Theatre of noise

  

Flock (photo study)
Flock is a photo study made at h_da (Hochschule Darmstadt Mediencampus) in Dieburg, Germany, September 2026.

Nature before rights: presentation for CENSE 2026
This article provides a landing page for participants attending the International Symposium of CENSE: Beyond Listening: Re-Sounding Rights of Nature, 15-17 October 2026, Gdansk, Poland (original call). This will also be of interest to readers who follow my academic and composition work. This post contains the original abstract, a link to the poster (PDF), a link to an illustrative composition, and references. I might update this in advance of the conference. Abstract Field recording begins with extraction. No matter my intentions, each such act imposes my will on a more-than-human world. Given this conundrum, how can such artistic practices challenge the ideologies of the Anthropocene that see the human as apart from – and superior to – the rest of Nature? A potential remedy is found in the Rights of Nature movement. The emotive appeal of granting the non-human “standing” [Stone 1972] is plain, but critical writers [Warnock 2012, Sachs 2024] have raised legal and other objections. How can the rights of one lifeform be judged against another, considering relationships of predation, parasitism, and symbiosis? How is a tree empowered by having a human speak for it in court? Indeed, this continue a tradition of stewardship embedded in Abrahamic religions. Despite the desire for these proposals to combat extractive principles, the practical implementations operate within existing epistemologies. And though some Indigenous / First Nations peoples have adopted rights of Nature principles as a practical buffer against environmental harm, “the radical character of Indigenous ontologies is not fully reflected in the concept of legal personality” [Tanasescu 2020, 453]. An alternative would begin by acknowledging the position of Nature before the human in a relational matrix, what Arne Naess termed a “biospherical net or field of intrinsic relations” [1973, 151]. Nature has no rights, has no responsibilities, owns nothing. It is not constrained by human epistemologies. Nature is instead a wild field of potentialities which reveals itself to us in subtle phenomenal gestures. Our duty of care requires putting Nature first as the figurative (and literal) ground on which we stand to resist hegemonic forces. But how might this rather Utopian proposal help everyday artistic practice? “Caged Birds (Augmentation)” a four-channel composition derived from a local dawn chorus. The modifications made to this recording are designed to echo how humans have transformed those avian species who survive our urban environs. The title is a play on John Cage, but also a reminder that a recording is a sound that is no longer at liberty. PosterDownload a screen resolution version of the poster. ListeningThe composition “Caged Birds (Augmentation)” is available on SoundCloud. You can ignore any prompts for creating an account. Essential readingIn some ways this presentation is only a preamble to a major work that was published earlier this year. I encourage you to read Parmar 2026 below (link provided). ReferencesBerry, Thomas. 2001. “The origin, differentiation, and role of rights.” available Casey, Edward S. 1996. “How to get from space to place in a fairly short stretch of time: phenomenological prolegomena,” Senses of Place, eds. Steven Feld and Keith H. Basso. Santa Fe, New Mexico: School of American Research Press, 14-52. Heidegger, Martin. 1977. The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, trans. William Lovitt. London: Garland Publishing. Heidegger, Martin. 2001. “Building dwelling thinking,” Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter. New York: Harper Perennial, 141-160. Kauffman, Craig M. and Pamela L. Martin. 2017. “Can rights of nature make development more sustainable? Why some Ecuadorian lawsuits succeed and others fail,” World Development 92, 130–142. Naess, Arne. 1973. “The shallow and the deep, long-range ecology movement: a summary,” Inquiry 16.1, 95-100. Parmar, Robin. 2018. “Sounding the Anthropocene: concepts of nature in Schafer’s The Soundscape,” Proceedings of The Global Composition, 4-7 October 2018, ed. Sabine Breitsameter and Cansu Karakiz. Darmstadt, Germany: Fachbereich Media and Hochschule Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, 152-161. Parmar, Robin. 2026. “Before Listening: Ambience as Aletheia,” Journal of Sound Studies 29, np. New version available. Purdy, Jedediah. 2015. After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene. London: Harvard University Press. Robinson, Dylan. 2020. Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Sachs, Noam H. 2024. “A wrong turn with the rights of nature movement,” The Georgetown Environmental Law Review 36:39, 39-84. Schafer, R. Murray. 1994 (1977). The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books. Stone, Christopher D. 1972. “Should trees have standing? Towards legal rights for natural objects,” Southern California Law Review 45.450, 450-501. Tanasescu, Mihnea. 2020. “Rights of nature, legal personality, and indigenous  philosophies,” Transnational Environmental Law 9.3, 429-453. Warnock, Mary. 2012. “Should trees have standing?,” Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 3, 56–67.

Proposal for a superior referencing style
Possibly the most important part of research is acknowledging your sources. This allows readers the opportunity to trace your ideas through the web of knowledge, uncovering further details, testing the usage of that source in order to validate your claims, or simply to find more fun stuff to read. Plagiarism is the most serious academic crime a researcher can commit, so acknowledging sources is mandatory. Referencing generally consists of two parts. First we need an inline citation whenever a quote or idea is borrowed from another writer. Second, we need a reference list that gives the reader all the information they require to locate the source. In the following I will compare popular referencing styles and explain why I use none of them. Or rather: I use a combination of the best qualities of these, in order to guarantee simplicity, consistency, and clarity. Referencing should be as readable as possible, simplifying the tasks of both writer and reader. Different disciplines have different ideas about how to format references, resulting in many extant styles. Here’s an incomplete list of those that I’ve encountered. APA (American Psychological Association): used in Education and Psychology MLA (Modern Language Association): used in the Humanities Chicago/Turabian: used in the Fine Arts and History Harvard: a more generalised author-date style, a variant of which is used at my home university, the University of Limerick IEEE (Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers): used by various computing and engineering organisations including the ACM. The utter stupidity of IEEE style I just completed a paper for publication using IEEE and experienced an extraordinary amount of discomfort at just how inane this system is. Other styles have inline citations that make sense in context, as they obviously should since that is their entire purpose. But IEEE simply indexes each citation with incrementing integers. So you might write: Smith [1] has argued this but Jones [2] has argued that. The reference list is then a sequence in the order the references were encountered in the text. This method has numerous problems. While writing, it is often that case that blocks of text are re-ordered, inserted, or deleted. That is the very process of writing, after all. This integral process requires renumbering some or all references. Your word processor might handle this automatically, depending on the formatting required. Though the process is far more arcane than it should be because word processors suck. (That's a different article.) For the reader, the reference numbers give no indication of context. You need to flip between the passage and the endnotes to determine even the simplest fact: who is being cited here? Meanwhile the reference list itself loses functionality. Rather than alphabetic order the sequence is arbitrary, based on when the source was mentioned in the text. Worse yet, repeated citations of the same source results in repeated items in the reference list, assuming that you wish to specify exact page numbers (as you should). This is unnecessary clutter. Finally, this style does not readily support footnotes, since then you would have two different numerical indicators in the text. Instead, any such tangential remarks must be included in the endnotes... which now serve two functions. Parenthetically, I wonder why computer journals don’t start the numbering at zero. Ah yes, a small joke. The better way The remaining styles all use some form of inline citation that identifies the source without use of an arbitrary index number. Hence they avoid all problems the writer might have with synchronising text and references. This is also easier for the reader, reducing how much flipping between text and reference list is required. So far, so good. Here are the most popular formats for comparison: MLA (Eight Edition): (Parmar 11) APA (Seventh Edition): (Parmar, 2022) Chicago/Turabian: (Parmar 2022, 11) Harvard/UL: (Parmar 2022, p.11) The first two citations do not include enough information to identify the source. MLA omits the publication date, which is annoying in the case of multiple publications from one author. Of course we can reintroduce a date in these cases, but then we have inconsistency. Worse yet, APA has no provision for a page number, which I find completely bizarre. Meanwhile, Chicago and Harvard styles include all necessary information, though Harvard introduces an arbitrary page number prefix. We don't need that little "p." to know the number indicates a page. Here my preferred style conforms with Chicago. It is simple, clear, and complete. Turning to the reference item itself, we have the following entries for a monograph (single author book). MLA: Parmar, Robin. Listening to Places: Exercises Towards Environmental Composition. Void Gallery, 2022. APA: Parmar, R. (2022). Listening to places: exercises towards environmental composition. Void Gallery. Chicago/Turabian: Robin Parmar, Listening to Places: Exercises Towards Environmental Composition (Derry, Northern Ireland: Void Gallery, 2022). Harvard/UL: Parmar, R. (2022) Listening to Places: Exercises Towards Environmental Composition, Derry, Northern Ireland: Void Gallery. Chicago indexes by first name, which makes zero sense. No-one I’ve ever met in library sciences would let this pass without scoffing, so I wonder how this style ever got accepted? Some styles introduce parentheses and extra punctuation where they are not needed. Or the data fields are presented in an order that encumbers sorting. For contrast, here's my preferred style, a variant on the Harvard author-date format. Harvard/Parmar: Parmar, Robin. 2022. Listening to Places: Exercises Towards Environmental Composition. Derry, Northern Ireland: Void Gallery. So, what are the differences? The author’s preferred spelling of their name is used. Abbreviating or otherwise changing someone’s name is inappropriate. Furthermore, it can be confusing in the case of multiple writers with the same last name and initial. This happens rarely but why create a potential problem with an arbitrary change to the existing information? The date is included as the second field, to order the reference list chronologically under each author. If the author has more than one publication in a year (the busy little bee!) then a letter suffix can be appended to the year, resulting in 2022a, 2022b, and so on.  Parentheses are removed from the date, since this is truly extraneous. Punctuation is standardised so that each element of the data is separated by a period. This allows each field (name, date, title, publisher) to be clearly read off the reference. A more complex case Now to format a journal article. Here I have created idealised versions of four styles. I say “idealised” because one thing that often gets lost in practice (that is, when using using library tools) is the italicisation of the composition within the name of the article. For correctness, this needs to be preserved. MLA: Parmar, Robin. “The Garden of Adumbrations: Reimagining Environmental Composition.” Organised Sound: An International Journal of Music Technology, vol. 17, no. 3, Dec. 2012, pp. 202–10. APA: Parmar, R. (2012). The Garden of Adumbrations: reimagining environmental composition. Organised Sound: An International Journal of Music Technology, 17(3), 202–210. Chicago/Turabian: Robin Parmar. “The Garden of Adumbrations: Reimagining Environmental Composition,” Organised Sound: An International Journal of Music Technology 17.3 (2012): 202–10. Harvard/UL: Parmar, R. (2012) ‘The Garden of Adumbrations: reimagining environmental composition’, Organised Sound: An International Journal of Music Technology, 17(3), 202–210. Using the criteria of consistency and clarity we can decide on the best approach. Each decision conforms to one or more styles (which I will indicate in parentheses) but the aggregate is different from all of them. For completeness the first three items are repeated from the previous list. Write out full author name as credited, last name first (MLA). Put the date after the author’s name for consistent indexing (APA and Harvard).Use periods between each data field (MLA and APA). Use sentence case for a short work (e.g. article) and title case for a longer work (APA and Harvard). This makes the items easier to distinguish, especially in plain text, where italicisation is not available. Use double quotation marks around article titles to avoid confusion with apostrophes (MLA and Chicago). If nested quotes are needed, use single quotation marks. Write volume and issue numbers simply without prefixes (Chicago). A period between these is the easiest way. There is no need to include redundant month of publication or other indicators of the issue, unless that issue was not assigned a number. Write page numbers simply without prefixes. Do not introduce a new symbol for this, e.g. the colon (APA and Harvard).Don't abbreviate the second term in a page range (APA and Harvard). This saves only a tiny amount of space at the cost of potential confusion. If a field needs to be subdivided even further, for example in the case of multiple authors, use a semi-colon as delimiter. Here is the entry using my system. Harvard/Parmar: Parmar, Robin. 2012. “The Garden of Adumbrations: reimagining environmental composition.” Organised Sound: An International Journal of Music Technology 17.3, 202–210. I believe that this result is provably superior to the styles in general use. Though I welcome other opinions in the comments.Further comments I have noticed in the course of writing this article that my preferred format is not entirely consistent. The page reference is not part of the publishing information, so there should be a period before this field. But such formatting might get confused with the notation used for the issue number… and also it looks unnatural somehow. But I must admit the problem! It has become normal to include a DOI or other link at the end of a reference. This saves time for the reader but clutters the list, so I prefer to avoid including these. An exception is made for works that are online by nature (a web page or preprint on an author's website) and hence is not readily be indexed for retrieval by a database or library catalogue. Punctuation goes within the closing quotation mark. This is not so much a matter of style as it is of typography. With a proper layout engine (that is, not a word processor!) this will produce more handsome output. Admittedly it contradicts the logic of computing, which mandates consistent delimiters positioning. Aesthetics over logic, in this case.When a book has been reprinted long after its initial publication date this can look quite odd in a reference list. Darwin is still not alive and publishing in 2024! In this case I will put the original date of publication in parentheses after the publication that I am referencing. This is not part of any existing style, admittedly. But it adds useful information for the reader and helps preserve historical context.  Conclusion I devised my system while a Masters student but was worried about acceptability. So I consulted the head librarian at the University of Limerick, who had led the project resulting in the reference guide Cite it Right, which mandated the Harvard/UL style illustrated above. She concurred that my approach was perfectly correct and viable. The only barrier to use was whether my lecturers would accept it. So there you are. It’s about acceptance at the end of the day. Don’t use any style that might annoy your superiors. But when you can, use the simplest possible.In the meanwhile I will curse editors and publishers who force arcane syntax on a struggling mind such as my own. 

