Knuckledragger

I've had this rant brewing for a while. In the world of photography, large format photographers are the biggest dicks in the room (in the Tice sense.) If the subject is holding still, large format (which is basically anything between 4x5" and 8x10") cameras do things better than anything digital and do it with 100-150 year old technology. Large format cameras can correct for perspective in ways that even the most sophisticated SLR lenses cannot. Large format photographers shoot at tiny apertures far beyond the point of maximum sharpness for any lens and deep into the diffraction loss territory. Their lines rendered per square inch is much worse than any digital camera but they make up for it by ...having more inches (I swear I wasn't trying to make so many dick jokes when I started.) Film stock is many orders of magnitude better now than it was in decades past, but apart from that it's quite possible to use camera equipment from before the war (the great war) in 2023 and be a functionally state of the art photographer. There's a rather large issue of color vs B&W stock and reciprocity failure that I've ignoring, but it's not directly relevant to the subject I'm going to address here. As I've alluded to in many posts, I now live in Vartha's Mine Yard full time. This storied island is and has been the home to many talented photographers (including at least one super famous one.) There's man in his 60s a who lives here now and shoots with a late 19th century LF camera. I have yet to see his work, but I'm very interested in doing so. Tangent: Large Format is one of the last signposts before sanity starts to disappear completely. After 8x10" the world of Ultra Large Format begins with 11x14" AKA "My contact prints are better than yours." ULF is where madness sets in. I've seen an 11x14" camera. It was ginormous. Anything beyond is lunacy for lunacy's sake. Of course, the final destination for a photographer that has utterly taken leave of his senses is ...alternative and historical processes. The people who make cyanotypes, tintypes, daguerreotypes etc. are artisans, craftsmen and people who make me look totally sane as I'm ranting about the mintue details of the work an obscure Eastern European electronic music producer at the end of my radio show. Ahem. As I was saying, I have a small confession to make. Since moving to MV, I've become a bit of a Facebook Boomer. That's really saying something as I loathe Facebook and ...don't really like the baby boomer generation. It turns out that on an insular place like MV, most of the locals communicate ...in a private FB group. Even my (sainted, octogenarian) mother who has never used FB in her life, is aware of this group. I now log into FB multiple times a day to check out what's going on about town. As one might expect much if it is "need a place to live" "lost dog" "found dog" "why is that on fire?" etc. Old Zucc's AI sure has noticed the uptick in my FB usage. I'm now getting all sorts of notifications from FB that I haven't before ("We've got a special survey just for people like you!" "The FB Messenger App for OS X is ready to download!") I figured a good way to get known on MV (in spite of being a 4th generation Vineyarder, my grandfather ran the fish market in my town in the mid 20th century) was to show off some of my photography. I've been posting a couple shots I've taken in the last ...18 years on MV to the group. My other main skill is putting words together about why exactly I really do or do not like something, and I've been using the positive side of that trait to explain my history on MV and the subjects I've photographed. So far I've gotten a consistently positive response. There are a lot of photos posted to the MV FB group, and the vast majority of them are current tech smart phone overly HDR snapshots that drive me nuts. It's not that I'm such a snob that I can't appreciate snapshots taken by Joe and Jane Average, on the contrary, I love work like that. Photography by the people is often the most interesting. What drives me batty is the pseudo HDR math "everything is the same brightness level" look that smartphone camera software produces. It's designed to appeal immediately to the untrained eye. It makes me want to scream. Once a while, a real artist shows up. As I said, there are a lot of really skilled photographers on this island and many of them make use of very specialized camera equipment, often to spectacular effect. In the summer of 2001 a fella with an LF camera did an interior shot of one of the Victorian cottages here on MV: "Gingerbread House, Methodist Campground, Oak Bluffs, MA, July 19, 2001. 8x10 camera, 165mm @ F/22, 4 seconds, Tri-X film, minus development." As I said, LF cameras excel at things where other cameras falter. Correcting for perspective in architectural photographer is no mean feat (I know, I've tried and more or less universally failed.) When I saw the above image posted to the MV FB group, I excitedly commented how impressed I was and that a 165mm lens is "quite wide angle" for an 8x10" camera, roughly equivalent to a 22mm lens on a 35mm camera. A day or so later, I got a notification of reply to my comment on FB. I won't quote it here, but it had been dipped in bromine and condescension. The photographer corrected me that the FoV was closer to 28mm because of the "crop factor" of 8x10. Motherfucker. That's not crop factor. That's ASPECT RATIO. If you're going to be so thoroughly pendantic, you've now taken on the task of being correct about the minutiae at hand. I suppose one could make a case that camera lenses produce image circles and the film plane is "cropping" a square or rectangle out of them, but that's not how the terminology works in common usage. Unfortunately, sometimes LF photographers are the biggest dicks in the room in the ...TubeRoller sense. (How's that for an OG HeadFi reference?) Also, I should learn to take things less personally.

