There was a time when I didn’t worry about cameras. I didn’t need a lightmeter because I could see and feel the exposure. I didn’t worry about FOV or focal lengths. I never thought about batteries, USB connections…..All I thought about was just making pictures with one of my M cameras and a 35mm lens. I never thought that I’d ever have to change my organzing of photos. I didn’t care about how heavy my Canon 5D with the 24-105 was.
Geeze, thank the Digital Yellow Mother that time is gone………!
As most of youse shooters know, I’ve been having issues of sorts with the GR. I think the biggest issue is/was my own expectations. So I decided to abandon the pre-conceptions I have from the Ricoh GRD4 and re-think the Ricoh GR. Probably the biggest reason that shooters respond to the GRD series is the Snap Mode. Yes, the GR has it also.
I have been having issues with the ISO in TAv and this is directly causing a problem in Snap Mode.
So I normally put Fn1 button to toggle AF/Snap. Then Fn2 gets to set the Snap Distance. It’s a very fast way to work but maybe that’s the problem. Maybe just maybe I don’t need to work that fast anymore. I ain’t no rookie out there on the streets. I like to SEE what I’m working on to make a photo. I also want the option to work fast if I need to and also again I might like to hang the camera on a strap around my neck and do chest shots etc. This creates a conundrum of sorts because my mind works faster then the camera because I take meds and the camera doesn’t but should because I think the Ricoh GR has a split personality.
So here’s what I came up with. Now you must understand that if I can’t resolve the issues I have with the GR, it’s gone. Here’s how I am working to resolve some issues.
The camera works best (for me) on TAv mode. I get to set the aperture, to control DOF and the Shutter Speed to control the amount of movement/blur I want in the photo. The camera will choose the ISO out to 25600 but I also get to set EV comp which I hardly ever do but will do because it’s available and Ray and Wouter and Craig and Jorge and…… think it’s a good idea.
At this point I would normally set my f/stop to the desired number to get the DOF I want. Ah hah….here’s the problem. By toggling Fn1, I can use Snap or AF at will. Ok…..but this is a 2 press procedure. I have to press Fn1 to get where I want and then release.
I am now using AF mode with Full Press Snap on. With the GR, the AF is very fast and accurate and the Full Press Snap is also. The difference is….. if I’m using AF because I want to get things focused the way I want and then decide that I have to work fast… I just have to hit the release all the way and BANG…the world of the GR is a safe place again.
This may sound like the obvious solution but as a shooter, we need to find the path of discovery by ourselves. Yeah yeah….bulldinky shooter…get to the darn point again….sheeeesh!
The point is this. In order to use the AF you need to look at the screen. If your looking at the screen and framing the photo, well that’s a great way to work. It’s not the only way but it’s a great way. Many things can happen. You could even face confrontation but you have to deal with these things or you’ll stay on the computer and play video games….yuch!
So now the GR and I are learning to communicate with each other again. I think at some point I’ll feel like a real photographer again. Until that time, about 30 minutes from now, I’ll just keep working to understand myself and my relationship to Tanya….not the camera…my wife…..
It’s freakin’ hot here and I gotta get off the computer….
see ya’s all soon…..
…………………….end transmission……………………………………………………………..shooter out
Here’s how I operate and always did. I’m not saying that this will work for you but I’d be willing to be that it does. There are cameras for any number of reasons to have and hold a camera. I break it down to two.
1st. The camera as a tool. When I was younger and had more body strength and less brains…(Inverse Square Law again).. I used a Canon 5D with all the nice “L” lenses. Yes, I used this camera for anything until one day I said….enough. See I had used many digital cameras but for WORK, this was the TOOL.
When I picked up the 5D, my mind automatically started to think about work and everything that goes along with that word. It’s a great camera and somewhat elegant even but I never found that many images with it for my PERSONAL work. Sure there were some but few and far between.
These photos are not from the 5D, I just wanted to post them so don’t even think about it…….
I made money with the 5D and I did a lot of work including for the Mural Arts Program here in Philly. I felt that I had the perfect tool for the task at hand. I was right.
2nd. The Friend. The camera that is your friend it the one that provides a few things. It makes you think about what your doing and not what it’s doing. (BIG DIFFERENCE). It feels like you are with a buddy, friend, brother, sister etc when you go out together. There is a closeness that can only be felt and not verbally described because it’s more than just a feeling….
When the time is now to go and MAKE images, you get your friend and go to WORK. There’s a difference in the definition of the word WORK. I’m sure you get this. Here we are working for the very essence of our being. Too heavy? No it’s not….
My wife Tanya, not the GR but the GR is named after her because I have to keep peace and harmony in the home front because she takes care of me and keeps me from going overboard and crappy stuff like that so I do her honor as a life partner and name the Ricoh GR after her.