Network patterns in paisley
Researching the history of the internet I came across this image in Wiki Commons. It is a diagram of the NSFNET backbone on paisley notepaper, dated 1 October 1990, by B.S. Blair (CC BY-SA 4.0). I am fascinated by this palimpsest so will expand on my original social media post below. In July 1986 the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) backbone became fully operational, linking the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado to five research centres: Princeton University (Princeton, NJ), Cornell University (Ithaca, NY), the University of California San Diego (UCSD), the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and the University of Pittsburgh. This diagram shows several new nodes: Seattle, Palo Alto, Salt Lake City, Lincoln, Houston, Atlanta, University of Maryland (College Park), and Ann Arbor (Merit Network).  This diagram represents a noble plan to link research and education through telepresence, though the infrastructure had been borrowed from the military complex. As is well known, the predecessor to this system had been built as the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) by the US Department of Defense, starting 1969. Here each dot represents the ultimate in computing power at the time, as expressed by bandwidth. Each line represents an abstraction of cables laid under the soil. The computer centres and pathways each required a significant investment, tabulated in balance sheets and budget reports. Mentioned less often, if at all, were the workers who built this engineering marvel. Even computer programmers (e.g. "calculators") were largely uncredited by name. This activity was also seen as a form of manual labour not different from the typing pool. The other significant symbol in this image is the boteh, an ornamental teardrop shape from Persia. This might represent the sun, a phoenix, or simply a leaf with its patterns of circulation emphasised. It’s idealised like the network diagram but curvilinear. As it became increasingly popular in Western Europe in the 19th century the boteh pattern in fabric was renamed Paisley after the Scottish town. This place had been known for two centuries as a centre for textile production. As documented in “The Paisley Shawl and the People Who Made It” (1904) by Matthew Blair (available online), Paisley workers worked manually in the main. Although the Jacquard loom was invented in 1804, it was not until the mid-century that this automation replaced the work of the draw-boy in Paisley. The Jacquard head used a punch-card system that encoded the pattern for the loom. Herman Hollerith expanded on this idea for an Electric Tabulating System first used to compile data from the 1890 United States census. His Tabulating Company invented the keypunch machine and automated card feeding, preparing the ground for 20th century computer data entry. When I first learned FORTRAN coding in the late 1970s, every program was a stack of punch cards. My typing lessons inculcated skills useful for both calculations and linguistic output. The abstract linearity of the telecommunications network and the naturalistic curves of the floral patterns form a dialectic that obscures such hidden connections. But there is something more here. B.S. Blair (whoever he was) did not "draw" this diagram. The numeric codes and locations are clearly the result of some sort of mechanistic impression, not a pen or pencil. Given the technology of the time, it's likely plotter or line printer output. So why then the paisley? Indeed, by appearances the floral pattern has been drawn on the engineering diagram, not the other way around. If readers have insights, I would love to hear them.

