Monday, April 15, 2024

Civil War (2024)

This is basically a Dorothy yellow brick road kind of story.  Also, something to do with the new replaces the old, the circle of life thing.  Kirsten Dunst is a stunning beauty no matter what.  I think the production makes her credible as a war time photo journalist, Lee.  I am not sure what Joel and the fat old guy Sammy do exactly.  Joel is a dedicated driver.  The old fat limping dude Sammy turns out to be a life safer.  The young photo enthusiast Jessie comes out of no where and decides to tag along.  She is somewhat like the Aliens little girl Newt and Lee is going to be protective of her over time and in the end dies for her.  Jessie is part of the "film is not dead" crowd or some shit and shoots with his dad's Nikon FE2.  I still own my first ever Nikon FE and 50mm f/1.4.

Me being another dude with a camera I can relate to some of the mental-scape of a photographer but of course I am no where near any war zones.  No picture is worth dying for.  Two things I can relate to to a degree.  Lee just losing it. she just doesn't have the drive to take the pictures anymore.  The moment she deletes Sammy's motionless picture, she can't compartmentalize herself anymore.  She no long has the compulsion to record, .  On the other hand, Jessie has grown that compulsion to take pictures.  Jessie has no qualms taking the picture of a falling Lee.  I think the film does a fine job depicting that compulsion, that compulsion to press the shutter no matter what.  As a photographer I think you need to have that compulsion to go out and take pictures.  Once you lost that compulsion, you are done.  Both female leads have convincingly carried and held their camera.  Nobody takes pictures with the rear camera screen.

"The war photographer's most fervent wish is for unemployment" - Robert Capa.  Not so much for Jessie.

6/10

Sunday, March 31, 2024

A Sun (2019)

A Sun

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

"A Sun" tells a story of an unhappy family of four, the Chens: two parents and two brothers, in Taipei, Taiwan where the sun shines everywhere, often times scorchingly and oppressively.  It's not uncommon to see people use umbrella on sunny days.  In fact, the father, Wen,  a driving school instructor is seen shielding himself with an umbrella in the beginning of the movie while giving a dress-down to his driving student who fails repeatedly because of his stubborn silly belief to drive a manual to get a better feeling of driving.  The father is your stereotypical Chinese dad who fails miserably in expressing himself when it comes to his family or his beloved sons.  He relies on a single pithy aphorism from work to reach and teach his sons.  The mother, Qin, a working beautician for some questionable locales,  like many households, is a loving figure, a peacemaker and the glue that holds the family together.

The two brothers are polar opposite of each other.  The younger one Ho or A-Ho (sound Ar-Ho, you add A to shorten the name in conversation, Chen Jian-ho becomes A-Ho) is small in stature,  a juvenile delinquent who makes all the wrong moves in life.  In one of the final scenes where Ho is seen running on a highway, his jeans waist band can be seen altered with a big pleat to make it smaller than it already is just so it won't fall past his non existent butt.  Ho hits a new low right from the get-go when he was put away for 3 years in a juvenile detention for being an accomplice in a machete attack where the victim, Oden's hand ended up in the soup of a hot pot.  The perpetrator, Radish, who made the severed hand soup got an extra bonus three years prison term.  Father Wen has no problem disowning Ho. Dragged by his wife to the sentencing and when asked by the judge what he has to say, instead of pleading leniency for Ho,  he freely admits he couldn't and wouldn't be able to keep him straight and asks the court to discipline him accordingly.  Between him and his wife, Wen flat out says lock Ho up until he dies.  Whenever his driving students make small talks or being nosy enough to enquire Wen's marital and family status, he readily says he is married and has a son who's going to medical school next year.  That son is of course the older one Chen Jain-hao or A-Hao.  He's tall and has fine features and is an assiduous youngster who can't do no wrongs.  That is, except he doesn't get accepted to his first choice medical school.  His amiable presence is almost ethereal and proves to be ephemeral.  The time Hao was caught in a reverie in class, and also the only time he tries to question authority is to ask the evening cram school teacher if he believes what he is teaching regarding a piece by Sima Guang on thrift and prosperity.  The Chinese literature teacher tells him in all honesty he doesn't and tells him to get the fuck out of his classroom.  It doesn't go well when he deviates from his usual obedient son persona.  Though he does catch the attention of his pretty classmate Guo Xiao-zhen who apparently has a crush on him and flirts talks with him during dinner break after class.  The feeling is mutual as Hao walks her to wait for her bus and tells her a twisted version of the very famous little Sima Guang story--not the one about frugality when Sima Guang became a prime minister.  The girl is fascinated so much so that she doesn't board her arriving bus so as to hear A-Hao finish the story.  Apparently they are made for each other or so it seems.