Anyway…I’m back…..when I was working…for money,in business, I would come to the kitchen door and she made me take my shoes off immediately. Then she gave me a pair of soft slippers. Of course a hug follows, maybe a kiss but not too much, we don’t want to start any bad habits….
One day I asked her a question. I asked her why she made me change my shoes to slippers almost immediately. She looked at me ad said…”American’s, you know nothing about life”. When you come into the house, you must change your psychology. Changing your shoes is the start. Leave your work stuff on the job and enjoy being home and with me. Ya know, no one has ever explained anything close to that to me and kept it so simple and direct. Of course now, I don’t question that ritual or others anymore, I just GROK the meaning and live it.
GET TO THE POINT SHOOTER!
When I go to do a shoot for work or business, I pick up my working camera and immediately I am in the frame of mind for the task at hand. My INTENT is clear.
When I go out to do my personal work, I pick up a friend and my INTENT once again is clear. There are a few things to work out here and I’ll explained what I learned and pass it on to you. Take it with a shot, a beer orr lemonade I don’t care just think about the next few things.
GAS is a problem many have and there’s only one cure….depleted bank account…Oh, one more A RUSSIAN WIFE. It’s easier to deal with the bank account then the …well…you get it.
One of the feeding factors for GAS is fining the right camera etc. Is there a cure for that? Heck ya, easy. If you can define the purpose of your cameras then you can find a STOP for GAS. Not a cure but a real reason to not enter the GAS arena.
I am assuming if your reading this that your more serious about your photography than the ones not reading this. Try to arrange your thoughts about your INTENT and what camera leads to that fulfillment.
I have one camera that I consider Transitional and that’s the NEX 6. Oh, hold on…. The Nex is a close trusted friend but I could do work with it because it’s an AZZ kicking camera. All the photos on the post were born from the NEX 6 and the OM 24mm 2.8.
I gotta run cause it’s Russian Tea Time…I must oblige because Tanya watches WWE and she’s learned some good moves and I’m not into loosing a match.
More tomorrow…..later friends……don
So I get my cup of Kona ready and of course I have to hide the Bokum because Tanya thinks I don’t need caffeine because I’m getting older and that stuff is for Olivier cause he’s younger and can control the energy.
I walk out to the garden to sip the first cup of Kona and then sneak the second cup because I can. As I’m standing there I can see a mass of critters looking at me.
The rabbits are on the left with the squirrels. The Groundhog is center stage. He’s the biggest but the meekest also……then all the birds in the world converge on my garden and I then realized….this is a shared garden. There’s slugs crawling around, worms digging holes, ants that take care of the Peony’s and some other things…like eat leftovers and such…..
The said to me….Yo’ dude…like this is a shared space and we let you use it to garden stuff in it. We have rights and….I then cut the speech off and said….Look….if this is a shared garden, why are Tanya and I doing all the hard labor and paying for everything?
The groundhog was the spokesman and said…we let you eat everything we don’t want…we never criticize where you put things so…….
We want to negotiate a contract. We want the garden to be as important to you as the street is. THIS IS OUR STREET and you don’t pay enuff attention to it.
I tried to negotiate a clause to ban the mosquitoes but no go…..something about they keep me in check…..
Here’s a few from Garden Street…….
It takes all kinds of critters to make a world….even a street….
ISO 25600
I can’t even count that high let alone shoot that high. But it’s fun trying.
I’m pretty much at ease with the GR. I am having some thoughts about the Zone Focusing. I have used that method since my very first photos with my Dad’s cameras. The GR doesn’t get along to well with DOF Master computations. So I’ll try again tomorrow on the street. The HORROR…I have to go out and work again…tsk tsk, whatever shall I do…..?
The camera feels natural and my images are familiar to me with the exception of DOF. That in itself may lead to a new way of seeing the familiar.
I’ve been asked to write a review for the GR and I’d be glad to do so but only after I feel that the camera is mine. That means that we can work together without intrusion from each other.
The GR is a classy camera. Unfortunately this one ends up with a guy that ain’t gotz no class……
Tomorrow I’m on the street and will post some findings on the Zone Focus/Hyperfocal Distance issues….
Later….don
…. here’s 17,000 for ya.
Words tomorrow along with more photos………
don
Ya know…. I never get bored with photography. I never feel that there’s nothing to make photos of. If I’m not on the Street, I’m off Street. It’s more dangerous around the house then around junkies, hookers, cops, he men, she men whatever. Around the house is a cat that is all to used to having a camera shoved in his face….there’s this woman that resembles my wife but if I make a photo of her or even poit the camera anywhere near her airspace…well….it sure as heck ain’t pretty.
This photo is considered…Illegal photographic procedures. This photo means I order pizza for dinner and probably lunch the next day.
