Marine Corps training and photography

I was only in the Marine Corps for three years, but they were from the age of 17 to 20, and many of the things I was taught back then I still consider useful and important.  Perhaps I’ve mentioned some place that my experience as a rifle instructor applies to photography.  "Hold them and squeeze them" applies to snapping a shutter as well as pulling a trigger.  Also, I am accumulating cameras and lenses in the same way I used to accumulate guns:  A battery comprises a gun for every purpose one can reasonably imagine.  I don’t accumulate guns any longer, but I am building something like a battery with cameras and lenses.  Guns, will never wear out if they are properly cared for, but that isn’t necessarily true of DSLR cameras. They have only been around for a little more than a decade; so it is too soon to tell; so to be on the safe side, and if the price is right, it is prudent to back up the cameras one is especially fond of. 

Also, I am constantly reminded that I never felt especially comfortable with a new handgun unless I had fired perhaps a thousand rounds through it, over a period of time, of course.  I feel the same sort of thing in regard to cameras.  I need to spend a lot of time with each camera before I feel adept with it.  I was perhaps up around 10,000 shots each with the E-1 and E-520 before I decided the Olympus DSLR cameras were pretty good.  And thanks to the influence of marketing, plenty of camera users were willing to unload their "obsolete" Olympus cameras with 100 to 500 shutter actuations in order to "upgrade".  Why should I buy a new camera, whether an EM-1 or any other new camera when there is a thoroughly tried and proven camera available with just about everything the new camera has minus the bugs and in near new condition?

My “battery” rationale may be fairly weak.  I do like to try new systems, but have no wish to try the latest and greatest according to marketeers and their reviews.  I'm a hiker and when Olympus quit making DSLRs I found the Pentax K-20D, K-7 and K-5 to my liking.

As to the Micro 4/3, for the most part that is too new a system form me to switch to or try in any big way.  I did however find an EPL3 on sale with the 14-42 kit lens for $199 and couldn't resist that.  I've probably put about 500 shutter actuations on it and can think of niche situations where I'll be happy with this light-weight little thing.  Choosing an EM-1 over a K-5 is another matter.  I already have the K-5 and don't find the EM-1 at all tempting, even if the price were comparable to a K-5, which it isn't.  I was acquiring only Olympus DSLRs, but when Olympus quit making them I began adding Pentax DSLRs, and the camera I'm most likely to buy next isn't the K-3 but the K-5ii or K-5iis.

I have added a third system when I acquired the EPL3.  I like the idea of being able to look down into the articulated LCD screen in the manner of the old Kodak Duaflex camera.  I don't have any "gritty streets" to walk in order to photograph "gritty street people," but I do find some interesting scenes when I'm not on a hike; so I fancy the EPL3 will come in handy.  Maybe one day if the price drops low enough I'll acquire the EPL5.  Will Olympus make an EPL7???

On Olympus Cameras and Philosophy

I have over a few years gotten immersed in the goings on of an Olympus DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) forum.  I have a number of these Olympus DSLRs (which are in the 4/3 format) and all the lenses I need.  No doubt I could have become equally attached to any of the brands.  They are all good, but I chose Olympus.  And then Olympus decided to quit making DSLRs. 

Olympus-forum angst hit almost everyone.  I argued for a while that the existing cameras weren’t going to wear out anytime soon, but one could prudently ward off running out by buying backups at low prices from eBay, KEH, and elsewhere.  One need never run out of them even if one lived another 100 years.  But I discovered that there was an emotional price to pay for hunkering down with the old stuff.  It was akin to hiding out some place and waiting to die.  One needed a future.

Olympus came out with mirrorless cameras in the Micro-4/3 format and these cameras got better and better.  They were a small step up from Point and Shoot cameras in size but they had interchangeable lenses.  The lenses weren’t quite as good as the old 4/3 format lenses but Olympus compensated for their flaws with software.  Many refused to buy the early Micro-4/3 cameras because they didn’t have OVFs (Optical Viewfinders); so Olympus created an EVF (Electronic Viewfinder) that simulated the OVF.  Many Olympus users made the transition to the micro cameras, but not all.  I was one who didn’t.

