Monthly Archives: April 2012

Fotopedia

iPad, Photographs

How a picture book should be done.

Our son was doing a homework project on the Spanish Missions in California and the one assigned, which he had to profile, was Mission San Gabriel. In contrast to the others whose roofs rest on adobe walls, San Gabriel has the roof resting within the walls, the latter reinforced by over a dozen vertical buttresses – large stone columns to bear the side load of the roof on the walls. It was an interesting project and we both learned a lot doing it, but at the conclusion I had to put the boy to right.

“Winston, old man”, said I, taking the lad aside, “when it comes to roof supports, there are buttresses and there is Notre Dame.”

And this is the picture I showed him.

Notre Dame, ÃŽle de France, Paris. Flying buttresses.

Seldom has there been a more perfect marriage of form and function than in these flying buttresses, light and airy, as befits the City of Light. Gazing at this of course made me long for Paris, and there is no better way of seeing that gorgeous city through photographs than by downloading the free Fotopedia – Paris app to your iPad. The app is custom designed for the iPad, and will not run on laptops, desktops or Zunes.

The design is a masterpiece, as you might expect from the former chief technology officer of applications at Apple, Jean-Marie Hullot. There’s an interesting piece on the man in the NY Times Blog. The app is not about hotels, or sightseeing or boat trips or restaurants. It’s about showing the most beautiful city in the world on the best display device in existence. I have run it on both the iPad1 and iPad3 and it works well on both.

The photo below is from Fotopedia – Paris by Magnum photographer Jacques Bravo and is of the roofs of Rue Mouffetard in Montparnasse, a particularly pleasant reminiscence for me as it was a snap of that very street which saw me first published in Leica Fotografie in 1974. On an iPad, touch the picture for the Fotopedia app. On a laptop or desktop, you can save by clicking on the picture and then syncing your iPad using iTunes.

Touch the picture on your iPad to download Fotopedia – Paris.

There are several other Fotopedias, but after this one, who cares? Oh yes, there’s one about the US National Parks for all those who believe landscapes start and end in Yosemite. Good for the Saint Ansel set, I suppose. And there’s one on North Korea (what?) for manic depressives. But Paris is the one to get for this street snapper.

Nikon Magnifying Eyepiece

Nikon bodies

I can see!

The Nikon Magnifying Eyepiece, DK-17M, is one of those “Why didn’t I think of this before?” accessories for the D700 and similar bodies.

DK-17M top, and stock eyepiece, bottom.

The stock viewfinder magnification of the D700 is 0.72x, identical to the fabulous range/viewfinder in the Leica M2 which I used for many years. That’s OK, and a whole lot better than the ‘tunnel vision’ you tend to get with APS-C mirror reflex DSLRs (MFT EVFs are far superior in this regard) but it could be better. With lenses up to 90mm and f/2 or smaller the Leica is far easier to focus manually than the D700, thanks to the finest rangefinder focusing device conceived by man.

The DK-17M is a 1.2x magnifier, so the 0.72x stock magnification rises to 0.86x with this eyepiece fitted, which is close to the 0.91x Leica users enjoy with the Leica M3 body, one I used for over three decades. And that one, predating the M2 by some 5 years (1954), was even better than the one in the M2 (1959). It seems the intervening half century has seen little improvement in manual focusing aids.

Some user comments at B&H and Amazon state that the corners of the finder view are vignetted and that the data display at the base is obscured when the DK-17M is installed. I wear vision glasses (I have astigmatism and modest near sightedness) yet suffer neither problem. While not cheap at $38, there’s no way I’m removing this from my D700. It’s well made, uses glass not plastic, and the only thing you have to remember is that the eyepiece shutter must be closed for removal/installation. As you can see the DK-17M protrudes a little further from the body than the stock eyepiece, but that has no negative effect in practice. I have no need for a rubber eyecup as those interfere with viewfinding for spectacle wearers in my experience.

