Photographs, Photographers and Photography

March 31, 2008

Latest Canon 5D firmware

Filed under: 5D — Thomas Pindelski @ 7:17 am

Time to update.

Canon has released firmware 1.1.1 for the 5D.

Download is free and installation instructions are included.

Here are the changes:

Here’s the installation in progress:

For me the significant feature is that high capacity 8gB and 16gB cards are now supported. I’m not rushing out to buy these but it’s nice to know I can use them when Vogue calls for that special photo session with Elle McPherson.

The ‘new lenses’ referred to are these:

I somehow doubt any of these exotics will be darkening my gadget bag any time soon. And at the wide end, the Canon Fish-eye beats the pants off their 14mm ‘L’ lens at a fraction of the price and bulk – all you need is ImageAlign and Photoshop.

As for enhanced compatibility with DPP, I don’t use that so it adds no value in my case.

By the way, if you are contemplating purchase of a new camera, most manufacturers now make instruction manuals available on line and it is a good way of learning about features and limitations.

March 30, 2008

Secular thinking

Filed under: LX — Thomas Pindelski @ 7:23 am

Some neat editing.


Panasonic LX-1, 28mm, 1/1000, f/3.6, IS 100

Snapped in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The editor of this little comedy had even gone to the trouble of trying to match the paint color, and while I may not agree with the result, it is every bit as tedious to be constantly reminded of the purported existence of a supreme being (it’s even on the currency, for heaven’s sake!) in what is averred to be a secular society. In America, it seems, there’s more religion involved in running for elected office than even the next Pope has to contend with. Bizarre.

Technical note: The widescreen format of the Panasonic LX-1 is a welcome feature here. The small sensor and stretched lens design needs quite a bit of sharpening and chromatic aberration correction – here are my default import setting in Lightroom – bear in mind that I use the camera at its widest lens setting almost all the time. That means 6.3mm, equivalent to 28mm on a full frame. Chromatic aberration falls as the lens is zoomed.


Lightroom import setting for the LX-1

While the LX-1 has been obsoleted by the current LX-2, I would guess things did not change in this regard as the lens on the LX-2 is the same. You can read about automatically applying these corrections in Lightroom here. If anything, I would guess that more sharpening is called for with the LX-2, owing to the overcrowding caused by all those extra pixels on a miniscule sensor, each competing for every photon of light.

There’s a significant amount of barrel distortion at 6.3mm/28mm, too, and when it matters I use the ImageAlign plugin to correct that, round-tripping the file through Photoshop CS2. I believe ImageAlign has been discontinued but similar native functionality exists somewhere deep in the bowels of Photoshop CS3. Unless your subject is one dictating straight lines, it’s generally not an issue.

March 29, 2008

The Transamerica pyramid

Filed under: Photographs — Thomas Pindelski @ 7:37 am

A modern cathedral of commerce.

It may not be quite in the league of the scissors arches at Wells Cathedral in Somerset, but the attention to detail in the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco and the elegant execution holds its own in the world of modern architecture. For whatever reason, these snaps seem to work nicely in a square format.


Base of the Transamerica Building. Panasonic LX-1, 28mm, 1/1000, f/3.6, ISO 100.


Another view. Panasonic LX-1, 28mm, 1/640, f/3.6, ISO 100.

The fourteenth century designer of these arches in Wells Cathedral may not have had access to modern computers, but he did OK, no? Notice how the doughnuts confer strength while adding beauty. Simply wonderful. Somehow I think his work will outlast the Pyramid, given America’s love of tearing down good architecture.


An older cathedral of commerce. The scissor arches were an afterthought to spread the load. Some afterthought!

And let’s not get too high fallutin’ about motives here. Both clients were interested in one thing – making some coin. It’s just that the folks who commissioned Wells were smart enough not to pay taxes, whereas the underwriters at Transamerica really would prefer that life was infinite as that means they would never have to pay up on all those life policies …. and you though life insurers were callous and uncaring?

Disclosure: I have a thumping great big term life policy issued by Transamerica on my life, so my wife, the beneficiary, prays that the Pyramid and its owners remain standing. Me? I don’t care. Once I’m gone, that’s all she wrote.

March 28, 2008

Vince Laforet again

Filed under: Photographers — Thomas Pindelski @ 7:09 am

Some very original new work.

I first wrote of Vince Laforet when complimenting his superb photograph of the welder atop one of the Chrysler Building’s gargoyles.


From the April 2008 issue of Condé Nast’s Portfolio. Picture by Vince Laforet.

Click on this link to be directed to his photographs for a piece in Condé Nast Portfolio addressing changes in commuting. A tedious sounding topic made gripping by Laforet’s photography.

He’s using some sort of smart selective focus technique which appears to render only a narrow band of a picture sharp. A strange side effect is that his subjects end up looking like toys and you wonder whether this is not work by William Eggleston.

Worth the visit to enjoy once more the work of one of the most original photographers working today.

March 27, 2008

Municipal Logic

Filed under: Photographs — Thomas Pindelski @ 7:18 am

The brains trust strikes again.

Proving yet again that intelligence is a disqualifying attribute if you want to work for the municipality of San Francisco, the twit who designed the seats in this bus shelter decided to make people on the right feel decidedly inferior to those on the left. No surprise that this citizen elected the highest perch!


