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Unusually, I decided to photograph a recent concert at the Cri’Art. Unusually, because as a general rule, the lighting is crap (all coming from behind) and the lighting technician is so doped out of his head, he spends most of the performance just playing with the lighting control faders with no real effort to create a cohesive ‘plan’.

I decided, against this very negative backdrop, to test my « one lens » project at a concert. The equipment was simple, a Nikon D3s and the 85mm f/1.8 AF-S – this is a very ‘luminous’ lens – not the ‘fastest’ 85mm – there is an f/1.4 but at 1300€ I think I’ll pass thank you. Combined with AutoISO I thought I had a good chance of capturing something.

As this is not my normal « go to » concert lens*, I was using the experience to learn how it handled, in particular, the depth of the depth of field ‘wide open’ at f/1.8. Most concert artists move around a lot, and with V**** terrible lighting, I had to be able to stop the action, but also have sufficient DOF to render a usable image.

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I’m happy enough with the results, but despite the optimistic title, I doubt I will be going back to cover any more concerts – the lighting is rubbish.

• My ‘normal’ lens for concert work is the 24-120 f/4 – not a fast lens in any respect, but I know it so well, and can anticipate the depth of field at any particular focal length, it makes it very easy to use. With autoISO set at 8000 I generally manage to capture what I want.

One of the noticeable things about mirrorless photography is the sudden increase in the number of battery changes one has to perform. Everything works from a fairly small battery – shutter and recording mechanism, but also the two screens (viewfinder + rear screen) so the battery drain, even without using the rear screen, is relatively important.

In comparison with the D3s, on which I shot two concerts with only 1 bar down on the battery meter – two concerts is roughly 2 hours, and on the Z6 I would have had to change batteries after the first concert.

Nikon have now (finally) released their solution to this problem…the MB-N10 battery pack

This is unusual in that it really is a battery pack – it only stores batteries – one in each end. There are no shutter buttons, AF buttons – nothing. The increase in battery time is in fact indefinite, as discharged batteries can be hot-swapped out and replaced with charged ones without interrupting the camera – for example if you are filming a long time-lapse, or a video.

Sadly, this does not act as a vertical grip, which I think is a shame as it’s actually quite useful to have a second shutter and AF button for use when the camera is used vertically.

Nikon will no doubt come up with excuses for this, and other, oversights, but for me this pack at least will allow me to photograph circus events and concerts without having to turn the camera off half way through (and losing all my temporary setting adjustments) just to change batteries.

There are some very amusing comments over on the Nikon Rumors site, following the announcement that the pack is now available – before reading ANY comments on that site, one has to keep in mind that the ratio of photographers (who actually USE equipment) to ignorant forum squatters (who wouldn’t know a camera if it fell on them) is roughly 1:200 – so PLEASE take virtually ANY comment with a serious pinch of salt.

Going somewhat against the trend of mainstream photography (where everything happens on a screen), I’ve decided to print an image, frame it, and whack it up on a wall.

This image is being printed 40×60 on a beautiful mat, full rag paper, and will eventually be mounted in a gorgeous Nielsen Alpha Oak frame.

Can’t wait to see this hanging…

Update – it looks amazing (he said modestly)

…I think I might go to see a concert this evening. This is something I generally avoid because, for photographers, the lighting in our concert venue is, how can I put this gently? Oh yes, « shit » describes it pretty well.

This colourful lot are called « The Hyènes » (The Hyenas) and come from the Landes which is not far from us here in the Gers. They are known nationally, and I thought it might be fun to spend some time with them, before and during the concert, and try and get some useable images.

I can’t gaurantee anything until they actually arrive here this afternoon – I always confirm with the artists before doing anything – it’s polite, and I consider it a minimum – and anyway, it costs nothing!

They’ve played here before, so they obviously know the routine – fingers crossed – who knows, perhaps I’ll even stay tonight…

It’s been a little quiet here recently – principally due to the fact that after retirning from our annual « retreat » in September, there wasn’t a lot of time before the 10 days Circus-fest which happens here over the autumn school holidays.

This years festival was interesting as I was able to see the final finished spectacles from a series of residencies that I had photographed here in Auch over the past year.

First up was Baro d’Evel with « Falaise » – I am still not allowed to publish most of what I shot (due to the company wanting to surprise it’s paying public) but I’m allowed to show you this…

The production was excellent, as one would expect from this company based just outside Toulouse – however, I wasn’t the only one who thought there were two or three elements which tended to go on a bit too long.

Here are a few Instagram (Square) shots from some of the 17 other spectacles I viewed this year:

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All in all a good festival, photographically – though I would be the first to admit I have NO IDEA what the companies were trying to get across to the (paying) public…

So what’s new?

