Interesting developments

A while back I set a challenge for Nikon 1 system owners. That challenge was to photograph a dark scene. One person chose a night landscape and somebody else chose the night sky. Both complained that they could not actually see using the LCD focussing screen. That, of course, was the whole point - to be able to take a decent photo without being able to use the screen. The results were mixed. The night sky photo was crisp and good looking. The landscape was a bit rough. The experiment was a complete success. With a suitable viewfinder clipped onto the hotshoe mount, it should be possible to aim the camera and then to turn the focus ring manually in order to focus. There are no insurmountable issues. The interesting thing was how difficult both people claimed it was as they had clearly never had manual focus only cameras that took film. It seems that modern technology is reducing people's skill set.

In other news, Nikon released their DF camera. It's the camera I would have wanted back in 2006 when I bought my Canon XT. It takes manual focus lenses, it works with manual focus lenses. It even has a PC socket. The only questions are whether it has a decent split-screen fresnel ring focussing screen and whether the PC socket is safe for older flashes. This seems to be the camera that would be perfect for me as it would revive my old AIS Nikkor lenses (if they're still any good after a decade of not being used). The old lenses were all primes which don't seem to be a forte of digital systems.

Zeiss markets lenses for digital cameras totally devoid of autofocus and with purely the standard bayonet mounts and manual focussing. There is no doubt that Zeiss lenses like Leica lenses are the best in the world. Most Zeiss lenses are over $1,200 whereas the AF equivalent made my Canon are maybe $200. That tells you that either Zeiss is that good or they think their name is. I would opt for the former.

So, where now? Well, I looked at the weather map and see it's around the time to photograph autumn leaves. I'm hoping that all the leaves have not fallen. If they have then I shall be sad. If not then I shall have a glorious time photographing them. Needless to say I probably have a bit of a road trip ahead of me. I don't want to go too far though. I don't want to have to spend a night in some little hotel somewhere. I think the last time I did that was probably about 18 months ago. Hotels are OK but I prefer my own bed. If I had a van then I could set up a bed in the back and use it as a camper for trips like this. I don't though. I almost went for a panel van but couldn't find one that I really liked and thus ended up with my SUV. I have a friend that goes everywhere in a Ford Transit - he uses it for hauling stuff around, for camping in and for just about everything. I have no doubt that my SUV is more stylish and more comfortable. I do wonder if I would have been better with a van though.

Having had a car though, in the past, I definitely would never buy a car again. I much prefer the higher driving position of my SUV. But since I haven't put a photo in for a few posts, here's one of a clone of the General Lee. I gather in the Dukes of Hazzard, there was not just one General Lee but a multitude.

This was taken at the Irmo Okra Strut a few years ago. That was notable for there being a rather unpleasant stallkeeper that yelled at me for walking around with a camera. Thinking about it, it would have been good to ask her why she was being so ugly. Some people are just weird and neither her nor her stall were of enough merit to even bother photographing. The Okra Strut was interesting but so mildly that it was not worth bothering visiting again. It had no soul.

Making the photo blog more fun

One of the things I try to do is to make my photo blog more fun. Sure - I have pages where you can see photos. I put photos in the blog feed etc. Today though it's time to address an important issue. That issue is Twitter and Foursquare.

Twitter is fine - it's a micro-blogging service that allows me to post updates from wherever I am via a mobile phone. There comes a point though where it's possible to share too much, as this fellow points out. It is, of course, obvious not to post where you are at all times in case somebody realises you're not home and knows that it's safe to break in and rob you.

Foursquare is the major headache. It's really a geolocation service that tells everybody and their dog where you are located. That is, of course, a major way of telling the villains of this world that you're not home. It's like a 20 foot wide billboard beside the road that says "Hello, house 235 on road ABC is unoccupied as the owner is at establishment X, 200 miles away".  In other words, it's a please burgle me announcement.

This all leads to one of my main thrusts which is internet safety. Years ago, we used to hear "never put your real name, real address or photos online". There is and was a good reason for that. The good reasons are still:

• So that nothing you post online can be traced back to you. The internet remembers everything forever. It's worse than a vindictive partner for remembering all the bad things and forgetting the good. That university photo of the guy wearing pantyhose, a skirt and a bra could come back to haunt him when he's working as a corporate banker. 
• So that nobody can identify who you are to deal with any perceived insult personally. Not everybody lives in America and has access to firearms they can use to defend themselves against internet psychopaths. It's a good idea not to run the risk of that. Personally, even though I live in America where I can legally shoot a burglar/assailant dead, I would rather avoid having to because I'm sure there's a ton of paperwork I'd have to complete afterwards. 
• So that nobody can work out where you live and set out to burgle your house when you publish your location online via Foursquare.

As a photographer, it would be perceived by most villains that you have expensive gear. They don't realise that the value of gear plummets like a lead brick if it's electronic. On the other hand, a villain reckons he's done a good day's work if his takings will buy him a couple of beers.

