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Canon EOS-1D X III interview: We speak to the ‘father of the EOS-1’

12 Nov

We recently had the chance to speak to two senior executives at Canon – Mr. Toshio Matsumoto, Senior Principal Engineer, and Mr. Kazuyuki Suzuki, Chief of Operations, from Canon’s Image Communication Business group. Mr. Matsumoto is known within Canon as the ‘father of the EOS-1’, and is pictured above holding the new Canon EOS-1D X Mark III.

Our conversation was conducted via an interpreter. As such, responses have been combined, and this interview has been edited lightly for clarity and flow.

How did you decide which features to update compared to the EOS-1D X Mark II?

There were a variety of factors. We get a lot of requests from our professional users, and we’re always listening to what they need. Their demands are sometimes very detailed! But we have to listen to their requests. In addition, we have to look at our technology – what kind of technology can meet those demands.

We then integrate [those pieces of information] and decide internally what we should include in the next model. In this new camera we’ve improved performance [in several areas], such as autofocus, networking and so on, which we’ll explain later in detail.

What were the main requests from users of the 1D X and 1D X II?

One important thing was the weight of the camera, and second, autofocus performance. We made sure there is no compromise in the AF performance of the new camera. And number three is network performance, which is very important [for wire services] – how fast you can put images into publication. We thought that there was room for improvement in that aspect of the camera’s performance. Lastly, image quality is of course a big thing. We worked on noise reduction, as well as high sensitivity image performance.

Also keep in mind that we have put a lot of effort into improving movie shooting performance as well as stills.

Canon EOS-1D X Mark III – key specifications (what we know so far):

  • All-new CMOS sensor
  • Dual-pixel 525-point CMOS AF with 90/100% coverage horizontally and vertically
  • New Digic Processor
  • 10-bit HEIF file capture (in addition to JPEG and Raw)
  • Max 16fps capture via viewfinder, and 20fps in live view (with AF)
  • Dual CF Express card slots
  • 10-bit, 4:2:2 4K/60 video with C-Log
  • Backlit buttons

Why did you make the decision to change the memory card type to CFexpress?

Speed. In terms of read and write speed, these cards are immensely faster than previous solutions. CFexpress is more than twice as fast as CFast. It has more development potential.

This is the first high-end camera Canon has released since the EOS R. Are your high-end and professional customers asking for a mirrorless solution?

Of course some professional photographers are asking for a mirrorless solution. But as of now, we also see a lot of demand from photographers asking for DSLRs, specifically [because of] the benefits of an OVF. So this time around we decided to go for a DSLR. Of course we understand that there are huge benefits to mirrorless, and we implemented, or combined as much of that [technology] as we could into the [EOS-1D X Mark III].

The Canon EOS R is an innovative camera in some respects, but there is a definite gap between the performance and price of most of Canon’s new RF lenses, and the EOS R and RP bodies released to support them. A truly pro-grade R body is coming, but we’ll have to wait a little while longer.

For example one of the things that we implemented from the mirrorless side was the ability to shoot at 20fps using electronic shutter. And autofocus performance, specifically subject tracking is on par with some of today’s top-notch mirrorless cameras.

Your professional users have a lot of legacy EF lenses in their collections. Do you have a target timeframe for transitioning those users to RF?

Obviously that’s a very tough question to answer. We are of course aware of this – a lot of photographers own EF lenses, and they’ve invested a lot in that system. How we look at it is when we work on mirrorless cameras, we always consider how our users can utilize the asset [provided by their] EF lenses. We always keep that in mind when developing new cameras.

That’s why we have three EF to RF adapters.

Do you have any idea of how many of your users are adapting EF lenses to EOS R cameras using those adapters?

I wish we knew that. It’s hard to say, because we do some promotional bundles with free adapters, so that affects the attachment rate. And some users [might buy multiple adapters and] put an adapter on each of their EF lenses.

In terms of the development of your DSLRs going forward, will you be focusing mostly on high-end users in future?

I can’t be specific about future plans, but we always listen to our customers to decide which direction we should go in. We don’t necessarily [think in terms of focusing] on just one area – we look at the overall picture before we decide what to focus on.

How much communication is there between the EF and RF teams within Canon? Are engineering resources shared?

We don’t have separate teams for mirrorless and DSLR cameras, it’s just one team. Some of the engineers that worked on the EOS R have worked on the EOS-1D X Mark III. And some of the engineers who worked on this camera could be working on the next mirrorless. It’s a combined organization.

One of my responsibilities is to work on the next generation of EOS cameras. I could be working on mirrorless, or DSLR, or even something else.

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The EOS-1D X Mark III looks and works the way it does for many reasons, but its DNA dates back to 1986, with the manual-focus T90. Canon built on the T90’s innovative ergonomics in the original EOS-1 (1989) which included a then-unique rear control dial.

The first digital EOS-1, the appropriately-named 1D, added a rear LCD screen and an integrated vertical grip, and the rest is (more recent history). Impressively, as you can see, some of the design principles laid out in the T90 are still honored by the EOS-1D X Mark III, after more than 30 years.

I know you were one of the engineers that worked on the T90 and the original EOS-1. What is your thinking on how the heritage of the EOS-1 series should evolve in future models?

Major principles for the EOS-1 series from the beginning have been durability, reliability, speed and control. A big mission of the EOS-1 series is that the cameras should never miss a shot.

Some of the controls from the original EOS-1 are still found in the same place on the EOS-1D X Mark III, thirty years later. How did you come up with the original control layout?

When we were working on the very first EOS-1 camera we made a lot of mockups, and we had a lot of professional photographers handle those mockups and we noted how quickly and smoothly they were able to operate the cameras. One of the things that was most challenging about the EOS-1 originally was the rear control dial. In the development stage, initially, we didn’t [plan on having] a dial on the back.

What we found through the development process is that when professional photographers in the field were [using our mockups] thinking about exposure control, it wasn’t as smooth without that dial on the back. So we had a number of discussions with those photographers about the design, and we spent a lot of time getting it right. We actually had to delay the launch of the camera in order to implement the perfect solution for exposure control.

How have the needs of digital photographers affected the design decisions you’ve made in subsequent EOS-1 series cameras?

One important thing we always kept in mind with the original EOS-1 was that it should work as soon as you take it out of the box. But now [with digital] there’s a monitor on the back, and as we thought about how to utilize that we had to consider various [new] factors, such as the possibility of photographers shooting using live view, and various other things.

One of the principles that we always keep in mind when designing the controls of the cameras [in this series], for example when implementing the touch-sensitive panels is that we have to make sure that there is no possibility for erroneous control inputs.

Do you think that in future, when there is a mirrorless solution for professional sports photographers, that it will still look a little like the original EOS-1?

In terms of form-factor we have no idea at this point. But one thing I can say is that our principal focus on reliability and control will always be the same.

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The magnesium alloy-bodied Canon EOS-1D X Mark III is a solid camera, built for use in tough conditions. An evolution of the EOS-1D X and 1D X Mark II, the Mark III does bring some new controls and new features to the table – many of which Canon has not yet publicly commented on.

Obviously one thing that mirrorless cameras allow you to do, which DSLRs do not, is through-the-viewfinder video capture. Are your professional photographers asking for more video features? Or are they mostly still focused on stills capture?

With this EOS-1D X Mark III our main focus is stills. But we understand that there are a lot of ‘hybrid’ professional photographers that shoot stills and video. One of the things we’re really focused on right now, and we’re putting in a lot of effort, is the question of how and when EVFs will go beyond the capabilities of optical viewfinders.

As a camera manufacturer making products for a professional customer, what does a DSLR allow you to provide that a mirrorless camera does not?

At this point in time the biggest difference is the finder. The fact that you can see everything in real time, without any layers in the way. That’s really big for a lot of professional sports photographers. On the other hand, we do see a lot of the younger generation of professionals favoring EVFs, because what you see is what you get. We understand that there is a demand for that benefit of mirrorless cameras. So what we always do is we strive to make a perfect solution out of these different demands.

Have you been working with photographers on the EOS-1D X Mark III ahead of the Olympics next summer?

Yes, we’ve started communicating with some of the agencies around solutions for their needs. One of the important things for major events like the Olympics is robotics, of course. When we’re communicating with those photographers and videographers we look at a total solution.

Editors’ note: Barnaby Britton

Until I got into the meeting room, I didn’t know I would be speaking to Mr. Matsumoto at PPE. It was a huge and unexpected privilege to meet the person responsible for the development of the original EOS-1, and before that the T90: unarguably two of the most important cameras in terms of modern D/SLR design, and two of my personal favorites.

As you can see, a lot of the decisions that Canon made in those 1980s models lead to ergonomic details that persist even today, more than 30 years later, and not just in the company’s own DSLR and mirrorless options. The fact that that design philosophy doesn’t look out of date after three decades is testament to just how forward-thinking Mr. Matsumoto and his team were, way back in the pre-digital era.

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Matsumoto himself was not able to speak in any great detail on-record about the precise specifications of the EOS1-D X III. What we know officially about the camera is what Canon has publicly released. That being said, you’d expect any camera that builds on the strengths of the EOS-1D X Mark III to be well-suited to the needs of Canon’s professional customer base, and I can tell you from handling the Mark III that the upgrades compared to the Mark II appear significant.

As Mr. Matsumoto says, ever since the original EOS-1 debuted 30 years ago, the focus of the 1-series has been durability, speed, reliability and control. Compared to the film-era EOS-1/1N/1V, the EOS-1D X Mark III is a complex and immeasurably more powerful machine, but its also a much tougher camera, and more usable in a range of different environments.

I expect that most people reading this are like me – we don’t need 20fps capture. But some professional sports photographers do. And the slow introduction of transformative technologies like Dual CMOS autofocus into Canon’s professional line makes each progressive model more capable, none more so than the new Mark III, which can shoot at this rate in either electronic or mechanical shutter mode.

It looks like we’ll have to wait a little longer before we see an EOS R model aimed at sports and action shooters

Mr. Matsumoto describes these autofocus and continuous shooting capabilities as ‘mirrorless’ features, probably in a nod to competitive offerings like the Sony a9 II. And there’s no doubt that they enhance the usability of the EOS-1D X Mark III in some situations. But there’s no getting away from the fact that there is a mirror, getting in the way of the Mark III ever being as versatile a camera for hybrid stills / video use as a Sony a9 II, or a Nikon Z7, or a Panasonic Lumix DC-S1, etc.

For now though, according to Mr. Matsumoto, Canon is focusing on a mainly stills photography audience with the Mark III. In other words, the kinds of photographers we’ll see on the sidelines of the 2020 Olympic games next summer in Tokyo: many of them agency photographers, shooting stills, using pool equipment. Some people (myself included) had hoped for a truly professional mirrorless camera from Canon for 2020, but it looks like we’ll have to wait a little longer before we see an EOS R model aimed at sports and action shooters.

That being said, you never know with Canon. The company has a reputation for careful and conservative product development, but it can be imaginative and decisive when it needs to be. As the EOS-1D X Mark III demonstrates, with more than 30 years of (D)SLR development behind him, Mr. Matsumoto and his team is confident that they can still ring the changes in the professional sports / photojournalism market segment, even without a mirrorless product.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Interview: Colin Goudie, feature film editor

24 Aug
In the edit suite for The Show, a new film written by and starring Alan Moore

Colin Goudie is a feature film editor with a career spanning over 35 years, editing everything from 16mm film to Digital 65mm, and has cut films in big studios, hotel rooms and even tin shacks. Most recently, he’s known for his work on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Monsters, though he doesn’t limit himself to big budget productions and can often be found editing lower budget documentaries and dramas too.

Colin talked with DPRevew about editing movies back in the film days, and the transition to a fully digital workflow.

How did you start out as an editor?

I got a placement at Nene College of Art and did a foundation course for two years where I discovered 35mm stills photography. I graduated from Nene and got a placement at Bournemouth College of Art School of film, photography and TV production.

Instead of just concentrating on stills photography, in year one I would actually go to the second and third year students and ask them if they wanted a unit stills photographer and, of course, everybody always wanted a free unit stills photographer. I did that, and of course the thing about a film set is there’s always too much work to be done and not enough people to do it, so people would start asking you to hold this boom mic, could you alter those barn doors on that light, so you start to learn the process.

Of course, if you don’t mess up people give you more and more responsibility. By the time I went into my second year people were asking me to edit their films, so I jumped ahead by a year. Then I left film school and I managed to get a job at the BBC in their trainee assistant film editor course.

Do you remember the first time you saw non linear editing and what was your reaction?

I left the BBC after 10 years editing on film and tape, and the very first job I was offered was for a tiny documentary series for the BBC about volunteering. There were 15 minute films and the director of one of the episodes had recommended me to the Series Producer. The Series Producer phoned up to talk to me; we got on well over the phone and he said I’d been highly recommended, but the film was cutting on Lightworks and was I OK with that? I said yes.

In year one I would actually go to the second and third year students and ask them if they wanted a unit stills photographer and, of course, everybody always wanted a free unit stills photographer.

I hung the phone up and then I picked it up right away and called directory enquiries and said, “Can you put me through to a company called Lightworks?” and they looked up the number and put me through. I said, “Hi, can you tell me what a Lightworks is and how can I learn to use one?” Lightworks ran a training course that was two days, and I went and spent a lot of money to do the course and then on the following week I started on the series.

I do remember that the other person – there were only two of us on the course – when the instructor talked about using the mouse, said she had never used a computer mouse in her life. I had because of my days at the BBC, because you had to do some stuff with the mouse and a bit of DOS work. Also, because I used an Atari ST as a gamer.

It’s really interesting, everything everybody tells you that playing computer games are bad. But actually it turned out not to be because I understood about loading floppy disks, doing backups, using a mouse, what a DOS monitor was and how to type in code. All those things I learnt in gaming were really useful in an editing environment, and I did see other people struggle who had never done that.

I loved Lightworks straight off because for me it was finally a combination of of the dexterity of film editing, the fact that I can cut in a single frame, the fact that I can drop it in two-thirds of the way through a film or a third of the way through the film. It meant I didn’t have to re-conform my tape like it had on on the U-matic based editing system. It also meant that I could keep all my previous cuts of the film.

A young Colin editing 16mm. It was a very delicate process.

Editors who have worked with film often talk about the physicality of it. Do you miss it?

No, mainly because Lightworks felt physical when you were using that controller. It was lovely to have your pictures at better quality than they had been on U-matic in the early days of offline. Of course, you did come a cropper because you had to digitize at a quite a low quality picture rate, so sometimes you would miss things.

I remember editing a show once, a World War II drama, and there was an extremely wide shot of the outside of St. Pancras station with hundreds of cast members walking through shot, and a shot like that eats up your data rate so things look very blocky.

It was only when they conformed the film and the guys were dubbing it, and the sound crew were laying in the footsteps, looking at the film frame by frame for footsteps, said, “Do you know there’s somebody walking through shot with a Sainsbury’s shopping bag?” Which for a WWII drama was a bit of an error. Nobody has ever seen it, I never saw it on the rushes because I only saw the digitized picture.

It was a learning curve. It really made me learn to look for those kind of things even more on a heavily digitized picture. It also made me fight vociferously for productions moving forward from that day that I would have more memory and be able to digitize my rushes at the highest possible quality.

