Category: technology

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lens goals: Telephoto autofocus

[Photolog]

Telephoto Adventures

in the market now for professional glass

by Robert Rowsey

So now I need a telephoto that’s autofocus, at least 600mm, maybe 800 or even 1000mm. Here’s a pic I shot this morning of some dude at the Shores goofing around in the small surf on his longboard. He started out surfing it regularfoot but then dropped down to a seated Quasimoto or whatever. I broke out the old Sigma analog 600 f4 and set up with the tripod on the concrete boardwalk. In doing this I quickly discovered — I need to get a modern telephoto lens if I’m going to do any action sports photography. Unlike the shoot at Windansea last week with my Tamron 200 which had plenty of “tack sharp” crispness, these pics were all hit-and-miss. This shot was among the as-good-as-it-gets cetegory:

La Jolla Shores, 11-6-18.
La Jolla Shores, 11-6-18.

In the early 80’s I was out of high school and toying with the idea of contributing to the at that time many surfing magazines being published. Actually in the US there was only Ing, Out, and Er — which were Surfing Magazine, Breakout Magazine, and Surfer Magazine. George Salvadore, who was the editor at the Carlsbad-based Breakout Magazine at the time told me the formula for shooting surfing. It was this: use ASA 64 Kodachrome “Red” slide film, and shoot f4 at 250th of a second or faster. That was it. Today the technology’s improved so much you can shoot at a much higher ISO and stopped down for a larger depth of field and still get good results. But that’s what you had to do back then.

I do like my antique glass though. I’ll hang on to my 40 year-old Sigma monster 600. You can’t turn that tight focusing collar fast enough to stay on a rider but boy does it look impressive mounted on a ‘pod.

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Millions And Millions For Drones In Poway

General Atomics Poway drones will multiply in 2018.
General Atomics Poway drones will multiply in 2018.

Poway Drones

Huge General Atomics Contracts In The Works

by Reviewer Rob

When I was a kid in the early-1970’s and my mom worked for a realty company on Poway Road houses were going for about 20 thousand a piece. Now that things have changed and there’s plenty of million-dollar homes dotting the hills above the Poway valley that economic surge will only grow larger this year since General Atomics is getting $328.8 million for their MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial systems programs. The hills south of Poway Road had undeveloped archeological sites rumored to be replete with Indian burial grounds. Now the drones made there will be haunting the skies over Afghanistan and elsewhere.

According to this article on the UPI wire:

‘The MQ-1 Predator is an armed, multi-mission, medium-altitude, long-endurance remotely piloted aircraft that has seen action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen. The aircraft is used as an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance asset, and can be used to conduct pattern-of-life analysis, as well as targeted and signature strikes on targets.

‘Similarly, the MQ-9 Reaper can conduct multi-missions, and as a medium-altitude range and long-endurance that is remotely piloted. The Reaper, however, is larger and more heavily-armed than the MQ-1 Predator and is used to conduct time-sensitive strikes on targets.’

Maybe San Diego can use some of that aerial surveillance to supplement its dwindling police presence doing traffic monitoring of motorcycle lane-splitting during rush hour.

General Atomics, Poway, is getting big bucks in 2018.
General Atomics, Poway, is getting big bucks in 2018.
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Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, signed by author Dr. Kary Mullis, for sale: $195, three-item bundle

[Rare Books]

Dr. Kary B. Mullis, Nobel Prize Winner

 

4sale: $195. Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, 1998. This is a signed and dated first edition with mylar wrap on fine dust-cover and is to be sold bundled with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing an interview with the author that preceded the issue of the book by several years. Other ephemera includes the book’s press release from Pantheon. This is a review copy that was annotated and highlighted in various places throughout by the reviewer.

by Reviewer Rob

I should say this is a review copy that was used for a book review in Reviewer Magazine, first of all, and that I was the reviewer who received this book by Random House/Pantheon in 1998. The interview and article in Celebrity Magazine which preceded the book’s release from 1994 were also written and photographed by me. So all the notes and highlights in the book are mine, full disclosure. It’s not an “immaculate” copy, but other than the annotations it’s in very good if not “fine” condition. I enjoyed reading it only once and then shelved it for almost twenty years until now when I brought it out for sale. I think I covered Dancing Naked In The Mind Field in either issue 9 or 10 of Reviewer, I’m not sure, I’ll have to go back and look.

