New Olympus µ4/3 cameras & lenses: official information

In what was a badly respected embargo of information, Olympus has officially introduced this morning three new cameras, (E-P3, E-PL3 and E-PM1),  two prime lenses (12 mm f/2 and 45 mm f/1.8) and a flash (FL 300R). Full information available here, and of course plenty of previews posted elsewhere in the net.

Forthcoming announcements of micro4/3 cameras from Olympus, leaked at 43 Rumors

The title is self-explanatory, and if you are anxious about the coming announcements from the mirrorless pioneers, Olympus, you have just about everything here, including specs for three new cameras: E-P3, E-PL3 and E-PM1, and several new lenses. They even had a picture of the new E-P3 camera posted, but it has been later removed.

Björk's new single, "Crystalline", posted at Disco Naiveté

You read it correct, this is the brand new single from Björk's new album, "Biophilia". Is is called "Crystalline" and here you have it, courtesy of Disco Naiveté:

Björk — Crystalline
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Video stream of Prince appearance in Le Grand Journal

It's widely discussed by now, but in case you missed it, it was a great live show with a few sound problems: first part here and second part here.

Prince appearance live on Le Grand Journal (French tv show)

According to Canal +, Prince is going to appear in today's edition of the French tv show Le Grand Journal, which is broadcasted live here. Apparently the appearance could be around 20.15 h (which is ca. 45 min from the time of posting this entry).

Everything is a remix part III

Third part in a fantastic series of videos:


Everything is a Remix Part 3 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

Shaming interview of Prince for The Guardian

Truly I have no words to express how I feel after reading this (which, fortunately, is only an excerpt of a full interview).

Or rather, I have words, but I better don't write them.

Once upon a time, I sincerely admired Prince the person, and was blown away by his music. That was in the mid 80s.

But that was then, and this is now. And today I am truly ashamed after reading that my favourite musician thinks that

It's fun being in Islamic countries, to know there's only one religion. There's order. You wear a burqa. There's no choice. People are happy with that.

This is one of the many reasons why I still love Prince music, but I stopped admiring Prince the person years ago (to put it mildly).

Pentax Q system size comparison: camera vs sensor vs lens

I used the original comparisons made by Imaging Resource to compose a single picture, comparing the sizes of the current smallest mirrorless cameras: Panasonic Lumix GF3 and Sony NEX C-3 (obviously, this picture should be complemented, in a few days, wiht the new Mini µ4/3 camera from Olympus).

Beyond the size of the camera, a thing is completely clear: the sensor size of the Pentax model is much smaller than those from the GF3 or the NEX-C3; just look at the picture below, where the sensors from the above picture have been copied (same order: µ4/3 vs Q vs NEX). This fact, with clear effects on the sensor capability to collect light, has other important effect: lenses for this system are clearly smaller than those from the competition. And when the goal is a really tiny system, this fact might have more importance than it seems on first look.

Now, I did a lens size comparison by putting in the same scale three prime lenses for each of these systems: 20 mm for µ4/3 vs Standard prime for G vs 16 mm for NEX:

Hence it appears that a key advantage of the new G system is not only camera size, but also lens size.

In other words, with a prime lens on a G camera, you have truly a pocketable camera.

At this point (and once the size advantages of the Q system are clear), we only need extensive testing to check its image quality... and Pentax could have a real winner, who knows.

The new Q mirrorless Pentax system

Well, after months of rumours, the cryptic message from The Online Photographer corresponded (rightly) to my prediction yesterday: This is the new Q mirrorless system from Pentax. It has a very small sensor, it is the tiniest interchangeable lenses camera at this time, and it is introduced already with a range of lenses, as shown in the picture. There's plenty of information around in the web, starting with the official Pentax Japan site, an interesting article at The Online Photographer, a detailed preview at Imaging Resource and also in Spanish at DSLR Magazine.

Among the load of information, I found particularly interesting this quote from an usual collaborator of The Online Photographer, Ctein:

No doubt there will be many folks upset with the small size of the sensor, but as one who did a reasonable amount of photography with a camera of very similar sensor size and pixel count (the Fuji S100), I can testify that entirely professional results are possible from that size and pixel count. By way of example, I'm selling 17x22" prints of the following photographs, and most folks do not consider my standards to be low:

Grasses in Liquid Sky
Reflections in Montreal Centre
Stairs in Montreal Centre
Mall of America Rooftop

and here are a couple of three-frame stitched panoramas:

Dam Falls
Lock and Falls


No, I don't expect the available light performance to be sterling. There's a lot of things I don't expect this camera to do. Only trying to preempt remarks of the "why waste a semi-professional design on such an amateur format" type.