Deity PR-4 audio recorder overview
In my recent Field Recorders in 2026 article I summarised the currently available devices. The newest addition was a device from Deity, a company known for their video-centric products such as lavalier microphones. Though not yet released, I added the Deity PR-4 to my list since it has a unique combination of features at a compelling price point. In this article I will provide a summary of these, prior to actual field tests.  This article will be useful to those readers who prefer a text summary to watching endless YouTube videos. IntroductionThe Deity PR-4 is the second audio recorder from this company but the first suitable for field recording applications, as opposed to video work. And that is my emphasis here, to be completely clear.As is the norm with most companies in the 21st century, this product has been teased for some time. Apparently the actual manufacturing has been portioned out into batches, this reflecting the perilous state of electronics in the current era. At the time of writing the sales website claims that the third batch is in production. In any case, delivery to retailers has been inconsistent at best. Nonetheless, I purchased a PR-4 as soon as I could here in Europe and await its arrival. It's been a long time since I was in a position to review an actual recorder. Instead the value I've been providing on thi  blog is that of researcher: summarising available facts. I am currently using a Sony M-10 and had it out in the field several times over the last month. This is an old pocket-sized recorder which has excellent results when used with external mics. Unfortunately the card reader failed arbitrarily, even with limited use, which seems to be a common issue. This means that I must use the internal memory and grab data using the non-standard USB cable at tediously slow transfer rates. The battery life is also frustrating. I have had recordings terminate when supposedly there was sufficient power.  My second recorder is a Zoom F-8 (original, not Pro) which is excellent... but overkill most of the time. I have written about that unit extensively in the past, but have not used it nearly as much as I had hoped. By the way, you should use my Field Recording Gear launch page to access past articles. There are quite a few compelling features that motivated my decision to purchase the Deity PR-4. 1. StorageWhile many small devices have turned to microSD cards, the PR-4 uses my preferred full-sized SD storage (up to 1 TB capacity). I already own many SD cards in high speeds and high quality for use in digital cameras. Better yet, the internal 64 GB SSD drive acts as redundancy. It is difficult for me to trust any device (audio recorder, camera, etc.) that has only one method of data storage. But this feature is unheard of at this price point.2. Power sourcesThe unit uses Sony style NP-F550 batteries instead of AAs. These have the advantage of being a readily-available standard and higher capacity. Deity’s own battery is inexpensive and has a high 3320 mAh capacity. These are rated to record for 9.5 hours though it's not clear if that includes phantom power. (The spec sheet says only "depending on settings".) The battery can easily be recharged in the unit over USB or Hirose connectors. In a pinch the USB-C connector can be used with a power bank or similar source. Furthermore the recorder will seamlessly switch between these options without interruption.This is far more convenient and flexible than my current devices. I have long wondered why a recorder of sufficient size didn't have internal power options besides AAs. Deity have finally done the obvious.Please note that batteries need to be purchased separately. The fact that none are included in the package is not obvious from the product info. 3. InputsMuch of the time I am happy to use a pair of electret mics powered from 5V PIP. The Deity has this option unlike the Zoom F3. Additionally a pair of XLR inputs are on hand as alternative or additional sources. These are actually "combo" inputs so they also work at line level. Any inputs can be routed to any outputs or storage devices freely. A total of six tracks can be recorded (4 inputs plus a mix) which is plenty for me. 4. Recording formatsI do not believe that 32-bit recording is our saviour since I know how to gain stage. With care I made perfectly decent recordings when 16-bit dynamic range was standard. Nonetheless, it will be handy to finally own a device with 32-bit float. I am unsure if the dual preamps are disabled in 24-bit mode but that is something that can be tested if necessary. The PR-4 also includes an amplitude limiter that will be worth a trial, though it is unclear how this interacts with 32-bit float.The sample rates are 48, 96, and 192 kHz but not the audio standard of 44.1 kHz. 5. Form factorI dislike the cheap build, ugly looks, and prickly form factors of many of the compact recorders on the market today. Though it is plastic, the Deity PR-4 is a simple rectangular box with logical port and control positionings. I like the fact it has proper potentiometers and buttons unlike the rather cheesy button-only controls of competing devices. With a mass of 220g (without battery) and volume of 320 cubic cm (98 x 80 x 41 mm) it has the smallest possible size for the features. This matters because I want to fit this into my camera bag. It is certainly not the tiniest recorder but I wouldn't want the screen to be any smaller. 6. InterfaceAlthough the touch-screen is used for certain functions, I understand that it is not essential for stereo recording once the unit is configured. The minimal controls seem well thought out. The presence of a tried-and-true remote applications (Sidus Audio) means that every feature can be run from a mobile phone. So long as the Bluetooth connection is solid, this will be super convenient. The recorder can stay safe in its bag while recordings are made.However, the PR-4 does not support wireless audio monitoring, unlike competitors such as the Fostex FR-AV4. Perhaps this can be added in a firmware update?7. PreampsDeity claim an EIN of -125 dBu and preamps with 60 dB gain. This is about 2 dB worse than many units on the market but that difference is not decisive. Of course these specs must be confirmed. The maximum input levels (using microphones) is +11 dBu which compares well with competitors. 8. Operation Deity claims an operating temperature of -20 to 50 degrees Centigrade which I might well test in upcoming trips to Lapland and other remote locations. Additional featuresThe PR-4 has videocentric features that do not concern me, chief among them timecode generation, noise reduction, AES3/42 support, and auto-mixing. I will not be buying accessories such as the custom bag and cage. The metadata support and automated sound report generation are intriguing but not essential for field recording. PricingThe abilities of the recorder must be considered in the context of the purchase price. On Deity's sales site the PR-4 is US$450 plus $40 per battery. European retailers have it at €500 plus €50 per battery.The value proposition depends on your use case. This is a significant investment if field recording is only a hobby. So this unit is perhaps not going to convince those looking to buy a low-end Zoom recorder. But for a device with these features the price is very reasonable. For video folk the timecode features alone make this a bargain. Alternatives The only similar recorder on the market is the Tascam FR-AV2. The toy-like build and odd interface decisions have been documented in Roland Harris's review. This recorder uses a micro SD card and has extremely slow USB transfer speeds. The use of AA batteries means that we lose the convenience of recharging in the unit. For remote monitoring you need to add an optional Bluetooth adapter. There is no redundant SSD storage. Many of the other video features are lacking, though the unit supports timecode.It should be clear that the Deity PR-4 is a distinctive unit with a unique combination of features. I look forward to trying it soon.Please add comments below, especially if you have used this recorder.

GFX 100S test of ISO range
Just when I thought I might be done with my tripod, I started wondering about the usable range of ISO on this camera. Like my other tests this is done mostly for my own benefit, so that I know the constraints I'm working with.  Everyone has different tolerance to noise but most photographers would prefer it to be as low as possible. Adding film-like grain is a different matter since this has quite a different look from sensor noise. The aesthetic appeal can be gauged by the number of software applications just waiting to add grain to your shots.  You can read my previous post for my testing method. Let's see how this camera performs! ISO crop comparison Starting at ISO 100 I doubled the setting to the maximum of 102,400, resulting in 11 images. These were processed in Affinity 2 using the default noise settings which are actually not "off" but set to 20% colour noise reduction. I have never found this to do anything but help an image.  Here are 100% crops after down-sizing the total image by half. Click on each image below to expand to full size. View on a computer, not a mobile screen. The noise increases quite gradually until ISO 12,800. Here it's noticeable but the quality is not offensive.After this point the noise gets significantly more objectionable with every stop. Indeed, Fuji labels these as "High ISO" and provides a special setting to apply noise reduction automatically in these cases. I have not experimented with this feature since I prefer maintaining control over post-processing.   Instead I altered the development settings in Affinity. I set 20% luminance noise reduction and then to make up for the detail loss I added 50% detail / 50% radius sharpening. More aggressive noise reduction is always a trade-off between detail loss and noise smoothing. The final row of crops shows the results.  I would say that these more aggressive settings do a great job at 12,800 and 25,600. But areas of constant colour get quite blotchy at the last two settings. This is likely too objectionable. However acuity is maintained and there is little detail loss in those areas that have detail.  Full images But we are still looking at crops here. What about a full image? In poor light I shot a fruit bowl with the same process (f/8, tripos, etc.). I used ISO 12,800 with the same minimal noise reduction as specified above. Then I switched to increased NR for the three highest ISO settings. The centre of the image has been cropped and the document then resized to 3000 pixels square. Certainly the image could do with some sharpening and better lighting, but this is supposed to be a worst case scenario.  ISO 12,800 with default development ISO 25,600 with NR applied ISO 51,200 with NR applied ISO 102,400 with NR applied Conclusions Your interpretation might be different but I will now limit myself to the "normal" ISO range (up to 12,800) unless I have no other choice. Or if I am shooting black-and-white and deliberately seeking a rougher aesthetic. That said, post-processing can get something usable from all these sensitivities except perhaps the last. You may wish to compare these results to the Panasonic Lumix S5. Spoiler: it performed just as well despite the smaller sensor.

Vintage lenses tested on GFX 100S
Recently I tested two Fujifilm lenses on the GFX 100S. Since I can't afford a full fleet of native glass my plan is to use my modest collection of fine vintage (manual focus) glass. I have been happy to use a selection of these on the full-frame (135 format) Panasonic S5. But not all of these lenses will support the larger sensor size. I expect some vignetting, especially wide open. Or the borders could simply be too weak (e.g. blurry with aberrations). So... bring on the testing! I lined up a selection of Contax-Yashica mount Carl Zeiss lenses, namely: Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 2,8/28 Carl Zeiss Planar T* 1,4/50 Carl Zeiss Makro Planar T* 2,8/60 C  Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 2,8/85 Carl Zeiss Planar T* 2/100 And a few M42 screw mount lenses: Carl Zeiss Jena DDR Pancolar auto 1,8/50 MC Meyer-Optik Gorlitz Domiplan 2.8/50 Pentacon 2.8/135Pentax will have to wait since the adapter I purchased is apparently on a world tour.  Test method I shoot my bookshelf at about 110 cm distance. This subject has a variety of colours and textures while maintaining consistent diffused sunlight. This test won't tell us anything about flare, bokeh, etc. but is useful for acuity and (most important) the behaviour across the frame. Here's the setup: Tripod mounted with image stabilisation off. Timed shutter release used. Manual focus using magnification feature.  ISO constant at 1000. File format is lossless compressed 14-bit RAW. Developed in Affinity 2 with default settings. This test provides a baseline but not optimal images. Any real-world development would produce better photographs in terms of desired colours, contrast, sharpness, etc.  I stacked the 11662 x 8746 pixel images and then reduced the overall size by 50%. Then I cropped to a 1000 pixel square in the areas of interest. Unlike previously, this test was not made to compare lenses but rather to evaluate each lens on its own terms. I shot each lens series twice: first with focus in the centre (on the "Mc" in "McInnes") then with focus at the extreme left side (on the "c" in "Uncommon"). This varied a bit with the different focal lengths.  Click on each image below to expand to full size. View on a computer, not a mobile screen.  Test results 1. Carl Zeiss Planar T* 1,4/50 The lens is sharp and contrasty in the centre of the frame by f/2. It has noticeable light falloff at the sides but nowhere vignettes. The quality is excellent by f/4. If you wish to isolate your subject without compromise in the image, choose this lens and set it to f/2. 2. Carl Zeiss Makro Planar T* 2,8/60 C Usable wide and excellent at f/4. For some reason it's hazy already at f/8 even though diffraction shouldn't matter until about f/16. This is consistent at the centre and side of the frame. I always considered this an under-rated lens since the 1:2 macro is darned useful. I might need to try it again to see why the images are deficient. It can't be the need for a hood since the front element is deeply recessed. 3. Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 2,8/85I've reviewed this lens in detail as it's absolutely my favourite at this focal length. It is one of the most compact 85mm ever made and somehow also manages to be an excellent performer. It is sharp all the time while giving that special Sonnar contrast. No it is not an f/1.4 but I prefer my subjects to be in focus. I must say that I am so surprised that this wonder maintains performance even on the larger sensor. Wow. Just, wow.  4. Carl Zeiss Planar T* 2/100 While usable wide open I have always known that this lens benefits from stopping down once. Overall I prefer the rendering to the Sonnar but this is a big heavy lens that I rarely take out. Looking at this performance on the larger sensor it's clear that it prefers the 135 format sensor. Sonnar wins all the way. This was quite unexpected. 5. Carl Zeiss Jena DDR Pancolar auto 1,8/50 MC There's so much hype over M42 lenses especially those made in the DDR. People seek swirly bokeh or special degraded looks. But not me. Every time I have tried one of these lenses I am repelled by the bad build quality, poor ergonomics, and naff rendering. Of course you can still make excellent photos with this type of lens but why be hampered by your tools? This fast 50 is centre sharp at f/4 but its Western counterpart achieves that two stops earlier. The edges are only just OK at f/8. 6. Meyer-Optik Gorlitz Domiplan 2.8/50 I paid 50 clams for this which is too much. It's just hazy rubbish all the time. Of course there might be better copies out there, but other manufacturers have a much higher hit rate. 7. Pentacon 2.8/135 I forgot I owned this lens because I rarely need this focal length and when I do I've better options. Like the previous lenses it was even difficult to get focus since the subject was so indistinct. The one upside is that the lens is rather cool looking. 0. Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 2,8/28 I noticed immediately that this lens has hard vignetting so I did not proceed with the test. I have better 28mm lenses under the name Pentax. Time will tell whether those cover the larger sensor.  Conclusion I trust that this little exercise makes a useful contribution to the available compatibility data. We shouldn't expect a lens made for a smaller image circle to perform at all well on the GFX. Those that did were definitely over-engineered for their time. There are definite winners here:  The CZ Sonnar 85mm has a home in my bag.  The CZ Planar 50mm will need to compete with some amazing Pentax lenses next time I perform this exercise.  If I find two lenses to be similar after this simple test, then I will commit to evaluating bokeh and other characteristics.

