The Online Photographer

Six Pentaxes

Following on from yesterday, Pentax Rumors has also claimed that "there will be a total of six different versions of the Pentax K-3 Mark III DSLR camera (jet black finish, a version with a modified shutter release button, a monochrome model, a gunmetal version, and an Astro model)."

Speaking of The Improvement Law, as I was the other day, this is actually one of the directions I think it would be profitable for camera manufacturers to go: making variant models for different purposes or for different customers. The downside, of course, is that the bean-counters will simply see which variant sells best and then put the kibosh on any others, forgetting that even small markets deserve serving because they cultivate brand loyalty. Maybe only a small percentage of buyers will buy the jet-black model; but maybe a lot of K-3 Mark III purchasers will appreciate that the jet-black model is available as an offering for them.

Well, I guess there's one more downside, which is that people will clamor for combinations of the variants, i.e., "I want the Astro model in gunmetal! If Pentax doesn't give me that then I'll never buy another Pentax!" :eyeroll:

As I've advocated several times now, another avenue that cameramakers could explore would be radically simplified versions of high-quality cameras. So far, only Leica has experimented with radical simplicity. All the other camera makers are addicted to burdening their products under the "kitchen sink" principle—put everything in as a means of trying to please everybody all the time. Never mind that people might not want to do everything, or that technology has now improved to the point that simplicity is now a possibility for those who want that. Or that there are people who would really like it if their cameras were less confusing.

I mentioned my neighbor Ilene yesterday—the one with the Flintmobile who is looking at Toyotas. She mentioned to me that she has a camera, but she still has to get out the manual every time she wants to use it.

That reminds me of a story: way back in the 1980s, I attended a presentation by a rep from a D.C.-area camera store that specialized in lighting equipment. The rep gave an hour-long presentation of all the capabilities of the then-latest-and-greatest Minolta light meter, the name of which I have finally forgotten. Later, talking to her individually, I mentioned that I didn't think most photographers could afford the time investment she had made to become an expert in the use of that light meter. Her response? She told that although she gave that presentation about every three weeks or so, she had to brush up on all the information in the manual before she gave each talk. She couldn't remember everything across a three-week pause.

Life is too short to have to use tools like that. And yet, most cameras are now similar to that. I have a highly adept professional friend whose company has just bought him a Nikon Z9. He is deep in the weeds working through the manual. Among other things, he says that "it has a feature to reduce flicker from LCD and fluorescent light sources and that feature allows you to set shutter speeds to ridiculously precise values to one decimal point, like a 105.3 of a second." Consider that old "MMM" (metal, manual, mechanical) film cameras were once assumed to have settings that were only accurate to maybe a third of a stop. That is, if you set 1/500th shutter speed, the real speed might actually be 1/400th or 1/650th and that was considered acceptable. It's been a long time since then.

At some point in the past dozen years, I went from advocating that the photographer has a responsibility to master his or her camera, to thinking that the cameras are just too complex to master. That hasn't been a happy change. My Sigma is set up to be very simple and fast for me to use, which is almost viscerally satisfying to me. Of course it does other things, but it's easy to eliminate those options from getting in the way.

I'm sure people who are more adept at mastering complex technology have a different perspective, and might even enjoy the complexity. I don't think most people do enjoy it. But I could be wrong. I know at this point in my life, I agree with something Ilene said yesterday: "I don't want to buy any more things that I have to learn."

As Richard Nugent points out here, though, whatever new car she chooses might be something that takes a long time to learn.

Mike

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Longest Manual?

Has anybody ever seen a claim as to what the longest-ever camera manual might be? I'm not sure that's something I've ever seen mentioned. It would be interesting to know.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 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 or on the title of this post.)

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Pentax B&W Camera About to Be Announced? (Or, 'The Universe Tends Toward Maximum Perversity.')

Reader Andy F implied yesterday that it is believed that Pentax will announce a B&W-only camera on April 13th. I will truly believe it only when I see it, having waited for a rationally-priced B&W camera from a mainstream maker for a good solid 20 years now. Actually a little bit more.

If it happens, I deserve credit for it...based on the Umbrella Rule, which states that it only rains when you forget your umbrella and won't rain if you remember to take it. Since I've just recently invested heavily in a customized workaround, clearly that is the reason why a much cheaper option would come along immediately thereafter.

The universe is a trickster! I hate irony. Or as David Aiken put it, "The universe tends to maximum perversity."

If it does happen, I might have to lay low for a while. I will be sulking.

Mike

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Any Car People Out There? (OT)

If you know cars, a question: what's better as a car to keep long-term, the RAV-4 Prime or the RAV-4 Hybrid?

Asking for my neighbor and friend Ilene Wexler, who was recently widowed. She hasn't bought a new car since Reagan was President and wants to treat herself, but she also hopes to keep it a long time.

Anyone up on that?

"As soon as this baby gives out, Barn, I'm
going to sell it to Ilene Wexler."

