The Online Photographer

...From our house to your house. May 2018 be as kind as possible to you and your loved ones!

[Note: For various reasons, Yr. Hmbl. Ed. did not do a lick of work over the weekend and finds he is in need of a couple of mental health days. I feel good, but exhausted. So I'm going to be indulgent and (this post aside) take the next couple of days off. I hope you don't mind too much. TOP will return on Thursday to inaugurate programming for 2018.]

It's as cold as billy bejeezus here, and you know who doesn't mind at all?

...This young gentleman, who drags me out of the house and into the frigid air regularly to serve as his fetch lackey. I stand and freeze my booties and patootie off, while he gambols in the snow and occasionally brings the ball back to me to scrape the ice off of and fling yet again. Lulu, who is wearing her stylish doggie overcoat indoors and out, morning, noon, and especially night, in addition to the heater on the porch, lasts about eight minutes outdoors before she starts hopping and holding her paws in the air. Not Butters, no sir. He can go and go. Apparently, 1°F (–17°C) is not yet into his discomfort range. And 13°F (–10.5°C)...well, he hardly feels it. He's annoyed with me that I keep needing to go inside after a mere fifteen minutes.

As for me, I need a new coat. For someone who loves to shop for the things I love, I am wretched at shopping for clothing; I have actually bought two Winter coats since I've had my current one, and both attempts were expensive duds. The first was a bulky North Face that was so big I could hardly fit into the car while wearing it, and it wasn't even warm—when a cold wind blew I could feel air on my arms! I gave that one to charity (sorry, cold-armed recipient, but it's-a not-a my fault), and North Face quickly got added to the list of brands I will never buy again. The second was an orange mail order down jacket that was just a little too small for me, but close enough so I thought it might work, and I didn't return it in time. I ended up giving that one to my brother, who claims to be six feet tall, but who my other brother and I are quick to claim is actually 5 feet, 11 and 15/16ths inches tall. That's what we say to annoy him, anyway. But he got my last new jacket. Fits him perfectly.

So now I have to go jacket shopping again, and I am dreading it. But I've had my current Winter coat for something like 25 years, and despite yeoman service it has lost a fair amount of loft and a great deal of warmth through the years. But the chances my shopping will be ineffectual are two out of three.

I have given up trying to capture the glory of moonrise over my ridge in back. Either my skills are not sufficient to find out if my patience is deficient, or my patience is not sufficient to find out if my skills are deficient. But this may give you an inadequate idea of the visuals to augment the description. The full moon was just glorious on the snow last night. The air is crispy clear, and the moon is bright and vivid, and the light and shadows on the snow is magical. I'm not one to give names to houses, but if I were to name this one I might call it Moon Ridge. Except maybe that sounds like a Wiccan housing development, I don't know.

Here is a second, unfortunately not better, image of the moon just peeking halfway over the ridgetop. I think I would have to learn how to do "real" dual-image HDR if I wanted to do this competently, and I haven't had time to learn much in Photoshop yet—I've only been using it since 1993. That's barely time to get to know the basics when you've got my computer skills.

Well, anyway, I guess you'll have to take my word for it. It's just been beautiful here at night, under the moonlight. 2018 is off to a fine start if you ask me.

Hope it is for you too. If you have a recommendation for a warm winter coat please let me know. (No, I cannot afford Canada Goose!)

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 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.

B&H Photo • Amazon US • Amazon UK
Amazon Germany • Amazon Canada • Adorama

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Bahi: "You and me both. I had catch-up plans for the holidays but got almost nothing done. Last night, I ran a long-overdue OS upgrade and cleaned up my desktop, which was looking a little messier that usual—a total of two work-related accomplishments in a week or more. But sometimes, you just need a break. Happy New Year!"

Mike replies: That's it exactly. "Sometimes, you just need a break." I feel fine, I just need a little time to do nothing! Of course I worked on my book most of today....

My little writer's haven in the Finger Lakes, built 1880,
restored 2012. I work on the front porch.

As I do every year about this time, I'll be shuttering TOP for a few days in observance of Christmas. I hope all of you Jewish readers had a lovely Hanukkah, and I wish all of you Christians (and secular Christmas celebrants) a wonderful holiday—not forgetting our friends who celebrate other holidays around this time of year. Special mention for those of you who will find yourselves alone. I hope you have a good, peaceful, restful day on the 25th as well.

Be good to yourselves and be good to others, my friends. Goodwill to all, in the spirit of the season. See you a few days hence.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 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.

B&H Photo • Amazon US • Amazon UK
Amazon Germany • Amazon Canada • Adorama

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Brendon: "Merry Christmas to you too Mike. Enjoy the break and thanks for all you do for us enthusiasts out here in Internet-land. Certainly different here in terms of the weather in Western Oz, ha ha. Just got back from (Preston) beach with a nice tan for my efforts. Fish weren't biting though, darn it."

Roger Bradbury: "Just the photo for Xmas on a photographer's blog; we can imagine you waiting in the cold as the ambient light level fell until it was just right, then taking the photo and going back in the warm. Happy Christmas, Mike."

Mike replies: Actually quite the opposite! I'm afraid it wasn't intentional at all. I was trudging back from a nice visit with my neighbors Les and Joyce, a way I don't often come, and it afforded me a view of the house I don't often see, so I whipped out the iPhone and made a couple of quick snaps. The only photo-dawg aspect of it was that I had to do quite a bit of work to get the tree of lights to look like it actually looks—digital, or at least the digital I can afford, doesn't do at all well with those tiny LEDs, for some reason rendering them as tiny and mostly white dots—it misses the glow the eye sees, as well as most of the color. So the tree has had some Photoshoppery applied to bring out the color, and then some more to hide the artifacts of the changes. The result is quite accurate to the visual impression of the actual scene, in my judgment, but it's not quite what the iPhone's camera gave me.

