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July 2024

Wednesday, 31 July 2024

In It For Love

Darlene wrote, a few days ago: Regarding your sports stories on a predominantly photography blog, let me level with you—some of the photo stuff bores me to tears. I mean, how many times can you read about gear or techniques that were probably chiseled into cave walls by our ancestors? Reading about gear and beginner techniques feels like watching paint dry if you've been in photography for ages or if it was your profession. I don’t mind the other topics, but can we get more imagery? And not just your photos—though they’re lovely—how about showcasing more of your readers' work? Those posts are always enjoyable to read and view, and they stay very well in the context of a photography blog.

I know most of your audience is male, and they may enjoy gear reviews, male hygiene talks (razors anyone? How about Kotex?), sports, etc., but trust me, more women are reading than you think. We’re just generally in the back, quiet and unnoticed—except for me because my background turned me into this delightful commentator.

Made me laugh. Darlene is a friend. "Some of the photo stuff bores me to tears" was not what I expected to be criticized for in a comment that begins "regarding your sports stories...," but there ya go, you never know.

And hey, Darr, some people in the double-edge (DE) razor community are women. They prefer them for shaving their legs. The buyer of one of my DE razors recently was a woman.

And then, a couple of days later, Sergio Bartelsman wrote:

Nowadays I find camera gear the least interesting topic about photography. I use Fujis because it is what I have. I can't care less about brands. If it feels good in hand, and takes the picture in the precise instant you press the shutter, that is all I ask for. There is no longer any big practical difference other than price and Veblen vanity. The days when you could spot any perceivable difference between Leicas and whatever other brand are over.

I can write all I want to about how camera companies like Canon are adjusting to changed circumstances, but what about how I'm adjusting to changed circumstances? I still assume people like reading about gear. Is it time to adjust to changing times? The above are only two data points, but whaddaya think? Is the siren song of camera gear gone? Or going?

Eight lions
I will admit that for me, the combination of high prices, technical sufficiency, and, especially, the fact that increases in capability don't reward me with obvious visual improvements in the result, are making my former happy camera obsessiveness...soften. To give you an example, I've had a loaner Leica Monochrome here for two years (no, the owner is in no hurry to have it back) and haven't been motivated to try it. Granted, part of the reason is superstition. I bought my Sigma FP and had it converted to a B&W sensor, and if the Leica is "better" I don't want to know. I'm afraid it might nag at my mind. I don't need the discouragement. But actually the inescapable conclusion is that I'm just not that interested. He also loaned me an incredibly expensive Leica lens that I once gushed about, in writing, as being the best lens money could buy. In days of old, wild horses, a squadron of Centurions, and eight lions could not have prevented me from enthusiastically running that lens through its paces. I would have had a lot of energy for that at one time. But now, when you can oversharpen any picture with the touch of a button or by dragging a slider, sharpness in a lens...isn't as exciting as it once was, let's put it that way. The lens is not the determinant of the look of the picture nearly as much as it used to be thirty and forty years ago.

As I asked many years ago, when was the last time you looked at any newish picture and thought, "too bad they didn't use a better lens"?

Also, even if the Leica M9 Monochrome is "better," I don't really care. The Sigma FP-m is good enough for me and then some. What I really need is to get out looking for pictures more often. (And stop driving past opportunities.)

Even if times really are changing, and people just aren't interested in new cameras and better specs as much as they used to be, it doesn't really matter that much. Here's the thing: dedicated photographers are outsiders. I've always looked at us that way. We're not attached to the industry; we're not affected by fashions. We're not driven by mass taste. We go our own way. We do our own thing.

Mayflies and cicadas
If you have the patience for one more, here's a great recent comment, this one from Geoff Wittig (whom I would dearly love to visit—I should talk to him about that). I've edited this very lightly.

It's clear to me that we're in the sad twilight of the era of photography as a serious hobby. It's rapidly heading for the same category as ham radio or model railroading: a quirky, shrinking tiny niche, regarded (if at all) with a flicker of tolerant amusement by the masses. I derived immense satisfaction and not a little joy from several decades spent honing my technical skills, learning how to use finicky gear, and teasing the best possible result from large format inkjets, all in service to a goal. That goal was creating the best possible photographic print. I still love a beautiful print, but it has become a niche skill. To the broader culture, photography now means billions of technically competent snapshots captured by increasingly sophisticated smart-phone cameras flooding the Internet every single day, each with the impact and lifespan of a just-hatched Mayfly or cicada. Briefly seen then promptly forgotten. I recall reading Brooks Jensen's prescient comment about this perhaps 20 years ago, when he predicted precisely this situation: a minute-by-minute firehose of images where each was rendered invisible by the colossal volume. And yet, I can't help myself. I still derive some genuine joy from a perfect print of a quietly beautiful morning on the river, made with my own hands.

There it is in a nutshell. We do what we do. Sometimes the public looks on admiringly, sometimes it doesn't; sometimes the practitioners up near the ceiling have status and prestige, sometimes not so much; sometimes hordes of people get excited by the equipment and want to participate by buying and posing, sometimes they collectively shrug their shoulders and say meh. Meanwhile, the people who are in it for "genuine joy" and the rewards of the results keep soldiering on. They can't help themselves. They love it.

Another thing that's interesting is that photography is unlikely to prove to be a generational phenomenon. Younger people aren't showing any diminished interest in photography—quite the opposite in fact—they just won't be practicing it in the way us older enthusiasts accepted as normal when we were young. But then, we practiced it differently than our grandfathers and grandmothers did, and they practiced it differently than their grandfathers and grandmothers did. You can argue that the cultural centrality of music from halfway through the '50s to the end of the '70s was a generational phenomenon; and Harley-Davidsons are generational (Harley is going downhill, with its biggest competition being used Harleys); and just the other day I got "insulted" in a thread on YouTube by a guy who accused me of having a "guitar collection," which I took to be a lightly coded way of saying "boomer," which in turn is a euphemism for those who are old and in the way—that is, entitled but no longer entitled to be entitled. Model railroading is definitely generational, and I know a little about that because I used to work for Model Railroader magazine. The peak demographic is males who were 11 years old in 1950, when an "electric train" was the No. 1 Christmas gift for boys. That cohort is aging out (sadly! Model railroaders are fine folks, with a few exceptions). Photography never ages out, any more than eating, communicating, or traveling will.

The last 30 years have been a roller-coaster ride. But a roller coaster isn't actually a journey. "Real" photographers* aren't in it for cheap thrills. Photographers who go their own way and do their own thing just need what they need to do their work, and if they don't have it, they'll find it, or make it, or see the creative possibilities in whatever is available. And, really, it's always been that way, for the great majority of good and even great photographers. It's like that alternate or etymological definition of "amateur": in it for love.

Mike

*I mean "enthusiast photographer," "dedicated" or "devoted" hobbyist photographer, or "advanced amateur" photographers (which can also include pros, if they also do personal work and use it as an avocation). I used to define that as being someone for whom photography was in their top three avocational interests consistently over time. I don't think most people have time or energy for more than three big, deep interests outside of work, family, and vocation. God knows I've been on many, many "excursions" over the years of my life; currently I am engrossed with the subject of curved manual treadmills, thanks to an email from a reader that I can't even find now. But that will pass. The three I always come back to again and again are photography (and art), writing and books, and home music listening. Not perhaps the greatest list, but that's the list.

P.S. The other issue Darlene raised was more pictures on the website. That deserves a post of its own, though.

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Peter (partial comment): "As a lifelong photographer—I’ve worked for studios, publications, and freelance, earning quite a few bucks along the way—at each fork in the road, I have chosen not to go pro and have stayed a committed amateur. Still, the gear itself is important. It is hard to love my contoured partially polycarbonate Canon R6, but I am gaga over the images I get from it. Appreciation of the technology is part of my passion."

Alex Buisse: "I must say that, as a professional photographer, I take what I can only describe as perverse pleasure in taking barely competent product pictures. It feels wonderful to be allowed to not try to be getting great images, just this one time...."

David Haynes: "I find that my interest in 'gear' articles has greatly declined, although I have no objection when you publish one. I just skip over those that don't interest me. I generally find your off topic articles much more interesting and rarely skip those. I think that showcasing photos by your readers is a brilliant idea (go for it, please). I'm sure that you will receive a wide range of views on what content you should publish, and I'm also sure that you have been receiving those opinions for many years. I expect that you will continue to publish articles on a wide range of topics because you have a wide range of interests, as do most of your readers. Well done, Mike."

Wayne: "My two cents…I’ve always enjoyed your off topic posts as much if not more than your photography posts. Would also like to see more images posted, yours or others. Just saying…."

robert e (partial comment): "Maybe the question is not so much 'Should we talk about gear?' as 'How should we talk about gear?' Sure, it's always been 'to each their own' to some extent, but that doesn't explain why it used to be fun to talk about gear and now it isn't. Every incremental advance in picture quality and usability used to be relevant to many of us. But gear has evolved to the point most of us don't need more such gains, so where's the interest?"

Ed. note: These next two comments came in within an hour of each other:

"[name redacted]: "I used to avidly read this blog/site every day but now I almost have to force myself to look every few days and there have been times when I've thought I might as well delete the link and forget about it. 'The Online Photographer' seems to have lost its way. Such a shame."

Bruce Hedge: "TOP is becoming interestinger and interestinger. Thanks for a great last week or so."

John (partial comment): "[Regarding technical developments] It’s actually a relief that things are cooling down."

Sharon: "I have loved to read all my life. I come here for the excellent writing. I have little interest in gear until I have a specific need but it seems a lot of your readers do. Write about what you love. I love photography but mostly I come to follow your journey."

PaulW: "Although gear reviews are not the main reason I visit TOP, I still enjoy your take on new gear, so I hope you'll continue writing about things I'll never have the chance to try."

David Dyer-Bennet: "While they probably aren't the posts that have most frequently moved me to comment, I think actual discussion of photos (with or without specific examples) are the posts I've benefited the most from and probably also taken the most pleasure from."

Stephen S.: "I don't know if it translates to blogs, but on YouTube, where view counts are public, it's very easy to look up any YouTuber who does a mix of camera gear reviews and artistically-oriented videos, or one that started with gear reviews and then tried to switch to covering art and technique, and see that the view count of their gear reviews absolutely clobbers anything with artistic aspirations. At least on YouTube, reviews of specific gear are the only path to success and viewership in the camera/photography space."

Mike replies: Oh yes, I know all about that, believe me. I've been doing this for going on 20 years.

Posted on Wednesday, 31 July 2024 at 02:37 PM in Reflections, Visual Culture | | Comments (28)

Tuesday, 30 July 2024

Good Pictures With Bad Cameras (and Vice Versa)

Comments are up to date as of 10:27 p.m. Tuesday.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes when people are selling their fancy, expensive cameras online, the pictures of the item can be particularly crappy?

Make up your own joke.

I'd post the absurd example I ran across, in a auction for an OM-D E-M1 Mark II, but that would be mean. The illustrations seem to have been taken with a phone, remarkably incompetently.

I've always been of the opinion that a good photographic craftsperson can exercise deliberate control over any kind of camera. Is there any reason why pictures have to be sloppy because the photographer is using a phone? 

Of course there are two kinds of "deliberate control." One is technical, the other is artistic. Technical control implies that you can use good composition, framing, exposure, etc. even when you're using a smartphone or some kind of sub-optimal camera. More than half the skill of making beautiful technically competent shots doesn't reside in any camera.

Artistic control implies a different goal—that the photographer understands the inherent properties of the equipment and is deliberately exploiting those limitations to make characteristic-looking pictures. Why use a Diana toy camera to try to make the pictures look like they were taken with a TLR? Whatever we're using, we can choose to make it look characteristic of that kind of picture. And that can include deliberately giving up control.

As an example, take a look at some of the Holga wedding photography of Zoe Larkin. Now, before you get your umbrage all ruffled, she doesn't do weddings exclusively with the Holga—they're just a fun little extra. She says on Instagram, "I charge a tiny amount for this as an add-on, despite the high costs of both purchasing and developing film, because I genuinely love doing them...and the serendipity—one might even say oftentimes capriciousness—of lo-fi, point n’ shoot film…but that is what makes it so darling."

Girl in a whirl by f minusf minus, Girl in a whirl, 2007
(CC by 2.0), Holga 120CFN

There's a whole community of people out there who embrace that lo-fi capriciousness. Generically known as Lomography. I don't know much about that world, but here's how the ever-useful Wikipedia defines it:

"Lomography is a photographic style which involves taking spontaneous photographs with minimal attention to technical details. Lomographic images often exploit the unpredictable, non-standard optical traits of toy cameras (such as light leaks and irregular lens alignment), and non-standard film processing techniques for aesthetic effect. Similar-looking techniques with digital photography, often involving "lomo" image filters in post-processing, may also be considered Lomographic.

"While cheap plastic toy cameras using film were and are produced by multiple manufacturers, Lomography is named after the Soviet-era cameras produced by the Leningradskoye Optiko-Mekhanicheskoye Obyedinenie (LOMO)."

As regular readers know, one of my hundred favorite photobooks is Iowa by Nancy Rexroth.

Keep the goal in view
But if you're taking pictures of your Z7 or R6 to post it for sale on eBay, it's the opposite. The fact that you're using your smartphone is no excuse for not understanding flare, focal length choice, basic composition, and basic exposure. A good photographer can take competent product pictures with a phone. Consider that Tika Jabanashvili of Tbilisi, Georgia, photographs for Vogue and uses Apple and Huawei phones. Some of the best photographic technicians I know use Micro 4/3 cameras. And so on.

Okay, I'll say it—the joke is that it's no wonder that seller is offloading his OM-D E-M1 Mark II—doubtless it takes crappy pictures too. His for-sale illustrations make it seem that he doesn't have much skill with cameras or feel for the visual.

