More stuff for sale:

Dell optiplex 755ultra small form factor PC. It’s a cute little quiet PC, perfect for home server or media centre. Dual core intel core duo 2 1.8 GHz, 2 G RAM, 500 G Harddisc. Best offer.




Roland JV-1010 synth module. 64 voice 16 parts multitimbral synth with about 1000 presets and the orchestral II expansion board. Lots and lots of great sounds, including a whole bunch of orchestra sounds, and effects. Asking price 125 euro.



Crumpler zoomiverse XL backpack for photo equipment. Holds dslr’s lenses and laptop up to 17”. Black. Asking price 50 euro.




Behringer BCD 3000 DJ controller and audio interface.
MIDI DJ controller for DJ software like traktor. Also two channel audio interface and mixer for mic, line and phono. Asking price 125 euro.

* Sitecom esata expresscard/34 sata raid controller with two ports. No idea if it works on snow leopard. Asking 20 euro.

*Sweex esata expresscard/34 sata controller with one port. Works fine with snow leopard. Asking 20 euro.


*Huawei E1750 3G dongle, HDSPA and can contain a micro SD card. Asking 40 euro.

*Elgato Turbo HD H264 encoding usb dongle. Accerelates HD video encoding with up to 6 times faster than native. Cuts down on encoding time for your youtube/vimeo movies! Asking 40 euro.

*Mackie C4 MIDI controller for Logic pro, cubase etc. Supports MCU protocol, very nice for controlling plugins, but also hardware synths. Has 32 rotary controllers with led id, and display for each controller. No need to map your midi controls anymore! Asking 350 euro.


* Zoom H2 recorder. Excellent audio recorder, records up to 24 bits/96 KHz. Up to four channel surround sound recording(!), as wav or mp3. Has two pairs of good condensor mics, sound quality is very good and brutally honest, as a reviewer said “Es klingt genau so wie im Proberaum, also schrecklich”. Also mic input and line input. Can also be used as a USB audio interface. With 2 G SD card, stand, acessories. Asking 100 euro.

When I was young and the Leica M9 came out (ok, I was not that young), I had an immediate “I want to have it but I can never afford it”..

At that time I had the Leica M6 with which I was very happy, but I did want to have a similar digital camera. After a while, I got the Epson R-D1, which later replaced with the Leica M8.

The Leica M8 was the first digital camera which felt right to me. Even though it had some limitations, like a crop of 1.3 and rather bad high iso performance, it felt like a Leica rangefinder and I took a lot of good pictures with it. Somehow, the M8 did feel a little big and a little noisier tha the M6, and since it was chrome, it also was a lot less stealthy than the M6. And there was the hassle of the IR filters. I have even considered swapping it for a black M8, or even an M8.2.

But the camera I really wanted was the Leica M9. Full frame, so the same crop as the M6, better high iso, slightly quieter.

Let's talk rationality. I am not a pro. I did make a bit of money doing photography, but by far not enough to make a living. I do not make photography trips like my friends and I do not do a lot of street photography. There are a lot of camera's that are better and cheaper than the M9. It is a lot of money. I would have to save up to get it.

But I did. I worked hard and saved for it, and after some time I could actually afford it so I got it. And I am very happy with it.

And to tell you the truth: when I first got it and made some testshots, I was a bit disappointed. It was good, and better than the M8, but not SO much better than the M8. Or so I thought at first.

But after having used it for some time, I am starting to get used to the camera, and rediscovering my lenses. Now the camera feels like it fits me well. It is not perfect, and I still need to get used to it, but it does give me the next step in my photography:

- No more IR filter crap. Downside is that I can't do IR photography anymore, but I can live with that.
- In black and with the little nook out, it feels a little smaller than the M8, although that is almost purely psychological.
- It is slightly quieter than the m8.
- Full frame, so no more cropping.
- High iso mode is better, but you need to expose correctly.

But most of all: somehow I seem to take better photos in colour! On the M8 I almost always had my photos converted to black & white, but with the M9, the colours are often very good. To be honest, this also has to do with the Carl Zeiss Sonnar ZM 50/1.5 I now use that one a lot. It has become my favourite lens. It also might be the auto whitebalance being off...

The combination of the M9 and the sonnar is like this: sometimes the photo fails (unsharp, not properly exposed etc), this is due my technical inability combined with the quirks of the lens and camera. However: lots and lots of times, the result is a great photo with a lot of character.

Tags: photography

I have been using os X Lion since one of the dev previews. I have been using os X since Jaguar and I have to say it has been one of the least painful upgrades ever.


In general the system works a bit faster than under snow leopard (I do have a new macbook pro and macbook air with i7), all my hardware worked without problems (printers, scanner, audio interfaces, midi controllers), most apps worked fine, some of the GUI changes are nice and the apparent gui changes are not so huge for me.

But first the bad:

- The themes of addresbook and ical are fugly. Incredibly fugly. Also not entirely sure about the new layout of address book, but no buggy for me
- Launchpad is not really my thing. I use mostly alfred to start apps
- Although safari is a but faster, it still hemmorages memory. This may also be related to some extensions I use.
- Apps that broke: silver fast SE (I now use vuescan), gpgmail (there is an alpha which works so so), ableton live (there is a beta)
- AFP changes which at first broke authentication to my NAS. With a beta firmware my NAS now works fine.
- Full screen mode sucks in dual head mode
- Had one kernel panic on my air
- Some gestures conflict with gestures of applications
- The remembering of the state of an app, with it’s open windows and documents is hit and miss, depending on the app
- Some finder changes are not so great or need getting used to: invisible Library (easily fixed), sidebar, all my documents


The good:

