Author Archives: danijel

Gear doesn’t matter

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I frequently hear this statement and I feel it’s both right and wrong at the same time, but I couldn’t formulate a simple answer; until now.

I recently commented that I heard Ray Chen play multiple violins, from cheap garbage to Stradivari and Guarnieri. He himself as well as other violinists could notice all kinds of differences, but to me, he always sounded like Ray Chen. I think that’s the meaning of the “gear doesn’t matter” statement. Of course it matters, because a violinist needs a violin in order to make music. A writer needs something to write with. A photographer needs a camera. However, If I use a camera to take pictures, and the camera in question meets the minimal technical requirements, the result will look like me. This means that no kind of gear can make my photos overcome my limitations, or turn my style into something else. If it doesn’t meet the technical requirements, it can degrade the results to the point where that’s not it any more, however, and that’s another limit of the “gear doesn’t matter” statement. It doesn’t matter as long as it’s above a certain minimum – basically, something needs to meet the minimal definition of a violin in order for a violinist to be able to work with it. The next threshold is that something should be a “good enough” instrument, and that’s a more sophisticated requirement, and more prone to nitpicking, but I know it when I see it – basically, it’s something that an artist can take and produce the kind of results where I can no longer notice a difference between the instruments.

You can’t tell which computer I used to write this article, and the reason is obvious: as long as it can connect to the Internet, open the WordPress admin interface and support the recent enough web browser in order to operate it, they will all produce the same results. With cameras, it’s not as straightforward, but as long as the cameras are similar enough, I can take anything that’s readily available and work with it; for instance, I took this with my friend’s Nikon, because it had a telephoto lens on it and it was on the table at the moment:

It has nothing on it that would make it identifiable as a Nikon photo, but it looks like my typical stuff, regardless of the fact that I don’t have another exactly like it. It’s motive in context, both joined and separated, and the focus of attention:

This is film, Minolta camera and a MD 35-70mm f/3.5 lens. The equipment is very different, the motive is very different, but the style is the same.

This is taken with Sony A7II 35mm digital camera and a Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L lens, on tripod; the equipment is very different, the motive and the context more different still, but the style is the same: something, in context, both joined and separated, with attention pointing to it, making you feel what it’s like to be there in that moment. The subject is isolated not with the depth of field, but with 3d composition.

So, not only does the gear “not matter”, but so is the case with the motive, as well. The style and the intent of the author transcends both, and can translate between photographic techniques, as well. What if there’s no ability to use depth of field to isolate the motive? You can use geometry, or fog:

Yet  again, different camera – Sony R1. The motive, the camera, the way motive is isolated from the context and you are put in its place and in the moment, is improvised, but the style is still recognizeable.

What if everything is sharp? No problem:

Again, different equipment: Canon 5d, EF 15mm f/2.8 fisheye, long exposure of the storm cloud from a tripod. The lighthing itself both creates the subject and puts it in focus. The equipment is again different from before, the motive is different, the technique itself is different, yet the style remains.

Yes, in all cases the equipment is different and often improvised, the way the circumstances of the photo are different and improvised, and “don’t matter”, but on the other hand, everything absolutely matters. It matters that the lens is sharp and has great bokeh and ability to control the depth of field; it matters that the tripod is sturdy, it matters that the sensor or film has great colors, and it matters that the equipment is easy to use. To say that it doesn’t matter means that your style and artistic “fingerprint” persist both across equipment choices, motives and even photographic methods – from extreme wide angle to macro and telephoto, hand-held or on the tripod, shooting bugs, people or landscape. Equipment is here to allow you to express yourself, and the end result is limited by both you and the equipment used; if the equipment is any good, then mostly by you.

 

On the positive side…

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There are many nice things I found upon my return to the world of photographic gear, too. At some points I was genuinely admiring the newly produced gear, such as the FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM lens, and many of the GM lenses in general, which draw light in such amazingly beautiful ways that I saw this only with absolutely the most high end optics in the past, and if circumstances allow, I will probably end up getting some of those for myself, because they leave me thinking what I could do with something this amazing. I was also seriously impressed with Sony A1II and A7RV cameras, and will probably get the latter for myself, if the finances align. It has a viewfinder that solves the lower resolution and lower refresh rate issues of my A7II, its computer is much faster, the autofocus is brilliant, and the resolution and dynamic range are much improved.