I learnt to do all my wide shots at a higher quality digitization rate than the close-ups, whereas up until that time it was always quicker and easier to do everything at the lowest possible rate, which is what everybody did because memory was so expensive in those days. A 9 gigabyte drive was £2,400. If you do the maths on that it was £90,000 in memory alone just for an edit, so you cut your cloth accordingly but those are all learning things. It was the early days of nonlinear.

Colin and Gareth Edwards on Rogue One.

You’ve edited in some quite odd places. Normally, people picture director and editor sitting in a air conditioned room with coffee and croissants coming in, but that’s not always been your experience has it?

Certainly among my peers I seem to have edited in more weird locations than many. I have done my fair bit of editing in suites, but I’ve also done a lot of location editing. I have edited at Soho and Pinewood and Shepperton, Skywalker Ranch at the Lucasfilm Presidio in San Francisco and also in the rim of a volcano, but it wasn’t active.

I like location editing for the access it gives me to the director and sometimes to the cast. It’s very useful if you befriend the actors on location and they become your mates, because when you go up to them and say, “Could you just record this line of dialogue for me so I can lay it into the edit and try out an idea with some new dialogue?” it’s much easier if you know them.

Certainly among my peers I seem to have edited in more weird locations than many.

Obviously, having the access to your director when on location is great because if I look at the rushes in the afternoon that they shot in the morning and spot something that I need a pickup on, I can pop down to set straight away while they’ve still got the cast on that set. I can even show them a little rough edit that I might have done and say this is why I need this shot, so everyone understands why you need it, and I’ll get it bashed out for you really quickly – there’s no delay in that process.

Don’t you find yourself out on a limb in those situations?

The drawback of editing on location is lack of technical backup, so if something goes wrong and you’re on the other side of the world with a laptop and suddenly your card reader doesn’t talk to your drive or your camera media, then you’re really stuffed. I have made numerous phone calls to people in the UK pleading for some help down a dodgy phone line to get me out of a scrape or send me a new driver down the internet.

My joke I always used when I talked to the production manager was, I don’t care about the quality of my hotel room so long as I’ve got a table and a chair, stable electricity mains supply and the internet, and you wouldn’t believe how many times you can’t get all four of those things. That can really affect your workflow.

If you don’t have a stable electricity supply it’s impossible to run your drives because they just keep dropping out the whole time, so suddenly the Producers are like, “Why didn’t you cut anything today?” and it’s like “I don’t have a main supply to edit it, to run the external hard drives up on.”

You get used to the fact of taking portable drives that you can maybe clone material from, and work off of on the short-term until you can get to some sort of electricity supply and recharge your laptop.

Colin editing Monsters on location.

You’ve also shared your edit suite with some non human occupants as well haven’t you?

I’ve had an edit suite where a scorpion came in underneath the door.

I also worked on a BBC series which was edited inside London Zoo, in a large Portacabin. It was a real team experience with four other freelance editors, a bit like the old days at the BBC. The great thing about that was that the zoo keepers sometimes brought a few of the animals into the office. We had Coatis and even a Lynx come round; the Coatis ate our lunch (they loved yogurt) and the Lynx pawed the carpet. We all adopted them.

We did have a problem with some other wildlife at the Zoo. One day I came into my suite, turned on my Avid and then booted up all the others. When I got back to mine all the media was offline and I checked the same had happened in every other edit too. On investigation, the Technical Manager found that a rat had chewed through the fiber optic cable than ran between the edit suites and the main building where the drives were kept.

I’ve had an edit suite where a scorpion came in underneath the door.

Cheap plastic cable cost us days in edit time until it could be replaced by the armored variety. Cutting costs there actually didn’t work out too well.

If you could re-cut one film that you haven’t made what would it be?

I’d inter-cut Dunkirk with The Darkest Hour and make one movie because I think there’s a way of doing that. When I was a kid growing up epic films were Lawrence of Arabia, which had incredible battle scenes, and they also had really intelligent political dialogue scenes and these days it seems that you have to have one or the other.

Dunkirk is a spectacular looking action movie but I don’t understand what’s going on plot wise in terms of the history of Dunkirk. I mean, I know because I grew up watching World War II movies, I’ve talked to my dad who fought in the war, but for a modern audience in terms of teaching you about Dunkirk it’s incomprehensible.

It doesn’t have any plot, it just has incredible action scenes, The Darkest Hour is a really brilliantly made Churchillian biopic which gives you all the political background but has no scale, it’s almost all people in rooms talking.

I think that if you took the rushes for those two films it would be fascinating to see if you could have a crack at making one 3 hour long Lawrence of Arabia style epic which told the story of Dunkirk and told the story of Churchill and made effectively the modern Lawrence of Arabia. You’d have to have the rushes, and you’d have to have carte blanche to do what you wanted, but I think that would be amazing to do that.

X Wings and kilts, not often seen together.

Thinking about Star Wars, what’s your favorite film and why?

Empire Strikes Back, definitely.

I saw Star Wars (Episode IV) when it came out. I liked it, but it wasn’t my favorite movie of all time, but I did enjoy it. I think one of the reasons why it wasn’t my favorite movie is because it took six months to get from America to the UK and by the time we actually sat in the cinema to watch it they’d shown so many clips of it on TV you kind of knew the story.

When Empire Strikes Back came out it was all shrouded in secrecy, there were no clips. Up until that movie I had not seen the Godfather Part II, so basically I’d never seen a good sequel. Every sequel that I’d ever seen was not as good as the original film; Jaws 2 was not as good as Jaws, and it was effectively the same film.

With Empire Strikes Back I sat down to watch what I thought was going to be Star Wars part II, and I saw a film that took things in a totally different Direction. It introduced new characters, had Yoda, who has got to be one of the greatest cinematic characters of all time, and was not flagged up in the first movie at all all.

Every sequel that I’d ever seen was not as good as the original film; Jaws 2 was not as good as Jaws, and it was effectively the same film.

Then the Twist with what they did with the Luke Skywalker character and the Darth Vader character, and the fact that it ended on a cliffhanger, which in those days no movie did. Now every movie does it. I just remember walking out of that movie theater on opening day – I saw it at 10:30 in the morning at Odeon Leicester Square in 70mm, and all I wanted to do was go back in and see that movie again, which I couldn’t do because it was sold out.

I just thought it was incredible, and I think that the score had some of the tracks from the original movie, but the Empire theme was new for Empire Strikes Back. Imperial March is not in the first movie, that is one of the most defining pieces of music in cinematic history, so to get all those pieces was incredible and the visual effects (VFX) were on a new level.

I understood how they did the VFX in the original Star Wars film, spaceships against black, because I really studied and knew about 2001 and how they did that. But, when they had sequences of snow speeders going across landscapes against snow in Empire… my little brain was going, “How did they do that?”

Colin editing at the BBC on tape.

Moving from 16mm to tape, and now on to digital, what’s been the biggest challenge?

I think the biggest technical difference during my career as an editor has been the introduction of video tape, and now digital over film, because when we shot on film the average shooting ratio was 10 to 1. I remember when I made my University film I shot on a ratio of 1.25 to 1. I had 40 minutes of film stock to make a 25-minute finished drama.

When you learn that discipline 10 to 1 seems like luxury. The skill set, the training that most directors had in the first part of my career, was that everybody had come up through film and they learnt to shoot on a 10 to 1 shooting ratio, so they don’t get the minimum amount of coverage needed, but have sufficient coverage – not excessive coverage – and that it was correct.

When I made my University film I shot on a ratio of 1.25 to 1. I had 40 minutes of film stock to make a 25-minute finished drama.

What happened with videotape was things started to become a bit more ‘shoot everything that moves and we’ll sort it out the edit’, and that’s a tradition that is even more prevalent with digital today. Traditionally capture was only in real time, now you don’t even to wait that long so shooting ratios have exploded. That is almost always to the detriment of what happens in the edit because that means that the editor now has more footage to look at than there are hours in the day to look at it.

Unless you are on a very long schedule you need either the director to have gone through the material and come in with at least some notation, and some honing down clarification as to what they’ve shot, so that you only need look at the minimum amount for what you need to do the edit.

Quite often what I’ll do is do that, and when I’ve assembled the film I will then talk to them and say, “What else have you got that I’ve not seen?” that we can now go back and look at with a view to improving some of the sequences, because you just don’t have time to watch everything on a standard schedule.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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CP+ 2019 Ricoh interview: Some users who bought mirrorless cameras will return to DSLRs

20 May
Hiroki Sugahara from Ricoh’s Marketing Communication Department and Takashi Arai from Ricoh’s Product Planning Department

The CP+ 2019 trade show in Yokohama, Japan gave us the chance to meet a variety of senior executives from all the major camera makers. We spoke to a group of senior figures from Ricoh about the full cross-section of the company’s photographic range, with the answers mainly coming from:

  • Hiroki Sugahara – General Manager, Marketing Communication Department
  • Hiraku Kawauchi – Group Leader, PR, Marketing Communication Department

Please note that this interview was conducted partly via an interpreter, and has been edited for clarity and flow.

What has the response to the GR III been like, so far?

Very positive. This is not the first time we’ve disclosed the appearance and specifications, but this is the very first chance our customers have had to touch and use it. Even though they know the specifications, the purpose to come here is to touch and try, for example to experience the operability of the touchscreen or the performance of the macro capabilities.

From what I’ve seen and heard, the reaction is very good. Especially the operability of the touchscreen, which customers consider a positive. The shake reduction, the 24MP sensor or performance of the lens are features that our customers already knew from the specification sheet. But the quick response of the touchscreen seems very well accepted.

What was the logic behind the decision to use a unit-focus design for the GR III’s lens (that tends to slow down autofocus)?

The big priority is to make the camera body as compact as possible while retaining good resolving power of the lens.

Does the switch to phase-detection bring enough of a speed increase to overcome the challenge of moving a comparative heavy lens design?

The speed of the focusing is improved. But we’d also like to draw attention to the fact that you can now focus from 10cm to infinity, rather than 30cm to infinity, as on GR II. That range of scanning is broadened. This can sometimes give the impression of slower focus but the overall speed is faster than with GR II.

Is there room in your lineup for a sister model that isn’t 28mm, or maybe other adapter lenses?

One thing is for sure, we haven’t only made 28mm lenses: we did have a 21mm GR lens in the past, and we did have a 50mm equivalent [module] for the GXR. I feel this is also interesting: to have a sister model with other focal lengths.

But the important thing with this camera was that it should be fast enough and compact enough to be considered ‘GR.’ If we could achieve that with other focal lengths, that would be interesting.

Ricoh currently makes a wide range of products: Pentax DSLRs, the GR and WG compacts and the Theta series, are there any other niches you see existing or do you think there’s room to grow within these four areas?

On top of this we have 645Z, so already we have enough formats. We’re currently working on these categories of products.

We’ve seen a lot of movement away from DSLR to Mirrorless (by manufacturers), do you feel there are still types of photography better-suited to DSLR?

Currently mirrorless, especially full-frame mirrorless, is a movement. So many users are interested in this new category of camera: full-frame mirrorless. Mirrorless itself has its own benefits [and] appealing point to the users: they can check their images before hitting the shutter button, through the EVF. But on the other hand, DSLRs have their own benefits: users can enjoy the beautiful image through the optical viewfinder and then imagine different ways of taking photos using different settings, they can imagine the consequence of taking the picture.

I imagine, in two or three years, some users who bought mirrorless cameras will return to DSLRs

We have been studying various possibilities when it comes to development, but we believe both mirrorless and DSLR have their own appeal. I imagine, in two or three years, some users who bought mirrorless cameras will return to DSLRs or choose to use both systems, because each has its own benefits.

How do you prioritize which lenses to work on next, for K-mount? When do you plan a completely new lens, when do you replace an existing one?

We have a lineup with many lenses, particularly APS-C optimized lenses. Actually, in the industry, our number of APS-C-optimized lenses is number one. Our DA lens series and also the ‘Limited’ series of lenses, which gives a unique level of image quality for the enthusiast photographer. We also have the star lenses: we’re going to develop an 85mm F1.4 lens, so we are releasing very high quality lenses. And also APS-C optimized lenses like the 11-18mm F2.8. We will continue to release various series.

In spring, we released the 35mm F2 HD-coated lens, which is a modification of a conventional lens, so we’ll continue to do this kind of modification as well.

You mentioned the 645Z. We’re still seeing cameras launched with a similar sensor, many years after you did, so we understand it has a longer lifespan, but is that series still part of your plans?

Of course. We are continuing to develop the 645 series. We are pursuing higher picture quality for the system because users have high expectations of image quality.

[The representatives would not be drawn over whether these efforts were focused on better lenses or increased pixel counts]

When you’re designing a lens, do you see any tensions between needs of stills and video requirements? How do you strike that balance?

The overall priority is still image quality, but we do have the 55-300mm lens, which is designed to work well with the movie feature by including electromagnetic aperture control. So we continue to care about the movie performance as we design new lenses.

What were the challenges of including larger sensors in a Theta – for the previous generation there were concerns about being able to offer 4K, now you’ve done it with bigger systems.

It’s partly down to our heat management system: we use a metal body in the Theta Z1 unlike the Theta V, which had a plastic body. The Z1 uses a magnesium alloy, which is a better heat conductor, so we can manage the heat well.

In terms of space, first of all, we had to change the size. We also use three pairs of prisms, rather than two pairs: we changed the position of the sensor and how we bend the light to them.

The larger sensors on the Theta Z1 now sit further down in the body, facing out towards the sides of the body, whereas they were previously mounted on either side of the lens, facing inwards.

The larger sensor requires a longer focal length. There was the risk that using more prisms would lower the image quality but the design we came up with performs very well.

The body has got slightly thicker, did you need a wider angle-of-view to give plenty of overlap between the two cameras?

The angle-of-view is actually the same, but the minimum focus distance has increased. It’s now 40cm instead of 10cm. The angle-of-view was already more than 180 degrees, so we didn’t have to make it wider to give sufficient overlap.

What do you think is the most exciting new feature of the Z1?

We focused a lot on the image quality, to make it much, much better than previously possible. We really wanted to make sure that people used to DSLR image quality and professionals could use the Theta. We wanted to ensure it was suitable for creative and professional use.

Who is using Theta and what for?

There are two groups: consumers and business users. Some people are enjoying taking 360 degree images, editing and posting to Instagram. Currently our users are enjoying taking the video 4K 360 image and converting it to a 2D image: the editing software lets them choose the angle, or zoom in or out and post to sites such as YouTube. This is often in the same situations where you might use an action camera, like a GoPro.

Also, we see an equal number of users traveling and taking a 360 video image with a selfie stick, at a viewpoint, for instance. Then, when they get home, they can enjoy the memory of their travel, with a VR image. That’s [a typical consumer use-case].

In terms of business, it’s especially the real estate and second-hand car sales areas, and also in construction and inspection. There are many business users who can utilize this 360 image for recording or communicating a specific situation or image.

Is there some overlap between this and the G-series of industrial camera?

The G-series are waterproof cameras: They’re normal cameras, essentially. For an all-around image, the Theta is the better option: it brings additional possibilities. Those business-to-business customers will certainly benefit from the improved image quality of the Z1. They don’t need more video quality, necessarily, but they need the higher still image quality.

What is the unifying feature or quality that Ricoh brings to customers of GR, WG, 645, K and Theta?