A quick Fujifilm GFX lens test
The first two lenses I purchased with the Fujifilm GFX 100S are similar everyday focal lengths: 45mm and 50mm. The plan is to compare these and keep the one that works best. So I immediately went for a walk in my neighbourhood... who could resist! Nonetheless, I return to my bookshelf for this article, since it provides a controlled environment with a variety of colours, textures, and printed text. Test shots allow me to get a quick idea of lens acuity / sharpness at different apertures. While I don't claim to be scientific, this is more controlled than mere guesswork. The lenses Let's start with the key lens characteristics. Both the GF 45mm and GF 50mm have a 62mm filter thread, aperture dial, and similar autofocus characteristics. While the focal length and maximum aperture are similar, they are distinguished by size. The 50mm is the most compact form factor in the entire system, while the 45mm is a more typical size in a system where lenses are huge! I should note that the 50mm has a rather strange minimal stubby hood which functions to recess the front element out of harm's way. The 45mm (pictured above) has a petal hood. Fujifilm GF 50mm f/3.5 R LM WR 48 mm long, 54 mm with hood, 335g 55 cm close focus 40 mm f/2.8 equivalent Fujifilm GF 45mm f/2.8 R WR 88 mm long, 142 mm with hood, 490g 45 cm close focus 36 mm f/2.2 equivalent I indicate full-frame equivalence to aid those, like me, who are coming from such a system. If you wish to argue the relevance of this concept please first read my exhaustive article on the subject. For these calculations a crop factor of 0.8 was used. In any case both lenses are more similar than different when it comes to the rendered field of  view. Personally I enjoy the more relaxed feeling of  the 35 to 45 mm range compared with a typical normal lens. (Note that the GF 63 mm is normal for this system.) Test method For this test I fixed the camera to a tripod about 1.1m from my bookshelf. Image stabilisation was off and timed shutter release was used. I focused manually using the convenient magnification feature. The room had consistent natural sunlight, diffused by the central position in the room, so there were no hotspots or inconsistencies. Though I had meant to hold at ISO 400 I accidentally changed this halfway through the test. Since I could see no difference in image quality I decided not to reshoot since the light had changed by the time I noticed my mistake. I judged this factor to be more important than a small ISO shift. I am not scientific but pragmatic! Any small differences in exposure are due to the camera metering itself, which I had set to centre.  I note that this test is not designed to display aberrations, bokeh characteristics, flaring, or other characteristics.  I shot lossless compressed 14-bit RAW files. All indications are that these are functionally equivalent to larger uncompressed 16-bit files except (perhaps) for the most extreme grading scenarios.  The files were developed in Affinity with no enhancements. But I did use the automatic lens correction profiles since this pipeline is typical. On inspection it is apparent that the 45mm needs more geometry correction than the 50mm but neither show significant vignetting.  Any real-world development would produce better images in terms of desired colours, contrast, sharpness, or other characteristics. This test provides a baseline but not optimal images. I stacked the 11662 x 8746 pixel images and then reduced the overall size by 50% to enhance any apparent acuity. Very few people are going to be reproducing photos at the original resolution so this is a more realistic way to judge results. Then I cropped to a 1000 pixel square in the areas of interest. I had originally also shot at f/16 but I omitted these images from the comparison. It was evident that all such photos had noticeable softening due to diffraction. I am not used to diffraction coming into play so early but... welcome to medium format! To be clear, this diffusion had not yet "ruined" the images but was enough to obscure small differences between the lenses. I would be OK shooting at f/16 in real world usage.  Test results Here are the comparison grids. Click on each to expand to full size. As always, I recommend viewing on a computer, not a mobile screen.  The first grid shows crops from the centre of the image, where focus was also in the centre, on the word "SOUND" in white on the black background spine.  Second is a crop from the extreme left side of the frame, focus as above. For the next two images the focus was at the extreme left side of the frame, or as near as I could comfortably manage, on the letters "THE LEGEND". First a crop from the focus area.  This is a centre crop of photos where the focus was as above, at the left edge. I test with two focus points in order to assess field curvature. If a lens has blurry edges when focussed at the centre and a blurry centre when focused at the edge then field curvature is indicated. This optic could be OK for a portrait lens since it actually helps to emphasise a subject in the centre of the frame. An example is the Pentax FA 43mm Limited which has an incredible render once you learn how to use it.  But for environmental shots, street photography, landscapes, etc. field curvature can be detrimental. If a lens is not sharp at the edge of the frame even when focused at the edge, this is more indicative of off-axis aberrations. Analysis There is very little to say because both lenses are excellent. The 45mm is slightly crisper than the 50mm even wide open. Clarity improves even more when stopped down from f/2.8 to f/4. The performance across the frame is spectacular.  Apparently everything I have read is true. The GFX system is amazing... to the point of rendering such tests moot. Handling A couple notes about handling. When mounted on the camera the 45mm does not quite sit flush on a flat surface. The hood is raised just a tiny amount so that any movement causes it to jiggle, if this makes sense! Never seen this with any other lens and it's surprisingly annoying. Though the lens is significantly larger it still fits in the hand comfortably for shooting. The difference between close focus distances is decisive. One of the beneficial results of a 100 megapixel sensor is the ability to crop in a great deal and still have a detailed photo. In this way 45mm can act like 90mm or more. Often I like to get close to subjects and get a magnified view.  The 45 mm lens has 45 cm close focus, providing 33 cm clearance in front of the hood. This never got in the way of me getting the shot I wanted. The 50 mm lens has 55 cm close focus, providing 50 cm clearance in front of the hood. This required me to back off from a comfortable distance quite often. (An example is the shot accompanying this article.) Of course if you are not interested in getting close to your subject this won't matter.  Conclusion The improved IQ, close focus, slightly wider field of view, and light capture are compelling reasons to favour the GF 45. But the extremely compact GF 50 argues against those factors. I will take more photos and see which is more practical. 

