The Online Photographer

Fireman (Blog Notes)

There were some, er, misunderstandings and perhaps even a few hurt feelings here this past week, so, a few clarifications.

One reader said (rather rashly perhaps, as he is an excellent commenter): "I don't expect you to post this comment, as I have the impression you do not like dissent from your views." The sentence quoted was what I call a "kicker"—a parting shot at the end of a comment that doubles down more forcefully on the point the writer is trying to make. ("Kickers" are common in contentious comments—in fact, I've learned that when I find myself adding a kicker to one of my own comments, it's a good idea to wait a while and reconsider the comment.)

Do I really not brook dissent? Perhaps a little—I'm opinionated, and, like everyone else, I'll make a case for what I believe in. But in the main, I don't think so. In a great many posts, you'll find comments pro and con, sometimes right next to each other. For example (only an example, and yes, examples are not proof): in the Alt/Indie music post:

Commenter 1: "Huh. I've heard of Jeff Beck and Ray Davies (if it's the same Ray Davies I used to know), but none of the rest of them. I think they stopped writing good music around that time."

Next Comment: "Mike, thanks for that. I opened the Spotify playlist and it made my day. It's right up my alley."

So one reader who did not like the music and one who did. I think if you dig around a bit, you'll find that I very often feature opposing viewpoints in the Featured Comments. And that often includes comments that disagree with the post.

What I don't allow—and this may be the genesis of the reader's objection—is back-and-forth. Altercation.

"Altercation is the spoken part of a quarrel, the parties speaking alternately. An altercation is thus a quarrelsome dispute between two persons or two sides." [Century Dictionary]

So if someone makes a comment, and I reply, the original poster gathers his forces and girds for battle and weighs in with a second post defending his first post more strenuously—and then I disallow that. But it has little to do with the fact that the second post is a dissent; it has to do with the fact that it's the beginning of an altercation. This is enshrined in the Comment Guidelines thusly:

The goal is simply to keep the conversation pleasant, collegial, and helpful. I  don't like "flame wars" and I don't permit them to get going in TOP's comment section.

Why not? Simply because I've been online since before the word online came into common use—first on Xtalk at Dartmouth in the mid-1970s, later as Darkroom Photography magazine's official representative on CompuServe in the early '90s, and so on—and I know how it goes.

It goes like this. The missiles fly alternately, each side digs in, tempers grow hotter, ad hominem begins, and then the world spins on its axis as we continue our voyage 'round the sun, until presently Godwin's Law plays out and one accuses the other of being a Nazi, at which point (see the link) that person (the accuser) loses the war.

Don't tell me you've never seen it happen.

Ever seen real firemen put out a fire? I got to witness it once. I was awakened in the middle of the night by sirens. Looking out the window of my third-floor (the top floor) walkup in Georgetown D.C., I could see flames in a window of an apartment on the third and top floor of the building across the street. Several fire trucks screeched to a halt in front of the building and firemen scrambled all over. They moved fast. It was impressive. Within seconds there were firemen on the roof. In no time at all they had a ladder to the window where the flame was. One fireman bashed in the window and another followed close behind with a hose. They had the fire out in no time (a resident had fallen asleep while smoking in bed, and fortunately survived). They were impressively efficient. I had a panoramic front-row seat to the whole drama. It was very entertaining.

They didn't leave for a long time, and evidently felt no compunction to be at all quiet in the dead of night, so after a while I got dressed and went down to poke around. A fireman I talked to said it was only a little mattress fire that had scorched the room but hadn't spread beyond it, and I replied that they sure moved quickly even so. He told me that they always move fast, because fires can get out of control quickly.

Bingo.

I had one reader years ago who repeatedly made contentious comments and seemed always to be picking fights with other readers. It was a headache for me, as I had to spend time and effort repeatedly explaining to him why I was editing and disallowing his comments. Finally he said, "But I like to fight. That's the whole reason I get online and it's the reason I come here." And he issued a threat: "If you're not going to let me fight, I'm leaving!"

To which I had the satisfaction of replying: "Bye." (Made meself laugh, and that's half the battle  —Craig Ferguson.)

Seasons in the wrong
Another problem I have is when commenters make statements I know to be wrong or misleading. Sometimes I let these stand, sometimes I don't feel like it. I've been doing this job for so long that I can even recognize which particular misconceptions are popular at any given moment, and sometimes I know the source from which they emanated, even. Back in the film days, when someone stridently made a bunch of claims as if he knew it all, I could usually tell you what book he just read. Currently it's that a Micro 4/3 sensor "cuts off part of the image," sigh, not. The photographer chooses the lens for the subject and that's what determines whether the subject fits the angle of view. Occasionally I chase one all the way down, just so I really know what's what. But you can't do that with everything. Each misconception has its season, and then it subsides. Care to argue whether fixer sinks to the bottom of a print washer because it's heavier than water? (Because some washers drained from the top and some from the bottom, and people had to decide which is better.) Of course you don't. Just like we no longer care to argue hotly about whether up-rezzing a three-megapixel file is just as good for a medium-sized print as having an expensive 6-MP camera to start with. I've no doubt that some people who are happily arguing whether "equivalent apertures" exist (no, they do not) were at one time arguing, equally happily, the effects of added sodium sulfite on film grain. It's a fool's errand to try to correct every instance of every misconception as it arises; you'll spend your precious hours playing whack-a-mole. Each of us only has 4,000 weeks here on Earth, give or take, and you already stand to lose eight of them stuck in traffic.

