You can’t say it wasn’t unexpected. Nikon and Canon have taken a serious hit in market share, at least in Japan, to the compact interchangeable lens cameras that Sony and Olympus have been bringing to the market. I’ve written about these things to some length — call me old and curmudgeonly but I’ve yet to see one that really strikes me as anything other than a solution in search of a problem. They are popular though, and that means if you want to continue to be profitable you have to grow into the market or be left behind.
Now while I thought the Sony NEX-7 had just about got it right, I’m not sure the Nikon 1 gets it at all. The problem Sony had, at least as far as I’m concerned, is the user interface and the lack of a viewfinder. What they had right, was a big 1.6x crop-factor APS-C sensor. What the Nikon’s lack is, well, that big APS sensor. And while Nikon has almost always done better with a Sony built sensor than Sony can do with that sensor, it’s also almost impossible to beat a larger sensor.
The Nikon CX, what they’re calling their new sensor, so far as I can tell, is a 2.7x crop factor sensor. And while it’s considerably bigger than a high end P&S like the Canon G12, it is smaller than the 4/3rds format used by Olympus. In fact, I’d almost rather have seen Nikon join the 4/3rds consortium and build to that standard with their own sensor. It would certainly provide a wider range of lenses available on launch, plus Nikon would likely pick up some μ4/3rds lens sales to non-Nikon camera owners, which is just a plus.
The system debuts with 2 bodies and 4 lenses and a handful of accessories. The two bodies appear to be roughly entry level and slightly more advanced in terms of features; though they both shoot 10 FPS and 1080p video. The lenses cover from 28-300mm in 35mm terms, with a 28mm f/2.8 prime thrown in for good measure and the zooms have optical image stabilization built in.
Let me cut to the chase, the lack of lenses is understandable, it’s a new system. The two bodies seem solid enough for causal photographer cameras. That said, there are definitely going to be compromises; the bodies are small (the J1 is smaller than an Olympus EPL-3 and just smaller than the NEX-3), have the smallest sensors of any of the interchangeable lens compacts on the market currently, and lack the physical controls I’d expect in a body aimed at serious photographers.
That said, Nikon has finally brought their embedded phase detect AF system to fruition in a product. I’ve considered this the future of AF in mirror-less cameras since I read the patent, and I bet it’s going to give the V1 and J1 a huge advantage in AF speed over the μ4/3rds and NEX competition. In fact, it’s probably a safe bet that if you want a compact camera for photographing the kids at soccer practice, this will be the one — lots of reach and a AF system that can keep up with sports like an SLR. This just leaves Canon as the only major camera company who’s yet to announce a compact interchangeable lens system.
Let me just get this out of the way. I don’t like these new-fangled mirror-less compact camera. I find them to be a solution in search of a problem, and am quite willing to talk anybody’s ear off about how and why there is almost always a better, if sometimes not actually available, solution to someone’s camera needs.
Interchangeable lenses add bulk to the overall package compared to a fixed lens design, electronic viewfinders, usually are small, and suck, and as far as I’m concerned, holding a camera having to hold a camera out in front of you while you take a picture is fundamentally bad in a number of ways.
But this isn’t about why these mirror-less interchangeable lens cameras (MILC for now on) are bad, quite the opposite, now after some 3 or 4 years of serious development the players are finally starting to put things together in a package that isn’t utterly brain dead.
The first key point is to recognize that not everybody who’s buying a MILC isn’t a casual photographer who things that a more expensive camera is going to make them better. Serious photographers are buying and using these things. Understanding that is a huge realization, in my opinion, as the design elements that are important to be effective as a serious photographer are not the same ones that are necessary to get half decent family snapshots.
In March, I moved my online gallery/portfolio to PhotoShelter. I was tired of managing, patching, and otherwise fidgeting with another software package; never mind that PhotoShelter offered some rather attractive features, like price generation and e-commerce features that would have required a lot more work on my behalf to implement on my own.
My initial impressions were somewhat mixed. If you’d like to read about them, you can skip back and read my original article.
In the meantime, I got completely distracted form dealing with, updating, and managing my PhotoShelter stuff. The best part is that while I wasn’t paying attention, PhotoShelter went ahead and made everything better. Gone is the fee for setting up the e-commerce stuff, even with basic accounts. Additionally, they’ve streamlined the payment setup for PayPal users. Finally, their “official” Lightroom Plugin has been updated to support publish services.