I could tell stories, but I don't want to be mean. I'll just say that cameras only intersect with skill and intention—they don't make up for those things when they're lacking.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Stephen S.: "Without an example posted, some readers may vastly underestimate how incredibly bad a photo taken to sell a camera can be. I came across a Facebook Marketplace listing for a camera where they didn't even get the entire camera in the shot. The top third of the camera was cut off in both the front and back photos. The camera occupied only the top half of the frame, and the bottom half of the frame was just the empty table surface the camera was set on. They had even failed to capture the manufacturer's name on the prism, a detail I think would be noticeable enough to warrant framing that would include it in the shot. Why someone would think that photos of an item you're selling that fail to show the entire item would be sufficient is truly beyond me."

Mike replies: Years ago there was an eBay seller who I was absolutely convinced displayed pictures taken with intentional camera shake to cover up minor problems, dirt, and small irregularities on the surface of the item. Although most likely fraudulent, he also had at least a small point, as anyone who has done closeup photographs of objects knows—a camera that looks clean to the eye in person will suddenly be covered with dust and fingerprints in a high-res, well-lit shot.

Ed Hawco (partial comment): "I understand and agree with your point, but I think maybe there’s something you’re missing. Namely, that the person selling the camera might not be the owner of the camera. It might be the offspring or spouse of the camera owner, who has died or maybe taken off on a bender or a wild fling with a tarty waitress and this is the spouse’s revenge. Or it might be what most of us are thinking: the camera is stolen!"

David Brown: "One of my best photographs ever was made with a Brownie Starflash."

James Weekes: "Addressing the Holga issue. First a bit of history. I started using Dianas in the '70s and progressed to Holga when Dianas disappeared. Along with two other photographers, we figured out how to tape them, inside and out, to eliminate light leaks, which were and are 5% serendipity and 95% ruined shots. When I moved to digital I really missed my toy shots. A friend pointed out that there were Holga lenses available for Canon, Nikon and Micro 4/3 cameras. I have amassed some of these and use them all the time. Gone are all possible light leaks, but that wonderful look remains. The color is just as odd but just as 1950s looking. With all the tools available in Photoshop and DxO (I recreate 120TX) and a good inkjet or commercial printer, one can open even larger horizons. Of course, I shoot square. And, you can sort of see your focus in the viewfinder."

Mike Plews: "First, Iowa is a gift. Every serious photographer should see it. I recently took on scanning 300 photos my now 104-year-old mother-in-law took on the family farm during the late 1940s and early 1950s. She used an Ansco 620 and shot Verichrome pan.They were processed at the local drug store. The pictures are enchanting, priceless family treasures. They may become a blurb book for family members. Something about the meniscus lens on the Ansco and Verichrome pan, dreamy images from a lifestyle that is about gone. If I can find the time I may even take a few down to the darkroom."

James: "Michael Kenna uses a Holga. This is a great book. You can read an interview here where he talks about using Holgas."

David Comdico: "I used to turn my nose up at toy cameras but I have come to love them. They break down the photographic process to the basics. Nailing focus with a Holga or capturing a good diptych in-camera with an H35 is a pure joy."

Posted on Tuesday, 30 July 2024 at 11:52 AM in Photographic aesthetics, Shooting techniques | | Comments (18)

Sunday, 28 July 2024

Open Mike: How to Say Kamala (OT)

It's COMMA-luh. Comma as in the punctuation mark. Luh, a schwa (the most common sound in English) with an L in front of it. (Link should open at the 28 second mark.)

Speaking of punctuation marks, here's something cool that I learned recently: two dots over a vowel in English are not an umlaut, but a diacritical mark indicating diæresis—that is, it indicates that the second of two vowels is pronounced separately rather than being "clubbed" (combined) with the vowel on one or the other side of it. (We do that a lot. English is hampered because we have up to 17 vowel sounds but we use the Roman alphabet, which has only five symbols for vowels.) So in "coöperate," for instance, the two dots indicate that the two Os are separated and the word has four syllables rather than three. Nifty. However, the mark is considered obsolescent, because too few people know it or what it does. The New Yorker is one of the only publications left that uses it. They apparently get complaints.

Here's another cool thing. You know the difference between to, too and two, of course, and there, they're and their. Those are homophones (pronounced the same way) but not homographs (written the same way). But did you know there are homographs in English that are not only not homophones, but are actually different words? Words like have, and that, and had, for instance, and a number of others. To clear up the mystery, it depends on whether they're spoken as the strong form or the weak form. The differences in meaning, the contribution of strong and weak forms to the rhythm of our language, and the difficulty non-native English speakers have learning it, are all explained in a video by the exemplary Dr. Geoff Lindsey. It's a delight to have it explained so clearly and thoroughly.

Finally, have you noticed that young people who like to tell us how to speak if we want to be considerate are sometimes the same people who think nothing of being persistently rude and inconsiderate to those who happen to have the name Karen? Just sayin'.

Have a nice Sunday!

Mike

P.S. I should add that when I know someone who prefers nontraditional pronouns and asks me to use them, I do. People should be called what they want to be called. That's been my position most of my life. I had to decide the issue for myself when I was young because I had two cousins who wanted to leave their childhood nicknames behind. Some family members resisted that, and I thought about it and decided that if they wanted to be called "Lou" and "Mary" instead of "Terry" and "Bunny," then I would do as they requested. Same with the more recent changes in gendered language.

The point is to be considerate to people.

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

William Lewis: "Re 'P.S. I should add that when I know someone who prefers nontraditional pronouns and asks me to use them, I do. People should be called what they want to be called.' Agree completely. In the military, I got used to saying 'sir' or 'ma'am' as appropriate to everyone in the context of my job as hotel clerk. I have a friend who is non-binary, who is biologically female and presents as such but uses male (he/him) pronouns and has chosen a preferred masculine name. I get double takes on a regular basis when I call him 'sir.'"

Arg: "Except, as a non-American, I don't think I will pronounce 'comma' the way you probably think I will. Your international English-speaking audience might, if I am guessing correctly how Americans pronounce 'comma,' be better served by the suggestion CUMMA-luh. Hmm!"

Nikhil Ramkarran: "A substantial part of our population (Guyana’s) originate out of the Indian subcontinent, me included. We have tons of Kamalas. I have several aunty Kamalas (aunties Kamala?). No one I know has ever pronounced it this way, though it is undoubtedly the 'correct' way. People here laugh at the American emphasis (or usage for that matter) of the second 'a.' We say 'Kamla.' In fact, the second 'a' in the name has started falling out of fashion as younger people without knowledge of the 'proper' spelling began using the phonetic spelling when naming their children. Just an irrelevant aside."

Timothy Auger: "The correct spelling of the name of the car manufacturer Citroën is a good example of a diæresis. The French say Sit-ro-en, whereas we lazily say Sit-ron."

Posted on Sunday, 28 July 2024 at 04:46 PM in Off-topic posts, Open Mike | | Comments (27)

Saturday, 27 July 2024

Canon Complaint

Comments are up to date as of 2:09 Saturday

I received a complaint recently that I opened the door for a discussion about Canon R cameras but then promptly fell down on keeping the comments current, and moved past the subject before a conversation could develop.

The main problem with cultivating that conversation might be that I don't know anything about Canon. I have nothing against the marque at all; positive feelings, positive impressions, love the results I see. I've owned a Canon in the past, and at one point rented one to write about to try to stay current with them.

Uh, boss...
How-ev-er. The Canon I owned was the EOS RT, which came out in 1989—I bought mine in '91. (As often happens with me and camera purchases, I bought it because it was too cool to resist. In 2020 I named it as one of the ten favorite cameras of my lifetime.) And the camera I tried out to "keep up to date" was the 5D Mark II...in 2008. It's been a minute since then*.

I know almost nothing about the Canon R line. I've never seen one in a glass case, never held one, never shot with one. I could get up to speed with the lineup, but I wouldn't even know as much as the average shopper because I'm not motivated by interest. But, again, nothing against them at all. I assume they are excellent cameras used by a great many expert photographers and a great many happy customers.

Canon r1-small

Canon R1 from the operator's side

If anyone wants to step in and school me from their personal experience with R-line Canons of any sort, I'd love to hear!

Was Ronny right?
One bit of unfinished business: when I named the three types of customers who might pay $6,300 for the EOS R1, Ronny A. Nilsen wrote:

"I guess I'm sort of a forth type: people that need or can use the new capabilities of the cameras to get more or better images? For me the other three types is a bit...odd? Why would I buy something that would not give me more or better images? But it has to be seen in context of what kind of photography one do. For my landscape photography I only need a reasonably high resolution camera, and I do everything in manual mode. But for wildlife and my daughter's horse show jumping, I need low light and autofocus to get more keeper images. My current Canon R5 can do all the kinds of photography I do, so I only need one camera."

I answered: I need to reply to this but I'm out of time this morning....

So here's why I didn't add "people who need the improved image quality" as the fourth reason people would buy it: the R1 is just a 24-MP camera. All the speed and operability parameters are optimized, but I assumed IQ wasn't optimized—like a lot of the other "speed/sports/action" pro cameras that offer ordinary IQ but things like a very high frame rate, no lag, superfast and capable AF, and so forth.

But on (slightly) closer inspection, Ronny's right. The R1 does offer what Canon calls "neural upscaling" that results in a "a 96-MP JPEG in about 10 seconds," so maybe image quality is a reason to buy an R1. It also depends on how one chooses to define "image quality," because a camera that has very good high-ISO performance, low-light AF, and all the other "speed camera" features might indeed offer better image quality, if you define image quality to take those potentialities into account. Which I guess Ronny did.

We can get around the IQ debate by adding another customer type to the list in this way:

No. 1: people who are not price sensitive to that amount of money;

No. 2: people who really want the camera and don't mind stretching their finances to get it;

No. 3: people who make money with their cameras and consider it a sensible purchase for their business; and

No. 4: people who need or can make use of whatever special features and capabilities the camera has. (And can also afford it.)

Things have changed
Maximized speed and operability features don't tend to interest me. But that's only lately. They mattered very much back when they mattered. As time has marched on, digital camera capabilities have reached and exceeded the point of sufficiency for me in all sorts of parameters. I used to care a lot about noise when I shot with the Sony F-707 (4.9 MP, 2001). But I don't care any more, because virtually any top camera these days just doesn't have enough noise to worry about, by my personal standards. Same with resolution and "uprezzing"; it mattered a lot until it stopped mattering so much, which to me was at about 15–16 MP, which for me happened with the 16-MP Pentax K-5 of 2010. Same with throughput, which is fine for me on virtually any camera. Same with high-ISO capability; same with color fidelity; same with frame rate; same with AF. On virtually any good current camera at the "prosumer" level or above, it's likely going to be good enough for me, and I sort of lose interest in discussions of which has the most.

...But that's just me, of course. You have your own standards and your own needs or wants. And some people just want the latest, the most and the best because they want the latest, the most and the best. There have got to be people out there who are enthusiastically comparing the R1's neural upscaling to the pixel-shift mode of some other camera to high-MP medium-format files of a third type of camera, because that matters to their work and they are vitally interested in it. For me the point might be moot, but not for everyone.

Mike

*It's also been a minute since "it's been a minute" was an up-to-the-minute expression.

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Bruce Bordner: "When I bought a Nikon D850 after using a D800 for 10 years, I found no visible image quality improvements unless you really look. However, it's a much improved tool. The handgrip is more comfortable, more focus options are available and can be assigned to buttons, the shutter sound is so nice (snick).... It makes me want to pay attention and work harder when I use it, and that's a bigger improvement than going from 30MP to 45. Sometimes it helps to buy more than you need, to challenge yourself."

Hugh: "Mmmm…I’ve read pretty much everything you’ve written since you started (nearly half a century ago?). So I’m a fan. That’s in spite of the blind spot for Canon cameras…. Shared by Kirk, and a lot of YouTube experts. IQ…. Maybe rent one and print a 24x 36" print or two? The R8 and R6 Mark II have enough image quality for me at that size, and the AF is amazing. Possibly Canon are for people who just want to take photos and aren’t that interested in cameras? They just work, and the lenses are good."

Mike replies: First article published 1987. So 37 years.

Tex Andrews: "So infrequently do I disagree with you, especially given your long career. But I'm afraid that having a camera spit out a 90-something-MP JPEG is absolutely not what I would be looking for in any camera I'd be using for work that required high resolution. The limits of working with JPEGs in post are well known, and with the sorts of things I need high-MP images for, I absolutely want a raw file. After that (and only if necessary, and it is sometimes) a TIFF file. JPEGs are for speed, convenience, snaps, easier file transfers, and other situations where all those things matter more than being able to milk all the possible goodness out of a file. I think Canon was dumb here."

Posted on Saturday, 27 July 2024 at 02:30 PM in Cameras, new | | Comments (12)

Quotes o' the Day: Jay Maisel and William Shakespeare

"Never say you’re going back—SHOOT IT NOW!"

—Jay Maisel

There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

—William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar Act 4, scene 3, 218–224

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Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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robert e: "'I demand that you shoot me now!' —Daffy Duck to hunter Elmer Fudd in 'Rabbit Seasoning' (1952 Merrie Melodies cartoon by Warner Bros.) The important thing is that the advice sticks, right? For those of us who were weaned on Merrie Melodies, this may resonate more strongly than Maisel or Shakespeare. (Of course the best thing to do is shoot it now and go back later.)"

Posted on Saturday, 27 July 2024 at 02:21 PM | | Comments (2)

Friday, 26 July 2024

Two Failures

Moon hunt: Summer lasts half as long as you want it to, and goes by twice as fast as it should. The last robin fledgling of the season left the nest today—I saw it; the cantaloupe are out at Raymond Shirk's farmstand (he grows the best cantaloupe in this, I don't know, hemisphere); and the corn's as high as a man. Summer is fast passing by.