It's always something. In discovering the basics of photo tech, everyone has to go through their not-quite-there-yet phase.

Cordial and mature
So a commenter can reply to a reply, but only if the tone is right. That's the way I do it. Because I really don't like flame wars, and fires are best put out early. If shutting down an argument before it starts means giving the appearance of not tolerating dissent, well, too bad, but so be it. At this point I have moderated some 298,000 comments, give or take 10,000, and have devoted many, many weeks of my life to the task. I might not know what I'm doing, but I know how I do it, you've got to give me that.

And by the way, fixer does not sink to the bottom of a print washer. So now we've got that settled, once and for all.

Mike

Products of the Week

Which one is best? Panasonic S1R (47.3 MP), Sony A7R IV (61 MP), Canon R5 (45 MP), or Nikon Z7 II (45.7 MP)? You know the answer.

The above are links to Amazon from TOP. Once you're at Amazon, anything you search and buy will be credited to TOP. The following logo is also a link if you click on it:

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.

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Blog Note: Short Vacation

I'll be taking a short vacation for a week. Minor medical matters and a few other life-housekeeping issues have gone from pressing to klaxon-horn alert this week, and I must attend. Meantime, I shall unearth some delights from the archives for your edification and delectation. I hope you enjoy them. Be back soon.

—Mike, Head Housekeeper and Part-Time Archivist

New New Schedule (Blog Note)

Note that TOP is on a new schedule, posting every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with comments posted on the day following.

Yr. Hmbl. Ed. rashly promised a few weeks ago that each M-W-F post would appear at 7:00 a.m. Eastern U.S. Time. However, at the time I wrote that I was apparently momentarily insane. Stark barking. Loopy, crackers, bonkers, barmy. Daft, in short....

Must'a been. At least overly hopeful. You would think I would know myself better by now. I don't know what gets into me when I make promises like that.

Tomorrow's post will appear at 7:00 a.m., but that's the last one. After that, reality, and sanity, must return. Posts will in future appear on those days at some time or other.

There, that's more like Mike.

—Mike the unrealistic idealistic overoptimistic Head of the Dept. of Planning Dept.

 

The Online Photographer is Relaunching Next Monday

I'll be taking a short (working) vacation over the next few days, and then a (slightly) new version of The Online Photographer will launch next Monday, October 4th, at 7:00 a.m. Eastern U.S. Time.

It'll look the same and still be right here. Only the schedule will be changing. I'm going to be publishing three posts a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so I can give myself a little time for other writing.

In Case You Missed It

In case you missed it, the latest Baker's Dozen (a curated set of 13 pictures by readers) was posted late Friday. Disappointingly (well, to me), the post got the lowest number of views of any post over the last 30 days. But, it was Saturday that it was mostly at the top of the blog—when I usually take the day off—traditionally our slowest / lowest-traffic day of the week—and also the first day of a holiday weekend in the States (yesterday was our Labor Day). I get it.

Anyway, you're invited to check it out now if it passed you by when it was posted.

—Mike the Ed.

Blog Note

I'm going to be working on the Baker's Dozen on Thursday.

This has been such a fun one. Hard to leave anybody out!

Mike the Ed.

Here's What Happened

A couple of years ago, a small disaster took place. Or so I thought. I had issued a "call for work" for pictures themed around museums, to create one of our "Baker's Dozen" readers' pictures portfolios. As the pictures came in, I'd sneak glances at some of them on my phone or in passing. I have a very good visual memory, and many of the ones I sneaked a peek at, I remembered.

A while later, I got around to beginning to edit the portfolio—and discovered to my distress that a number of the submissions I remembered were missing.

I moved the rest to a different folder, for safeguarding, but I was mystified as to what happened to the others. I searched the inbox all kinds of ways but they didn't show up. I even went so far as to look through huge swaths of my inbox manually.

Every time I returned to the diminished group of submissions, I'd get sidetracked by feeling troubled about what I had somehow done wrong.

Part of this was sensitization. Periodically throughout my life I've suffered various disasters caused by my inability to stay organized. A new one reminds me of all the others, like a fresh wound that also opens old ones.

On Friday, I briefly put up two posts, one that apologized for never having completed the "In the Museum" set, the other that announced a new call for work. The first several responses were very critical of me, enough so that I took those two posts down again.

Once again I resolved to complete the original task, and once again I returned to the folder with the partial group of submissions in it. Then, almost absentmindedly, I went back to search the inbox again. But I periodically move old emails to an archive folder; by now, all the "BDMuseum" emails had been moved to the archive folder. So of course a search of the current inbox turned up nothing at all.

That's when the little light bulb above my head finally turned on.

I think what happened was that at some point after asking for the submissions, I moved a whole pile of emails to the archive folder, and the pile happened to include some of the earlier submissions. Then when I searched the inbox to begin the editing process, the ones I had moved were of course gone.

It just didn't occur to me what I had done, at the time.

This time, however, it took about three seconds for me to realize where they all were, once I tried searching the inbox. When I searched the archive folder for the keyword, "BDMuseum," there they all were—hundreds of submissions, including the ones I once thought I had lost.

