The Online Photographer

Black Raspberries and Black Currants

Breakfast

This is the greatest time of the year to live in the Finger Lakes. In the morning I head up to the local Mennonite market, which is located right next to the fields where all the produce is grown. Berries that were on the vine before the sun came up are in my bowl for breakfast. Yum. I just eat 'em plain, nothing added. A big bowl of fruit is a meal. These strawberries just melt in your mouth—you hardly have to chew.

It's easy to be critical of the Instagrammy practice of people snapping quick pix of the food they're about to eat. But I don't know—I consider it kind of touching and human. It's a quiet little celebration, isn't it? Almost a secular way of saying grace. "Look what I get to eat!" Isn't that wonderful? Thanks and praise.

I would never make it as a food photographer, though. I tend to think of a continuum with documentary at one end and the impulse to control and perfect over at the other. Documentary photographers accept what they find. They want to show how things really look. Studio photographers tend to be over on the "perfecting" end, making things look just so. Food photographers definitely do that. They want to control the way things look and make them look the way they want them to look. 

                                 (me)

          •----------------•--------|-------------------------•

Documenting                                                                   Perfecting

It's worthwhile thinking where on this continuum you like to be. It can clarify where you stand, what you're after.

When I was in art school, we went on a studio visit to a big, beautiful, well-established local studio in D.C. I don't think we witnessed any part of this—I think we were just told the story, and I visualized it in my mind. (Isn't it funny that I can't quite remember which it was now? Memory is part fabulized.) Anyway the story is that they were doing a shoot for a fast food chain, and the restaurant delivered a stack of racks as high as a human, all the racks full of fresh buns. Searching for the perfect bun, the food stylist quickly inspected each candidate and flipped it over her shoulder as she rejected it. Out of those hundreds and hundreds of buns, they found three (the selects are called "heroes") worthy of being photographed for the shoot. On the floor of the studio behind the stylist was a cascading mountain of rejected buns.

I decided then and there not to be a food photographer. Perfection kinda bores me. If I had to sort through stacks of buns, I would rather look for the oddball one that had something wrong with it and that looked weird and hence, interesting. I'd rather photograph that. But I would never have the patience in the first place. It's a bun. It looks like it looks. Take that picture.

Good and good for you: blueberries, black raspberries, and black currants

I plucked out a few distorted raspberries before I took this, though. Tryin' the best I can to do what I'm supposed to do....

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 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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Dennis: "I've considered a similar scale, but instead of degree of control, I've looked at it as degree of creation. Found images on one end, fabricated on the other, with all sorts of variation in between. I love looking at photos made by people who create something that wasn't there, from Julie Blackmon to Abelardo Morell to Steve McCurry (whoops—snarky !), but my comfort zone, the reason I pick up a camera, is to find interesting things in the world in front of my eyes. Over the years, I've read articles about how, in order to grow as a photographer, you should challenge yourself to master this, that and the other thing, and I've dabbled with studio lighting and I just find it a chore. I guess that's too far on the creation side of the scale for me."

adamct: "The urge to perfection has some significant downsides that I've been thinking about more and more. Idealized photographs of perfect items/scenes/people have the effect of changing our perception of what is real in the world. The most compelling example I've heard of this was a photographer lamenting the fact that other photographers and magazines only published pictures of beautiful, clean, healthy lions, some of whom may have been photographed in a zoo, rather than in the wild. His point was that those images—which look wonderful in a magazine or advertisement—hide the fact that most wild lions look nothing like that. Lions in the wild may look emaciated, or have wounds or their manes may be ratty and infested with ticks. By only showing images of fat, healthy, clean lions, people believe that is how lions live in the wild, and therefore don't realize the actual plight of real lions. (I'm going off of memory here, so please excuse me if the example I'm thinking of didn't involve lions, but some other wild animal.)

"It's not hard to think of other examples where this plays out in daily life. If you only see pictures of slender, buxom, beautiful women with flawless skin, then you tend to believe that many women actually look like that. If all you see is pictures of hamburgers in perfect buns, you might expect to get a hamburger that looks like that the next time you are at McDonald's or Burger King or Wendy's.

"That may not seem like a big deal, but think about how that plays out in another context: there are lots of children who won't eat fruit that has any blemishes whatsoever. No bananas with brown spots. No slightly bruised raspberries. No apples that are less than perfectly red. This is partly because they are led to believe that fruit should be perfect, and therefore any flaw is a sign that the fruit is bad or defective somehow. And because real fruit has minor blemishes or irregularities, these children wind up eating hardly any fruit at all. Imagine if those children regularly saw pictures of fruit and vegetables with minor blemishes being celebrated on Instagram or in advertisements as part of a delicious meal. Might that change attitudes? I'm almost certain it would. And we might wind up with more fruits and vegetables that are bred for flavor, rather than appearances and their hardiness.

"I could go on an on with other examples of how perfectionism skews our perception of what is normal, but this comment is already long enough...."

Graham Byrnes: "The sister of a friend was an assistant in an advertising agency when I was an undergrad...so, early '80s. They had the McDonalds account for Australia. None of the food was real; it was all crafted carefully from synthetic rubber to be reliably perfect, day in, day out. I got to hold a french fry and, aside from smell and grease, it looked absolutely 100% real."

Mike replies: Just going on memory, and IANAE, but I believe that's illegal in the U.S. The food pictured can be inedible—for instance, a burger might have acid dripped on it to create fake "steam"—but it has to be the real food being advertised.

Nikon P1000: Spy Camera Makes Me Chuckle

Nikon P1000, available for preorder

Forgive me, but the new Nikon P1000 makes me giggle.

It has, get this, a 24–3000 millimeter equivalent (mm-e) lens. (Voyeurs take note.) Granted, that means the sensor is rather small—1/2.3-inch (6.2 x 4.6mm), same size as the sensor in the original toy Pentax Q.