I believe Ilene's current Buick was manufactured during the Pleistocene Epoch and now has to be propelled with her feet, like Fred Flintstone's car. [UPDATE: What I was trying to get across here (perhaps I was being too jokey about this) is that she has a pretty urgent need for a new vehicle of some sort. The old one is unreliable and has been sucking down a lot of money for various repairs, leaving her without transportation when it needs fixing. I'm guessing she's already paid for a repair or two that exceeds the value of the car, with more looming.]

Mike

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John Krumm: "From what I know the Prime is more desirable but so much that it’s sometimes hard to get. The are both hybrids, but the Prime can drive 20 miles or so on a charge before using gas, so if you only drive short distances, you don’t use much if any gas."

Mike replies: Yes, the terms are "PHEV" (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) and "HEV" (hybrid electric vehicle). "Prime" is Toyota's term for PHEVs. They both run on gas and battery power, but the plug-in can be charged up from an outlet and has a longer range in electric-only power mode. That's good for us because town is about eight miles away, so a trip to and from town with some stops there (it's a very small town, only a few stoplights) would not exceed 20 miles of driving typically. That's probably the most common trip for us. Neither are pure electric cars (EVs). In fact I'm not sure if Toyota makes a pure EV yet. On the other hand, electricity has just doubled in price and is pretty expensive here. However you can sign up to get your electricity from solar fields if you want that.

Another consideration is that Ilene doesn't have a garage. I would think this would make charging more problematic, because the charging station and the car would have to be out in the weather in rain and snow. 

Greg: "We just sold our 2008 Toyota Prius (Hybrid). Maybe $300 in repairs. 185k miles. There shouldn't be much difference in reliability between the two. They are both hybrids. The Prime just has a bigger battery so you're not burning gasoline for short (25 mile?) trips. But I've read that many who buy plug in hybrids don't bother to plug it in. If that's your neighbor, don't get the Prime. We bought a 2022 Prius. Would have got the Prime except we really need the space and the Prime battery takes about 5" of height from the storage. We use ours like most people use a pickup or SUV—camping, skiing. Two bikes in the back for local trips (bikes go on a rack for camping trips). 55 mpg. Would have liked to wait for the 2023 but we just couldn't wait any longer. Toyota has been making hybrids for about 20 years. Most of the taxis in LA are Prii."

Tom Passin: "I have a 2019 RAV4 hybrid. I like it very much but I was all set to trade it in for a Prime (which is a plug-in hybrid that can run farther on electricity-only). I mostly drive in my small city, and the Prime would let me drive anywhere in the city on electricity only. But my dealer hasn't been able to get one. My RAV is three years old and has required no maintenance except for the usual oil changes and so forth. It doesn't even need tires, with 23,000 miles on it (pre-COVID, it would have gone on many road trips and racked up many more miles by now). It almost seems like a new car to me. I'd go for the Prime if I could get one."

ASW: "At a basic level, the Prime is the Hybrid with a larger battery and the ability to drive 40-ish miles using only said battery. It also allows you to plug in the vehicle to charge the battery, whereas a traditional hybrid does not allow independent charging of the battery and does not allow battery-only driving. If you do a lot of short/local driving the Prime might be a good option. Of course, the Prime is quite a bit more expensive, so if your typical drives won't benefit from the EV range then there's little point in spending the extra cash."

TOP Classic: The Improvement Law and the Resignation Imperative

[Ed. note: I was just having fun with words in this post from 2016, but the idea that "even the perfect camera can be improved" made me laugh. Definitely true, though. I edited this slightly this time around.]

-

Postulate 1: Every camera can be improved.

Postulate 2: Every camera could be changed in specific ways to improve it for any given gear geek user.

How many times in your life have you ever said, or thought, "I like [x camera]. But I wish it [had/didn't have] x"? Q.E.D.

The Keppler Axiom, named for Burt Keppler, is:

The more cameras you've tried or used, the more acute Postulate 2 becomes.

Mr. Keppler wrote, in one* of his many columns in Modern Photography and Popular Photography magazines, that his "ideal camera" would cobble together many of the features he had liked best from the great many different cameras he had tried. This feature from this camera, that feature from that camera. Add them all together to get the camera he thought would be perfect.

However, that last sentence ignores The Persistence Corollary of the Improvement Law, which is:

Even the perfect camera can still be improved!

This seems illogical, but it is true. Use the perfect camera for long enough, and you will say, "Hmm, I like [x camera]. But I wish it [had/didn't have] x."

This leads us, finally, to The Resignation Imperative:

The best camera for you will still have a few things that you wish were different.

Resign yourself to this: it's not a flaw in the equipment, it's just a manifestation of the Improvement Law, which is an immutable law of the Universe. It will always be true. We must learn to accept Postulate 2 as part and parcel of humans being human and cameras being cameras. C'est la vie.

Mike

ADDENDUM: I forgot to add The Antidote to the Persistence Corollary of the Improvement Law, which is: the more work you like that you make with a given camera, the more you will like that camera, regardless of its features or flaws.

* The column is lost to history. I have made quite an effort to find it, including contacting Burt's old right-hand man, retired Popular Photography Editor-in-Chief Jason Schneider. No one can find it. It did exist, that much I know; it featured a drawing of Mr. Keppler's imaginary unicorn camera with the shutter-button on the front rather than the top. But the column is lost.