So for those (I'm sure there will be many) naysayers of this system due to the small size of its sensor, my advice: Hold your horses and wait until you can see what pictures can be made with the Q system.

On the other hand, the price of the system ($ 800 with the prime lens) seems a bit high and is already receiving, maybe rightly, loads of criticism. For instance, this article at CNet, comparing the Q Pentax system with its competitors, is rather harsh... we will see whether the Q sytem proves a success or a fail.

Finally, looking to the past predictions, the guys running Mirrorless Rumors were right when they posted their scoop on the new Pentax mirrorless system: that article showed authentic pictures of the Q system. But they ALSO announced the creation of a second mirrorless system from Pentax, this time centered around an APS-C sensor and therefore compatible with the K-mount lenses. This might be even more interesting for serious photographers... but it remains unconfirmed.

Brand new camera system to be introduced today (Pentax?)

The Online Photogapher posted this cryptic announcement yesterday:

Check back here at 11:00 tomorrow (Wednesday) night (CT) for the details on an exciting all-new camera (i.e., not just a warm-over of an existing model).

...

It's actually not an all-new camera...it's an all new camera system. Really, no joke.

I smell he means the new, mirrorless camera with interchangeable lenses from Pentax, which have been rumoured for quite some time. But somehow they managed to avoid all clear leaks thus far, so we will see whether this prediction proves true, and if so, we will see what Pentax has kept as surprise for us.

Huge manifestations from the "Real democracy, now" movement

Last Sunday, June 19, there were huge manifestations of the "Real democracy, now" movement (also called the "15-M" movement, since it started on May 15, 2011) in many cities in Spain. After some previous incidents in Barcelona, they ensured this time that all manifestations were completely pacific, in order to evidence their commitment with peace and their lack of links to any political party. I guess there is unanimity in considering these recent manifestations as a great success.

The political parties are getting nervous, as some journalists, since they don't know what to think about these guys; after initial attempts to disqualify them by lack of organization, it is becoming obvious that they are here to stay, and they intend to clearly influence the politics in Spain, even if they don't want to be absorbed by standard parties.

I am personally delighted to see this is happening, as at some point I thought that Spanish society lacked the basic skills to get mobilized. Where this is going, in the near future, I don't know, but I do know that leaders are taking notes on what is happening and they need to react. "Laissez faire, laisser passer" does not work any longer in Spain and the future is in the hands of real people.

The new Lancia or the end of Lancia?

Last weekend I found a double page ad promoting "The New Lancia" in El País. Furthermore, they have a website devoted to promote the merger of Lancia and Chrysler. They showed the new range, after the merger with Chrysler, so that they have, by now, three classic cars from the original Lancia brand (Epsylon, Musa and Delta) and two models which are slightly modified versions of former Chrysler cars, such as the 300M (now called Lancia Thema) and the Voyager. Besides, there is information about the forthcoming Flavia and Flavia Cabrio, again rebadged Chrysler models.

For whatever reason, I always had a soft spot for the originality and sober quality of the Lancia brand, and in my opinion these recent moves from the Fiat executives do not make sense. The new Delta is a winner in my book (although sales don't seem to be as expected), but the rest... what can I say? Disappointing. I did not expect this poor strategy of merging brands and making quick rebadging from someone so talented for the cars industry as Marchionne.

Chrysler never had a clear success in Europe, despite the somehow good sales of the Voyager, and it was probably due to the lack of adaptation to their cars to the European tastes. Now, if all that Fiat has designed to do with Chrysler assets is to make small design changes and put on top of them some old Italian brands like Lancia or Alfa Romeo... I guess its future might be doomed. We are in a big crisis, for sure, but downscaling the reputation of brands by cheap mergers, and forgetting about ambitious new projects does not seem the pathway forward to succeed.