I did go out the next day with the X-T2 when the ambient light was just right, with some lights on in the house, and tried to recreate the shot, but some of the snow had melted, the light was different, and what I got when I was trying harder weren't pictures, just snapshots. The X-T2 didn't do any better with the tiny LEDs, either.

I got a wonderfully illustrated e-missive from Michael McCaskey yesterday, of pictures he took in Ethiopia, and he mentioned that he's going to be getting an iPhone X to learn to use its camera. He suggested I try some serious posts about photographing with an iPhone in 2018, and I think I'll take his advice on that. Meanwhile this Christmas picture has joined my Finger Lakes iPhone portfolio, which I thought I was finished with.

Thanks to everyone for the holiday greetings, and right back at ya! Ho ho.

It's a lovely morning here in the Finger Lakes. A vast pearly cloudbank overhead with a band of blue sky showing in the West made for an otherworldly light as the sun was coming up behind the ridge. A dusting of blown snow made patterns on the road.

Being a SSG (sadly single guy), I've hired a Mennonite housekeeper to come in twice a month to help with the chores. She's eighteen years old and very pretty and, moreover, happy (why are all Mennonites so well-adjusted? Do they know something we don't?), and she works for peanuts by city standards—it's very affordable. She keeps right at it, works straight through, never takes a break, so I never have to worry whether she's slacking off. And she's better than I am at every aspect of housekeeping, so it's not like trying to oversee how she's doing anything would help. I just leave her be, and she does her thing.

Then after she departs I spend about a day discovering everything she did and being happy about it. It's like a series of little gifts. Not only is all the laundry done, but everything is folded—even my socks! The dust bunnies under the bed have vanished. Then I notice that a few things are a little out of place in the refrigerator and...omigod, she cleaned out the entire thing! The putrifying kale in the special vegetable drawer my brother calls "The Rotter" is gone, the little pool of brown liquid it was sitting in vanquished. The interior of the fridge is spotless. All the floors have been mopped, the bed is crisply made, and she even washes the outsides of the windows. Amazing. I don't know how she gets it all done in four hours. TOP World HQ is burnished and gleaming, glowing with good order. O happy bachelor.

And then another nice surprise...as a thank-you for being an affiliate, B&H has sent me a Holiday gift certificate. Nice. Did you know you could give B&H Gift Certificates to the photographers you know? You can send it by email or snailmail for any amount, and include a message. Perfect for those of us who tend to be, uh, a little late with the Christmas shopping. Or, better yet, for someone close to you who might be. "You know, honey...." (Amazon has gift cards too, of course.)

Free next-day shipping for hundreds of items at B&H Photo ends soon, too.

So here's my dilemma: I have to spend the $250...can't stash it in the bank it like a good little Ed.

Darn.  :-)

If you had to spend $250 at B&H Photo—forced to—what would you buy? You can of course add more cash to that if you want to...for example, it means I could buy a 27mm pancake for my Fuji for $149 ($399 minus $250) or a 128 GB iPad for $169 ($419 minus $250). But if it makes me spend too much more, then at some point it enters into the realm of a net loss, so I don't want to be thinking, "Oh, great, now I can buy a Fuji GFX 50S for only $6,249.95!"

And I know what the first wise guy is going to say..."You could spend your $250 Gift Certificate to buy me a $250 Gift Certificate!" But of course I can't do that for everybody. Wish I could, wish I could.

And by the way, as I always do, TOP will be on hiatus for several days over Christmas, starting Saturday.

The Day is only days away,

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 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.

B&H Photo • Amazon US • Amazon UK
Amazon Germany • Amazon Canada • Adorama

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Dave Levingston: "I just had to deal with a similar dilemma. The charge card I use the most surprised me with a "points" bonus worth several hundred bucks. And their points can be used effortlessly on Amazon just like real money. So, going through your link of course, that Panasonic 42.5mm lens that I've been eyeing for a year or so is now on its way to my house."

Mike replies: Oooh, yummy. You didn't say which one, but I love both those lenses.

Ken Tanaka: "'It's a lovely morning here in the Finger Lakes. A vast pearly cloudbank overhead with a band of blue sky showing in the West made for an otherworldly light as the sun was coming up behind the ridge. A dusting of blown snow made patterns on the road.' Well I don't think you need any more camera gear. You seem quite able to depict rich landscape scenes with your fingers."

Mike replies: No...I don't need any more camera gear...but...but....

Aaron: "I bought that 27mm pancake a couple years ago when it was on sale, mostly on impulse. It's probably my most-used lens these days. It makes the X-T2 (and X-T1 before that) very comfortable to have around my neck. The camera, with lens, sits between my arm and hip very nicely. Bringing just a camera, no bag, is nice for short outings."

The Online Photographer, which you are reading at this moment, is 12 years old today*. The very first post went up on November 28th, 2005. At that time, blogs were the very latest hip, hoppin', happenin' cool thang—and my ambition was to try to keep one going for one whole year. It was a preposterous notion, and I had every expectation of failure: I was a dilettante, and (as I used to say) "constancy was my worst thing." I couldn't do anything once a day, not even the dishes. What were the chances I could write a blog post every day?

But I was dead broke, and had no prospects, having just been turned down for a job editing a twice-a-month in-house newsletter for an independent hospital, for barely enough money to keep me and my then-12-year-old son alive. They said I was "overqualified," which, while true—I could have done that job working only on the weekends—was a bitter, bitter pill. I think Wisconsin Electric turned our power off three times that Summer.

