Monthly Archives: June 2011

HC-B on The Decisive Moment

Photographers

An interesting narrative.

A friend sent this along. What makes it especially interesting is Cartier-Bresson’s narrative, in charmingly accented English, about his philosophy of street snapping. It doesn’t hurt that it opens with the two greatest street snaps of the last century – the man with the monocle in Valencia and the puddle jumper in Paris:

Click arrow to view.

Some favorite quotes:

  • “Life is once. Forever.”
  • “Facts are not interesting. It’s the point of view.”
  • “After a certain age you have the face you deserve, I think.” – On portraits.
  • “You shouldn’t overshoot. It’s like overeating.”
  • “You have to be quick, quick, quick.”
  • “For me it’s a simple pleasure, photography. It doesn’t take any brains.”
  • “I never think. I act quick.”
  • “When you take a good picture it’s like milking a cow. You need a lot of milk to make a little cheese.”
  • “I like English people very much. It’s the most exotic country for a Frenchman.”
  • “Everybody has done ten good photographs in their life. What is important is to go on, on, on.”
  • “I like life. I hate people also.”
  • “Even if it’s ugly, it’s an affirmation”

The very best eighteen and a half minutes a street snapper can invest in.

Update June 15, 2011:

Bother, Vimeo has been forced to take the video down. If you can, try to see it elsewhere. It’s worth it.

Tall boys

Photographs

Sometimes it helps to stick out from the crowd.

In San Francisco’s business district, on Montgomery Street.

G1, kit lens @ 45mm, 1/400, f/5.6.

Front Street, San Francisco.

G1, 20mm f/1.7 Panasonic pancake lens, 1/2000, f2.2.

Gustave Caillebotte

Paintings

A street snapper amongst painters.

If you are of the persuasion that Renoir’s confections are nausea-inducing, but one step removed from the modern horrors of Thomas Kinkade, then like me you may find yourself hewing to the astringent vision of Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894).

As Paris became the city we know, magnificently laid out with wide boulevards and mansard roofs, Caillebotte was there to record the most perfect city in the world. He had no need to paint for a living, having inherited a fortune, but as history has shown time and again, poverty is not a qualification for great painting – or photography. For every impoverished Monet I can show you a wealthy Degas. For every Doisneau struggling to make the grocery bill, there’s a Cartier-Bresson enjoying his balcony view of the Tuileries.

And both Degas and Caillebotte were very much infused with a photographic vision, the street paintings of both replete with photographic framing and decisive moments all over the place, long before HC-B saw the light of day. Caillebotte’s best known canvas is his ‘photograph’ of a rainy day in Paris in 1877:

The passerby on the right is cut off by the frame and the horse drawn carriage largely obscured at the left. Caillebotte loved the vision photography made possible but lacked access to gear with the technological prowess required for snapshots. The perspective in the painting is very much at the wide angle end of the spectrum – he was seeing through a 21mm lens.

Nor was Caillebotte’s technique less than the finest. Look at this magnificent use of backlighting and the rendition of glass worthy of the finest from the Dutch school:

Modern photographic vision thinks nothing of compositional techniques which seemed so shocking back then. The reality is that we have all learned from the French street painting masters.

In San Francisco. G1, kit lens at 18mm, 1/2500, f/5, ISO 320.

In San Francisco. G1, kit lens @ 18mm, 1/1600, f/5, ISO 320.

The Logitech MX900 mouse

Hardware

The best yet.

It seems quixotic to write about a mouse which was mostly sold in England and which has not been made for many years. But the Logitech MX900 mouse is the best I have used yet in terms of comfort and functionality. It was recommended to me by UK photographer Roy Hammans whose work I have been lucky to feature in these pages. Roy has been using his for years and continues to do so. I can see why.

When he recommended the mouse to me – I was grumbling to him about the ergonomic disaster that is Apple’s MagicMouse – I set about trying to find one on eBay, but without luck. All the ones listed were for sale in the UK. So I settled for the Razer Death Adder corded mouse and reviewed it here. That’s a fine product and I continue to recommend it.

But the MX900, despite some quirks, is better.

Logitech MX900 mouse.

It’s a wireless Bluetooth mouse which I thought would be a major knock against it after many years with Apple mice which would constantly lose the connection. Indeed, their latest mouse, the Magic Mouse, is by far the worst in this regard of any cordless Apple mouse I have used. Yet, after a couple of weeks with the MX900, it has not lost the Bluetooth connection once. So it looks like poor engineering on Apple’s part is the cause.

