The Ruminator

I haven't been posting much recently. This isn't because of the festivities, it's because I don't have much to post at present. Not that I haven't been making images, but I've been unable to get excited enough about any of them to post. Its rare that I can go through a whole memory-card's worth of images and find nothing that's usable, but that's happened to me a couple of times recently. Whatever the reason for this, I'm reduced to posting some of my ruminations about the future of A-mount. Enjoy.

Earlier this year I took the plunge and bought an RX100. But where does that leave me vis-à-vis my DSLT camera?

My A77 is three and a half years old, but the updated A77II – which is itself over a year old – doesn't offer substantial upgrades, and to be honest I’m not feeling any real pressure to change. The mega-pixel wars are over, for the time being at least, with APS-C sensors stabilised at around 24 mega-pixels at the top end and my current camera does everything I need it to do.

However, there is still the lurking problem of the future of A-mount.

To recap: Sony bought Konica-Minolta to get into the digital camera market (this was in January 2006, so the tenth anniversary is coming up soon). This purchase brought with it an existing lens mount with third party support and a substantial stock of legacy glass, which was re-designated Alpha or A-Mount. At the time it looked like a good move.

Having done this Sony then turned its attention to the then-nascent mirrorless market with its NEX branded cameras, which used a different lens mount – E-mount.

There are sound technical reasons for this. SLR lens mounts – including Canon and Nikon – have too great a flange length to allow the small form factors that are a selling point of mirrorless cameras.

Anyway, Sony cleaned up – and continues to do so - in the mirrorless market, whilst its DSLR and DSLT offerings failed to attract professional support and languish way behind Canikon in terms of market share. With hindsight, the wisdom of the Konica-Minolta acquisition now looks much more debatable.

In response, Sony re-badged all its of interchangeable lens cameras under the Alpha brand, dropping the NEX name and mixing A and E-mount in what might look to the unwary like a single range. Last year, when they launched the A7 series of full frame cameras as their new top of the range offering, they had an E-mount*. By contrast, the top of the A-mount range – the A99 – has been quietly withdrawn, with no mention of its long promised replacement. We’re due an update to the A77 in early 2016 – it will be interesting to see if that happens on time, or at all.

In the meantime, SAR has reported that the sale of A-mount cameras has been discontinued in certain territories.

The smell of death, which has been lingering around A-mount for a few years now, continues to get stronger.

But if I have a camera that I'm happy with, what’s the problem?

Well, all of this uncertainty still has a disabling effect. Without it, I might have bought a new A-mount lens rather than the RX100. But I don’t want to spend more money on A-mount lenses when I may eventually have to go E-mount – or abandon Sony altogether.

Sony is innovating in the imaging sector in a way that none of the other incumbents seem prepared to do. The A7 series makes a full frame camera available at a much lower price point – and in a much smaller form factor - than in their competitors’ ranges. Whilst this is great in general, it does mean that their cameras often feel like a work in progress rather than the finished article. Sometimes – just sometimes – I find myself wondering if a Canikon would be a safe, sensible choice.

* Just to add more complexity to the Sony range, prior to the introduction of the A7 series, E-mount lenses had been designed for cropped sensors. So a new range of lenses for the A7 series, designated ‘FE’ (Full-frame E-mount), were introduced, and are generally bloody expensive. Non-FE E-mount lenses will cause image cropping on an A7 series body. Thank you for your attention.

Swanning Around

Yet another image from Shapwick and one that has made it against the odds, really. Right at the end of the afternoon - I think that the sun had already gone down, in fact - in failing light, at the long end of the zoom, with a shutter speed of 1/30, the lens stopped right down and the low battery indicator on, I managed to get this image of a swan.

The swan itself is a bit soft was a result, but I like the colours and, frankly I'm a bit short of images at the moment, hence the lack of posts recently. 

Sunset Notes

Another image from the Burnham beach sunset, er...set.

Road To Nowhere

The end of the road, Burnham beach at sundown. It was blowing a gale, although you can't tell from the image.

Cormorant Strike

A final image  - probably - from the Cheddar Reservoir set. I'll never win any prizes for my wildlife photography, but I do like this image.

Vanishing Point

A slightly different treatment of the same scene as last time, a foggy day at Cheddar Reservoir.

