The Online Photographer

The Coolest Camera Features

What would you say are the best features of cameras (or processing software) for you over the years of the digital era?

I have a few nominations to list—a few I use, and a few I don't but admire from afar*:

1. Image stabilization
2. Silent shooting (electronic shutter)
3. Fast and easy sharing of pictures and videos via texting, in smartphones
4. Eye-AF, best implemented in Sony full-frame mirrorless cameras as far as I know
5. Olympus's Pro Capture, which allows you to record a series of exposures before you press the shutter

Strictly speaking, IS preceded digital by a few years, first appearing on a Canon zoom lens in the '90s. Before that it was available on Canon binoculars. But as a commonplace feature it maps to the digital era pretty closely.

As far as Eye-AF** is concerned, many cameras have it now, but it has to work really well in order to become a useful feature IMHO. Sony seems to win the battle there as far as I can tell.

I suppose the highest, ultimate, or strictest question here would be: is there any feature that you either have bought or would buy a new camera just to get?

A more relaxed question would be, are there any features that have been game-changers for your work since ~Y2k?

Mike

* There are also lots of technically impressive features that I don't use and that therefore don't mean much to me. Although sometimes I do wonder if there might be features I'd really like if I'd just explore them. This obviously isn't a comprehensive list.

** Eye-AF is not to be confused with eye-controlled focus, Canon's feature which tracked your eyeball to (hopefully) focus on what you were looking at in the viewfinder, or Minolta's eye-start, which turned the camera on when it detected your eyeball behind the viewfinder window, or whatever that feature is called that switches from the rear-screen view to the EVF view if and when it detects an object near the latter—which is as often an annoyance as a convenience if you ask me. Eye-AF means the camera automatically detects eyes in the frame and instantly places focus exactly on them. It's so precise that you can choose which eye you want the camera to focus on. If you let the camera focus through lots of foliage or reflections or other kinds of visual confusion, it's quite impressive that it works so well.

Book o' this Week:
Sugar is the silent nutritional crisis that is hiding in plain sight. The best book about it might be the prescient 1972 classic Pure, White and Deadly by the British scientist John Yudkin. Recommended. <—This is a portal to Amazon; also available at the Book Depository for global delivery with free shipping.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

John Shriver (partial comment): "Huge depth-of-field (DoF) with small sensors on small cameras. Small-sensor cameras (digital compacts, cellphones) have great DoF. Fantastic for taking pictures of model railroads, taken from a 'scale person's' eye level. Could never do anything like that with a film SLR, at least not well, and without blisteringly hot lighting. Before this, model railroad photography looked like drone shots—from above."

Richard Skoonberg: "To me, the coolest and most important feature is the low noise, high-dynamic-range sensors that we have in our cameras today. I am constantly amazed by them. As a landscape photographer, I often photograph within the dark recesses of the forest and spend hours burning and dodging my images in Lightroom and Photoshop. Because of the ISO-invariance of the Sony sensor in the Pentax, I usually start by slightly underexposing my images to avoid highlight clipping. I have often surprised myself with what I am able to discover as I adjust the exposure across the image. I always feel confident that I have truly captured the image when I click the shutter. So the sensor is the most important feature to me."

JOHN B GILLOOLY (partial comment): "For me, game changer #1 once the digital era was in full swing, was Adobe Lightroom and the ability to effectively batch-process small and large groups of images visually in the browser. Prior to that we were opening images individually in Photoshop or creating 'actions' for certain sets of images. Early digital workflow was a nightmare."

Rand Scott Adams: "For me, it was IBIS, but only when its implementation migrated to medium format cameras. The ability to use a large sensor with excellent dynamic range in a truly offhand shooting style changed everything."

Kenneth Tanaka (partial comment): "What history will find most notable about the advent of the digital photo era is its integration with communications technologies. That someone can take a picture in, say, Caracas and literally a minute later someone in Winnipeg or London can be viewing that picture is unquestionably the 'coolest' and most tectonically significant aspect of all incarnations of digital photography today and forever."

Alex G.: "Usable, almost grainless ISOs above 800 is, to me, the biggest game-changer of the digital era. Also, the ability to 'pre-see' the photo on the back...it’s so basic to digital photography that it’s hard to remember that it’s a feature. And while it’s a blessing and a curse, it was completely transformative. Because of it, it is much easier to learn photography, among other things. You can experiment and learn more in an afternoon now than you could in months during the film era."

James: "Easier travel—I didn't change to digital until I booked to go to Antarctica. The thought of all the X-ray machines I would encounter with three flights in each direction swung it for me. (Not to mention carrying dozens of rolls and changing film while it snows.) I would have needed over 100 36-exposure rolls."

SteveW (partial comment): "This is good to reflect on. The top taken-for-granted item: autofocus. I don't think as an old dawg that photography would be fun if I was frying my eyes attempting manual focus."

RayC (partial comment): "Quality electronic viewfinder—I know they are still controversial but once they got to a certain level of quality they became a game-changer for me."

Not THAT Ross Cameron: "Coming from landscape, I’ll go with post-processing software that involves blending multiple images. Be it focus stack, HDR-like capabilities, or stitching, or various combinations thereof. While the basic premise existed with film, the digital capabilities allow us to overcome many physical constraints when using a given body and lens combination—DoF, dynamic range, focal length or sensor size/area."

Juan Buhler: "Short flange distances! These days you can get a used mirrorless full frame camera for under $1,000 that can take any lens made for any rangefinder or SLR! Imagine dropping by a Canikon flame war in the '90s with news that in 20 years you would be shooting with a Sony that takes both Canon and Nikon lenses and can even autofocus with them?"

Keith: "A lot of comments regarding the communication available with current digital cameras refer to the near immediate ability to transmit an image to a phone for sharing, either to select individuals or the world at large. But for me, the ability to communicate with and remotely control the camera during the capture process is a tremendous benefit in the first step of the workflow. This is especially useful in long exposure, multi-image bracketing for composites, and studio work. It's like having unlimited real time Polaroids and full control of the camera without having to touch (and possibly move) the camera."

Somnath Goswami: "The ability to tweak ISO as per requirement is a great digital boon."

Lesley T: "Have I ever bought a camera because of certain features it offered? Oh yes! The first was a Nikon 1 AW1 purchased just before a trip to Antarctica that would include kayaking. I wore it on a harness that sat on my chest and was able to get some photos that I never could have taken otherwise. Worth every penny!

"The second was a Nikon Z50, bought when we planned (in March of 2020) to go to Austria to see a grandson compete in a biathlon competition and I really did not want to take a lightweight point-and-shoot or to tote my D600 and a heavy telephoto lens around the course. Well, we all know how 2020 turned out, so the camera wasn't used for its intended purpose, but it is the one I toss into my bag when I wonder if I should bother taking a camera with me. Could I do without it? Of course, but I really enjoy it.

"The third is the Nikon Z6 II. My husband was quite ill during the first part of the pandemic, and then I broke a hip, got a new one, and have been suffering with a slow recovery, so we stayed pretty close to home. I spent a lot of time in the garden, photographing flowers as they bloomed, then withered, but became a bit bored with what I was doing. But I could do focus stacking with the Z6 II...and I have just had so much fun with it!

"At the age of 74, I firmly believe that I am too old not to have fun with what I do, so that's what prompts me to buy a new camera...the opportunity to have more fun with my picture-taking."

Zeiss Batis Group Review

Ed. note: As promised recently, I've collated all our readers' comments about the Zeiss Batis 40mm (and other lenses in the Batis line). Many readers mentioned or speculated about the new Sony lenses that were then just about to be introduced, and generally I have edited out those comments.

The Zeiss Batis 40mm ƒ/2 full-frame lens for Sony E-mount

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The Zeiss Batis lens lineup at Amazon;
the Batis 40mm ƒ/2 at B&H Photo

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Kenneth Tanaka: "The Zeiss Batis 40mm ƒ/2 is a lovely lens, perfect for carrying only one lens during a long walk. Personally, I like the 'tweener' focal length of 40mm. It's sharp wall-to-wall, with excellent contrast, and it has that slightly-cool Zeiss lens look. It's also a pretty fast focuser in all AF modes I’ve used on the Sony A7R IV.

"No, it's not an inexpensive lens, but it's a good value all-'round companion lens that I've owned for some time and would buy again if it was lost.

"At just under 14 oz. it’s easy on the neck! The lightness is, no doubt, due in no small part to having a polycarbonate, rather than metal, body.

"It features a sometimes-handy focus limiter switch, good for the macro moments.

"When the lens is switched to manual focus an LED display comes alive indicating the current focal length and focal bracket. Also note that the focus ring is by-wire and there is no aperture ring (which is fine with me).

"These little JPEGs aren't going to tell anyone anything about the lens. But they’re perfectly fine, especially considering they're just shot out my home windows just now!"

David Stock: "The Batis 40mm is currently my favorite lens, and has been for some time. I love this focal length, and this is a killer 40mm, at least for my kind of street and landscape photography. The lens is kind of fat, but pretty light and easy to hold. It has fast, accurate autofocus. And close-focus capability, which I love. The digital distance/depth of field scale is a bit gimmicky, but I've actually used it to zone focus. It can be turned on or off. Manual focus is okay, but nothing special.

"As for image quality: this is classic Zeiss blended with the best of modern lens design. The rendering reminds me of my Zeiss Contax lenses, except that the Batis is better corrected and better behaved in every way optically. Besides, it's sharp across the frame wide open, incredibly sharp across the frame stopped down a bit. Still very sharp at ƒ/11 plus. Flat field, minimal focus shift. This may not be the perfect lens for somebody who always shoots wide open in order to blow away the background. It's 'only' an ƒ/2 lens. Bokeh is very good, but not as creamy or controlled as, say, the new Voigtländer 50mm. What the Batis does do very well is make detail look convincing in areas that are slightly or moderately out of focus (for instance, in front of and behind the plane of exact focus).

"For any kind of landscape, a superb lens. I have the Batis 25mm and 85mm also. Excellent lenses. But this is a cut above."

Herb Cunningham: "Have owned a couple of Batis lenses; not a fan. Prefer the manual focus lenses. Auto focus is needed for fast moving subjects, but not the rest, in my humble opinion."

Peter Jehle: "I own the Zeiss Batis 40mm and use it with a Sony A7R III. The handling is lovely, well balanced and lightweight. Autofocus is quick and accurate. The rendering is beautiful and it is super sharp wide open. Close focusing with the additional benefit of a focus limiter switch with three settings. I own or have owned 35mm and 50mm lenses and always felt they were either slightly too wide or too long so 40mm suits the way I see, obviously this may differ for you. I have read that this lens suffers from some focus inaccuracy at close distances but I have not noticed any issues on my copy. I often use this lens in conjunction with my Batis 135mm ƒ/2.8 and find it makes a great two-lens kit. The lens has quite a large circumference especially when the hood is fitted, therefore if I want to be more discrete I will use my Loxia 35mm instead."

Grant Kench: "I have and use the Batis 85mm ƒ/1.8 lens. It is touted as a portrait lens. I use it for landscape. It is a beautiful lens but not perfect on account of its manual focus issues. That would be the same for the 40mm. Focus 'on the wire' just does not work for me being much too difficult to finesse."

Piotr Edelman: "I have a 18mm Batis. Big sky, architecture, city, outdoors. Feels to me as good as all the reviews said. Perfect AF, very good manual mode. If I have to pick something negative, then maybe the fact is doesn't have a dedicated auto/manual button. You have to control it from the camera."

Christer: "After a lens clean-out I am left with four lenses, three of them Batises. I have, listed here by acquisition date, the 85mm, the 40mm, and the 135mm. (I also have the Sony 20mm ƒ/1.8G.) I like all of them, otherwise I would not have kept them. A Batis may look large, especially with the sunshade mounted. But they are the right size for my medium-sized hands...and they feel good when you hold them. And I only use the sunshade when it is really needed. The lenses may look large, but they are by no means heavy. Indeed, they are lightweight compared to some Leica lenses I used to own like the 90mm ƒ/2 ASPH. I sometimes use a tripod and then the low weight is a true blessing. I can use a lighter tripod and smaller head. They all focus fast enough for me, but I am not a sports photographer, I am rather a people and things photographer. Eye focus works really well. (I use a Sony A7R III.) Both the 85mm and the 135mm have in-lens stabilization. I am pretty convinced that this is a valuable feature. Many reviewers make negative remarks about the rubberized surface of the manual focusing ring. Man, do they have problems. Problems to fill their 15+ minutes review videos. Well, I had a problem too. The blue dot for lining up the lenses correctly is difficult to see. Mine is now white. I have many images on my web site, mainly made with the 85mm. Here are some direct links: SV-JA, Portraits, Eyes 'n' Lips."

San Warzoné: "I came across a deal on a brand new Zeiss Batis 85mm ƒ/1.8 with stabilization for my Sony A7 III. It's a perfect size, handles great and produces amazing clarity and color. My style of street hunting may not lend itself to an 85mm but the results can't be denied. It has taken me awhile to keep reminding myself to keep stepping back, but when I do there's a true 'Wow' moment."

Phil Service: "About the Batis lenses: I've owned all but the 40mm. The main attraction is that they are light, although strangely bulky. The 85mm has rather more distortion than you might expect for a lens in this class. Despite the fact that they have relatively modest maximum apertures, they need to be stopped down two stops for maximum center sharpness. I just sold my 18mm and 25mm on eBay and replaced them with the Sony FE 20mm ƒ/1.8 G, which is more compact, slightly heavier and optically superior."

CWM: "The Batis lenses from Zeiss are the single largest reason for my use of Sony bodies. Forty millimeters is a favorite focal length and this version is the epitome of Zeiss 'pop' or whatever adjective you like to use for amazing micro-contrast, etc. Images just look 'right' and I feel that my intent for the photograph is rendered perfectly.