E-Commerce: Now everybody can use it and nobody pays to get there.
Though PhotoShelter still gets their cut in the form of a percentage, gone is the $50 onetime fee to setup those features. I never really understood the fee in the first place. It’s not as if it should cost them any more to turn on the e-comm features. Moreover, it means that everybody who’s a PhotoShelter user can start selling their stuff, which I think in the end is a net win for PhotoShelter.
The best part though is the improved integration with Paypal. Previously, at least if I recall correctly, there was a rather convoluted set of hoops that one had to jump through to get PhotoShelter and PayPal working together. Gone. Plug in your PayPal email address and away you go.
Lightroom Plugin now a Publish Service
As time has marched on, the official-though-not-written-by PhotoShelter Lightroom plugin has also been updated. It now supports publish services.
If you haven’t followed my ramblings in the past, I’m a huge fan of automation and smooth workflows. I use Lightroom entirely because of the way it cleanly integrates all the development and image management work into one smooth clean program.
Being able to cleanly integrate with Photoshelter from inside the software I spent most of my time using a huge thing. And the big glaring issue, not supporting Publish services, has been addressed. Images can now be upload, and metadata edited and kept in sync with what’s seen in Lightroom.
Quite simply, PhotoShelter has addressed all the nagging issues I had with their service in March. Any reservations I had in using the service are long gone. If you’re looking for a company to host and sell your images though, I say give PhotoShelter a good look.
I’m simplifying, Moab’s Entrada Rag is actually a collection of 6 different variations of a cotton rag paper. Two of those, Natural 290 and Bright 290 are sold only as rolls, while the remaining 4 are sheet stocks. Since I don’t have a printer that supports rolls, my primary interest is in the sheet stocks, thus that’s what I’m going to focus on here.
Entrada comes in 2 variations, bright and natural, and 2 weights, 190 gsm and 300 gsm. The bright versions are 103 brightness b right-white papers with optical brightening agents (OBAs). Conversely, the natural papers are 84 brightness natural white, which to my eye is more of a cream color.
In some respects, the biggest question between the two, at least from a technical standpoint, is whether or not OBAs are “good” or “acceptable”. In my readings, I’ve found a number of photographers who don’t like OBAs in their papers.
In theory, I agree with the sentiment of avoiding OBAs. OBAs generally work by converting incident UV light into visible blue light. As a result, the paper looks brighter. Paradoxically, UV light is bad for inks, especially dye one, archival mounting does everything it can to block UV light from reaching the print at all. No UV light, and the OBAs aren’t going to be doing all that much.
That said, with the natural and bright papers in my hands, I vastly prefer the bight version for its crisper whites and slightly wider color gamut.
The second question is about weight. Obviously if you’re buying rolls, you don’t have much choice, in sheets however it’s a different story. To be honest, I still like the 300 gsm paper for something like a portfolio box. However, for framed prints the heavy weight paper doesn’t seem to matter as much.
The one big potential problem with cotton paper is that it lacks the surface coatings that gloss papers have. In many cases, these coatings serve not only to add the gloss effect but also to protect the ink—the ink is actually absorbed into a layer below the top layer of the paper. As a result, cotton papers are more susceptible to scratching and exposing the ink to contaminants in the air. Moab offers their “Desert Varnish” (a matte lacquer spray on coating) that protects the ink from UV light, scratches, and airborne contaminants.
I haven’t tried out the Desert Varnish yet, so I can’t really comment on either its effectiveness or the effect it has on the prints (see here).
Moab Lasal Matte
Moab Entrada Rag Bright
Moab Entrada Rag Natural
sRGB color space
Truth be told, there’s a some what darker and more convoluted story to all of this. As I noted in my first article where I talked about the Moab review box I got, I was a little surprised to find sheets of paper that were crushed, as well as others with spots on them. As I noted in the update to that article I was contacted by Mark S
Where I’m going with Entrada
Truth be told, I had a feeling I was going to like the Entrada papers before I even went into this. I don’t know why and maybe all of this is a product of the placebo effect—it’s supposed to be high end paper, I should like it more, right?—but at the same time there’s a certain intangible that I keep coming back to. In terms of dynamic range, the Lasal photo matte is better, but the paper just doesn’t feel “high-end”.