Original contents copyright 2023 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 or on the title of this post.)

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[Ed. note: I was just having fun with words in this post from 2016, but the idea that "even the perfect camera can be improved" made me laugh. Definitely true, though. I edited this slightly this time around.]

-

Postulate 1: Every camera can be improved.

Postulate 2: Every camera could be changed in specific ways to improve it for any given gear geek user.

How many times in your life have you ever said, or thought, "I like [x camera]. But I wish it [had/didn't have] x"? Q.E.D.

The Keppler Axiom, named for Burt Keppler, is:

The more cameras you've tried or used, the more acute Postulate 2 becomes.

Mr. Keppler wrote, in one* of his many columns in Modern Photography and Popular Photography magazines, that his "ideal camera" would cobble together many of the features he had liked best from the great many different cameras he had tried. This feature from this camera, that feature from that camera. Add them all together to get the camera he thought would be perfect.

However, that last sentence ignores The Persistence Corollary of the Improvement Law, which is:

Even the perfect camera can still be improved!

This seems illogical, but it is true. Use the perfect camera for long enough, and you will say, "Hmm, I like [x camera]. But I wish it [had/didn't have] x."

This leads us, finally, to The Resignation Imperative:

The best camera for you will still have a few things that you wish were different.

Resign yourself to this: it's not a flaw in the equipment, it's just a manifestation of the Improvement Law, which is an immutable law of the Universe. It will always be true. We must learn to accept Postulate 2 as part and parcel of humans being human and cameras being cameras. C'est la vie.

Mike

ADDENDUM: I forgot to add The Antidote to the Persistence Corollary of the Improvement Law, which is: the more work you like that you make with a given camera, the more you will like that camera, regardless of its features or flaws.

* The column is lost to history. I have made quite an effort to find it, including contacting Burt's old right-hand man, retired Popular Photography Editor-in-Chief Jason Schneider. No one can find it. It did exist, that much I know; it featured a drawing of Mr. Keppler's imaginary unicorn camera with the shutter-button on the front rather than the top. But the column is lost.

Original contents copyright 2023 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 or on the title of this post.)

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How to Edit 500-1,000 Shots

I have houseguests today, my second cousin Elizabeth Rose and her husband Eric Devine. Elizabeth Rose was also the name of the previous head of Clan Rose in the Scottish Highlands; my cousin also has a lot of Slavic heritage from her mother's side. She's an accomplished artist, a printmaker, who was recently away for a year in Poland on a Fulbright Fellowship. Eric used to be a wildlands firefighter, the guys who battle the huge forest fires in the American West. Now, after a sojourn in nursing school, he is a traveling R.N. who works in neurology. He's under contract in St. Louis, where they have to live in temporary arrangements. They sometimes stop and see me on their trips between St. L. and the huge wilderness areas of New York State where they like to hike and camp. This trip it was the Catskills. (Here's a map showing the Adirondacks [upper] and Catskills Parks in green.)

So I will make today's post short. -Ish.

Andreas wrote, yesterday: "Maybe, if you could tell us about things right out of your head it would be easier.  :-)  E.g., tell me how to sort through say 500–1,000 shots from a holiday and find the very few to keep."

Mike replies: Okay, that's pretty straightforward.

Start by defining a preliminary number goal. 1–6 for a memento, 15–20 for a set, 20–30 for a show, 60–80 for a book—but remain flexible, because the work itself will help set the number the edited set "wants" to be.

From there, here are two ways to go:

The Culling Method
Start with a rough edit meant to get rid of the chaff and filler. Obvious mistakes; anonymous postcard attempts; the useless detail shots that everybody thinks are artistic but that say absolutely nothing; near misses for which you had hopes when you were behind the camera but that really didn't quite work. Don't bother being heartless at first—anything that pulls on your affections, it's okay to keep for now. Get rid of what you can.

Wait a few days. Physically separate the pictures, or separate them virtually into different folders or whatever.

Take a second pass. First, look through the rejects and see if anything precious needs "saving." Then discard or set aside the rejects and don't look at them again. Then return to the remaining pictures and make another culling pass, getting rid of what you can.

Once you're down to 50–150, depending on your final goal, sequence them. This can be imperfect, but think of the flow, of variety from one to the next, of peaks and valleys—a simple sequencing strategy is to open with several strong pictures, end with several strong pictures, and have a strong handful in the middle, then build the connections of quieter or weaker shots in between. If the shooting is from a trip, then chronological sequencing might make sense, but don't be rigid—clusters of pictures from the same location but out of order, or something else, might work better. Remember that in sequencing, visual flow is just as good a principle as intellectual flow. Make sure the pictures look good next to their neighbors.