Why does it make me giggle? Well, in the 1980s I used to ask my students what they would do if they were freed of all technical constraints they were under. "If you had a camera that would effortlessly make a clear, sharp photograph with perfect color of anything you pointed it at, what would you do with it?" The question was supposed to be rhetorical—it wasn't designed to make them believe such a thing would ever be possible; it was to ask them to try the thought experiment of setting aside technical distractions and consider only the question of their aesthetic, artistic, and expressive purpose.

Naturally, it made me laugh when, as digital matured, we indeed had cameras that effortlessly made clear, sharp photographs with perfect color of anything we pointed them at.

Similarly, whenever you'd ask photo hobbyists and enthusiasts to imagine their ideal camera back in the pre-digital days, one answer you'd inevitably get was the jokey one that would specify all the opposing parameters taken to extremes. You know, like, "I want a 645 camera with an ƒ/1 lens that takes grainless ISO 6400 color film..." etc.

So that's what "24–3000mm-e lens" reminds me of. It sounds just like the lens of impossible specification people would come up with when they were trying to be funny. And if you'd asked me in '85 if such a thing were actually possible, I would have looked at you like you had flesh-eating bacteria in your brain-pan. Such a lens would be as big as a bazooka, heavy as a bushel-basket of bricks, and cost approximately the GNP of Ecuador. Impossible.

Yet here we are. The older you get, the more you're living in the future. (I do want a car that makes the same noise as George Jetson's.)

What's the borderline-silly P1000 for? Good question. The art photographer John Gossage, in an interview about his book There and Gone, said, "Robert Adams made a comment in his book Beauty in Photography that always stuck with me. [He wrote] that no photographer of major ambition had ever sustained important work taken with long telephoto lenses. It seemed an obvious loophole." Inspired by Adams's "loophole" and using as long a telephoto as he could cobble together—sorry that my poor memory for numbers has let slip the focal length he ended up with—John stood on the beach in California and took pictures of people in Tijuana, Mexico, more than a quarter of a mile away. Whatever your feelings about the success of the pictures as art, they certainly referenced the tradition of using photography for surveillance.

And that's probably the only thing the P1000's 3000mm-e reach is best for: surveillance of any kind. It's a spy camera!

I'd love to see a photographer of major ambition sustain important work made with the Nikon P1000. That would be interesting. I'll believe it's possible when I see it.

The new camera is the successor to the popular $597 P900 (with its paltry outmoded 2000mm-e lens) and costs $997.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 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:

T. Edwards: "Mike I'll tell you what its for...I tried out Nikon's predecessor model of this along side the Sony Cyber-shot RX10 IV. They are both excellent for casual birding photographs. Despite doing it for years, I am still an unskilled birder so I do much better with a photograph to study to help make identifications—as opposed to looking through binoculars and trying to remember all the details. I went with the Sony because its EVF, when coupled with spot metering, is amazingly bright and it allows me to pick a bird out of shady underbrush and expose it properly. Of course, image quality is not stellar but I did sell my Canon system with a 300mm ƒ/2.8 lens because the Sony is a fraction of the weight and size and, to me, that was more important than having the 'best' image I could get."

JG (partial comment): "Only 24mm at the wide end? I'm sorry, but that's a deal-killer for me."

Christopher May: "When I went to Kenya a couple of years ago, I rented some trip appropriate gear from LensRentals. I picked up a Nikon 200–500mm ƒ/5.6 and a Coolpix A, both of which I really loved.

"I also asked my then-girlfriend (who would become my fiancée on the same trip) if there was anything she'd like me to get for her. To my surprise, she wanted a P900 to augment her D3200 kit. She liked the idea of having that big range easily accessible in a single package.

"While we were at Buffalo Springs National Reserve, I played with the P900 a couple of times just for fun. In one instance, we heard some olive baboons across a river screaming loudly. That's always a good sign that there's a predator somewhere in the vicinity. The guide eventually found a lioness hiding in the shade under a bush. Despite my best efforts with my D800 and 200–500mm, I couldn't really see where she was even though he was pointing right at her. After getting the P900 out, I found her right away. That zoom is kind of crazy in its ability to reach out and see things invisible to the naked eye.

"I played with the camera some more during the course of the trip. It did have some limitations on its use. One needed to mind backgrounds somewhat carefully because the small sensor couldn't give much subject separation even at the crazy end of the zoom range. Having a contrasting background to the subject helped in this department and avoiding 'busy' backgrounds was always desirable. I had to be very careful with regards to atmospheric conditions when trying to use the long end of the zoom, too. Normal daytime heating could cause problematic heat distortion even in the cooler areas like Lewa that we visited (and forget it when trying to use it in hotter areas like Shaba). Additionally, while the VR is really decent on the camera, the 2000mm equivalency does benefit from additional support when that's possible.

"While I wouldn't trade my D800 kit for a P900, I have to admit that it was a surprisingly capable little safari camera and I think non-photographers would be quite happy with the results if that was their only camera on a similar trip.

"Most of the stats on the P1000 are summed up by the word, 'MORE!' I do like that Nikon is bringing raw capture to the newer camera. And I'm also kind of glad that the price on P900s is going down now. Honestly, I wouldn't be opposed to picking one of those up for a bargain. It's a better camera than it has any right to be."

Robert Roaldi: "I just wanted to say that JG gave me the best belly laugh of the month."

Michael J. Perini:

"You have to be careful not to tip over."

Stephen Cowdery: "That thing is as big as my head! It has to have the biggest ratio of sensor size to volume of any camera ever made."

Kamera Express: "Very nice camera. You should see this video of the previous version (P900) with (a bit less) optical zoom."