This bundle includes the signed first edition with the dustcover wrapped in clear plastic, the copy of Celebrity Magazine, and the original press release from Pantheon who released the book.

I’m selling all together for $195.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.

Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with dustcover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.

Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with dustcover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with dustcover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
Dancing Naked In The Mind Field, by Kary Mullis, signed first edition in good condition with duscover in excellent condition, $195, sold with copy of Celebrity Magazine containing prior interview/article with author.
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antique gear: the Zeiss Ikon Contaflex

[Collectibles]

IG post: my new old camera

outdated cameras are only one of my obsessions

by Reviewer Rob
originally from an Instagram post here

Newly acquired: an early Model Contaflex from the German company Zeiss Icon. Looks like the fixed lens version they came out with in the beginning before interchangeable lenses were included. It’s attractive and serviceable in working condition but will most likely be seen as a prop in a photo shoot long before I get around to loading it with a roll of Kodachrome. Although I keep my lenses forever I’ve never been too interested in the antique cameras. They call it progress for a reason.

#zeiss #zeissikoncontaflex #35mm #film #oldcameras #technology #germanengineering

Zeiss Ikon Contaflex
Zeiss Ikon Contaflex
Zeiss Ikon Contaflex
Zeiss Ikon Contaflex
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Adobe Lightroom Gallery To The Resue

[hi tec]

Automated Picture Displays in Adobe Creative Cloud

by Reviewer Rob

So, I went to a coffee shop last night at 12:30 and sat down, and by 3 a.m. automated a photo gallery in Adobe Creative Cloud for the first time. For two or three years now I’d been lamenting the absence of the standard included autogallery in Creative Cloud and even Photoshop 6 after switching over from Mac to PC in 2010, but then searched online and found I could add the Photoshop auto gallery function from the ‘Goodies’ disc that came with Creative Suite 6. Why they did that was puzzling. When in 2007 a buddy in Ocean Beach SD who lived two doors down and webmastered a BBW site told me all that was required to output a Photoshop gallery was File > Automate I quite literally went nuts. It was like an epiphany that spurned a massive surge in creativity. I credit that and the the discovery of WordPress for content management as being what made everything make sense in web design and were the real starting points for everything that came after for me. Well, there was also that girl from Craigslist in 2005 who showed me how to write an href picture hotlink in html but I’m going way too far in the past now.

Back to my story about last night. For some reason Adobe bailed on auto galleries completely after CS6. I began to think it was a conspiracy thing and that they were in bed with designers that were somewhere selling other applications to photographers and hobbyists who needed a photo management creation system. After reading a couple of Adobe help forums it turned out they were moving it around, first to Bridge for a failed iteration that was plagued with bugs and outright nonfunctionality, and then settling on Lightroom which I discovered last night was a fine version comparable at first blush to what I left behind in Photoshop 6. I even tried it in my CC Bridge before starting up Lightroom and found out the Bridge problems were known issues that got reproduced in identical fashion for me: you download and install a Workspace folder in your Adobe Programs, after which when you click on Output it won’t work, and then upon starting Bridge — nothing happens. The application won’t even start up. So I deleted the Output folders and the app started up again. Back to normal Bridge, back to square one, and still no autogallery.

More Google searching for fixes and part of the way down page one was the entry for Lightroom’s CC gallery output. Viola! Sunshine everywhere, it worked perfectly first time with no downloading and modifying of the app in my hard drive.

Seriously, it was like Adobe was playing some kind of snarky prank on the older users like me that were used to the way things were before Creative Cloud. I still suspect some kind of conspiracy.

Picture from Google Image search: "Adobe Lightroom web gallery".
Picture from Google Image search: “Adobe Lightroom web gallery”.