Then look at the story you're telling. Are there repetitions? Maybe you got six nice shots of a group of local kids, but you only need one. Make choices there; keep one but get rid of redundant shots. Are there imbalances? Too many shots of the beach you liked but not enough of the mountain hike? Or whatever? Get the different motifs into balance a bit. Experiment with taking certain shots out—is there loss, or does the omission not matter? Eliminate distractions from the overall theme. Does a picture that you like for an unrelated reason really contribute to the overall presentation? Get rid of what you can. Don't forget that there will be a lot of good (i.e., sharp, well-exposed, well-composed) shots that you just don't need.

Gradually, working in stages, allowing pauses for contemplation and for your choices to "soak in," successive rounds of culling will get you down to your number.

The Big Hits Method
This basically comes from the other direction. Look through all your pictures and note the few that you think are the very absolute best—the ones that hit on all cylinders for you, the ones you're completely proud of, the ones that are unambiguous "yesses" with no reservations. Make a couple of passes through the work noting those pictures in your mind. After doing this two or three times over at least a couple of hours and maybe a day or two, set those pictures apart. Don't worry about how many there are.

Then the trick is to just keep adding more pictures that you think support your hits as best as possible. Again, sequencing helps. Which of the hits need to be near each other and which further apart? Which need some quieter, more ordinary shots surrounding them to highlight their qualities? Experiment with finding other pictures that improve the flow from one of you hits to another.

Bonus
Obviously there are a lot of variations in these strategies, based on your goals, the nature of the project, the end use and the audience you envision, and how strict you feel like being with yourself. But a big bonus of doing this, one that is not to be undervalued, is that the process you go through in editing will start to help you when you shoot. You'll become more conscious of the kinds of shots you're going to need when you get to the editing stage. You'll find yourself looking at a detail shot and what will come to mind is the fact that you never need shots like that when you edit; so you just won't take that shot. The feedback loop continually improves your understanding of your shooting.

It's better to demonstrate this than just to talk about it, and there are a great many ways to edit, but this gives you a couple of basic tried-and-true strategies.

Mike

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Slow as H*ll (A Confession) (Blog Note)

I've got a confession to make: I'm getting really sloooooow. I used to be fast. Fastest gun in the West. I could whack a post together in two hours, and then do it one more time the same day. But it took me two days to write that last post—knead it into shape, rewrites, percolation time, find a place for it to end up (old white folks' early-'90s hip-hop starter kit!), add a little spice to make it personable ("Pirate" as a baby girl name?!), find quotes, more rewrites, choose and add links, go hunt down a rights-free illo...slow as the proverbial molasses in January. Last night, late, I was like, finally! I'm going to get this up, took me the whole day!...and then it soaked up two more hours this morning. Two hours that just walk on by.

I'm doing the best I can. I'm just plain slowing down. It takes me longer to think of words now (memorize analyze internalize). It takes me longer to think of names that used to just flash into my brain-pan if I bid them to (Method Man; what can be so elusive about the word "method"?). Takes me longer to proofread. I type slower now. Takes me longer to do anything. I'm slower at everything. It's not that I have more to do, it's that it feels that way. Because what I have to do fills up more of the time I have available to do it. Feels like time is speeding up, but it's not. I'm just slowing down.

Just keeping you apprised of conditions! And I appreciate your patience.

That is all,

—Head Writer Mike

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Al in Vancouver: "I feel your frustration. I turned 70 this year, and this is my single greatest challenge: progressive loss of both long-term, but more importantly, short-term memory. I began to notice this in my early 60s and found over the years since then that it made me increasingly less productive, i.e., it took longer and longer to accomplish less and less. When I was younger, I dreamed about all the things I would do in retirement. Now that I am “there,” I’m beginning to realize how little of that I will be able to do.

"Thankfully, like you, I am articulate and still have a lot to offer to the communities I am involved with. But oh, what a struggle to analyze, remember, compose, and make important decisions. Thankfully, one area this does not affect as much is photography: I still enjoy making and editing images, and is the one area in my life, where I still feel I am improving!"

Geoff Wittig: "Just a bit of cheerful contrarianism here...

"People do age, and our brains do change. Brute force short-term memory (for example, the phone numbers or lines of code you can keep in your head simultaneously) declines after age ~30, and it falls off a cliff after 60. But our capacity to recognize patterns, to integrate knowledge and draw accurate conclusions from observation, continues to improve. That's why scientists can still be highly productive into their 80s and beyond. And when it comes to artists, many create their finest work in old age. I'm currently reading Last Light: How Six Great Artists Made Old Age a Time of Triumph. This very engaging book demonstrates how artists from Titian to Hopper created their strongest work when they were...well, old.

"I take great comfort from that. I can't work all through the night and cheerfully continue working the next day like I could in my 30s and 40s. But I can figure out a difficult or obscure diagnosis better than I could back then. And my paintings keep getting better.

"I too have noted that my writing pace is slower than it used to be. But I like to think it's because my standards are higher; stuff I blithely sent out 30 years back I wouldn't dare loose on the world now.

"So don't sell yourself short, Mike. Your pungent observations and polished prose remain something we all keep coming back for."

[Geoff is a small-town doctor who has delivered the grandchildren of babies he delivered. —Ed.]

