Here is a link to a quick, very quick run trough my open studio setting. I wish I could have used a steady-cam, but……      D!RK

It has been a while since I wrote my last entry. Actually that was on the 18th of June shortly after the Radiohead concert. Since then I have been traveling to Germany and I moved into a new location. Enough to keep me distracted. The good news is that I spent more time on photography again. Now there are hundreds of images that need to be processed for future blogs. Throughout the last few months there has been one thing that I really wanted to try out. Last January I purchased a used Leaf digital back mounted on a Phase One camera. 80 Megapixels have carved a big smile onto my face and a deep hole into my pocket. Since then the whole debate about the Nikon D800 has started, DXO named it the best sensor out there and everybody got crazy about that camera. Since I had already burned a mega hole into my pocket there was nothing left to even think about buying one. So I see it as a sign of destiny that my good friend and colleague Jose received a D800 a few weeks ago. Actually he has been waiting for a D700 replacement since the D700 hit the market. When the D800 got announced he waited until 12.01am that day to pre-order it from Amazon. Over the following weeks we all learned that between 12.00am and 12.01am around 1.000.000 people must have ordered that same camera. That was the only explanation why his just didn’t show up for months. Then he received it and went on vacation and later on I went on vacation. Both being back to Boston we decided to make a quick little test. How would the same boring image look like from each camera? Ideally an image of no artistic value and that has brick walls, lost of brick walls. Doesn’t everybody test on brick walls these days? I mounted an 80mm 2.8 D lens on a Phase One DF body with the Leaf Aptus 2 12 back. Jose used his Nikon D800 and a 50mm 1.8 D. Now is the moment to stop reading and to write a protesting comment that this is all flawed right from the beginning. The 50mm may not be a great representation since it is not a high-end lens. I have two strong arguments for the 50mm. First, Jose told me that it is a great copy. Second, it is the only normal lens that we have for the Nikon. We may reshoot once we get a Nikon recommended lens on that body. By that time I may have upgraded to a Rodenstock tech lens as well.(And Jose to a D800E) We both mounted our cameras on Gitzo carbon tripods with heavy duty ball heads. With that setup we marched to the top of our office building desperately looking for a great motive to show up. It did not. After minutes of circling the parameter of the roof we decided to just pick one view and one small target. Jose spotted a yellow sign, see if you can identify it in the full view, that was so far way that at first I focused on something totally different. We got that sorted out and with the view selected we set our equipment to f8, 1/320 and ISO 100. We tried f5.6 as well but both cameras delivered better results at f8. We did not sharpen the files.

Here are the two f8 shots in their full beauty.

Nikon f8 1/320 ISO 100

Leaf f8 1/320 ISO 100

We individually changed some of the curves to preserve highlights and shadow details.  All I can say is that both cameras have an incredible dynamic range. But what about detail and smoothness? In the zoomed-out view the Leaf file looks richer, with smoother tonality in the mid tones. Lets have a close up look at 100% for both images.

The Leaf clearly shows more detail. Its double resolution gives it an advantage. That was somehow expected. At least with our lens setup the difference is more than just noticeable. It is strong. The Nikon file scaled up to the same size as the Leaf file demonstrates the difference even more. Still the Phase One seems to create some chromatic aberation that shows as green and red color on the yellow sign. But lets put this into perspective. What the Nikon pulls off is incredible for that camera. Comparing it to an 80 megapixel sensor that is basically more than twice its physical size is unfair. But it may shed some light on the DXO discussion. The Nikon sensor may most likely be the best sensor out there but its result is a combination of resolution, dynamic range, ISO performance etc. With he Leaf back I hesitate to shoot higher than 100 ISO. It starts to look strange at ISO 200 already. But within its sweet-spot it can create files that are absolutely incredible and can only be matched by similar sized sensors or …by film. Yes, I think the 80mp back equals the resolution that I got from 5×7 film but not what I got from 8×10. Maybe a tech camera would close that gap. When it comes to tonality film still rocks the boat. But Jose and I being lazy shooters we prefer the convenience of the digital world with its never ending stream of improvable equipment. And as resolution freaks we will most likely run after the next great thing that would give us just 1% more detail for our museum-sized prints. Have I mentioned how many small and large prints Jose and I have combined on our walls? None. D!RK

PS Check out the quality of the heavily processed cover photo. We took this with the D800. The crispness is amazing.