We’re trying to make the operating system the same, the G-series, the GR series, WG and DSLRs are coming together. Even though the brands are different, the way of handling the camera is becoming more similar. Of course Theta is something different.

Are there any lessons you’ve learned from Theta that you can apply to your other cameras?

Our current Wi-Fi software is now essentially the same as it is in Theta. We have a specialized Wi-Fi app for GR, but we are looking to bring them together and introduce the same Wi-Fi software for GR, Theta and DSLR.

Also, we already use DNG Raw so that they’re compatible with Adobe Lightroom. But we also have stitching plugins for Lightroom that will stitch multiple images. This will have the same algorithm as the Theta, for stitching. But by making it in a plugin for Lightroom, professional photographers will already be familiar with the environment: their workflow doesn’t have to change.

Editor’s note:

As you might expect, a lot of Ricoh’s attention at present is on the GR III but this interview really brought home to me how much work’s gone into the Theta Z1. Ricoh always says the Theta has been a real success for them, and it’s certainly a distinctive product in a way you don’t often encounter in the photo industry.

But, while all the models have looked very similar, Ricoh has been constantly pushing what’s possible in terms of managing what they do with the space and all the heat within that same form-factor. Having previously been told how difficult it was going to be to process 4K video in such a small space without overheating, it seems amazing to find they’re now doing it with even larger sensors filling up the space.

Those are skills that can underpin interesting cameras in the future

This may not seem that exciting for users of the company’s Pentax DSLRs, but it can only be positive if a company has a product that pushes them to constantly work on processing efficiency, space optimization and thermal management, because those are skills that can underpin interesting cameras in the future.

Which is probably why I was pretty disappointed to hear Ricoh’s representatives appearing to suggest that DSLRs might make a comeback, once the novelty of mirrorless has worn off. Because, while I don’t think the DSLR is dead just yet, I wouldn’t bank on it ending up with much more than niche status in the long run. But perhaps Ricoh believes it can make a solid future by exploiting multiple small niches like this: that would certainly explain the amazing breadth of its product portfolio.

I can’t help imagine what a combination of this foresight, and the impressive engineering of the Theta Z1 would look like

A part of me can’t help but feel a bit disappointed. Pentax was one of the first companies, way back in 1997, to show a concept mockup of what we’d now call a mirrorless camera. And, even though the market is now very crowded, I can’t help imagine what a combination of this foresight, and the impressive engineering of the Theta Z1 would look like, if they could be brought together.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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CP+ 2019 Panasonic interview: ‘We’re proud of our cameraness’

12 May

The CP+ 2019 trade show in Yokohama, Japan, gave us the chance to speak to most of the major camera makers. Panasonic put forward an extensive team to discuss the company’s move into the full-frame market.

  • Michiharu Uematsu – Technical PR Adviser, Merchandising Dep., INBU
  • Tetsuya Uno – Group Manager, Optical Engineering Dep., INBU
  • Koji Shibuno – Manager, Software Engineering Dep. Key (responsible) engineer of AF engineering, INBU
  • Takayuki Tochio – Senior Coordinator, Product Engineering Dep., INBU Key engineer of Picture Quality
  • Hidenari Nishikawa – Senior Coordinator, Merchandising Dep., INBU
  • Shiori Kitaoka – Senior Coordinator, Communication Dep. CMD

Please note that this interview was conducted partly via an interpreter, and has been edited for clarity and flow.

How different is it to design a lens for a much bigger sensor? What are the challenges?

When we’re designing a lens, we look first at the most important properties: sharpness, transmission, distortion, vignetting, CA. But there are also some things are not measurable, quantitatively, such as bokeh. These are the ‘taste’ of the lens. So we need to understand this.

We assess bokeh at various distances. With Micro Four Thirds, the depth-of-field is deeper, relatively speaking. It’s obvious where the tack-sharp range is and where is the ‘big bokeh’ [significantly out-of-focus area] range is. But now, for the full frame we need to consider the intermediate range: the ‘small bokeh’ area. It could be around the focal plane: that may already begin to be defocused with a full frame sensor.

We’re constantly developing this to ensure the perfect ‘taste’ to our S-series lenses

We segment with depth: for the big bokeh area we want the beautiful bokeh with no onion ring effect and no unpleasant vignetting [of the bokeh: the ‘cats’ eye effect’]. We need to have smooth vignetting from the center to edges, with circular bokeh in the center and a smooth progression to non-circular bokeh near the corners.

With the small bokeh [transitional] area we think about the double-line bokeh: which is considered a ‘busy’ bokeh effect. Around the focal plane area the transition between tack-sharp and out-of-focus is very important.

We needed a way to quantify and evaluate these usually qualitative aspects. This feeling when we look at the picture, we need to calculate or transfer those parameters to the quantitative evaluation.

We’re constantly developing this to ensure the perfect ‘taste’ to our S-series lenses.

How well can you model bokeh or do you just have to build a sample lens and test it?

Thanks to very good simulation system we can roughly predict what the bokeh will look like beforehand. We create a prototype model but there can be gaps between what we expected from the simulation and exactly what we made, so we iterate with creation of the prototypes. So we model, create pre-production samples, evaluate and adjust before making another prototype model.

We firstly simulate a typical value of what we’d like to develop, then we can simulate the differences made by manufacturing tolerances, so we can predict those as well.

What are the challenges of making larger lenses with the high speed AF performance we’ve seen in Micro Four Thirds?

In terms of the mechanical part of the lens, we have a newly-developed double focus system and ultrasonic assist system. We have the double focus system in the 50mm lens and ultrasonic assist in the 24-105mm and 70-200mm.

In our double focus system, we have two groups of lenses which move independently for autofocus. Because we’ve separated the two groups, we can broaden the freedom of the development to give the best image quality and fast autofocus. Because we divided the AF into two, each group ends up being lighter, so they’re faster, too.

We have a newly-developed double focus system and an ultrasonic assist system

For the ultrasonic assist, it’s a new addition, on top of the linear focus actuator. The system keeps the lenses moving constantly, so that they don’t have to overcome ‘stiction’ [the friction that needs to be overcome to start moving] before being driven to the correct location. This means the force needed to drive the lens is much less. So we have an ultrasonic system moving the lens a matter of nanometers, to ensure the lens isn’t having to move from a dead start each time. It’s a small enough vibration that you don’t see it as AF wobbling.

Have you shared your DFD technology with Sigma and Leica?

The autofocus system protocol between the body and the lens is standardized in the L-mount alliance. So the other alliance members know what information the autofocus system needs. Beyond that it’s up to the individual lens businesses whether they include that information to be fully compatible. It’s up to them what they implement.

How do Leica L-mount lenses behave on the S1 and S1R?

Because this [DFD information] is already included in the protocol standard of the L-mount alliance, they already know how the body can command the lens to work.

The protocol hasn’t changed: L-mount lenses that already exist should work in the same way as our new lenses. The protocol was already fixed when Leica started it as the SL system. Of course we’re working on it all the time so it may be upgraded at some time, but for now it stays the same.

How does Panasonic plan to balance its resources between L-mount and Micro Four Thirds?

Because this was the launch of the S-series, we put the maximum effort into the S-series, including lenses. But you already know that we’re developing the 10-25mm F1.7 lens for Micro Four Thirds, that’s coming soon. So of course we are developing both S-series and G-series at the same time.

The forthcoming Panasonic Leica DG Vario Summilux 10-25mm F1.7 is supposed to show the company’s continued Micro Four Thirds ambitions.

Has the expansion to a new system involved any expansion of engineering or manufacturing capacity?

We have optimized our human resources internally so that we can develop both S series and G series to the highest standard.

The S1 video spec is good but not up to GH standard. Do you see L-mount making sense for pro/semi-pro video?

First of all, let us confirm the concept of these cameras: the S1R is for the professional photographer while the S1 is for the hybrid stills and video photographer, so the concepts of those models are a little bit different. This might be why the spec is not beyond the GH series.

In the future, we’d like to consider the users’ needs: it’s open to users’ feedback.

Do you feel there’s an advantage to Micro Four Thirds, when it comes to video?

There are many categories of video shooters from broadcasting or run-and-gun, through to cinema and creative videography. If we are thinking about broadcasting or run-and-gun videographers, there may be some advantage to the small, compact and lightweight combination. That’s the first benefit, compared to the larger sensor system. Image stabilization and overheating will be less of an issue, compared to full-frame sensors.

The degree of [creative] freedom broadens if you use a larger sensor, so maybe the cinema type of videographer would prefer the larger sensor, such as full frame. Maybe for cinema it’s better to take full frame.

Was EVA-1 level videography considered when developing the L system and its lenses?

Of course we have been discussing with professional camcorder team as a fundamental part of the engineering, but we haven’t discussed deeply how we might create such models. We’re not discussing which mount would be used for the coming product.

Of course we don’t disclose any further product information. At this point we don’t have any future information we can disclose.

Panasonic talks about the ‘cameraness’ of the S1: the degree to which it feels like a camera

You’re arriving in a very crowded sector of the market. What is it you think Panasonic can uniquely bring?

Firstly, cameraness: the interface, in terms of both hardware and software [making the device feel like a camera]. If you look at competitor models, they’re very innovative cameras but they’re having some negative comments in the market that the grips are smaller than expected or that the interface is [too] cutting-edge, leaving people confused when they first try to use them. We listened to a lot of customers’ feedback to create the S-series, so we designed the position of buttons, shape of buttons and also the menu settings accordingly. We’re proud of this cameraness and the interface, first of all.

In terms of features, we have the high resolution mode, which is number one in the market and Dual IS that gives up to six stops of stabilization. 4K/60p is a feature only we have in the full frame market and the electronic viewfinder is really high resolution: that too is number one in the market. This isn’t everything, of course, but we can offer all those functions and features, to even professional users so that they can easily come to our system and start using them for their professional work.

Also our HLG Photo mode: this comes from our background in videography and this allows for a new photographic style.

What does HLG mean for stills photography: what happens next? Editing tools for HDR images?

The editing, as you say, and the public awareness are important in the near future. Firstly we’d like everyone to try the HLG HDR photos, where people can have a [means] of expression beyond the standard definition.

In terms of editing, we are co-working with an alliance: we’re trying to find a solution to edit HDR images. On the technology side we’d like to be at least one step ahead of our competitors, so we will keep improving the image sensor technology to be capable for the high dynamic range world.

Of course we’re one of the few companies that can create HDR TVs as well as cameras, so of course we’re working with [our] TV business group. That way you’re not only shooting but can also display and view HDR images in the best possible environment.

For the HDR Photo style we’re working to have a wider [DR] option so that you can be really creative when shooting HLG photos.

Editor’s note

This meeting was a mixture of briefing and interview, which is why some of the answers are quite long and detailed. The upshot of this is, perhaps, that you don’t have to read quite so closely between the lines to see the message Panasonic wants to send. My own interpretation of it would be ‘we’re not just an electronics company: we care about even the most subtle aspects of image quality.’ Or maybe that’s just my response to hearing the word ‘cameraness’ again.

The thing I haven’t been able to capture in the text is the slide Panasonic showed me about the autofocus hit-rate they measured when shooting their cameras side-by-side with phase-detection-based rivals. The testing protocol wasn’t fully disclosed, but it showed their products delivering a hit-rate comparable to some pretty good cameras, and even out-performing phase-detection systems when the subject gets close to the camera.

My own interpretation of it would be ‘we’re not just an electronics company: we care about even the most subtle aspects of image quality.’

This is something we’ll be looking at as we test the S1 and S1R, because the general perception of DFD is that it’s flat-out inferior to phase-detection. This isn’t helped by the visually disturbing ‘flutter’ as the cameras try to maintain focus on moving objects (an effect made more dramatic by the high res viewfinders and shallow depth-of-field of the lenses on the S cameras).

Overall, though, it’s clear that Panasonic wants its S1 and S1R to appeal specifically to professional stills photographers. When it comes to video, the company’s plans seem less well-developed. For now, at least, it seems that Panasonic sees the GH series as its main video/stills camera platform.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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CP+ 2019: Tamron interview – ‘the full-frame market is expanding, so we’re looking at that market first’

28 Apr

At the CP+ show in Yokohama last month, we talked with senior executives from several major camera and lens manufacturers including Tamron. In our conversation with Mr Takashi Sawao, Mr Kenji Nakagawa and Mr Minoru Ando, we discussed various topics including the 40th anniversary of the ‘SP’ series, Tamron’s plans for mirrorless, and the shrinking APS-C market.

Participants:

  • Takashi Sawao, Executive Officer, General Manager, Imaging Products Business Unit
  • Kenji Nakagawa, Product Manager, Product Planning Dept., Imaging Products Business Unit
  • Minoru Ando, General Manager, Optical Design & Engineering R&D Unit

Please note that this interview has been edited for clarity and flow.

Why did you decide to make a premium F1.4 35mm?

‘SP’ stands for superior performance, and this year we’re celebrating 40 years since we first introduced ‘SP’. We had the F1.8 35mm and 45mm, and for those lenses the concept was compact prime lenses and ‘good balance’. F1.8 turned out to provide an optimal balance, having weighed various design criteria to deliver the highest possible performance and practical functionality including the VC feature. For the 35mm F1.4, we thought particularly about optical performance.

Since other manufacturers already have high-performance 35mm F1.4 lenses we wanted to achieve a very high-level prime lens. The MTF shows [better performance] than other lenses in this category.

Because this year is the 40th anniversary of SP, our engineers really tried to get the best optical performance with this F1.4 model. We really wanted to achieve high-quality, high-resolution images. Superior performance.

So the SP 35mm F1.4 is a 40th anniversary lens, in effect?

Yes, and we believe it’s performance is better than other brands. We have a lot of confidence in it.

The Tamron SP 35mm F1.4 Di USD should – according to Tamron’s executives – offer superior performance to competitive lenses from the other major manufacturers.

It feels very well-constructed – what does ‘SP’ mean in terms of build and design?

Tamron always tries to make unique lenses making a lens as compact as possible, or as lightweight as possible – and sometimes we trade off certain specifications to achieve that such as focal length, aperture range, or image quality. But with SP lenses we don’t do that. We just want to make a really high-performance lens with superior performance. We don’t want any compromises.

Is the weather-resistance different?

It is the same as other lenses described as having ‘Moisture-Resistant Construction’.

35-150mm is an unusual focal length range – can you explain this decision?

We see a lot of demand from portrait and wedding photographers, and wedding photographers. Especially in the US and Asia. They mostly use prime lenses like 85mm, 105mm or 135mm – single focal lengths. We wanted to make a very convenient lens that could cover from 35 to 150mm, which is the range mostly used for portraiture.

Effectively, this is six prime lenses in one

There are two popular focal length ranges – 24-70mm and 70-200mm, and usually people will take those two lenses when they shoot. We wanted to only make one lens. So while 200mm is maybe too long [for portrait photographers] and 24mm is too wide, 35-150mm allowed us to make the lens as compact as possible. Effectively, this is six prime lenses in one.

On an APS-C camera this lens will cover 56-240mm, do you anticipate that a lot of APS-C shooters will buy this lens?

Our primary goal is to cover the most popular focal lengths for full-frame. And by having 85mm in the middle of the range, which is the most popular focal length for portraiture, [that’s where] MTF is highest.

What is the maximum aperture at 85mm?

F3.5.