Why didn’t I make the transition?  Since the early micro cameras didn’t have viewfinders, one needed to focus a camera by looking at the LCD screen in “Live View.”  I never liked the Live View approach.   I prefer the Optical Viewfinder.  So I chose Pentax to obtain my “future.”  Beginning with their K-20D camera they made relatively light weight (compared to the Olympus E-3) rugged, good performing DSLRs, and the announced intention was that they would continue to do so.  I didn’t get rid of my old Olympus cameras and lenses.  They are still functional and I still like them, but I acquired Pentax K-20D, K-7 and K-5 cameras and a selection of lenses suitable for hiking.  I had become a “two-system” user, Olympus 4/3 and Pentax DSLRs.

It is difficult to avoid “brand loyalty.”  There are Nikon, Canon, Sony, Pentax loyalists as well as others.  One tends to “ride for the brand.”  Loyalty is not usually as extreme as that found in response to British Soccer teams, but some of the Micro-4/3 people are approaching that level.  Micro evangelists came after many of us on the Olympus 4/3 forum urging us to get with it, buy the Olympus micro cameras and support the brand (Olympus).  One doesn’t become a “traitor” if one adds a second brand.  Many 4/3 users have done that. They refer to their Canon or Sony cameras and I have met several Olympus users on the Pentax forum.  But in the view of the Micro evangelists one needs to support the Olympus brand as well.

Years ago I started work at Douglas Aircraft Company and we competed against McDonnell Aircraft company.  I remember riding for the Douglas brand back then; but then Douglas merged with McDonnell and I was subsequently working for McDonnell Douglas.  After that we competed against Boeing.  I was riding for the McDonnell Douglas brand although I never shook off the irony of it.  And then Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas and I seamlessly began working for Boeing.   I can’t say I ever (mentally) rode for the Boeing brand because the real Boeing was in Seattle whereas I worked on the C-17 program (which was begun by McDonnell Douglas) in Long Beach. 

Companies, whether Boeing or Olympus strive to develop a loyal base, but the people who run the companies are more cynical about loyalty.  They are willing to merge or sell a company if those acts will enhance their individual portfolios.  A tried and true method of enhancing a company’s stock price is to lay off as many employees as possible.   The loyalty of the laid off employees doesn’t influence that decision.

I am not cynical about owning Olympus 4/3 and Pentax cameras and lenses.  I enjoy taking them on hikes.  I make a selection depending upon the weather and whim and head out on a hike with the dogs.  But I am cynical about the baying of the micro evangelists who (to continue the metaphor) snap and snarl at anyone not furthering the Olympus bottom line.  They perhaps fear that not enough people will buy the micro 4/3 cameras and Olympus will discontinue those as well; so they treat the Old Timers as semi-retarded and in the need of direction which they feel eminently qualified to provide. 

I was offended by these micro-hounds; so I probed about the forum to take the emotional temperature of the other Old Timers.  I discovered that they didn’t care.  Yeah, they are bothered a bit, but they just hit their delete buttons and move on.  They urge me to do the same. 

Years ago I was influenced by Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus.  They strove not to be affected by matters they could do nothing about.           They purportedly were quite successful.  I agree with the Stoics and do indeed strive not to be affected by matters I can do nothing about, but unlike Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus I have not been very successful. 

Photos from an E-1 after a reset

On 11-5-13 I bought my third (not counting the two I gave my son) E-1. It had some marring and damage on the bottom and I had a question about whether the quoted shutter count was correct; so I've been testing it day after day on hikes. On my previous outing with this camera the reds were overwhelming and I had to back them off with Lightroom 5 in PP; so I did a factory reset and then used the settings that I had on my #1 E-1 except for one thing. I was reading Wrotniak's review of the E-1 last night and he wrote that the automatic setting for White Balance was excellent; so I tried that today and did not end up happy with it. It turned the sand ash-colored; so I won't use that again.

But I wondered as I often have how uniform these cameras are. We know some of every camera run, no matter the manufacturer, are rejects; so why not lesser problems that get sent along to the user. Perhaps Wrotniak's E-1 did do better with the WB set at Auto, but my E-1 clearly did not.

The photos for today are in the "The Newish Old E-1" gallery on the http://lawrencehelm.smugmug.com/ photo site, 12 of them, photos 271 through 282.  Photos 275, 276 and 277 show a bit of water.  We had some rain yesterday, not much, but San Jacinto drains what it can into little reservoirs like the one you see here.  The ducks like it.