Caribou & Radiohead

Lets start with the cheapest part, the Zeiss lens. I had it sitting in my cabinet for at least six months before I started to look into the service. I contacted the distributor via email. A day later they replied and told me that I can send the lens to them and they would take care of everything. At the same time I looked at the website and decided to ship the part directly to Germany. Shipping was more expensive but I wanted to get it back quickly. On the website they provide a repair form that I filled out with all needed information and a description of the problem. I shipped it on a Wednesday. On Friday afternoon it arrived in Germany. On Monday morning (Boston time) I received an email from Zeiss with a detailed description of the problem. They asked for a invoice to verify the warranty, which I forgot to include but sent them via email. Two weeks later I received a letter informing me that the lens had been shipped back. Same day in the afternoon a box arrived with a letter from Mr Bogenschuetz providing some details on what they did to the lens. Flawless experience.

Now the Leica lens. When I noticed a problem I contacted Leica service in New Jersey. They estimated the repair time to be between 4-6 weeks. That is a long time for someone who really likes to shoot with that lens. For professional photographers they provide a rush service in Germany but for non professionals with warranty repairs the only option I had was to send it in and wait. After two weeks I received a letter with a service invoice. The text was understandable but not personal. It looked like a list of facts that you would get from a car dealership repair shop. The expected repair time was 4 weeks. They told me that the lens got registered to another person, which could well be since it was a demo version, and was not covered under the warranty. I paid almost $200 dollars to get it fixed. After two weeks it arrived at my door step. A small surprise since I was not expecting it back so quickly. Total repair time was four weeks, updates were provided at a very technical level. The problem got solved and the lens looks like new. It took two weeks longer than the Zeiss repair. The explanation I received over the phone is that the capacity of Leica repair in New Jersey has not yet been adapted to the increased demand of Leica products. As a premium company I would expect a faster, more personal service with better updates on the repair status. Plus they have to offer a rush service not just to professionals and not just in Europe. At that price point I expect repairs to be done in no longer than two weeks.

The Leaf back is the most expensive piece out of the three. When I discovered the problems in mid March I notified my dealer. They thought that some tilting in the sensor caused the problem. After a few conversation over a period of one week I provided a raw file for evaluation. The file  and some technical specs got send to the Mac Group, which does most of the repairs in the US. A week later I received the suggestion to connect my back to my laptop to upgrade the firmware to the newest version. The hope was that some software upgrades had addressed that issue. I don’t shoot tethered to my laptop. To do so I had to buy a $100 special firewire cable. Yes, they make the ports so small that only their cables fit and not my standard $30 cable. I upgraded to see the same results. Ok, that was not the problem. So they asked me to send in a raw file to inspect the problem. Didn’t I already do that. Ok, maybe the new software shows the same problems differently. A week later, after a months of first identifying the problem, I sent an email to see if my new raw file lead to any new conclusion. A day later I received the authorization to send in the back and that the repair estimate would follow based on a detailed inspection. And, because the back is not under warranty, I had to….. . hey, wait, the back has a one year warranty. Ahh, the manufacturer didn’t know, because the dealer covers that back. They don’t share the systems. Ok, fine. Lets ship it. A week later I received an update that the Mac Group had received the back. Four days later I receive an update that the back needed to be shipped to the manufacturer in Israel because a board failure had to be addressed. One last thing, I have to pay $3300 because the back is not under warranty. Silence, exhale……….. With the next email we established the warranty situation again. Done. Three weeks later I receive another update. Good news, the CCD board needed to be replaced and calibrated. Easy to do, I just need to pay the repair of $3100 and it will be all done quickly. Yeah, by that time you probably noticed that something in that email was off. I have a warranty so I shouldn’t have to pay anything. Manufacturers, dealers, not connected, different databases…… . fine, we got that solved and a nice apology for their repeating mistake. Can happen and I am a patient person. So being in Israel for three weeks I thought it would be fair to ask if I would see it back in about a week, since the original estimate was less than four weeks for the repair. Next week, that would be optimistic was the reply. But they would check. A few hours later the good news. It is Wednesday and it will be shipped on Friday from Israel and with no delays at US customs it should be back the next week. Great, I thought. The next day I received a box from New Jersey with my back in it and a letter saying; ” Unit needs to be sent to Israel, MFG for repair. Price $2700. Unit requires exchange of CCD board & recalibration.” ………….Puzzled? Me too.