So, the thing is, I don’t actually think that the gear doesn’t matter, nor am I unable to perceive the advantages of better gear. I also think my gear is quite good, including the lenses that would be summarily dismissed by others as dog shit unworthy of being coupled with a decent camera, and some cameras that would be summarily dismissed as amateurish toys.

5d with a “shit” lens

You see, I believe in a thing I call “minimal technical requirements”. Every task has those, and there is usually quite a difference between what they are, and what people think they are. Since I did quite a bit of testing, I discovered that certain things matter far less than one would expect, while others matter far more. For instance, camera sensor’s ability to render colour is of supreme importance. If it doesn’t, I will instantly dismiss it as unsuitable for my uses, and I actually did that multiple times, with all kinds of cameras that don’t get written about, because they don’t deserve to be mentioned. Those are usually found in phones and compact cameras with small sensors, and what they render is inherently so bad and electronically processed in attempt to “improve it”, that I find the result instantly repulsive.

On the other hand, sensors in some small cameras, such as Olympus E-PL1 and Sony R1, had the minimal technical requirements for producing large prints of great colour and detail; if you use them within certain parameters, that is. If I used those cameras to take pictures, it wasn’t because I thought they were poor tools unsuited for the task, and I wanted to make a statement about using shit tools to produce good results. No, it was because I thought they were genuinely good tools.

Sony R1. Obviously not sharp in the corners. 🙂

Are there better ones; sure. However, that’s the thing about the minimal technical requirements. At some point, if the equipment is good enough, nobody will be able to tell what camera or lens made that B2 print at the exhibition. They will see the motive, colours and detail, the picture will be speaking for itself without technical flaws detracting from its beauty, and that’s all that matters. Better equipment won’t improve anything if the lesser equipment was able to meet the minimal technical requirements – and be assured that my technical requirements are quite strict. They are, however, reasonable, and grounded in real use scenarios. I only once made a print larger than the B2 format. B2 is, for the most part, ideal for viewing from normal distances, in either an exhibition or at home. Anything bigger forces you to increase the viewing distance, and that’s not actually helping the experience. The second viewing scenario is the 4K monitor, and that’s the most realistic one today.

not sharp wide open at 35mm

But there’s a catch: image quality isn’t everything. Minimal technical requirements of image quality are only a part of it. If a camera is so difficult to use that you feel it’s struggling against you, it’s simply not a good tool. One can use such a tool regardless, but I eventually end up replacing them with superior ones as soon as possible. It’s just that my opinion of what tool is comfortable and good enough, and some forum’s opinion, might differ greatly. For instance, some people will treat image quality as the greatest priority, and will buy the lens that makes the best possible images. I, on the other hand, like image quality very much, but if a lens is so heavy that all my pictures will be taken with the iPhone because I left the heavy thing at home because I’m not taking that for a ten kilometre uphill walk, then what exactly is the point in having that thing? Using it for special occasions that never happen? That’s why I don’t have a special occasions watch, because I see it as wasteful and pointless. I have a good everyday watch I use for everything, from washing the car and mowing the lawn to dressing up for some occasion. Fuck special occasions. I don’t want a camera or a lens that’s a jewellery piece impractical for daily use, which is why I never buy those “universal” 24-70mm f/2.8 lenses that are huge unwieldy bricks, and also insanely expensive for what they are. I also think that “universal” high performance things are a waste of money, and specialized, more practical lenses are the way to go. For instance, I don’t need wide aperture on a lens that will be used for landscape photography from f/8 to f/22. I can save money there by getting good, light and inexpensive glass for such uses, which also makes my kit light enough to actually use. However, if I’m impressed by some camera or a lens and I think it will actually improve my photography, I will eventually end up buying it. My considerations are practical rather than ideological; for instance, when digital cameras were either too expensive or horse shit, I shot film and produced digital files by scanning. When digital cameras became good and affordable enough, I switched to digital. I have no brand loyalty whatsoever – I use whatever suits my needs. I used Minolta, Fuji, Olympus, Canon and Sony. Currently, it is my opinion that both Canon and Sony are excellent, and I would have no qualms with either. When something is convincingly better than what I’m using, I’ll switch to that in a heartbeat, but I won’t switch if the differences are minuscule or unproven. Basically, my gear choices are defined by how much money I have and what kind of work I intend to do. I also don’t feel a need to appear “professional”, because I’m not. Professionals produce work for others. I see photography as my personal art form, together with writing, and I wouldn’t actually describe myself as an amateur either. If I had to describe what I do, I’d say it’s mental/emotional state photography using mostly nature in high fidelity colour medium. If I say something is good enough, it doesn’t mean it’s good enough for an undemanding casual user who doesn’t know any better. It means it’s actually good enough that I would be unable to get discernibly better results with any kind of gear.