Panasonic LX-1, 105mm, 1/1250, f/4, ISO 100

March 26, 2008

The Panasonic LX-1 revisited

Filed under: LX — Thomas Pindelski @ 7:11 am

A fine, unobtrusive street snapper.

I bought the Panasonic LX-1 a couple of years ago with but one purpose in mind. It was to be an unobtrusive street snapper, both smaller and more capable than the Leica M2 it replaced.

You can see my various ramblings on the subject by clicking here.

Since then Panasonic has ‘upgraded’ the camera to the LX-2 adding a bigger LCD screen. Neat idea. The one on my LX-1 is miles ahead when it comes to use in bright sun over the horror in the Canon 5D. They also squeezed in more pixels on that miniscule sensor. Not so neat an idea, as the original is noisy enough and more pixels will not help in that department.

Most importantly, I glued a 28mm Voigtlander optical viewfinder on the top plate, and its field of view matches the widest (default) setting of the zoom lens in the LX-1 nicely. Because depth of field is huge (the lens is but 6.3mm in focal length at its widest) I switch off the auto-focus with the handy slider on the lens barrel and bang away merrily on the street. Response time? Almost as fast as that old M2 with its antiquated film and processing needs. Optical quality? Add a bit of sharpening and chromatic aberration correction and 13″ x 19″ prints are fine. At that size sensor noise starts to intrude, much as film grain did with the M2. You might think that the LX-1 lacks the M2’s low light capability as the lens is not fast but the built in IS is good for two shutter speeds, so the lens’s f/2.8 becomes an effective f/1.4. The whole experiment has been a resounding success. The auto-exposure adds immensely to speed of use. And I console myself that I’m still using a Leica lens when I suspend disbelief and buy in to the engraving on the lens rim.

I’m hoping that the Sigma DP1, with its large sensor and fixed focus lens, will further improve matters, but one thing it will not beat is the tiny size of the LX-1. I was reminded of this when wandering about San Francisco the other day. As usual, I was cradling the LX-1 in the palm of my hand, ready for instant action. Handled thus the camera is invisible until raised to the eye. It was amusing to see a few other snappers either using point-and-shoot digitals and squinting at the ridiculous LCD screens at arm’s length (hard to be more visible, really) or using giant DSLRs and big zoom lenses which simply scream for the subject to disappear.

Me? Happily unobtrusive, courtesy of the fine engineers at Panasonic, greatly enjoying the native widescreen format of the sensor.

The snaps from one day’s fun follow.

* * * * *

Quite what this lady was thinking of with a WASP mannequin selling Chinese clothing I don’t know, but it works for me.


Chinatown vendor. Panasonic LX-1, 28mm, 1/200, f/3.6, ISO 100

This pipe bender was far too busy to worry about photographers:


Pipe bender. Panasonic LX-1, 105mm (LCD finder used), 1/800, f/4.5, ISO 100

The little pop-up flash unit in the LX-1 is not to be sneezed at – it adds that bit of contrast in a shady location, such as that where this beautiful gate was placed:


Beautiful gate. Panasonic LX-1, 28mm, 1/30, f/3.6, built-in flash, ISO 100, ImageAlign used to remove barrel distrotion

These workers were doing what white American labor specializes at, in the shade of the Transamerica pyramid:


American labor. Panasonic LX-1, 28mm, 1/200, f/3.6, ISO 100

There’s nothing wrong with the color rendition of this little gem.


Chinatown silks. Panasonic LX-1, 28mm, 1/100, f/3.6, ISO 100

Throw a great Renaissance name at me and you have my interest. Suspend a pizza pie over a passer-by’s head and you have a picture. By the way, the menu at lower left is perfectly distinguishable in the original, so no excuses need be made for the lens once color fringing is removed in Lightroom.


Flying Pizza. Panasonic LX-1, 28mm, 1/125, f/3.6, ISO 100


Detail of the picture above.

Finally, add one of life’s little incongruities and you have a perfect end to a perfect picture taking day in the gorgeous city of San Francisco.


Precarious perch. Panasonic LX-1, 28mm, 1/30, f/3.6, built-in flash, ISO 100

Because the shutter in the LX-1 is almost dead silent, I have the ‘clack’ sound switched on otherwise it’s hard to know when you have taken the picture on a noisy street. As is typical with modern cameras, there is no progressive resistance in the shutter release button to clue you in. No matter – you get used to what it takes after a few exposures. The wonderful shutter release ‘feel’ of the old rangefinder film Leica is just one more over-hyped piece of nonsense.

Needless to add, the built-in IS adds immeasurably to good definition in the original snaps and 54 RAW snaps on a 1gB SD card is just right for a day’s fun. Sure, you have to adjust for red color fringing and sharpening when processing, but as I can do that with a preset for automatic import into Lightroom, I have no problem with what I call the modern idiom of lens design – meaning poor lenses and great software.


Chinatown medley. Panasonic LX-1, RAW, ISO 100

All pictures taken on March 23, 2008, RAW, processed in Lightroom.

March 25, 2008

A face in the window

Filed under: LX, Photographs — Thomas Pindelski @ 7:21 am

A quick look.


Panasonic LX-1, 28mm, 1/1000, f/3.6, ISO 100

Spotted in San Francisco’s Chinatown yesterday. The small and unobtrusive Panasonic is ideal for this sort of thing and has mercifully low shutter lag, which distinguishes it from most point-and-wait pocket digital cameras.

