munro harrap

munro harrap

Lives in France Paris, France
Works as a artist
Has a website at none
Joined on Dec 27, 2007
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Total: 115, showing: 1 – 20
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On Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 DC HSM Preview preview (159 comments in total)

This ia a 27-55mm lens but it has the unstabilized length of a 70-200mm f4 lens.
Everybody knows how difficult it is to hold a long lens still, and it covers APS-C only,so....

Direct link | Posted on Apr 25, 2013 at 09:07:20 UTC as 7th comment | 2 replies
On Just Posted: Hands-on with the Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 DC HSM news story (91 comments in total)

In practice it is very limited because there is no VR. A long lens for wide-angle use is always bad. You forget that length too easily. The 24-70 Canon and Nikon lenses for full-frame rack out to their longest length at their widest setting- as do the 28-85 Nikkor and other older designs, and this means you are HERE using in effect a non-stabilized 70-200 SIZE glass to achieve 27-55mm effect-your in-stability is increased .Regardless of its speed that you cannot use most of the time, that is an extraordinarily long barrel for a 27-55mm lens- a zoom length of precious little use anyway!!

Wait till they IS it!!

Direct link | Posted on Apr 25, 2013 at 08:58:43 UTC as 2nd comment | 2 replies
In reply to:

Mr Fartleberry: Krockwell reports the lense is made in China. So why is it so damn expensive?

Macs are made in China and I have had the new Retina here and it had to go back as it is SO badly designed (in the USA, obviously, that there is no way of insulating in/out current through the USB3 and Thunderbolt ports and they short to the chassis. Did the US actually get into Space? AMAZING!!

Direct link | Posted on Mar 6, 2013 at 16:22:49 UTC

This is plain daft. Want/need are irrelevant here. Yes, if you duplicate devices that produce the same quality of image the same way, it's you daft as you do not need them, but there are cameras whose results justify owning them because the results have a particular quality or can do some things v.well. Like Nikon 950 for macro and a Ricoh i700 because you can go online with it and send handwritten notes, and because it has a 3" screen and good rechargeable batteries AND produces images that are special to it by nature.

This is not art, but a symtom of mental ill-health, and like much art, just plain vanity- it's "look at me" stuff without merit. My sympathies go out to all involved.

Direct link | Posted on Jan 23, 2013 at 13:30:35 UTC as 7th comment
On Leica invites entries for its Oskar Barnack Award 2013 news story (34 comments in total)

THey seem to have deleted last years entries, and those of previous years-not a good sign, as you cannot see now how they made their selections at all, but it is a fgreat competition: I enter to be able to use a Leica again-too expensive otherwise.
It is free to enter as ALL competitions should be. I am frankly anmazed at people who dare to charge you to possess for free your output! It should be the other way around.

Direct link | Posted on Jan 21, 2013 at 08:50:03 UTC as 3rd comment

The last sentence got to me. Rubbish! TVs colour is absolutely terrible. WE have an excellent customizeable Sharp panel here, but the colours are not in a digital camera's colour space or class: the two do not interface. HDTV footage like the excellent new "Africa" series, and a few ads ARE correctly colour balanced for TV, but the rest is nowhere.

One reason we invested in our Sharp was to use it with photos as a monitor- please be assured that this is impossible. PLasma is better, but still not sRGB or ARGB, or Wide Gamut or Pro Photo RGB either, so on a TV, all your colours are false-just like your office Dell monitor, but worse!!

Direct link | Posted on Jan 13, 2013 at 12:34:35 UTC as 8th comment
On What's new @ CES 2013 article (126 comments in total)

NOw we hold off buying computers with conventional Hard Disc Drives because they are too slow to use with USB2 and 3, and want Solid State drives instead, so too we should hold off buying these tiny sensored cameras that physically are big enough to use APS-C and even full-frame. The new Fuji may be OK, but the x100 SHOULD be a full-frame machine. Even Leitz-not exactly the most adventurous of designers, have gone full-frame at the same price.

As to the tiny sensos, well, you may as well stay with a Canon G2,3,5,6 or even a Nikon 950 as the cramming of pixels (and/or their imterpolation) has done nothing for PHOTOGRAPHY at all- just as this site repeatedly said years ago.

The number of secondhand new compacts on the market bears witness- they really are toys.

