Rust works.
A view from inside the local library which is one of those ultra modern constructions with nary a right angle in sight. The exterior walls are in steel which has rusted to a light brown and works well in the sun here.
iPhone 11 Pro.
This is as good as life gets.
The two costliest repairs I have suffered on my 1975 BMW R90/6 ‘airhead’ have been replacement of stripped nylon gears in the totally mechanical instruments – the drive is by gear and cables. Some genius in Munich decided a nylon gear beats the 2 cents costlier brass alternative used through 1969, and both stripped. He was probably British, and formerly worked on Triumphs. The tach gave out at 60,676 and the speedo joined it in sympathy at 61,724. If the needle goes crazy, the gear is stripped. If it just jerks about then a new cable is called for, the Teflon liner being worn out. The last thing you want in that cable is lubricant, which will only hasten its demise.
The work was done by Palo Alto Speedometer – unreservedly recommended. I used to use them on my old MB’s instruments also – but at $300 a pop they are not cheap.
A properly tuned air cooled BMW boxer twin is happiest at 4,000-5,000 rpm. Many owners ride these at far lower revs, constraining proper oiling and doing awful things to the crankshaft. It does well to remember that Germans only understand one thing – a strong hand at the tiller. Subtlety has no part in their make up. And, by the way, not only is the tach needle as stable as can be, given the early Industrial Revolution technology, the speedometer is also dead accurate.
iPhone 11 Pro, UWA optic.
A rare overcast day.
The car show the other day saw a rare overcast winter day in Scottsdale, making outdoor photography easy.
iPhone 11 snap.
A closer look at a useful app.
I made mention of the inexpensive Focos app as part of my preliminary look at the new iPhone 11 Pro.
Since then I have done more reading and learning and set forth below how to use manual masking to optimise out of focus areas.
I mistakenly stated that Focos used the depth map which iPhone 11 saves with the image. In fact iPhone 11 only saves such a depth map – a detailed database showing the distance of each pixel in the image from the lens – with images taken using the Portrait mode. In Portrait mode the iPhone 11 switches to the 2x lens and, indeed, the extent of the blurring of out of focus areas can be changed in the iPhone stock Photos app. Go into edit mode, tap the yellow concentric circle at top left and you can adjust the aperture and hence the OOF effect.
Yet Focos allows DOF manipulation even on images taken on pre-iPhone X models, the first iPhone with a depth sensor. That sensor is also used as part of the FaceID security access protection system for the device.
How does Focos do this? It uses Artificial Intelligence to guesstimate the distance of image points from the lens, such AI based on analysis of over one million images, according to the developer. This allows the photographer to not only change the degree of blurring in post processing, but also to change the exact point of sharpest focus, something that cannot be done in iPhone X and 11 Portrait mode images, or in any other image from those iPhones in post-processing.
Mostly, for solid components in the picture, Focos does a good job at establishing its own depth map based on this AI approach. But sometimes it’s not so good.
Take this image:
Passing this through Focos keeps the jacket and embossed stitching razor sharp, but the hair is not sharply rendered.
In such cases, Focos has a manual facility where the depth map and the sharp area can be changed.
The default depth map (red areas) for this image has been extended to add the back of the veteran’s head, originally not shaded in red:
Rather than using an imprecise finger to mask the sharp area, I use an inexpensive electrostatic pen, something like this:
Further, while the image can be enlarged on the iPhone for greater masking precision, it’s far easier to do this on the larger iPad screen, so I use AirDrop to export the image to Photos on the iPad, and have at it there. The aperture/OOF effect are adjusted in this screen:
Then the blur appearance is modified using your lens of choice. I invariably use the Leitz 50mm Elmar as I like the benign bokeh it delivers – and because I used one for years:
And here is the happy result, which takes less time to do than it does to explain:
So for those instances where Focos does a poor auto-masking job, manual masking easily fixes what ails it.
