Why my 30 year old lens is better than the new version.

Panoramic stitch created using an old 24mm f2.8 Ais Nikkor lens

Technically this post should really be entitled: “Why my 30 year old manual focus, slightly scratched and potentially fungused lens is better than the brand new nano-coated silent wave focusing, wide aperture version”, but it seemed a bit wordy even if strictly accurate. This isn’t to say that I am not a complete gear-head continuously trawling the internet for reviews, comparisons and even MTF charts. I meet new students with their shiny new cameras and lenses with the excitement of a kid in a toy shop (remember the admonition, “look don’t touch”). I drool over the latest gadgets and weigh up whether my perceived ‘needs’ can match my meagre bank account. The reality though is: is this new kit really better - in a fundamental sense - than the gear that I already own? Nope. My lens is better! Here’s why…

Hide The Light

Working commercially to a brief can be really difficult when there isn’t enough time to create exactly what the photographer sees in their imagination. Sadly we just don’t all have the time or the client-base to be able to create photographic wonderlands like those of Ben von Wong or even Annie Leibovitz. Usually you are working fast and with minimal equipment. Knowing the limitation of that equipment is paramount to being able to create the images you imagine, or are inspired to create on the spot.

Return of the Megapixel Wars

First there was the D800. Then came the Sony A7r and so a new high megapixel benchmark was set at 36mp. The pundits roared that this was insane. 36 was too much! Then Canon launched the 5Ds this year with a 50mp sensor and we saw that it was good. Very good indeed (with several small caveats admittedly). Sony answered rapidly with their 42mp BSI (Back Side Illuminated - essentially placing all the sensor architecture apart from the light gathering sensel on the rear of the sensor, enabling supposedly better capture) A7Rii. Now Canon have announced the development of a new camera with their currently in development 120mp CMOS sensor. Yup, one hundred and twenty megapixels!

Posting to Facebook from Lightroom

Over and above everything else that Adobe’s Lightroom offers the photographer, convenience is the key attribute that brings people back to Lightroom again and again. In an age of social media, this convenience is once more evident in the way that Adobe allows integration between Lightroom and Facebook. The tutorial below offers a step-by-step guide to setting up Facebook as a publish service in Lightroom’s Library module

Reality vs Photoshop

We all want to be beautiful. Very few people post images of themselves onto Facebook where they don’t actually look good. That is, unless they are trying to make a statement of some sort. For the most part though there seems to be a general feeling that we would like to be portrayed as better looking than we see ourselves in the mirror as. It is not uncommon for me to get the request to ‘fix something’ in Photoshop by the people that end up in front of the camera. The problem though, is where we start to look at magazines and advertisements and begin to feel that they are a depiction of reality. In some cases this can really mess with young peoples’ sense of self-identity and worth. In truly severe cases it can potentially lead to bulimia and anorexia…simply because of an attempt to emulate the role models on the covers of a magazines.

(Note:  there is a companion video to this post which can be watched here)