Monthly Archives: February 2012

George Hurrell

Photographer to the Stars.


On the cover – Joan Crawford and Franchot Tone. Click the image.

George Hurrell’s star shone brightest when the Hollywood studio system was in full flow. Stars may not have made the extraordinary compensation packages of today and, indeed, their long term contracts pretty much made them indentured servants to the studio bosses, but they had regular work and who would argue that today’s movies are better?

I was reminded of this splendid book when setting up the lights for our son’s tenth birthday session, and surprised to find I had never mentioned it here. The boom light used on the hair is pure Hurrell, and you will see its effect in almost every picture in the book. I have had this book in my collection for years and it’s still in print, though my Scottish gene reminds me that I almost certainly bought it at a remaindered price.

Highly recommended not just for Hurrell’s tremendous skill with lighting – and we are talking large plate cameras here – but also because of the many memorable images of stars of the golden age of Hollywood. My favourite is Loretta Young – a face of quite exceptional beauty.

The placement of the subject under the boom light is critical with the relatively small light sources used today. Hurrell used enormous light boxes which gave off a broad soft beam, making placement of the subject easier. With small strobes, if your subject is as much as an inch or two too far back the face will wash out into a ghastly death mask. I make things easier for Winston by marking the placement of his toes on the ground with tape, once the right position is determined. The cover photograph, above, interestingly uses the single boom light only, to superb effect.

Do what you love

Life is short.


Muni bus, Union Square, SF. D700, 16-35mm @30mm, ISO 1600.

There are two types of people in this late night snap. Those who hate what they do. And those who love what they do.

No prizes for guessing which is which.


The Holstee Manifesto.

Nikkor Series E 75-150 mm f/3.5 MF zoom lens

An absolute sweetheart.

Our son Winston does karate in a down-on-its-luck area whose great redeeming quality is the presence of Kaufmann’s Cameras, one of the few remaining camera stores in these parts, 57 years in business, the last 21 at the same location on West 25th Avenue in San Mateo.

They have half a dozen consignment cases full of old film gear, languishing sadly (they keep a 30% commission).

I swung by when Winnie was doing yet another of his never ending belt tests yesterday (it’s their annuity income stream) and spotted one of the bargain label Nikon-E optics, the 75-150mm f/3.5 for sale, in mint condition. Small, 52mm filter, trombone zoom, MF of course and a fixed f/3.5 maximum aperture. A quick check on the iPad disclosed it’s a highly regarded optic, all metal, and the one Kaufmann’s had on consignment was mint, complete with UV filter and rear cap.

As generally seems to be the case the zoom trombone will move with gravity; two minutes with electrician’s black vinyl tape saw a strip applied underneath and the problem was solved.


Series E 75-150mm Nikon lens.

Definition is super, with the merest hint of red fringing at 75mm, with slight vignetting at 150mm, both easily remedied in LR3. There’s no air pumping as you operate the trombone as the rear element is fixed – nice! That means no blast of airborne dirt in the direction of the camera’s innards as you zoom. The aperture ring is really close to the flange and takes some getting used to. Full click stops only with a fine solid feel. Zooming does not change the length, focus does, with a 3/4″ extension and a 200 degree rotation. It focuses to a very close 3 feet. At 150mm that’s pretty close. Both zooming and focus are wonderfully smooth and perfectly damped. Out of focus areas are nicely rendered. Both the front and rear glass elements are pretty much exposed, so a filter/rear cap make sense.

As there is no CPU in the lens to communicate focal length the D700 has to be told manually which length is in use if you want correct EXIF data. Up to nine various settings are allowed. The ‘Non CPU lens’ setting on the D700 does not have zoom options, so I set it at 86mm and f/3.5 and exposure automation is fine, with the usual focus confirmation. 86mm? It’s one of the strange options available and not likely to be confused with anything else when looking at EXIF data! Balance on the D700 is just so. Comfortable. All the markings on the lens are engraved and paint filled. Like they used to make them. No screen printing. I like that.

