Daniel the metal craftsman

Photographs, Working people

The man and his workshop.

I had contracted a spot of flu, nothing serious, but enough to pull the pin on my pain threshold. By the time I struggled into Daniel Macchiarini’s (‘Mac-ee-arr-eenie’) store on Grant Street in North Beach yesterday, I was feeling pretty beaten up. The D3x and the Sigma 35/1.4 are no lightweights at the best of times and on this occasion I could feel my pain. I did not need anyone else to feel it for me. Every hair on my head testified to it.

Anyway, I was rather woozily admiring the metal gate with the monkey at the store when Daniel popped out.

“If you pat him on the head, your life expectancy will increase by six years!”

Just to be safe, I patted the lad twice. You can’t be too careful with these things.

And after just a few moments of discussion with Daniel and his small fluff ball of a pup named Luigi, with whom I instantly bonded, I had stopped feeling sorry for myself, enjoying the thrill of seeing Daniel’s very large workroom in the rear of the store. It must be some 50′ x 30′, a rare luxury in so costly an area of San Francisco. Packed to the rafters with tools and materials, it is an intensely interesting place and one in which Daniel has been crafting beautiful jewelry and objets d’art for 50 years, like his father before him.

“My dad and now I have worked here since he built in in 1906.”

“Right after the earthquake and fire. Which did more damage?”

“Neither. The Army did.”

“The Army?”

“Yes. They believed they could stop fires with explosives which they set off in great quantities destroying what was left of the city. Lunacy.”

“Indeed. A little power is a dangerous thing. Yet you are so privileged to have this wonderful workspace attached to your retail store.”

“Yes. It’s my workshop and has been for fifty years.”

You can see more of Daniel’s beautiful work on his web site here. There are earrings, pendants and bracelets galore.

Images, except the last, made with the Nikon D3x, 35/1.4 Sigma at f/2, ISO800. Last on the Panny G1 with the kit lens, ISO 100.

I’ll drop by a large portrait print to Daniel next week.

Berkeley, CA

Photographs

Scummy town.

The town of Berkeley remains a liberal stronghold, but truth be told, it’s a pretty scummy place. Downtown is replete with indigent men sprawled on the sidewalks and you have to think the City fathers can do better than this. However, wander up Berkeley Way or University Avenue into the hills and you will arrive at the UC Berkeley campus and it is very well worth the trip for architecture aficionados.


Typical downtown denizen of the streets. iPhone5 snap.


Boarded up tenement building.


Window.


Gate.


Berkeley Post Office – waiting to be redeveloped when the USPS goes belly-up.


Americana. One of the smallest hot dog huts ever, in a parking lot.


Save our Post Office. Good luck with that.


And you thought the deep south had an exclusive on this garbage?


BErk1927. Downtown mural.


Not for tobacco.

More on the UC Berkeley campus and its architecture here. A quite different experience.

All on the Nikon D3x and 35/1.4 Sigma, except the first.

At the camera show

Photographs

Old stuff.

My buddy at Kaufmann’s Cameras in San Mateo suggested I swing by this camera show:

In a poorly lit hall vendors display their wares on trestle tables. Entry was $6. Prices are rarely marked. The predominant pricing mechanism seems to be that of the kasbah. Haggle.

Most of the gear is pretty tired film era hardware, but there were some interesting things.


A KEH employee checks a customer’s camera offered for sale.


The Contarex – the camera which bankrupted Zeiss Ikon. Both the ones
with lenses I tried were faulty. Repairs are almost impossible, owing
to the vast mechanical complexity.


Mountains of lenses, mostly crap.


Psst! mister. Wanna cheap Rolex? This about
sums up the sleazy feel of this operation.


I bought a 77mm filter UV for my 16-35 Nikkor G from this nice man for $12.
Of course, when I got home I checked B&H and they have it for $9 ….


Lovely 8″ x 20″ wooden plate camera.


Six Pack Joe. Strangely I was the only person actually using a camera!

