George Schaub

The Samsung NX200 is a Compact System Camera (CSC) with an interchangeable lens system. It is based on an APS-C-sized sensor and Samsung’s NX-mount system, which currently comprises nine Samsung lenses. The range of lenses will be expanded this year, with the latest being the Samsung 85mm f/1.4 ED SSA, which is a fast portrait lens that supports Samsung’s i-Function technology. The lens ring—which is normally used for manual focusing—can be used for i-Function settings, a very handy feature that can be programmed by the photographer to change various settings right from the lens.

This is a portrait of my Great-Uncle Syl, taken in the late 1940’s, a print that sat in a storage box until last year. Now Syl’s on the web here, shared with family via an e-mail attachment, and will soon be part of a photo book of the family history. If you’ve got boxes of old photos it’s easy to share them too. For those thinking about such a project, and who haven’t scanned before, here are some basic FAQ’s that might get you started.

Human visual perception is a wondrous thing—it allows us to see a wide spectrum of colors, with all the subtleties and shades, lights and darks, pastels and richness of the earth and the heavens. To see in black and white is an abstraction of that world, one that perceives luminance, or brightness, without the benefit of hue. Yet hue, or color, and its shades, often determine what tones, or grayscale values, will be seen in black and white. If one were always to see the world only in black and white it would be considered a deficiency of vision. But to see that way occasionally, and to be able to render what we see in a monochrome fashion, opens the door to different perceptions and feelings about the world, and yields a unique form of expression in the bargain.

Now that Nikon has entered the "full" or FX-format realm with their new D3 the debate is sure to ensue about what creates the best image quality--so-called DX (or APS-C) sensors or the 35mm-size sensor found in the Nikon D3 and former Canon models and the new Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, reviewed in this issue. (The D3 review will appear in our May issue.) These...