David Ramos: "This brings to mind Trevor Paglen's 'Limit Telephotography' series, in which the photographer uses extremely long lenses (up to 7000mm-e focal length) to get images of top secret defense sites that might be as much as 40 miles away. Paglen started his career with this work, and he's now a MacArthur Fellow with a solo show at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, so it seems to be working out pretty well. More here."

s.wolters: "Charles and Ray Eames already used one in 1977!"

Mike replies: A justly famous, mind-expanding short video. I remember being very impressed (and astonished) by it when I was a kid.

Devilish Question

I've been watching some of those little blips from the Jimmy Kimmel show where they go out on Hollywood Boulevard and ask awkward questions of passers-by. Most of the questions are essentially fluffy ("Did you have sex last night?"), but one of them has had me puzzled for two days:

"What's the most interesting thing about you?"

I've been thinking about this, and am forced to conclude there's nothing interesting about me!

How would you answer this? It's a bit devilish I think.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 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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Kurt Shoens: "Finding interesting things to say about ourselves is as hard as finding interesting photographs of our everyday lives. It's so familiar we forget what's unique and interesting. Then something abruptly changes about your life. Maybe you move from a medium sized town in Wisconsin to a small out of the way place in New York. And then, if you're like me, you regret the pictures you didn't take of the old place now that the opportunity is gone. So you might think you're uninteresting, but you've held my attention and that of many others, for years about a range of topics, many photographic. But what's interesting about me? I haven't a clue."

Adrian Malloch: "The problem with that question is that it is asked of the wrong person. Interestingness is in the eye of the audience, not the actor. The question is as mis-directed as the breathless reporter asking of a bystander who disabled a gunman, 'Are you a hero?' Of course he/she does not perceive of him-/herself as a hero. They did what they did because that was the best thing they were able to do in the situation—not because of some vainglorious motive. It is for others to appreciate and value the selflessness of their actions."

Peter: "That I got my wife to marry me. Not enough? Consider that she also supports my camera purchasing habits. Interested now?"

Mike replies: Hold on to her.

Bill Tyler: "If there is truly nothing interesting at all about you, that fact would be very interesting indeed. 'A paradox? A paradox, a most ingenious paradox!'"

Stan B.: "Me and the wife always ponder what we would say to Alex Trebek when he asks every contestant to reveal a little something about themselves during that particular segment on every show. We mercilessly ridicule each and every contestant for being more sensationally boring than the previous—while admitting we're hard pressed to come up with anything even remotely better...."

Mike Plews: "I can curse in Morse code?"

Eric Rose: "I'm not allowed to tell you  ;-)  ."

Michel: "Dude, it’s staring you right in the face. You’re your own boss. You created your own business. You had a few print sales and bought a house! As for me, well, one time I juggled on the radio."

Richard Parkin: "To bring this back to pool, the real subject of this blog, I must reference Steve 'Interesting' Davis, six times world champion snooker player. He was nicknamed 'Interesting' due to his unflashy/unexciting style of play, perhaps particularly in contrast with that of his contemporary Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins, though Wikipedia seems to think it was only his monotonous interview style. His Wikipedia entry has 23 uses of the word 'interesting,' which is interesting and may be a record."

Canon and Nikon To Go Mirrorless: Rumors

According to the sites Canon Rumors and Nikon Rumors, either Canon or Nikon or both will introduce either one or two serious new mirrorless system cameras either before or after Photokina in September.

In other words, the two industry leaders will now validate the business strategies and technical innovations of their more enterprising but less powerful competitors by horning in on those guys' markets. Sorry, is that too cynical a slant on the news? I guess so.

Anyway, the expectation has created a certain amount of furor as various interested parties hither and yon speculate on what, exactly, is coming.

Predictions. Great fun for some. Thom H. is one of the few who does it well, although he mainly succeeds because his discussions are interesting and enlightening whether the prediction is correct or not. Anyway, as they say about academe, the arguments are cutthroat because the stakes for the participants are so low.

I've personally never had much enthusiasm for the prediction pastime, although I know it's popular. One thing that drives me bonkers about American pool matches on YouTube is that the commentators are forever going on about what the player is just about to do. Why not just wait quietly until they do it? And then make whatever sensible comments it might be germane to make. It's such a mannerism that it comes off as slightly nutty, to this viewer at least. I never mention the sport of pool here, though.

But I don't see the point of nattering too much over rumors of future photo products, either. I do like to ruminate about what should be, but that's my "idealist" personality type coming to the fore—it's Utopianism rather than the gypsy fortune-teller urge. As to what people will do, well, I don't see much point in that crystal ball stuff. Just wait till it happens and then we'll talk about it.

All that aside, let's get back on track. If people like predictions, here are mine:

First, Canon and Nikon will follow each other, not necessarily Sony or Fuji or Leica or the Micro 4/3 consortium in all particulars. My theory about Leica in recent years is that it's been following the lead of Sony (it already has its A7[x] product in the form of the SL), but, culturally, Japanese companies tend to take their cues from their major Japanese competition. So whatever Canikon do, they'll both do it, and they won't do it just because Leica or Pentax etc. are doing it.

On the other hand, I think one of the new products from each company (if not right away, then following on) will be at a deluxe, high priced, carriage-trade price tier. As you know, the postwar fashion of Western countries aiming to be mostly middle class is over, and world economies are splitting into dual markets—not so much the haves and have-nots but the have-way-too-muches and the hoi-polloi, AKA the rest of us. Because we apparently all want to be like, say, Egypt. Accordingly, companies need to chase the discretionary dollars of the have-too-muches in order to maximize profits. So for example there were ten SUVs that cost over $100,000 in 2017, led by the 6-liter, 12-cylinder Bentley Bentayga for $230,000—that's a "have-too-muches" product right there. Whether Canon and Nikon choose to do this at the $6k level like Fuji or the $20k level like Leica remains to be seen, but one of their mirrorless products will probably leave ordinary working-stiff enthusiasts shaking their heads about excessive, out-of-reach cost.