So three different examples, three different experiences. One thing that stands out is that as bigger the company, as more transparent and organized is the service. Zeiss is extremely efficient, detailed, and personal. The emails and letters that I received from the distributor and the factory made me feel that someone really takes care of the product. Leica has a system in place, which is up to standard in regards to camera devices but not up to a premium brand experience. At their price point you can not provide a service that takes four weeks. Waiting is expected when you buy a premium product, not when you get it serviced. The huge demand of the last years may have stretched their capabilities but is shows that a lot of products seem to get returned for service. The communication was too technical and you can clearly tell that they have thought deeply about the buying experience but not so much about the service experience. It may work better in Europe than in the US. I remember when I bought a Sony Nex 5, that recorded the clicking sound in the video files, it took them three days to get that fixed. Leaf/Mamiya took a total of over two months from problem detection to having it back from repair. To be clear, I am not blaming a dealer here. I think that they do a great job overall in getting people the right products etc. I think the service system is just not set up to be efficient and transparent enough. Manufacturer and dealer have to share the same info. It needs to be clear what has already been communicated to the customer. You can not ask to buy more equipment to test if anything is not working correctly. As a customer I want to know where the device is and who is working on it. Having one person telling me that it gets shipped back from Israel in the next few days while I receive it from New Jersey the next day is strange. I assume that they had it repaired and shipped back to NJ but didn’t want to ship it to me until the repair cost had been paid. With that clarified for the third time they shipped it to my address. At that point the dealer didn’t know that the back had already been shipped back. Since all communication went through the dealer only, it should have been very simple to streamline it. One problem of the Leaf service is that it is set up for buyers of new equipment. When you buy new backs you may get rush service and replacement backs while yours is getting fixed. As a buyer of a demo version I am out of that system. The manufacturer doesn’t know my warranty status and my repair order has no priority. You are basically at the bottom of the food chain. That’s when you realize that premium is not about how much you have paid for an item but where that purchase stands within its own ecosystem. If you enter a system at the bottom, no matter at what price range that starts, you may not qualify for premium service. Personally I think that a feeling of premium service doesn’t require too much. In most cases it is about personal information and clear updates on your item’s status. And a little bit of understanding. The personal letter from Zeiss made a huge impression. How much does that cost? Often smaller companies don’t adapt quickly to grows. They rely on individuals to remember facts and to deal with follow ups when their schedule allows them so. As companies grow they have to put tools into place that orchestrate the service experience. While personal service is great you don’t want to leave it up to an individual to define the service. In some cases that may be a positive exchange but in many cases the individual service exceeds or suffers based on the individual’s daily mood and activities. My suggestion is to have rules in place and a streamlined procedure and defined control. Everything else will just leave you in a mess as a company grows and service demand rises.