- My old macbook pro was getting very slow on snow leopard, but on lion it is quite snappy again
- Whole disc encryption with file vault on the air works very well, no visible performance penalty
- Airdrop works very well, but I would like it if it also worked with wired ethernet
- Launchpad is okayish, but I use mostly alfred for application start or the dock
- I like Mission control, for me it works better than spaces and expose
- The fullscreen mode works very nicely on my small 11” macbook air
- The new scrolling direction actually makes a lot of sense
- Using gestures works very well on my touchpad or magic pad
- Pf is now apparently the standard os X firewall (Not sure since when), I like it a lot better than the old ipf.
- I like the way of resizing windows and the handling of scrollbars, although sometimes the bottom part of the window is not well visible
- Mail.app is snappier, I like the three pane layout, threading and full screen mode
- WebGL in safari


What I had to do:
- Reinstall the ABN amro identifier driver
- Install the beta of gpgmail, ableton live
- Switch to vuescan from silver fast. At the moment I like it better
- Installed lion tweaks. Witht hat I made Library folder visible, and removed the fugly themes of address book and ical
- Some app updates, most of which came very quickly after the release of Lion


in the end, there are not that many big changes in user interface for me, at least no negative ones, and some positive ones. I still work like I used to, with terminal tabs, with alfred, but I use full screen apps on my MBA. I work slightly different on my air than on my MBP with extra screen.

Tags: sysadmin

Final cut pro X is out, and I accidentally bought it immediately. There has been a lot of fuss about fcpx recently when it came out. Many people said that it was imovie and not a pro app, that it lacked a lot of essential pro facilities and that apple jumped the shark with this. Here's my take on this.

When I bought it and started it, I was dissapoint. My knee jerk reaction was: I want my money back. But after reading some reviews and watching tutorials I decided to actually edit it in myself and my opinion changed.

First of all, I am not a pro, I have edited a lot of footage for my own projects and helping out a friends projects.

However, I do think a lot of the missing things make X unfit for many pro's. No XML/EDL/OMF export, no multicam editing, limitations in the use of tape and of external monitors. Color and soundtrack removed and not really replaced. Final cut studio 3 being removed from retail. Apple telling that if users need XML export, they can just buy a 500 $ app. Overhauled GUI. I can very well understand the frustrations of the pros.

I do hope that apple will add those facilities back in, and would allow people to buy FCS in the meantime.

Now, as a non-pro, I do not care so much about EDL, and XML is something I hardly use. I never liked or got color, since I am not a colorist. I don't use tape anymore, and in the rare occasion that I do, firewire tape workflow is still available in FCP X. I also do not edit for TV, so external monitoring is also not something I use.

So what do I miss? For me, the most important things I miss are the use of external plugins (I use magic bullet looks sometimes, although some sensible presets for the coloriser might help in this. This is about the only plugin I actually use), and I miss sending footage to soundtrack to edit the audio and exporting the footage as XML to send it to after effects. In FCP 7, sending footage to AE was also not great, the best way was to export as XML, then load it in premiere and send it to AE, and back. So for AE the workflow is not that different, probably sending original footage or export as prores, edit in AE and send back as prores. For audio, I still need to find a good workflow.

When it comes to the user interface, I also have to get used to a lot of things. Some things are good, some things need getting used to, and some things are indeed dumbed down a bit. I miss some things, like the mixer, which I use for example to quickly pan two different audio tracks to full left and right to check sync. There also does not seem to be an easy way to quickly mute or solo a single track like in 7, although you can use the V key.

Then there is some performance issues. In general, the performance is very good, the fact that I can edit H264 footage from my GH1 directly, with effects in real time is quite amazing (this does not seem to work for me in premiere). But I did experience the spinning beach ball of death a few times, freezing the whole system, so that I had to kill FCPX. This seems mostly be the case when doing a lot of heavy background jobs concurrently. I have to see if os X lion improves that. (On my old MBP, os X has improved performance enormously compared to snow leopard).


So in short:

FCP X might not be the right NLE for most pros, but it seems to be for me. I will use it for my future projects.
I still have to get used to some stuff.
It being imovie on steroids is partially true, but that is not necessarily a bad thing: I like the simple colour management, the scrubbing, the organisation in events, face recognition.
I do not miss color. I do miss soundtrack pro, which I still have as part of logic studio.
The real time timeline for multi format footage and effects works very well, this is probably the biggest improvement.
A lot of the old workflow is still in there somewhere.
Most important things I am missing is an easy way to export to logic, soundtrack and after effects.
There are still some bugs and performance issues, which may be eliminated with updates and with an update to Lion.



So, I will use it for my current and future projects for now, and will try to get used to it and hope for enhancements.

Tags: Video

Canon versus Nikon.




I always say, that people who care too much about this canon versus nikon debate, are not the ones who make the most interesting photos.

However, I do want to tell why I choose Nikon over Canon, why I now would probably choose Canon and what I recommend.


I actually started with a Canon SLR, a pellix QL, and later the A-1. This because I got the pellix from my father, and the A-1 from my aunt and uncle. I am talking about the analog manual focus time. But then I already wanted a Nikon instead of a Canon. The main reason why I wanted this was because the MF Nikon's where a lot sturdier, they had a more professional line and I liked the ergonomics better. At that time, more pro's used Nikon than Canon. The canon's where more electronic than the Nikon's. Another major thing was that when Canon switched to the EOS auto focus system, they changed mounts, while on a Nikon, even if you have a modern DSLR like the D700, you can still (to a certain extent) use the old manual focus lenses directly. So in 2005 I bought a Nikon FE2 second hand, with motordrive and lens for very cheap. And I loved it. It had the war photographer quality (Like Nick Nolte in the movie Under fire... I am influenced by movies) and it gave my photography a big boost. Then I got a D1 and a D200 from friends.

Later on, I switched to Leica and Hasselblad, but that's another story and now I prefer rangefinder.

However, if someone now, asks me if they have to get a Nikon or a Canon, I would say: get either. For a while I recommended getting a Nikon D40, because it was a very good camera and cheaper than the cheapest Canon. But I did get a bit frustrated with Nikon lagging behind with things like video (they did a lot of catching up recently).

But now, I say: if you are mostly doing photography (and not video) and Ihave no lenses from either brand then either one is good.