I took photo 272 as a test, a house or trailer some distance away, using the 18-180 lens set at 180mm and hand held.  I had a discussion with someone about the value of Image Stabilization.  The E-1 doesn't have any and I'm of the opinion that it doesn't need it.  I did correct the WB in PP and I might have sharpened the photo a bit but I didn't use any noise reduction.  The photo looks fine to me, and I remain unconvinced that I need IS.

Also, along with criticism of the inadequacies of the E-1 (which I discovered on my own to be untrue -- at least to the extent that my eyes provide me with evidence), I have been happily using the Olympus 18-180 lens, an ideal lens for a hiker, at least this hiker because he doesn't like taking more than one lens on a hike.  Someone gave the 18-180 lens a bad review early on which scared a lot of people away, but I like it.  Most of the photos, perhaps all, that I've taken in "the Newish Old E-1" with my #3 E-1 were taken with my 18-180.

Perhaps my 18-180 is a particularly good copy, or perhaps I could run it through all the tests the reviewers put it through and find that it is a piece of junk -- but I don't know how to do those tests. I'm just a simple hiker.

Are people who keep old Olympus cameras nuts?

Psychologically we are all products of something, some underlying ideas, some inclinations, skills, faults. In my case I was an engineer for 39 years in Douglas which merged with McDonnell which was bought out by Boeing. My emphasis, if I had one was Systems Engineering, how things fit together to make the system work, but also whether the old system needed to be tweaked or was some vendor just trying to talk us into something.

In my retirement I have tended to take a hard look at the sales-jobs of reviewers (who get paid, many of them, by camera and equipment companies) and the magazines who seem almost entirely funded by camera and equipment companies. On this forum I see "nuts" panting after the very latest and wonder, "does he really need something that the latest has that his current camera doesn't?"

It's hard not to be influenced by "the latest is better" syndrome. It was only recently that I "dared" use ISO 800 on my E-1 because as any fool could plainly tell me, the E-1 was way too noisy at that ISO. But one recent foggy, cloudy morning I was out there hiking with just an E-1 so what was I going to do? I shot about 75 or so photos, all at ISO 800 and they were all fine. I uploaded ten of them to my "The Newish Old E-1" gallery in http://lawrencehelm.smugmug.com   I would defy even Ben Herrmann's eagle eye to tell which ones were shot at ISO 800.

Do I need a faster AF?  I would have difficulty accepting the AF speeds of the E-10 or E-20 but the E-1 is fine for what I do, i.e., shoot photos on hikes.  Every once in a while one of my Ridgebacks or Duffy will chase a rabbit in clear view and I'll only get 3 or 4 shots and think I should have had the camera set at C rather than S.  Or perhaps I should have a camera with movie capability, but I do have cameras capable of those things and have never used them: The occasion either hasn't presented itself or I don't think about which buttons to push until the excitement has run around a bend and into the brush.  So the E-1 can miss the good shots as well as any of my later cameras.

Returning to psychology, there is a valid reason for being involved with a camera company that does build newer and newer cameras.  One can feel more optimism about the future than if one is firmly committed to cameras and lenses a camera company no longer builds, especially to a camera, the E-1, that the company won't even support.  One can compensate by buying more than one E-1 (I have three), but one can also connect to another system.  Ben has purchased cameras from several different companies.  In my case, when I need to feel optimistic, I can take my Pentax K-5 for a hike and dream about the K-3.

An E-1 in the threat of rain

I've been using my possibly abused E-1 which has a superb mirror and sensor and therefore may only have the small number of clicks (800) advertised. Because of doubts about that camera I started a gallery for comparison. One can see it at http://lawrencehelm.smugmug.com/ "The Newish Old E-1."  I posted some earlier E-1 photos and then quite a number with this questionable camera.  In retrospect and despite the damage to the underside of the camera, I'm happy with it.

But I decided to return to my mint E-1 to put things in perspective.  However, the prospect for the day was rain and the sky was very dark.  In the past I would have taken my E-3 and 14-54II but decided to go ahead with my plan.  It never rained, but the sky was so heavily overcast I left the E-1 at ISO 800 for the entire outing.

