Bits and Pieces

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Boy oh boy: Yr. Hmbl. Ed. just ordered a new camera. In a moment of weakness. And because the price went down. More bloviation on same in the near near future is all but assured; you've been warned. Also, I will have a bunch of stuff to sell soon, because the photo account must be zero-sum, that being my traditional method of rationalizing new purchases.

Cutting-edge investigative journalism: The late Charlie Watts being interviewed in 1994:

Interviewer: Your role in the band. You talked about Mick and Keith and Ron. What's Charlie's role?
Watts (thoughtfully): Well, I don't know, I mean, I always consider myself a drummer, you know.

Well, now we know. 

Diane in the Park: A life-size portrait in bronze of photographer Diane Arbus is only the second statue of a real (i.e., once-living) woman in Central Park. The sculpture, by Gillian Wearing of London, UK, is unfortunately only on temporary display. You can see multiple pictures here. (Thanks to Albert Smith for this.)

Meme seen online:

Remember The Dog's Nose: The following was written by a self-described travel blogger about a Sony FF camera, in a customer review posted on an online shopping site: "So what about that awesome bokeh and shallow depth-of-field everyone loves about full frame? For a travel photographer I've learned that too much bokeh is actually bad! Full frame is great for actual portraits, but realistically horrible for environmental portraits. When there is too much bokeh you don't see the surroundings therefore missing the point of that travel destination (not telling the story of the image). Spend all the money to travel to Japan, but can't even see Mt. Fuji in the background of the portrait because it is too blurred? Travel to Egypt, but can't tell that's a pyramid in the background because you're shooting at ƒ/1.4 in full frame? I found that even on APS-C I prefer to shoot anywhere from ƒ/2.8 to ƒ/8 for environmental portraits."

Good points. More is not always better.

iPhone 13 macro: The new iPhone 13 has an extreme macro-capable lens with a minimum focus distance of less than an inch, and Halide has gone one better with Halide 2.5's Macro Mode. Ben Sandofsky explains in a very informative article at Lux, with very impressive illustrations and an excellent discussion of the basic principles. I've never shot much Macro, but if you're interested and don't know a lot about it yet, this should be your ticket. (Thanks t0 William La Via for this.)

Nikon's superfast zooms: Does the world really need ƒ/1.2 zooms? At one time I would have thought these were cool, so I don't begrudge anyone who thinks so now. It's all good.

Watch watch: Have I mentioned that I am not going to be collecting watches after all? I have six, and am really enjoying wearing different ones every day (and wearing them again, period), but there isn't going to be enough interest in this for me to keep it up. The "problem," basically, although it isn't a problem, is the intrinsic excellence of Seiko's solar watches. Mine is still on track to be accurate to within six seconds a year. That sort of makes it pointless to pursue HAQ (high accuracy quartz) watches; the ROQ (regular ol' quartz) watches are so good they hardly need improvement.

However, I will write a full review of my favorite (and most expensive) watch sooner or later, because it is really awesome and totally delightful.

P-U-N: Let me tell you about my friend Jack, who claims he can communicate with vegetables. Jack and the beans talk.

(Thanks to Dan. I think!)

A blast from the past: Is live music better, or is recorded music played on a stereo better? I took the contrarian viewpoint back in 2012.

Sweaty palms: We were speaking of YouTube videos the other day, and I wanted to mention that despite all the chaff, there really are some remarkable things to see. For instance this one. It's a ride-along video of Polish Formula 1 driver Robert Kubica (pronounced koo-BEET-zah) lapping the Nürburgring, AKA the Green Hell, in a hopped-up BMW M4. From the channel of Russian racing vlogger Misha Charoudin, no slouch himself. I swear to God this made my palms sweat as I was watching it; that is just ungodly fast. At the end, Kubica politely says that once you've driven Formula 1 cars they tend to spoil you for anything else.

Most of Misha Charoudin's videos get between 15,000 and 150,000 views. This one is closing in on six and a half million. There's a followup video too.

You just know all those guys he's passing are thinking, "no way is this guy catching up to me," and then a few seconds later, "oh sh*t."

Mike

Book o' the Week

  Friedlander First Fifty. A very fun little book that gives a tour of the first fifty of Lee Friedlander's books—extra copies of which are apparently stashed all over every floor of his house. By his grandson, who is trying to sell full, signed sets on eBay. This is very enjoyable, but also might be the most unique book about photobooks ever. Who else has published fifty photobooks?

This is a link to Amazon from TOP. The following logo is also a link:

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Patrick Perez: "Or, you could watch the movie Grand Prix. For portions of the races, Dan Gurney was driving a camera car with 70mm film in the actual race. On the days following the races, the production was given access to the course, and the main cast actors drove cars dressed to look like the real ones in order to duplicate sequences from the race. Those cars also had 70mm cameras. The only actor not doing his own driving was Brian Bedford, who just wasn't good enough to safely drive at speed, so a stunt driver doubled him and wore a balaclava.

"This is easily the best movie ever for racing footage. Astounding racing sequences, exhilarating score by Maurice Jarre, and montage sequences by Saul Bass. The only car movie that has better sequences (chases, that is) is Ronin, also directed by GP's director, the late John Frankenheimer."