The film juxtaposes what happens between the two brothers.  A-Ho being tiny and new in the big house has to fight and food bribe to live another day.  The good news is he manages to make peace with his tormenters with simple multiplication skills.  What's more, he gets married Wang Ming-yu, or affectionately called Xiao-yu and becomes the father of Dong-dong all while incarcerated.  A-Hao on the other hand makes his first and final mistake when he jumps to his death from his home.  His suicide is as shocking as it's abrupt.  The only hint he left was the text he sent to his romantic interest Xiao-zhen.  The text is a weird soliloquy triggered by their visit to the zoo on a hot sunny day.  He laments he's always under the scorching sun with no shade to hide, even goes on to say the animals, his brother and Xiao-zhen can hide in the shade.  Except him.  In his world, the sun shines all around all the time with nowhere to hide.  This circles back to the twisted story he told Xiao-zhen at the bus stop early on in their relationship.  The young Sima Guang story told to all grade schoolers is one of Sima Guang's playmates falls into a large water vat and Sima finds a rock to break the vat to save his friend from drowning.  The one Hao tells Xiao-zhen is such that the vat has no water and what's inside is not Sima's playmate but Sima himself hiding away inside the vat.  I think it's Hao's round about way to say he yearns to hide from the all present sunshine but even he himself couldn't let that happen as he's the one who breaks the vat with a rock to out the Sima Guang in the dark.  Hao one day woke up on the wrong side of the bed, made up his mind that the only way he can live in peace in the dark permanently and can't be outed by himself or anyone is to end his existence in this world.

The 3-year incarceration worked magic and reformed Ho.  After his release, he tries to work his way back to fiscal and moral responsibly by holding down two jobs.  But it's not all rainbows and unicorns.  One cannot escape one's past especially one's past involves a Radish.  Director Chung is a humanitarian.  He's empathetic to his characters.  Radish is as much a predator as he's a victim of society, circumstances, his own making and some combination thereof.  Twice, director Chung lets Radish tell his story, once at the balcony to Ho's dad Wen and another time inside a Bentley with a-Ho.  There is good chance that Ho is not as innocent as he claims or convinces himself to be.  Radish was a buddy of Ho when Ho complains about Oden, Radish takes it seriously.  Perhaps in his heart of heart, Radish does what a loyal friend does, to take care of the problem the only way he knows how.  But when shit hit the ceiling, Ho claims he never intends let alone asks Radish to hack off Oden's hand or inflict any bodily harm.  Radish asks Ho rhetorically if he ever asked him to just scare Oden.  Ho wouldn't answer.  Then Radish reminds Ho he is the one that steals the motor scooter and brings along a watermelon knife himself.  The 3-year bonus incarceration apparently didn't reform Radish.  Director Chung doesn't just let his characters come and go.  Oden who got his hand hacked off in the opening scene is surprisingly sanguine, resilient and at peace later in the movie.  In a chance encounter at the car wash where Ho works, Oden is summoned to snake the clogged up toilet.  Oden tells Ho how he's been working in his dad's plumbing business and gotten more serious after he lost his hand.  Oden is open and even shows what's left of his right arm, a smooth stump like a chicken neck without its head.  In the end they sort of having a strong hand shake as Oden shows Ho how it feels to be handless by squeezing Ho's right hand tight till he's shaken.  Ho is shaken to his core and tells Oden he is really truly sorry.  Oden makes a sudden guffaw and says all right and gets going with his work.  Oden is dealing and taking care of shit literally and figuratively every day with some success.  This scene of Oden and Ho stands in stark contrast with the scene when Wen pleads with Radish to leave Ho alone.  Radish holds a grudge against the Chens and rejects Wen's money and entreaty.  Needless to say, Radish continues to pester, cajole and threaten Ho to be his runner to do his biddings.

