Photo Books

Here is a selection of the most recent and interesting books:

- Nori - La Photographie en France

- Alvarez Bravo - photo poetry

- Depardon - Terre des paysans

- Salgado - Africa

- Mora - la Photographie americaine 58-81

- Frank - Americans (republish)

- Frank - Paris

- Atget - Paris (taschen)

- Stephen Shore - Phaidon monography

-Eggleston - guide

DSLR Cinema 1

Canon 5D mark II is the first Digital SLR to have full HD (1080p) video capacity.

This is a major breakthrough - see article about HD DSLR

See trial videos

• video shot in Japan,

• Chicago video

• or this one (check out the night helicopter shot)

Nikon D90 is the first Nikon DSLR to have video capacity although in 720p, no AF (VR on VR lenses?) but great low light sensibility (by the look of it).

See video tests here. Video in Paris (cool music...)

Look like people have watched Collateral heavily... (which btw is the first movie to be shot HD )

The idea I guess is that in both cases you can attach a wide range of great lenses , notably fast f1.4 like lenses which allows better control on focus/defocus areas.

Accessories are already available to turn these cameras into movie cameras.

Nikon D400 full HD?

[UPDATE 1 Dec: Its the D3x! - D400 for PMA ?]

D3X: 24MP full frame - 35 mm sensor (FX in Nikon terminology)

Remark:

D3 is a great camera with unmatched low light/high ISO sensibility. The body is all magnesium and sealed. Its basically an F7 (which never existed of course), that is an F6 with the battery pack welded F5 style, designed by Giugiaro.

However, the pixel count (12MP) is lower than competition for whatever reason. Either Nikon engineers were careful for their first full frame sensor which is also their first CMOS apparently designed inhouse or that they wanted to preserve a comfortable growth margin or they simply wanted to milk the market (D3 release price above 5000$)...

Anyway the direct competition now are Canon 5D Mark II (21MP) and Sony Alpha A900 (24MP) both full frame DSLR.

Nikon also introduced video capacity in its recent D90, hence the perceived necessity for Nikon to release updates of its top cameras D3/D300 to increase pixel count and include video.

So the idea now is that, given the successful parallel launch of launch D3/D300 couple a year ago, a second camera body successor to D300 could be also announced in the future in order to counter the Canon 5DII/50D couple. See interesting posting here.

In any case, here are the most likely expectations:

• Minimum or no modification to both chassis. Body, LCD res., prism great, buttons ergonomic are great. Nikon only misses the Canon click wheel on the back - but ok that's a long debate.

• Introduction of full HD capacity (1080p), Canon 5DmkII has it

• New sensors 16 MP for D400 and 24 for D3x - Origin Sony FF CMOS, cropped for D400. Question if Nikon going back to cooperation with Sony, what about the Nikon sensor developing capacity? Remember that Canon sensors are all developed in house.

• Sensor cleaning (at least for D3x)

• Image processor to be updated to handle higher resolutions. D3 is 12 channel (4 for each color), with a 14 bit A/D converter and D3 uses 16-bit data transmission throughout the image-processing pipeline. Should these figures increase ?

Italics - Palazzo Grassi

PALAZZO GRASSI, VENICE

'ITALICS. ITALIAN ART BETWEEN TRADITION AND REVOLUTION, 1968-2008'

from 27/09/2008 to 22/03/2009


Covers a time span of over forty years, Italics is one of the most important exhibitions dedicated to contemporary Italian Art ever organized. Bringing together 250 works by 107 artists.

Curator Francesco Bonami

Exhibition will show in Chicago in 2009 after a stop in Asia (to be confirmed)


Check out !

Cool flash site

Catalogue

Shots

Video1; video2 ; video3

report1 ; report2; report3; report4; report 5;

Exihibitions in Paris

Picasso and Masters - Grand Palais (book in advance)

Picasso - Manet @ Orsay

Centre Pompidou: Ron Arad, Sottstass, Futurism in Paris

Kristallnacht @ Shoah Memorial

Mantegna @ Louvre

Jeff Koons @ Versailles

Raoul Dufy @ Palais Tokyo

Van Dyck @ Jacquemart-Andre

Gainsbourg @ Cite de la Musique (Villette)

And a little piece of Quai Branly

Mois de la Photo

The complete programme can be found here.

As always there is a lot to see. Here is a little (personal) selection:

Jeu de Paume: Lee Miller (@ Concorde) hot... as a model and as a reporter, Erich Solomon (@ Sully) snap-shot taken at the international conferences of the 30', I find it great.

Centre Pompidou: Photographic Experiments in Europe (assembled from its collections)

Bibliotheque Nationale: American Photography in the Seventies (check out the video)

Musee d'art Moderne de la Ville de Paris: Dusseldorf - neue objectivitet (Becher & co)

Fondation Cartier-Bresson: Cartier-Bresson/Walker Evans Photographing America, 1929-1947, an excuse to show HCB and Evans pictures again

Maison Europeenne de la Photo: McDermott & McGough vintage style photography - funny but nothing special (150 pix!); Sabine Weiss - Photo humaniste less prominent member

Other interesting minor exibitions: Werner Bischof, Post-War; Pierre Verger Spain; Robert mcCabe Greece; Erwin Blumenfeld

Italians at Mois de la Photo: Basilico Moskow, Jodice , Collezzione Reggio-Emilia (Ghirri's)

Remarks on Mois de la Photo Programme

- There is no blockbuster exhibition

- Lee Miller's Ok but not such a big name

- HCB in America hardly his best work (maybe also loosely related to MdlP)

- Sarah Moon - somebody explain why this is considered one of MdlP top exhibitions

- Many exhibitions hardly correspond to the theme "European photography tradition and transformation", actually rather to American Photography (BNF, Evans, Miller)

- I don't really see anything major or really representing the status of the European cultural production - except for the Dusseldorf gang, who are really establishment now. Add to this a small selection (4) of "Helsinki school" representatives

- The foreign countries cultural center's fare is a bit of a sideshow - maybe the most interesting is the Slovak one

- The MdlP has been trapped by the concomitant French EU Presidency. Hence desperate attempts to link the programme to vague concepts of changing European identities and frontiers disappearing

- The rest is commercial photography with the usual array of minor photo reporters, publicity and fashion photographers or government sponsored

- BNF 70's- nice and well presented, draws from BNF collection and is assembled to illustrate some themes like street photo, snapshot, etc. Also Beaubourg's on experimental photography draws from its collections

- Crypto/sub theme 1 - the 30's-40's (Miller's war works, Solomon, Bishof, parts of BDIC at Invalides, 30's satirical photomontages, maybe also the Kristallnacht exhibition at the Shoah memorial)

- Crypto/sub theme 2 - travel and landscape photography

- Crypto/sub theme 3 - Cityscapes and urbanism