I had always wanted to write books, and I still cart a bushel full of book ideas lovingly around in my head, where they shall probably still be when I shuffle off to Buffalo. As a countervalence to that, though (have I said this before?), Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, considered his detective tales to be fluff, pining to become a "serious" writer. He even tried to kill Holmes off, but was forced by public clamor to bring the sleuth back to life again. Short take: Doyle had found his rare good thing, a gig that many writers would kill Moriarty for, but he didn't even appreciate it. I've seen the same thing many times in a number of different fields over the years. So maybe I don't get to write books. But I get to write, and I have readers, yo. Be happy where you hunker. Life happens at home.

This is post number 7,714, and if you arbitrarily assign 500 words per post including things like replies to comments and the like (this one's 350 so far), then I've written 3,857,000 words on TOP since 2005. That's the equivalent of 38 full-length novels, by word count at least. Steven King has written 107. Then again, Anna Sewell wrote only one. It is called Black Beauty. Conceived to encourage the ethical treatment of horses but beloved as a children's book, it was published in 1877 and its invalid author lived on long enough to see the early glimmering of its success. It has never been out of print and to date has sold some 50 million copies worldwide.

Am I digressing again? I am, I am. Better get back to building that Baker's Dozen post. Seven done and six to go. But happy b'day, old flog.

Mike
(Thanks to all of my readers then to now)

*And fast becoming a difficult adolescent.

Original contents copyright 2017 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.

B&H Photo • Amazon US • Amazon UK
Amazon Germany • Amazon Canada • Adorama

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Dean Forbes: "Happy Birthday to us (it's mine today, too)!"

Richard Skoonberg: "Congratulations, Mike. Your blog is the hippest, coolest, and most sublime blog on this here Internet. I am very grateful you have stuck it out for 12 years. I didn't know that about Arthur Conan Doyle, but the same was true for Rod Serling of 'Twilight Zone' fame. He never thought much of his writing for television; he longed for fame on Broadway as a playwright. Congrats, again, for a remarkable milestone!"

Edward Taylor: "I feel a little like it's my birthday too. I followed you here from a different website, and I have read every post and every comment on your blog since the beginning. I have even written a few articles for your blog. The Online Photographer was a long shot that worked! Or, maybe not such a long shot since you are so good at what you do. It's been a great run and it's not over! Congratulations Mike!"

It's actually Black Friday today. Hard to believe....

Here is our link to B&H Photo's Black Friday deals and

Our link to Amazon's Black Friday deals. Because it's today.

I had a great Thanksgiving yesterday, thanks to Leslie and Kat. (I have to say, I love Thanksgiving. It's my favorite holiday.) Use our links and poke around at B&H and Amazon today. But get outside, too. Have a nice one!

Mike

ADDENDUM: Izzy Flamm tells me these are among the most popular deals so far today at B&H Photo:

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV DSLR camera (body only) with Watson battery: final price $3,199; savings $609; free accessories valued at $130.

Canon EOS 6D Mark II DSLR camera (body only) with Watson battery: final price $1,699; savings $509; free accessories valued at $130.90.

Canon EOS 6D Mark II DSLR camera with EF 24–105mm ƒ/4L IS II USM lens and Watson battery: final price $2,599; savings $709; free accessories valued at 130.90.

[Ed. note: I am uncertain as to whether the above deals include the pictured Canon battery grip, and I couldn't get confirmation before B&H closed today. I'll try to get this clarified later. The Nikon links below do include the Nikon battery grip. I assume the Canons do as well but the listings are unclear. P.S. Please do not e-trample other shoppers in the frenzied struggle to claim these deals.]

Nikon D750 DSLR camera with 24–120mm lens with Watson battery and Nikon battery grip: final price $1,996.95; savings $1,429; free accessories worth $119.89.

Nikon D750 DSLR Camera (body only) with Watson battery and Nikon battery grip: final price $1,496.95; savings $829; free accessories worth $119.89.

Apple 15.4" MacBook Pro with touch bar (late 2016, space gray, 2.6 GHz i7, 256GB SSD): final price $1,799; savings $600.

Apple 15.4" MacBook Pro with touch bar: (late 2016, space gray, 2.7 GHz i7, 512GB SSD); final price $2,099; savings $700.

Apple 13.3" MacBook Pro (late 2016, space gray): final price $1,149, savings $350.

Apple 13.3" MacBook Air (mid 2017, silver): final price $849, savings $150.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 SM-N950U 64GB smartphone (unlocked, midnight black): final price $799.95; savings $170.

Moto Z Play XT1635-02 32GB smartphone (unlocked, lunar gray): final price $299; savings $150; free accessories worth $34.95.

Zhiyun-Tech Crane v2 3-axis handheld gimbal stabilizer: final price $479; savings $170.

Original contents copyright 2017 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.

B&H Photo • Amazon US • Amazon UK
Amazon Germany • Amazon Canada • Adorama

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

No featured comments yet—please check back soon!

...Well, I guess I should have mentioned that I'll be "off" (mostly) today and tomorrow, and then the weekend. I'll post the "Baker's Dozen: Leica Lenses" on Monday.

And of course today it's Thanksgiving in the U.S., so I want to wish Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who is celebrating today.

Thanks for the discussion, two days ago, in the "Fixed Object" post. It might be an all-time highlight for wonderful, thoughtful comments across a wide spectrum of responses. Grateful thanks to everyone who commented. I haven't even finished posting all of them yet.

The above is not a photograph. It's just a snapshot, because it's just informational. I wanted to show you the new campfire pit that my friend Dave Standish made for me. It's just what I wanted, country-style, stout but not perfect. This shows the maiden fire, the first one I had after the mortar set.