Photographic frustrations

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While we’re at photography, I have to mention that I’m hugely annoyed by the fact that everywhere I look on the forums or the YouTube people are exaggerating things into hysteria. By that I mean the extreme and opposite “cults” – on one side, you have those who think they need to have the most technically sophisticated equipment in order to make anything of value, and on the other hand you have the “lo-fi” groups such as lomography, who intentionally screw things up as much as possible technically, and people in those groups are all supporting each other in the most extreme nonsense.

The truth, of course, is that both sides kind of have a point. On one hand, equipment is important, and I often found myself just staring in awe at the beautiful renderings from a high-end lens or a camera, that manages to get parts of the image completely crisp, just to seamlessly flow into toffee-sparkles of blur. However, it is also the case that photography is much more than merely a formulaic thing where you get the best hardware, apply a correct technical procedure and get everything sharp from corner to corner, and you have the perfect photograph. If I had to describe my personal attitude, I’d say that for someone who sees photography primarily as a way to capture my own thoughts and feelings, and not the things in front of the lens, I’m very technical about it. 🙂 So, let me make a small exhibition of photos that combine things that would make people in dpreview forums have a fit.

Equipment: Canon 5d, EF 35-70mm f/3.5-4.5. That’s the lens that’s almost never seen outside of lo-fi circles, because it’s one of the first EF lenses ever made, dating from 1987, where it was sold as the kit zoom for the EOS 650 film camera, the first in the EOS lineup. It is so lowly rated that it’s not even seen as something that deserves testing and rating at all, and putting it on the 5d would be seen as a ridiculous “lomography” move. Let’s see some more pictures I’ve taken with this combo:

The macro shots are taken using the extension tubes. Nothing fancy, just the cheapest stuff from ebay. The results, however, are very much not lo-fi. In fact, I could make prints from the original raw files that would be as big as anything one could realistically print from the 13MP 5d sensor. B2, no problem. B1, possibly, but I’d have to massage them somewhat, but those are all material that can go between 70-100cm on the longer side. Mind you, I’m more interested in color than resolution and sharpness, but there’s plenty of both. Let’s see the next heretical combo: using Olympus E-PL1 micro 4/3 mirrorless pocket camera with its 14-42mm plasticky kit zoom, that would be universally poorly rated:

How about using Sony A7II with the FE 28-70mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens, that’s always trashed in the reviews as something you should immediately remove from your camera if you want the pictures to be any good:

Those pictures weren’t taken with said equipment because I wanted them to look like shit, or because I didn’t know any better. The files are all B1-print sharp. There’s a saying “if it’s stupid but it works, it’s not stupid”. In this case, if “inferior” equipment creates results that get a green light from me regarding technical quality, maybe it’s not inferior. Maybe, just maybe, you’re just holding it wrong, to paraphrase Steve Jobs. 🙂 Or maybe people tend to lose perspective when they compare gear. For instance, if a lens renders closeups with glowy spherical aberration and ethereal softness, it’s only an “optical defect” if you’re trying to use it where those effects detract from the image. Also, if it’s “only” tack sharp from f/8 to f/16, and you use it for landscape photography, what’s the problem? Also, colors are either ignored or hard to test, but if a lens renders beautiful, crystal-clear and perfectly neutral colors, should that somehow matter less than resolution in conditions you don’t intend to use it for?

