Lensational – Empowering Women through Photography.
From Friday to Sunday this week SIGEF2015 took place at the Batiment des Forces Motrices in Geneva Switzerland. This event was organised by Horyou, a social network for social good, where people were connecting and networking, discussing how best to help people with various projects around the world.
Living in the Western World we hear and see selfies of friends and many images of food, autumn and things they find appealing to look at. Lensational is a project to bring photographic equipment and photography skills to people around the world.
They recycle cameras, resell cameras, conduct photography training and sell photographs. They are looking for camera donations from both private individuals and corporations so that they can resell these cameras at an affordable price to those who would otherwise not have access to digital cameras.
Women are then taught by NGOs and photographers about photography and this is seen as a means by which to empower women.
Some of these images are then sold internationally to provide these women with additional income from stock photographs.
Photographs by Marginalised Women.
Photography is a pleasant and enjoyable way of understanding daily life. It provides us with moments or instants from people’s lives. In these images we can see how people live and how they have fun. It is a window in to their world and now that technology makes it possible sharing our day to day lives has become easy.
We no longer require National Geographic, GEO and other publications to show us how other cultures live. We can now gain access directly with these people. It also gives marginalised women an opportunity to represent themselves.
Moonriders – a low light experiment in the snowy mountains near Zermatt.
from Christian Mülhauser on Vimeo.
Gear used:
Sony a7S @ ISO 40’000-51’200 Slog2
Canon 5D Mark III with Magic Lantern for timelapse onlyLenses: Canon 24mm f2.8, Canon 16-35mm f2.8, Tokina 24-70mm f2.8, Canon 70-200mm f4
UAV: DJI S900 with DJI A2 Flight Controller
UAV Gimbal: FTBO G10 (no post stabilization)Handheld Gimbal:DYS HHG5D (no post stabilization)
Gimbal Controller: 2 Basecam SimpleBGC 32bit V2.44b9
This video is interesting because of it’s demonstration of how well the Sony A7S copes with low light conditions. This was filmed with moonlight rather than daylight. We see the details in the snow tracks and we see the snow.
We need to see some more night riding but in a city or in the countryside where existing light is sparse. I look at the detail of the snow which is crisp but I also notice the lack of detail in the clothes worn by the riders. I would like to see this camera tested in a cave where the only light source is a helmet light.
It expands the shooting day. It means that when night comes you take an opportunity to get more footage. Imagine using this technology in the arctic circle where the sun does not rise for more than a few minutes a day or when night lasts for a few days or weeks at a time. It means  that you can film arctic wildlife during an extended period of time.
We tested usable dynamic range of the given cameras. With 12Â stops the usable dynamic range of the A7S comes surprisingly close to the Arri Amira (13.1 stops) with its legendary Alexa sensor (see our full review here).
It would be interesting to see the camera tested in high contrast conditions, for example in valleys or gorges where part of the scene is in the shade and part of it is in the sun. Towns are also an interesting place to see how good the camera is at dealing with high dynamic ranges.
You often play an instrument to help you relax and think clearly
The wind outside howled as it made it’s way up and around the shape of the car parked at the top of the hill. Ahead nothing but the white of clouds could be seen. These clouds had not obscured for long. Just 15 minutes ago you could see the valley below. A u shaped glacial trough with fields and human settlements at the bottom and many trees on the slopes of the mountains. While the left side windows stayed dry those on the right were getting covered in white specks. They were in fact rain drops. Humidity from the clouds was collecting and forming in to water droplets.
The transmission mast behind was a shadow of it’s former self. Although it was still in use today it was far less interesting. For a start line of sight communications had moved from being from land station to land station across dozens of countries to distribute the signal to satellite broadcasting where line of sight was still important but satellites and distribution took place over hundreds of kilometres. Geo-stationary satellites were used.
A few metres away there was a map. This map was designed so that those standing at the centre could look out at the view and see which shape represented which peak. It showed how each related to each one. It’s at this moment, as the collections of peaks and related stories emerged to create a sound that was only now becoming noticable.
