The Online Photographer

Anybody Got Their Book Yet? (Also: Sergio Larrain)

Just yesterday I started to get word that readers are beginning to receive their copies of Peter's book French Kiss. All the comments I've gotten so far are positive, even glowing—and a pleasure to read. Perked up my day.

The pre-sale during the month of October was much more successful than anticipated, but there are still roughly 1,200 copies left out of the printing of 3,000...and plenty of time to order and receive a book before Christmas.

If you haven't gotten yours yet, it shouldn't be long now. Peter is working hard signing books (it's truly not a trivial task to sign 1,700 books being suitably careful not to damage or mar them in any way) and more books are being shipped every day.

I'd love to hear your impression if you've gotten yours.

The 'fatal personage'
Meanwhile, I've received more than half a dozen selected new books here at sprawling TOP World Headquarters in the past few weeks. Several are beautiful or fascinating, but the one that's got me completely gobsmacked is Aperture's Sergio Larrain, which is just a masterpiece in every conceivable way—just a superlative, superlative book.

...And fast becoming a favorite...I've been dipping into its riches little by little, the same way I read in three of my touchstone tomes, Orwell, de Maupassant, and Montaigne. The last photo book I "read" this way was the great Snaps by EE.

Larrain, who died last year, was too loose for his time. But he's perfect—perfect—for now. Looking through this treasure trove makes my eyes go wide with wonder.

I'll have more to say about this one anon, I'm sure. Whew. What a glory.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 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.

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

Chap Achen: "Peter Turnley's French Kiss is the best of all the books that I have ordered based on your suggestions. The images that are reproduced in the book make me want to a) go to Paris and b) get back in my darkroom. My wife also wants to know just how many books do you need, and where are you going to put them? Thanks again for all the great suggestions."

Victor Bloomfield: "Got it a couple of days ago. It's terrific: charming and moving scenes, beautifully captured and superbly printed. My wife, who sometimes sighs with impatience when another photo book arrives, said 'This one is really sweet!'"

V. Roma: "Can't believe I had never heard of Sergio Larrain. Thank you!"

ABCALOF: "Peter's new book French Kiss is absolutely fantastic, capturing the beauty and simplicity of Paris. It has inspired me to continue looking for the honesty and beauty in every day life that we so overlook as human beings. I'm honored to own a copy."

Michael Perini: "I received the book a few days ago, A really elegant package for a beautiful book. Knowing many of the pictures is like seeing old friends—you anticipate seeing them, and when they arrive with the turn of a page, they are even better than you remembered. I have my own informal test for separating good photographers from Really Good Photographers. It's in the hesitation to turn the page because the current photograph has a hold on you. Mr. Turnley easily meets the test.

"I am struck over and over by the simple humanity of the pictures. They are not showy but simple, real, and essential. A really lovely book. I did however, put it down to go slap my camera.  ;-)  More than once."

Giovanni (partial comment): "I totally agree that Larrain's book is to be savored page by page. Rarely seen such density of consistently great images, with a unity of vision that not even your friend Erwitt can match. (Yet I love Erwitt too!)

"Discovering him this summer and then seeing the exhibition running at the H.C-B Foundation in Paris just blew my mind. Still reeling."

Joe Holmes: "Shhh! Not so loud! I'm putting my copy away as a Christmas present for my wife. It would have been a Valentine's Day present, but are you kidding me, an extra six weeks' wait?"

Stephen F Faust: "It was a very good weekend—not only was it my birthday, but I received my copies of both French Kiss AND Here Far Away! Other than cracking French Kiss to briefly flip through it and see Peter's autograph, I haven't spent a lot of time with it, instead deciding to delve into Here Far Away first. No offense to Peter of course.  :-) ."

Steve Rosenblum (partial comment): "I like French Kiss so much that I sent signed copies of it to my children to keep as a symbol of love through the years."

Cathy Seith: "Your beautiful book French Kiss arrived in Atlanta today, a birthday gift to myself. Your images brought tears to my eyes. Lovely work Peter. I saw you speak for the National Press Photographer's Association about 25 years ago, when I was just starting out as a photojournalist. Then, and now, it opens up a whole new world to me."

Darnell Newsum (partial comment): "I received my copy of French Kiss late last night—unbelievably, the Post Office rang my bell at 9:30—a true special delivery! It is a beautiful, warm and inspiring book and I have been smiling since I opened it."

It's Louis' Birthday

Daguerre at 63

Today is the birthday of Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, born this day way back in 1787. He is credited with the largest share of the invention of photography.

I've read a lot over the years about the invention of photography, but there doesn't seem to be a good solid book out there about just that and nothing else; they all seem to take some slant or other, assuming the basic story's been well told. But each generation needs the story told anew. The time might be ripe for a book that's just a good straightforward historical account about the first years and all the many people involved.

Mike
(Thanks to Michael Lougee)

Original contents copyright 2013 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's links!

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

Paul Wood: "I can highly recommend Capturing the Light By Roger Watson and Helen Rappaport: My daughter bought it for me and I could not put it down, a great read."

[U.S. link; U.K. link; Book Depository link —Ed.]

Mike replies: I wasn't aware of that one. You must be in the U.K. as it's not out in the U.S. quite yet. Due Nov. 26th. I've pre-ordered it for the iPad and will no doubt be reading soon with interest. Thanks!

calvin amari: "If he is credited with 'the largest share,' it must be because he was the better self-promoting showman—which is exactly what he was."

Mike replies: Hi Cal—good to see you in these environs again [Calvin, a.k.a. "The Squid," is a major photography collector who prefers to remain anonymous]. Well...I do think he is customarily given the largest share of the credit, and I agree that isn't entirely just, but he wasn't just some charlatan jumping in and hogging all the credit, either. I think it's just as much a mistake to go too far the other way and dismiss him. His contributions were significant and essential. Would you not agree?

It's one reason why the story is so interesting: what's really required is a balanced snapshot of the times, one that includes all the players, big and small, putting each in perspective.

Random Snap: The Coolest House in Town

I can't remember if I've posted this before, or just meant to. Sorry if I'm repeating myself.

Here's probably  the coolest house in Waukesha. A real picture by a real photographer (looks like a 4x5 original), although I'm afraid I have no idea who the photographer is. The house is a converted 1934 Art Deco water tower, high on one of the highest hills in my hilly town.

Unfortunately it's also by far the most expensive house in a rather downscale neighborhood (actually, one of the most expensive houses in the whole city), and it's right across the street from the hospital. But it certainly is interesting...I'd love to go see the inside, but I can't see my way clear to knowingly waste a real estate agent's time. You know what they say: Oh well.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 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's links!

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

Kevin Bourque: "Mmm....I can just smell the Ektachrome 64T. Architecturally correct verticals, too!"

Paul Mc Cann: "Having moved a few times and sold houses I can assure that here in Ireland at least 90% of the viewers are tyre kickers and/or neighbours in for a nosy peek. In Northern Ireland it is, or was, acceptable to just knock on the door and ask for a look-see, without any appointment. In Southern Ireland that would be a no-no. The agent accompanies all viewers there and prefers to have the occupants not present. Stressful either way."

Mike replies: I'll say. I toured the house of a neighbor that was "for sale by owner" and thereafter vowed never to do that again. For me it's an agent, an open house, or nothing.

For one thing, it appeared that the husband and the wife had quited different feelings about the idea of selling the house and moving. Very awkward, and I was so uncomfortable I remember little of what that house looked like!

Olympus OM-D E-M1, Panasonic GX7, Fuji X100s: Refinement

A few random early observations, now that I have the Panasonic GX7 and the Olympus OM-D E-M1 in the house:

Mirrorless is growing up
The word is "refinement." Start with a good, innovative new design, get feedback from users individually as well as the market as a whole, and create a new version that maintains the strengths of the original while addressing the consensus shortcomings.

Fuji X100s: Closest thing yet to 'the DMD'

It seems obvious to me that we're dealing with significant refinements here. One reader spoke the other day about how different the Fuji X100s is from the original X100 (I'd link to it, but I can't find the comment). I can't speak to that, having never used the "-s."

Being very familiar with the antecedents of the Panasonic GX7 and the Olympus OM-D E-M1, however, I can say that both of these new cameras are very significant jumps over their predecessors...they amount to transformative refinements.

Together, they take Micro 4/3 to new heights. They're the two best Micro 4/3 cameras to date.

The new status symbol
Dials and switches, switches and dials—are they the new status symbol?

Electronic controls (menus) and the ubiquitous buttons-controlled-by-the-same-dial are cheap, and have proven an easy enough way to add the perception of value to electronic cameras. The downside is "feature creep" and intolerable complexity for users, which end up in practice making cameras slow to use and finicky as users grope their way through a thicket of options. One reason the new Nikon Df is so expensive is that real manual switches and dials are expensive.

They can also be really, really nice.

Olympus OM-D E-M1: Dials and switches done right

I admitted that it was my fault that I didn't get along with the Olympus E-M5; it's quite possible, and not unreasonable, to work through its controls and learn how to set it up to use comfortably. Many people have. But it was so paralyzed by featuritis and brainlessly addled by overcomplexity that it just...well...pissed me off. My problem. I used it for a while and then offloaded it.

The E-M1, by contrast, although obviously based on the E-M5, is a delight to use. And the reason is those luxurious, expensive dials and switches, switches and dials. I especially like the fore and aft clickwheels—so nice—and the 1-2 switch, and the locking PASM dial is a nifty (though probably unnecessary) touch.

GX1+6
Back in Panasonic-land, the company has poured everything into the GX7—in direct response, it seems, to its competition. The result is that it deserves six integers between it and the GX1, which was a capable if ultimately limited IL digicam. This is a considerably more ambitious camera. Built-in EVF, check. Tiltable built-in EVF...wow; great. Comfortable handgrip. In-body stabilization, although at a fairly rudimentary level of implementation—but a first for the line. Better sensor than ever, check—one that our friend Carl Weese says gives him noticeably better results in prints.

Panasonic Lumix GX7: More ambitious than its predecessors

Like the Olympus, the GX7 seems fast. Very responsive. I love that in a camera. Like the steering in a car, it really determines the device's character at a basic level.

And on top of everything, pretty good value for a dollar, for the luxury end of mirrorless at least—it's the best deal of these three cameras at the moment. And great good looks. The GX7 is the best camera yet in this successful and prolific line of model evolution from Panasonic.

(By the way, if you know one of those he-men who insist that cameras are just tools and they don't give a $#!% how they look, Jorgen Udvang has a camera they wouldn't mind using. It's just a tool—it doesn't matter how it looks, right? So then it stands to reason they wouldn't mind using this. [Cue laff track.])

Customizable
I haven't really investigated the E-M1 very extensively yet. I had lots of work to do during my three-day break just past, so I didn't get much time for photography. But I'm going to venture one conclusion. One that might not quite be warranted yet.

I have to explain it a bit. Bear with me here.