Direct link | Posted on Jan 13, 2013 at 12:25:28 UTC as 10th comment | 7 replies
On CES 2013: Hands-on with Samsung NX300 article (147 comments in total)

A camera with no viewfinder is a car with no steering wheel. Discuss.

Direct link | Posted on Jan 10, 2013 at 10:55:17 UTC as 22nd comment | 13 replies
On UK's biggest high-street camera store enters administration news story (234 comments in total)

Imagine having no bakers or fishmongers, and having to buy EVERYTHING online.80% of all I have bought online has to be returned because it arrives wrecked- the incompetence has to be seen to be believed- but you do not get this with a shop and can simply take it back if it proves to be no good, much better, and so much less hassle.

On the other hand there is more legal protection online, and you are less likely to fall victim to the eccentricities of shopkeepers who resent being told to their faces, however politely, that the machinery they sell is below par-probably because its got wrecked already on its long badly packed journey from the Far East.

Having been thrown around in vans by British couriers-all right, MATE?!-being usually the final blow....

Notice how Apple, Dell, Nikon, Canon, do not deliver? Sony? Panasonic? (both send out cameras costing thousands in plastic bags)

Can't they AFFORD their own transportation? WE should be able to buy direct and have them do so!!!

Direct link | Posted on Jan 10, 2013 at 10:51:55 UTC as 40th comment
On {Text:Title} preview (214 comments in total)

It is about the same body size as a Nikon D series APS-C SLR- only the lens stops them being pocketable, but the IQ will be garbage in comparison. Do we hate our wives and children this much that we buy them these baubles, this bling, these trinkets??!!
They now ALL only last 10 years max as to cheat the rich guys with their full-frame machines and lenses these products are being made with lead-free solder that degrades growing whiskers that short-circuit everything. Irrepairable too.
Your CHOICE??

Direct link | Posted on Jan 8, 2013 at 09:10:17 UTC as 44th comment | 3 replies
On Best Camera of 2012: And the Winner is... news story (1412 comments in total)

OK, it won, but so did VHS! And you could all be using your LPs scanned and tracked by Lasar, didn't ya know?

Ilove Olympus OM series machines, but this machine is nothing like. The very idea that they are in any way comparable is just plain daft.

I voted D800 because it is so much smaller and lighter in practice. How? With just one 24-85mm lens you have everything covered at higher resolution and size compared to this overbig mini 4:3 beastie.

Remember the Nikon has the APS-C option giving you 15MP? with the option to view the frame within the Full-frame viewfinder? Well? That is a Leica with a zoom lens. You can use a 24 as a 36mm and zoom in to 127mm, Brownies, or stay Full-Frame, and remember how much you can crop a 36MP image? Stinks, doesn't it

If the OM-D was also Full-frame would it have won??

Direct link | Posted on Jan 2, 2013 at 01:01:20 UTC as 265th comment | 1 reply
On Sony RX1 Hands-on Preview preview (627 comments in total)

There does need to be a rangefinder within a proper parallax corrected viewfinder at this price. Any DSLR can now shoot through the back in live view AND has a prism too, so I would not invest, although it's a cute toy. You have to remember that 20 years ago we were a lot fussier and there would have been no more a market for this than for a resurrected viewfinder-less Leica- the one Bessa made was very cheap and not a success. Separate viewfinders are inaccurate, they get lost easily, you cannot use them to focus through-its a pig of a slow beast to use, and accurate framing holding the thing out like a smartphone use or a compact user is just VERY slow, and it is unnatural. As to size well there are full-frame 35mm film compacts with viewfinders and the same lens that are as compact, - I had an Olympus 35-SP with a 40mm f1.8 lens that had an accurate viewfinder, accurate focusing and spot metering-also accurate that cost a fraction of the RX1

Direct link | Posted on Dec 29, 2012 at 04:25:51 UTC as 16th comment
On The Lightroom catalog article (315 comments in total)

In lightroom part of their database comprises files the owner cannot open. THese are not the browser cache files but rather are what could be compressed image files, but they are called DAT files and are found in Documents/Appdata/Adobe/Lightroom/Cache. Everytime you open an imported image one of these appears
there, and if you import a days work all that work is filed their as DAT files you cannot touch, but which I presume Adobe uses-because you cannot! So what are they? And why does Lightroom still not has the same sharpening threshold as Photoshop - down to 0.2 pixel instead of the much cruder 0.5 pixel?

