The Online Photographer

Blog Note

TOP is temporarily down for recombobulation. (Never fear, nothing's wrong.) Back soon!

—Mike the Ed.

 

Just Wondering (Blog Notes)

Did you notice that TOP hasn't had any posts about gear since February 18th? That's because some people were complaining that they thought the site had gotten to be too much about gear. I thought I'd try doing without it for a while to see how you liked it.

What do you think? Do you like it better this way, or worse? Have you been happier and more involved with the site in the past two weeks or so? Or did you catch yourself going elsewhere to read (or view videos) about gear? Just curious!

Mike

Original contents copyright 2019 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.

Want to help?

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

Mike R: "Look at it this way : TOP is your oyster, and you provide the irritant, resulting in the pearls of comments. Do both."

Peter Croft: "Yes, I noticed and I miss the gear posts. To be frank, Mike, your tastes in images don't coincide with mine. I skim your pieces about random excellence (really?) and the books, but only metal and glass gets me excited."

 

 

I Screwed Up: An Apology (Blog Notes)

It's not too often that I make a big, flagrant mistake here on TOP. But I really screwed up this morning when I posted Moose's article.

I was in a hurry and I omitted the last part of the article. My cut-and-paste only grabbed the first page, not the whole piece he wrote for us.

It's late now and I've had a long day and I'm very tired, but I've removed the version as I posted it today (leaving a placeholder so the comments made so far don't get deleted), and I'll re-post the article in its entirety in the morning.

My sincere apologies to Moose and to everyone who read the partial article on Monday.

Can't
Reminds me of a little story. (Most things do.) I was hired to photograph a street busker in D.C. years ago who was a "one-man band." I got a nice portrait of him using a medium-format 645 film Fuji. Naturally I talked to him for a while and listened to him play. He had many instruments he played with his hands and mouth, and to keep the beat he played a cymbal with one foot and a small "bass" drum with the other foot. Drumming was clearly not his forte, though. Anyway, his comment about that was, "I'd fire the drummer except I can't!"

Anyway...I'd fire the editor except I can't.

Sorry again.

—Mike the redfaced Ed.

Blog Note

Having just moderated 400+ comments over the past few days, I thought I'd mention a few nuts and bolts FYI—

Names: In the "Featured" comments, I reproduce commenter names exactly as written by them in the commenting box. The only rule I have is that I do not reproduce "handles" that are business names or come-ons (for example, "Best Seattle Drone Photog"), or URLs. (Or crude/profane handles, although that almost never happens.) Most often, I solve those problems by not featuring (and sometimes not even publishing) the comment.

Emails: Another issue is that in some cases I can email a commenter for clarifications (for example, the other day I asked a commenter if he really intended to say "discussed," which looked to me like it didn't fit in context, and it turned out the word he wanted was "discreet"), but I can't do this if people leave made-up email addresses which do not work. In cases where I can't contact the commenter, I just do the best I can.

Typesetting: TOP follows American typesetting conventions rather than British. So, for example, we enclose commas and periods within double quotation marks, "like this," rather than outside single quotation marks as our UK cousins are wont to do—in UK style that would look 'like this'. In terms of spelling and locutions, I leave Featured Comments as written (colour not color, winning line for finish line, and so on) except that I apply conventional American typesetting and punctuation in accordance with normal site style.

Pet peeves: I admit I have a...few (yes, let's go with "few"). Loose is the opposite of tight; lose is the opposite of win. Loose rhymes with juice. Lose rhymes with snooze. The loser is losing because the one who's winning is loose as a goose. And, "possessive its gets no apostrophe." You just have to memorize that—possessive its gets no apostrophe—as it doesn't necessarily make sense. Thus, speaking of a company, It's evident its website is beautiful shows the correct form of both its and it's. Just memorize "possessive its gets no apostrophe" and you'll have it. (And there's no such thing as its'  .)

Whose Guidelines? Here are the full Comment Guidelines if you're really interested. Note that the formulations in the Guidelines are what I work from, not rules you're required to know! They're just there if you're curious (no, Mike, the Pet Peeves paragraph is done—don't go their).

My bad: We have the best readers and commenters on the Internet in my biased opinion. Many of our commenters are smarter than I, some are superior grammarians, virtually all are more knowledgeable in their own fields, and some are better writers. Thus, a good portion of the errors that abound around here are mine and mine only.

Fondly,

—Mike the Ed.

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Harsh reality

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

David Elden: "One for the apostrophe police SWAT team:

Mike replies: That's so bad it's hard to tell how bad!  :-)

Simon Miles: "The possessive its is just like his. No apostrophe is his. No apostrophe in its. Simple. I've never forgotten since coming across this simple aide memoire."

Longviewer: "Think I shall name my next pet Peeve. Should make for fun conversations."

Mike replies: I seriously might steal that. Brilliant.