You know how, in the very old days (before my time, really), interchangeable lenses were considered a way to customize a camera? That is, the fact that you could screw one lens off and screw another on was not something you were necessarily expected to change on the fly, but a way to create a different camera. So old-timey pj's would have two bodies, and one would have a 50mm and one would have a 135mm, and neither lens would ever come off its body.

That's still the way I tend to operate, in essence. I like to get a camera set up the way I like it, and then leave it that way.

Customizable cameras: Old-time pj's Robert Capa and George Rodger

I know some people are different. Some people like to switch all the time between all the different options, depending on the individual job at hand and even on the individual shot they're trying to make. So it's manual focus one day, predictive AF the next; Program exposure for one shot, Aperture-priority for the next; and so forth. Get the idea?

So here's my point. I can't predict yet how that sort of photographer will like the E-M1. That is, I'm not sure I know how easy or convenient it will be to switch back and forth and back and forth between all the available modes of everything.

But, what I can say is that I think photographers like me—who tend to like to set up their cameras according to their own tastes and then more or less leave them set up like that—are going to like the E-M1 very much. It seems to me like it's a camera that's going to be very easy to customize according to each photographer's personal tastes, for photographers who like to do it that way.

Once one does that, it's going to be easy to get to really get used to the camera controls until they become second nature. So I suspect this is a camera that its owners will become very comfortable using over time.

Really very nice in that respect. Haptic technology, I believe it's called.

Too new
These are just preliminary reactions—and I know, I know, it's worthless to get too excited by new cameras because of their limited arc. It's not like you can keep a digital camera for 40 years like an old film camera. And—this is the reason it's an "arc"—we've all gotten very spoiled by getting treated to the latest and greatest while it's shiny-new and special. (We may have to wean ourselves of that particular addiction eventually.) The latest/greatest from three years ago have already lost most of their gloss. At this end of the arc, though, it's very easy to be impressed.

But.

But I am, indeed, greatly impressed by both the GX7 and the E-M1. These are both really nice, refined, luxurious camera designs with great features. (I haven't even mentioned the best feature of the E-M1 at all.) They seem well thought-through, luxurious, and capable.

All three of these cameras are very expensive. On the other hand, you're getting what you're paying for, and it's good to have that option. You don't need cameras this nice. But it's great that they exist.

It's been fun and interesting watching "the DMD" cameras evolve. I'll be writing a bit more about these two as I get to know them in the weeks to come. (And maybe I can even persuade Carl to share some of his thoughts about the GX7. We'll see.)

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 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.

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

jay moynihan: "My DSLRs are ancient bodies, in digital market terms. High ISO on them is not really a feature. I recently got the Fuji X100S for my 'daily carry' as it appealed to my old-guy sensibilities. Turns out to be not only fast and good design, but OMG! the high iso performance floored me. The manual focus even works.... As a 'non-professional,' it seriously calls into question any future DSLR upgrades for me."

Will: "This is great, but the Fuji X-E2 really belongs in this conversation. It is similarly a product of refinement, similarly retro-styled, similarly EVF-driven, and is lousy with switches and dials. Probably too late. Regardless, that was a fun article to read."

Jeff1000: With a quiet-as-a-mouse-wearing-sneakers leaf shutter, bokeh-envy-inducing 23 ƒ/2 Fujinon Aspherical lens, a fabulous 16 MP X-Trans APS-C sensor, wickedly fast and accurate auto- and manual-focusing options, it’s the 'DMD' of all DMDs: the Fuji X100S. Brilliant camera, absolutely brilliant. I’m disappointed that the camera scribes at the sprawling TOP Media Complex haven't taken a closer look at the X100S and reported back :-), but I know, there are so many shiny new objects out there it's hard to keep up."

Ruby: "I had to laugh just a little, because although I primarily shoot digital, I have two MX's, one with an 85mm and one with a 50mm, and neither lens ever comes off."

Godfrey: "I've been working with the Oly E-M1 exclusively since it arrived a month ago. Outfitted with the Panasonic 14mm, Panasonic-Leica Summilux 25mm, and Panasonic-Leica Macro-Elmarit 45mm, this may be the best camera ever developed for me. (Ah, there again is the '28-50-90' idiom.)

"The capabilities are great, the ergonomics and customizability is outstanding, the image quality is something to write home about. I feel absolutely confident to sell off everything else I currently use...including if I feel like it the M9...and relying upon the E-M1 for all my photography. It's that good from my perception."

Michael Bearman: "Why can't you keep a digital camera for 40 years?"

Sylvain responds to Michael B.: "From the top of my head:

• OLED technology where it is used—EVF, LCD panels—has a relatively short life expectancy.
• Battery technology: batteries wear out over time and lose their max capacity; at the rate we see manufacturers change battery formats, that will be a real issue. (It was already an issue once in the past with the shift from mercury batteries to 'modern' ones.)
• File format: A RAW of 2013 might be impossible to read in a filesystem of 2053. Although this could hopefully be mitigated in many ways. Adobe DNG is such an attempt.

"And I'm sure there are many other things. Nothing impossible to overcome, but my impression is that mechanical cameras could see some of their parts more easily replaced or remade, I believe, than an electronic circuit/sensor."

Jock Elliott: "Dials and switches and buttons—oh my!

"Mike, there is one downside to those lovely manual controls: inadvertent activation. I was chimping some shots taken with my Canon G12 and muttering 'Why in heck are they so dark?' Then I noticed that the exposure compensation dial was way off of where it should have been. It protrudes slightly from the back edge of the top deck of the camera and had rotated from contact with the bag when I was sliding it out to shoot. That kind of thing generally doesn't happen with software settings."

Mike replies: I'd disagree with that last conclusion to a certain extent—although perhaps I just have a genius for bollixing things up. And at least with a manual control, you can relatively easily see what's gone awry, when it's gone awry—anyone ever had the experience of having something go "off" with the software controls and not be able to figure out quickly what or where? Granted I use too many cameras, each for too short a time, but that's not a good feeling.

I'd also argue that the "inadvertent setting" problem is partially fallout from the rapid pace of development, which prevents designs from being slowly refined and perfected. For example, the SD card door and slot position was perfect on my Panasonic GF1; it's much less than ideal on my current Sony NEX-6, which always has me fumbling and cursing. With slow evolution, little niggling problems evolve out of a design. But when each new camera is too much of a blank slate, that process isn't allowed to occur.

In fact, this is one of my big hopes for the OM-D E-M1. As Olympus's new "pro" body, I'm hoping that its future development will take a more conservative course and retain the basic haptics long enough for the look, feel, and operation to become comfortable and familiar to consistent users. This is something Canikon tries to do with its top pro SLRs, largely with success.

Open Mike: Weight-Loss Diet Update

"Open Mike" consists of Yr. Hmbl. Blggr. going off-topic in a concerted way. It shows up here on some Sundays.

-

I'll try to make this short. A lot has changed since my last post on this subject.

I've reached the half-way point in my weight-loss diet. I committed to stay on the diet for 70 weeks, with a target weight loss of one pound a week, because when I started I was 70 pounds overweight (according to conventional BMI calculators, which can easily be found online).

My requirements are a bit demanding. These are my limitations:

• I'm quite lazy (about many things, definitely including food);
• I can't cook, and I'm unlikely to learn—I just don't like it, and have no talent for it; and
• I'm not gonna suffer. I tried "torture diets" and calorie-restriction diets, and they're not for me. Anything that requires the consistent application of extraordinary willpower just ain't gonna cut it for a lackadaisical undisciplined lazy dude who hates to cook.

Here's where I stand:

Week: 35
Weight loss: 35 lbs.

So I'm doing okay. So far.

Note that this level of exactitude is not the result of luck or wisdom, but adjustment: when my weight loss has been more than one pound a week, I took steps to slow it down; and when it was less than one pound a week, to speed it up.

My diet, which I call by the awkward name of "The Gruel-and-Grass Diet" (I was never good at naming things), is very simple. Here it is:

1. Restrict yourself to three meals a day.
2. One meal (breakfast) is 1/2 cup of oatmeal, with a few additives to make it more pleasant, and nuts.
3. The second meal should be 1/2 cup of converted rice, perhaps with a few additives to make it more pleasant.
4. The third meal should be a sensible prepared meal of your choice. That one meal is where you can introduce variety to your daily fare, and also where you can indulge whichever theory of healthy eating you happen to believe in.
5. Strictly avoid salt, sugar, fat, and any processed food products designed to induce and encourage cravings.
6. Weigh in once per week at the same time of the same day, and keep adjusting your habits so you average 1 lbs. of weight loss per week. I use one of these, because I got frustrated with my obviously imprecise bathroom scale. Too much weight loss is as bad as too little.

That's pretty much it. It's not a "lifetime eating plan." It's meant to be a temporary weight-loss diet for normal people who find they are obese and need to lose a great whackin' pile o' poundage. (Losing 70 pounds is not trivial.)

I'm perfectly happy with my breakfast. I eat my half cup of oatmeal with some cinnamon and one level teaspoon of sugar, usually with a small amount of fruit added (raspberries, strawberries, bananas, blueberries, or kiwi). I also eat one-third of a cup of mixed nuts. I mix at least five types of nuts, including pistachios, almonds, cashews, pecans, Brazil nuts, and filberts. Nuts are very good for you, but they're also highly caloric, as I discovered one week when I snacked on them liberally.

With anything you're prone to overeat, such as nuts in my case, it's good to measure it.

I'm not entirely happy with my other two meals. Still tinkering. Mostly, I find it difficult to plan ahead and then cook. To my rice in the evenings, I will sometimes add a cup of cooked wild rice, and I'll use different sauces and marinades to vary the flavor; however it's not easy to find sauces that aren't loaded with sodium and sugar. Sometimes I add half a can of red beans and a dollop of barbecue sauce, which is tasty. Often I have my rice and a large bunch of salad greens, which seems to do the trick. As with the nuts, I mix many different kinds of lettuces and greens, including spinach greens.

Symptoms
I find, somewhat to my surprise, that I really like eating this way. It makes life easier, and I'm mostly very comfortable—I'm only mildly "peckish" for a few hours in the evenings (which is when I used to overindulge). And I miss sweets, which are very similar to a drug for me.

And, as you will hear from lots of people who've lost a significant amount of weight while getting adequate nutrition, I feel so much better it's amazing. I can really hardly believe it.

Of course I still have a long way to go.

I began the journey that resulted in this diet a little over three years ago, in response to a suggestion from my brother, Dr. Scott Johnston, a Ph.D. psychologist. Since then I've surveyed a cross-section of the popular literature (I've read approximately 55 books on dieting and nutrition). My conclusion is that the science of nutrition is currently in a primitive state, about like medicine before William Harvey or epidemiology before John Snow. We lack fundamental clarity. Accordingly, devotees of various belief systems are full of a passionate intensity (exactly as theorists of disease transmission were before germs were discovered), even though the beliefs to which they adhere are widely divergent.

That third meal
It's impossible to dictate to others which belief system they ought to choose. So, for that third meal, you'd follow your own course.