Out of all the papers I tested, the Entrata rag Bright, in either 190 or 300 gsm, has been my favorite paper in this little experiment. Unsurprisingly, it’s also been the paper that most of the people I’ve shown samples to have liked the best as well.
One of the reasons I started this whole fine art paper evaluation thing was to find a suitable matte paper to supplement the glossy paper I currently use.
As much as I like gloss papers, they have one major drawback; specular reflections. Semi-gloss papers, go some way to eliminating that problem. Though many have their own problems, what I can be describe as sparkles; see the picture below it’s easier to show than try an explain.
Semi-gloss papers don’t have as harsh of reflections as gloss papers, but create small “sparkles” due to the surface texture (click to enlarge).
Though both specular reflections and diffuse specular reflections only happen in some limited circumstances—at least if you control the lighting properly—they are just darn annoying when they do occur. Matte paper doesn’t have this problem at all.
I also find that I like handling matte papers more than gloss ones. There’s a “feel” of serious quality, these aren’t your drug-store lab prints. This applies even more so to rag papers.
Specs:
235gsm / 11 mil (~72#) sheets (235gsm / 11 mil rolls)
111 Bright D65 balanced
Water-resistant
Acid- and Lignin-free pulp paper
The question is how does the Lasal Photo Matte compare?
Quite honestly, I like it. Gamut wise, at least based on the Moab provided profiles, it’s better than the Lasal gloss and just by eye, looking at the prints, compares very nicely to the Canon Pro Platinum paper I’ve been using as my standard paper stock. It’s cheap to boot, relatively speaking, running about $1 to $1.33, depending on quantity, per 13 x 19” sheet.
Moab Lasal Matte
Moab Entrada Rag Bright
Moab Entrada Rag Natural
sRGB color space
So where am I going to Lasal matte?
I have no idea yet. For “fine art” prints and my portfolio itself, I like the bright Entrada rag much better simply for the “fine art” feel. However, not everything I do needs or warrants that kind of paper. For those situations the Lasal photo matte may end up becoming my standard paper stock. What I do know, is that given the limited testing I’ve been able to do, that to my eye a print on the Lasal photo matte, looks nearly as good as a print on the Canon Pro Platinum gloss, and costs half as much.
Moab claims the Colorado fiber papers are designed to elicit the memories of the dark room, only without the stench of fixer—their words not mine. I missed that generation. In fact, I’ve been in a working dark room all of 2 times that I can remember, and one of those was to pull network cables for a computer installation. Needless to say I don’t have any memories to harken back towards, in fact, as papers go for printing photos, what I care about is the quality of the print. And to be honest, I wasn’t real impressed. Of the 3 gloss papers in this little shootout, the Colorado fiber was my least favorite.
Before I go any further, a bit about the paper; the Colorado Fiber Gloss is a 245-gsm (65 pound) alpha-cellulose based single-sidled semi-gloss paper. Though Moab doesn’t list it, I believe the fiber base is coated with Baryta, at least the paper has a distinct smell that the other gloss papers don’t have, and it would make sense since its aiming to replicate fiber based darkroom papers.
Again, I want to take a moment to point out that like my other paper evaluations, this too was done on a Canon Pixma Pro 9000 Mark 2, using manufacturer-supplied ICC profiles. As such, it’s very likely that these papers may perform differently/better on higher end pigment printers. My evaluation is also entirely subject to the quality of the manufacturer produced ICC profiles, which may have been an issue in this specific case.
Below is the same Granger rainbow gamut warning sample image that’s been included in all of the previous articles, for comparison purposes.
Soft proof with gamut warnings (gray areas) in Photoshop CS5 with manufacturer supplied profiles for a Canon Pixma Pro 9000 Mark 2.
As I said in the opening paragraph, I found this paper to be my least favorite. The prints had a green cast to them. This was the only Moab profile that I noticed imparting a green color cast to the print. Other Moab papers, tended to be warmer than the Canon paper that I used as a de facto baseline, but didn’t seem to alter the colors in the image in any appreciable way. While this certainly could have been a bad profile, again being stuck without a print colorimeter I can’t do anything about it.
Color issues aside, the paper did hold fine details just as well as any other paper.
The semi-gloss textured surface also had an interesting property of producing sparkly specular highlights if the light angles weren’t well controlled. Compared to a glossy paper the primary refection is more diffuse and somewhat less distracting. However, the “sparkles” spread over a much larger area. That said, under glass, with well controlled viewing angles and lighting angles I don’t see this being an issue.
