Here lies William Acker

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I have no idea who Mr. Acker was other than what’s on the grave marker: he was born in 1853 and died in 1936 making him 83 at the time of his death. He seems to be buried with two other people: Frederick and Harriet who I’m guessing from their ages were perhaps a son an daughter. He’s buried in Sparta Cemetery in Ossining, NY. That’s the extent of my knowledge.

The topic of this post is, however, not Mr. Acker. It’s my Sony Nex 5N. I bought this camera late in 2011. At that time I was having trouble relating to my DSLR (A Sony Alpha 500) and as I got older I didn’t like carrying around all the DSLR gear. So I was looking for something smaller and lighter and the NEX fit the bill. I’d also read about the possibility of using legacy lenses with this camera (with an appropriate adapter) and since I’d started to collect old cameras/lenses I thought I might be able to use them with the NEX. I used the camera almost exclusively for quite some time.

My quest for something smaller and lighter continued and in January, 2014 I picked up a heavily discounted Sony RX100 model 1. This camera is so small and light that I began to carry it with me all the time and it quickly became my most used camera. I would occasionally take out the NEX but the RX100 had become my primary camera.

I’ve been looking back over my older pictures of late and I’m finding that most of the ones I really like were taken with the NEX. Where the RX100 is very sharp and contrasty, almost clinical, the pictures taken with the NEX have less contrast, are frequently less sharp but have a certain quality to them. The native e-mount lenses I have seem to have quite low contrast (with the exception of the Sigma 30mm f2.8). I have quite a few legacy lenses and pictures taken with them vary greatly in terms of their “look”. With the RX100, of course, the lens is fixed so the “look” is always pretty much the same.

I don’t think I’ll stop using the RX100 any time soon. It’s just so convenient to carry around. But I do think I’ll start to use the NEX again. Now I just have to clean the dust spots on it’s sensor…

The picture above was taken with the NEX 5N and an Industar 61 lens. This 55mm f/2.8 lens originally came from the Arsenal factory in Ukraine – at the time it was made part of the former Soviet Union. I’ve found the lens to be sharp and the colors to be quite vibrant. It’s in Leica Threat Mount and obviously used with an adapter on the NEX.

Vision is better – by David DuChemin

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I recently came across this video from David Duchemin. I have a couple of his books and I like the way he focuses on building photographic vision rather than the more common approach of improving photographic technique.

In the video he mentions two things, which relate to this post. The first is to look back on your work and possibly re-edit. Perhaps you’ll see pictures you didn’t like at the time but which now seem much better. Maybe you have some pictures, which with a little “tweaking” might come out well. The second is to try a black and white conversion as some pictures work better in black and white than they do in color.

I did both of these things with this picture. I’ve posted about Untermeyr Park before (see Untermyr Park, Yonkers, NY). At the time I must have been on a black and white binge since I converted pretty much all the pictures I took to black and white. I think a number of the pictures do work better in black and white so maybe I thought if I was posting some pictures in black and white I should post them all in black and white. It might have been better to just leave this one out I suppose as it clearly works much better in color. So I went back and edited it again so that I could post it again in it’s full color glory.

I see that the old post is also afflicted by my apparent need to post all (or at least most) of the pictures I took. There are eight pictures in this post – way to much! I rarely post more than five nowadays and often only one.

Taken in January, 2012 with a Sony Nex 5N and 18-55mm kit lens

Myanma Dancers

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Taken in Myannmar (also called Burma by some) in February, 2007 with a Canon Powershot S-50 compact camera. The naming of this country is fraught with difficulty. It’s also caught up in politics so I’m by no means sure what adjective to use in the title. I could use “burmese”, but I’m not sure that this captures the diversity in the country – ‘Burma’ being derived from ‘Bama’ only one of the ethic groups in the country. My research leads me to believe that the correct usage is “Myanma’ so the title is ‘Myanma Dancers’. You’d never guess that I used to work for the United Nations would you.

For more information on this topic see: Names of Myanmar.