The Animaniacs turn 30 this year.

"I got something to say! I ate a gummy today and it doesnt matter much to me, as long as its red!"

It's St. Patrick's Day. Do don't anything stupid!

Oh man, I just heard about Bobby Caldwell. Two things: Two: I can't think of a better tribute.

There's Dartmouth, MA and Falmouth, MA. Then there's what appeared on a Cape Cod weather report: Someone's got a Fal Mouth indeed.

Well, usa_love is right about one thing. Those Mjölnir Audio guys have a terrible reputation. Especially on head-case. Especially among the stats fanatics. Especially in the Stax Mafia. Which totally doesn't exist. Do I have to put /s? I feel like I have to put /s.

Napalm Death - From Enslavement To Obliteration remaster (2012) Napalm Death - Scum 25th anniversary remaster (2012) Remastering proto grindcore strikes me as a silly idea. I had both of the above albums on cassette in the late 1980s. At that point Napalm Death were considered a death metal and/or hadcore band. I think it was nearly a decade later until I heard the term "grindcore." I downloaded a LUFS app for OSX yesterday and I'm going to run some of these remasters through it. ND is an amusing band, but they're not really my cuppa these days. With that said, one of their founded members went on to form a group I really like: Godflesh - Streetcleaner 2CD remaster (2010). This really is one of the heaviest albums I've ever heard. I remember first hearing on college radio in '89. That was a time period when: (A) I was listening to a lot of metal. (B) I was listening to a lot of college radio. (C) Both were experiencing a renaissance. Revisiting Streetcleaner, it has aged like a fine, dystopian industrial metal wine. Godflesh - Slavestate, original 1991 version. There is a 2013 remaster, but I have not heard it. An almost funky and danceable EP compared to the mechanical gloom of the previous album. I actually didn't like it much when I first got in '91, but it's now one of my favorite releases by the band. I did not plan this, but every (non ambient) album I've listen to in the last month has been on Earache records. Funny what a hugely significant label they are for extreme music.

I'm still dealing with the fallout of moving (something that is scheduled to continue indefinitely) and most of the time I have to listen to music I just fire up SomaFM's Synphaera channel. Synphaera is my current favorite ambient/downtempo/psychill/call it what you will label. The rest of the time, when I'm out and about in the world, welll... it's death metal. Florida death metal. Death - Individual Thought Patterns (1993). Chuck Schuldiner's "angsty" album where he continued his struggle to outgrow the blood and guts imagery of the band's early works. It's got Gene Hoglan AKA the best drummer in metal on it and is one of my favorite \m/ albums, full stop. Morbid Angel - Blessed Are The Sick "Full Dynamic Range" re-release from 2019. The idea of an "audiophile" edition of a death metal album might seem silly, but TBH this version really IS better. Brickwalling ruins any form of music including death metal. Also BatS is better than Altars of Madness and I've been willing to die on this hill for 30 years now. Deicide - Legion (1992). The legend of this album, which has persisted for decades, is that the band had to record it twice. The first time it was so fast that the entire thing clocked in at ~25 minutes. That wasn't long enough for an album so they had to re-record it, "slower." Three decades on, if the original faster version exists, it has never seen the light of day. Tragically, there was no special 30th anniversary release last year. Cynic - Focus. Specifically the 2004 14-track remaster. There have been a bunch of vinyl re-issues in the last decade, but precious few CD versions. The funny thing about Cynic is that they're not a one album band. The returned 15 years later with 2008's Traced In Air, which to this day I have never heard. Massacre - From Beyond (1991). This album got maligned as a "Death wanna" on release, and I have never agreed with that. Similarly, when Massacre released the abysmally bad Promise in 1996, I think it re-ignited hate for From Beyond. Promise is indeed spectacularly bad. I have listened to the entire thing 3-4 times in 25 years and it has never improved. With that said, From Beyond is a bit of a sleeper classic. That was this weekend. This week's gonna include Malevolent Creation, early Cannibal Corpse, Nocturnus and maybe some Obituary.

TBH, even by Leica standards the Sumilux glass is completely not worth it. Ignoring the massive cost difference for a second, the F/2 Summicron versions are a fraction of the size and weight of their F/1.4 brethren. Heavy lenses get old quickly, especially when attached to otherwise lightweight camera bodies. The 50mm F/2 Summicron is a "bargain" by Leica standards (even moreso on the used market.) The Leica 35mm F/2 is possibly the best camera lens in the world for actually taking photos. The only photographer I've ever known personally who shot Leica used a M6 (late 80s serial IIRC) with a 35mm Summicron. He joked that the "swappable glass" part was optional. He used that combination long into the digital era.

