I love my 1ds mk2…..

And the more I think about it,  the more I am inclined towards picking up a second one….

I know that the new Mk3 is out,  but who really needs 66mb files?  And who can spend nearly £5000 on one?   

After 3 years of using the 1ds mk2,  I still love the camera,  it delivers great pictures,  with a certain indefinable feel that I just love.  It’s robust,  it’s good in low light,  it’s got excellent AF,  I just can’t see any reason why I would want anything else.

Have digital cameras now matured enough so that we should pick the machine on the same basis as choosing between Kodak EPP 100  or Fujichrome 100?  Should we be choosing, not because it has better technical specs,  but because we just like the way the pictures feel?  (I was an EPP 100 man myself btw.)

Now the great news is that you can get mint used 1ds mk2’s for around £2500…  which is a absolute bargain for what is still a corker of a camera. 

The new 5dk2 or 3d or 6d or whatever will probably/maybe out sometime later this year,  but that will be around £1800,  and probably not as well put together…  So the 1ds mk2 may right now be the bargain of the decade.

Funny thing is, I normally hanker after the newest cameras,  just to get technically better pictures,  but not now.   For now I’m a happy camper.

 

 

 

 

 

More cuts to come from News International….

We recently were visited by reps from News International, including senior picture desk staff and group managment.  Apparently this was part of a number of visits to key agencies in the UK,  including us,  North News, INS and a few others.

In a nutshell it appears that editorial budgets are going to be squeezed even more to help pay for the new colour presses which are coming on line at Wapping.

It would appear that the first thing that is being cut will be the Suns space rates.  Considering the very poor fees that they pay for commisions and the already considerable difficulties that are experienced with extracting payment from them,  This is going to make a already unnattractive package from that paper even more so.   The Suns space rates are one of the main incentives for agencies to produce speculative work,  and I suspect that if these are cut,  then this will have a substantial impact on the amount of this sort of material being produced. 

The good news that was delivered was that NI now recognises that they must pay for online useages.  However the rate quoted,  at £10 per useage,  clearly is a non-starter and will not even cover the cost of invoicing.

Apparently James Murdoch,  who has now taken over the newspapers in London,  is keen to have a strong editorial content,  quite how he thinks he is going to fill the papers with high quality material without actually paying for it,  is another matter.

I find it astonishing that NI will invest a quoted £600 million on new presses to allow for high quality colour to be reproduced throughout the run,  and then cut the budget for one of the primary things that this will benefit, the photography.    If they want to produce higher quality and colour to attract advertising,  then they are gong to have to make those pages attractive,  and crap pictures are not going to help.

Like anything, you get what you pay for.  As I have previously stated on these pages,  the Nationals are simply out of touch with reality.  They say they want to have a good supplier base,  but they wont actually pay the sort of fees that are needed to ensure one exists.   Resources and suppliers are rapidly moving elsewhere,   something which I hope that NI have noted from their visits.

 

 

 

Please can we have a nice 21mm lens Mr Canon?

With the growth in full frame chip cameras,  the poor performance of Canon’s wide angle lenses is becoming more and more of an issue. 

Whilst Canon has recently launched an improved 16-35,  (Its predecessor was awfull on the 1ds mk2……) this is still a big heavy lens which actually goes beyond what most photographers need,  which is probably no more than 20mm.

 Now there is a solution, but its not ideal,  and that is to obtain a very good  21 mm from  Carl Zeiss or Leica,  and use it on the camera with a adaptor. ( In fact this is such a popular option that you would be hard pressed to find a good Zeiss 21mm for less than £2500 nowadays…… whilst the Leica lens that I use was nearly £1000) 

problem. 

The above picture was shot on the Leica R 3Cam Leitz Wetzlar 21mm F4 Super Angulon with an adaptor for Canon.  Note the excellent corner sharpness. 

The Leitz is a great lens,  but has real drawbacks in terms of ease of use. In particular its very difficult to focus the lens,  which has to be done manually… 

To help I have installed a Beattie Intenscreen,  with a split finder and a grid,  (£100 from Morco in Mansfield) but you still have to manually open the lens to focus,  and then stop down to make the exposure.

What we really need is a Canon L series 21mm F2 or 2.8 lens,  with VERY good optics. 

The fixed lens has a big advantage in terms of size and weight,  being only a fraction of the size of a 16-35 zoom.  With the move in the past few years to big cameras with big lenses,  anything that can be done to get things lighter and smaller is a very good thing.

So,  if I had one wish,  it wouldn’t be for more pixels, or a faster motor drive,  it would be for a really good 20 or 21 mm L series lens.

NB;  I note that Sony is about to launch a FF 22mega pixel camera,  with their deal with Zeiss to provide optics for their digital cameras I would be surprised if they have the same optical problem…….  and its not the camera that counts,  but the pictures!