Reservoir Fogs

During the recent spell of foggy weather - which was significant enough to make the TV news - I found my way to Cheddar reservoir for a walk, along with my son. I've never been there in fog before and I found the atmosphere quite strange - hopefully the images that I made will convey this somewhat.

Fyne Time

Another image from the Fyne Court set.

Fyne and Dandy

Over half term we visited Fyne Court. As it was mid-week, I thought that the place would be deserted. However, there were some kids' Halloween activities going on and it was absolutely packed.

Nevertheless I managed to bag some images. These little purple flowers were all over the place and I made a few images of them, of which this is the best.

Not Mushroom

Okay, we're done with the mini-beasts for now. I really couldn't spin that series out any longer, so I guess that its done until next year sometime.

So, apropos of nothing - which sums up my approach to this blog - this is an image of a mushroom which I found growing in our lawn a couple of months ago. My guilt about picking it is assuaged by the fact that I was just about to mow in any case.

The weathered wood background is actually my father's work bench, which is sitting outside our back door as we have nowhere else for it, which is something else that I feel guilty about.

The Red Menace

Spinning out the mini-beasts series for a bit longer, here's an image of a red admiral butterfly.

Court the Bug

This is - probably - the last image in the mini-beasts series and its not great - I've made a mess of the depth of field - but I do like the spiky plant that the stink bug is climbing on. It was made at Clevedon Court, when we visited a few months ago, the only image in the series that wasn't made in our garden.

Practical Entomology

More lavender related entomological goings-on from our garden. I think that we're getting near to the end of this series, this image isn't as strong as some of it predecessors.

Butterfly Mornings

Some rhopalocera this time. Butterflies are much easier to identify than flies - this one is a gatekeeper or hedge brown, which are fairly common in our garden during the summer.

May Bee

I think this might have been a bee. I am certain that it was on a seed head in our garden when I made this image.

Fly Be

Another image of a fly, this time on a leaf, just for a bit of variety.

No Flies On Me Etc, Etc...

In this case, its on some honeysuckle.

Blue Fly

It might help if I new the species of insect or the name of the flower that appear in this image. Or it might not. 

Bee Here Now

I've been making images of mini-beasts this summer. It took me while to realise that, like any portrait, you need to achieve reasonable sharpness in the eyes for any chance of success, but the penny dropped eventually.

We have a lavender hedge in our garden and there are bees all over it throughout the season, so you'd think that I'd have any number of images, but no, this is the only one. Fortunately, it quite a good one, I think.

Oh, and as a by-the-way, this is my first post written on Windows 10. Can you see the difference?

Didn't think so.

We Happy Fuschia

Back in our own garden, a fuschia flower.

Return of the Tyntesfield Thunderbold

You made remember - or you may not - that a set of mono images made in the walled garden at Tyntesfield during a summer visit provided a whole series of posts for this blog last year.

Well, we returned this year, for what turned out to be a fairly unenjoyable visit. As if to echo this, the beds in the walled garden had gone over and seemed in need of some attention. With the rest of the family stomping about in a bad mood, photographic opportunities were limited.

In any case, I made this image, which I'm quite happy with. I struggled to decide between the mono or the colour version for this post, however my final decision was to go mono to fit in with the set that I created last year.

Praying Mantis

A final image from the Wells Cathedral set.

Cathedral Green II

Another image from the Wells Cathedral set. I think I prefer this one - it has better depth of field control than my previous post - but there are some problems with the composition.

Cathedral Green

Another summer outing - this time we spent an afternoon at Wells Cathedral, taking in their Mediaeval Fair - which wasn't as good as last year's, to be honest. In an attempt to rescue the situation, I managed to spend a few minutes photographing in the gardens.

Shapwick Summer II

Another image from the Shapwick set. Again, the composition is a bit iffy, but the colours are nice.

Shapwick Summer

A few weeks ago I found myself at Shapwick NNR, which is not one of my usual summer haunts, even though this blog might give the impression that I live there. Anyway, I took along my Alpha 77 with my macro lens with the intention of shooting some of the flora.

Not sure about the composition of this image, but the bouquet is nice.

Je M'Apple

We have two apple trees in our garden. This year we've had plenty of windfalls - this is one of them.

