Pointless vanity project of the former Tabascokid

When you cover a job for a month, you very quickly lose track of what happened where and when so sitting down to write anything from the Winter Games in Whistler is going to be hard.  Long days and nights of covering training sessions on the icy slopes soon merge into one and only certain moments tend to stand out in the day.  As such, this blog is more of a collection of events and thoughts on my first Olympics.

After months of e-mails and planning, the day arrived for the UK photography team of two to head out to Canada.  As fellow London AFP staffer Adrian Dennis and I were waiting for our plane at Heathrow, a flurry of activity attracted my attention and Bryan Adams appeared.  Oddly enough, he wasn’t directed to cattle class at the back of the plane and that was the last we saw of him until the opening ceremony.  Also on the plane, Robert Carlyle sat unnoticed in Business Class.  As Adrian pointed out, when combined with the various Olympic teams on-board, if the plane had gone down, all of the media onboard wouldn’t have even made the foot notes.

Arriving in Vancouver, we made our way to the main media centre on the waterfront for our briefing.  Following a long day of travel with four cases full to capacity with clothing and equipment, we found ourselves in the AFP hub.  With events such as this, the main agencies and some publications set up a whole virtual bureau with AFP being no exception.  Walking into our area of the complex saw me being passed through the system with one person after another assigned to issue me with various bits of equipment, upgrade our software or brief us on our assignment.  Very soon, the adrenaline of finally arriving began to wear off and by the time I got to the meeting with the photo chief, it was proving difficult to take in the talk of remote editing, wireless transmission packs and field rules & etiquette.  Heading to the buses, I was rewarded with the news that the 90 minute journey to Whistler could be up to 3 hours.  Huzzah.

After being drafted in to cover the opening ceremony in Vancouver, I headed back down to the city on the media coach and on arrival was greeted with mass activity in the AFP media room.  AFP colleague Peter Parks had just been the only photographer to witness the horrific crash of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili.  With the networks showing TV footage of the crash on loop behind us, the editors worked on the pictures and searched for more news on his condition.  By the time that his death was announced a few minutes later, everyone knew that the most important event of the whole Games had just happened before the opening ceremony had even taken place.

Peter had been shooting on the final corner purely due to the strips of light that were crossing the track due to the low morning sun.  Our cameras take nine frames a second.  The whole accident is over within six frames.  Out of this tragedy, the only positive things to consider are that he died doing what he loved doing and his death was so fast, he would barely have even realised that it was happening.  Over the following days, the track would be scrutinised with extra safety walls put in place, padding wrapped around the steel pillars and competitors starting from lower positions on the track to slow them down.  The next morning, as I returned to the press room after a training session, I glanced down to the area where the crash had taken place and saw that Levan Gureshidze was standing in the spot where his team-mate had died.  As the last of the lugers completed their runs on the other side of the hastily-erected wall, he simply stood, looking at the pillar that had killed his friend.

After a couple of days of being the centre of attention and just as things were beginning to get back on track, Pete decided to reassign himself to editing duties by slipping on black ice and breaking his ankle, the second break he’s suffered in as many visits to Whistler.  With crutches now firmly welded to his side, the photo director in Vancouver decided to keep “TeamSledge” together as best as possible by allowing him to stay in Whistler to become our MacBitch.. sorry, “Editor”.  As it happens, it was actually a great result as now we knew that we had someone dedicated to editing our images who knew the course, knew how we were approaching our images and was on the same wavelength for new crops and ideas.

With so many spectators on the track attempting to capture the competitors as they hurtled past at astonishing speeds, it became a common event to be approached for information on how best to capture the action.  Unfortunately, there’s not a lot that you can say when the person asking you is trying to get the shot on a four-year old digital pocket camera with a three-second lag on the shutter.  As I was told before setting out to Whistler, after you’ve been shooting it for a while, you become attuned to the sounds rather than the actual arrival of the athlete and my burst rate soon dropped from 10+ frames to capture each pass down to a much more efficient (and professionally satisfying) two.

Being a keen follower of camera technology, I often read the gossip and rumors at NikonRumors and the build-up to the Winter Games had caused much activity on the site with requests posted on the site for all camera fans to be on the lookout for new equipment including prototype Nikon D4 bodies.  Being the nerd that I am, I’d already decided that I’d be looking out for one anyway but hadn’t then realised that the attention would be turned on me.  I normally tape my camera up anyway but had taped over all of the logos and model numbers on both my D3 and D3s.  Within a couple of days, a spectator sidled over to me, looking at my camera.  “So what model is that camera?” “This one?  Why do you ask?”  “Is it a D4?” “I’m sorry, bud. I really can’t talk about it..”  Despite my best efforts, I never made it to rumour site glory.. 