And whatever they do at that level will mainly follow Chinese tastes. Which I don't really know anything about. Over the years it's been interesting to watch the reception in products made for specific places in the world and/or specific markets, and note how people outside of the target markets tend to evaluate those products as if they were made to appeal to them. For example, sometimes Japanese companies target mainly their home market, or women, or Japanese teens, and beardy grumpy white-male American and British enthusiasts argue over these products just like the development teams for those products gave a flip about their opinions. No no, Grampa.

Anyway given that both Leica and Fuji (and even Pentax) are making it rain from China with oversize-sensor cameras, it's possible we'll see medium-format mirrorless options from Canikon. My weakness as a prognosticator is that I don't know the size of those markets, or their profits, and Canikon will ignore any market it thinks is too small to bother with even if it's profitable.

Oh, and the new cameras will be ugly, because it's been a long, long time since we've seen a handsomely designed new Canon or Nikon.

That's, let's see, four predictions: Canikon will mirror each others' strategies, they'll be after the slice of the market that aren't price sensitive at least with some of their options, Chinese tastes will play a big part, and the cameras won't be pretty.

Techy questions remain. What formats? Dual formats? (In which case I predict the Fuji strategy, APS-C and medium format.) Or just one? (In which case I predict the Sony strategy, full frame.) Which lensmount? My guess there is that there will be new lensmounts from both makers with shorter flange distances than SLRs but with AF-enabled adapters allowing the use of the company's SLR lenses. They're unlikely to hobble themselves technically by sticking with currently lensmount specs—takes away too much of the edge.

I'm outta here now for my regular weekly date playing pool at the Moose Lodge with my buddies. (Sorry, did I just mention pool again?) After that I have a meeting. But when I get back I look forward to being soundly schooled by those of you who are much more up on the state of the rumors than I've bothered to be. Maybe some of the things I'm wondering about are already known. (All I know is that whenever we're talking about things nobody actually knows about, a lot of people always know much more than me. Then again, I predicted on the Miata Forum that they're wouldn't be a fourth-gen MX-5, so I'm clearly no good at predictions.)

I still say the best idea is wait and see. But insofar as gypsy predictions are fun, let us have at it, my friends.  :-)

Mike

UPDATE Monday evening: My buddy Loyle Egger, age 89, about to attempt a four-ball combination this morning at the Moose Lodge. He made this shot, but unfortunately scratched in the side pocket. (He was not the oldest guy playing with us this morning.)

Original contents copyright 2018 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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San Warzoné: Seems like everyone is raving about the Sony mirrorless cameras and the great image quality, fast focusing, 4K Video and the EVF (electronic viewfinder). What is missing for me are the intangibles: ergonomics, ease of use, buttons and controls, the way the menus work, and the actual touch/feel handling. Nikon cameras have always had that hands on feeling of the way a camera should work. I have tried to 'like' my Sony A6300, but the tiny buttons, awkward menus and especially the EVF make me go back to my Nikon DSLRs. To my view the EVF is artificial looking and even harder to enjoy because of the non-circular eyepiece. I get that you can 'see' the image that will be captured in real time, but even after trying to modify and adjust the EVF settings to match my reality, it is not the same as a 'mirror image' on my Nikon DSLRs. Yes, it is smaller, lighter and produces quality raw files...but it's still not my cup of tea."

John Camp (partial comment): "A ~50-MP FF sensor in a small body with smaller lenses (but perhaps also taking F-mount lenses with an adapter) would be really interesting. Even more interesting would be a 4/3 aspect-ratio FF sensor with multiple aspect ratio options, but that ain't gonna happen. What I really fear (think) is going to happen is we'll get routine, boxy ~24mp cameras that'll be functionally no better than my Micro 4/3 Panasonics and that will be more or less blown off by the picture-taking world.

"I gotta say, though, this is the first time in perhaps six or eight years that I've really been curious about upcoming cameras."

PaulW: "This was a well thought out and fun read. I'm much less interested in what Canikon will announce than I am in how it will affect the rest of the camera industry. With two 800-pound gorillas jumping into the ring, things are gonna change. Interesting times ahead I think."

Thom Hogan: "In terms of 'mimicking strategies,' it sort of depends upon definitions. But I'd say that Nikon is likely to mimic Sony's strategy, while Canon will continue on the strategy path they are on. Canon appears to be doubling down on EOS M (APS-C), while about to offer a 5D Mark IV type of camera in mirrorless. Nikon appears to be about to duplicate the Sony A7/A7R strategy, with APS-C (DX) now relegated to a later date and a lesser role. But it's been difficult to pick out the details as both Canon and Nikon have prototyped/muled so many variations. We'll see soon enough. Both Canon and Nikon have Photokina press conferences scheduled (back to back), so you'd have to guess that the mirrors will be off come October."

Fuji X-T2 Price Drop

Right now, July 8th, the Fuji X-T2 has suddenly popped up on Amazon priced at only $1,099, the lowest price ever. Same deal at B&H Photo too.

That's a $500 price drop. Great deal on a great camera even if it means an X-T3 announcement is imminent.

The X-H1 is also on sale, but not such a big price drop—$250 off. Still pretty good savings.

Thought you might want to know.

Mike
(Thanks to Michael Matthews)

Original contents copyright 2018 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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Stephen Scharf: "The medium format Fujifilm GFX50S is also on sale, $650 off the body, and with the 45mm or with the 63mm lens as a bundle for $1,000 off. The superb GFX50S/110mm ƒ/2 'portrait' lens bundle is an even better deal at $1,200 off, and this price is superb for a lens of this quality. These are all screamin' deals for a truly superb MF digital camera system. (BTW, Fuji will be introducing a perspective control lens for the GF mount some time in the near future)."