Casey Bisson: "Re 'The Pet Peeves paragraph is done—don't go their,' I’m impressed you had the strength and determination to publish that. I am too weak to attempt such a joke. (I tried to write 'week,' but I really couldn’t bring myself to submit the comment that way.)"

Michael Perini: "I was going to comment, but find myself paralyzed by Grammar Anxiety [sic]"

Mike replies: Forgot the period.  :-)

Seriously, most of the time I won't even comment on grammar or spelling or punctuation posts. There should be a name for it, but there seems to be a law that whenever I comment on posts like that, I make a mistake myself.

Ben w: "None of the possessive pronouns take an apostrophe—his, hers, ours, theirs, yours and, indeed, its. It's just how it's done!"

Mike replies: Well said sir.

Blog Notes

I had a stressful and busy day yesterday, and the upshot is that I've lost the use of my car—I guess because, in the opinion of the Universe, I didn't have enough to worry about. You know how that can be.

I'm forced to return to related obligations this morning, and then this afternoon I'll be getting to the comments on the last two posts. There are at this moment two hundred and fifty three unpublished comments awaiting moderation, about half a day's work. So, no new post today, but, starting at about noon, I'll be adding new comments and Featured Comments throughout the day, so I encourage you to check back through the afternoon to read some of 'em.

To get to the comments on any post, simply click on "Comments (xx)" in the footer of any post:

Also, being behind in moderating by 253 comments is an all-time record in the 13 years, one month, and 18 days TOP has been in existence. I don't keep records, but I don't think I've ever been that far behind before.

Onward to my (temporary) fate, with a sigh.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Harsh reality

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

David Lee: "I could see it coming. The word 'bag' makes us all very opinionated Mike."

longviewer: "We do indeed know how it is. Just refinanced the home to pay off debt, so now is the Universally correct time for a check-engine light to come on and for the sudden death of our 11-year-old cat. Man Duncan was a cool kitty, my first cradle-grave cat. Greeted us at the door when we came home, gave great head-bonks for greeting. Always wore his good coat too, so photogenic."

Mike replies: I have a longstanding reputation for not liking cat pictures, but there's one huge exception to that: when they're of your own pal, a cat you know. Then, of course, cat pictures are good and many are great. Sorry to hear about Duncan.

Suggestions Only

...By the way, just as an aside, any "exercise" I have written about in the past or might write about in the future is purely discretionary. We're all adults here. I'm not saying that everyone "should" do anything, or that anyone needs to do it; I'm not even claiming that everyone who does do it will reap benefits and dividends from the experience and be better off for it. (Because how would I know?)

Any of these things are only suggestions. Evaluate them for yourself; if they don't appeal, pass on by. There's no one-size-fits-all way of learning photography. All of us are different (at least somewhat different) and have different aims, aptitude and concerns.

They just exercises. Like practice. They're designed to be useful, and for many people they can be, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I really don't mind at all if anyone follows the old adage "suit yourself"!

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Harsh reality

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New Year, Changing Times

I've just posted a new introductory essay at my Patreon landing page, reflecting harsh realities. I hope it's not TMI!

I'm going to making some more changes in the next few weeks, as I take care of some "housekeeping."

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Well, This Is Annoying

This is a PITA, but I'm still sick.

I have the pestilence. No, the "stomach flu."

I had to put off travel plans (picture being stuck in traffic on the freeway when you have the trots—that isn't a happy picture).

My doctor's next open appointment is in April of 2020.

Just joking.

Anyway I'm a mess. Tired, can't stay hydrated, can't get warm. "Depending on the cause, viral gastroenteritis symptoms may appear within one to three days after you're infected and can range from mild to severe. Symptoms usually last just a day or two, but occasionally they may persist as long as 10 days." (Mayo Clinic website.) Tomorrow morning will mark Day 7. "There's no effective treatment for viral gastroenteritis," chirps the Mayo website, brightly.

Thanks, you're a help.

I did hear from my doctor, this afternoon, through his nurse—she said that he said that there are several things that might be done to make me feel better about the fact that he can't make me feel better. Bottom line seemed to be, don't be a wimp, wait it out.

I had atypical pneumonia a number of years ago—more serious than this—and I went to a high-end teaching hospital to be checked out. They kept me for hours. Several different people asked me all kinds of questions and did all kinds of tests. Then they left me alone in a room for what seemed like a very long time. Finally a very serious young Indian doctor came into the room and settled himself across from me among his papers and files.

Gazing intently at me, he said, "Here is your prognosis. Listen carefully to this. If it gets better, it is going to get better. If it gets worse, it is going to get worse. Do I need to explain that?"

No, sir.

It did get better.

Anyway, sincere apologies for the radio silence here at TOP. But I might need to take another day or two off.

Sorry!

Mike

George Barr: "My wife was upset that I was laughing out loud at someone struggling with the trots—so I read her the article—and she laughed. Sorry to offend but best laugh in days. Hope you feel better real soon now, you hear."