Like magnifiers exists for APS-C bodies, though I believe the model number is different. The DK-17M fits the D1, D2, D3 and D700 DSLRs and the F3HP, F4, F5 and F6 film bodies according to B&H. I am not sure but would be prepared to bet it fits the D4, D800 and D800E also.

To put the difference in perspective, the hardest to focus MF lens I own is the 500/8N Ai-S Nikkor Reflex. With the DK-17M fitted I can nail focus 7 times out of ten when focusing by eye then looking to the focus confirmation LED as a cross check. Without the DK-17M my success rate is at best 3 out of 10 with final focus dependent on the LED.

One alternative is to have an aftermarket focusing screen fitted but that does not pass the smell test for me. First, why would Nikon fit anything substandard to their best bodies, with years of experience in optical design? Second, many of the aftermarket screens use a split image center focusing device. The effective base length (a measure of sensitivity) of these, compared to the finders in rangefinder Leicas, is pathetic and falls as the aperture falls. Further, the split image prisms (or microprisms in variants) tend to black out at smaller apertures and will not work with a 500mm Reflex lens with its modest f/8 fixed aperture. Finally, aftermarket screens cost over $100, typically, for an uncertain outcome, plus cost of installation. DIY is for the brave only.

The DK-17M works, being in equal parts a focus and compositional aid. Even with AF lenses where no focus assistance is required, the enhanced view is a revelation. This accessory is highly recommended as long as you have no finder vignetting issues. The view through the eyepiece reminds me of nothing so much as my Leicaflex SL, which also happened to have the best microprism ever devised. But that’s another story.

T. Brannan Street, SF yesterday. D700, 50mm f/2 Nikkor-H, DK-17 eyepiece. Click the picture.

The beautiful color rendering of this 40+ year old MF Nikon optic has to be seen to be believed. And you would have to try really hard to spend more than $50 on one, plus $30 for a CPU.

And, yes, look hard and that’s my ghostly reflection in the door ….

Me and T.

Photography in Mexico

Photographers

MOMA SF show.

March 10 through July 8, 2012.

This show at MOMA in San Francisco contains exactly what it says. Work not so much by Mexican photographers but photographs taken in Mexico. As you can see, I took Winston, our ten year old, with me and he enjoyed it as much as I.

The early content – Paul Strand, Tina Modotti, Edward Weston, Manuel Alvarez Bravo – is the usual agglomeration of poor, dank, drab, awfully printed results, masquerading as classics. Some are so bad it’s almost impossible to make out anything. The content may be great. I have no way of telling.

The later work is fine, well printed and exhibited and the price of entry is rewarded by one extraordinary sequence by crime snapper Enrique Metinides. The best of the bunch I have left obscured by the patron below, because you really need to see it for yourself. What looks like a balletic sequence of bridge builders turns out to be cops rescuing a would be jumper. Beautiful, moving and extraordinary in every way.

Work by Enrique Metinides, . D700, 35-70 AF D.

The show is well laid out and the volume of content just right.

General view. D700, 35-70mm AF D. Click the picture.

Worth a visit. Be sure to check out Susan Meiselas’s work, which is a stand out.

Pearls among swine

Photography

A friend helps out.

There are some photo sites I simply refuse to read. They generally fall under the “Anything for a click through dollar” genus and place heavy focus on technique and hardware. The photography on display is invariably execrable and brand wars and pixel peeping are the order of the day. No piece of new hardware goes un-praised and is instantly acclaimed as obsoleting all that came before it, and the grasping acceptance of all those free manufacturers’ samples is always accompanied by a click through which makes these whores money, generally unknown to the reader. The long shadow of ethical behavior is a stranger to these venues.

And while these creations of quick buck artists seem to include the occasional gem among all the detritus, it’s more than I can do to make myself search out the diamonds in the rough. But some friends are more courageous, and one forwarded me a link the other day to a simply splendid piece of photography and writing by one of America’s Space Shuttle astronauts at a site I would never otherwise visit.

Click the picture for the article and be sure to check the author’s resumé at the end. How could anyone possibly improve on this record of intellect and service?

Click the picture.