Simple, once I figured it out. But it didn't occur to me two years ago.

Others
Clearly the idea of "In the Museum" resonated with you, because this was the largest group of submissions I've ever had to winnow down to 13. There were many more good ones than the ones I chose. "Honorable mentions" of pictures that almost made the cut include (but this is not a complete list): Jim Arthur, Yann Pouiol, Paul Braverman, John Dana, Don Seymour, Hans Berkout, Charles Rozier, Michael Wall, Tom Hassler, Richard Conolly, Carlos Quijano Altamirano, the four I mentioned in the post, Roy Feldman (I think I have a sort of sympatico with Roy's work because I always like his pictures), Max Cottrell, Siddhartha Chaudhuri, Jayanand Govindaraj, Martin E. Rich, Kyle Batson, John Bour, Barry Prager, Peter Barker, James Morauta, Nicolas Vincent, Ned Bunnell, Mike Bigalke, Phil Thomas, Bruce Reeve, and a good two dozen others. Lots of good stuff.

A touch of criticism: I noticed a fair number of the submissions had too much of an approximate, "snapshotty" quality, as if the photographer expected the subject to do a little too much of the work. Another fault was that a few of the pictures just didn't telegraph "museum" enough...they were taken at one, but might not have been.

Curiously, almost all of the submissions came from men. Maggie Osterberg, the lone woman chosen, no longer reads TOP (people do come and go—she was one of the ones who said goodbye). I hope the next Baker's Dozen call for work (coming up soon now, that is if I haven't "cried wolf" with this one) will inspire more participation from the women among our readers.

Anyway, it stretched my editing skills. It was difficult to bring a single set into focus. Catch me on a different day, and I'll bet some of my selections might have been different.

Shadow
In retrospect I'm actually grateful for those harsh comments on Friday that shamed me into attempting the task yet again. If that hadn't happened I might still not know how I screwed up two years ago.

Anyway, this sets a record for the longest interval between intention and result in TOP's existence, and I hope 856 days is a record that will never be broken. Again, I apologize for the SNAFU. My screwups don't often end happily, so I'm glad this one did.

Happy ending or not, I'm glad this is over and put to bed at long last so we can move on. The past has too much of a hold on me; it often casts too much of a shadow on the future, and that's no good.

And if you haven't seen it yet, scroll down to the next post and see "In the Museum"!

Mike

Product o' the Week:

Fingertip Pulse Oximeter. The link is from TOP to Amazon. This relates to health, not photography—it replaces one of the advanced functions on the latest Apple Watch. Takes your pulse and measures your blood oxygen. For heart monitoring, checking for COVID (low blood oxygen is an early warning sign) and slow heartbeat. I'm learning to correlate the way I feel with the readings. Works with iOS and Android. Nifty little device, super easy to use, and cheap.

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.

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Blog Note

Very unfortunately, I have to take a few more days off. I hate to interrupt the conversation and I apologize sincerely. Family business to attend to, unavoidable. I have to say, this has been a difficult Summer.

Back Friday, and "miles to go before I sleep."

—Mike

P.S. If you ever have to bring caregivers and other workers into the houses of older relatives, secure the valuables before outsiders so much as set foot in the house. Lock up the jewelry and, if you can't put the valuables under literal lock and key, at least itemize and photograph everything. And do both at the earliest possible opportunity, for otherwise there's never a time.

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: "Oh s**t sorry to hear Mike."

Peter Williams: "That seems like a s**t attitude to and generalisation about caregivers and other workers."

Mike replies: Hmm, good point, and I'm sorry. Caregivers are among the blessed of the Earth: the good, responsible ones are doing work that benefits human beings as well as the human family as a whole. On the other hand, in every barrel of people there are a few bad ones that diminish the rest. In the news recently we have watched that with police officers, in people like Michael Slager and Derek Chauvin, but a large number of police officers are upright individuals who sincerely serve their communities and do a good job. In like fashion, what is likely a very small number of caregivers, those who neglect, abuse, or steal, stink up the air for the rest.

Maybe I should have worded it better: if you don't sensibly secure your elders' valuables from the start of their decline, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Alan Ampolsk: "About your PS? Amen! One of the many notable episodes during my father's Alzheimer's was the home health aide who lifted one of his credit cards, which we hadn't properly secured, and used it to pay her cell phone bill—which resulted in her name appearing on the credit card statement. There is no such thing as a criminal mastermind. Nevertheless—be careful out there."

Tolerating Yr. Hmbl. Ed.

So I hope you can bear with me on the stuff about watches. For some reason I can't imagine people not being interested in pool, but I can absolutely "get it" that a lot of people are just totally uninterested in watches. Heck, I myself was totally uninterested in watches barely more than a month ago. I have to say, though, I'm curiously happy to be back wearing one after all these years.