Don’t go to one of these fairs expecting to find bargains. With eBay providing perfect price discovery in the marketplace for old gear, bargains are as rare as integrity in politics. But if you want to go along and enjoy handling a nice selection of mechanical era hardware, it’s quite fun. I could not resist trying a few Nikons – F, F2, F3 and F4 – reveling in their magnificent construction.

All on the Nikon D3x with the 35/1.4 Sigma at full aperture, ISO400. The Sigma’s AF nailed focus every time.

Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX lens

Nikon lenses, Photographs

Cheep, cheerful, handy.


Mounted on the D2x with the included lens hood.

This ‘plastic fantastic’ APS-C lens sells new for under $200 with a 5 year Nikon USA warranty. Given Nikon’s repair reputation in the US that probably does not mean much but at the price asked with hood, caps and soft case, there’s a lot to like.

I bought it on a whim for those lazy days when I just can’t be bothered to use manual focus, assuming there was little downside.

Nikon wisely deletes the focus and depth-of-field scales from this optic, both utterly useless on modern AF lenses. It also has that handy feature where you can manually override the focus just by grabbing and turning the focus collar, something which is impossible with the previous AF-D series of optics. The included hood clicks on nicely, using a bayonet fit, and the lens accepts standard 52mm filters like most Nikkors ever made before the AF era.

I like this lens a lot. Focus speed is decent if not stellar but the biggest surprise in store is that it is surprisingly useful on full frame.

When images are loaded into LR or PS, the lens’s EXIF file data will invoke the Adobe profile which ships with their applications. That profile was created on an APS-C body and is very useful, taking out minor vignetting and fairly severe barrel distortion, which really has to be removed when snapping architectural subjects.

But you can do much better. Curious to see whether a profile created on an FF body would bring back the heavily vignetted corners, I created a profile using my D3x and Adobe’s Lens Profile Creator software. Because vignetting varies significantly with aperture, I went all in and made this profile at each of f/1.8, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16 and f/22! 81 chart shots in all …. You can use this profile with both APS-C and FF files. It does a far better job on the latter than the one Adobe ships.

If you put the profile here on a Mac –

Replace ‘Tigger’ with your user name on a Mac.

– LR and PS will automatically choose it in preference to the stock one provided by Adobe.

The stock Adobe profile resides here on a Mac – there is no need to delete it if adding my profile in the location shown above.

The respective Windows locations are:

Windows 7 or Vista: C:\User\(User Name)\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw\LensProfiles\1.0

Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\(User Name)\Application Data\Adobe\CameraRaw\LensProfiles\1.0

You can find my enhanced profile here. On FF, extreme edge definition is excellent from f/4 through f/11. There’s a lot more to this self-effacing lens than meets the eye.

Here are before and after images on full frame where the lens really is 35mm focal length – ideal for street snapping, no sensor crop involved.. The first pair at f/1.8, the second at f/11. In each case the right-hand image is after applying my profile:


In the snaps below I used my lens profile with the APS-C sensor in the D2x.


Walking the pup. D2x, f/2.8.


San Mateo Post Office. In its usual schlocky under-capitalized way, this failing
business is letting a landmark heritage building rot into oblivion. D2x, f/2.8.


Bits missing and waiting to rot. D2x, f/2.8.


Inside the St. Matthew station USPO. No corner shading whatsoever using my profile. D2x, f/1.8.


Magnificent period detail. D2x, f/4.

Any Nikon APS-C body – such as the D1 and D2 series, the D70, D90, D100, D200, D300, the D7000 or even later bodies – constrained by a lower quality, slow kit zoom lens would benefit from this inexpensive optic. It has excellent resolution and can continue being used with few excuses once the user upgrades to an FF body, provided you also use my profile, above. Further, the discipline imposed by a fixed focal length lens, dictating proper composition before the button is pressed, can only enhance the snapper’s skill set and improve the results. Finally, it’s nice not to have to remember to limit this lens to APS-C bodies only if you use both APS-C and FF.

Some Nikons – the D3 series and the D4 – offer an optional 5:4 aspect ratio frame (too square for my taste) which crops vertical strips either side of the full frame. This format should have no issues with across the frame resolution using this 35mm lens.