It's been 10 years since mirrorless cameras hit the scene, and what a ride it's been!

A well-known photographer once claimed that painters don't spend hours arguing about brushes. He's totally off the mark. Every time I tell my artist friends about that statement, they get the giggles. Painters totally spend hours arguing about brushes, snap, bristle material, shape, size, selection, etc. They talk about how this one brand used to make great brushes, but then they screwed it up and so all of the books from ten years ago that called out that one particular brush are now wrong. And they also talk about paper and paints and the optimum table or easel to use and all sorts of stuff. And they also look with disdain at cheap student-grade materials but at the same time know that that's all some folks can manage. And they know that an artist-grade brush won't rescue a bad painting. So, instead, I think I'm going to say that there's a basic economic principle in being an artist: You want to get the best materials and tools in your hands and spend the least amount of money to do it.

Before the first m43 body came out, but after it was clear that the 4/3rds system was no more, I figured that it really needed to go in the direction of m43. It did, and it's been a resounding success. I still think the E-300/E-330 design was pretty neat, however.

A brief history: When the first Micro 4/3rds camera came out, I didn't buy it, but I knew right away where things were going. I waited through the earliest bodies, all of which were SLR-styled and not especially compact. Then, eventually the Digital PEN mockup came out, followed by the E-P1. I waited through till the E-P3 came out and got one, because it was good enough...

This looks like a nice flash with the properties that I love about my Sunpak 622's...

It's generally regarded as stupid to spend a bunch of time writing your own CMS. It's about as productive as spending time shooting test charts...

Kodak Ektachrome film is actually going to come back from the dead!

It's hard to really describe what makes one photograph awesome and another one bad in such a way that the meanings of the words that I presently use to represent abstract ideas in my brain map to the same mysteriously indescribable abstract ideas in your brain. So it's how I view the art right now, but it's probably verifiably wrong in all sorts of ways.

I mostly hate image organization and RAW conversion tools. Part of the problem is that the RAW conversion is a moving target. Every RAW format is a bit different, which is going to make life living hell for the archivists of 2100. And new features have been added to the RAW conversion as time has gone on -- many modern digital lenses are designed for some degree of optical deconvolution at the RAW conversion stage.

I really hate that my new phone doesn't have a keyboard. I've been using phones with keyboards on them for quite some time and I'm kinda annoyed that the whims of the marketplace have meant that nobody buys a keyboarded phone anymore. On the bright side, my phone now has a decently good camera, maybe as good as the previous generation of iPhone cameras. It's pretty good and it really demonstrates why people aren't buying compact cameras anymore. Why carry a camera that's only mildly better than your phone's camera when your phone is there in your pocket?

It's always tricky talking about buying camera gear. This becomes frequently a case of "Hey, please rob me!" or "Hey, look at me, I'm a douchebag with a well paying job" or other stuff. But since this story involves rage, my own stupidity, and a few thoughts about the whole freaking point of a lensless camera, I'll tell it.

This seems to be the "If I had to buy a new camera" camera at the moment. A worthy upgrade from the E-P3 that I still very much like

Kodak joins the Micro 4/3rds party. This is unexpected on one level, but Kodak has long been a member of the 4/3rds consortium, so on another level it isn't.

The first photographic expedition of 2013 was east to Yosemite to play in the snow and take some pictures of majestic scenery while it's nice and snow covered... and to enjoy Yosemite while it's not loaded down with tourists looking for easy hikes...

Some people think that digital photography has destroyed our industry. It's too easy to endlessly copy digital files in lieu of going back to the photographer for official reprints, too easy for a bad photographer to spray-and-pray their way to a good shoot, etc.