Blog Note

Oddly enough, I don't think I've ever had "stomach flu" (viral gastroenteritis) before in my lengthening life. Cannot say I'm happy to make its acquaintance. Very glad it has gone away. Anyway I'm better now and should be back at the helm tomorrow, God (and gut) willing!

Mike

 

Sick Saturday (Music Notes)

Well, that was fun. Our fundraiser print sale was a big success, and both Peter and I are pleased and grateful and convey our thanks to everyone. All three photographs sold well, "Havana" the best.

I'm going to take the day off, for one reason because I say I always take Saturdays off, even though I seldom do, and another being that I'm sick as a dog. (And lazy as a dog, and I want a dog's life, and I don't want to work like a dog. Why do we pick on dogs like that in our expressions?) I have stomach flu. Which is not flu, I hear, but don't blame me—I am not in charge.

Music to whose ears?
But before I go, music notes. For your Saturday delectation, a beautiful little video explaining why Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica from 1969 is so good:

The tagline is "Why this awful sounding album is a masterpiece," which I think is funny.

For a followup to the first video, Bob B. suggested another minute and forty-five seconds of Captain Beefheart.

I love that channel—Vox Earworm, I mean. Their video about the Coltrane Changes is great—finally I understand why that very famous Coltrane song, and album, is called "Giant Steps."

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Blog Note

Several people have contacted me unhappy that their comments have not been published. I've been intermittently behind on the comment moderation since the Beth Moon post, admittedly because I've also been out shooting some glorious blustery Fall weather and trying Affinity Photo, Capture One Express for Fuji, and Lightroom CC (which is provided with my Photoshop CC subscription). I've made good headway this afternoon but right now I'm still about 60 comments behind, and now I need to leave for a few hours for another commitment.

But I have not disallowed anyone's comment; if you haven't seen yours appear, it's only because I'm having trouble catching up with the workload.

As happens from time to time, unfortunately.

Humble apologies.

I'll catch up as soon as I can.

—Mike the One-Man Band
Tuesday evening

P.S. I'll just close the comments on this one if you don't mind so it doesn't add to the problem!

Blog Note

On Friday I said I'd have the X-H1 review posted this morning, but I don't have it ready. It's going to take a few more days.

This is one thing I've never been able to master about writing this site: Never promise anything. I've said it to myself a hundred times (or three hundred) and I keep doing it anyway. It's very frustrating, yet I have no one but myself to blame.

Sometimes things just have to percolate in my brain for a while before they get sorted out. I should know that by now.

Anyway, if you were waiting for the X-H1 review, I apologize for the delay.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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

John Krumm: "What? Where is your grit?  :-) 

"I've been enjoying that book on your recommendation, by the way. I had my doubts, thinking it might be another bootstrapper, individualistic, you-can-do-it book, but it's more interesting than that. Looking forward to the X-H1 review."

Joe B: "I like your process—letting things 'percolate in my brain.' I used to do that while in college when writing papers. After a day or two (or overnight) to let all the reading and my ideas 'percolate' or collate in my brain. All the reading fell into place and the results were usually very good when transferred to paper."

Mike replies: It works especially well with pictures. If I put up a dozen workprints and look at them repeatedly, at first all twelve seem about the same quality. But within 3–7 days, I'll like one or two even better than I did at first and be comletely over the rest and indifferent to them. I have no idea how this works. I suspect it's magic. But it happens, for me anyway.

Bear.: "I have always taken the approach of the late Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, etc. etc.) to deadlines: 'I love deadlines. I love the sound of them whooshing by.'"

Upcoming Print Sale Plans

I've been a-workin' hard the past few days and have some good news to report.

• I've reached an agreement in principle with TOP reader Chester Williams to offer a fine print of his remarkable example of pareidolia* called "The Goodbye Kiss" that he submitted to the "It Must Be Color" Baker's Dozen.

Chester Williams, The Goodbye Kiss

It's a straight photograph of...well, concrete. But of course it seems to be something entirely different, and therein lies its charm. And the subtle color promises to be lovely in an archival pigment print.**

• We will have a Peter Turnley Holiday TOP Print Sale for the Christmas Season this year, offering three beautiful B&W silver gelatin prints from new work. The sale is called "Peter Turnley, Paris, Venice, Havana," and will start on "Cyber Monday," the first Monday after Thanksgiving, a day that was invented in 2005 by Shop.org to emphasize online shopping and as "a way for smaller retail websites to compete with larger chains." ("Smaller websites"—that would be us.) Peter will offer the three prints at the standard European collector paper size of 30x40cm (~12x16") and at an unprecedentedly good price. They'll be delivered in time for Christmas (but, unfortunately, not in time for Hanukkah, which starts very close to Thanksgiving this year), and I can testify from personal experience that they make highly appreciated gifts***.