Enhancing the GFX: modes versus recipes
I just published my first look at the Fuji GFX 100S. Today I present a recommendation that would be a huge win for ergonomics and the Fuji community. This would fix a logical error in how these cameras deal with saving and restoring settings. All it would take is a firmware update to open up a new world of flexibility and the possibility to directly share development recipes.  Film Simulations and Recipes Perhaps the most compelling Fujifilm feature across their entire range is the emphasis on film simulations. This allows photographers to save on development time by embedding a look in a JPG file. Fuji calls these these film simulations but a desire for a retro vibe is not really necessary. You can simply think of this feature as allowing deep customisation of in-camera development. While other brands have similar functions, only Fuji have taken it to this extreme. There are no fewer than base 13 film simulation types, plus 15 or so further adjustments. These range from dynamic range to grain size to colour balance. (The actual number depends on how you count them.) I have long been in the habit of developing files on the computer. But considering how large RAW files are from a 100 megapixel sensor, I am excited to experiment with recipes. Websites like Fuji Weekly provide many that you can dial in on your camera.  The workflow consists of setting various parameters on the IQ submenu and saving this to a Custom Modes on the dial. But here I immediately experienced cognitive dissonance. And after only a day spent experimenting, I now understand why. As I will explain, the system is broken. Makes me wonder why no-one has noticed after so many years. Custom Modes All serious cameras provide a way to save a configuration set, so that you can easily switch between different camera states for different tasks. On the GFX 100S (and I presume all the other models in this line) you save settings in to slots C1 to C6 using an option on the IQ submenu. Immediately the placement of this function is misleading, since it is not only the image quality settings that are being saved but every camera function no matter where they are found on the menu. As I mentioned in my last post, the spanner is the logical place for this functionality, not the IQ menu. You can name a preset for convenience... but here's the odd thing. It's almost impossible to see the names you've assigned! When choosing a Custom setting from the mode dial an icon appears on screen to indicate the base simulation... but that is all. Yes, I might remember that C3 is my "tethered tripod" setting but I shouldn't need to commit this to memory. That's bad interface design. There is one way to see the preset name. Once you have selected a C mode from the dial, press Q. Once the Quick Menu is displayed, long press Q and the list of presets will be revealed. But this is only slightly faster than navigating to the menu option... indeed it's slower if the menu was last on the correct page! A further inconvenience is that you can't select presets from the Q Menu. This is odd because other Fuji cameras (X line) allow this. No doubt the reason for this difference is that those cameras do not have C settings on a mode dial. So there is no conflict between different selection methods. And this now gets to the heart of the issue. Custom Mode versus Film Recipe Let me finally get to the point. Fuji have confused two separate things: camera operation modes and development recipes. Camera modes include all the many settings including bracketing, drive mode, focusing, flash settings, etc. And these do indeed belong on the Mode dial. A Recipe governs how a RAW file will be developed into a JPG in-camera. This has nothing to do with camera operations. But this confusion is now an opportunity. So here are my recommendations: Change the settings option at the bottom of the IQ menu to save and name recipes. Provide a means to import and export recipes to the SD card. Now we can share our inventions! Add an option on the spanner menu to save and name presets. Add a configuration option that specifies whether a default recipe will or won't be stored with each preset. (Perhaps not necessary but nice to have, as it supports different workflows.) When changing the mode dial, momentarily display the name of the preset on the rear screen. Add a function for recipe selection that we can access from the customisable physical controls, My Menu, and the Quick Menu. This would list the available recipes with an option to go to the IQ menu for further editing. Replace Film Simulation Bracketing with Recipe Bracketing. All of this could be supported in the cameras we have now. It only needs a firmware change. Fuji, are you reading?

First look at the Fujifilm GFX 100S
I'm only five years late, but here's my evaluation of the GFX 100S, a medium format camera that might replace my Panasonic Lumix S5 as my main workhorse. In this article I will compare salient features. To begin: MODEL DIMENSIONS (mm) MASS (g) SENSOR PIXELS Fujifilm GFX 100S 150 x 104 x 87 880 43.8 × 32.9 102 mp Panasonic Lumix DC-S5 133 x 97 x 82 715 36.0 x 24.0 24 mp Apologies for the blurry phone photo but my cameras were otherwise occupied as models! External Controls and Ergonomics At first glance the ergonomics of the Fuji follows the standard set by DSLR and mirrorless cameras. I was comfortable holding and using the camera. While Fuji have previously released rangefinder style bodies in the GFX series, they have moved away from that more recently. So we get a viewfinder protrusion, a grip on the right-hand side, and the standard SLR-style form factor. The GFX 100S has a top display where we can see the most pertinent shooting parameters. Personal take: Unless I am using a 90 degree viewfinder this is not so useful because my eyes are at the back of the camera. That said, I have set up this panel to always display the histogram, which at the very least is useful when on a tripod. The mode dial is on the left and there is a switch for video, rather than having this option as part of the dial. This makes good sense to me since video is not a mode of photography but a different activity entirely. The dial locks unless you depress and pop up the central button, so there is no chance it will accidentally change. The Fuji has no drive mode dial but instead has a button to display these functions. Again, I like this decision. A simpler physical interface is preferable, so long as it can be customised. Both cameras have front and rear control dials but they are more present and usable on the Lumix. I hope to get used to the positioning on the Fuji but they do not fall to hand in the same way. Similarly the three Lumix buttons for White Balance, ISO, and Exposure Compensation are easier to use than the corresponding custom buttons on the Fuji. The videocentric nature of Panasonic is emphasised by the bright red record button. I won't miss it on the Fuji. Both cameras have a diopter adjustment that covers the range my poor eyes require. On the Fuji this dial also locks: pull the wheel out a bit then it will turn. The overall feeling of the cameras when gripped is quite similar. Fuji lenses are noticeably broader, their diameter necessary to cover the larger sensor. I love the aperture dial on the lens. This can be set to Automatic or Camera control, so it's the best of both worlds, really. Looking at the rear panel the first difference is the LCD screen. The Lumix has a full swivel hinge, preferred by videographers. The Fuji only tilts. Apparently photographers prefer this for some reason... but it's simply more limited. Worse yet, the viewfinder eye cup obscures the top part of the screen when it is folded for waist level shooting. Surely I should be able to frame a shot using the rear screen? This is simply bad design. When it comes to buttons and dials the Lumix is more ergonomic. Though we don't necessarily need the extruded focus wand it is easy to find by touch. While both cameras have a joystick only the Lumix has the four-way rosette, which is very handy for quickly accessing multiple settings. But the most bizarre decision Fuji has made is to put the Quick Menu button way off to the right on an extruded bump. Why? Menu System But the physical controls tell only half the story. The menu system they access is equally important. I think only Blackmagic has a contemporary touchscreen-oriented access system. All other companies are still stuck in the 1990s. I've written a deep critique of the obtuse and limited customisation available on the Lumix S5. Most problems would be easily fixed with firmware changes but Panasonic never bothers. It's deeply frustrating. Though I don't have formal training in the field, I have continuing interest in design, both 2D graphics and interface affordance. I once managed a small software development team and currently teach a university module on graphic design. So I have more than passing interest in the subject. Many times I am forced to wonder why bad decisions get made. Today's digital cameras are complex beasts but the principles can nonetheless be followed. Keep related settings together in an obvious hierarchy, while firmly separate those that are orthogonal. Provide relevant feedback for users. Keep labels clear and provide a second level of instruction. Be consistent in vocabulary, typography, colour schemes, and other characteristics. The Fuji menu follows a convention of having top-level groups in a vertical strip along the left side of the screen. These are indicated as follows: IQ, AF MF, a camera icon, a lightning bolt, a spanner, and MY. I am not sure why these mix icons and typography. That is odd. But it is very clear which category is active since a colour appears and the background changes. IQ includes film simulation and similar options. As expected AF MF holds focus settings. The camera icon includes the self-timer, intervalometer, bracketing, and image stabilisation. Flash is self-explanatory. The spanner allows button customisation, power management, sound and screen settings, and so on. Most of this makes sense with some minor exceptions and one strange decision. Towards the bottom of the IQ list you can save Custom Settings. But these store far more than the image quality options. The spanner is the logical place for this functionality. This confusion between the film looks and custom settings will rear its head again. Button Customisation Fuji allows customisation of much of the control surface, including the front panel button near the lens mount (which I don't use), both dials, the two unlabelled top buttons, the +/- exposure button, AF ON, and AEL. We also have four swipe directions on the touchscreen. Additionally, the dials can be depressed in order to cycle through multiple functions. There are 62 total assignable parameters -- yikes! Though there's a profusion of possibilities, I understood the layout within quite a short period. Of course I have decades of experience with variosu devices. Testing with this camera with a new user might reveal shortcomings of which I am unaware. Fuji provides two custom menus which I leverage to reduce menu diving. The Quick Menu is the most convenient, accessed with that misplaced Q button. My Menu is a custom page on the touchscreen menu. But for some reason the Quick Menu only permits access to a limited subset of the 62 functions available elsewhere. On day one I tried to assign Image Stabilisation to Q, only to find it missing. Recommendations Overall the experience here is nicer than the Lumix S5. But I have on major recommendation: Fuji, please allow us to assign all functions to the Q Menu. I also have two suggestions that will need to wait for future camera bodies... or maybe already rectified? Reposition the front dial so it is higher on the body and angled slightly.  Reposition the Q button and get rid of that annoying hump entirely. Conclusion These are my first impressions. I have edited this article after two days in order to spin off a topic to a separate article. Lens testing and other features are forthcoming. Call back each day for rmore! Use my photography topic page to peruse all my articles.

