Why a Canon EOS-M? I'll try to answer this question twofold. First from a personal perspective, second from the camera makers perspective.
Recently I bought a Canon EOS-M. Why? You might ask. Well very simple because it was deadcheap! Selling for only € 227,- body, with 18-55 mm and flash speedlite 90EX, I couldn't resist it. Canon had the guts to ask € 849,- for only the body-lens combo at the introduction back in 2012. Now it's € 622,- cheaper with the flash for free! Of course the introduction price was insane. Way overpriced! But € 227,- is ok for this point-and-shoot with APS-C image quality...
The good thing about the EOS-M is that it isn't that bad at all. The bad thing is that it isn't very good either. What's not so good? Well you might allready have heard about it: there's no built in viewfinder, no built in flash and worst: AF is slow. Even the latest firmware update doesn't improve AF very much.
The good is Image Quality. You get top of the bill Canon APS-C image quality for the price of a point and shoot. Besides that I've experienced the touchscreen on the back works remarkably well. I was rather sceptic about the lack of wheels and buttons on the 'M'. But I found myself getting used to the touchscreen very fast. What the heck! I use a touchscreen on my smartphone and tablet a thousand times a day. How could I be so naive?
Even with the slow AF the 'M' is perfect for street photography. Just turn to manual focus and use the hyperfocal distance. Put on the 22 mm (35 mm fullframe equivalent), focus manual to 2 m: and at f 8 everything from 1.3 to 5 m will be in focus.
Then to the second part of this blog: the camera makers perspective. Why does Canon introduce a crippled mirrorless camera like the 'M'?
It think that Canon is afraid to hinder SLR sales in the lower end range. If they introduce an APS-C mirrorless system as good as Sony did, or Panasonic and Olympus for micro fourthirds, the sales of cheaper SLR's might drop. And it's the large quantity sales of the lower end SLR's that make the money. This fear might be very real. Look at Sony. At the lower 'SLR'-end the only camera left is the A58 from early 2013. On the other hand if the new mirrorless system would have been really good, sales in this segment could have compensated for the drop in SLR sales.
So all in all I can only conclude that the 'M' is a half hearted attempt of Canon to explore the mirrorless market. Not wanting to hinder SLR sales and not investing too much in innovation by taking the EOS 650D, remove the mirrobox and transform it into a mirrorless. Canon chose the safe and easy way. This all resulted in a false start in the mirrorless league.... at least at a + € 800,- pricepoint. At € 227,- it's a different story alltogether ;-)

The internet knows many authors on photography. Some of them are quite outspoken in their preferences. Like Ken Rockwell or Erwin Puts. For example Ken 'only' takes his pictures in jpg he says. Because raw just clutters your harddisk and raw files use custom brand-bound formats, which you probably can't open in the future. Well he's got a point there! Or Erwin he loves Leica over everything (well at least considering photographics). Well Erwin's got a point also. Leica's are beautifully crafted photographic tools of superb quality.
Well do I shoot jpg only because Ken says so? No of course not. I shoot jpg and raw. I mostly use jpg, but sometimes I think I can get more out of a picture by developing the raw file. Then it's rather easy to have it at hand. Or do i follow Erwin? No of course not! On many occassions my smartphone is the best photographic tool for me, simply because I forgot to take a camera with me. Besides that I shoot with every brand that meets my needs at the moment (which are Canon, Sony, Panasonic and Olympus).
But what surprises me most is the amount of controversy guys like Ken, Erwin and the likes generate. Why's that? They don't force you to think or act like them! You'd be quite stupid if you followed them blindly. My point here is: read their writings. Love it, hate it or whatever. Put it in your rucksack full of photographic knowledge and go your own way!
I myself keep reading Ken Rockwell because I like his tongue-in-cheeck-opinions and his patriotic American attitude. Both bring a smile to my face and I don't allways take it too serious. Or Erwin Puts. I'm always bewildered by his enormous technologcal knowledge. In a naive way I like to get teached by him. But in the end I take pictures the way I like, the way I think is best and with the tools that suit my needs.

After owning the Canon Eos 6D for only a few months, it presented me with error 30. It entirely locked up, though the picture taken was written correctly to the memorycard. The rear screen suggested me to turn off and on the camera or re-install the battery. As I allready expected this didn't solve anything. Error 30 kept showing up, making the camera litterally unusable. A little investigation discovered it had something to do with the shutter.

How on earth is it possible that an almost new camera gives up? Not just a cheapo camera from a no name brand, but a fullframe from Canon. Also Nikon had problems with her D600. Spots on the sensor. Serious enough to throw out a new model as fast as they could.