Keep Up, Old Fella (OT)

Sunday's Beatles post was probably bad for my brand. I mean, John Lennon has been dead for 42 years. To young people, it must be like I'm writing a post about Beethoven. Or maybe Scott Joplin. Not that there's anything wrong with that. What's that line David Bowie wrote?

And my brother's back at home
With his Beatles and his Stones
We never got it off on that revolution stuff
What a drag.
Too many snags.

The way I feel is that it's gotten increasingly frustrating trying to keep up with new things in the new world order. There's so much stuff, everywhere, and it's all so hard to pin down. What's that phrase? "Everything happens all the time?" Something like that. There's much less shared culture or shared experience now.

Every now and then I will delve into the music of "now," or my conception of it, but it's shocking how quickly that ages. Another part of the problem is that I don't have the same appetites and interests I once did. Or methods of consumption, either. With records, if you were lucky enough to have one, you got to know it very intimately. Other records, unbought, not owned, were a little like foreign countries: you knew them only glancingly, from rumors and radio and friends' houses. The first 12-inch LP (for "long-playing") album I ever got was the Beatles' Something New, a U.S.-only Capitol Records collection. I got it when I was seven. I had to play it on my Dad's "suitcase" stereo record player (one speaker firing outward from each end), because mine only played 45s. But I'm not interested in the current equivalents—Ed Sheeran, say. Because I'm not, you know, seven. Or 13. Or 21. (Although I like Billie Eilish, whose real name is Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell. That "Pirate" part kills me. Who names their little girl "Pirate"?) I memorized and analyzed and internalized Something New because it was the only record I had. I heard "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" a hundred times before I heard "I Want to Hold Your Hand" one time!

My friend Kim keeps my ears open, but his tastes are eclectic. (Try "Signal" if you like country, but expect some very Coen-Brothers-y twists.) Sirius XM Radio, which I have in the car, is staid and unadventurous. And way too ghettoized—a whole channel of nothing but Tom Petty, a whole channel of nothing but Grateful Dead, a whole channel of nothing but Dave Matthews Band. That's kinda the opposite of what I want. Whenever I make a concerted effort to listen to new stuff, I almost always discover something I really like. But the "finds" I've found that way are up to 35 years old now! Dating from when I was an old man of 31 trying to stay hip. Even the most recent "keep pace" find—the endearingly weird video for Twenty One Pilots' "Stressed Out," which I really like—came out just about exactly eight years ago—or, for today's 20-year-old, when they were 12! That's not recent. Well, not for them. To me, yes.

It's hard keeping up.

Snoop Dogg at TechCrunch Disrupt SF in 2015. Photo
courtesy TechCrunch via Wikimedia Commons.

The great exception is hip-hop. I'm right up to the minute...at about 1993. The rule of thumb is, in music, white people are forever 30 years behind whatever Black people are doing at any given time. So I'm right where I'm supposed to be with Wu-Tang Clan, A Tribe Called Quest, Missy Elliott (dj please, pick up your phone, I'm on the request line), Coolio, Snoop Dogg, Geto Boys, et al. (And Coolio and Bushwick Bill have already passed; RIP.) As far as what Black people are really doing now, what's cool with them now, only they know. Whatever it is, I'll be right there in 30 years lapping it up and learning from it...age 96, still hoping, no doubt, to keep up.

Mike

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My Favorite Beatles Songs: A List (OT)

Believe it or not, photographer Iain Macmillan only took
six frames with his Hasselblad to get this shot

A little fun diversion for a Sunday. This might seem kinda ageist at this point, but not really; a lot of younger people engage with the Beatles, who belong to everybody. The band's greatest hits album Beatles 1 was one of the top-selling albums of the early 2000s, and the 50th Anniversary reissue of Abbey Road (there's a cooking version and a super deluxe version) hit number three in the U.S. and topped the charts in the U.K. in 2019.

My faves counting backwards:

17. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)

16. In My Life

15. Baby It's You

14. Cry Baby Cry

13. Glass Onion

12. I'm So Tired

11. I'm Only Sleeping

10. Tomorrow Never Knows

9. Don't Let Me Down

8. Old Brown Shoe

7. Hey Bulldog

6. The Ballad of John and Yoko

5. It's All Too Much

4. A Day in the Life

3. Rain

2. Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!

1. I Am the Walrus

Actually, you could shuffle around the top seven any old which way and I could live with it. Can't believe I left off "Rock and Roll Music" (written by Chuck Berry, and one of Lennon's great vocals), "Ticket to Ride," "Come Together," "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" and "Revolution." Gotta stop somewhere.

Number 15 isn't even a Beatles song—it was written by Burt Bacharach, with lyrics by Luther Dixon and Mack David. But I love it. Bacharach, who died not even two months ago at 94, was the guy who wrote "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" from that bizarre and incongruous quintessential late-'sixties interlude in the middle of the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, along with bushels of other hits for many different artists.

It would be very interesting to compare this list to my brother Charlie's list, were he to make one. Apart from "A Day in the Life," widely considered one of the very greatest songs of the entire rock era, there might not be a lot of overlap. The Beatles were interesting that way—they had something for everyone. My friend Dan's list would be interesting too. My friend Kim hates lists and the very idea of lists, so there's another party heard from.