This is the photo that was presented upon the photographic inquisition. I explained that I didn’t make a photo of her and that this is what I did. See me in the mirror…well that’s what my camera and I looked liked before the camera was shoved down my throat.
The camera down your wind pipe is capable of doing very interesting Macro stuff but the flash won’t pop out because the camera is jammed against your lung or whatever they put inside of us.
So to make peace until the next episode, I always make a few garden photos. This keeps Barsik the Cat and the Russian Conquistador happy and I get to make photos in LR and post them because I’m stupid and I think she will never read my blog because it’s a waist of time and we could be doing something else more important like shopping…..
So I guess I’ll sign off because Barsik the Cat is hot and I have to sweat all day until he needs the Air Conditioner.
Life is grand…..hey…Is that a new camera?………….uh oh….later……
If your a serious shooter, regardless of what camera you use…you still need to process it the best way to present your intent.
Yeah, yeah I know…Snapseed…bulldinky. The thing is, to process the image you captured on the phone with the phone is a fast lazy way to work. I know that I’ll catch static posting this but , I don’t care anyway.
Ya got yer snapseeders, ya got yer instagram crowd, then there’s the Facebook groups and many more. I’m dealing with the shooters that want to really get their images and use a phone as the camera.
I’m doing an article in the Inspired Eye magazine coming up soon. If your a cellshooter and would like to be featured in it, please contact me and we’ll have a chat. Look, I love my cameras, I really do. Fact is the iPhone 5 has the best screen of all of them. Then there’s that color thing….
It’s Memorial Day Weekend here in the Colony. I’ll be around but I have Cemetery’s and Graves to visit. Have a safe and productive weekend.
Cheers….don
there’s a freedom working with a cellphone. Compact…well, it don’t get much more compact than a phone. With the freedom the phone offers comes another kind of freedom that the shooter must come to terms with. That freedom is IQ. Of course the phone can’t compete in the IQ arena against traditional cameras but then again…the phone offers a freedom from that dreaded PIXEL PEEPING syndrome.
What this means is…the shooter now has nothing to do but make the best photo of his/her intent without the restrictions of the limiting IQ factor. Oh…don’t get it wrong. A good photo is still the goal it’s just that now the cell shooter is no longer burdened with weight etc.
A long time ago I sat back with a Pen 1 in my hand and I felt that I missed working with my Leica’s and missed my beautiful darkroom. I missed the winding of the film, the smell of fixer on my hands, the camera bag with the bodies, lenses and film. I was all digital and I had moved on. I remained focused on my images and my intent and after a short period of time, I found them once again in the digital world.
I was on the bus coming home and I was checking out the riders as I always do. I turned the camera on and everything else off. I turn off the apps because it conserves power but more importantly, it visually turns off everything I’m doing except the camera.
I aimed the camera….my thumb pressed the release….I waited, waited…framed as we hit bumps……..
I realized I had a very good camera in my hand and then…….CLICK!
I do not can know if I should be happy or well…that’s an ugly thought. See, Olivier is much younger than me and he has these ideas that well, maybe at times they could be called exciting.
So I’m off to the VA Hospital again because my Electrolytes are as high as Duane flying in his aeroplane. Now here’s the thing. I always carry a camera. Olivier said I carry a camera all the time and don’t use it. Never I said. If I carry, I use.
The guys a bad influence. He suggested that I use my iPhone 4 and not carry any other camera. I mean to tell ya….this is much easier said then done. I left the house and just carried the phone. It felt natural cause I have my phone with me all the time.
I kept reaching in my pocket for my camera but alas….empty. So I committed to getting this going.
It took about 1/2 hour to get the camera to be non-intruding. It’s almost a true Point n’ Shoot. I use the widest lens FOV and the release technique for capture. The phone has great DOF so I pre-focus about 5′ in front of me….then I press the shutter release but I don let go until I frame and the moment is right. The ya just release and the camera does it’s thing.
All in all, it’s not a bad way to work. I managed to get very close to people but those shots Olivier is using for an article.
Once the camera stuff is out of the way, it’s time to go to Lightroom. That was cool as I’m already designing Presets for Mobile cameras.
Do I think that my iPhone will take the place of my cameras? No. Just like I choose what camera to take on a shoot, I now just increased my choices by 1.
There’s a lot of photos out there and even inside and such. We should stay open minded as to what camera is best to use for any given session. One thing doesn’t work for me. A lot of times I carry my camera and make photos using one hand. The other hand has my phone in it and I pretend I’m talking to someone. It’s a very good way to disguise what your doing.
I promised Olivier that I’d make an honest effort to use the iPhone as a camera. At first I was reluctant but I’ve come to see the light, once again.
It’s not a hard thing to pursue. After all, a camera by any other name is still a camera. Which brings me to an important point.
What Name does this camera get.