• Somewhere in the next few months I'll be having a TOP fundraiser and offering a print of one of my pictures for sale. I'm leaning toward either this one or the second picture from this post. Either would be modestly sized and modest in cost.

• I'm also thinking of one other print sale—it might better be called a "reproduction" than a print—of a classic image from the Library of Congress, a personal favorite of mine.

• Finally, I'm also working on a possible sale for March of next year.

That's all that's in the pipeline for now. We haven't had a print sale yet in 2018, so I thought I'd let you know we haven't abandoned the idea. It's certainly a lot of fun to do them, and it's highly benign—everybody involved "wins," even those who merely look on to be entertained.

I particularly like the idea of having reader print sales from the Baker's Dozens. That's a trend that should continue, I b'lieve.

Mike
(Thanks to everyone mentioned)

*Pareidolia: the tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern; the tendency to perceive pictures in random shapes, as when seeing faces in whorls of wood grain or figurative objects in cloud formations. (In case you aren’t familiar with that term!)

**If you are personally interested in buying a print of this picture, I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts about what size you would prefer.

***A framed print of Peter's was one of the few things my now-ex-girlfriend didn't return to me when she bolted (TMI? Sorry). But ah well, no regrets. All's fair in love and war.

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Ramón Acosta: "I used to live in a house with lots of marble, the floors, the whole bathrooms, and always saw something in 'the marbling' (not sure if that’s the right word). Never took a picture of any, and I lived there for years. Thank you for telling me the name of that."

Ernest Zarate: "And it was just today I cast my eye (and mind) on this print on my wall and thought, 'Hmm...it’s been awhile....' Good to hear you’re rectifying that, Mike."

Mike replies: That one is great to live with, isn't it? I still love it. I love their other one, too.

William Lewis: "I would be interested in a print of the Williams photo if it is not too big for my space and not too expensive. That's not quite as impossible a standard to meet as in the past though as I do have a real job now.  ;-)  An 8x10 (or equivalent for the aspect ratio) would be perfect to me."

Lee: "Apparently pareidolia isn't just a strictly human thing anymore. I was shooting an image of Fall colors across a lake today and my Sony A7 'saw' a human face in the tree shapes, switching into face recognition focusing mode. I couldn't see it myself."

Jnny: "Called it! I knew this was print-sale worthy the moment I saw it. 8x10 or 10x12 for me, please."

Saturday

Dang. Never fails.

Oh well, back to the manual I guess.

Mike

[UPDATE: Sorry this hasn't been visible; it's just a little joke. Should be viewable now. I failed to make it "Public." Honestly, the average 12-year-old knows more about video than I do. Please let me know if you have any problems after 4:40 p.m. EST. —Ed.]

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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John Holland: "Clearly, you should offer your Rainmaker services to the local farmers. What some see as problems, the wise see as opportunities...."

Blog Note (Eye Op)

I haven't mentioned my eye problems much. I had the thought that is probably not too good for my brand to admit that I am, um, going blind. That was meant as a joke....

I had a much-dreaded eye doctor's appointment yesterday (which was not demanding in any way but which left me exhausted) and the news is good and bad. The good news is that the operation I need, called a DMEK (for "descemet membrane endothelial keratoplasty," if you must know, and don't worry, there will not be a quiz), has very good outcomes and might result in better vision than I had before my right eye started going wrong (typical outcome is "20/20 to 20/25"). The bad news is that, well, I mentioned it already...I have to have an operation on my eye. I have a scaredy-cat squeamishness about that idea to a degree I'm not sure words can convey. It's conceptual, mostly; the operation isn't painful. But there's something about "sharp blades" and "my eyes" that don't seem to want to go together in my mind. I have a long and good relationship with seeing; my eyes have been important to me.

Seeing is the soul's perfect delight.

                                        —A medieval Pope, allegedly, although I've never
                     been able to find the citation again

Of course, it's good for a fellow who makes his living looking to be able to see.

I guess the thing is to grow a pair, man up, and forge ahead. My right eye has cataracts and a disease called Fuch's dystrophy and in the central zone is about like looking through a 1920s Spencer Portland soft-focus pictorialist's lens (peripheral vision is a little better). My left eye is still good apart from pretty strong astigmatism, but it's eventually going to go the same way as the right eye. So I can't just put this off.

The reason I'm telling you all this is that it's probably going to shutter this website for a week or so, sometime in the next few months.

Excellent processing
You see partly with your eyes and partly with your brain—just as in a digital camera, the raw file isn't everything. The processor is key. I've long been convinced that I do much better than I should on vision tests because my brain is especially good at seeing. 

For example, when I first look at series of very small letters with my impaired right eye, at first I can barely detect that there are letters there; but if I stare at one for a while, suddenly I'll "know" what it must be. It's like my brain needs a bit of time to shuffle through the 26 alternatives and then senses what the object must be. I can't "see" it in any normal sense, but I get it right somehow. There's no way to test this, but I strongly suspect that I get things right that some other people might get wrong.

