Michael Chiusano over at Luminous Landscape has a must-read article about an era gone by when “Kodak meant photography.” What’s interesting is the part about how we misread the market when we are on the top of the world, so to speak. The “we know best” attitude that looks down on new competitors is always the beginning of the end of any empire. The same people who made Kodak film great and #1 in the world refuse to “compromise” to meet competitors’ onslaught. Threats are not taken seriously.

Read the article at: Luminous Landscape.

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Harold Merklinger over at Luminous Landscape has an interesting article titled “The Game of Photography — What Are the Rules?”

It’s about whether digital manipulation is cheating or acceptable photography. He makes an excellent point about the difference between amateur and professional photographers. As an amateur photographer, you follow no rules except your own. So, if you digitally manipulate a picture and the end result gives you great pleasure, then why not? [No rules to break = no cheating.] On the other hand, a professional photographer (as in one who does it for a living) must follow the client’s rules. [Photojournalism, for example, accepts absolutely no digital manipulation of a news photo; they break the rules, they cheat.]

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Sony NEX-7

Rick Kattelmann over at Luminous Landscape has an interesting comparison of the Sony NEX-7 [QuickPrice Check] compact mirrorless with the A900 DSLR. It is interesting to be finding more and more professional photographers who are seriously considering replacing their large, heavy and cumbersome traditional mirrored DSLR with a compact mirrorless DSLR.

Though no one seems to be very brave enough to announce the beginning of the end for traditional mirrored DSLR, we have never been shy to say so here. Here’s what we believe: film is better than digital; traditional mirrored DSLR is better than mirrorless. Long live digital! Long live mirrorless!

Read the article at: Luminous Landscape.

Vegard Brenna over at Luminous Landscape has an interesting article on creating an HDR workflow to increase the dynamic range of pictures, in his case, the interiors of Churches. But he wants to avoid the high toned “HDR Effect” that is so popular with some. He shows how to calibrate Photomatix and how to create a “HDR Slider” in Photoshop to automate the creation of HDR images.

Read the article at: Luminous Landscape.

OK, we’ll bite and play along. Luminous Landscape (“LuLa”) has compiled a list of the epic “Fails of the Year” honoring “those companies, products and people in the photographic industry who simply blew it during the past twelve months. All it takes to be the winner of a LuLa is to do something really dumb.”

In this their first annual LuLa awards, they single out five companies that have misread their customers’ willingness to part with hard-earned money, scammed shareholders to the tune of $1.7B, locked customers into proprietary systems, alienated customers with stupid upgrade policies (just waiting for a competitor to move in), and displayed arrogance by cutting off loyal customers. Yep, any of these moves should earn you a prestigious LuLa Award.

They did not have one, so we took the liberty of quickly mocking one up, the LuLa Awards logo, that is. I’m sure they’ll have one officially designed when this awards gets the traction it deserves.

View the 2011 LuLa Awards.

Sony NEX-7

“The NEX-7 is the most exciting camera that I’ve had the pleasure of using in the past five years.”

Photoxels Editor’s note: When we started to announce way back that the Interchangeable Lens Camera, aka compact mirrorless DSLRs, would one day [soon] replace traditional mirrored DSLRs, we got the usual snickers and “you don’t know what you are talking about” comments. We could see it coming back then because the reason to have a mirror in a DSLR was simply gone: the mirror allowed the photographer to see what was coming thru the lens. Well, the LCD allowed the photographer to do one better: to see what exactly was being captured by the image sensor. As both the resolution and quality of the LCD and then the EVF progressed to the point they matched the DSLR optical viewfinder, the future was set. Removing a now useless mirror was a logical next step and the compact mirrorless DSLRs with their smaller size and weight have proven a favorite of photographers. They are so much a match for DSLRs in every respect that now even seasoned professional photographers are starting to migrate toward them as their system camera of choice — as this pro reviewer admits and another pro reviewer launched sansmirror (“mirrorless”). What are you buying this Holiday season?

We’ve added another Sony NEX-7 [QuickPrice Check] review to our Reviews Matrix.

Luminous Landscape has published their review of the Sony NEX-7, an Interchangeable Lens Camera (“compact mirrorless DSLR”) with a 24.3MP Exmor™ APS HD CMOS (23.5 X 15.6mm) sensor, built-in 0.50-in. XGA OLED EVF (Electronic viewfinder) (2,359k dots), 3.0-in. tiltabe LCD (921k dots), Tri-Navi manual conmtrols, iAUTO, PASM, Scene Modes, Sweep Panorama, Anti Motion Blur, Manual Focus, Background Defocus, Picture Effect, Hand-held Twilight Mode, Peaking function, built-in pop-up flash, hot shoe, Continuous Shooting at 10fps, Auto HDR, Dynamic Range Optimizer, RAW, Anti-Dust Technology, and Full HD 1080p Movie 1920 x 1080/60p AVCHD 2.0 with stereo sound and full manual control.

You can read the Sony NEX-7 Review @ Luminous Landscape.

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So, you’ve read here and on other sites how the compact mirrorless DSLRs are quickly becoming the DSLR-level camera of choice for many amateur and professional photographers, so much so that every major camera manufacturer, save one, has jumped into the fray. Now, read how the compact mirrorless DSLR may even be a match for the legendary rangefinder camera that you may never need to buy.

Read Resolution: Nex-7 Vs. Leica M9 @ Luminous Landscape

Christopher Schneiter over at Luminous Landscape has a very interesting article on taking long exposures at night, extending the tonal range and even using HDR the odd times. I am not a great fan of HDR with all the tone mapping pushed to extremes but the fireworks picture works very well here introducing a whimsical and fun mood to the scene, and almost looking like a giant exploding sunflower.

Read the article at: Luminous Landscape.