This Is How It Goes On a Blog

So this is how it goes on a blog. You do one off-topic post about some stray wacky topic like washing machines, which has utterly nothing to do with photography, and you expect to leave it at that, but you can't just leave it at that—because then people bring up interesting and different perspectives, and all of you learn more about it, and it turns out that, well, there's more to talk about. So then you do a second post about washing machines...and suddenly you're talking about appliances instead of photography. And new people who come to the site in the middle of the discussion think everyone here has lost their minds. Doesn't really matter if the subject is parrots or pool, it always seems to work the same way.

Well, we haven't entirely lost our minds. This will be the last post about appliances, and I am going to do my damnedest to relate it back to photography at the end.

Anyway, yesterday, Jim wrote:

Let's not forget that survivorship bias is a thing. Every appliance I have upgraded (fridge, washer/dryer, dishwasher, microwave, etc.) has always been because the old ones failed (even after extensive heroic repairs in some cases), and the new ones are significantly better in all ways.

Jim's got a point. My first house in Waukesha, which I bought in 2000, came with an ancient 1970s refrigerator that Xander and I used for a number of more years—maybe 12? I can't recall exactly. The thing sucked down electricity, it was loud, and it didn't do a very good job of preserving food, although I didn't realize that till it died. It had no interior light, because the bulb it needed had passed into history. Amusingly, when it finally came time to replace it, I was severely constrained in the models I could choose, because America had gotten fat between the 1970s and the 2010s: the space allotted for the fridge in my kitchen was too small for most then-current models of refrigerator. I had to buy one specifically made to be extra small to fit older kitchens.

The same thing had happened in the kitchen of my little walk-up studio apartment in Washington D.C., but a generation earlier. The kitchen had been built to house those little 1940s "iceboxes" that are about as tall as a person, so the landlord had plunked a then-current '80s fridge, which was too large to fit the space provided, into the dinette area, awkwardly.

Anyway, to replace our '70s fridge in Waukesha I bought a Samsung with two doors that was less fat, and less deep, than ordinary 2012 refrigerators. Even so, it was bigger than the old one and just barely fit.

But as Jim said, the new one was significantly better. And I mean significantly. I can't recall the technology, but old refrigerators evidently used air from the freezer to keep the refrigerator section cold, and the air was dry, which dried out the food and caused it to go bad sooner. By 2012 that problem had been identified and solved. I was accustomed to lettuce, even when wrapped, going bad within a week. To my amazement, the new fridge could keep the same kind of lettuce wrapped the same way fresh for up to three weeks. Food retained flavor better and didn't acquire that "frozen" taste that we used to accept as normal. And no more noise. And I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure the new one was much more energy efficient. The new fridge really did work much better than the old one. (It even had a working interior light—woo-hoo, luxury.)

Of course I don't agree with Jim that "the new ones are significantly better in all ways" (emphasis mine), because they don't last as long, and that's one way in which they're not better. Which was the point of yesterday's post.

The late great Phil D.
Some of you will remember Phil Davis, the photo-scientist who for years wrote erudite experimental articles about B&W film technique in Darkroom Techniques magazine, and who authored the book Beyond the Zone System (BTZS) and invented all of the BTZS techniques and equipment. Phil was a dear friend and a mentor for a number of years, until his final illness. He had been a pilot in WWII, and after the war bought a house and almost a hundred acres of land outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Somewhere around the turn of the millennium, his water heater failed and he decided to replace it. He said that the installers who put the new one in tried to sell him on an extended warranty that would cover him for ten years. As he told the story, he said, "Why would I need that? The water heater you're carrying out of here lasted for 55 years." He said the installer's eyes grew round and the man replied, "Oh, Sir! This new one is not going to last for 55 years. You'll be doing well if it lasts for 12. And 15 is all you can hope for. They really don't make them like your old one any more."

Planned obsolescence (a phrase generally agreed to have been coined by Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors but popularized by industrial designer Brooks Stevens, whose car museum in Milwaukee I used to visit as a kid and who I think my family knew), is probably the key area, the fulcrum point, if you will, where things that make good sense in terms of capitalist economics makes bad sense in terms of environmental consequences. It might be good business but it's ultimately a tragic concept.

A couple of decades ago, in one of my periodic "that's-it-I'm-never-doing-any-more-camera-reviews" spells, I resolved to pick one manual/metal/mechanical (MMM) SLR and use it for the rest of my life, keeping it maintained and in good fettle no matter the cost. I happily did the research, and settled on a Nikkormat FT3 as my "last SLR."

The problem was exactly as Jim says...the meter was just not as good as the then-current state-of-the-art (SotA), and neither was the viewfinder, which was smallish and on the dim side compared to the best current ones back then. It didn't really matter how well I maintained it. It just wasn't as good a camera as the best newer ones. (I still have the FT3, but it's a decoration on my front hall table.)

As an aside, I've often wondered what an "ideal" manual/metal/mechanical film SLR would look like. What usually happens economically is that the process of making things ever cheaper to produce while keeping them just barely good enough to sell results in products that are incredibly unpleasing. The old Nikon FM10 (made by Cosina and sold under various other names including Vivitar), a mostly plastic camera that worked fine but was distressingly low in quality, might have been the "terminal SLR" from a product efficiency standpoint. But what would a basic SLR look like if the opposite principle were applied—that is, if it were made as good as it could be based on everything we'd learned through the lifecycle of the product type? I've happily spec'd such an imaginary camera many times in my mind. (I call it the "Spotmatic III," to give you a taste.)

Of course, it's a good thing such a camera will never be made. Even if I got to design it myself, I'd hardly ever use it, if I'm honest.

But if a new SotA MMM SLR ever did come to exist, it would be better than any camera from back in the day, no doubt. The technology is just better now. We know more. And I'd be happy if modern digital interchangeable-lens cameras would all last for 15 or 20 years, but let's face it, they don't need to last longer than that. Because technology moves on, and gets better, and sooner or later you'd want to be part of that. Sooner or later you'd start pining to have the latest thing.