I mean, how can anybody not be interested in pool? It's a sport. Can't pretty much anyone watch any particular sport with at least a little interest? I can watch high diving, snowboarding, dog agility contests, soccer, even poker. I mean I don't go out of my way. I guess there are a few sports I won't watch...back in Wisconsin, fishing shows seemed popular. I have no problem conceiving that some people are interested in fishing, but I really don't need to watch it on TV. (What's the weirdest sport [or game or recreation] you'll watch on TV?) When I was young I thought golf was about as exciting as watching grass grow, but then for a few years there I would stare at the TV screen like I was hypnotized. Or hyp-mo-tized, as David Letterman used to say. I guess bowling would make me change the channel, but I have a buddy locally—Kurt, who owns the town bowling alley—who travels to tournaments. To compete, not just to watch. He'll play pool with us, but to get his eyes to really light up, bring up bowling.

Anyway, about the watches: it'll pass, and I'll try my best to go easy on it. You know me. I get these enthusiasms. But 40% is a pretty big number...

Here's a very rough breakdown: of American adults, 20% wear smartwatches; 20% are into traditional watches (both quartz and mechanical, which are lumped together now); 20% own both; and 40% don't own or wear a watch.

TOP's audience is thought to skew older now (the Commentariat seems to) but, curiously, older people are more likely to fall into the "no watch" group. Apparently a lot of the over-60 crowd remembers pain-in-the-butt hand-wound watches that were only accurate to the nearest five minutes and were always stopping at inconvenient times because we forgot to wind them (my hand is raised here). Most of us are more than happy to have the time on the phones we're carrying anyway, accurate to within a fraction of a second always. With zero care and feeding. Heck, my best watch syncs to my phone, four times a day. And some retirees go out of their way to banish the tyranny of the clock from their lives and not be a slave!

Anyway, nobody comes here to read about watches. And the real watch guys here have no need to listen to a blithering wet-behind-the-ears greenhorn newbie like me. And a quartz snob at that. Like I say, I'll try to go easy, and I hope you'll indulge me....

Mike

Product o' the Week:

Ringlight for Zoom, Facetime, vlogging, streaming, video recording, remote working or remote learning. Holds a phone, or you can set it behind and above a desktop computer with a built-in camera. The following image is also a link: 

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 Camp: "As for sports, I honestly believe you have to ingest illegal drugs before you can appreciate synchronized swimming. The sport might very well be interesting to the athletes, but for spectating...acid may be the only answer. Or mushrooms."

Mike replies: Made me laugh. I was going to use synchronized swimming as an example but I couldn't remember what it was called!

AN: "I've gradually realized that for me, watching sports on TV has more or less the same kind of appeal as watching a soap opera. If I know something about the specific teams/players/coaches and their history, then I am interested. If I don't know any 'backstory,' then it doesn't matter what sport they are playing; I'm not engaged. It doesn't even particularly seem to matter how well I understand the rules or strategies of the sport being played (the announcers/fan reaction will tell me enough to follow along). So: if you want to get me excited about your pool articles, you know what you have to do."

Mike replies: You have thrown down the gauntlet! (...He says, as other readers groan.)

Dan Doviddio: Fountain pens can be another rabbit hole hobby. I am surprised how popular they are. I've acquired four since the pandemic.

Mike thinks to himself: No fountain pens...no fountain pens...no fountain pens....

Caleb Courteau: "By pure chance you and I became interested in watches at the same time, so of course I’m gobbling up your posts about watches. They really are a perfect third hobby. Unlike a camera they’re not begging to be used. If a camera isn’t producing photos it’s a bit of a pointless object, but a watch’s purpose is being carried out whether it’s on your wrist or your nightstand. They take up very little space, and as you pointed out, you can spend as much or as little as you desire. Furthermore, if it’s the shopping for watches that you enjoy most, and less the actual watches themselves, there is an endless supply of novelty within the world of watches. Different, straps, dials, movements, and case materials. There’s dozens of manufacturers, many of them with origins going back more than a century, making it easy to lose yourself in the history of watchmaking, if that’s your thing."

Short Vacation (Blog Note)

TOP will be taking time off for a few days...for a selfish reason. My son Xander, his girlfriend Alyssa, and their little doggie Ziggy drove 750 miles (1,207 km) to come visit. It's been so long since I've seen Xander—usually we see each at least once a year, but with the pandemic and all, it's been since June 2019, and longer than that since Alyssa was here last.

Ziggy doing "the Captain's stare." The Captain's stare was a standard portrait pose in days of yore, used to make a subject look stalwart, visionary, and intrepid. Check! Note Ziggy's cool bling.

I can't tell you how good it is to see them—I guess if you're a parent you'll know the feeling. I really needed this visit, with all that's been going on in the family lately. Just such a pleasure.

They're both in school, so they'll be leaving again early Friday morning. I'll sit down and get to work after I wave goodbye. So I'll see you on Friday! And best regards as well as best of luck for your own Summer 2021 vacation...I hope it goes (or went) well.

Mike

Sunday Support Group: Comments!

I've just finished loading whole bunches of new comments to each of the last four posts.

They are fantastic and I invite you to delve!

I've also written a few lengthy replies.

There are still a couple of wonderful or touching long comments that you will not find published, but later today I intend to contact the writers and ask for permission to post them as separate self-contained posts. (I do that infrequently, but regularly.)

I think it's just going to be a fact of life from now on that sometimes I'm going to get behind in the comments. Not only am I getting slower at writing and editing than I was when I started this blog when I was in my 40s, but I'm getting slower at everything else in my life as well! Which also cuts into work time. Anyway, I do apologize that these won't be posted sooner. I did start to enlist some volunteers to help moderate comments, but then I lost track of where we were and what I needed to do and fell prey again to my disorganized state of mind, and so that is yet another thing I neglected to finish...sigh....