Personally, after reading The China Study at the suggestion of a few readers here on TOP and watching the companion film "Forks Over Knives," available on Netflix, I've adopted for my third meal what a TOP reader named Grant Sellek (he comments as "Arg") named "V+1." Except I'd call it "V+x," where V = vegan and "x" is the number of pounds of animal protein you'll allow yourself to consume per week.

Note that you can be a vegan and eat very unhealthily (what are called "junk food vegans"—after all, caramel popcorn is vegan!), so it's probably better to refer to it as a "whole food, plant based" diet like T. Colin Campbell does.

For me, x = about 1 cup of whole milk a day (split between two large mugs of coffee, the second of which I seldom finish) and maybe a third of a pound of raw and cooked fish and seafood a week (I go out for sushi).

My suggestion is that for your third meal, you should cook for yourself (i.e., don't rely on restaurants) using ingredients (i.e., whole food), and observe reasonably judicious portion control. 

Cravings
The principal failing of the current Western industrial diet is cravings, and you're not necessarily to blame. Three years ago, I was deeply curious about the obesity epidemic; I'm not any more. Michael Moss's recent book Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us (a must read) answers that mystery convincingly. Faux-food producers work very hard, with teams of marketers and scientists and virtually unlimited resources, to induce you to overindulge in unwholesome, unhealthy, heavily adulterated foods. You do this "voluntarily," but it's a designed program and they're very, very good at manipulating you.

You need to resist.

The bad news is that temptation is everywhere, and nearly everybody not on a self-regulated diet suffers. The good news is that cravings can be banished relatively quickly if you just cut out the offending substances from your diet. The worst cravings will subside after three days of abstaining, and are nearly gone after ten days. You'll still feel the pull of old habits when you're tempted, but, as new habits take hold, resisting the worst salty-sugary-fatty concoctions becomes manageable.

I will say it's not easy at first. Here are the main things to stay away from:

• Sugar, overt (candy, ice cream, pastries, etc.) and covert (hidden in a wide variety of products, from ketchup to packaged bread);
• Cheese, especially processed cheese, and all processed meats;
• Chips and crackers of almost every sort;
• Adulterated and alcoholic drinks including all sodas whether sugared or "diet." ("Don't drink calories" is very good starter advice for people who want to lose weight.) Drink water.

I've also recently been staying away from red meat and milk, but that's my current personal "diet ideology" as mentioned above, so I can't really add those to the list. Maybe you think so, maybe you don't.

The bad side is that consuming these salt-, sugar-, and fat-riddled faux-food concoctions will trigger the cravings anew. So it's very difficult to have "just a little" on the grounds that just a little won't hurt you. Any food carefully engineered to induce cravings will induce cravings not only for more of that substance ("Betcha can't eat just one!"), but also for more food in general. You need to stay away.

Sugar is my weakness. During my 35 weeks, I've lapsed twice—once when I had a very large (and I must say, incredibly delicious) dessert while out at a restaurant with friends, and once at Halloween, when I had candy in the house and was unable to resist pigging out on it. In both cases, it took me about a week to get on track again, and those two weeks were the hardest of my diet period so far. It's like starting over. The cravings are relatively easy to banish, but they will also return easily. You have to be on guard.

Until next time
The good news I'll leave you with is that The Gruel-and-Grass diet is easy, comfortable, and effective. It's a temporary diet intended for weight loss, although I like it so much I'll probably stick with some version of it after the 70 weeks are up. I just need to find more energy for planning and cooking that third meal.

If you're suffering from overweight, I highly recommend the project, however you go about it. It turns out that a lot of the ill effects I'd been ascribing to aging just weren't—they were the effects of overweight and poor diet. The former, of course, is not reversible. The latter very much is.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 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's links!

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

Romano Giannetti: "I was in a quite easier challenge than you (just 30 pounds to go), and liking cooking and having a normally a Mediterranean diet (I normally live in Spain) so for me the famous diet recipe of Karlos Arguiñano—Just Eat One Half—worked beautifully. But the lesson I learned is that you need to actively control what you eat. The market offering (even in so-called healthy food countries like my Italy and Spain) are mischievous, and evidently the evolutionary mechanisms of autoregulation of our bodies are not working for our modern lifestyle."

BH: "Some of this sounds familiar to me, particularly your long-term, measured approach. I'd tried all the different diets but it wasn't until I changed my mind—my expectations and timeframe—that I started getting a handle on things. I'm currently 12 weeks into a 1.5 lb./week loss plan, and have lost 20 lbs. with very little suffering.

"I have to mention one product that has helped me immensely: Fitbit. (www.fitbit.com). Once I started collecting and analyzing data over periods of time greater than one day, I really changed my approach. My diet is no longer 'blown' by one night out with friends, because I'm always looking at the big picture. Recommended for people who have been easily derailed in their efforts."

Mike replies: Good point. I agree that thinking in terms of longer periods of time really makes a big difference. For example, if every day is a torture to get through, you immediately know you're not on a workable plan. Because although deprivation might seem tolerable for some amorphous undefined period of a few weeks or a month or two, it becomes obvious that it's not tenable if you're planning your diet for a year or more. Also, I agree that it helps you overcome difficulties like lapses and plateaus—if I put on a pound one week instead of take it off, it's not a disaster. I just adjust going forward.

You're right that this is probably a very important mental adjustment to adopt.

Chris Malcolm: "I had to retire early because of ill health. I'd had a heart attack and discovered I was diabetic. I'd lost about half of my sugar-controlling insulin capacity. Instead of the easy option of taking the pills my doc wanted to prescribe, I tried the option of avoiding eating more carbs at any one time than my damaged pancreas could handle.

"My diet ended up quite unlike yours except in three important respects: I avoided junk food; I naturally ate less than I used to; I didn't get hungry. The effects of this diet over the next few years were that I lost weight at about a pound every few weeks, started feeling a lot better, and all sorts of physiological failings which my doc had assured me were the inevitable result of aging started improving. We allowed a huge complex of food supply industries to develop which profited from persuading people to eat more. What on earth did we expect would happen?"

Pining for Gilda

The Management will be taking a short three-day break. I intend to sunbathe in Cozumel, skydive in Oklahoma, and attend Rigoletto at the Met before jetting back to sprawling TOP World Headquarters in time to pen an "Open Mike" for Sunday.

In the meantime, here's what's new at the Luminous-Landscape, Kirk has got his lab coat on, don't forget Gordon, and here is a news site I enjoy (how about that elk? Très dangereux). And Ming Thein will welcome you to Kuala Lumpur, where he will keep you entertained whilst I am browning, plummeting, and pining for Gilda.

See you anon.

Mike a.k.a. the Management

P.S. I'm not actually planning to fling myself from any airplane. But...the OM-D E-M1 arrives today, and I am planning to take some time to...well...don't be shocked...to do some photographing.

I know, this is unusual. Things will be back to normal before we know it!

Original contents copyright 2013 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.

Canon EF 70–200mm ƒ/2.8L IS II USM

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Featured Comments from:

Jeff1000: "'Sprawling TOP World Headquarters'—LOL, thanks for that Mike. Bitterness, irony, sarcasm, and humor in just four words."

Mike replies: And envy, don't forget envy.  :-)

Phil: "Isn't that a coincidence! My E-M1 arrived yesterday. Alas, I had to go to work today. But I did slap on my Lumix/Leica 25mm and walk around at lunch. Hmmm. Imagine what I could do with three whole days...wait...I have tomorrow off...I have three whole days! Okay. This is gonna be fun!

"Hope you enjoy your time off too."

In Search of a Vocabulary for Image Quality

This week's column by Ctein

A week back, David Dyer-Bennet had an interesting comment on Mike's column, "Do You Really Need Full Frame?" It's worth looking up; in part it read:

We really need to find some way to demonstrate in controlled conditions ... using "pictorial" subjects (not test charts) ... The "tonality differences" that some people see in medium-format vs. 35mm, or today in full-frame vs. Micro 4/3 or whatever.

This relates to a problem I've been wrestling with for several years. How can we describe image quality more fully? I'm pretty well convinced that there are different "looks" to different formats and lenses. The problem figuring out how to analyze them is that we're lacking in a proper vocabulary (I mean that both colloquially and technically). Without such, it's very hard to create the comparisons. Whether it's with test charts or pictorial subjects you can only test for what you can describe. Without the right descriptor, you don't even know what to be looking at.

Example 1: Back in the (mostly) predigital age, British photo magazine writer Roger Hicks and I discussed the "looks" of different film formats quite a bit. We came to the tentative conclusion that what visually distinguished larger format from 35mm (and sometimes medium format) was not resolution and sharpness, as most people opined. We thought it was the disappearance of grain, so that you got clear, transparent tonality with no distracting noise. It took us a while to come to that understanding, because resolution and grain were intimately coupled in film.

Once we had digital photography of some quality, where noise and resolution became substantially independent parameters, comparison images made it clear that our instincts were right. But one couldn't design such comparisons without the right descriptor of the differences.

Example 2: My intuition says there's a lot more to bokeh, analytically, than most folks think. Bokeh isn't directly important to my photographs; I minimize distinctly out-of-focus areas as much as possible, plus I'm pretty insensitive to the nuances of bokeh even when they are present. But I think that indirectly it might have a great deal to do with how a lens "looks."

It's like this: I strongly suspect I can grossly quantify bokeh in terms of a spatial frequency power spectrum as a function of the distance-from-correct-focus. I'm pretty sure I could tell, crudely, good from bad bokeh just by looking at those curves. Harsh bokeh, for example, has a lot more high-frequency power than smooth bokeh.

Why should this connect to the overall "look" of a lens? Because, except for photographs of landscapes at effective infinity, just about no photographs are entirely in focus. The amount of defocus is held down to some tolerable blur circle (your acceptable depth of field), but that is distinctly larger and more diffuse than a pinpoint. The power distribution of spatial frequencies in that little bitty circle, kind of a mini-bokeh, affects the visual rendering—how edges are delineated from broad tonal areas, how microcontrast is enhanced or suppressed, etc.

It even affects depth of field, that range of distances over which subjects appear acceptably sharp. How much edge frequencies are enhanced or suppressed in out-of-focus areas alters our perception of sharpness. Harsh bokeh looks sharper. Even more subtly, the transition from acceptably-sharp to not-acceptable will be affected by that power spectrum.

I have a suspicion that this is all very well understood by the best lens designers (who are either nodding in agreement or laughing their heads off at my speculations), but it's not stuff they discuss with us mere mortals. Lacking a proper vocabulary for understanding this, it's next to impossible for us to devise (let alone analyze) meaningful comparison photographs. And that's only one aspect of lens quality that we find ourselves fumbling over.

Example 3: How about them cameras? Oren Grad and I have been noodling, on and off for years, with the problem of describing how digital cameras render spatial detail. Oren is preternaturally sensitive to the way spatial frequencies get portrayed, as sensitive to those as I am to color. (I can perceive 1/2 CC color differences; on occasion, 1/4 CC.) I can just barely see image characteristics that jump out at him (and grate on his sensibilities like fingernails on a chalkboard). I think he may be picking up on nonlinearities in how spatial frequencies get transformed.