I had the misfortune of being forced to produce results in life using whatever was available and working in conditions that would be immediately dismissed as unfit for anything, and this is not just about photography anymore. If you don’t have a hammer, use a rock. If you don’t have perfect conditions, learn how to turn imperfect ones to your advantage. For instance, I learned to meditate in conditions so terrible, that I could later resist all kinds of interference. If everything tries to kill you and fails, you become indestructible. I was always annoyed by people who keep whining about their tools and conditions – they can’t do anything spiritually because they don’t have a perfect guru, and don’t know the perfect technique of yoga. In reality, that usually means they are more interested at finding imaginary flaws in order to justify their inaction and inertia, than they are at figuring out a way to avoid the obstacles and make things work anyway.

I had an experience at the University in early 1992 that changed my perspective on excuses forever. You see, one of the professors had a rule that you can’t be absent from more than 5 lectures in a year, or he won’t allow you to take the exams, basically failing you by default. Before one lecture a girl approached him and gave him a letter of medical excuse for her absence. He said, “Young lady, you misunderstood me. I do not care whether you were absent with or without a legitimate excuse. If you were absent from more than five lectures, you simply cannot have sufficient knowledge to take the exam. Therefore, the reason for the absence doesn’t matter in the slightest”. This clicked incredibly hard – nobody cares about your excuses for failure. You just have to find ways to succeed, because there’s no other way to avoid disaster. It’s basically like climbing a cliff; you have to find a way to do it perfectly and avoid falling, because if you fall, nobody’s going to give two shits that the cliff was slippery or the rocks were crumbly. If you failed for “valid reasons”, you failed and you’re fucked regardless. So get your shit together and figure out a way to make things work and to attain success. That’s probably the reason why the whiny “demanding” people annoy me. They think excuses matter.

 

Photography

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I have recently been getting into photography again after quite a large hiatus, mostly in order not to go crazy from following global politics and to give myself a reason to go out even in bad weather and leave the damn Internet behind.

I feel similar to what a bear must feel after waking from hibernation – oh, there’s new stuff around, and some old stuff is gone or changed, but everything is more-less the same. There are great new cameras and lenses around, and the stuff that was considered great when I followed it all is now considered mediocre and obsolete. The gear nerds are still having an anxiety crisis over which $2500 lens is sharp enough wide open to match the 50MP sensor on their new and shiny “professional” $5000 camera, because God forbid something not be sharp enough in the corners, because that’s the only objective measure of photography that counts in the online forums, because everything needs to be objectively measured in order to get a pay-to-win situation. If you actually had to look at the pictures themselves, one might get a heretical thought that twenty years ago cameras and lenses were perfectly good enough to produce beautiful pictures that could be printed as large as a normal wall would take it.

It’s not all bad – that nonsense allowed me to buy some excellent lenses used very cheaply, because people who absolutely had to have the best and newest stuff are dumping the yesteryear’s bright and shiny gear for pittance, and I just scooped it all up with a Muttley snicker.

Something interesting apparently happened while I was absent; it started while I was still very much in the photo gear thing, but it developed further over the years. You see, Canon had a nasty habit of merely warming up their lenses and sensors, the next generation being packed in a more modern and fancy case but not removing any of the optical flaws of the previous generation. The price, however, tended to grow steadily. Since people could do nothing about this, they merely complained; the professional market was split between Canon and Nikon and they both did very similar things. However, at some point Sony, the producer of the most advanced sensors on the market, decided to enter the high-end amateur market with their A7 series of full frame cameras, accompanied with Zeiss-branded lenses that were supposed to evoke money-spending emotions in retired dentists. However, something incredible happened: the professional photographers decided that Canon lenses can be easily adapted to the Sony body, and they work just fine, thus allowing them to get rid of Canon and their stupid bullshit. However, as they migrated to Sony en masse, they started asking for more professional features in the bodies, and for better native lenses, and so Sony, unable to believe their luck, very quickly mobilized their immense resources, and made some of the best glass in the world – starting from the Minolta G heritage, but quickly exceeding it with the modern designs in their “price no object” GM series. They also made high-end A9 and A1 series cameras that are basically mobile supercomputers with incredible processing speed, designed for sports and wildlife photography, but of course primarily targeting all sorts of wealthy geeks who want to “be professionals”. Across a decade, Sony became the new no1, and Canon found themselves in an unenviable position where they had to instantly get their shit together or otherwise Sony will eat their lunch and put them out of business. So, they took the mirrorless thing seriously and created a very good series of lenses and cameras in the RF range, and obsoleting the SLR range and EF lenses. This worked well enough that the high-end market is now almost evenly split between Sony and Canon, with Nikon being the distant third.