You can see the shots I took this morning, at least 10 of them, in "The Newish Old E-1" gallery, photos 261 to 270.  I did very minor PP on some of them with Lightroom 5, a bit of noise control in some cases and a bit more exposure in some others, but that was it.

In recent photos I was having to do quite a bit more PP with my damaged E-1.  I used the same settings on my mint E-1 this morning and the photos were fine.  The problem with the damaged E-1 was that the red tint was overwhelming.  I had to back off on that with Lightroom to get a more normal look, but I didn't have to do that this morning with my mint E-1.  Since they are set the same I've decided to do a factory reset on my damaged one.

Photo 264 is a bit strange.  Something caught and ate a hawk, but the lower feathers are intact.  Someone else, apparently came along and set some sticks next to the feathers reminding me of an Indian ritual.  I didn't disturb it.

Luminous Dust on an Overcast Day

http://lawrencehelm.smugmug.com/

The last 10 photos in the "The Newish Old E-1" gallery from the above site were taken this morning.  Especially interesting, at least to me, is photo 235.  It shows Duffy kicking up some dust on the river levee which isn't especially interesting in itself except this morning the dust became luminous.

The photo was taken shortly after dawn under a heavily overcast sky.  I had the E-1 set at ISO 800 not really expecting much at that setting but all the ISO 800 shots came out well and I can't account for that either.  I was using the Olympus 18-180mm lens and the focal length of this shot was 86mm.

I'd be interested in any theories.

The Newish Old Olympus E-1

Even though, as Colin is often seen to say, this is a gear forum, someone often pops up and says something along the lines of, "Do all you guys just talk about gear?  Don't any of you take photos?"  Such a comment will usually convict someone enough to post a few photos.  In reference to recent E-1 talk I was self-convicted.  I now have three E-1s; surely I've taken a few photos with them.  I decided to create a separate gallery on my photos site (which can be found at www.lawrencehelm.smugmug.com ) called "The Newish Old E-1"

It wasn't until 2011 that I started indicating what camera I was using in my photo catalog; so that is where I started looking for E-1 photos and posting some of the more interesting ones.  My most recently-purchased and slightly damaged E-1 was the subject of a recent thread.  Photos taken with that camera are numbers 219 through 233.  If I go out again tomorrow I'll use that camera again.

Some milestones:  My dog Ginger (with the red collar) died in December of 2012.  My dog Sage (with the blue collar) died in September of 2013.  I have just little black Duffy at the moment but am expecting an adult Ridgeback at the beginning of next month.

I didn't do any additional PP of photos before posting them in this gallery.  Some of the earlier ones have a lot more noise than I would tolerate today.

I also gave a lot of thought to why I liked the E-1.  If I was simply concerned about gear, then why wouldn't I prefer to take out my K-5 which produces better IQ and is much better at high ISO settings.  The answer is that I am not just concerned about those things. I don't just want to record highlights of hikes.  I look for the interesting shot and the E-1 seems to have the soul for such an approach to photography.  Fie on high ISO settings and technically advanced IQ!  The E-1 for the person who can't paint but has an eye for a fine painting, who sees the beauty in his every path and stops sometimes to let his E-1 take it in.

Not that I have done great things I hasten to add, but I have striven now and again toward them.  I don't spend a lot of time in PP.  I get home from a hike tired, want to take a nap, but put my photos in lightroom anyway.  After my nap I edit them a bit and usually don't see any I want to post to my photo site; so I create a slide show on my computer and look at them over and over a few times.  Usually a few will eventually seem interesting enough to post.

Lewis Carroll, the deviant photographer

Actually, the title of Edmund Wilson’s article was “C. L. Dodgson: The Poet-Logician,” but Wilson has very little to say about Dodgson’s poetry, a bit more about his achievements as a logician and quite a lot about his fondness for little girls.  Had I heard that before?  I can’t be sure but it didn’t sound utterly unfamiliar.  What was new to me was the idea that Dodgson was an accomplished photographer.  Helmet Gernsheim wrote Lewis Carroll Photographer in 1950.  I stopped reading, looked the book up on Amazon, found a paperback copy in “like new” condition for $3.95 and ordered it.  Turning back to Wilson I read that “Mr. Gernsheim considers Dodgson ‘the most outstanding photographer of children of the nineteenth century’ and after Julia Margaret Cameron, ‘probably the most distinguished amateur portraitist of the mid-Victorian era.’” 

