(click image for larger version)

... but taken with the dinky Pentax 40mm DA Limited.

You can read about it here - http://www.pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/SMC-Pentax-DA-40mm-F2.8-Limited-Pancake-Lens.html

It's about the size of a threepenny-bit, but I think it shows what can be done with new technology, lens design and software correction. This was just a quick snapshot, without tripod, and without trying to get the plane of focus parallel, or producing a perfect architectural photo - however I think it stands up pretty well

(click image for larger version)

I'm not a big fan of ultra-wideangle lenses. They can result in an easy, gimmicky approach to photography, like this photo with its distorted perspective. On the other hand, this did capture, in a sort of abstract way, what interested me about the scene. This was taken with the Canon 16-35mm at the stretchy end of the zoom. Taken on a full frame DSLR, so this is "real" 16mm.

... snapshot Skopar

Do you ever worry about taking your camera out in the rain?

You can click on the image for a full size version - it's about 4mb though. Soft in the very extreme corners, but otherwise.......

Every now and again I decide to sell my digital gear and go back entirely to film. In between times I decide to sell my old film gear. When the latter occurs, I usual take out some of the old gear to see if I think maybe it's worth keeping. Normally this leads back to option 1 and so on.

Yesterday I went into town with my Zuiko 28mm f2 fastened to the Canon 5D. It was a day of regular dappled sunlight, so I set everything to manual, prefocused and just used the shutter button.

I imagined that this and the preceding photo show a pair of women and their daughters. I was reminded of watching sparrows earlier in the year teaching their young to forage. This is similar - they disappeared en masse into Grieder.

The result of the "experiment"? Well these photos are not really a test of the lens - if used carefully, for landscape work for example, it puts the Canon 16-35 f2.8L to shame - although comparing a zoom with a prime is nonsense in the first place.

These photos though are just an exercise in a particular approach to shooting - some were carefully framed - others shot from the hip. I could probably have produced a similar set using the iPhone, although the business of framing a shot would be more hit and miss.

Any closer to rationalising my photo equipment? No.

The Ansel Adams exhibition at the City Arts Centre Edinburgh in 2008. While Adams has faded in and out of sight for me over the years, (he's back in at the moment), this show presented some of the most beautiful physical objects I've seen.

I'm afraid I've yet to see a digital print that comes close to those silver gelatin originals. Maybe haven't looked in the right places though.

Thomas Struth: Photographs 1978 - 2010 is on show at the Kunsthaus Zürich until September 2010. As with Andreas Gursky at Basel in 2008 I arrived with some suitably jaundiced and cynical preconceptions, but left feeling for the most part convinced.

The show is well organized, illustrating the main projects and themes that inform Struth's work. From a purely objective level it is visually very enjoyable - a bit on the lines of "well, you don't see something like that every day" but there are also many other areas to explore, and thoughts to disentangle.

Thomas Struth. Audience 7, Florenz, 2004 C-Print, 179,5 x 288,3 cm Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf © Thomas Struth(Image courtesy of Kunsthaus Zurich)

As you enter the exhibition you are faced with a panoramic image, floor to ceiling, blocking the entrance, where people in some sort of institution gaze back in the direction of the photographer at something high above his head. Their absorption, and their seeming ignorance, or indifference, to the presence of the photographer makes you want to turn your head and search for whatever it is that has caught, and held, their interest.

You are forced to confront this, and navigate around it to enter the main exhibition space where the first series of images are from Struth's Museum and Gallery series where groups of tourists wander around among iconic art looking like so many fish in an aquarium, apparently disengaged from what surrounds them. Of course the joke is on us. After all, aren't we here to gaze and gawp as well? These images strike a chord with me - whenever I stop to consider it I find the whole gallery-going experience a rather bizarre activity.

Thomas Struth. Museo del Prado 7, Madrid, 2005 C-Print, 177,5 x 218,6 cm. Atelier Thomas Struth. © Thomas Struth. (Image courtesy of Kunsthaus Zurich)

The Prado image has I suppose several layers of this sort of thing. "Las Meninas" on the right shows the sitters being painted, some looking at the artist, who himself is reflected in the background observing the whole scene, the whole lot looking out at the mostly uninterested spectators, while the photographer ponders it all, apparently unobserved.

There's a lot more diversity in this show than these images demonstrate of course, so I'll try and and come back and look at the other themes in later posts

Today I was back on the same cafe seat where I took the original photo, this time with the G11, so I decided to investigate his suggestion.

First, here is the original image shot with the Pentax 200mm on a K7 APS-C body, no cropping this time and no adjustments

Now here is the full frame shot taken with the G11 from the same spot, at full telephoto zoom. The ashtray seems to have moved during the intervening period but I didn't bother rearranging it.

There are two immediate differences. The field of view is much wider, and the DOF is much deeper. This is because the G11's 140mm can't compete with the Pentax's 300mm (35mm full frame equivalents), the max aperture on the G11 at full telephoto is only f4.5 as opposed to f2.8 and, tellingly, the physically small sensor you get on cameras like the G11 inherently gives much less apparent DOF than larger ones at the same aperture.

You could achieve a similar effect by moving closer with the G11, and shooting at a wider angle at f2.8, but you would include much more of the background and still wouldn't get the same narrow depth of field. Meaning that you couldn't achieve the desired effect of isolating the subject.

So why use a fast telephoto? To isolate the subject, both with shallow depth of field and limiting the background. To "get close" to objects that are otherwise inaccessible - not necessarily far away. (not here of course, but we're just doing a for-example).

Before anyone suggests that I'm knocking the G11, far from it. I love the little camera and carry it all the time. Image quality is excellent and operation provides many of the options expected from a dSLR in an intuitive, un-fussy interface. (buttons and dials - not menus). We can crop that full frame image to a similar field of view as the Pentax, and although the DOF is still not as shallow (you can for example see the handles on the far away box) the clarity is impressive for such a small crop.

I don't remember getting good results on film, so it seemed a good candidate for my first car boot sale. I have an adapter, so I can use it on the Canon EOS5D. Here is a non-descript photo which however is rather surprising when you look at the quality. This was taken wide open at f4.5. It has been givem normal sharpening as would an in camera jpeg. Beware, if you click on it, the full-size download is about 6mb...

Of course a long lens also excels at narrow DOF, and the background is thrown nicely out of focus here.

Might not be selling it after all.....

Before I start I want to get rid of that old chestnut - "Is Photography Art?" - or should it be "Are Photographs Works of Art?" Already you can see the problem......

But just to lay it rest, this old question is a complete non-starter. Why? Well nowadays anything can be regarded as art - if it has a capital "A" it's maybe worth more money - but given this situation it is meaningless to ask if photographs "are" art - of course they can be. Is it important? No.

Not an original thought, but if someone shows you a work of art, it might be better to ask "Is it Photography?"

UPDATE: I should also mention that we need to consider "is all photography art" or are there only some photographs that get elevated to that position. In the same way we need to consider are all drawings and paintings art....... etc etc, Best not to bother. Art has worn itself out.....