Which Beatle
I think there are only two George songs on this list ("Old Brown Shoe" and "It's All Too Much"), and the rest (apart from "Baby It's You") are all or mostly John Lennon songs. Paul wrote the middle eight on "A Day in the Life," the part that starts, "Woke up / Fell out of bed / Dragged a comb across my head"—Paul lyrics if ever there were. Paul also played virtually every instrument other than guitar on "The Ballad of John and Yoko," including drums, and contributed those gorgeous harmonies. Kenneth Womack in The Beatles Encyclopedia reports this exchange from the session:

Lennon (on guitar): "Go a bit faster, Ringo."
McCartney (on drums): "OK, George!"

For his part, George said, "I didn't mind not being on the record, because it was none of my business," adding wryly, "if it had been 'The Ballad of John, George and Yoko,' then I would have been on it." It was the band's last number one hit in the U.K.

I almost included Paul's song "The Long and Winding Road"—the band's last number one in the U.S.—which hit me hard at age 13 when I was homesick during the first week of wilderness camp in Montana. (I recovered and had a blast for the remaining weeks.) But I hate everything about that reprehensible lizard Phil Spector, including his production of that song. Paul, famously, hated it too, naming Spector's troweled-on embellishments among his top six reasons why the Beatles should be disbanded. The version from Let It Be... Naked is better, but still too syrupy for me. I hate to say Spector was right, but it's almost like the song needs some bombast, like Neil Young's over-the-top "A Man Needs a Maid," which features backing by the London Symphony Orchestra no less. Both sound like movie music to me. Couldn't you see "The Long and Winding Road" as the theme music for, say, a movie about a rekindled later-life love affair between old friends?

The right to be wrong
I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that not everyone reading this will agree 100% with the order these are in. A few of you might even have other opinions as to which songs belong on such a list. Have a go.

I hope you have a nice, relaxing, pleasant Sunday, wherever in the world you are. A little music never hurts.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 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 or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Albert Smith: "I went to London with my girlfriend and tried to get the Abbey Road crosswalk photo with me in the frame...I know, me and a million others.

"What they don't tell you is that you take your life in your hands because it is an active road with local drivers who are no doubt tired of us 'bloody tourists' blocking their pathway to their destination. Add to that the fact that the road behind the photographer's position curves a bit before coming upon the crossing, and your warning of oncoming traffic is reduced, making your time to set up, compose and shoot very rushed.

"I got several nice shots of my non-photographer girlfriend crossing, but she was not so nimble with my Leica M6, so the pictures of me have slanted angles and are horribly timed, with no separation in my footsteps. This was one time that digital would have been great, since I was gone back to the States when I got the film developed and no reshoot could be done.

"I got on a big George Harrison bend, so my favorite songs, and the ones that I play on my guitar, are George's. On the day George died in 2001, I played 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' over and over. If I only have 10 minutes to fool around on my guitar, that is the one song that I always play."

Craig: "Your choices are interesting and thoughtful. I don't think I've ever seen anyone say that their favorite Beatles song was "I Am the Walrus", but I've always liked it. (I think I rate the whole "Magical Mystery Tour" album higher than most people do.) Your top 4 songs are definitely among the greatest Beatles tracks, and I think highly of most of the other songs on your list too. "Tomorrow Never Knows" is a masterpiece (and one of relatively few Beatles songs that was mixed better in stereo than in mono).

"I can't agree about 'It's All Too Much,' though. The new songs on Yellow Submarine are, to me, the weakest set of new songs on any Beatles record. Only 'Hey Bulldog' even rises to the level of being enjoyable, and it's not one of John's best, just a fun throwaway with a cute guitar riff."

Alan: "'Hey Bulldog.' When I was 13 I was only interested in the poppy, syrupy stuff. Now I’m pretty sure it’s the greatest tune ever. One day I’ll get around to learning that bass line…."

Joe: "I'm glad to see 'Hey Bulldog' on your list—so good. For some reason I'll never understand, my all-time favorite Beatles tune might be 'Hello Goodbye.'"

Mike replies: That one's extremely catchy. I've read that "Bulldog" is one of the most downloaded Beatles songs by young people. I might have read it 20 years ago, though.

Randall Teasley: "I remember vividly when my twelve-year-old daughter told me that she had discovered a new group called the Beatles. She's forty now and still a fan. A friend of mine says that every generation discovers the Beatles anew."

Mike replies: My son (born '93) did. He went through a phase of listening to all my CDs of the early records when he was 10 or 12. He didn't remain a fan, though.

JTK: "These are the only four Beatles songs I sing to myself occasionally. 'In My Life'—absolutely #1 to me. 'I Am the Walrus,' 'Strawberry Fields,' and 'Paperback Writer' (the one Beatles song I wish I wrote). I Saw them live at The Astoria, Finsbury Park, London, in, I think, 1963. Girls screaming non-stop meant we couldn't hear much. My buddy first clapped eyes on his future wife that night and they are still married. That has to be a 'record'—(sorry ;-) )."