There are some good reasons to choose one over the other:

- Video. Nikon was actually the first one with video in a dslr (D90), but Canon improved it and made it so good that it caused a revolution in filmmaking. The CanonEOS 550D and 5DII are excellent for video, besides being very good photo cameras. Nikon has caught up mostly, with the D7000 being very good at video too, and the D3S being the best videocamera for low light filming. There are still a lot more people shooting video on Canon than Nikon, so there is a bigger scene, and there is a hacked firmware for some canons (magic lantern) which makes them even better for video.

- Use of old lenses. On a Nikon camera, you can use an old Nikon lens. If you have the D7000 and up, it will work fine (but without autofocus of course). If you have lower types of nikons, you will not have autofocus with older AF lenses, and/or no metering (but there is a chip for that). On the Canon's thanks to the shorter flange distance, you can get a lot of adapters to use a lot of older lenses from many manufacturers, including old Canon, Nikon, Leica etc.

- Image quality. Something I have heard a lot (but can not verify myself): when it comes to IQ, Nikon is better for photos, Canon better for video. Of course a lot can be done in post.

- Lens quality. The difference between Canon and Nikon lenses are not that big. Nikon might have a slight edge, but not enough to give one brand an edge over the other one.

- Ergonomics. This is a matter of taste. I like the Nikon ergonomics better than the Canon, but I have to say that I don't like the ergonomics of modern DSLR's anyway, I mean, 36 buttons? One of the reasons I prefer Leica.

- Certain models. It also depends in which segment you are shopping. My intuition says:

Entry level: Nikon D3100 versus Canon EOS 1100D. I would choose Nikon.
Medium level: Nikon D5100 versus Canon EOS 550D or 600D. I would choose Canon.
Higher level: Nikon D7000 versus Canon EOS 60D. I would choose Nikon.
Entry level full frame: Nikon D700 versus Canon EOS 5DII. I would choose Canon.
Pro level: Nikon D3s versus Canon 1DsIII. I would choose Nikon.

If I would choose again now, I would probably go for Canon since I would do a lot of video. However, things are changing fast. A successor for the D700 is expected this year. A successor for the 5DII and the 1DsIII might be here soon, so the landscape is changing very fast and my recommendations will be outdated very soon.

Also: a lot of people should not get a DSLR at all. For some a EVIL or serious compact camera would be a much better choice, like a Sony NEX, Panasonic MFT, Fuji X100 etc.

In the end, I do my photography mostly with my Leica M8, and my Hasselblad (on film). Recently I got a panasonic GH1 for video which has an amazing video quality, thanks to hacked firmware, even surpassing the EOS 5DII according to some reviews.

Tags: photography

(Panasonic GH1 with R0de stereo videomic, Voigtländer Nokton 50/1.5, Cokin filterholder A with hoods.)


I am doing some video recently. Some of my video work you can find on vimeo:

http://vimeo.com/nakedcellist/videos


I started doing a bit of video with my first digital camera, a canon ixus. Video quality was quite crappy, so I did not use it a lot. My other digital cameras and mobile phones had also crappy video quality so I only used them for unserious things. Then I got an old DV camera from my father, a JVC. It was a neat and small camera, but very bad low light performance. Then got a better panasonic 3ccd DV camera with mic input, which was a lot better. Used it for the videoworkshop at the Rietveld academy. Then I got a panasonic LX3 digital camera, which had rather good HD video quality. Sound was crap, but I used it on some projects.

The JVC broke down, the 3ccd camera is for sale and I sold the LX3, which I replaced with an iphone 4...

I wanted a more serious camera and got the sanyo xacti 2000. The Sanyo is a very good camera, up to 180p60 HD video, microphone input with manual level control, decent low light performance. I used it a lot for concert recordings. But when the dslr video craze took off, I wanted a good dslr video camera.

What I got was a panasonic GH1. Got it second hand, with hacked firmware, so I was sure that it could be hacked (newer versions can’t) with a 14-45 lens.

And I love it:

- Video quality is amazing, it shoots 1080p avchd and 720p MJPEG, with quite high bitrates thanks to the hacked gh13 firmware
- It has a mic input and decent built in mics
- Good image quality also for stills, and with an adapter I can use my Leica M mount lenses on it.
- It is small and light
- Ergonomics are good
- Low light performance is very good
- Got it relatively cheap
- Thanks to the hacked firmware, on PAL camera’s the 30 min recording limit is removed and third party batteries can be used
- There is a large community of gh1 video users

Of course it has some limitations:
- Depending on which patches you use on the hacked firmware, you can get very good quality, with 24p without pulldown, at 1080p or 720p, using MJPEG or AVCHD, viewable on the lcd, and stable, but not all at once: very high bitrate result in more crashes when using MJPEG, MJPEG can only do 720p, very high bitrate movies can not be played back on the lcd.
- There is no live video or audio output via hdmi or composite. So no monitoring.
- Audio levels are set automatically, no manual override. This is the one thing which keeps me from selling the Sanyo for now.

All in all I am very happy with the camera. The video quality is amazing and I can work around most of the limitations. I am slowly starting to pimp the camera, some of the stuff I still had lying around:

- R0de stereo videomic for better audio (but still limited by the automatic audio levels)
- Bolun wireless lavalier mic (10 $! Works quite well!)
- Clapperboard
- Cokin filterholder A with hoods, makes it look a lot more cinematic..
- Velbon tripod
- Leica M to MFT ring
- My Leica M lenses, so Leica summicron 40/2, elmarit 90/2.8, Voigtländer Nokton 50/1.5 and 35/1.4. Especially the Nokton 50, which I never really liked on my Leica, works very well and looks very good on the GH1.


