The iPad and photography? A very certain yes

If anything it would have been the incessant marketing and manipulative PR antics of Apple that might have diluted my interest in the iPad. But knowing this brand as I do and relying on the company’s equipment for years as I have, I was able to put aside my inclination towards cynicism long enough to have a proper look at the iPad. It’s also wise to pay attention when a company like Apple says it’s going to create an entirely new computer platform completely afresh.

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You only need one

The arrival home of a particular young sailor the weekend before last brought with it a lot of public attention throughout Australia. Some was sincere, some contrived by media companies that had spent huge sums on exclusive rights. But at the Sydney Morning Herald we hadn’t opened our cheque-book to cover Jess Watson’s solo-sailing record attempt so we were on the outer from the outset.

In the final week of her voyage, as she neared the heads of Sydney Harbour which would mark a full lap of the globe and the end of seven months of solitude at sea, media and public interest started to build at a rapid rate. But if you were not a party to that commercial arrangement, you would have to locate the sixteen year old and her 34-foot yacht somewhere in the Tasman Sea without any assistance from her land based management team (or should I say “media management” team?).

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Camera insurance never looked so good

Pro cameras can appear pretty expensive compared to the semi-pro variety. Sometimes there mightn’t seem to be much difference in the megapixel stakes, the frame rate or picture-quality. But there’s one other measure that accounts for some of those extra dollars — build quality.

Drop a prosumer camera off your shoulder and you’ll probably need a new one. Drop a pro body and as long as the lens survives you’ll likely not miss a beat. The latest and greatest Canon has 76 gaskets and seals making it rain proof. The top Nikon is built like a tank. But for this you pay.

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For when nothing less will do

Here’s one from the rare equipment file. It’s the biggest* fully autofocus SLR lens ever built and probably the most expensive. I had the opportunity to give it a run a while back and I thought some of you might be interested in hearing about it.

First introduced in a manual focus variant for the 1984 LA Olympics and later updated to an EF model in 1993, Canon’s 1200mm f5.6L USM lens is a $120,000, 16.5kg technological masterpiece. It reportedly takes a year to grow fluorite crystals of a scale necessary to build its grand elements, and it’s completely hand-built, resulting in lead-times of about eighteen months on orders.

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Canon – where’s the GPS, where’s the WiFi?

Now that the dust has settled I am happy to say the 1D Mark IV is Canon redeeming itself for its misdemeanours in the Mark III. They knew their professional business depended on getting it right, and I think they have.

There’s no doubt the Mark III autofocus was a catastrophe for many of Canon’s customers and its marketing department alike. Others complained about colour fidelity, and some unlucky souls experienced both ailments. While not everyone received these tainted units, enough did for it to seriously affect the company’s professional business. As misfortune would have it, arrival of the Mark III coincided with the release of an excellent camera by Nikon which brought that company back from the brink of professional irrelevance (if you cast your mind back five years you’ll remember Nikon weren’t even in the ballpark in professional terms and photographers were deserting them in droves). Now though, Nikon is without question back in the game in a big way, with thanks in part to Canon.

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iPad for photographers – a justifiable business tool or not?

The iPad sounds like it caters more for the photography audience than photographers themselves but I’ll speculate that it will be quite useful to us nonetheless. We know that it’s not going to be a primary computer any time soon, and it’s a consumer oriented device for sure, but priced at well under a grand I think it’s easy enough to justify, especially when you consider a few of these possibilities.

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Expect a lot from the 1Ds Mark IV

Compare these two cameras for a minute. The first one offers 21.1 megapixels at 5 frames per second, at up to 1600 ISO for $10,999. The other does 3.9 frames per second at the same file size, offers better low-light performance at up to 3200 ISO, and does full HD video too for only $3,999.

On the face of it, there’s little comparison, with one only slightly higher specced but at a much higher price point than the other. The cheaper is almost certainly a smarter buy for most. So from a commercial perspective it would seem perplexing then that they’re both Canon cameras and that Canon continues to allow the consumer 5D Mark II to undermine sales of the company’s flagship 1Ds Mark III.

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