take advantage of the future

One of the reasons I like to use RAW mode on my images (and have done for some years now) is to be able to take advantage of advances in image processing.

The same is true with Negatives, which I preferred over slides because I actually wanted prints not projector time. As time went by I was able to get successively better prints from the same negatives and the same is true with RAW digital.

Back in 2007 Anita and I were on a trip to visit my family in NSW in Australia. We stopped at this lookout after some hiking and the light was perfect. However I could see quickly that the JPG produced by my Nikon wasn't doing it justice so I engaged RAW and took another shot.

I tried to get a good image from that RAW file a few times over the years and was always disappointed by the processing tools available, but encouraged as they got better over time. First I was using dcraw then ACR, then Photomatix ... all gave interesting results that I liked, but each was somehow unsatisfactory in other ways.

Just the other day I tried snapseed on the raw file (converted NEF to DNG)

So, as RAW also stores the original JPG too you can actually see the differences between the:

Original Camera JPG

which is very black in the shadows, indeed has the look of a startled squid squirting its escape...

and the RAW that I've processed just the other day with Snapseed:

The clouds were darker and "menacing" as I recall and yet the visibility of the tree (the actual subject) in the foreground is present without being too saturated in colour or too strongly bright.

Despite this being a humble (by todays standards) Prosumer Coolpix 5000 (which was able to make NEF files thanks to a post-manufacture firmware update by Nikon) I was able to finally make a print from my image of nearly ten years ago just the other day.

If I only had the original JPG it would have forever been "well it was nice on the day..."

Images are memories and you can't often know in advance which ones you'll want to come back to as valuable. My trip to these places with Anita is more special to me now than I would have anticipated then. So I'm glad I knew enough to make the right decisions then.

I could say that of so many things ...

words

Have you ever noticed that sometimes words get in the way rather than assist? I have come to learn that while convenient words can be both a facilitator and an impediment; its like the old adage: if all you know how to use is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.

Choosing the right words can be tedious and getting it wrong can result in misunderstandings.

Yet somehow children pick up everything around them, from how to behave, through to how others expect them to conform to their roles (even such obtuse roles as gender roles) without you saying anything directly to them?

Perhaps even before they can say many words themselves?

Sometimes this is quite subtle and sometimes its quite surprisingly blatant.

The other day I was talking with a friend who has bought a new "hot" sports car. Her husband was driving it aggressively and pretty much having fun with their 3 year old daughter also squealing and giggling with joy and entertainment. Later on when "mummy" was driving a bit "tight" into some corners her daughter told her that she shouldn't drive like daddy because it wasn't safe.

Funnny.

Their daughter had already learned a lot about many things (including sex roles) without any of it being explained with instructions.

For some time I've been of the view that words are cumbersome things, but are there because they facilitate communication which can not be done any other way (yet), however they do far more than that as they even define our cultures and shape our capacity to think.

Have you had friends who know you well enough that you can say just the beginnings of something and they understand what you mean?

To me this is an indicator that you have moved past the constraints of words in your relationship and have a communication level which is often called rapport.

Which is sort of funny that we've taken a word with a different meaning from an older usage, dusted it off and put it to use in a new (but related) role.

We essentially discharge all of the meanings of what the word stood for and gave it new ones. Interestingly we don't do this with numbers.

Few native English speakers truly ever learn another language, but those who do often regard words differently and even how to express ideas differently.

Anyone who learns to program a computer either fails to do it well or learns to think outside "words" and think in objects, methods and actions ... even if they are using a non Object Oriented language.

Artists often communicate via their art in more complex ways, but of course it being a "language" that's close to the artist its meaning remains obscure to anyone who doesn't know the artist (and thus the language).

Words are powerful tools, but they also are somehow dangerous, as they limit our ability to think outside them. For many people the words they use define not only what they can say, but how they can think about things. Clearly many people have felt this and turned to other expression forms (like music or painting) to express themselves well.

One of the new media for expression and communication is motion picture combined with rich sound and careful scripting and direction. A well made movie can take someone and introduce an idea in such a rich way that multiple watches of the movie reveal multiple dimensions of depth and meaning to them over time (well sure, not many do it well). One of my personal favourites is the scene from Black Sails where John Silver is being taught about himself by Captain Flint. A compelling scene that is well directed and well acted.

Watching the movie Lucy the other night I see that I'm not the only one who sees things this way.

