In my main job (I'm a teacher), a student will occasionally surprise me by knowing a relatively difficult or obscure word. When I ask them how they got to know it, they answer in various ways, but one which crops up now and then is "I learned it from a computer game". The first of the two f-words alluded to in this title is one that I myself learned from a computer game : the word "fealty" (bonus geek points if you can name the game in the comments section). It essentially means a vow of allegiance to a lord or master and, accordingly, we don't hear it used much these days. While I'm not using it in precisely that sense, it's not entirely inappropriate.

The second f-word is "Foveon", which should tell you the rest of the story. If you've followed this blog at all, you will know that I like the Foveon sensor used in Sigma's cameras. Up until recently I had a DP3 Merrill, which I very literally wore out (I can still sort of use it on a tripod, but the main dial is entirely unpredictable and basically the camera is hanging together by a thread). In the interim, I've had an OMD-EM5 (good camera, but didn't really get along with it) and a D3 (hugely versatile but not a patch on the image quality of the DP3, as well as being a great deal heavier).

I may not be the only DP3 fan out there; it's pretty hard to find used ones in the camera shops here (whereas you can get used Sonys, Fujis, etc, easily). Eventually I found one on Yahoo auctions, couldn't resist the temptation, dumped the D3 and my back and shoulders wrote me a nice thank-you note. So there you go : I have sworn my fealty to Foveon. The nice thing is that I now have two chargers and five batteries (which you need).

Anyway. Today's post marks a return to the insanely impressive low ISO image quality of the DP3. Enjoy!

A few "illusion" shots from a nearby river

Finding interesting patterns in harsh light : 

A year or so back, a local university opened up a campus in the area. This is what it looks like when most of the people aren't there.

Bit of parkour for you. It's very satisfying to nail a shot with a camera which is in no way designed to shoot action.

Another nice thing about the Merrill is that it's inconspicuous and has a pretty quiet shutter. In other words, it's great for candid shots.

Colour

To finish, a few from the Nagoya Marathon a couple of weeks back (there's something perversely fun about putting up shots from an event which finished that long ago, especially in this day and age where you can, with your iPhone, take a shot and literally upload it a second later. Nothing against the iPhone, I should add : been shooting with mine a lot and will be doing more entries featuring it later).

That's it for now, but I am (to use an Americanism) "stoked" to be using the Merrill again, so there should be no shortage of future articles.

Thanks for looking!