Yearly Archives: 2007

Canon’s big guns

Lenses

Watch how they are made.

A reader posted an interesting comment (scroll down) with a link to Canon’s videos showing how lenses are made. (That same reader was very helpful in resolving a problem that prevented Internet Explorer users from commenting – thank you, Ben!).

Click on Lens Assembly Process (click through to get there – I cannot find a specific URL) and you will see how the monster 500mm f/4L IS lens is assembled – I still don’t feel good about the price tag, but this helps.

There’s lots of great historical information regarding Canon’s products – click Camera Hall for a history of cameras or here for great historical details on Canon.

A palliative

Canon 5D

Most certainly not a solution.

OK, so I was feeling a tad spendy the other day.

And, yes, I have complained loudly and often of the awful LCD screen on Canon’s 5D. ‘Useless outdoors’ about summarizes it.

No problemo. I look up the splendid B&H catalog, you know, the one printed on rain forests or whatever, and I come across this Delkin gadget which claims to fix the crappy brightness of the Canon 5D’s LCD in anything resembling daylight.

Twenty-five bones and four days later, there was Marty, our UPS man, with the package. The Delkin Pop-Up shade ….

It’s actually very nicely made. A thin sheet of glass protects your LCD screen (off with that plastic film protector!) and the whole thing replaces Canon’s eyepiece with its (identical) eyepiece, plus the shade thing and a couple of pass-through buttons for printing and deletion. Here I am peeling off the plastic sheet protection for the glass plate.

Off with the Canon eyepiece and on with the gadget. It fits perfectly, meshing nicely with the base of the Manfrotto QR plate. The fit is very secure and the increased depth of the camera in no way interferes with the useability of the viewfinder.

Here it is after prying open with a figernail.

Does it work? Does it make the screen remotely legible in sunlight?

Well, here’s my subjective rating on a scale of 1 to 10, the latter being today’s state-of-the-art.

iPhone 10
5D + Delkin 5
5D naked 0 (meaning unuseable)

Ergonomics? The only complaints I have are that the On/Off lever is harder to get at (no big deal as you can leave the 5D ‘On’ for ever without significant battery drain) as you can see below, and that you have to angle the camera away from you a bit when trying to read the display in sunlight, otherwise all you will see will be your own nose.

Worth $25? Barely.

Q & A

Photography

A simple amusement.

I was reading Vanity Fair, a must-read for photographers everywhere, when I came across one of those questionnaire interviews with a famous person. At least he must be famous, because he is in Vanity Fair, right?

What on earth would I answer if asked these amazing questions? Ah! I know. You have to rig it. Betcha that’s how they do it. The subjects get to ask their own questions.

So that’s what decided me to do my own Q&A as a photographer (mostly):

Who Inspires You: Cartier-Bresson, Erwitt, Penn, Parkinson

Favorite discovery: Digital imaging

Best gadget ever: Those clip on eyes for the old Leica M mount 50mm DR Summicron

Best camera you ever used: Leica M2

Best lens ever used: A tie. 90mm Leica Apo-Summicron-M Asph/Canon 85mm f/1.8

Best picture ever taken: Darling, there are so many it’s impossible to say.

Most capable camera you ever used: Canon 5D which I use to this day. A jack of all trades and master of most.

Favorite photo venue: The streets of Mayfair, London, preferably on a sunny day

Favorite watch: Any Patek Philippe; an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak for sports wear

Favorite champagne: Bollinger NV

Jeans: Levi 501 button fly. The classic.

Favorite writing instrument: The Bic Cristal ball pen. Another classic.

Shirts: Brooks Brothers and L L Bean

Suits: Paul Stuart, Madison Avenue

Favorite restaurant in the whole world: La Grenouille in Manhattan, but only if I have a gorgeous brunette to accompany me. On my own it would be any McDonald’s whose stock and food I adore.

Most exciting location you have ever dined in: Windows of the World, 107th floor, World Trade Center, north tower.

Favorite car: Ferrari. It has avoided me so far and somehow continues to do so.

Photographic ambition: A biography of the best of the best in photography, made as a movie documentary, with a highly opinionated voice-over by yours truly, of course.

Greatest fear: That soon 51% of US voters will be working for the government

Favorite leaders: Churchill for his courage, Reagan for his optimism, Thatcher for her determination, Golda Meir for her guts.

Favorite actresses: Rachel Ward, Claudia Cardinale, Eva Green.

Favorite actors: Who cares?

Favorite city: Beverly Hills. A focus of vapidity in a sea of pollution.

Least favorite thing to do: Commercial air flight.

What you do to relax: Read women’s fashion magazines – Vogue, VF, Bazaar, Elle. Walk my dog. Watch Formula One. Read philosophy.

Person who irritates you most: Anyone in, or running for, public office.

The greatest crime in a free society: The Income Tax.

The greatest influence on you as a photographer: Caravaggio

Painters who mean most to you: Caravaggio, Giorgione, Mantegna, Ucello, El Greco, Gericault, Corot, Manet, Degas, Seurat, Rothko

Favorite music: Chopin when I’m depressed. Mahler when I’m really depressed. The Rolling Stones when I’m recovering.

Favorite dog: Any Border Terrier, but especially mine.

Favorite musician: Horowitz

Favorite composer: Chopin

Favorite woman: The one I wake up next to.

Favorite cat: I hate cats.

Favorite photo: The one I haven’t seen or taken yet.

Favorite photo you have seen: I suppose it has to be The Great Brailowsky. HCB at his luminous, spontaneous best.

Phew! That was fun!

Margaret Bourke-White: History repeats

Photographers

Nothing new under the sun

America 1932 or 2008? These folks lied on their mortgage application, the lenders colluded in the fraud, and now the four remaining taxpayers in the United States are expected to bail these felons out – the crooks in the car, that is. The people in the line are working folk.

Thank you, Margaret Bourke-White. The only difference today is that the undischarged bankrupts will be driving to the soup kitchen this time, not walking. You can sleep in a car but you cannot drive a house.