In my opinion competion on the camera market is extremely harsh. Camera makers are forced to present a new model almost every year. The time to market is so short, there's no time anymore to test new models as extensive as they should. It's the consumer who's the final tester in the development process. Camera makers start selling a new model after 98% testing. The last 2% would take too much time and money. So it's you people who do the final test. Im sure cameramakers accept the risk they have to repair or exchange a certain amount of their production batches. It's surely cheaper than the risk of a loss of marketshare and sales figures. So my guess is that in the near future we all have to deal with the fact that a great name (of the past) is no guarantee anymore that your item is (almost) 100% reliable.

After sales service by the way was good. UPS picked up my camera for free and the Canon repair center in the Netherlands, Techrepair, had it all fixed within 3 weeks. I could follow the repair through track-and-trace, so no complaints here. I believe they changed the entire shutterbox, though the letter of repair wasn't very clarifying.

Finally I stepped up to a full frame DSLR. I ended up with the Canon 6D. A very fine camera, though I doubted very long. I also considerded the 5D MkIII.
You have to know as an amateur photographer supporting a family, the price tag of a full frame DSLR is something to be worried about. Initially I really wanted the 5D, though its price tag is enormous. Almost € 3.000,- for the body shoots a big hole in the household budget. I considered feeding the children less and stop buying them new clothes. I dropped the idea soon as I realised they would pay me back if I were old and ugly and needed their help. So then I thought to myself what is it that makes me want the 5D? Is it 6 fps or 61 AF points? Is it 20 megapixels+? Or something else? Then I had to conclude it was nothing of them all. The real relevant thing is the bigger sensor. Because at least for sensors counts: 'bigger is better'. Then I started to consider the 6D. It's got 4,5 fps, 'only' 9 AF points, still 20 megapixels+ and of course a lot more. If you compare these figures to a 5D, they look rather pale. But only a few years ago such figures would have looked perfect on a professional camera. It seems we're shifting our expectations of a (professional) camera. A shift of expectations well fed by the camera industry. With ever new models with more features they stimulate our greed. And of course we let ourselves be stimulated. All for the benefit of camera sales. Of course digital cameras have become a lot better every year. But I believe that we have come to a point that the progress in picture quality will not be as steep anymore in the next decade as it was in the last decade. So if you consider a camera upgrade don't focus at all the features, but focus on what you need. Then start to consider cameras and look which one gives you what you need.

I took some time to write a new blog, but I have a very valid reason for that. On 12-12-12 my son Ilias was born, so my focus was on my son and not on photography. But I'm back again...

For some time now it's possible to use your photocamera to make movies. Until today I'm still in an internal conflict how useful this is. At the one hand one can argue that it's at hand if you want to use it. Of course this is true. Though I hardly ever use my photocamera to make movieclips. In my opinion filming is essentially different from photography. Filming is about telling a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. A form of scenario is essential to make it a rounded whole. Photography is about the 'decisive moment' as Cartier-Bresson put it. The moment in which every element falls in its place. Elements like composition, colour, expression, action and so forth. Alltogether adding up to a meaningful picture. A picture that provokes a direct emotional reaction to its viewer. Even if picturetaking is thoroughly prepared, like in a studio setting, the actual moment of pushing the shutterbutton is still a result of the photographer seeing that everything comes together. Filming is all about taking the right shots to sustain the story. This requires different abilities. Photographers play on a 'one-hit-impact', while filmers are storytellers. I'm a member of the first group, though I'm sure there are people who can play in both leagues. For them a photocamera with 'moviebutton' is a blessing. I can do without...

In a regular pace camera manufacturers come with new cameras offering all kinds of new features. I'm in photography for almost 30 years now. And I do have a good understanding what's really essential for a good picture. Yet I'm always impressed by all these new goodies. My instinctive reaction is I must have this new camera. This only lasts a couple of days, usually until the moment I compare my payslip with the price of the new gadget and detect the gap betwen them.
But then again what do you really need? Not long ago I thought 6 megapixels on an APS-C sensor were good enough for a perfect picture. Nowadays I think it ought to be 20+ megapixels on a full frame sensor. In the old days 5 frames per second was lightning fast, nowadays it has to be 8 frames per second or even more. Now we have Dynamic Range Optimization, picture styles, liveview ISO's up to 102.400 and so on.
But what makes a real good picture? Essentially it's only a few things: the right focus, exposure, composition and colour. And remember right focus isn't the same as everything in focus. Right focus is the best balance of sharp and unsharp parts in a photograph. It can even mean that there are no sharp elements at all. The overall unsharpness can give a picture a dreamy or mysterious atmosphere. The same holds for exposure, composition and colour. A picture full of lively colours can be boring, while a monochrome picture or a picture with a strong colourcast can be exciting.
Knowing this you can judge every new invention of manufacturers. Ask yourself with every new function: does it add to sharpness, exposure, colour or composition? If not, it's probably a non relevant function. Of course this judgement depends on your style of photography. For example: a sharp picture at a motorsports event is a little bit more demanding for AF, than the picture of a beautiful landscape.

