Sunday 18 August 2024

Modern Devils.


A different sort of post today. This Blog is about photography, but this post is about social media, where many of us get our photography out into the world. It is the result of some recent interactions on social media and how my curiosity opened a huge can of worms that I had heard of in passing, but never really bothered to find out more. This is all about modern devils


I post on three or four photo forums. The experience is variable. You mostly meet some good and interesting people, with your same interest in photography. But eventually you will run into some deeply disturbed individuals, maybe without ever realising it. We are talking about what is commonly called Trolling and Trolls. 

On one forum where I post, there is a person who seems at first sight to just have a serious personality disorder. His posts are obsessive and repetitive, and he always must have the last word. It is annoying and I try my best to ignore anything he posts. Any interesting thread that he choses to engage with, soon becomes a shitshow, of bad humour. People complain but he has not broken any terms of service rules.

 Using this site has become an unpleasant experience at times. On this particular forum there are people I wave exchanged views with in a friendly way for more than ten years. So the easy and logical option of just crossing the forum off the list is not the solution. 

It is August here in Italy. At 40 degrees it is too hot to go out, and most of my clients are on holiday. Basically I have time to kill. So it was time for a little lesson. I suspected this sad individual was posting other peoples pictures. Google Search on the second image I looked at took me to DPR another forum, in fact the larges and most well known forum to discuss photography, with thousands of active members. 

Voila, under a very different name I found the same picture on another forum. The style of writing was very different, But I had just stumbled across something much more complex. Welcome to the world of Sock Puppets and puppet masters. Let's call our troll "Danno" (He claims to have an Italian parent and Danno means damage in Italian) using one of his online names. I asked Danno why he was posting other peoples pictures. A ton of goading via multiple call and answer, did not prove the picture was his, but he claimed "Lambertj" who posted the picture was him too DPR.

A bit of searching on DPR and messaging with sombody else, quickly threw up the fact he had a huge list of other accounts running at the same time. A DPR moderator posted a screen shot of his many accounts (Steve Z is him too!). There are others that are not on the list. 

From DPR

I assumed the purpose was to cheat in the phot competitions on the site. But I am told these sock puppets would often congregate on a thread to argue amongst themselves and cause mayhem. My God we are dealing with something more than a sad inadeguate with personality problems. 

OK. I have told the story. I wanted to find out more about why sombody would want to behave like this. Obviously they have personality problems, mental heath issues too probably. Lots of studies have been carried out and mental heath professionals and phycologists are able to build a picture these strange creatures.  It is a darker story than one would imagine.

One of  "Dannos" sock puppets is pretty clear about his objective



As posted on DPR ( see the Mod link above):

Hi David !

Yeah , Admin can also confirm , that in the past few years you have created at least these 10 accounts : David1961, Danno B , Q-ball , rambet , damsal, Ingah , lambertj , manautoiso, pixelmaiker , Kaspah... 

******* Update**********

On the forum, where I  was having problems with a troll, I was careful not to name names. It is pretty obvious to users who that person is, but I wanted the troll to out himself, for several reasons. Not least of all I did not want problems with the site admin. 

So what effect did my thread have on the troll. Let's for convenience call him Dan, but who knows what his real name is. I'm not going to refer to his user name on that forum. 

Well when he first saw the thread (I have the stats, as I know he resides in Australia), he made a lot of brownnosing posts, being really civil for a change, especially to the administrators of the site. It was curious to follow.  I must of fucked with his mind all day, and in the end he could not resist replying before bedtime.  I got the trolls usual  agressive disparaging style, when I read the reply to my post on the forum over a coffee. Weirdly he is obsessed with lies and lying in his replies. An honest mistake or a different opinion is always lie to Dan's warped mind. Remember we are dealing with highly disturbed individuals, and these individuals, should never be underestimated.  

Using the advice below, I made one exhaustive reply, and will leave it at that. He can have the last word.

He has already replied three times to my reply. I guess he is trying to provoke in the the way the textbooks say these assoles do.

*****Update*******

Steve z another of Dan's sock puppet, got caught cheating in a photo comparison.

We are in the comedy zone here. The feeble attempt to alter the exif, probably means the shot was stolen from sombody else. 

******Update******

I seem to be getting the rat cornered. Having got him to out himself. I could post a few screen shots, of his antics on the big photo forum. This got him really mad. In all his posts he lashes out incoherently and with the usual repetition. A bit of Gish Gallop and some Sealioning (see below). So finally he arrived at threats and menacing behaviour. 