Canadians truly are a unique people.  After living in London for nearly seven years, I’ve become quite accustomed to the grunts, frowns and general unpleasantness that makes up daily life.  That made coming to Canada and experiencing the outright threateningly pleasant nature of everyone a severe shock.  Everyone is so nice that it feels like they’re actually joking at first.  If you sit down in a coffee shop, the person next to you just starts talking to you as though you’ve just met an old friend.  It’s such a pleasure but it has to be pointed out that after weeks of hard work and little rest, when you sit for your quiet morning coffee before rushing off to another long day, you begin to yearn for the solitude that London life can bring.  The annoying thing is that I know that when I am settled back in England again, I’ll be pining for some decency and manners from the general public.  Things get a bit odd when you meet resistance during work.  In London, there’s something satisfying about having a bit of a grumble with jobsworth-style security guards and PRs but there it made you feel as though you were punching a kitten if you snapped in any way.

Among the finest questions that I was asked by a passing spectator during the Games was, “Where do the bobsleighs start from? The top or the bottom?”  Admittedly, if they had started from the bottom, there would have been less crashes but I’m guessing viewing figures may have thinned out after a few days.  On the subject of crashes, I was reminded again how little the general public know about how the industry works after I caught the moment that a bobsleigh flipped over and passed over the Olympic ring logo.  Seeing the shot on the back of my camera, a spectator behind let out a gasp and patted me on the back with congratulations before asking me how many thousand dollars I’ll be getting for the shot.  Oh my, life would be good if it worked like that..

Thanks to colleague John D McHugh, before I left sunny London, I’d invested in a full set of Icebreaker Merino thermal clothing and I have to say that this stuff is a woolly miracle.  Now, I know this is really not a good thing to admit but one of the things that crossed my mind before heading out there was that I would very probably not have the time to do much laundry so it would be great to find clothing that looked after itself.  Cue the merino gear.  Seriously, I’m loathe to admit how long I wore that stuff for before it needed washing.  It’s incredible!  It keeps you warm, has no odour to it whatsoever and stays dry. Bravo, you intelligent New Zealand-based sheeps!

One of the unique aspects of working on major sporting events such as the Olympics is the use of remote-editing systems.  To those photographers out there who plan on working in the industry some day, this kind of technology comes as a bit of a shock after years of doing your own thing.  To cut a very long and complicated story down to size, at every key location at every venue, AFP came on-site before we arrived and laid ethernet cables from a main hub through to our photo positions.  Once we arrived and started shooting an important race or stage, we would connect our cameras to these cables via a Nikon WT-4 transmitter.  This means that as I work, whenever I shoot a frame that I like, I press two buttons on the back of the camera to mark the image and it is instantly transmitted to the editor a few miles away in the Whistler Media Centre where he can edit, caption and file the image straight away.  As you can imagine, this has both pros and cons.

On the plus side, the images are immediately out of your hands, leaving you free to concentrate on shooting the event.  Also, the editor will be in charge of captioning the pictures so aside from recording an audio-tag on any important images using the microphone on your camera, the hassle is taken totally out of your hands.  This leads to the negative side.  Unless you know your editor is capable of “seeing” the images within your pictures and trust he/she is capable of working on your images as you would yourself, it’s a hell of a worrying feeling to send your hard-won pictures off into the digital ether and just hope that they’ll go onto the news wire as you would like them to be seen.

With both Nikon and Canon in full attendance with workshops available throughout the Games to repair and service equipment for free, it was also a perfect opportunity to try out their new gear.  For me, the only real thing of interest was the new Nikon 70-200mm f2.8G ED VR II lens.  having already fired a few frames on this lens courtesy of Ian Gavan, I was absolutely over-joyed to get the chance to use one for the duration of my stay.  When AFP moved to Nikon, the 70-200mm was the only lens that really let the side down with a generally slow feel to it plus less-than staggering results.  The new incarnation is a totally different animal.  With pin-sharp follow focus, even when shooting lugers flying towards you from blind corners at 90mph+, the hit rate was near-perfect.  Time after time, the lens just nailed the images even during the late night sessions when the low light was forcing me to push the D3s up to 4000ISO.  A superb lens in every way.  It’s a cliche I know but the only thing that I didn’t like about the lens was that it wasn’t mine to keep.

After finding that I’d often have to shoot at speeds of up to 4000th of a second to truly freeze the action, I decided to go the other way and with an impromptu panning masterclass from Getty photographer Richard Heathcote, I was soon capturing the action with a greater sense of movement thanks to shutter speeds as low as a tenth of a second.  With these kind of low shutter speeds, it soon becomes clear which of the athletes are any good.  To complete the run in the fastest time, the best of the best will take a direct line through each corner with no wasted swerves to take away precious momentum.  These are the ones that make the best pans as you can predict their course through a known turn.  When it’s right, the only static item in the image should be the only thing that’s actually moving.  However, break out some of the lower-ranked teams and the pan becomes an experimental image of painted light and waves, all intentional of course.. 

On the final day, I had a day off but knew that wouldn’t last for very long as I had to go into the media centre to grab a Photoshop upgrade and as predicted, I was assigned to cover the fan reaction to the evening’s hockey match between Canada and the US.  With many people seeing the Olympics as just an opportunity for these two countries to get to play a grudge match, it was fitting that it came as the final event of the Games.  With thousands of people filling the streets of Vancouver, a space in the many bars and restaurants was impossible to find.  Large outdoor screens were erected on Robson Street in the Downtown area with crowds gathering outside shops to watch the game on monitors in the windows.