March 24, 2008

As the chaps at Monty Python once put it ….

Filed under: Photography — Thomas Pindelski @ 7:31 am

Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, eggs and spam. And Dusies.

Which is about the ratio of comedic nonsense to quality thinking I get as Comments on this blog. And, if others’ experience is anything to go by, I am actually doing pretty well.

Once, when I was living in NYC, then mayor Ed Koch, who was famous for his outspokenness, pulled new bicycle lanes from the streets. These had been installed at great taxpayer expense just weeks earlier and were, of course, promptly disregarded by all and sundry. When asked why, he famously replied: “When I make a mistake, it’s a real Dusie!”.

The reference is to the Dusenberg company which made its most exotic, most expensive car in 1932 – coinciding with a little something called the Great Depression …. bankruptcy followed.

Anyway, check the last little piece of childishness, a real Dusie, in this priceless collection, added today, which gave me some innocent amusement which I know you will share. The writer? Yes, another honorable member of the spam list or, if you prefer, the Monty Python Collection.

Anyway, after months of experimenting I am so confident of my new spam tools I hereby challenge all spammers to try to break the system and encourage their efforts as, who knows, there may be some more little gems like this latest one to add to the list. And thanks, Ms. Mentally Bankrupt Spammer, for some great editorial material. I’m almost inclined to take your name off the spam list in the hope of some more priceless gems from you – not!

March 21, 2008

The real capacity of storage cards

Filed under: 5D — Thomas Pindelski @ 6:25 am

A welcome ‘feature’ of the 5D.

I mentioned a while back that I was moving to 2gB cards in the 5D, from the 1gB I started with.

The welcome capacity increase and falling price made sense.


With an empty 2 gB card

The 5D continues to dutifully reports room for 120 RAW pictures on a blank card, yet the other day I again noticed how low that estimate is. Obviously, the size of RAW files will vary depending on the scene, but the difference I noted is anything but insignificant.

Apple’s Disc Utility reports available space of 2.039gB on a formatted 2gB Extreme IV card, so that means Canon is assuming an average file size of almost 17mB per image in computing the above count. Nice that they use so large a size as it means they are erring on the side of safety.

Here’s the scoop:

That’s actually 140 images plus a count of two for the containing folders. And there’s still 350mB of free space left! Do the numbers and you come up with a capacity of 171 pictures, or 42% more than that original estimate. Of course, this will vary with the scene photographed, as more detail and color translates to a larger picture file size.

Now that’s a ‘feature’ I can handle any day.

Follow-up:

Check Comment #1 for a very interesting discussion of some of the underlying reasons for varying file sizes.

The pictures I was writing about in this case were studio photos taken with studio flash with just the subject’s eyes critically sharp (the 85mm Canon f/1.8 lens was used and 18″ x 24″ prints were a breeze to make and superb in every way) and everything else pretty much out of focus, so it seems the low ’sharp content’ correlates with the small file sizes. The 10mB file above was a blank where I pressed the button before the flash was ready to fire, so that would appear to be the base file size of a 5D image. The Comment suggests that, for identical subjects, two lenses of like focal length will result in the one with higher micro-contrast generating a larger file size – an interesting ‘test’ method for this variable.

March 20, 2008

Two years with the Canon 5D

Filed under: 5D — Thomas Pindelski @ 8:01 am

What’s good and what rankles.

It’s been some two years since I bought my Canon 5D, an appropriate milestone from which to reconsider what is good and bad about the decision.

Since then the price has come down significantly, meaning almost a 30% drop yet, amazingly, with other market segments seeing many model changes since, the 5D remains available and has not been upgraded. I have no idea how sales of this model compare with Canon’s other offerings, and I suppose you could argue that they haven’t made a replacement because sales are very high …. or very low.

I don’t care. It remains a quantum leap in making the picture taking process an easier one. Forget all the mind numbing choices in all those menus, the reality is that the chances of making a technically solid picture, sharp, properly focused and grain free have risen manyfold owing to this superb machine. Plus you can make a perfect print of any size you want from just about any frame. More time for seeing, less for worrying.

Things I like:

  • The 3:2 aspect ratio of the frame. I grew up with Leicas. It would be even nicer at 16:9 widescreen.
  • The large, uncluttered, near life-size, viewfinder.
  • The fact that the depth of field and coverage of a 50mm lens …. remain the depth of field and image coverage of a 50mm lens on a film camera.
  • The grain free sensor – the ISO adjustment is just another way of controlling aperture and shutter speed. I never worry about grain. If I need grain, something like this works.
  • The great selection of inexpensive Canon lenses – the non-zooms I own are mostly wonderful.
  • The lack of shutter lag – as good as a Leica M2 or M3.
  • Autofocus. With mediocre eyesight like mine the fabulous rangefinder in the Leicas is improved upon by modern technology. And it’s faster.
  • Spot focus/lock/recompose. Never another unsharp studio picture.
  • Auto exposure. Another impediment removed.
  • Spot exposure measurement for those difficult occasions.
  • The reliability. The 5D’s OS makes a Mac look like a dog. You never have to reboot.
  • The battery life. Simply incredible. Carrying a spare hardly seems necessary.
  • The 85mm f/1.8 EF Canon lens. The Leica Apo-Summicron Asph at a fraction of the cost.
  • How all that automation makes use with a 400mm Canon ‘L’ lens so easy.