To pimp it further I am probably getting:

- A weifeng videotripod. Cheap but sturdy video tripods. My velbon is rather crappy.
- Maybe a follow focus contsruction, but these are quite expensive, and probably will not work with the thin barrels of my M mount lenses.
- Nikon mount to MFT adapter. Not entirely sure, since I have the lenses I want in M mount.
- Maybe a nice mattebox with french flag and rail kit. But this is still expensive and not a high priority.
- LCD hood or viewfinder. Probably a hoodman hood first.
- Class 10 SD cards. Probably Transcend 16G.
- Steadycam. Probably Hague MMC.
- Zoom h1 to replace my h2. The h2 can do surround sound. The h1 is smaller and has a steady clock, which makes syncing a lot easier.



Now let’s start filming! I have some ideas. Don’t be surprised if I ask you for a project..

Tags: Video

One thing that makes me reconsider digital photography is the costs. Apart from the fact that got frustrated by the quality of developing and scanning at Hema labs and other shops. I buy my film at macodirect, which is fast and quite cheap, I develop and scan my film at Hema for 35mm, and develop it at Fransen for mediumformat.

These are the costs of using film:

Ilford xp2super 400 is 39,45 per 10 rolls for 120 and 48,49 per 10 rolls for 35 mm.
36 frames on a roll of 35 mm, 12 frames on a roll of 120.

Per frame that means:

mediumformat (120): 0,33
35mm: 0,13

Development for 35 mm + scanning at Hema labs costs 7,95
Development at Fotofransen for mediumformat costs 6,65
(I scan mediumformat myself)

Per frame:

mediumformat (120): 0,55
35mm: 0,22

So total costs of film, per frame, just the film + development (and in the case of 35mm scanning):

mediumformat: 0,88
35 mm: 0,35


Then printing.

I use an epson R-2400 printer. I am using different papers, I am now using s-color glossy, which is a very nice, good quality, quick drying and not too expensive paper.
A pack of 50 sheets of A4 glossy s-color pro series is 17,33.

So the costs of paper is:
0,35 for an A4 print
0,17 for an A5 print

I mostly do A5 prints.

The biggest costs in printing is ink. A full set of ink for my printer costs 91 euro’s if I buy it cheap, while sometimes I buy a seperate cartridge for 15 euros. (There are 7 cartridges in a set). I am not sure how long ink will last. To give an idea: I have my printer now for a year, and I spent about 500 euros on cartridges.

I have seen studies where they estimate the costs of ink around 0,65 euro per A4 print, so that is 0,32 per A5 print. This is a black and white print, which I mostly do.

So ink + paper costs for an a print is 0,49 for an A5, which it would cost if I would print a digital photo.

To summarize: using film and then printing, the costs for an A5 print is:


mediumformat: 1,37 euro
35 mm: 0,84 euro


Of course, one could print at Hema or shops like that, but their quality sucks, especially for black and white. So in this equation, 0,84 for an A5 print from a 35 mm frame is not too bad. Hema print costs 0,45 euro for a 13x19 print, which is a bit smaller than A5.


Finallly, these are just the costs of film, development, scanning and printing, and does not include other costs, like equipment.

Tags: photography

I am finally migrating my server. The hardware is about the same: Supermicro Detroit, intel core duo2 2.4 GHz, 3ware 9xxx sata raid controller, 2 x 1 G samsung sata harddisc. The colo will be the same, coloclue with whom I still am very happy.

What will change is the OS setup. The old system runs on FreeBSD 8, 64 bits, with an extra jail. The new system runs on vmware vsphere 4.1 (formerly esxi) and ubuntu linux LTS 64 bit.

Why the change? I got extremely frustrated with freebsd. Upgrading the system is a hassle. Binary updates with freebsd-update never seemed to work for me, and cvsup + make buildworld is a bit more of a hassle. But updating the system is a picknick compared to updating ports. With a combo of portupgrade, portmaster and manual updates I got myself more than often in dependency hell. Updating with binaries was preferred, but binaries in freebsd if they are available are extremely minimal, for example, no mysql support in postfix.

Ubuntu may not be better in every aspect, but at least ugrading is so much less of a hassle. apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade should do the trick. I also like the way things are organized with update alternatives and with sites/modules for apache, and the whole configuration scheme. Not all is perfect of course, config is not always consistent, the vmware tools are not available as deb packages and some more things I will encounter. I am also experiencing some performance issues, which I have to resolve.

There are also a lot of things I will miss from freebsd, like pf (ufw is not bad, but is only firewall, not routing or nat), control-t in terminal and things like zfs, d-trace, which I did not use but has a lot of potential.

For now, I am slowly migrating, which is a lot of work and progresses slowly, small changes in the setup needs tuning, I need to migrate site by site, and especially mail is going to be hard. But we are getting there.

Tags: linux,sysadmin,server

After using the Epson R-D1 for a while, I was not completely satisfied. It is a nice camera, I love the analog camera handling (manual shuttercocking, beautiful dials, quiet, display can be folded away) but somehow it felt a bit.. lacking. I took some nice pictures with the camera, and it did feel like shooting analog, but still, the photo’s from my M6 looked so much better.

It was mostly obvious when I was shooting during rehearsalweekend with my orchestra with a new lens, Voigtländer Nokton 35/1.4, a very nice, contrasty lens. The photo’s from the epson where quite ok. The photo’s from the M6 where AMAZING.

After that, I did some shooting for cinemasia. First I was shooting with my Nikon D200, but I did not like it at all, pics where ok, IQ better than the Epson, but still no love for SLR. So I ended up shooting with the M6 and R-D1 instead which worked ok.

Then I got obsessed with the M8. Saw some reasonably cheap M8’s on marktplaats, but it was a hassle to actually get one, until I could buy one from a very nice guy from who I bought the Voigtlander before. And I love it. I do prefer a black one, so maybe someday I might trade it in, but it is a beautiful camera and it does work like my M6.




So how does it compare to the Epson R-D1?