I guess he has been watching the Godfather

Some earlier replies

Totally incoherent


I have the web stats, I know where he is and he sure did visit several times

 
The Relatives in Italy and I quess the Godfathers concrete boots

I feel I have opened a can of worms, that even the scientific papers I read, cannot totally help me understand the contorted and totally insane world that lives inside this guys head.  The internet is chock full of these people. The little Forum that originated this post has at least three of these beasts. If you post on a larger discussion space, you are probably conversing with one of these individuals without realising it, as the internet is teeming with these sick individuals. 

Below are some excepts from a number of texts about trolling

From Phycology Today

Individual factors that contribute to trolling:

Personality: There are many ways of understanding personality. In essence, personality traits are deeply ingrained patterns of thinking and behaving. One way to understand one particular aspect of personality is to focus on some of the darker sides of human nature, which researchers have called the dark tetrad: sadism, psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. The dark tetrad has been found to be associated with trolling. Within the dark tetrad, sadism has been found to be the strongest predictor of trolling, which describes the tendency to derive pleasure or enjoyment from being cruel or demeaning to others. It is important to recognize that sadism in this sense occurs on a spectrum—people can have more or less sadistic tendencies.

Conditioning: Not everyone finds demeaning people to be rewarding and reinforcing. But this is the experience of people with stronger sadistic tendencies. One framework to help understand trolling is what psychologists call operant and classical conditioning. Operant conditioning is the study of rewards and punishment to influence behavior. For some, this might dredge up images of rats or pigeons dancing for food pebbles. Basically, trolling behavior can feel rewarding in two ways: the pleasure experienced from getting a rise out of a target (positive reinforcement) and in some cases, the pleasure experienced by avoiding or distracting from aspects of life that are uncomfortable (negative reinforcement). Like a slot machine, randomly responding to trolling just strengthens the motivation for it to continue. Simultaneously, there are classical conditioning processes going on—reminiscent of a dog that salivates when you open the cupboard because they know they’re about to eat. A dog salivates because they’ve learned that the cupboard represents food. In the same way, people with sadistic tendencies that engage in trolling may salivate, so to speak, when they learn that their target represents the pleasure that they’ll experience when they troll.

From the Conversation

What does this mean?

These results have important implications for how we manage and respond to trolling.

First, based on the results of psychopathy and sadism, we understand the internet troll as someone who is callous, lacks a sense of personal responsibility and enjoys causing others harm.

The significance of psychopathy in the results also indicates trolls have an empathy deficit, particularly when it comes to their ability to experience and internalise other people’s emotions.

On top of this, the interaction between high sadism and high self-esteem suggests trolls are not trolling because they have low self-worth. In fact, this is quite the opposite. The more someone enjoys hurting others and the better they feel about themselves, the more likely they are to troll.

So, how can we use this information?

Unfortunately, the psychological profile of an internet troll means you will not get far appealing to their sense of humanity. And don’t just brush off the troll as someone who has low self-worth. Their character is far more complex, which makes managing the behaviour all the more challenging.

Translated from Thewise magazine

The types

The following is a list without any claim to exhaustiveness of the various types of trolls among the most widespread on social networks, the result of more than twenty years of experience in numerous online communities.


The Joker

He is the classic troll, present since the dawn of the internet. He is an agent of chaos who indiscriminately hits anyone who wants to bother at that moment. He takes pleasure in creating havoc and generating flames, without any personal gain other than the pleasure of seeing Rome burning.


The blaster

He is so used to clashing with other trolls that he often mistakes unwitting users for provocateurs. When he in turn reacts by trolling, he is aware of being unpleasant to his interlocutor, but since the victim is a member of a category he considers worthy of blame, he feels right (secularists vs bigots, science popularizers vs antivax). A skilled perculator and black belt in sarcasm, he fights his crusade alone, even if other users and followers often rush to support him.


The Spammer

It is a professional who almost always acts in a coordinated manner with other trolls, often with the use of fake profiles (sockpuppeting). Its purpose is to flood a certain space with propagandistic material/disinformation in order to influence public opinion in the direction desired by the patron of the troll. The cases of Russian interference before the Brexit referendum in 2014 and in support of Donald Trump's election campaign in 2016 are famous.


The Saboteur

It can be a professional troll or simply a supporter who "goes overboard" in supporting a cause they believe in. Its purpose is to enter a virtual community to unravel it from the inside, making it an unpleasant environment in order to alienate its participants. He often acts with multiple accounts and/or in a pack with other trolls, most of the time in a coordinated manner.