Things I dislike:

  • The bulk. Bigger than my Leica Ms, it’s no joy to tramp around with.
  • The noise. Not bad, but silence would be nicer. The 5D’s shutter is what you hear when you login to this site.
  • An LCD screen which is unusable outdoors.
  • Poor auto white balance indoors but easily fixed with one click in Lightroom.
  • The attraction the sensor has for dust. I mitigate that by using (superior) non-zoom lenses, but that’s not the answer. Actually, it’s more the pump design of Canon’s 24-105mm zoom and poor dust sealing in the lens that seems to be to blame here.
  • The advertising – that big white ‘Canon’ logo and crass ‘5D’ sticker – both easily fixed with some black tape. You want me to advertise your goods you pay me, OK?
  • That criminally inept stock strap. Criminal, as the first thing it will do is make sure your camera falls off your shoulder.


    5D and friends. Not a worthless lens hood in sight.

  • The fact that I take too many pictures. Digital makes you lazy, less selective. Good digital management in the likes of Lightroom helps. But nothing beats the Delete button.
  • That horrid flap.

But, taken as a whole, these really are minor gripes in exchange for the wonderful image quality.

The 5D will likely be updated/obsoleted any day now, but for this photographer it remains the bees’ knees. Would I buy it today in preference to anything else? Absolutely. The improvements in Mark II – sensor dust removal apart – will be visible to academics only. But the 5D (Mk. I or II) only makes sense if you like to make Really Large Prints. For web display even a 2 megapixel P&S is fine.


The Canon 5D. A new era in equipment.

March 19, 2008

About the snap: Marion Campbell

Filed under: About the Snap — Thomas Pindelski @ 6:56 am

A memory of the Island of Harris, Scotland,

Date: September, 1977.
Place: Harris, Outer Hebrides, Scotland.
Modus operandi: Enjoying the finest hospitality.
Weather: Sun to rain every few minutes.
Time: 2pm.
Gear: Leica M3, 35mm Summaron.
Medium: Kodak TriX
Me: Looking forward to becoming an American.
My age: 25


The file is 5.3mB in size. Download by clicking the down arrow

Just before setting out on a new life in the New World, I made a visit to the Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland.

My eldest sister had graduated from Dundee in the sixties and, as a schoolboy, I still fondly remember a visit to that old Scottish city where my youngest sister and I were presented with a Scottish Terrier. I also remember the people – dour, hard to get to know and not a fake in sight. Just like that Scottie. There’s an awful lot to like about the Scots – a nation we have to thank for single malts, Harris Tweed and golf. Well, two out of three’s not bad.

I took the ferry to one of the more southerly islands, South Uist, home of that peaty single malt scotch named Laphroaig, and gradually wended my way north by bicycle and ferry, getting soaked seemingly every 15 minutes as clouds scudded by, dropping their loads en route to the mainland.

The Scottish Tourist Board had this arrangement where, for 50p ($1.20 then) a night, you would get bed and breakfast and use of a local bicycle. One evening I was asked by the aged proprietors of one such B&B to join them and listen to old Gaelic songs on big 15 inch shellac 78s. Sad wailing sounds in perfect keeping with the desolate beauty of these islands. The next morning I recall coming down to eat with another young lady tourist and was dismayed to find that my plate was loaded up with twice as much food as the young woman’s. That impugned my sense of fairness. Questioning the proprietoress I was told in no uncertain terms “You’re a man, lad. You have to work the fields”. Blood pudding, rashers, sweet corn, potatoes, fried tomatoes, liver. No more questions from me. Just a full belly, set for the day.

My last stop was Harris, the northernmost island of the Outer Hebrides, shared with Lewis. Home of Harris Tweed. Truly a cottage industry. The hard wearing tweed is made in cottages and though power looms have now taken over, I asked around and found one of the last practitioners of hand loom weaving. More. This artisan had her own sheep from which she would shear and dye the wool then spin the yarn, before weaving it on the loom.

Marion Campbell
Address: Plockropool 8, Harris. Scotland.

The hospitality accorded me is still different from anything I can recall. The reason is simple. Ms. Campbell had very little in the way of possessions or wealth, yet insisted that I stay and enjoy tea, a delicious mix of home made scones, tea and other delicacies. Ever so tentatively I asked if I might take her picture at the loom and, of course, she agreed. This was after I explained to her that, accent notwithstanding, I was anything but English. That broke the ice! There’s no love lost between the Scots and the English over the past millennium or so. And as I was the son of refugees from an oppressed nation, a bond was formed.

I have been trying to process this snap for thirty years. Every decade it gets better as processing technology improves. Oh! if only I had had a fill in flash with me. Anyway, I now have the burned out highlights largely recovered and some vestige of detail in that wonderful, craggy face.


Marion Campbell, Harris, Outer Hebrides, 1977. Leica M3. 35mm Summaron. Tri X.

I can still hear the clack of the shuttle as she threw it first one way, then the other. The memory of that afternoon’s wonderful hospitality will never fade.

Two months later I left London for good, a one way PanAm ticket in one hand, the Leica in the other, and made my new home in America. This is my fondest memory of what I left behind.