One of the things that Lucy does is to identify that thinking in specific languages limits her, but it soon limits her ability to communicate with others who are only actually able to think in words. She becomes able to see things and anticipate things which would be impossible for her to communicate with the constraints of words.

Words not only form our thinking but if we are not careful (and keep our thoughts only as words) slow us down as well as limit us.

Words as knowledge containers and transmission media

We could not teach others many of the things we know as a species if we only used words. One could not train a swimmer or teach the piano from a book, yet somehow we look to words as the codification of our society ... words as laws ... usually leads to arguments about meanings.

Some people are fond of of the idea that "if its in black and white" (meaning words on paper) then its clear ... how false that premise really is.

I believe that what holds us back from further development is the reliance on words for communication. I'm not sure how that will form up, or even if it would require us to become more specialised (like insects) to even achieve it. Perhaps achieving it (like it did for Lucy) would require us leaving our humanity behind us ... well as we have known it for the last few thousand years. Will that be good or bad?

Words essentially are auditory ... although writing makes them visual in a way. We are essentially visual creatures with more of our brains dedicated to vision than to sound. We even use words to express this and our need to "visualise" a problem in order to solve it.

Medicine (among other sciences) has benefited enormously from advances in the ability to see things. Lenses gave us microscopes with which we saw an entirely new world. As soon as we could see it we began learning about it ... but then making mud for ourselves by writing it down in an attempt to allow others to see what we've seen without them seeing it.

... as a photographer I've always been frustrated by the situations of people seeing the images I carefully crafted and then (one day when they go there) saying "wow, its so much more than I saw in the picture"

Learning is experiential, and communication is a learned thing too ... so perhaps its time to extend the boundaries of our learning and teach visual as well as auditory words.

Of course to do that we'd need to construct a visual language ...

Merry Christmas

As time goes by I find that I have a different understanding of time.

When I was a kid a Christmas holiday period was a lifetime and a year impossible to grasp. Now I still see that a Christmas Holiday can be a lifetime, but strangely I think more in years than I did.

Says it all really ... As you travel around for visiting family stay safe and be here to do it again next year.

Best Wishes

Frosted Glass

People seldom see the real thing

In closer...

Nature is always the inspiration for beauty

:-)

Light Pillars

One of the things about walking around the place all the time is you happen across more things. Lastnight on the way back from the shops I observed that it was starting to sprinkle very lightly delicate ice crystals which would be what I'd call "dew" if it wasn't freezing. Looking around me I could see evidence of light pillar formations.

So I headed for the river and found this as the best shot:

 Sadly I only happened to have my phone not my "proper camera" and thus was only able to get this image. Still, better than none :-)

This is something which I've read about but never (till now) witnessed ... fantastic.

my GF-1 (a rumination on why do I like it?)

I'd like to be clear on why I keep pulling out my GF-1 to use but for the life of me I can't.

I mean it lacks so many things in comparison to my GH-1 (or indeed almost any modern micro43 camera) but for one reason or another when I go out for a walk its the camera I take with me most of the time.

paired with the humble 20mm f1.7 (which it was originally released with and who's release coincided with little GF-1) it makes for a fantastic walk around camera who's simplicity somehow is its strength.

As a photographer who goes into "harsh" climates I am pissed off when tech fails because of temperature. Touch screens shit me to death so much for a number of reasons, as too cameras which I have to take my gloves off to use (like the phone I shot this above picture with).

A look at the specs will not leave you gasping, nor a look at the "feature list" of what modes or whizbang wanking it has. Its just a plain simple camera which you can operate with glove on and take pictures.

Perhaps its because I'm an old guy I grew up with cameras before there were electronic cameras. I prefer being able to set things with a dial rather than dig through a menu or worse try to use a fucking touch screen which 1) can't be used with gloves on 2) can't be relied upon when its cold.

I like being able to pick Av or P (my two main modes of operation) without needing to power up the camera or squint to see what the menu is displaying when its bright.

Yet these are features that my GH-1 also has ... so this does not actually answer my question.

On my walk today at -15°C I just carried it along with me and took a couple of shots I liked:

and

the quality and sharpness of these images is exemplary, for instance lets look at a 100% crop of the above image and you can see the ice crystal shape of the snow flakes sitting on the cap of the grass

you just can't ask for more hand held ... so if you're thinking the images you get with your 20mm f1.7 are poor then go to the bathroom and look in the mirror to see your problem. (and no, I didn't take a bajillion shots and picked the keepers, I took one of each and they both worked)

When the GF-1 was first mooted (before they were more than a substantial rumour) I was interested in this camera, this was back in 2009 and at that time I already had a G1 (it being released first, then the GF-1 then the GH-1). From the day I picked one up in a shop I was somehow even more attracted to it, but somehow I just couldn't really justify it. I mean

• it wasn't much smaller than my G1
• it wasn't cheap
• I already had the G1
• it had no OIS in the 20mm nor sensor shift

One day however I stumbled across one on eBay that was priced at under $100 and ... well I just had to buy it. Naturally I immediately started looking for a 20mm f1.7 as the logical lens to have with this camera.