The Hound

It does not strike indiscriminately but chooses its victims one by one. He is extremely touchy, so it only takes the slightest rudeness to become a target. He will follow you obsessively on various groups and on various social platforms, he will not give up until he is tired to switch to someone else. He is morbid, bordering on stalking, but never crossing the red line. Of course, it tends to be a lone wolf.


The troll I encountered is clearly "The Saboteur".

Again from Thewise

The techniques of trolls in social networks

Let's now dissect some of the main manipulative techniques present in the arsenal of modern trolls. It is a compendium of psychology, rhetoric and devious subterfuges that constitute the dark side of social communication. They are flanked (and in some cases intersect) with the much better known and universal logical fallacies.

It should be noted that many of them can be implemented completely unconsciously and in good faith. They can be freely combined with each other.

At the end of each description there are tips on how to manage them.

Troll techniques

Sealioning

It is a very insidious trap. The troll assumes a falsely interested and very calm attitude, pretending to be a genuinely curious person when in truth his real purpose is to exasperate the victim with obsessive requests for explanations – often the same repeated over time – until he abandons the discussion. The first effect is precisely to erode the patience and determination of the rival with an argumentum ad infinitum, a fallacy well known since ancient times. The second effect is to make the target desist from expressing his opinion in the future, aware that it would mean an enormous expenditure of time and energy. Third effect, to ensure that from that moment on the victim acts in a biased manner towards any sincere request for information in good faith, for fear of getting involved again in a dead-end discussion.

Hi Danno

Possible countermeasures: once you have eaten the leaf, post an articulate and exhaustive link, then apply the silence treatment. Do not fall into temptation, ignore and move on, continue to argue exclusively with those who do not drain your energy and act as if the troll did not exist.

Typical phrases:

"Could you please post the sources of what you say?".

"I'm not convinced, is there any other research on the matter?"

Tone policing

It is one of the most popular techniques, especially in the most conservative circles. It consists of shifting the focus from the topic of discussion to the tone used, even without the tone having actually been raised or in reference to individual members of a category in order to generalize their behavior. Very effective as an expedient to reverse the course of a discussion that the troll is losing on an argumentative level. For example, it is a technique much appreciated by white supremacists against Black Lives Matter: criticizing the excessive vehemence of the protesters diverts attention from the causes that generated the protests to their consequences, thus assigning priority to the comfort zone of the oppressor over the legitimate claims of the oppressed.

Possible countermeasures: don't take the bait, woe betide you if you lose focus on the subject. Tone policing can be candidly debunked, after which the discussion must be brought back to the original tracks. Digs such as: "The tone is irrelevant: either you prove that you are right with the facts or, obviously, you are wrong".

Typical phrases:

"Tone down, calm down".

"Don't take it personally".

"With this tone you damage your cause."

Concern trolling

It consists of pretending to be allies of the victim and then making friendly fire. These can be both real individuals and fake accounts with homogeneous characteristics to the target, which the troll exploits to spread their thesis from a more advantageous position and in the form of legitimate concern. For example, the fake account of a trans/homo/bisexual who claims to be worried about the possible effects on freedom of thought caused by the Zan bill.


Possible countermeasures: there are two possibilities. The first is to ignore the troll, certainly the cheapest from the point of view of energy spent. The second is to reveal the troll's strategy, with answers such as: "Your concern trolling is not helpful to our cause at all." The goal is to compact the community and make it clear that the troll's position is a single and not shared. Or, if you want to be more pungent, a: "Thank you for worrying about it: there was absolutely no need" will do its dirty work.

Typical phrases:

"I'm not racist/male chauvinist/fascist/homophobic, but...".

Troll techniques 

Gaslighting

It is perhaps the most devious (and refined) tool that an experienced troll can use. The purpose is to instill doubt about the correct perception of reality by the target through deception. It takes its name from the 1944 film Gaslight, in which the protagonist's husband almost drives her out of her mind with small expedients, such as denying that she hears footsteps in the attic, or that a painting has been moved, or even that the lights in the house have dimmed, leading her to doubt herself to make her declare herself incapable of understanding and wanting.

A classic wake-up call is when you feel the need to screenshot what a particular person writes.

Possible countermeasures: trust your instincts, screenshot everything. As soon as you catch the troll in the chestnut, expose the evidence to the public and block it. Then forget about its existence.