The Tamron 35-150mm F2.8-4 Di VC OSD offers an unusual focal length range, intended to incorporated the major prime lens focal lengths used by portrait photographers.

Are you confident that performance is a match for high quality primes?

Yes. And the bokeh effect is really soft and natural.

When you design a lens that you intend to be used for portraiture, what does that mean from an optical design standpoint?

When we make portrait lenses, we focus on very natural bokeh together with high resolution. Those factors are really difficult to achieve at the same time, but with this lens we’re really concentrating on that. Sharp, high contrast from the center to the edge together with a very natural bokeh effect. Those two factors are really important.

The 17-28mm F2.8 Di III RXD is the second of your full-frame Sony E-mount lenses – do you have plans for more?

Yes of course. People really want a telephoto zoom to cover focal lengths longer than 75mm. We’re looking [into] that.

Do you have plans to create lenses for Canon RF and Nikon Z?

Yes, we’re also looking at that area. We have to do a lot of research and development into the reverse engineering, because they don’t disclose the details of their systems, so it’s a really hard job for us.

There are now four main full-frame mirrorless systems with different mount dimensions. Will you make completely different designs for the different mounts?

Each system has a different flange back distance and diameter. We need to do more research to see if we can use the same optical designs for the different mounts. But basically our approach will be the same as it is for DSLR. When we launch DSLR lenses we have the same optical design, and we customize for the different mounts. Even if the systems are totally different we’ll try to make a unified optical design.

If we design optics for a long flange back, we can adapt them for short flange back systems. It doesn’t work the other way around.

Tamron’s new 17-28mm F2.8 Di III RXD is the second of the company’s lenses designed for Sony’s full-frame mirrorless cameras. Slated to be available in the coming weeks, it will be joined by a third FE lens, covering the 75mm+ range, at some point in the future.

How important is APS-C to Tamron?

APS-C is still important to us, but when we think about the [industry], the full-frame market is expanding, so we’re looking at that market first – that’s the first priority. So gradually we’ll create a [full-frame] line and then at another time we can launch more APS-C lenses. The APS-C market is shrinking quite fast.

Do you think that will change?

It might stop shrinking, but we’re looking at customers who buy APS-C cameras, and they tend to have a single zoom kit and they don’t [tend to] invest in additional lenses.

What do you think differentiates Tamron from other lens manufacturers?

Our target is those photographers who really want to enjoy photography with a lightweight and compact [package]. We introduced the FE 28-75mm f2.8 for Sony E-mount, which is really compact and matches the Sony cameras really nicely for size and weight. This lens is selling quite well, and we’re backordered for six months.

Tamron always tries to give photographers another solution

Other manufacturers are making very big lenses with high resolution and wide apertures, but people are struggling to carry such heavy lenses. They can’t take a lot of them when they’re out shooting. Tamron always tries to give photographers another solution. Lenses that are compact, with very high quality, but maybe a slightly different spec. Like this 17-28mm F2.8 Di III RXD, it’s a different solution – you can see the really compact size of this lens. Our aim is to provide another solution to our customers.

In a compact lens of this kind, how much are you relying on software correction?

We utilize software corrections in the camera body, but even without correction this lens will still give good performance. Of course this lens will let a Sony camera correct some things, but it offers a very high level of quality. We checked pictures from the lens, without any corrections, and the picture quality is very good. The quality only gets better with corrections from the camera body. We’re very confident [in its performance].

Editors’ note: Barnaby Britton

The ‘SP’ lineup is 40 years old, and even if you forgot its birthday, Tamron’s engineers didn’t. According to the executives that I spoke to, the new SP 35mm F1.4 is, to all intents and purposes, a special 40th anniversary lens. A ‘no compromise’ design intended to take on, and beat, the best that the company’s competitors can offer.

Although I’ve only spent a few minutes handling a pre-production sample, that was enough to whet my appetite. We’re hoping to get hold of a final copy soon, so watch out for some sample images the minute we do. The large, heavyweight SP 35mm F1.4 doesn’t seem to quite fit with the company’s ‘compact’ lenses philosophy, but we’ll let Tamron’s engineers off this time – it is a birthday, after all.

Also coming soon is the 35-150mm F2.8-4, at first glance a somewhat odd lens that I, like a lot of people, I suspect, originally assumed was designed for APS-C when it was announced earlier this year. On the contrary, this is a full-frame lens, specifically designed to replace the most common focal lengths for portrait photographers. We’re told that in the middle of its range, around 85mm, it should deliver an optimal combination of sharpness and attractive bokeh for portraiture. Tamron has made lenses of this kind before – the ancient Adaptall-2 35-135mm F3.5-4.5 and its subsequent variants was pretty well-regarded, but the 35-150mm appears to be a much more specialized lens.

The APS-C market is shrinking, and Tamron would be irresponsible to pour resources into a contracting market

My question about whether Tamron expected APS-C users to be interested in its 56-240mm equivalent focal length was given polite consideration, but it was obvious from this conversation that the company is focused elsewhere: on full-frame. The APS-C market is shrinking, and Tamron would be irresponsible to pour significant resources into developing lenses for a contracting market. The audience for lenses designed for full-frame mirrorless, on the other hand, is guaranteed to grow over the coming years. With two FE lenses for Sony already on the market, it was reassuring to hear from Tamron’s executives that longer focal lengths are being planned, to round out the lineup.

Next, of course, will be reverse-engineering lenses for the Canon RF and Nikon Z mounts (it seems unlikely that Tamron will bother with L-mount given Sigma’s head start as a member of the alliance). In our conversation, Tamron’s executives reinforced what we’ve been told by other optical engineers (including Sigma’s Kazuto Yamaki) that designing for a longer flange back distance and adapting that design to shorter mounts is the only practical way to create one optical formula for several mounts. As such, it seems possible that before too long, the popular Sony FE-mount 28-75mm F2.8 might form the basis of new standard zooms for Canon and Nikon mirrorless.

Read more interviews from CP+ 2019 and beyond

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Interview: Frans Lanting – ‘I speak to a lot of younger people, and that’s the generation we need to cultivate’

24 Apr
Frans Lanting, pictured at DPReview’s offices in Seattle.

Frans Lanting is one of the most recognizable names in photography. With his wife Christine Eckstrom he’s created some of the most popular and ambitious photo books of the last 30 years. Known for his distinctive approach to wildlife photography, Lanting has inspired generations of photographers and ecologists with his photography and his environmental advocacy.

Fresh from teaching a Creative Live workshop on bird photography, Frans dropped by the DPReview office recently to talk about his life and career.

Before photography, what was your background?

I’m from the Netherlands and I was an environmental economist before I was a photographer. And then I switched careers after I came to the US to do research. I was focused on ecosystem services, which was a novelty at the time, we’re talking about the late 70s. I switched to photography in about 1979-1980.

I’d always had an interest in pictures, and in the United States I connected with a very different tradition in photography – outdoor-oriented, and activism. We didn’t really have that tradition in Europe. There’s a great tradition of natural history, and a great tradition of photography, but [in Europe] the two things didn’t quite come together. Nature photography was pretty stagnant in Europe in the 70s, but it was much more of an art-form in the US at the time. The great west coast photographers led the way.

Who were those photographers?

The greats – Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Philip Hyde was really important, too. And they all – especially Phillip and Ansel – lent their names and their work in the service of supporting changes. In partnership with the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and so on. And that really appealed to me.

I found my own way to make a mark in editorial publications. Storytelling in the nature and wildlife field was really underdeveloped at the time.

Frans Lanting in the field, back in the days of film. © Frans Lanting/lanting.com

How did you break into that?

By doing it! I could rattle off names of publications and editors, most of the editors are forgotten now but they were really important gatekeepers – the ‘influencers’ of their time. Editors were much more important back then than they are now. National Geographic was important – there was a day when there were magazines about more than just celebrities. Especially in Europe, the editorial universe was very rich at that time. The 1970s and 80s were a golden era for editorial photography.

There are fewer ‘gatekeepers’ now, how has that changed the industry?

Editors are gatekeepers, but they’re also curators. Curators of talent. They’re really important for nurturing talent. People who come in and they have a passion and a vision but they don’t know quite how to cultivate their talent. Editors are indispensable for that. It’s more difficult for photographers breaking into the profession now to connect with those kinds of people. In the first place, there are far fewer of them, because most of the publishing houses have been hollowed-out, and the few editors still there are so overworked they don’t have time to cultivate relationships with talent anymore. That makes it much more difficult for photographers. That vital connection is under a lot of pressure.

But it’s not just photography, the same thing is happening to journalism. The world is very different now. I don’t want to come off as nostalgic, because things weren’t perfect then either but especially now, when we’re getting more concerned about whether or not we can trust media, the role of editors is crucial. And of course the role of the writers and photographers who are out there covering things. And that’s under so much pressure. Yes you can publish on social media but there’s no much noise, and a lot of it is so self-referential it doesn’t give you a clue about what’s really happening in the world.

Lesser flamingos, Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya. © Frans Lanting/lanting.com

So what was it about your approach to photography that made it different, at the time?

My background was different, I came from academia, so I was trained in social sciences. I had an analytical way of appreciating things that were happening in society. I knew a lot about nature and wildlife – I was passionate about it, but I think my point of view was broader than the more traditionally, more narrowly-defined perspective than most wildlife photographers had at the time.

I’ve never been [interested] in isolating nature, and ignoring the connections with human society and the environment as a bridge in between. In fact that’s one of the areas where I cultivated my interest. I came from Europe, and when I started publishing in North America what I was showing editors was different. It was a breath of fresh air. I was not schooled in photography, I didn’t know what the rules were, and I broke a lot of them. I think it made my work more intriguing.

And for editors in Europe, I brought something different back from the US. So I was able to navigate those two worlds.

What makes photography unique as a medium, in your opinion?

Pictures are perfect for this time of instant global communications. They transmit very easily and become a global language. So platforms like Instagram are meant for this era, in combination with smartphones where you can capture, share and consume images. Except for a couple of visionaries, I don’t think any of us saw that coming until pretty late in the transition.

Photography has influenced appreciation of the environment, and for examples of that you can go way back to the first photographers who started exploring the American west, with their darkroom in an oxcart. There are celebrated examples from Carlton Watkins and the rest of them, with the first glass plates showing what Yosemite looks like, which were hugely influential. They’re still iconic images and sources of inspiration.

Toco toucan face, Pantanal, Brazil. © Frans Lanting/lanting.com

I think photography has been there all along, in this process of changing how we think about the world that we’re a part of. But photography that is specifically focused on these issues, and their solutions has only come of age in the past 10, 15 maybe 20 years.

Conservation photography as a term didn’t exist until 20 years ago. For the longest time, photography that dealt with the earth was kind of a stepchild. It still is – World Press Photo, for example, it took forever to get recognition for ‘concern’ photography – hardcore photojournalism and pictures of nature. It wasn’t considered important. In the world of museums, and fine art, there is finally recognition that this is a legitimate genre, but it’s still late in getting recognition.

Can photography make a difference to how people view the world, and their environmental consciousness?

Sure, but only in connection with other activities. The brilliant relationship that I was really inspired by was the one between Ansel Adams and David Brower. David Brower was the chairman of the Sierra Club and the chief of this landmark series of publications, which launched the genre of the coffee table book that celebrated nature. He hand-picked places that were under [environmental] pressure, and he got his friends, Ansel, Phillip Hyde and others to contribute.

The whole idea of coffee table books didn’t exist until David Brower decided to use them as a way to communicate. It was hugely influential – and successful. Those books were not intended to sell a lot of copies, they were made to influence the political conversation.

During the course of your career, you must have been able to return to some parts of the world a few times…

Yes, I have been doing that more deliberately over the past couple of years. It’s really interesting to see changes, and when they’re positive change and negative change, and what makes the difference locally.

The first time I became aware of your work as a young photographer was ‘Jungles’. There’s less jungle now than there was then – compared to 20, 25 years ago, when you look at the world now, are you worried about the direction we’re going in?

Of course. But let me talk a little about that book. The concept behind ‘Jungles’ was to look at them as a whole, rather than focus on a rainforest here, a rainforest there, which is the more common approach. Now we’re realizing, in this era of climate change, that jungles are the green belt around the world which helps do the heavy lifting. They’re the lungs of the planet. The book isn’t focused on conservation solutions, but that is mentioned. I serve on the advisory council of an organization called Conservation International and we’re very concerned, and very focused on providing solutions to climate change. Very smart scientists are calculating that it’s unequivocal that the most cost-effective solutions are to conserve nature and let the trees and the jungles do the heavy lifting for us, because they can absorb Co2. Better than any of our human engineered solutions. Which means stemming deforestation, not burning trees, and elevating more forests to protected status.

Is it happening? Yes. Is it happening fast enough? No. Have we lost a lot? Yes. And are we going to get there in time? I don’t know. The latest reports indicate that we have maybe 11 years to turn things around, and when you look at how stuck we are politically, I don’t know. I don’t see how we can get through the bottleneck.

Dead camelthorn trees, Namibia. © Frans Lanting/lanting.com

What do you feel is your particular mission, or responsibility as a photographer?

From the very beginning my mission has been to use my personal sense of wonder and create images that can help other people see what we have and what is at stake. And sometimes the sense of wonder is paramount, and that’s definitely the case in ‘Jungles’ and also our ‘LIFE’ project, which is an imaginary journey from the big bang to the present. Our books and our exhibitions and the events that we do are really intended to be celebrations. For the cause-oriented activities for many years I’ve focused on magazines. Those editorial platforms are uniquely suited to getting a focused set of images out there with a strong message. With magazines you can absorb things quickly. But magazines are being replaced by other media, consumed on smartphones. Magazines are now considered long-form content!

I’m very active on social media. My Instagram account reaches more than a million people around the world, and I’m now using Instagram in the way that I used to use magazines. Our stories are really substantive, and it’s not just a picture of an animal, I really want to educate people. They may stumble across my Instagram account because they love animals, but it’s really incredible how people just start connecting with the stories and the issues behind the pictures. There’s a real hunger for it. I have 25,000 followers in Indonesia alone, and that’s a crucial country. When I speak there I speak to a lot of younger people, and that’s the generation we need to cultivate when it comes to influencing voices locally.

‘Jungles’ came out in 2000, just on the cusp of the digital revolution – how has digital technology changed the way you work?

It’s changed everything. Everything except the subject matter. I did an assignment back in the 90s in the Amazonian part of Peru, where we spent months in an upper tributary of the Amazon – very remote, very tough. I would bury film in canisters in the ground to keep them cool. I would periodically dig up some film, and bury the exposed film. It was cooler below the ground than in a Pelican case above. I don’t have to do that anymore!

For me, worrying about whether I had actually captured what I was there to do, and not seeing the results for months at a time, compared to now when I can get instant feedback, that’s changed everything. Especially if you’re trying to push the boundaries of what’s technically possible.

Chinstrap penguins on an iceberg, Antarctica. © Frans Lanting/lanting.com

It’s much easier to get in and out of those locations now too, because travel has evolved. Gear has also changed, it’s much more compact and more sophisticated, but it’s also become much more difficult to fix.

I can’t fix a Nikon D5 or any of its Canon or Sony equivalents on location, but I remember in the old days I was in Turkey, and my camera failed. I went into a watch repair shop. There was a guy there with no expertise in working on cameras, but he was able to fix it because it was a mechanical thing. You can’t do that these days.

