Month: November 2008

Car Photo of the Day: famous failures

We go from obscurity into ubiquity today, leaving the Henry J behind but coming up on another pair of cars that trace their origin to some guys named “Henry”… both of which suffered in one way or another the fate of failure. One of them is practically synonymous with failure in fact. Hard to make a guessing game from the latter as its name is emblazoned over grille here, but perhaps we can torture the car spotters by asking them to ID the car in the background. (Yes, I know the guy standing in the photo sort of ruins the shot and partially covers that car…. life is tough, wear a helmet!)

Meanwhile those of you who are not admirers of vintage metal can ponder the reasons why a modern machine chose to mimic the nose seen above, and ponder the resulting furor in the webosphere when the reviewer called it as he saw it.

Car Photo of the Day: This is NOT the Mulsanne Straight!

I don't think this is what Sir William had in mind.

“I don’t think this is what Sir William had in mind.”

The above quote is something I said to my father as I man-handled his old XK 120 down a gravel road at over 70 MPH as we hurled through a forgotten valley in the Nevada outback in June of 2000. That was over eight years ago yet somehow the theme of finding myself in the left-hand seat of one of Coventry’s finest, bumping along a rutted track keeps reoccurring in my life! In the above photo you can reconcile the lusciously sensuous curves of the bonnet of an XK SS Jaguar as it bumps along some forgotten backroad of Montana. It was the 2007 Going To The Sun Rally when Philippe Reyns offered me a ride in his factory-modified for street-legality D-type race car, and the route instructions sent us the wrong way. It ended up being something like a 6 mile detour along a gravel road… not exactly what they had in mind when the D-type was purpose-built for winning Le Mans.

Here is another shot on the same road, with a one-lane bridge:

Contemplating a new Camera

One of my frequent commentators, jculpjr recently asked about what sort of camera gear I use. It was a timely question as I’m seriously considering a new camera. I’d like to throw out a wish list so to speak and hopefully get some feedback that will help me make a choice. Your participation is welcome.

This is the machine (photo from a contemporary review) I’ve been using to capture images since 2002:

It is an Olympus C-5050 zoom. It has been a great camera for me and I still find it useful, however it is getting a tad beat up and it has some weaknesses that I’d like to eliminate with a new machine. However, let me start by telling you what I like about it most, in order of importance:

  • It is small and lightweight.
  • It runs on AA batteries.
  • Did I mention it is small and lightweight?
  • It has fairly easy controls, and a lot of manual settings.
  • It works well on “point & shoot” mode quite well.
  • It shoots VERY well in low-light conditions.
  • It has this nifty flip-out LCD:

You have no idea how handy this is when shooting with the camera at arm’s length, something I do a LOT. It flips both up AND down, meaning I can hold the camera way above my head, or down on the ground an still see the LCD screen.

Some other nice things about it:

  • It has a “movie” mode, so at the flip of a switch it can be a video camera, with sound.
  • It has lens adapters so I can shoot with a wide-angle or a telephoto.
  • It has never given me trouble.

Now, here are the things I hate about it:

  • Whenever I change batteries, the date/time reverts to midnight 01/01/2002. This is annoying especially since all the other settings (flash, drive mode, etc) are saved!
  • It is NOT an SLR. It has a viewfinder, which I adore, as that is how I prefer to shoot, rather than looking at a screen, but that viewfinder does not see what the lens sees. This is fine when working with the built-in lens, but utterly fails when you add a lens adapter. In the latter case the lens almost always blocks the viewfinder. This hurts as I shoot with a very wide angle lens MOST of the time.
  • The tripod mount is off-center from the lens. A design crime of the highest order in a camera!
  • The LCD is small compared to today’s cameras.

So my ideal camera is a Digital SLR, that is small and lightweight with a good, reasonably-sized multi-angle LCD. After that, I’d like it to have great lenses, good controls, and the ability to shoot video & sound. Size is my primary concern though. I used Mark Collien’s Nikon D-something on the GTTSR and it is am amazing camera… great lens(!) and awesome photos but my gawd… it was friggin HUGE! I just don’t want to lug around something that big & heavy.

So I’m all ears if you have some suggestions. I have ZERO brand loyalty, and am open to any and all comers.