Cost? Would you believe $85 with filter and rear cap for a lightweight, high quality zoom with a fixed and fast f/3.5 maximum aperture? What’s not to like? It may have been Nikon’s ‘bargain’ line but there are no signs of cost cutting in either execution or performance. A wonderful adjunct to the 16-35mm ultra-wide zoom – similar length, much smaller diameter, similar weight. As I have no intention of carrying around a 70-200mm f/2.8 autofocus VR zoom weighing in at 3.3lbs and measuring 8.1″ in length (against 1.5 lbs and 5.2″ for the 75-150) I am happy to sacrifice AF, VR, the long end, the weight and the bulk. And did I mention this little sweetheart is some $2,300 less?


Brooding Bert, 75-150mm Nikkor Series E @ 150mm, f/4 at closest focus.

Higly recommended if you are OK with manual focus and a perfect companion to an ultrawide zoom as part of a ‘do (almost) everything’ outfit.


Someone needs to lose weight ….

The Nikkor 75-150 budget zoom is an absolute sweetheart and costs a lot less than any sweetheart ever will. And while you are spending wildly on one of these gems, throw in a new Nikon HR-1 collapsible rubber screw-in lens hood for all of $15, which makes sense given the flare-prone, exposed front element. The original metal 52mm screw-in hood, HN-21, is hard to find.

You can download my custom lens correction profile for this lens, best used once a CPU has been installed in the lens, here.

CPU installation:

My lens is s/n 1814651, early all black design, (Sept. 1980) and permits a simple glue-on installation of the CPU. However, after correspondence with a reader it became clear that somewhere in the first run of these lenses, the all black ones like mine, s/n 1790801-1860019, Nikon changed the design and started using a much thicker baffle in the area where the CPU has to be installed. This means that the baffle will have to be removed and an arc machined out to accommodate the CPU. I do not know exactly where the change in design occurred, but the lens already used the thicker baffle at s/n 1837859. If any other readers are converting this lens, please drop me a line with your s/n so that I can narrow down the change point, for future reference. The later version with the chrome ring, s/n 1890001 and up appears to use the thicker baffle.

Late shift

Hype dispelled.

What with everyone going on about the spectacular low light performance of the Sony sensor in the Nikon D700, I thought I would find out for myself, rather than read test charts. With the idea of using higher ISOs I set out on San Francisco’s streets an hour before sunset and messed with ISO 1600 and up a bit. While I had a lot of fun taking snaps I can happily dispel all the hype about the awesome noiselessness of the D700’s sensor. Yes, it’s fine at 1600 and no, it’s not as good as at 800. You can even tell the difference in an 18″ x 24″ print. Anything higher and luminance noise skyrockets. You can tweak it out in LR3 but at the expense of definition.

Comparing the results to those from my old Canon 5D, there’s little in it, quite frankly. Both have very large sensors and you would expect good noise performance from such relatively low pixel densities. But it’s not night and day compared with the excellent 16mp Panny sensor in the G3, as an example. Sure, it’s better, but not ‘blow you away’ better. The D700 had better be superior – it costs five times as much and has four times the sensor area.

If you must have full frame and are on a budget, a good used 5D body goes for $800. A D700 for $2,000. Unless you are heavily invested in Nikon lenses, the Canon would be the best price-performance choice by a country mile for all but those suffering from brand loyalty or some other strange hang-ups.

Enough noise about …. noise. Here are some snaps.

Because 3200 is too grainy to retain micro-detail, the ones below are all at 1250-1600 ISO, taken with the 16-35 lens at f/4. Yes you can get decent snaps at 3200, 6400 or even higher, but they sure will not look too pretty when printed large. Let’s be real here.


Outing with dad. ISO 1250.


Going home. On Sansome Street. Lots of noise in the shadows, underexposure
required to preserve detail in the Transamerica building. ISO 1600


Valentine store, Maiden Lane. ISO 1600.


Dumpster Diva. ISO 1600.


Muni bus. ISO 1600.


Kryptonite. ISO 1600.

Still, 1600 ISO is pretty decent and not a lot to complain about, except that it does not come cheap. While hosing a big DSLR around on the street tends to invite attention, San Francisco’s famously liberal culture makes that a low risk matter. Come to think of it, a couple of whacks around the head and ears with a D700 would likely do the recipient more damage than it would the camera.