Ultimately, the “darkroom feel” didn’t do much for me and the image quality, perhaps as a result of a bad manufacturer-produced profile, didn’t make the paper stand out, especially not for a paper that runs $3.34 per 13×19 page. Perhaps at some point in the future, after I can generate profiles, I’ll retest this paper. However, as it stands now, the Canon Pro Platinum or Lasal Photo Gloss are cheaper ($2.50 and $1.95 for a 13×19 sheet respectively) and seam to work better out of the box for me.
Update 2011-07-28: I’ve discussed the color issue with Andy Biggs, Moab/Legion Paper’s color guru, and after verifying that my print workflow is correct and that my ICC profile wasn’t corrupted, the best I can do is chalk this up as a device specific (my specific printer, not necessarily the Pixma Pro 9000 Mk 2’s in general) glitch/deviation from what’s expected.
That said, as much as it’s against my nature, I’m going to stop trying to figure this out at this point. Simply put, it’s not the best use of my time and money right now. I would, however, encourage anybody reading this who’s looking for a fiber based paper to give the Colorado Gloss a try. The problem I’m seeing almost certainly would be easy to avoid if you have your own print colorimeter and may not even apply to the provided profiles if you are not using a Canon Pixma Pro 9000 II, or for that matter my specific printer.
Last time I looked at paper I looked at Canon’s Pro Platinum paper stock, this time I’m going to continue with gloss papers and talk about Moab Paper’s Lasal Photo Gloss.
I have to admit, I was a bit surprised by the performance of this paper, namely it wasn’t nearly as good as I expected, and not nearly as good as the Canon paper. Then again, without a colorimeter I’m largely at the mercy of the manufacturer-supplied profiles.
Okay so let’s talk about the paper for a moment. At 270 gsm (~72 pound) it’s slightly lighter than the Canon Pro Platinum paper, though not appreciably so, and certainly not enough that it feels appreciably different. It’s gloss/high-gloss
Moab claims the paper is 95 brightness with a D65 color balance. When held next to the Canon Pro Platinum paper it’s ever so slightly cooler in color. In practice, my evaluation print doesn’t appear any cooler than the Canon paper. In fact, the Moab profile for my printer produces an image that are warmer than the output on the Canon paper.
Soft proof with gamut warnings (gray areas) in Photoshop CS5 with manufacturer supplied profiles for a Canon Pixma Pro 9000 Mark 2.
There’s something else to consider in this case as well, which is the media type. As I understand it, the media type you choose in the printer properties page, controls among other things, the density of ink that the printer can lay down for a given paper, and choosing the wrong media type can certainly harm the image quality. This is somewhat problematic, as the media types Moab lists on their ICC page for the Pixma Pro 9000 II don’t actually exist in the windows printer drivers.
For example, for Lasal Photo Gloss, Moab recommends using a media type of “Premium Photo Paper Gloss 2”, the Canon drivers however, the closest in driver choice is “Photo Paper Plus Glossy II” or so I think.
That said, some shadows did suffer from some detail loss. I noticed this most in the shadows under the fishing pier where the Canon paper reproduced the water stains on the concrete but the Moab paper rendered them black. That said, again without proper profiling tools, I’m not sure it’s fair to hold this against the paper in general.
I guess the two-dollar question is; where do I stand on Moab’s Lasal Photo Gloss? To my eye it’s not much, though it is, worse than the Canon paper, at least in the test prints I made. On the up side, it is slightly cheaper than the Canon Pro Platinum ($1.95 instead of $2.50 per A3+ sheet, possibly less depending on the retailer) and comes in 50 and 250 sheet boxes instead of 10 sheet boxes.
I’m not entirely enthralled with the idea of giving up the gamut and shadow detail I’m seeing gone I the test print. On the same token, I can’t actually see those details without really looking hard, and the savings per page and bigger box is not a bad alternative. That said, I think I’ll be sticking with the Canon paper for the foreseeable future, though I will certainly re-evaluate the issue if and when I can generate my own print profiles.
I don’t know what it is about clouds, but I really find them fascinating, and the last 3 days have been quite good for cumulonimbus growth. Which tends to produce something worth shooting.
