One Stop Under

While Mike Johnston’s article The K-1000 Of Digital SLRs discusses the Pentax *ist DS (quite possibly the dumbest-named camera ever), it’s not so much a technical review as an experiential review. He reminisces about many older Pentax products, and has some interesting points to make about Pentax’s unusual strategies through the years.

Well worth a read.

Filed under: Business,Pentax
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Pi Media is one of the biggest US commercial studios. They shoot the whole Sears catalog, among other clients.

The Pi Media Networks Tour article from The Luminous Landscape is a brief look around the Pi Media studio, and how the photographers go about their work. Interestingly, the studio has been all digital since way back in 1998.

The studio is massive – over 200,000 square feet of studio and post-production space. They employ 400 people, including 40 photographers and all the various tradespeople and professionals required to build sets, prepare models, design page layouts and prepare work for printing.

I particularly envy the standard setup that each photographer uses – a Hasselblad H1 with Phase One digital back, tethered to a cart carrying an Apple G5, Lacie monitor and Capture One software, all connected back to the servers via gigabit ethernet. That’s probably a years’ salary for most people!

Filed under: Business,Equipment,Technique,Workflow
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Pentax has just launched a new web site, digiichi, which aims to educate customers on buying and using Pentax DSLRs. It’s a very similar concept to Canon’s recent opening of Enjoy! Digital SLR Cameras.

The first sections online explain what a digital SLR is and how it works, as well as giving a history of Pentax’s SLR lines. Future sections will include a virtual showroom, a photo technique workshop, and a photo gallery.

By the way, can you spot the spelling mistake on the front page?

Update: Someone has fixed the spelling mistake – they had ‘Petnax’ on their main page!

Filed under: Pentax
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Just to show that we’re not total digital fanboys here at One Stop Under, here’s an article about a fine art monochrome photographer who has dipped a toe in the digital ocean and gone back to shooting film: Enough Already! by Pete Myers.

Pete shoots fine art monochrome, centered on landscape photography of the American West. He has shot for some time with an almost-unique Kodak DCS 760m, and wrote a great article about it for The Luminous Landscape. He has, however, decided to go back to his trusty Leica MP loaded with Efke 25 monochrome film for his professional landscape work.

The fact that Pete shoots landscapes with a rangefinder is itself interesting – most professional landscape photographers seem to shoot medium or large format – but isn’t really covered in this article. This is a fascinating look at how Pete works, and highlights some of the advantages film has over digital for him.

The film vs. digital debate is never clear-cut; one or the other will always be better for specific purposes, and one or the other will always be more enjoyable to some photographers. Rather than add to the debate on such a pointless issue, I like to use both for what they are, and read about the great things being done with both mediums.

Filed under: Kodak,Leica,Workflow
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Nikon has recently (July 14 2005) registered a US trademark for the term ‘D200′. You can do a search at the US Patent and Trademark Office if you like, but the details are as follows:

Word Mark D200
Goods and Services IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Cameras
Standard Characters Claimed
Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Serial Number 78670451
Filing Date July 14, 2005
Current Filing Basis 1B
Original Filing Basis 1B
Owner (APPLICANT) NIKON CORPORATION CORPORATION JAPAN 2-3,
    Marunouchi 3-chome, Chiyoda-ku Tokyo JAPAN
Attorney of Record Mark I. Peroff
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE

Nikon people are starting to salivate about the upcoming new DSLR, and are speculating wildly about what features it’ll have and when it’ll arrive. You can join the discussion over at the Nikonians forum.

Filed under: Nikon
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Mercury Megaloudis is one of Australia’s finest wedding photographers. He has won many awards, including AIPP Victorian Photographer of the Year 2004, several WPPI awards for pet, child and wedding photography, and has been profiled in several photography magazines.

Rangefinder Magazine recently published an article about Mercury’s award-winning pet photography.

Filed under: Photographers
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Larry Singer has written a great article for Rangefinder Magazine about Beverly Hills wedding photojournalist Joe Buissink, titled Zen and the Art of the Wedding Photojournalist.

You can see more of Joe’s work at his web site, JoeBuissink.com.

Filed under: Photographers
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Olympus has announced a new lens for their E-System cameras – the Zuiko Digital Ed 8mm 1:3.5 fisheye lens. This lens features a full 180-degree angle of view, and can shoot macro at just 2cm from the subject. It will begin shipping in January 2006, with the price yet to be announced.

Filed under: Olympus
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Subsequent to their recent announcement of archival gold CD-Rs, Delkin has now released their new archival gold DVD-Rs under the brand name of eFilm. These are claimed to last 100 years, and have been tested in accordance with ISO 18927-2002 guidelines. Even if that claim is a little generous, these DVDs should still last a lot longer than cheaper brands.

They’re not cheap, though, at USD$280 per spindle of 100 discs.

Filed under: Equipment
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Epson has released firmware update v2.04 for the P-2000 image viewer. Improvements include:

• Additional RAW support for Canon Digital Rebel XT/EOS 350D/EOS Kiss Digital N
• Fixed bug with Konica Minolta Dynax 7D/Maxxum 7D/Alpha 7 files
• Increased processing time to identify SD card

The updated firmware can be downloaded here for Windows users and here for Mac users.

Filed under: Firmware Updates
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