Stelios: "I'm very excited to see what camera you bought!"

Arg: "Two days after you said you can’t afford any new camera at the moment!"

Mike replies: Yeah, except I was right, I really can't afford it. My income is just about in equilibrium with my bills. And that's only true if I'm careful. So optional purchases deduct from my savings. Scary. I need to be disciplined.

hugh crawford: "Anyone know why the Diane Arbus statue has white shoes? I’m sure there’s a reason but I can’t imagine what it is."

Mike replies: According to one of the articles, it's oil paint, and the purpose was to "humanize" the statue. Which still seems curious, but there you are.

Comments

[Speed]

Vogue on Charlie Watts

[ ... ] when Watts finally answered the phone, [Jagger] demanded to know: “Where’s my drummer?!” Watts calmly hung the phone up, before dressing in his usual impeccable suit and tie and polished shoes and walking out of his room to meet Mick. When he encountered Jagger, he immediately punched him in the face before insisting, “Don’t ever call me your drummer again. You’re my f--king singer!”

https://www.vogue.com/article/charlie-watts-obit

I don't imagine that Vogue wrote much about the Rolling Stones back in the 1960s.

[Eolake Stobblehouse]

Diane Arbus had oomph, but lord, she was depressing. Long ago looking in a book of her pics, I came across the fierce little boy raging against the camera. And I found myself thinking, "Wait, this is not all that negative, where is the negative aspect?" And then I noticed he was holding a toy hand grenade...

Eolake Stobblehouse

[Ernest Zarate]

“Full frame is great for actual portraits, but realistically horrible for environmental portraits.”

Well, who’s going to break _that_ news to all those photographers, amateurs and professionals alike, who used FF cameras (aka 35mm, 2 ¼, 4c5, etc…) cameras - and with “normal lenses” to boot - for several scores of years?!? August Sanders, Yusuf Karsh, Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, Lee Friedlander, et al, who made all those amazing “environmental portraits” over the decades - they’re all “realistically horrible”?!

What’s that? Wait? It wasn’t the camera’s fault, you say? Those photographers (and many more) learned and knew how to use their cameras and adjust settings to make the camera record the image exactly the way they wanted…?!?

So, then, what’s up with the people using cameras today? Oh… I see.

[David]

I've been trying macro on the iPhone, with limited success with my 8+
The thing that's interesting to me about the iPhone 13 is the close focus distance. It lets you get inside the scene, which is a different perspective to being able to take a macro with a (say) 100mm macro lens.
Even clever tech like Halide can't solve that. You can't get the same perspective from the 8+ that you can from the 13 because of the lens, and you can't fake it.
Ideally, for what I want, I'd get Laowa probe lens, but that's for another day.

[JimF]

I’m not really familiar with Sony FF cameras. Are the apertures on Sony FF cameras not adjustable?

What blog is that so I don’t read it by mistake.

[Tim Allen]

Mike that lap of the Ring is nothing compared to this insanity from Porsche!

https://youtu.be/PQmSUHhP3ug

[Daniel]

Spend all the money to travel to Japan, but can't even see Mt. Fuji in the background of the portrait because it is too blurred? Travel to Egypt, but can't tell that's a pyramid in the background because you're shooting at ƒ/1.4 in full frame? I found that even on APS-C I prefer to shoot anywhere from ƒ/2.8 to ƒ/8 for environmental portraits."

Good points. More is not always better.

-------------------------

That is why the lens has a range of apertures. You learn to use them for creative purposes.
Unless you are doing pinhole or your lens is broken you have choices - choices that the creative artist learns to use.

[John Camp]

I would somewhat disagree with your Dog's Nose view; I think the blogger's views were not so much "good points" as "blindingly obvious" to anyone who has ever used a camera. So much so that the point he/she made about Mt. Fuji made me laugh.

I do agree with your somewhat implicit message that live and recorded music are two different things. However, if I really want to listen to a song (say, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Dark Necessities") I'd much rather do it on Youtube where you can both enjoy the video AND understand the words; or listen to a CD, simply for the clarity. In an arena, many of their songs are simply incomprehensible, although the instrumentals (which you *can* hear) social experience is wonderful.

[longviewer]

Congrats? on the new camera, a burst of creativity will surely follow. Don't follow Shirley unless she requests it!

Wish I could zero-sum your xH1, but then my sum would fall substantially subzero :^\ Ah well.

[Michael Fewster]

Re macro modes, fast lenses and bokeh.
I'm another who thinks very fast lenses and bokeh are overrated in the digital age for just the reasons given in The Dog's Nose. One of the best features of computational photography is the ability to stack images to increase dof. This is especially useful for macro and product photography. This brings me to Sony. For some weird reason no Sony, including the just released A7iv has auto focus bracketing available. It is a feature on almost all other makes. Given the af capabilities of Sony cameras, this is a very odd omission and it is costing Sony sales. It is usually not mentioned in reviews of Sony cameras but it is talked about in Sony user circles. I don't mind the lack of in camera bracket stacking because once you have the images this can be better done in front of a monitor where the images to be used in the stack can be selected according to need. Not being able to shoot the stack with auto focus bracketing where the number of images and the required focal distance variation can be set and then captured quickly, is really limiting.
Does anyone have thoughts as to why Sony resolutely refuses to add this feature to their cameras?