As you may have guessed from the pictures, Canada ended up beating their arch-rivals after taking the game to sudden-death.  Vancouver erupted.  The great side to the friendly and polite nature that I wrote about above is that, on winning, the celebrations were simply a massive burst of cheering and happiness.  Being British, I was prompted to high-five about 3 or 4 people and failed on every single one before giving up entirely and just shooting.  I can’t help but think that if England were to win the World Cup, their would be a threatening aggression to a lot of the celebrations that weren’t a factor over there.

After 22 days and with 11873 new frames to add to my archive, the assignment was over.  With one last get-together for those of us who’d been around Vancouver for the final night, we said our goodbyes and headed off in our different directions to all corners of the world.  It was a hell of a job with moments of fatigue, frustration, mental brick walls and photographic breakthroughs but I got to do what I love doing with a great team of people.  Bring on the next one!

The other day, the lovely people at AFP Paris sent me through my new toy, the Nikon D3s.  To those who aren’t as obsessed with keeping up to date with all things new, the D3s is essentially a D3 with the small amount of concerns that photographers had ironed out plus a few very attractive new features.  It replaces the D3 in the shops with a retail of virtually the same price.  If you’re looking for a comparison of every contour, button and digital input on the camera, there are plenty of sites out there that are more than happy to put all but the most avid technophile to sleep.  Here, I just want to share my “hands-on” thoughts after a few days of using Nikon’s baby.  Anyway, enough waffle.

Here’s the lowdown on the features that interest me;

• Noise at higher ISO settings has been improved, resulting in usable images even up to the frankly ridiculous 102,400ISO
• 720p video (1280 x 720 @ 24 fps) is now included on a Nikon pro body for the first time
• Auto sensor cleaning has been introduced
• The buffer is now extended as standard, rather than as an optional feature, allowing up to 48 RAW/130 jpeg images to be captured in one burst
• A “Quiet” mode has been added for discreet shooting in sensitive conditions.

First off the bat, it’s fractionally lighter than the D3 but aside from that, it seems virtually the same.  All of the buttons are in their usual place, aside from the introduction of the info and LiveView buttons on the back.  The first allows instant access to a screen displaying the cameras current setup with each parameter adjustable without having to access the main menu.  The second sees access to the LiveView feature move from the fiddly dial on the top left of the body to a single button.  On the D3, I found that I rarely used this feature but as the D3s comes with video, fast access to this area is now vital.

With noise being the rival camera company’s very own current Cold War, it takes some getting used to when working to consider that I can now safely shoot at 3200ISO without fear of grubby looking pictures.  When I first got it out of the box, I instantly fired a few frames at 12,800 and slowly lowered it with no glaringly obvious difference in the quality from 3200 down to 200ISO.  I used to start the day with my cameras defaulted to 400ISO and with the D3, that went up to 800ISO.  It seems to have reached the point where a news photographer could safely leave the camera on 1600ISO as a starting point.  Bloggers and websites with far more time (and inclination) have some stunning examples of just how good this is, even against rival company’s latest models.

Both of the images of Gordon Brown on this page were shot at 5000 ISO during his monthly press conference in number 10.  I’ve applied no noise-removal software or sharpened the images in any way.  The first was shot on a 300mm, hand-held.  Here’s a link to a full-size version which is well worth seeing, just for the fact that even at 5000 ISO, you can still see the fine hairs on the end of his nose (not a nice thought but worth a look).

Video is something that I’ve only been tickling up to now, having volunteered to take part in AFP’s trials with webclips and embedded media.  The videos that I’ve shot were captured on a D90 with a godawful 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 VR kit lens.  The problems were many and considerate.  Firstly, the D90 has the most unbelievable rolling shutter effect (also known as “wobblevision”) whereby when you pan the camera on a horizontal plane while filming, all vertical objects suddenly turn to jelly and bend away from the direction you’re turning.  Secondly, as I already carry a significant amount of kit on a daily basis including two D3 bodies, four lenses, a laptop and various other gubbins, having to then carry a D90 body and lens on the off-chance that I may find something to video became a real chore.  Compared to the D3, the D90’s images just weren’t up to scratch so I couldn’t just ditch one of the big boys either.  Thirdly, as previously hinted at, the choice of lenses was very limited in that as I’m on foot, I don’t have the space to carry any significant form of support (tripod/monopod) so it’s vital that I have a lens with VR (vibration reduction).  Unfortunately, the current range of f2.8 high-end Nikon lenses for everyday work don’t have it.  If I want a mid-range lens with VR, I end up having to go for something like the lens mentioned before.  The options at the mid focal range are also all DX chips so using them on a full frame camera is a bit of a travesty in my book. Yuck.  It has been replaced now with a VRII version that has a range of tweaks but I doubt anyone will be replacing this one in the near future.  Surely this is an area that both Nikon and Canon need to work on now that they both are aiming at getting photographers to move towards video.