I was talking about this during my recent Creative Live class: the unimaginable revolution when it comes to the sensitivity of our capture medium. Film ISO sensitivity used to be ISO 25 or 64. And you can’t do much in the jungle when you’re limited to film stock rated at 64. If I could have had modern tools back in those days… you know, ISO 100,000 – the sky is the limit. That alone has completely transformed everything.

I remember you were using slow sync flash for some of the photos in ‘Jungles’…

Yeah, fill flash and all kinds of other things. We were taking big risks.It was partly a creative response, but in part it was a response to the technical limitations. but I was trying to push things far out into times of the day when we otherwise couldn’t work. I’m using fill flash less and less now because you don’t have to anymore, and it almost looks and feels like an intrusion. That’s a big change.

I loved that book.

So did I. It’s a classic. I’m so proud of all of these books, because we approached books [at the time] very differently to most of my colleagues, and Benedict Taschen was supportive of that. And he validated his instincts and our intuition.

Red-and-green Macaws in flight, Buraco das Araras, Brazil. © Frans Lanting/lanting.com

You have a long association with National Geographic. What’s it like to shoot for Nat Geo?

Things have changed considerably since I first started working there. The number of editors has shrunk, budgets are under pressure, everything has to be turned around faster. It used to be a very closed world, with photographers and writers coming up with stories but things are determined much more now by editors and publishers, and decided by executives.

The editorial world has long been a nursery for talent. A place where you could prove yourself, and you were given creative freedom. You weren’t being paid a lot, but you were given opportunities to develop as a photographer, and start communicating with editors and photographers, and then the world at large. It’s very different these days. Photographers are hired to do this picture, that picture, and that picture – ‘this is what we need’. Editorial photography has become more like commercial photography, but it used to be very different.

How long would you get to work on a particular project?

It would depend, for the Geographic it would be measured in months. For other publications, weeks.

What are you working on right now?

I just did a Creative Live class on bird photography, which is very popular around the world. But many people interested in birds practice bird photography in pretty narrow parameters. It was very gratifying to hear people saying that ‘I never thought you could do this’ or they didn’t know you could think about birds in that way, that you could start looking at birds as metaphors, as symbols for environmental change, or examples of design, and so on and so on. That inspires me. I’m at a stage of my career where I get a lot of gratification from nurturing new talent.

If someone came to you and just wanted to improve their bird photography, do you have any quick tips?

Think of birds differently, as a rich subject for photographic expression. Rather than just sitting on a branch doing nothing. Whether you want to challenge yourself technically, by capturing them in flight, or challenge yourself with intricate compositions of birds in flocks, which really becomes a search for patterns. Or whether you look at them as vehicles for visual storytelling about what we’re doing to the planet. That’s a very different approach to bird photography to what most people practice.

There’s nothing wrong with frame-filling portraits of birds, but I want people to think about the character within the bird, so to speak. People should check out the course! And if they really want to learn, they can join me for a workshop.

Green-crowned brilliant hummingbird feeding on ginger torch, Costa Rica. © Frans Lanting/lanting.coms

What’s next for Frans Lanting?

Documenting the process of environmental change is something i’m working on, in some specific locations. Environmental change as triggered by economic and cultural changes. I did that in Madagascar last year, I went back to a couple of places I worked 30 years ago, and that was astonishing, to reconnect with individuals and their children and grandchildren and tell stories through their life experience. I also did that recently in the Congo, where I went to go back and worked with bonobos, which I did for the first time 25 years ago.

So that’s one thing I’m working on. I’m also working on a longer format publication about my way of practicing photography.

There’s a lot of bad news in the world – what gives you hope?

The next generation. People are saying ‘No, we’re not going to accept incremental change’. This Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg who started lecturing the adults in the room at the Global Economic Forum. Saying ‘no we’re not going to accept this’. She went on strike, in Sweden. ‘I’m going to give up going to school – there are more important things to do’. Hopefully she can rally millions of others around that cause, and the people in their 20s and 30s who are causing huge economic upheaval and technological disruption should rally around the cause of creating a more sustainable planet [too]. Instead of just tinkering with new apps. You know?

You’re one half of a creative partnership, with your wife, Christine Eckstrom. How does that influence how you work?

We met at the Geographic. She was a staff writer there. She taught me how to write, how to use words. I’ve always liked to write, and I started early on because I found that it was a parallel way to express a story. But after we met, we became a unique team. There are other examples of husband and wife symbiotic relationships in the world of photography – Helmut and June Newton, for instance. Very few people realize how important June was for Helmut and vis-versa. Sebastião Salgado, and his wife Lélia – Lélia was hugely important for Sebastião, she gave him a voice and channeled his creativity.

Frans Lanting and editor and filmmaker Christine Eckstrom have worked together since they met at National Geographic after Frans moved to the US in the late 1970s. © Frans Lanting/lanting.com

I think what makes Chris and me unique together is that we developed a vocabulary together that married images and words together in a different way. ‘Jungles’ is a good example of that. It’s very conceptual, and the way we chose the dualities of water and light, order and chaos, form and evolution. It’s like poetry. The ‘Life’ project is another good example. We worked on that for seven years. At the end of it we knew way too much about the evolution of life on earth and we had all these facts and figures, but you bore people to death with that. That’s what scientists do.

We found our way back to the essence of it by writing what is essentially an extended poem about life on earth. It was triggered by a Ted Talk I was invited to deliver. I knew I had to describe the project and all the ideas behind it in 18 minutes. I managed to do it, and after we did that – I say ‘we’ because I was on stage, but Chris and I shaped it together – we knew how to package it for the book.

Now we have a complete toolkit – she taught herself how to use video, so we write, we edit, we produce video, mixed-media and social media. We do all of those things. We have a really good support staff and they help us create things that we believe in.

Looking back over your career, what are you most proud of?

Oh gosh, to distill it to one thing… when I think of all of the photographers, and also scientists who are now active in conservation; that I’ve been able to inspire other people, and validate for them the idea that there are ways to give expression to things in ways that they might not have thought of previously… that’s more important than awards and publications. It’s ultimately about making a difference in the lives of other people.

Frans Lanting is a world-renowned photographer and environmentalist. The Collector’s edition of his book ‘Into Africa’ is available now, and for information on Frans’ range of online courses, photo workshops and tours, click here. To access Frans’ complete collection of Creative Live courses, click here.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Interview: Commander Terry Virts, space photographer

23 Apr

Colonel Terry Virts (ret.) is a U.S. Air Force pilot and NASA veteran of two spaceflights – a two-week mission onboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 2010 and a 200-day flight to the Space Station in 2014-2015. His seven months in space included piloting the Space Shuttle, commanding the International Space Station, three spacewalks, and performing scientific experiments.

While in space he took more than 319,000 photos – the most of any space mission. Virts’ book, View From Above, combines some of his best photography with stories about spaceflight and perspectives about life on Earth and our place in the cosmos. His images are also an integral component of the IMAX film A Beautiful Planet, which Virts helped film and in which he appears.

I understand you were a photographer before you became an astronaut. How did you get started, and why did it interest you?

As a kid I got a Konica SLR. I had to teach myself exposure, shutter speed, focus, and all that. Basically, I taught myself. Neither of my parents were really photographers, but I just loved it. For some reason I was just naturally inclined towards photography, and my parents supported me by getting the equipment.

Long story short, I kept up with it. I’m that dad whose kids are like, “Dad, quit taking pictures!” I’m always having to stop and take a picture.

How did you join the space program, and how did you end up in the role of ‘space photographer’?

I wanted to be an astronaut since I was a kid. It was just my dream. The first book I read was about Apollo, and I was captured. It’s what I wanted to do, and I had pictures of airplanes and space on my walls. I went through the process of becoming a fighter pilot, a test pilot, and eventually made it into NASA.

Every astronaut has to take pictures. We get formal training, not only for still images but also video. By the time I flew on the space shuttle we had gone entirely digital, and I got designated as the photo/TV guy. I’m a photographer, and I was lucky enough to fly in space, so I guess that makes me a space photographer.

Terry Virts’ book, View from Above, includes some of his favorite photos from space, stories about spaceflight, and perspectives about life on Earth and our place in the cosmos.

You also had a role in filming the IMAX movie ‘A Beautiful Planet.’ How did that come about?

On my second flight [aboard the ISS] I was a crew medical officer and also a spacewalker, but everybody was a photographer. There was no, “Oh, Terry likes photography, let’s put him up when they’re filming a movie.” Just complete luck of the draw. One day on my calendar before I was in training, it said, “Go to building nine for IMAX training.” I thought, “Hmm, I wonder what it is?” I showed up and the producer and director of photography were there, and I said to myself, “Wow, I get to film an IMAX movie.” There was no thought into it, it just happened.

The right place at the right time?

100% right place, right time. Like we say in the Air Force, I’d rather be lucky than good.

I got to film the movie, and that stuff all went to IMAX, but the stuff I shot for me, that I used in my book, I did as a labor of love. I love photography and wanted to take as many artistic shots as I could.

I showed up and the producer and director of photography were there, and I said to myself, “Wow, I get to film an IMAX movie.”

Most photographers know the drill of throwing gear into a bag before a trip, but space travel obviously requires careful planning. How is the photo gear that goes into space selected?

There are a couple of different ways. There’s NASA equipment, and then there are international partners, like the Japanese and the Europeans, who fly their own equipment. The Russians can get stuff up there really quickly since they don’t have the bureaucracy that we have. They may have less stuff, but if something comes up that they want to fly, they just fly it. NASA has to go through a bureaucratic process and years of approvals.

For example, there’s the GoPro. The Russians wanted to use it, so they built a little box for it and flew a GoPro. I was able to take it outside on a spacewalk and it was really great. We [the US] didn’t have anything for that, and the process of getting it certified would have been expensive and time-consuming. The Russians just built a box and flew it, and it worked. Now I have this amazingly beautiful footage that we never would have had if we had to wait on it.

Sample gallery: Terry Virts space photos

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Click the image above to see a gallery of Terry Virts’ stunning space images.

Can you give us some insight into what types of cameras are used aboard the ISS?

The Nikon D4 was my main camera, and now they have D5s, but it’s basically the Nikon professional camera. Then there’s the Canon XF350, which is like a prosumer camcorder, and there are probably 12-15 of those onboard. Each module has one on a bracket. There are another four or five XF350s just velcroed to the wall so that if you need to film something fun or do an experiment, you can do that.

We also had a camera called a Ghost, which is similar to a GoPro. You could plug it in via HDMI and have it downlinked in real-time to show the ground what you were doing. You could squeeze it into tight places. When three Ghosts showed up, I thought “Cool!” so I kept one for myself and another astronaut wanted one. Literally the next day, the other person lost it. We went months with only two Ghosts and finally, at the end of my mission, I’m thinking, “All right, I’ll call the ground and fess up. Hey Houston, sorry, we can’t find one of the Ghosts.” That afternoon we found it. It had floated underneath a work table and was probably there for months.

We also had a Panasonic 3D camcorder you could use to film in 3D. I bought myself a 3D TV and tried to film stuff, then nothing happened with it. I don’t even know if NASA ever processed the 3D stuff. I was kind of disappointed about that.

Astronauts Samantha Cristoforetti and Terry Virts receive IMAX training. Both were part of the team that filmed the IMAX movie A Beautiful Planet.

NASA photo

I imagine you also had some cameras for shooting the IMAX film.

We had a Canon 1DC and C500. The 1DC is a professional camera and the C500 is a Hollywood video camera. Those were used for the IMAX.

We also had a Red Dragon, which at the time was the first ever ultra-high-def 4K, Hollywood quality video camera. That thing was just awesome. They warned us and warned us that the file size was too big, so nobody used this thing, and towards the end of the mission I decided, “Man, I took all these stills, I want to get the Red out.” I started filming exclusively with the Red for my last week and shot around a terabyte of video. Houston just about died. It took them a week to download it. It was beautiful.

I was doing a video Skype with [Hollywood director] James Cameron from space, and my crewmate was showing him around and said, “Hey, here’s my crewmate Terry Virts, playing with cameras like he normally is.” I had the Red Dragon, and James looked at it and said, “Oh, I filmed Avatar with that camera.” That was pretty cool.

This video from the ISS highlights some of the 4K footage shot by Virts and his crewmates on board the space station, and provides a sense of time and motion not conveyed by still photos.

Do you run into any special equipment challenges in space?

The big issue you have in space is radiation, and your chips get damaged from radiation. If you ever look at a NASA video and see a bunch of white, blue or green specks that don’t move on a black field they’re radiation-damaged pixels. If they’re moving, they’re stars. Before every IMAX shot, you’re supposed to take a black field image. That would give them data for where the bad pixels were, and they could remove them.

We would get dust on the chip, but that would only happen after about 100,000 pictures. Basically, we would start seeing that as the shutter went up and down, some of the metal would shave off, so there would be little flecks of metal from the shutter.

What about lighting?

Lighting inside is not that big a deal; the internal lighting is not that bad. The problem is, if something was inside and you wanted the Earth exposed at the same time, the camera would need a flash.

I started filming exclusively with the Red for my last week and shot around a terabyte of video. Houston just about died. It took them a week to download it.

But for video, you don’t have the equivalent of a flash. We had still lights, but there weren’t enough lumens on them. There was one particular scene in ‘A Beautiful Planet’ when Samantha [Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti] was in the cupola taking pictures, and I was floating towards her, and the white clouds were too bright and just blew out the Earth. In order to get a picture with both the person inside and the Earth properly exposed, we had to be over a jungle because that would be dark green. We waited until we were going over the Amazon, which is white normally, but Samantha was looking and she’s like “All right, here comes a big patch!”

I started shooting, and then I pushed off. I slowly started moving in towards her, and she was pretending like she was taking pictures. IMAX wanted 30 seconds clips, that was about the standard scene length, and literally at 31 seconds, boom! The background turned into white. It was like a perfectly well-timed shot.

Commander Virts took this picture of the United States Gulf Coast on Feb. 12, 2015.

Photo by Terry Virts

When shooting on a spacewalk, I’m assuming you don’t just put the viewfinder to your eye and shoot.

Actually, you do! When I was doing my spacewalks it [the camera for spacewalks] was a Nikon D2. You can lift the viewfinder to your face and aim it wherever you want, though I never did. I just pointed it in the right direction. You don’t put a 100mm lens on it, but something like a 24mm. It doesn’t have to be perfectly framed.

I took over 300,000 photos in space, but on each of my three space walks I took about ten. That just goes to show you how busy I was.

I took over 300,000 photos in space, but on each of my three spacewalks, I took about ten. That just goes to show you how busy I was. I felt like I was on the clock, so I didn’t have five seconds to stop and take a picture. Plus, the guy I was outside with is one of those people who’s not a photographer, thinks taking pictures is wasting time, and wanted to keep on moving. I just never had time to stop and take the pictures I wanted to take. The problem with taking pictures outside is the time crunch.

What’s your artistic approach to shooting in space?

A lot of guys get the zoom lens out. They zoom in on cities at night, and I did some of that, but you can fly over a city and take a picture from an airplane and it looks exactly like the zoom lens from space. My favorite kind of shots were more big picture; Earth and space, and wide angle, rather than the zoom-in. I wanted to get pictures that you couldn’t get from an airplane.