Another weird example of my seeing processor: blurry or not, I still get binocular distance information from my right eye. With both eyes open I see clearly, with decent distance perception, because my brain rejects not only the blur information from the right eye but also most of the astigmatized* information from the left. But when something's in motion, the processor suddenly can't detect what's "supposed" to be there. This leads to some bizarre effects. When I'm tossing the ball for Butters on a calm day, I see the trees and leaves perfectly clearly; and the brain/processor sorts out his body and head because it's all of a piece. But when he's waving his big white tail in the air against the dark background, suddenly my brain doesn't know which image is supposed to be the real tail, so I see both! The result of the astigmatism in my left eye. It's borderline disconcerting—in an overall clear and sharp image field I see a dog with two tails. And then if he stops wagging his tail, zap, the processor kicks in and suddenly it's one tail again.

Weird.

Work it out
No word yet on when TOP will close down temporarily over the eye op. The biggest problem is that the recovery is long and somewhat onerous—it involves something called "positioning," meaning that I need to spend a large part of every hour flat on my back staring fixedly at the ceiling for a number of days. I'll also have long distances to travel for post-op care...and (little detail) I won't be able to drive. These would merely be complications and inconveniences if I were empartnered** like a normal human my age, but, sans spouse, the logistics are going to be formidably difficult. I have lots of friends here, but, since I moved here relatively recently, none of them are particularly close yet; and I have several relatives and friends good enough that I could at least ask them if they would care for me for five days, but unfortunately none of them live remotely close to here. I really have no clue yet how I'm going to work this out.

Anyway, that was my day yesterday. I'll keep you posted about any upcoming outages.

Mike
(Insets: From Self-Portrait 1889 by Vincent Van Gogh)

*Is that a word?
**Pretty sure that's not a word.

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Rodolfo Canet: "Dear Mike, take it as a professional athlete takes an injury during the season: get treated, relax, recover and be back with fresh ideas and charged batteries. I am sure you will manage the details. Take care, but fret not!"

R. Edelman: "Fortunately, Mother Nature provides redundancy with two eyes. As an eye surgeon, I would like to reassure you that you have an excellent chance of a good outcome following your surgery.

"The DMEK procedure is a type of cornea transplant, and requires tissue donated by someone who is deceased. Nicholas Green was a seven year old American boy who was on holiday with his family in Italy in 1994 when the car that they were traveling in was shot up by robbers. Nicholas was killed, but his family generously donated his organs to Italian recipients. Five people received his major organs, and two received a cornea transplant. The people of Italy were so touched by the example set by Nicholas’ family that organ donation in Italy has more than tripled since then. Organ donation is a gift and a blessing for the recipient. It also gives some meaning to the death of a loved one. Today, many organs are still wasted because of lack of donor consent. Being on legal record as an organ donor is important, and it’s the right thing to do."

That Was Nice

Well, that was nice. The previous piece got quite a bit of attention from around the Web (just like the old days, before advertising took over and made people reluctant to link to other sites), and traffic reached a four-month high point. I had to go back to June to find a day with more visitors than yesterday.

And I want to thank everyone for their reactions—I'll be sure in consider peoples' responses and additional information in the final chapter. (The post was about half the chapter. The other half is on aspect ratios, ideal formats, and proportion.)

But back to regular life! And thanks, everyone, for reading.

Mike

P.S. They're repaving the road down to the lake opposite my office, so my ability to sit here and work is going to be curtailed...I can't take the noise. I'll probably have to leave the house and go find refuge somewhere. Noise pollution is not the worst thing about modern life, but for me it's right up there. I live in a rural area and still the noise pollution is pretty bad.

P.P.S. Just wondering if more people have a "favorite rectangle" or "favorite aspect ratio"—? My impression is that most photographers adapt pretty easily to whatever they're shooting.

I started off shooting square (a Kodak Instamatic) and have done most of my shooting in my life with 2:3, but I think my favorite was 645. The actual image area of 645 is 56x41.5mm (it varies slightly on different cameras), or 1.35, which is very close to 4:3 (1.333...). But for some reason I don't think of Micro 4/3 as being similar to 645. Maybe I should start thinking of it as mini-645!

Examples of 645 by Patrick Cox.

Never found a 645 camera I really liked, though. It wasn't for lack of trying. The cameras were either too big and klunky (Bronica ETRSi) or the lenses were too slow (Fuji GS645s).

Ironically, during the only time in my life that I was shooting intensively with a 4x5, I masked the camera (physically, with a thin strip of steel) to give the same proportion as 5x7, which was my favorite rectangle at the time. This was probably because I had fallen in love with a brand new Deardorff 5x7 on display at the old Ferrante-Dege in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It also gave me a nice clear strip on 4x5 negatives to write on and made handling the negatives easier.