With all that in mind, the D3s has arrived with a new algorithm in the video processor, dramatically cutting the jelly effect plus, as it’s all in one camera now, I can ditch the D90.  My back will be so pleased..  While I will still have the same issue regarding a lack of decent wide and mid-range Nikon glass with VR technology, the fact that it shoots high quality video while remaining an excellent stills camera will make up for it.  While its clear that the quality of the Nikon isn’t up to that of Canon’s latest range including the stunning 5dmk2 and the new 1dmk4, the file output of the D3s is perfect for what I aim to use it for; high quality video files for use on the web that could also be used for broadcast if the situation arose.  Knowing that there are many out there who are light-years beyond me in knowledge and ability with video production from SLRs, I’d feel a fraud to spout my thoughts on the pros and cons of aspects of the capability of this unit apart from to say that this is a massive leap forward for me in what I have access to.  AFP worldwide have bought the D3s for their photographers with this in mind so clearly there’s a lot of belief in Nikon’s choice NOT to go for full HD.

As a quick aside, after a quick search for hints and tips, it seems  that the D3s has full manual control in video mode, but it is not documented in the manuals. To get true manual control over the ISO, shutter speed and aperture while in video mode, press the OK button while in LiveView. A light meter will appear on the screen and the camera switches to whatever mode that you currently have the camera set on in stills camera mode (ie aperture priority, shutter priority, manual).  This means that if you’re in manual when you go into video mode, by pressing the OK button, you can adjust all of the settings while in video mode. Obviously for webclips, this may be overkill but for those who are interested, it’s a great option that for some reason Nikon have decided to keep hidden. Also, if you push the info button, you can shift through the different display modes including a virtual horizon, a live histogram and grid lines.

My main gripe with the D3 was always the lack of sensor cleaning facility.  With a full frame chip, it sucks in the dust at every lens change leaving globs of dust and dirt in every frame.  When I spoke to Nikon about this, I was told that when they were designing the camera, they had believed that the pro photographer would rather have a 100% viewfinder without sensor cleaning over a 98% viewfinder with.  Nope.  You kinda got that one wrong, chaps.  Thankfully, they saw the light and now the digital brillo pad comes out every time I turn my camera off.  Huzzah!  Now I can go and cover the “Wind-machine and household dust” conference at ExCel with impunity!

(D3s with 14-24mm. Full-size version of the above image with no noise-reduction software or sharpening here.)

For most photographers, the idea of filling a 130-frame buffer will just sound insane but as I shoot RAW .NEF files, it’s great to have the added headroom.  Like before, as soon as you turn on features like highlight recovery/vignette control/Long exposure noise reduction etc, that buffer drops significantly but still remains an improvement over the previous incarnation.  On a slightly different note, as always with new cameras, those of us who shoot in RAW should be aware that Adobe have only released their Raw update patch for Photoshop CS4.  Anyone who could be stupid enough to NOT be able to afford to buy the latest version every time it comes out (like 98% of the world) will find that they can’t edit their files.  I shot my first job with it, only to find that I couldn’t access the files when I came to edit them.  Thankfully, Adobe does provide an option with the DNG software, allowing you to convert the files to the supposed “industry standard” digital negative DNG format which will then be friendly to older versions of Photoshop.  Obviously, if you use the Nikon proprietary software, you’ll be fine but I can never face it.  Every time I’ve looked at either the Canon or Nikon bundled packages, they seem clunky, slow and poorly designed.  In a way, I’d rather this as it at least shows that when you buy the camera, you’re paying for camera R&D rather than their software developers costs!

It’s also good to see the return of the “Quiet” mode to my available tools.  With my previous life as a Canon user, I always loved the rather well hidden sneaky shutter feature that allowed you to shoot a single frame and as long as you held your finger on the shutter release button, the mirror would stay up.  This allows you to wait for a convenient burst of applause or music before you let go.  As I say, I loved it on the Canons and now I love it on the Nikon.  Well observed, Nikon peeps.

In conclusion, I’m a happy bunny so far.  My biggest problem since getting it has been slow news days and grey, dull weather that hasn’t been very inspiring to shoot in!  I guess I’ll have to wait for the D4 for cloud-buster technology.

After a busy year of bickering, squabbling and grumbling, nothing clears the air in Westminster better than the annual snowball fight..

Trust Blair to go and start another war…

Merry Christmas and happy 2010, everyone!

Just a super quick post to wish anyone who follows this stream of waffle a very happy Christmas and best wishes for 2010.  Next year’s going to be a belter, especially for you.  May your f. stops never stop, your public exposure not get you arrested and your shutter never fail..  Enjoy! 

The last time I was in Blackpool, I spent the day dashing between the “Haunted Swing” and the “Steeplechase” at Blackpool Pleasure Beach and building up the guts to go on the creaky looking “Grand National”.  Nineteen years later, I’m onstage at the Opera House in front of a few thousand people taking pictures of the Queen meeting Lady Gaga.  Slightly different.

