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Stephen F Faust
Philadelphia, PA
Observer. Minimalist. Free and easy wanderer.
Interests: Street photography
Recent Activity
Viewfinder vs. no viewfinder: easy choice of the X100V for me. Though, I'm quite biased since I had the original X100 and currently own the X100F.
Not to say that the Sony is bad, just that having an optical viewfinder offers a completely different shooting experience than framing using the back display, at least for street photography (IMO).
A Sony-Fuji Comparison
I must be feeling slightly guilty about slagging off full-frame the other day because I keep thinking about it. A image-quality comparison of cameras I'd like to see would be between the Fuji X100 V and the Sony RX1R II. The two are broadly similar in that they're both unusually compact, more-...
Happy birthday, Mike! No matter which direction your photography turns (film, etc...) please keep writing these types of OT posts. Excellent advice and a great read regardless of the specific of our hobby.
Blog Note: Gratitude is the Attitude (OT)
Tom Lovell (1909–1997), Surrender at Appomattox. Painting commissioned by National Geographic in 1965. It's my birthday. (George Harrison's too, so go listen to "It's All Too Much." One of the greatest of all psychedelic-era songs, if you ask me, not just of the Beatles' efforts in that genre)...
I'm going to presume that your writing is best when your own photo mojo is in "the zone", and if that's film for you then that's where you should be! I think the blog will be the better for it. I've always appreciated that this blog is about photography, and not cameras, lenses, or any specific equipment per se. So you do you!
By the way, how's that "In the Museum" baker's dozen coming along? :)
Open Mike: To Be Or Not To Be
["Open Mike" is the Editorial Page of TOP, wherein Yr. Hmbl. Ed. is sometimes detectably more self-indulgent than usual. It appears on Wednesdays, which I can say because today is Wednesday.] "Retire from what?" —Willie Nelson, when asked by Paul McCartney if he ever intends to retire I had a ...
Funny, I just read through the previous article "No One Gets Out of It Alive" and thought pfffft.....doesn't apply to me. I had the original X00 for years, and just upgraded last year to the X100F, so I'm golden for quite awhile.
And then I read this article. Uh Oh.
NEW BLOOD
Zeiss of Germany, a maker of lenses, surprised everyone a month or two back with rumors of a complete camera for Photokina. It's not the first time in the modern era that the former West German cameramaker has dabbled in making cameras. Superficially it resembles, in type and format, the simil...
Glad to hear you're OK and back home—there's nothing like sleeping in your own bed after time away, ESPECIALLY if that time away is in the hospital.
Relax, take care of yourself, and we readers will be here no matter how much time you need.
Home Again (OT) (Blog Note)
En route to Rochester in the snow. That's my nether half under the sheet. I got home last night and I was able to sleep in my own bed. Here's the story.... But first, I’m in the first day of a four-day recovery, during which I am not supposed to type! Me, not supposed to type?! So I’m getting a...
The photo would make a lovely Christmas card! Merry Christmas and thank you for all of your efforts through the year, from a loyal reader and (very) infrequent commenter.
Merry Christmas! &c.
My little writer's haven in the Finger Lakes, built 1880, restored 2012. I work on the front porch. As I do every year about this time, I'll be shuttering TOP for a few days in observance of Christmas. I hope all of you Jewish readers had a lovely Hanukkah, and I wish all of you Christians (a...
Cory Booker seems like the best hope!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Booker
Open Mike: Who You Gonna Call? (OT)
Sorry I'm late getting started this morning, but I'm feeling physically ill. Can't quite figure out why. It's not my stomach; I don't have a headache; I don't have a fever. What could it be? Oh yeah, it's my soul. My soul is nauseous and it feels like barfing. Yeah, that's it. Let's just stipula...
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is currently exhibiting "Multitude, Solitude: The Photographs of Dave Heath", now through Feb 2016. (Link here: http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/829.html).
I am lucky enough to live near the museum, and saw the exhibit last weekend. It is fabulous, and I plan to return several more times before it ends. To anyone living near Philly: Don't miss this!
TOP Photobook of the Year 2015
This post is a mere prelude. I'm just not ready to write at length about Multitude, Solitude: The Photographs of Dave Heath yet. The only thing I know definitely is that this is my favorite photobook this year. The reason I can't write about it yet is that it's so incredibly rich. I just have...
Mike,
I strongly admire your Taoist-like attitude toward life and I wish you safe travels! If your East coast side jaunt takes you in or near Philly, I would be honored to share some good coffee and good conversation.
A Tide in the Affairs... (TOP Summer Break)
TOP is going on "Summer vacation" for a couple of weeks. Sad dog When I made a reservation at a dog-friendly hotel in Mentor, Ohio, halfway between my old home in Wisconsin and my new one in the Finger Lakes district of New York State, the cheerful desk clerk asked me if I would be traveling "o...