March 18, 2008

Innovation is not invention

Filed under: Cameras — Thomas Pindelski @ 7:09 am

Those brilliant Japanese.

Talk of warranties requires that I point out that Joseph Juran died the other day at the grand age of 103. With W. Edwards Deming he taught the gospel of quality control to Japanese management and workers after World War II. Why the Japanese? Because when he tried to teach Americans he invariably found the bosses stayed away and sent only low level workers to his lectures. To this day Detroit has not learned the lesson that quality starts at the top.

Today ‘Made in Japan’ is a touchstone of quality whereas ‘Made in Detroit’ is what ‘Made in Japan’ was in 1945.

But it isn’t just quality that distinguishes Japanese products.

It is also innovation.

Yet you still hear that old saw that the Japanese are mere copyists and incapable of innovating.

Never mind that while GM’s CEO just stated that he is going to devote more time to lobbying (read – going to Washington with his right hand out, the other in the taxpayers’ pocket), Honda is test marketing a hydrogen powered car in Los Angeles. It comes complete with a device that plugs into the natural gas line at home and makes hydrogen for the car. Washington will doubtless try to quash this innovation as there go all those gasoline taxes. Much the way in which Detroit destroyed rail travel in the US. For all its talk of free competition America still loves monopolies and cartels. Can you say Microsoft? A company which never learned the meaning of quality and which could learn a lot from the likes of Juran and his followers.

Look at camera gear. The last innovation out of Germany was the wonderful view/rangefinder in the Leica M3 -1954, though designed in 1938 or so. No need to dwell on the reasons for the delay. No, it had nothing to do with quality.

The Japanese? Look at some of the functions in cameras which they have perfected. The SLR instant return mirror, auto diaphragms, auto-focus, matrix metering, all sorts of viewfinder displays, linear focusing motors, affordable aspherical lenses, miniscule motor drives, eye controlled focus (beats me why Canon ceased offering that – the camera would focus where the eye was looking – sheer genius), image stabilization, face detection, smile detection, tiny mass storage devices, LCD screens. Amazing stuff. Great innovation.


The elegant and affordable Pentax Spotmatic – the camera whose maker made the instant return mirror a reality.

Innovation is not invention. Innovation is bringing the invention to market in quantity at an affordable price with a guarantee of quality. Juran knew that. Anyone can invent.

So next time your neighbor tells you the Japanese are copycats, just purr away in your hydrogen powered car, your magical Japanese DSLR in the glove compartment, leaving a trail of water droplets in his driveway while he ponders the challenge of a refill at $10 a gallon to drive his Detroit steel to the repair shop. After two Honda hybrids which have been nothing but wonderful to own and drive, my wife’s next car will be that hydrogen powered one. And like its two predecessors, we will be looking for those magical words on the window sticker: “100% Japanese content and labor”. The very last thing we want is a nominally Japanese car assembled by a pot bellied beer drinker with unkempt hair, wearing a Harley Davidson T shirt. Joseph Juran would be proud.

But there is hope. It seems that NASA gets it.

March 16, 2008

Notes on Tosca

Filed under: Photographers — Thomas Pindelski @ 5:08 am

Drama imitates life.

He was the supreme bully. A man drunken on power and privilege.

He made his home in a fabulous mansion in the best part of town.

Powerful men quaked in his presence. He extracted vast sums from them under threat of imprisonment.

Having accomplished everything anyone could dream of by his forties, only the presidency itself was left to aspire to.

And his fall from the very pinnacle of power was as startling, as unexpected, as sudden as was his rise.

For under all that success raged a torrent of repressed sexual desire that was to be his undoing.

The former governor of New York?

No. His role model, Baron Scarpia.

* * * * *

To limit the focus of this journal which is, after all, about Photographs, Photographers and Photography, to still pictures would be to exclude 50% of man’s greatest creation in the genre. The movies.

The best movies are not ‘movies’ at all. Rather, they comprise a succession of great still photographs.

More about ‘Still Movies’ here.

* * * * *

My grandfather taught me all I ever needed to know about opera.

Just a bunch of people dressed in silly clothes, mouthing terminally idiotic words in quite unbelievable circumstances and doing so at tedious length in anything but the Queen’s English.

“Avoid it at all costs” was about it for opera in his mind. And this from a man whose idea of bedtime reading was Goethe.

But he made one honorable exception and I have never found a reason to argue.

That exception is Tosca. “The one where that fellow gets tortured” as he put it.

Short. Sweet. A real plot. Great music. High drama. Believable.

* * * * *

No opera singer in his or her right mind wants to sing early in the morning. The instrument is tired, needing exercise and proper warming to make it effective.

Yet, at dawn on July 12, 1992, there they were, atop the world’s most fearsome prison, giving it all they had.

It was an experience never to be repeated in opera, or film for that matter.

* * * * *

Catherine Malfitano. Placido Domingo. Ruggero Raimondi.

Mellifluous names that glide off the tongue.

But, like in the movies, it’s not good enough to be a master of one’s craft. You also have to be beautiful to look at.

And Catherine Malfitano, Placido Domingo and Ruggero Raimondi are very beautiful human beings indeed.

* * * * *

Not until the time of Garibaldi some forty years later was Italy to finally see some semblance of unity and an end to hundreds of years of warring nation states within its borders.