Last weekend I noticed from the apps that sunset and moonrise were happening at more or less the same time, around 8:45, so 8:45 on Saturday and Sunday found me driving slowly down country roads out on the high flatlands peering around looking for the moon. Funny thing though. The air was clear on the sunset side, and the moonrise side looked clear, but there was some distant overcast, far off, that shrouded the moon until it was more than ten degrees up over the horizon. Eventually it rose out of a hazy glow in the overcast into the clearer sky. By that time the possibility of balancing the light had passed.

The next night I did eventually see a lighter glow in the dark sky appear, but, again, not until it was well above the horizon. I positioned it next to a silo near a barnyard where a single outdoor light illuminated a single pickup truck. But the moon couldn't quite delineate from behind the haze, and it was too bright relative to the sky and the rest of the scene already. I tried a few exposures. I have a vague notion that if I understood Photoshop better, I could merge two exposures together to make a passable illustration of what I might have been able to see if things had worked out better. But to be honest, I lack motivation for things like that sometimes. If the picture's not there, no use forcing things, unless for some reason you have to.

Forest bonfire: I experienced a worse failure recently I am still kicking myself hard about. And will probably be kicking myself about for a while. My neighbor Les and his wife, who live on the lake, have a big field higher up on the hillside. Two years ago they hired some Mennonites to clear an acre or two of forest. The land clearers made a great diffuse jumbled heap of trees on the low end of the hillside, which Les told me they would eventually burn. Imagine four or five semis parked alongside each other—that's about how big the heap was. For two years it just sat there, drying out and settling, with grass and weeds growing around it and through it.

A month ago I was driving by on the way to a regular appointment in Watkins Glen and could hardly believe my eyes. The Mennonites had taken all that wood and stacked it tightly in a shape that resembled an elongated church dome. It was at least thirty feet high. The rough branches and twisted trunks were so cleverly pieced together that it looked like a completed puzzle or an art installation. And they must had had a crane. At the very top, they had placed a giant stump, roots intact and weaving down into the wood underneath. I saw it near dusk on a cloudy day. It was amazing. Especially on a brooding overcast night, it looked timeless and mystical, like some kind of Druid offering to the gods far back in the mists of time. I knew I had to come back with the camera, and that it would be worth it to come back again and again until I got the shot.

But did I? A week later, I was making the same regular weekly trip to Watkins Glen, and I passed the huge bonfire structure again—and again had the same thought, that I really had to photograph it before it was gone.

The third week, same trip, I didn't think of it until I was headed up the hill. Then I passed the woods that blocked the view of where it had been, and saw a giant heap of ash that was still smoking. It smoked for several days more.

Ow, ow, ow. That one's going to hurt for a while. Of course, you're never sure if something would have made a good picture until you see the picture. But I'm pretty sure.

What's that Jay Maisel quote? "Never say you’re going back—SHOOT IT NOW!" I could have shot it when I first saw it if I'd had the camera in the car. And I had at least a week to go back. If I had only remembered.

If I make an educated guess about a possible photo opportunity and head out a-huntin', I can't really complain if nothing comes of it. But when the universe gives me a gift and I don't have the wits and grit to simply take what's offered, that's on me. Damn. There are now two great once-in-a-lifetime pictures I could have had since I got the new camera that I missed.

Mike

P.S. I'd say live and learn, but, to say that, you've got to learn.

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Jeff1000: "I completely relate! I was driving my rig, a 2024 Kenworth T-680, heading west on I-10 in Louisiana, nearabouts Baton Rouge. The sun was going down, pulsing the way it does, and the sky was on fire, like streaks of red painted on a pale canvass. I was driving a section of the Interstate that's elevated, like a bridge, above the Louisiana swampland. The swamp looked absolutely evil, like it was under the spell of Satan. Streaming red light raked across the swamp, and my imagination conjured up the scary creatures that were surely lurking under the water’s red surface: alligators, eels, snakes, leeches; heck, maybe even the creature from the black lagoon. I’m sad to report though that I never got the shot: the shoulder of the bridge’s road was just too narrow to accommodate my tractor-trailer."

Dave Levingston: "The moon and sun do that every month. The day before the full moon you often get around an hour when both the moon and sun are above the horizon. There is often haze on the horizon that obscures the moon, even when the sky is clear. And at the moment there is smoke from the fires out west making it worse. Atmospheric conditions are better in colder months, but the amount of time when they are both visible is shorter."

robert e: "The cynical gloss of this post would go something like: 'you can't win for trying, and you can't win for not trying,' but of course only the trying gives you any chance at all. It's just that you need luck, too. Once upon a time, it seemed that every serious shutterbug kept a spare in the car. I don't think that's a thing any more. Is it because the phone is now the spare? Is it because digital cameras aren't as good in that role as were all-mechanical film cameras? I think it's a bit of both. Come to think of it, spare tires are disappearing, too. What's happening to us, anyway?"

Allan Ostling: "Your missed bonfire photo doesn't hold a candle to the shot that I missed in 1995. I was driving a rental car in Tasmania when I spotted an echidna sitting in the road. I slowed, and missed it, but did I stop and take a photo of this seldom-seen egg-laying mammal? I did not, and regret it to this day."

anthony: "True story: Some guy took a stunning close-up of a great snowy owl in a snowstorm in northern Canada which won a major competition 10–15 years ago. He said he had initially taken a number of shots of the owl, and left to return home. After two hours on the road, he turned around and went back (in the snowstorm!), found the owl in the same place (!!), and took the prize winner(!!!) And so it goes…."

Posted on Friday, 26 July 2024 at 10:14 PM in Shooting Skills and Camera Handling, Shooting techniques | | Comments (11)

Wednesday, 24 July 2024

The Perils of Shopping 'On Paper'

Comments are all moderated on the last two posts as of 12:38 Eastern Time Wednesday

Some while ago I decided an exercise machine at home would be best for me, and I researched the alternatives. I always like to look for creative alternatives—following the herd is not my natural impulse—and I came around to the belief that a rowing machine might suit me. I researched the alternatives and settled on what I thought was the best choice. Came very close to buying it one night, but didn't click the fateful buy button, because I'm cheap.

A few days later, I discovered that the health club had a side room I was only vaguely aware of previously, and in the room was...the exact machine I had settled on buying. Same model, same features. Pleased by my luck, I asked the manager if she would give me a brief lesson on how to use the machine properly, which she did.

I then used it for seven minutes. I've had a bad back all my life, and it became obvious (I should say painfully obvious) after no more than 45 seconds that a rowing machine—any rowing machine—could not help but aggravate my back, short term, long term, morning, noon, and nigh-on neverendingly. The other six minutes and 15 seconds were really just to save face. The "painful" part lay slumbering in my spine, giving me an occasional zing, for the rest of the day, and I feel thankful it didn't last three weeks, because it could have. Sometimes it does. You might be tempted to say that I just needed to get used to it, but no, I don't think so; I've been living with my back my whole life, and I was in no doubt whatsoever about the obviousness of the obvious conclusion; but yes, you'll have to take my word for that.

Luke said the other day, "One particular thing about the [Canon] R3: it feels better in my hand than any other camera I've ever held." I used to emphasize all the time that it's important to actually try cameras. You have to use them, or at least hold them, look through them, and click the shutter. You can find out a lot about them that way that you just can't learn from video reviews, written reviews, spec sheets, etc. I don't mention this much any more, because the hordes of shoppers that used to descend on photography websites are all gone now, presumably off happy-snapping with their cellphones. But it's still important: You can't do all your shopping on paper.

The man in the Edwardian suit
Supposedly, somebody in my family three or four generations back used to have a saying about romantic love interests. The story that originated the saying was that a female forebear was wooed by a gentleman who seemed perfect in every particular all Winter long, down at home in Indiana, and this idealized impression lasted until he was invited to visit the Summer cottage up in the north of Michigan. Evidently he prepared for swimming by donning a one-piece Edwardian bathing suit with sleeves, like the one worn by the fellow in the middle in this old photograph, even though it was decidedly out of fashion by that time. (Please ignore the parasol; this isn't a family picture and there's nothing in our story about a parasol.)

Edwardian swimsuit

He also put on a woman's bathing cap as though there were nothing remarkable about it, and wore it in the lake. This seemed, to my female ancestor, strikingly odd. It was a much more conformist era. With that, the rose-colored glasses of her Winter-long infatuation began to fall away from her eyes, and oddities aplenty began to magically appear, one after another, although what those might have been are lost to history. Maybe he used a knife as a fork, I don't know. She ended up throwing him over at the end of the Summer, and that was the end of his chances of diving into our gene pool.

The saying in the family became, "You've got to Winter 'em, and you've got to Summer 'em."

When I was writing camera reviews for magazines, I had a personal standard that I tried my best to follow: I had to use a camera for three months, for my real work, before I would write about it. That lasted for several years, until I realized that using so many different cameras was fracturing the unity of my output. But it was a good impulse, I think. You need to use a camera (or drive a car, or own a watch, or cut grass with your new lawnmower, or whatever) until the infatuation rubs off. Until then, you won't really know what you think of it.

However I can't always take my own advice. A while back, I owned the original (Mark I?) Panasonic G9 for a remarkably short period of time. On paper, it seemed like the perfect camera for me. So I ordered one, sight unseen. To be honest, it still seems like the perfect camera for me...on paper. And I know lots of people love that camera, so no diss. But once I opened the package and got the camera working, I knew within no more than five minutes that it wasn't for me. Why, I can't even say. But I knew it. The exact opposite happened with the Panasonic GX8! I remember looking it in a glass case at a camera show when it was still a prototype and thinking, "I'll have no interest in that." But I reviewed it, used it, and loved it, and it's still one of my favorite cameras. But for my mental FUD about the shutter-shock issue I would probably still be using it, and if there had ever been a GX8 Mark II I would have been on board for sure. Even as I write this, I want that*.

So it goes. Never do all your shopping on paper. You've got to Winter 'em, and you've got to Summer 'em. And if you can't, at least make sure you hold it, look through it, and click the shutter.

Mike

*The cameras I think are sure to be forthcoming never are. The cameras I don't need to be updated are updated again and again until they reach Mark VII status or more, and still they soldier on. The Universe is a trickster and loves to taunt me.

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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Posted on Wednesday, 24 July 2024 at 11:47 AM in Photo equipment | | Comments (24)

Tuesday, 23 July 2024

Open Mike: The Walk-Jog (OT)

Just a modest suggestion for people around my age.

When I was 58 I had a bit of a life experience—I reconnected with a woman I had carried a torch for when we were young. She'd been divorced, and we resumed our friendship, which quickly blossomed into a relationship. She was a runner (ran a marathon or two, even). I had a sudden interest in being healthy and trim, so I tried to take up running again.

I had been a runner of sorts when I was young. Mainly, I was fast when I was a kid—I won the blue ribbon at summer camp when I was seven, and was always the fastest kid in my class in grade school, so I thought of myself as a runner. I ran more or less daily, six months out of each year, until I was in my mid twenties.

When I tried to get back into exercise at 58, I first tried "spinning" on stationary bikes, which was all the rage ten years ago. But it turned out to be like dogs eating grass. I always wondered why my dogs ate grass, because it just made them throw up. So I went to Google, and learned that "dogs eat grass because it makes them throw up." Okay then. Solves that mystery. Spinning made my hips hurt, and I wondered why. Some quick Google-fu revealed that "middle-aged men sometimes have trouble taking up spinning because it makes their hips hurt." Well...okay. Check.

I won't go through all my experiments, but I had all sorts of problems with running, too. Here's the takeaway lesson, tl;dr version: it's better to exercise consistently and continuously throughout your lifetime. Taking several decades off throughout midlife not recommended.

Here's where I ended up after all my struggles: the walk-jog. My big problem ten years ago was that I kept injuring myself. So eventually I ended up walking two miles a day, interspersed with short blips of jogging—maybe a hundred or two hundred feet (30 to 60 meters) at a time. Walking is great, but a little jogging gets your heart rate up, and they think jarring your bones is good for keeping them strong. A little running is good for you even if you can't do a lot. Ten years ago I could easily jog for two miles, but after some number of weeks or months I'd break down (usually a knee). Sprinting for even short stretches, the same (usually a foot). The walk-jog I seemed to be able to do indefinitely. 

When I got my pacemaker in January of this year, I had to follow various rules during a "recovery period." Problem was, I used that as an excuse. The recovery period was only six weeks, but I continued to eat poorly and not exercise long after the recovery period had, um, ended. I didn't start my exercise program until my cardiologist gave me a meaningful stare and said, "you have no restrictions on your activities."

Anyway, I started trying to eat right again, and exercising, finally, last May sometime. I've also had persistent problems with getting into it too fast, because I get all enthusiastic at first, do too much, and then run out of steam. So I started very slowly this time—half a mile out and another back. It was tough at first, and I had to stop along the way to recover (I was pretty sick last year). Each day I walk just a little further. Just a few steps. When I turn around I pick some landmark a bit further on—a bush, a driveway, a telephone pole—and walk to that the next day. I'm up to about 1.7 miles every morning now, and I can walk briskly the whole way. Then last week I introduced the first jogging section—nothing much. 

I plan to work up to two miles in the morning, then start an additional walk in the evening.

I'm watching out for that defeatist mood that also comes over me—when exercising seems like too much of a PITA and a burden. Currently, my morning walk seems easy, and it's over quickly. But as soon as I catch myself dreading it, I plan to cut back on my distance significantly and start up the incremental increases again, slowly. That hasn't happened yet, but I'm ready for it. The point is to exercise every day, not to have to hit some arbitrary target.

I think real walking is better than a treadmill—does anyone know anything about that?—but I'm thinking of getting a treadmill for the Winter. I foresee it being easy to use the weather as an excuse. I belong to the health club in town, but using it has two downsides—I have to drive there, which takes up time, and I have to do all my walking at once. With a treadmill in the house I could walk for a while in the morning, again at midday, and then some more in the evening. Sounds convenient.

I think I'd like that.

