The greatest strength of the Internet is its lack of position. It does not favor one person over another or one page over the other.  It is neutral. This is one of the main reasons the Internet has managed to engulf the globe.  It gives power and a voice to everyone equally.

This is not entirely true everywhere around the globe.  Some countries for political reasons control what is allowed in, on and out of their Internet infrastructure – a good example of this is China.  Other countries take the same position for financial gains.

As the inventors of the Internet, we Americans have been able to keep the Internet free from the shackles of the politically and economically driven corporate America.

Until now that is.

There are present bills in Congress that, if passed, will allow the Internet Service Providers the ability to control who gets what level (or grade if you will) of service.  At first this appears like a reasonable request, after all, they are providing the service.  In reality it’s analogous to allowing the car manufacturing industry to determine who can drive on what roads.  Naturally, in this environment the best roads will go to highest bidders. You and me will be relegated to the back roads taking forever to get to where we wont to go.  Worse yet, since they control the roads they can decide that you are no longer allowed on any road.  Or, GM can decide that all Japanese cars can only travel at or below 30 miles and hour on the highway, freeing up the express lanes for GM cars.

This is not good for you and me, but great for Verizon and the other large Internet network providers.  Not only will this lead to censorship but also the cost will come directly out of our pockets. If its costs Ebay or any other content provider more money to provide their services who do you think is going to pay for it?

Abandoning network neutrality will lead to censorship and higher costs.

We simply cannot afford it.

I made the rounds at Photo Plus 2006. It was well traveled on Friday when I visited for a few meetings and on Saturday when I went to see what was new and happening. Photo Plus appeared buzz-less to me. At first I thought the lack of buzz was because most of the major product announcements were made at Photokina last month but then realized there wasn’t much to get really excited about - nothing innovative. But in all fairness I did not visit every booth.

There were a few things I wanted to see and investigate futher.

HP Z2100 & Z3100 printers
The new Z line comes with either 8 or 12 ink carriage (photo & matte black installed) and either 24 or 44 inch print size. Switching between photo and matte black is no longer required. This alone is a good reason to consider the printer but the real gem of a reason is that it comes with Gretag’s EyeOne technology built in. No way Epson saw this coming. The embedded Eye-One technology has major benefits. First off from a price comparison if you purchased an Epson printer and wanted to create your own profile you need an Eye-One colorimeter (or the like) costing anywhere from $ 1000 to $ 2000 depending on the package. This fact should be considered when comparing printers and pricing. Secondly, the embedded Eye-One technology scans the target swatches automatically. Anyone that has created many profiles will be laughing with joy at this news. Thirdly, it’s closed loop highly tuned system.

There are many, many more reasons to consider the new Z line. The prints I saw at the expo looked great. I don’t know the circumstances how the prints I saw were made but I liked what I saw very much. I want to get my hands on a printer and give it a full test run. As we all know, mileage does vary – so, I can’t wait to put one through its paces.

Phase One Plus Line
Phase One was demonstrating its new Live Preview and talking up is new P Series Plus backs. The live preview worked and worked well. I must say I had my doubts. It’s not an easy feat to accomplish. It was demonstrated on a 4×5 camera. As I understand, Live Preview is not currently working on medium format cameras but will be shortly. The feature will be released as a general feature in Capture One 4.0.

Other features of the Plus series are a brighter and higher resolution display, higher ISO – up to 1600 ISO, 1 hour exposure and less noise. All of which I did not get a chance to see or test but I hope to play with a Plus series when they ship early next year.

Hasselbald announced at PhotoKina 2006 the release of their new camera the H3, as well as a new 28mm wide angle lens. Much to everyone’s bewilderment Hasselblad has decided to make the new H3 camera a closed system. Essentially the H3 will work only with their 22MP and 39MP digital backs. To add to what is already a damning marketing strategy the new 28mm lens will only work with the new H3 camera.

Any who does not own a Hasselblad digital back not cannot use the new Hasselblad’s camera or lens, unless you are using film. Hasselblad is cannibalizing their own base in order to sell more digital backs. Hasselblad has shut out not only everyone who wants to use their new camera on a non Hasselblad digital back but every Hasselblad owner to date. Decades of marketing and branding and tens of thousands of users.

Medium format cameras are not disposable cameras. In fact they are a sizable investment. A photographer investing $15K plus dollars on an outfit expects to it be a viable option not just today but in the future as well. This course of action by Hasselblad is another indication that Hasselblad today exists only by name. I hope the Imacon people at Hasselblad know what they are doing. I hope the gain of market share in the digital back market is worth cannibalizing their base, though i don’t see how.

Hasselblad’s continued squeezing of the market bad for the industry and worse for us photographers. From pricing their product at an extortionate rate after becoming the only real medium format camera left standing to the now “you want my camera than you must buy my digital back” attitude. This is really going to hurt those of us at the end of food chain.

Hopefully Rollei will get it together and finish their recently announced medium format camera. It will use Zeiss, Schneider and most if not all the lenses in 6008 line. I cant wait to see and hopefully buy one of them.

Watch this space - we’ll be updating this blog with photos, videos, and articles on our shoots and on photography in general.