Reading some reviews of Gernsheim’s book it seems that many in the 20^th century were convinced that Lewis Carroll was a pedophile.  Wilson considered that and thought not, at least not one that acted upon his thoughts.  But wasn’t he acting upon his thoughts by taking photos of these little girls, some of them nude.  Wilson observed that no one would be able to get away with such behavior in the 20^th century – nor in the 21^st century I would add. 

Wilson admired Through the Looking-Glass: The Life of Lewis Carroll by Florence Becker Lennon.  He notes its faults then writes, “But this study is, nevertheless, the best thing that has yet been written about Lewis Carroll.  The literary criticism is excellent; the psychological insight sometimes brilliant; and Mrs. Lennon has brought together, from the most scattered and various sources, a good deal of information.  The impression that she actually conveys was what Dodgson’s existence was like is more convincing than some of her theories.  Mrs. Lennon believes that Charles Dodgson was intimidated by his clergyman father, so that he felt himself obliged to take orders and never dared question the creed of the Church.  She seems to believe that he might otherwise have developed as an important original thinker.  She also worries about what she regards as his frustrated sexual life: if he had only, she sighs, been capable of a mature attachment for a woman which would have freed him from his passion for little girls!”

In regard to Dodgson’s novel Sylvie and Bruno, Wilson writes, “Mrs. Lennon has, I believe, been the first to point out the exact and complicate parallels between the dreams and actualities that make this book psychologically interesting . . . but the novel for grown-ups is otherwise childish; and in mathematics and logic, according to the expert opinions cited by Mrs. Lennon, he either ignored or had never discovered the more advanced work in these fields, and did not perhaps get even so far as in his exploration of dreams.”

Wilson wrote his initial article in 1932; later, collecting it in the volume The Shores of Light, published in 1952 he added to it, primarily perhaps because of the publication of Gernsheim’s Lewis Carroll Photographer in 1950 and of Lennon’s Victoria through the Looking Glass: The Life of Lewis Carroll in 1945.

The originality of Dodgson might qualify him as “great” in the mind of F. R. Leavis as well although I don’t recall mention of Dodgson in anything I’ve read by Leavis.  Both Leavis and Wilson would I’m sure consider William Blake “great” and their opinions would be shared by Harold Bloom, Northrop Frye and many others, but what if Blake’s originality were fueled by madness?  And what if Dodgson’s were fueled by arrested development?

We know that any writer’s work is influenced by his presuppositions.  Perhaps these presuppositions are based on childhood lessons, teachings and things a person hears or reads, but perhaps sometimes they are developed out of madness or other influences deviating from the “norm.”  On a scale of greatness where the greatest gets 100, shouldn’t we penalize such writers as Blake and Dodgson if their “originality” was to some extent due to their arrested or perverted development?   I’m inclined to penalize them, but I’m not sure I’m right in doing so . . . or, madness in any case would have to be so qualified that any penalizing would have to be severely questioned.  I’m thinking now of bipolar disorder which used to be called manic-depressive.  We all have ups and downs and writers can be expected to write when they are up and feeling good or perhaps down and feeling so depressed that only writing out of their depression can bring them relief.  If we concede that it is okay to write when we are feeling like it and that it is equally okay to not write when we don’t feel like it then that puts into question any penalty applied to a manic-depressive.  And if we don’t penalize a manic-depressive, how do we justify penalizing a paranoiac or a schizophrenic?

Kirk Tuck on the bubble bursting on DSLR and Mirrorless sales

http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/has-bubble-burst-is-that-why-camera.html

The above is an excellent article by Kirk Tuck discussing the possible reasons camera sales (at least of DSLRs & Mirrorless cameras) have fallen off in the recent past. In truth I came to some of his conclusions in the past. What we have had for a long time has been “good enough.” The DSLR (and the Mirrorless design isn’t that different) is a mature system and all the manufacturers are producing DSLRs and Mirrorless cameras that are “good enough.” I recently engaged in a debate on a Pentax forum where a few were arguing that the Pentax K-5 was put to shame by the K-5ii and K-5iiS. Those making this argument had recently purchased a K-5ii or K5iiS, and I suspect they were presenting us with their rationalizations for their recent purchases.

