October 18th, 2007
Rob Galbraith reports that Canon USA has been advising some EOS-1D Mark III owners that a fix for the autofocus problem may be available in a couple weeks, which if true will surely please both Mark III owners and those who’ve been holding off on buying. The bad news is that it may involve taking the camera to a service center to replace a part, rather than just a firmware fix.
Update: Canon has spoken and confirmed the fix, and Rob has the scoop on all the details
October 7th, 2007
With many photojournalists now using audio to complement their slideshows, the question arises of what’s the best way to capture that audio in the field?
A while back the answer would have been a small MiniDisc recorder, but technology has moved on and the most attractive option now seems to be one of the growing range of solid-state audio recorders. There’s a number of machines already on the market, ranging from glorified MP3 players with a record function, to top-end professional field recorders costing $1000s.
Of those available the main criterion in my mind for use by photojournalists is that it has to be small enough to carry easily with all one’s camera equipment. These are some of the better models:
Samson Zoom H4
Samson Zoom H2
M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96 and MicroTrack II (coming soon)
Edirol R-09
Edirol R-1 (discontinued)
Marantz PMD660 and PMD620 (coming soon)
Korg MR-1
Sony PCM-D1 and PCM-D50 (coming soon)
Nagra ARES-M and ARES-MII
HHB FlashMic
Maycom Handheld II, MP3 Recorder kit, N>Trans
Olympus DM-10
One of the newest on the market is the Samsung Zoom H2 which seems a very attractive machine for those of us who need to do audio occasionally but cannot afford to be carrying something large. It’s packed with features including 4 separate internal microphones able to record in surround sound. I doubt this would be particularly useful for slideshows as most users don’t have more than stereo capability on their machines, but for me the main attraction is the small size, use of AA batteries, and pretty low price compared to others. It’s now shipping and the reviews are starting to come in:
Samson Zoom H2 review - also here and here
For more on field recording hardware, this blog is quite good. Finally, don’t forget a good microphone as it’s no use having a high-end recorder with a bad-quality mic - you’ll just end up with quality at the level of the weakest link in the chain…
If anyone has used any of these, I’d be interested to know your impressions…
October 7th, 2007
In the same vein as Delahaye’s large format work mentioned in the post below, a piece in Getty’s online magazine Edit entitled Walk, Don’t Run argues the advantages of slowing down the photojournalism process - either by the use of non-35mm cameras or simply by extended assignments - with some thoughts from Tom Stoddart and Ziyah Gafic.
October 7th, 2007
Two photographers I’ve met briefly whose exhibitions I’d like to see….
Luc Delahaye’s panoramic photographs of world events which are currently showing in the J. Paul Getty Museum are the subject of this LA Times article (sorry, registration required) and small photo gallery.
I’ve always loved Delahaye’s work, after being switched on to his Russian road journey book Winterreise by my friend Jeremy (check out his excellent blog btw, and article in this month’s Digital Journalist).
I ran into Luc whilst covering the recent fighting at Nahr el-Bared refugee camp in Lebanon earlier this year. Frankly, I didn’t recognise him and was perplexed as to why someone would be running around a conflict zone with a large format camera - it is somewhat unusual. It was only near the end of the conversation, on a rooftop watching shells land on the camp below, that I realised it was him and I wish I’d had a bit longer to chat. There’s some more pictures here and an exhibition brochure to download here, but of all the work that needs to be seen printed really large on a wall, this is probably it.
Tim Hetherington recently had an exhibition entitled “No Condition Is Permanent: Liberia in Transition” at the The Alice Austen House Museum in Staten Island, NY. Tim and I both covered the Liberian civil war of 2003 although from different sides - he travelled with the LURD rebels throughout whilst I was in the besieged capital Monrovia - and we only had the chance to meet briefly at the end when it was all over. He, James Brabazon, and Jonathan Stack turned their incredible footage into the documentary film “Liberia: An Uncivil War“. So I’d have been very happy to see this exhibition of his photos of Liberia covering the period 2003-2007 - but unfortunately I’ll have to make do with the slideshow.
October 7th, 2007
Bjarke Myrthu, the executive editor of Magnum In Motion, has posted the first portion of a multi-part article series about the work of Magnum’s multimedia department… This article deals with the philosophy and reasoning behind multimedia storytelling, and is well worth a read.
Magnum In Motion: The philosophy behind the story