Things I like better on the Epson:

- Shutter is a bit more silent. I can cock the shutterm anually, but the M8 also has a discreet mode.
- Seeing all parameters on the dials, without having to turn on the display
- Black & white preview even when shooting raw
- Display can be folded away
- Iso 1600 is somewhat cleaner (less noise) than the M8
- On/off switch is better: on the m8 I tend to switch it to continues mode
- Less infrared sensitivity
- White balance is better (not that I use colour...)
- Small charger

Things I like better about the M8:

- higher resolution, 10 versus 6 Mpixel. Of course Mpixel is not that important, but the M8 is a LOT sharper, I can use crops better
- better framelines, 90mm frameline
- Automatic cocking
- 2500 ISO mode (not great, but usable)
- Smaller
- Much better contrast
- It’s a Leica, and I am not immune to snobism...
- Crop of 1.3 instead of 1.5
- Supports SDHC cards instead of just SD
- Just works like my M6
- Uses DNG

In the end, the most important things for me are: better IQ (mostly contrast), smaller and snobism... What I was looking for was a digital M6, for black & white photography and I found it. I might even do less film (although I just bought 20 rolls of xp2).

Next to the M8, the Epson feels bulky. It is bigger than my Nikon SLR.






There you have it. That made me decide to sell the Epson.

There are a lot of serious complaints about the M8:
- Loud shutter (but there is a discrete mode to postpone the cocking, and it is still more silent than a dslr)
- Infrared sensitivity (which is nice for IR phtography, can be dealt with with an infrared cut filter, and does not matter so much in black & white)
- Bad high iso performance (still usable, has a nice grain when converted to black and white and does retain a lot of sharpness)
- Slow writing to the card (is an issue, but I try not to chimp, so it’s not such a big deal)

And of course, what matters are the photos.

Tags: photography

I finally found a digital camera that matches my kind of photography. It is the Epson R-D1.

In general, my favourite cameras at the moment are the Leica M6 and the Hasselblad 500CM. The quality of medium format is amazing, but of course, it is not always practical. I do miss the lightmeter on the Hasselblad. So I have been using my Leica mostly. But in many situations, shooting on film is not practical, for example during the Magnum workshop in Barcelona, I spent a lot of time going to the lab and having my negatives scanned. I also realized that for me, the reason I shoot with my M6, is not just a case of digital versus analog, but also colour versus black and white and rangefinder versus SLR. I simply do not like dslr's that much. Not that they are bad, but I prefer either the silent, compact rangefinder, or the MF Hasselblad if I want maximum quality.

My panasonic LX3 turned out to be a really good camera, so I used that one a lot for the excercises during the workshop, but it does have it's limitations.

I wanted a digital rangefinder, the digital equivalent of the Leica M6. Of course, there are the Leica M8, M8.2 and M9. I would love to have a Leica M9, but it is very expensive. I was looking at the M8's, they are dropping in price, but still quite expensive and they have the IR issues. Also not necessarily a very compact or quiet camera.

Then I came across the Epson R-D1. Tried bidding on it before, and this time I got it.

And I love it. It was a lot cheaper than a M8. It is not that small, it is actually a little bigger than my Nikon FE2 SLR, bigger than my M6 but smaller than the D200. It's quiet, not as quiet as the M6 but a lot quieter than the D200. Part of it is thanks to the fact that you need to manually recock the shutter with the lever. It’s a sturdy camera and it has a Leica M mount. AE mode, iso up to 1600 and a lovely user interface with a wheel and dials.

That is the first thing I love about the camera: it looks and handles like an analog RG camera: lever to cock the shutter (so I can avoid some noise), beautiful analog dials showing the state of battery and card, no connectors, display can be folded away which I do, iso mode is set in the wheel. But it is a digital camera.

Of course it is not the newest sensor, it's a 6 Mpixel sensor (more than enough), which was also in the nikon D100, but it actually has good high iso performance and good colours. Metering is a simple centreweighted. It has a small buffer and the dynamic range is not comparable with for example a nikon d700, but quite good nonetheless.

The disadvantages: 1.5 cropfactor, small buffer (only 3 images RAW), no support for SDHC, only SD (so max 2G cards), small RF patch (but it has a great 1.0x RF), no framelines for 90mm.

But all of those things I can live with. It is quiet, it works with my Leica lenses, with the lenses it is a reasonable compact set, has good high iso performance, and is simply a joy to use. After some frustrating experiences with labs who do not develop my film that well, or damage my negatives and with troubles scanning my negatives with noise and clipping, I am very tempted by this camera to go digital.

And of course, what matters are the photos.

Tags: photography

It’s getting a bit out of hand. On the picture: Polaroid 636, Zorki 4, Nikon FE2, Nikon D1, Nikon D200, Panasonic LX3, Leica CL, Leica M6, Hasselblad 500CM and Epson R-D1.

That is:

3 nikons
2 leicas
2 dslr’s
4 slrs (of which 2 digital and 1 mediumformat)
3 rangefinders (of which 1 digital)
4 digital and 6 analog cameras

I am getting rid of my Leica CL, which breaks my heart but I will sell it to a loving home of a talented photographer who I met at the Magnum workshop. I will also get rid of the LX3, but I might replace it with an olympus E-P2 someday.

So what do I use?

The camera I use a lot is the Hasselblad. Nothing can beat the quality of the Hasselblad. Then the Leica M6 is a wonderful camera. And now the Epson R-D1. More on the R-D1 later. The others I seldom use.

Tags: photography

The Magnum workshop in Barcelona was AMAZING! I had a wonderful time. 72 people in six groups with 6 teachers, people from all over the world sharing the same passion. Met so many nice people. My teacher, Chien Chi Chang is a great photographer, a great teacher, a great and funny guy.

Tags: photography

So I got accepted to the Magnum photography workshop in Barcelona:

http://events.magnumphotos.com/magnum-workshop/magnum-workshop-barcelona

I am looking forward to it, and the people of the group seem to be very nice, though I got a bit nervous when I saw that a lot of people from the group are professionals. I am also nervous about the assignments. In any case, I am very excited. Never been to Barcelona before.