Anyway, that's what has worked for me.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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ASW (partial comment): "Your suggestion of maintaining beneficial activities and habits over a long period is relevant for most aspects of life. Want to be a good typist? Keep typing. Want to be in shape? Move your body every day. Want to write a novel? Write a bit each day. The big failures of my life have all come because I kept putting off some small task until tomorrow. I would suggest that it's easier to exercise from home than from a location you have to travel to, whether that's walking out your front door or owning a treadmill or having a few free weights beside your desk. I'm a regular runner to the tune of 2,500–3,000 miles/year. While that might sound impressive, it all comes down to doing a bit each day, six days per week. The tip I give to anyone who wants to exercise, whether it's walking, running, doing pushups, or lifting weights, is to just get started. Walk or run (or lift weights or whatever) for five minutes and if you're not into it you can stop. The vast majority of the time you'll feel better than when you began and you'll keep going."

James Bullard: "Treadmills and other home exercise devices are boring. If you decide to go that route you need to also plan a distraction while you are treading, spinning, whatever. Set it up so you can listen to podcasts, watch videos, listen to music that engages you. Some people read. I can't do that. If you can, that is an option too, but however you manage to counteract the boredom, do it. Lack of activity never makes you feel better."

Posted on Tuesday, 23 July 2024 at 01:38 PM in Off-topic posts, Open Mike | | Comments (22)

Mailbag

Comments are all up to date at Midnight between Monday and Tuesday.

Sorry about the recent radio silence. I've been immersed in the political events here in the no longer United States, from the assassination attempt, to the Republican National Convention in my old hometown, to "JD Vance" popping to the surface again like a cork (I have a whole lot to say about that), to President Biden stepping aside, to the rising candidacy of Vice President Harris...all of it has happened in less than ten days, which blows my mind. Normally when I get "obsessed" (as we are wont to say, inaccurately) with something, I write about it here, but I can't (or shouldn't) when it's politics.

As if that weren't enough, Bryan got me going with Frank Deford, so I've been doing a deep dive on Frank and had to start reading several of his books.

And my current pair of robins are being highly entertaining—they built a nest under the pavilion outside my back door, and I've been feeding them dried mealworms (protein-rich, good for eggs and babies), so they're half in a state of gratitude and half in a state of high alarm that I'm coming too close to their babies when I go out the back door and round the corner toward the barn. They both will dive-bomb around and chirp at me, and they'll sit right next to each other on a pine bough and scold me. This is my fourth nesting pair this year, and I've had many in other years, and I've never had a couple this proactive. I can tell the male and the female apart even when they're not together.

And here on Keuka Lake we've been living in a postcard for the past five or six days. Heat up to 80°F (26.7°C) during the day, cool in the shade and hot in direct sun; nights down into the 50s or 60s; boats crisscrossing out on the lake; families in swimwear adorning the docks; vivid blue skies past heaps of high white clouds. So I've spent a fair amount of time out photographing—and I've had two interesting and instructive failures, one of which is going to eat at me for a while. I'll tell you about those later, not now.

For now, a few comments on recent comments (which are up to date again, fortunately for me—else I daren't show my face):

About soccer, Bryan Geyer wrote: "It was Frank Deford, the notable PBS sports commentator (now deceased) who once said, 'Soccer is America’s fastest growing sport—and always will be.'"

Mike replies: That's funny, and somehow accurate. Maybe it's like the way I was named "Most Improved Player" in ice hockey in both seventh and eighth grades, which still makes me laugh. How far behind was I when I started and how far did I still have to go before I caught up? Could I have won the award in ninth grade too?

Frank Deford was also an outstanding writer, who wrote for Sports Illustrated among other outlets. He authored a wide array of books, more than a dozen, many on sports, a few being compilations of his sports writings, but which included a novel about Pearl Harbor (Love and Infamy), a thriller based on the painting "Venus and Adonis" by Peter Paul Rubens, a memoir that might have been titled "A History of Sportswriting in America," and a touching, tragic, yet somehow still joyful account of the life of his daughter Alex, who was born with cystic fibrosis and died in 1980 at the age of eight.

With all that is available, we probably don't have the book we really need, which would be a collection exclusively of his best articles for SI.

Also concerning soccer, Daniel wrote: "For the inevitable 'it’s called football' people: No, in the U.S., where Mike lives, it’s called soccer. In different countries, things have different names. I’ve never understood the condescending anger on this subject from Brits. In Italy it’s called calcio (the kick), in China, zúqiú. It’s called football in some places, and others have a different name for it. Imagine that!

Mike replies: You know, you're right, and I'm going to make a style-sheet change. A style sheet is the list of the ways a publication deals with various issues of formatting, spelling, punctuation, typesetting, etc.—basically it sets the policy for the way presentation issues are handled. To name two notorious ones, The New Yorker puts book and magazine titles in quotation marks (they should be italicized), and The New York Times refers to subjects by honorifics, which, just recently, led to a snarl of confusion in an article in which they were referencing the father of Thomas Crooks but along the way were also referring to the late Thomas as "Mr. Crooks." All by the style sheet, and believe me, Managing Editors can be very schoolmarmish about style sheets. The general habit of referring to already-introduced subjects by only their last names when there are other people in the article with the same last name tends to drive me batty. If you're discussing Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, it's confusing to refer to both of them as "Clinton." But the style sheet says thou shalt introduce a subject by their first and last names and thereafter by their last name only, and the style sheet must be obeyed. Personally, I go for clarity first, effect second, and let rigid rules go limping along behind.

Anyway, I'm going to dispense with the term "world football" and just call it soccer. I'm a U.S. American and that's what it's PROPERLY called here*. I doubt any English speaker won't be clear about what I mean.

About the newest Canons, BG wrote: "$6,300 and $4,300? Wow. Are there customers for these new cameras?"

Yes, I'm sure there will be.

The way I look at it, there are three types of people who would be customers for those new cameras:

First are people who are rich enough that those amounts of money aren't very significant. They can buy a new camera as easily as a kid buys a candy bar. And how great is that? Power to 'em.

The second type of customer is someone who really, really wants one. After deep focus and study, it has become the object of their affection/fixation, and they will save and sell stuff and rationalize until they can get what they want oh so badly. (Been there, done that a time or two. ::shamefaced emoji:: )

The third type of customer for such cameras is someone who makes money with cameras and feel that ownership of one of these models will aid their enterprise.

Beyond that, I have pondered and struggled, but I can't think of any other general type of customers for those cameras. If you can come up with a fourth type, don't be shy.

Mike

*The TOP style sheet does not allow words in all caps.

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Yonatan Katznelson: "Re: Soccer vs. Football: the English have only themselves to blame."

Larry Wilkins: "I started reading Sports Illustrated around 1967 and had a subscription for more than 50 years. Yes, Frank Deford was a gifted writer, but when I think of him, I think of The National, the short-lived national sports daily for which he was editor-in-chief. I used to get to my office early so that I could read The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal before starting work. After The National launched, I had to get to work at least 20 minutes earlier than that so that I could read that too. I loved The National—to my mind, the perfect mix of scores, stats and shorter and longer reporting.

"Fifteen or 20 years later, I saw Frank in a parking garage in Manhattan, where we were both waiting for our cars. To this day, I regret not going up to him to tell him how much I enjoyed The National."

jh: "Speaking of pricey cameras, I have seen two people carrying new Leicas recently. One was an older well-dressed guy hiking, casually carrying the camera on a strap over his shoulder. The other was a young guy at the Farmers' Market, tightly hugging the camera to his chest with both hands. That's two out of three of your types."

Benjamin Marks: "'*The TOP style sheet does not allow words in all caps.' This alone was worth the price of admission."

Sean: "The Football/Soccer debate is a consequence of TOP's international reach, which we’re all happy about. And let's not forget that the US and UK are two nations separated by the same vegetable, so let's not start throwing aubergines and eggplants at each other."

Ronny A. Nilsen: "I guess I'm sort of a forth type: people that need or can use the new capabilities of the cameras to get more or better images? For me the other three types is a bit ... odd? Why would I buy something that would not give me more or better images? But it has to be seen in context of what kind of photography one do. For my landscape photography I only need a reasonably high resolution camera, and I dop everything in manual mode. But for wildlife and my daughters horse show jumping I need low light and autofocus to get more keeper images. My current Canon R5 kan do all the kinds of photography I do, so I only need one camera."

Mike replies: I need to reply to this but I'm out of time this morning. Hopefully I'll get to it sometime today (Wednesday.)

Geoffrey Wittig: "A few observations come to mind. Yes, $4,300 is a lot of money for a camera. But in constant dollars the Canon 5Dsr cost more when it was released in 2015. This is in line for what high end prosumer DSLR and mirrorless bodies have gone for in recent years. And it's absurdly capable.

"But it's also clear to me that we're in the sad twilight of the era of photography as a serious hobby. It's rapidly heading for the same category as ham radio or model railroading: a quirky, shrinking tiny niche, regarded (if at all) with a flicker of tolerant amusement by the masses. I derived immense satisfaction and not a little joy from several decades spent honing my technical skills, learning how to use finicky gear, and teasing the best possible result from large format inkjets, all in service to a goal. That goal was creating the best possible photographic print. I still love a beautiful print, but it has become a niche skill. To the broader culture photography now means billions of technically competent snapshots captured by increasingly sophisticated smart-phone cameras flooding the Internet every single day, each with the impact and lifespan of a just-hatched Mayfly or cicada. Briefly seen then promptly forgotten.

"I recall reading Brooks Jensen's prescient comment about this perhaps 20 years ago, when he predicted precisely this situation: a minute-by-minute firehose of images where each was rendered invisible by the colossal volume. And yet, I can't help myself. I still derive some genuine joy from a perfect print of a quietly beautiful morning on the river, made with my own hands."

Posted on Tuesday, 23 July 2024 at 12:00 AM in Followups | | Comments (20)

Friday, 19 July 2024

Canon Throws Out Baby With Bathwater

Comments still not done.

People are fine with growth. We love it when things are getting bigger, richer, more powerful, more vigorous, more prosperous. But for some reason we don't seem to be able to handle the opposite. We don't even seem to have many good words for it. What's the opposite of growth? Shrinkage, with apologies to George Costanza? I guess the best word is decline. Whatever you call it, deterioration, decline and diminution throw us into disarray. We're flummoxed by it. Most often, we simply try to pretend it isn't happening, or we act like it isn't. Weirdly, even when we need to downsize—even when something smaller and more efficient would be more to our advantage—we still can't handle it. Even when we know it's coming we have a hard time preparing for it and managing it in an orderly way.

I have to say the following is mostly at the level of rumor. The rumor is that Canon has laid off, mostly in the form of buy-outs, a sizeable chunk of its global workforce, in response to a 5% drop in profits since 2017 and a decline in sales of 3% over the past year. Apparently only 60 people were let go in Melville, New York, Canon's USA headquarters since 2013; however, most of those were in the camera division, and anyway, Canon can't let employment in Melville drop too far because it has to fulfill promises it made to Suffolk County to get public aid for the relocation.

WTFingly, among those let go is Rudy Winston, who was, up till now, one of the most high-profile liasons between Canon and the professional and advanced-amateur customer base. In the USA at least. If you've been around for the whole digital thing, think "today's Chuck Westfall." PetaPixel has a whole article about it. The cynical thought occurred to me that maybe Rudy was at too high a range in payscale or was about to qualify for some level of pension/retirement.

Even if so, that's not the guy you let go. Thom sees the first gyre of a downward spiral:

I've written the following for almost all my career: when companies cut back on key knowledgable personnel that were effective in creating things or working directly with customers, they lower the quality they provide their customers. Lower the quality, and over time you'll lower your sales. Lower your sales, and you'll be downsizing again in the future. It's a death spiral if you think this is the plan to execute ad infinitum.

R8 mark ii

Canon's new Z8 fighter

Meanwhile, Canon has just introduced two new models: the long-awaited top professional R1 and the R5 Mark II. Both cameras are "new" along the lines of recent times: kinda new but kinda not. The R1 turns out to be fairly similar to the R3, and the R5 Mark II is obviously the refresh of the R5, although they've put a lot of new goodies into it. Respectively, the two models will cost $6,300 and $4,300, which struck me as roughly double what they might cost if the camera market were still vigorous and sensible. But, as we know, it was about a decade ago that the "we might sell fewer of them, but we'll charge more" strategy took hold of the camera market at the higher end. About four years after the iPhone appeared.

But...you charge more to goose profits, but then you sell fewer; you sell fewer, so you charge even more; because you're charging even more, you sell even fewer. And so forth. Let's hope not, but that does sound a bit like the kind of spiral that must ultimately impact terrain, unfortunately.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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Mark Sampson: "Corporations...if you're not an executive, you're an interchangeable part. Unless you've been around a long time, then you're an 'expensive' liability—even if they aren't paying you much. I don't know Mr. Winston, or his work, and it's obvious that the upper-level bureaucrats don't either. Luckily for him and us, he'll land on his feet. Best of luck to him! 

Tom Burke: "I'm not sure about this. I wonder if we still haven't fully grasped the existential threat to the camera companies that smartphones (and possibly other devices) present? They are just getting better and better...I use both an iPhone and a Canon R7 for my photography, and I would have to say that as far as I'm concerned, quite a lot of my more memorable recent images were taken with the phone. It's also the case that I can't see myself ever wanting to upgrade from the R7. It's far more capable than I am; any limitations in the images that result are down to me, not the camera. The R7 is ASPS-C, of course, and I can't see that moving to full-frame would, in and of itself, make any difference. And I certainly can't see myself ever affording an R5 or higher-spec camera. Besides, who knows what smartphones will be capable of in, say, five years' time? So while I agree that it sometimes looks as if the traditional camera firms are making stupid decisions, I suspect that we haven't appreciated the degree of panic, possibly despair, that they are feeling."