Mostly, though, I shot 35mm and printed to the black film edge like H.C.-B. I'm a firm believer in composing to the viewfinder view—the idea that you can "crop later" just leads to confusion, inconsistency, and sloppy seeing. Your mileage may vary. Although, as I've noted before, the only time I shot intensively with a 6x6 camera (an Exakta 66 Mod. 2), I cropped almost everything to a 645 vertical. On that camera, I found some thin adhesive ruled lines at a graphics arts supplier and used them to mark the viewfinder.

Proportion has always been a big deal to me; I like getting things in just the right balance. I used to think this was artistically important, but maybe it was just fastidious.

Hmm, I really should start thinking of Micro 4/3 as "mini 645." It might make me like it more.  :-)

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Featured Comments from:

beuler: "I always thought you did not care about aspect ratios since you never mentioned it as a factor when considering Micro 4/3. I am obsessive about aspect ratios, to the point that when cropping, I insist on maintaining the original aspect ratio. In my mind, cropping from to a different aspect ratio is a very radical step to be done on very rare occasions. To me the great advantage of 4:3 over 3:2 is that it looks appealing in portrait as well as landscape mode. I hate 3:2 in portrait mode—or would that be 2:3?"

Rob Campbell: "I loved shooting 6x6 on Haseselblad 500 cameras. I suppose that an early infatuation with LP covers had something to do with it; amazing art on those things. Trouble was, 10x12" papers took a chunk off the sides, but square on that paper format looked good, too. But this has me drifting dangerously off towards dreams of long-lost WSG D papers with magical glaze...."

Bill Mitchell: "My philosophy is that I'm not Cartier-Bresson, and that darned few photographs can't be improved by a little judicious cropping."

Josh Hawkins: "I've found I can adjust to most rectangles pretty well, but I tend to prefer 2:3, but that's what I learned on and have used for most of my life/career. The only format that's really stymied me is squares. Squares drive me up a wall. I just can't make them work. They're too static, stable, there is no natural dynamic for me to work off of. Every few years I try to work with them for a bit, and it always falls apart. I'll try again soon I'm sure."

Patrick Medd: "I've shot (and shoot) most ratios from APS-C to 4x5/8x10 but I think my favourite is the square, that is the one I find myself cropping the least. Hipstamatic and the 6x6 apps on the iPhone demonstrated to me that the square chimed with my way of seeing and I liked it so much I went out and bought a Hasselblad 501cm so I could shoot 6x6 film. I've never been fanatical about printing to the black lines, I've always felt that if a crop improves the picture then I'll crop. Having said that I greatly admire the work of photographers like HCB and James Ravilious who did follow that practice. I certainly have a sloppy way of seeing and perhaps my relaxed attitude to cropping is the cause. Maybe I should do a OCOLOY with the Hasselblad and print to the edge; I'll go away and think about it.  :-) "

Blog Note

I've had to take the day off today. Back soon.

—Head Chef and Chief Bottlewasher

Erorrs (Blog Note)

It's a good thing I'm a blogger. Yesterday I made a stupid mistake and wrote that the upcoming Sigma 56mm ƒ/1.4 will be available in both Micro 4/3 and Fuji X mount. That was wrong—that was supposed to be Micro 4/3 and Sony E mount. Mostly invisibly to you, I've made this exact error before—I have a sort of brain glitch that makes me confuse those two lensmounts more often than a person of average intelligence such as moi ordinarily would.

I'm pretty interested in the way my brain works, and I typically take note of errors in terms of frequency and type. There are some odd ones. I don't think I'm unusual; I think most people make certain annoying little mental errors. If anything, I'm probably different only in that I'm kind of an "enthusiast" of mine you might say. I tend to notice and track them. (Maybe this is why I love Oliver Sacks.) A persistent one is that I can sometimes get category confusions that stick: for example, in learning the names of the kids in a particular grade back when I was teaching, I learned every name fine except that I got two girls confused, and the confusion turned out to be permanent. I couldn't banish it. It lasted all year. I'd think, that's X...no, wait a minute, I always confuse X with Y...so was my first impression correct or was the correction correct? Sometimes it was one, sometimes it was the other. I never got it quite straight. Somehow certain confusions become stable in my brain. Don't know what that's about, but there it is. The two girls didn't even look alike!

Another thing my brain is bad at is remembering all the contents of a list. I always forget one item on even a short list. And on different occasions it can be different ones. And it happens even when I know the list well. I learned when I was teaching to never go around the room naming each student in turn, because I would invariably stumble on one kid's name (to that kid's distress)...even if it was a kid I knew well, whose name I never forgot one-on-one. If I go to the grocery store with my list in my head, it's inevitable that I'll forget one thing. Just one of the ways my brain works. No clue why.

