PixelatedImage Blog

If you’re a Photoshop fan, then today’s news of the beta release of CS3 will have you salivating. If you are not a photoshop fan then you may take a moment and go away. now. we’ll wait.

Ok, a couple things for those of you living under a rock or for whom your only source of news is this blog (we pity you, but thank you all the same) - Adobe today announced PS CS3 in beta. You can get it here. You can play with it for 2 days then it expires. Unless you have a paid version of PS CS2 or any of the CS suite combinations (I beleive) - in which case you need your Serial number, the site will generate a new number for your trial/beta version and you’ll be up and running.

There are always a few people who like to question the Adobe Oracle with faithless questions such as: Why should I upgrade to the new version? To silence the heretics among us in a more gentle way than the traditional stonings and burning at the stake, I offer this link to a QT video by Terry White on  some of the cool new features in PS CS3, and the new Bridge. Enjoy the wonders that is Photoshop, and the new features upon which we will come to depend.

Terry White’s PS CS3 Preview

I just spent the weekend on the road - 4 days away on business and I took a point and shoot camera this time. My carry-everywhere camera is a Leica D-Lux 3 and this was the first chance I’ve had time to really shoot with it and offer an opinion on it.

First Impressions. Like all Leicas the build and design is gorgeous. Trim, sleek, and black on the outside it feels solid and well crafted. The dials and buttons feel right and solid, and the screen is big and bright. There’s a trade-off involved in a small camera you own to take wherever you go - you want something small and in so getting you end up with a camera that feels a little, well, small in the hands. Being used to a Canon 5D with grip, and pro lenses, I am accustomed to carrying about 6 pounds. This little guy feels tiny in comparison, but after a long walk this weekend it began to feel “just right”

The screen is large and bright and while it takes some time getting used to shooting without a viewfinder, the screen does it’s job well and there’s a Power LCD setting that cranks the brightness up several notches for use outside. There are several options in terms of what kind of information gets displayed in the viewfinder - from nothing to everything, and my favourite - a grid which divides the screen into thirds, creating a rule-of-thirds composition aid.

The settings and options are all readily accesible through an easily intuited menu and while I suspect I won’t use half of them, I like that I never have to guess about where to find something as was the case with my Canon Powershot. On the subject of features, I was thrilled to find that the D-Lux3 allows you to set a Home time/date and a Travel Time/Date, along with the option of setting when that travel will occur so it automatically switches time and date for you if you’ve put a little forethought into it. Your time/date metadata may never require translating and second-guessing again.

Where this camera really shines for me is in the manual settings. They are fast and simple (if not completely intuitive at first) and accompanied by a real-time histogram and exposure preview (possible because of the electronic screen) it allows me to get bang on exposures the first time. It’s no M-series Leica but it still feels wonderful to be able to be able to shoot fully manually (exposure only - focus can be racked manually but it’s a little harder with the screen and the way that’s accomplished feels a little contrived and clumbsy)

The optics are great - typical Leica - though to be honest I’ve yet to really look at the images with the kind of detail I’d need to really speak with authority on that.

The D-Lux 3 is a 10 megapixel camera, but only when shooting at the 16:9 ratio. 4:3 or 3:2 ratios are proportionately smaller. It must also be remembered that this is still a point and shoot and the sensor is small, so it’s noisier than DSLRs at higher ISOs. And by higher I mean past 200. This has been the sticking point of several reviews which I think unfairly expect this little Leica’s sensor to do the same job as that of a 5D; hardly a realistic expectation.

I also love the colour modes which allow you to shoot in B/W or Sepia, Colour:Neutral, Colour:Warm, or Colour:Cool. If you’re shooting in RAW then you get a full colour RAW file with a JPG file that uses the chosen colour effect. Being able to compose in B/W is something I love as it allows me to focus on elements other than colour. And I don’t think well in B/W.

Overall this is a great little portable camera. After playing with it on a few flights and a quick read-through of the manual I felt really good about just wandering with this camera and experimenting. After shooting with it for a weekend I am thrilled. The Leica is almost the same as the Panasonic LX2 - but with subtle differences including the way it processes the images (different logorhytms) and the warranty - which is 2 years and not one. It also looks nicer and bears the Leica logo which is only important if you’ve wanted a Leica since you were 14 but knew realistically you’d never be able to afford one. For all that you pay abotu $150 more than the Panasonic.