Typical phrases:

"You imagined it".

"Don't put words in my mouth that I have never said."

Astroturfing

It is a marketing technique that dates back to the eighties. Nowadays it consists of the mobilization of sympathizers (grassroots) and the use of fake profiles (sockpuppeting) to spread a false positive perception towards the astroturfer client. Fake five-star reviews, fake political endorsements, fake appreciation in general, everything is broth.

Possible countermeasures: if you have the impression that a community dear to you is a hunting ground for an astroturfer, the only ones who can really do something are the administrators. Identifying a mediocre astroturfer is not particularly complex: it is monothematic and creates a lot of new content, but without wasting time in long discussions that few read, so much so that it is usually perceived as biased directly by users. In these cases, it is useful to help administrators by reporting the matter to them. It is a different matter if astroturfing is done by experts, in which case it becomes practically impossible to counter it at the level of a simple user.

Dogpiling

A technique that we could define as "virtual squadism". It is a coordinated action between several trolls or by a troll who uses multiple fake profiles (sockpuppeting) which consists of flooding with a barrage of negative comments any post that contains ideas that the troll wants to censor. The action, usually carried out within a few minutes of the publication of the victim's post, has a speed and quantity of comments such as to inhibit the author from replying, and acts as a deterrent to anyone who wants to intervene, before they do so.

Possible countermeasures: given that don't feed the troll always remains the best option, if you think it's worth fighting it is enough to post new topics, but without responding to comments. If it is absolutely necessary, reply by opening a new post. The reason is simple: the rest of the users will see your post in their feed, but only a few will open the comments. Be careful, however, it may be that the troll is you: sometimes it happens that you find yourself doing unconscious astroturfing in a very homogeneous community that simply thinks differently from you.

Gish gallop

A technique typical of anti-scientific circles. It is named after the creationist Duane Gish. It is based on the observation that bringing a false argument is much faster and less expensive than proving its untruthfulness. The troll then proceeds to flood the victim with falsehoods, invented evidence, puppet arguments, half-truths, extrapolations of data resulting from cherry picking and/or deliberately misrepresented, in such quantities as to make it impossible to dismantle them all at the same pace with which the Gish rooster rattles them off.

The result is that the public has the – wrong – impression of a poor argumentative ability of those who are attacked, as they seem unable to stand up to the opponent who instead appears confident and "well" documented.

It works very well in face-to-face debates and is still very effective even in social media, as both forms of free discussion. It is less effective in debates that have precise rules and times, even more so if you know in advance that the answers will be fact-checked and if there is an impartial moderator, such as in electoral face-to-face on television.

Possible countermeasures: knowing that your opponent is a user of this technique, it is useful to prepare the countermoves in advance to the arguments he usually uses, to rattle them off before his Gish gallop begins and thus catch him off-guard, taking care to keep some tricks up your sleeve for the coup de grace. In the impossibility of doing so, one must not fall into the trap of answering point by point but it is necessary to focus on the lies that are easiest to unmask and then show them to the public as proof of his bad faith, instilling the doubt that having lied about one thing he probably did it about the rest as well. It also helps to use humor and sarcasm to belittle the supposed "scientific" nature of the Gish galloper, while being careful not to be unpleasant.

So there we are. I now know a lot more about Danno and his ilk

These deeply disturbed individuals are just not stupid idiots or assholes having fun. They are somthing much darker and dangerous.

So what to do. (From the Conversation)

It appears the popular refrain is correct: don’t feed the trolls and give them the hurt or angry response they are looking for.

This does not mean we should just ignore this behaviour. People who commit this type of cyber abuse should still be held accountable for their actions.I propose we change the narrative. Trolls are not to be feared — their power lies in the reactions they cause.

One way we can start is to become active bystanders. Bystanders are those who witness the trolling. Active bystanders intervene and say “this is not okay”.

Don’t fight fire with fire. Respond with outward indifference and strict no tolerance. Let’s work together to dismantle the power of the troll and take back the internet from their influence.

It is not only up to the person experiencing the trolling to respond and manage the behaviour. We all need to take responsibility for our online environment.

***********************************************************************************

After writing this Blog post, I feel better armed against this sick and vile filth, that pollutes our online enjoyment.










Sunday 21 July 2024

Exploring Perspective

Here are a few thoughts about one of the most useful tools we have, to give the impression of depth in a photograph.