Soon I bought the 14mm f2.5 and then soon after that the GWC-1 adapter (to make the 14mm a 11mm) and then soon after that the small Olympus 45mm f1.8

Somehow this outfit despite all my ability to rationalise otherwise has become one of my favourite walk about outfits. I've taken it everywhere from parties to trecking and just love it.

Because its somehow an unassuming camera, with a simple interface I can take it to a party and comfortably hand it to people (who often forget to zoom cameras now being used to phones) and get reliable well focused shots. In party situations OIS makes less significance than does simply shutter. Sure the high ISO performance isn't great, but with face detect selected I know I'll get keepers even if I'm in front of the camera.

Given that my GH-1 produces "better RAW files" and has numerous benefits (the pivoting and tilting rear screen, an excellent EVF, works well with telephoto lenses, feels better to use with the 14-45 lens...) but that I still reach for the GF-1 makes it clear to me that I don't actually crave that. Thus I believe that none of the newer cameras will offer much more for me (oh, and having tested against other cameras and having access to the GH-4 at work too).

Of course when I do tripod work or know I'll be in a situation where I really need OIS (such as on a 2009 trip to Rome where I was amazed with the ability of OIS) which is only in my "larger" lenses, then suddenly the GH-1 is my go to. As well, having either the EVF or the articulated screen really helps when the camera is held by a tripod (not my hands). This image was hand held at 1/5th of a second ... and is just as sharp as could be expected.

So I'll reach for the GH-1 where the more "SLR" feature set comes in handy. That the GF-1 and GH-1 share the same battery is of course a great bonus (and another reason why I've not upgraded). I need only shove the GF in the pack too, take a battery in each body and a single spare and I'm usually good for a few weeks on a trip.

If I was the sort of photographer that spend more time measurbating about specs I'd probably have ditched it by now, but somehow I'm more into taking photographs. Somehow its not about having a camera with better specs ... its about having a camera I like to work with. 

For reasons I don't fully understand even myself ... its clear to me that that's the GF-1

down by the lake

I was out visiting relatives yesterday to see how their new house by the lake is going. While there I wandered down to the shore to see what it looked like. I knew that we had not had enough low temperatures yet to allow skiing on the lake yet, but wanted to see the progress. The house is looking fantastic, but the scale of what they are doing is enormous.

We have had some heavy snow falls. Normally lots of snow slows down the process of freezing the water (acting as an insulator) and its interesting to see how rocks can act to break the water stratification layers and bring warmth from lower up to the surface (preventing freezing).

I took that with my GF and the 20f1.7 lens (as RAW) ... moved it over to the phone to have a go with Snapseed. I kind of like this "brash" retune of the image, and like the way its emphasised textures in the hills on the other shore and exaggerated the clouds.

Snapseed has a much more "rough and tumble" approach to its HDR, and so that can go for or against it in specific situations and outcome wishes. For instance below is the image I made using my old favourite Photomatix (a far more delicate tool)

far more photographic in appearance and without the brightness artifacts around the grasses. Still better than the Out Of Camera JPG though

I guess it depends on what you're seeking ... myself I think that the above image would get more comments when printed by my desk than the lower one.

After all ... people love Rock and Roll ;-)

down by the river

Well this is going to be a combo of (perhaps) "nice pictures" and a bit of a plug for Snapseed (or perhaps just where I'm at with it). For those not interested in the discussion, just sit back and look at the pictures :-)

First lets look at the straight out of the phone picture:

not bad ... but somehow feeling a bit lifeless.

One could fiddle about on the spot with this or that setting, but I prefer just to capture the RAW data from the sensor and move on. If I like it I can come back and fiddle with it later. Besides (not that anyone was with me) who wants to hang about with a photographer fiddling with a camera (even it it is a phone).