That aside, I also found out that I have to retire the Canon 5d. After I used it for more than a decade, Biljana took it over and continued to use it for another decade, but a few days ago I took it in order to test her new macro lens and saw that it’s quite fucked. The AF was showing very bad back focus and erratic behaviour, the light meter overexposed every third shot by seven stops or something, the screen was so washed out one couldn’t make anything out on it, and the viewfinder accumulated so much dust over the 19 years of use, it’s now really bad. All in all, the thing refuses to die outright, but at this point this is actually worse, because all the things that have half-failed accumulate to the point where the camera looks like it’s actively resisting your efforts with its decrepit nonsense. So, it’s being relegated to my camera museum, and Biljana got a Canon RP body, which apparently works great with EF lenses.

It’s actually funny how staying out of some specialised scene and re-joining it after many years gives you perspective.

What the …?

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Just in case, I looked at the official Los Angeles plan in case of nuclear war:

IMMEDIATE ACTION FOR NUCLEAR EVENTS

If a nuclear event is occurring or about to occur:

GET INSIDE a sturdy building as quickly as you can, even if you are far from the blast site. Go to a room without windows on the lowest floor that’s close to the center/core of the building. If you are unable to get inside, take cover behind a sturdy object and stay low to the ground.

STAY INSIDE the building. Shelter-in-place. Do not go outside or look out windows to observe the blast and fallout, as this can expose you to radiation and cause serious damage to your eyes.

STAY TUNED to updates from public safety and government authorities or trusted media sources. Some communications systems may be down. During emergencies, simple text messages often work best. You may also want to have a battery powered or hand-crank radio.

My immediate thought was that this doesn’t make any sense, since the houses in the LA area are made of super-combustible material, as evidenced in the recent fires where the houses burned down faster than trees. The main hazards in a nuclear blast are overpressure and thermal radiation, which means fires and 3rd degree burns. The entire LA building code is a terrible match for sheltering in situ in case of a nuclear blast. Then I thought I already saw identical instructions a while ago, and indeed, it’s the city of New York. It looks like someone in FEMA figured out they don’t have any realistic plan in case of a nuclear war, so they made a plan-like list that is now mindlessly copied everywhere, including places where such “plan” would amount to suicide.

This is so stupid I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, because I know how those morons are thinking: they need to “have a plan”, because someone could ask them what’s their plan for x, and now they can say “we have a plan for x, go to our web site, it’s a great plan”. However, let’s see what it all means.

Back in the 1950s, people in America were taking nuclear war very seriously, and the plans were made by the people who actually made the atomic weapons in Los Alamos, and who had first-hand experience with nuclear blasts, having observed the tests from the closest possible proximity. What they recommended was widely ridiculed later, but as I learned more about the nuclear weapons, I got to understand their thinking.

Their plan was to evacuate the political and military leadership into nuclear bunkers or high in the air, in order to preserve the chain of command and have control over the situation. The next idea was to evacuate the major populated centres, but they soon realised that this can’t be done. Basically, you’d have to do it in a timely and orderly manner, have enough shelter space, with food, water and fuel, for population of every major city. They ran simulations and figured out that an order to evacuate would cause instant widespread panic which would block the roads and make evacuation impossible. Even if they managed to evacuate, they couldn’t possibly care for hundreds of millions of people. Also, an order to evacuate would necessarily be given too late, because they would avoid giving it until the rockets were already flying, and then it would be too late for anything other than sheltering in-situ. If you gave the order early enough, the enemy would take it as a sure sign that you are preparing for a first strike, which would increase the probability of pre-emption, and it would make the political solution less likely. Also, when you give the order to evacuate everything, your society essentially ceases to exist. Your economy is no longer there. You started spending the supplies of last resort. No, that’s not something you want to do unless the nukes are already in the air, and then you have 20 minutes max, which is not enough to evacuate anything. It is, however, enough to move into your own basement, essentially to shelter in-situ.