Tosca is unlike any opera of the time. While premiered in 1900 it tells of real events exactly one hundred years earlier.

Scarpia may be a man of fiction but we all know he is everywhere we look.

We think of Austrians as those nice people speaking softly inflected German and living in quaint Tyrolean homes. But in 1800 this was a nation of aggressive, opportunistic warriors.

Part way through the second of its three acts, police chief Scarpia is informed by one of his servile flunkies that his man, Field Marshal von Melas, has been trounced by Napoleon at the Battle of Marengo, he and his occupying army having been sent with their tails between their legs back home from Piedmont. The French extended Italy and the hated Austrians were no more. Scarpia, needless to add, supported the Austrians.

Bullies like their own kind.

We had a great tradition of handling bullies at my old school in England. Three or four of the heftier members of the rugby team would take the bully to the toilet, force his head in the water and flush. No more bullying. And while one must view any unmarried priest with caution, especially if entrusted with the care of your son, there is something to be said for a Benedictine tradition which places so great a premium on fairness. The monks knew to look the other way.

* * * * *

Puccini wrote Tosca’s three acts into the landscape of Renaissance Rome.

The first is set in Sant’Andrea della Valle, yet another priceless Catholic church. Completed in 1650 it proves that not only was life good in the building trades under Renaissance popes, the architects were having a field day too.

The second is in magnificent Palazzo Farnese, designed by Bramante’s assistant when he was drawing St. Peter’s basilica. France has the great good taste to house its Italian embassy there. Scarpia’s home in the opera.

The last is in that frightful prison Castel Sant’Angelo. The one atop which, at the crack of dawn, Malfitano and Domingo meet their maker. Only the Italians could name a prison after a saint. When Julius II, who commissioned Michelangelo to do the Sistine Chapel vault, was fearing for his life from yet another set of invaders, two hundred years before Tosca, this is where he hid.

* * * * *

That producer Andrea Andermann would even contemplate making Tosca in Puccini’s original locations and at the same times dictated by the composer, seems like madness. Broadcast it live and you have pure, unadulterated lunacy. How could this possibly work? Three broadcasts separated by hours to let the sun coincide with the composer’s dream.

The orchestra was in a studio with lots of monitors. Playing the music to the action on the screen. The actors/singers all fitted with hidden radio microphones.

The cameraman, Vittorio Storaro, testifies to the seriousness of the effort. Can you say ‘Apocalypse Now’ or ‘The Last Emperor’ or ‘Last Tango in Paris’? The best of the best.

* * * * *

Tosca was an actress. Catherine Malfitano is a superb actress. Had they called this production a movie the Oscar would have been hers. However, it’s not enough just to act, something that is second nature to her. Wonderful, expressive eyes, lips to die for, a body out of this world. A feast for the senses. And if that’s not enough she sings. A direct artistic descendant of that great singer/actress Maria Callas. What the voice lacks in unique timbre it gains in the beauty of phrasing and execution. Callas without the wobble.

* * * * *

How they managed to keep all the cameras and equipment out of the frame beats me.

* * * * *

Placido Domingo. The thinking man’s Pavarotti. A Ferrari to the fat man’s Mack truck of a voice.

* * * * *

Can you imagine greater avarice than that in Ruggero Raimondi’s personification of Scarpia? Everything you expect in a morally degenerate cop, but with the presence and glamor of a fashion model. A bully. A sadist. A cruel man who desires women because he hates them so. Sort of like the guy you thought I was writing about at the start of this piece, but with film star looks.

* * * * *

The photography? Mine is an old VHS tape and not so sharp, but these scenes from the first act tell you all you need to know. If you have ever seen two people in love you know there is no acting going on here.

Scarpia? I thought you would never ask ….

For some reason, one that totally defies belief, the movie/opera is not available on DVD.

You did keep that old VHS player, didn’t you?

March 15, 2008

René Maltête

Filed under: Photographers — Thomas Pindelski @ 8:32 am

A fine French photographer.

A reader writes:

Thomas,

You often make reference to great or at least famous photographers. I am French and when I was a child (I am 56 now) I used to flip over my uncle’s photography books. There was one French photographer I loved and I would like to share it with you, here is the link.

You may have to brush up a bit your French to understand certains images, they were taken some 40 to 50 years ago.

Cheers,

Michel

Thanks, Michel. I was not familiar with René Maltête’s work and I’m grateful for the reference.

Most enjoyable!

March 14, 2008

At the Moscone Center

Filed under: Photographs — Thomas Pindelski @ 5:55 am

Sterility makes for opportunity.

The Moscone Center – named after the assassinated mayor – in San Francisco is probably best known for hosting the annual love-in where Steve Jobs previews the latest in Apple toys early each new year. It also hosts a playground which may be the most sterile I have ever seen, but that’s not all bad. It makes for interesting photo opportunities.


Moscone playground, 2000. Leica M2, 50mm Summicron, Kodak Gold 100. Contrast enhanced in Lightroom.

I was very much thinking of the work of Ludwig Schricker when snapping this.

No, I wasn’t there for an Apple love-in.

March 13, 2008

Importing into Lightroom

Filed under: Lightroom, Software — Thomas Pindelski @ 4:54 am

Automating sharpening on import.