Thom Hogan: "One thing I didn't write about is the balance of automation/employees. Canon has been heavy into making their products via robotics. That means that the only people you can cut to lower expenses are the ones who market and sell them. As for 5D II and R1, this is exactly where I saw a difference this round: the information available to the press was not as good as it has been on earlier high-end launches. The way Canon achieved the 'cross sensor' focus, for instance. It's apparently a 90° rotation of the masking on certain rows. It's not quad-pixel, nor is it technically cross sensor. It's a mix of masking orientation. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but when the rumors were quad-pixel, you claim cross sensor, and the truth is below that, you start to lose credibility. That's exactly where people like Rudy used to be able to provide insight and manage the discussion."

Posted on Friday, 19 July 2024 at 09:28 PM in Cameras, new, Photo industry | | Comments (17)

Thursday, 18 July 2024

Howard Bond 1931-2024

Howard-1

There's been no published obituary yet for Howard Bond, late of Ann Arbor, Michigan, which surprises me—Howard was prosperous, orderly, and lived with dignity—but I have heard from several people who knew him. They confirm that he passed away of heart failure in the night five days ago or so, at the approximate age of 93. [UPDATE: A nice obituary has now been published, although it doesn't confirm date of birth or date of death.]

Howard was a Contributing Editor of Darkroom Techniques magazine when I arrived there, and remained so. I edited a number of his articles, and we were always on cordial terms, but the only time I met him in person was when we asked him to come to Niles from his home in Michigan to judge a reader contest with two other guest judges. A handful of us spent a long afternoon and part of the next day studying submissions and arguing the merits of various works. Even after I left the magazine we continued to have long telephone conversations occasionally, almost always discussing the world of photography (and sometimes specific controversies) exclusively.

He was a gifted and devoted large-format photographer with a strong grasp of technique. He photographed in what Mark L. Power once called the "West Coast" tradition, the tradition of Ansel Adams (whom he studied with), Edward and Brett Weston, and Imogen Cunningham, but of course putting his own distinctive spin on things. I wouldn't say you could tell a Bond at a glance, but looking at a broader selection of his work you wouldn't mistake it for anyone else's. He never had much of a presence online, which was probably intentional, and has not been especially well served by books; lacking an official c.v. I can't confirm this impression, but my sense is that he exhibited at a high level, enjoyed strong print sales, and was collected by top museums as well as by an enthusiastic following of private collectors.

Working on one of my usual lists (which were, I suppose, a primitive version of what we now call "clickbait"), I asked him who he thought were the best living photographic printmakers. He viewed the very concept askance, although we both agreed on Ray McSavaney. I asked him if I thought he himself belonged on the list. With the sort of clear-eyed modesty of intelligent and gifted people who know exactly what they are about—I'll have to paraphrase here—he said that he didn't think of his work in that way; he simply liked to work hard on his craft, and that sometimes the prints sing and sometimes they don't. I never did compile that list, but if I had, Howard would have been on it. In spite of his possible protests.

Speaking of singing, I believe Howard himself was a singer. He had a great love of classical music; his wife of many years, who predeceased him, was a pianist, and one source mentions that they attended as many as 40 concerts a year.

He was also a generous teacher, as was reflected in his many articles. The articles I remember most clearly were his brilliant articles on unsharp masking, which he did manually using 8x10-inch negatives, well before it was a Photoshop action. He remarked ruefully that what Photoshop did digitally with a few clicks of the mouse took him a whole weekend of work. But then right away he mentioned that he would keep doing it the old-fashioned way.

His books are Light Motifs, White Motif: The Cyclades Islands of Greece, and Luminous Construction, a 70-page catalog.

I'm sorry I can't write a more personal appreciation of his life. I did not know him well. When we judged that contest, we often found ourselves arguing against each other—without rancor, but with conviction—although because of his experience and status we deferred to his views in the judging process as I recall. I think he should be better known that he is. Although I don't think he would appreciate the analogy due to the instrument and the musical genre, I always thought of him as being somewhat like those master guitarists who other guitarists appreciate but who aren't as well known to the wider public, such as, say, Guthrie Govan or Terry Kath. I'm sure he would have found a classical music analogy much more suitable!

There are a number of links to his work in an LFF thread, but I caution you that, more than in most cases, you don't see Howard's work as it ought to be seen in tiny little JPEGs, a form that robs his pictures of the presence and impact he worked so hard to put into them. It's one of the ironies of the current online culture that the photographs with the strongest presence as objects are diminished the most.

The impression in my memory of Howard Bond is of a man of dignity and integrity—of strong opinions (many artists are like that), but fair-minded, and generous with his time and knowledge. He's on another list that I carry in my head: photographers who deserve a comprehensive retrospective accompanied by a book. It's not too late for that.

Mike
(If you know who took the picture above please let me know. It might have been a self-portrait.)

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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Bob Zeichner: "Howard often commented that he was very fortunate to have had several careers. He was a band director and a cornet player. Margaret was his accompanist on piano. She too, was a music educator. Howard also worked as a computer programmer (from the days of punch cards). That career took him to Southeast Asia among other places, where he also made some very interesting people pictures. His final career was as a fine art photographer and photography educator, conducting many workshops around the world and contributing many technical articles to Photo Techniques magazine. He never lost his passion for music and regularly attended concerts in Detroit and Ann Arbor.

"I hope that adds a bit more."

Rob Spring: "I have been a fan of Howard Bond since I came across his book, White Motif, which I immediately bought. His high-key photos of the Cyclades Islands of Greece is one of my treasured photo books. He went back to these islands most every summer from 1984 to 1988, which resulted in a most amazing array of whites and shadows in the local architecture. Not to be missed."

Steve Rosenblum: "Thank you for writing this, Mike. For those of us 'Townies' who have lived in Ann Arbor for most of our lives, it still feels like a bit of a small town. Over the years we repeatedly run into each other at restaurants, concerts, art fairs, classes, parks, and other places. I did not know Howard Bond personally, but met him occasionally through the years in this way. He was quietly impactful to our community. In the '90s when I re-engaged in photography, I joined the Ann Arbor Camera Club for a couple of years (as opposed to the 'Ann Arbor Crappy Camera Club' that I now occasionally attend which is a much more informal group). As I recall, Howard was very generous with his time and talents when it came to teaching techniques and judging competitions in that club, which had, and still has, a formal and useful approach.

"Howard and his wife also very generously supported the Ann Arbor cultural scene, especially in classical music. My wife and I have season tickets to the concerts put on by the University Musical Society which sponsors concerts by world renowned orchestras and artist in many genres, but especially classical music, usually at Hill Auditorium, a nearly acoustically perfect venue. During intermission at a concert there this year I was mindlessly reading through the program when I looked at the listings on the donors’ page, and saw Howard listed under the major donors category for gifts greater than $100,000. I was pleased and grateful to see him listed there, not least because it meant he was still alive as I hadn’t heard about or seen him in many years. Fortunately for us Ann Arborites, it is not that difficult to attend 40 concerts per year.

"I also think that he would be a great subject for a retrospective exhibition and book. By the way, I don’t think it is entirely a coincidence that both Howard Bond and Thomas and John Knoll were from Ann Arbor—you see a bit of Howard every time you click the Unsharp Mask tool in PhotoShop."

Herman Joyner: "I've always had a deep appreciation for Howard Bond and his photography. I have two of his books: Light Motifs and White Motifs. His first, Light Motifs, features images of English cathedrals and it is still first-place in my ranking of black-and-white book reproductions. Those reproductions are as good as many silver gelatin prints and better than most. Astonishingly beautiful book. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to write a high school level photo textbook for Davis Publications called Focus on Photography. Most of the chapters were divided into subject matter and in each chapter was a profile of a photographer working in that genre. Howard Bond was my choice for landscape photography. I interviewed him and Davis Publications arranged to use several of his photos in the textbook. I found him to be somewhat reserved, very polite, and extremely generous with his time. His talent was immense and he should have been better known. I feel grateful to have had the chance to work with him at all. He is one of my personal heroes in photography."

John Krumm: "The Amazon copy of Luminous Construction sells for $300 for some reason. It's still available from Syracuse University Press for $14.95, and I just ordered it."

John Sparks: "I attended a Howard Bond workshop back in the '90s. Seeing his prints from enlarged 8x10 negatives made me get an 8x10 camera and enlarger (although I kind of wanted one before that). It was a step too far for me; 8x10 cameras are hard to master and I got very few photographs with it that I liked. Too hard to carry to the places I wanted to photograph. Howard was a master of the 8x10 camera. He even used an 11x14 camera for a while, but I think he said it was partly a gimmick to get more recognition by galleries. In any event, I liked the 11x14 prints from his 8x10 negatives better than the 11x14 contact prints he showed us (and liked my own 8x10 negatives through an enlarger better than my own 8x10 contact prints, even when they were 8x10 prints). The workshop was right after he started working with unsharp masking. The first prints he showed us were phenomenal! The next day he showed some more where he had figured out the maximal unsharp mask he could make, and I though they went too far. I never tried it in the darkroom, and tend to turn off sharpening in Photoshop and Lightroom to this day. The workshop was a great experience that had a large impact on my photography for many years."

Posted on Thursday, 18 July 2024 at 12:04 PM in Obituaries, Photographers, historical | | Comments (6)

Wednesday, 17 July 2024

Anyone Have Any Information About Howard Bond?

There was an enigmatic post on the LFF (the Large Format Photography Forum) four days ago that Howard Bond had passed away "during the night" at the age of 93, with no source or further information given. Normally, I don't report deaths or write appreciations of people who've died until I've seen an official or (these days, with newspapers in decline) at least a semi-official obituary, or gotten confirmation from a relative or close friend of the decedent. However there has so far been no obituary online, and Howard had no official online presence where the family might have made a formal announcement.

Does anyone know the name of the town where Howard has been living? That might help. My memory from years ago is that he lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but that might be wrong or out of date. I've written to the newspaper there.

If anyone has any information about Howard, I'd appreciate it if you would contact me, here or via email. I won't publish your comment if you request that I not do so.

Thanks for any help.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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Posted on Wednesday, 17 July 2024 at 10:53 AM in Blog Notes, News and Occasions | | Comments (6)

Tuesday, 16 July 2024

Why Do We Like the Sports We Like? (OT)

Comments are 100% posted and updated as of 3:31 Tuesday

I have a peculiar blind spot with regard to soccer, a.k.a. world football: I can't feel any suspense or excitement when I watch it. I can usually access those feelings a little even when watching some kind of sport that few people care about, such as, I don't know, luge, or curling. Obviously I know many people are passionate about world football. People regularly remind me that it's the most popular sport in the world. I have a friend from Maryland who's very into it, although he's terminally frustrated by his inability to keep up with things from the US without paying exorbitant fees for multiple video subscriptions. 

A reader sent me a clip of a sensational goal by the rising Spanish star Lamine Yamal, but—well, I felt no "sensation" watching it. Doesn't move me. A guy makes a kick in the direction of the goal and gets lucky, is what it looks like to me. Four inches further down and the goalie would have blocked it, one inch further to the left and it would have bounced off the upright. I can't believe that he has the athletic control to put it precisely where it went, so I don't see much in it. Even a baseball pitcher doesn't have that kind of pinpoint control—air works on the ball to disturb its flight. But the main thing is that I just can't feel the excitement or the suspense that so many people obviously feel. Weird.

Blind Spot
I've often wondered why I feel this way. It's been consistent over the years. Perhaps because I never played soccer, so I can't feel in my body what the basic mechanics of the sport feel like? Perhaps because I never watched it as a child and it was never the subject of discussion and admiration? Because I don't know the difficulty of what the good players are doing? Obviously the top players must be exceptional, because there have to be huge numbers of people striving to be good at it, and the teams in the top matches must be the crème de la crème. But I can't see it. I certainly don't know the subtlety or the strategy of the play. To me it just looks like they kick it randomly back and forth until my head falls off.

I don't get the game, is what I'm saying. I'm well aware that this is a blindness of mine, so you don't need to point that out. I know I'm just not seeing it. It's my own deficiency. But why am I blind?

I do try to remember this when I write about my own favorite sports on TOP. I know intellectually that many people feel about my favorite sports the way I feel about soccer. (Cuesports especially? I used to think everybody liked pool.) It helps me stay away from those topics and not subject you to them too often. 

One of those things
Why was I drawn to pool as a kid before we even had a table, when there's no tradition of pool in my family or, indeed, in the social class I was born into? Why have I been so fascinated by it for so long? I suppose I can lay my interest in track and field and tennis at the feet of narcissism, because I participated in those sports as a kid. Without ever studying American football, I can tell you with surprising accuracy what's going on because I've watched so much of it. I remember my father watching football on the weekends, and he almost never watched TV. I only played football in seventh and eighth grade, although we played touch football endlessly on summer afternoons in the yard. I remember being hit in the head by the football one night because we had stayed out trying to keep the game going for so long that it got pitch dark. I have a pretty early childhood memory—I was eight or ten—of driving past Lambeau Field coming back from a family vacation. We were listening to the game on the radio, and, as Bart Starr connected with Paul Hornung for a touchdown, we could hear the roar of the distant crowd through the rolled-down windows of the car. Made the hair on your neck stand up. I've had a fraught relationship with American football over the years, but it's easy to see why I'm drawn to it: it's the sport of the culture I'm in.

Maybe that's all it is with soccer: I didn't grow up with it. But my friend from Maryland didn't grow up with it either, and he can tell you anything you want to know about the Premier League like he had grown up eating fish and chips in pubs. Or maybe I decided at some point that I don't have room for it: I put it in the category of "not-mine" early on and have never seen fit to modify that? I don't know. If I did that, I didn't do it consciously. I know some of our readers have decided they don't like sports in general, so they have expanded their "willful blind spot" to cover all sports. And they seem proud of that somehow. That must have been a conscious decision.

Assuming you actually have at least one or two sports you genuinely love (that is, you're not one of those proud-hater-of-all-sports guys), do you also have some that leave you so completely cold that you can't feel even a twinge of suspense or excitement when you watch them? What grabs you? And what doesn't? And, any idea why?