So I thought, what shall I be packing? Digital would be more practical, but film is better for me. And in any case, I would love to use a digital rangefinder, but I do not have it. I almost bought an epson R-D1 but it was sold. I also could borrow the M8 of a friend, but decided against it. So I will be packing my Hasselblad 500CM, my Leica M6 and my panasonic LX3. I would be surprised if I actually would use the panasonic the most. I will also bring 10 rolls of xp2 35 mm, 10 rolls xp2 120 rollfilm and a few rolls of *gasp* colour...

Tags: photography

Like I said, I do analog photography, because I make better pictures that way and because I can afford two of the best analog cameras ever: the Leica M6 and the Hasselblad 500CM. There are however a few devices which would make me consider doing digital. If I could afford them that is:

The Leica M9 full frame digital RF camera. 5500 euro.



The leaf aptus II digital back for Hasselblad (works on my 500 CM). How expensive? If you have to ask, you can't afford it. The cheaper aptus 75 is about $ 32000.



So for now, I wil stick to analog.

Tags: photography

This is my camera disassembled. You see: Hasselblad 500CM camera, waist lever viewfinder, polaroid back, A12 6x6 filmback, filmtransport knob, Carl Zeiss Planar T* 80/2.8 lens, hood and UV filter, focussing screen. I have ordered another A12 magazine and I am thinking of getting the accubrite focussing screen, modern style film advance knob, lindahl darkslide holder and maybe the flashshoe + voigtlander clipon lightmeter.

So, I have been using this camera for some time and I absolutely love it. It is such a different way of photography, and maybe not ideal for every circumstance, but it has a certain zen like quality. Things I have learned:

- Loading the film is critical. I have been loading my film the wrong way around, wasting them. A 120 roll of film has film and a protective sheet.
- Before removing or adding a filmback or a lens, cock the shutter. This should be standard practice.
- I love the square format, and composing on the focussing screen through the waist level view finder.
- Kodak Tri-X 400 is actually quite nice. I am also very curious how the Ilford XP2 will turn out.
- Polaroid back with fuji instantfilm works. To load the film, you do not have to put the slipthrough the slit. The film takes a long way to dry and soils very easily before it is dry. The film is also quite unforgiving in exposure, does not have a lot of dynamic range and only exposes a small piece. Filmforwarding is awkward with the old style transportsling. But it has it's very own charm.
- Ebay is a good site for accessories, even no name ones, like focussing screens, lenscovers and darkslide holders, but also used A12 magazines.

And of course, what matters are the photos.

Tags: photography

My favourite lens on the Nikon FE2 was the 85mm2.0. Very compact, lightstrong lens and I made some of my best photos with that lens. So I wanted a similar lens for my M6. Of course I would like to have the pictured Leica 90mm2.0 summicron APO aspheric, but that one costs 4500 euro..

When I bought my Leica CL I got a Elmar 90mm4.0 with it, which is a nice lens and very compact but not so lightsensitive. A more lightsensitive lens was not possible on the CL because of the small rangefinder base and that was one of the reasons I got a M6. From a friend, Rodriaan, who collects russian cameras, I borrowed a FED Jupiter 9, 90mm2.0. It works on my Leica using a LTM adaptor I got on ebay. The lens is not too bad if stopped down, its short and a bit fat. But it is not coated and at 2.0 it is very soft, very low contrast, so I did not like that. Then at fotoabro, a very nice used photoequipment store in Zaandam, I saw this Leica elmarit 90mm2.8 for relatively cheap. It is pretty big, long, quite old, but looked quite clean. So I bought it and I am very very happy with it. It is the first 90mm elmar, from the 50's or the 60's.



Here you see the Leica elmar 90/4, theLeica elmarit 90/2.8 and the FED Jupiter 90/2.

But what matters are the photos. I love the sharpness, the contrast and the beautiful bokeh of the Leica elmarit 90/2.8.

Leica M6, Leica elmarit 1 90/2.8, Ilford XP2.

Tags: photography

My Leica M6 had some issues: rangefinder was not precise, lightmeter was a bit off and it had a serious glare problem (a known M6 problem) which made it unusable in strong light. I found a nice man in Soest, recommended to me by Jay who adjusted my rangefinder and lightmeter and cleaned and lubricated my camera and now it works perfectly. I also bought a shade from leicagoodies which solves my glare problem (for $ 10...). As you can see in the picture, it is a sort of pola filter for the RF lightwindow. Framelines are lsightly less clear, but that is ok with me. Now it works perfectly again and I am very happy. The repairman (email me for his number, he is an amazing and capable man and I had a very enjoyable evening talking to him about many things) also checked my Hasselblad. Turned out my Hasseblad is fine, I just loaded the film wrongly... more on the Hasselblad later..

Tags: photography

I have to take care that I do not become some analog snob. In fact, to me, digital is not necessary inferior to analog photography. It's just that I make better pictures in general using analog photography than using digital. If I use my Nikon D200 and shoot 200 photos in a day, I maybe have 2 or 3 good pictures. If I use my Leica M6, and bring the roll of 36 to the lab, I very often have 20 good photos on that roll. That is how it works for me.

It is not just the difference between analog and digital, but also between colour and black & white. I make better pictures in b &w. Other things play an important role: I always have my Leica M6 with me (but also my digital panasonic LX3), the Leica is a very quiet and small camera and the film I use, Ilford XP2 has a very good dynamic range and works well in low light conditions. New digital cameras like the Nikon D3 and the Canon 1DsIII also have a very good dynamic range, but I can not afford those cameras: that is also an important thing: I have a Leica M6 and a Hasselblad 500CM, two of the best analog cameras in history, got them for relatively cheap, but I can not afford a good digital camera (I would like to have at least a Nikon D700.. in a Leica M8 body...).

It would be possible for me to just convert photos to black and white, but I do not want that kind of photography: taking a lot of digital pictures and then having to decide for each photo if I want it in b&w or colour, plus the dynamic range of my D200 is by far not as good as my xp2 film. For me, this hybrid way of working works best: I take my pictures on film, have them developped and scanned in by Hema labs, process them in my computer using lightroom and print them on my epson R2400. Printing them in the darkroom would be better, if my printing skills where up to par, which they are not.