All three devices got repaired well. The two lenses work again and they produce crisp, detailed images. The Leaf left me with some uncertainty about it actual repair. And the price between $2700 that the Mac Group communicated to the manufacturer and $3100 that they asked me to pay makes me wonder if failing products create extra revenue. Probably. Still, when I unpacked it it looked like a new back. Even the serial number, which was slightly faded, is now nice and clean. First I thought that they handed out a complete new back. I tested it and it still creates some magenta corners in certain night situations. As some online research suggests it may just be a problem of the lens. Who knows. D!RK

I lived in that area for four years before I moved to Cambridge. Every year at Easter time people from that neighborhood celebrate an Easter Egg Hunt. It is really a hunt, less a search. The idea is simple. Drop a few hundred or thousand eggs on a lawn, put some police tape around them and when the time comes you start a collecting frenzy that empties this field within ten seconds. The toughest, fastest, oldest kid will most likely get the most out of it. Whatever happened to building little nests and to hide eggs behind trees, bushes, and in between flowers? I remember that sometimes we found eggs months after Ester because they were so perfectly hidden that nobody could remember their location anymore.

I used a Wista 4×5 camera to capture the moment before the hunt. The kids are still calm and the 4×5 slide allows you to zoom in and look at the individuals and their stories. Yesterday I went their again and the hunt is still the same. One year they changed it. The park was under construction so they filled a tennis court with all the eggs. Have a good weekend, whatever you do. D!RK

PS Yesterday I went to another site in Cambridge. There they didn’t allow kids to have baskets anymore and handed out blue plastic bags. The reason was that they didn’t want any kid to collect a lot more eggs than other kids. Please stop reasoning.

We skipped every tour offer from jungle excursions, to boat trips, to tobacco field visits, etc. Most of these tours just are too touristy for my taste. While I can cope with an all tourist resort once in a while, I don’t get used to guided bus tours that rush you from one sight to another. After a day in the sand I walked a mile to the nearest PADI diving station. I signed up for a rescue diver class, which took me five days to finish because of all the material that you have to learn for it. To get to the station I had to walk along the beach. Quickly I noticed that the beach condition changes once you would leave the outskirts of the resort. The whole waterfront was covered with a mix of sea grass and plastic trash. Nothing that people had dropped there. Just trash swept on the beach from the Atlantic Ocean. On another day I went running. Not being a fan of beach runs I picked the road, passed the golf course and to the surprised look of the security guard, passed the front gate of the resort. After a short distance I reached the closest village and ran through it. It was obvious that the way people live here is very different from how people live in the resorts. Houses were basic, most people were on the street hanging out. Men would sit in the shade or inside a local bar, while you would see the women taking care of laundry or kids. The next morning I grabbed my camera and walked into that village again. Twice people asked me to buy something to smoke, which I declined. Once I got offered  a chica, which I declined as well. At some point a black car stopped and a few guys inside with sunglasses just said ‘hello’ before they moved on. I walked around and took photos. I wasn’t sure how people would react to me but most ignored my presence or just said “hola”. I wished I could have communicated in their language. At the diving station I talked to my instructor Alexis about the resorts. He told me that most of them are owned by foreigners, the moneys leaves the country. Most of the workers live in towns one hour away from the resorts. Buses paid by the hotels move them back and fourth frequently.

The people in the village don’t really benefit from tourism. They try to sell a few items on the beach or on the street but they can’t compete with the ‘constructed’ village and market inside the resort.

The public beach is filled with trash, that nobody feels responsible for or has the money to deal with it. The contrast between the resorts and the locals couldn’t be more extreme. The paradise that we experienced has everything you could wish for, but it is a fabricated landscape. Busy workers clean the beaches every day, cut the lawn, remove the coconuts from palm trees so nobody gets hurt. In the evening they drive and dump giant clouds of poison into the parks to kill all mosquitos and most likely other insects. Those who handle the poison don’t wear masks. Around a few corners along the beach I found a giant construction side that has not been touched in months or years. I assume the owner went out of money during the recession. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed being there. The water was beautiful, the resort beach spectacular, not crowded, our room was in the front row right on the beach, food great, the diving fun, the people friendly and interesting. But it leaves the strange feeling that what we experienced as a paradise is just a modern version of colonialism, in which we enjoy what a country has to offer from a protected satelitte, where we leave scars in the land and the people left with not much. D!RK