Why do I do it? I'm an observer, I love to walk, and I love cities. I think street photography was invented to provide the perfect creative outlet for me!
Why Street Photography?
Gordon Lewis, Jesus Saves. One of the reasons I love street photography is because you can never tell when you might turn a corner to discover a scene like this. I’d give anything to know what telephone numbers Jesus would have stored on his cellphone. - A Guest Post by Gordon Lewis "Street" i...
A few numbers for Bryan Willman's sake:
Kodak's peak annual revenue came in 1996, with $16B. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $24B in today's dollars. Today, Apple announced they they made 16.8B in revenue in China alone—and that's just this quarter!
Apple's financials are truly staggering and unprecedented. I work for one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies--you know, that industry that is always getting disparaged for being too profitable. Well, Apple makes more in PROFIT than my company does in REVENUE, and Apple makes more revenue than the top 4 global pharmaceutical companies combined. They are a juggernaut.
Fun Factoid
Apple's quarterly revenue in China now exceeds the annual revenue of Kodak at its peak..and is roughly twice the entire annual digital camera market. At least if the numbers I found hither and yon are anywhere close to correct. Makes you think.... Mike Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael...
I clicked the link, and, after reading the description, I glanced at the address bar hoping—praying—to see "www.theonion.com/leica", but to my sadness, it was, in fact, the legitimate Leica site. And it's not even April first.
Not So Cool New Stuff
Each time you think Leica has gone completely off the rails, something comes along to whisper, "It can always get worse." What is it this time? Well, watch your gag reflex. It's the "Leica M-P ‘Correspondent’ Designed by Lenny Kravitz." You can't make this stuff up: Many Leica cameras are unique...
"Note that you do not need to know all of these and you don't need to master everything. Rather, as you go through, you'll decide which functions you'll use and which ones you're going to ignore."
Couldn't agree more. I've had my trusty X100 for years, and I always know the aperture setting by feel and can adjust it if needed without looking at the camera, and I know exactly what will be in frame and out of frame before I even lift it to my eye. However, it occurred to me the other day that I have absolutely no idea how to take a video with it. Simply a function I've never used and never needed to use. That's what my iPhone is for. :)
Open Mike: The #1 Way to Improve Your Photography
A funny thing about last Sunday's coffee post: although it drew comments from lots of committed and dedicated coffee enthusiasts who are deeply into their morning brew, actually it wasn't meant to be that type of post. Actually it was meant for people who aren't coffee fanatics. It was meant to ...
It's very possible that you can recover some, most, or even all of the files from the card. First, you need to STOP using it - don't write more files to it, format it, or use it in any way. Assuming you were using the Sandisk card, you can download a copy of their Rescue Pro software (http://www.lc-tech.com/pc/sandisk-rescuepro-and-rescuepro-deluxe/) and let it work it's magic. Good luck!
Open Mike: It Was Inevitable
Doing the test of the UHS-II card the other day I accidentally (or thoughtlessly) erased a card that was half full of new images from new shooting. Pictures I really wanted. And can't take again. Augh. In my early days with digital I inadvertently deleted one file that I really wanted. Fortunate...
Q: How do you make a small fortune in photography?
A: Start with a large one.
Would You Work for $13.70 an Hour?
That was the median pay for the 136,300 professional photographers in the United States in 2012, according to the Occupational Outlook Handbook of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's $28,490 annually. Of course they don't say whether that number is gross or net (although it must be net—right?...
Great timing! I got home Saturday night from a days worth of shooting and realized I left my 3 stop ND filter on the entire day, so many of my shots were taken around 1/20 and ISO 3200. Getting ready to embrace the blur during my upcoming editing sessions!
Three-Hour Exercise: Unsharp Shots
I'm in the air today, flying from beautiful upstate New York (I'm unsure as to whether "upstate" should be capitalized—any copyeditors out there?) to Detroit, and from Detroit across Lake Michigan to Milwaukee. After thinking about my first "weekend exercise" and the "teacherish" post that follo...
My favorite line:
"When did real cameras come out where you didn't have to do all this??"
A wonderful commentary on how the definition of "normal" changes, and changes quickly!
Who Knew Taking a Picture Could Be Such Hard Work?
"Funny and sad at the same time," said reader Jim H., who sent me the link. This is really cute, though. Give it some time, it gets funnier as you go on and there are some great lines near the end. Mike (Thanks to Jim Hein) Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the byli...
I think it is an good experiment and I'd be interested to hear the final accounting of what % of sales each size received.
However, as an artist, I feel that it is my job to determine the optimum print size for a specific photograph. We all know that some subject matter works much better as smaller, more intimate prints, while other subjects work best as giant prints (grand landscapes). Asking the customer to make what amounts to a creative decision is akin to asking for their input on cropping, saturation, etc—things that I feel are best kept under the artist's control.