In film photography, we often looked to the "modulation transfer function" (MTF)—how strongly different spatial frequencies are rendered. For example, suppose some MTF curve indicates that at 30 line pair per millimeter, the contrast is 50%. What that means is that spatial frequencies of 30 lp/mm will be reproduced with only 50% as much contrast as they had originally.

Now, there's an assumption there, which is linearity. It doesn't matter what the original contrast was; whatever it is, it's cut in half. The real world doesn't behave quite so nicely, but for film it was a good enough approximation.

It's not so good for digital cameras. There's a huge amount of internal signal processing that goes on before we get our grubby mitts on the photograph (even with RAW). Overall, it makes the photographs look better; we'd be a lot less satisfied with our cameras without it. But it doesn't make any pretense of linearity.

For instance, the canonical way of dealing with noise is to selectively suppress high spatial frequencies of low contrast. In any kind of noise suppression system, the MTF for low contrast subject material will be less than it is for high and the difference between the two will be greater for higher spatial frequencies. That's just one example of what can go on in a digital camera. A real digital camera doesn't just have one MTF curve, it has a whole family of them that are highly subject dependent.

Therein lies our problem. How do we concisely describe these kinds of complicated and nonintuitive behaviors. What kind of vocabulary will let us usefully and precisely describe what we're looking at?

Without such a vocabulary we're just fumbling about, flailing at conceptual will-o'-the-wisps while we try to wrap our heads and aesthetics around aspects of image quality we barely understand.

Ctein

Ctein's weekly column appears on Wednesdays.

©2013 by Ctein, all rights reserved

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Featured Comments from:

Manuel (partial comment): "One possible answer is to sidestep technical considerations and confine the concept of image quality to the realm of subjectivity. A picture is a good one if it pleases you to behold it. This has the virtue of overriding any conceptual hurdles just by exploding them."

NigelRobinson: "This might not be what you are asking but there are established procedures and methods used in winemaking for sensory analysis. You may have come across them during your tea tasting. In particular, it is possible to determine sensitivity thresholds (i.e., how sensitive an individual is to a certain parameter, as you mention for your colour perception). Likewise, when using methods such as t tests, triangle tests, etc., it is possible to assess whether there are real differences between presented samples. This might not help with the vocab you need but might help you step forward."

Terry Letton: "If there is to be any worthwhile outcome to your quest, I think that the first thing to do is to eliminate the notion of better or worse from your categories. The different descriptions of image quality will be just that, different. Then it makes sense to inquire as to the appropriateness of said quality to an individual image. In this sense, image quality is much more than MTF tests and the like; it includes the input of the photographer. Capa then becomes a positive example of image quality rather than the go-to negative example."

Jocky scot: "I rate my camera lens combos by 'loveliness.' The D700 has got it while the OM-D E-M5 does not. I can tell by how the clouds and sky look."

Roberto: "It is fun to see how people with different attitudes (scientific vs. liberal arts) approach the issue. The same word 'quality' seems to be understood differently. I, having a background similar to Ctein's, fully support his quest. It would be useful to have a coherent way to describe the visual features of a picture (don't call it quality that for someone imply 'how good it is'), without reverting to numbers and charts. Which I love, but are hard to map to our visual perception."

Dave Polaschek: "Be careful in chasing after 'quality.' As I recall, it was a quest for quality that drove Phaedrus mad, and turned him into Bob Pirsig who needed to ride around on a motorcycle for a while and figure out his own brain."

Gordon Lewis: "Not only is it difficult to find a vocabulary to describe the esoteric, it's difficult for the uninitiated to understand the vocabulary even when it exists. For example, experienced electric guitarists would know exactly what I meant if I referred to a guitar's tone as being spanky, woody, twangy, wiry, or snarky. Anyone unfamiliar with these terms would probably find them bewildering. I'm not dismissing the search, mind you. I'm just agreeing with Ctein's assertion that these distinctions will still difficult to recognize, even after they have been defined in words."

Thomas McInnis: "As a Gen-Y'er (for want of a better term) in the fashion industry, many of the IQ indicators which are being discussed here seem irrelevant. Most of my experience of photography is print-less. At best a good Steidl book might pass through the studio, but generally photography is consumed in the pages of glossy magazines and on screen. Perhaps bokeh and resolution etc. has some impact on how that imagery is perceived, but largely it seems the race for adequate quality to match the best printing presses is over. I can shoot my work on full-frame, or APS-C, or on a pocket digicam with adequate megapixels and lens sharpness, and for the most part no-one (including my clients) would be the wiser.

"There is one thing for which (in my experience) we lack terminology. Colloquially me and my friends speak of 'space' in an image. For many years we would look at superb fashion editorials and be mystified as to how the photographer could show such a wide perspective, but yet feel so close to the model. Poses and framing were impossible to replicate when fooling around in the studio.

"Then a friend bought a Phase One kit.

"Reflecting back I realised this was the distinction I couldn't identify when I upgraded from APS-C to full frame. There is a difference in 'space,' and although it is common to talk about equivalent focal lengths on different formats with reference to field of view, there is obviously more going on. A 35mm equivalent FOV never feels quite like 35mm—and matching the FOV of 55mm on the Phase One to a full-frame does not result in the same image when photographing a model pulling a distorted and dramatic pose.

"So perhaps someone here can point me in the right direction for terminology to deal with this feeling of closeness and space?"

Car Talk: New Camera, Old Lens

Words and photographs by Jim Hughes

I beg to differ a bit with Bruno Masset ("Two Reasons...," Oct. 16), who proffered a well-reasoned warning about adapting wideangle rangefinder lenses to digital cameras. Okay, I know that he, and other commenters, said that certain lenses "might" cause problems with certain sensors. I also realize he was addressing primarily so-called legacy RF wideangle lens performance on full frame sensors, and not specifically APS-C, which is what I have in my Fuji X-E1. And I certainly appreciated all the knowledge he imparted, much of which I can't say I fully understood.

Nonetheless, I think my recent experience sheds a little more light (okay, pun intended...) on this issue. Back in mid-July, tired of carrying around a beer-can sized (but otherwise excellent) 18–55mm zoom lens that came with my compact X-E1, and exasperated by the inordinate wait for the new (and still large, not to mention expensive) 23mm (35mm FOV equivalent) ƒ/1.4 lens from Fuji, I decided to give my ancient (vintage 1956!) and truly minuscule 25mm ƒ/3.5 Canon RF lens (above right) a trial run. In truth, over the years I had used it very sparingly on my Canon rangefinders. My wideangle focal length of choice for FF has always been 35mm. For me, in fact, the 35mm focal length served as my "normal," and the 50mm was my "moderate telephoto."

As you might guess from the picture of it, much of the 25mm lens protrudes into the camera and, even mounted in an inexpensive Fotodiox adapter, comes close to the sensor (but never strikes anything). The steeply-curved front element is deeply recessed, which is why Canon never released a lens shade for it, or even advised the use of one. But while the lens is coated, point it toward a bright sun and you do get flare. On the other hand, for me a few spectral highlights just add to the retro feel of the imagery produced. As does this lens's rendition of color, contrast, and definition across the APS-C field. Moreover, the Canon somehow imparts a feeling of illumination from within—I don't know how else to put it.

In 1956, by the way, this Canon was regarded as a fast ultra-wide. David Douglas Duncan was said to have raved about its qualities. Its design was based upon the even more venerable Zeiss Topogon. Basically, a cutaway shows it to be similar to a marble—a glass sphere, split in two. Canon added a flat element at the back, perhaps more for protection than anything else:

Bokeh considerations aside (not much of an issue with wideangles as far as I am concerned), ƒ/3.5 is not a limitation for me, given that most of my photographs are made outdoors, generally on the street, as they say. ISO 800, not particularly fast these days, takes care of my exposure needs. I tend to keep the aperture stopped down to ƒ/8, and have encountered no difficulty focusing manually at that setting.

And I have come to love the way this lens gathers and interprets light. I am always working on several bodies of work, pretty much simultaneously. People, architecture, modes of transportation, etc. Anything involving evidence of the hand of man. One of my longest running series involves automobiles in color (45 years and still counting). Below are a few recent examples, all shot with the Fuji X-E1 / Canon 25mm since July 15th.

1924 Buick Touring Convertible running board

I saw this beautifully restored old car turning down the hill toward the parking lot at the Camden public landing, where the windjammer fleet docks. I ran after it and shot off a few frames before the owners returned and wordlessly drove off to their next destination, ice cream cones in hand.

1924 Buick Touring Convertible windscreen

Custom street rod, done to the nines. Originally a 1940 Ford Business Coupe.

The license plate read "Streetrod." The car was originally a 1940 Ford Business Coupe. Just imagine all the salesman's samples that could be stowed in that trunk!

Shelby Cobra. The front end design screams "speed." The hood was still hot to the touch. I believe this to be a first-year 1962 due to its not having the telltale air scoop on hood. The owner was not there to ask.

Cobra, open cockpit. I half expected to hear, "Gentlemen, start your engines," any second. Or maybe Indiana Jones to suddenly appear. Neither happened.

1956 Citroen 2CV meets Mad Max. A work in progress.

1929 Model A Ford Rumble Seat Roadster, complete with picnic basket

Newish Mini offering good advice

Experimental hand-crafted pedal car, ready to race

It should be noted that all of these vehicles were photographed just as I encountered them, parked on a public street in Camden, Maine, which I have come to believe must be the car capital of, if not the world, at least New England.

The moral here: don't be dissuaded from trying wideangle rangefinder lenses, even older ones, on mirrorless digital cameras. The results may surprise you. Fortunately, in my case, I just didn't know any better.

Jim
(Image credits: lens photo, yaotomi.co.jp;
block diagram: Canon Camera Museum)

Text and photographs ©2013 by Jim Hughes, all rights reserved

For many years, Jim Hughes was the editor of Camera 35. Later, he was the founding editor of Mike J.'s all-time favorite photo magazine, the original Camera Arts. His books include the superb biography W. Eugene Smith: Shadow and Substance—The Life and Work of an American Photographer, and the monograph Ernst Haas in Black and White. Retired now, he writes occasionally for TOP (see his other articles by finding his name in the "Categories" list in the right-hand sidebar). He lives in Maine.

Original contents copyright 2013 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.

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The Sigma Soda Can

So I have this "three strike" rule for myself when it comes to purchases. If I buy three things from a company that expire, explode, disintegrate, deteriorate, malfunction, deform, or otherwise fail—especially in some idiotic or inexcusable manner—then I don't buy from that company again. And I can hold a grudge for a long time.