As it was AFP’s turn to get the next job in the rotational pool system used to allow all of the main agencies equal chance to cover large events, I was “volunteered” to don the staff penguin suit for the Royal Variety Performance and head up North for a long evening of waiting around, followed by 15 minutes of stupidly high adrenaline as I battle to get the pictures then race to file ahead of newspaper deadlines.

Having expected to spend the night drumming my fingers in some tiny media room, it was a nice surprise to find that I was in the green room area with all of the acts.  The mood was fantastic with some of the performers saying that it was far better than in the opera house itself.  Dancers, crew and technicians sat with some of the main stars and watched the show on a large screen, laughing and applauding every act both on-screen and as they returned to the area after their performance.

Having moved into position to be collected for the frantic finale to the evening where I’d actually take my first official shots of the evening, I found myself chatting to some of the headliners with Bob Golding (the star of the one-man show “Morecambe“) and Michael Buble both proving to be top people.

My mum always asks me who the nice people are after I told her once how down-to-earth and friendly Paul O’Grady is and I can safely now add these chaps to the list of damned nice blokes.

An hour after the scheduled time, it was time for the artists to be presented to the Baked Bean and I was rushed out onto the stage behind the closed curtain.  Having been told that it was a solo pool and I was the only photographer, it was a little annoying to find an in-house photographer, a local press photographer and two ITV cameramen as well as Peter Wilkinson, the Buckingham Palace cameraman (another top chap), all struggling to get into the area that would really only fit two people comfortably.

With this wonderfully dignified bun-fight going on, the curtain was raised to reveal a few thousand suited people as the Queen wandered out to meet her entertainers.  It really is quite an experience to be crushed from both sides by people who are putting every ounce of strength they can find into pushing you aside while you very slowly walk backwards along a line of celebrity-types with the Queen a few feet in front of you, while simultaneously trying to concentrate on composition, exposure and flash settings.

Peter was whispering in one ear for me to look out for making sure we didn’t walk off the stage into the orchestra pit while an ITV in-house cameraman was whispering abusive threats for me to get out of the way into my other ear, all in front of a dinner-jacketed audience of thousands and the monarch.  Insanity.

After the frantic scrabbling for the picture, the frantic scramble to get the shots edited and filed began with newspapers already well over their usual deadlines and the main agencies all waiting for the pictures for international clients.  As should be expected on a night like this, the 3g signal that had been oh so good earlier on was now flaky and intermittent so I soon found myself pulling the minute remaining hairs from my head with frustration.  If there’s one thing that winds me up, it’s when an inanimate object that has been designed and sold to do one task fails to do it.  Anything that I’ve ever broken has been shortly after it decided to get temperamental at an important moment.  *looks at technology all around me with threatening stare*

Anyway, enough rambling.  By midnight, the job was over and I could head back to my hotel, somewhat frazzled.  It turns out that I ended up on a rollercoaster this time after all.

The Royal Variety Performance 2009 will be broadcast in the UK on ITV on Wednesday, 16 December between 7.30pm and 10pm.

Another year, another Erotica exhibition at London’s Olympia centre.  Having covered this event four times, it’s actually become quite a challenge to get something that’s both different from previous years and is acceptable for publication on the news wire.

While horrible nastiness and the carnage from Middle Eastern suicide blasts often makes it’s way straight to the wire, porn and sex can cause real problems if the images crop up in a country that frowns on that sort of thing so the subject has to be approached in a manner that shows everything without showing anything.  Simple, eh?

As it happens, this year’s task was much easier to do due to the fact that the show was about one third of it’s usual size, despite tickets having sold out.  With 75,000 people expected to visit over three days, the exhibition space seemed very empty.  Rather than the usual stands full of models and porn-stars signing promotional posters and DVDs, the show was more focused on toys, clothes and “equipment”, as it were.  If this is down to the recession, it’s interesting that the adult industry is usually named as one area of business that would not be affected by the global financial crisis but it’s clearly beginning to catch up on all quarters.

The stage show also seemed to be very similar to previous years, but was saved by some very talented acrobats and performers. I guess that the show can’t feature the kind of thing that the stalls are selling so instead it goes along the burlesque route. One break from the routine came from the performer in photos #3 and #8 who displayed a hardcore exfoliation method by bouncing around in a bath of broken glass.  Nice.

You would think that the tabloids would be all over this like a hairy bear every year but the next day saw nothing in there from any photographer, never mind my shots.  My only hit from the play report of image usage around the world that I get to see was of photo #1 in an Indian newspaper.  Who’d have thought that the UK papers would avoid the chance to show some flesh?  It just goes to show that nothing is ever guaranteed when picture editors are involved!

With my fourth year now under my belt, I think it’s time for a break from the Erotica show for a few years.  While providing more interesting pictures than the usual stake-out in the rain, I think I may have reached my limit of shooting semi-naked pole-dancers. Now THERE’S a phrase I never thought I’d see myself write..

