My first Leica was an M6 that I bought in 2004. I sold that some time later, regretted it, and bought another in 2008. Traded that for an M4 and then added an M7 which I then sold to pay some medical bills. Whew! Long story short, I just picked up an M6 “Classic” to correct my earlier mistakes. Another terrific camera. After a year or two with fully manual cameras, the meter in the M6 is most welcome.

Many consider the M6 to be one of the more pedestrian of Leica M cameras. That may be true, but they’re also plentiful, relatively affordable while being reasonably new (mine is from 1997), gorgeous, and a joy to hold.

2010 was not a good movie year for me. It’s not the quality of the movies that suffered, but rather my interest in watching them. There were some gems in there though, and here are my favorites watched this year.

Winter’s Bone

Tough, bleak-yet-hopeful coming of age story in which Jennifer Lawrence is just so good. I loved this movie from beginning to end. Not to be missed.

Tyson

Endlessly fascinating. I never imagined I would feel almost (almost!) sympathetic toward Mike Tyson.

Exit Through The Gift Shop

It doesn’t matter if this documentary by Banksy is a hoax or not. It’s a terrific, funny, very entertaining movie. Either way, Banksy has a new medium to work with.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

I never tire of watching Nicholas Cage cranking up his batshit crazy mojo. Paired with Werner Herzog, I think this is my favorite version of that.

Greenberg

Ben Stiller has worn out is welcome with me when in his frantic, freak-out mode, but in Greenberg he’s great, even though his character is repulsive.

The Town

That Ben Affleck guy is a helluva director. The Town proves it.

Machete

Just sit back and enjoy some grindhouse fun.

A quick look at the books I read this year, rated from 1-5 and divided into fiction and non-fiction. Twenty-two books? That’s not nearly enough, I’d say. It would be nice to double that number in 2011. It looks like I also read more fiction than usual. You can see that the fiction winner was an easy pick from almost everyone’s list. I loved the entire Millennium trilogy. For non-fiction I rated Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything highest.

On a related but geekier note, the map above was created using Tinderbox. I add new book titles in an outline throughout the year and rate them from 1 to 5. Tonight I opened the outline in a Tinderbox map view, created a “Book” prototype and added a “bar” pattern based on the rating, which is where the green bar graph effect comes from. Then I dragged each book’s note onto adornments, one for fiction and one for non-fiction. I then added summary notes which count the books in each category. For a few minutes’ work I get dynamic totals, rating bars and a nice visual of the past year’s reading list.

The ad on Craigslist read, “Howtek - Scan Master 4500 - FREE,” which of course had to be a mistake or a scam, since high end drum scanners cost a fortune. I looked it up. The Howtek, when new in 1994, cost $25,000. Getting one for “FREE” seemed unlikely.

I called the guy and he assured me that the scanner worked, and he was giving it away to anyone who could use it. Since I don’t shoot large format nor do I regularly make huge prints, drum scanning would be overkill. Right? Whatever, I went and picked up the scanner along with 2 drums, spare lamps, and the PowerMac 9500 running MacOS 8.1 and Photoshop 4.0 used to run the scanner.

After farting around with video and SCSI (remember those?) cables for a couple of evenings, I finally got everything working. I don’t have a mounting station or other accessories needed to do a proper wet scan, so I just taped a strip of 6x6 negatives to the drum. Certainly not ideal, but it got me started.

The only thing left is to network the 9500 so I can actually pull a finished scan off it to look at closely on a decent monitor. Even on the crappy monitor attached to the 9500, it looks like the scanner is pulling in a ton of detail. Maybe it’s time to think about making some really big prints from the ginormous files this thing produces. At any rate, it’s a lot of fun to play with, especially considering the only thing I’ve spent on the project so far is time.

The Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera is as iconic as they come, and it’s like a little engineering miracle. I bought one today via Craigslist. It even came with a lovely original case and paperwork.

I’ve already shot the last of my “First Flush” film from The Impossible Project so I ordered a few packs of their Color Shade instant film. Once in a while it’s really nice to take a photo and be able to see it right away, without using some silly computer screen.

My parents bought me my first real camera when I graduated high school. It was 1982 and the camera was a Canon AE-1 Program. The above photo is a self-portrait taken with it. Nice hair.

I don’t remember much about the camera, other than it was “serious” and I loved shooting with it. Whatever ended up happening to it is a mystery. Some day I’ll probably kick in the $50 it would take to pick up another one, just for nostalgia’s sake.

The least fun part about shooting film is having to scan it later. Scanning is slow, tedious, painstaking, loaded with pitfalls, and the software is some of the worst ever devised by man. I’ve gotten my scanning workflow to be somewhat manageable, but it still sucks. One thing I’ve struggled with is film curl. My negatives, especially in fall and winter, curl terribly along their length. These days I’m using an Epson V750 flatbed scanner, and the film holders are terrible, and in no way help keep the negatives flat. This means that the center portion of the scan is going to be out of focus, what with the center bowed way up and all.

Enter the replacement holders and ANR inserts from Better Scanning. I’ve been using the replacement medium format holder,and just received my ANR inserts for the medium format and 35mm holders. These are basically nothing more than custom cut ANR glass inserts. You just drop them on top of your negative in the holder and poof! flat negatives.

Here’s a rather severe example showing the difference between a scan using the stock 35mm holder and one using the ANR insert.

Highly recommended!