Previous cultures understood pictorial perspective, but in its mathematical form, linear perspective is generally believed to have been devised about 1415 by the architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) and codified in writing by the architect and writer Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472), in 1435 (De pictura [On Painting]). 

But, Brunelleschi, Alberti, and others only understood one point perspective, the simplest pictorial form of perspective. We have just one point where the sightlines converge. Central perspective, however, is so violent and intricate a deformation of the normal shape of things that it came about only as the result of prolonged exploration and in response to very particular cultural needs. Curiously, the distortions imposed by perspective on the real, tactile world are so successful that modern viewers only note them when pointed out.

If we construct a perspective drawing, or use perspective in a photograph, the angle of view is a question of proportion, that can be explained by tracing an image on a window whilst looking through a small hole at a fixed distance. A simple illustration explains the concept nicely. It is obvious that the angle of view and the steepness of the sightlines are infinitely variable. 



Quoting a pamphlet on the use of perspective in Renaissance painting, published by the British National Gallery, we can understand that sometimes we need to depart from pure geometric, or mathematical models:

“Optical illusion does not necessarily depend on mathematical absolutes and, with a few important exceptions such as Piero della Francesca, it seems that painters were more concerned with achieving a level of visual plausibility than with the rigorous application of theoretical models. Perspective was designed to fulfil the needs of the picture (not vice versa), and a series of other conditions and criteria were at stake: the knowledge, skill and aesthetic preferences of the artist, the demands of patrons, the ways in which the site might determine the viewpoint, and the requirements of the subject matter. Thus, a painting which has often been considered a perspectival manifesto, Masaccio’s ‘Trinity’ fresco, has been shown to bend the rules of one-point mathematical perspective, probably because it looked better that way”

Construction of a One-Point perspective drawing 


Sight lines for Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper


Simple 1 point perspective


Two-point perspective, necessary to show objects set at an oblique angle to the viewer, took another century to evolve. The first known diagram of the two-point perspective by Jean Pélérin, in his De Artificiali perspectiva (1505), which was also the first printed treatise on perspective. With two-point perspective, there are two vanishing points on the horizon line. This creates the illusion of depth and space


Simple 2 point perspective

Two-point perspective is probably a much more useful, than one point perspective, if we want to create an illusion of a three-dimensional object in a photograph. But it is harder to control and unwanted perspective effects can creep in to make a picture look unnatural. 

Three-point perspective is a type of perspective that uses three vanishing points. It is used to draw objects that are above or below the viewer’s eye level, such as skyscrapers or bridges. In three-point perspective, the lines that are parallel to each other in the real world converge to three different points on the horizon line. Three-point perspective is closely connected to two-point perspective, and is generally unwelcome in Architectural photography. Three-point perspective often appears as “key stoning” in a photograph. 


Simple 3 point perspective

I have introduced the most simple cases, to show how the basic principles of perspective drawing and photography using perspective effects . We can see in the drawing below that we can have many vanishing points in a scene. But most of the time one or two point perspective for the main subject are sufficient.

The principle piece of furniture obeys two point perspective. Think of all the secondary objects as separate entities using two or three point perspective in this case.


Let's look at some real world examples. With Aldo Rossi's Ossario in Modena as an example. I made three pictures with one, two and three point perspective. 

1 point perspective



2 point perspective

3 point perspective


When we look at a reasonably low building like the one above, our brain applies key stone correction, and we see the vertical walls as being vertical.

A shift lens can help us produce pictures with one or two point perspective. It allows us to shift our eyesight convergence point in any direction. 

Upward shift moves the single convergence point upwards



But we can also shift the convergence point both upwards and sideways, to keep the horizontal and vertical line s parallel, and create un unusual perspective effect

Exaggerated 2 point perspective for dramatic effect. 

2  point perspective

This shot has multiple vanishing points


Thursday 25 April 2024

Nikon 28mm -400mm Lens Review

 


Nikon have Just released the rather interesting 28mm-400mm zoom lens, which I can see as being pretty useful in a number of situations.

I had some doubts about firmare match with my Z7, but when I was reassured that everything would work well, I took the plunge and bought this lens. I wanted something with a bit more reach for detail shots and also travel. I tried my Sigma 100-400 on my three legged monopod to see if it was usable a 400 at long shutter speeds, but it did not work out, The VR in the Sigma is pretty lame. So it is out for Architectural details

I skived off this afternoon, to see what this lens can do. Nothing artistic. I had an hour to shoot some stuff in town with the 28-400. I like to test out new gear in real life situations. I have done some minor tweaking and some keystone correction. I did not find the aperture limiting in the old church. I just used a higher ISO. I did not find F8 limiting for this sort of photography.