One of the first things I have to do when processing images imported from my Canon 5D (or the Lumix LX1 for that matter) is to sharpen the RAW image. This is standard operating procedure for digital cameras and has nothing to do with poor native image quality. The process simply negates the effect of the anti-aliasing filter, used in nearly every digital camera. Apple’s Aperture is really smart about this and does it automatically, detecting the camera used and applying Apple’s pre-set adjustments. Lightroom is less smart but can be taught to make the adjustment automatically on import.

Here’s the process – I have enlarged the screen shots for legibility, hence the poor definition – if you want to see aliasing take a look at the ‘jaggies’ in the pointers!

Here are the Lightroom defaults for sharpening in the Develop module.

Leave them like this and you will have to sharpen every picture once imported. A waste of time.

Here are the settings that work best for me – and I have large prints made on an HP Designjet 90 printer as my goal. For the small images used for the web it really does not matter what you do. A large print, on the other hand, is the most demanding output there is.

Having made those adjustments in the Develop panel I then create a new User Preset by clicking on the ‘+’ sign in the Preset area in the left panel and naming the current settings Canon 5D. No other defaults have been changed in the Develop module at this time nor do you want to make any changes:

Then when prompted which settings to save with this new User Preset, I choose ‘Check None’ then check only the Sharpening box. This will limited changes made whenever this User Preset is chosen to Sharpening only. Were I importing from a small sensor camera with inherent image noise (not an issue with the 5D) I would consider including Noise Reduction when creating the User Preset and would check the related box, below.

Next I insert a CF card containing images to be imported into the card reader and the import Dialog pops up. Under information to Apply: Develop Settings I click the drop down box and point to the Canon 5D preset just created:

Now my preferred sharpening settings will be applied as the pictures are imported and 1:1 Previews are generated. As is always the case with RAW files, the original file is never changed – it’s just the Previews that are managed.

You can make User Presets which are specific to a camera serial number, if you want, but as Your Truly owns just one 5D (a status unlikely to change) and one Lumix LX1, that’s a luxury I do not need.

One size does not fit all:

Now the above approach is camera specific, not lens specific.

It doesn’t mean that you just merrily import every image without the need for any additional sharpening adjustments.

Even in my small set of Canon lenses there are noticeable variations. The 85mm, 200mm’L’ and 400mm ‘L’ optics are pretty constant when it comes to sharpness at all apertures. Indeed, the 200mm generally needs a small reduction, it’s that good. On the other hand, the 24-105mm ‘L’ and the 50mm f/1.4 at full aperture both need a little more and the 20mm needs more all the time. It’s a mediocre piece of glass at best.

And it’s not just sharpening you have to worry about. There are other lens aberrations.

It would be pretty neat to be able to automatically adjust for Chromatic Aberration (color fringing), Distortion based on the lens used and Vignetting, but that feature is not available, yet. CA and Vignetting would be especially tricky as they vary with aperture. Distortion is no walk in the park either as the distortion levels in zooms vary with focal length. That’s not to say that Adobe couldn’t do it (we are talking simple look-up tables here, although a lot of them, and a presumption of low sample variation) and I, for one, would love to be able to have the fairly pronounced barrel distortion in the 24-105mm ‘L’ zoom automatically removed when this otherwise fine optic is used at its wide end.

DxO Optics adopts this exact approach in a plug-in for Lightroom. They should be applauded for their efforts. The list of cameras and lenses they automatically adjust for is set forth here. I have not tried the product and, at $300, I’m not about too, but it may make sense to some. It looks like the latest Mac version is not yet available so I could not try it even if I wanted to blow the coin. Their video suggests the product is bog slow (a couple of minutes to adjust just five images), and you can bet they are using the fastest possible hardware to put a gloss on things, so a pinch of salt is recommended before you lay out your hard earned cash.

Does any of this really matter with small images – like those reproduced on the web or in snapshot prints? No. But once your prints sizes get large, it can make a significant difference to the appearance of the picture. And a little bit of automation to reduce the drudge of processing is always a good thing.

March 12, 2008

More on Lightroom printing

Filed under: Lightroom — Thomas Pindelski @ 7:17 am

Some convenient enhancements.

Since publishing my first piece on how to profile monitors and printers for use with Lightroom, I have made a couple of interesting discoveries.

First, I listened to Adobe Podcast#1 (with Mark Hamburg, Kevin Tieskoetter and Jeff Schewe) from Apple’s iTunes store (search podcasts on “Lightroom”) which speaks to profiling (they are speaking about Lightroom Beta Release #4 for the Mac) and was intrigued to note that that we shared the same approach. The development team (a lot of very smart, well informed, outspoken engineers – highly recommended listening) does exactly what I published with regard to the use of Colorsync, letting the printer manage colors, not Lightroom. This philospohy is printer agnostic. Epson, HP, Canon, you name it.

My approach requires making Lightroom use Apple’s Colorsync utility to manage colors. You need a properly profiled screen and I describe in that earlier piece a very accurate way of doing that which does not even require a colorimeter, provided you follow certain disciplines regarding ambient lighting.

I suggest you give this method a try. Your maximum cost is a few minutes, a couple of pieces of paper and some ink. And the money saved on a Colorimeter (wish I had been that smart when I bought mine) will pay for a lot of paper and ink. It does not matter who makes your printer for this screen profiling approach to work.

The other thing I discovered is that it is possible to save the Colorsync setting in the Printer Profile – something I stated frustration at not being able to do.