"In 2019, I did the 'Grand Tour' of Europe with the A7R IV and Zeiss Batis 40mm and 135mm. Also brought the Voigtländer 21mm ƒ/1.4 and 65mm ƒ/2 (manual focus), also manufactured by Cosina in Japan. No zooms were needed on this trip. Everything fit in a reasonable size Manfrotto bag. At 65, I just can't, or won't, haul those huge bodies and zooms anymore. Great sensor and four fantastic primes...photo heaven for me. If you are OK with manual focus, then I also highly recommend the 21mm ƒ/1.4 for travel. Best museum lens ever! I was very skeptical of using the 135mm ƒ/2.8 but I needed to keep overall weight down and still have some 'reach.' The Batis 135mm is simply the best I've ever used at that focal length and I've shot with at least a dozen or so over the last 40+ years. With this level of lens quality, I kept to ƒ/5 or wider to avoid diffraction issues on the high resolution 61mp sensor. Lesser lenses are less finicky, but these Zeiss and Voigtländer models can truly take advantage of these incredible high resolution sensors. Wall art metal prints at 24x36" are astounding; 8K sized files for playback on 4K monitors were also a joy to view."

Glenn Allenspach: "I do own and use a Batis 40mm. I also have the Batis 25mm and 135mm, plus four of the Zeiss Loxia lenses and two of the Sony/Zeiss lenses. You’re right, I’m a lens junkie. I’ve gotten very satisfactory results from all my Batis lenses, although I find myself using the 25mm more often. I discovered long ago when I owned a 25mm Distagon in Contax/Yashica mount, that, for myself, the 25mm was a nearly perfect fit for my vision. As you often say, 'your mileage may vary.'

"I think you’ve touched on another issue with lenses in general, which is the size. Batis lenses are big and impressive, and as such, tend to draw attention to themselves when I’m on the street. I sometimes get comments like, 'That’s quite a lens you have there,' or some such. This never happens when I’m working with the more modestly sized Loxias. So even though they are manual focus, and a little slower to use, they can actually be more discreet. As you know, Zeiss was never shy about physically big lenses. Remember the C/Y mount 35mm and 85mm ƒ/1.4's? Quite huge (and heavy) for their day. And in today's AF/VR/zoom world, big heavy lenses are common. Just check out anyone's 24–70mm ƒ/2.8, or 24–105mm ƒ/4. I don’t own any mid-range zooms any more, by the way, so maybe there’s hope for me after all."

Henry Rinne: "My primary full-frame kit is a Sony a7R II and three Batis lenses: 25mm, 40mm, and 85mm. I also have the Sony 55mm ƒ/1.8 and the 16–35mm ƒ/4. The 40mm Batis is on the camera far more than any other lens. I find comfort in the slight wide angle field of view. All of the Batis lenses are extremely sharp and have excellent contrast and microcontrast touted by Zeiss. The ƒ/2 is fast enough and I love the close-focusing ability of the 40mm. It had some bad press because of the slight closing of the aperture when focused in close. I do not see it as a problem. The other issue was the use of eye AF causing a small amount of front focus. Both of these issues were dealt with in a firmware update but neither were eliminated completely. In my experience, I see the eye AF issue in one out of ten shots. Still not a bad hit rate. I love the the lens and have maintained my Sony kit because I just like the rendering of these lenses."

Eric Brody: "I've had the Batis 40mm since it became available. I've read all the reviews, including the negative one by Phillip Reeve, whose reviews I highly respect. When the firmware upgrade was released I did it and have not looked back. New lenses have and will arrive. It's not as if the older equipment stops working when the new version arrives, though manufacturers might like that. The Batis 40mm is not petite but it's light, sharp, focuses fast, and focuses close. It's my go-to when I want to go out and carry just one lens.

"I'm as much of a lens lover as anyone and probably have too many but I have two 'Batii,' the 40mm detailed above and the Batis 135mm ƒ/2.8. That is a lens I shall never sell. It's pretty light, especially compared to the Sony and Sigma ƒ/1.8 versions. It's one of the sharpest lenses I've ever used, and I've used a lot of lenses in my 60-odd years of photography.

"Zeiss has gone from the dream brand to I'm not sure what and everyone seems to enjoy bashing the 'Batii,' or as someone once said the bad-ass lenses. The business is understandably infatuated with the newest and latest. There's always been some of that but the digital era has greatly accelerated the desire to toss something a few years old in favor of the newest even if the differences are hard to see. Dire Straits said it well in their song 'Money for Nothing,' 'We got to move those refrigerators, got to move these color TVs.'"

Alan Sue: "I have several Batis lenses, the 25mm, 40mm and 85mm, along with a couple of Loxia lenses. I guess I like Zeiss. The size and shape of the Batis make it a nice winter lens as I shoot through the winter with gloves on in pretty cold weather. The optical quality suits me as well. The Sony A7R bodies aren't that much fun to shoot with gloves but that's another story. The new Sony 40mm will likely be a nice fair-weather lens."

Tom Hassler: "I have the Batis 25mm ƒ/2 and Batis 85mm ƒ/1.8 for Sony, have used them on an A7R II and A7R IV. They are great! Integration with both Sony cameras is excellent (i.e.: fast autofocus and tracking.) Optically they have all the Zeiss-y goodness that one expects from the brand, especially that wonderful 3D quality that is hard to quantify but always present in Zeiss optics. They are a bit bulky, but feel light and well-balanced on the camera. They might be a little pricey compared to some, but they do not disappoint."

Rodolfo Canet Castelló: "I had two Batis for my long-ago sold Sony 7RII: 25mm and 85mm. Both were well-built lenses and competent performers but a little...I don't know how to say it...boring or characterless, and quite contrasty without joy. I've had several Zeiss lenses during my long career of buying expensive new gear for other people to get it cheaper from me later, and this pair weren't my favourites."

Mein Batis 40mm
Finally Christer Almqvist pointed out an eBay sale page for a near-new Sigma 35mm ƒ/2 in Germany. The seller's explanation of the reason for the sale was, "fast nicht genutzt da ich mein Batis 40mm doch weiterhin benutze deshalb der auch der Verkauf," which Google translates as: "almost not used because I still use my Batis 40mm, which is why the sale."

Mike

Products o' the Week:

The Zeiss Batis lens lineup at Amazon;
the 40mm ƒ/2 at B&H Photo

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Josh Hawkins: "Not Batis related at all, but related to one of the comments. 'Images just look "right" and I feel that my intent for the photograph is rendered perfectly.' This is very particular to each photographer, of course. I’ve been using a 50mm Summicron DR for about a year and I’m finding I just love the look. Not too contrasty, holds shadow details well, and has a nice look for backlit images. The problem I’m having is finding any other lenses that match up with that look; wide angles, let’s say 24mm or wider, from the early '60s aren’t super common. Is there anything made currently without the supercontrasty feel? The only other lenses I’ve gotten a similar vibe from is an 80mm Hassy lens that may not even be a T*. It has a great vibe to it.

"And just what I need, more stuff. I should learn how to sell my old gear."

Mike relies: I had one of those for a while. I'd be surprised if you didn't sell it to me! But I don't remember.

Sunday Support Group: You Own Your Own Photography

[My apologies! I thought I had posted this yesterday around mid-day, and was mystified this morning to find no comments on it. But it was my fault—I got it all ready and then neglected to hit the "Publish" button. Give me a little more practice, I will learn how to do this someday. —Mike]

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A reader named Hugh wrote a perspicacious comment to the "Coda" post. He says,

"'Spray and Pray' is a cliché. Limiting the number of exposures you take is laziness, either at the taking stage, or at the editing stage. I’ve done the '12 sheets of large format film to last a weekend' thing, and I’ve shot 19 rolls of B&W 35mm film in a day, processed it the next day, and printed the following day. There's a place for both approaches, but I think you progress faster by being productive, not by imposing artificial limits."

A valid opinion, one I broadly agree with. But I couldn't help reflect that it is phrased just a tad...aggressively, shall we say? It's indisputable as a statement of Hugh's own values, but the judgments of others it implies are a mite strong for my taste. Even though, on reflection, I've decided that personally I have to cop to his accusation of laziness!

To name just one example, it's tough to look at Jamie Livingston's monumental legacy and associate his limit of one Polaroid per day with laziness in any way.

By nature I'm relentlessly a middlebrow autodidact, so I place a high value on experimenting with different methods of working and giving consideration to the suggestions of others. I always want to learn. And as a terminally frustrated teacher I often make suggestions myself, although that's all they are.

But the highest principle, in my view, is that when it comes to processes and methods in photography, everyone gets to decide for him- or herself. If one person decides to spray-and-pray, okay. If another decides to limit exposures severely, in the end it's up to them.

The same even goes for productivity. Consider a few writers. The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas published 90 poems in his lifetime; but they were of sufficient impact in the world that Robert Zimmerman of Hibbing, Minnesota, chose the stage name Bob Dylan in homage. Emily Dickinson published none of hers. At the other extreme we have Alexandre Dumas, who wrote The Three Musketeers and some 250(!) other novels*, and romance novelist Barbara Cartland, who reportedly wrote 700(!!) books. (That's about ten years of reading at the rate I read.)

There's productive, and then there's productive. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't trade all of Emily Dickinson for all of Barbara Cartland. No offense meant**. I wonder how many people in the future will read the least famous of Cartland's books? Drew Nellins Smith wrote, "I've been struck by the notion that there might be no books more lost than those buried in the overwhelming bibliographies of authors who have simply published too damn much."

Stephen King wrote about that same subject in 2015. He comes down on the other side of Smith, as we might expect.

But back to photography. As long as you're not taking money to do what someone else tells you to, then your decisions are up to you. And as long as you're not hurting or endangering anybody or anything (or yourself...or, especially, children(!!!)), most of those decisions are okay, too.

Mike

UPDATE Hugh (the OP) replies: "I would have to admit it was written to get a reaction.  :-)  I have been accused of 'spray and pray' a few times; and I’ve just returned to shooting large format film as well as digital."

*And TTM is a great whacking fat long book too. My hardcover of the Ellsworth translation runs to 760 pages without the endmatter. And it's not even the longest of Dumas père's books.

**In the car this afternoon I heard a comedian who said if his wife and mother-in-law are any indication, you can say any unkind thing you want about anyone as long as you put a bless their heart at the end. He went on to riff on some funny examples. So maybe I should say "I wouldn't trade all of Emily Dickinson for all of Barbara Cartland, bless her heart."

Book o' the Week:
Sugar is the silent nutritional crisis that is hiding in plain sight. The best book about it might be the prescient 1972 classic Pure, White and Deadly by the British scientist John Yudkin (1910–1995) (original U.S. title: Sweet and Dangerous). So many of what were then predictions have come to pass. Nicely written, too.

Highly recommended. <—This is a portal to Amazon; also available at the Book Depository for global delivery with free shipping. I'll be adding the book to my reading list of the best books about food, diet, and nutrition.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Thomas Mc Cann: "I may have told this story before, it's an old age thing, but Amateur Photographer, the English publication, once had a press photographer write a weekly column for them. His name escapes me, another old age thing, and one day his editor sent him to Trafalgar Square for some filler shots, tourists and pigeons that sort of thing. There was a group of school boys en route to their summer holidays and he heard one boy who after taking a picture of a friend in front of the fountains announced 'That leaves three for Switzerland.'

"As to diets. The only diet book I ever read was by John Yudkin, and his recommendations are what I still follow when trying to lose weight."

Benjamin Marks: "I am going to write something that automatically sets off my internal copy editor:

"Photography has always had a bit of an inferiority complex as an art form, and the hand-wringing about its creative processes is a symptom or indicator of that.

"Of course 'photography' isn't one thing, and of course it doesn't have feelings of any kind. But bear with me, and with the poor rhetorical device, for a second.

"I think photographers who are trying to make art, struggle with the fact that it is the machine that is doing much of the image-making. It is an unintended consequence of the Kodak credo, 'You push the button. We'll do the rest.' This description of automatic creation may be even more accurate now with the digital marvels we all carry daily. Or put another way: no one asks whether a pencil sketch is intentional. But a macaque selfie? That's a tougher question.

"My thesis here is that, since Muybridge, photography has granted humans a superpower: the ability to preserve the events in a slice of time that is shorter than that which ordinary human perception allows. So: yes, the hooves are all off the ground. But once the motor drive was invented, artists had to prove something different: that the image captured was done so intentionally.

"If an image was captured intentionally, it might be art. If not, the image may have just been an accident produced by the universe.

"All of which brings me back to the process questions raised by today's post. All of the process limitations we place on ourselves these days have a whiff of this insecurity about them. That is not to say that they can't be useful...of course they can, whether it is six sheets of film per outing, or taking one picture a day. But I think taking one picture—or six—per day (these days) is a way of saying 'see, I meant this,' just the way that including the black edge of your negative's boarder used to say, 'I composed this in the viewfinder.'

"Of course, those of us who are more sophisticated have long known that it is seeing the possibilities in what the camera produced is where the artistry lives. And just as not every negative that Bruce Davidson produced is worth reproducing, not every split second recorded by our own photographic superpower is art. But these days, one has to append the phrase, 'all evidence to the contrary,' to proclamations like the one I am making above, because: Flickr, Imgur, Photobucket etc., etc.: We keep hoping."

Globules: "I don't want to sound too diacritical, but you've made a grave and acute error! (Pére should be père.)"

Mike replies: Sorry! Fixed now. (I looked that up, too.)