Here's Dave, at work encasing an old concrete chimney flue in stone. You can see that the mortar is still wet in the top courses of stone. Dave and I have had some very interesting discussions about "anonymous craftsmanship" which I'm sure will float to the surface on TOP sooner or later. He doesn't sign his work or collect records of it. When I asked him about that, he said "I know where it all is." He's a neighbor, too—he farms cattle and poultry and grows vegetables and fruit trees in the high meadows up Welker hill from me. He raised the turkey we'll be eating tonight.

I've always loved craft for craft's sake, and Dave is a great craftsman. He's an old-fashioned stonemason of a kind whose numbers are dwindling. He apprenticed for more than 20 years. He told me he knew his apprenticeship had ended when the taciturn old master he worked for contemplated something he had done and after a long silence said, "good as I could do." Dave's skill is great and his work is beautiful.

So what does this have to do with Thanksgiving? Well, I've mentioned several times before that I and my brothers and cousins are descendants of a Mayflower pilgrim, William Bradford. And Dave is a descendant of Miles Standish, who also made the two-month crossing of the Atlantic against the wind in the Mayflower, that crowded and leaky square-rigged, beak-bowed merchant ship that was nearing the end of its service life. Tonight I'll be having Thanksgiving dinner with Dave and ten other local friends at our friend Leslie's house in the woods. I just think it's kinda cool that both of our however-many-times great-grandfathers also ate together at what is called "The First Thanksgiving," at the English settlement of Plymouth, in what eventually became Massachusetts, A.D. 1621.

Hope you have a good one. Remember to count your blessings.

Mike
(Thanks to Dave)

Original contents copyright 2017 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.

B&H Photo • Amazon US • Amazon UK
Amazon Germany • Amazon Canada • Adorama

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Tom Burke: "Happy Thanksgiving, Mike! I reckon that your descent from William Bradford makes you an honourary Yorkshireman, given that he hailed from Austerfield which was then in the West Riding of Yorkshire. (These days it’s in the Metropolitan District of Doncaster, in South Yorkshire—the Ridings were abolished in the 1970s.) So if you ever make it to the Broad Acres, think of it as a homecoming. Looks like the Parish Church (where William Bradford was baptised) is still there. Obviously in his adult life he fell out of sympathy with the evolution of the Anglican Church and became a Separatist, which lead eventually to his participation in the Mayflower voyage. Which you would probably regard as a Good Thing! (I don’t know if you know this, but a Separatist was someone who wanted to separate themselves from the established church in England because they regarded it as too corrupt to save. The laws in force then effectively forced Separatists to leave the country. A Puritan, on the other hand, was someone who believed that ithe Anglican Church could still be Purified, and therefore stuck with it, and with England. Oliver Cromwell would be an example.)"

Oh, Nikon, Nikon, Nikon. What are we going to do with you?

The latest flurry of bad bad pub is all about tone-deafness, and, I think, isolation from the outside world. It's a bad kind of viral news for a company. You commit some stupid blunder, a plain faux pas, a dunderheaded misstep, and put your foot smack in the cowpie. And for no good reason other than that you were just not paying attention.

This problem fits a pattern: the damaging way that Nikon mismanaged its announcement of "extraordinary losses" last February; the deep-sixing of the announced DL compacts; the growing perception that Nikon lets its customers be beta-testers by initially releasing version .9 products for sale.

What happened? In this case, the Guardian put it succinctly: "The Japanese camera giant chose 32 professional photographers across Asia and Africa to test-drive and promote its new camera, the D850. Of the 32 photographers chosen, Nikon managed to pick zero women."

Why is it a bad kind of viral news for a company? Unfortunately, it's not just a dunderheaded blunder, it's a particular sort of dunderheaded blunder that allows people to cluck and gossip about you and feel virtuous doing it. It allows them to be snarky and sanctimonious at the same time. That gives it greater currency. So the story is not only tossed out and chewed over by the forum magpies and the clickbait sites, not only reported by the photographic websites such as Fstoppers and PetaPixel, but goes outside the category and into the culture at large, picked up by mainstream news sites like the Guardian and the Old Grey Lady* herself.

We should acknowledge that the story isn't just about PR. Women photographers are understandably angry about the slight. No less a photographer than the star photojournalist and author Lynsey Addario protested. "Guess they forgot to invite me? I'm a [Nikon Ambassador]," she tweeted. An Instagram picture of her gear from 2016 shows no shortage of Nikon bodies. I'll just gently point out that Lynsey has ten times more courage than I do, and I'm a big rough tough man, not a tiny little delicate flower of a female. (Although I will say that the D850 is too big for me. ROFL.)

What did you do?

Uh-oh!

But really, Nikon. Bad dog.

I have no more thoughts on the matter, but a story did come to mind. Many years ago, in the early '90s, I was walking through Rochester on the way to a meeting, dressed, not typically for me, in a coat and tie. As I passed Kodak headquarters, the doors opened and a flood of businesspeople in suits hit the sidewalk; clearly, a big meeting had just ended. By happenstance I fell in step with two guys who were going the same way I was. We traded pleasantries and walked along together for a ways.

Well, they chatted for a while, essentially gossiping about the meeting: who seemed angry, who had what agenda, etc. After a block or so one of them looked over at me and said, "What department do you work for?"

"Oh, I'm not with Kodak," I answered. "I'm a journalist."

That shut them up—and not only. Amazingly, we walked on together for almost three more blocks, and neither of those guys said one single more word, to me or to each other. Total, complete silence. As I split off from them I said "have a good one" or something like that, and neither even acknowledged that.

