Knuckledragger

Reports of gunfire near Venezuela’s presidential palace. File under: Rorge; Ruh-roh.

Fat squirrels and fat(?) cats to follow. Possibly some dupes. Xreffing is a PITA. Squirrel tongue! These shots were taken only a month ago. When there's sufficient snow on the ground, squirrels will eat the berries. I spent new year's eve with 3 octogenarians (one of whom will be turning 90 this year) and 2 cats. Wisely(?) I brought my 85L and iPhone. Gidget vigorously investigating what's going on with Peter's trouser leg. Gidget is a gray card with legs. I've mentioned in the past that I really like the Moment app for iOS. It has great manual white balance. I need to xref what kelvin value I use it in and start using the same on the DSLR. Shot with tungsten white balance and then adjusted in Photoshop. To be fair, Gidget does have a lot of brown in her coat. Molly displaying her usual aggrievement at the presence of humans. Gidget absolutely savaging my knee with all four paws. She didn't draw blood, but it sure felt like it.

So, funny thing...

So, funny thing. I checked the "DJ edits" folder on my server. First of all, the last edit I did was July of 2021. Sadge, as the kids say. Second of all, in there is "Hooverphonic - Mad About You (Live at Koningin Elisabethzaal 2012) (no applause).flac" which I did sometime in late 2014 apparently.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. Yesterday was certainly an eventful one ...and not for me, if you take my meaning. Someone posted this meme edit in a discord and I yoinked it on the spot.

*adjusts tinfoil hat* It's not just about stealing Venezuelan oil (and whatever other natural resources that are a bonus). What we're seeing here is an attempt to "stabilize" the world's oil market using Venezuela as a buffer when we destabilize things by attacking Iran.

That reminds me, related to my previous post: I have never, ever been a fan of Destiny's Child, so by default I prefer this version. It's a decent soft rock/almost disco track until the Bee Gees come in, then it's like a solid rocket booster of groove kicked in.

This is my favorite edit. From almost 20 years ago. RIP.

Fall was pretty recent, it was also an eternity ago. I went out with a variety of different lenses, captured the colors and annoyed the local fauna. In 2009 I went to the MV alpaca farm with my (sainted, then-septuagenarian) mother on her birthday. I'm sure I posted a number of those shots at the time. I used the never good 75-300mm consumer zoom, and spent ages in Photoshop, masking, denoising and sharpening. I'm much more lazy less interested in such labor intensive editing these days. We went back to the farm for her birthday this year. I used the also not very good Tamron 28-300mm. So far I've only edited a few shots (see above). Llamas serve as guard animals at the alpaca farm. Gidget the kitty doesn't know or care about "color balance." Molly being characteristically unamused at the presence of humans. This is the only shot I've ever gotten of her where she was lit properly, in-focus and looking at me. Of course, she's glowering. Changes afoot as the Hathaway house. Again with the craptastic Tamron. I haven't used it that much, but it's a bit of a "bad penny" lens. The same taken with my radioactive 1970s Super Takumar 50mm F/1.4. It's crazy how pricey this lens has become. Mine it's not the most desirable version. The very rare first iteration, which proved too expensive to produce, is a collector's bauble at this point. My version isn't that rare, but copies of it have a nasty tendency to yellow (because radioactive.) My copy is bit yellow, but for now that means it has a permanent "warming filter" installed. That makes it ideal for fall colors. Same scene at twilight, taken with my beloved Canon EF 50mm F/1.8 Mark I. Honestly, in spite of all the lenses I own, I could shoot with a 50 the vast majority of the time and be happy. In the parlance of our times *laughs in Henri Cartier-Bresson.* Morning Glory Farm, or as it is known by the younger generation, "MoGlo" had quite a display of pumpkins. Even though I live in walking distance, I only managed to get there once. In my defense, this fall got ball-freezingly cold quickly. My OCD neighbor's yard, taken with the Takumar. It excels at golden hour shots. 17-40mm at the wide end. I used to love the super wide angle look, but a decade and a half of cameraphone photos have made me reverse that stance more or less completely. Now I greatly prefer the telescopic compression that happens at focal lengths greater than 100mm. Same idea with the nifty fifty. Taken at F/5, which is a little silly. In retrospect I should have committed one way or the other and either stopped down significantly or gone full retard at F/1.8. Tune in next time for more fat squirrels, Christmas lights and even some short lived snow. Spoiler alert: The EF 100-400mm is a goddamn bazooka is tiring as all fuck to handhold for any length of time.

The Cure's Perry Bamonte Dead at 65.