On the other hand, some of my most interresting pictures where taken with my mobile phone, because I had it with me. In the end that is what matters: which camera do you have with you, ready to take pictures.

Tags: photography

When I started photography, I had an old canon pellix QL camera from my father. Canon was and is, of course a fine brand of cameras. But I wanted a Nikon, because that was what all the reporters used, because it was known to be very sturdy. Much later, in 2004 I got my first Nikon, a FE2, an excellent camera which I used to make many great pictures. In those days, Nikon was a great brand, but the ultimate (and expensive) brands where Leica and Hasselblad. In 2008 I bought my first Leica, a Leica CL. Wonderful small, quiet RF camera. In 2009 I bought a Leica M6, which is now my main camera. I made a lot of great pictures using my M6. Then, a few weeks ago, I bought a Hasselblad 500CM. And it's lovely.

Both the Leica and the Hasselblad show why they are such great cameras. Not just that, having a rangefinder camera, and a mediumformat camera is quite a different experience from using a normal SLR, and certainly much different from a dSLR.

When I started using my M6, it was not so that it was superior to my Nikon, but it was different, and handling it resulted in a slightly different character and images. The lens had different qualities, but it being a very small and quiet camera also influenced my photography. In some ways it was more limited, but I started to appreciate those limits. It also meant that it was easier for me to always have my camera with me, which I did not have with my Nikon SLR.

Now with the Hasselblad, things are also quite different. It is a professional system camera. You really have to know what you do. Make a mistake, and you can jam your shutter, miss a shot or waste film. I found out this the hard way, as the first four rolls I shot where all blank: turned out I had loaded the film the wrong way.

In that sense I have been going back in terms of comfort: from a Nikon D200 dSLR with autofocus, autoexposure, autowhitebalance to a Nikon FE2 (MF, A mode) to a Leica M6 (manual focus, manual exposure, manual film wind) to a hasselblad (manual everything, no lightmeter). It takes more time to take a picture and I love it. It brings with it quite a zen quality: I only have 12 frames on a roll. I have to measure with my lightmeter, enter LW value on the lens, choose time/diafragma combination, make sure the shutter is cocked, open the viewfinder, open the magnifier, focus and then take the picture, then cock the shutter. The fact that I use a lower perspective thanks to the view finder hood, and that I look at the composition on the focussing screens makes it quite a different experience in composing my picture. I also have a polaroid back for it, using it with fuji colour and black and white instant film is also quite fun.

In any case, thanks to everyone going digital, I could get the Leica and Hasselblad for reasonable prices. They still are wonderful cameras and it is like driving a rolls royce and a bentley. But I bought these cameras to take pictures, not for collecting and not for status. I remember this friend of my father, who was quite rich, who owned a Hasselblad and two Leicas, but he did not take pictures. He also had a Steinway grandpiano and he did not play it. I find that nauseating. These fine instruments should be used. So I am using them.

Tags: photography

After a lot of searching I finally got the ultimate printer. (I now have four printers, a samsung laserprinter with duplex, a canon ip4300 and a canon ix4000, I am selling the ix4000).

I wanted an inkjet printer which prints good b & w photos and prints A3. I was eying the epson r2400 for some time but it was a bit expensive. So a long time ago I just bought a canon ip4300 which was about 90 euros, and prints very very well and very very quickly. It also prints cds. I can recommend this printer. Of course, the b & w photos will have a bit of a colour hue, but on Hema paper it is not so bad.

But I wanted A3, so I got the ix4000. The ix4000 however is not as good as the 4300, it does print A3, but it does not have a photo black cartridge. Making colour prints it’s quite good at, but b&w is not usable.

I was looking at the epson r2880 and the canon pixma pro 9500 mII, but both are very expensive still, but they do have the special gray inks. The r2880 is also a lot more economic with ink than the r2400.

Then I saw the epson r2400 for cheap 2nd hand, and I immediately went and bought it, from a nice man who is also a Leica user (Secret handshake...). It took some time to find the right leopard drivers and the right settings. And officially the ilford classic glossy paper is not recommended for this printer. And it takes 17 minutes to print an A3 photo. It uses 8 cartridges and those are not cheap.

But the quality is awesome. Even on the unsupported Ilford paper and on Hema paper, the quality is amazing, especially on black & white photos.

Tags: photography

My eight camera.. a Fuji F30. One of the best compact digital cameras when it comes to performance in high iso mode. It’s successor, the f31 is slightly better, but the successors after that had inferior high iso performance because the marketing droids wanted more megapixels. Another example of marketing fucking up a good product. Fuji is coming with a new one, the f200 which is even better, but it is more expensive and not out yet and panasonic has the LX 3, supposed to be very good, but as expensive as a DSLR.



Taken with the fujif30, processed in lightroom with a preset.


UPDATE: I sold the fuji and bought a Panasonic LX3. It is even better, but I hardly take photos with it: I use it mostly for taking HD movies, which it does very very well...

Tags: photography

This is the ultimate camera. At least for me.



It’s a Leica M6 and I love it. It is analog, rangefinder and leica. Mechanically superior, smooth, reliable and quiet. Very sturdy and quite compact and I got it for quite a good price. Here it is shown with the summicron 40/2 I got with my CL. Now I want a 90/2.0 APO summicron asph, but that is very expensive, so now I have an elmar 90/4 and a Jupiter 90/2 for which I have to get a LTM adapter.

The M6 is very nice and the most important reason I wanted to get one besides my LC is the better optical base so that I can use a 90/2, which the rangefinder of the LC is not accurate enough for. Hoewever, there are a few things the LC is better at: the LC seems to be a bit quieter, the shutterwheel is a lot nicer, you see the shutterspeed in your viewfinder and it is smaller.