J.B. Forbes Has Retired

[Ed. Note: The primary purpose of this post is a link to a portfolio by an American newspaper photographer, and the link appears to be inaccessible from other areas of the world. The video however is available on Facebook at this link: https://www.facebook.com/STLPD/videos/234414541362864 (thanks to Dave_lumb and Sean for this). —Mike the Ed.]

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Photojournalism isn't art. Or rather art photography. It doesn't have the unity of vision of art photography, the subtlety and individuality of purpose or consistency of style. As far as feeling-tone is concerned, sometimes photojournalism clubs you over the head with sentiment. But at its best, there's a vigor to photojournalism that's tough to beat—there's always meaning, and usually, significance. You come away from it with your feathers flustered, feeling like you've been jostled by human contact and touched by the energy of that. You've had an encounter with the world.

It's really nice to be writing this and linking to this when it isn't an obituary, by the way. Too often we only grant a flurry of notice and attentiveness to someone when they die. By which time they are, under most belief systems anyway, unable to appreciate it. Ever notice how death notices are sometimes the first you ever hear of a person? Sad when that happens.

But in this case it's only a retirement—Missouri Photojournalism Hall of Fame member J.B. Forbes has retired after 45 years as a photojournalist at four newspapers, most recently as Chief Photographer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Upside-down Ozzie
As you know, TOP takes (that is to say, I take) the day off on Saturday. It's the day of the week we get the least visits. So I sometimes make an effort to leave you with something to chew on that'll hold you for the weekend.

Perhaps never more so than this. Check out this portfolio and video of some of the highlights of J.B. Forbes' career:

"The stories behind the images: The photos of J.B. Forbes"

Although I never knew his name, I'm amazed by how many of these photographs I know. I have a good visual memory (not so good with names, numbers, or the exact wording of quotes—my editor friend Jim Schley has great retention for exact quotes). I do remember pictures, though. Often for a long time. I'm almost sure I haven't seen upside-down Ozzie Smith since around the time it was taken, but I've always remembered it. I know I've seen many of the photos in this portfolio before. The fireman and the little boy who wouldn't let go of him, with its particularly poignant caption; Spinks landing one on Ali; the prisoners playing dominoes; the girl with the tears in her eyes; that distinctive pose of an energetic candidate Barack Obama; the child holding the AK-47; the young boy watching the couple kiss on the statue; Harry Carey and Jack Buck. I'll bet I haven't seen a lot of these since they were taken, but they're still old friends.

And some new ones, too. I especially like the one of the deer in the graveyard. That scene has a graceful gentleness about it, doesn't it? And the one of the two soldiers on the snowy road with "Santa" in red beside them.

Anyway, this weekend, if you have a spare hour, take a leisurely look through this portfolio and watch the video (I watched in installments). I bet you'll find something to appreciate.

I'm sure we all wish J.B. Forbes a long and productive retirement! Maybe photojournalism isn't art—but hey, art isn't photojournalism, either.  :-)

Have a nice weekend! See you on Sunday.

Mike
(Thanks to Ray Hunter)

Product o' the Week:

A fantastically comfortable ergonomic mouse for PC users. Should be considered incompatible with Mac unless you want to use only default settings. Available in regular and small sizes, right and left hand, and wired and wireless. WARNING to Mac users: Do NOT download USBOverdrive! It broke my computer. But really, for you PC users, you won't believe how easy on your hand this mouse is.

The link above is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

And here is a portal to...

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

John Robison: "What a treat. Thanks for that link. My favorite was the night shot of the St.Lewis arch with the snow falling. But really, what a great body of work."

Larry Wilkins: "I think the photo of the coffin of the Franciscan friar, Rev. Valerian Schott, in the grave is just about perfect. Thanks for the link."

DB: "A spectacular portfolio and career. Thanks for posting, Mike."

Hugh Lovell: "A stunning collection of images by J.B. Forbes, many overruning with emotion. Thank you for the link."

Coda: On 'Approach'

One thing to take away from the Simone Bossi article is that it's valuable to be sensitive to your own personal or idiosyncratic approach to the work of photographing. Even if you don't agree with Bossi's own approach—and why would you, necessarily? You're not him—it's a worthwhile thing both to think about and to work out for yourself. Which is why I added a few comments about my own experiments in approaching some of these problems.

Gradually or quickly, most photographers work out the specifics of their approach, and most won't be successful unless they take into account their own skills, talents, aptitudes, desires and intentions as they do so. What works for one person might not work for another. What's interesting about the Bossi interview is that it shows him taking an unconventional approach to the problem of photographing architecture, one that goes against some of the more common shared assumptions of the present moment. I was interested, for instance, that he analogizes knowing a building to knowing a person, and that he's noticed that he spends the most time deciding on the first shot, because in his mind and feelings he organizes his first acquaintance with an unfamiliar building similarly to the process of acquainting with a stranger.

I might point out that the 20 or 30 shots he says he takes on an assignment isn't necessarily that little; Walker Evans, while working for the Farm Security Administration, could spend a full day's work exposing six sheets of film. When I worked for Jim Sherwood, he told me that one of his first employers, who was a crusty old guy when Jim was young, would leave the studio to cover a news event and take with him, again, only six sheets of film.

When I young, I did some deliberate work exploring that aspect of approach. I did one exercise where I went photographing taking only one sheet of film with me. It was quite interesting having to decide against "spending" my one shot on various possibilities or opportunities—the demonstrations quickly became one of, how do I personally go about knowing when I'm faced with something I really don't want to miss? (That experiment ended early because it was just too much of a pain.) On another occasion I forced myself to shoot six rolls of 35mm film (for me that was 210 exposures, a lot for me at the time) in one two-hour period. I didn't enjoy the process and I didn't get much out of it. At the time I had a friend who was studying with John Gossage at Maryland, and John, who shot heavily, made process requirements of his students, requiring that they, too, shoot heavily. I was maybe a little too attached to contrarianism at the time, but I ended up reacting against that a little.

I do remember that I always quit photographing when I had at least half a roll of film left. I never wanted to be stuck at the end of the day not being able to take a picture. Just in case I happened across something really good. (This was referred to back in my day as "in case you see Elvis riding a unicorn getting out of a flying saucer" or something along those lines. Elvis had died by that time, but "Elvis sightings" were still a staple meme of tabloid culture. Which struck me as hilarious because, at the peak of the "Elvis sightings," there were 200 professional Elvis impersonators in the U.S.A. But, humans being humans, no one ever put two and two together.)

For me the pace of shooting and the balance between visually exploring and understanding on the one hand and shooting on the other was eventually also wrapped up in the pace of the process I used. I shot 35mm B&W film and developed it myself (rolled it into the cassettes myself too), and in one developing session—I always developed film standing at the kitchen counter next to the sink—I could easily handle three rolls, which for me was one tank's worth. I developed film at the frequency of anything from once a day to once a week, with perhaps once every two or three days as an average. So that was a determinant in the pace of my shooting as well. I didn't want to shoot so much that it overwhelmed my ability to comfortably keep up with the processing.

Digital photographers don't have this built-in brake against overshooting, although that might depend on their own process. For instance, if you're disciplined about your Lightroom procedure as you begin your editing and evaluation, it might interact with and affect your shooting frequency to some degree.

Sadly, I never became nearly as disciplined or as intentional with digital as I was with film. For one thing, I was older, and more jaded and less ambitious, by the time digital came along. For another, I had a hard time taking digital seriously for a long time. (Too long.) The legacy of that attitude, I'm afraid, continues to afflict me, even if the attitude itself is gone.

Also, I became a teacher and writer rather than a photographer. Of course I still photograph, as I have always done, since I was a child, but shifts in one's career focus also probably can't help but affect our working methods. The shift was not entirely up to me, by the way: I got attention and reward for my writing, but I didn't get attention and reward for my photography. Career choices are definitely a mix of our own goals and ambitions with what works for us in the world and what puts bread on our plates and in our pockets. If people had made a fuss over my photographs and paid me for prints, but ignored my writing and never paid me for that, then I'm sure my career "choices" would have veered in a different direction.

But to get back to the subject, in short, I'll say this: I don't think you have to agree with the working methodologies to get insights out of hearing about other photographers' working methodologies.

That's it. That's enough to say.

Mike

Product o' the Week:

A fantastically comfortable ergonomic mouse for PC users. Should be considered incompatible with Mac unless you want to use only default settings. Available in regular and small sizes, right and left hand, and wired and wireless. WARNING to Mac users: Do NOT download USBOverdrive! It broke my computer. But really, for you PC users, you won't believe how easy on your hand this mouse is.

The link above is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

And here is a portal to...

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Michael Cytrynowicz: "Your Process comments resonate with me, and so do Bossi's. I nearly stopped using digital cameras, except for my iPhone, which I use for taking references (of place, etc.). I have been shooting B&W 35mm film for about a year, now (after a protracted study) focusing on Ilford FP4+ developed in XTOL, trying to go out one or twice a week, shooting a roll each time, and trying to keep a balanced pace between shooting, developing, scanning, ingesting into Lightroom, editing in Photoshop, and printing to matte papers with my Epson P800. I've never been happier, and I definitely don't miss the days of taking hundreds of digital shots. Emphasis on taking shots versus making images. I now use a spotmeter, stop and try to see as much as I can, take my time. And, I've been—Horror!—focusing on a very small range of subjects—trees and bushes. Yeah, Curly's 'One Thing.' In part after reading, years ago, an article you wrote on the German couple's water tower photography. And yes, I try to use good, but not expensive lenses, and my Konica FT-1 and Olympus OM-4 cameras. I feel a burden has lifted, and I don't watch YouTube videos about the latest, heaviest, most megapixelled, anymore. But yeah, process is setting me free."

Colin: "One possible brake against over-shooting? Hard drive space! I have one computer, a 2017 MacBook Pro with 1TB of storage. I had to split my Lightroom catalogue in two a few years ago and I still hate the separation. This limit forces me to at least be pretty severe in editing and deleting and I think does make me think a bit more thoughtful when out photographing."

 

Quote o' the Day: Amy Frearson on Simone Bossi

"At a time when digital photography makes it easy to take hundreds of photos on each shoot and correct mistakes in the edit, he prefers to spend more time thinking than shooting, to ensure that every picture is carefully considered."

—Amy Frearson, writing about Simone Bossi in Dezeen

Italian photographer Simone Bossi has done something weird and different enough that it merits an article on Dezeen, an online architecture and design magazine: he shoots architecture with a large-format film camera.

Seems to me that's been done before...but okay. It's all good, as the kids say. I liked the article and what it tells us about his approach.

He believes the use of digital cameras leads architectural photography to become too contrived; he claims it's better to appreciate the beauty of imperfections than it is to make images feel too polished.

Digital 'was too much to digest and too many pictures to control,' he said.

I think you can follow his principles and aesthetics with either digital or film cameras, but you know what he means. And it makes sense.

Jane Bown, one of my heroes, said that when she took lots of pictures of her subjects she noticed that the first and last ones were usually the best, so she just cut out all the ones in the middle. (I always liked that. You can't quite tell how serious she is versus how much she's, well, winking.)

In the '80s, I learned the lesson with a roll and a half of film I shot of some mud-wrestlers on the Mall in D.C. The pictures were all broadly the same but subtly different, and I had the devil of a time editing them. I reached a point almost of paralysis. I resolved not to shoot so much, but to pay more attention to trying to anticipate the peak moment.

(I have to admit that when I was in art school I would sometimes find myself taking almost a whole roll of the exact same thing, only because it was such a pleasure to see it through the viewfinder and such a pleasure to photograph it. It was like a form of meditation or of reverie. Or like a lab rat pressing a button for more sugar-water, take your pick.) It was wasted motion either way, though, because three rolls of film took an hour and 45 minutes to develop, from setup to cleanup.

At around the same time I learned that you could shoot away at something with a motor drive (well, I had a motor winder, 2 FPS, which might have been lucky in that it imparted the lesson more clearly) and still miss the actual peak moment. I decided then that I would work on trying to concentrate hard on pressing the shutter button at the exact right moment but not take a lot of pictures of anything. (On static subjects, I continued to take two frames just in case something went wrong with one negative.) The Leica M6 I had in the early '90s was the one camera I ever owned that seemed completely on board with this plan. In fact that sense of instantaneous, unquestioning response might have been the best thing about a Leica rangefinder.

What I do now when I shoot people is to still concentrate on trying to shoot at just the critical moment, but I put the camera on "H" (high) so it takes a quick sequence. That saves me from momentary oddities such as blinks or an awkward momentary arrangement of blowing hair or an awkward juxtaposition of a passing automobile in the background. It's like one picture but with extras.

(By the way, lately I've been noticing that I don't shoot enough. I've taken minimalist shooting maybe just a little too far. If the guiding principle would be "shoot as few pictures as you can, but no fewer," maybe I've strayed across that line a bit where it comes to the "but no fewer" clause. Pixels are free.)

I don't know how many people follow my article links any more, but if you do, I hope you enjoy Amy Frearson's article about Simone Bossi. I did.

Mike

Product o' the Week:

A fantastically comfortable ergonomic mouse for PC users. Should be considered incompatible with Mac unless you want to use only default settings. Available in regular and small sizes, right and left hand, and wired and wireless. WARNING to Mac users: Do NOT download USBOverdrive! It broke my computer. But really, for you PC users, you won't believe how easy on your hand this mouse is.

The link above is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

And here is a portal to...

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Merle Hall: "I enjoyed that. Reminded me of the story by John Weller in William Neill Photographer—A Retrospective, where John was out shooting with Mr. Neill. They had been shooting for about an hour and John looked up and realized Mr. Neill had been standing in one place the whole time. He finally said, 'Found one.' and then took out his camera. The comment about color as a filter or trend is interesting, too."