Mike

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Sal Santamaura: "After reading this post and the comments, I felt regret for procrastinating a couple of years ago when we almost bought a Speed Queen set. Our 1993 Whirlpool pair is still going, although my wife doesn't like the mismatched washer timer knob I had to install recently to replace an original plastic one (no longer available) that cracked. Your dilemma sent me off to the YouTube world of washer videos. After spending several hours there, it seems what you're looking for, Mike, is a Maytag 575GW. Were I in your position right now, that's the one I'd buy."

Mike replies: Ever diligent, last night I plumped for Consumer Reports for a year and stayed up way too late sorting through their data. Naturally they like the very brand that's been giving me headaches—don't tell them I told you, but their take on front-loaders can be summed up as "LG is best."

However, they tend to evaluate washing machine performance as opposed to build quality, reliability, or longevity, and the upshot of their testing seems to be that front-loaders have lots of advantages, mainly:

• They agitate the clothes much better
• They use less water
• They're gentler on the clothes, and
• They spin the clothes much drier at the end of the cycle, meaning that drying times are shortened. Since dryers use lots of energy, less time in the dryer = energy savings.

This seems to be the rap against Speed Queens and commercial Maytags and other stout old-fashioned types. They last longer and break less but they don't clean as well and they're harder on clothes.

Open Mike: The Old-Style American (OT)

I had a lovely two days off. The weather was Summery yesterday, but beautifully cool-ish and brilliantly sunny today. I feel revived and rejuvenated. We didn't even have that many firecrackers this year, praise God. Hope you had a nice Fourth, if you celebrated.

Mormon missionaries from Idaho, the Philippines, and Texas at the
Peter Whitmer Log Home Historic Site in Fayette, New York.
The roots of Mormonism are in our area.

As you know, a lot of TOP is off-topic. Photography is an offshoot of my interest in the world, and we touch on this, that and the other thing from time to time, just as I find fascination in all manner of the things that can be seen with a camera.

In 2013 I even regaled you with a story about...a washing machine.

I know—Mike, right?

Well, settle back. It's been a touch more than five years since then, and I have an update.

As you can read if you visit or revisit that link, my old machine was a 1972 Maytag made in the American small town of Newton, Iowa. I inherited it in 2000 when it was an impressive 28 years old.

Even more impressively, despite its age, I used it for 14 more years without a single problem. At that point I intended to keep it through thick and thin, and see how long it would continue to soldier on. Basically just out of a sense of gratitude. And curiosity—how long could it go on?

(Search "Elections: Anger In The Land" on YouTube if you want to see the 2009 "60 Minutes" piece involving Maytag that inspired that first post in 2013.)

But alas, I sold that house in 2014, and the real estate agent put the kibosh on my fealty to the Maytag. "The laundry machines should convey," she decreed. And so they did. Most probably the new owners of the house replaced them—they remodeled the whole house—but I haven't checked with them to find out.

Cut to now
So here's the other bookend of that sad story: my current laundry machine just came within a hair of getting totaled. By a broken power switch button. At the ripe old age of...six.

SIX.

It's a front-loading Kenmore. Here's the story as far as I've been able to figure it out: Kenmore is not a manufacturer, it's a rebrand or relabel. Various manufacturers make Kenmore products for Sears. My Kenmore was made by LG—specifically, the Home Appliance and Air Solution Division of LG Electronics, which is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. With 82,000 employees worldwide, LG is the fourth-largest "chaebol" in South Korea. Wikipedia defines chaebol as "a large number of diversified affiliates, controlled by an owner whose power over the group often exceeds legal authority." Gulp.

Going from large to small, the power switch on my washing machine is a round plastic button on the front of the unit.

...Which broke. It stopped popping back out after you press it in. Sometimes it gets jammed and causes the machine's electronics to temporarily go haywire.

No problem, right? It's just a little button switch. Just replace it.

Not so fast.

To begin with, I should mention that the machine has already had one horrendously expensive repair, in January of '17. Something went wrong with a part called "the board" and the replacement and its installation cost more than half of the retail cost of the entire machine. A/C surges were blamed—described to me as "a known problem"—so I got a surge protector. For the washing machine.

This time, it turns out you can't just replace the faulty button. You have to replace the entirety of something called "the panel." A new "panel" and its installation was going to cost me "hundreds."

For a faulty power switch.

Yikes, right? But again, not so fast. Come to find out, "the panel" is no longer available. If the machine required a new panel, even at the cost of hundreds of dollars, too bad. Can't be had.

You're getting this, I'm sure: if anything on "the panel" breaks, a Sears Kenmore washing machine bought new in 2012 can longer be repaired at all.

Why? Well, this is supposition, not fact, but anecdotal evidence suggests that apparently "the panel" was breaking left and right on this particular model of LG front-loader two and three years into its model lifespan, and the warranty replacements were costing LG too much money. So, being a huge multinational with vast resources, LG cleverly solved its problem. It just stopped making the replacement part. Voilà, no more expense! Ain't business school grand?

So anyway, to keep my now obsolescent six-year-old washing machine limping along into the future, I've figured out a workaround. I snipped the pin off a plastic push-pin and Crazy-Glued it to the on-off switch. If I'm gentle with it and push it just so, I can get the power to turn on without having the button jam. Meanwhile, though, I have to be aware that the next time the bloody little basta stops working, chances are fair that my whole machine's goose is cooked and a new sh!##% washing machine will have to get drained out of the "non-recurring recurrables" line in the budget. (That's my brother Charlie's term, and I like it. Life is full of non-recurring recurrables. The term basically means "something unforeseen is gonna cost you a big chunk a' money at random every now and then, and you never know what.")