Crown of Gold

Back in our own garden, some sedum.

Clevedon and On

Yet another image from the Clevedon Court set.

Fine and Dandelion

I like making images of dandelions - I find them very photogenic. This one is from the Clevedon Court set - perhaps the gardeners should get a grip?

Back to Black and White

I've been making monochrome images this summer, its just that none of them have made the grade for this blog. Anyway, I'm happy enough with this one, which came from the Clevedon Court set.

Clevedon Caught II

Another image from the Clevedon Court set.

Clevedon Caught

A couple of weeks ago we visited Clevedon Court, where I made this image of - I think - a marigold.

I took along my RX100, which allowed me to take my Alpha 77 with 50mm macro lens, rather than the Tamron super-zoom, which I would other have taken. This in turn enabled me to make some flower portraits, of which this is one.

Cathedral City

During a few days in Liverpool recently, we made a visit to the Anglican Cathedral, where I made this image with my RX100. I've employed my patented poor man's HDR technique to get some detail into the windows.

Busking It

As you may imagine, there are plenty of street buskers around at the Brecon Jazz Festival - this is an image of one pair. I have no impression at all of the music they were playing, so it probably wasn't up to much.

Anyway, based on my extensive experience, I now proudly present four reasons why a jazz gig is better than a rock gig:

You get to sit down. This makes me sound like an old git, but there are some practical advantages to seated shows. You can see the stage for one thing - this isn't always true when everyone's standing and you're five foot seven like me. And in a standing crowd you're always being jostled by people coming and going - to the bar, the toilets, or wherever - which drives you to distraction when you're trying to concentrate on the performance.

The volume levels are bearable. After a rock gig, my hearing usually takes a couple of days to recover. Where's the need for that? 

The bands are punctual. I have commitments. Despite this, I've bought your album and made the time to take in your local show. The least that you can do is acknowledge this by turning up on time and playing for the advertised duration. Rock bands don't seem to be able to grasp this simple principle of etiquette.

The musicians can play. This was brought home to me quite forceably at Brecon. I was walking back to my car after the last show and passing a pub, I heard a rock band brutally butchering "Sweet Child of Mine". The (female) singer couldn't sing and the guitarist couldn't guitar - the whole thing was a waste of time and effort for all concerned, both band and audience. You don't get that with jazz.

Brecon the Rules

This year, I managed to take in the final day of the Brecon Jazz Festival, and my new RX100 went along with me.

Firstly, in case you don't know, Brecon Jazz isn't a 'real' festival, where you sit in a field and listen to bands that you've never heard of, performing on a stage half a mile away. No, Brecon is much more civilised that that. Its basically three days during which a whole bunch of gigs happen in a few venues dotted around the town and you buy tickets to the ones you want to see.

There is other stuff going on in the pubs - which is mostly rock and blues, but who's counting - and a few open air events, but the real action is at the Memorial Hall or the Theatre or the other indoor venues.

Anyway, I made it to a couple of shows, one of which was Phronesis, the final gig of the weekend.  I made a few images with the RX100, of which this is one. It was taken at the long end of the zoom, ISO500, 1/60, f/2.8, manually focused at infinity so that he autofocus light didn't flash.

Its acceptable, but only just. The composition is not good, but I was sitting where I was sitting. I also saw Sons of Kemet, but I sat way too far from the stage to make any good images in that case. I guess that I have a lot to learn about photographing live jazz.

New Camera Alert

So I finally took the plunge and bought an RX100 - the MIII rather than the MIV. This is one of the first images that I made with it, of Cheddar Reservoir and Brent Knoll, viewed from the top of Cheddar Gorge.

Initial impressions are pretty good, although it turns out to be fairly useless for macro work, so the Alpha 77 still has a use, which is nice to know...

More images from the RX100 shortly.

Mellow Yellow

Sometimes, I find it difficult to think of anything to say about an image of a flower from our garden.

This is one of those times.

Foxy

Its been a few years since we've grown foxgloves in our garden. In the past I've tried to photograph them, without any success.

This year, we have one large plant growing in the shade beneath the buddleia, and I made this image which I'm sort of happy with.

Leaf It Out

A brief return to mono for this image of a leaf from one of the bushes in our garden.

