Sad when photography becomes a quasi-political topic. Is Photoshop installed on your computer? Well those days are soon gone. Adobe will no longer be developing its Creative Suite range of software, leaving its subscription and cloud-based Creative Cloud as the only way of accessing the latest version of Photoshop. Epic #fail, Adobe. Quite understandably, photographers […]
By BENGT NYMAN If some of you recognize part of what follows it’s because it has appeared on one of the Nikonian Forums, where it received mostly boos and oh-nos. I have had an idea for some time which was recently confirmed by a statement by Panasonic: “Blame the Bayer filter for your camera’s poor […]
This is essential viewing for everyone. His photography is above and beyond most of today’s well-known photographers. The name Sebastião Salgado stands for utterly condense compositions, the redefinition of space and time, a unique film-like black-and-white rendition and the eye for moments most of us will never be able to see. Take his latest project […]
How many photographs can you look at more than once? Not many, not many. Henri Cartier-Bresson (The following is a free interpretation of Forbes’ excellent Leica M Monochrom review by David Foster.) Although the technical brilliance of modern digital cameras is undeniable, there’s also something about the ease with which pictures can be taken that […]
Well with the “our” in the title I mean the large majority. Not you! Thing is, today’s cameras promise better and better images. Much of “modern” photography that is dictated by functions and presets, however, leaves photographers less connected with their subjects/objects and more dependent on “interpretations” of them. The uniqueness of a photograph gets […]
By SARAH COLEMAN If you believe the hype, the next great technological frontier will be in the realm of vision, with digital tools embedded in glasses or in contact lenses to record, analyze and enhance what we’re seeing and doing. It’s called augmented reality. But some futurists have brought up another possibility, “deletive reality.” After […]
Life without fast autofocus and blazing fps is unimaginable for many photographers. Today everything’s done automatically, be it exposure, white balance, mode, whatever. Cameras have become thinking things. All a photographer has to do is to release that shutter button and choose from a myriad of seemingly identical images. That’s why I love the improvised […]
Call this a little compendium of what lies ahead in the compact full-frame interchangeable lens camera world. I talked with industry insiders and sources. Well it’s hardly any news that most likely Sony is ahead of the rest. They got the capital, they got the technology, they made clear with the ambitious RX1 that it’s […]
A study is keeping Germany abuzz: according to a report by the Green Party, manufacturers of electronic products build selective “predetermined breaking points” into their products to shorten their life cycles. Be it washing machines, headphones or electronic toothbrushes, chances are that they’re not lasting as long as they could because they have built-in weak […]
The advancements of technology have always given us more control over our lives and time — especially now in the digital age. Take digital cameras. They help us master amazingly difficult exposures and we see details we weren’t aware of before. But these machines also start controlling the lives of many of us. In fact, […]
This has become some kind of a phenomenon lately. With the exception of managers, everyone seems to earn less these days. Blame inflation, speculation, oversupplies of everything or whatever, fact of the matter is that many work twice as hard for their money as they did some years ago. It has become common to ask […]
Let me start this with a worrying trend: I haven’t received yet a single hate mail. Am I not sticking my neck out far enough? Thanks readers and commentators for contributing to this trend; a trend that’s completely unrepresentative judging from what makes the rounds on the Net these days. While I still enjoy a […]
Cameras haven’t really come a long way since the days of Karl Nüchterlein, inventor of the first SLR for the mass market, and Oskar Barnack, father of 35mm photography who sealed the fate of large format cameras. Since them, camera design didn’t evolve much for decades. The Konica Autoreflex gave us workable exposure automation, but […]
Don’t shoot the messenger! These are tidbits heard here and there. Agree or disagree with the points raised below. If you’re a confident shutterbug good at what you’re doing, then there is no need to listen to all this. If, however, you find yourself sometimes caught between expectations too high and photos that don’t really […]
In case you missed it, interesting documentary by Keanu Reeves out in cinemas: Side by Side. Join Reeves on a tour of the past and the future of filmmaking. Since the invention of cinema, the standard format for recording moving images has been film. Over the past two decades, a new form of digital filmmaking […]