Mike Johnston in Open Mike: Vinyl Nostalgia

One of the things I like about vinyl these days is that I tend to leave the same record on the ‘table until I’ve played it many times and have gotten to know it thoroughly… . No reason to do anything like that with computer music, much of which I tend to listen to once or twice and then…er, well, lose. It’s not lost literally, it’s just that I forget about it and it goes into extended hibernation somewhere on the hard drive.

That’s it exactly. I have 2 turntables, which means there are at most 2 records ready to go at any moment. Instead of digging around for something to listen to, I usually drop the needle on whatever is already there. If music is something I only want playing in the background, iTunes shuffling through the Apple TV is just fine, but that’s not really listening to music, is it? The difference between lowering the tonearm gently onto a visibly spinning record and simply clicking Play in iTunes is significant, whether it matters to you or not. And as Mr. Johnston points out, the music doesn’t get lost.

Many times I’ve watched the needle hit the vinyl, waited for the music to start, and never made it back to what I’d been doing. I find myself just sitting and listening until it’s time to turn the record over. It happened again tonight after I came home with a new pressing of Leonard Cohen’s 1971 album, “Songs of Love and Hate.” The record is on its third playing tonight and will likely sit on the turntable for the next week or so. We’ll get to know each other quite well. No chance of it hibernating on some hard drive. It’s right there.

“I hear that you’re building your little house deep in the desert You’re living for nothing now. I hope you’re keeping some kind of record.” – Leonard Cohen

I keep falling for the MacBook Air. The first version was the most sexy computer I’d ever seen. Many people, me included, quickly convinced ourselves that we could get work done just fine with it. We couldn’t. It was slow, hot, noisy, and not really capable of anything remotely taxing. The hard drive was a pig, and whenever the processor had to break a sweat, it would overheat and one of the cores would shut down. That was fun. And only $1,799. At least I was clever enough to opt out of the 64GB SSD option for $999. An additional $999!

Then there was the second model. This one came with a little faster processer, a little better video, and double the SSD storage for half the extra cost. That should be perfect, right? Sold the 1st gen and bought a new 2nd gen, with the SSD this time, for around $2,499 if I recall (and I’m trying not to.) Not a terrible machine, and the core shutdown was no longer an issue. Performance was fine. Not great, just fine. It was a suitable machine, but the video speed and resolution, single USB port and general sluggishness kept me from remaining in love with it. Although a friend is still using it and it suits her just fine.

Along came the iPad. A tiny, almost “real” computer in a slick touch-me-now form factor. This was what I wanted for meetings and quick note taking. It would be perfect to just grab and go, without having to lug around the MacBook Pro. I bought a stylus, wireless keyboard and every iPad note taking app known to man. You know what? The iPad sucks for taking notes. Yes, I know you can take notes. Some people might even enjoy it. I find the iPad terrible for actually getting stuff done. Okay fine, but it should be great for taking to bed or the coffee shop and doing some light emailing, browsing, reading, right? Right, but it seems that every single time it’s just me and the iPad I find some reason to wish I had a real computer, because everything is easier with a real computer. I love the iPad, but it’s not a computer I can use in anger, which is what I usually want.

Enter the new 11-inch MacBook Air. At 11 inches it’s not substantially bigger than an iPad. This version has a much better video processor, resolution to match a normal laptop, and a size that’s just adorable. For the price of a 64GB SSD drive option in the first generation Air, you can now get a whole computer. A whole real computer. I opted for the $1,199 128GB model, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the 64GB would have been enough.

It’s only been a few days, but I think it’s safe to say the the third time is indeed the charm. What a terrific machine. It’s not replacing the desktop iMac or MacBook Pro, but it’s coming damn close to replacing the iPad. The new Air’s size and form factor makes it easily as portable as the iPad. Really, I can just grab it and throw it under my arm like a magazine. That’s very important for how I plan to use it. It fits in the front pocket of my daily bag, same as the iPad. And don’t underestimate the value of “instant on.” Open the lid and it’s already ready to go. Even a cold boot takes maybe 20 seconds. So useful.

I think Apple is going to sell a lot of these.

I don’t spend that much time in the car, but when I do I always think of something important that I’d like to remember. Never without a pen and notebook, you’d think I’d be all set, but these do me no good while driving. And don’t get me started on the iPhone, which requires the following process to record even a simple message…

1. Dig iPhone out of pocket (that’s where I keep it)
2. Swipe to open
3. Type unlock code
4. Find and launch dictation app (and I’ve never found a great one)
5. Press Start/Record button
6. Speak
7. Press Stop button

Most of those steps require that I look at the phone, and by that time I don’t care any more. My ideas aren’t usually worth that sort of effort.

Instead, I bought a Micro-cassette Recorder. That’s right, an old-fashioned miniature tape recorder. In this case, a Sony BM-575, which is made of metal and should handle the abuse I want to throw at it. What a great device! I leave it on the seat next to me or the nearest empty cup holder, and when I think of something worth remembering, I…

1. Grab the recorder
2. Slide the big obvious button to Record
3. Speak and release

See, now that’s how it’s done. No menus, no dicking around trying to find the app or button I need. I never need to take my eyes off the road, since to record and play my voice there’s just one button, and that’s all it does.

Once a week or so I play everything back, write down anything important, and reset the tape counter for next week. It may seem archaic and unnecessary, but it’s actually better, faster, and more useful than anything else I’ve tried.