Category: arts and letters

Electronic Pen configurator

Spending a half our messing with Four-Thirds matching simulator.

Olympus E-P1 with Voigtlander M mount lenses

The top one is a 50mm f1.1 lens (100mm in 35mm equivalent). Imagine that! The middle one is a lens I own (35mm f1.2) except mine is in chrome and needs to be fixed. The bottom one is the 35mm f1.4 NOKTON classic. I own the 40mm version and mine has an “S.C.” stamped on the outside of it, but pretty much looks like that.

All would require an adapter available from Cameraquest in L.A..

Here is an amazing Stop Motion viral video from Olympus, titled “The Pen Story”:

Posted on by tychay 9

Someone needs two bits of sense, and it’s not Apple

Since it was linked to from Apple’s Hot News section, I read with interest Galbraith’s article on the color accuracy of the new Macbook Pros, even though I plan on skipping this iteration of macbook.

When I came across this article titled, “New MBP offers top display quality, but some beg to differ, I thought, “Oh, Galbraith was wrong on something.”

Not everyone is satisfied with the MBP screens, however. Designer Louie Mantia of the Iconfactory has a bone to pick with the screen quality of his new 13″ unit; it’s sporting a 6-bit display, which has been an issue with color-sensitive professionals for years now.

No such luck, just some moron talking out of his ass. Ahh, the old canard about how their 8-bit panels are really 6-bit. Let me spare these people two bits of wisdom.

Continue reading about about 6-bit and 8-bit color after the jump

Posted on by tychay 0

Looking behind

I’ve always said that the best camera is the one you have on you, and I’ve mentioned that that cameraphones have a lot of versatility.

I haven’t been shooting seriously in over a year and my cameras are screaming for me to take this stuff seriously again.

Even my iPhone camera.

With my car finally back from the shop, my rear mirror finally repaired, me in the passenger side, and the latest burger from McDonald’s in my lap, I felt a lot of regret I couldn’t snap this with my Leica or Panasonic LX1. But then I remembered I was charging my iPhone…

Ferry Building

Ferry Building
Embarcadero, Waterfront, San Francisco, California

Apple iPhone 3G
f/2.8, 3.85mm (37mm)

View Large On Black

Continue reading about iPhone as a serious photographic tool after the jump

Posted on by tychay 2

Taibbi

“His description of the root causes of this financial crisis are about what you’d expect from a man who invoked The Great Gatsby to explain the mentality of the murderer of 4,000 people.”
— Matt Taibbi, on Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria

You have to admire Taibbi for his liberal outrage. Even if you don’t agree with him, his turns of phrases is a mastery of the intellectual smackdown.Then again, maybe I should admire Zakaria for carrying the kool-aid for his corporate masters.

History, after all, will not be kind on the latter.

Posted on by tychay 0

Mild dementia

Reading this article on the new Voigtländer 50mm f1.1 Nokton, I was surprised to find out that the English translation of the Japanese word bokeh is “mild dementia.”

Definitely a Backstroke of the West moment there.

Check out the “mild dementia” on these two:

Mark Trammel

Mark Trammel
Citizen Spaces, South of Market, San Francisco, California

Leica M8, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical
1/16 sec, iso 320, 35mm (47mm)

Creamy smooth mild dementia

Scolding Veronica

Scolding Veronica
Citizen Spaces, South of Market, San Francisco, California

Leica M8, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical
1/16 sec, iso 320, 35mm (47mm)

The mild dementia created by people in the background is busy but still manageable.

Posted on by tychay 0

Bag rack

A year and a half later:

Bag rack

Why is it that a notebook computer is designed completely differently from a dSLR camera? To torment me?

Any other photo/computer geeks and nerds out there way too many bags?

And yes, I recently gave away four bags before this photo was taken.

Posted on by tychay 9

Will

I have a friend and web developer who thinks I’m really smart, but he doesn’t think much of his own abilities. During a particular coincidence of both opinions, he asked me if I’d hire him if I was in a position to make such a judgement:

Me: Of course.
Me: Why do you ask this?

Him: I was just thinking that one day you will be atop the web
Him: And I want to be part of it
…

Me: In general, the thing I find is the #1 thing necessary for success is will. And you have will.
Me: Smarts is a result of will, not vice versa.
Me: So sure I’d hire you.

He tweeted that and someone liked that.

As someone who has leaned on his “smarts” a number of times to the detriment of his own personal development, I truly believe what I said. Every day, I’m starting to realize my inner Socrates:

It seemed to me … that the people with the greatest reputations were almost entirely deficient, while others who were supposed to be their inferiors were much better qualified in practical intelligence…

I reflected as I walked away: Well, I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems to me that I am wiser than he is to the extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.

Posted on by tychay 1