A personal photography chronology
I've used five different camera systems in my life, but a sixth has just arrived at Studio Ubiquity. This seems like a good time to update my history with still photography. So I've trawled the archives and compiled the following narrative. It helps me to understand the decisions I've made along the way. Perhaps it will be useful to you?You can also read an older version of this article.  Phase 1: 135 film in 1981 Like many folks of a certain age, I began photography using black and white film in the 135 format, AKA full-frame. The context was my studies at the University of Western Ontario in the early 1980s. There I discovered the student newspaper The Gazette, which was published three times a week. Training consisted of the instruction "here's a camera" plus a short session in the darkroom. In those days we had no care for brands. So long as the lens fit the body we'd use it. This could not be further from today's obsessive environment of minute comparisons between models for differences that simply don't matter. But it's worth emphasising that readers/viewers were also less discerning in those days. It's an eye-opening exercise to read books of classic photography and discover many shots that today would be criticised for being too soft, having unappealing focus transitions, etc. My interest was music. I only began taking photos in order to document concerts that I was reviewing. I remember using a Pentax K1000 but nothing much else. Though I do recall being unsatisfied by the standard 50mm focal length as this was neither wide enough for environments nor long enough to capture musicians on stage. Of course I had various point and shoot systems, but it took me decades to get a proper camera. I simply couldn't afford a camera or at least not the system I wanted. My good friend had a Contax with Zeiss lenses and these blew my mind in terms of usability and quality. I had too many other priorities in life to make photography another. I regret this now.  Phase 2: Pentax DSLR in 2008 This is going to be hard to believe but my first photography system was not purchased until 2008. In all the intervening years I was using crappy cameras, despite my strong interest in art and aesthetics. Indeed, I had used one of the first prototype digital cameras while a visiting artist at the Banff Centre for the Arts. So I kept my eye on that technology which conveniently did away with chemical usage, the physical realm of the darkroom, and the plague of dust. The first camera body I purchased was the Pentax K100D Super, followed by the Pentax K20D and Pentax K-X. These are APS-C cropped sensor digital SLRs. Pentax always lagged behind Canon and Nikon for features and usability, but won out on sheer value. Their autofocus lenses were decent and sometimes exemplary. Here's a list of purchases, the most expensive being €400. smc Pentax-FA 1:1.9 43mm Limited smc Pentax-FA 1:1.8 77mm Limited smc Pentax-DA 1:2.8 35mm Macro Limited smc Pentax-DA 1:4 12-24mm ED AL[IF] smc Pentax-DA 1:4 16–45mm ED AL [IF] smc Pentax-DA 1:3.5-5.6 18-55mm WR smc Pentax-DA 1:4-5.8 55-300mm ED Pentax really shines when it comes to their manual focus legacy lenses. Unlike other brands these are generally obtainable for bargain basement prices. This is not because of any optical inferiority but simply because the name "Pentax" does not equal Zeiss and Leica in people's minds. I soon amassed a number of third-part lenses for the K-mount system and even became a bit of an expert on the 28mm focal length. Along the way I compared many different models, as this blog attests. Vivitar 28mm f/2.8 + TX to K mount adaptor Vivitar Series 1 Auto Wide Angle 28mm f/1.9 "VMC" Vivitar 28mm Wide Angle f/2.8 Vivitar 28mm 1:2.0 close focus wide angle Vivitar 135/2.8 Auto Telephoto Close Focusing M42 Vivitar 100mm f/3.5 macro Vivitar Series 1 105mm macro f/2.5 Cosina 55mm f/1.2 Pentacon 135mm f/2.8 Phase 3: Pentax 645N in 2009 I am actually not sure when I bought a Pentax 645N medium format film camera. I was super curious to see what else Pentax had made. For a while I thought that I'd get back into developing. This didn't happen for various reasons. My physical limitations (disabilities) means the large camera is difficult to manage. With one bathroom in the house commandeering it for chemical treatments was impractical. The local developing house was rubbish, ruining spools with basic errors. While I fully support film photography it's not for me! Phase 4: Mirrorless MFT in 2011 In 2011 I made a jump to mirrorless cameras. The Micro-Four Thirds (MFT) system uses a half-frame sensor, hence smaller even than APS-C. Nonetheless it has many advantages over the mirror-based assemblage of an SLR. real-time exposure through the EVF focus peaking and other assists without leaving the viewfinder ability to see subject in low light quieter shooting (even silent with electronic shutter) compact size and low weight Some people don't like the use of an electronic viewfinder. And indeed these must be high quality to compete with the optical alternatives. But the benefits listed above simply made photography more responsive, while also opening up new opportunities (including video). Olympus and Panasonic have released a profusion of bodies in this format, so it was easy to buy a model two or three generations old. My first MFT camera was only €170. Here's my progression: Olympus E-P1 Olympus E-P2 Olympus EPL-2 Olympus E-P5 I strongly favour prime lenses as you can see: Samyang/Rokinon 7.5mm f/3.5 UMC Fisheye Panasonic Leica G 14/2.5 ASPH Panasonic Leica DG Summilux 15mm F1.7 ASPH Panasonic Lumix G Vario 20/1.7 ASPH Olympus M.Zuiko 45mm 1:1.8 Olympus 75mm f/1.8 ED M.Zuiko Digital The Olympus EP-5 was my favourite camera for a long time. I had the 90 degree viewfinder accessory, so I could shoot looking down to the camera held at my waist. But unfortunately Olympus progressed by making bigger cameras with "professional" features. Soon there was no size advantage to the system. Panasonic pursued the video market and left photographers alone. The time came when graduating to a larger and more capable system became the best option for me. But I retained an MFT camera as a tiny option when travelling. To this end I bought the following in December 2024 as my final MFT purchase: Panasonic Lumix GX9 Panasonic Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm F2.8 Phase 5: Panasonic full-frame in 2023 In 2023 three driving factors encouraged me to evaluate 135 format mirrorless cameras. The first was image quality, particularly in low light, since I was shooting lots of gigs... back to my roots! The second factor was video, my side-line as an experimental film-maker becoming more important to me. I would have preferred to buy a dedicated video kit (e.g. Blackmagic) but couldn't afford two new systems. So a hybrid photo/video camera made more sense.  With no particular loyalty I evaluated all available brands to see which system would suit me best. Price was a significant factor. The entry level Panasonic camera ticked all my boxes. Despite more advanced models being released, the Lumix S5 remains the best bargain in the industry. My system became: Panasonic Lumix S5 Panasonic Lumix S 20-60mm f/3.5-5.6 Panasonic Lumix S 35mm f/1.8 Panasonic Lumix S 85mm f/1.8My interest in legacy lenses continued unabated. This mirrorless system allowed me to adapt lenses from brands other than Pentax and use them as designed, on a full-frame sensor. And so I finally purchased the Zeiss lenses I'd admired decades prior! Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 2.8/28 Carl Zeiss Planar T* 1.4/50 Carl Zeiss Makro-Planar T* 2.8/60 C Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 2.8/85 Carl Zeiss Planar T* 2/100 Phase 6: Fujifilm GFX in 2026 I have a lot planned in the next twelve months, including six weeks in Canada, six weeks in Finland, a trip to the Arctic Circle, and more besides. So it seemed the right time to upgrade my camera system to the best available. There's no point missing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The Fujifilm GFX 100S was released in 2021 and sits in the same sweet spot I repeatedly seek. It's not so old as to be redundant but old enough to be discounted, especially on the secondary market. This camera system uses a 43.8 × 32.9 mm sensor size. Fuji calls this "medium format" because it's larger than 135 film. We can compare to other medium format systems and other sensors I've used: FORMAT SENSOR SIZE CROP 645 56.00 x 41.50 0.62 H3D 48.00 x 36.00 0.72 FUJI 44.00 x 33.00 0.79 35mm 36.00 x 24.00 1.00 APS-C 23.60 x 15.70 1.53 MFT 17.30 x 13.00 2.00 All else being equal, the larger the sensor the better the image. But of course other factors are never equal. Here Fuji's second advantage is apparent. The Lumix S5 has a 24 megapixel sensor and Panasonic's best camera, the Lumix S1R II, has 42 megapixels. I was seriously considering that upgrade path, since then I get to keep my camera system and use the same lenses. But the second-hand cost is the same as the Fujifilm GFX 100S... which has an incredible 102 MP. What happens when I suddenly have four times as many pixels in an image? Amazing detail. While no new device will make me a better photographer, I do believe that landscape and urban shots can benefit.  The third advantage of the GFX system is that every lens is incredible. Sure, there aren't many to choose from and they cost a bomb. But they are exemplary. I bought two similar focal lengths to compare and will sell the one I don't use. The 45mm is a bit faster while the 50mm is the smallest lens in the entire system. Fujifilm GF 45mm f/2.8 R WR Fujifilm GF 50mm f/3.5 R LM WR The FutureStay tuned for forthcoming articles evaluating my new system. I've obtained three mount adapters so I can continue to use my Contax, Pentax, and M42 optics. My hope is that I actually don't need to buy any more Fujifilm lenses... I can't afford it! As time permits I will share the results of those adventures. Conclusion: I now have three active camera systems and can choose the best for the task at hand. I hope to eventually downsize but will need a while to become experienced enough to make an informed choice. Every day is a new learning experience. Pictured:Panasonic GX9 with Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm F2.8Panasonic  Lumix S5 with 85mm lens (though all focal lengths are the same size)Fujifilm GFX 100S with GF 45mm f/2.8 R WR.