Did You Appreciate the Choice of Print Sizes?
Ctein's Bird Impression sale is in its last hour (it ends at noon Wisconsin time). I'm curious as to how you felt about the print being offered in two sizes at different price points...whether you bought one or just considered it. Did you like the option or did it discourage you? (Another option...
Have you considered scanning all those important and sentimental scraps of paper? That way you wouldn't have to feel bad about trashing them, and they no longer take up any physical space—just an entry in Evernote or file on your hard drive.
Sunday Open Mike: The Paper-Piles
One of the odd things about photography is that often the best of it is about something else. The idea that you can have photography that's just about photography is about like the idea of having writing that's just about writing. No matter how beautiful, writing has to be about something. The s...
Hmmm...I'm sensing that this post is really our first introduction to the future TOP World HQ. Hopefully the price is reasonable and it won't take too many more print sales to close the sale. Bonus: The house comes with unpaid interns to help around the office!
The Ghost in the Window (OT)
Okay, so people didn't like the idea in the previous post. That's fine. I'm just interested in the problem of how to raise the stature of top-level inkjet printing to where I feel it deserves to be. The technology—and the results—have gotten very very good. I should mention, however, that "IHD...
Yup, it's a good deal. That's the current model MacBook Air for about $120 less than buying direct from Apple. The MacBook Air is currently mid-product cycle, so I wouldn't expect any product updates for a few months at least.
The question is though, is it enough of a computer for you? Two things stick out that you may want to consider: 128GB of storage is pretty small and certainly not enough for a library of digital photos, music, etc, so you'll have to have an external drive attached. Secondly, 4GB RAM is, in my opinion, just not enough to run the current OS along with [insert your photo editor of choice]. Nowadays, I'd consider 8GB RAM to be the minimum. I'm pretty sure that the RAM in the MacBook Air is NOT user upgradable (it's soldered to the motherboard), so seriously consider buying up front with 8GB installed.
Very Cheap Apple? Or—?
I'm hoping some of you computer mavens can explain to me if this is a good deal: a 13-inch MacBook Air for $975. I can't keep track of 'em all. What say ye? TIA. Mike Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be...
"...you can simulate an anti-aliasing filter with the flip of a switch. The camera doesn't actually have an AA filter, but it will helpfully simulate it for you by jiggling the sensor to blur the picture..."
Oh my god, you were serious about that?! I was sure it was just a off-handed joke in keeping with your style, but then I actually clicked on the dpreview link. Sheesh.
I Meet Ewa (and Photo Equipment News)
As regular readers know, when I write about pool instead of photography, four dark horsemen mount up. Fruit rots on the trees, well water turns inexplicably odiferous, the sound of screaming is heard in the distance, and readers by their numberless legions drop out of TOP's audience never to be ...
Interesting analysis and one that I've thought about before, especially about how it relates to my own photography. Being a strong introvert, I believe, meshes quite well with and benefits my street photography. I feel comfortable being a "detached observer" with no need to interact with my subject, and that allows me to simply wander, see, and photograph without having to--god forbid--talk to people! :)
On some level, it seems counterintuitive that an introvert would enjoy street photography, since there is always some level of interaction (even if just visual glances), and of course the potential for even greater interaction (positive or negative) when spotted, but it works for me. I wonder if the historically successful flâneur photographers (Bresson, Doisneau, Levitt, etc. ) were introverts or extroverts?
Open Mike: Introvert / Extrovert
Are you an introvert or an extrovert? There are a lot of misconceptions about what the terms actually mean. For instance, I once saw a dictionary definition of "introvert" as "self-centered"! No, wrong. Perhaps oddly, introverts tend to understand extroverts better than the other way around. Ex...
I'm generally not a pixel peeper, but I would love to read a thorough comparison of this lens attached to a D800e vs the Leica 70mm f/2.5 attached to a Leica S.
Zeiss Monster
It's almost reassuring to see that some things never change. Zeiss (recently it dropped the "Carl" in a move I have to say I disapprove of) has announced a line of quality-no-object—and, more importantly no doubt, price-no-object—SLR lenses. (The way one of the members of the development team...
Ouch.
Heartbreaking, although I have to ask--if the government knew that anything that failed to sell would be discarded, why on earth would there be assigned minimum prices? Isn't $1, or in this case, $260, better than $0? I guess, as you said, the ways of the Federal Government are mysterious.
Oh Well
Most lives include at least a few stories of missed opportunities. Someday I'll tell the whole story of "The Ponton in the Weeds," about a glorious old Mercedes that should have been my first car. Alas. John Hufnagel, in a Featured Comment to the previous post, mentioned that his brother's assoc...
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