I am something of a gear-head when it comes to photography I will admit. I’ve had a long-standing interest in it which began with my grandfather, Troy Matthews, who made a living developing film for photographers back in the 1920s & 1930s. I inherited his darkroom equipment after he died and learned how to use it. Years later I bought an Olympus Rangefinder that I took on hikes, managing to take better photos than a friend who had a Minolta SLR – as evidenced by the slide shows we held of hikes we went on. He would apologize for having set something wrong on his complicated camera followed by my shots of the same scenes nicely composed.

When I finally entered the DSLR world I started with Olympus, finding several cameras I was delighted in. The E-1 and E-500 produced shots with excellent and almost unique color. The E-420 produced very good quality photos; also it was very light weight and a nice DSLR to take along on a hike when weight was a consideration. I decided that I was always going to be happy with these three cameras regardless of “improvements” and “innovations” of the future & so bought backups in case I damaged one of them.

But I did read the reviews of new cameras and decided I would purchase a couple of them if the prices ever dropped low enough. The last camera I purchased in the Olympus line was the E-3, the replacement of the “pro” E-1. The E-3 had almost twice as many pixels, but that technical achievement seemed to be at the expense of artistic soul. I like the “build” of the E-3, but nothing I experienced in using it made me want to get rid of my E-1s. I still appreciated them. I would say the same thing about my E-500s and E-420s.

Olympus’ interest in the 4/3 DSLR waned after they came out with their much more successful mini-4/3 line. Olympus “fanboys” are hoping for something else, perhaps an E-7 or an E-50, but it is possible that Olympus will give it up and stop with the E-5 which still sells for very near its introductory price.

Since I am interested in taking photos on hikes, I couldn’t help but notice that Pentax had created a line that seemed more suitable for hikes than any recent DSLR Olympus made. I bought a refurbished Pentax K-20d and a few Pentax lenses to get my feet wet. I liked it quite a lot but couldn’t bring myself to buy another as backup. Instead I bought a K-7 new when the price dropped after the introduction of the K-5. Then later, after the introduction of the K-5ii and K-5iis I bought a new K-5 at a very good price.

Am I done purchasing cameras as Kirk Tuck suggests many DSLR owners are, not necessarily? If Pentax comes out with a K-3 and the price of the K-5ii gets low enough I may purchase one as backup for my K-5.

Kirk Tuck would see if he read this note that I am not the typical gear-head. I have no interest in buying the newest and latest. I agree with him that many DSLRs are “good enough,” but having said that, I want to make sure that I don’t run out of these “good enough” cameras. But perhaps I too am slowing down in my purchases of older but still “good enough” cameras. I am more interested at the present time in accumulating a few more lenses.

A great number of people commented on Tuck’s article, many of them pessimistic about the future of digital photography. I wonder if these pessimists aren’t for the most part gear-heads without finely developed artistic senses. There were a few comments by those who from the sound of their writings had “good eyes.” They weren’t pessimistic and I suspect were getting good results from their old but “good enough” cameras. I’d like to think I’m in this category. Even though I was employed as an engineer my education was largely in the arts – primarily poetry and literature, but I developed an interest in the great painters. I can’t paint myself, but I learned to appreciate those who could – up to a chronological point. I never managed to appreciate art or music after it became “modern,” i.e., bizarre and atonal. I appreciated art by painters who if they lived in these modern times might have appreciated what could be achieved with a well-constructed DSLR. In fact I wonder if such painters would have taken up their art if they could purchase a new K-5 for under $750. Tuck worries about the DSLR and Mirrorless bubbles having, perhaps, burst, but what about the “painting bubble.” I don’t have any statistics, but I’d be surprised if it hadn’t burst as well, and perhaps long ago in the days of the SLR.