If I could do it differently? I’d love non-proprietary batteries - but that would undoubtedly add to weight and bulk. I’d love a sensor that performs like my 5D. And more realistically I would love it if it used CF cards instead of SD cards, mainly because I have plenty of the former and none of the latter. Also, my workflow is set-up for CF cards so I have the highspeed readers. But these are small things. This camera never leaves my pocket and goes where I do - and as that can hardly be said of my 5D or any DSLR for that matter, this is a great asset to my photographic life.

Update - February 2008.

Alot of people read this review, seems like there are alot of you out there drawn to this sexy little P&S camera. In the interest of being a resource to you I thought I’d update you.

I’ve been using this camera for a while now and I still love it - BUT - if I were buying a new P&S camera, and I might be this year as my wife killed hers - I would buy a Canon G9. My biggest complaint on the Leica D-Lux3 is the sensor. It’s just plain noisy at anything over 200ISO. As a result I find myself less inclined to use it for anything with the potential for professional use.

The Canons I’ve used - dSLR and P&S models - have all been much, much better looking files. In short - nice camera, heck - it’s a gorgeous camera - but the files I get out of it don’t look the way I wish they did. They’re fine, they’re OK. But I want image files that are better than just ok. So I’ll likely give this one to my wife and get a G9. Not nearly as sexy, and it doesn’t have nearly the same cachet as Leica, but at the end of the day the images are more important to me than the image.

Having just spent some time browsing the site of another photographer I feel compelled to share thoughts on clarity of vision. I get alot of emails asking for advice about getting into so-called humanitarian photography, and while it’s worth knowing I am only at the beginning of this journey, I think if I could be completely honest my advice would be this: learn to tell the most compelling story you can. Part of that is learning to edit the shot before you’ve taken it, and in some cases after the shutter button has been pressed.

Photography is storytelling. Like a written story that must be edited to guide the viewer to see the things the author wants seen, so it is with the photographic story-teller. Complexity is great, but the greater the complexity the more clearly the story must be told. The task of the photographer is not simply "f8 and be there" as is the mantra of a generation of photojournalists (not bad advice when you’re in a hurry, but when you’ve the luxury of time and artistic considerations, then just showing up and pressing the button is not art, it’s punctual button-pressing.)

Robert Capa says, and I steal this from the intro to War Photographer, the Christian Frei doc about James Nachtwey (who has an article in this months National Geo on war medics); "If your photographs aren’t good enough you aren’t close enough." Fair advice i think, for the closer you are the fewer elements that appear in the frame. Can’t get close enough? Choose a different lens. Like the lens you have? Throw that aperture wide and blow out the background details so they don’t distract. Background too bright? Stop it down and bounce some light into the foreground and expose for that. Too much distance between two relating subjects? Change your angle to bring them closer.

Cluttered images, ones that lack focus and clarity, are a result of lazy image making. Ask yourself; what elements can I cut out? and keep asking until you’ve cut out the one element you can’t do without and still tell the story you want to tell, then go back one step.

Time and time again on the forums I visit the one critique I’ve given, and given up giving, is this: I’m not sure what the subject is. My second question is: I’m not sure WHY you want me to look at that subject. Photography is not button-pushing any more than writing is knowing how to type. It’s the ability and the passion to tell your audience the clearest, more compelling story possible. This holds for portraits, for commercial, editorial, reportage, etc. Cut the fat out - push my eye where you want it to go by forbidding it the luxury of distraction.

Lastly, this: a good image is not necessarily defined by perfect exposure or lack of motion blurr. It is not defined, in the case of wildlife photography, by how close you got to the duck. That might be a factor, but unless YOU know WHY you are taking the photograph and have something to tell US, then it is merely a perfectly realized image of an imperfectly told story and it’s not a "good photograph". More simply: if your image does not stir something in the person reading your image, it is not a well told story.

These are all just thoughts, random forays into the grey matter of an art where these random forays are often avoided in favour of pixel-peeping and lens comparisons and news about the latest gadget. I know full-well that my answers to these questions might change 5 times before the end of the week. What matters is that the questions are asked. What story am I telling, what emotion am I invoking? How can I do that with greaty clarity, more focus, less distraction? How can I make my next image more compelling, more powerful, than my last one?

Reactions, thoughts, and vilification are welcome, feel free to post a comment.