So what's the most reliable brand of washing machine these days? Answer: none of them. American clothes washing machines from the post-war period were made to last 20 years routinely, and often lasted for 30 years. When last seen alive, my ancient Maytag—an outlier, a survivor—was 42 years old and still going strong. It's possible it was dispatched to the landfill still working! Now, they're all designed to break within ten years. Some last longer than that, but just as many don't make it that long.

They want you to have to buy a new one. Bad for you and me and our budgets, and for the environment, but good for business.

As for me, it's absolutely true that I might be a Luddite, but give me that old-style Maytag, man. I'm an old-style American, and I still hew forlornly to the quaint old obsolescent belief that the purpose of an economy is to support a society, rather than the other way around.

Mike

"Open Mike" is the anything-goes, often off-topic Editorial page of TOP. It usually appears mid-week.

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Benjamin Marks: "Arrrrgh. I say, again, 'Arrrgh.' I just replaced a Kenmore dishwasher, that had multiple problems over the ten years we owned it. The 'board' was replaced three times. The 'panel' twice. We were something like $10 away from having used so many repair services that we would have been entitled to a new machine under the terms of our old service contract.

"In fact, we spent three times as much as the retail cost of the machine on service contracts guaranteed to keep us in 'boards' and 'panels' until Kingdom Come. Until, that is, the Mother Ship announced a price increase in the service contract. 'That's It!' I cried, and pronounced that the next problem with the 'board' or the 'panel' would be the machine's last and that it would be sent to the 'farm' along with a dog of my wife's family that bit a neighbor's kid (not too badly, but still...).

"Having made this announcement, the infernal machine bided its time. It developed non-terminal ticks. It developed eccentricities. Its penchant for trouble coincided eerily with three-day weekends and times when plumbers might be less likely to be working. Christmas. It took an unexplained three day Yuletide hiatus and then, as I reached for the phone to seal its fate, mysteriously recovered. It began blinking at us from the corner of the room and emitting dulcet beeps at irregular intervals. The beeps bore an uncanny similarity in pitch and tone to the alarm indicating that our septic system pumps had failed. I would wake in the night, attuned to the house's arrhythmia, only to find that it was the dish washer beeping, muted, without pattern, in the night.

"We considered having a local shaman come and work his magic,or at least to intercede for us in reasonable tones, or as a last resort to make threats of astonishing specificity and violence. Two days before this past July 4th, the machina infernal declared its own independence. Its indicator lights started cycling (Morse code?)and its control buttons were dead to our touch. Our standby black magic of 'turning it off and turning it on again' at the basement fuse panel/junction box had no apparent effect.

"And so its fate was sealed. As of yesterday, an anodyne Bosch sits in its place, placid and silent. It is so quiet when it runs, it has to shine a little red LED towards the floor to visually announce its functioning status. 'We hardly have any trouble with these,' said the installer, in chipper tones. We shall see. We. Shall. See."

Mike replies: That comment was better than the post.  :-)

russell: "Ain’t it the truth...they don’t make 'em like they used to. I have Sears washer and dryer bought in 1991 that have gone through two boys. Both boys now have their own kids. About six months back the washer would not turn on. I searched the 'Net with brand and model number. Lo and behold there are at least four sites with how-to-fix-it instructions and videos. Turned out to be the safety switch on the lid. Had to take the thing apart to replace the switch and without the video instructions I would never have figured out how to do it. A month back the dryer would only supply heat for ~five minutes—back to the 'Net. Turned out to be a couple of faulty values—$43 in parts, two hours on the garage floor and several banged knuckles later...it's fixed.

"Plus, I found $4.35 in loose change in the bowels of the machine."

Robert Harshman: "Yeah, they really used to build things to last. My Mom still has a toaster—I know, not nearly as complex as a washer, but—she got it as a wedding gift over 75 years ago. It still works just fine. Still makes toast just fine, even though it can not 'print' designs on the toast like a few modern toasters can. It simply works as intended for over 75 years and was pretty much in daily use over that time. Given my family size and number of years at home based on say 2.5 toasted pieces of bread per day that's almost 70,000 toasted successes over it lifetime.

"The toaster is in a kind of retirement now. It's still with her, but since she moved into a retirement home last year it has not been used. Once she passes away, I'll take it and see if I can get to 100 years of toast!"

kirk tuck: "Hand made Swiss washing machines are the best. Here's the link you need. Multiple kinds of currency accepted. You pay shipping. Built like an Alpa. More expensive than my car...but boy are my clothes ever clean."

Mike replies: You have one?!?

Kirk replies to Mike: "No, I have a Kenmore from 22 years ago that my repair person advised me to keep forever. Just thought the idea of a Swiss washer and dryer would so hook many of your readers that I could not resist...."

Craig Yuill (partial comment): "If you really like the old top loaders then consider Speed Queen top loaders, which are still being built in Wisconsin. I understand that they are based on an Amana model built around 1990, and know from first-hand experience that they are built like old-fashioned top loaders."

Mike replies: I'm certainly no expert in washing machines, nor an enthusiast of them, but there are enthusiasts of them, and apparently there is a tempest-in-a-teacup controversy about the new Speed Queens: the 2018 top-loaders were apparently designed to use up front-loader parts—at least according to three guys named Harley, Spats and Sharkey—and are not Speed Queens to the manner born.

Harley relating the group "epiphany" (his word) about the 2018 Speed
Queens. I would tend to trust these guys, because what's there
to gain from faking being a fanboy of washing machines?

Can't trust anything, eh?

Happy Fourth

TOP is takin' a coupla days off for the firecracker holiday. Gone fishin', back Friday.