The encounter was another in a series of signs that to my mind indicated that Kodak's culture at the time had become almost entirely internal. What mattered was what happened within Kodak; the outside world hardly counted. Except as something it was necessary to wall off.

Forgive me for the bald speculation, but I think what we're seeing is signs of the same thing happening with Nikon. It's just a feeling I get—it feels like a corporate culture that's getting too insular, too self-referential, too walled-off. Which is never a good thing.

But I'm just talking. I know nothing.

Mike
(Thanks to Scott J.)

*Meyer Berger, a New York Times columnist, so christened the Times on September 17th, 1951, in LIFE magazine, in an article titled "The Gray Lady Reaches 100." "THE Old Gray Lady will celebrate her 100th birthday this Sept. 18. The 'lady' is a newspaper—the New York Times—regarded by many in the world at large (and all within its own world) as the world's greatest. And newsmen generally hail it as 'old' and 'gray' by way of acknowledging its traditional special marks: starch conservatism and circumspection."

The nickname surfaced more recently in a famous tweet on a then-fledgling communication service called Twitter in 2007:

Although the writer, a NYT developer named Jacob Harris, intended the opening words to be "like the Queen trying to use slang," his "combination of fusty and fashionable" as he put it hit a little too close to the mark, and the Times has been ridiculed for "Word up! It is I, the Gray Lady" ever since. 

I should also point out that, apart from connoting brains, "gray matter" is journalese for lots of unrelieved text on a page. The New Yorker, for example, the last mainstream magazine in the English-speaking world that targets people who like to read, is very gray. That's the reason for its famous cartoons—to break up the gray matter.

Original contents copyright 2017 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.

Support Us
Give TOP a “Like” or Buy yourself something

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Richard Hargrove: "Maybe Nikon is not yet done demonstrating the insularity of their corporate culture. We'll have to wait for a real translation to see what Nikon rep said, but it's not looking good."

Bryan Geyer: "Well, it looks to me like this blame is premature. All of the chosen men represent regions of the globe that do not include the Americas, Great Britain, Europe, or the Scandinavian countries. (The selected areas are also heavily male-dominant.) Heck, it doesn't even include Japan! Maybe the press just got ahead of Nikon's announcements. It's not 'fake news,' but it may (?) prove to be fake judgement."

Bruno Masset: "The Internet commentariat demonstrating again its collective idiocy and lack of common sense. That campaign was designed by Nikon MEA, which is a business entity operating and responsible for marketing in a well-defined area of the world—the Middle East, Africa, and Oceania. The Internet domain name (nikon-asia.com) of that campaign should have also provided a clue. The list of the areas from which the photographers were selected should have provided a clue: Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Middle East and Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. It seems to have escaped the Internet commentariat's notice that, for example, not one photographer from Japan, Communist China, Russia, Europe, or North or South America has been included, though these areas are, presumably, also important markets for Nikon.

"In case you wonder, these markets are, of course, covered by entities distinct from Nikon MEA, like Nikon Europe, Nikon USA, Nikon China, Nikon Japan etc. One Evelyn Hockstein wrote in that Guardian article: 'The camera giant chose 32 professional photographers to promote their new D850—and they were all men. Perhaps I can help. [...] As vice-president of the Women Photojournalists of Washington, a non-profit created to promote the role of women in photojournalism [...] With over 400 members in the DC area.' No, Evelyn, you can't help. What you write strongly suggests that you're based in the US, probably in the Washington, DC area. As far as I know, Washington, DC or the US isn't part of Asia, or part of Nikon MEA's area of responsibility.

"Nikon MEA said that they also reached out to woman photographers, but that none could attend the event. Though the fact that no women photographers figure in that marketing campaign is of course regrettable, I'm willing to give Nikon MEA the benefit of the doubt. Re Lynsey Addario protested, well, Lynsey, you were not invited by Nikon MEA presumably because you're based in the U.S., not in Asia. Get over it."

Mike replies: Thanks Bruno, but I have to disagree with your assumptions here. The sexist campaign is acceptable because it's targeted at sexist countries? There are no female professional photographers in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, or the rest of the division's territory?

The fine-print explanations aren't the point. Nikon is still guilty of not realizing how its campaign would be received in the world. Multinational companies regularly screen advertising and publicity campaigns to determine if and how they'll be accepted in parts of the world to which they are not targeted. It's still a SNAFU and Nikon still has to take the blame IMO. The proof is simple: it's that Nikon is reaping negative publicity all over the place. QED.

You don't need to agree of course.

Steve Caddy (partial comment): "Regardless of whether there are high profile females in those markets, female (and minority) representation in ambassadorship isn't important because it reflects the market as-it-stands, but because it's important that young women photographers see a path for themselves."

Last night and this morning we had a hard, cold rain, and today I saw the first signs of Fall color in the trees here in the Finger Lakes. A number of trees, not just one.

So it begins, the long Winter, with a nice Autumn to come first.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 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.

Preparing for Winter
Give Mike a “Like” or Buy yourself something nice

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Steve Smith: "Is the use of autumn or fall regional? We only use autumn in the UK."

Mike replies: You know, I have no idea. I'd like to know the etymologies. I can say I've always been a bit put off by the term "Fall"—it reminds me too much of Camus, not to mention Jim Harrison or Poe. Or Gibbon! Just seems a little sententious. Portentous. "Autumn" is gentler, somehow.

Matt: "My favorite season! I associate autumn with nostalgia, fulfillment, warmth and wisdom. Kinda the opposite of spring, which to me is nervous, intense, youthful."

Richard Alan Fox (partial comment):

"Snow and ice and cold
Are not meant for the old."

