Ctein
Note that Ctein's off-to-Ireland archive print sale will start this coming Friday, and we'll be posting some of the particulars mid-day today. Please stay tuned today for that. Also, unlike all of our other sales, you will be able to look at all the pictures today. There's a broad selection, over many categories, from Christmas lights to the northern lights to Scotland landscapes to the space program.
There are two prints left of this deservedly famous eclipse print, for example. Ctein's commentary: "This is an exceptionally fine image of a solar eclipse. Set in a dusky and dark blue sky, the full extent of the corona is visible out to four or more solar radii. The delicate nature of the corona is preserved in the fine inner detail, all the way in to the pale pink prominences just barely visible near the silhouette of the moon. This screen image cannot convey the fine tracery in the corona and subtle detail present in the real print. Dye transfer print: 19" wide by 15" high (image area)."
You should see this glorious thing in person. Deserves to be accompanied by the 2001: A Space Odyssey theme music.
Comments milestone
Tough to tell exactly, because I don't publish full Featured Comments in the Comments section so they don't get counted exactly, but I think the site just passed 300,000 comments. That sounds like a lot, and it certainly is for a small site manned by one guy, but consider that The New York Times gets that many comments about every 25 days!
We're a big small site. :-)
The Online Photographer turns 20 next November 28th. To date there have been 10,080 posts (this is number 10,081) over 7,118 days. The average number of pageviews is about 14,000 per day, but it's going down, in step with the camera industry. For about 10 years the number was over 20,000 per day. These days it's about 4,500. That's the lowest it's ever been, but a lot of you still reading are True Fans, not idle passers-by, camera shoppers, or one-time visitors alighting via search engines to then flutter off again never to return. I'll take that. I've always been lucky to have you in my audience, and I'm still lucky. When I finally cease publication, assuming that hopefully far-off event is not due to sudden catastrophic cessation of consciousness, I'll post some earnings numbers.
Whole thing's been a wild ride. Blogging for a living isn't romantic, but you are hanging out there all alone.
Fujifilm
Working on a post about a few new Fujifilm cameras. Meanwhile, been using the not so new any more X-T4. I would guess I'd prefer the X-T5 by a considerable margin, for several reasons, but I'm finding the X-T4 surprisingly amenable. It's the first new Fujifilm that has made me pick it up in preference to my venerable X-T1. And guess what? I'm using it in JPEG-only mode with a film simulation preset (PRO Neg. Hi). A first since the veritable Dawn of Digital, when we had to pre-select White Balance and cook meat over open fires in caves.
Woof!
Thirteen Dogs will appear at some point during the Ctein sale. Assuming I can manage; things are admittedly a bit torn up at TOP Rural World HQ, on account of my faithful companion mutt Butters (he came to me with his name) is lately an Aged D requiring elder care. He is getting lots of loves. Despite the fact that, in the last four days, his brain has abruptly lost track of the fact that poops are for outside. Hey, no one said that doggie care was always a tiptoe through the tulips. I'm not rubbing his nose in it; he's well past the training stage, alas. Into hospice mode now. He was very reliably house trained through most of his life. There is air freshener. Sorry if this is TMI.
Programmable
I'm using a programmable keyboard. I have it set up so that I can make an a hyphen - with a short press of the hyphen key, and a long press makes an em-dash —. Very nice, since I write with a lot of em-dashes. Similarly, the top row types numbers with the short press and the shift character with the longer press—so for example the open parens key is "9" with a short press, "(" with a longer press. The "Home" and "End" keys are the same key, short and long press respectively (I use these keys a lot because they take me to the bottom of the comments page where the "Post" command is. You can program a third character with a double-tap. In fact there's little limit to all you can do, although I've been conservative. It's all very nice.
I should stop. More later today.
Mike
Original contents copyright 2025 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:
Regarding your Fuji use, I never looked at the X-T4 because of that funky swing-out LCD. I bought two X-T3 bodies, same sensor but with the more ergonomic LCD that stays behind the body inline with the lens. Its perfect for waist-level viewing, and even tilts enough to compose vertical shots. Never been restricted by 26mp (or 16mp) so I don't see the needless jump to the X-T5 in my future.
And about your using JPEGs, this has been my practice since I got my Fujifilm X-T2 and it has returned my joy of taking photos since I consider photography all the things you do before pressing the shutter release. The trick is that there's a lot of tweaking that each film simulation has within the Q menu. Trial and error has my two primary simulations (Provia and Acros) fully formed and I know when to hit that Q button and play with the highlight or shadow setting with the result fully rendered in the finder. When I get home with a couple of hundred photos after a day out, I done.
Posted by: Albert Smith | Tuesday, 27 May 2025 at 10:17 AM
I just wanted to thank you for including the term, "em-dash" in your writings today. I was trying to figure out what that was called. Your timing could not be better. We learn the most interesting things from this blog!
Posted by: Dillan | Tuesday, 27 May 2025 at 12:40 PM
I should mention the question I am pursuing: when do you use an em-dash, and when do you use a colon or semi-colon instead? As a professional writer, you must have an opinion on the matter.
I should mention the question I am pursuing: when do you use an em-dash, and when do you use a colon or semi-colon instead? As a professional writer, you must have an opinion on the matter.