So, let’s make a list of the dangers of a nuclear strike, and see what kind of measures would make sense.

If you are close enough to the blast, nothing can help you. You are dead. In some rare cases, being in a very deep bunker would help, but that calculation doesn’t matter for the urban centres, only for the military command bunkers. Basically, the urban centres are impossible to evacuate in time because of the traffic, there aren’t enough shelters for the population, and for them, the only advice you can give them is to shelter in situ, avoid the windows and all kinds of objects that could become airborne in conditions of overpressure, hide from the debris and cover yourself with a white reflective cloth to reflect as much infrared as possible; that was actually tested and it helps a lot. Similarly, paint your house white, because it reflects most of the radiation. Dark stuff burns much more quickly. Also, yes, duck and cover. Hide under a desk, a chair, and cover your head and face with clothes in order to protect yourself from heat and debris. Depending on the strength of the blast, you will either die or not, but if you take those measures you will reduce probability of all kinds of injuries that would get you killed in the aftermath even if they are not that serious normally, because forget medical care, that’s not happening. Also, the area where the nuclear blast is absolutely deadly is quite small compared to the area that is quite survivable if simple protective measures are taken, and you can’t do anything for those in the ground zero of the blast anyway. Imagine concentric circles of the target – those in the black centre are dead anyway, and no measures could save them. Those on the periphery of the target might survive with the simplest of measures, such as avoiding the windows, hiding under a desk and covering themselves with a white sheet. Between those two, there’s a gradient of probabilities, circumstances and luck.

So, their thinking was that the most likely targets are going to be military sites and urban centres (black on the target). For those, nothing could be done. Those close to the blast (grey on the target) are mostly fucked; probability of serious burns, lacerations, radiation injuries, being buried alive in the ruins etc. are very high, but some general precautionary and protective measures could still help them. However, the largest percentage of people are going to be more lightly impacted (the white on the target), and very simple measures such as “duck and cover” could drastically improve their outcomes.

There’s a very good reason why those protective measures were introduced in the 1950, only to be completely abandoned by the 1980s. You see, in the 1950s there was a very limited number of nuclear weapons, and delivery vehicles were very primitive. The calculation was that America had to deal with a dozen or so hits in the urban centres, at worst. However, by the 1980s, as the number, yield and sophistication of the nuclear weapons grew exponentially, it meant counting on thousands of hits in the urban centres, with hydrogen bomb MIRVs. The calculation then became obvious – nothing can be done to save the population once the nukes are in the air, so all efforts must be directed at avoiding the nuclear outcome.

However, we are no longer in the 1980s. Neither America nor Russia have tens of thousands of nuclear weapons armed for the first strike. Sure, the number is still high, but have in mind that those are mostly battlefield weapons, not the intercontinental ones. The expected number of intercontinental warheads expected to actually strike is numbered in the hundreds, and since those are precious, they will aim mostly at the military installations. Striking at the cities is useless for the first strike, and exists only in the plans for a retaliatory strike. As the number of deployed nuclear weapons grows, it becomes tempting to wipe out the urban centres as well, but as things are right now, very few if any urban centres would be targeted. This brings us back to the 1950s and the “duck and cover” exercises, because they become very relevant if we assume that civilian targets will be at the periphery of any nuclear strike, unless they are considered of military importance.

So, what would be the reasonable advice in case of a nuclear exchange? First, don’t be on the X. This means evacuating early and being nowhere near the expected target zones, or the zombie apocalypse zones of the aftermath, which for the most part means the urban centres. Second, expect to shelter in situ and have at least two weeks of supplies that would guarantee that you don’t have to exit your shelter early. Third, adhere to the “duck and cover” principles as laid out in the 1950s; those guys built and tested the nukes themselves and had hands-on experience with that stuff, and knew what they were talking about. Fourth, have a radiation sensor so that you can know what is safe and what is deadly, and fifth, yes, have a radio or some other means of getting the public broadcasts, especially the ones of local importance.