For example: Black & Decker's third strike, for me (never mind the first two, they were unremarkable), came when I bought a cordless electric lawnmower of theirs. I wanted it because it was quiet and I'm sensitive to noise—the whine of lawnmowers on summer weekend days is like somebody poking me repeatedly in the head with a stick. It was basically a nice product and worked well, but it had an utterly maddening flaw: B&D was too cheap to reverse-thread the bolt on one of the rear axles—they used the same part on both sides. So as you wheeled it around—as naturally you do when you're cutting the grass—one of the wheels would rotate against the thread and stay tight, and the other rotate with the thread and the wheel would loosen and eventually fall off. I tried everything from locking washers to nail polish to get this to stop happening, but nothing did more than slow the eventual failure. Adding insult to injury was the fact that the bolt that needed tightening was behind another structure that had to be removed with a wrench.

The lawnmower held enough charge to cut my whole lawn, it was beautifully quiet, and it cut cleanly and well. And it was handy to maneuver. They'd gotten all the difficult bits right. However, designing a non-powered wheel so that it that stays on its axle has been a solved problem in engineering for some while as far as I know. I don't think it was the fail that bothered me so much—earnest incompetence can actually elicit a sort of pitying sympathy—it's that one wheel worked fine and the other was a fail. So they had proved on the very same product that they knew how to do it right. They just didn't care or bother to make it work on both sides. After about the 150th time I reattached that wheel, I decided that Black & Decker engineers were morons who, in a further slap against their customers, obviously didn't even use their own products. So I decided never to patronize that company again. To this day, I won't buy anything from Black & Decker. Maybe they've changed; maybe they have some great products; don't care. Three strikes. Begone.

The only photographic company that has ever inspired my three-strike ban?

Sigma.

I never really advertised this personal decision before, and I won't tell you the sad stories of the three cheap-crap products that let me down over the years, because I don't want this post to be about that. (Although I will say that I learned from all three experiences.) But some time ago I simply decided, for myself, that I wasn't going to buy any of their stuff any more.

And then recently I broke my own rule.

The reason? It appears that I'm a Sony man (still). Lenses for Sony systems in general are thin on the ground—it's one of the company's failings. Sony likes to introduce new systems willy-nilly, produce a hodgepodge of lenses, maybe promise a few more, then move on. This is the opposite of Canon and Nikon, which produce unimaginative SLR cameras with legacy 35mm-film form-factors, but refine their designs and keep them compatible with broad ranges of accessories (except APS-C-specific primes, which for some reason neither company wants to build). Sony, on the other hand, innovates, but chaotic, piecemeal, and incomplete lens systems are part of the price of that.

Long story short (unless it's too late for that), I was looking for a reasonably-priced short telephoto for my NEX, to extend my lens arsenal towards the super-traditional three. Not a whole lot of choices there. And one option was...

...A Sigma.

Well, what the hell. I swallowed my steely animus, forewent my old grudge, broke my unilateral feud, and ordered a Sigma 60mm ƒ/2.8 DN lens. (It's available for Micro 4/3 as well, but it's longer on those cameras.)

The Sigma "Soda Can"

This is going to seem anticlimactic after all that, but here's the big surprise: I actually really like this lens. It looks like half of an unprinted aluminum soda can, but it's light, and it's actually smaller than my 35mm-e normal (which I must say is overpriced—it's a good lens, but not a great lens). And yes, it rattles—because of the unusual focusing mechanism Sigma uses here which I seem unable to understand, an interior optical assembly slides back and forth when the lens isn't in use. You would think this would alarm me, given my mistrust of Sigma, but it's obvious it's intentional and not a sign of something amiss, so it doesn't bother me.

But what do you know? It seems like a really pretty lens, optically speaking. I really could not care less how it "tests," and it's true that it doesn't have that hard, screechy, barbed-wire sharpness that all the noobies seem to love these days. I just care about how the pictures look to me, and they look unusually nice. The lens is "rich sharp" like a good Zeiss, and the bokeh is generally muted and unobtrusive but not fuzzy.

I'm liking a Sigma.

No pictures here, because all I have a "test pictures" and you can see enough examples on the web. But I'll work toward presenting a little mini-portfolio of pictures by the springtime.

Of course, something could still go wrong with it. Sigma isn't out of the woods with me yet.

But I'm keeping this. I like it.

Aaaaaiiieeeee!!!
Oh, and another thing: I had a Black & Decker string trimmer for the yard, a purchase which pre-dated that third-strike lawnmower. And just a couple of months ago I was using it when I noticed the handle was starting to get warm. Then the trigger stuck and wouldn't turn off; then the handle began to get hot, and then it caught on fire. I'm not making this up, I swear. The handle of my electric string trimmer caught on fire. By the time I unplugged it and got the fire extinguished, half the handle was melted.

Fourth strike, retroactively. I might soften some toward Sigma, but I'm really never buying anything from Black & Decker again.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 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.

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Featured Comments from:

Roger Bradbury (partial comment): "Your string trimmer had a bad connection. Instead of a low resistance which doesn't use any power to speak of, the connection had a relatively high resistance. This uses power. The connection heats up and so the resistance rises, which means more power is used so the connection heats up and so the resistance.... As you now know, this can soon get out of control."

Yves Papillon: "The best cordless lawnmower for your health."

Jeff1000: "I bought a Sigma zoom lens in the early '90s that literally fell apart in my hands. I swore that I would never buy another Sigma product, and I haven't. I’ve been tempted by the 35mm ƒ/1.4 for Nikon, but the memory of that zoom lens threw a wet blanket on that. I wish you the best of luck with your lovely-looking 60mm ƒ/2.8, but you’re clearly more adventurous than I."

Greg Boiarsky: I thought I was the only one constantly re-attaching a wheel to that damn mower! I've never bought anything Black & Decker since then. I can recommend Worx mowers, though. They are quiet and have great batteries. Their Achilles heel is the blade, though—very soft metal. I just sharpen it every month or so, and I'm happy.

"Sigma? Never again: no way, no how. Soft corners and awful autofocusing on each lens I've ever purchased."

Matthew Langley: "I really like the Sigma Micro 4/3 lenses. I'm using the 30mm and, since no one was talking about it, I thought I was the only one who thought they were solid lenses (and rightly priced). Glad to see you are having the same happiness I am."

Sven W: "For the last 20 years my Dad has been repairing and re-conditioning lawnmowers for a hobby (he's 84 now). The build quality of mowers has been going downhill for at least the last 10 years. My advice: 1) Buy a good secondhand unit that's 15+ years old. 2) Metal body, plastic catcher. 3) Four-stroke is quieter than two-stroke. 4) Ball bearing wheels (i.e., not a cheap model with non-ball bearing wheels). 5) After use, hose down the underside to remove all grass, hose out the catcher. 6) Also store in a shed—never outside. 7) Always check the oil level before use. 8) Service every couple of years."

Carlo: "I've had my Sigma 60mm for my NEX-6 for a couple of weeks now. It really is a terrific lens. I love it. Sixty millimeters on a crop sensor seems just the right focal length for portraits. I'll probably pick up the other two Sigmas for NEX. This would let me approximate my favorite three-lens setup...a Contax G with 28mm, 45mm, and 90mm...or my other favorite consisting of Nikon FE with 28mm, 50mm, and 100mm Series E lenses. It's a shame Sony hasn't put more effort into the E-mount lenses. I really have no use for large and pricey Zeiss lenses."

Ruud van ruitenbeek: "This really is the best cordless lawnmower!"

Open Mike: Cabinet Collections and the Apple iPad Air

If any be afflicted, let him pray, and if any be merry
let him sing psalms: The Bay Psalm Book, A.D. 1640

You're looking at a JPEG of the title page of what later this month will become the most valuable printed book ever, surpassing Gutenberg Bibles, Shakespeare First Folios, and Audubon's Birds of North America. It's the rarest of the rare—a first edition of the Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in British North America. A copy is being auctioned at Sotheby's on November 26th. It's the first time the book has come up at auction in 66 years. The low end of the auction estimates is $15 million. (Yale University got its copy in 1947 for $151,000, an astronomical sum for a book at the time.)

If the bidding hits $30.5 million, which it could, this Bay Psalm Book would then  become not just the most valuable printed book but the most valuable paper document on earth, exceeding the $30+ million that Bill Gates paid in 1994 for Leonardo Da Vinci's Codex Leicester, a handwritten journal of the great humanist's scientific notes and inquiries.

Printed in 1640, in Cambridge, near Boston, Massachusetts, my Pilgrim ancestors in Plymouth would certainly have known the psalter. Seventeen hundred copies were printed; 11 survive. The copy to be auctioned is the property of Old South Church in Boston...which also has another one, which won't be sold. (At one time Old South Church owned five of the 11 surviving copies!) The idea of finding a previously unknown Bay Psalm Book is the Holy Grail for rare book dealers and collectors, and has been central to the plots of several novels, including Will Harriss's 1983 mystery The Bay Psalm Book Murder.

Back at the ranch house
Meanwhile, at sprawling TOP World Headquarters in idyllic Waukesha, Wisconsin, I've cycled onward in my e-reader evolution, having just acquisitioned the base model of the new iPad Air. There's nothing wrong with my iPad2 except I've been afraid it's going to attack me. I read in bed at night, with the iPad perched atop a pillow on my chest. I'm uncomfortably aware that if I doze off while reading, the iPad could easily pitch forward and hit me in the nose or the teeth. I'm hoping the new, lighter iPad will help limit the damage; I'm ugly enough as it is without a missing front tooth.

E-readers have required some reshuffling of mental concepts held dear. I've always (since I was small) loved not only books but the idea of libraries. I think of them classically and conservatively, as static collections, brought to a point of perfection and then enduring. The supreme example of this in the world is possibly the Samuel Pepys Library at Magdalene College Cambridge. Samuel must have suffered terribly from OCD; the identical cases were custom-made, and the specially-bound books are ranged not only by subject but by size. This has never been the state of my own collection of books, which is a living, breathing thing, expanding and contracting, messy and sprawling, always in some parlous limbo between partial organization and total disorganization.

Being a man of small means, the idea of a so-called "cabinet collection" has long had a strong appeal to me. A cabinet collection is a miniature library—small enough to fit into a cabinet, or at least a single bookcase or a limited number of them. That idea made sense when books were more precious and relatively more expensive than they are now. Part of the idea is that it should make up in quality and selection what it obviously must lack in quantity.

The e-reader seems to encourage a different concept altogether: of books as consumables. That is, buy one, read it, move on. You can keep it, but there's no need. It's in the cloud. If you need it again, go get it again. There's no reason to archive it in physical form on premises.

In a way, these two conceptions are just opposite each other: the cabinet collection, a small, well-curated collection of high-quality printed books, possessed; and e-reader books, ephemeral by definition, books to be ingested like meals and then replenished by the next, never even granted a physical form.

How I read now: the Apple iPad Air

Gradually, more and more of my reading has become electronic. I've had two Kindles and now two iPads. Although the lastest Kindle Paperwhite in its neat case is the most elegant of the devices for reading, six inches tall and light and easily portable, I've come to prefer the iPad. I'm not really sure why; I just like reading on it better. (Amazon does make its own mini-tablet.) I would say I do 85% of my book reading now, or even 90%, on e-readers as opposed to paper books.