Not precisely IDM, but close enough. Exhibit A: Exhibit B:

Cats, squirrels and other critters will have to wait. Let's talk about using an unnecessarily shallow depth of field. Last night it was cold AF, especially by Vineyard standards. In spite of that, I picked one of my new lenses, bundled up and went downtown. Zero points for guessing which one I chose. As I have said repeatedly, the list of things that have encountered in my life that lived up to the hype were (in no order): Citizen Kane, Ardbeg Uigeadail, Biosphere's Substrata, Tapatio hot sauce and the Canon EF 85mm F/1.2L (II). I last shot with the 85L in 2009, when it was a relatively new lens. Also, when I was a young, spry man in his 30s who had no problem lugging around a glass boat anchor + camera body for hours on end. The 85L is so comically fat, it changes the entire shooting experience. The balance of the camera feels different. Every shot takes just a bit more effort. I actually find it easier to hold things steady for longer exposures than with some lighter lenses. Of course, the depth of field is (to use the technical term) non-fucking-existent. I'm not old. You're old. (This joke works a lot better on places that aren't Head-Case.) Shot wide-open because I can. Downtown EDG's Christmas decorations (which are so famous, people come from all over the world for the "Christmas in Edgartown" first lighting.) TBH this is not a terribly compelling shot. It does look a bit like a still from a movie. Same idea, reflected off a truck. There's no real artistry to the wafer thin DoF, but it looks neat. It actually takes a fair amount of work (and some luck) to use such a shallow plane of focus effectively. I actually really like these two. The ornaments are sufficiently in focus, and the background is a warm cozy dream. The way I describe the 85L's handling of OOF highlight is that it paints them. It looks like a less cloying version of a Hallmark card. That's about it from an hour's walk. My hit rate was abysmal. Not terrible surprising, as I was shooting in Program mode with auto ISO. The 5D kept the 85 at max aperture and 1/80th shutter speed, while it adjusted auto ISO on the fly. Most of the Christmas lights are LED, and strobe at 60Hz. This effect is noticeable to the naked eye and super obvious in photos. I have two shots of the same doorway where one strand is out and then other. It looks comically bad. Also, while the 85L's shallow DoF is amusing, it's not reliably useful. It turns out that having more than a paper sheet's worth of a frame in-focus is good idea. Who knew? If it's not so ball freezingly cold, I'm going to back out and shoot more lights. I won't lug the 85 again. 35 years ago I dislocated my left shoulder and it never healed correctly. It was in absolute agony by the end of last night. If I'm smart, I'll take my OG 50mm F/1.8 (arguably the best lens I own for actually taking photos and not dicking around.) The 17-40mm is also a great walkaround lens. Modern bodies have sufficient high ISO performance that it's F/4 aperture is not a problem. I also have a strong notion to make use of the 135 F/2L. It's not as over the top as the 85L (what is, this side of Leica?) but its optical qualities are legendary.

Just heard that Ken Downie of The Black Dog passed. TBD released a fantastic number of IDM gems in the first half of the 90s. My personal favorite is Raxmus:

Two things: (1) This time of year (we're picoseconds from the solstice), the sun does some funny things. (2) My CZJ 135mm F/3.5 Sonnar is one of my favorite lenses, full stop. I describe the images it renders as "handsome." Everything is sharp, colorful, and has the right amount of distance between subjects. In a different universe, I might use a 135mm on a medium format (Hasselblad makes a neat 135mm that'll set you back about 5 large.) It is not the narrow FoV that I like, it's what is to my biased eyes the "correct" amount of telescopic compression. To wit: Note the birds in the upper left corner. Earlier, I was capturing fall colors with the Sonnar: Also this photo got into Flickr's "Explore" section: Nearly 5000 views and 150 favorites later. TBH I find the whole thing kind of silly. Longtime listeners may recall me mentioning that Explore is heavily botted and most of the photos that end up in it are eye catching, but not particularly good. TBH that's what the above is, I think. The Sonnar's bokeh is quite good and the little cedar tree is tack sharp. With that said, the framing is nothing special. It's just a snapshot with a shallow DoF. The Sonnar is a great lens. Flickr is dumb. Bonus, previous photos of mine that I have made it into Explore: The pond next to Edgartown harbor. 2020 rework of a photo I took in 2006. IR version of the same area, 2013. A bungalow, across from Cannonball Park. As I said, eye-catching but not necessarily good. Next time: Cats, squirrels and whatever I get up to with some new glass (more on that later.)

I'm gonna go with the The Princess Bride. Saw in theaters in '86 and have watched it periodically throughout the decades. Andre the Giant said he was happiest on the set of that film. It was the one time he felt normal.