Moose: "Re missing the actual peak moment, Olympus introduced the answer to this problem. They call it ProCapture. I suppose someone else may do something similar, but it's not common. Press the shutter button halfway. It starts recording files, at up to 18 FPS with focus for each one, higher without. When the queue hits the number you have selected, the oldest fall off the end, into the bit-bucket. Finish pressing, and the queue is all saved. You can also set it to take a few frames after. Let off the button without full press and the queue is emptied. Go through the results in LR, or whatever you use, select the best, dump the rest. Perfect solution to eye/brain/finger/camera lag. It's for exactly the sort of thing you write about, as well as sports, wildlife, and so on."

Mike replies: Which cameras have that, do you know? And thanks for that very clear explanation of how it works—best I've read.

Richard John Tugwell: "Re 'The pictures were all broadly the same but subtly different, and I had the devil of a time editing them. I reached a point almost of paralysis.' This resonated with me. I shoot a few stock images, mainly landmark / buildings. Because of digital I tend to shoot many slightly different ones with the idea that "I'll edit/select later". Big Mistake. Especially when the differences are minimal. Paralysis indeed - do the selection before pressing the shutter button!"

James Weekes: "Neil Leifer recounted the time he took his new Nikon motor drive out on a shoot. He was filming a figure skater, I believe Peggy Fleming, and shot a whole roll of her spinning. He ended up with 36 slides of her back."

Open Mike II: Radical (OT)

Man, I'm a radical. I remapped my keyboard!

Look at the "heatmap" for the Dvorak keyboard layout:

Source: keybr

Note that my keyboard is "ortholinear," meaning the keys are vertically aligned instead of staggered.

The one thing I found awkward and painful was hitting the "L" with my right pinkie, which seems to be the finger that hurts the most for me. But hitting the "V" with my right ring finger is very comfortable.

So I switched L and V (the keyboard is programmable). Much better. I adapted to it surprisingly quickly.

So now I'm learning a modified Dvorak layout. As if my windmill could get any more windmilly. (Don Quixote reference.)

...Although right after I made the switch, I had to type the following sentence: "I have tried on several different days but have never received an email." Five V's and only two L's...you know what they say: oh well!

Mike

Product o' the Week:

A fantastically comfortable ergonomic mouse for PC users. Should be considered incompatible with Mac unless you want to use only default settings. Available in regular and small sizes, right and left hand, and wired and wireless. WARNING to Mac users: Do NOT download USBOverdrive! It broke my computer. But really, for you PC users, you won't believe how easy on your hand this mouse is.

The link above is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

And here is a portal to...

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Irony of the Week

1932: Group ƒ/64 has its first group show at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. The public packs the house. The name of the loosely affiliated group of like-minded friends "refers to a small aperture setting on a large format camera, which secures great depth of field, rendering a photograph evenly sharp from foreground to background" (Wikipedia).

2021: Common cameraphones render almost all pictures "evenly sharp from foreground to background," so almost every digitographer on the World Wild Web with a larger-sensor camera shoots almost every picture wide open most of the time, regardless of the subject, with no thought to what ought to be in focus or not, presumably to signify he has a camera better than the ones in phones.

(A further irony: I'm the one poking fun.)

Mike

P.S. At that Group ƒ/64 show in 1932, everyone's prints cost $10 (about $190 now) except Edward Weston's, which cost $15 (about $285 now). seven or eight years ago, Matt Witkovsky, chair of the photography department at the Art Institute of Chicago, told me that "a good Weston" was going for about $800,000 at that time.

Product o' the Week:

A fantastically comfortable ergonomic mouse for PC users. Should be considered incompatible with Mac unless you want to use only default settings. Available in regular and small sizes, right and left hand, and wired and wireless. WARNING to Mac users: Do NOT download USBOverdrive! It broke my computer. But really, for you PC users, you won't believe how easy on your hand this mouse is.

The link above is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

And here is a portal to...

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Kenneth Tanaka: "Cute irony, indeed. The ultimate in democratic focus has arrived...on your telephone, no less! (As for me, I'm more often trying to get more depth of field into many of my images, not more bokeh!)

"Re: Weston prints, yes they're still pricey and I suspect that his most seminal prints approach the figure that Matt noted. But the market has cooled a bit and there seem to be more prints out there for sale, mostly for much less money. For example, one of his vintage dunes prints is currently on auction at Sotheby's with a top estimate of 'only' $150k."

John Krumm: "I guess the further irony is that those smartphones mostly do it with fixed-aperture, fast lenses, and they use computers to mimic larger sensor background blurring, while the larger-sensor cameras sometimes use computers to achieve focus stacking for good front-to-back focus. Like with this shot of the Golden Gate Bridge."

Mike replies: That's lovely. Is that yours?

John Krumm: "The photo of the bridge belongs to Cookdog, real name not known. I just happened upon it in an image thread in the Z forum. People were surprised to see an image of the bridge from a new perspective, since it is photographed so often."

Mike: I was too!

John Robison: "I believe that Golden Gate image really proves the point that the most important equipment for a photographer is between his ears. What a great shot."

David Aiken: "Another irony. In 1932 when photographers chased more depth of field, their problem was getting more depth of field because large format cameras required longer focal lengths. Now a lot of people are chasing less depth of field because of the shorter focal length lenses they use with smaller formats. Ansel Adams would be using a small format camera today, in order to get the depth of field he wanted. Why aren't the people chasing shallow depth of field today using large format cameras?"

Mike replies: It would certainly be the most logical way to get the most bokeh, eh?

Arg: "That link you provided for the ergonomic mouse—if you scroll down a bit, it says 'frequently bought together'...and lists the left-handed version!  :-)  "

Mike replies: That actually makes sense—it's because sometimes people who are battling RSI regularly switch mouse hands from left to right and back again.

Sony's Three Superlights

Here are the pre-order links to those Sony "superlights," for those who are interested—Sony's new trio of smaller, lighter, more compact full-frame primes.

Sony FE 24mm ƒ/2.8 G

Sony FE 40mm ƒ/2.5 G

Sony FE 50mm ƒ/2.5 G

(And please, Internet, please stop shooting every lens wide open all the time no matter what, will you please? Let's see at least a few tests of these lenses at ƒ5.6 and ƒ/8.... —Jaded but hip old-guy Photo Dawg)

Mike

Product o' the Week:

A fantastically comfortable ergonomic mouse for PC users. Should be considered incompatible with Mac unless you want to use only default settings. Available in regular and small sizes, right and left hand, and wired and wireless. WARNING to Mac users: Do NOT download USBOverdrive! It broke my computer. But really, for you PC users, you won't believe how easy on your hand this mouse is.

The link above is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Phil Martin: "Agreed—for landscape, both suburban and urban, I rarely shoot at apertures wider than ƒ/5.6, and it's the quality in the ƒ/5.6–ƒ/11 range that concerns me most."

Open Mike: Change for the Sake of Change?

["Open Mike" is the open-topic editorial page of TOP, when Yr. Hmbl. Ed. frets about the stuff that clutters his brain. It is sometimes on-topic, sometimes not. It's supposed to appear on Wednesdays, and sometimes does.]

Something new and novel happened to me yesterday: I had to admit to myself that I like my old digital camera better than my new digital camera. And my old lens better than my new lens.

I won't talk about the cameras themselves or their features, because this isn't really about that. It's more about how we make decisions to change, and why we sometimes change things that don't need changing.

Big warm wet kiss
For some reason, something I read in an audiophile magazine many years ago stuck with me. The writer admitted that he was in a permanent state of constantly changing his system, that he was always looking to upgrade. Then he admitted that the first time he optimized his system, he had landed on a modestly expensive (in the high-end audio world, that would mean "very expensive but not absolutely insane to normal people") system that was suited to his personal tastes; it consisted of tube electronics and Quad electrostatic speakers is all I remember. He described its sound as a "big warm wet kiss." He said something along the lines of, it wasn't accurate but it departed from accuracy in the ways he liked. Then he admitted that when he continued to upgrade that first system, a.) he felt great remorse when he first committed to the dismantling of what had taken him so long to arrive at (by selling some of the essential components such that he could no longer put the original system together again); b.) that he missed that first system for years afterwards; and c.) that he still, years later, periodically got nostalgic for that first system. I might be embellishing the story for present purposes, but I think he also admitted that he hadn't ever liked any "accurate" system he had ever built since then quite as much as he had liked that first one.

The obvious question springs to mind...why hadn't he just kept that first system and been done with it?

I already have one
It's almost like when we like a category of "things" too much, we feel compelled to continue to optimize, to fret and tweak and shop. (Hmm, that would have made a good title for this post..."Optimization Without End.")

There are many things I own or have owned in the past that I don't optimize. In most cases that happens with categories of things that I like but don't really like too much. I like my car, for instance, and I'm not really tempted by new cars. I mean, it'll eventually wear out, of course, and I'll have to replace it. But I'm not talking about that. My thinking about it usually goes like this:

1. Maybe I'll buy a new car.
2. All I can afford is a used one.
3. I already have a used car I like.

Another example for me is my chef's knife. Now, I know knife geeks exist; but I found a chef's knife I liked (my then-girlfriend's amateur chef stepfather had recommended it to her, and I liked hers), located a source even though they had been discontinued, and bought two, one to use and one as a backup. And I was done, folks. I use my knife every day in the kitchen, and I'm perfectly happy with what I have. Zero desire for any further changes. Those two chef's knives are going to see me out. Actually, there's no reason why the one won't, and I'll leave behind the new one in the drawer.

I've replaced my tripod once in 44 years. I really liked my first one and kept it contentedly for a number of decades. When I bought my second one it was an improvement in every way, and now I really like that one and have utterly no desire to look at other tripods. I'm completely happy with it.

And I know lots of people who are perfectly happy with their cameras or their lenses, too—every now and then I hear a comment along the lines of, "I bought my Nikon XX in 2012 and I've been perfectly happy with it ever since." Now, granted, you don't hear a ton of comments like that in the digital photography world because the pace of change was so rapid in 2000–2015, and improvements tended to be large enough to be noticeable. But still, there are people out there who just aren't shopping all the time.

Strange as it may seem.

Historically, there are many photographers who stick with one set of gear for what seems like forever. Even if they don't use the same exact items, they stick with something very similar to it. When Henry Wessel died, he was still using the Leica M3 and the same ancient Canon lens for it that he'd been using for decades. Cartier-Bresson upgraded to the latest Leica M bodies as they came out, but used the same 50mm collapsible Summicron that he had used for virtually all of his pictures since the 1950s. (He did carry other lenses sometimes and tested other lenses occasionally, but when I was leafing through his proof books at Magnum New York with Erich Hartmann, Erich told me that "you can look through book after book and hardly come across a single picture that wasn't taken with the 50mm lens.") I don't know what Michael Kenna's actual gear consists of, but he seems perfectly settled on using film 'Blads for his work, and has been for a long, long time as far as I know.

There are many more examples.

747 to 747, 911 to 911
Sometimes, things actually do develop to a point of sufficiency. Consider, for example, that it took humanity 65 years to get from Kitty Hawk to the Boeing 747 Jumbo jet...and that the 747 has been in service now for 53 years! Granted, there are refinements to the story—later competitors, design changes to the Boeing, etc.—but it looks an awful lot like progress was pell-mell until we got it right and then there just hasn't been a huge burning need to change further.

Sometimes it seems to me that smartphones have already passed that point. Yeah, they continue to evolve, but how much of that is marketing and styleyness and how much of it reflects a genuine need for improvements? Weren't smartphones essentially "there" with, say, the iPhone 6? (Ironically, the cameras might be the most visible things in need of upgrading!)

One way you can tell that the point of sufficiency has been reached is when there start being aficionados of the original "sufficient" models. For example, there are people who actually like the old iPhone 4s, and hasn't Apple introduced models either called the "Classic" or intended to be such? (I don't actually know the details; I don't keep up with phones.)

Take for example the classic Leica. Introduced in 1953, the point of sufficiency was reached by 1984 when they took an M4-P and shoehorned in a manual, non-coupled onboard meter. You can make the argument that everything before the M6 was preamble, and everything after it, postscript. Leica even makes the M10, which I've always argued essentially amounts to a digital replica of the classic Leica rangefinder. (Like Porsche still builds a replica 911. They call it the "911.")

Stuck! Is that bad?
Anyway, I have to admit that I want to like my latest camera best. I do consider it "better." I'm glad I have it and I often use it. I want to like the smaller, slower "Fujicron" that better fits my personal ideology about lenses—that is, what I say I like. But, when you get right down to it, I'm more comfortable with my 2014 camera body and the first, too-big, too-fast 35mm-equivalent lens I got with it. I like using the equipment better and I like the pictures I get with it better. It fits. It suits. It serves. Still.

So why not just stick with that?

The inescapable conclusion is because I can't. I'm too addicted. Addicted to change for the sake of change; to tweaking or optimization. I'm irrevocably settled into a comfortably permanent state of "upgradeitis." Upgrading is a part of my wiring, it seems like...my muscle memory, in typing terms. New is always best, YouTube tells me. I've been upgrading since I bought my first digital camera! I can't stop now. Can I?

Mike

Product o' the Week:

A fantastically comfortable ergonomic mouse for PC users. Should be considered incompatible with Mac unless you want to use only default settings. Available in regular and small sizes, right and left hand, and wired and wireless. WARNING to Mac users: Do NOT download USBOverdrive! It broke my computer. But really, for you PC users, you won't believe how easy on your hand this mouse is.

The link above is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

albert w erickson: "Mike, I haven't commented in while and thought I would jump in with a comment. A wise man said 'wealth consists not of having great possessions, but having few wants.' Not really sure who said it but it is very true.