I guess for me it's just one of those things.

Mike
(Thanks to Sietse Wolters)

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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Tom Burke: "Anyone can play it. You don’t need any equipment, just something you can kick. A couple of pullovers can stand in for goal posts; indeed, you can play it in the street (or you could, in the 1950s and early 1960s) with just a single goal. It doesn’t require any special physical form. Being tall can help, but so can being small; Diego Maradonna was 5'5", Cristiano Ronaldo is 6'2". I think it’s the imperfections that make it so attractive. Most of the time, most of the moves don’t come off; players spend almost all of the game not touching the ball, and when they do get it, most of the time they mess it up. But sometimes, just sometimes, something glorious happens. And everybody in the crowd, or watching on TV, thinks 'I could do that!'—because it looks so simple. But of course it isn’t. Any professional footballer is a marvelous athlete; they’re all outrageously gifted with natural skill, and they’ve spent years developing their athleticism and skill; and still they get it wrong most of the time. It’s a very human experience."

Chris Bertram: "Don't get the indifference to what you call 'soccer,' but then I'm a long-time Liverpool fan. Spectacular goals: sure there's an element of luck, but there's also excitement in a forward beating three defenders to take a shot in the first place, a brilliant save or interception, a pinpoint pass, or a wonderfully rehearsed set-piece. Cricket can get me involved occasionally. The sports that leave me really cold are American football and (the remarkably similar) rugby league where dull repetition seems the order of the day."

KeithB: "In one of those 'connections' things, Walt Disney enjoyed playing polo, but his financial backers, fearing he would be injured, made him stop. So he switched to trains as a hobby. He created a ride-on railroad in his backyard and built a lot of the rolling stock himself. He also had plans for an amusement park percolating. He originally thought about a small-scale operation adjacent to the studios (where the freeway is now). Because of his hobby, he decided he wanted a full-scale railroad in the new park, which increased the size of the thing dramatically to several hundred acres. They found a good spot in an orange grove in Anaheim next to the Santa Ana Freeway which was under construction. And the rest is Disneyland."

darlene (partial comment): "I think guys look fantastic in baseball uniforms—those form-fitting pants really show off their legs, and the caps make their faces look even more handsome. It adds some eye candy to my love of watching professional baseball players, besides the strategy of the game itself. But football? It’s more like a fashion disaster meets medieval armor. And don’t even get me started on the game itself—it’s like watching a bunch of armored trucks crash into each other with occasional breaks for a tea party. Baseball? Pure joy. Football? A confusing chaos of padded mayhem. And no, I’m not apologizing for enjoying watching baseball players the same way guys enjoy women in swimsuits."

[Ed. note: For the full text of partial comments, please see the full Comments Section by clicking the link at the bottom of this post or by clicking on the post title and scrolling down.]

Dave Burns: "Of course, there's a famous Simpsons clip for your point. The full clip and the outtake from that that's more to your point. I'll assume you're the American announcer.  :-)  "

robert e: "I watch soccer only occasionally, but it strikes me as a massive performance of suspense and catharsis, and closer to the brink of chaos than most other sports, but for the thinnest yet resilient membrane of consensus and respect. Soccer and rugby thus seem the most primal of team sports to me, but I can only care about a particular soccer game if I have some vested interest going in, like rooting for a national team.

"I enjoy watching sports that are unfamiliar to me. I enjoyed part of a cricket match on TV last night (a very rare thing on US television). It's a sport I'm barely familiar with and whose rules still mystify me (though I do seem to pick up the gist more quickly every time I watch). The match (test? over?) took place in a field in the middle of Texas, USA, but the players and spectators seemed to predominantly hail from South Asia, i.e., Pakistan, New Zealand and places in between.

"My favorite thing about the Olympics is the opportunity to watch sports I rarely get to see in the US, contested by the world's elite practitioners—most all of them people I've never heard of.

"On the other hand, I can't get enough of tennis—a game I've played and loved since I was a child. For one thing, the scoring system—there are no 'dead' or meaningless points, so if the contestants are close enough in level, there are no 'dead' or meaningless moments in a tennis match, no matter what the score is. And it's beautiful—chess with athleticism and physics—what's not to like? Lots of variety and nuance, as well, though it probably takes familiarity to appreciate that in any sport.

"I played a lot of baseball, too, as a kid, but I have a more fraught relationship with that sport and have rarely watched it since the long strike of '94–95.

"I played playground basketball too, and followed the Knicks in the '60s and '70s, but didn't pay much attention as an adult until Michael Jordan's third or fourth season with the Bulls, and then I followed them religiously until he retired (both times). After that I gradually lost interest. I didn't pay any attention to women's basketball until Caitlin Clark's record-busting last year in college and first year in the pros, and discovered that WNBA games are more fun to watch than NBA games.

"In conclusion? There's probably a different reason for why I like or dislike any given sport at any given time."

Curt Gerston: "I can’t resist commenting on that shot from Lamine Yamal (not to try to change your mind, which I respect, but since you brought it up): I was watching that game (high stakes tournament soccer is my favorite), and I literally yelled as I jumped from my seat. You’re sort of right that he was a little lucky it went in at that exact spot, but also a player has to have tremendous skill to get clear of the defense, remain balanced, kick it at speed with the right pace and spin to even give it a chance to hit that location. Yes, most shots will hit the post or be saved by the keeper, so you have to try with all the skill you have and when that little bit of luck helps out, oh the joy! It’s hard to score in soccer.

"The other thing to enjoy about Yamal’s shot is that in that moment, his life changed. We witnessed something historic. Not every goal will do that of course, but every once in a while in this (and every sport) a moment comes and changes the course of a career, a team, or in this case, a country. They’ll be talking about that goal in Spain forever. That’s why we watch sports, for that magical moment, and to recognize it when it comes."

psu: "I never quite figured out how to watch soccer until I ended up spending around eight weeks at home after some wrist surgery during the 2022 World Cup which then led right into the Premiere League season. I think one reason Americans have trouble with soccer is that most of our interaction with it is via the international game (World Cup, Olympics, etc) which is very different than the 'club' leagues. I found Premiere League games to be much more active and aggressive, and the league itself to be full of NFL level between-game drama. With this involuntary deep immersion, I kind of figured out the how the rhythm of the game works, even if it still seems like they never score.

"Also the very best thing is the fact that the games play in the morning and early afternoon and never last more than two hours. But, it's still true that the game is more about the flow back and forth, and mostly failing to score even when you have good chances to. So if that drives you crazy there is nothing that will help."

Posted on Tuesday, 16 July 2024 at 09:33 AM in Off-topic posts | | Comments (41)

Saturday, 13 July 2024

THE SHOWDOWN (OT)

People—tomorrow—Breakfast at Wimbledon—epic, epic, epic—

37 years old vs. 21 years old—

The guy with the best resumé in tennis history against a kid of college age who is going for his fourth major championship—as many or more as some Hall of Famers (Jack Kramer, Guillermo Vilas, Arthur Ashe, Jim Courier) have in their entire careers.

Djokovic is going for his 25th major, which would break his tie with Margaret Court for most majors by a singles player all-time, and his eighth Wimbledon singles title, which would tie Roger Federer for most ever. Yet this is his first final of 2024.

It's a rematch: Alcaraz won last year, at age 20—

It's the most expensive sporting event in history. Any sport. $10,600 for the cheapest TickPick ticket that will get you in the door today.

If you watch only one tennis match this year, today's the day—!

Mike

UPDATE: I've opened the comments again. I know a lot of you were much more concerned with the biennial [CORRECTION: It happens every four years, in between World Cups] Euro 2024 Final today. What a glorious day for Spain and Spanish sports—congratulations to any Spaniards in our audience. Must have been great fun. And condolences to those in Britain. [CORRECTION: to the fans and followers of whatever country, area, region, realm, state, or entity that lost, whoever they are. They know.]

In contrast to last year, which was a tight, close, and long match, Carlos Alcaraz calmly wiped Centre Court with Novak Djokovic in a dominating straight-sets win that took only two hours and 28 minutes, in contrast to four hours and 42 minutes a year ago. Only the third set was close as the aging champion struggled to stay alive. Carlos squandered several match points yet recovered his equilibrium to triumph in the tiebreaker, not losing his composure or backing down.

If you don't watch tennis, try this short video compilation of highlights from last year's U.S. Open for a taste of what all the fuss is about. The kid is amazing.

A few changes after Carlos Alcaraz's win:

  • He is now 4–0 in major championship finals. That's second-best only to Roger Federer, who started his career 7–0 in major finals, a mark that is likely to last forever.
  • His record is 6–0 against top-5 opponents in 2024. 
  • He is one of only five men in the open era (since 1968) to achieve the notoriously difficult channel double, meaning winning the French on clay followed closely by a victory at Wimbledon on grass.
  • He's the youngest man ever to win the channel double. H was already the youngest man ever to win majors on all three surfaces—hard court, grass, and clay.
  • Today he become one of only nine men in the open era (and the first Spaniard) to win Wimbledon twice or more in succession (the record, held jointly by Bjorn Borg and Roger Federer, is five in a row).

For a bonus, he has either three or four years left to win an Australian Open and become the youngest man ever to win the "career grand slam," meaning all four major championships across a career, which only five male players have ever achieved. (He hasn't done this one yet; just thought I'd throw it in.)

Oddly, when the new rankings come out, despite the fact that Alcaraz has won the last two major championships and Djokovic hasn't won a single tournament all year, Alcaraz will remain third in the rankings, behind Djokovic. Seems a little...off.

Hope you had a nice Sunday, whatever you watched!

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

s.wolters: "The Difference between the UK, Great Britain & England Explained. Thirteen years old, needs an update, but still funny...."

Mike replies: Thanks for that link! I was looking for that. I even posted it on the blog years ago. So funny that he has to talk so fast. It does need updating now (naturally!), but you're right, it's still a YouTube classic.

Sean: "To illustrate the rivalry between Scotland and England: the editor of a Scottish newspaper has been forced to apologise for what some consider to be xenophobic stereotyping of England fans on their front page."

Posted on Saturday, 13 July 2024 at 10:00 PM | | Comments (18)

Friday, 12 July 2024

Open Mike: Getting Worried About Kirk (OT)

Past comments are 100% moderated at 2:54 p.m. Friday

Porsche

So Kirk Tuck took Visual Science Lab (VSL) down this morning and stopped blogging once and for all. And has celebrated this by...starting another blog. Don't point this out to him. Maybe he'll just keep going.

I was worried about one thing, though. Seems he rebelled against having had to drive utilitarian SUVs all these years because he needed them to transport photo gear to jobs. So he got a wild hair and decided to throw caution to the winds and buy a completely impractical, sporty car to celebrate his retirement. And he bought...a Subaru Legacy. With a "Sport" badge on the back.

Which inspired me to leave this comment on his new blog:

Disqualification. Accords, Legacys, and Camrys neither qualify as "sporty" nor as adequate retirement cars. Take it back. You may buy: BRZ, GR Corolla (look into it before you laugh), Miata, Corvette, any convertible, Boxster or any non-SUV Porsche, BMW Z4, F-Type, any car that scares Belinda, Nissan Z, Lexus LC. No WRX since they discontinued the STI. Integra Type S, Golf R.

A Legacy is like letting your hair down 1/8th inch. Insufficient to trigger retirement mode. Unless you a.) grow sadness beard b.) take a bong. [Sexist comment about hotties asking for rides deleted.]

You may keep the Legacy ONLY if you TEST DRIVE all the other cars without falling for one. C'mon, you could blog about each experience, with pics.

—Mike, from the wilds of Central New York where the coolest ride in town is this really rad and bitchin' Mennonite buggy. Seriously, there's this young Mennonite guy with a Concours-quality buggy. Every inch of it is perfect. He probably has to beat off the slim young things in bonnets and ankle-length dresses. His horse is so young and sleek and high-steppin' it could win ribbons. He must be the John Milner of the Anabaptist set. The whole rig is as perfect as the best '32 Ford at the local hot rod show. Which is Sept. 21 at the Windmill.

Kirk replied:

DeleteMike, I will let Belinda know that you have approved the purchase of the Porsche Carrera S Turbo I've been researching. One of my swim coaches has one and she loves it. If the purchase causes domestic issues I'll be sure to send her your way so you can sort it all out for me. Thanks!

Now that's a retirement car. Approved!

I merely pointed out that Belinda has apparently never complained about the vast camera arsenal he has amassed over the years. (If she has, it probably explains why she has short hair. She's torn the rest of it out.) I think any wife who tolerates all those cameras would nod understandingly about a Porsche.

Well, one Porsche. If he starts collecting them like Jerry Seinfeld it's possible he might indeed have a problem.

Mike

P.S. If you decided to buy a play car to celebrate retirement or some other happy milestone, what would it be?

I'd just get another Miata. I can't answer the question beyond that because I've only ever considered cars that are vaguely within my budget and lifestyle, or at least not so far above it that they qualify as pure fantasy. So I've never test-driven expensive cars. I did drive two BMW 1-Series coupes when they came out in the 2000s, and I've driven a Boxster twice, once at "Porsche Day" at a local car dealer when I got to make two laps of an autocross course with the head instructor from the Porsche driving school, no less. And just recently I got to test drive the Integra Type S, which I loved except for the fact that the center stack digs into my right leg in a way I don't think I could live with. But by and large I don't test drive fancy cars so I don't know what I might like. And Mike the car enthusiast is fast approaching his sell-by date.

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Jon Schick: "Very much like the MX-5 (as the Miata is known as here in the UK) and its Fiat 124 cousin, but they're too small for 6'3" me. I am planning a retirement Euro road trip through France and Italy to Sicily next year though, and think I 'need' a car to make it worthwhile. Top of the shortlist at the moment is a Morgan 4/4, not least because—aside from putting a smile on your face as soon as you sit in it—they're basically simple, rugged, cheap to run, and keep their value. Not like their Plus 6 or Plus 8 siblings which are out of my price range or interest. Like an aging Leica I'd probably be able to sell it later for the purchase price, if not more...."