Most photographers can tell you at least one story about a great shot that got away. Did you experience that?

One day I let go of my CF card by accident. It floated and I was like, “No!” as I reached for it. It floated right between two racks. There’s got to be a two-millimeter gap between racks, and it literally went right down there and I never saw it again. It was a beautiful night aurora scene. I’m still mad about it, but the other 320,000 pictures I took came out fine.

One of the 7 wonders of the Earth, the Grand Canyon in the US West photographed from the International Space Station.

Photo by Terry Virts

What subjects did you enjoy photographing the most?

Sunrises and sunsets were my favorite thing. It was probably day 195 out of 200, and Samantha sees me taking another time-lapse of a sunset and says, “Terry, haven’t you taken enough sunsets?” I said, “I still haven’t gotten the perfect one. I just need one more…”

The photographer’s curse.

Yes, the perfect shot. Or moonset, right? Moonrise and moonsets were awesome. Those pictures are just amazing. In a good sunset or sunrise, you can see so many details in the clouds. The chip doesn’t capture it like the eye does, but it’s pretty close. I love those pictures.

So, did you ever get the perfect sunset?

The very last picture I took in space – I was coming back to Earth in a couple of hours – I wanted to get one more picture. I went down to the Cupola and took off what’s called a scratch pane, which is this piece of plastic that’s supposed to protect the window but all it does is ruin pictures. Whenever you see a sun shot with flared smudge marks it’s just the scratch pane. I closed the aperture to F22 to get a starburst effect, took a picture and looked at it, and I remember thinking as I looked at it on the screen, “That’s the best picture I’ve ever taken in my life. I’m done.” I pulled the CF card out, downlinked it, put my space suit on and came back to Earth. That was the peak of my photography career, it will never get better than that.

Virts captured this photo of the setting sun just a couple hours before returning to Earth. When he looked at it on the camera’s screen he thought, “That’s the best picture I’ve ever taken in my life. I’m done.”

Photo by Terry Virts

Did you take any photos that had an immediate impact back on Earth?

The most impactful one was the Spock picture. The day before my third spacewalk I get an email, “Hey, Leonard Nimoy passed away. Can you do something?” I’m thinking, “I don’t have any time, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” I ran down to the Cupola and tried to get one of those pictures where my Vulcan salute was properly exposed along with the Earth being properly exposed, but you need to have the right flash and a closed [small] aperture for more depth of field.

I had to get all that stuff set up, fiddled around, probably took 10 or 20 pictures, and finally got one that looked OK. I tweeted it and it got huge instantly – I don’t know how many tens of thousands of likes. It got millions of views. When I travel around the world, people know that tweet. They don’t know it’s me. It wasn’t about me. I just tweeted a picture, and there was no doubt in anybody’s mind what I meant. It was a really cool way to have a tribute to Mr. Spock. What I didn’t know was that that in the background was Boston, Leonard Nimoy’s hometown. Like I said, I’d rather be lucky than good.

Terry Virts’ tweet honoring Leonard Nimoy and his Star Trek character, Mr. Spock. What Virts didn’t notice until later is that Boston, Nimoy’s hometown, is visible in the background.

I’ve been learning to photograph the Aurora borealis, but I’m used to doing it from below. What’s it like to photograph the Aurora from above?

One night I was in the Cupola, hoping for a southern aurora. You never know what you’re going to get; it depends on the sun activity and how close your orbit is to the magnetic pole. I saw this big, giant green cloud. I mean, it was huge. It was way bigger than any I’d ever seen before, and it was right in our orbital path.

There I was floating, and we flew right through this aurora. Above, below, and to both sides, we were surrounded by green plasma. It was like I was in a J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie when they fly through a nebula. It was totally like that, except that I was floating and it was real, but there were no Klingons, so I was good. But that was the most surreal aurora experience. You could see it moving with your eyes, in real time you could see the waves shimmering. Even though the camera brings the colors out more than your eyes see, my eyes, anyway, saw those colors – a little dimmer and less vibrant, but they were there.

Crew aboard the ISS have the unique opportunity to see – and photograph – both the Northern and Southern Lights from above, and sometimes fly through them.

Photo by Terry Virts

Do you feel that your unique opportunity to work in space gives you any special responsibility as a photographer?

I do. One night we were having dinner in the Russian segment, and the Russians have this beautiful window, and it was open and you could look down and see the Earth go by. I said, “Look at that guys! There are over six billion people down there and only six of us up here.” We’re one in a billion, that’s how lucky we are.

It put our fortune, and luck, in context. I feel a duty to share the story. Not only the adventure of space flight but for me, it was more about life on Earth. Space flight is interesting, and fun, and exciting, but the bigger, deeper lessons learned were about the people, and how to treat each other, and life on Earth. I definitely felt a responsibility, and privilege, to share things.

Has your experience as a space photographer had any impact on the way you photograph back on Earth?

I always look up. Most people spend their lives looking down at the ground, and I try to look up. To see clouds, to see the sun’s reflection through the atmosphere, rays of sun peeking through clouds, to see the color of blue in the sky, to see birds, or when you’re in a city, you see architectural patterns. I always try to look up, and maybe in some small way, I think of space when I look up.

For more spectacular space photography follow Terry Virts on Twitter and Instagram.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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CP+ 2019 Olympus Interview: Micro Four Thirds can be appreciated in almost all photographic fields

15 Apr
[L-R] Toshi Terada and Shigemi Sugimoto, pictured at the CP+ 2019 show in Yokohama

We spoke to Olympus at the CP+ trade show in Yokohama, Japan, shortly after the announcement of the OM-D E-M1X. We spoke to Shigemi Sugimoto: Executive Officer, Head of Imaging Business Unit and our old friend Toshi Terada: General Manager, Global Marketing Department, Imaging Business Unit.

We discussed a range of topics, from the company’s new camera to its overall ambitions for Micro Four Thirds.

Please note that this interview was conducted partly via an interpreter, and has been edited for clarity and flow.

What’s the response to E-M1X been like?

We’ve been holding touch-and-try events in many places and have received a lot of very positive feedback from customers. Pre-sales orders are at expected levels and we have had a good start worldwide.

The E-M1X is a model that requires a lot of consideration before users make a purchase, so we believe the users will read many reviews and learn about benefits of E-M1X before buying.

I’ve attended some touch and try events and I was very pleased to see so many customers at these events. We’re also been getting positive feedback from professional photographers.

Some people may feel that the E-M1X is big for a Micro Four Thirds system. However, the feedback we’re getting from customers that have actually tried the product is that it has changed their view. So we hope people will pick up our product and try it.

Who is the E-M1X it aimed at?

It’s a part of our professional line, along with E-M1 Mark II. One of the user groups we’re targeting is professional photographers, but also the high-level amateur, the enthusiast: they make up much of our target audience, along with the professionals.

Do you think there is significant demand for sub full-frame professional cameras?

Having received feedback from professional photographers, we feel that Micro Four Thirds’ benefits of being compact and lightweight can be appreciated in almost all photographic fields.

We feel that Micro Four Thirds’ benefits of being compact and lightweight can be appreciated in almost all photographic fields

Actually, we are seeing that there are many photographers who started using the Micro Four Thirds as their second camera, are going on to use it as their main camera.

How would you like the ‘X’ line to evolve? (and how will it need to evolve?)

As a part of the professional series with E-M1 Mark II, we will evolve the basic performance and continue to offer innovative features. Also the E-M1X line-up will further improve the level of operability and reliability.

The OM-D E-M1 II continues alongside the E-M1X as part of Olympus’s products for professional and enthusiast photographers.

How did you choose the subject-types for the subject detection/recognition AF?

Initially, we’ve chosen those three subjects that are really difficult to track by yourself, without any help, just using the single point or even using the group target area. They’re really hard to chase, with a fast-moving subject.

We also chose subjects where you need pinpoint focus – the kind of moving subject where it’s really hard to focus precisely on one specific point, for example to focus on the rider’s helmet rather than just to detect a motor bike. That’s the kind of subject where it’s most helpful to have subject detection.

If you get feedback from users, how difficult is it to train the system to recognize a new subject?

At the moment we have three specific subjects that can be detected automatically and we’re also looking to enhance the range of subjects, the types of subject. That is, if we can manage it using the current hardware, of course: at some point there is a limitation to the hardware. Also, subject detection maybe not be effective for every subject.

We have prioritized the other subjects we could look at: I cannot tell you specific subject names but, as I said, the benefit of subject detection is pinpoint autofocus, [in situations] where we should focus on a specific point. And the kind of subject that’s not easy to chase – that’s the kind of subject we should select in future.

In a lot of other brands’ systems, the machine learning efforts have mainly concentrated on human subjects. Do you feel your system is already good enough at this?

Humans are the most important subject for many photographers. We have face and eye detection already, of course. We know it’s possible to improve those kinds of detection, though, so we feel we should somehow improve [our cameras’ performance] in the future.

Could you imagine a time where we might see different subject recognition modes in different models?

This is one possibility: to choose which type of product should have what kind of subject tracking.

We are just launching that kind of new technology, so we should listen to the market to find out how they are using it, or what kind of demand they are looking for. Depending on feedback from market we can consider how to implement this kind of function in a future model.

The Micro Four Thirds system is fairly comprehensive, where are the gaps in your lens lineup right now?

Our lens roadmap has been well received by customers. We have more plans for the future, and we will continue to listen to our customers’ requirements.

What kinds of lenses are your professional customers asking for?

The high resolution of our lenses continues to satisfy professional customers, therefore we will continue building compact, high resolution lenses.

The 150-400mm F4.5 TC 1.25x IS PRO is going to launched in 2020: providing a level of reach that’s difficult to match in such a compact form.

We plan to launch several lenses every year and, of course, there will be releases of lenses before the 150-400mm PRO launch in 2020. So, please look out for a more information about our forthcoming product releases.

How much demand are you seeing for video features in your cameras?

As you may recognize, the demand of video capability is increasing. We are, of course, trying to catch up that kind of technology. Videographers are seeing our potential in terms of superb image stabilization performance in a compact and lightweight package.

Our stance for video is not changed: our products are stills-based cameras that also can capture video. We’re not a pioneer in video technology but we know it’s become a necessary technology for photographers, and we have heard from videographers saying they see the benefits of our powerful image stabilization and lightweight system for their video recording. So we’re working to offer a unique video capability for these videographers as well as for photographers who record video.

What effect, if any, do you see HDR displays having on photography?

If that kind of display is getting popular in the market, then maybe we should consider our output take advantage of that display character.

If performance of current displays makes it worthwhile, to have some other kind of the gamma, perhaps Log character, then why not? It’s just a different kind of Raw development, effectively. We can process images to suit the current display technology or for printing or we can process for a wider DR display: it’s really flexible.

In the case of video footage the data file becomes larger to accommodate the dynamic range, but in stills it’s easier. In still photography the dynamic range is defined by the image sensor [so the information is already in the Raw file]. It’s a kind Raw development challenge, we’d just need to optimize the algorithm.

We are a very R&D-orientated company: we focus on the technology which is necessary for photographers

We will keep looking at the standards and the level of performance of these displays: if we find we need to optimize for the display, why not? It all depends on whether there’s a market for this kind of display, whether it’s worth developing.

We have our own perspective because we’re a camera and lens maker. For consumer electronics manufacturers, who are also making monitors, there might also be an element of marketing strategy.

As you know, we are a very R&D-orientated company: we focus on the technology which is necessary. We’re not from the marketing world, so we can look at these technologies solely from the perspective of whether they’re valuable for photographers.

How will you reassure fans of smaller, lighter cameras? Is there still interest?

As you know, the E-M1X is a new product line for offering the benefit of a compact and lightweight system for users that require an integrated battery grip for telephoto shooting such as wildlife.

The E-M5 line is important: we can reassure users we are planning a successor model.

We can’t give you the details of future models today, but we can say that we will continue with current lineup strategy and successor models will be coming. We’d like to mention that the E-M5 line is an important product category for middle users: we can reassure users we are planning to introduce a successor model.

What advantages can you offer by using a smaller sensor (compared with those who’ve rushed to full frame)? Small/fast readout/easier to stabilize?

The Olympus ILC system has been defined by the benefits of being compact and lightweight, right back to the time of the film camera. We will continue to offer the same benefit while focusing on Micro Four Thirds, this means our brand offers a single mount system for all customers, which makes it to easily understand and can be used for a long time with confidence.

The OM-D E-M5 II demonstrates the company’s ability to make small, capable cameras with excellent handling

A single Interchangeable lens camera system offering high image quality, will continue to evolve as a system, to provide the significant values of compact and lightweight, high resolving power and image stabilization that full-frame cameras cannot offer.

We consider our strengths to be that our cameras are compact and lightweight. High resolution power (means resolution lens) and also image stabilization as you know. Across our entire product lineup we are always looking to enhance these core technologies.

What are the benefits to offering everything from entry-level to pro-level in a single system?

It means to upgrade the customer doesn’t need to change everything. You can keep using the lenses, of course. Also, if we change the [sensor] format size all sorts of things change. The aspect ratio might change, the depth-of-field changes, the effect of focal length changes: the angle-of-view is different – it’s complicated.

A single format system means don’t worry about that kind of thing. Your existing experience can be carried over to the next model.

Which types of photographer/photography benefit most from balance of size/Image Quality that Micro Four Thirds offers?

We believe that all types of photographers will benefit from shooting with Micro Four Thirds. The value of compact and lightweight system offers photographers greater freedom in shooting across many fields.

For example in landscape or bird shooting, users traditionally have to shoot from a fixed point, using a tripod. However, our system offers new shooting styles such as handheld telephoto shooting thanks to its compact and lightweight system together with strong IS. In this way our system is expanding the photography shooting range for cameras.

Will the Digital Imaging division always be a small part of Olympus’s overall business, or do you hope it might one day rival the medical division?

Olympus has three business domains: Medical, Scientific Solutions and Imaging. Through these, Olympus is contributing to the society by ‘Making people’s lives healthier, safer and more fulfilling’. The role of the Imaging business is to make people’s lives more fulfilling through our products, mainly cameras and lenses including related services. We would like to deliver the joy of capturing and expressing special moments through photography to as many people as possible.

Also, the imaging business is contributing as a technology driver regardless of its business size, in terms of the advanced digital technologies, Low-cost production and design technologies, and Mobile technologies.

Editor’s note:

Olympus is one of the few companies not currently expanding into a new mirrorless format. Given how expensive it is to develop a wholly new system and how much competition there now is (in a market segment whose potential size is still unknown) this is understandable.

The decision leaves Olympus in a position where it needs to clearly communicate the appeal of its system: cameras that can’t necessarily match the image quality of larger systems but that can be smaller and lighter, as a trade-off, and this was a recurring feature of our conversation. The use of a smaller sensor is also part of how Olympus is able to offer the ridiculously good image stabilization in the E-M1X and, potentially, more video-capable models in future.

Mr Sugimoto is right to say that the E-M1X makes a lot more sense once you’ve held it

The thing I was surprised wasn’t mentioned more was how extensive the Micro Four Thirds lens lineup is. As the originator of the modern mirrorless system, Olympus has comfortably the most extensive lens lineup for this style of camera. Of course the quandary is: once you have a lens lineup that stretched from consumer zooms to a trio of F1.2 primes, what else do you do, if the message of small and light isn’t reaching a wide enough audience?