Wow, the first try-out pictures just to see how this lens handles impressed me. This lens like the 24-200 before it has already exceeded my expectations. The pictures are nice and crispy sharp and the IBIS/VR let me get some sharp shots at 400mm with a 1/30 shutter speed. Distortion is corrected in camera and is done well.

My Z7 with this lens is not particularly heavy and I do not think carrying it around over my shoulder for a few hours will present any problems. Certainly nicer than carrying a camera bag with two or three lenses around.  

I think this is going to be very practical for hiking in the mountains, as it is quite light, when combined with the 14-30. For my more specialized photography, like Architecture, I will still be using a bag full of specialized lenses, as this lens does not do everything well  .

On my big screen they look nice and sharp with lots of detail. I think optically it is better than the 24-200 even in the corners. Im sure if I made some 100% enlargements of the corners I might see something less than sharp. But like most modern lenses they look fine on a big screen at normal viewing sizes. Things like contrast can be tweaked in post.

For those interest in photography rather than pixel peeping, this is a great lens for when you do not want to carry a bag full of gear. 

Here are some examples
.





















I had a chance for a quick walk along the River Po. The light was not perfect and I was with my wife, who gets impatient if I stop too long to take pictures. Here are the pictures I took. I have done a bit of quick post processing on these shots. 





















Are Shift Lenses Still Useful?

 Some time ago I was becoming bored with the mostly scenic photography I was doing, mostly during hikes in the Apennines. Slowly my photography shifted towards architectural subjects, and initially like most photographers, I corrected the geometry of the buildings in post. 

I have always been fascinated by cameras with movements, which allow the manipulation of geometry. Indeed, I had an expensive to feed 5x4 camera back in the nineties. As my interest in Architectural photography deepened, I slowly put together a collection of  shift lenses. Here are a few thoughts about perspective control lenses.

The first myth to get out of the way is that these lenses are hyper expensive. The still valid Nikon 28mm and 35mm PC lenses can be found second hand in good condition for about €300. My early shift lens photography was done with a Nikon D700 and a Nikon 28PC, which cost me less than the cost of a good  lens bought new. I lost nothing when I sold the glorious D700.


The Ghiara Reggio Emilia


I picked up my Nikon 24 TS and 45mm TS for less than €1000 and the excellent Laowa 15mm Zero D shift, cost me a little over €1200. Sure these more modern lenses are not cheap, but compared to the long lenses used by  photographers photographing the natural world, shift lenses are about average or even cheaper than most specialised lenses.   

Secondly, there seems to be a very common belief, that with the powerful photo editing tools we have today, the shift lens has become redundant. I believe this quote from James Ewing from his textbook Follow the Sun. A book  aimed at professionals and students and considered a standard text destroys this myth.


Castel Arquato PC


"You might ask yourself "Do I really need an expensive tilt shift lens" Can't I just correct the perspective later in Photoshop?" The answer is yes you could correct it later, but the tilt shift lens allows you to see and feel the perspective of the images you are shooting. The final crop and ultimately the entire composition will be totally different in a shot that is corrected in post. If you cannot see the image while you are shooting you cannot control the composition and therefore you cannot effectively interpret the building. Correcting the perspective during post production causes a significant loss of sharpness and detail. The Tilt shift lens gives you accurate, sharp controlled images."

I think this says it all.

I can add from experience that it is almost impossible to judge how much extra framing space needs to be left, to take into account the area lost when correcting in post

Traditionally due to the fact that the camera needs to be absolutely level when using a shift lens, a tripod needs to be used when using them. The mirrorless camera has liberated the shift lens from the tripod. With the viewfinder level it is now possible to hand hold the camera whilst using these lenses. IBIS is lets me close down the lens too. This is brilliant for those places where tripods are not allowed, or when you do not want to carry one about. I often use my 24PC alongside my 24-200 for general travel photography.


San Francesco Bologna


But after getting the technical arguments out the way, the thing I most enjoy about using these lenses, how it slows me down to really look at what I am looking at, and what I am trying to convey with the picture I am making. I now tend to spend more time photographing fewer venues, when I visit a place, which I believe makes my photography a little deeper.

Modern Devils.

A different sort of post today. This Blog is about photography, but this post is about social media, where many of us get our photography ou...