Mike replies: I'll add the link for you. And I hear you on size: I'm 6'1" and 250 lbs., and figure I'm as big as I can possibly be and still wedge myself into a Miata. Maybe I could be a touch thicker, but no taller. The peak of my pate gets just a mite too far into the slipstream as it is.

Gunny: "Mustang (not Mach-E)."

Mike replies: Only if it's a V8. The V6 is too sensible.

David Brown: "For years, I told family and friends that they would know that I had reached my mid-life crisis when I bought the Corvette. Well, it wasn’t a ‘Vette, it was a Cadillac Allante (remember them?). Great car when it wasn’t in the shop. And, of course, Cadillac could not get parts for all the Italian bits, which, of course, were what continually failed. I traded that car for a BMW 5-Series. Great car when it wasn’t in the shop. Traded the Beemer for a Honda Accord. Another Honda and three Subarus later, I am more than well retired, and my cars start every day! Leave Kirk alone!"

Bryan William Jones: "I found a used 2006 Cayman for my mid-life crisis car. It had been set up as a track car and needed new wheels, brakes, clutch, headlights and taillights, but the price was right and it is the closest thing to a street legal go-kart as there is, and brings a smile to my face every time I drive it."

Rob L.: "I discovered with rental cars that I really hate driving Mustangs and Camaros, and loved the Miata in both its native and Fiat forms—as long as the roof is off.) But my speed is more a Bronco or Wrangler to go bang around dirt trails on; nothing too technical but something fun to get dirt in your face with—a different version of 'going fast slowly.'"

Jeff Pressman: "I notice you didn't suggest any EVs. My retirement car is a Tesla Model 3. It's amazingly fast, the acceleration is instantaneous, and with AWD handles extremely well. It does have a roof, however, which suits me just fine. And the sound system is fantastic!"

JoeB: "Clearly you have no idea how much fun a Subaru WRX is to drive. No need for the STI model at all. I suggest you might test drive one (if there is a dealership in the backwoods you live in. Don't take offence—I also live in a rather out of the mainstream location) rather than doing a quickly assembled list from web 'influencers.'"

Richard Tugwell: "I like the fact that Kirk has multiple swim coaches."

Posted on Friday, 12 July 2024 at 10:07 AM | | Comments (55)

Thursday, 11 July 2024

Collect Every New Film Renaissance Camera There Is

It just occurred to me that you could collect every camera of the Post-COVID film renaissance! All you need is a Pentax 17 and a pile of cash at the ready, since there's only been the one so far.

Might end up being a small collection, who knows. But apparently the Pentax 17 sold out in two days in Japan and Ricoh stopped taking orders because it foresees having trouble ramping up production. Reminds me of the Fuji X100 launch thirteen years ago. And that turned out to be the harbinger of great and significant things to come. So who knows.

Confession time, and this ain't pretty
My problem these days is that I'm having trouble stirring up enthusiasm for any camera. I'm not going to go back to film, but I can't get excited about any digital camera except the good ones, but I'm not going to pay umpteen thousand for a digital camera that shoots color when I conceive of my "real" work as being in black-and-white. When I find a camera I like, I'm not wild about the lenses for it (oh, am I looking at you, A6600), and when I find lenses that look good, I'm not wild about the cameras they fit on, or...it's always something. There's always something there that seems to douse my jones like a bucket of seawater on the smouldering coals of a spent bonfire at the beach.

In some ways this is like the anti-2013...in that year so long ago, I got so over-excited about the succession of glorious new cameras tumbling out of the horn of plenty that I felt I had to buy three brand-new cameras in close succession, none of which I actually needed, just because they were all just...so...damn...cool. And beautiful. Too beautiful and cool to resist. Not that it matters, but the three were the Panasomic GX7 (August 2013), the Olympus OM-D E-M1 (Sept. '13), and the Fujifilm X-T1 (Jan. 2014). All three were all-new designs, never before seen, and I had to have 'em. I was tetched in the head. Fatally attracted. Now it's the opposite. I'm like, Dude, I got my axe. That's all I need.

Anybody else having that problem these days? It's probably just me.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Anthony Gravett: "I understand the lure of cameras that are both innovative and beautiful, but somehow my aging brain has instead stripped things down to a proficient camera that has a 'beautiful' lens system. It’s a cliché to talk about how glass is of ‘prime’ importance (sorry!), but when you have great glass, things are simpler. What I’ve ended up with is a Panasonic G9 Mk. II and three Leica/Lumix lenses that cover all my professional and personal needs. The Panny is no beauty—unless you can see the beauty in a somewhat oversized brick, very solid and with lots of black metal—but it also has 25 megapixels of Micro 4/3 goodness, a fast processor, a fine autofocus system, and decent ergonomics. Gone is the elegance of those petite Olympus Micro 4/3 offerings from the past (like your E-M1), but I can pick this thing up and get what I need out of it, including very workable black-and-white shots. I understand that a dedicated grayscale sensor will do much more, but the latitude on this Panny is good, and DxO PhotoLab does almost everything I need to coax raw into a fine photo. It’s far from state-of-the-art, technically, but I could afford it (I bought refurbished from MPB), and my investment in lenses will outlast me, for sure.

"Hope you find something that similarly tempers that aesthetic lure of the machine, versus the contentment of settling on a beautiful compromise!"

Richard Tugwell: "Unlike yourself, I rekindled an enthusiasm for camera gear by going back to film. I can even specifically narrow it down to the feeling I get when I lift something like an OM-1 or -2 to my eye and marvel at the delight of the viewfinder compared to digital equivalents. For practical purposes I still turn to my Fuji kit, but 'practical purposes' and 'enthusiasms' are two separate things."

louis mccullagh: "Who cares which camera/lens has taken an image? Who can name the camera/lens/process used for the top 1,000 images of all time? It really irritates me when I say I am a photographer, and, instead of asking about my images, I get asked which camera I use! My sole interest in a camera is now built-in stabilisation (I love night shots) and the quality of the high ISO images (to get more depth at low shutter speeds). The camera is a tool and is important as all tools are, but it really should end there. "

Ian Parr: "There's nothing wrong with not having GAS. Enjoy your remission while it lasts."

Jeff1000: "If I understood the thrust of your premise, I, also, seem to roll in the grass of contentment. I have cameras and lenses I really enjoy using, the Nikon Z system, and even though I don’t have the latest versions, I don’t find myself wanting. The upshot of this, to me, is that I spend minuscule amounts of mental energy, these days, contemplating photo gear. As someone who, historically, has been weighted toward the gear end of the spectrum of photography, this in a sense has been liberating, like a stallion released from the corral."

SteveW: "I was an old dawg Nikon guy (film cameras in 1970s and '80s)...and with digital went through the D40, D5100, D7100, D7500 and D750 with way too many lenses. Chronic GAS and no discipline (but really fun though). I eventually sold it all about four years ago and bought a Fuji X-T4, and churned again through too many lenses (all the Fujicrons, a couple of zooms, the 33mm ƒ/1.4). Now all I have is the X-T4 and the 30mm ƒ/2.8 Macro. One camera and one lens. But anymore I just use my iPhone 15 Pro Max. The waves have crashed for me; I don't think I'll be buying anymore gear."

Peter Wright: "No it's not just you Mike. I have a Leica CL which is now five years old, and I'm just fine with it. (I also have a Leica Q2M which I think is the final point of evolution of the camera as a species. It is virtually perfect in every way. But even so, I don't use it much.) My next camera will be the iPhone 16 max or whatever it's getting called, and I'm now making a serious effort to learn Apple Photos and how to use my old iPhone X as a camera in preparation. I'm convinced that almost all my needs as well as any lingering artistic aspirations, will be more than met by the improved iPhone arriving shortly. But dedicated digital (or film for that matter) cameras? No. I can't see another of those ever coming home. Sad I suppose."

Posted on Thursday, 11 July 2024 at 10:35 PM in Cameras, old | | Comments (31)

VSL and ZV-E10II

Comments were up to date at 7:57 this morning

Today is the last day to visit VSL, Kirk Tuck's Visual Science Lab. At least that's what Kirk says. He's threatened to walk away before, but he loves to work and he's good at it, and evidently has a bottomless pit of energy (I'd kill to have a third as much—okay, a fifth—but—favorite Popeye quote incoming—I yam what I yam). So he's started a new blog. It's called GroundZeroArt. So check that out from now on as your daily dose of Kirk. But if you'd like to revisit an old favorite from the VSL blog, looks like today had better be the day.

At least he's still writing. There's less and less to read about photography on the Internet these days. Everything's shifted to YouTube and video, which is continuing to affect cameras—the biggest news from the past few days is a Sony refresh of a "vogging camera" for "creators" that originally came out in  2021. It has, guess what, a new processor! Be still, my beating heart. I feel the way I used to when DPReview used to post news about firmware updates.

That's camera news these days—a refresh of a not-very-old camera that didn't interest us much in the first place. Okay, to be honest I yawned so hard I hurt my jaw muscles. But I have a great love for the somewhat similar A6700, so don't peg me as a Sony hater, or an antiquarian.

And if you're a creator and have been waiting impatiently for the ZV-E10 II and are furious with me for appearing to badmouth it...well, but you're not reading TOP, are you? You're not reading anything. It's been five years since you read a serious long-form magazine article, much less one of those book thingys, meaning a stack of physical paper bound together along one edge. You're editing video content and watching videos on your two screens using both software and jargon I never use and probably wouldn't understand.

I have a medical appointment in five minutes, so, gone fishin'. Go take a last browse around VSL. Or check out GroundZeroArt. I shall return!

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Kye Wood: "Isn't that your star sign, Antiquarian?"

Mike replies: My astrological sign is Lackadaisian. Our symbol is a small circle at the end of a horizonal line, indicating a nap.

Sloth-small

Constellation of three-toed tree sloth. It's true you can't see anything, but that's because he's hiding, so he can sleep.

Rob Griffin: "Mike, I don't know much about my astrological sign but I do know that I was raised a Frisbeetarian. We don't believe our soul goes to heaven or hell when we die. We just think it goes up on the roof and no one can get it down."

Mike replies: Ah, I've known some of you Frisbeetarians. You are all such pleasant sorts. May you continue to soar on an improbable updraft and keep going and going!

Posted on Thursday, 11 July 2024 at 12:51 PM in Around the Web, News and Occasions | | Comments (3)

Wednesday, 10 July 2024

I Was Wrong About the Pixii Max

Comments are completely up to date at 8:05 a.m. Wednesday and also at 12:20 p.m.

So my 12-step program has a basic principle..."when we were wrong, promptly admitted it." I was wrong on Monday. Hans Muus and other readers (and friends, privately), made the point that the Pixii is a real rangefinder, meaning it needs a FF (24x36mm) sensor to let FF lenses be "themselves."

Carl: "I see an actual valid point here. If a major goal of this camera is to be able to use Leica M lenses, then you need a 24x36mm sensor for the lenses to work 'right.' I'd have no use for my 35mm Summicron to be turned into an effective 52.5mm, etc, etc."

Oren: "It's even worse than that. The APS-C Pixii has the same problem as the Epson R-D1: the shortest FL for which there's a finder frame is 28mm, or 42mm-e. So you can't actually take advantage of the integrated RF/VF with any FL short of normal. Even if one were willing to buy new lenses to compensate for the crop factor, the body is useless for those of us who see the world through a 35mm-e field of view."

I was not only wrong but perhaps the exact opposite of right: The Pixii might be a camera that should only be FF.

One-offs
The Peugeot 604 I mentioned might be where I got my allergic reaction to one-offs when it comes to mechanical things. I'd rather have something common and mainstream, things there are a lot of and that a lot of people buy. Repairability and parts availability are much better, and replaceability is generally much easier as well. I once had a one-of-a-kind Leica lens and was uncomfortable with it—or rather uncomfortable with just the idea of it—because I knew it could never be replaced if I lost it or if it was damaged. I suppose I shouldn't have worried (I think the guy I sold it to is still using it happily), but it nagged at my mind.

There's one more issue, which is that one-off things can be harder to resell. I knew a guy in Wisconsin who hand-built speakers. His bread-and-butter had been repairing JBL L100's, and he had lovingly made a special bespoke pair of L100 lookalikes with premium Focal drivers and gorgeous handmade crossovers in a beautiful hand-finished cabinet. They sounded great, but he wanted $5k for the pair. The problem was, he hadn't laid the foundation to sell box three-ways for $5k. They'd need a name, name recognition, a market presence, reviews, and a warranty to be sold for that much, and they had none of that. It's not enough for you to be convinced they're worth $5k; if you want to protect your investment, you need other people to also be convinced they're worth that much. If the guy had $1,200 into them and wanted $1,800, that I would have considered. But he hadn't earned the extra $3,000. That's one thing real companies work for: the name, market presence, the support network with ongoing parts availability, and also the reputation! That's why they get to charge more.

When I was younger, every now and then you'd come across a guy offering a no-name preamp or something for sale for two thousand dollars, who tried to tell you that it got fantastic reviews when it came out, it was very rare, and it had cost $4,000 when it was new so it was a great deal at half that. The problem was, the guy who built it had gone out of business, he had only built 17 or 45 or 82 of those preamps, most people had ever heard of them, and nobody was going to pay two grand for an unknown quantity when you could get a perfectly clean used conrad-johnson for similar money.

I might be odd, but I'd probably rather have a new Toyota Corolla Hybrid than a 10-year-old used Ferrari that's been modified. The Ferrari would be nothing but expensive headaches, whereas the Toyota would be supported by one of the best service networks and be replaceable at short notice with an insurance payout. In the Toyota, you could drive the carpool, you could transport the dog, it would hold luggage, and you wouldn't worry too much about parking-lot dings and nicks. It's a "better" car, for one definition of better. (Of course, I've never driven a Ferrari, so it's easy for me to imagine I'm immune to their charms.)