Ken Tanaka: "Is that your Bob Dylan imitation?"

Mike replies: No, Lee Hazlewood.

(Actually the version I have was done by him late in life, in an old man's voice, but it's not on YouTube.)

Jack Stives: "After a few days of Irma's drizzle drenching central Kentucky, this morning we had a heavy fog as the water rose from the ground shrouding all in a ghostly gloom. In our area, Fall fogs are a harbinger of the cold to come."

The Gulf of Mexico from Siesta Beach near Sarasota.
Photo by TOP reader Bob Rosinsky from the series "Horizon."

The world has looked on with concern and dismay at the widespread carnage caused by the recent hurricanes. While it's almost too much to get our heads around the scope of the damage and the extent of the disruption, what's certain is that we have friends in the affected areas...nowhere in the world are TOP readers thick on the ground, but, apart from central Africa, central Australia, and the poles, we come from all over the world. Surely, some of our fellow photographers have been among those who were frightened or uprooted by the emergencies, or those whose lives have been inconvenienced or disrupted or turned totally upside down, or those injured or, God forbid, worse.

And this goes not just for the U.S. but for those in Cuba and the other Caribbean islands as well.

I just wanted to extend our collective concern, caring, and condolences to anyone within the reach of this page who has been affected. Don't think just because life goes on normally in other places that our thoughts are not with you. They have been, and are.

The Editor

George's Piano

This is my son Xander playing George Bailey's piano—now owned by his daughter, the jazz singer Rebecca Bailey—in the lower level of the house she shares with her husband Jim in Vermont. Jim has been a close friend of mine since we were seven years old, and that, my brothers and sisters, is gettin' on a while now. "George's Piano" was taken with my Apple iPhone 7 Plus in a passing moment as we left the house. It's not a great photograph, except that it is to me.

TOP prides itself on being last with the news—if it's important, we'll get around to it. Most news can wait. Yesterday was the 10th birthday of the iPhone, and of course I'm a day late mentioning it. 

My Apple iPhone 7 Plus, and smartphones like it, is the single most amazing technological achievement of my lifetime in my opinion. The moon landing was more spectacular, but not nearly as useful; the personal computer was farther-reaching, but not nearly as slick and handy...nor even as versatile. I've tuned a mountain dulcimer with my iPhone; this morning I played 9-ball with a guy from India, and another from Indonesia, on it (won both games); it's old hat that you not only can read whole books on it, but buy and download them from your bed in the middle of the night; it wakes me up in the morning with gentle chimes (or at least it could...I use my iPad for that); when I wanted to know the altitude change of the hill I walk the other day, it told me to an accuracy of four meters; when I drive it speaks directions and tells me where to turn. It keeps my schedule and gives me the weather report and stores music and on and on and on.

And I'm not even a maven—I make no attempt to keep up with what apps are available or to explore any of the odd and delightful things it can do just for their own sake.

It's quite excellent as a camera, too...especially for a device that does so many other things so well. It's worse than my APS-C Fuji in some ways, but better in a few ways, too. And I like looking at pictures on its screen.

It goes far beyond anything like it that anyone could have imagined when Jim and I first met in second grade. We read about much less far-out technology in the comic books we used to buy at the Bay Point Pharmacy. This is what my family's phone looked like (down to the color) when I used to call Jim to see if he could come over to play on a Saturday. It was tethered to the wall and it was only useful for one single task. No doubt the single-use rotary phone (no operator!) was a technological marvel in its day. Now it seems quaint.

I believe I marvel at the iPhone every single day. More than any other inanimate thing it reminds me that I am lucky enough to live in the future. (R.I.P. Steve Jobs.)

So Happy birthday, iPhone. Very glad I know you.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 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.

TOP/Yale Spring Photo Book Offer
(Ends June 30th or when supplies run out)

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Ken Tanaka: "Re '...the single most amazing technological achievement of my lifetime....' Of mine, too. No other gadget has made such deep and wide impressions on society. Rarely does a day pass when I don't marvel at what my iPhone 7 Plus can do for me. Really. Oh, and it's become a spectacularly good camera, too. It's as close as I'll ever come to OC/OL photography. Happy 10th, iPhone. And thank you, Steve."

Gordon Lewis: "As long as you're pointing out the iPhone's virtues, why not add video? You could have just as easily recorded a short clip of Zander playing piano so we could not only see but hear him as well. Now I'm forced to asked what he was playing. I'd like to imagine it was jazz, but who knows?"

Howard Brunner: "Recently upgraded to an iPhone 7. I'm a Lightroom user so I downloaded the Adobe Lightroom Mobile app for the iPhone. It allows you to operate the camera through the app and shoot in raw Adobe DNG format.

"The color accuracy is impressive. Adjustments to Highlights, Shadows etc. work well. The DNG can be sharpened in Lightroom and yields a more detailed image than the compressed JPG from the Apple Camera app. Noise reduction (if needed) can be applied as necessary either globally or locally using an Adjustment Brush.

"I made a print at 300 dpi (native resolution, no interpolation tricks). It's about 10 x 13.5". My standard of comparison is my 'real' camera. A Sony A7rII with Zeiss or Sony/Zeiss primes. The DNG raw iPhone 7 print is shockingly good. Amazing to have that and every thing else it can do in me pocket."

Dave Kee: "You really need to check out the Pictar iPhone camera grip. For a hundred bucks, it will change the way you use your phone for photography forever. Mine was a Father's Day gift and it has been on my phone ever since."

Not THAT Ross Cameron (partial comment): "I'd say it's what the iPhone represents in terms of design and connectivity, rather than the physical device itself. At the risk of pedantry, it's the combination of hardware (device), software (iOS and iTunes) and the content (music, books, apps, etc.), not to mention the networks that are able to shunt all the data. Without any one of those, it wouldn't be the same."