I had forgotten that there is a ‘Save’ setting in the print dialog box. So elect Colorsync in Print Settings->PaperType/Quality then Save the setting with a meaningful name. I have named my saved file “HP Photo Satin – Colorsync” which states the paper type I chose before saving and obviously uses the Colorsync utility. Note that this named setting is independent of Lightroom’s Print templates – you choose it at print time after selecting a Print template. The printer dialog box dictates color management, the Lightroom Print template controls the paper size, margins and picture layout on the page.

Then, when it’s time to Print, I simple choose this drop down menu option in the Print dialog box (I have not yet figured out how to make it the default, something I would like to do as that’s what I use nearly all the time – what I need to do is work out how to delete the ‘Standard’ setting, I’m guessing, at the OS file level). A quick check – see the following screen picture – confirms that the Colorsync setting has, indeed, been saved and will be used when printing.

Now I am assured that both the right paper profile and the correct Colorsync setting is made without having to check yet another layer of menus in the print dialog box. So printing really is a breeze. I have created three templates – for three different paper sizes. That’s all I need, as I always use the same HP paper.

* * * * *

I learned an interesting thing from this podcast – what do you think Adobe did for the Lightroom development team for Christmas of 2005? They gave each member a digital camera and encouraged them to take lots of pictures. Maybe the resulting stress testing has something to do with the application’s speed? I wonder whether Apple ever considered doing that for its Aperture developers? Or do they simply get a $7,000 Mac Pro and 30″ screen which will run anything well ….

March 11, 2008

A pastoral interlude

Filed under: Photographs — Thomas Pindelski @ 7:39 am

The charm of central California’s wine country.

After the overwhelming power of yesterday’s picture, something more placid is called for. Nothing is finer than a gentle drive on the traffic-free back roads of central California’s wine country, which happens to be where I live.

And this little bit of nothing was a nice little something to chance upon. No drama. No message. Just some gentle beauty.


Central California wine country. 5D, 85mm, 1/1000, f/8, ISO 250. Processed in Lightroom.

With that combination of camera and lens, Canon could fairly claim, as Kodak did a hundred years ago, “You take the picture, we do the rest”. Processing was limited to the addition of a bit of vignetting, using Lightroom’s sliders to make the subject pop.

Some mood music helps, so why not the best?


Chopin, Mazurka in B minor, Op. 33 #4. Horowitz.

March 10, 2008

Evil

Filed under: Photographers, Photographs — Thomas Pindelski @ 8:58 am

Arnold Newman got it right.

Some three years ago I wrote about Karsh’s wonderful portrait of Churchill, a portrait which is very much a confirmation of the man’s qualities. The unyielding, courageous bulldog. To say that it had an impact on me is an understatement. Our son is named Winston.

But there’s another portrait of a powerful man which needs to be mentioned, though the subject in this case is at the opposite end of the moral scale. It’s by Arnold Newman and I was reminded of Newman by Peter Solmssen’s mention of his admiration for this great photographer’s work.

While Newman excelled at powerful pictures of powerful men, never did he surpass the portrayal of evil than when he took the picture of the exemplar of that trait, Alfried Krupp.

Now quite what the Krupp Steel PR machine was thinking of when they had a famous Jew photograph a famous Nazi is hard to understand, but Newman did not let them down. Krupp, for those not up on him, used slave labor to produce the Nazi machines of war in his steel works and, worse, got away with it.


The personification of evil

A magnificent picture which need no words from me.

Tracking warranties

Filed under: Software — Thomas Pindelski @ 7:39 am

iCal to the fore!

I explained – and quantified – why the arithmetic of extended warranties on consumer gee-gaws made it a slam dunk for the writers of the insurance and a losing proposition for the buyers here. So photographers should know when the warranty expires on their latest camera or lens.

Machines fail when very new or very old/very used. No secret there. Look at light bulbs. Cars. Cameras.

Which brings me to tracking warranties.

As I have recently written, my trust in Apple quality control has been severely shaken over the past year when my new MacBook, Extreme router and wireless keyboard all broke down during the (measly) one year warranty period. In each case I had to scratch around to determine whether the first year of ownership had passed. Apple is a key photographic tool vendor for this user.

Then it struck me. Might as well use Apple’s own tools to track their failures and warranties, so now any time I buy a new toy, the warranty expiration date goes right into iCal with an email reminder to me. And if I do want to check, I simply search iCal for the name of the gadget.

So, Toshiba, I’m not about to forget about the three year warranty on that new hard drive. No way.

To make matters easy, all the receipts go in a three ring binder in chronological order. Easy.

And if I do want to check if something fails, or find the date of the invoice for a warranty claim, I simply search iCal for the name of the gadget – Apple-F in iCal.

So watch out, Apple, Toshiba, Canon, Panasonic, big screen TV maker, et al. You are being watched. Though, in fairness to all but Apple in that list, these manufacturers’ products have been failure free.

There is one far more important reason however, and it is a life saver.

This technique has saved half my net worth on more occasions than I can name. Now that I no longer have a secretary charged with reminding me of these things, I have to remember the wife’s birthday and our wedding anniversary. To be safe, I put in these vital dates twice, with two week and one day reminders – the first for the gift, the second to book the dinner. Who said computers don’t save you money?

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