“You often play an instrument to help you relax and think clearly don’t you?â€
“Yep†and he continued on playing.
“Do you always bring a violin with you when you’re climbing the mountains?
“Well, when I was younger I’d carry a cello up the mountains but recently I found that it has become too heavy so I’m sticking to the smaller violin insteadâ€.
“What gave you the idea?”
“Alpenhorns! When I was hiking as a child I would often hear the alpenhorns being played somewhere in the valley and as I enjoyed the sound of music in the mountains I decided to bring my cello. Imagine the view from the top of the mountains and the sound the instrument makes. It’s crazy and eccentric enough to be amusing.”
Childhood and environmental conscience in Switzerland
I attended the Green Cross International event in Geneva and took pages and pages of notes. There was a lot of information and a focus to provide COP21 in Paris with a message from Geneva, Humanitarian city to Paris and the leaders present for that conference.
Dr. Somthai Wongcharoen – Founder, Wongpanit Group of Companies (Thailand) made a speech about the company he started in 1976. He saw waste not as a problem but as a resource. Through encouraging people to bring their rubbish and paying for it, by establishing recycling centres around the world he helped turn waste in to commodities. During his presentation the topics he covered were familiar.
That’s because in Switzerland PET plastic has been recycled for 25 years, a quarter of a century. It is an inherent part of my character that I will recycle plastic bottles whenever I can. Recycling culture in my village is strong. For several years now we have had a recycling centre rather than a dump. Aluminium, PET plastic, other plastics, paper, and cardboard are all recycled. So is garden rubbish. The amount of rubbish that heads to an incinerator is now a third of a bag every three weeks. In other words I drive to the recycling centre and drop off recycling in the appropriate places and the waste that heads to an incinerator is minimal.
This is such an ordinary part of my life, as a person living in the Canton de Vaud that I feel bad about throwing away rubbish in garbage bags rather than sorting it. Recycling is easy. I started as a child and continued as an adult. It is nice that it has become such an important part of village life.
It seems funny that just 20 minutes from where I live recycling culture is so much weaker. I’m thinking of Geneva. In Geneva people still treat rubbish the old fashioned way. They don’t sort it. This is an abberation and I hope and want Geneva to follow suit. I want to see more places like we see in Geneva train station. In the train station you can sort your rubbish by PET, Paper, Aluminium or other. This is a fantastic initiative by the CFF and needs to spread to conference centres, places of employment and more. If you sell aluminium cans or plastic bottles you should offer a place to recycle these resources.
I will leave you this video to show how waste management can be seen as resource management.
THE PURSUIT OF ENDURANCE – A documentar screening
For those who appreciate documentary screenings there will be the Screening of The Pursuit of Endurance at the CICG in Geneva. This event will take place on Tuesday 6th of Octobre, 2015 from 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM The event is free and will include a Q&A session.
This screening is happening within the context of the 2015 Conference for a Green and Inclusive Economy from the 6th to the 7th of October 2015.
The Sony Xperia Z5 Compact and 4K recording
On Friday I received the Sony Xperia Z5 compact and so went to film some cows coming down from the mountains at 4K resolution using the H265 Video codec. I then found out that none of my current editing solutions accept H265. For this reason I spent the next day getting beauty shots of Nyon, handheld and in full automatic.
From the variety of scenes above you can see where the camera is well suited and where it struggled. You will see that the camera focus pumped when filming the boat sailing on the lake. I notice also that in the foliage of the trees it had a tendency to underexpose and loose detail. For this reason it is better to take video in manual mode.
Image stabilisation seems to work well and does stabilise the image effectively. As I do not have a 4K monitor to review this footage on I am not certain whether some jitter is due to downscaling or whether it is related to image stabilisation.
At Nyon gare I filmed two trains moving. In one case the train was a direct train and in the second case the train stopped. In the first instance you will see that the rolling shutter was only a problem when I panned to follow the train’s movement.