"I have been going through some anguish considering which camera to get rid of. I now have two Nikon Z cameras, a Nikon D750, and a Fuji X-T3. According to my wife I am a hoarder. I have promised to relieve myself of one or two cameras. The problem is the D750 is my favorite camera. It's more than five years old and old technology but I love it still. The Fuji is a great travel camera because of the small lenses. That leaves the brand-new Z's. They are great cameras and take beautiful pictures and all that, but there is something I love about the IQ and feel of the D750. It really feels like a camera to me. This is clearly a first-world problem and one I will solve soon. In all probability I will sell the Z6 and keep both the D750 and the Z7 II. The Fuji needs to stay because I love walking and shooting with the small primes.

"I feel better already having confessed my crazy dilemma. Thanks for the post; you really hit a nerve with me. Be safe my friend."

Mike replies: As a public service we should probably do a post showing eight or ten pictures of guys with outrageously huge camera collections. Then when readers' spousal units give them a hard time for having too many cameras, they could show her or him that post and say, still think I have a problem? —Mike, CPE (camera purchase enabler)

Terence Morrissey: "This brings up a good point: how often should you upgrade your camera body? I asked that question to the late Michael Reichmann, who recommended every second new model."

Benjamin Marks: "As a fellow gear-head, I have noticed this too. I have many cameras, and many lenses, but just two axes. OK. Three axes. Actually, now that I think of it, three axes, two hatchets, and a maul—oh and a wedge and a small sledgehammer. And an extra wedge from that time I couldn't find my wedge at the beginning of the heating season, but couldn't spend more time looking for it. We burn a lot of firewood. Sigh.

"I think there is something about what I call the 'modularity of purpose' that encourages acquisition. The maul you use to split cord wood is not the tool you need to make kindling. A medium-weight axe will get stuck in a large, wet, piece of wood. But the maul's weight and geometry make it perfect for the task. The maul, on the other hand, is too heavy to be wielded with any finesse. So if you are liberating a small stack of kindling from a straight-grain piece of cord wood, a hatchet or a wedge and hammer really are the tools you need. So would one medium weight axe be enough? Maybe. Is it the best tool for all jobs? Not even close. Same with chef's knives and paring knives.

"But you've also identified the allure of the value 'upgrade.' Many of these are designed to enhance manufactured gear that is produced at a price point. Seiko, for instance, made their SKX dive watches with a mineral glass crystal, the trade name of which is Hardlex. It is reasonably tough stuff, but will get scuffed after several years of daily watch wear. For about $50 more, they (or you) could install a synthetic sapphire crystal on their dive watches, which is superior in every way. Sapphire is pretty close to diamond in hardness—you can wear a watch with a sapphire crystal every day for 15 years and it will not have a scratch. Once you replace the inferior Hardlex with the superior Sapphire you are better off as a user, but hosed as a collector. Why? Because collectors put a premium on unmodified watches. And so it goes.

"There is also an issue of gender lurking here. I am trying to think of modular goods that are susceptible to upgrades: computers, cars, motorcycles, firearms, stereos, watches, sailboats—really boats of any kind. Maybe I have tunnel vision here, but it seems to me that the pursuit of these gear categories breaks down (at a guess) 95/5 along male/female lines. Most of my photographer friends who are women have one or two cameras and that's it. Not so with the guys. It is a strange and beautiful world."

Ilkka: "I agree. I fully agree. Up to the point when you said you must ‘upgrade.’ No you mustn’t! The only thing I might add is a suggestion to buy good quality, whether it is a tripod, or a kitchen knife, or tools, or a lens. Maybe camera as well. Then there will be no need to change it for decades, maybe even in a lifetime. I still use a Gitzo tripod and Linhof ball head I bought 40 years ago. I bought binoculars 30 years ago and just sent them in for service. First time. The manufacturer offered to open them up and clean them for free. I have a Tenba bag I bought 30 years ago. It is a bit rough around the edges and needed some simple repairs, but it is still better than most of the other bags I have bought over the past ten years."

Bear.: "When my parents finally downsized from their empty-nester family home, my mother had the most brilliant brainwave of her long, married life. She told my father that she wanted the best washing machine, dishwasher, vacuum cleaner and iron that money could buy—she asked, please go research them and acquire them for our new home.

"Being male, my father did—he spent weeks searching the Internet, telephoning factories, reading consumer magazines, and testing various models on shop floors. After careful consideration, the new appliances were purchased at great expense (about which my mother carefully said nothing) and delivered. He then spent days ensuring they were properly installed, reading instruction manuals to learn all the features, etc.

"Thereafter, they were his babies. My mother is not allowed to use them—and she has not had to wash, do the dishes, vacuum the house, or do any ironing ever since. My father does it all. Hmm."

Mike replies: Now that is a wonderful story. Really tickles me. And you know what? As I read it I found myself instinctively sympathizing with your Dad. Ha ha! Thanks for that.

Sony's Tiny Tot Trio

It seems like just a short time ago that we were regularly complaining about Sony's deficient lens support for its full-frame cameras...

...Because it was just a short time ago. But Sony has released 60 (that's sixty) lenses for its E-mount in the past five years, according to B&H.

That's actually a few more than most people need. (<—Rhetorical device called "understatement.")

The latest three, which arrived this morning at 10 o'clock, are a trio of smaller, lighter, more compact full-frame primes. There is, or rather there will be, the Sony FE 24mm ƒ/2.8 G, the Sony FE 40mm ƒ/2.5 G, and the Sony FE 50mm ƒ/2.5 G.

The new Sony FE 40mm ƒ/2.5 G. The 24mm
and 50mm look almost identical.

While not exactly compact by classical standards (compare the new 40mm to the Leica 40mm Summicron-C that Mani mentioned yesterday, for example), all three buck the distinct trend toward humongous superfast lenses with sky-high pricetags that has been a feature of lens releases in general, and Sony lenses in particular, in recent years. If perhaps only medium-compact, though, all three of the new lenses (it would be handy if they had a "genus" or line name, such as Batis) are truly very light: 5.7 oz. / 162 g for the 24mm, and 6.1 oz. for both the 40mm and the 50mm (which are actually one gram apart in weight at 173 and 174 grams). That's despite having at least a metal "skin" (I don't know anything about the construction yet). All three are weather sealed. They all also focus particularly close, so they can function as "near macros" for general shooting. This is handy in general, and especially if you want to use the 50mm as a 75mm-e for portraits on an A6600. (I was always irritated—or let's say distracted— to run up against close-focusing limits during a portrait shoot.)

Finally, all three are relatively inexpensive at $598 each. Compare that to the slightly faster Zeiss Batis 40mm ƒ/2 at $1,299, the Voigtländer 40mm ƒ/1.4 manual focus lens at $899, or the Sigma 40mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art lens at $1,399. The latter probably would win the performance war, but with so many lenses clustered so closely right at the top of the performance chart it hardly matters nowadays, especially if you make prints. A closer comp might be the Sigma 45mm ƒ/2.8 DG DN Contemporary, which is about the same size and speed but $50 less expensive.

The Sigma 40mm ƒ/1.4 Art for Sony E-mount is also almost three times longer and almost seven times heavier than the new Sony FE 40mm ƒ/2.5! Wow. That's a big difference even when you're only carrying one lens. Of course the Sigma is more than a stop faster, and really does have stellar, push-the-envelope specs...which is sometimes worth having just to have.

Kudos
In general: Bravo, Sony!

Specifically, my reaction might be a tad more...complicated. For one thing, what will it do to wound sales of the Zeiss? And as always, the burning question, "what about the bokeh?" Things like that. But there will be plenty of time in the future to get into that stuff.

Right now, I'm looking forward to your thoughts and reactions.

I'll put up B&H links tomorrow morning, when preordering opens.

Mike

Product o' the Week:

A fantastically comfortable ergonomic mouse for PC users. Should be considered incompatible with Mac unless you want to use only default settings. Available in regular and small sizes, right and left hand, and wired and wireless. WARNING to Mac users: Do NOT download USBOverdrive! It broke my computer. But really, for you PC users, you won't believe how easy on your hand this mouse is.

The link above is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

JOHN B GILLOOLY: "Is there any objective comparison between these Sony offerings and the Sigma line that they have clearly borrowed liberally from!? I am very happy to see this trend of smaller lens offerings for these smaller bodies and plan to purchase some of these—either Sigma or Sony."

Andrew Lamb: "Is the Sony compact and cheap compared to the EOS 40mm ƒ/2.8? The latter is a pretty nifty performer despite being medieval in terms of optical design compared to the Sony."

John M: "I'm one step closer to getting rid of my Z gear. Why can't Nikon see that a set of lenses like these would go really well with the Z bodies and be preferred over the bigger-than-huge Z lenses by many users?"

Dan: "It will be interesting to see if these very 'unsexy' lenses actually drive sales numbers. The camera is as much jewelry as tool to much of the advanced amateur market, and that tiny front glass doesn’t scream 'BUY ME' the way the big fast lenses do."

Let's Do a 'Crowd-Sourced Review' of the Batis

This is my dream lens. (It's large, but it's light.) And no, I'm not saying my current lenses aren't great in every way. But someday....

Does anybody own or use the Zeiss Batis 40mm ƒ/2? It's an autofocus lens for Sony. Or how about any other Batis?

When I reviewed the Sony A7 Mark II, I purposely didn't request this lens because I didn't want to be tempted!

If I get enough responses, I'll make this into one of our "crowd-sourced reviews."

Mike

Product o' the Week:

A fantastically comfortable ergonomic mouse for PC users. Should be considered incompatible with Mac unless you want to use only default settings. Available in regular and small sizes, right and left hand, and wired and wireless. WARNING to Mac users: Do NOT download USBOverdrive! It broke my computer. But really, for you PC users, you won't believe how easy on your hand this mouse is.

The link above is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

And here is a portal to...

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Edwin Land Predicts the Smartphone Camera

...In 1970. For context, start the video at about 10:44...

...And he pretty much nails it at about 12:30. Cool. The video was a presentation for a stockholders' meeting. Thanks to the reader who suggested this.

Land, as younger readers might not know, was the genius inventor behind the Polaroid camera and the genius marketer/businessman behind Polaroid Corporation, which is essentially gone now but was a great success story of its era.

Mike

Product o' the Week:

A fantastically comfortable ergonomic mouse for PC users. Should be considered incompatible with Mac unless you want to use only default settings. Available in regular and small sizes, right and left hand, and wired and wireless. WARNING to Mac users: Do NOT download USBOverdrive! It broke my computer. But really, for you PC users, you won't believe how easy on your hand this mouse is.

The link above is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

And here is a portal to...

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

scott kirkpatrick: "Fascinating video, in many ways. The whole clip, not just starting at 10:44. His accent is incredibly Boston. I hadn't appreciated the size and complexity of Polaroid at its peak but he describes it all, down to the I.M. Pei factory that is probably still down on a hilltop in Norwood. I wonder what it does today. He sounds in some ways like a high-tech founder of today, but in other ways couldn't be more mid-century, post-WWII management."

Marshall Arbitman: "The Steve Jobs of his time. And, in many ways, twice the wizard. These days, the pretenders to the SX-70 throne, and inheritors of the title, cannot even manage a film that develops in daylight. Land invented it 50 years ago. As a kid, I'd ride past the factory at least twice a week, like Charlie Bucket gawking at Wonka's place."

Frank Gorga: "I enjoyed Victor McElheny's biography of Edwin Land titled Insisting On the Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land."

Kenneth Tanaka: "Edwin Land sure did land awfully close to today’s world in that talk! (I’d never seen it, so thank you for sharing it!)

"Edwin Land is unquestionably one of the true heroes and great minds behind photography’s history. Years ago when someone asked me who I most admired in photography I immediately named Land. ('Who?' was the response.) Unlike most of my contemporaries who started with B&W film, the Polaroid Land camera was my first camera as an early teen. I loved it. I would scrimp to buy film packs to feed it. Many years later I began reading of Land’s accomplishments not just as an engineer but also as a promoter. He was a remarkable person.

"If you want to see just how good of an engineer and visionary Land really was try to get your hands on the three-volume (two-book) set, Edwin H. Land's Essays. It’s long out of print, but still buyable on the used market. Much of it is deep technical presentations aimed mainly at helping to attract capital for developing various photographic technologies, including instant photography film. The volumes are titled, 'Polarizers and Instant Photography,' 'Science, Education and Industry,' and 'Color Vision.' That third volume features extensive detailed treatises on Land’s 'Retinex Theory of Color Vision.' It’s a remarkable series of papers for the technically-minded reader. There is a more human biography of Land’s life (which I can’t seem to find at the moment) but his essays are the best way to know what a real genius and oracle he was to photography.

"Thank you, again, for posting that video link. What a character, eh?"

hugh crawford: "When I was a child I would see advertisements for the Polaroid Land camera and always wondered what happened to people who tried to take a picture on a boat. I figured it must be pretty dangerous if they felt compelled to put the word 'Land' in the name."

Mike replies: Ha! I had that very same thought as a kid.

Sunday Support Group: Yflcbi! (OT)

I'm typing this on my new keyboard in Dvorak (I love typing the word "keyboard" in Dvorak), so this is probably going to be short. Only touch-typing could make a MOFW* out of me!

On Tuesday it will be one month, and I have to admit it's not going well. Despite a lot of practice, I'm only typing at about 20 WPM with 95% accuracy when I'm copying and about half that speed, with more errors, when I'm composing, probably because I don't practice the latter as much. Continually switching keyboards and layouts ("Yflcbi" is "Typing" when typed in Dvorak on a U.S. keyboard, by the way) is probably not helping.

I've converted the keycaps of my Kinesis to Dvorak
layout markings. This is the left-hand keywell.

But I made a commitment, so I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet.