Warfare and photographic equipment

I have known people who collected or liked to use old guns, knives and cameras.  I have a neighbor, for example, who belongs to a black powder club.  Not only do they have shooting competitions, but they periodically dress up in Civil War or Frontier clothing.  A longing for earlier, less complicated times is understandable.  Also, to collect old weapons has always had its appeal, but there is considerable angst in the photographic world in regard to leaving beloved 35mm cameras and moving into the digital world.  There are still some diehards that refuse to move, but their numbers are dwindling.   Others acquire digital cameras and then feel guilty about them.  They long for the times when you had only 24 or 36 shots and needed to concentrate on making everyone count – sort of like the days when a father would send his son out to hunt squirrels with a single-shot 22, a handful of cartridges, and similar instructions.

In the battle at Waterloo, Wellington and Napoleon and many of their officers made serious mistakes. The potentially critical analyst needs to be reminded that they had very little technology back then. Neither side had any way for spying on the enemy.  Wellington said, "All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don't know by what you do; that's what I call 'guessing what is on the other side of the hill'."

Modern generals, don't need to guess what's on the other side of the hill. They can check satellite or drone images and see. This of course means that no modern general can ever prove himself to be as good as Wellington or Napoleon at guessing what's on the other side of the hill.

Shall we give up our modern technology, go back to film cameras in order to be purists, "guessing what's on the other side of the hill"? Modern military officers still read the details of Waterloo and second guess Wellington and Napoleon, but if there is a war and they are called to fight it they will use modern technology. The same may be true for most of us. It is nice to take down the old 35mm camera from time to time, but for the "business of life" we are going to use modern technology.

Duffy the crow hunter

http://lawrencehelm.smugmug.com/RiverPhotography

The last 23 photos in the November 2011 gallery were from this morning.  The watermelon and squash fields had been picked and plowed and no one was about so we went down a farm road separating two of the fields.  I noticed a few crows.  One passed somewhat close to us and I photographed it going away.

On the way back Ginger and Sage dawdled underneath some trees while Duffy and I went on ahead.  Duffy got 30 or 40 feet in front of me when a crow dived at him, cawing the while.  Duffy was startled and crouched out of the way.  The crow wasn’t more than a foot or two above him as it flew past.  After this Duffy ran back and got behind me.

“Those crows are mean, better stay with me, Duffy,” I said to him, but I had no sooner spoken than he decided he wasn’t afraid of any stinking crow and chased back after it.  I didn’t get the photo of the first close pass but photo 224 shows him chasing into the field after one of the crows.  Several of them took offense at that and about 4 came after him.  I have one shot of that going on, photo 226.  Duffy seemed befuddled, but he didn’t run off.  When the crows flew a short distance away he chased one of them.  Photos 229 and 230 show him looking back to see if I had a problem with anything he was doing.  When I didn’t say anything one way or the other he seems to have decided that he would leave them alone if they left him alone.  Photos 231-235 show him watching the trouble makers.

Btw, I finished the March 2001 gallery, and started on the February 2011 gallery, posting some of the older photos.  These two months have a lot of Duffy in them.

Leg of Deer

http://lawrencehelm.smugmug.com/RiverPhotography/October-2011/19316386_F8MrkD#1508964994_tkdGx49

The last 11 photos in the October Gallery were from yesterday morning.  We had a tiny bit of rain but as soon as I put my camera away, it quit.  The highlight of the morning occurred when Sage found the remains of a deer.  You can see the deer’s leg compared to Sage’s in photo 43 and also her chewing on it in photo 48.  Since it didn’t smell bad I put it in a baggy and tried to give it to her in the back yard once we got home, but she no longer wanted it – perhaps because Duffy did (photo 48).

I assumed that coyotes killed the deer, but after thinking it over another possibility occurred to me. To begin with, I haven’t heard any coyotes down there in a couple of weeks. Coyotes do hunt at night so it is possible they hunted in this region, came upon the deer heading toward the water north of the river (there wasn’t any water in the river until today) and killed it. But another possibility is that a mountain lion followed the deer down to the river and killed it. Deer is the mountain lion’s main source of food. Rabbits have been the main source of food for coyotes at the river as evidenced by the rabbit fur and bones the girls regularly find.

Thunderclouds, 9-6-11

Thunderstorms were predicted, and while we didn’t feel any rain at the river this morning, the cloud formations were spectacular.  See photos 35 -58 in the September 2011 gallery: http://lawrencehelm.smugmug.com/RiverPhotography/Near-the-River-September-2011/18842740_P2TW2P#1460165729_dNDwbLf

Photographic, Blog, and Dog considerations, 8-17-11

Photography:

In the future I’ll be uploading photos to http://lawrencehelm.smugmug.com/ Why? The main reason is that SmugMug provides a much better display, the sort of display I see on my computer screen when I’m looking at and editing my photos. I plan to set up “galleries” by month, at least initially. The only gallery I’ve created thus far is for August 2011.

