What goes to Cuba

Flying over Loos

Voting Result

the result of the last poll was rahter surprising for me. i expected that digital is the preferred capture medium but it was a draw. so film isn´t dead yet.

last fall imaging dinosaur KODAK released a new film emulsion called EKTAR 100 in 135 small format. in earlier times the ektar family was a kind of film that was very sharp, very saturated and had very fine grain-structures but it was very slow, like ISO 25 or 64. the new EKTAR 100 implements technologies found in the kodak motion picture emulsions. the new film is said to be able to capture high contrast scenes with ease and is much faster than its predecessors while still incorporating the old virtues. it seems there is still a lot of money in the film business as kodak has now released the EKTAR 100 also as 120 rollfilm. can´t wait to feed it through my Mamiya RZ and the Contax 645.

Book Review: Julius Shulman - Modernism Rediscovered

as everybody knows, i can´t pass a good bargain so one of my favourite bookstores caught me again with the Julius Shulman - Modernism Rediscovered which they had on sale for €19.90. this book weighs more than 3 kilogramms for sure, the paper size is large enough for not fitting in my cupboard. it is printed on good paper and in the best TASCHEN manner.

Julius Shulman was on of the best architecture photographers of the last century. his speciality was modern residential architecture in the West of the USA. He was discoverd by the famous architect Neutra who pushed him strongly and helped him to break through. i am sure that you have already seen lots of shulmans work, just do a google image-search on julius shulman to boost your memory. IMHO shulman´s images are just adorable, i wished i had such a compelling body of work (but i am young and still alive so there is still something to expect... or just check out the photos in the architcture section on my website).

the book itself is gorgeous and the images are gorgeous too. unfortunatly there is only little about shulmans technique. i think the book is more targeted towards the architecture crowd and not towards photographers. but shulman wrote another book together with neutra that seems to adress photography: Photographing Architecture and Interiors: Updated and Expanded. but i haven´t seen this on sale yet.

Me says: this book is a good buy, i give it a rating of 4 out of 5 (for not fitting in the cupboard and for showing some weaknesses of shulman concerning the use of indoor fill flash. but hey, with the equipment of that age, his work is still remarkable).

Welcome to CPS !

Welcome to Canon Provessional Service !

The recent purchase of the Canon Eos 20d also had a side benefit that i didn´t consider before: Membership to the Canon Professional Service. To apply for membership you need to have 2 pro-camera bodies and 3 pro-lenses. so i made the cut just barely.

CPS offers a lot to working photographers:

- two free sensor cleanings per year

- two check and cleans for every lens per year

- free test drive for equippment a.k.a. free renting (i think i will like this the best)

- prefered service treatment (like faster repairs and replacement unit )

- free CPS-magazine

and other goodies.

And the good thing is, all these things come for free! Can i call myself a pro now?

Secret Device unveilled

The tech-savies might have already found out by checking the exif-data of my last image that i got a Sony Ericson G502 cell-phone that has a 2 Megapixel camera built in. and it shoots video too. i will give it a review soon, have to get familiar with it first.