What happens when the going gets tough? This is the sort of image which is a nightmare for computational photography when it’s a case of blurring backgrounds. In Portrait mode the iPhone 11 does a very poor job:
At f/4.5, the camera’s selected aperture, some of the spokes have gone missing. This is likely because there are simply too few pixels in the depth map sensor to permit creation of a sufficiently detailed enough map. The spokes are small in the image and likely preclude sufficiently accurate depth map recording. As this image was taken using Portrait mode, meaning the iPhone has stored a depth map, how does it look when the aperture is increased to the maximum available, f/1.4 in the Photos app? Even worse:
How about a regular, non-Portrait mode image snapped on the iPhone 11 Pro and manipulated in Focos for an f/1.4 aperture? Still awful, though better than the iPhone’s Portrait mode + in camera depth map delivers, but some OOF areas are shown sharp:
So until depth sensors get finer ‘grained’ both the iPhone’s Portrait mode and Focos’s AI approach leave something to be desired. And only a true masochist would seek to edit the spoked wheel image for proper rendering. Simply move the slider to f/16 in either image and all is sharp. Forget about bokeh. That will have to do for now as we await a better iPhone depth sensor – which is likely, given Apple’s increasing focus on 3D rendering in future iPhones.
When should you use Focos in lieu of the iPhone’s portrait mode? If taking bursts, as Portrait mode prohibits those. Or when you need the far greater versatility Focos offers for manipulating OOF areas. Otherwise, the iPhone 11 Pro’s native Portrait mode is perfectly fine, as long as your preferred daily rider and photo subject is not a classic bike with spoked wheels!
Mega show and auction.
The annual mega car show and auction, run by Barrett-Jackson, is running this week in Scottsdale. It’s a couple of years since I attended and as it’s just a mile down the road there really is no excuse for missing it.
Two things to note this year. Attendance appears to have quadrupled (I rode my scooter to avoid a parking lot trek) and prices have gone through the roof. That said, my hot dog was only $395 and they threw in a Diet Coke for a scant $49.95 extra. The pickles were free. I expect the B-Js will charge for oxygen next year, provided a recession does not wipe them out. That would certainly substitute for crowd control.
My attention was captured by two attributes – the strange and the magnificent.
Oval Office ride.
Cruella DeVil’s wheels.
All leather interior.
Big, Beefy Buick.
Cobra, Cobra, Cobra. Carroll Shelby was onto something when
he stuffed a 427 c.u. Ford motor into a lightweight AC chassis.
BMW Isetta, 1957. 300cc, front access, just don’t let anyone park directly in front of you.
Francisco Scaramanga’s ride. 150hp Lycoming engine, 12,000 foot service ceiling.
Luxe interior of the $100,000 Airstream trailer. A film set favorite.
Boss Hogg.
Pirate surfer babe.
Packard. No expense spared.
Sale prep.
Devil’s Packard.
Surfin’ USA.
Gorgeous VW camper van.
Sunbeam Tiger. Ford V8 under the hood and a tiger in the tank.
1951 GMC 3100 Custom Panel Van.
Ford knew how to say “solid”.
Packard opted for “elegant”.
1941 Packard straight eight convertible. Perfection.
Forgotten generation.
Coker had a large classic tyre display.
Snake oil will always be with us.
Waiting for his ride.
All snaps on the iPhone 11 Pro.
I took 141 images and 140 were perfectly exposed. The other saw the flash go off for some reason and was awful. Not sure how it got turned on but, frankly, with Night Mode, the flash on the iPhone can be dispensed with.
A couple of things I noted.
There was not one DSLR or serious looking camera to be seen and there were thousands of people in attendance. In what is a photo-rich setting, cell phones dominated.
Second, popping in and out of the tents, some very poorly lit, Night Mode would kick in seamlessly when required and the results were perfectly exposed and color corrected, regardless of the light source. I have never published so many images with so little post-processing. Absent a crop or two here and there, and a couple where I touched the Clarity slider in LR, these are all straight out of the camera. All three rear-facing lenses were used in about equal measure.
Battery life is a non-issue with the iPhone 11 Pro (and even less so with the larger ‘Plus’ model). I was down to 74% from 100% after three hours of keeping the camera turned on (meaning it was showing everything on the display), during which time I also emailed many images to friends. Anyone opting for an external battery for an iPhone 11 is likely wasting money or has special needs.