There's one great advantage to digital cameras that keeps me from going back to film: high ISO capability. And there's one great advantage to digital e-readers that printed books can't compete with: variable type size. Every book on the iPad Air is a large print book if I want it to be. It's very nice to be able to pick the most comfortable type size.

Too bad
The iPad Air has every bit of that "latest and greatest" glow that electronic devices have when they're new. It's so lovely I sometimes find myself just holding it, gazing at its new "Retina" screen in admiration. For the first time I'm interested to see what a portfolio of photographs would look like in this format. Type is very crisp and smooth.

I'm sure this glow will fade in a few years. But by then there will be a replacement. Meanwhile, I've deaccessioned more than 30 boxes of paper books in the three years since I first wrote about the Kindle.

Oddly, though, although these two ideas—the cabinet collection and e-books—are opposites, the one might actually enable the other. Of course I've focused my buying of paper books more on my specialty since e-books entered my life, but the other thing I've done is to buy a few nice books. Only a very few so far, but, added to the few "good" books I've had for a long time, I now have what might be called the kernal or the nucleus of a cabinet collection—not a whole case full of very nice books, but one short shelf of them.

Who knows? With most of my reading now taken over by the iPad, maybe I will have a cabinet collection after all, one day.

It won't include the Bay Psalm Book, of course, but I wouldn't want one anyway—the translations in it are not well thought of and no one uses them any more. It's an historical artifact like any other valuable museum antique, and I'm a reader. But I would like to have The Bay Psalm Book Murder by Will Harriss...

...But only if I could get it for the iPad. And you can't. It's not available. You'd have to go to Abebooks.com and buy a paper copy. Too bad; I'd like to read that.

Mike

"Open Mike" is a library of off-topic ramblings by Yr. Hmbl. Ed. that appears on TOP on certain Sundays.

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Geoff Wittig: "To my mind, 'e-books' and actual printed books have as little in common with each other as JPEGs and physical prints. Less, really, as the type and formatting of an e-book is entirely 'virtual' and contingent, while the physical reality of an actual book is a very large part of its artistic virtue.

"I probably own (not really sure, to be honest) four copies of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, each of which serves a different purpose. One is a cheap paperback reading copy that probably should be tossed in the trash, but it sometimes bounces around in the trunk of the car in case I need something to read for those 15 minute bits of slack time. Another is the quite nice yet inexpensive 'Everyman's Library' version which reproduces the lovely typography and woodcuts of the Grabhorn Brothers' 1930 limited edition in more portable format. And I actually own a copy of the Grabhorn edition. It's the most expensive book I possess, much too big for casual reading, but flat-out gorgeous with hand-made paper, deep letterpress impressions and original woodcuts. It's a genuine work of art that conveys Whitman's poetry with an added layer of meaning of its own. The e-book version by comparison is just a cloud of electrons, one that evaporates the moment the source decides you no longer merit access."

robert e (partial comment): "I had to laugh—I've been struck in the face, neck or shoulders by iPhones, a Kindle and a Nexus 7 when using them (including to read books) while lying on my back...."

Michael Perini: "The iPad Retina is a really fine portfolio display device. I highly recommend an app called Portfolio, which allows a fair degree of customization of appearance and individual galleries against simple backgrounds. It comes with a free app for your Mac called 'Portfolio Loader' which can be pointed to any folder on your Mac, to Wirelessly transfer the files, which is a huge benefit.

"I size JPEGs  to fit within 2048x2048 to use all the resolution of the display. (You can make them bigger so that you can pinch and expand, but I choose not to do that so that pictures display as intended.) There are other portfolio apps that I have not tried, so I can't say Portfolio is the best, but I am quite pleased with it. Having selections of favorite images so beautifully displayed  (in any grouping or sequence you choose) on such an easily portable device is like travelling with old friends. Not as good as holding a real paper print in your hands, but a strong second place."

Steve Jacob (partial comment): "It took me about a week to get used to the [Kindle] screen and find a font size that worked. It also takes a period of psychological adjustment.

[...]

"I like books. I always have. But the books that I consider as 'more than just their content' are those illustrated references (including photo books of course) that I have collected over the years, and some nicely bound and rare hardback classics. For paperback novels it's not the book that matters, but the story. I now actually prefer reading novels electronically."

Mike replies: Your comment about the "period of psychological adjustment" is so true. Well said.

Mike D: "It's not just e-readers that can assault you. I once managed to pull a muscle carelessly removing Michel Frizot's A New History of Photography from the bookshelf. It's one big and heavy mother of a book!"

Curmudgeon-in-training: "Rumour has it the Google Guys (tm) will snap up the Psalm Book, slice its spine off, jam it into a sheet feeder, scan it, OCR it and post it on Google Books (tm). Just sayin'...."

 

Owls

The owls are back! Every year about this time, Lulu and I see lots and lots of rabbits on our walks, even though we live in town. Then the owls come through. You can hear them "talking" to each other in the treetops—one over here, one over there. Quiet hooting until deep in the night. They stay for about two or three weeks. I think it would be quite a project to get a picture of one; I've never even managed to see one. You sometimes see brightly flashlit owl portraits taken in the wild, but I'd like to see something more mysterious, maybe of one of them barely visible in the darkness, or gliding from one darkened tree to another.

When they leave, all the rabbits are gone. And the snows come.

Mike

P.S. TOP doesn't update tomorrow. Stay safe and be well, wherever in the world you are.

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Dennis: "Here's my barely visible owl:

"It was actually a bit darker out than it looks in the final picture and I spotted the owl as we were driving along a road outside Jackson Hole, Wyoming. That was on Velvia or Provia...no ISO 6400 option! A minute or two after the picture, the owl spread its wings and pretty much dropped off the top of the tree, caught something and flew away with it."

David Littlejohn: "One summer,when we were in our late teens, a big owl took up residence in the woods near my buddy's house. One night, we borrowed a Nikon SLR, a tripod, a 400mm ƒ/6.3 lens, and a big flash from the studio where I was working for the summer. I think we had the camera loaded with 400 speed slide film (if there was such a thing in the late 1960s). We finally located the owl, way at the top of a tree; we couldn't see to focus, so we just set the lens to 'almost infinity'; and we made the best guide-number-based exposure setting we could. All this while stumbling around in the woods in the dark. The pictures pretty much sucked. But we had a great time."

Angela Weil: "Look at the website of Vincent Munier. He did a series of images in Finland of a great horned owl family at dusk and at night. Probably the best images of owls I have ever seen. Unfortunately it is a flash site, so no direct link seems possible. The series is called 'Nebulosa.'"

Mike replies: Dennis also recommended Vincent's work, and I looked at it carefully. Wonderful.

Dave Fultz responds to Angela: "Thanks Angela Weil and Dennis! That Vincent Munier site is simply fabulous. He is very, very, very good."

Another Capable Camera Hits Rock-Bottom Closeout

The Panasonic G5 Micro 4/3 mirrorless camera has hit the clearance racks—only $299 with lens. The 14–42mm stabilized kit lens, that is.

[UPDATE Saturday 6:10 p.m.: The price of the kit at Amazon has risen to $498 and they have only 3 left, and the price of the body only has risen from $249 to $299 with 14 left in stock.

But B&H Photo, which says "No longer available" for the body-only, still has the body + lens kit at $299.]

[UPDATE #2, Midnight: ...And they're all gone. —Mike]

In writing this post I found myself calling the camera "Very capable but quite bland but very capable."

Okay, made meself laugh again. But actually that does about nail it, once I stop to think about it. It's not much of a toy, but it is a tool—a neat, attractive, easy-to-use tool.

Just passing the word along.

Mike
(Thanks to several readers)

ADDENDUM: A friend tells me that there is something special about the G5: it's the cheapest current large-sensor camera that's completely silent. He emphasized several times: not "quiet"; silent. The GX7 also has this mode, and reportedly the Panasonics' electronic shutter produces artifacts in certain situations. However, my first friend says he has successfully photographed in church with the camera only inches away from someone's ear, and, as long as his lens is wide open (the closing down of the aperture makes a tiny click), he still goes unheard and unnoticed.

So there's that.

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Steve G, Mendocino: "Some time ago, you posted a similar closeout sale on the Panasonic G3 (body only, I think) and I got one. I was so happy with it that I sought out and bought a second body used but in like-new condition from B&H. The G series is a bit Dangerfieldian—gets no respect—but they're fine picture takers. An excellent match for the 20mm ƒ/1.7 Panasonic lens in weight and balance.

"I also have the equally underrated 14–45mm Panasonic IS lens, which was the first GH kit lens. An excellently sharp lens at moderate apertures through its focal length range.

"Spend some time working through the setup menus (in my case, mainly turning things off...) and you have a fine simple camera. Mine is set to aperture priority, at which point the thumb wheel toggles between setting aperture and exposure compensation. ISO is right below that, so it's easy to reset without taking my eye from the (only OK quality, but 100% accurate) finder. When the screen is folded closed, the EVF is active. Open the screen, and it switches to that. Movie button is disabled, so no long, dark films of the inside of my shoulder bag. Highly recommended."

mbka: "I switched directly from G1 to G5. The G5 totally works. 'Bland' never crossed my mind. It just works. Image quality is noticeably better than the G1 and the body coating is more pleasant. My G1 had gotten sticky over time. Bonus, with the G5 I actually manage to take usable night photos, starry skies included. Usable doesn't mean perfect. There is some noise that needs cleaning up in LR or such. The long exposure quality cutoff seems to be about 30 secs. Above that, half the stars are produced by the sensor. Either way, one of my night pics now works as my desktop background, meaning in fullscreen mode on a monitor it is good enough to please. But seriously. The G5 works. The only half-serious issue I can think of is the overly contrasty EVF. On mine I haven't managed to find a setting that I really like. It might be sample spread."

The Ideal Retro Camera

Nikon Df next to the Nikon FM3a, to scale, and...(see below)

A few more random thoughts about the Nikon Df, in no particular order:

Cameras don't take pictures, lenses do
This will be the proper lens to put on one.

...On a black one.

Although I have to say I like what I'm seeing from the new $217 AF-S Nikkor 50mm ƒ/1.8G, which is presumably what the retro "Special Edition" ($60 more) is based on. Loads more than what I'm seeing from the faster version.

No interchangeable focusing screens?
And for those who are bemoaning the absence of a split image focusing screen, etc., you just use the focus-confirmation dot. It's easy after you get used to it, and more precise to boot.

[UPDATE: Several commenters disagree. See the Comments Section for the gory detes. —Mike]

Day late, dollar short
But—hate to tell Nikon—the ideal retro digital SLR has already been and gone.

It was called the Sony A900.

Retro done right. I'm just sayin'.

The A900 was a purist SLR. No video, no live view, no feckin' pop-up flash. Simple, clear menus and controls, excellent traditional ergonomics. No fripperies, fol-de-rol or foolishness. Just a big, beautiful sensor and a big, beautiful view through a big, beautiful glass pentaprism. Classic.