In full JFK-style, I became “ein Berliner” when I flew over to Germany last week to work with the Berlin bureau in the coverage of the celebrations and events surrounding the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Never having visited Berlin before, I had the usual mixture of anticipation and nerves with the combination of worrying about working under deadline in a new city mixing with the excitement of covering a big event and working in new locations.  Having done a handful of this kind of foreign assignment in the past, it always pays to remember that within a few hours, I’ll be up and running but with this job, I was out of the hotel within minutes.

In what I class as the perfect mixture in a brief, I was asked to assist Berlin staff photographer John MacDougall with the planned events but also to get out there and shoot as many features as I could find.  What better way to get to know a city than to be ordered to go out, explore and record what you see?  With Berlin, there was always going to be the niggling feeling in the back of my mind that the photographers out here have been taking pictures of an inanimate wall now for years so it was naive to think I’d come away with ground-breaking material.  Still, the Israel election assignment at the start of 2009 reminded me that a “tourist” can sometimes see things a little differently so I tried to avoid doing too much research on what had already been shot.

A fun start to the assignment was having the chance to join the Trabi Safari around Berlin, where tourists get to jump into their individual classic Trabant car and follow a convoy around the sights and memorable locations of the city, with my particular tour following the original route of the wall.

Now I realise that the Trabant is a cult classic but they really aren’t that comfortable.  As the German journalist who was driving my car for the first time, hit the brakes for the first time, I nearly went through the screen as it appears that the braking system is essentially a button ie they’re either off or fully engaged.  Smooooth.

After visiting the remains of the original wall on Bernauer Strabe (above), I headed further North to Mauer Park and found a real treat for anyone visiting Berlin.  In the main area, buskers, artists and entertainers line the paths while a mobile karaoke system was set up in the “Bearpit” area, gathering an audience of hundreds who laughed applauded and sang along with whoever got up.  Just above them on the hill, a stretch of wall has become a hub for graffiti artists who work away on their own sections throughout the day.  Back down towards the road, a man created massive bubbles for kids to chase after and behind him, a market selling home-cooked food, secondhand collectibles and handmade artwork wove it’s way around itself in a warren of stalls.  Crashing out in the corner of a coffee tent, I edited my pictures as the evening came on.  A great place that everyone should check out.

With Monday being the official twentieth anniversary date, it started with a nice moral boost as word came from London that one of my shots from the previous night, of a woman walking among the foam dominos in Berlin, had made the front page of The Guardian.  Hurrah!  As part of the official events, these rows of dominos had been painted by school children and were toppled by various dignitaries to symbolise how the fall of the wall in Berlin caused a chain reaction, bringing down political divides throughout Europe.  Take THAT, Communism!

So Monday’s first job had Mikhail Gorbachev attending the unveiling of a bust of himself and allowed me to get my first shots of the man himself.  Having looked decidedly unimpressed with the bust, he then proceeded to make his speech and immediately leave the building, refusing to shake hands or sign autographs for any of the smiling guests.

I guess you can change the world and still remain a grumpy chap, I guess but I’d hoped he’d be a little more approachable.  Still, wherever we went, the crowds were only chanting for one man.  Thankfully, Henry Kissinger was far more open to meeting the people and rightly so as he was thoroughly rested after sleeping through the whole ceremony on the front row.  Bravo.

At the Bornholmer Strabe bridge, one of the official events of the day was the symbolic bridge crossing by old happy chops himself Gorby, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Polish President Lech Walesa.  Following their crossing, they would make their speeches before continuing on their way to the other side.

In a rather shocking example of German inefficiency (yes, INefficiency), the planned clear area was soon swamped with punters with pocket cameras, ruining the lovely clear planned shot.  Fighting my way to the front, I managed to get a shot of all three of them holding a photo of people crossing the bridge on the night itself, twenty years previously.  After scrambling, fighting and pushing my way in the crowds, the VIPs were whisked away, leaving a large crowd of photographer looking at each other with bewildered looks on their faces.  Worse still, one photographer managed to have a 300mm f2.8 lens stolen by the celebrating masses.  Grrr…

As the evening arrived, the official ceremony began and I ended up shooting official arrivals of the leaders in the French embassy (which could have been good but proved to be a waste of time) and found myself shooting the Brandenburg Gate events. Unfortunately this was from the wrong side due to the other position being taken by the local staff photographer.  As the rain continued to come and go, the spectators watched the official celebrations, speeches and fireworks but by the time the end came, the crowds had already thinned.  While the weather had claimed a percentage of them, there was also a real feeling that the celebrations hadn’t been focused enough on the people.

While dignitaries, leaders and celebrities congratulated each other on their success in ending Communism, the public were kept at a safe distance, behind twin layers of security barriers.  While I totally understand the need for this during the speeches by Sarkozy, Merkel, Medvedev and the rest of the political heavyweights, once they were tucked up in their bunkers again, the public should have been allowed in to celebrate in their own way, under the famous gates.  As is the way with nearly all of this kind of event in current times, the whole evening left the feeling that it was created to be enjoyed at home on tv, with the spectators that did make the effort used as a backdrop for the cameras.  I think it might be time for another revolution.

As anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis may know, I generally tend to avoid doing reviews of cameras and equipment partly due to lack of time but mainly due to the abundance of websites available such as dpreview that offer incredibly in-depth, fast and dependable advice on which route to take when buying new gear.

However, I’ve decided to post my thoughts on the new Panasonic Lumix GF-1 camera.  Having previously used a Canon Powershot S70 and a Canon G7, I knew that the time was getting closer when I’d need to upgrade and despite copious research, I was unable to find a pocket-sized camera that’s output didn’t fall to pieces over 400 ISO.  Nikon just seem to be a no-go for some reason when it comes to sureshots and I don’t know anyone that uses one for some reason.  Canon’s S90 looks promising but the new Powershot G11 features the same fiddly body that I’ve never been able to get my head around.  While my Sister and Mother both still use G7 cameras and get great results, I’ve never been able to really “connect” with the design, if that makes sense.  A camera needs to feel invisible in your hands.  If at any point, you’re thinking about what your fingers are doing or where a certain button is, you’ll often see the moment that you hoped to capture pass out of the corner of your eye.

With Olympus releasing the micro 4/3 lens-based EP-1 “Pen” camera in Summer, I was tempted to see what it could do but then I heard about Panasonic’s offering.  After plenty of time spent on camera review sites, I managed to get my hands on one thanks to a colleague who’d been unable to resist.  Two minutes later and I was trying to work out how to justify the cost!  Anyway, on with a bit of technical gubbins;

• 12.1 megapixel Live MOS sensor
• interchangeable micro 4/3 lens system
• HD Movie in “AVCHD Lite” format and Motion Picture P Mode
• LUMIX G 20mm/F1.7 lens as one of the standard options
• 3 frames a second
• built-in dust-removal system
• RAW capture (through Panasonic’s .rw2 format)
• AE lock
• ISO range up to 3200
• built-in pop-up TTL flash
• 3.0″ screen

So that’s the main specs in a very dry format so I guess I should explain all that in real world terms.

With the big camera manufacturers having thankfully realised that more megapixels doesn’t necessarily mean better quality, the GF1 has what I think is an optimal resolution of 12 megapixels.  The 4/3 sensor means that the lens size is half what it would be on a 35mm full-frame camera so the 20mm lens is effectively a 40mm lens in traditional focal terms.  The whole chip size issue is going to be one of those things that takes a long time to be properly scrubbed from the general public’s mind.  With most people believing that the higher the pixel count, the better the camera, manufacturers will continue to try bringing out 16 megapixel phone cameras.  I believe the phrase is, “Never mind the size, look at the quality”..

While the majority of people wanting to buy a new pocket camera will be looking for an all-in-one unit that has an 8-600mm zoom on it, the GF1 uses the micro 4/3 system.  The 4/3 system was announced in 2006 as a joint initiative between a group of companies ranging from consumer manufacturer Sanyo through to legendary optic manufacturer Leica and aimed to create a standardised fitting for lenses so that they could be swapped and changed between bodies, opening up the market for the customer. The micro 4/3 system was a development of this, pioneered by Olympus and Panasonic for their new range of hybrid units.  The downside is that, like an SLR, you’ll find yourself looking to buy more lenses as you get to use the camera more.  The upside is that the quality of the lenses will safely be of a higher quality than that found in a standard zoom sureshot.

Video capability in cameras is one of the current dividers among professional photographers with some drawn to it and enjoying expanding their knowledge while others find it a threat on the original concept of photography that could see the skill diluted.  I fall into the former camp, having been shooting video on my Nikon D90 for a few months now so the inclusion of video on the GF1 is a bonus.  The ease that you can switch between stills and video is seamless and I’ve found myself splitting my shooting 50/50 since getting it.  The quality is exceedingly good for something of this size and combined with the 20mm f1.7 lens, strong focal effects can easily be achieved.  Obviously, a camera of this size is not going to be a match for a dedicated video camera but for video notes, webclips and breaking news, I think it’s perfectly acceptable.  On the downside, the bizarre video format (AVCHD) may leave you scratching your head as you try to work out what the hell a .mts file is and how to play one.  The answer comes in VLC for playback and Handbrake for conversion on a mac.  Not using my pc to edit, I can’t say how good the supplied software is if you’re in the Windows clan.

As I’ve just mentioned, I opted for the 20mm f1.7 lens with my camera and I have to say that it is truly exceptional.  For those not up to scratch on lens issues, the lower the f number, the more light can be allowed through the lens, making it perfect for darker conditions or for getting the effect of a shallow depth of field.  For more details, check this site out.  For a start, getting such a fast lens as an f1.7 on a pocket camera is a rarity but by combining it with a good sensor, the results have been astounding.  Shooting in manual focus has really given me a spark for shooting again and I’m pulling it out of my bag as I walk between jobs, just to shoot anything that I see.  The only downside to the 20mm is that all vibration reduction is in-lens rather than in-camera and it is one of the lenses in the range that doesn’t include it.  This is fine for stills but for video, it can prove a little frustrating.  The other option in the pre-packaged kits is a 14-45mm lens that does feature stabilisation.  If you are planning on doing a lot of video, this could be a wiser choice but for stills, go 20mm!