Well, more to the point 180 + 11 days.

A little over six months ago ( + 11) I did an exceptionally silly thing, which deprived me of the use of my car until yesterday.

Coming back from helping my daughter install her new bed in her flat near Bordeaux, I managed to get ‘flashed’ by a gendarme. I stopped (one does – they have guns here…) and the nice man (called Dylan) told me that I had been travalling at 140k/h (nearly 90 mph) which turned out to be 50km over the actual limit of 80km on that particular road.

He told me to follow him back to the police station where we would fill in all the papers. It transpired that this took over 2 hours, partly due to the fact that gendarmes type with one finger, but also due to annoying little bugs like not being able to find ‘England’ on the list of possible countries – I suggested « Royaume Unis » and the system started operating again, albeit painfully slowly.

At one point the policeman asked me if I felt I needed an interpreter? I was sorely tempted to reply « That rather largely dépends on whether or not you speak French » but, as previously mentionned, these people have guns, so it’s probably best just to be nice.

Which I was – didn’t change anything – they suspended my license for 6 months (the 180 part of the equation) and also impounded my car, for the same period.

I didn’t imagine that this would be a problem (as I wouldn’t be able to drive it anyway) until I learned that the caretaking charges for keeping a car are 6,33€ per day! All in all my bill would be 1255€.

To cut a long story short, with the help of Nadia I was able to get home – I resurected my bike and for the last 180 days have been using it (and getting a little fitter…) until I received an official letter informing me that on the 19th of August I could collect my car – which we did!

I had already started the procedure to recreate my license, and although that actually took 3 weeks, I have now, in my hot little hand, proof that I am allowed back behind the wheel.

Apparently I was born in CHISNICK….

As much as I’d love to pen an article about quaint Mexican mud huts, this is actually (and technologically) a long way from there, albeit sharing the same name.

Adobe(r) are the creators of the Acrobat PDF platform, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Lightroom etc. Their software is generally very good, and often has a price to match. Over the last few years, Adobe have developed their subscription payment plan, as opposed to making the software available to purchase on DVDs – this is ‘supposed’ to have benefits for the end user in that, while they continue to pay their yearly subscription, the software is constantly kept up-to-date, so arguably they are always using the latest version.

The key phrase here is « while they pay their yearly subscription », as Adobes way of looking at things means that the month after you stop paying, the software turns off and you can’t use it any more.

In the old days of DVDs you could continue using the software, but just not benefit from updates, which seems perfectly reasonable to me. This is the bugbear for a lot of people – for the moment I/they can afford the subscription, but what happens when they can’t? I have a huge library of images that have been cataloged and treated in Lightroom and if I were to lose access to this program I would have to completely rework any images I might want to reproduce. Lightroom uses the technique of non-destructive editing. This means that none of the adjustments made in the program are actually applied to the original data, they are simply stored in a « side-car » file and applied to the data when it is displayed.

This is a huge advantage as the jpeg compression is destructive, and repeated reworking of an image can seriously degrade the original file – much better to work in RAW.

A number of alternatives to Lightroom and Photoshop have been mentionned recently, and some of the results are quite promising.

Affinity is a French company that produces a series of alternatives to Adobe software, amongst which Affinity Photo – it’s cross platform and even available for the iPad. The most interesting thing is the price – 55€. However, this is image processing software and is not setup to mirror or interpret existing Lightroom catalogs, so for me at least, this is not particularly interesting. Yes, it reads RAW images, and you can manipulate them too, but I personally need more organisational tools.

ON1 is another – and costs 100$ for a perpetual license. The main problem for me is the way it stores editing information. Lightroom uses a single catlog file which can be backed up, copied, moved etc. while ON1 uses a form of database – the different editing information is stored in a series of files ‘hidden’ in the progam application folder on the hard drive – they cannot be backed up or copied etc. This is fundamental information which I would need to know was at least being backed up from time to time, so for me, this solution is not viable.

Capture One Pro – costs from 345€ but is also a perpetual licence. This is produced by the manufactureres of the Phase One medium format cameras, so they should know what they are doing…

Capture One stores all the editing information for an image in a dedicated sidecar file with each image. There’s no centralised catalog or database, which means that if the image storage is backed up, the editing information will automatically be backed up alongside. (I happen to have a fairly sophisticated Cloud backup…but for people who don’t…)

It also allows the use of ‘layers’, much like Photoshop – this could be very useful if you want to try changing various settings for an element in the image – you can switch them in and out as desired.