It's pouring rain here on MV today, so I'm doing the logical thing and avoiding housework by teaching myself about iOS camera apps. At this point I am outright allergic to the pseudo-HDR tone mapping the default iOS camera app produces. The initial problem I'm encountering is how many apps are video focussed. IDGAF about video beyond the most basic functionality. I'm a still photographer. Also some of these apps have a subscription model. There are quite a few iOS camera app reviews on the YouTubes. For some reason, ever single one I've watched so far has been by somone with an impressively thick accent. This poses a problem for me, as I'm dyslexic and have poor auditory processing of language. (That backwars R thing is a pop culture trope. Not being able to understand WHAT THE FUCK YOU'RE ON ABOUT because of background noise is very real.) So my top choice is Pro Camera by Moment. It's reasonably priced and has the basic features I want (manual controls mostly.) There are a few iAPs (as are present everywhere it seems) but they're not expensive. I also bought Hipstamatic Classic. Now that we're upwards of a dozen years past the faux retro plague that took over mobile photography and lead to ...Instagram, I figure it's high time for me to buy a toy camera app. To be fair, I was making fake lo-fi images before it was cool. There are of course many other camera apps out there, but it takes me a while to get familiar with things, so I'm going to limit myself to those two for a while. I am curious about Halide, which has very good reviews. I have some doubts about their iAPs so I'm passing for now. Also I swear I'm either going to buy a either Canon mirrorless and EOS adapter or a fucking Leica before I turn 50.

I should do a second post on 2009 at some point. With that said, Couple Finds Trove of 2,000 Cameras and Lenses in Storage Unit. Right here in MA.

Tice just reminded me of this:

I'm sorry to post such distasteful content:

So I recently joined an invite-only group on Facebook. Voluntarily. This is akin to be agreeing to lights for a dubstep DJ ...in 2023. The reason I did that is MV is populated with Facebook Boomers(tm) and it's the only way they know how to communicate, apparently. The residents here are primarily fixated by what's going on in their back yard. This is a trait true everywhere, but a much more ...focused one on islands. This phenomenon is how we got UK rave culture 35 years ago, but I digress. The big hullabloo on MV the last few weeks has been the plight of Leo the dog, who went missing. Leo had a number of article written about him in the MV Times newspaper and was the subject of much discussion in the MV "Islanders Talk" FB group. I wasn't really paying attention to any of it (moving and the aftermath will put an impressive amount of stress on one's time) but I did see a followup post after the Leo found his way home: I made a joke about "that looks like Bark Flag to me" and ...exactly zero Facebook Boomers got it. I shouldn't be surprised. It's probably just as well I didn't follow by calling him the "Long Lost Dog of It."

Everyone knows the Go-Go's. In 1980, when they were a (pop) punk band, they recorded a version of their future hit "We Got The Beat" with Paul Wexler at the helm and releasted it on Stiff Records (a label best known for ska, early punk and new wave.) I remember hearing about the original version many decades ago. It was only available on vinyl, the original 7" was rare and kind a spendy and we weren't in the Information Age yet. Now of course we have the world at our fingertips (and the ocean at our door.) A guy I know who does very fastidious vinyl rips gave me a FLAC copy on slsk. Also it's on YouTube of course: It ...kinda rocks. I like the Go-Go's with rough edges.

Top Russian Military Official Dead After Fall From 16th Floor. Gravity in Russia is a real MFer.

2009 was one of the craziest years of my life, paralleling 1996. I should do a photo essay on it. That'd take more time than I have, so here's a Cliff's Notes version. The year started fairly inertly, with snow and ice: I took a photo of my room that was utterly unrepresentational of its cleanliness: That's my then-new late 2008 Macbook. Then I had some vintage Mac gear restored: I pestered a sleepy cat with a Canon 85mm F/1.8: I let my friend use my 17-40L with his 5D Mk II: I experimented with sun stars: I got my first (of 3) IR-modified digital cameras: I experimented with zoom bursts: ...with mixed success. I mucked about with HDR, as I had done for years: I met a pretty German woman who worked as a waitress in the local diner I haunted throughout the 00s: Then things got interesting, but that tale is going to have to wait for a later post.

What a time to be alive.

Making strides to getting back on the air. First mater of consideration is where I'm going to set up a DJ rig. The second is the time. I think I'm going to still be on Fridays, but start an hour earlier. That means 9PM-11PM Eastern, then of course nearly an hour of yammering on the mic afterward.