Mike replies: Yes, absolutely. The whole experience with the device as the interface. (I changed the word "device" in the post title to "technology" for you.)

Roger Cicala: "Re 'TOP prides itself on being last with the news—if it's important, we'll get around to it.' This is why I love coming here. An island of quiet sanity and informed discussion isolated from the stormy seas of the Interweb."

David Dyer-Bennet: "Smart phones make my crowd smarter. Instead of arguing about facts when we remember things differently, we look them up and then proceed from there. So the discussions are more substantive and more grounded in reality or at least current knowledge. This is a good thing!"

John Abee: "Completely support your assessment of the smartphone as the tech achievement of our lives and I have a few years on you. Maybe more than a few.

"The marvel of these devices crept up on me slowly. I'd been programming computers since the late '60s and bought the first PC I ever saw, so as phones evolved, PC's were the benchmark against which I judged them. Sure, they were portable but in all. other respects...nothing impressed me. Maybe the nav apps hinted at great things to come but most were buggy as hell.

"Then last year we visited my younger daughter in Paris and rented a wonderful apartment (Airbnb rocks). Unfortunately all the controls were labeled in French and we were baffled. My daughter simply grabbed her phone, opened Google Translate and pointed the camera at the front of the washer. All labels immediately appeared on her display in English in real time. Move the camera and new labels appeared in English with zero lag. Wife and I sat slack-jawed. That was our Eureka Moment. Years of crunching away on mainframes and desktops were fun and occasionally impressive but this was transformational.

"We've probably all had our moments. This was mine."

Pak Ming Wan: "Even though today I do not use an iPhone, I still remember my first iPhone experience and ownership experience (a 3GS). I cannot underline how disruptive Apple's invention was for the industry. Almost overnight established players were irrelevant. Palm Treo, Motorola, Nokia, Blackberry...anyone remember them? And for good reason too—their innovation were incremental improvements on their product platform. Apple's invention sparked the smartphone revolution—and all for the better."

Svein-Frode: "I belong to the 'never got it' group. I'm just 40 years old, and have been an avid computer geek since getting a Commodore 64 in the 1980s. But I never found the iPhone or its clones interesting. To be honest, the only thing I have used my smart phones for—besides calling and texting—is playing chess when I'm bored at airports. Everything else my iPad does so much better. And having seen how most people seem to have become infatuated or addicted to their phones I really think life was better before smart phones...."

...Thom Hogan has weighed in on the Sentaku rumor. 'Tis as we thought.

Thom begins, "When did I become the voice of moderation? ;~)" which made me laugh.

Another interesting article from Thom—a rundown on the coming migration away from 32-bit apps in the new MacOS. He tells you how to check your computer to identify the 32-bit apps. ACR is 32-bit, so we'll be keeping an eye on that. (I do my image processing in a combination of ACR and Photoshop CS6, with most tasks done in ACR.)

Becoming a better photographer
Also, check out Mike Plews' Featured Comment under the "iPhone Magazine Cover" post. It's a thumbnail review of the iPhone camera, and I agree with what he says.

Mike
(Thanks to Peter and Mike)

Original contents copyright 2017 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.

TOP/Yale Spring Photo Book Offer
(Ends June 30th or when supplies run out)

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Thom Hogan: "I've updated both articles in question with some additional clarifications. The big news with MacOS really concerns things like the Nik Collection. It's 32-bit. Under Apple's current plans, Nik will not run come fall of 2019. As it is, Nik already has some issues with the latest version of Photoshop CC 2017. As with the transition to Intel processors, we're going to find out what developers are really still in the game and updating their products. If you're concerned about this, now is the time to use something like Parallels to create a virtual partition with your current OS/apps."

(Is this to blame for the vibrance slider?)

Just thought I'd mention, before today is over, on the off chance you haven't heard: today is the 50th anniversary of the release of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." And to think—of the original Beatles, only one is left alive*. And his name is Richard, which wasn't even one of the Beatles' names.

I'm not usually too sentimental about such pop culture things, but I listened to the whole album today**. The streaming version of the anniversary remix sounds amazing, gotta say. The music has reached such iconic status and is so familiar that every note, sound, harmony and segue sounds utterly perfect.

Mike

*As everyone knows, Paul McCartney passed away in 1969.

**UPDATE 12 midnight: ...twice.

Original contents copyright 2017 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.

TOP/Yale Spring Photo Book Offer
(Ends June 30th or when supplies run out)

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Speed: "'It was fifty years ago today Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play'...."

emptyspaces: "The new stereo mix is incredible...everyone who hasn't should Google Giles Martin [George Martin's son —Ed.] and read about how they did it.

"I am lucky that at my office there was a demo set up with Sennheiser HD800 headphones, a Pro-Ject headphone amp, and the Marantz SA8005 (which has a great DAC).

"The Beatles were before my time, but I sure hope more of these stereo re-mixes are in the works."

Mike replies: It really is amazing. I had just listened to the old stereo version (MP4) when I wrote the post and linked to the Amazon page. Since it's free to me to stream, I started listening to the new version—a much more immediate and immersive experience, with a lot more to listen to. As you say, incredible; the writer at the following link called it 'truly stunning.' The story of how it was done is very interesting too.

(...Why, however, have they put that horrible little glitch at the very end of the record, after the end of "A Day In the Life"? The famous sustained chord that concludes that song is one of the great endings in all of music—and all of art, never mind just to the song. The blip that's been stuck on the end seems not only artistically totally wrong to me, but a desecration, like taking a magic marker to a great Renaissance painting. Just an aside.)