I still think the best camera you can buy these days—okay, for stills—is a Fuji X-T5, along with a few Fujicrons and any other specialty lenses you might want.

APS-C works for me.

But okay, yeah, the Pixii, that should be FF—so the Pixii Max really is a good thing, and it would be the one to get, if you like what Pixii brings to the table. Or if one-offs appeal to you.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Richard Tugwell: "From what I've heard, a brand new Ferrari is also nothing but expensive headaches. Gorgeous, of course."

Mike Plews: "Back in the '80s Mrs Plews and I were negotiating the purchase of a Peugeot wagon. We were about to pull the trigger when the dealer told us that Peugeot was pulling out of the US, so the deal was off. Too bad, as a Peugeot wagon would have been perfect for us.

"We ended going down the street to the Saab dealer and threw down for a four-door normally-aspirated 900s with a stick. Wonderful car but a terrible hangar queen. As for APS-C, I'm a believer. My first digital camera was a Nikon D70 and it delivered excellent files (for my needs) for a decade. I eventually bought a D7100 which still suits me just fine; your mileage may vary. If I somehow felt the need for mirrorless, a Z50 or a Fuji system would be lovely. Being retired, my needs are much different from a working pro, but APS-C makes a ton of sense to me. It delivers smaller cameras, smaller files, smaller cost and terrific output. What's not to like?"

Raphael: "The APS-C Pixii would of course have been 'right' had they made APS-C lenses for it, say an 18mm ƒ/2.8, 23mmƒ/2, and 35mm ƒ/1.4, and a lower magnification viewfinder with matching framelines. The only technical problem being color shift in the corners with wide angles."

Posted on Wednesday, 10 July 2024 at 12:48 PM in Cameras, new | | Comments (13)

Monday, 08 July 2024

Pixii Max Announced (If Only It Had...)

Comments have been up to date for the past two days

One of the permanent features of the manufacture of cameras since the announcement of photography in 1839 is the great natural appeal of building the perfect, or the ideal, or the best, or just a better, camera. It has been practiced right along, and sometimes it seems that almost every male who has ever used a camera has gotten the bright idea that he would be just the man to build, or at least decree the specifications for, this elusive grail. This is a permanent state of affairs. The perfect camera has been proposed ten thousand times. In some few cases the better camera is actually made. Its perfections are then judged, its flaws inexorably emerge, and it is then employed as a basis for a tweaked or improved variant, or an imaginary improved variant, usually prefaced with the phrase "if only it had," as in, "it would be perfect if only it had...."

"If only it had" is the neverending plaint of every seeker of camera-perfection. Most people like and prefer basically whatever camera they learned on and got used to when they were young and the world was whole and life was good, but "only if it had...."

In most times and places, the temporary techniques of the moment are accepted as eternal and essential, and the fashions of the moment are taken for verities. Thus, when box cameras were common, the perfect camera was naturally imagined as a box camera. And so it was with stand cameras, field cameras with movements, folders, TLRs, and so on and so forth, down to present forms. Anybody (or almost anybody) could build a view camera. However, since electronics took over, this perfectionizing impulse has been largely stymied. Now that photography has become sensor-based it's almost extinct. Now instead of building perfect cameras we just ask for them to be built. The few better mousetraps that actually get built are rare exceptions.

The Pixii is one such—one of those perfect cameras. It is a hybrid, a digital camera that takes rangefinder camera lenses in Leica M mount. But it has an APS-C sensor—and of course "full" frame cameras, those with 24x36mm sensors, are considered de rigueur* presently, so: "if only it had a full-frame sensor."

And now it will. A perfect digital rangefinder hybrid is getting morer perfecter.

Bog of snark
Sorry! I'm tumbling down the slope into the swampy bog of snark. I've nothing against Pixii. My family were Francophiles. We had a Peugeot 604 (Moonstone, with leather seats) when it was one of the only ones in the USA. The Pixiis are beautiful cameras made in France with high idealism and great attention to detail. The cameras embody a vision for what a camera should be at this particular time, relative to Leica.

However, I like APS-C. I've always liked APS-C. I consider that smaller-than-24x36mm sensors are, or were, one of the basic inherent advantages of the whole digital development since the beginning, and I consider it bizarre that this obvious advantage is being stolen from us due to outside pressures, namely, at the moment, that "real" cameras have to do their best to distance themselves from phone-camera-sized sensors. I'm trying not to get doctrinaire about it, because I don't want to close my mind. It doesn't really matter what size sensor you use. FF sensors work just fine for taking pictures.

Anyway, for those of you for whom the Pixii would have been perfect if only it had a full-frame sensor, well, gather your shekels into a pile, because you are about to be indulged.

Here is a Pixii

Here is the Pixii Max.

Mike

*Rigueur is one of only a few words I cannot spell without help. The French sometimes salt their words with extraneous vowels and I have trouble remembering where they go. The French also complain when English and American words seem to obtrude into the patrimony of their language, overlooking that a whopping one-third of English words descended from French in the first place, thanks to William the Conqueror. English would not exist as it does without French! If you'd like to hear some odd back-formations purporting to be what English might be like without such borrowings, head to YouTube and investigate the term "Anglish." Quite an odd little world, but an interesting etymological game.

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Kenneth Tanaka: "I have no idea whether or not Pixii’s creators consider it to be 'perfect.' Nor have I ever used one of these French rangefinder cameras. But I do salute Pixii for thoughtfully moving forward with this line of cameras. They do seem very committed to the rangefinder camera experience and to refining that experience over time with their products. Whether or not the camera is an APS-C sensor may be a hurdle for some, particularly since the goal is to use gorgeous M mount lenses. (Do recall that the first digital rangefinder, the Epson R-D1, was APS-C.)

"But, to me, the main issue seems to be ergonomics. The camera looks cute but gives every indication it was born from a 3-D printer. It just doesn’t scream 'pick me up and take me out' to me. The other issue is price. For the neighborhood of the Pixii’s price one could buy a used digital M. But I wish Pixii well and hope it helps keeps the rangefinder genre in play a bit longer."

Hans Muus: "In this exceptional case, something else is the matter. Remember that the APS-C Pixii uses ‘full frame’ Leica-mount lenses, in conjunction with its optical viewfinder; 28mm is the shortest focal length for which trustworthy framelines are shown in the OVF, which comes down to (or adds up to, if you will), a full frame equivalent of 42 mm. You cannot reasonably go any wider than that. The new Pixii Max camera has the exact same outside dimensions, OVF reach etc.—only the sensor is now of full frame size, and therefore the image of the full frame lens is used in its totality. The 28mm lens is now exactly that, a 28mm lens. Naturally, this goes for the other (35mm, 50mm, 75mm) focal lengths as well, resulting in a much more practical choice of focal lengths."

John Wilson: "J'ai grandi à Montréal. Le français était obligatoire à l'école primaire et secondaire. Je ne comprends pas à qui est destiné cet appareil photo. Peut-être que je ne suis pas assez français pour percer de tels mystères. Je suppose que je vais devoir m'en tenir à mes Fuji."

hugh crawford: "Sniff, real Francophiles drive Citroëns. (A joke. All French cars are wonderful.) My wife worked for a woman who had a Peugeot 604. It was lipstick red. She had worked on the Peugeot AV account (multiple screen slide projections for press events and video walls for auto shows). When Peugeot left the USA, she ended up with the car that had been imported for the Auto Show. It was all legal spec since Peugeot had been planning on staying in the US market, but it was essentially a one of a kind, hand-built version with maybe a dozen press cars imported before they pulled the plug. You can imagine what it was like to get something serviced that officially never existed. It was a really nice car but if you ever said something nice about it it you would immediately regret it."

Mike replies: Our 604 had a similar fate. My brother somehow managed—while sober, and in broad daylight—to run into the back of another car stopped a stoplight, and the repair parts were to all appearances sent from France in a rowboat. And those at the oars were none too diligent about their project, either. It was in the shops for something like seven months. I don't remember exactly, but I think my mother got rid of it thereafter as being impractical. It certainly was that. However, the 604 had two great strengths: wonderful steering, and a ride like a magic carpet. I can still conjure up the sensation of both.

Nicholas Hartmann: "Don't go slagging on French. The vowels are not 'extraneous'; once you know the (admittedly complex) rules, the letters in the word tell you how to pronounce it. The rules have a few exceptions, and although there are silent letters and some tongue-twisting vowel combinations, what you see is largely what you get. Save your contempt for written English, in which the most common pronunciation rule seems to be 'it depends' (think 'though,' 'bough,' 'through,' 'tough,' or 'warden' vs 'garden,' among many others). Irish/Gaelic is even worse. If you want logic and clarity and one-to-one correspondence between written and spoken, learn Czech."

Mike replies: Nick is a former President of the American Translators Association, and should know!

I've been watching videos about language recently, and really enjoying learning a little about the manifest oddities of English, which I've long been aware of but never really understood. One presenter I enjoy is called RobWords. The video "Is English just badly pronounced French?" is a recent example. I think I recommended "The weirdest things about English" a few weeks back.

I hope this guy is reliable, by the way. Once one is outside of his or her area of expertise, it's tough to be certain. For example, a linguist called Dr. Geoff Lindsey recently pretty thoroughly debunked an idea that spread from a questionable Wikipedia article into many YouTube videos, including one by another of my favorites, diction coach Erik Singer. I buy Dr. Lindsey's arguments, but that won't cure the misinformation.

Posted on Monday, 08 July 2024 at 05:38 PM in Cameras, new | | Comments (23)

Saturday, 06 July 2024

Mystery Pic

Comments 100% updated at 8:58 this morning

Without cheating, which of these handsome fellows would later be immortalized in literature? The picture was taken in 1898.

Mysterypic

It's tough to post these any more, since reverse image searches are so easy now. On the other hand, it's always fascinating to see the meaning unlocked from these old shadows of the past. What has always impressed me is that every anonymous and nondescript old picture has meaning, a backstory; we often merely don't know what it is.

Comments 100% updated at half past midnight, Sunday

ANSWER: Obviously people know me too well, because my attempted misdirection came up woefully short and a lot of people guessed the answer or were somewhere adjacent to it.

Here's Christopher J May:

Seems very Klondike Gold Rush-ish with the timeline and the snowshoes in the background. The dog is by far the most handsome so I’m going to guess him and say Buck from Call of the Wild.

Bingo. The picture is in the Yale University Library and the two men in the crop are Marshall Bond and Oliver H. P. La Farge. They're sitting in front of the Bond brothers' log cabin in Dawson City in the Klondike in either 1897 or 1898. The Bond brothers were either the "landlords" of a young wanderer who was born John Griffith Chaney, or, putting it more plainly, had allowed him to pitch his tent next to their cabin because he was an old friend. The former John Chaney, who went by Jack, had been raised by his mother and stepfather, whose last name was London—although as a child Jack London had been wet-nursed by an African-American woman named Virginia Prentiss, who was his main source of support and affection when he was young and who remained close to him throughout his short life. An inveterate wanderer and adventurer, he had gone to Dawson City for a cure after contracting scurvy in the gold fields of the Klondike. (No fruit or other sources of vitamin C; apparently scurvy was common during the gold rush). The dog sitting next to Marshall Bond is a St. Bernard / Scotch Collie mix who was also named Jack. Jack London was described by some who knew him as having an original and unusual bond and manner with dogs, as well as some passionate beliefs about them. A dog-whisperer, maybe, like some sort of old-timey Cesar Millan. I believe I read (although I can't find it now to check) that the Bonds said that there seemed to be a special understanding and sympathy between Jack the human and Jack the dog.

For his part, London strongly objected to being lumped in with a type then called "nature-fakers," writers who viewed nature and animals with excessive sentimentality and anthropomorphism. London joined into an ongoing controversy against none other than Theodore Roosevelt, among others. He wrote in his own defense,

I have been guilty of writing two animal-stories—two books about dogs. [This would have been The Call of the Wild and White Fang.] The writing of these two stories, on my part, was in truth a protest against the 'humanizing' of animals, of which it seemed to me several 'animal writers' had been profoundly guilty. Time and again, and many times, in my narratives, I wrote, speaking of my dog-heroes: 'He did not think these things; he merely did them,' etc. And I did this repeatedly, to the clogging of my narrative and in violation of my artistic canons; and I did it in order to hammer into the average human understanding that these dog-heroes of mine were not directed by abstract reasoning, but by instinct, sensation, and emotion, and by simple reasoning. Also, I endeavored to make my stories in line with the facts of evolution; I hewed them to the mark set by scientific research, and awoke, one day, to find myself bundled neck and crop into the camp of the nature-fakers.

London later wrote to the Bond brothers that their dog, Jack, the one in the picture, had indeed been the prototype of Buck in The Call of the Wild.

Quest
The Call of the Wild is part adventure story, part animal story, part fable, and partly the story of a spiritual quest through a series of brutal challenges toward one's own true nature. London varies his writing style throughout the book to echo Buck's progress, and the simple, clean language in parts of the book influenced Hemingway. It's short. It was popular immediately, has been published in 46 languages, has never been out of print, and earned for London an audience that stayed loyal to him from then on, eventually making him rich. It's been adapted for TV and movies all the way from the silent era to the latest attempt, which features an elderly Harrison Ford with a computer-generated Buck! Everything about Jack London is complicated, from his varied output, to his alcoholism and relationships, to his enigmatic death at only 40 (some people still believe he was a suicide). You can read the book in a facsimile of the first edition, or online for free. (Mine is a seventh edition from 1907 which belonged to my great-grandfather.)

And by the way, Jack London was also a dedicated photographer. Here's that picture at Yale.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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Posted on Saturday, 06 July 2024 at 09:22 AM in Random Snaps | | Comments (22)

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