Strap in, this is gonna be a long walk. As many HCers know, I worked in nightclubs for nearly 20 years and ran my own one man lighting company. At one point I was hugely interested in nightclub and stage lighting. There are many high end club light manufacturers, from Martin to Coemar to ...a company called "High End." The best "luminaries" as they are called are made by an Italian outfit called Clay Paky. Clay Paky fixtures are truly the Ferrari of lighting. Ferrari as the company imagines itself to be, not as they actually are. Clay Paky products fantastically expensive, physically massive, unimaginably heavy and consume gobs of power. 20 years ago I went on eBay and searched for Clay Paky products. It was about what I expected. Huge pieces of kit that was greatly expensive even used, with "freight only" shipping options. One guy was selling an official Clay Paky lighting tech vest for $20. It has a massive Clay Paky logo on the back and a bunch of pockets for ...whatever. I impulsively bought it. I have never actually worn the vest because it's ...pretty stupid looking. Even on stage where one is doing lighting, it looks idiotic. Still, I kept it. For reasons unclear even to me, the Clay Paky vest made it with me to the Vineyard. I found it while doing laundry earlier this week. Amused, I did a search for Clay Paky on eBay, like it was 2003 all over again. Not much has changed. "Set of 4 moving heads + case for $5700 + $$$ shipping." "Package of 8 Mini-B moving heads, $22,000 + freight shipping." There are a few LED options now ("2 color changing LED floods, $7,500." Unlike much of the club lighting industry, Clay Paky were slow to adopt LED technology. LEDs aren't as bright and don't deliver as wide a range of colors as a 750W arc bulb does. Climate change be damned. One listing particularly caught my eye. Most static and moving stage lights come in two styles: matte black finish and boring industrial grey. The former is for nearly all applications and the latter is for stuffy corporate spaces. Custom colors exist, but they're rare. Then there's these fucking things: It's the Clay Paky Sharpy: Trump Edition. They'd fit in just fine here: Note Trump cheaped out and used standard black finish movers.

The Canon EF 85mm F/1.2L II USM as it is formally known. Seen here on the 30D of all things. Not too surprising as both came out in 2006. One has aged better than the other.

I've been going over some photos I took in October 2009, when I got my filthy paws on an 85L for a day or so. Even with my 30D's never particularly good sensor, I am amazed at what that lens can do. Any HCers who have a Canon body, you owe it to yourself to rend an 85L for a few days. It's among my list of things that lived up to the hype, which includes HD-650s (in 2004 terms), Ardbeg Uigeadail, Tapatio hot sauce, Citizen Kane and Biosphere's Substrata. These are some of the lesser shots I took in '09. I rejected them at the time, but I'm much better at editing photos now than I was then. I made heavy use of Topaz DeNoise AI, Luminar 4 and a totally paid for copy of Photoshop 2022. Not a very good shot. The vinetting is caused my OOF, unlit people in the crowd. They make an interesting framing device. It's just a mirror ball. Did I ever mention I took an 85L to a jello wrestling event at goth night? This shot was moments before this woman pulled the announcer into the pit with her. Unreality. Heavily processed with Topaz, Luminar 4 and a lookup table. This is is a very silly edit, but it does show off the 85L's wafer thin DoF but also it's glorious redition of OOF areas. That aspheric element is Japanese magic. Another not very good shot. The 30D sucks at ISO1600. Also the framing is awful. Again, the OOF areas are excellent. More unreality. I'm having fun with the 85L's tiny DoF (notice the Apple logos are not in focus, as is most of the laser.) I ran this one through Topaz, Luminar 4, then Topaz again. Lumianr's pseudo HDR processing really amps up the luminance noise. The woman who founded the NoHo goth night announcing the winner of the jello wrestling event. I denoised it and applied a lookup table, but the end result actually doesn't look that different than the original. I will win no awards for framing here. I've got a dozen or so more shots to go through and finish editing.

How about some speaker not-porn? Some of you may recall that I made a post in the "What gear are you listening through right now?" thread during my final hours in my previous residence. That was an insanely hectic, difficult and sleep deprived time. I set up a mid 70s Marantz with a pair of (I think late 80s Yamaha NS-1000s) and used my MOTU M2 as a source. That arrangement kept me sane while I dealt with the 500 issues associated with moving. It doesn't look like much, but I assure you it did the job. NS-1000s are an ancient, boxy design. Their JA-0801 beryllium midrange drivers have a legendary status at this point. Tragically, many NS-1Ks were stripped of their mids and left to rot. I remember seeing JA-0801s being sold on eBay in the mid 00s for more than the cost of a full NS1K pair (largely because NS-1000s are 70 lbs each and expensive AF to ship.) I think that madness has subsided in recent years. Carerful observers will note the HeadRoom Desktop PSU perched on top of the Marantz, as well as the teenie, tiny wires I'm using to hook up the Yamahas. Said wires were lifted from a crappy "premium" Aiwa set my late stepather received as a gift from his kids. The Aiwa's speakers on the lower shelf to the left of frame. All I can say is that the wires worked.