Not to be snarky, but I thought at the time that it was the sort of digital SLR you'd expect a company like Nikon to make.

Oh, well, yes, that was snarky.

And available on eBay for $1,100–1,700.

Versus F100
Nikon F100, the last mid-line film standard: WxHxD approximately 155 x 113 x 66mm (6.1 x 4.4 x 2.6 inches); weight (body only, without batteries), approximately 785g (27.7 ounces).

Nikon Df: WxHxD approximately 143.5 x 110.0 x 66.5mm (5.6 x 4.3 x 2.6 inches); weight (body only, without batteries), approximately 710g (25 ounces).

Credit where credit...
...Is due: Nobody really mentioned this explicitly, but consider that a) for years, people on the Internet have been saying "If Nikon would only make a digital FM2/FE2/FM3a," and b) it did. I mean, granted, the Df is not everyone's idea of a digital FM2/FE2/FM3a, but I think Nikon gets credit here for listening to its fans and at least making an attempt to come up with what they were asking for. No?

...With the D800 added

There's this, too.

Mike
(Thanks to Jonas Yip and Oren Grad)

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Featured Comments from:

Marcell Nikolausz: "The ideal retro digital SLR was Konica-Minolta 7D in my opinion."

Mike replies: You can put "sainted" before "Konica-Minolta 7D." I had no idea how good that camera was, because it was my first DSLR. I really wonder how long I would have used mine if it hadn't gone all wonky on me...after Sony had taken over and was declining to repair them.

Bob Rosinsky: "Agreed. The Sony A900 and its brother, the A850, are well-designed cameras. They have understated retro attributes. These Alphas are a pleasure to use—special indeed. Too bad Sony dropped the ball on optical viewfinder FF cameras. I patiently waited for an upgrade—36MP, 14-bit RAW, and a better AF system—way too long. Then, six months after the Nikon D800 came to market, I succumbed. The Sony went bye-bye. I still miss something about those robust 12-bit Sony files. Oh well, time marches on...."

Quote o' the Day: Lloyd Chambers

Test results from resolution charts provide a narrow and often misleading snapshot of actual lens behavior.

The only reliable way to understand lens performance is by making real images in the field, and even then distance and subject matter can make significant differences. I recommend against making any lens choices based on test charts or MTF or other by-the-number silliness.

—Lloyd Chambers
 from "Understanding Field Curvature"

-

This of course is selective self-reinforcement on my part, since I've been saying essentially the same thing for years. Still, I believe we're both right. And although I've never been able to find the reference, I could swear that I once read that a Leica lens designer (that would have been during the Leitz years—it was probably Mandler) once said that the only way to get to know a lens is to use it for a year and that everything else is a shortcut. Entertainingly, Lloyd goes on to note that when you're testing a lens with field curvature, you can, using small changes of focus, prove that a lens is better than itself. Made me laugh.

Don't subscribe to Diglloyd? It's like having access to a lavish technical library. It's expensive, but Lloyd is probably the best equipment reviewer on the planet.

(I was going to add something about quality not coming cheap, but then I remembered what I charge for TOP and figured maybe that's a road I'd better not go down. Makin' myself laugh again.)

Mike

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Word of Concern

You may not know it, but we have some very friendly readers from the Republic of the Philippines—good photo folks just like the rest of us around the world. At this moment the poor Philippines—without much protection, and with a large population—are being slammed by a monster storm that makes even Hurricane Katrina pale, a super-typhoon said to be "at the high end" of Category 5.

We're deeply concerned about our Filipino friends and all their countrymen, and send them our thoughts and fervent hopes for their safety.

Mike

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JJ: "Hi Mike, just a friendly reader from the Philippines here. Appreciate the sentiment. There's going to be quite a number of lost homes, and the evacuation centers are going to fill up. But we're resilient, and when the news photographers arrive, you can bet your pool table that we'll have our smiles on, ready for our closeup. God keep us all."

Last Post

I'm happy to say I've had multiple reports that Pentti Sammallahti's Here Far Away is finally shipping from Amazon.com. I hope this is the last update post I'll have to do on this subject; the saga has tired me.

I know how I can make myself feel better—I'll go look through the book again.

Mike
(Thanks to everyone who informed me that their order has been shipped)

P.S. When I was checking the orders I noticed that this book is our big seller for this month, despite the fact that I know nothing about it and have not even mentioned it. Interesting.

Original contents copyright 2013 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.

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Featured Comments from:

ACG: "The portrait book was featured a few days ago on Luminous Landscape."

Mike replies: Ah, that explains it. Thanks.

Dave Stewart: "I see there's a certain D. Hobby who's written a glowing review at the Amazon link. Suspect some TOP readers have heard about it via his Strobist website (i.e., here)."

MarkR: "R.C. Concepcion mentioned that book recently on Scott Kelby's blog. Must be some sort of halo effect."

Mike replies: I guess everybody's talking about it, then.

RobinP: "It would be interesting to know how many (if any) TOP readers bought the Kindle edition of the Heisler book and what their opinion is re looking at a photo book in the new format."

Chris Gibbs: "Here's an interview with Heisler talking about that book. And he even segues into 'the look' he wanted for a certain shot. It ties in nicely with Mike's post 'Do You Really Need FF?'"

Memory Color

I distinctly remember having an argument with my father when I was six years old, in which I maintained that I could already see the colors on the TV shows I watched. Even though we had a black-and-white TV. I was convinced I saw that Yogi Bear was brown and that the sky over Jellystone Park was blue.

At least now I know that I wasn't uniquely crazy.

...And his tie and hat were green. Obviously.

Mike
(Thanks to Steven House)

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Jim Bullard: "I once did a show of all B&W photos and several months later met someone who had seen the show and complimented me on the 'wonderful colors' in my images and described one in particular that she liked. I judiciously decided not to correct her. I'm sure she did see color in them."

John Robison: "Never paid attention to whether I saw colors or not. But this I know. In a completly dark darkroom, I actually 'see' the film I'm loading on the reel. Strange."

Harold Merklinger: "I had a similar experience, except I was probably eight or nine at the time. My first camera was an Ansco Craftsman—which was an assemble-it-yourself box camera using 120 film. The first photo I took that actually had good tonality was of a rooster. I was sure I could see the rooster's colors even though the image was black and white. But there was another sensory experience too. I also thought I could taste something. And I still get that taste experience when I view an image—black and white or color—that displays tonalities that are just exactly right!"

Is First Limited Zoom the Old 'Adjustable Normal'?

Years ago, Pentax created a very unusual zoom lens prototype. Called the "Flexi" (said so right on the lens), it was an SMC Pentax-M lens of rather limited spec: 32–39mm.

Thirty-five millimeter lenses were at that time (1978) being increasingly used as normal lenses, but people had varying tastes—some wished it were just a tetch wider, some just a tetch narrower. So the idea was that you could get a Flexi (which, at 63x45mm and 230g, was barely bigger than a normal prime—the famous SMC Pentax-M 50mm ƒ/1.4 was 63x37mm and 235g) and tweak it yourself, to taste.

It was never put into production.

...Until now?!? Ricoh Imaging has just announced the first zoom lens in the "Limited" lens lineup for Pentax APS-C digital SLRs...and it's a mere 2X, a 20–40mm ƒ/2.8–4. The world hasn't seen much of 2X normal zooms since the old 35–70's were commonplace.

The first zoom in Pentax's acclaimed "Limited" lineup.
Also available in silver chrome.

It's small—69mm long and light at 283g. And if you think of it, with a field-of-view equivalency of 30–60mm, it replaces a 35mm, a 50mm, all of the "middlin'" focal lengths in the 40–45mm range, the odd (to me) 60mm "long normal" focal length that's not as unusual these days as it used to be, and it gets pretty close to a 28mm (Pentax has history with 30mm and 31mm lenses, too). So although at first glance it seems limited (no pun intended) as a zoom, it covers all the most-used "normal" focal lengths.

As with the other Limiteds, it features metal contruction and comes in black or silver. And as a bonus, it's weatherproof—making it the perfect normal lens for your spiffy new K-3 or trusty K-5. A zoom that doesn't feel like a zoom around your neck.

I dub it the "Pentax Flexi"—here at last.

Mike

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Featured Comments from:

Barnard Scharp (partial comment): "Still jealous of Pentax shooters and their lens options....  ;-)  "

Nigel Robinson: "That actually—almost—sounds like just the thing. I've been working in a winery in Austria for the last six weeks and needed something small and waterproof. Wineries are rather damp with all the cleaning that goes on all the time, not to mention all the fog that rolls in. The focal lengths sound about perfect. I do have a bias against variable-aperture zooms though. I wonder how many bottles of Riesling it will sell for."

icexe: "At first I scratched my head when I saw this lens, then I thought about how often I switch primes to get just those focal lengths. This is simply brilliant."

Baby, It's Cold Outside

This week's column by Ctein

Once again I'm asking you, my gentle readers, for technical advice. How are you doing digital photography in really cold weather?

Here's my situation. A friend has invited me to go with her to Yellowknife next March in hopes of catching the aurora. I've photographed the aurora before, as the accompanying illustrations show. From the purely photographic side of things, I know exactly what I want to do both technically and aesthetically this time.

The thing is, the last time I photographed the aurora I was using film...and the temperatures didn't even hit freezing. This time, I'll be digital. (Don't even suggest I return to film. If that's my only option, then I won't be making any photographs. Subject closed, end of story.)

At the time of year I'll be going, the average low is –25 Celsius. The possible excursions from that are rather substantial; it can go +/– 10 to 15 degrees either way. Great for me if it goes to the plus side, but I have to assume the worst. This last March, for the same time period, the lows ranged from –35 to –38. That's in the "is that Celsius or Fahrenheit?" old-joke territory*.

I know how to dress for such conditions (and I have experts on tap to vet my knowledge). I don't need any advice on that. It's the camera equipment that's the problem. What even operates under those conditions?

Just off the top of my head, I've identified four problem areas (please let me know if I missed others):

• Camera Battery
• Camera Shutter
• Lens diaphragm
• Lens focusing motor

The battery has a known solution, which is an external battery pack with a cable, so you can keep the battery close to your body while running power to the camera. So far as I know, there is no such thing for my Olympus E-M5 (is that right?), which means I'll be having to rent a camera for this trip. It would be nice if it were a Micro 4/3 body because then I could use my existing lenses. Assuming there is a body out there for which there is an external battery pack and assuming its shutter can operate in those conditions.

Except...maybe I can't use my existing lenses! Only one of them is entirely manual, and its focal length is not ideal for this purpose. Do any of today's highly automated lenses work under such extreme conditions? The manufacturers' technical spec websites are useless; nobody is specifying this stuff to near-arctic temperatures. Which doesn't mean it won't work there, but it sure doesn't mean it will, either.

I can't even run my own tests. My deep freeze only goes down to about –15 Celsius. Something that works there may well fail entirely when it's 20° colder.