Presentation tips
Presentations are an important aspect of delivering your ideas to a group, whether you work in business, at a design firm, or on a community project. Besides this you might be a student or, like me, a lecturer. Each year I present dozens of times: in class, at conferences, in arts contexts. Here follow seventeen pointers that I have compiled over many years. Read on to learn two secrets. Shhhh! Creating the presentation 1. Readable text Ensure that your text is readable, even for viewers at the back of the room. Break large blocks of text down into smaller bullet points. You can expand on these while speaking. Some presenters have a talent for extemporising but it might help to prepare separate notes to read for each slide.  Use more than one slide to cover a topic as necessary. Use an entire slide for any important graphics, with a short caption to act as prompt.2. Visual designIt is always appealing to have a well-designed overhead, but don't overdo your page with graphical frills that detract from the content. Legibility is the goal. Applications like PowerPoint allow you to integrate transitions and animations with your slides. Forget it. Visual effects quickly become boring and detract from the material. Focus on the material not the frills. 3. Giving credit How you give credit varies with your context. For an academic paper, it is appropriate to use citations in your overhead material and provide a reference list at the end. You don't need to read that list (obviously) but it will be there for the Q&A period. You also don't need to read every citation. Having these on screen is enough.  Do not copy material from other sources without attribution. That is plagiarism. Learn how to access creative commons material and how rights work. In today's world it's easy just to pillage websites. Be a better person. If you use images as a major part of your work, seek permission from the artist / photographer. If they are being used only as illustration, at least provide a credit slide. As an teacher, researcher, or student, somewhat different rules apply. So long as you credit sources it is often appropriate to use them in an educational context, even without permission.Learn the difference between references and credits. References are for academic sources. Credits are for media assets you used. 4. So-called AI AI steals from content creators, misleads about veracity, promulgates a hyper-capitalist narrative, and consumes the world's resources. Just don't. If I attend a presentation I want to hear you speak and see your work. Not the output of a large grey prediction engine.And don't think we won't notice. Text generators are boring and obvious. Preparing for a presentation 5. RehearsalYou must rehearse your presentation by reading out loud. This is non-negotiable. Text that looks OK on the page does not always sound right when spoken. Rehearsing makes it obvious where the text flows and where it doesn’t. Even for a written paper, I practice by reading aloud. This is my "secret weapon" for better writing! 6. Time limit Time goes by quicker than expected when delivering a presentation. Ten minutes sounds like a lot, but if you are not organised it will not be enough. You need to carefully choose your topics and emphasis. Cover the introduction and context quickly to get to the heart of your talk. Time your practice runs and be sure you can finish within 90% of the allotted interval. 7. File formats It doesn't matter what application you used to create your presentation. Bring a PDF to the gig. If you need media clips, bring these as separate files. Name and organise files so you are not struggling to find your work. Presentation files might not run properly on the presentation computer. Embedded videos and sounds might fail. Don't rely on Pages, PowerPoint, or any other proprietary format. I can't tell you how many times I watches someone flail around trying to fix a technical problem.  Use standard file formats and standard codecs for videos. Never expect to run content from the internet. We don't want to watch whatever ads or political content YouTube inserts into the flow.Test everything on a second computer. Your main device may have customised settings that you long forgot about.  8. Disk formats Operating systems use different native file systems. Any external media (USB stick, hard drive) that you wish to share across different computers should be formatted as exFAT for maximum compatibility with Mac, Windows, and Linux. 9. Backups Bring your presentation on a USB stick. Don't forget the adapter so you can use USB-A or USB-C ports. Have a safe copy backed up in a convenient place online. For years I printed out my talk on paper. Now I ensure that my presentation is available on my phone. Should all else fail, I can present verbally.10. Sound-checkTreat your talk as a gig... because it is. Arrive in the presentation room ahead of time, so that you can ready your work and sort out any unexpected glitches. There should be time allocated to this in the schedule of the event. But if not, arrange with the organisers to set up during lunch, a coffee break, whenever.  Delivering the presentation 11. Address Not everyone has the same outgoing personality, but you should aim to clearly and confidently address your audience. Speak to the audience, not the screen or your computer. Vary your stance. Move around a bit. Speak up. You may not be confident, so fake it. After a while fake confidence becomes real confidence. That's the second secret. Model the person you want to be, then fake it.  12. Introduction Start by briefly introducing yourself. The audience should know your name and topic, possibly your affiliation. Do not present your biography. Your audience can read this for themselves from the conference materials, your website, socials, etc. I once heard a 15 minute presentation where the first 13 minutes was the presenter bigging themselves up. Then they had two minutes to present. Yikes! 13. Languages Presentations are often given in an international context with speakers (and listeners) fluent in different languages. Read at a steady pace with pauses for listener comprehension. If your first language is not the same as the dominant language at the event, take into account your abilities. If your accent is thick you may want more slides than usual so people can follow and understand the written text.14. Acoustics Take into account the acoustics of the room. A larger hall will be more reverberant, so people near the back will have a harder time comprehending. If half the seats are empty, you can ask people to move closer. Take charge of the space. Use a microphone if it is provided. But learn how to use a microphone! Some models are designed for direct address (speaking as closely as possible into them) while others prefer some distance. Figure this out during the sound-check. Have someone sit at the back and ask them if your speech is clear.Don't crank up the volume too high as this leads to feedback. So many times I have heard talks where the sound was breaking up into irritating little squeals. Sometimes you will have control over this, other times you will need to request the organiser to fix the levels. If the microphone is fixed in one place and you wander around, be aware that you might not be heard! 15. Playing media When playing sound or video content, stay quiet. Do not attempt to speak over the media clip unless you are well rehearsed in this process. So many times I see people mouthing words while completely drowned out by background music. The sad thing is, this happens even at conferences full of (supposed) sound professionals! 16. Keep to your time I don't care how interesting you think you are, keep to the time limit and respect the organisers and other presenters. When you are given a one-minute warning, start wrapping up. Don't start a whole new topic. You are not the most important person in the room.  17. Learning from mistakes After you are finished, make notes that will help you improve for next time. Jot down any comments or questions you received that deserve follow-up. Get contact details from colleagues... or get fans to follow your socials. Build a community of practice.  Conclusions Comment below if you have additional advice.

Stereo electret microphones in 2026
This is a summary of sources for electret microphones in May 2026. These mics are a great choice for stereo and binaural recording where tiny size is the over-riding concern. Paired with a small audio recorder, these make a compact setup for field recording and other tasks. Please check out the Field Recording Gear page for other useful resources.  Introduction These electret condensers require a small voltage (up to 5V) in order to function. So your recorder will need a stereo minijack input with plug-in power (PIP) capability. Not all models offer this voltage even if they have the correct input socket, so please read the spec sheet. You can also use an adapter (LOM model shown in the photo above) to power from standard 24 or 48 V phantom XLR sockets. Don't buy a dumb splitter because these will not have a transformer to lower the voltage to a safe range for your mics.  The most popular capsule used by microphone builders is the Primo EM172-Z1. It has also been confirmed that the Sony PCM-M10 uses a variant for its internal mics. Capsule specifications are as follows: maximum input: 119 dB SPL self-noise: 14 dBA sensitivity: -28 dB at 1kHz (±3 dB, 0dB=1V/Pa) polar pattern: omnidirectional For some applications a cardioid pattern might be better and retailers might also sell these variants. Current models Here's the full list of available electrets at retail. If you know of any others, put them in the comments.  Uši from LOM (Bratislava, Slovakia) @ €135 Earsight Standard V2 from Immersive Soundscapes (Nantes, France) @ €123 Clippy from Micbooster / FEL Communications (Surrey, UK) @ £75Available in Europe at Veldshop (Netherlands) @ €118 SO.1 from Sonorous Objects (New York, USA) @ €190 micverve YH713 (Shenzhen, China) @ $72All of these manufacturers use the Primo EM172-Z1 except for Earsight who use the AOM-5024L-HD-R with these specs: max input: 110 dB SPL self-noise: 14 dBA sensitivity: -24 dB at 1kHz (±3 dB) In the past I have endorsed Audiotalaia (Valencia, Spain) who no longer offer microphones. I continue to endorse LOM (Bratislava, Slovakia) who offer superior build quality but are often out of stock since they produce in small batches. So likely you will simply buy the product that is a) available and b) located closest to you. This is because today's shipping rates (and import duties) will swamp any difference in retail pricing.  And what about far more expensive products from the likes of DPA? You might wish to start with my Valentine's Day tests. Links on the the Field Recording Gear page.  Conclusions I am back to writing about field recording gear because there's so much misinformation on social media. Besides, I plan on increasing the amount of field recording over the next 12 months. Who knows what I might cover next! Here's a photo of my two trusty recorders for your interest. Both are defunct and rather decrepit. But both work very well with the mics listed above. 