So, I fiddled when I had time later (people may think I was just looking at my phone, so you blend in)

rather than make this "garish" I tried to be a bit subtle (yes, I know) and to emphasise the snow falls and give a subtle glow to the middle of the ship and emphasize the difference between the snow fall on the water on the ice and just water on the ice (showing the subtle thermal differences)

Details on the ship seem more clear, but not "whack you in the eyes"

This is why I persist with Snapseed and RAW because it just allows me to pull something more interesting (which is why I looked at it anyway) from what the camera turned into bleak.

Lets just look at a few others without me blithering on:

Hope you enjoyed the walk in the sleeting day around the riverside with me ... :-)

Looking at the Peal of a Bell (the resonances of Grief)

The single peal of a bell is a strong and evocative sound. Its also rich in accoustic textures and multiple harmonic resonances (as the wave travels around the bells curve and encounters different resonance frequencies).

A single peal of a bell is perhaps also made clear by looking at the sound levels in a recording:

The recording starts with calm silence that is immediately broken by the sharp rise of the sound of that strong "dong" from the bell.

Then the sound resonates around and slowly fades.

People often think of sound as waves, and this is true ... just like waves on the ocean. But when we zoom in tightly to the bell sound we see complexity:

There is a clear repeating wave of great amplitude and lots of smaller ones embedded within it. These are the various resonances. Taking more than a first glance you'll see that no two cycles of up and down are quite the same, as the various resonances happen at different times to each other.

This not only produces the rich textured sound of a bell, but is a good metaphor for what happens in Grief.

We have our UP's and our DOWNs (all relative to a base line of calm). Sometimes on the way up a resonance can bring us momentarily down again, and sometimes on the way down a resonance can take us briefly back up again.

Over time this "disturbance" to the bells reaction to being struck reduces as the sound gradually fades and the bells surface stops shaking (vibrating).

Of course we all know that bells seldom peal only once, and often the bell is struck many times barely getting to any sort of equilibrium before being shaken once again.

This is how it is for the griever ... the interactions with others, the places and things which are reminders of memories of the one you've lost keep ringing your bell and taking your feelings on that roller coaster ride that the bells surface has.

Eventually though, we do find that we can put our own hand on the rim of our internal bell and quell those strikes of resonance with memory.

We eventually find that we can experience recollection without the severity of the ups and downs (as the bells toll diminishes too). For each of us the steadying hand to muffle those peals is different. But we do need to reach out somehow and grasp that rim to steady it. At first I know its tempting to just withdraw, but the striker will come again.

For me, I found that the effects were diminishing over time (years) and have also learned to put my fingers on the rim of my internal bell to quell the vibrations sooner.

It takes time and strength, but I hope that knowing that it will be something within your grasp makes the shaking you are suffering now more tolerable.

Unorthodox orthodox

I have always been find of the local orthodox church, so I thought I'd give it a bit of a 'treatment' photograph ... as somehow it just looks less "impressionistic" when its plain.

We had some snow last night, so I went for a wee walk in the am to see what I saw.

Hope you enjoyed it

Reworked

I thought I'd rework this RAW image I took the other day in the way back from picking up the car.

The original was pretty flat, but then I knew the dynamic range would be too much for the phone.

Pretty happy with the RAW post processing

second car

since my car is in Australia (being stored) I thought it was worth while to have a second car, one that was here with me in Finland.

So, wanting a higher clearance car (for some rough potentially infrequently cleared of snow) with some better ability to cope with slippery conditions AND wanting something station wagon styled (for carrying camping gear / skis / sled) I bought this little fella.

Seems ok, and is pleasant enough to drive. Lets see if the last owner serviced it well enough :-)

periphery vision

Human vision in the periphery is of lower resolution than the center field of view.

Interestingly however the periphery is better at night vision and capturing movement. The movment "catches" your eye, yet paradoxically when you turn you eye directly to it, it will vanish. So when hunting for something at night you're better off not looking straight at it, but to one side. You'll actually see it more clearly.

Somehow I've found the same is true in life when pondering things that are intangible. As Poe put it:

The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? 

And so it seems to me that by peering into that darkness we will see less than by looking obliquely at it while engaging with the motion of life.

Its like my examination of my memory of Anita ... when I try to look directly, I see the periphery. Yet when I am looking at the periphery suddenly I catch a glimpse of her and when I turn my attention, it is somehow obscure.

Old pictures (made to look old)

Back in about 2012 my wife and I went on a camping trip. We camped by the river (as well as 4WD'd around) and had a good time.