Director Chung makes a fruit punch of a film with a deft hand.  The film breezes through its 2h 36m running time exploring themes like family dynamic, the impenetrable human mind, loyalty and betrayal, suicide and murder, crime and redemption with a mix of poignancy and a wry sense of humor in balance.  The film employs opposing motifs, like sun and rain, light and dark.  The sun is warm and nurturing yet at times it is stifling, just like Wen to the brothers, and in some way Hau to Ho.  Or on an even bigger scale a ruling government to its people.  Director Chung avoids overt tear jerking.  "If he dies he dies," that's how he treats his characters, protagonist and antagonist alike.  Death comes quick and abrupt.  It's living that's hard.  Characters live with certain quiet dignity.  Xiao-yu, Ho's girlfriend then wife lost her parents in a car crash at a young age, was raised by her aunt Yin who loses the window to date and have her own family as she is too busy taking care of Yu.  Even character off-screen like Radish's grandma is portrayed as strong:  she raised Radish and lost her flat when the government confiscated it when Radish was in jail.  Oden lost his hand but he did not lose his will to live, even when he needs to deal with shit every day, literally.  Director Chung never bothers to explain why Hau killed himself because something is better left unsaid.  Chung's characters almost never ever explain or complain, they just quietly suffer without wallowing in self pity.  Chung's "A Sun" is definitely a Taiwanese film.

9/10, 1 point deducted for photographing the bus stop scene too clean too pretty and too cheesy.

Monday, March 25, 2024

ImageMagick

 I don't remember if I installed that via Homebrew or MacPort.

I might have installed using MacPort.  But it's kind of messed up as macOS upgraded but Port is behind so I can't even check that.

I proceeded to install IM using brew.

My primary motivation is

Anamorphic

Convert Z 9 NEF to PSD files so I can desequeeze there.

...

I don't think LR can desequeeze NEF right there.  I can do that in Photoshop.  One by one, right click the NEF and edit in PS then image 157.5% on the width.

I guess I can use some PS script to automate that part.  But still I can't automate en masse

I tried dcraw but the Z 9 NEF is not supported.  D810 NEF is fine not the Z 9 ones.

So it's kind of messy if I decide to shoot lots of anamorphic NEF and import to LR and dequeeze via Photoshop and then round trip to edit in LR or in PS....

I was going to give up to edit NEF or PSD but JPEG from NEF.  But dcraw can't handle NEF from Z 9.  oh well.

It's kind of messy.


update: 3/25. this should be it to get IM working at least.  forget about z 9 nef for a second as who knows

brew uninstall imagemagick  # without X11 support

brew install --cask xquartz

brew install tlk/imagemagick-x11/imagemagick

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

PocketWizard FlexTT5 Revisited

 Once I set them up I never bother with them again.  When I first got them I updated all the legacy firmware to the latest available.

It works pretty well for what I do.  As far back as I can remember they do allow me to sync up to 1/250s and even higher for my Nikon.  Not high speed sync but hypersync as I don't use the Nikon SB-800 instead I use the Sunpak 120J.  

Today I try that with my Quantum flash, I don't think it syncs up to 1/250s, or even 1/200s.  1/160s seems to be the safest bet.  I was using the Nikon D4s.  I guess if one is not use Nikon Speedlight then there is no guarantee it would actually sync up to the highest speed 1/250s.

I guess it depends on the flash duration or in other words, the power setting of the strobe.  I imagine full power with the longest duration I can actually sync up to 1/250s or even higher for hypersync.

Since the Z9 doesn't accept the TT5 as transmitter if used as a TTL trigger, it needs to be downgraded to Basic Trigger in order to work as a simple trigger.  And it does work when I set up C2 as basic trigger and used as such.

The D4s can also use C2 the basic trigger but then it will lose all the TTL features...One thing kind of unexpected is when I test the C2 setting using the D4s I found even the color balance shift.  If I left the color balance to auto, if I left the TT5 at C1 at TTL then the WB is warmer, if I used C2, basic trigger, the WB is cooler, very noticeable difference.  I don't know how the TT5 behave can actually affect the flash color temperature, perhaps the flash duration used or how the D4s interpret the WB of the flash.  There is clearly a shift in WB on the picture taken using the TT5 as basic trigger.  If I use the TT5 as TTL then the color is warmer like it's always been.  I have never set the C2 as Basic Trigger unitl yesterday just to test out the Z9.  Very interesting.  I set the D4s WB to 5500 then the pictures look the same whether the TT5 set as TTL or Basic Trigger.