Tom Burke: "I was exactly the right age to be a Beatles fan. Born in 1950, I was a young adolescent when they rose to fame. I was 13 when 'She Loves You' was released, for example, and I thought that was the most exciting thing I'd ever heard. As I proceeded through my teens and started looking for something more, they obliged.

"The white album was the one that divided me and my friends most. We all reckoned that there was a really stunning single album in there, struggling to be heard, but weighed down by all the dross that made up the double album. The interesting thing was that there was huge disagreement among us as to which were the great tracks; everybody's selection for that single album was different. But as I recall, one song that was on almost everybody's list was 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps.' I still listen to that one.

"In fact, I think you've shortchanged George in that selection. No 'Something'? No 'Taxman'?; and above all, no 'Here Comes the Sun'?? Fun fact: George's 'Something' and Eric Clapton's 'Layla' and 'Wonderful Tonight' were all written for/about Patti Boyd/Harrison/Clapton, who was married to both of them."

Dave_lumb: "Most over-hyped boy band ever."

Thomas Mc Cann: "Since the advent of Spotify I have revisited old Beatles songs only to find they have all been 'remastered' so do not coincide with my memories of the originals. Very disappointing."

Peter Jeffrey Croft: "I have too many favourites to list, but being born in 1947 I was 16 in 1963 when The Beatles exploded onto our radios. Therefore I think my favourites date from the early years, when they were so new and so harmonious.

"I especially remember, in the days before stereo and before I had access to a record player, and LP records cost AUD$5.25, more than I could afford, that every track on Beatles records was good. Not like other groups where there might be one or two tracks and the rest were fillers.

"We could only listen on the radio then, big brown leather encased multiband monsters from Singapore and Aden, when my farmer fellow school boarders' well-off parents stopped off on cruises. We had reception of about four or five stations (in a large country town), and we'd finish one Beatles song, then tune down the band and there would be another one playing, and so on, wall to wall Beatles all day and night. Especially Party Time Saturday Night when we sent messages to our sweeties on the radio. Whoo hoo.

"So I grew up with the Beatles and what a privilege it's been. What a great period I've lived through, '60s, '70s, '80s—Beatles, Stones, Pink Floyd, Bee Gees...I have to hand it to the Brits, the talent they came up with is amazing. I'm afraid I don't hear it now.

"Not to mention the first space flights, the first moon landing, my first trip to the UK in 1974. Wow, so many great memories. I'm writing it down as fast as I can before it fades. Luckily my memory is as strong as ever. I have a book in me."

SWIM: A Major New Development in Computational Photography

Guest post by Chris Kern

What may be the next major development in the use of artificial intelligence to improve photography is currently the subject of a well-funded research program by major players in the camera and software industries, according to a friend of mine who serves as a consultant to the project and who agreed to let me post a summary of the research as long as I don’t use his name or those of the participating companies. He and his colleagues call it SWIM, which is an acronym for 'Shoot What I Meant' (i.e., not necessarily what I actually saw in the viewfinder).

The essence of this technique is to train a neural network to optimize the images made by a camera in real-time based on advanced machine-learning techniques. This involves feeding millions of pictures to the neural network until it figures out how to produce good ones. Prototype cameras that employ this technology have already been made available for testing to selected photographers under strict nondisclosure requirements. The software is computationally intensive and requires a lot of specialized supporting hardware. While the eventual goal is to make these techniques available in a cellphone camera, currently a much larger enclosure is required: something the size of a current full-frame DSLR.

Accordingly, the researchers arranged with a manufacturer of high-end cameras to build a few prototypes, which look exactly like the company’s top-of-the-line 'professional' reflex model but actually contain a mirrorless sensor, leaving room inside the body for the auxiliary data processing components and high-speed satellite uplink that are required to perform the image transformations. As a security measure, the prototype emits the sounds of a mirror-slap and a mechanical shutter, and a haptics module even imparts a little shake while the camera is simulating the mechanical actions of a DSLR, although of course the software completely neutralizes any blur caused by camera motion—and even subject motion, for that matter.

A module for sports photography eliminates the need for the 'spray and pray' technique commonly used when shooting fast-moving events and, consequently, reduces the time spent by the photographer or photo editor to cull a large number of only-slightly-different frames. The AI software, which needed a different training set of images for each sport during the machine-learning phase, analyzes the action and anticipates the precise moment a play will reach a critical point, then triggers the shutter once to capture it. According to my friend, a panel of seven experienced photo editors judged the system to be accurate 92.1 percent of the time for basketball, 89.5 percent of the time for international football, 84.0 percent of the time for American football, and 81.7 percent of the time for baseball. (A cricket module was abandoned because the researchers concluded that the machine-learning effort would never terminate.) In addition to anticipating the optimal moment to snap the shutter, the AI system uses selective focus to blur any extraneous players and automatically removes other distracting elements, in a manner which I gather is analogous to Photoshop’s content-aware fill.

