Stellar.
I have to submit a snap of my son for his senior yearbook, so we took five test shots using the iPhone 11 Pro using the various Portrait modes built into the camera:
Amazing.
Post processing in Lightroom? Zilch.
Double, no less.
Before you get carried away with the beauty of Scottsdale, Arizona, a few words of warning from this resident are in order:
iPhone 11Pro snap.
Lovely architecture.
It was a full half mile after I shot past this building that the synapses kicked in and said this is something worth checking out.
It’s unclear what the original use was but it is being lovingly restored in the original Spanish style. A new cobbled forecourt has been laid down and work proceeds on the facade and interiors.
Except for one click keystone correction in LR (Develop->Lens Corrections->Basic->Vertical) these are SOOC. Or should that be SOOiP? (Straight Out Of iPhone).
iPhone 11 Pro snaps.
Lightroom workaround: LR was shutting down on a first boot with the iPhone connected. I discovered that if I plug in the iPhone and steer it to the Photos app before invoking LR, all is well. That and standing on my left foot with my right arm extended upwards. Thanks, Adobe.
Race movie, sort of.
The early 1960s long distance racing scene was dominated by Ferrari’s wonderful 4 liter mid-engined V12 motor. A small, high revving engineering masterpiece it was set in bodies that only the descendants of Michelangelo could create. It won everything in sight.
However, during the early part of the decade, a drunken philanderer who had chosen his parents well, one Henry Ford II, decided that “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday” would work for the Ford Corporation and set to doing it the easy way. He would simply buy Ferrari and change the prancing horse on the hood to the familiar blue lozenge. No deal. The Commendatore was not about to yield his name to the crass vulgarian from across the pond.
So Ford had to make his own and did it the American way. He threw money at it. The car was large, the engine a crude, low revving 7 liter monster. A few million dollars later all Henry II had to show for the almighty American dollar was a bunch of egg on his face. The cars failed for every reason known – blown brakes, a gearbox made of cheese, awful aerodynamics and even overheating monster motors. The drivers needed work, too. Then Ford chanced on the greatest development engineer and driver of the decade, the Englishman Ken Miles, and the car started to take race shape. After more millions the Ford GT40s came in, line astern, at the 1966 Le Mans race, 1-2-3, and kept winning through 1969 when Porsche finally decided to show them what is what and who is who. Miles never won the Le Mans race and the movie goes on and on about how he was ‘robbed’ by the suits from Detroit who wanted a Real American at the wheel, which is ridiculous when you realize the winning car was driven by an Aussie and a Kiwi. The line astern stunt relegated him to second, for he had traveled a few yards less than the ‘winner’, though he was the fastest driver by a country mile (actually 3 miles as he was a lap ahead before being ordered to slow down). Vive La France!
The movie commits the usual Hollywood faux pas of trying to interject family relationships into car racing. Do we really care that Miles’s wife was a shrew from the Midlands? Or do we want to see cars racing? And that’s what makes this a far weaker racing movie than Steve McQueen’s ‘Le Mans’ which documents the Porsche 917’s win at the 1970 race, driven by an Englishman and a German. The best thing about the new movie, as is the case whenever he stars in a film, is the Welshman Christian Bale, doing a great Birmingham accent. The worst is Matt Damon, if you even notice his mechanical acting, that is. A truly underwhelming, if bankable, ‘star’.
The McQueen movie failed as there was insufficient audience for what is a pure racing movie, the best ever. Ford vs. Ferrari will fail because of awful marketing and a poorly developed script. And, well, it was so long ago who cares? This is, after all, the land of short attention spans.
But for the true motorhead it’s worth catching. Just try to do so at an IMAX theater for maximum visual and aural effect and close your eyes and ears when the shrew is on the screen.
Made in England, no less.
I generally alternate the make of tire on my 1975 BMW motorcycle between German Metzelers and British Avons.
One thing of note since moving to the hot Arizona summers from the Bay Area three years ago is that rubber and batteries take a beating over the warm months, where the garage temperature can rise to 130F. On my nephew’s suggestion – he is also a keen rider – this next summer will see me drain the gasoline from the tank and move the bike for display in the air conditioned indoors. The summer months are too warm for riding in any case, and this will save wear and tear.
Anyway, my last front Metzeler lasted but 7,000 miles compared to 12,000 or so in the Bay Area. My riding style is no different and pressure is maintained carefully, so I can only think it’s the heat that is causing the reduced life expectancy.
So on a rare rainy day in Scottsdale it was off to MotoTire with my wheel and new front tire for installation and balancing.
While both tires are tubeless, I have to use tubes with the old, spoked rims on the bike, which leak air. It’s the one thing I would change on the bike if I could, as a puncture with a tubeless tire is far slower – and hence safer – than with a tubed one. Don’t ask how I know.
We will see how the new Avon holds up. I make it a point to buy tires online from a high volume dealer, meaning I get fresh rubber. The molding of this one back in the land of tea and cricket was just 4 months ago.
One strange quirk is that the factory always specified English inch sizes for tires of that era. The closest metric size does not fit well within the wheel well, making for lots of garage language when replacement is due.
I never cease to wonder at the speed and expertise of the mechanics who do this work. Ten minutes and $20 later the old tire is removed, the tube replaced, the new installed, inflated and the wheel assembly balanced. Amazing.
iPhone 11Pro snaps.