Friday, December 08, 2023

The Nikon Refurbished

 Nikon do sell refurbished items, like their flagship items.  But they make no mention of where they come from or imply anything.  They are just under Deals.

I got myself their flagship, a Z9.  I know I won't be happy with anything less.  I took a few blank shots even before I got my CFExpress Type B card.  When I got around and checked the picture, the image number is 69,091 (using Photoshop File info).  So the refurbished camera has more than 69K actuations before getting to me.  The battery certainly looks used as it has quite a bit of rub marks.

So if you buy refurbished from NikonUSA, don't expect you will get "lucky" and got a brand spanking new item with some 1,000s actuations.   Given that it can shoot 120 frames per second, it's not too difficult to rack up big actuation counts.

The Z9 itself looks decent but not new.  Anyway, as NikonUSA makes no explicit or implied newness so I think it's fair or fair enough.  But the 90 days warranty is just bad.  I can't help but think of Apple, its refurbished has the same warranty as brand new.  And in general the Apple refurbished has brand new battery and new casings or so I've heard.  Well camera is a different beast so I can understand.  All my other recent cameras in the last decade were bought used.

From SLR to DSLR to Mirrorless.  I guess it's inevitable.

From CF, SD and XQD and now CFExpress Type B.  I guess it's inevitable.

I can understand why one needs more storage and more computing power.  Things just keep changing and marching on.

I've made no conscious effort to stay or move on to mirrorless.  But my recent drop of the D810 together with the 24-70 f/2.8 kind of gave me the excuse to move forward.  Again you are buying into a system.

Monday, November 06, 2023

Pocket Wizard and some other decade old stuff

 I got myself four PW FlexTT5 and an AC3.  I simply don't have a clue how the names came about.  So it's mildly intriguing.

The TT5 by comparison is so much more reliable than what I have used up to this point.  The TT5 simply works.  One of them has some corrosion in the battery compartment that was made known to me before the bid.  The seller says it works even with the gunk and corrosion.  So it's all fair.  I cleaned it up with some vinegar and it didn't quite work so I used a pocket knife to scrap the contact a bit.  Voila it works.  I was on a shopping spree so I bought another quantum qflash T2.  It comes with a pocket wizard plus receiver.  I couldn't find any reference on the model, Plus II, III, but not just plus.  Interesting.  So I proceed to engage the learn mode by pressing the TT5 and somehow, then the TT5 can trigger the plus receiver.

I just have that compulsion to buy this old stuff.

UPDATE:

Per usual, I tested them out.

The TT5 can sync up to 1/8000 when the flash units are in full power otherwise normal sync up to 1/250s.  The PLUS unit can sync up to 1/200s but fires at 1/250s with narrow black bar and it won't fire on any speed faster than 1/250s, in essence, the PLUS has no hypersync or high speed sync.  My quantum T2 works pretty flawlessly as I would expect.  I read it has a 150w/s power.  The Sunpak 120J when bareblub has a 115w/s.


Friday, March 31, 2023

SUNPAK AUTO 383 SUPER

 Ever since I have used the Sunpak 120J, I kind of like the good old Sunpak brand for flash.

This flash just looks like your regular flash but deep down or within it has some killer specs, at least to me.  It's compact just like most flashes.  But it packs a GN 120 number which is pretty nice.  It has 3 f/stop auto and 5 fraction power adjustments from full blast to 1/16. I think that's neat.  Another killer spec is one can use external power source for long usage and fast recycle time.  For an old flash the cost $20 that's pretty neat.

The 120J body and the 383 share a very similar body except the 120J has a bare bulb design which makes transportation a hassle even more so when you also carry the standard reflector.  But the bare bulb design certainly has its merits.

Both the 120J and 383 can be used with an external power source.  But for 383 if you were to use only external power source with no AA batteries inside the compartment, the flash will still fire but only with full power no matter what settings the unit on.  I think that's pretty interesting.  I know the Nikon SB-800 kind of behave like that, you need cell batteries inside even you are attaching external power source.  So you might actually think the auto or fraction power functions are toast if you only bother to use it with an external power source like I did in testing initially.  The 383 becomes full featured once the AA batteries are in the compartment.


Civil War (2024)

This is basically a Dorothy yellow brick road kind of story.  Also, something to do with the new replaces the old, the circle of life thing....