The M6 is mechanically much better, has a better optical base and filmloading is a lot easier.

There is one issue which is solvable, and that is flare problems. When you take a picture with a lot of backlight, the rangefinder flares up, making it impossible to focus. Will have it fixed with CLA service.

Anyway, I shot a lot of photos with it, see www.christiantan.com, from january 2009.

Tags: photography

I bought a new laptop, an apple Macbook pro 2.4 early 2008 edition, so the previous generation macbook pro.



So why this one? The thing is, I did not want to spend too much money and I got a bit annoyed with some of the limitations of the old macbook, mostly the casing which started falling apart and the lack of a good gpu. Read More...

Tags: mac,apple

My first camera was a fujica pcoket 200 I got from my parents, which they bought for me in Singapore. It used 100 roll film, and the photos where not great. This was in 1977.



This started it all. Read More...

So I bought a Behringer BCD 3000 in an impulse. I am not a DJ, but I did take a DJ course some time ago, learning DJ-ing on decks and on CD. Well, I still would like to improve my DJ skills on vinyl, but I do not have a working recordplayeranymore, and I will skip CD’s. I see no use for cd’s in the mp3 age. Hence the Behringer. Read More...

Tags: reviews,audio,dj,music

So I got myself an Iphone 3G 16G black, and after working with it for a few days I thought I'd write a review.

So first thing first: this phone rocks. There is nothing like it. Working with an iphone is like working for the first time with os X: it might not be perfect, and still has some quirks but everything else just blows compared to this one. Apple gets it. It gets how a smartphone should work, and in that aspect, it reminds me a bit of palm os in the beginning, which then was also quite good. The biggest thing is that it does not try to be a computer like the one on your desktop. That is a big flaw in for example, windows mobile.

I haven’t been so excited about a new device in ages like I am now with the iphone. Read More...

Tags: apple,iphone,review,gadgets

So NXP makes the Mifare RFID chipcard which they want to use for public transport in the Netherlands, and which is already in use as the Oyster and Octopus card in the UK and Hong Kong. NXP turns out to be an incompetent bunch of people who are not able to implement decent encryption on their system. (Reminds me of Nedap). Researchers from Germany (CCC) and Netherlands (Radboud university) found this out, and wanted to publish the results. So instead of solving these problems and making NXP responsible for this failure they try to stop the publication of this paper by the university.

Fortunately, things thend to leak.

Read More...

I am finalizing the migration of my old to my new server. The last steps where email and dns, and this has been relatively painless. Some things that helped where:
- rsync 3.0.0. It is so much faster than rsync 2.x.
- powerdns. I moved from bind to powerdns with mysql backend. It is quite a joy to have your zones in a mysql database. Change MX records in one go with a simple query.
- poweradmin, a webinterface for powerdns. Not perfect, but combined with mysql queries you have a rather powerful combo.
Read More...

Tags: sysadmin,unix,freebsd,java

Many people got a dslr camera recently, which for many of them is their first SLR, and they want to learn how to do photography, so they ask me for advice. I started with analog photography and I have done development and printing myself, so that was a very useful experience. But since these people do not want to go through the analog process they have to learn it the digital way. What I recommend in the first place is to put everything on automatic and start making a lot of pictures under many different circumstances. Try to avoid using the flash however. In that way, you will see what your camera is capable off, where the automatic functions are doing their job well, and when the circumstances make the automatic exposure, autofocus and auto whitebalance fail. It also allows you to focus on two most important aspects of photography: timing, because you still have to press the button at the right moment and composition. Those who are used to compact cameras will have to get used to using the viewfinder instead of the display. So, in this mode, photography is a matter of composing the image by the use of zoom, by looking in the viewfinder and then pressing the button. There is also the parameter of programme shift, where you can choose a faster time with a larger aperture and vice versa: see what happens if you do this, learn about motion blur, sharp depth. Also try the exposure compensation buttons: how does your image look if you under or over expose it. And check the images on your computer, the display is not a good place to check your pictures. See if your camera, in auto mode, does proper exposure and focus and if not, in which circumstances not.


After that, I recommend to switch off automatic functions one by one, and see how it affects things and what parameters you now have to control yourself. Switch off autofocus and focus manually, although this may be a bit of a hassle in modern dslr's. The next mode I would choose is A mode, for apperture in which you choose the apperture and the camera will choose the matching shutterspeed. This is actually the mode I use most of the time, both analog and digital. This has to do with the fact that I like taking pictures with maximum apperture and thus smallest sharpdepth, and I like taking pictures in low light conditions without flash. Use this, in combination with manual focus to see how apperture affects sharpdepth, which parts are in focus, and what range. Also, if you have different lenses or a zoom lens, see how sharpdepth is different among those lenses or among the different zoomlevels.

The next thing would be S for shutter mode. You choose shutterspeed and the camera chooses apperture. Check out how the picture is affected by shutterspeed, how you get motion blur or when you can freeze an action. Also see how this differs among different lenses or zoom settings.

Next: M for manual. Here you will have to do everything yourself, you set apperture and speed, you focus and then you take the picture. This is how it was done in the early days. See how this feels, learn how to use the light meter.

When you use these modes, you can of course choose if you want to use autofocus or not. But especially when using the A mode and you are trying to see how sharpdepth works, (use your DOF button if you have it!) I would recommend to use manual focus.

After this there are many other things you can experiment with, like iso settings: the more sensitive the iso mode, the more noise. White balance, different settings, how do they affect your colour represntation? Flash. This is a very difficult part of photography, which I try to avoid wherever possible. Bracketing.


New DSLR's have loads and loads of buttons, but I would say, limit yourself to the essentials.

The shutter button, the mode button which switches between P, A, M and S, the switch which turns on or off autofocus, the button for iso mode and th button for checking the pic on the display. Forget the rest for now.

Tags: photography,digital photography

I love FreeBSD. Some time ago I switched from linux to freebsd on my servers. Read More...

Tags: freebsd,unix,sysadmin