[Jay Burleson]

The 4 series that I took you to dinner in was tricked out to be a daily drivable track day car, and it's about 85-ish percent of an M4.
I really didn't show it off much that night.
If Watkins Glen had been available, I'd have treated you to a really fun ride!

[c.d.embrey]

Yr. Hmbl. reader is dumping thousands of photo-files into that great shredder in the sky. I've stopped paying for iCloud storage—no pay and Apple no store, a simple solution.

I'm also getting rid of my iPhone XS and Apple Watch. It's a great camera, but a poor phone.

[Phil Aynsley]

"Yr. Hmbl. Ed. just ordered a new camera." So something to go with the lens you bought last week?

https://www.canonrumors.com/the-canon-ef-1200mm-f-5-6l-usm-sells-for-a-record-e500000-at-auction/

[David Lee]

Mike, thank you for the Kubica video. That was fun!

[Fred Haynes]

I confess to being somewhat addicted to moving at high speeds via video!
Last one I watched, other then what you linked Mike, was a train, I believe in Germany, going at roughly 350 miles per hour. Great fun, especially when your home, watching. To be there, and participate must be something else again!
Fred

[Trevor Johnson]

The A6600? I keep looking at good used examples of the 24/f1.8 Zeiss, in case I can pick one up and send it to you without totally breaking the bank!

[hugh crawford]

He drives that like it’s a rental car.
Oh wait…

[Steve B]

Whoa!!! That is one amazing run thru the Nurburgring! Thanks for posting that, Mike!

[Dan Khong]

Good to hear that you are not wasting any more money collecting watches. IMO, there are only two brands worth collecting - Rolex and Patek Philippe.

[Freddy S.]

Congratulations on your new Sony A6600! :)

[Marco Venturini Autieri]

Because I believe I know your photography needs, I am sure you purchased one of the new 8k-video-capable cameras.

[Dave]

Mike,

In re: "Sweaty palms", how about this: Sabine Schmitz attempts to drive a transit van around the Nürburgring in under ten minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KiC03_wVjc

[Stephen Scharf]

Yeah, that's a respectable time...for a car. If want to see fast laps at the 'Ring, check out this video of the Manthey Racing Porsche GT2 RS setting an outright fastest lap record for a production car at the Nordschleife of 6:43:30. This Porsche was about...a full minute faster than Robert Kubica.

https://youtu.be/WFHbnglmeUA

If memory serves, the outright lap record is held by the Porsche 919 EVO Hybrid, which is more than a full minute faster than the Porsche GT2 RS, and more than two minutes faster than Robert Kubica, at 5:19.55 (!)

https://youtu.be/EM6nyGWcXks

But, for me what's more fun is to see the motorcycle riders on what are generally stock sportbikes blowing off cars left and right...

Here's Nino Pallavincini going as fast as Robert Kubica.... on a Yamaha R1 motorcycle. With a tire contact patch about the size of your hand, I might add...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UXFu-9GHIY

Finally, you think yer fast?

Yer not so fast...https://youtu.be/ZjyYa3zL6Pw

[Nice links, for which thanks, but I protest...Kubica had to keep slowing down to safely pass other cars and motorcycles driven by amateur drivers! He wasn't alone on a closed, groomed course doing a time trial. And I must say, the passes were the most anxiety-provoking for me to watch. Although that's probably because I've watched too many "Nurburgring crash" video. But anyway, it's apples and oranges. --Mike]

[Scott]

Regarding the dog's nose: I'm so old that I remember when camera magazines (remember camera magazines?) had lots of articles on how to get MORE depth-of-field.

[Lars Jansen]

Just need to quickly remark on the bokeh piece: better quality bokeh ('more') is always better. What he is referring to is depth-of-field, which actually here you want more of, not less.

I see that popping up more and more on the internet, where people talk about the amount of bokeh, while it's actually depth-of-field. Bokeh does not have an amount, only a quality.

Sorry, grumpy-not-yet-old-guy signing off.

[John]

Martin Parr has done 80 or so books of his own work, while being the joint author of three books about the history of photographic books across the world.

He has also created a foundation, with part of its role being to preserve his book collection.

("Every day you go out hoping you might get one of those magic pictures, those iconic pictures. You rarely do. But thats's what keeps you going." How many times does he think he has? He grimaces. "Maybe 60 or 70. And that's not going. It really isn't."

Guardian 5 October 2021

[Lothar Adler]

Does anyone have thoughts as to why Sony resolutely refuses to add this feature to their cameras?

Posted by: Michael Fewster | Saturday, 23 October 2021 at 03:31 PM

For me this is very clear: Sony will add focus bracketing in a future model!
And absolutely no firmware update with this function for the previous models for sure!
This strategie will trigger sales not cost sales. Same thing as it was with animal eye-AF.