I'd admit that I'm one of those weirdos who think we in the USA have been better off if we'd just stuck it out as part of Great Britain. The only thing about that is, if we had stayed together as one country, you know full well that what is now the United Kingdom would have rebelled by now and gone back to being independent. The only likely difference is that we probably wouldn't have burned down Buckingham Palace in the process. We'd have let those soccer hooligans go peacefully.

:-)

But enough with the thought experiments, it's a holiday! Have a nice one, if you're celebrating. Let's be safe out there.

Mike

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Canine Hundred

The X-Pro2 in Graphite is on sale [UPDATE: Turns out I was wrong—the kit is not on sale. $2,299 is the normal price. I apologize for the error. —MJ], but honestly that's just an excuse—I just wanted the put a picture of it up on the site again. I love the way it looks. Don't need one, don't want one, but if you ask me, this is about the coolest-looking camera in the history of history. Some people couldn't care less how cameras look, and good for them, but I do, and this beauty triggers my camera-addict reflex like few others.

It's purdy, is what I'm saying.

Longtime readers might remember our discussion of the ugliest cameras in 2006. In case you missed it, here's the final post again in its entirety:

-

The Sam Memorial Camera Award

Son of Sam?

...And we have a winner. Named for Sam, the late purebred Chinese crested hairless that won the "World's Ugliest Dog" Contest three years running until his demise (by all rights, he should definitely have retired the prize), T.O.P. hereby awards the Sam Memorial Dog Camera Award for World's Ugliest Camera to the Simmons Brothers Omega 120, the early American precursor to the Koni-Omega. It is a sad thought indeed, but the world may never see an uglier camera. Mere tastelessness cannot reach such heights, and the sameness encouraged by modern manufacture will probably doom such Rube Goldberg contraptions. R.I.P.

Thanks to the two commenters who nominated it!

(Originally posted Friday, April 14th, 2006)

The X-Pro2 in that beautiful graphite finish is at the other end of the spectrum. The far other end.

...And by the bye, speaking of dogs, were you aware that the new(-ish?) luxury sedan from Kia, the Korean carmaker, is called a canine-hundred?!? Seriously. Maybe somebody at Kia secretly (or not so secretly) thinks the product's a "dog"?

At least it's not ugly!

Mike

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Mike Plews: "There's something majestic about the Omega 120. It appears that not one instant of thought went into the look of the design. There is a purity about that kind of ugliness."

Bill Bresler: "Great post! Agreed on the beauty of the Fuji. I've pretty much let go of G.A.S., but that camera gives me heart palpitations. A friend of mine actually has a working Simmons Omega 120. Like the late Sam, it's so ugly it's cool."

The Pentax K-r Bonnie Pink, with color scheme (should that be in scare quotes?) by Japanese pop star Bonnie Pink

Jim Arthur: "While the dog is ugly-scary, the Omega is ugly-odd. From a color perspective I’d have to give the Pentax K-r Bonnie Pink the Pantone 'Blot on the Landscape' award."

How To Use a Standing (or Sit-Stand) Desk

My messy desk in the sitting and the standing position

It's well known by now that sitting at a desk all day isn't good for you, and standing desks—also called sit-stand desks—have exploded in popularity. To the point that it might be considered a fad.

But I love mine.

There are a lot of options. You can get just the leg set, and then you can have a local cabinetmaker craft a custom top in whatever size and whatever kind of wood you prefer (in our area we have loads of Mennonite woodshops that will provide reasonably-priced, very well made solid wood furniture of any specification or design on demand). You can buy inexpensive hand-crank models. Or you can just buy a complete desk that comes with a tabletop, like I did four years ago. (Word to the wise: do opt for the "expert assembly" if it's available in your area.) If you really want to go all-out there's even a beautiful, deluxe new type with four separate legs that comes in several colors and sizes. (This is the killer app among current options, and it's apparently considerably easier to assemble yourself—assembling the older two-legged ones like I have is a challenge. The "expert assembly" guys who came to my house worked for two hours. Two guys. Two hours. Glad that wasn't li'l ol' me.)

What you might not know is that standing all day might not be all that good for you either. The trick is to change your state a lot—get into the habit of changing position. Sit for a while, stand for a while, sit for a while. If you can mix in "microwalks" it's a very good idea, too. Take a two-minute walk to the water-cooler every hour or so. Just make sure those walks aren't to the soda machine (at work) or the kitchen (at home)! A slightly longer brisk walk (5–15 minutes) at midday is a smart idea too.

I have these microwalks built into my day because of the dogs. They're also my built-in exercise timer (theirs, but also mine.) I also touch my toes for thirty seconds once or twice a day. (This takes longer than you'd think because it takes a while to stretch all the way down there.)

Here's the right way to use a standing desk: every hour or two, raise the desk to standing height. Take a standing position with your feet comfortably (about should-width) apart and deliberately put equal weight on both feet.

When you catch yourself shifting your weight, sit down again.

That's it. Doesn't have to be any amount of time. Two minutes, six minutes, twelve minutes, doesn't matter. As soon as you shift your weight it's a sign of discomfort and you've been standing long enough. Take a load off. Sit.

It's the intermittent change of position that does you good.

And don't forget those little walks.

Mike

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Speed: "The power of photography—I am now going to clean my desk."

70 Million Served

How many million?

TOP just passed 70 million page views since 2007. Either people kinda like this site, or seven loyal fans have come back ten million times.

(And not coincidentally, thanks to you and those other six guys.)

Mike

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Edwin Lopez: "I suspect that I am one of the seven who have viewed your site a million times each. Keep up the great work!"

Cliff: "It would be nice if the seven of us could get together and make some photographs...but I don’t have time since I’m always on TOP."

Sunday Support Group: More Than Funny

But it is funny too—Michael Jr.'s TED Talk. I enjoyed this and I liked his message, and my son did too.

And it's on topic. Hope your punchlines—er, projects—are going well!

Mike

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cecilia: "What a nice way to start the morning! Thanks!"