Enjoy! And Happy Sunday. I hope you are well. Take pictures of your loved ones, and get pictures of yourself with them.

Mike

 

Open Mike II: Perils of Blogging

So this is kind of funny. When I started writing the "Why A Watch" post the other day, I actually started out intending to write about the Sony A6600. I was going to confess that I really want a Sony A6600, but that the desire makes no sense because I have no more need for it than I have for a wristwatch. I was going to explain that I had kinda gotten interested in wristwatches in spite of myself, despite the fact that I had no need for one whatsoever and no intention whatsoever of buying one. I was going to say that the same thing was true of the A6600. So the part about the watches was just going to be "introductory matter" you might say. After that I was going to discuss why we get GAS in the absence of need.

So then I got into doing a little more research on wristwatches and before you know it...off to the races. Pretty soon I realized the stuff about the A6600 was superfluous, so I just chopped it out and concentrated on the parts about watches. Three posts later and here I am, $157 poorer and with a Seiko on my wrist for the first time in decades.

Such is the life o' Mike...(shaking head in wonderment...). I had fun though!

Mike

P.S. No link to the A6600 here. The reason is that the price has been ping-ponging between $1,200 and $1,400 lately and it's at $1,400 right now. Should you want one, wait.

Product o' the Week:

The Apple Watch Series 6. This is a portal to Amazon from TOP.

The following image is also a link. You support TOP by buying through these portals.

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:

Steve Deutsche: "How can I want one without your review!  8^)  "

Bernd Reinhardt: "Hahaha, let me share my watch lust origin story. About twenty years ago, my friend from Germany came to visit me in Los Angeles, and during a visit to Chinatown, he bought himself a fake Rolex. When he visited again a year later, we were sitting at the table and I was looking at his Rolex submariner. 'Oh, is this your Chinatown Rolex?' He had this little smirk on his face, and it dawned on me that this must be the real thing. 'Why would you spend that kind of money on some Grandpa-style watch?' I screamed. He laughed and said that after wearing the fake for several months, he discovered a tiny bit of rust on it. He became so frustrated and embarrassed that he drove down to Switzerland and bought the real thing that same day. I took a closer look at it and he pointed out how smooth the sweeping second hand glides over the watch face, and from that day on, I started dreaming of nice watches.

"There is very little that we actually need, but there is nothing wrong with getting something just because you really want it every now and again."

James: "Re ...'that the desire makes no sense because I have no more need for it than I have for a wristwatch'.... YOU LIKE NICE THINGS—WE ALL DO."

James Allen: "It was certainly entertaining to 'ride along' on your mental watch quest. I have been wearing one since I was a kid...which was about 5+ decades ago. So I feel the kinship. I work with a few younger guys now, and I'm the only one wearing a watch. It's my badge of life's experiences, all in one tiny, precise, piece of hardware. I even have to change the date when the month only has 30 days vs. 31, and yet it remains. It anchors me to the past as it tolls the passage of my life."

Followup: The Burning Monk

I read once (in this rather scary little book) that as we age, we tend to get better at the things we were always good at and worse at the things we were always bad at. Accordingly, I'm getting even less organized as I age, if such a thing is possible. In any event, I somehow neglected to load the Featured Comments for the "Burning Monk" post...or rather I did, but then I managed to inadvertently default to an earlier version in the compositor (which happens from time to time, despite my efforts) and away they went again. They've been restored now (here's the post again).

Louis McCullagh sent a link:

"I visited the monk's monastery on the banks of the Perfume River. The car was there with details of The Burning Monk."

And Guy Tremblay sent a photo of the car, now on display as a relic.

Photo by Guy Tremblay

Thanks to Louis, Guy, and the other commenters.

Mike

Book of interest* this week:

A Better Life for their Children by Andrew Feiler, University of Georgia Press, published last month. Read the description at the link—fascinating. It's the story of one of the earliest philanthropic collaborations between Jews and African Americans, one that drove dramatic improvement in black education. The story's told visually. *"Book of Interest" means I haven't seen it, but would like to.

The following image is also a link: 

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.

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Featured Comments from:

Important Question for You (Blog Note)

I have an important question for regular readers. Say a guest author wrote a post on TOP a number of years ago, and you left a comment. Now, he wants to republish the same post on his own website. He feels your comment is valuable and also wants to include that. He's leaving it in the same context in which it was written and the original source will be noted, and let's stipulate that the new location will be a courteous and decent public website, nothing fringey or dark. Assuming he cannot ask your permission directly, would you have any objection to him exporting your comment and republishing it? Would you feel your rights had been trampled, that you had been taken advantage of, or even that his actions were merely somewhat impolite to you? Would you feel uncomfortable about it in any way?

Please do speak up even if your objections are minor, as I'm trying to take the temperature of the readership as a whole. 

Thanks!

Mike

P.S. Comments to this post will not be published until this evening or tomorrow, as I don't want the responses of others to influence anyone who is responding.