I have a few polar-visiting friends I can tap for advice in this area—Michael Reichmann, Charlie Cramer, Stuart Klipper. But I figure among Mike J.'s 20,000+ readers, there's gotta be a lot more hands-on expertise, and that's what I need. Not theory; I'm really good at spinning my own theories. On occasion they're even right, he said wryly. Hands-on, honest-to-Betsy practice: It'll trump theory any day.

Okay, all you polar bears and penguins, tell me what you know!

Ctein

P.S. One of my readers just privately emailed me a link to these camera heaters. Anyone have any experience with these?

-

[*Celsius and Fahrenheit are the same at –40°. —Ed.]

Ctein's weekly column appears on Wednesdays. Here's his website.

©2013 by Ctein, all rights reserved

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Featured Comments from:

adamct: "To my knowledge, Bjørn Rørslett, a Norwegian nature photographer known for taking pictures in extreme conditions (including extraordinarily long exposures in Arctic conditions) is the expert on this subject (at least when it comes to Nikon gear). His website is here. What he refers to as his 'legacy' site was an invaluable resource for years, but has not been updated since the D3 became available. (See his comments on the D3's long-exposure performance in cold conditions.) Anything from him since then will be available on Nikongear.com, but you can also just contact him directly (see the contact details on his legacy website)."

Chris Gibbs (17-year Alaska shooter): "All you need to know is contained on this blog; the e-book is a bonus. [The same source of information is recommended by Peter S in another comment. —Ed.] It's not that tough. Just don't overthink it. Spare battery in your pocket, Ziploc bag (just in case you need to take the camera from cold to warm). AF lenses will be fine. You can set infinity focus in good light, then use some electrical tape and tape the focus ring (zoom ring too if needed). Modern digital bodies are way better than old film cameras in the cold; nothing at all to worry about other than batteries and taping down the AF ring at infinity (switch off AF though!!!). I never used a remote battery with the 5D Mark II and 5D Mark III batteries; modern lithiums are superb in the cold. Those remote releases freeze too—check out Patric's blog for some funny examples."

Bryan Hansel (partial comment): "I photograph in –20°F regularly in the winter and often down to –30°F or so. There aren't many issues with higher-end bodies, other than LCD lag, and it's less bad with newer models. I also teach winter photography workshops, and I've seen a few issues with lower-end models, but it's rare. The problems I've seen include one camera freezing up and not working until it warmed up, repeat all day. I've also seen autofocus systems freeze up, but not often and only with kit lenses. It'll be interesting this winter, because I suspect I'll have a few people with cameras that use touchscreens. I suspect based on a fall workshop that I taught that the touchscreens will be an issue for winter photography...."

[Bryan proceeds to discuss Ctein's four possible failure points one by one. It's informative but too long for the Featured Comments; please refer to the Comments section to read his entire contribution. —Ed.]

Peter Zimmerman (partial comment): "As a former born and raised Yellowknifer [...] –25C and –40C are not the same, not even close, in terms their relative effects on your gear and you. At –40 everything plastic and flexible becomes hard and rigid, and is somewhat more susceptible to breakage. Connectors will contract and on occasion lose contact. Your tripod legs may be difficult to extend, and if they are aluminum will be bitterly cold to the touch. Your breath may freeze to your eyelids making framing (even blinking!) a challenge. If you make the mistake of breathing on your viewfinder or your lens, it will instantly condense and freeze, rendering your gear useless until you can warm it back up (I hold my breath when I'm framing for this reason). On top of this, you will have very little time to adjust your gear with your bare hands...."

Herjulfr (partial comment): "Someone has mentioned breathing in the viewfinder: it's the biggest problem, along with totally frozen, unresponsive fingers. Hold your breath, and take care of the fingers, and everything should go well."

Michael Bearman: "I live in lovely temperate Melbourne, Oz, and think you are all insane."

Do You Really Need FF?

I don't often say things deliberately designed to be controversial, although this might be construed to be one: I think Micro 4/3 might be sufficient for most photographers.

I have a basis for comparison. I currently have three cameras* in use, and two are full-frame (FF) DSLRs. But I find myself wondering again and again (each time I shoot with the FF DSLRs, to be honest) if I really need what they have to offer.

Tim Schley. Picture taken with the Sony A900 and 85mm ƒ/2.8 SAM lens.

It's easiest to see the advantages of FF when I compare it to the APS-C camera by shooting the two side-by-side. FF does have a quality edge. I especially appreciate the big, beautiful TTL viewfinder images. Photography, of course, is a long tradition of compromises between image quality (as it is conventionally understood) on the one hand, and convenience coupled with quality that is "good enough" on the other.

I first wrestled with that when I shot with a 4x5 for a summer on a faculty grant, in 1987. Up till then I had been thoroughly besotted with 4x5. However, I ended up deciding that for me, the greater convenience of 35mm resulted in better pictures—for my understanding of "better." (The experience also resulted in one of my most controversial articles ever.)

A caveat, first: I certainly wouldn't presume to argue with anyone who prefers (or desires) FF, even if they don't technically "need" it for any specific reason. (As I always say, I strongly believe everyone should use whatever camera floats their boat, whether it be an 11x14 view camera or a pinhole, a Lomo or a Leica. Your choice is your choice.)

However...

...However, I wonder if perhaps we've now reached a real watershed for "good enough quality." The current 16-megapixel 4/3 sensor in the various current top-line Micro 4/3 cameras is so good that it seems like it might suffice for all but specialty and professional photography. And it's not too bad for those either.

The OM-D E-M5 and I failed to bond, but its results were very pleasing. The quality from that sensor exceeds that of 35mm film. It exceeds that of most DSLRs, even high-end ones, from before about 2009. I can't see that the APS-C sensor in the NEX-6 is any better. And its files will make very nice prints up to sizes that would satisfy probably 90% of photographers.

And all things being equal, it's easier to shoot with a smaller sensor. Handier lenses, more depth-of-field, more portable outfits. And all, generally, easier on the wallet. What's not to like.

Micro 4/3—and mirrorless in general—has not really caught fire with the European and North American publics at large. But, given the quality of the current 16-MP sensors, the size of Micro 4/3 equipment, the many adapters available, and especially the delightful and beautiful range of lenses on offer** for the system, Micro 4/3 seems like quite the place to be for enthusiasts these days.

Consequently I think TOP's next serious camera review series will not consider the A7's or the Df, but will consist of a comparative look at the Panasonic GX7 and the Olympus OM-D E-M1.

Along the way, I'll try to make honest assessments of their output compared directly to the result from my full-frame cameras.

I imagine I'll learn something along the way, anyway, for myself if not for others.

Mike

*The other is an APS-C digital compact. Namely, they are: a 36-MP Nikon D800, a 24-MP Sony A900, and a 16-MP Sony NEX-6. The two Sonys together give me the two lenses I want: a 35mm-e normal lens in the form of the Zeiss 24mm ƒ/1.8 E-mount lens on the NEX-6, and a short tele for portraits on the FF camera, in the Sony 85mm ƒ/2.8 SAM A-mount lens, a lens that's descended from the Contax/Zeiss 85mm ƒ/2.8 Sonnar T* with which I have a lot of history. The Sony might be a little better than the older Zeiss as far as I can tell (see the illustration).

**The chart at the link is not quite up to date.

Original contents copyright 2013 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.

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

Drew D. Saur: "I think that there is something else at play...it's possible that from a sensor standpoint most photographers don't need full-frame, but full-frame cameras currently typically come with many other significant features (like extremely sophisticated autofocus and speed) that aren't yet seen in smaller-format cameras. This might change, but the full-frame manufacturers still seem to be endowing their newest offerings with features that make the cameras compelling for reasons other than sensor size."

Mike_C (partial comment): "I had the chance to play with E-M1 and 12–40mm ƒ/2.8 for quite some time at a local camera store's trade show (with genuine Japanese reps from Olympus, yet) recently. I then gave the D7100 a try at the Nikon table. I'm one of those bitter clingers (to the D300) waiting for the mythical D400. After directly comparing the E-M1 and the 'best' DX Nikon the E-M1's advantages in smaller size—but not too small as the E-M5 felt— excellent-seeming construction, IBIS, weather-proofing and the existence of a line of wide-angle primes (which Nikon still has not done for DX!) sold me on the E-M1 (and 12–40mm ƒ/2.8)."

[Note: Whenever a comment says "(partial comment)," the full comment can be found in the Comments section. —Ed.]

psu (partial comment): "For me full frame is not an image quality question. The only reason to use it is so that your 35mm format lenses behave 'correctly,' with the right FOV and depth of field. That's why I bought a D700 back in the day...but I finally got tired of carrying it."

Howard (partial comment): "I just bought an Oly E-M1. I have had only Micro 4/3 cameras for two years; before that I used a 6x9cm view camera and Canon 5D and Canon 5D Mark II's. For me, I'm getting consistently better images from the E-M1 and before that the E-M5 than I obtained from any other of the above cameras. I now rarely use a tripod. I am much less static, and much more likely to experiment."

Craig (partial comment): "What bugs me about it is that most native Micro 4/3 lenses are either more expensive than I like, or badly flawed (or both!). Olympus and Panasonic both have adopted the attitude that severe barrel distortion isn't a problem because the camera fixes it up for you when generating JPEGs. Even their wide-angle prime lenses suffer from this, though most of the longer primes are better (the Leica 25mm seems just about perfect aside from the price tag). I find this distortion unacceptable because 1.) I prefer to work with RAW files using my choice of processing software, which may not know how to automatically correct for their lenses' defects; and 2.) distortion correction blurs the image the farther away you get from the center."

Eli Burakian (partial comment): "For my job, where I'm shooting in low light all the time, the advantages of full frame are obvious. As a backpacker shooting landscape images, smaller frame cameras make so much sense. The entire kit shrinks considerably both weight- and size-wise."

Pete (partial comment): "I agree entirely Mike! I've got my own dragoon—a Canon 5D Mark II purchased nearly five years ago. Yes it's a joy to view through the brighter, larger finder, and the 21-MP files viewed at 100 percent are swoon-worthy. But 18 months ago I got a Lumix GX1 and now take 90 percent of my pictures with it."

Bryan Geyer (partial comment): "Do you need FF? Well, yes, you do need FF if you care about big prints with 'near exhibition' resolution quality. I personally define 'near exhibition' resolution quality as a print that's capable of preserving five line-pairs/mm detail. And if you want to record that detail in a 16x24-inch print you must start with a full-frame original that captures 85 line-pairs/mm detail. If the original was anything smaller than FF, the enlargement factor would then have to exceed 17X, so print resolution would degrade."

Bryan Willman (partial comment): "I have experimental data that yes, I do need full frame. I tried Micro 4/3, was not happy, could not get done what I wanted to get done."

Curt (partial comment): "I just so enjoy using the smaller, more nimble bodies and lenses with Micro 4/3. I agree with your main argument: the image quality is more than good enough, and the fun factor (for me) is higher."