As you can see on this page I really like analogue photography. I own a lot of analogue cameras. Partly for the sake of collecting, partly for the sake of taking pictures. Yet the title of this blog is 'The end of analogue photography'. Well first let me state this: analogue photography will be with us for quite some time aftermore. But mainly as a niche of mainstream photography. Probably only for large format special purposes. For most of us analogue photography is over. I tell you why it's over for me. It's mainly the workflow. First of all I have to buy film, which gets more and more difficult (though not impossible). After I shot a roll, I must have my pictures developed. Then I must have the film scanned (or do it myself), and finally I'll have to work on the results so they match my taste. Last but not least I must archive the negatives. All this effort gives me results that are equal to pictures I took with a digital camera in the first place. Only a few years ago all this analoge fuss offered me better pictures, but today it's not the case anymore. Digital is as good or better than analogue. But most importantly: workflow is shorter. So why bother about analogue anymore? Well for me: I love to take out an analogue camera for a walk and shoot the old fashion way. Not because it's better, justfor old times sake.

I surf a lot on the internet, probably just like you, since you found my website.
Surfing around  I found that many bloggers on photography emphasize the importance of taking pictures in stead of talking about gear. And guess what they're completely right! Meanwhile I have this feeling of unease. Saying that taking pictures is the main thing and that photographic gear is just secondary, seems to be the social accepted stance. You don't ask the bestseller author with which pencil he wrote his book. Isn't it?
Yet in their blogs these authors always appear to have the newest cameras, lenses and other photographic gear. Moreover they talk about all these boxies endlessly. I'll tell you why: first of all, in the past photography required a lot of technical skills to obtain an acceptable image. Not only vision was needed but also the technical ability to transform vision into a picture. It seems to me that up till today, photography attracts technically oriented people (read men). Another reason is the fact that these bloggers deep in their hearts are boys with toys (men again). They love little boxies that go 'kgrr' and 'bleep'. They all want the newest boxies because they say 'kgrr' and 'beep' faster, louder, softer, and more sophisticated than their older boxies.
So you may conclude it's mostly men that blog about photography. And since men can't deny their nature, there's a lot of talk about machines in stead of pictures. Do I worry about it? Not at all! I'm a man myself and I love boxies that say 'kgrr' and 'bleep' as much as I love good pictures.

There's a new book out all you photography lovers should buy. It's probably the most extensive overview of Leica in one book. It's the 'Leica Chronicle' written by dutchman Erwin Puts. Erwin Puts is arguably the world's biggest expert on Leica gear. On the internet he's sometimes condemned for his unconditional love to Leica. This may be true, but he also is undoubtedly a true connaisseur of Leica. for which he deserves to be respected. And to put all this knowledge in one book is quite some achievement!
What do you say? You have a Canon or a Nikon? Well out of respect to Leica and to broaden your vision you should buy this book. It's Leica that started photography on small format film (35 mm) and made photography accessible to the larger public. All those people shooting around with their smartphones don't realize that without Leica, photography still would be the exclusive terrain of professionals with their complex large format cameras (or so ;-).

You can order the book here. Don't wait too long. It's probably sold out fast (and no I'm not payed by Mr. Puts).
http://www.imx.nl/photo/styled-7/index.html

System cameras became a new class because of their electronic viewfinders (EVF). Recently Sony switched entirely from optical viewfinders to electronic in their SLR line, creating the new class of Single-Lens Translucent (SLT) cameras. In my earlier blog I wrote about the EVF of the Sony A99. It's good but not there yet. Is Sony leading the way or are they going astray?
The advantages of an optical viewfinder are obvious, especially in fullframe. You see what you get instantly, no delays. On the other hand EVF's score some good points also. Especially for smaller formats than fullframe. They offer 100% coverage of the picture, they show immediately the effect of corrections on exposure, they compensate for low light or slow lenses through the gain of the EVF, they're way better for manual focus if you can magnify the viewfinder and last but not least you can judge the pictures you took in the viewfinder even in bright sunlight. A lot of advantages and I probably forgot a few. But there's this one nagging disadvantage. The time lag, or the blur as it shows in the A99.
But this has become better in the last few years, resulting in only a slight blur in Sony's A99. I guess that in a few years the refresh rate of an EVF will be higher than the eye can detect. That's the day the EVF meets an optical finder. Will it replace optics? Time will tell, but EVF's are here to stay and will conquer SLR terrain more and more.