I was flicking through the images recently (looking for something else to try Snapseed on) and found this shot which in my view always needed "something". Of course digital pictures don't age as do prints on paper ... so one has to take liberties ... so I did a little playing and got this partuclar nuance of lighting, overlay and contrast with Snapseed.

It reminds me a lot of the sort of thing I used to do in the darkroom with Black and White film with an enlarger (and some accidents). Actually its not an unreasonable comparison because as Snapseed does not save settings (although you can make some short term copies) its been impossible for me to reproduce this in subsequent edits.

a "vanilla" shot of the trip (perhaps entitleable "are we on the right track?")

So serendipity still lives in a computing world

:-)

Autumn in Finland

Well not much profound to say today, just been wandering around the local area and taking images as they appeal to me.

Doing a lot of walking lately, which I feel good about. Just 10Km today. Out to the mouth of the river here in Joensuu, past the boats being stored for winter:

I got out to the end of the river (on the town side of the bank)

I'm finding that working with the phone and processing on the phone (this is written on the PC and the images transferred to the PC from the phone) is quite liberating ... as I can process in the field and see which ones I like ... makes it somehow more "right" to see and check against what's there.

Winter is surely on its way ...

The Panasonic GF1 has been my other camera for when I see something which I want the more "normal" angle lens and shallower DoF (and greater dynamic range)...

Its nice to watch the first things start to freeze ... and the delicate edges of the ice advance

as Computer Camera and Phone gradually intersect

Since buying the Oppo phone I've been gradually doing more of my photography with the phone than with the camera. Not just because its convenient to have the camera in my pocket (which I've had for years now anyway) but because the on device post-processing is just that much better.

This started out as me wanting to test how well my Phone's camera did with Snapseed compared with the PC but ended up asking the question of "is my Phone a suitable platofom for image processing" in general. The answer is "almost".

Know your tools

The phone is a 1.7GHz Quad Core (well actually its an OctaCore but the other quad core is 1GHz) and my PC is a 2.5GHz dual core i5 (running quad virtual cores), so they're both quite fast enough to do processing.

In the past I've had Android tablets which have had lousy cameras, and if I'm going to send an image to a device from my Nokia it may as well be my PC because I'm usually at home when I want to do something like that, and the PC is just easier.

However having my new phone with a decent camera, that does RAW capture and enough grunt to do the processing it seemed obvious that I'd start to do this (and I have).

Today I wondered if Snapseed was actually doing as good a job at taking a RAW file and doing something with it as my previous work flow of

1. capturing on my Panasonic m43 camera
2. transferring to my PC (and in this swapping out PC for Phone)
3. processing there
4. publishing from there

So to answer that question I thought why not do the counter intuitive and transfer a RAW file from my GF-1 to my Oppo and process there? I wanted to do what I consider the "hard work" image processing which pushes captured image data to the limits, and that is to make a HDR (yes, I know, its really a tonemap, as I'll need multiple images to properly make a HDR ... but this is for the general public too)

The Panasonic RAW format is proprietary (aren't most of them) but the Oppo uses DNG. Snapseed (my preferred RAW processing tool on the phone) only works with DNG, so to do this I used Adobe DNG converter to convert my GF-1 file into a DNG and transferred it.

I took two shots of the same things and did some comparisons. I'll present one here as they all more or less led to the same conclusion.

So I took this shot with my GF-1 using the Panasonic 14mm  f2.5 lens (to provide almost the same angle of view as the Oppo F1) 

that is of course the camera JPG .. and then this shot with the Oppo

they aren't totally perfectly exposed the same, but if you've ever worked with a phone you'll know why .. That too is the camera generated JPG.

process

So to make the comparison I did three processes:

1. processed the RW2 on my PC using Photomatix (as I normally would do directly with the RAW file)
2. then I converted the RW2 into a DNG and loaded the DNG onto my Oppo and generated an image with Snapseed
3. then I used the Oppo's DNG on snapseed and processed that

This is what I got:

GF1 on PC with Photomatix

GF-1 on Phone with Snapseed 

and lastly the Oppo's own camera (as DNG) on the phone with Snapseed

which has a colour balance difference to the pretty similar renderings of the GF1 (in both places) but you know it doesn't make you point and shake your head going "oh dear, that's terrible".

They look pretty darn close if you ask me.

What this says to me is that Snapseed is doing a pretty good job of processing the images, either from Cam or Phone. As we have the (I'll assume higher quality) RAW file from the GF1 processed on both systems looking similar I think its fair to say that the phone RAW files won't benefit much from being moved over to the PC and processed there.