The module for photojournalism is a derivative of the one for sports photography, but has been trained to anticipate the precise moment when a political figure or celebrity will strike the most awkward pose or display the most bizarre expression. Hit rates, according to my friend, were even higher than for the sports photography examples, and would have approached 100 percent except for a consensus among the experienced photo editors that some of the images were 'too disgusting for publication.' (My friend declined to describe these outlier images, saying that was sensitive proprietary information.) Conversely, the portrait module waits for the subject’s most flattering expression before triggering the shutter. The portrait module also optionally employs an anatomical-improvement feature to discreetly modify the subject’s features according to a menu-selectable attractiveness parameter.

A landscape module is still under development, according to my friend. In addition to making generic improvements to light, color, shadows, and scenic elements, it can be trained on images by famous photographers in order to emulate their style exactly. For example, my friend used the prototype Ansel Adams module to shoot 'Moonrise, New York, N.Y.' He made the photo at high noon on a sunny, cloudless day from a vantage point in Secaucus, New Jersey, and the software automatically 1.) changed the perspective of the Manhattan skyline to match that of Adams’ famous photo, 2.) introduced a rising moon and cloud bank in the appropriate locations and proportions, and 3.) adjusted the lighting with a tone curve that is indistinguishable from that of gelatin silver prints of his Moonrise picture that were made by Adams himself. Further machine-learning along these lines has temporarily been suspended, however, pending a determination by the project’s legal consultants whether training a neural network to perfectly recreate the style of a dead photographer constitutes identify theft.

Now I suspect some of you reading this post think the introduction of this new AI technology will remove all the challenge and therefore the satisfaction from the process of making great images. I confess that was my initial reaction, too. But upon further reflection, I realized that possibility must be balanced against the potential advantages of these cameras for the experienced photographer. No need to get up before dawn to catch the perfect sunrise. Or to stand around for many hours, hoping for the emergence of a dramatic storm that never materializes. No more worrying about that irritating tourist who always seems to wander between your camera and the subject just before the decisive moment to capture a perfect street photograph: yes, the camera will automatically recreate the scene as though the interloper had not occluded your view. And needless to say, your loved ones will be delighted with the way they look in your family snapshots after you crank up the attractiveness setting. Artificial intelligence holds out the promise of finally eliminating the frustration many of us feel when a day of shooting doesn’t turn out the way we had hoped.

In any event, it’s coming whether we like it or not. You can’t stop progress.

Chris

Here's Chris's Flickr page. No, really. —Ed.

Original contents copyright 2023 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 or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

mark dannenhauer: "SYNC: The Truly New Breakthrough in Image Making

"Michael, Mikey, Mike, somehow I thought I knew you. Regular readings of TOP had me convinced that you were a hip guy. But today I read your posting of one Chris Kern’s post about SWIM. With all due respect, I can’t believe that anyone would advocate for such an antiquated platform, let alone that you of all people would publish it.

"SWIM at first glance seems cutting edge, a clever blending of old and new technologies. I could see it dominating the marketplace, except.... SYNC is newer, neater, just all around superior, especially for the price. Let me tell you why. (Dislcaimer: I have no financial interest in this breakthrough technology. I have joined SYNC solely on my own dime.)

"Some people assume SYNC stands for Shoot Your New Camera, as if your new 'camera' was super-hipster-system developed for the masses shooting fashion, sports, money, arts, landscapes, Austin Texas street scenes, etc. In fact, SYNC is an international open source effort for anyone and everyone everywhere to Shoot Your Now Consciousness.

"What’s revelatory, game-changing, about SYNC is that it eliminates hardware and software altogether, mostly. Let’s say you have an image in your consciousness. It could be a real life scene, or one by another photographer, or one by an artist, poser, or advertiser. Using SYNC’S patented processes, the image in your consciousness is automatically transferred to the consciousness of anyone with a SYNC subscription, complete with all original characteristics and desired modifications intact. Hardware, software, computer platforms…all things of the past, why not post about harness making, Leicas, or left-handed cameras for crying out loud.

"If you must have old world, and I do mean old world, old guard, passe, finito, what-century-are-you-living-in image transfer, there is an optional, hardware-based add on. (I did say, mostly without hardware.) SYNC sends your image to SYNC ADD—an add-on device where you can specify either a why-would-you-want-it paper print of your image OR a 3-D printer spit-out of a three-dimensional model of your image to your choice of scales. Animated 4-D versions of the device are in development.

"Introductory subscriptions to SYNC are available now via GoFunMe, today only. Subscriptions are of course valid only for the duration of your consciousness. Sign up now for the best, longest-lived deal!

"SYNC = 0 cameras/0 lenses/a lifetime of years. Your choice is clear. After all, it’s either SYNC or SWIM."

Mike replies: Why am I suddenly hoping for April 2 to get here?  :-D

Stephen S.: "This may be an April Fools' Day joke in 2023, but given that Samsung phones already seem to use AI to generate better images of the moon when they detect you're trying to photograph it, there may come a day when much of this article is real."

JimF: "April Fools??? Probably not. Sounds possible to me. Funny what we classify as progress these days. Next step, Neuralink rose-colored glasses. Why see the world as it really is at all?"