Ken Rockwell

> There's a school of photography that basically lives and dies by over-saturating images (e.g. http://kenrockwell.com ) and they'd likely have a cow over the headline, but understand and be totally onboard for the actual goal.

Actually, I suspect that even that crowd, after the initial shock would be absolutely on board. This would mean that no longer would the sensor control how the high-end clipping happens, but now that could be tailored specifically via a post-processing filter. E.g. to exactly match a long-gone film emulsion's behavior, "enhance" a classic, or to simply to create new clipping functions.

This is a bit analogous to the flexibility that black and white shooters gain by working with modern color sensors. When shooting B&W film, the tonal result was controlled via a combination of the film's spectral response and any colored lens filters applied, the latter used to manipulate tonal contrast between different colored subject matter (e.g. sky, plants, skin tones, etc.). Now a skilled photographer can shoot color RAW w/ B&W preview (for a preview of the image luminosity) then adjust in post to nail the image effect without having to mess even thinking about what colored lens filter(s) to have used.

> Reputation goes down the toilet the moment you start selling stuff on your blog.

I'd say there are a great number of exceptions to that. My blog has several thousand subscribers (for whatever you want to define an RSS subscriber as) that have been following my blog for years, they know I have been working at early stage startups for years and they value my opinion, even going out of their way to ask if I have an affiliate link for something I might have mentioned on Amazon before or elsewhere.

One guy even held off buying a big DSLR camera on Amazon for a few days until he was able to get my affiliate code from me while I was out of town.

People can have a voice that is valued online and sell stuff through their writing/blog. Affiliate sales on my blog alone pay my rent while I can run around doing startups with no compensation.

Ken Rockwell comes to mind too. He reviews cameras and has amazing guides. Each camera page has a blurb about asking readers to buy it from sites that have his affiliate code.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/

Interesting in two ways. This camera is very much like my first camera, a Fujica half frame with “guess the distance” focus, some 54 years ago.

Second, film can be scanned at processing time and place, and 35mm film is about equivalent to a 24 megapixel digital image. Some say better [0]. Film rarely is affected by dust, and I have had a bunch of sensor cleanings. I change lenses in a new unused ziplock bag now.

I am getting a new scanner for my old (out of this world) color slides, mainly 2¼ square, because 35mm. slides can be 1:1 imaged by a 24 megapixel digital camera with about the same quality.

4x5 and other view cameras will last forever (if you maintain the bellows) because they are as simple as a clothespin (other than the shutters)

[0]: https://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/why-we-love-film.htm

HN tip of the month ;)

When Canon released the EOS M as its first mirrorless camera, it hasn't gone down well in many reviews as it's a slow performer[0]. Now, this has actually been addressed in a later firmware upgrade, but at that point the damage had already been done. After that, Canon basically dumped this camera on the market at very low prices.

Good thing for us is that this little camera can now be bought very cheap second hand (got mine last year at around $100)
Once you load up ML, you get a fantastic fun little camera! I'm not very experienced with shooting video but for photography, it's a wonderful experience. Focus peeking, magic zoom, interval photography, all for free.

Many kudos to the ML devs from this side as well!

[0] https://kenrockwell.com/canon/eos-m/m.htm

I find it funny that people care about the equipment a photo is taken on. Those photos are taken by professional photographers with professional lighting setups and professional models. I subscribe to Ken Rockwell's belief that you don't need a fancy camera to take a good photo, you just need to be a good photographer [0].

I used to sell cameras in high school/college, and ALWAYS steered people away from DSLRs/high megapixel cameras that flaunt the quality of their cameras. Likely, those people will never get close to needing a high-quality camera's features, and their purchase of one would almost always result in a return.

[0] https://kenrockwell.com/tech/150-vs-5000-dollar-camera.htm

A suggestion I saw is to just place an order on B&H or Adorama even though it says back ordered. Might be worth a shot!

> The X100V is so wildly popular that you won't find it "in stock," but it's easy to get your X100V. Order it at Adorama [...] or at B&H [...] and be patient for it to arrive. Most people don't realize that these come in and go out the same day to people like me who have them on order all the time, without ever showing as "in stock" because they never make it to "stock" before they get shipped to us. Order yours and be patient, or be prepared to pay about $1,700 for a used one. The X100V is this good!

https://www.kenrockwell.com/fuji/x100v.htm