Mr Sugimoto is right to say that the E-M1X makes a lot more sense once you’ve held it: it may look like a massive pro-sports DSLR but is well judged so that it’s big enough to feel comfortable with a large lens on it, but small enough to offer something distinct from the likes of the big twin-grip Canons and Nikons.

Personally, though, the thing that stood out was the confirmation that the company is working on a third-generation of E-M5. I consider the original version to have been the first genuinely great mirrorless camera and think it’s the perfect type of camera to take advantage of the Micro Four Thirds lens range.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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CP+ 2019: Sigma interview – ‘Optical design is always a battle with the design constraints’

07 Apr
Sigma CEO Kazuto Yamaki, pictured at the CP+ show in Yokohama, Japan.

Last month at the CP+ show in Yokohama we spoke to executives from several major manufacturers, including Sigma. In our conversation with CEO Kazuto Yamaki we discussed his plans for future L-mount lenses (and cameras) and some of the challenges of supporting multiple mounts.

It’s been six months since the L-mount alliance was announced. How’s it going?

At CP+ our main theme is to show our commitment to the L-mount system. We didn’t bring [out] any totally, brand-new products at CP+ but we showed our commitment to L-mount system by showing our new mount adapter and prime lenses for the system.

The response is better than I thought, initially. Not only from retailers and distributors, but also users who have showed very strong interest in L-mount system. Potential customers are very positive, which is more than I expected: it’s a nice surprise.

You expected it to be harder to convince people?

Yes, because it’s a relatively new system. It’s not a brand-new system, because Leica already had their own system, but as an alliance, this is only the beginning. Panasonic just announced a few products, so compared to the existing systems, particularly compared to Sony system, it’s not [comprehensive]. I was pretty surprised customers showed interest in our system.

The Sigma 35mm F1.4 Art for L-mount is a new lens, but the optical design was laid down at the launch of the Global Vision lens series, in 2012.

Do you have plans to design native L-mount lenses?

We will probably release a few lenses this year, designed for the short flange-back distance.

What are the most important lenses the L system will need in order to be a success?

First of all we need to have more and more lenses. Variety is key. Regardless of whether it’s standard zoom lens, telephoto lens or primes, we need to have more lenses because professional photographers and enthusiasts want to try many lenses. [They don’t] have to be standard or unique, the first priority is to have more. That’s why we announced eleven lenses at CP+, all of which will be available this year.

It might also be a good idea to have unique lenses that only L-mount users can enjoy: we’ll need to think about this.

L-mount lenses from Panasonic and Leica are all fairly expensive, compared to typical Sigma pricing – should we expect your L-mount lenses to be more affordable?

We believe our mission is to provide high quality products with affordable prices. Although I have said we can’t be the cheapest product supplier, we do our best to provide the highest quality product with an affordable price.

Actually the production cost is very high but we minimize the organization, we maintain a very lean organization: we have very few employees in marketing, sales, administration or HR so we can provide products at an affordable price. Our goal isn’t to increase the price more than necessary.

DFD information part of the L-mount standard: will you be writing this information into your L-mount lenses?

I just can’t comment. It’s great technology but I’m not sure we can implement it in our camera because it requires a lot of processing power. We respect the technology but we cannot comment [on] whether we’ll implement in our cameras.

Ahead of the development of brand new lenses designed from the ground up for mirrorless, Sigma has created two MC-21 adapters to convert its Sigma SA and Canon EF lenses to the L-mount.

What about your lenses?

Yes, that’s why Panasonic, Sigma and Leica engineers [are working] together to enhance the L-mount system. We keep upgrading the L-mount system for much more communication between the lens and body to support technologies like DFD.

Sigma arguably started the trend of big, heavy, very sharp primes but now everybody is doing it. Can Sigma create a new segment?

I must admit our position in the industry: people [regard us as] a third-party or accessory provider. Many customers may wish to choose their original manufacturers’ lenses. So, as a lens manufacturer, differentiation is important for us. We always try to bring a unique lens that the body manufacturer doesn’t have.

A long time ago we produced similar lenses with much, much cheaper prices. But today we produce everything in Japan, including parts, so we can’t be the cheapest product supplier. The only way to survive in the industry is to produce unique products. I think big, heavy but super performance was one of the strategies to differentiate ourselves. But today many companies have similar products so perhaps we need to find another [strategy].

The Art series is our heart and we have many users all over the world, so we’ll maintain this lineup

Of course the Art series is our heart and we have many users all over the world, so we’ll maintain this lineup. In order to differentiate ourselves we’ll need to create new ideas for lenses and we’re currently working on it.

I can’t tell you [more] now. Maybe after several glasses of sake!

Is there room in the range for smaller, maybe F2 primes?

The advantage of mirrorless cameras is the small factor. I’m aware some users want very lightweight, small camera bodies and small lenses. They might want to use the big, heavy lenses for some occasions, but for casual shooting, like street photography, they might wish for smaller lenses. I can’t comment but maybe in the future we may be able to deliver such products.

With so many new camera systems on the market now, how do you prioritize which mounts you develop lenses for?

I have a great interest in the Canon R and Nikon Z systems because eventually they will have more and more customers. So we are now investigating these systems. But still it’s too early to make a statement about how we will respond.

Right now we see many new Canon R and Nikon Z users using mount adapters with their existing lenses. So we’re concentrating on optimizing the compatibility of our lenses with their mount adapters and cameras.

We’ve already made sure that our lenses work almost perfectly, without any problem, but we’re looking in detail: maybe there are some minor issues with this specific setting, or with that specific procedure, and so on, so you may still see some minor issues. Our software engineers are now de-bugging those kind of things. But, at the same time, we are looking into how to support the new systems.

Nikon’s wide, shallow mount provides some advantages for optical engineers, but according to Mr Yamaki it’s easier for a third-party manufacturer to design solutions for narrower standards first, and adapt them outwards.

How difficult is it to create one lens design which has to work for several different mirrorless mounts, with their different dimensions?

We have the same challenge in the case of DSLR. The Canon EF mount has larger diameter than Nikon F mount [for example]. We sometimes thought if we only made lenses for Canon EF mount it could be easier but we always overcame such challenges. So we have the experience.

Flange-back distance should not make much difference but [mount] diameter may make some difference. This is a challenge we need to overcome.

It’s true if you need to make a very fast, very high optical performance lens, the Nikon Z mount is very nice. Personally [I believe the short flange-back distance places the rear optical group] a bit too close to the sensor, I’m a bit concerned about reflection problems: it may create some strange ghosting. But its shorter flange-back and bigger diameter gives more options to an optical designer, in theory.

Are the mounts similar enough that you can use one optical design?

If we are to make lenses that are usable for all mounts, we’ll probably optimize to the longest mount. Such a lens could still be used for Nikon Z mount [which has the shortest flange-back distance]. If we optimize to the Nikon system, we can’t use that [lens design] on a [a mount with a longer flange-back].

There is some difference between the mounts but it doesn’t make a huge difference in designing the lens. Of course there are some challenges, maybe if we make exactly the same spec (same aperture and optical performance), a Nikon [Z mount lens] may be 2-3mm shorter but I don’t think it makes a huge difference.

Technically the larger mount diameter give more options to the optical designer

But the mount diameter does make some [amount] of difference when you’re designing. Optical design is always a battle with the design constraints: if the mount diameter is very wide, our optical engineers can use very big diameter lenses in the rear lens group, which makes the design easier. Technically the large diameter give more options to the optical designer but it doesn’t mean we can always design high optical performance lenses. That’s our technique: our technology tries to overcome such limits to provide the best performing lens.

Sigma has been making lenses for radically different mounts for decades, including some weird and wonderful products like this XQ 24mm F2.8 Filtermatic, with built-in filters for black and white film.

Via Wikimedia Commons, credit: Maksim Sidorov

Even in the film era, Sigma supported very different mounts – has anything really changed?

When designing a lens, we try to minimize aberrations, make [the lens] as sharp as possible and try to create nice bokeh in the background: such basics are the same. Mirrorless systems have pros and cons. The pros are that we can make wide-angle lenses much more easily than for DSLRs, just because of the short flange-back distance. But the challenge is the focusing system: if we need to support contrast detection AF or autofocus during movie capture [for example], it’s challenging.

It’s harder to support CDAF?

Yes, if we are to achieve the best optical quality. From an optical point of view it would be ideal to move the whole lens forwards or back to focus. When we had manual focus there were some designs where we moved the whole lenses to focus. But when we started building autofocus lenses we needed to make the focusing lens lighter and smaller so that the motor can support the focusing lens. But the basic physics is the same: the bigger and heavier the focusing lens, the easier it is to maintain optical performance in a shorter focusing distance.

We publish MTF charts but this is the performance at infinity. We optimize at infinity, but naturally the performance degrades at closer distances. If we use a smaller diameter, lighter focusing lens, it tends to degrade more at closer focus distances. That’s the challenge.

There is no ideal world for optical design

In order to support contrast AF we need to implement ‘wobbling’: we need to move the focusing lens back and forth to detect the subject. In order to do that, we need to make the focus lens very light and small and this tends to degrade the performance in the short focal distance.

That’s not always the case, though. Canon doesn’t use that system: they use dual pixel and it works like phase detection, but other manufacturers use pure contrast AF or hybrid AF so the lens has to support that kind of AF operation. Nikon is hybrid, Sony is hybrid. We will probably [implement a hybrid AF system too]. There is no ideal world for optical design, the engineer always has to fight against such limitations.

Does a lens design optimized for CDAF give better performance on cameras that use PDAF?

In terms of speed, yes. If we talk only in terms of focus performance and accuracy then yes, it’s better but the downside is optical performance, in theory. We have many other technologies to maintain optical performance and other companies try to solve the problem with such technologies but in theory it’s challenging.

Sigma’s 50mm f1.4 Art is not a new product, but its lovely rendering of out of focus areas and relative lack of longitudinal CA make it a beautiful lens for portraiture, even now.

When designing lenses, how do you balance things like sharpness with less quantifiable qualities like bokeh?

I think the [main goal] is to make the best possible optical performance for almost all lenses. So we like to minimize the aberrations, the coma, to provide the best quality from the center to edge.

You mention the ‘beauty’ of the image and that’s quite subjective, so it’s not easy to understand the real demand from users. But we [at Sigma] are also photographers, so we do understand these needs. So we may try such a target with some specific lens, so that we [can gauge] response from the customers.

We don’t have a specific plan, but we could have such a product in the future.

Today [our] design software can simulate bokeh: we always check whether the bokeh is ok or not, it’s very important. It’s a subjective matter but still we know what is good bokeh and bad bokeh so we always pay attention to that.

Is the existence of so many new lens mounts a challenge or an opportunity for Sigma?

It’s both. The more mounts, [the] more opportunity: the most active companies will survive in this very chaotic market. But we need to work very hard.

I personally regard this as an opportunity. If we stay only on the very conventional, old systems, we cannot stimulate the market. But on the other hand, this is a very, very big challenge for manufacturing, for our factory. Especially because we make everything ourselves, we make most of the parts and components. So if we make a much wider lineup, it [could] easily confuse our production system.

If we relied on many suppliers we could respond to demand by just changing the size of our order

If we relied on many, many suppliers we could respond to demand by just changing the size of our order, and buy from a different supplier: it’s easy to control. But we make everything by ourselves: we need to change a setting on the machine for each part, so every, let’s say, hour we change, it deteriorates our productivity and efficiency, and we very easily lose the profit margin from manufacturing. This is very challenging.

Will you need to change the way Sigma is organized?

Yes: I’ve been explaining this challenge to my staff for more than a year. The toughest time for [manufacturing] will come in maybe 2019, 2020, 2021 because we will maintain our current lineup for DSLR while also expanding to include more mirrorless [lenses]. So our product line will increase by 50%, maybe as much as twice. This will be very, very challenging for manufacturers like us.

Mr Yamaki, pictured here in Sigma’s factory in Aizu, Japan. Read more about the facility in our detailed tour, here [2015].

Will you need more factory space?

We do have plans to expand the factory. We will start construction of a new building in the same location for an assembly line to build the very modern, high performance lenses. We are putting more and more technology into the assembly line: checking performance and adjusting the lenses.

The assembly line is getting longer and longer so we need more space. We will start construction on two new buildings near the same location. But we’re doing this just to keep the pace with the modern technology, not to expand the production [volume].

Are you planning to create lenses for Fujifilm’s X-mount?

I have [had] many questions about it. I know that some [Fujifilm] customers are wishing for us to make lenses for them. It’s always a matter of priority. We know there are many good customers of the Fuji system and they’re perfectly matched with our ideal customer but [Fujifilm doesn’t] really disclose the protocol between the lens and camera, so we need to do the reverse engineering by ourselves.

It’s a really time-consuming process so we need to prioritize support for Sony E mount, our L-mount system, existing DSLR mounts and Micro Four Thirds.

So you’re balancing the cost of reverse engineering against the potential market size?

Yes, that’s true.

In other words, because you know that Nikon and Canon mounts will be popular, the cost of reverse-engineering can be justified?

Yes.

Sigma is working its next generation of cameras, which unlike the SD-series of old, will be built around the mirrorless L-mount and will feature full-frame Foveon sensors.

What is Sigma’s future as a camera manufacturer?

I have explained that our mission is to create unique lenses, a unique product for the customer and eventually I hope the customers have more choices. They can choose ordinary products from camera manufacturers and unique product from lens manufacturers [like us].

Our future camera business will be even more extreme: I’d like to deliver even more unique cameras that the big players may not deliver to market. We like to be a unique camera manufacturer in the future.

Unique in what way?

Right now I can’t say: you will see at some point in the future.

Are you hoping to make the type of camera that some people might want but that companies the size of Canon and Sony wouldn’t target?

When we launched the first DP it was the first compact camera to feature a large sensor. We [were consequently in] a very unique position but it’s not unique anymore, so we will pursue another solution to make us unique.

What potential benefits should a customer expect to see from a full-frame Foveon sensor?

The basic technology is the same, there is no complete silicon change. People can expect better image quality simply because of the sensor size: APS-C and Full Frame are quite different, so people can expect better performance.

I gave a presentation [to a Japanese audience at CP+] and we announced the basic spec of the [full-frame] sensor [currently being developed]. It’s 20 megapixels times three, so about 60MP. They’re not tiny pixels: they’re relatively big pixels so each pixel can capture enough light. And we’ve gone back to the original pixel structure: 1:1:1, so people can expect very nice, rich data from the sensor.

I hope they like it, but the Japanese audience [at the presentation] has a poker face: they don’t show their feelings on their faces, so I didn’t see a clear response, but I hope they’ll like it [laughs].

What improvements are you mainly targeting?

We tried to improve all aspects [readout speed, color separation, noise performance]. With this sensor we tried to improve the high ISO performance but color separation is the same: we maintained the same characteristics as before. It’s challenging: if we keep the same characteristics it’s challenging for the high ISO performance but it means we can reproduce better color gradation between blue, green and red.

Color specta derived from Raw images, with Foveon (top) showing much smoother red-to-green transitions and greater ability to capture violet tones that exist beyond the blue filter that the three Bayer cameras can capture.

