death and rebirth

While covering the elections in Burundi this months I have to declare, as sad as it is, that my G11 plus a lot of other equipment was stolen from my hotel room. The bad new is, that the G11 is gone now so are my backup disk with 6 months of work ( I know, I know, I should have never ever taken my backup drive with me... ).

On the bright side, after battling a almost two week long battle, I got the material damage refunded. With that money I did, what I was planning for some time now and started my switch from Nikon to Canon also on the DSLR side. So now I'm a proud owner of a Canon 7D and i have to admit it is a kick-ass camera for photojournalists. Videomode is excellent, photo quality is superb and even if it is "only" a APS-C sensor the ISO quality is just a little bit behind the 5D Mark II, even on 6400.

So, what I'm going to do now, is to convert the G11 blog to a 7D blog. Bear with me until I find some time to do the changes...

first G11 only assignment

This assignment, as small as it was, for the NYT I shot completely on my G11. I wouldn't have been confident enough to shoot something bigger, so I wanted to test the first steps on a smaller, on day thing. And viola, I'm not too disappointed.

The story is about the new Rwandan health care system that enables every Rwandan a basic health care for free, for 2 U$ per year.

dynamic range on its knees

Last week I was on a UN assignment in the wild north-west of Uganda. While the Karimojong are widely believed to be a fierce warrior tribe and caused quite some problems with cattle raids in the past, they are mostly beaten into line by the Ugandan Peoples Defense Forces.

But the photographic challenge here is the extreme light during the day ( starting at 9: 00 and ending at around 17:00 ). Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to leave the UN compound out of security reasons before 8 nor did we come back after 5. So I was forced to shoot in atrocious light. And here the G11 showed its ugly face. The RAW file still had some details in the highlights, but you can see clearly, that the chip was just overwhelmed by the amount of light it had to balance out. I already underexposed for one whole stop but its hard to hit the middle.

Not a killer, because people have done great stuff with cams that were much much much worse then this 21century toys, but a thing you should keep in mind, when switching from a DSLR.

Sony introduced a new small rangefinder

with interchangeable lenses: http://www.photography-news.com/2010/05/announcing-new-sony-nex-3-nex-5-worlds.html

For all of those people who need a little bit more "bang" for their buck and are not satisfied with cameras like
the G11. Haven't tested this one yet, but maybe I get a chance some time.

I just wonder where Nikon is??? Those guys seem to slowly loose the touch. After pretty much missing out on the Canon 5D Mark II and even the Canon 7D Video hype ( the D300s and D90's video mode is just a disgrace ) the Nikon people seem so stoically aim for the D3 product line that they don't look left or right. If I'm willing of spending 4500 Euro for a body, ok, but as a photojournalist you just don't make enough money. So, no thanks ( and it is heavy and bulky and just not really suitable for moving fast...I struggled with my D2Xs, which is the same size ).
They announced a G11 "Killer" some time ago, but nothing new from there for now.

But apart from that, now I have to wait a whole week before I can get to DRC. Brilliant!

and there goes...

the congo trip. Thanks to MONUC and the brilliant planning and timing of the UN World Food Program I'm stuck again for another 5 days in beautiful Kampala. Sometimes you need a lot of restrain and inhuman amount of patience when working as a journalist.

to the test

Finally a assignment came up which sounds like a excellent opportunity for testing the G11.

A trip in the north eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo for a followup Story on the notorious rebel-bandits of the Lords Resistance Army, orginally a import from Uganda, the LRA terrorizes since a couple of years the inhabitants of the remote and hard to control border area between the DRC, Central African Republic and South Sudan.

A highly difficult congolese army to dodge, traumatized subjects and difficult to access area makes it an ideal project for a small, non intrusive and discreet camera.

still my favourite

photojournalist..before all the Bells and Wistles with photoshop and the "new school" came in.

I'd like to see more stuff like that .