Blog Note: Hiatus

Just an advance warning that I'll be away for a few days next week due to a family emergency. Family tragedy is more accurate. I'll leave links to some gems from the past to keep you occupied while I'm away, and I humbly ask your forbearance.

One of the problems of blogs is that they can't stop. When this type of website was more popular—they went from cutting edge to old fashioned in 20 years—I could be away for a week and it wouldn't affect traffic even during the time I was gone. Now, if I went silent for a week it would be at my great peril; my numbers would take a permanent hit. In AA they call that "life on life's terms" (i.e., that's the way it is), and the proper stance toward it "acceptance" (it is what it is).

Mike

The Missing Featured Comments for the 'Menu Problem' Post

Ed. note: These are so late I figured I'd give them their own post. Sorry for the delay! The links and suggestions kept sending me down rabbit holes.

Here's the original post: How To REALLY Fix the Menu Problem, from this past Thursday.

JOHN B GILLOOLY: "I think that sounds great. It would also really familiarize the new owner with all of the capabilities of the camera. Most people, myself included, usually only scratch the surface of some of the tech innovations within the camera."

Bruce Bordner: "I've done things like this, and it starts out simple. The camera companies could easily do a setting-setting app or interactive website. However, I think what you really want/need is Thom Hogan in an app, with a few others to answer 'why would I need that?' Demos of effects would be great...now we're talking some real money with AI and gotta have blockchain, bro! It's still worth a start, but I think it has to start with the camera designers. They have to compete and cooperate with cell phones anyway. Why not add some image processing in your phone.... Now you got me going dang it!"

Malcolm Myers: "I've basically had similar thoughts for years: set your camera up on your computer. Want a faux-Leica? Turn everything off and shoot! Want your own menus? Great, set them up! Want different profiles for different situations? No problem! Two bodies? Make them the same! I'm amazed no-one's done it."

Speed: "There is a very large camera company which also manufactures printers. These printers are set up and controlled by users' personal computers. My experiences with printer setup has been...not good. The last thing I want in this world is having this or any other camera company writing more software to 'help' set up my camera or anything else. Their user manuals are bad enough. Eventually some camera manufacturer will do it. It will be painful and costly. In time it will become the norm but I'll wait for version three.

"As a software developer friend (I don't hold it against him) often reminds me, 'Software is hard.'"

Keith: "This is actually a well thought out concept, and could be carried over to many other items as well. How many off us still struggle with programming the VCR to record 'Sanford and Son'? Yes I'm being a bit sarcastic there, but I recall VCR's as being one of the first consumer items that was widely regarded as a bit of a user interface vs. user manual nightmare. Working in the field of industrial automation, I see this with many of the newer electronic components. From photo-eye sensors that have multiple pages of programming options, to basic control modules that require a full Ethernet setup for that device plus anything connected to it. I recently installed a small temperature controller (about the size of a four-pack of 120 roll film) that had nearly a 400-page manual. Companies that recognize this and implement a program to bridge the gap between their products and end users' understandings will have an edge on their competitors."

Robert: "A great idea Mike. Sign me up. There are examples of this in other technologies. For example, Logitech has a 'lead you through it' app for setting up their all-in-one remotes. You then download the setup to the device. It's not the world's best software, but it's better than the alternative."

Peter Wright: "This is such an obvious idea that I keep wondering why it has not been done. It would be I believe a major selling feature for a large part of the buying public. It could even have kept me using the Olympus EM-1 Mark II."

Kirk Tuck: "Or you could just buy into a system with a very well-designed menu system. The Leica SL2 is a joy to configure. It reinforces the idea that Olympus and Sony menus are first translated from Martian and then to Plutonian and only, finally to a human language. The one flaw with your idea is the need to have a computer just to be able to initially access your camera. We should be going the other direction and try to figure out more and more how not to go to the computer first. Leica; three buttons and a joy stick. That's it. Check it out if you are looking for simplicity in an interface. And a very logical menu."

JH: "I suggested this to several camera company reps in 2003 when I bought a Nikon D100 and again after buying an Olympus Micro 4/3 camera in 2010. The Oly U.S. rep I corresponded with told me they never passed suggestions along to the factory because they had been told that they did not want to get sued by somebody who claimed their idea was stolen. Actually I suspected the real reason was the NIH syndrome—not invented here."

Mike replies: Years ago I made some detailed suggestions to a hi-fi manufacturer. The VP (there were only a few principals at the company) entered into an involved discussion with me as to why they would never take my suggestions, with several rounds of long back-and-forth emails as I tried to persuade him that my ideas were good ones. He reported back to me about the reactions of others in the company, including engineers.

A year later, the company implemented all of my suggestions exactly as I had outlined them. When I contacted my 'friend' the VP to express my pleasure, to my astonishment he insisted he had never heard of me before, that our correspondence had never taken place, and that their actions were independent, were developed completely in-house, and could not possibly have had anything to do with me. I felt like I was being gaslighted! When I mentioned this odd development to friends in business, it was explained to me that they were probably afraid I would want to be paid if they acknowledged me. I had never asked for pay and I never had any expectation of payment, but it must be a problem for companies.

Anyway I don't do that any more.

David Dyer-Bennet: "I would never consider buying a camera that depended on an external website for configuration! The site might not last as long as the camera. Maybe, as a local app, taking advantage of the greater power and space on a computer compared to the camera; that could work. Also doesn't freeze out people working far away from Internet access."