I truly feel that most of my difficulty is really "just me" as they say. I'm uncoördinated both mentally and in terms of manual dexterity. In short I suspect I have an unusually low aptitude for this. Not debilitatingly low, but below the average or normal range.

However, I believe that typing, like reading, falls into the class of skills that "most anyone can master" if they work at it hard enough and long enough. Some people just have to work harder and longer is all. And might never reach an exceptional level. I'll doubtless never be a speed demon or a champion typist. But competence doesn't require talent in this case, is my guess...just work, and perseverance.

By the way, if anyone out there is contemplating learning Dvorak (now there's a small subset of TOP readers!), I recommend starting with learn.dvorak.nl and not typingclub.com. I believe the latter created some problems for me. I would explain, but it would take too long to type!

I'll report on this experiment again at the two-month mark. For now, I'm not giving up. As Tom Duffy said, "Much of success in life comes from endurance and not much more. As important as thinking is, I'd make the case that after defining a goal, it's often more productive to simply endure." Maybe I'll go type that ten times!

Anyway, I've modified my ambitions: rather than give this experiment two months, I'm going to give it three. At this point my guess is that it might take all of that.

Mike

P.S. This is interesting...key frequency heatmaps for the most common keyboard layouts. The biggest mistake in Dvorak is the "L" position if you ask me.

*All right, all right, I'll type it out: man of few words.

Book o' the Week:

ArtCurious: Stories of the Unexpected, Slightly Odd, and Strangely Wonderful in Art History by Jennifer Dasal (Penguin, 2020. Adapted from the popular podcast.)

The link above is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Michael J. Perini: "I would think that switching between the two types of keyboards has got to add a considerable degree of difficulty—but whatever happens the process is probably building a few brain cells and that has to be good."

Joseph Reid: "If this is something you really want to learn, maybe give it more than three months. I took two semesters of typing in high school, and it was the single most useful course I took in those four years. But think of that—an hour a day, September through December and January through May. It takes some real time, not a few weeks."

JimH: "Personally, I think you are making a mistake, Mike. Trying to do the same thing two very different ways is only going to confuse the connections you already have in your brain. After you started this thread, I decided to try an ergonomic keyboard. It took only a few minutes trying to use it to see how it confused me—slowed me down—and less than 30 minutes to see my typing was getting worse. Back in the box and off to return to you-know-who.

"My philosophy is don't waste time trying to do something you are not good at. I never could throw or catch a football, dribble or hit a basket, so I didn't. But I could heel-and-toe and drift a car intuitively, and I did a nice snap-roll in airplanes. And, as I demonstrate right now, I type fast enough to put thoughts down as I compose, so I'm not wasting time trying to do it differently. To add a camera analogy, after years of using Oly Micro 4/3 cameras up to the Pen F, which I found so trying to use I didn't use it much at all, I bought an old OM-D EM-10 and found it and my brain clicked. Wish I had done that years ago...."

Moose: "'I am feeling a bit like Don Quixote.' —Mike Johnston, Tuesday, 24 September 2013. 'But I made a commitment, so I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet.'

"I can imagine various less-than-ideal outcomes from this experiment. Assuming the goal is to become more productive in creating content, not becoming proficient at two different typing systems as a goal in itself, I can't imagine an outcome that is superior to simply learning to touch-type on QWERTY. I also find it difficult to understand how reassessment of commitment to a course of action that has no impact on anyone else, in light of what is learned along the way, is somehow bad. In fact, it strikes me as rather sensible."

Mike replies: Dvorak was a solution, not a complication. My sense after some experimentation was that on QWERTY, my old and new ways of typing would become hopelessly confused and I'd get mired in the confusion. But that's just me; others would doubtless have a very different experience.

By the way, I slowly but successfully moderated all these comments and put up the Edwin Land post using the new keyboard!

Kye Wood: "If you make your living typing code (as an example) or as a writer (I'm looking at you Mike)—then the extra productivity that you eventually get from Dvorak makes it one of the best investments you can make in yourself. To quote my daughter when she was 16, 'suck it up, princess.' Aren't teenagers a joy?

"For me (former code monkey), I couldn't go Dvorak—because Thinkpads keys were uniquely shaped, so you couldn't rearrange them. Dang and dang again. Cursed be my Thinkpad propensities says I."

Susan Eilenberg: "The Kinesis Advantage keyboard has been my steady love since some time in the 1990s. I've been using the Dvorak layout on it for nearly as long. I had no particular need to learn Dvorak—the fabulous Kinesis had already eliminated all my wrist pain—but I imagined one idle summer day that the layout would be fun to learn and a defensible way to put off beginning an essay that had me intimidated; and I believed I would be back to my old typing speeds within a month of beginning to learn it. That did not happen. I was slow and clumsy for nearly a year, and frantic, too, because learning Dvorak pushed QWERTY out of my memory. I don't now regret knowing it, but that year was painful."

Mike replies: I'm glad to read your thoughts about it. I feel very strangely about the whole enterprise—I'm nowhere near mastery but somehow I think I know just how it's going to be once I get there. My slow progress has not dimmed my desire to reach the goal.

Dave: "Mike, Something to look at during your 'off-time'—whenever that may be. Basic Typing Lessons from 1944—Part 1 (4:45 to the end.) (Typewriter pr0n from 3:40 to 4:30.) This old typing training film from WWII is still applicable to today's typing. Good posture in a good chair, hitting the keys correctly (not the very tips of the fingers), etc. Notice how she pushes the keys down, rather than hitting them from above. Less wasted effort and you keep your fingers on 'home row.' Notice also the L.C. Smith typewriter, before it became Smith-Corona. If she can type that fast without jamming the keys, you can get up to your old 'hunt and peck' speed on an electronic keyboard.

"Good luck. We're all counting on you.  :>)  (I don't know how you can keep Dvorak and standard keyboard layouts separate in your mind.)"

Mike replies: Thanks, that was actually very helpful. Especially her recommendation to hit every key like you will when you are trained but to take a pause between keystrokes, then increase speed by shortening the pauses. That instantly changed the way I practice, and it actually increased my speed right away, too! Our Navy was all business in 1944.

No Cold Water

I'll just point out, following yesterday's discussion, that it has been my observation, over many years, that any time you start talking about aperture, in any context, the discussion eventually devolves into squabbling about the science and the math. It virtually never fails. But one thing I will toss out there is not to forget about the degree of precision in the device, which is a wild card we don't know. Yes, ƒ/1.2 might not be exactly one-third or exactly one-half of a stop different than ƒ/1.4, which itself might not be exactly ƒ/1.4. But your particular camera might not be setting ƒ/1.2 as the maker intended when it's set to ƒ/1.2, either.

It doesn't really matter—the general points still stand.

Here is the accepted f-stop scale for camera lenses, in third stops, with whole stops in bold red:

0.7, 0.8., 0.9, 1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, 1.8, 2, 2.2, 2.5, 2.8, 3.2, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5, 5.6, 6.3, 7.1, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 25, 29, 32, 36, 40, 45, 51, 57, 64, 72, 80, 90

You'll notice it's only an approximate geometric sequence. And f-number is a dimensionless number that already takes into account the size of the entrance pupil. Each whole stop represents an approximate doubling or a halving of the amount of light.

Anyway, photography is just not that precise such that the picayune differences are worth arguing about. First of all, exposure is a judgement call—ask ten people to adjust overall exposure in any picture with sliders and you'll get seven different renderings, perhaps with two or three quite far off from each other. Secondly, the differences we're talking about represent relatively minor corrections in software. They also represented relatively minor corrections in the darkroom. Whether you are in the Third-Stop camp or on Team Half-Stop with regard to ƒ/1.2 lenses, the differences are slight and easy to compensate for.

Michael Fewster wrote: "Once upon a time in film days, superfast lenses had a point. High ISO speeds meant ISO 800. Even more relevant was the need for fast lenses to nail accurate manual focus. As cameras with internal light meters closed down apertures, manual focus became difficult. I think it was Minolta that first came up with focus at full aperture and then auto stop down to the required aperture when exposing. The brighter the viewfinder, the easier it was to manually fast focus. There was real street cred in having a fast lens on the front of your SLR. I don't see the point of such lenses on DSLRs."

An utterly unnecessary lens might be useful to calibrate your sense of optical perfection

I would defend fast-lens fans more than that—if people like their fast lenses, far be it from me to splash any cold water on their happiness. (I have plenty of my own enthusiasms and tastes.) I sympathized with what Zed said, that he bought his ƒ/1.2 lens "in part for the prestige of owning just one such utterly unnecessary lens." You go, bro—I get that. And of course maximum aperture is only one feature of any lens. It's the whole lens one has to look at. I'd say, if you like fast lenses, go for it, and if you don't, don't worry about it. All I'll add is that personally, just for my own self, I'd prefer it if the Fuji 56mm had the specs of the Viltrox 56mm, and the Viltrox had the specs of the Fuji. Moderation in all things.

Back at the ranch, ever the empiricist, I got out the Fuji 56mm ƒ/1.2 yesterday, and set the camera to square, and went out photographing. I even discovered that my X-H1 has eye-recognition focus, just like a Sony! I did not know that.

(I also did not know that I could set my Mac to Dvorak with the simple click of a toolbar button. But that's a different subject. Off to typing practice now. Enjoy your Saturday! All best from the beautiful Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York, where it will be 55°F today and I will be walking on the hill come evening).

Mike

Book o' the Week:

ArtCurious: Stories of the Unexpected, Slightly Odd, and Strangely Wonderful in Art History by Jennifer Dasal (Penguin, 2020. Adapted from the popular podcast.)

The link above is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

James Bullard: "The f-numbers are a ratio of the diameter of the opening relative to the focal length of the lens. An ƒ/2 opening is ½ the focal length, ƒ/4 is ¼ the focal length, etc. The actual amount of light varies because the focal length is measured from the optical center of the lens, the point where the light crosses and inverts the image landing on the focal plane, and that point moves outward as the lens is focused on anything closer than infinity. So yes, it is approximate.

"FWIW, the optical part of photography is entirely based on math. It is not something to squabble about; math is math. You understand it or you don't. Since the advent of TTL metering it is less necessary to understand that math of optics/light but IMO still helpful.

"The perspective of an old guy who learned on all-manual cameras when you had to understand how it worked.  :-)  "

Steve Renwick: "Re 'But one thing I will toss out there is not to forget about the degree of precision in the device, which is a wild card we don't know.' Well sure. I have here two identical camera bodies with two identical lenses which when set to the same identical apertures and shutter speeds yield exposures that differ by about 2/3 of a stop. Or maybe it's 5/6 of a stop. So, y'know, stuff happens."

Andrew J.: "Anybody interested in a thorough explanation of relative apertures should read the excellent article 'f-number' by Wikipedia. Is ƒ/1.2 half a stop or a third of a stop faster than ƒ/1.4 is purely academic for me as I don't own such a lens and thus can't comment on the true subject of this post."

Bruce Alan Greene: "Motion picture lenses are marked in T stops, for the light actually transmitted rather than the mathematical stop. Even then...they are generally only accurate to ± 1/3 stop, except...at the widest aperture."

[Bruce is a cinematographer. —Ed.]

Do You Own an f/1.2 Lens?

Sony just released a new G-Master 50mm ƒ/1.2. Are such super lenses really just ordinary faster primes with marketing lipstick liberally applied?

I'd like to ask your opinion of a lens you own.

I happened across a particularly bad YouTube video yesterday, by a foetus of a presenter who didn't seem to know that a 50mm lens isn't a normal lens on an APS-C camera. Gave me that old familiar "Someone is wrong on the Internet" feeling. (One of the two most famous cartoons of the online era, created by Randall Munroe. The other is "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" by Peter Steiner.) He was reviewing an ƒ/1.2 lens, and in passing had to explain what an aperture number meant. He struggled, but escaped without falling flat on his face. Close one! Okay, so I was wet behind the ears once myself. Be charitable, boomer. (I try to be friendly when I suggest corrections to people I happen across in my virtual wanderings*.)

But I found myself musing...why do people buy ƒ/1.2 lenses these days? If it's marketing, why does it work?

Does anyone really need the speed? The difference between the more standard "whole" stop of ƒ/1.4 and ƒ/1.2 is only a third of a stop, which is barely detectable in either exposure value or "amount of bokeh," the latter being a pretty soft concept itself. Basically, ƒ/1.2 is ƒ/1.4 wearing makeup. Seems like it's mainly a prestige thing to me, like sporting the badge of a more established company on your otherwise anonymous SUV.

A signifier, which says to buyers, "this is mo' special."

There's nothing wrong with ƒ/1.2 lenses, of course, and I'm not suggesting there is. Many times, a lensmaker will put more care and quality into its ƒ/1.2 offerings...sometimes, signifiers really signify! There's nothing wrong with pride of ownership in fine lenses. But that third of a stop alone might not be where the most significant difference resides. Back in the days of all or mostly mechanical cameras, Norman Goldberg**, who was an expert on the subject, told us that a third of a stop was basically the margin of error in mechanical camera systems—the degree of precision. That is, every setting on your camera should have been accompanied by an asterisk that said "give or take a third of a stop." Which was okay, because a third of a stop was right at the threshold of the JND anyway—the "just noticeable difference," where our eyes couldn't reliably detect a difference in either a negative, a slide, or a print. I don't know if that old rule-of-thumb still holds with electronic, computer-controlled devices, but I suspect not.

Do you own an ƒ/1.2 lens? I own one***. Anyway, if you would, pick one ƒ/1.2 lens you own and tell us how you like it. I'd love to hear...my experience is limited.

Mike

*I usually just shut up. My usual filter for online comments out on the wilds of the internets is, is my comment going to make the OP and other readers feel better, or worse? If the latter, my silence would be preferable, and I follow that course.