The dust removal is such a vital thing for any camera with interchangeable lenses (do you hear me, Nikon D3!?) so it’s reassuring to see that Panasonic didn’t scrimp on this necessary feature.

I’ve been shooting on RAW exclusively now for around four months so it’s been a pleasure to be able to continue this with my “off-duty” camera too.  The only downside being that the exclusive .rw2 format used by Panasonic is incompatible with any version of Photoshop before CS4.  As the software that comes with the camera for Mac is laughable, I’m currently editing them using the new beta of Lightroom, available here.

In the second paragraph, I wrote of needing to connect to the camera in a natural way so it’s good to see that I can assign the AE lock button on the rear to act in the same way as I have my Nikon system set up.

On previous pocket cameras, the images have crumbled and died if I dared to go up to 400 ISO so to be able to shoot confidently at 400, get good results at 800 and even get usable (in an emergency) shots at 1600 is unheard of.  The shot below of a colleague in Downing Street is straight out of the camera aside from a bit of resizing and touch of sharpening for web and was taken at 800ISO.  Against a full frame D3, there is obviously a quality dip but for a pocket-sized sureshot, I’m pretty chuffed.

The main difference that sets this ahead of the Olympus EP-1 is the inclusion of the neatest little pop-up flash in existence.  Now I know that a grown man shouldn’t be impressed by the mechanism of a flash but you’ll just have to forgive me.  If you own one of these, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  As I try to avoid flash where possible, I’ve only had a few opportunities to use it but the output on these occasions was smooth and full with no overblown highlights.

A camera can be very easily shot down by a poor screen.  When Canon released the 1Dmk3, if the screen was compared to the Nikon D3, it felt as though you were looking through Vaseline.  Well maybe not quite that bad but you were never truly positive that the frame was sharp from the display on the rear.  (Canon have now solved this issue since their 5dmk2 screen)  Thankfully, the GF1 screen is another strong point with 460,000 pixels and a full 100% representation of the frame.

As is the way with every good toy, Panasonic have created a whole batch of ways to get more money out of the GF-1 user including the digital optical viewfinder that slots onto the hotshoe (and has received mixed reviews), a whole range of lenses, custom designed cases and remote triggers. Ahh, to have spare funds.

So that just leaves my general thoughts and as you’ve very probably guessed, I love this little thing.  While I know that I haven’t covered many aspects of the unit, I can only tell you about what I’ve experienced in daily use.  One issue that I hope Panasonic address with future firmware is the fact that when shooting in “auto ISO” setting on aperture priority, the shutter speed defaults to 1/30th of a second rather than increasing the ISO.  If this was set a little higher to, say, 125th/sec, the “auto ISO” feature would be able to kick in more and the feature would become worthwhile.  This really shouldn’t take too much to remedy so hopefully it will be looked into. Despite this small issue, that fact that the GF-1 is capable of producing images of a level that are easily high enough to be used for my work means that it’s already become a vital bit of my kit.  Bravo, design bods.

With a retail price of £799, I bought mine from Photo Express Lakeland for a bargain £659.  Thanks for the great service and price, guys!

Sorry about the the lack of posts recently but I have an 8lb 9oz excuse..

Eight days overdue and after a 45 hour labour involving attempts at a waterbirth, shedloads of drugs, a botched epidural and finally an emergency caesarian with an audience of 15 surgeons, staff and student doctors, Maximillian Mavric-Neal finally decided to show up on Monday morning at 10.58am.

After a number of visits to the new birth centre at the Whittington Hospital in north London, we’d made our mind up that the lovely peaceful waterbirth in a private room with our own choice of music was the way for us.  Who can say the NHS is a bad system when all of that is offered for free?  With the inevitable first baby panic causing a 4am rush to the hospital, we were sent home after 4 hours and I drummed my fingers as Kirsten sat through contractions in the bath.  Eventually, we headed back in and got stuck in to what lay ahead.

With Pethidine and Entinox flowing through her system, we were moved from the peaceful ambience of the birth centre to the “traditional” environment of the labour ward before finally ending up in the operating theatre for a forceps birth which then turned into an emergency caesarian section.  At least we got to tick off the whole set of options in a single pregnancy.

Max has already managed to show me up by having more hair than me and being far more photogenic, damn his speckly hide..

After 5 days in hospital while Kirsten recovered from the ordeal, we’ve finally all come home now and Maximillian is trying to get his head around this thing called life.  I just hope he doesn’t ask me for any advice..

As I’m trying to put together a selection of audio slideshows for presentation I might end up doing, I thought I’d post one on here to see how (and more importantly if) it works. Please feel free to give me any feedback on how you think it looks as it’s all a bit new to me! As any regular readers may remember, I did a detailed blog on the MSC Napoli in April here.

All images, as usual, by Leon Neal. Music by Dan Worrall.