The pursuit of paid photography is one of the few vocations left that are ideal for career changers and newcomers alike. Who needs a degree when great photos can do the talking! But the world is flooded with images and it becomes more and more difficult to stand out from the crowd. There are just […]
You, of course, refers to a fictitious person herein. You have all this fantastic gear. A brand new camera, terrific lenses and a designer bag for the whole lot. Everything revolves around gear. You buy more gear because you’re sure it makes you a better photographer. You have a smaller camera for on the go […]
Each job requires a different set of tools. A camera good enough for one job may be completely inadequate when shooting a more demanding job that requires better accuracy and more speed. It’s only normal to long for a jack-of-all-trades equipment that can do it all. Fact is, size still promises better performance. Today’s mirrorless […]
Am moralizing again. This may sound like heresy to some of you, but I’m rather concerned about a camera’s mojo than absolute top-end specs. Here is why. Money can buy amazing quality these days. Be it for a thousand or several thousand dollars, the choice of awesome gear is yours. You can spend even 10k++ […]
In this second part of our three-part series on the psychology, philosophy and politics of photography, I’m exploring the relationship between photography and politics. One could go as far and argue there is no story — political or not — without visualization a.k.a. images. Images, suggestive in nature, determine a major part of the “spin” […]
The old argument that I have to spend heavily on good fast prime glass because I love to shoot in low light is dead. That’s a reasoning that dates back to film and early digital photography when you had to push that Ilford and early imaging sensors too achieve the best possible compromise between detail, […]
This is, in part, a continuation of the pain expressed in the recent article On Gear Lust — Isn’t It a Perfect Digital Imaging World Already? Point is, quite some dedicated readers confessed they’re suffering GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) by waisting countless hours in front of the computer screen reading through photography sites instead of […]
Sure, good photography is mostly about the photographer and less about what camera and what lens. Truth seems to be, however, that good photography is more and more about the gear one doesn’t have, isn’t it? Thanks to today’s post-processing options with CS, Aperture, Lightroom and so forth you can even make a decade-old digital […]
“No amount of technology will turn a mediocre photographer into a great one. Nor, in conceptual terms, will it transform a bad idea into a good one. For that you would still need to possess a rare set of creative gifts that are still to do with seeing, with deep looking.” Words by Shean O’Hagan […]
First of all, thank you for tuning in to THEME, the thinking photographer’s web portal. Really appreciate each and everyone of you. THEME is growing strongly, thanks to you. Am traveling heavily at the moment, so posts aren’t updated too often for the moment. Two things now: First a deal, then an offer: If you’re […]
We’re currently living at the threshold of a new camera age. Well that’s what camera names suggest. It’s the age of cameras with a “1” in their name, symbolizing the start of a new era, doesn’t it. Take the Sony RX1, the Fujifilm X-E1 after the X-Pro1, the Nikon 1 series or Samsung NX1000. Add […]
Did you ever ask yourself what makes you want to take photos? Simply for the fun of it? To live your artistic streak? To capture memories or make a living? Or is it the love for photographic gadetry mainly that offers a boundless pastime? Photography, in the end, is a lot about psychology, telling as […]
Been there, done that? You wanted to order Adobe Creative Cloud but decided against it when you saw the price. Didn’t you feel like you were getting ripped off plain and simple. At $49.99 a month you get an ongoing membership that lets you download and install any of the Adobe Creative Suite 6 desktop […]
Quote unquote “full-frame,” that is. No one can deny that Micro Four Thirds is as much full-frame as is APS-C as is 35mm-based “full-frame”… Full-frame referring to 35mm format is a bit of an accidental term that just stuck. Full-frame simply means lens coverage with respect to sensor or film. For the basics on this, […]
The three most serious things in life start with a capital P: Politics. Parenthood. Photography. We photographers are a serious bunch of people and take great pride in knowing exactly what we know, what others don’t and what we’re after. So time to loosen up a bit. Photography and satire are an oxymoron. Nevertheless, we […]