One of my editor heroes, even before I knew he had a connection to the family, was the late David E. Davis of Car & Driver and Automobile. He turned out to be the best friend of one of my cousins, and so I got to meet him once. Another cousin worked for him for a while at Automobile before moving on to Mazda and Ford. That cousin told a story once about someone getting the name of a van wrong on the cover (!!!) of the magazine. As I recall the story, David E. (as he was known) called the staff together and read them the riot act. No axe fell on that occasion, but he promised that the next time something like that happened, it would.

In other words, if I had made yesterday's mistake working at a big publication, it might have gotten me fired. Or maybe it would have been one big strike among three allowable strikes, maybe. (I probably just wanted it to be available in Fuji mount because I can't afford the XF 56mm ƒ/1.2 Fujinon.)

On a blog, though, you just change it and move on. As I always say, I have a slacker for an assistant, but fortunately my assistant has a very lenient boss. Both me. The 10th step in my 12-step program includes the words "...when we were wrong promptly admitted it." So my policy is just to admit any mistake transparently and move on. Hits happens; erorrs abound; typos never sleep.

Anyway, I'm in luck. I'm not going to fire myself this time. More about the new Sigma when it comes out. And I'll try to be more careful.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Dave Millier: "Every day is the dawn of a new error as my old software boss used to joke."

Rob de Loe: "Even your mea culpas are a good read and a learning opportunity.

"My own curious brain 'error' is a near total inability to remember items within certain categories. If you stopped me in the street and asked me to name 10 bands I currently like I'd stumble after a few, but I promise you there are way more than 10 bands that I like and listen to all the time. Strange.

"I'm in the teaching biz so your comment about remembering names hit home. I'll share my all-time best 'pro trick': Names go in cycles of popularity. In any large class, there will be multiple people with the same popular names. If 'Emily' was popular 19 years earlier, then in a 100-person class there will be at least 2–3 students named Emily. I scan my class lists at the start of term and pick out all the groups. Then I can just stand in front of the class, look vaguely outwards and say 'Emily, what do you think?' All the Emilys will instantly self-identify by ducking, wincing, etc. I then just pick one at random. 'Yes, that's right, you Emily. What do you think?' Works every time."

Mike replies: I'm actually ahead of you there. As far back as grade school, in classes I didn't like I'd do my best to sit directly in back of another Mike. When the teacher tried to point to me and called out "Mike?", the Mike in front of me would answer and the teacher would let the error go about half the time. I still got called on sometimes, just not as much.

I also had another trick. In 8th grade I had a math teacher, Charles Kerr, an ex-Marine, who was long-suffering when it came to my various shenanigans. In the mornings, at the start of class, we'd review our own homework by going around the room giving the answers in turn so we could check our work. So I'd come in early and just count the seats ahead of me and do the homework question for the seat I was in plus the one on either side (to account for counting anomalies like the inevitable miscreant who hadn't done their homework). Mr. Kerr one week threw me a curve ball by starting from the opposite end of the front row than usual, so I started sitting in the middle of the second row—that way I was safe either way. I only ever did three homework questions per day in that class, and only got caught once.

Still and all, I would guess Charlie Kerr knew exactly what I was up to—that guy was really no fool.

In re your "Emily" gambit, my son had a recurring substitute teacher in early elementary school who called all the boys "Henry" and all the girls "Henrietta." The kids loved it.

Dave Van de Mark: "My earliest years as a computer tech came just as the first hard drives were being installed in PCs. That was a time when nothing about installation was automatic; instead you were required to enter scads of numbers precisely or nothing worked. Soon there were dozens of different hard drives and each had different specs that had to be inputted into the computer. The more you could memorize the better. I only needed to read the specs of a new drive once and they were instantly cemented in my brain. In my shop I was the 'Google' man, able to spit out to a fellow tech all the correct numbers. Looking back, what is interesting to me was I had to be very interested or enthusiastic about the subject for me to retain all the data. If my brain 'cared less' about something, recollection of details was not much better than anyone elses. Now it’s so short I can’t even get to a piece of paper in time to write it down!"

Mike replies: My brother had a good boyhood friend, the banjo player Jim Rollins (he's on YouTube in a few places), who was killed by a drunk driver last year. Jimmy-James had a protean ability to remember phone numbers—he memorized them as soon as he heard them. He was so good at it that in those pre-cellphone days his friends would get him to memorize numbers they needed but Jimmy himself didn't, so he was like the phone book for the group. As I recall, though, he had one problem—he couldn't un-remember numbers after they were no longer relevant. I don't think his memory otherwise was particularly remarkable. R.I.P. Jim Rollins.

Ulrich Brandl: "As a neurologist I can tell you that your brain works quite normally. Our memory works a bit like 'fuzzy logic'—slightly confusing items or non-remembering boring items (e.g. parts of a list) are side effects of an otherwise very effective and intelligent system. There are people with an extremely exact detail memory—but many of these suffer from autism spectrum disorders."

Speed (partial comment): "I can not now and never have been able to remember names. Thanks for the great post, Tom."