**Norman Goldberg worked for Popular Photography magazine from 1972 to 1987. He devised the magazine's lens testing procedures and ran its camera testing lab. Which I always sorta suspected was mainly Norman himself sitting at a very well-equipped workbench. His book Camera Technology: On the Dark Side of the Lens [Academic Press, 1992], which is rare now, is still prized by aficionados of older mechanical cameras. His son Don is a well-known Leica repairperson.

***It was a gift—it's the Fuji XF 56mm ƒ/1.2, and I haven't used it much yet. Fifty-six millimeters on APS-C is, of course, an 85mm angle-of-view-equivalent, the classic short telephoto or "short long lens."

By the way, if you happen to want an 85mm-e for your Fuji, there is a no-signifyin' alternative, the Viltrox AF 56mm ƒ/1.4 XF, which offers smaller size, lighter weight, a smaller filter diameter and lens hood, and good-enough performance all around...and it costs almost exactly one-third of what the Fuji lens does.

Book o' the Week:

ArtCurious: Stories of the Unexpected, Slightly Odd, and Strangely Wonderful in Art History by Jennifer Dasal (Penguin, 2020. Adapted from the popular podcast.)

The link above is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

David Rayburn Haynes: "I own the Canon EF 85mm ƒ/1.2L USM and love it. I can shoot in low light situations where a flash would not be welcome—like at public aquariums where flash is prohibited or at gatherings such as a (pre-Covid) party or concert, where a flash would be un-cool. A plus is that the lens results in really lovely images. Some examples can be viewed here."

Zed (partial comment): "I have one—the M.ZUIKO 25mm ƒ/1.2 PRO for Micro 4/3. I like it, but, I don't actually use it as much as my 17mm and 45m ƒ/1.8's, in part because the 50mm perspective just isn't my favorite. I bought it in part for the prestige of owning just one such utterly unnecessary lens—even among the current super-lens trends this one stands out for throwing an absurd amount of lens elements at the solution."

[Ed. note: The full text of partial Featured Comments can be read in the full Comments section, accessible by clicking on "Comments" in the footer.]

Kenneth Tanaka (partial comment): "For a number of years I owned a Leica Noctilux 50mm ƒ/1. It was a beast. I rarely used it and finally sent it along to another guy who'll rarely use it."

Tex Andrews (partial comment): "ƒ/2 is plenty fast enough for me—really, ƒ/2.8 is."

Mark Crean: "I own two ƒ/1.2 lenses: Olympus 17mm and 25mm, or about 35mm and 50mm in full-fat [sic] terms. Given that they are for a smaller format perhaps this is a bit of a cheat. I bought them because their build quality and weather sealing is an order of magnitude better than the older standard prime lenses in the Olympus range. I also bought them because at the time I was doing a lot of low-light and night photography in rough weather and quality images at wider apertures was important given the limitations of the Micro 4/3 sensor. But by ƒ/8 or even by ƒ/5.6? It's probably a wash with slower lenses costing a great deal less. However, that isn't why I bought them....

"The 17mm ƒ/1.2, in particular, is now my standard go-to lens and I have no plans to part with it."

Mike replies: I've always quietly coveted that lens....

Roger: "My favorite lens is my M-mount 40mm ƒ/1.2 voightlander Nokton. I was '40mm curious' and ran across this lens for auction on eBay. It only had one bid at the time. For grins I bid $399 and somehow managed to win it for about $360—a pretty steep discount for a lens described as purchased new and offered for sale after only a few weeks of ownership. So yeah, marginally faster than an ƒ/1.4 but many stops cheaper than I expected to have paid. I doesn't hurt that I love the output from this lens. It's the one most often mounted to my M4-P. This is the lens I would choose to keep if I was allowed only one."

Richard Alton: "I have a Nikkor 55mm ƒ/1.2 (pre-AI)—given to me by a friend who had been clearing out her brother-in-law's flat in Tehran. It came with a late Nikon F body, but now sits on my Fuji X Pro2 (shooting and developing film is not practical here in Zambia). I rarely shoot wider than ƒ/2, but I won't be trading in my well-travelled ƒ/1.2 lens. It has too many stories to tell."

B Grace: "I too have a 50mm ƒ/1.2 Nikkor, a 2012 vintage AiS version. Like others here have stated, I find it to be wonderful when stopped down, and interesting in a good way when used wide open.

"Some of the Nikon guides imply that Nikon's lens coatings used on the AiS Nikkors continued to evolve over the years without much notice from the company. It's rumored that some of the AiS lenses adopted their SIC coating system around 2006, but there has been no confirmation from Nikon, as far as I've seen. It might explain why some of the newer AiS lenses stand up very well with modern digital gear.

"Many sources on the web point to Nikon's early 50mm ƒ/2 as their best 50mm prime formula of all time. I have a 1964 version which does sing nicely on digital, but I'm not sure it's better than the late 50mm ƒ/1.2.

"I'm tempted to buy a Z7 Mark II to pair up with the old Nikkors, to see just what they're capable of producing. I guess that would be if I can reliably focus them on the Z-camera."

Open Mike: Square

I really need to work on comments this morning. I'm fast getting far behind again. I've had a couple of less-than-productive days, although I seem to have found time for exercise and for typing practice.

I confess I didn't know that I could set my Fujis to shoot square. I know why—it's because when I got them I looked for a 4:3 ratio, which I prefer most, and they don't have that, so I just left them set to 3:2 and forgot about it. They also have a selection for a longer, skinnier aspect ratio—16:9 I think? The camera isn't handy at the moment—and I never use that either.

I've never been attracted to the square aspect ratio per se. Most times I've shot with square cameras, I crop. It's only attractive to me on the iPhone because it makes the "camera" more natural to handle, removing some of its inherent awkwardness.

I did come across these recently:

They're my aunt and uncle. Mary Polk, my mother's younger sister, with Sailor the standard poodle whom I remember as an uncommonly good dog, and her husband, my uncle Smokie Polk. They had a farm south of Lexington, Kentucky, where Smokie bred and raised thoroughbred racehorses for a number of decades. He was at some point the President of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Breeders' Association. I was always very attached to both of them; Mary is a wonderful soul, and I admired, and sought to emulate, Uncle Smokie (who was always called Al or Dr. Polk at Keeneland Racetrack. Smokie was a vet as well). They're in their eighties now, and long since retired from the horse business. Mary never worked that I know of, but she's very accomplished all the same: she's an outdoorswoman and canoeist, who I recall went on Outward Bound wilderness treks in her 40s with people half her age, and she's an artist as well—she learned woodworking in midlife and built beautiful furniture. She not only designed the exquisite lake cottage they live in now, but she built most of the furniture in it. They raised four kids, and raised them well, and now the house is full of happy grandchildren every summer. They also own an island way, way up in the Boundary Waters of Canada where they have a small cabin—the trip in is so arduous that they've outfitted their skiff with survivalist supplies. Smokie is also an accomplished sailor, which is no doubt how the dog got its name. He's owned at least three boats since I've known him, not counting "stinkpots" (motor boats). Mary's canoes are the best of the best of the best.

In short, they've always been two of the coolest people I even know; that they're related to me is just an extra bonus. Uncle Smokie bred mainly middle-level racehorses, not the big-time names of the marquee races, but he did have a Triple Crown winner once—he was the breeder (not the owner or trainer) of Temperance Hill, who went off at 54.3-to-1 odds in the 1980 Belmont Stakes to beat Derby winner Genuine Risk and Preakness champion Codex to become one of the greatest long-shot winners in Belmont history. Temperance Hill was subsequently named Champion Three-year-old Colt of 1980 (all the Triple Crown races are for three-year-olds). The three Champion Three-year-olds preceding him were Spectacular Bid in 1979, Affirmed in 1978, and Seattle Slew in 1977, all names to conjure with; it was a golden age of American horse racing.

I took these portraits when I was ten. I think I was actually a pretty good portraitist when I was ten! Portraits are what I've always been best at. I had my first photo show in the dining room of my prep school when I was in ninth grade, and they were all portraits, of classmates and faculty members. Most were nabbed by the yearbook staff and used in the yearbook (without so much as a by-your-leave, which didn't seem unusual at the time), so I no longer have them.

These Instamatic prints are tiny, only 3 1/2 inches square including the borders, taken with a Kodak Instamatic on Verichrome Pan film. The film was 126 size, in a one-piece cassette that dropped into the back of the camera. The resolution is very low—the lens is probably a doublet or triplet. I don't actually know. And I don't know its speed or focal length, either. (It was an Instamatic 104.) [UPDATE: it was a plastic 43mm, f/11, single-element meniscus! Take that, Olympus 25mm PRO with your 19 elements! Thanks to several readers for this.] The Instamatic was the brainchild of Dean M. Peterson, one of the greatest unsung inventors in the history of American photography. It was designed in response to research that exposed the fact that loading film was one of the things consumers felt most insecure about. It shot in square format only, and the pictures came back from the drugstore printed square.  

I find I'm much more sympathetic to Kodak's whole program now than I was then—the advertising campaigns about "memories" and the little packets you'd get back from the drugstore with a neat stack of square prints with white borders, with the month and year stamped in the margin of each. Turns out that was a very robust and useful program. It has that sort of confident, plainspoken mid-century vigor about it. By the time I became an art student it was conventional to denigrate Kodak's resolutely middlebrow approach to photography—we were awtists, after all—but as aging has scraped away some vanity and ambition I've come to realize that Kodak was more right than wrong. I'm thankful I have these prints now, and thankful I can so easily place the date to April of 1967.

I'm not sure if there would be anything to be gained by "trying out" the square format of my Fujis. But it does have some of the appeal of simplicity, the square—a reminder that the real challenge of technique is to get past it, so that, once past, we can get down to work.

Mike

Book o' the Week:

ArtCurious: Stories of the Unexpected, Slightly Odd, and Strangely Wonderful in Art History by Jennifer Dasal (Penguin, 2020. Adapted from the popular podcast.)

This link above is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

KC: "Thanks for weaving such a nice story into this discussion of aspect ratio. I hope your aunt and uncle have a chance to see this post. As a former Lexingtonian I have to point out that the local racetrack is actually called 'Keeneland.'"

Mike replies: Thanks! Fixed now. My cousins reminded me of this when they saw the post.

Michael J. Perini: "Charming Pictures to be sure, and I couldn't agree more that as you say that Kodak 'was more right than wrong.' A company that realized and was willing to pay for pure research. Some great scientists and engineers there—they even invented digital. They were a supertanker and in the end, just couldn't turn the wheel fast enough.

"Like many TOP readers I shot with almost every format out there but mostly 35mm, 6x6, 4x5, and 8x10. The film camera I loved most was the Hasselblad. I did some good work with that camera. When I picked it up I 'saw square.' But when I was shooting 35mm or 4x5, I never missed the square format. I just shot what I shot.

"But even though I haven't shot a square camera in years, I often find nice square compositions hiding in my 2:3 files. Occasionally I will see a composition that is begging to be square and compose it that way on the 2x3 sensor. I've never felt the need for a square camera viewfinder to 'see' square or any other shape. I usually think—get the picture in whatever shape you can get it with whatever camera you have—if it is a strong picture, it will survive. If it is not, its shape doesn't matter."

Dan Khong: "One does not need many elements to shoot good pictures. The Instamatic lenses were like magnifying glasses but they made a lot of folks happy. The Tessar lenses stood their ground over many decades. They still produce astounding pictures in Rolleiflex TLRs. One might conclude: An average camera in good hands is better than a good camera in average hands."

Steve Belanger: "Great post, Mike! Thank you. I too had an Instamatic 104, given to me by my older brother as a birthday gift. My introduction to photography at age 12. My family and I took a trip to Montreal in 1968 to see the 'Man and His World' exposition. I still have a handful of great photos and memories of that trip."

Crabby Umbo: "By the way, I consider the 126 cartridge to be another of the great 'lost formats.' Manufacturers not only made rangefinder bodies with quality glass, but Kodak made a reflex with interchangeable lenses. The whole 'chink' in the armor was the cartridges' inability to hold the film flat, and in an exact enough plane to really get quality out of the image. My Mom had a high quality version with a glass lens and a wind-up motor drive, which I loved to use, but was always frustrated with the blurriness! A simple concentration on fixing that cartridge, and it would have had real legs. Can't believe Kodak made the decision to go with increasingly worse formats like 110 and Disc, all while the consumers were abandoning their models to go with the image superior autofocus, autoload, point-and-shoot 35mms. Sheesh!"

Mike replies: I believe the origin of the idea that eventually became the Disc was to solve the film flatness problem.

Peter Croft: "I find square format frustrating. I can never work out whether to hold the camera horizontally or vertically.  :-) "

Mike replies: Here's the trick: neither!

Actually, though, I had a photo school classmate who did a project shooting a square camera in the diamond format. 

SteveW: "'It's hip to be square!' —Huey Lewis & the News."

Frank Field: "Square format is not easy to shoot, I think. I see Michael Kenna as a contemporary master of square format. Study his compositions and your square format images are bound to improve."

Madonna and Helmut (Jeff Markus)

I didn't want anyone to miss this great comment, about print size.

Jeff Markus writes: "When I was assisting and printing for Norman Seeff his standard print was 16x20, from 35mm Panatomic-X negs. Image size came in at about 13x19. This had been his standard procedure for many years by the time I started working for him. He originally came up in the business by designing and shooting record album covers, 12x12 inches, so this sizing gave him anywhere from a slight to a large reduction for repro, thus maximizing quality.

"Another consequence of this sizing is that a person's face in a tight shot becomes life-size, or even a bit larger. The impact of this can be surprisingly powerful. And if the shot is a group of maybe half a dozen band members, each of their faces is large enough to be easily read.