The astute will spot that the GF1 has not had lens corrections applied by Photomatix but has had it done on Snapseed (it applies same to the Oppo too). (award points for either way as you see fit)

Pixel peeping

Processing on the phone has never been what I intend for doing "gallery prints", however as (at the moment) I'm unable to process the DNG's made by the Oppo (I could do that on another machine I no longer have access to which has PS CS6 on it) anywhere else but on the Oppo it seems just as well to do that.

So for the completeness, lets have a look at some 100% crops

GF1 - PC - Photomatix

GF1 - Oppo - Snapseed

Oppo - DNG - Snapseed

Even at this level, almost nothing stands out as being "gosh" ... all have good details, all show similar noise (especially of interest being the two processing locations for the Panasonic GF RAW file). Minor disparities like colour grading and saturation can be easily fixed and the differences only exist because of comparing them.

The GF RAW file shows better contrast (thank god) in both places and better colour saturation (which was hard to balance between PC and phone because my Phone screen is so much more punchy in its colour range).

Not much in it really and clearly the processing of the GF file was good in both places. Meaning that I may as well just process my Phone RAW files on the Phone ... unless I'm really wanting to work it.

conclusion

So this shows to me that RAW and then the more challenging HDR processing of those files seems quite equivalent on both locations. Actually if one is after a "rock and roll" processing look, then the advantage is on the Snapseed Tonemapping because it was literally far less work. It was literally:

1. load
2. develop (tweak exposure if desired)
3. click HDR and pick the look
4. click done

Whereas on the PC I've never had it so easy, its been (and was again):

1. load into Photomatix
2. pick the HDR look I liked
3. save
4. open again in Photoshop (because it saves as not quiet the right profile) and convert to sRGB
5. adjust the curve (because I usually end up processing as a gamma of 1.4)
6. add in some local area contrast (cos it often looks a bit flat)
7. save

the future

As an outcome from this process I'm of the view that I'd actually like to process more from my camera on Snapseed on my phone (especially when out and about).

Why? Well the screen on my Phone is just beautiful while the screen on my laptop is a bit "flat" in gamut (and really most of the new OLED phone screens are beautiul ... and 1080p too.

To do this would be great, but while tantalisingly close but not yet there. Why?

1. getting the camera native files from camera to phone is tricky, products like EyeFi do not handle RAW files from all the myriad formats well so you're going to be stuck using the JPG, and so what's the point?
2. Snapseed (which is free) only processed DNG, which means you'll somehow need to convert your cameras RAW file to a DNG before you move it to your Phone

So essentially this means (in my view) that on phone processing (or on Tablet processing) will need a better job of moving those RAW files over to the device from the camera.

There is no doubt in my mind that once the software makers of the WiFi SD card systems (needed for transport from Camera to Device) get their act together and stop using (what seem to be) antiquated file filtering methods and get the various RAW files onto the Devices we should be able to do this. Already DCRAW is available for Android and it will make a 16 bit file from my Panasonic RAW files

Maybe next year.

The Cycles

It seems to me that so much that's nice fails to be preserved because growth expands outwards and the inner city areas are developed into behives for the swarms so that growth can be satisfied.

Myself I think there is space for a bit of mixture.

I first came to Joensuu (Finland) in 2006 and was very pleased to see a nice balance of medium density amid the historical large homes built back in the formation of the town. One such place I liked was this one:

Perched on a large block when the area (just 3 blocks from the center of town) was largely rural

it had a what must have been in its day a grand entrance

which ironically is about the size of the smallest of apartments in town now ...

This is the first time I've seen it empty, and the owners have allowed it to run down, which means to me that its not far off demolition. I suspect that in a not too distant future there will be someone who wishes that it was still there, and they would pay handsomely for a patch of real estate within walking distance to the University which had the character and class of this place.

Well ... I guess that's progress

the old mill again

A few years back (when I was last living in Joensuu) I took this shot of my favourite old subject here the old sawmill by the river (featured in this blog post)

I was out walking around yesterday and took this shot with my phone (and snapseeded it from RAW)

Slightly different vantage point and a more "impressionist" style was chosen. I like both, but clearly the telephoto provides a "compression" of the scene that a phone can't bring. Equally I like the wide view to put it in perspective visually within the landscape.

I happen to like both, but wouldn't be without the telephoto. So the m43rds camera with the 20mm or the 45mm lenses (both really compact) as well as the phone seems to be where I'm headed.

I wonder if this means that my wide angle lens is now an endangered species?