Direct link | Posted on Dec 29, 2012 at 04:08:19 UTC as 65th comment

Patents can be usaed to prevent competitors producing what you yourself do not want to, but see as a threat.
Besides Leitz already HAVE Digital backs for their later R series SLRs.

Direct link | Posted on Dec 27, 2012 at 05:57:54 UTC as 9th comment
On Dpreview Users' Poll: Best Camera of 2012? news story (1514 comments in total)

When you vote, it does say "The BEST camera of 2012". Not the one you own, or like, or find handy cos it doesn't weigh a ton, the best one.
With a D800 you can make a pro quality movie. Your prints can be as big as a Picasso or Delacroix epic painting and your macro shots , well, are potentially the best possible from any camera on the planet-if you are any good, that is. I shall spend the rest of my life trying to fulfil its potential. Even in low light it is better than 35mm ever was, and makes the D4 they charge more than double for quite redundant. You are expected to vote for the BEST camera, not some joke toy!

Direct link | Posted on Dec 27, 2012 at 05:49:08 UTC as 67th comment | 7 replies
On Dpreview Users' Poll: Best Camera of 2012? news story (1514 comments in total)

The D800 outclasses every other machine here, very easily. I bought one because I just wanted to be able to get film quality from a digital camera, rather than painterly faked results-like the OM-D and all other compacts listed here give you, bar the Fuji Models that have reliability and speed of focussing and viewfinder useability problems. With a D800 you can simply forget the tech and the hype and photograph, however much you hate its cost and its loss of the rear focus pad that was there on other D Nikons, as it still is on the Canons. It takes ALL AI and AIS manual lenses too, so for a modest outlay you are back to the old ways-and gaze- with the new technology, and if you want to compromise, vote otherwise! But one day all cameras will be like this......

Direct link | Posted on Dec 27, 2012 at 05:32:13 UTC as 68th comment | 4 replies
On Sony RX1 Hands-on Preview preview (627 comments in total)

Japanese camera manufacturers know how stupid we westerners really are (trusting banks, Afghanistan, etc; and how gullible), but these constant attempts to foist designs that are as old as the first Leica on us wont do.

Today a machine without a viewfinder copying a design that is 90 years out of date is only for idiots IMHO, and one whose viewfinder is not close enough to the body is worse, never mind the price.

Cartier-Bresson only suceeded due to his enormous enthousiasm and love for a new medium, but for us this is NOT new.

A full-frame SONY R1 would be, but they have copied those dreadful Panasonic and Olympus machines people offload soon after getting them instead. You will replace this with a DSLR or an R7, certes!

Direct link | Posted on Nov 29, 2012 at 12:59:55 UTC as 37th comment | 2 replies

There now needs to be information from Sigma and Canon as well as Sony as to whether they are using regular or lead-free solders. Nikon admits it does and marks new equipment with an arrowed 10 logo to indicate a lifespan of around a decade before the circuits become both unusable and irrepairable.

Is the Sony A99 time-limited and the Mark II and III 5D Canons and the 1Ds series including the new 1Dx?

I believe prospective purchasers are entitled to know, as they can last less than a decade due to the solder sprouting "Tin Whiskers" (NASA)

Direct link | Posted on Nov 26, 2012 at 23:16:33 UTC as 4th comment
On Sony NEX-6 Hands-on Preview preview (229 comments in total)

Sorry but still no appeal for me. It could have the D800 or D600 sensor. It doesn't.
When you buy a camera at this price- and they are extremely expensive, you surely expect the results to equal film.

There is nothing to stop Sony using their own excellent full-frame sensors , and like Nikon give us the option of Full-frame use with suitable lenses and APS-C use with what we already have.

It is still just an R1 with bits on

Direct link | Posted on Oct 28, 2012 at 15:16:37 UTC as 39th comment | 5 replies

Buy the new iMac or a MacBook Pro instead, makes sense, but maybe check about their solder first?

Direct link | Posted on Oct 24, 2012 at 23:04:01 UTC as 13th comment
Total: 115, showing: 1 – 20
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