Update, January 2019: I’ve finally finished a more complete and proper review of this paper in line with the rest of my reviews of Canon’s Pro papers. You can read it over here.
I had picked up a couple of 8.5”x11” packs of Canon’s Pro Platinum paper on sale some time ago, just to have some paper to make quick prints with on my low end printer (Pixma ip4700). When I replaced the ip4700 with the Pro 9000 II, my instinct was to go to Canon’s Pro Platinum paper as my standard paper, so far that seems to have been a solid choice.
So what is Canon’s Pro Platinum paper. Simply put it’s, Canon’s “highest quality” non-fine-art paper, and quite honestly for the price, it’s actually pretty darn good paper. What it’s not is $5 a sheet cotton rag fine art paper. If you’re a sophisticated print master, this isn’t for you. If you’re getting into printing (as I am), then read on.
Before I go any further, here’s a rundown of the technical bits.
80-pound (300 gsm)
High Gloss
Single Sided
Bright, neutral white
Canon had a technical write up on the paper, which was linked, but unfortunately since posting this article it’s been moved or removed from their site.
Before I go any further, let me be clear about something. I’m not yet equipped to take this to the level of objective rigor that I’m usually comfortable. I currently lack a print profiling capable colorimeter; as a result, I’m hamstrung to using the print profiles provided by the paper manufacturers, and my eye to judge color and detail. Evaluations were done under 2800K and 3500K light sources, similar to how most of my prints will end up being viewed, using a “standard” test image (show below).
That said, while it goes against my every instinct, I’m not sure eschewing the quantitative measurements isn’t a bad idea when looking at papers. There’s more to a print, at least one that’s not behind glass, than color gamut and dynamic range. Then again, when it’s behind glass, I find the texture and feel of the paper doesn’t really amount to much, it’s all about gamut and detail.
With that said, I like the Canon Pro Platinum papers. They’re heavy and I like that in my photo papers. I find they tend to stand up better when being handled instead of flopping around, which I find reduces the risk of damaging the final print accidentally. Moreover, in non-framed/non-fine-art cases, like family pictures, the heavy weight is nicer to hold.
To my eye, the paper looks pretty neutral color wise. However, the Canon supplied profile seems to favor cooler images, at least for the grays. Is that correct across the board? I don’t have a clue. It’s certainly not so cool that it makes things like blue, and the colors don’t seem to be otherwise tinted. So I don’t really know.
Compared to the Moab papers with Moab supplied profiles, I find the Canon Pro Platinum held shadow details much better. There was detail to speak about in the supports under the fishing pier, and the dark gray areas in the lower left corner of the B&W flower, has total graduations as opposed to being clipped.
Again, I’m not sure if this is an artifact of the profiles or the intended result, but it shows to some degree or another when soft proofing as well as in the final prints. Below is a Granger rainbow soft-proofed using the Canon supplied profile. Areas in gray are out of the paper’s/profile’s gamut. I’ll be including this in my future paper evaluations as well.
Soft proof with gamut warnings (gray areas) in Photoshop CS5 with manufacturer supplied profiles for a Canon Pixma Pro 9000 Mark 2.
In a sense, the real problem with all of this is that there’s no point in trying to recommend a paper, as it ultimately comes down to the photographer’s preference. After going through a bunch of different papers, I have the distinct feeling that I’ll be continuing to use Canon’s Pro Platinum papers for framed prints, though I much prefer a good fine-art matte paper for portfolios and things that will be handled. The Canon Pro Platinum paper is certainly a very nice entry-level paper, and can often be had for ~$1.20 for 13×19 sheets when on sale, which makes it quite economical.
Before getting my Pixma Pro 9000 Mk. II, what I printed on was hardly a consideration. There wasn’t much of a point to running anything other than cheap Canon paper though my little Pixma iP4700, and larger prints were outsource to a lab; practically the choice of paper was whatever the lab used. Having a reasonable quality inkjet however, opens the door to a whole other world of paper to deal with.
I wish I could say it was their reputation, quality, etc., etc. but the truth is it was little more than luck of the draw. I happened to run across this video by Andy Biggs, which showed off the rather nice Moab Chinle Digital Book. I was intrigued, and since the book uses pre-drilled Moab papers, it meant I needed to figure out how their papers looked and felt. Of course, it’s not as though Moab wasn’t on my list, they just weren’t at the top, until now.
