New Black & White magazine(UK)

[markinlondon]

This month's issue contains a ZI review and some nice Leica documentary photos from Ragnar Axxelsson. I have to say the ZI review is by Frances Schultz so is a bit heavy on numbers and prices.

The magazine also contains a reader survey. The raffle prize for doing their market research for them is an Epson inkjet printer. I was going to fill it in, but noticed that under the "Photographic equipment" section there is no listing for 35mm rangefinder (the sections seem to be slanted toward digital matters). If I were to fill in this form it would appear that I don't own a camera 😕. Hmm...

Mark

 

[jrong]

The editor, Ailsa, is on APUG. Perhaps you could post there and let her know your views. 🙂

It's charmingly old-fashioned, requiring us to post in the questionnaire instead of just fielding an online version. 🙂

What can I say... it's the only photography magazine that I buy off the shelf these days. All the others seem to be solely worshipping the digital gods.

Jin

 

[markinlondon]

I was surprised by the implied tone of the survey. That and the number of dSLR reviews they've had lately make me wonder if some pressure is coming from outside the editorial team. They're still running excellent traditional technique articles (although I'll give bromoil a miss 🙂 ), the recent roundup of developers was very informative and Mike Johnston's articles continue to provide food for thought.

Sorry if it came over as a winge, I'll probably just drop Ailsa a mail. It's still by far the best photo magazine I know of.

I don't want to make a film vs dgital thing out of it.

Mark

 

[jrong]

You're right though. Maybe there is external pressure (part of the same publishing group as Outdoor Photography, which has sold its soul to digital)... maybe its just pragmatic marketing. Who knows?

Jin

 

[Iyidin_Kyeimo]

Digital is where all the money is these days, particulatly in terms of advertising if you're a magazine. Digital is all about the latest model and a quick turn around between them. I've bought virtually every piece of my equipment second hand. Film cameras are generally simpler and last forever (remember Don McCullin's Nikon F stopping a bullet..?) which is great from a user perspective, but not from the industry standpoint (which is one of the resons why digital has been pushed so hard I suspect..)

It seemed to me that the questionaire was basically asking "should we be doing more digital?"... I'm sending mine back with as much film bias as I can, regardless of the truth. It's important that at least one magazine in the world still has a film soul...

 

[peter_n]

[snip] I have to say the ZI review is by Frances Schultz so is a bit heavy on numbers and prices.[snip]

I hope its better than her piece last month on the "Leica glow". That one was pretty sad both in terms of topic selection and content. Doesn't sound promising though...

 

[BJ Bignell]

I hope its better than her piece last month on the "Leica glow".

That article did put forth an interesting hypothesis for the existence of "Leica glow", regardless of any shortcomings overall. In my opinion, it wasn't bad, it just used too many words to say something so simple.

 

[markinlondon]

I hope its better than her piece last month on the "Leica glow". That one was pretty sad both in terms of topic selection and content. Doesn't sound promising though...

Not especially, she likes the system, but it reads a bit like a press release or catalogue entry

Mark