[Think of a colon as saying "as follows."
A semi-colon functions grammatically the same way a period does—new sentence, new subject—but the two thoughts are closely connected. It "reads" like a thoughtful, perhaps critical pause.
An em dash is like a comma, only more abrupt and a longer pause.
So you might write:
"He spoke every even number: 'two,' 'four,' 'six,' and so on."
"His mother disliked him; it seemed everyone did."
"We were just talking about her—and the door opened and there she was!"
As you see, almost always, commas can serve. But all commas and nothing else makes for a little too much sameness. (IMNSHO.) (By the way, using a comma where a period belongs is called a "comma splice" and it's a trustworthy hallmark of semi-literacy. The comma splice comma should usually be replaced with a semi-colon or the word "and," or the aforementioned period.")
Em dashes can also function like parentheses, insetting a related thought as a clause, but without interrupting the flow as much as parentheses and not as much like an aside:
"Canon seemed to really value him—they certainly paid him like they did—which helps explain why he spend the end of his career there."
Parentheses might be used for a less related thought, such as:
"Canon seemed to really value him (his wife never did, poor guy), which helps explain why he spent the end of his career there."
Bear in mind I'm not a grammarian and I don't know how to write, at least not technically. These explanations are matters of personal style and tone. For example, The New Yorker prefers writing with commas. They frown on writing with dashes. Laurence Sterne and Emily Dickinson were not of the same opinion! Many writers eschew parentheses, considering that they make writing seem choppy. I tend to think that way, which is why I go ahead and use them—it reflects the way my mind works, with ideas, thoughts, and meta-comments popping up and intruding. But I've recently started to try to integrate the content of parenthetical clauses in a more standard way. So revised, our sample sentence might be:
"Canon seemed to value him, and they paid him accordingly. That might help explain why he spent the end of his career there."
Any help?
P.S. There will be typos in this, because every time you write about grammar, spelling, or usage, you are inevitably rewarded with egg on your face.
—Mike]
Posted by: Dillan | Tuesday, 27 May 2025 at 12:44 PM
I'm so sorry about Butters, Mike. Having their person be there for them is the best paypack we can give them, but it's hard going still.
Posted by: Rob L. | Tuesday, 27 May 2025 at 01:45 PM
Woohoo! Comment Number 300,097! (Or so, at a guess...) Whatever the actual number, Congratulations! It's impressive to have published a blog for 20 years, but it's far more impressive that you've nurtured a high quality conversation for this long. Delighted to be part of this community.
Since you brought up writing gear, perhaps it's appropriate to confirm here that uni Jetstream pen refills do fit my Pilot G2 pens (and reportedly many other pens) including the Dr. Grip. I consider it an upgrade. The result feels a tad less solid, but that may be a psychological rather than mechanical issue. The Jetstream point makes a finer line, so I'll order a wider tip next time.
Oh, and the way to find the capped Jetstream on shopping sites is to search for "Jetstream stick pen". There are two styles of those.
I'm considering buying a used XT4, so I would love to hear more about your experience with it.
Butters is lucky to have such a devoted friend.
Posted by: robert e | Tuesday, 27 May 2025 at 03:35 PM
"I'm using a programmable keyboard. I have it set up so that I can make an a hyphen - with a short press of the hyphen key, and a long press makes an em-dash —. Very nice, since I write with a lot of em-dashes."
Haha, you are not fooling me, everybody knows that only AI bots use em-dash. :-)
I'm joking, but AI generated text often use em-dash, so some people claim that is telltale sign. :-)
[Heh. But I'm on record. Take for instance the 1997 magazine editorial reproduced by Rod Thompson in this post:
https://photokensho.net/reviews/2019/1/27/not-a-book-but-as-important
I count eight em-dashes. And that's when the Internet was still in its infancy, at least compared to later on. —Mike]
Posted by: Ronny Nilsen | Wednesday, 28 May 2025 at 12:18 PM
I would like to put in a word for the spaced en-dash – much like the em-dash in usage, but more spacious, less overbearing and sharp elbowed.
[British typography is half-space/en-dash/half-space, American typography is no-space/em-dash/no-space. I've written about this before. We observe American typography here for obvious reasons. British convention is difficult online, because no one knows how to type a half-space and few people know how to type an en-dash. In English it ought to be one or the other. —Mike]
Posted by: Peter Rees | Thursday, 29 May 2025 at 11:47 AM
"and few people know how to type an en-dash."
Wait...isn't an en-dash just the plain old hyphen key on the keyboard? You know, the key next to the 0). If not, what's the difference?
[On Mac, at least, hyphen is the hyphen key, en-dash is option hyphen, and em-dash is option shift hyphen. They're three distinct characters. —Mike]
Posted by: Merle | Thursday, 29 May 2025 at 09:00 PM
If you find yourself on a Mac without your programmable keyboard, you can type an en dash with option-hyphen. Add shift to that combo for an em dash. Once you do it a few times, it becomes second nature and works on all Apple devices.
I don't use the half-width space often, but it can be typed on the Mac with shift-option-space.
Posted by: Scott W. Hill | Thursday, 29 May 2025 at 09:38 PM