So, the problem is how to make the blog more fun and more interactive without adding to the dangers. Really and truly although I think my identity is reasonably well concealed, I do know there are probably pathways to find my real name, real identity and real locations. Thus, sadly, I have decided to take Foursquare out of my Twitter feed. I really quite enjoyed making my blog more interactive but the guy is right. It's all fun and games until the idiots come calling though as one of my friends said when they saw my place - any burglar would be more likely to leave a donation than to take anything away. I really don't have that much.

As somebody said - burglars are more likely to leave me a donation than anything else. Most people have a sofa and a TV in their living room. I have a folding table and chairs and a storage box that doubles as a bench for the rare occasion anybody visits. It is definitely a bachelor pad. Now you probably know why I have adsense on my blog - every click gets me one or two cents. Every time those clicks add up to $100 I get a payment. I get payments once every couple of years and it's always very welcome.

How did I arrive at this level of poverty? Probably partly by following extremely bad business advice on starting to run a photography business. What I should have done was instead of trying to run a photography business, I should have run away from the idea. It was more a case of I love photography, I love taking photos that please me. They please some others but not everybody. I ended up spending a ton on photography crap that didn't get me an income. In the end I sold most of it though the expensive camera that cost $1,000 is now worth maybe $30 on a good day on ebay. Of course, in the process I proved that nobody is likely to hire a photographer and found that most of the other photographers are going bankrupt or getting the vast majority of their income from things other than photography.

Now I concentrate solely on photography for my own pleasure. I don't generally get out much to do much in the way of photography these days due to low funds. It doesn't help that my workplace is closing in about 8 weeks which leads to interesting problems. On the other hand, that could end up propelling me to a more lucrative position elsewhere.

Am I unhappy? No - not really - I have a roof over my head, food in my belly and a mattress to sleep on (if not a bed). I have a job at the moment. I don't have all the fancy things that most people desire. I keep my bills low. My latest electricity bill was a shade over $28 for the month. I am comfortable even though I'm not living in luxury. On the other hand - I own everything that I have and have no debts. I think being debt free is far more important than anything else in these dark, depressing economic times.

Why do you do that?

Why do you do that? Why do you enjoy photography? What is it about photography that attracts you?

For me, I like to record the things I have seen; not just to show other people but so that I can revisit the memories and the experiences years later. Certainly it's possible to do this with video but it's so much quicker to review still photos than to review videos as videos have to be viewed sequentially. There is a cross between still and video that's becoming ever more popular and that's animated photographs where 5 - 10 photographs are combined in a single GIF image. These are a heck of a lot of fun to view but require steady camera work. This is perhaps where a stabilised lens comes in very handy.

Clearly all the images have to be taken with the same focus point and the same angle etc but they are so much fun to watch. This is perhaps a new thing to play with although GIFs have been around for many years.

Some people like to compete with others to produce the "best" image they can. Personally, while I have entered competitions, I win only rarely. In fact I really haven't bothered much with competitions in ages. I usually find they require me to head out, find a subject and photograph it rather than for me to submit a photo that I already have that fits the bill. With the requirement these days to submit the exif with the photo when I've entered competitions I usually have to edit the exif to make it look as though the photograph was recent and taken with a current camera model. It's not really my cup of tea. I take photographs for my own enjoyment.

One of the things I dislike the most is gratuitous abuse. If I post a photo on a forum (this is what drove me away from forums and clubs) then I will get a chorus of people willing to say how awful they think a photograph is, how awful I am for taking such a photograph, how dreadful my camera and my lens must be, how I should sell it all and give up photography because I'm so bad at it etc. Very few people have the intelligence to come up with anything sensible to say. My mother always said that they'd say things like that because they were jealous. I think it's more that there are a lot of people who're quite miserable in this life and they seek to reduce their misery in comparison by making others feel more miserable.

I seek to shield myself from the misery-makers of this world. I surround myself with happy people whenever I can and don't belong to clubs or societies if at all possible as they tend to attract people who need others around them in order to climb their social ladders. There are quite a few that join societies and clubs not because they have any real interest in the club or society but because they like to play at being managers of the club or society.

Every day I hear arguments as to why one camera is better than another, another sensor is better than another, another sensor size is better than another but rarely do I see photographs that are better because of the camera or the sensor. It doesn't matter what camera is used to photograph most subjects. Most have already been photographed many times before anyway. What we're doing is not new and unique. Technology has not allowed us to do something miraculous that we could not do before. We could quite happily work around things with our older equipment, even though it might have taken a little longer.

I see new things that can be done with newer digital cameras and my question is simply - "why". Movies can be made with digital SLRs but unless they're going to be professional productions, it leaves me wondering why. On the other hand, any digital camera's video output is going to be far better than the junk that used to be paraded as video cameras.