Thanks for the tip.

Isaac replies to Mike: "That 'glitch' at the end has always been there! It was originally an infinite run-out groove that you would hear if you didn't have one of those fancy auto return record players. Paul said he thought it would be a laugh."

Mike replies: I might go dig out the album and listen for it, but I'm pretty sure it's not there on the US LP because I would have remembered it.

It's an absolutely terrible idea, like putting fart noises in Bach's "Art of Fugue." Paul McCartney, like my fave Neil Young, is a genius who has no taste. He can't tell the difference between a good idea and a wretched one, a beautiful song and an atrocious one. It's hard to believe that the same guy who wrote and sang "Yesterday," "She's Leaving Home," and "You Never Give Me Your Money" also thought the alarmingly horrid "Rocky Raccoon" was worthy of anything but being buried with a shovel. As Mark Kemp wrote at pastemagazine.com, "'With the Beatles' revealed a weakness that would follow the band throughout its career: Paul McCartney’s taste for schmaltzy Tin Pan Alley pop. His acoustic-based cover of 'Till There Was You,' from [the] Broadway play 'The Music Man,' remains one of the most egregious songs in the Beatles’ catalog." Amen. People think Macca jumped the shark with "Silly Love Songs," but that strain of tastelessness—kept mostly in check by John and George Martin during the Beatles years—was there from the start.

Tom Burke: "Actually, the original Beatle who's still surviving is named Peter—Pete Best. I worked with him for a year or so in Liverpool in the mid-1970s. This was in a employment office, part of the (government) Department of Employment. I was a newcomer to the Department, the job, and the city. Pete was the same grade as me, but was the senior in that grade in our section, and I was given to understand that if I had any problems, Pete would help me. And he did—always friendly, always helpful. This included the time I had to sidle up to him and report that I didn't understand what the jobseeker I was interviewing meant when he said that the reason for being dismissed from his previous job was because he was 'doing a foreigner....' (Answer: using his employer's tools, equipment, etc., while working on his own account.)

"One other thing—after I'd been there for a week or so and was getting to know people, one of Pete's close colleagues came up to me and checked that I knew who Pete was, and of course I said I did. This other person then gently advised me not to ask Pete about the Beatles. He wouldn't talk about it, I was told; he'd already said everything he was going to say."

Jon Orchard: "For anyone interested here is the story behind the name of the album and the reference to my neck of the woods (Ontario, Canada), just a few hundred miles from TOP World Headquarters."

Gaspar Heurtley: "'Sgt. Peppers' was the first 'adult' album I had when I was a kid. My totally uncool uncle Juan (he was old too, he must have been almost 30 at the time, yuck) gave it to me for my seventh birthday. I remember his smile while I opened the small box with the beautiful orange cassette. Still have it today; it's one of my priciest possessions. And my uncle is now of course one of the coolest persons alive."

Canadian TOP reader Euan Forrester glowing with affection for his S.O., Kate

I keep hectoring you to come visit the Finger Lakes, and every now and then an intrepid reader actually takes me up on the offer. TOP reader Euan Forrester was here Tuesday and Wednesday morning. He and his partner Kate stayed at La Belle Vie, my friends Laurel and Llew's B&B at the top of the lake. Euan, who is 38, works for Cisco, and Kate is an E.R. doctor. They live in Vancouver, British Columbia, in coastal western Canada.

Euan is a serious photographer with some outsized ambitions for an amateur (like several of the other people who came here for a portfolio review). To give you an idea, his latest project was to extensively document the creation of a mountain biking trail; he then posted weatherproof prints as information placards along the opened route, so mountain bikers using the trail could see how the trail was created. He essentially worked just as an assignment photographer would do, but on his own. A huge amount of work went into the project—all on his own time and his own dime—and it earned him a brief groundswell of fame and publicity locally and in mountain biking circles.

Laurel and Llewellyn of La Belle Vie Bed & Breakfast in Penn Yan

Euan (pronounced "Ewan" as in Ewan McGregor) and Kate felt that I pitched the wrong things about this area by concentrating on the museums and vineyards. They weren't very interested in those things. Euan has mentioned that once he gets home to Vancouver he might send me some pictures that illustrate the things that appealed to them about the Finger Lakes. If he does, I'll post them. I will say, though, that every time we heard an Amish or Mennonite buggy clip-clopping past, Kate brightened and said, "horses," so apparently we're in agreement on the charm of the local Old Order communities.

It's getting to be kind of a tradition that whenever TOP readers come stay at La Belle Vie, Laurel and Llew invite me for breakfast on the visitors' last day. We've had some epic conversations, and yesterday was no different. They're getting to be my favorite social occasions. Llewellyn is a photographer too, and so is Kate, and Laurel is a polymath, so we had a fascinating discussion about the parts that personality and social aptitudes play in what we choose to shoot. Laurel generally dislikes what she calls "doo-rag" photos of herself, but I had to show her  breakfast table. I can't vouch for the bed part of the B&B, but Laurel is a master breakfast chef. Her multi-course breakfasts are exquisite.

Always nice to meet TOP readers, who are truly like the residents of Garrison Keillor's Lake Woebegone—every one well above average.  :-)

Mike
(Thanks to Euan, Kate, Laurel, and Llewellyn)

Original contents copyright 2017 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.

TOP/Yale Spring Photo Book Offer
(Ends June 30th or when supplies run out)

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Frank Petronio (partial comment): "A link to Euan's website. I read about his mountain biking trail building project a few months ago. Non-bikers should realize that trail building is a high art around Vancouver and this was a wonderful to 'pay back' their labor and make riders aware and appreciative."