Taming of the Shrew

Nikkor 24mm f/2 and f/1.4 compared at f/2

Both at ISO100, f/2 and 1/5000s, no filter or lens hood.  So the mortgage your house lens is a clear winner in terms of color, contrast, sharpness, details (resolution) and even bokeh.  But that shouldn't be a surprise.  Both shot on tripod, live view manual focus.  If you can't tell which is which, congratulations.

(Note:  This cannot be a "fair" comparison as in comparing a current production that costs a whopping $2,000 to a out of production 1981 lens that costs at most 1/5 of the cost of the former in the secondary market.  The Nikkor 24mm f/2 is shot wide open while the f/1.4 lens is shot close down at f/2)

Ice Cream

Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 at ISO400, f/1.4 and 1/60s.  Focused on his right eye or the left eye on the picture.  I don't think there is a problem with the focusing.  NEF converted to JPEG, with a slight S curve adjusted, no USM or sharpening applied.

NOTE:  I got tons of emails asking me about the lens.  No, I don't own it.

Linsanity

Shot using a mortgage-your-house Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 at f/1.4 , 1/100s and ISO400 on the Flushing bound number 7 train.  I guess the only useful thing about this lens is to me, it can auto focus.  I find it increasingly difficult for me to manual focus my 24mm f/2 lens fast enough to grab the shot.  This f/1.4 is phenomenally quiet in focusing, I can't even hear the motor.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

The latest movie adaption was released some time December 2011 with the nutty Gary Oldman playing George Smiley, the fatty, shorty and mouldy super spy whose lethal specialty is to bore his enemies to death, and the readers or audience as collateral along the way.  In John le Carre's meticulously constructed spy world, Smiley is like the Kate Moss of super spy, he is kind of old, kind of short, kind of retired but he's nevertheless proven to be the best that is out there and hence always in demand.  OKAY, not exactly Kate Moss but neither is Gary Oldman as far as physical resemblance is concerned.  The film is a reinterpretation and reimagination of the book, as such  I can easily over look any physical difference between the character in the book and in the film.  Unfortunately I overlooked way too much, I slept through the entire movie save for the very beginning and the end while being a captive audience on board of a Cathay flight over the Pacific.  I had no idea how good or bad the film was.  More importantly, the chance of better understanding the book via the movie was totally squashed.  So it was with utter disgust and dismay, I proceeded to read TTSS one more time, back to back in immediate succession.  Am I a masochist or what?  The book is a perpetual dread with confusing characters that have multiple worknames to compound the confusing factor, complicated plot lines with many tangled knots, and a timeline that goes forward, backward and sideways.  To understand the story, one must be exceptionally lucid because the story is anything but.  One is easy to get lost in le Carre's spy world in the best sense and worst sense of the word "lost."  The story, in a nutshell, is a simple one rather: Smiley is brought out of retirement because he is good, remember Kate Moss good, to hunt down a mole in the Circus.  And of course the devil is in the detail, and there are plenty of them.  In the end, the mole Gerald or Tailor as codenamed by Control the head of Circus, is caught and bored to death by George Smiley by his accusatory and lethal silence treatment.  Tailor is such a colorfully complex character personally (a bisexual painter who was born to inherit the Earth!) and professionally (a double agent, duh!) that it's impossible to know when and why (the decline of England as a world power and the hatred of America, really?) exactly he became a double agent for Smiley's nemesis Karla, the Russian spy master whom Smiley met when he was caught and jailed (boo boo boo ...) and probably felt some kind of kinship towards his archenemy--he let the man have his monogrammed lighter, a gift from his unfaithful wife Ann, the illusion of the illusionless man, Smiley.  Perhaps Karla gained Smiley's admiration because he never wavers his adherence to Moscow Centre even when returning to Moscow means death (Karla survived).  Gerald, on the other hand, chooses to betray his country, friends and lovers.  But the sin of all sins for Gerald, being a double agent is,(no, not screwing Ann, his cousin and Smiley's wife) he couldn't simply let his friend/lover die after he betrayed and "orphaned" him, which ultimately brings upon his own demise.  Fool.  In the end, the story is as much about espionage as it's about a yearning to connect, to make sense, to not to be lonely and to be loved--just like any other books or the movie The Avengers.