Adam Lanigan: "I think there would also be a ton of value in your approach to the camera company as well, as this approach would really allow them to understand the features their customers actually use, how they set up their cameras, level of experience, how often they change that setup later on, etc., etc."

John Krumm: "Still sounds complicated! I would like my menus to look like Hasselblad's do now."

Alex Mercado: "'We are sorry, but the page you are looking for cannot be found. Click here to browse our latest selection of cameras.' I can't help but think one would vehemently regret such a solution, the very moment your camera's menus-on-a-website returns a 404 error."

Ed Hawco: "Mike, you might recall that I suggested essentially this on this very blog in a comment in October 2011. Specifically: 'Self-configurable menus. Not by jerking around with the buttons on the camera back, but by uploading a configuration file to your computer where a nice user-friendly GUI lets you drag & drop menu items around until you have menus that make sense to you. You can bury (or even remove) all the silly functions you don't care about and arrange the frequently used ones at the top where you can find them easily. Re-download to your camera and bingo, customized menus.'"

Mike replies: I wouldn't be surprised if that's where I got the idea! Could have happened. After moderating ~250,000 comments, I've learned a huge amount from others here. And by the way, many of your comments over the years have been great ones.

Scott Abbey: "This sort of user interface has been in use for many years in other fields. For instance, I use a multi-effects pedal board which allows me to have different guitar effects—reverb, equalization, compression, and many others. While the one I now use (a Line 6 Helix) has a pretty robust on-device UI, it also has a PC app which makes it even easier to configure, and it also lets you store sets of configurations which you can load as needed—your settings for a wedding gig, and another set for that thrash metal band you also play in. Why camera manufacturers have never done this is beyond me. It ain’t rocket science."

Mike replies: Speaking of which, the other day a reader called ghmcs recommended Gary Friedman's series of guides to Sony cameras—for instance this one about the A6100 and A6600 (search "Friedman Archives" on Amazon for others). Anyway, Gary Friedman literally used to be a rocket scientist!  :-)

Sroyon: "What a great idea. Could go even further (though I don't know if it's feasible in terms of computing power) and six months later, let you run an analysis of the metadata in your Lightroom gallery or whatever other archive, coming up with suggestions like 'You haven't used X in six months, do you still wish to keep it in your menu options?' or 'You appear to use Y frequently, do you want to assign it to a custom button?'"

Ed. note: The following two comments came in one right after the other, just as you see here, no foolin':

Joseph Reid: "Fantastic idea! You could store the settings on a card or just tether the camera for the setup routine. I wonder what Thom Hogan would say about how likely it is that camera makers would do this."

Thom Hogan: "I've been advocating something different for years (decades?). That something different is 'named settings files' that can be saved/loaded. You could supplement that with a computer/tablet/phone application that creates/manages such files, but it's not necessary. Why isn't it necessary? Because there's a huge ecosystem out there that would develop and distribute such files. I'm finishing up a book (!) on setting up a Sony A1. I could easily provide some named settings files if only Sony allowed it.  ;~)  "

Peter: "This is the best post / idea that you have had in the many years that I have been reading your blog. Well Done."

Harry B Houchins: "Brilliant idea, but sadly impractical...."

Thanks to you if you left any comment, 'Featured' or not! (I'm going to dispense with the end matter on this post, as it's not really a separate post. I'm sure there will be comments on this; should I then do Featured Comments on these Featured Comments? Talk about rabbit holes....)

—Mike the Ed.

Blog Notes

Two brief notes: When Bill T., TOP's unofficial and occasional but still highly valued proofreader (thanks Bill!), alerted me to some formatting errors in the "Official Check" post, I opened it to find all sorts of wayward gobbledegook in the HTML. The assistant editor does not know how that got there. It should be set right now; but I was away from the computer for quite a while yesterday and I wanted to apologize for leaving the undies out on the clothesline while I was gone. I'll get on the assistant editor's case about it. He's a distractable scalawag.

Second, I'm due for a series of medical appointments in the week upcoming. Here in the sparsely-peopled interior of Western New York State we're obliged to drive all over L and gone for such things, so the Chief Writer and Bottlewasher's (not to mention the assistant editor's) hands could seem a little too light on the controls in the upcoming week. Apologies in advance if you get the feeling here and there that there isn't anyone manning the barricades.

Mike

If you don't mind I'll close the comments to this post since these are just announcements.

Blog Note: Damn'd Mice!

I have mice. I've trapped two of the little buggers upstairs, but they leave telltale feces when they eat anything so you can tell if they've been there. It's a minor problem but I know they're there. I'm going to wait till the weather is warm to trap the little buggers and drive them out to the country. I know I'm being sentimental, but I have to be humane with anything that cute.

The computer kind
Oddly, I'm having another persistent mouse problem...with my computer mouses. (The plural of a flesh-and-bone mouse is mice, but I think if you have three computer mouses in the houses—er, house—it's just an object called a mouse and more than one is mouses. No?) 

My bluetooth mouses stopped working with my Mac Mini—that is, stopped being Magic (the name is the "Magic Mouse II," for those of you outside the Appleverse)—so I switched back to the old Mighty Mouses with the scroll wheels, buying them used off eBay. But I'm on my second one and the scroll wheel has gone all intermittent on me. It works, but it's surly and sullen.

