Ken Rockwell's "Observation" regarding the M8

What's wrong with Ken R. ? There are too many people with cameras who act and display themselves too seriously, so Ken's site is quite refreshing. Especially his early writings.

For selftimer I can understand. On Ricoh XR-20sp, otherwise very good to use body, they've put silly button instead of lever to activate ST. Because it's needed only when release cable has been broken/sunk/etc I believe ST button should live under cover, like missile launch control in movies.

I can live with ST button on mom's P&S but who really uses ST on RF ?
 
I can't get enough FE's these days -- they're just flying off the shelves. I have a sad little cubbard full of Leica M's just pining for anyone who'll buy them at any price at all -- picked most of them up at thrift shops.
 
jaapv said:
Anybody who uses a tripod....
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Jaap, I see your point....minimize camera shake. But why not use cable release? ST takes away control when shutter will open. Even good P&S cameras use remote release instead of ST.
Otherwise useful tool, badly placed selftimer can impair ergonomics.
 
Oy, it was a good idea to read this M8 thread. Now I understand why my Bessa imagery is so ugly. That's not me, that's my ugly Voigtlander.
 
Ken Fanboy sticks up for The Man

Ken Fanboy sticks up for The Man

Hope the subject title comes across as tongue-in-cheek as I intended! Seriously, though, I'm a regular reader of Ken's website and think he just tells it as he sees it. That's bound to upset some people suffering from excessive brand loyalty - hence the flak he has to endure.

I think he's got his perspective on photography about right: most good SLRs/rangefinders will do a good job and there's no need to get too hung up on equipment.

One of the posts in this thread asked who Ken Rockwell is anyway. Well, here's some Alexa rankings:

Ken Rockwell 10,273
Luminous Landscape 20,164
Rangefinder Forum 79,804
The Online Photographer 274,906
Pentax Blog (my own blog) 9,141,532 (I've got some catching up to do)

He seems to be pretty popular judging from the amount of traffic his site gets. He's also a smart guy and no doubt writes some strong stuff about Leica because he knows it will generate a lot of interest and even more traffic...

Bruce
 
jaapv said:
I doubt it; you are getting into wildlife photographers territory here.😉
There are two things about the detail of feathers of birds in flight:
Firstly the bird presses its feathers as smoothly as it can against its body for aerodynamics, making the coat very smooth, especially on unicolour birds like doves and gulls, secondly, the play of the airstream on the feathers makes for very fast micromovements at the tips, causing motion blur on a microcontrast scale. If you see a shot of a bird with feather detail, it is either perched, on the ground or, if flying, taken with something like 1/4000th or flash.

Btw, see what I mean with the problem of AF in the second shot? It would probably have gone for the tip of the beak instead of the eyes.

follower.jpg


hooded.jpg
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Jaap,

Try this one. The eye is in focus. The feathers show detail. The bird was not "perched." D2X, 1/500, f8, ISO 200.

If you really think autofocus doesn't let you get an accurate focus on a small spot, you haven't tried the latest Nikons. The focussing spot on the D3 is small enough to let you focus on your second bird's eyes and bypass the beak. As far as shutter lag is concerned, there simply isn't any -- at least within the range of time it takes you actually to press the shutter button.

As you know, I agree with you a lot more than I disagree, but I think you need to try a recent DSLR before you comment on that camera's capabilities.

Best regards,
 

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rsl said:
Jaap,

Try this one. The eye is in focus. The feathers show detail. The bird was not "perched." D2X, 1/500, f8, ISO 200.

If you really think autofocus doesn't let you get an accurate focus on a small spot, you haven't tried the latest Nikons. The focussing spot on the D3 is small enough to let you focus on your second bird's eyes and bypass the beak. As far as shutter lag is concerned, there simply isn't any -- at least within the range of time it takes you actually to press the shutter button.

As you know, I agree with you a lot more than I disagree, but I think you need to try a recent DSLR before you comment on that camera's capabilities.

Best regards,
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Russel, I don't dispute that AF does a pretty good job in capable hands, but I maintain that in this special situation (and some others), manual focus is easier. For that reason for instance Doug Herr, amongst others, uses manual focus for bird photograpy.
 
Is that so?

Is that so?

Didier said:
Ken Rockwell is a rather untalented part-time photographer and his articles are neither worth to be read nor to be discussed.
Didier
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Its easy to say things like that about a person who's not here to defend themselves. I, for one, find his articles helpful. Maybe not all of them, but many are right on the money. You speak as if you never actually ready his stuff or seen his photos. WHile tastes are different, his photos are good.
It's funny - if I say the same about a member here, after looking at their PAW gallery - I'd probably be banned from RFF. Yet it's Ok to say all sort of nasty things about ESTABLISHED and WELL KNOWN photographer such as Ken Rockwell. Amazing world we live in. I would suggest to all that critique him to at least prove that they are any good to deserve a right to critique others. But thats my opinion.
 
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