New mirrorless camera from Pentax to be introduced on June 23 (rumour)

According to the Japanese website Digital Camera Info, Pentax will introduce their much rumoured new mirrorless camera, "the smallest in the world", on an event to be held on June 23. We will see whether this proves true or false, but it makes sense in the current context, after the announcements of the new Panasonic GF3, Sony NEX-C3, and the recent rumours about several new micro4/3 cameras from Olympus. The key driving force seems miniaturization in all cases, which seems a big (too big?) constraint to release cameras useful for real photographers (rather than top competitors for serious compacts).

Interview with Green Gartside (from Scritti Politti) at The Quietus

Interesting stuff from one of the smartest guys in pop; the interview is here.

Prefab Sprout to release new album in Kitchenware Records

Hopefully this rumour becomes true; thanks to Prefabsprout.net for the update:

Who are the violent people?

Yesterday, in Barcelona, there were strong conflicts around the Catalunya Parliament, where a group of people originated violent incidents. They were extensively broadcasted on tv and today's newspapers are criticizing (with reason) the use of violence in protests that had been, thus far, completely pacific.

Yet in this video you will see that the origin of the violence could be in unexpected people:



In short: they suggest that police disguised as protesters were at the origin of the incidents yesterday.

Update: this afternoon, the above video changed its status from public to private. The reasons are unknown to me, but I wonder if the authors found that maybe the video did not provide enough evidence for their claims.

Moon eclipse

After a few attempts, I managed to get a reasonable picture of tonight's moon eclipse, from the top of our house. Made with my beloved Pentax K10D (whose response to low light was pushed to limit here) and the brand new Tamron 70-300.

Pictures of Roscoff

For a number of personal reasons which are out of scope in this blog, I am very close to a little, beautiful village in the region of Bretagne, in France: Roscoff. Last week I spent there a few days for work, and I made some pictures with my good old trusty Fujifilm Finepix F30.

As I used to say to some friends, Roscoff is a charming place and there you can see the most beautiful sunsets... "quand il fait beau".

Jose Luis Sampedro on the Spanish May 15 movement "Democracy now"

Jose Luis Sampedro is one of those few guys I consider a very high moral authority, backed by a long human story of coherence. He's one of my favourite writers, too. In this video he speaks about the recent movements in Spain, started on May 15th, and about his opinions on the current state of affairs in politics.

Dinner for one

A friend sent me this video of an old tv sketch and it is fantastic all the way:

More shots from Tamron 70-300

All of these were taken on a sunny Sunday, in the field with a few friends. I was again shocked by the capabilities of this zoom.

iCloud vs Dropbox

Yesterday's keynote at the Apple WWDC included many interesting news, with iCloud at the first position. The information is already available at the Apple website, but I just wanted to say that the guys running Dropbox must be not too happy today, since the document sharing feature of iCloud pretty much makes Dropbox irrelevant. Furthermore, iCloud will ofer 5 Gb of webspace for free, vs 2 Gb in the case of Dropbox. I for one will possibly move to iCloud as soon as possible.

Having said that, it is fair to say that iCloud took some inspiration from Dropbox, to put it mildly.

New video from Erykah Badu: "Out of my mind"

I ran out of superlatives for this album from Erykah, "New Amerykah Part II". Here's another sample:


OUT MY MIND JUST IN TIME from Creative Control on Vimeo.

Panasonic GF3 leaked in a video

Leaks are the fashion of the decade in many fields: new cameras, new albums, new cars...
This time we have the leak of a forthcoming micro4/3 Panasonic camera, the GF3, which according to 43rumors, will be quite small. Obviously no further features are known at this time, but I am sure they will be released rather quickly. On first regard it seems that the main topic here is miniaturization, particularly regarding the comparisons to the NEX Sony camereas.

First tests of Tamron AF 70-300 LD Di f/4-5.6 Macro on Pentax K10D

One of my birthday's gifts this year was a brand new Tamron 70-300 Di lens; this is a budget zoom, for which I had no great expectations (other than to fill the long spectrum, which I don't use too often). I had found some good reviews of this zoom at photozone, and also at fotoblography.

And last Sunday, while we went with our kids to enjoy a field day and the first summer swimmings at the river, was the perfect occasion to test it. Here you have a few shots, starting with two at the extremes of the zoom (300, then 70), followed by other pictures of little bugs on the water, flowers, plants...
All in all, I must say I am surprised by the quality of the images, which is clearly above my expectations in this case.

Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Decisive Moment

Wise words from a Master of photography:


HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON - Decisive Moment, The from bt465 on Vimeo.