say I’m that much of a fan of surrealism, being more interested in representational art than this level of abstraction, so forgive me if I gloss over the various other highlights, one of which was a classic vintage Rolls Royce car containing a mermaid – in water! The main draw for me, I’m sorry to say, was more the architecture of the building and the visitors to the exhibits. Here are some images from that session:

All of the images were taken, hand-held, with the Sony A7 camera, in this case fitted with the Zeiss FE f2.8, 35mm lens. The images were processed in Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop CC, and all but the last image was converted to monochrome using the DxO Optics FilmPack Agfa Scala 200x preset, as a starting point. The final image in the set, above, was converted to monochrome using a black and white adjustment layer in PSCC with modified colour blending and only a single curves adjustment.

All of these images were created using the improved techniques I learned at Ming Thein’s Masterclass in Havana, which I recently attended and more on which in a later post. So, these images incorporate the tonal separation techniques, advanced manual dodging and burning, masked and brushed contrast curve adjustment and soft light blending techniques I worked through to improve my renderings as part of his in-depth workshop. You can read more about that here on my review and here on Ming’s blog report.

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Candid to Landscape - Photographic Redux No 1

candidly - my photographic background

In a nutshell - I began seriously to explore photography in 1973 and, fortunately for me, I was mentored by two superb medium format based photographers, who helped me understand all the basics of film, candid photography and darkroom processes. After three years or so of club competitions, like many people at the beginning of their careers, I got very busy with life, further education and finding a better job. My photography went on the back burner, but intermittent bouts of withdrawal symptoms subsequently led to episodes of renewed photographic efforts.

Here are some of the surviving images from those bouts of renewed interest:

Feminine Study

film finale - from granules to pixels

The 'Feminine Study' image above was originally shot in colour on a Nikon F90 film camera with a 100mm Nikkor manual focus lens under simple studio lighting at a Buckinghamshire Camera Club event. The beautiful model was a local girl who had not 'posed' before, but volunteered provided that we all donated at least one finished print towards her portfolio. I don't know how she had the patience to sit for so long, but I think the end result was worth the effort. A classic pose which worked well in the confined space with so little time to get the shot. Scanned and post processed in Photoshop.

Beijing, Summer Palace

This silhouette was taken in the Summer Palace, Beijing in China, quite some time ago when I was on a breakneck tour of China, which included chugging 600 km down the Yangtze River before the major dam works flooded the valleys and villages along it's length. That was quite an experience.

It's one of the few images that survives one of those regrettable clear-outs of 'old stuff' that afterward you really wish you hadn't done. It was also shot on my Nikon F90 using colour film, probably Kodachrome. I found the negative by accident and scanned it in color, then turned it into a monochrome image, which I think better suites it.

There was a long gap between the club work I did in Thurrock in the 70s until I restarted local club photography in the mid 90s. Work triggered that, in that we needed to build a product imaging studio. In those days digital cameras had only just begun to be commercially available with the Sinar at £20,000 and later the $5,000 D1 in 1999, but getting involved in that project caused me to start shooting again. It was a while before Nikon's first decent digital cameras were any challenge to film, so like many, I stayed with film until the early models became more affordable and usable. For me, that was around April 2004, when I invested in my first personal Nikon DSLR, the 6mp D70.

Escaping the Surf - St Ives, Cornwall

nikon D70 - my first digital love.

This shot was taken on my, then, brand new Nikon D70. Not the first digital camera I owned but the first serious digital SLR and lens system worth its salt. It comes from a set of images snatched on the beach at Saint Ives Cornwall in July 2004 with a 70-200mm telephoto lens hand-held at quite a distance. It is only part of the frame. Transformed into monochrome with the aid of Silver Efex Pro. Now I know better, but in those days it was the way everyone was working. Wouldn't dream of using that workflow today, but given the dynamic range of the camera's sensor it was the best available at the time at that price. This Cornwall trip reignited my interest in Landscape work, although I was later to return to Candid work with a vengeance.

Headless Climber, St Agnes, North Cornwall

Where's his head?! Caught these chaps un-roping, having reached the summit of a steep headland climb near Saint Agnes in Cornwall's mining coastal area. Very dramatic views from this area. You can just see the derelict engine house on the hillside in the middle of the picture. This was shot on the Nikon D70 fitted with a Nikon 28mm to 80mm Zoom lens, set at f10.0, 1/400th sec, ISO 200, hand-held.

Engine house, St Agnes, North Cornwall

gradual shift to landscape work

Millions of years ago, during the cooling of Cornwall's landmass, vertical fissures opened in the granite and boiling magma bubbled up through them from the earth's molten interior. These intrusions contained many minerals, and, as they crystallised, they formed seams of tin, copper, zinc, lead, iron with even a little silver. Those seams could not be mined horizontally, so numerous vertical shafts were necessary. Many engine houses were built to house the pumps needed to keep those mines dry and viable.

