NEW YORK NEW YORK – I walked around midtown with my iPhone and the 645 Pro app. I guess the name of the app is supposed to suggest medium format capabilities. Well it doesn’t turn the iPhone into a medium format camera, but its “raw” format may add a stop or so of dynamic range. Here’s an example. Note the slightly unpleasant bokeh in the out of focus portion of the image.
Still tends to clip highlights.
The saturated blues are pretty good.
On this day one year ago: The Great Wall.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I tried a new iPhone app today called 645 Pro. It offers “raw” files, actually tiffs, that appear to me to have a stop or more of dynamic range that the iPhone jpegs and present fewer digital artifacts. It eats battery life so I’m waiting for a new release before I press it any further. A couple of examples in a “rocks and trees” vein.
On this day last year: 798 Art District Beijing.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I spent some time today working with my Questar telescope as a close up lens. The Questar is a Maksutov-Cassegrain design – the first of these that was available in the US commercially. It was an object of lust in the 50s and 60s – some number of years ago I found that they were still being made in New Hope PA, so I bought one. These are inherently long focal length, small aperture designs that are good for planetary observations but poor for deep space objects. It’s focal length is 1280mm. My Sony Nex-7 is fairly easily attached to it via a Rube Goldberg combination of adapters. The Sony works well on the Questar because the camera is light and its resolution matches that of the telescope fairly well. Here’s a leaf shot with the Questar. Depth of focus at this focal length is paper thin. Note the funky bokeh (the out of focus portions of the image) – this is a common issue with folded optics which have central mirrors partially blocking the exit pupil.
Here’s the Questar set up to take the above image taken with my iPhone.
Here’s the new boat, re-cropped to exclude Roger. With Roger in it it was a snapshot. Excluding Roger and moving to a square (almost) format leaves a composition of circles and angles and to my eyes makes the picture more important.
On this day last year: Outside the Forbidden City.
NEW MILFORD CONNECTICUT – Over the past two years I have occasionally included on these pages pictures of a 1954 Chris Craft that I own with a friend (neither of us get enough use out of it to justify sole ownership). It was having some reliability problems so we have traded it for a new old boat, another Chris Craft. I drove up here this afternoon to check the new boat out with Roger, our friend who restores Chris Crafts. Feels like a silly indulgence, but Maria told me this evening that a very close friend has been diagnosed with breast cancer (which appears to have been treated successfully) so repeat after me: “carpe diem, carpe diem, carpe diem . . .” Images taken with my Sony Nex-7 and 24mm Summilux lens.
Here a corner of Roger’s shop. I got dozens of images like these today. Where to start? Do a project on shops?
The boat’s engine looks great.
More boat. I’m going to try a crop of this to exclude Roger (I often crop to square format – probably as a result of my long experience with a Rollei 2.8 F and Hasselblad film cameras). I’ll post it tomorrow.
On this day last year: Hongqiau Airport. A travel day between Shanghai and Beijing.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – This morning I walked to the office and visited some galleries, accompanied by my Sony Nex-7 and my ever-present Leica 24mm Summilux lens.
On this day last year: watch repair.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Busy day with no time for photography. But as I was cleaning up after making dinner for myself (Maria is in London) I spotted an amazing sunset out the window. I grabbed the nearest camera – my Sony NEX-7 – and clamped a 50mm Summilux onto it. It would have taken too long to set up the big guy. I used a beanbag to steady the camera, and took a lot exposures hoping to get a good one. I got exactly one. Here it is:
On this day one year ago: On the Bund, Shanghai.
NEW YORK NEW YORK = Alexander’s birthday. We made the pilgrimage to Yankee Stadium for a game with the Minnesota Twins. There’s no better experience on a balmy summer evening. It’s not summer but the weather has been unseasonably warm so the evening was in fact balmy. Here’s Yankee Stadium as landscape taken with my iPhone plus a couple taken by Francesca (guest photographer) with the Hipstamatic app.
On this day one year ago: Hongqiao rail station.