I think the bottom line to all this is « you get what you pay for » – I am far from an Adobe fan-boy, but the possibilities I have with my current Adobe based workflow far outweigh the inconvinience of having to pay a monthly subscription of 11€. Sure, Affinity et al are probably really nice and will enable people to make some lovely pics, but if, like me, you’re looking for a more ‘complete’ solution involving backup possibilities, catologing etc., sadly there aren’t many options open…

This is the time of year when we are innundated with annual (financial) reports from manufacturing industry, not least, the ‘big’ three camera manufacterers, Canon, Nikon and Sony.

It seems that they’re all in a bit of a fix, with revenues being reduced, sales (obviously) too – and warnings that ‘things will have to change’ because they’re not making enough profit.

I tend to think this is a little like people who say they « lost money » on the stock market. They didn’t loose anything – they just didn’t make the profits they expected. I got (slightly) uppity a few years ago after the Lloyds ‘crash’ in the UK – people were wringing their hands and moaning that they’d have to sell a house, or a horse, or both, due to the huge « losses » they had endured – total nonsense – they had, as one does, counted on the huge profits they had made simply continuing, and had adapted their (already extravagant) lifestyles to meet them.

When everything went down the toilet NO-ONE had made prevision for this and thus they were all up a creek without a paddle – however, for a few, the British government stepped in to help – they never helped me when I was strapped for cash…

Back to cameras – it seems that the manufacturers have missed one key aspect of marketing (and this brings to mind the previous paragraph) – after many years of sometimes spectacular growth, people don’t seem to be buying as much camera equipment as they did…and the manufacturers can’t seem to figure out why?

It’s actually relatively simple – you can only sell so much – there is a point where everyone (except the readers of the Nikon Rumours forum who seem to have inordinate amounts of disposable cash and will buy ANYTHING) is equiped, perhaps not with the very latest model, but at least with equipment which serves their needs – and they are not going to buy more just to please the camera companies. (NR members excepted, of course)

Instead of just trying to keep up with the Joneses, why don’t the manufacturers put a little more (a lot more…) time and effort into development (you know, R&D – research and development) No one can really afford to change camera body every year, so don’t keep making so many different models – reduce the number, increase the quality, respond to the real needs of photographers and the problem will go away – if not entirely, at least it will maintain a certain equilibrium which will allow the manufacturers to make profits, and the photographers to use state-of-the art equipment.

Seems pretty simple to me…

There I was a few months ago waxing lyrical about my ‘new’ Billingham bag – I knew I should have kept my damn mouth shut….they’ve just announced a new ‘tweaked’ version – and it’s even BETTER.

Damn them!

So what’s new? Well, the main advantage (now) is that the main strap can be unclipped from the bag. I consider this a distinct advantage. There are a couple of other little ‘tweaks’ which are less interesting to me (there’s now a sleeve at the back of the bag so that it can be slotted over the handle of a wheeled carry-on bag. Oh, and the rear compartment now has a waterproof zip…)

Now I’m trying to figure out if I know any harness makers who could adapt my bag with these features….watch this space!

This is not an image quality comparison, rather a few practical thoughts. Both lenses are more than sufficiently sharp for most uses, with the f/2.8 having a slight edge on ‘usability’ in certain situations simply because it is 1 stop faster.

I took this recently and got thinking about which lens I use the most.

I purchased my first 70-200 in 2012 – it was a second-hand f/2.8 VR l model and it served me well, for CiRCa and for the Cri’Art concerts, as both were environments where the range of lighting was vast – from almost total darkness to daylight.

The f/4 version came out after later in the same year, but didn’t particularly interest me, as I already owned the f/2.8.

A couple of years later, I had a chance to try the f/4 version and I was impressed by the quality of the lens – it was considerably lighter (840 over 1480 grammes) and quite a lot less imposing (178mm versus 215mm) – but what impressed me the most was the quality of the optics. So I bought a new one.

This lens is sold without the tripod foot. Apparently Nikons thinking behind this is that it’s such a light lens that it’s unlikely that people will ever have to mount it on a tripod, so the tripod foot is extra – and a very expensive extra too at over 200€. As it happens, our Chinese cousins got their hands on this and now produce very respectable copies for 35€ – delivered!

This is in my current ‘kit’ – the fact that it is a stop slower doesn’t really change a lot for me – if I feel I really need a fast lens and I’m in a situation where a heavy lens isn’t problematic, I’ll use the f/2.8 – but frankly, the f/4 does pretty much all I need.

To make the shot above I traveled by bike – I packed my backpack with a camera body, two lenses and a few odds and sods, and it was still easy to carry while I was riding.

Horses for courses….