Through the Lens - CLOSED

Nikon v's Canon by Dominic Lee, AMPA

What is it about Canon that helps it's owner divert attention from their true inadequacy?

Answer, “The full size chip”. What! You mean to tell me that Canon has a full size chip, well bowl me over, a full size chip, if only I’d known that before I bought a Nikon D200. Imagine I too could have had a full size chip!!!

It’s all Canon owners can talk about, oh ye and the L series glass. Talk to a Nikon owner and your conversation is likely to range from Colour Derivations to Reciprocity Failure. Canon owners think the latter is something smokers get. Speaking of smokers a recent survey revealed the following facts: -

Most Canon owners smoke Silk Cut Purple and drink Malt flavoured Milkshakes while most Nikon Owners smoke Cigars and drink neat Malt Whiskey. Most Canon Owners are named Mary or Andrew while most Nikon Owners are Men.

Let’s face it the last time a Canon shot anything interesting, Admiral Nelson was standing behind it.

Nikon radiates Exclusive and Executive and yet retains the Work Horse reputation, while Canon will never shake off that “keen amateur” tag.

Nikon Owners give perfect Memories while Canon owners give Lame Excuses. It’s the difference between placing the ball into the net and lobbing it into the crowd.

So the bottom line is Canon may have a bigger chip but they need it to balance out the chip on the shoulder! Apart from that it would be impossible to separate the quality of the end result from either brand.

Search Engines - GoldenPages.ie by Dominic Lee, AMPA

If you had two directories on your desk and one had half the pages torn out while the other was complete, which one would you use?

I logged on to goldenpages.ie and entered Greens Bookshop – Dublin, the result was NO MATCH FOUND.

Amazing, considering it is one of the most famous bookshops in the country.

According to Golden Pages I should have added an apostrophe, as in Green’s.

I then tried to locate my own business by entering Photographers – Stillorgan,

My neighbour Paddy Tighe Photographer came up twice but no Priory Studios.

The reason they give is because I opted to place my “free listing” in the Golden Pages book under “Video”. The fact that I am paying for an advert under “Photographers” does not count, it’s the free listing in the book that gives me a free listing on their web search facility.

Why pay for advertising on the website if it fails to find a supplier who is paying for a listing in the book but finds the ones with the free entries in the book?

In spite of giving them several more examples of their half baked search facility (including the florist, Hill St Blooms which was listed four times on the same web page) they insist that I’m using it all wrong and they are happy that their search system is perfect.

I personally never had any faith in the Golden Pages book as a source of new business, now I can include their website.

If you have any thoughts on this please add your comment here.

Saving Valuable Negatives by Dominic Lee, AMPA

My wife tracked down and phoned the now retired photographer who shot her parent's wedding and asked him if she could buy copies of the wedding photos. He barked out that he had dumped the negatives when he retired and put the phone down. It was clear from his reaction that this was not the first such call he had received. Was that an air of regret in his voice, did he realise that he could have charged the same price for 1(10x8) photo in 2006 as he received for the entire wedding album back in the 50’s? We will never know, and neither will he because he was foolish enough to dump the negatives.

Of course it’s a momentous task keeping all those files in a state of preservation and in a filing system, which would allow you to retrieve them. And realistically the money you get for the odd copy you sell to some deceased client's relative is not worth the effort. But what you have could be of far greater value historically.

Portraits of children making their First Holy Communion; how long before that practise fades from the memory? I used to photograph 4 or 5 Priests Ordinations every year. I even photographed a Nuns Profession. I bet the new generation of photographers don’t get asked to cover many of those.

Bearing in mind that many couples find it hard to book a priest today to officiate at their wedding, it will soon be a reality that a lay person will be designated to perform this duty. So even photographs with priests in them will have an historic value in the not to distant future.

Likeise photographs of children swimming or playing football will be a thing of the past as a result of child protection regulations.

Old photographs sold at a Cumbrian auction for £75,000 last week after being valued at just £80 and now estimated to be worth £500,000 (see article on 31^st March on The IPW). Yet large amounts of a valuable archive depicting life in Ireland over the decades are being dumped every year!

Have you sorted out what’s going to happen to your historic collection or are you leaving it to a member of your family to bury them along side you?

Dominic Lee, AMPA

www.priorystudios.ie