A few weeks ago the book on the A7 V - all 885 pages of technical goodness - was released in all formats: printed in color or B&W, and the 3-file bundle (.pdf, .epub, and .azw3 compatible with all e-readers). If you haven't already you can purchase all formats here. Get yours now!
The Friedman Archives Helps Solve a Mystery
If you grew up in the U.S. in the 1960's, you'd be familiar with the huge fiberglass "Muffler Man" statues across the country, advertising everything from tires to mufflers, or other items promoting various roadside businesses.
The statues are no longer made, but there are diehard fans who like to catalog and track down the giant statues that remain.
So where do the archives come in? A few months ago I received a query from one such diehard fan, asking about a picture I took back in 1981 which featured one of the "Uniroyal Girls"; female versions of these giant advertising statues. (The image he found is at the top of this post.)
"Where was this picture taken? What business was it advertising?", he asked. Geez, that was 45 years ago! How can I possibly remember that?
Spoiler alert: a big part of solving the mystery involved digging into proof sheets and scanning negatives that were incidental to the final image.
I'll let the American Giants fan tell the story from here. He made a youtube video showing the detective work that went into finding the answer. Grab some popcorn and come along for the ride!
The Most Complex Camera Ever Made
Think modern cameras are gratuitously complex? Check out the LeCoultre Compass Camera II, a 1940's era compact film camera which was built in Switzerland, supposedly as the result of a bet to create a full-featured camera small enough to fit in an empty cigarette pack. It squeezes in a fixed 35mm f/3.5 lens, a rangefinder, a depth-of-field scale, 3 built-in color filters (orange, yellow, and green), a spirit level, and an exposure meter that didn't require any electronics called an "extinction meter". It took both roll film or cut sheet film. And it's tripod socket was designed specifically to make stereo or panorama photos line up easily.
I really took notice when I read about the history of the person who designed it: His name was Noel Pemberton Billing was born in London. He originally designed military equipment in South Africa. He built a casino in Mexico, became a publisher, actor, theatre manager, cinema manager, playwright, science-fiction author and property developer. He was a Member of Parliament for East Hertfordshire.
As if that wasn't enough, he designed furniture, a typewriter, a flying boat and a single-seater fighting aircraft. He was responsible for a machine to make and pack self-lighting cigarettes, a movie projector that could be synchronised with a wind-up gramophone, a golf-practising device, a cloth-measuring tool and even a type of helicopter called a Durotofin. A man after my own heart. :-)
Check out these two youtube videos which demonstrate the camera's use in great detail:
The next one goes into greater detail about the camera's operation:
The part I found particularly fascinating was the "extinction" exposure meter and two different focusing methods.
The Airline Workstation
Atlantic Airways, 2022, where I couldn't even flatten the tray table much less use a laptop on it.
Here's a quick one. I'm still plagued by not being able to get work done on a plane. You'll recall that I originally tried solving this problem back in 2020. But that relied on obsolete hardware.
American Airlines, 2020. Not much has changed.
So I came up with a slightly different idea that actuallly works, and it utilizes a "convertible" laptop that can turn into a tablet. I actually used it on my most recent trip to Uganda It worked great! Here's a very quick video:
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