2014: The Year in Electronic Music

The rather belated part two of my Album of the Year series:

All forms of popular music aspire to being jazz. (I'm not sure who said this, but someone must have. If not, I'd like to claim it as it sounds really insightful.)

Arguably, electronic music comes closest to making good on this aspiration. In its ability to break new ground whilst acknowledging the genre's past and bending it into new forms and structures, it is in its own way, Whitney Balliet's "sound of surprise".

Given this, its perhaps worrying that for the past two years, the big news has been about the re-emergence of innovators from decades past. In 2013, it was Boards of Canada's underwhelming "Tomorrow's Harvest" that set the commentards chattering - I had the sense that they were so relieved that the duo had returned, that the quality of the album really didn't matter. 

In 2014, we had Aphex Twin's "Syro", which at least sounds like RDJ is having fun. But it could have been made any time in the last ten years, if not before. Wire magazine made it their album of the year - I mean, really? Adventures in modern music? Perhaps not.

So what else attracted my interest this year?

Vladislav Delay is perhaps better know as one third of the Moritz Von Oswald Trio, a unit which courts a jazz sensibility in their name, as well as their music, but are currently missing in action. "Visa" is his latest solo outing, which is like a warm bath, with its gentle fizz and pop, not a million miles from, say, Oval - which is obviously no bad thing.

Kreidler and long-time associates, To Rococo Rot have both released albums this year, both of which were underwhelming. Perhaps recognising this, To Rococo Rot have decided to call it a day, leaving "Instrument" as their final release. In a bit of a departure, Arto Lindsay provides vocals on three tracks, which appears to have been a final throw of the dice that didn't produce sixes. Kreidler's "ABC" is pleasant enough, but that's as far as it goes. The problem with their warm, analogue take on electronica is that it can very easily bland-out.

Talking of Boards of Canada, 2014 saw them reissue their 1996 release "Skam". Clocking in at 32 minutes, this EP points up the bloated, purposelessness of "Tomorrow's Harvest".

Hauschka is a pianist whose aim in life is to make his prepared piano sound like a bunch of fx, to the point were his CDs are usually filed in the electronic section in music shops. Leaving aside the question of why anyone would want to do this,his latest release, "Abandoned City" is very atmospheric. In much the same way that the nature of the instrument in use has to be taken on trust, I'm not clear if the tracks have any relationship to the cities whose names they bear or whether any of this matters.

Finally, we had the sophomore effort from La Roux, "Trouble in Paradise". A rather muted affair, this lacks the obvious hits of her début, but this actually works to its advantage, the resulting album being more of a finished whole.

So, on the whole, not a vintage year.

Gone to Seed

Another image of the aquilegia, this time of a seed head.

The Hebe Jeebies

Yet another image of a flower from our garden, this time of a hebe.

Beauty and the Mini-Beast

Another image in the mini-beasts series - some sort of flying creature on a flower of the spiraea japonica in our garden.

Hyde, Ranger

We're into the second tier images now, those which I passed over first time round. This is another from our garden, this time of a flower from the climbing hydrangea that hides the oil tank.

Chive Got the Power

I've had a busy weekend, and there's been no time to post anything. So, as a bit of a stopgap, here's an image of a chive.

Tide's Out

Another image from  the Burnham on Sea beach set, this time with the Welsh coast in the distance.

Rub-A-Dub-Dub

Recently, I spent an evening on Burnham beach, whilst my son took part in a Beaver Scouts sandcastle competition. Turning away from the complete chaos that ensued, I made a few images as the sun sank. These three gents thoughtfully presented me with some foreground interest.

Still Livid

Another image from the wildflower set.

Wild? I Was Livid, etc, etc...

I don't often make images of wild flowers because...err, well because. Anyway, I've been seeing these flowers all across the levels recently, so one morning a few weeks ago I stopped on my way to work and made a few images, of which this is one.

Taken On The Fly

As we're on the subject of micro-beasts...I made this image whilst still flushed with success from my experience with the shield bug

Stop Bugging Me

One of the advantages of working hand-held is that of speed. If I'd had the camera on the tri-pod, I wouldn't have been able to make this image of a shield bug before it crawled off somewhere.