Category: arts and letters

Running with cameras

DPReview has an excellent review of the 18-200mm Nikkor travel kit lens, a lens I happen to own.

I wait for Pizza with my Nikon camera (from side)

I wait for Pizza with my Nikon camera (from side)
Patxi’s Pizza, Palo Alto, CA

Lumix DMC-LX1
1/3 sec @ f/2.8, iso 200, 6mm (28mm)

One criticism missing from the review is how annoyingly long the lens extends when zoomed—I’ll miss the slickness of the way the 18-70mm handles zooming as well as its build quality. One criticism in the review I take exception to is the complaint about complex distortion at wide angles—the reason is that DxO Optics Pro easily fixes this problem.

The review is especially notable because the excellent flash applet they have that shows the test results. This confirms something I’ve always suspected, but never really tested: the lens is not sharp at the long portrait telephoto distances.

Still, I think people reading the review might get so obsessed with MTF curves and assorted “pixel peeping” that they won’t gather why this lens, warts and all, is still a great lens.

Through the lens

Through the lens
Riverstone Townhomes, Mountain View, California

Nikon D70, Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-4.5G VR
1/30 sec @ f/5.6, iso 1000, 200mm (300mm)

This image easily made the front page of Nikon’s Stunning Gallery after I submitted it. It was taken with the lens I had on my camera: the 18-200mm at 200mm and taking advantage of the impressive close focusing capabilities of the lens.

This is good timing. When I got this lens two years ago to replace my 18-70mm, I managed to be one of the lucky few who got it quickly and for almost $100 than list price (Thanks, Roberts Imaging!). A year later, this lens was so scarce it was still reselling for almost $100 above list on eBay, I felt I made off like a bandit.

Now the price and availability have come more into line. Though I do wish the build quality was slightly higher or that the price was slightly cheaper.

Jeremiah, Holly, and Jessica (2007-0038 068)

Jeremiah, Holly, and Jessica
NetGear, Santa Clara, California

Nikon D200, Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G VR
1/90sec @ f/3.5, iso 800, 18mm (27mm)

The 18-200mm makes a great documentary lens because you don’t have time to switch out lenses. Here I capture a few of my friends talking after Lunch 2.0.

[Defending the all-purpose kit]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 6

The Trouble with Techies

While researching the previous article, I came across this hilarious quote:

This is a far cry from 1966, originally the Klingons were scotch tape Asians (Fong, 176); White actors given slanty eyes. The Klingon race incarnate all the characteristics that most scare White America. The Klingons are violent, ill tempered, lustful, and drunk. They are on a mission to destroy the peaceful Federation and take over the universe. Finally, they fight to the death preferring death to defeat or capture. One scene from an episode entitled The Trouble with Tribbles almost mirrors a scene from the 1944 film Dragon Seed. In both scenes the evil Asians show up at a restaurant and demand liquor, when they are denied they go on a violent rampage. Often, they are shown eating large hunks of meat off the bone Gengis Kahn style.
—“As-liens: The Final Frontier in Depicts of Yellow Peril in Popular Cinema”

I’m so going to have to do this at the next geek event.

Captain Koloth

Clearly Capt. Koloth would be much scarier if he were darker, but apparently demanding liquor is scary enough.
Posted on by tychay 1

Hurrah, we're Klingons again!

“Gotta say, it’s kind of breathtaking what Bush has done to you, the awakening is something to behold!.”
—rafaelh, “Well, Of Course.”

The slow transformation of political blogger, John Cole, from a Bush supporting Republican to “Noam Chomsky” really is that. In the linked article, he points out the “settling in for a longer term confrontation with China.”

I think we need to remember how the early Bush administration kept playing cat-and-mouse with the Chinese airspace until an accident happened.

It was pretty obvious then that the idea wasn’t to start a war, the idea was to scare us enough to provide funding on the completely useless national missile defense system. And then, five months later, 9/11 happened and they got their missile defense system budget anyway.

I always found it interesting how the Klingons in Star Trek the original series were the Yellow Peril, then they became the Soviets. I was hoping they’d be the Arabs this time, but it looks like they’re back to being the Chinese again.

I can’t wait. 🙂

Posted on by tychay 4

The crack cocaine of the Leica world

Recently I think I’ve met two other people who have purchased Leica M8s and on both those cameras, I think I saw a Cosina-Voigtländer 35mm f/1.2 Nokton lens. If so, that’s a strange coincidence because it is a very obscure lens.

Leica and Cosina

Leica and Cosina
North Beach, San Francisco, California

Nikon D200, Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D, Canon 500D close-up filter
1/40sec @ f/1.4, iso 200, 85mm (127mm)

Say what you will about the value, but I think rangefinder cameras look gorgeous.

The weird thing is, that this obscure lens is the only lens I have for my Leica.