A secondary reason is that my blog is restrictive and slow. It posts only relatively small photos and takes a long time to do it. Also, it limits the number of photos I can post in a single blog note, and I’m never sure what that number is going to be, usually between 9 and 12. SmugMug allows me to upload as many photos as I want at one time, and it posts them quickly.

If you go my SmugMug site and move your cursor to the upper right side of an emphasized photo, you will be able to enlarge it up to X3. The X3 size is close to what I see on my computer screen.

I acquired the software program Lightroom 3 recently. The main reason I wanted it was to be able to eliminate “noise” when I am shooting in low-light conditions in the early morning. I now feel free to shoot up to ISO 800 on my E-1 and ISO 1600 on my Pentax K20d; although I prefer to be at ISO 400 when the morning brightens up.

One of the adjustments I regularly fiddle on a camera is “White Balance.” In terms of Kelvin number, I use 5300, 6000, 6600 or 7500 depending upon the available light. If I happen to guess wrong, I discovered, I can make the correction with Lightroom 3, a very nice feature.

The future of the Olympus DSLR is in some doubt. Their “pro” E-5 is the only one they are selling at the moment. They have been concentrating on their smaller Pen series which has disappointed many Olympus loyalists. I don’t manage well with small viewfinders; so the only Olympus I use with regularity is the 2003 vintage E-1. As to the future, I may buy an E-3 if the price of a low shutter-count camera drops sufficiently. The only Olympus “pro” camera newer than the E-3 is the E-5, which is still selling at around $1600; so I am not likely to get an E-5 for a very long time. I have decent Olympus glass, but will probably add a 70-300mm Olympus lens at some point.

The future of Pentax is in somewhat less doubt. My K20d has only the K-7 and K-5 above it in the Pentax “pro” line (not counting their Medium Format 645d). The K-5 is the only Pentax camera that interests me, but they are still selling for about $1200 on Amazon. The price would need to drop below $500 (for a used camera with a low number of shutter actuations) to be a real temptation for me. I have several Pentax lenses but they probably aren’t as good as my Zuiko lenses. I may buy a better quality Pentax lens at some point, but I prefer a lens that gets me out to 300mm on hikes, and I have two lenses that will do that for me.

There are good cameras of other brands out there, but I try not to spend much time reading about them lest gear-lust overtake me.

Blog:

I plan to use my Blog, in the future, for the sorts of things I discussed before I launched off into Photography.

Dog:

If you look at the photographs of eight-year-old Ginger (red collar) and six-year-old Sage (blue collar) you will see white on their muzzles – more so on Ginger’s. I vaguely planned to “downsize” next time but I have been unable to find a breed that fits my situation as well as the Ridgeback. The latest breed I looked into was the Karelian Bear Dog, but a local breeder frowned on the idea of taking a KBD into foxtail regions during foxtail season. Unfortunately the river where we do our routine hiking is filled with foxtails as long as this season last.

It was because of the foxtails that Susan grounded her Schnoodle Duffy; then, sometime later, Ginger was bitten by a coyote, and Susan decided to ground Duffy permanently.

While the girls are too fit and strong to have much to fear from coyotes, that could change once the first one gets old. I hope to have a strong & fit dog (probably a Ridgeback) fully grown and available to ward off coyotes by the time that happens.

Morning Light, 8-14-11

[Olympus E-1 camera & Zuiko 14-55II lens]

 

 

Hazy morning, 8-11-11

[Pentax K20d & Pentax 18-55II]

 

 

A shorter lens on a hazy morning, 8-11-11

[Pentax K20d camera and Pentax 18-55II lens]

We didn’t see any rabbits or coyotes, but we kept looking.

 

More Miscellany, 8-9-11

[Pentax K20d camera & Pentax 55-300mm lens]

 

   

Miscellaneous Day, 8-8-11

[Olympus E-1 camera and Zuiko 18-180mm lens]