Nigli: "Mike, I sympathise. I do some calligraphy, and once I made the same spelling mistake in the same place at least 12 times. Tear up paper, draw new guidlines, write, make mistake, repeat."

Mike replies: Ow!

Randall Teasley: "To erorr is human; to forgive, divine."

Blog Note: The Commentariat Rocks

Lots of people had things to say about the post yesterday—and just like that, I'm 180 comments behind in the moderating tasks. I was all caught up halfway through yesterday.

I'm guessing probably the worst problem with TOP these days is the lengthening amount of time it takes for comments to appear, the gap between the appearance of a post and the appearance of the comments about it. It allows the energy around a topic to dissipate. The longer it takes, the greater the number of readers who miss the comment.

I apologize for this. Back in the day, when the digital boom was going on (camera sales peaked in 2012), I used to work on comments morning, noon, and night—sometimes in the middle of the night—sometimes putting in six hours a day just on comments, seven days a week. Which left only four to eight hours a day for all the other tasks.

But I'm getting older, and I just don't work as much as I used to. And I'm slower, too. Did you know your brain physically shrinks as you age? No fooling. Look at what happens to bodies as they age—something similar is happening inside your head. An alarming thought! Of course, the fat, pink, glistening brains of young people in the primes of their lives are mostly empty, even though they're healthier and quicker. The average 60-year-old knows four times as much as an average 20-year-old of the same basic intelligence level. I'll take the tradeoff, meself.

My doctor, c. 2012: How long do you sit at the computer at one stretch? Without getting up?

Me: It depends how long I or the dog can go with out needing to go to the bathroom. Six hours maybe?

Doctor: You just can't do that. You just absolutely can't. You have to get up and get some exercise. It's just not good for you to sit hunched over in the same position for that amount of time. You need to get up every half an hour at least. What do you do when you get up from your desk, besides going to the bathroom?

Me: I'll wander into the kitchen and get a snack.

Doctor: That's not what I want you doing for a break. What can you do that would get you moving your body around? Something not having to do with cheese sticks.

Me: How about a pool table?

Doctor: That is not what I had in mind!

Me: No, seriously, think about it. Every half hour I'd get up, walk downstairs to the basement, throw the balls out on the table, and knock 'em down. You're moving around the table, bending over and getting back up again, stretching, moving around, getting into different body positions. Do that for five minutes and then back up the stairs again.

Doctor (laughing): Well, now that I picture it, that's not a bad idea at all. Okay, I prescribe five minutes of pool in the basement every half hour! As long as there's no stopping in the kitchen on the way there and back.

Me: Would you write me a prescription for a pool table?

Doctor (laughing again): Sure. (Grabs his prescription pad, begins writing. Then pauses.) No, I shouldn't do this. I know it's just a joke, but it could be used for insurance fraud. (Rips up the half-written prescription.) But I want you to get up and walk downstairs and clear off a table of balls every half hour. Doctor's orders. 

Me: Yessir.

Too bad. All I would have done with the prescription would have been to frame it and hang it by the pool table!

My long lost pool table, back in Wisconsin. Can't be replicated here.

The doctor was right. Not only did I feel much better getting up from the desk every half hour, but I found that my brain still worked on work when I was in the basement shooting pool. I'd walk downstairs thinking over some issue or problem and walk back up again knowing what I wanted to say. In fact sometimes when I was wondering how to handle something, I'd go hit some balls and think about it, and the answer would come to me. Worked every time. If I had no ideas for a post, two hours at the pool table and I'd have a post worked out in my brain, beginning, middle, and end.

You know what else happened? I had chronic neck pain for twenty years. After three weeks of playing pool it was gone. Something about the shooting pose of leaning down and looking up stretched whatever needed to be stretched.

Now I'm back to sitting hunched over at the computer for hours on end. At least I've learned to set an alarm on the phone when I'm working on the computer and have an appointment coming up. Otherwise I work right through it.

I miss my pool table. You scoff, but I needed it! Right now, it's 11:15 and I've been sitting here since 9:00, so I gotta get up and go do...well, something.

Anyway, I'll start to work on the backlog soon. There are some great comments. (The TOP Commentariat rocks.) Please come back as the weekend wears on and check 'em out. 

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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No featured comments yet—please check back soon!

G.F.*

News: TOP is off today

Cause: Benevolent weather

Resulting in: Summertime fever

Back: Real soon y'all

If you're looking for amusement and have been reading TOP for less than eight years: Be sure to see the links in the reply to the Featured Comment in the previous post. I just love that video. Every time I hear him say "YOU can go to the store and buy it m-----f-----!!!" it makes me laugh out loud.

Harlan passed away just this past June. R.I.P. If you need an introduction, check out Strange Wine. I hesitate to link to that, knowing Harlan won't see a nickel from it. But I guess it's good for publicity!

—Mike the Ed.

*Gone Fishin', Urban Dictionary, definition 2: "To drop the duties of daily life and go do something else, something nice."