Field Recorders in 2026
Well, it's been a good long while since my last field recorder update and a few things have changed. So here I am once again, at your service, summarising the 23 available models that sell for under €1500. Read on for the PDF download and my commentary. Updated 11 May 2026 to include the Deity PR-4. And then again add additional power options for each recorder.  What's Changed? Back when I started writing about field recorders there was a profusion of small, high-quality models on the market. Some of these have attained near mythic status (Sony D100 anyone?). But all are long gone. Marantz, Sony, Olympus, and other companies have exited this space. Their units haven't been sold for a decade and those that remain are decrepit. Case in point: Both my Olympus LS-10 and LS-11 have seen hard work and neither operate correctly. A channel is gone on one, markings completely rubbed off the other, controls non-responsive. So I dug out my near pristine Sony M-10 and -- guess what? -- it no longer recognises any SD card. Turns out that's a common problem. You don't need to actually use the darned thing for it to fail. Sigh. Two other recorders were already past their prime when I purchased them, an act committed so that I'd have context for the many articles I've published here (see my Field Recording landing page). Then followed a period dominated by low-end models from Zoom. The experience was one of plastic bodies, broken sockets, snapped controls, and mediocre recording quality. The last couple of years have brought significant advances in inexpensive field recorders. First, independent video has become a big thing. The form factor of these models suits camera mounting or even desktop operation, automated mixing makes the process easy, and timecode is a nice bonus. But the ergonomics are often poor for outdoor use. Who need knobs and dials when a touchscreen will do. Right? Right? The second trend is towards better pre-amps. Now this was a surprise! Zoom uses their F-series preamps in some of their H series recorders. Advertising now actually mentions equivalent noise figures. Amazing! Available Audio Field Recorders In the past I have included defunct models in my summary charts but I am finally abandoning that position. As already mentioned, old units are now so old that they will likely be unreliable. I am also omitting units that cost more than €1500, record only in mono, or which are designed exclusively for videography, live streaming, etc. I have sorted the table two ways. First by volume (cubic cm) divided into the categories Bulky, Handheld, and Pocket. Second, into subjective categories: Choice, Compromise, and Casual. If your choices are different to mine that is cool. We have different goals and constraints. I do not mean to be prescriptive here but am only offering guidance. Finally, it must be declared that these evaluations are based on reading the literature, third-party accounts, etc. and not on real-world usage of all 23 models. that would be impossible! Nonetheless, this summary will save you chasing down every last detail from user manuals. Download the PDF and have at it! Category = Casual In this class I put the recorders with only passable noise levels and compromises in build. If you are recording a band rehearsal, interview, or other loud source then any of these recorders will sound just fine. But for quiet field recordings? These are not recommended. Zoom is the main player hear, flooding the market with a confusing array of H series recorders. The latest models with the "essential" suffix have been upgraded to 32-bit recording and downgraded to micro-SD cards. Tascam remain a contender in this market and two lower-end models are included. I have not added the remaining Olympus recorders since they are primarily for dictation. Category = Compromised These products have low noise floors but questionable build or ergonomics. They are compromised for field recording in one way or another, at least compared to the Choice category. They may have issues like plastic builds, fiddly battery compartments, questionable ergonomics, etc.  The Tascam DR-40XP is a third-generation unit, following the DR-40 and DR-40X. It has significantly improved microphone pre-amps, now claiming EIN -126 dBu. But unlike the two cheaper units from this manufacturer, this model inexplicably lacks a minijack microphone input, limiting its flexibility. The built-in mics swivel from XY to AB positions and the unit surprisingly supports MS decoding. The Tascam Portacapture series are "next generation" (meaning "this generation") units with colour touch screens and convenient preset configurations for common tasks. These two units are marketed towards app users who don't want to think about recording settings. Nonetheless features have not been compromised. The condenser microphones can be set for A-B or X-Y configuration as in their cheaper units. But here the capsules are larger (14.6 mm) and can be detached in the case of the X8. The recorders also operate as audio interfaces with the bonus ability to record over USB (an uncommon feature). The large feature set provides slate tones, BWF format, automatic marking (basic on time or levels), camera in/out with attenuation, pre-record buffer, dual recording, and so on. An optional Bluetooth dongle allows remote control from a mobile app. The unit has been well-supported through several firmware updates. But there's no way I want to use a touch screen in the field. So, yeah, compromised. The Zoom H5studio and H6studio are plastic hobgoblins studded with inputs and (thankfully) real knobs. They use the same pre-amps as the F series, so no worries there. But unless Zoom's range of snap-on microphones excites you, I see no advantage to these bulky recorders. Though I have generally excluded units made for video from this roundup, the Zoom M4 snuck into my list. Though shaped like a microphone it has flexibility given the two XLR inputs. But it is over-large compared to other choices.The Tascam FR-AV2 and Zoom F3 are stereo designed for video applications. I include them on the list because their extremely small size may suit drop rigs. Category = Choice Depending on your criteria, these are the best choices in my humble and not-as-informed-as-an-ideal-world-would-permit opinion. Certainly no-one is going to object to Sound Devices, since they are one of the premium brands. However, the Mix Pre series are not to be confused with the industrial build of the 700 and higher series of professional recorders. They were introduced to compete on the "low end" after the Zoom F series shook up the market by undercutting the competition on price-per-feature. The Zoom F6 and F8n Pro remain the best choices from this manufacturer. The Zoom F6 offers six inputs versus four on the Mix Pre 6, while being less than half the price. The unit is compact and well laid out. What I love is that Zoom haven't forgotten 24-bit recording in all the 32 hype. In that "lower" mode the look-ahead buffer allows for smart limiting... and this works well for occasional peaks. The F6 is also a popular choice for Ambisonic recording with A-to-B format decoding. But the one killer feature of the Zoom F8n Pro is dual disk recording, which guards against corruption and other surprises. You can even dual record with different formats on each SD card. Oh yeah, they are full-sized SDs, not those annoying micro things. But I do miss the lack of plug-in-power inputs on these units. I have electrets and wish to use them! By the way, I own the original Zoom F8, which is pretty much identical to the F8 Pro except no 32-bit recording. Check out the Field Recording landing page for several articles on that recorder. Finally there are two units that I would love to trial. The Tascam FR-AV4 has trim knobs, guard rails, and a rectangular form factor made for a gig bag. The video focus is still obvious, given the timecode support and HDMI sync capabilities. However this unit is larger and heavier than an F6 while also costing 50% more. The Deity PR-4 is the first recorder from a brand known for their microphones. Due out in July 2026 (postponed from May) it has some unique features. First, the internal 64 GB SSD drive acts as redundancy for the SD card. The built-in NP-F550 battery can be recharged through USB or Hirose connectors. The PR-4 not only supports timecode over cable but generates same and can distribute wirelessly. The accessories package includes a custom bag and cage with mount slots for an ORTF mic layout. Now that is clever! Deity have also teased a prototype PR-6 unit with 4 XLR inputs. We shall wait and see! A word to my readers Are you employed by a device manufacturer? Can I offer a word of advice on a new form factor recorder? Instead of wide, make it deep, designed to sit vertically in a shoulder bag. Then all the cabling (XLR inputs, headphone output, power) could be on one side of the unit. In total, this form factor would be more compact than current options, which are nice until one considers the volume of cabling necessary on three sides of the recorder.There would be challenges here in the control interface, since the surface area would be reduced. But multifunction encoders and remote control apps (for detailed functions) could solve the ergonomic challenges. It's an interesting design problem! Also, take a tip from Deity and include a high-capacity standard-format battery inside the unit. That is a game-changer idea. Conclusion This site has no sponsors, no advertising, no kickbacks, no Amazon affiliate links, and no Patreon. I do all this because I enjoy helping you make an informed decision. I welcome comments and corrections.

An introduction to my music recommendations
After my last article it struck me that I don't post music recommendations on this blog. Instead they've all been dumped on Facebook where they become part of that mushy landscape, receding into the past almost immediately, never to be seen again. Given that I take quite a lot of time to listen and advise, this seems somehow inappropriate. Music does not have an expiry date. I am going to change that by going back through my archive. Because my previous advice was never constrained by what was recently recorded or  released. I come across music at hazard and do not have the journalistic need to promote only the new. I am also considering compiling together the hundreds of reviews I've posted on other websites, written under an anonymised name. It seems a shame that they go to waste. But the amount of work to convert the files is concerning. Considering that it's only, you know, my opinion. Perhaps no-one cares. And I don't do this for my ego. A good review? But if you are like me, you love a good review. What this means is that you trust the personality of the writer enough to take a chance on their recommendations. Not that you always agree with them, because such is impossible. Something I feel lacking in this 21st century is the ability to find good reviewers. Basically, they all suck. Because they have no personality I can discern. Instead, they are driven by imperatives I don't find interesting: the need to be current, the need to be cool, and the need to write 1000 words when 20 will do. OK, perhaps that was always the way, back when I read New Musical Express and Melody Maker, and sometimes (ugh) Sounds. But in those days it was obvious. There was less artifice. Or, perhaps, just as much artifice but shared as an understanding between writer and reader. There is no shared anything any more, because all relationships are transactional and fragmented. Why listen to me? Well, if you are already here on my blog and have read this far, the question has been answered. The scope of music I have heard and enjoyed is enormous. I have no artificial barriers to "taste" or any other such discriminant. I might cover just about any genre, from anywhere. About the only thing that consistently doesn't interest me is over-produced pop. But no-one needs reviews of that anyway. Apparently it is ubiquitous. Instead I will focus on delightful surprises that upset the norm... and which hopefully you've never heard of. My reviews will be short. I have nothing to prove, no deadlines to meet, no money to make from word counts. I don't listen to the radio; I don't watch TV; I never see an advert. I live in a self-curated media bubble that allows me to stay aware of the world, but on my own terms. I am as free from commercial influence as possible. In part this is because I can't function as an artist otherwise. In part because my environmental sensitivities dictate this course of action. So if I do recommend an album that is hyped in all the media channels I won't know this. It might happen! Why Bandcamp? I will focus on Bandcamp for several reasons. First, Bandcamp is easy to link to. And you can listen for free, so there are no barriers to checking out new music. Second, they provide the phenomenon known as Bandcamp Fridays when they give up their profit margin. So all the money goes to the artists. I honestly don't know why they continue to do this, but I continue to exploit the possibilities. Throughout the month I wish list albums I am interested in. Then I buy them all on one day. Third, most alternatives to Bandcamp are streaming companies. Their exploitation of musicians is hundreds of times worse than the old megacorps that people used to hate. I took all my music off streaming years ago and use no apps. I don't find it difficult to download files and then transfer them to whatever device I might need for listening. That is absolutely the least one should do for musicians and composers. Fourth, Bandcamp provides music in uncompressed audio (FLAC) at a quality that is indistinguishable from the original masters. You lose nothing. Most streaming services use formats that suck the music dead.(And, no, this is not an argument for the snake-oil that is "high resolution" music.) About fixed media I avoid fixed media as much as possible. Vinyl, aluminum, and plastic all contribute to the destruction of the environment and tamper with the sound in some way. If you wish to collect records on 12" discs of discarded polyvinyl chloride that is your business. But you are supporting the oil industry (where do you think PVC comes from?) while needlessly compromising the sound. (Aside: As I write this as I am preparing some of my own music for cassette release because... well, it's complicated. The music is all about cassettes as a format in a historical context. So I am making an exception.) Likewise I won't hate you for buying vinyl (and you can do that on Bandcamp) so long as you are aware of your choices. But please don't try to convince an audio engineer that this delivery method is in any way superior to the master tapes/files. And did you know that every vinyl album has been through a digital stage for mastering? So there are no true analogue formats. OK now I am beginning a rant. See. I am a reviewer.