Well that’s not true anymore:

Weird aperture

Weird aperture
North Beach, San Francisco, California

Nikon D3, Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G VR, Canon 500D close up filter
1/2sec @ f/14, iso 200, 170mm (170mm)

The only lens I have for my Leica is no lens at all!

Yep, the lens has officially died in a manner unheard of: the internal aperture blades have popped out of their mount during normal shooting use. I am writing this to see if Cosina will do something to repair the manufacturing defect, and to write a little about my experiences with this lens on a digital Leica.

[The Nokton, Voigtländer, and Cosina after the jump]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 17

Joel B Sacks sendoff

I stopped by XYZ Bar to say bye to Joel B. Sacks, formerly of AdBrite and CNET. I came late and couldn’t stay for long.

Joel gets all the hotties

Joel gets all the hotties
XYZ Bar, South of Market, San Francisco, California

Nikon D3, 14-24mm f/2.8G
1/6 sec @ f/2.8, iso 6400, 24mm (24mm)

Andrei left me my SB-800 so I did get to try out my new camera and remind myself that I need to relearn flash photography and crack open the manual sometime.

I had never been to XYZ Bar before. It is right across from the convention center and has a restaurant is on the first floor while the bar is on the second floor.

XYZ Bar

XYZ Bar
XYZ Bar, South of Market, San Francisco, California

Nikon D3, 14-24mm f/2.8G
1/30 sec @ f/2.8, iso 1100, 14mm (14mm)

[three more photos after the jump.]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 9

Leica Level UPs

“Personally I find that the price tag of Euro 1200 for a new piece of glass and the exchange of a few springs and cogs in the current shutter mechanism is on the high side. But we all know we are in Leica territory.”
—Erwin Puts on “The Significance of LUP”, Februrary 13, 2008

The article is definitely worth a read from a business of photography standpoint, but before you do, you need to understand that Erwin is a respected rangefinder camera lens expert who is talking about then newly announced Leica Upgrade Program for the Leica M8.

I won’t go into the details about Leica in this article, nor try to justify the insane price tag for their cameras or lenses. Most will not be able to get past that part, however. They’ve never been in “Leica territory”: the bizzaro world where everything only gets more expensive, $3000 for a digital body is a steal, Japanese-made lenses with the most exotic glass and construction are of inferior quality, high technology is retro, and contrast-killing internal reflections are sometimes a highly sought-out “look.”

Every time a geek talks about Steve Job‘s reality distortion field, I want to say, “Have you heard this company called Leica in Germany?”

Despite this and the fact that I own a Leica, we are talking about $1800 for a replacement sapphire glass over the LCD screen, a quieter shutter, and a warrantee extension.

Quiet shutter

The shutter sounds a lot quieter…not ninja stealth yet though.

[quiet shutters and hard glass after the jump.]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 3

Lossy RAW compression

Thomas Chamberlin asks an interesting question in the Flickr D3 user’s group:

“With the D3 and D300 we are now offered lossless compression, no compression, or compression with loss for RAW files. Nikon says there is no effect on image quality using lossless compression. The file is compressed 20-40%. Write times are faster than with no compression. How can they compress the file 40% and not affect the image quality? What is lost and then regained?

The great thing about getting a new camera is that I get another chance to put “on paper” words that lost to the ether.

My digital bodies

My digital bodies
North Beach, San Francisco, California

Panasonic DMC-LX1, Ultrapod
2 exposures at .8sec @ f/3.6, iso 80, 11.6mm (52mm)

From right to left. The Leica M8 shoots RAW into the Adobe DNG format (not sure of the compression), the Nikon D70 which introduced lossy NEF compression, the Nikon D200 which shoots lossy and uncompressed NEF RAWs, the Nikon D3 which shoots lossy, lossless, and uncompressed NEFs in both 12 and 14-bits. The photo was taken with a Panasonic LX-1 which shoots a Panasonic/Leica RAW file format that is uncompressed and 13x larger than the JPEG sidecar file! Ironically, I processed this image, by accident, from the sidecar files instead of the RAWs, even though it was shot at ISO 80.

[Weighing in on lossy RAW after the jump.]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 12

Pragmatic bullshit

Someone took exception to me saying:

“I have yet to read a good “Pragmatic Programmer Series” book.”

…with the lines:

“I think that’s a bit of a hard knock of the Pragmatic Bookshelf. I’ve had a number of books which I’ve really enjoyed from them; The Pragmatic Programmer and Practices of an Agile Developer spring to mind.”

Hehe, he caught me! Oh, I didn’t lie—I just never actually finished a single one of their books. 😉 I started reading the Pickaxe book and The Pragmatic Programmer mentioned, but I put them down in disgust.

The book that started it all

This book is the book that launched a thousand crappy books.

[But that won’t stop me from peeing on your programming religion after the jump.]Continue reading →

Posted on by tychay 21