This image [demonstrated by Mr Yamaki in the interview and reproduced above – the upper strip is from a Foveon sensor, the lower three are from three different Bayer-pattern sensors] is taken by a Foveon sensor. Foveon can capture greater graduation between each color. This is from a Raw file but if the Raw data has the correct response to each wavelength then we can render all these colors in processing.

One of the projects we have at the moment is to recreate this nice color graduation in the final image. You can’t create this graduation from nothing so while we retain the same color separation, we’re trying to improve the processing.

What’s the response been like to adding DNG capability?

When we announced DNG output, [our customers] were very excited but after they tried it they were a bit disappointed by the quality because the pre-processing was a little bit different. So most of the customers that I know prefer SPP, despite the [penalty in] processing speed.

Are you working on enhancing the DNG performance?

We’re always trying to improve the processing in the camera. Our Sigma Photo Pro software can do some pre-processing that DNG cannot, so we need to do that pre-processing in the camera and write it into the DNG file. The power of the in-camera processing is limited: when it comes to PCs, the processing power available is much [greater]. But we always try to improve the pre-processing in the camera.

What are the other products in the market you’ve been impressed by?

So far I like Canon, the 28-70mm F2 and the 50 mm F1.2. Their [RF] mount system is quite impressive.

But it’s noticeable that they both use slower, ring-type focus motors -presumably Canon has had to make that same image quality / speed decision…

This is the same challenge for all manufacturers.

Editor’s note: Barnaby Britton

The last time we spoke to Mr Yamaki was late 2018, at Photokina, where he had just announced the L-mount alliance with Panasonic and Leica. In the intervening six months it sounds like his team of engineers has been pretty busy developing a ‘unique’ Foveon-equipped full-frame L-mount camera, as well as ensuring a wide range of native L-mount lenses by the time it is launched (which we expect to happen later this year).

Of course the 11 L-mount lenses that Sigma has launched so far this year are only ‘new’ in the sense that they’re newly machined for L-mount: optically these are the same designs that we’ve seen before, going back to the launch of the Global Vision range in 2012. This fits with Mr Yamaki’s initial L-mount strategy of ‘more and more lenses’, with perhaps some unique optics coming a little later.

Reassuringly, despite the eye-watering cost of most L-mount lenses currently on the market from Panasonic and Leica, Mr Yamaki seems set on his long-standing strategy of quality at ‘an affordable price’. One of the ways of keeping prices down, of course, is to standardize optical designs across lenses made for different mounts. This is not a new challenge for Sigma – Canon EF and Nikon F mounts are radically different, for example, and the company has been offering versions of the same lenses for both, for more than 30 years.

When faced with the challenge of standardizing optical designs, it makes more sense to design for the most limiting mount first, and work outwards

In this interview Mr Yamaki confirmed a couple of things that we’ve long suspected: firstly that, in theory, systems with a wide mount and short flange-back give the optical designer more options, especially when it comes to creating certain kinds of lenses. And secondly, when faced with the challenge of standardizing optical designs for radically different lens-mounts, it makes more sense to design for the most limiting mount first, and work outwards from there. As Mr Yamaki says, ‘if we optimize to the Nikon system, we can’t use that [lens design] on a [a mount with a longer flange-back]’. But if he starts by looking at – say – creating a lens for Sony E-mount, adapting it to a wider mount should be relatively straightforward from an engineering perspective.

Of course, for that to happen, Sigma must first reverse-engineer the Z-mount. Nikon – like Canon, and Fujifilm – does not disclose details of its mount standard to third-parties. According to Mr Yamaki, the cost of the R&D required is easy to justify for major mounts, where sales are guaranteed. The flip-side, of course, is that for systems with a relatively small market share, and / or a large range of attractive native options already in existence – like Fujifilm X – it’s a trickier proposition.

Another complicating factor is the mixture of different autofocus technologies currently used by camera manufacturers. Some use pure contrast-detection, some on-sensor phase-detection, and some a combination of both. Mr Yamaki’s description of the optical and functional limitations imposed by the need for CDAF support is fascinating, and rather than unpack it again here, I refer you to his concise explanation, above.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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CP+ 2019: Canon interview – ‘we want to capture as many customers as we can’

06 Apr
Left to right: Naoya Kaneda, Go Tokura, Yoshiyuki Mizoguchi and Manabu Kato

We were in Japan earlier this month for the annual CP+ show in Yokohama, where we sat down with senior executives from several camera and lens manufacturers, including Canon.

  • Go Tokura – Chief Executive, Image Communication Business Operations
  • Naoya Kaneda – Group Executive, Image Communication Business Operations [lenses]
  • Yoshiyuki Mizoguchi – Group Executive, Image Communication Business Operations [camera]
  • Manabu Kato– Deputy Senior General Manager, Utsunomiya Optical Products Plant

This interview was conducted with multiple people via an interpreter. As such, it has been edited for clarity and flow, and responses have been combined.

Looking at the EOS R system, can you explain why we’re seeing very high-end lenses but consumer-level camera bodies to start with?

With the EOS R system the target was all about taking the optical capabilities to the next level and achieving the highest image quality, so from that end we wanted to really optimize what the lenses can do: that’s why we’ve started with so many L-series lenses.

With the bodies, we were introducing a new system and expanding what we offer. We’re looking to capture as many customers as we can, that’s why we approached this segment of enthusiasts. And we wanted to make it affordable as well, because we wanted to capture as large an audience as possible.

And because you can adapt our EF lenses, the breadth of options is appropriate for that segment, too.

Should EOS RP customers expect more affordable lenses in future?

Yes, you can expect that.

How do you strike the balance between developing RF and EF in terms of resources?

Because this is a different system, you might expect us to have different teams working on the EF and RF lenses, but that’s not the case. We actually have the same optical engineers, the same mechanical/manufacturing engineers working on both EF and RF. In other words; everyone involved is a dedicated expert, skilled in terms of developing interchangeable lenses.

For the immediate future we will be focused on RF lens development

Because we’ve launched RF just recently and we believe there are a lot of gaps to fill in that system, for the immediate future we will be focused on RF lens development.

What’s the logic behind making a system that isn’t compatible with your existing EF-M mirrorless system?

When we started to design the RF lenses we didn’t want to compromise on what we can do. We wanted to develop RF to its full potential, so we wanted the latest specifications, state-of-the art technology and design. In the process of developing a no-compromise system, it became apparent that this wouldn’t be compatible with EF-M.

The cameras that use the EF-M lenses tend to be the smaller sizes which may be [oriented towards] a different customer, so we’re looking at what those customers want and we’ll develop according to that response.

You haven’t considered an APS-C RF camera, then?

I can’t tell you what the future plans are going to be, but it is the customer who directs us into our development, so if the customer requests that, it’s something we’ll try to respond to as best we can.

Is there a trade-off to be made between offering the best image quality and being able to offer fast, quiet focus, that you get from using Nano USM?

Nano USM is a technology we’ve very proud of having developed. The first time it was used, three or four years ago, was in an EF-S lens [the EF-S18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM] where it was all about raising the speed and also that it’s silent. That both catered to the needs of videography but also helped to raise the autofocus speed.

Canon doesn’t give many details about its Nano USM technology. It appears to be based on pulsing blue waves of some sort

To go with Nano USM you have to design with a lens with lightweight focus elements. It’s a new technology so we’re always looking for ways to adapt it to the different requirements of the cameras they’re used for. Because it can give silent, high speed AF we have a strain of development in place to expand the ways we can use Nano USM. So we’re looking into how we can adopt it in the different cameras that we have.

For each of the lenses that we develop, we always think about what we want to provide. With the large lenses you see in front of you [the 50mm F1.2 and 28-70mm F2] that was all about really achieving the optical quality performance, that’s why we decided not to use the Nano USM. But we did use Nano USM in the 24-105mm F4: that is for video and stills. We thought it would be more appealing and would help provide the features required for such a lens.

Almost all of the EOS R lenses announced so far are ‘L’ series. What does ‘L’ mean in 2019?

For a lens to be called ‘L series,’ it has to have the latest technology that Canon can offer. In other words, it’s about making sure the performance is the latest and best we can provide at that time. Because they’re designed for use by the professionals and enthusiasts, we want to provide them with a better choice of lens. So whenever we introduce an L series that’s what we mean: we want to offer a better lens for such a segment.

Canon has revealed plans for 15-35mm, 24-70mm and 70-200mm F2.8 L lenses for the RF mount

And, of course it also has to be dust-proof, etc: the durability aspect of it. That also has to be in place, given the situations these photographers will be using them in.

When you’re designing for mirrorless: what are main differences, compared with designing for DSLR?

It’s difficult question to answer simply. With the move to mirrorless the aim is to optimize the space where the mirror box used to be – that was what we were looking at. This allows us to make the lenses smaller and also to raise the optical quality.

What are you trying to achieve with the F2.8 trio?

We’re making sure that the new system and lenses are able to contribute value to the product the professionals produce: which in this case is their photography.

For them to be able to see that difference, to see the improvement is really what dictates how we design the lenses. It’s literally all about making sure we can offer that level of higher quality, higher value features for this professional segment.

We’re making sure the new system and lenses are able to contribute value to the product the professionals produce

The Nano USM question you had kind of relates to that. It’s all about making sure we have the better autofocus, the silent autofocus and also the 70-200mm to become smaller.

Other advances can be see in the wide zoom: it used to be that it started at 16mm, but now it allows for 15mm. And also with the image stabilization feature as well. All of these are about making sure we can actually provide the better value for these professional users: it’s about providing this new value.

With the three golden [lens] series that you’ve mentioned, the RF mount allows us to open up these possibilities for them.

In terms of making the new 70-200mm smaller, how difficult was it to decide to move to an extending zoom design?

We’ve not actually disclosed that it is going to extend or not, but we do have the extending mechanism in other lenses we make. So we do have the experience and know-how in-house: we have the capability to introduce such a feature in a new lens.

Canon won’t confirm its RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS (left) is an extending design. But it is.

To be clear, though: I have not said that it’s going to be an extending design. [Laughs]

And the advantage of fast and silent AF: is that primarily for video shooting?

With the silence of autofocus, yes we’re looking at the video. But we’re also working to improve the smoothness of the focus. All of this is in response to what people are looking for in terms of videography.

The current RF cameras offer 4K but with compromises. How do you see video features evolving in RF lineup?

We believe mirrorless cameras can be good for video shooting for the high end. They do their job well both for videography and still photography. Having said that, we always know there is a need for improvement in terms of specifications and the potential that we can provide for video photography.

We are working … so we can provide for better videography

For the EOS R and RP models, we’re aware of some of the dissatisfaction people have commented about our video features, and we are working to respond to this so we can provide for better videography, both in terms of the lens and the camera.

What are priorities for sensor development? Speed, pixel count, dynamic range, video?

Looking at our entire product lineup, yes, all of the points you mention are priorities for us. We need to evolve in all aspects of those things and that has to do with how we can upgrade our sensors.

The sensors used in the EOS R and RP don’t offer the best dynamic range in their respective classes, and both offer cropped video with significant rolling shutter.

In other words, we will be developing sensors so that we can maximize the potential that they can provide. But we always need to look at the camera it’s going into: to make sure that that sensor provides the best features or value characteristics that each camera’s concept requires.

It might be speed that’s important in one camera, as opposed to pixel count in another. So the camera dictates what sort of sensor we develop. But we are developing sensors to cater and optimize for each of their features and performances.

Are you ready for the Olympics in Tokyo next year?

Our plans are on track.

We have not disclosed any specification or details about the Olympic year model. But we’re making sure that by [the time of the Olympics] we are able to provide a product with the feature that’s most important, which is reliability of the camera. This is for professionals, for professional use as a tool. We need to provide a reliable camera, so that’s what we’re aiming for.

Do you think we’ll see more mirrorless than DSLR at the Olympics?

Even now I think a lot of competitors are all looking to design high-end mirrorless, so we will probably see more of this coming in.

Having said that, I’m not so much interested in the distinctions between mirrorless and DSLR. At the end of the day for the professionals are looking for the ultimate result that they can get from their professional tools. They’re looking for the reliability once again, and also the operability, the usability, ease-of-use: these are very important for these professionals. In other words, it’s these factors that are most important, not whether it’s a DSLR or mirrorless camera. It’s not so much about saying it’s a contest between mirrorless or DSLR.

In the long-term can you see Mirrorless replacing the DSLR?

There is a trend towards mirrorless. They’re the cameras being developed and produced, so there might come a time where that might happen. And Canon is making sure we’re not behind with that trend.

Canon has been working on a variety of novel camera concepts, four of which were on show at CP+.

Last year you showed us some compact camera concepts, more evolved version of which are now on the show floor. How is the development going?

I guess you’ve seen the four models. What we’re doing now is getting the customers response or the user response to see what sort of thing we can improve on. So we’re actually in that brushing-up stage, if you will. We would definitely want to get these cameras on the market soon, if we can.

In the light of the changes in the market, what does Canon have to offer mainstream/casual users?

Like the prototypes that you see, it has to work with smartphone as well. We believe there is something that can be done to co-exist with the smartphone.

we believe there’s a new… casual capturing market

So, in addition to the ILC and the compact camera market, we believe there’s a new genre of capturing: a new casual capturing market if I may say. I think there is potential for new developments to be had in that spectrum.

Editor’s note: Richard Butler

Perhaps the thing that surprised me most was Canon’s openness in this interview. Historically very few companies have been willing to even imply that their sensors or their video performance might need to improve, so the teams’ responses came as a refreshing surprise.

Similarly, it was interesting to hear Canon’s executives make clear that they’re currently focused on RF lenses. It’s an understandable course of action, given the company’s need to make the system look comprehensive and appealing as quickly as possible, but it’s still striking to hear such complete focus stated on-the-record. The implication, of course is that EF lens introduction will slow down for a while.

I didn’t think we’d ever hear Canon execs entertain the idea that sensor performance might need to improve.

As you might expect, Canon was very keen to talk about how seriously it takes its pro-level offerings, even to the point of almost confirming that there’ll be an ‘Olympic Year’ pro camera in 2020. While we tend to focus on technological improvements, Canon is stressing the importance of reliability (something that we can’t really capture in reviews, since it can only really be confirmed with hindsight).

I personally didn’t think we’d ever hear Canon executives even entertain the idea that mirrorless might one day replace DSLRs in the market (we’re so used to hearing ‘there’s a place for both’), nor allow even the slightest implication that the company’s sensor performance might need to improve.

There was an acknowledgement potential trade-offs between image quality and optimal autofocus performance

The intention of making a pro model isn’t much of a surprise, given the company’s focus on high-end, ‘L’ series RF lenses (eight of the ten lenses promised so far will wear the ‘L’ designation). But again, in amongst talk of ‘the latest technology’ and ‘the highest quality’ there was an acknowledgement potential trade-offs between image quality and optimal autofocus performance. If anything that just leaves us all the more keen to find out how the forthcoming Nano USM-powered F2.8 ‘L’ trinity will perform.

At the other end of the market, Canon was the only company we spoke to at CP+ that publicly confirmed that it’s searching for a market beyond enthusiasts and professionals (the audiences at which most recent announcements have been aimed). Promises of trying to “capture as large an audience as possible” with the EOS RP aren’t fully backed-up by the RF lenses announced so far, but the continued development of the compact prototypes suggest we should take Canon at its word when it says it believes “a new casual capturing market” could yet exist, if they can create the right product.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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