Inevitably, falling world prices for these minerals led to the eventual demise of the Cornish mines and so to the ruin of all these engine houses, which, despite the onslaught from Atlantic storms, still stand as sentinels on the Cornish cliff tops today. The image above was taken high up on the St Agnes cliffs, overlooking the North Cornish Atlantic coastline, using a Nikon D70, with a 28-80mm Nikon zoom lens set at f9, hand-held at 1/500th, ISO 200. One of the first images to mark my wholesale change to Landscape work in the subsequent years.

High and Dry on the Isle of Skye, Scotland

No doubt the result of falling water levels or an extreme spring tide lifting her beyond retrievable, and much subsequent neglect. Taken on the Isle of Skye using my Nikon D70 DSLR, this time fitted with a 12-24mm Nikon zoom lens, shot at f10.0 at 1/400th at ISO 200, exposure compensation -1/3rd stop, saved as JPEG, so not yet using RAW files! The camera was mounted on a Gitzo tripod and the full frame image was transformed into monochrome with the aid of the now dreaded Silver Efex Pro and Photoshop CS5.

exploring the isle of skye, scotland

At this point my photography underwent a sea change. There is no doubt in my mind now that, if I had taken the step of joining mentored workshops earlier in my efforts, I would have developed my 'second wind' much faster and made far more progress than just bumbling away on my own.

The irony is that we spend a shedload of money on improving our equipment without giving our understanding of how best to deploy that gear a second thought, or, indeed, any thought to investing in the education necessary to progress our photographic goals.

So it was that the lights went on for me. In fact it was a trip to the Isle of Skye in Scotland that started my work on seriously progressive photographic projects. That first one was to capture those wonderful scenes on Skye I had seen in books, but to do it in monochrome only. Naturally, I upgraded my camera first!. Here are the curated images from that and a subsequent workshop on those beautiful islands.

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After Silence - Music Best Expresses the Inexpressible

What is it, I wonder, that drives a musician to learn to play? It’s an intriguing question; one that has always fascinated me. I remember, when my brother and I were  boys, doing what all kids of our age did when we heard the hit record of the day – we pretended to play the piece as if we were the stars of the show. Now, it’s called ‘Air Guitar’. Still do it today, when Hank Marvin strikes up the first few notes of Apache! But that wasn't the reason. It's because music has a direct connection to our emotions and so has such an profound effect on us. Albert Einstein understood the relationship we have with music. He once said "If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music, I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.... I get most joy in life out of music."

acquiring my first guitar

Other than a brief flirtation with the violin at school and dabbling at my Grandmothers’ pianos whenever we visited them, it wasn’t until I started work that I was able to buy my first instrument. A sixteen year old engineering apprentice earned just £3.50 a week in those days, out of which you had to pay for food, lodging and rail fares to London. It didn’t leave very much, so it took way too long to save six guineas (that’s £6.30) to buy the sunburst, steel strung, Selmer acoustic guitar from Francis, Day and Hunter’s music shop in London’s Charing Cross Road, one dark and rainy December night.

It didn’t last me long, but it got me started, and like many aspiring Hank Marvins, I worked my way through Bert Weedon’s Play in a Day book and graduated, eventually, to John Pearse’s Folk Guitar course before I outgrew it and, anyway, the neck had started to warp.

By then, I’d seen its replacement in a local shop, which I financed on (ahem) 'Hire Purchase', only to find that I couldn’t afford the payments, so it had to go back. A year or so later, it was followed by another sunburst wonder, a Hofner dreadnought, bought new from a long since vanished music store in London’s Moorgate. This was the guitar that helped me start playing Bluegrass music. There’s an another post here that shows a friend of mine playing it while I’m hacking away at a double bass.

The Hofner was an inexpensive, factory built, laminated top / plywood back and sided stock guitar typical of the day, but all I could afford. It lasted well and I played it at many folk club spots until it was obvious that I needed something with more carrying power, that didn’t get drowned out by the 5 string banjo solos.

Along came an Epiphone dreadnought copy, built in Japan, but by the time it arrived, I had left the Bluegrass band (to earn a living) and was moving on to British traditional folk music of the sort popularised by Martin Carthy and Nic Jones, and also aspiring to play fingerstyle guitar ala John Renbourn, et al.

By now it was 1971 and I was teaching guitar students in the evenings for extra money. I’d also formed an Accapella folk group with two student friends, and to go with the English traditional songs we had worked up a few hard driving acoustic instrumentals which went down really well in our club spots. It was then I decided to brave the ‘big purchase’ – my first quality guitar.

my genuine, c.f. martin guitar

Martin D28 Guitar

Having stared through many a music store window over the years, I thought it was time I took 'the plunge'. My playing was coming along well and I felt I could do better with a quality instrument. So I plucked up the courage and went to Rose Morris, in London’s West End, many times until finally buying a Martin D28.

It was a stunningly beautiful instrument made of the finest tone woods and staggeringly expensive at over £2,000! In the early seventies that was an enormous amount of money, and yes, you guessed it, after a week I was suffering the most dreadful buyer’s remorse and took it back to the store feeling guilty beyond words for having been so extravagant. They were very understanding and, eventually, restocked it - for a fee, of course!. That was a day I have never forgotten. It was the beginning of a very long journey though. One that still continues today.

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