Wasn't this a solved problem at some point? For, like, decades? Didn't computer mouses work reliably for years and years? Also, Lord, why me?

I'm really tired of trying to work while not being able to responsively move the cursor around the computer screen. It's like trying to work with (searches decaying brain for analogy) someone gently tapping you on the head with a twig. It's not annoying once, or twenty times, but all day every day and it'll drive you insane. Same principle as what used to be called the Chinese Water Torture. Drip, drip, drip.

Anyway, too much preamble. Can anyone confidently recommend a good, high-quality, reliable third-party left-handed wired mouse?

Equipment!
Meanwhile, Microsoft has discontinued the funky split keyboard I've been using for years and years and years and years. You can still buy the odd new one here and there, but for inflated prices. This might not seem like a crisis to you, but I have a very idiosyncratic way of typing and I don't get along well with normal keyboards. Even if I were able to find another Microsoft 4000, it wouldn't matter, because they don't last—I've been through more than a dozen of them over the years. The failure point: the letters wear off the keys. That's either a flagrant design failure or transparent planned obsolescence, and either way it's exasperating.

Yikes. Equipment!

All this actually does relate to photography quite well. Over the years I've heard many stories of people who depended on certain products reaching this same sort of crisis point when their materials were discontinued. It's not just that we get used to a certain way of working. It's that we acquire mastery that suddenly becomes useless. We invest time and work in our expertise with the materials. It's often easy to adapt to new equipment and materials, and sometimes we even do it on purpose as a way of revitalizing our engagement; but in other cases it's a loss. Even Ansel Adams, the great technician, was unhappy with the photo papers he was able to get at the end of his life. They didn't respond like the ones he was used to. The extreme example was Frederick Evans, who quit photography altogether when he could no longer get the Pt/Pd papers his work depended on.

Constant progress and improvement in cameras, software, and printers these days is usually accepted as being a good thing, and it mostly is, but what some artist-craftspeople need is just to settle in with what they're used to and be able to depend on that. The deep expertise that accumulates with time and practice can be difficult to sustain when the ground is always shifting. I suppose some of you have enough talent with tech that this never comes up, but if so then I'm slower than you.

I'll be spending time today researching keyboards. Yeesh.

Mike

Book o' This Week:

André Kertész, On Reading, the lovingly crafted reprint of the lyrical 1971 classic by an early master of the small camera. (Would make an excellent Valentine, for a person who reads.) The above link will take you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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.

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

Mike: "I worked for Apple for years doing support and found continual issues with bluetooth mice was often caused by other bluetooth mice in the house, including one where the customer remembered an old one stored in the basement. He went and tracked it down, removed the battery or turned it off, issue resolved. The issues can show up as continual or intermittent as the Mac connects back and forth to the different mice. Bluetooth range can be farther than you might expect.

"Not saying this is for sure your issue, but Apple products tend to be more robust than the string of failures you seem to be experiencing."

Mike replies: Hmm, that sounds like a real possibility. I got an iMac for upstairs and I don't think I had the problems before that. Plus, the problem sometimes happened upstairs as well, which mystified me but which your idea explains. I wonder if I was turning off the computers upstairs and down but leaving the mouses (mice) turned on, causing each computer to get confused.

I'll experiment with that. Thanks.

Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions. I've been checking out a lot of them throughout the day. Also, it appears that I was more or less wrong about the keyboard: Microsoft has discontinued the old 4000, but is making a new redesigned version called the Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard.

Blog Note

Stephen Scharf wrote: "No mention of the new GFX100S? No. 1 Best Seller at B&H at present...."

There's a very old joke from way back in the days of the Model T Ford. I'm sure you've heard it before. Man takes his car to the mechanic. Describes his trouble. Mechanic looks under the hood, takes a hammer, and give the engine a whack. Starts the car, and it purrs like a kitten.

"That'll be fifty cents," he says.

"What! Fifty cents? All you did was give it one blow with your hammer. That seems an awful lot of money for such a simple thing!"

"Oh, the hammerin' was free," answers the mechanic. "It was knowin' where to hit it what cost the fifty cents."

Anyway...it's easy to write. The hard part is knowing what to say.

I'm a-workin' on it!

Mike

Book o' This Week:

Eyes Over the World: The Most Spectacular Drone Photography, by Dirk Dallas. The above link will take you to Amazon.

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:

Help?

I need some help. I've been putting links to relevant books at the end of posts recently. This week I meant to feature a book about drone or aerial photography, but I didn't noticed in time that the one I had picked is out of print and expensive now. Trying to research a replacement I get a little stuck. I've found good books of aerial photography done from helicopters and of course airplanes, and a few of satellite photos. But I'd rather pick up the theme of drones we've been visiting lately. Does anyone know of a good solid book about drone photography or of drone photographs? A book you've actually seen or that you own, rather than just something you've found online?

I can just pick a different book but I figured I'd give this a try first. TIA,

Mike

Book o' Last Week (new one coming up):

Peter Lindbergh On Fashion Photography, with text in English, French, and German. Original coffee table version or small 40th Anniversary version, take your pick. Both are hardcovers. The links above will whisk you away to Amazon.