From an ergonomic perspective, the MX900 is better than the Razer. The latter is designed for ambidextrous operation, meaning the casing is symmetrical. By contrast, the MX900 is unashamedly designed for the right hand, is asymmetrically shaped, and is useless for left handed operators. I am unaware of a left-handed version ever having been made. Because the MX900 contains two AA batteries, its heft is greater than the Razer’s and it will not be right for small hands. It’s solid and large and you will not find it garnering design awards from the Museum of Modern Art.

So what are the quirks of the MX900?

Well, first, it uses rechargeable NiMh batteries, necessitating that it be placed in the charging cradle after use. You can use regular alkaline AA cells but as there is no on/off switch these last no more than 5 days in my experience.

Logitech MX900 in its charging cradle.

My cradle makes no provision for a separate power supply, so I simply connected it to one of the powered USB side ports on one of the Dell displays connected to the HackPro, whence it derives sufficient power to keep the batteries charged. If you like you can use Sanyo Eneloop rechargeable NiMh batteries, which are distinguished by their low discharge rate when stored, compared to regular rechargeable cells. You do not need to buy a new charger for these if your existing charger is fairly recent, as Sanyo points out on its web site.

If the charger is just so much more clutter on your desk, simply keep a supply of charged NiMh cells and replace when necessary. This will mean more wear and tear on the battery door, but the mouse works fine even if the door is missing, and there’s no risk of the batteries falling out.

I use Eneloops and the Logitech charger works well with them. The mouse lights up a bright red diode on top when the batteries are low.

Second, there are no drivers to be found for use of the MX900 with a Mac. The MX900 has five buttons in addition to the left, right and scroll wheel ones, and you cannot use these in its native state. And you want to use those as they are incredibly handy. Accordingly, I downloaded and installed SteerMouse which supports the MX900 and allows everything to be programmed. Free to try for 30 days, $20 to buy. Cursor movement with the SteerMouse driver is exceptionally smooth.

Here are my settings for the buttons:

Here is the button identification:

‘Middle Button’ is a push on the scroll wheel.
Button 4 is the rear side button.
Button 5 is the front side button
Button 6 is the rearmost top button
Button 7 is the foremost top button, ahead of the scroll wheel
Button 8 is the top button just behind the scroll wheel – this opens a Finder window

The ability to program a button – Button 8 – to open the Finder is tremendous. Apple has never allowed this in its System Preferences and the key stroke sequence I have programmed is the one which opens a new Finder window under Spotlight. The Razer’s software did not permit this and, indeed, this is the first mouse software (the credit goes to SteerMouse) I have owned which does. It’s a great value added for my way of working which sees constant trips into the Finder.

Finally, by pressing Button 5 for the Desktop, I can drag and drop images with a single left click into other applications, touching Button 5 again to exit the Deskrop, something the Razer’s software does not permit.

Third, as with the Razer, there is no sideways tilt permitted with the scroll wheel, so if button operated horizontal scrolling is a requirement, this is not the mouse for you. Also, as with the Razer, the scroll wheel click and the screen display jumps in small vertical increments rather than moving smoothly. This is the sole advantage I think an Apple mouse has over anything else, the Apple product being distinguished by stepless, smooth vertical scrolling.

You can download the MX900 manual by clicking below:

Click to download the Logitech MX900 manual

OK, so the MX900 mouse is discontinued. That means you will have to find a used one. The replacement, the MX1000, is also discontinued. It was Bluetooth also, but used a custom flat battery, harder to replace when it eventually fails.

The MX1100 is the current model, selling for some $53 at Amazon US. I cannot find it at Amazon UK, but eBay UK lists the MX900 often. Unlike its predecessors, the MX1100 eschews Bluetooth in favor of 2.4gHz wireless technology. The design requires a small dongle to be inserted in an USB socket on your computer and has the advantage that the mouse is recognized immediately, unlike the waiting involved with Bluetooth devices. That’s the same technology used in the Microsoft 6000 which I also reviewed here. I eventually gave up on that otherwise fine mouse as it suffered from random cursor jerkiness which I simply could not cure, even after trying a variety of drivers. I rather suspect the cause is radio interference as the 2.4gHz band is used by many household appliances – cordless phones, baby monitors, hearing aids, you name it, and a neighbor can disrupt your environment without knowing it.

I liked the MX900 so much I ended up buying two on eBay at a shipped cost of $20 each. Hopefully my long search for the right mouse is now at an end. The Razer went back to the nice people at Amazon for a refund and my two MightyMice were sold, with great relief, on eBay. Remind me never to buy another Apple mouse and ‘Thank you’, Roy, for the great tip.

Update: For details on the later Logitech Revolution mouse, click here.