"The common practice at that time was for portfolio prints to be no larger than 11x14, the theory being that you didn't want to piss off art directors by making your book too unwieldy. Norman's was 16x20, with about three dozen prints in it, and was a real handful. I do remember at shoots seeing some AD's struggle with that monster, but its visual strength was undeniable.

"When I was printing for Helmut Newton his usual print was 11x14; negs were Tri-X Pro out of a Hasselblad. This worked well for magazine repro and he said he just liked the size. His older 35mm negs worked well at that scale too. He was still putting out Newton's Illustrated at that time, which was larger than the usual magazine format. 11x14 reproduced with a slight upsize for full-page photos gave Helmut the look that he wanted.

"One magazine job varied from this a bit, and the result was quite unexpected, to me, at least. He shot Madonna for a spread in Vanity Fair, as a tough leather-girl with a knife, and she had final approval for any images of her that would be published. It was rare at the time (late '80s) for celebrities to have this as a contracted right...Helmut would have to send her a set of prints of his choices for her to okay. We couldn't send his set because they had to go to the magazine; we were on deadline and they might be damaged or delayed. Helmut asked me do another set, but as 8x10's.

"To my surprise, the smaller prints transformed the images into something completely different. They became delicate and gem-like, precious, very unlike any other Helmut Newton prints I have ever seen, or made.

"I sent them out to Madonna late in the afternoon and they were returned the next morning, all approved. The tough girl had rated them by preference, with one to four little red hearts on the lower right margins."

As a former pro custom B&H exhibition printer, I can tell you that if Jeff printed for Helmut Newton and Norman Seeff he's a heck of a printer. Both those photographers were noted for their superb prints and high standards. (If you don't know the name Norman Seeff, he shot the cover photo of Joni Mitchell's masterpiece "Hejira," the famous shot of the young Steve Jobs sitting cross-legged with the original Macintosh in his lap, and the well-known photo of a laughing Ray Charles with the piano keys reflected in his sunglasses. And many more. By the way, younger readers can mock, but I truly miss album covers. They were a brightly-lit shop window for the work of so many photographers).

Thanks much for the tales, Jeff.

Mike

Book o' the Week:

ArtCurious: Stories of the Unexpected, Slightly Odd, and Strangely Wonderful in Art History by Jennifer Dasal (Penguin, 2020. Adapted from the popular podcast.)

This link is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Helcio J. Tagliolatto: "Among TOP readers there are great stories of life and profession, waiting to be revealed."

David Saxe: "In the early '60s, Bluenote and Prestige jazz record albums were some of my first photographic influences. There is even a great book, The Blue Note Years: The Jazz Photography of Francis Wolff which includes some of their best covers."

Leo Kawczinski: "I love these sorts of posts. They remind me of the depth and breadth of TOP's audience and the experience that informs the comments."

Tom Dills: "Not only do I miss album covers, but I also miss the liner notes."

Is It Okay to Shoot Down a Drone?

There's a great article in the latest New Yorker about ownership. It starts off by relating the case of one William Merideth, who shot down a drone that hovered over his property while his daughter was sunbathing. It discusses all forms of ownership, starting with the idea that property owners also own the air above their property out to where the stars begin and down to the center of the Earth, an ancient legal principle called Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos. Eventually the discussion segues to the online world, where the article makes the case that we're all fast becoming "e-peons." We used the word peon as a put-down in high-school, so I'm familiar with it. It might also be familiar to you if you're a rapper—according to dailyrapfacts, "The slang term 'Peon' or 'Peons' are nouns and adjectives...used by rappers and in the music industry to reference a lame, low class or low status person (someone who is at the bottom of the food chain)."

"The digital and smart devices that surround us are legion, but we do not truly own or control them," writes Joshua A.T. Fairfield, in the book Owned: Property, Privacy, and the New Digital Serfdom. Having just spent a week wrangling with "my" computer, or rather Apple's computer that's in my house, and pondering again the headache of 3-2-1 backups, I really do wonder how much of what's on "my" computer and how it works is really under my control. Not as much as I like to think, I suspect. A number of years ago Apple sold the writing program I used, and the new owners (after several ownership changes) discontinued it, and before you knew it all those files that I had worked so hard on were un-openable. My work was lost. How that's conceptually different from someone breaking into my house and stealing stacks of paper on which I had written with india ink and a quill pen, I don't know.

I've always been against the idea of self-driving cars, because all I see is a future in which everyone will have to pay a monthly fee to participate in the program of whoever is supplying the guidance and coordinating system. I don't want to pay a monthly fee to drive. "If we do not take back our ownership rights," Fairfield writes in his newest book, Runaway Technology, we will only be able to use "our smart devices, our homes, our cars, and even our own software-enabled medical implants purely at the whim of others."

Are "my" digital pictures really mine? To what extent and to what degree can someone other than me control or limit my access to them? I don't know.

I also have a feeling I don't want to know....

Anyway, good reading. Check it out.

Mike

Book o' the Week:

ArtCurious: Stories of the Unexpected, Slightly Odd, and Strangely Wonderful in Art History by Jennifer Dasal (Penguin, 2020. Adapted from the popular podcast.)

This link is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Also, TOP is sponsored by:

Original contents copyright 2021 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:

Rob L (partial comment): "I haven't shot down a drone, but I may have practiced casting and hooked the drone hovering over my backyard trying to video the pool next door. Darn accidents, what can I say?(drone rotors and fishing line are not friends....)"

Christopher Crawford: "A peon is a person enslaved by debt. The term originated in Spain's colonies in the 1500s when the King, under pressure from the church, outlawed the enslavement of the natives in Mexico. Peonage replaced slavery. Technically the peon was not a slave, but they depended on a nobleman who rented farmland to them at prices higher than they could pay, forcing them to pay off the debt (which always got larger) with free labor. This system was called Peonage, and a Peon was a person enslaved by it. In some Spanish colonies, African slaves were imported; peonage was less common in those places than it was in places like Mexico where few black slaves were brought in."

Geoff Wittig: "I intermittently try to remember to save a copy of my favorite image files as a TIFF in hopes that I'll be able to open them down the road even if Adobe disappears and Photoshop is dead. Which might strike people as a ludicrous concern, until you think about what happened to Lotus. Back in the day they wrote the spreadsheet software the entire business world used, but then they were crushed by Microsoft and disappeared almost overnight. I suspect (don't know because I'm a spreadsheet illiterate) that countless businesses and financial people lost painstakingly written macros and custom spreadsheets when that happened. So it bothers me to think that I don't really 'own' my own multi-layered Photoshop image files because Adobe might some day just stop supporting them. Kinda like having thousands of slides and having the last bulb for the last slide projector burn out."

mike rosenlof: " I suspect you may get other comments like this, but I don't think it's a good analogy to compare writings lost inside no-longer-supported files formats to theft of paper from your house. I think it's a better comparison would be if you stored your files on eight-inch floppies and now you can't find a reader. For that matter, any floppies, SCSI disks, etc. Technology marches on and doesn't necessarily pull the old baggage with it. You have written about how to make sure one's photos survive. Option no. 1, 'Be famous' if I recall correctly. This is a recurring issue for any creations in the digital realm. Digitally stored material requires active maintenance to ensure the work makes it across generations of technology.

"I readily admit that I don't practice what I preach. I print many photos, but I have a lot of stuff I've written that exists only in digital form. I have good backups, but they're all on SATA spinning disk drives.... P.S. checkout Open Office Writer; it opens several file formats that are no longer current."

James Bullard: "Re The drone question: No, you may not shoot down drones and you don't own the airspace above your property all the way out to the stars. You are however entitled to a certain degree of privacy and drones should not be flown over private property for the purpose of invading your privacy. Legally, in the U.S., all the airspace is controlled by the FAA and drone pilots are obliged to follow FAA rules for flying drones."

Rip Smith: "The problem of technical obsolescence of data is a great argument for printing the best of your photographs and even written pieces."

Dave Sailer: "Not there yet, but some are working on it, like these three, in laptop space. MNT Reform: ...take a look under the hood, customize the documented electronics, and even repair it yourself if you like. The Reform laptop has no built-in surveillance technologies, cameras, or microphones.... Librem 14: The first 14" laptop designed to protect your digital life. Ultra-portable workstation laptop that was designed chip-by-chip, line-by-line, to respect your rights to privacy, security, and freedom. PINEBOOK: Pinebook is a lightweight, low-cost notebook designed and manufactured by the company Pine64...its appearance resembles the MacBook Air...The Pinebook is sold at-cost by pine64 as a community service."

The iPhone as Teacher

I've been having great fun shooting panos with the iPhone lately. Took this on my walk yesterday. I walk up Welker Hill most days for exercise. It was cold up there yesterday bro—32°F/0°C with a hard wind. The wind was coming straight out of the West when I walked back down the hill, and I was coming straight out of the East. As I pushed on, it pushed back. I had on two hats, a fake down vest and my Winter coat. I passed Dave coming in from his barn and all he was wearing was a pullover and a billed cap. But he's a lot tougher than I am.

Sometimes I think any camera can be a teacher and show you how to do something new. I've never shot panoramics with anything—no judgment, I was just never drawn to that way of seeing (although I've greatly admired several panoramic shooters over the years, most notably Aaron Hobson and Pentti Sammallahti. And my favorite photographer, Josef Koudelka, has published many panoramics—including, I think, a whole book of them). Of course, I did do my "one" pano, because I like to try everything once (um, photographically speaking), but that's not the same as working that way.

I've been (finally? Belatedly) trying to take the iPhone more seriously as a camera. Not for any ideological reason, just because I find I shoot a lot with it now.

I still do have problems considering it a serious image-maker...

Oops! Crop from the above

That would take some Photoshop skills to fix. The wind was stiff enough that the occasional gust was knocking me around, and it was difficult to hold the phone very still.  Here's a single shot:

It was late in the day. Such a pretty day. Those clouds were moving. Did I mention it was brisk?

I'm not very good at panos yet. I have a tendency to shoot things too close to me, such that I get that loopy swooping perspective anomaly that some people hate and some people play with. All things considered I'd rather shoot with a large single-shot panaoramic camera—only then I wouldn't be be doing panos at all.

The other thing the iPhone is teaching me is how to shoot square. Speaking of Aaron Hobson, his father Mark, who reads TOP, is a very experienced professional who's been shooting personal projects with his iPhone in recent years, and he shoots square. I think Mark processes his pictures with Snapseed or something like that. Square seems like the ready-made solution for anyone who complains about not being able to hold their iPhone while shooting. Shooting square means you can hold the phone vertically and get the same aspect ratio in the pictures.

Shooting square is fun. It's easy and somehow also challenging at the same time. I can't be more clear than that because I don't really understand it. But maybe you know what I mean.

Do any of those medium-format digitals shoot square? Such that you see square in the viewfinder I mean.

Curiously, the one time in my life that I shot extensively with a square-format camera—well, there were two times, the first being a Kodak Instamatic when I was a kid—was with the Exakta 66 in the '80s, and as a matter of course I always cropped to the vertical with that camera. I don't know why; it's just how I saw with it.

I'd rather there weren't a camera in the phone. But since there is, might as well have fun.

Incidentally, play is the solution for any photographer's block—the doldrums, boredom, lack of inspiration, a rut—just find some way to play. Fool around and have fun. Be goofy. Be free. It'll shake your tree and get you going where you're going again.

Mike

Book o' the Week:

ArtCurious: Stories of the Unexpected, Slightly Odd, and Strangely Wonderful in Art History by Jennifer Dasal (Penguin, 2020. Adapted from the popular podcast.)

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

Jeff in Rhode Island: "SQUARE: This is one of the advantages that I really love about working with mirrorless digital or phone cameras. We have the ability to previsualize different aspect ratios. I often have my Fuji X-H1 or X-E2 set up to a 1:1 aspect ratio with B&W as my rendering intent. This is something I could have only dreamed of in terms of previsualization and flexibility in the analog days."

DavidB: "The mis-matched power lines might be a result of the strong winds causing the lines to move as the multiple frames were captured."

John Y: "I grew up using 35mm films. When transitioning to digital, any aspect ratio not 3:2 completely turned me off. Now I’ve unlearned that stupid bias and come to appreciate different compositions/subjects call for different aspect ratios, and vice versa."

Mark Hobson: "Hey Mike—thanks for the mention. FYI, I shot with rotating lens pano cameras as part of my pro shooting repertoire. One of those pictures—see them here—one of 50 all made with Widelux cameras for the Allegheny Hospital: Portrait of an Urban Hospital book, was Aaron's inspiration for all of his work."

Bruce: "For those jagged power lines, there’s a great app, Touch Retouch, which makes correcting those incredible easy on the iPhone. As well as having a decent clone stamp and healing brush. Definitely worth the $2 to try."

John Shriver: "Koudelka created The Black Triangle, a book of panoramic photographs of coal mining devastation. Josef Sudek created two panoramic books, Prague Panaorama and the posthumous Sad Landscapes, also of coal mining devastation. Sudek used a Kodak Panorama No. 4, hand loading it with 4x12 sheet film, since 103 size roll film was already unavailable."

Scott Reither: "I find the wider the pano format, the more challenging it is to compose well, and the closer to square I get, the easier it gets. For my eye, anyways! For years, I used Linhof 617 and 612 panoramic cameras, and found the formats very challenging. It did not come naturally at all. One thing I love about the Fuji GFX cameras is, they have seven image ratios that you can set, and it blacks out the area so you see that actual selected format. I had been wanting for that in a camera for years—it seems so obvious. With the raw, you can always change your mind later and undo the crop, if you want.

"You’re going to love the 50R when you get to use that!"