From my reply to a discussion in r/travel on Reddit. When in was 30 I suggested to my dad (who was 60 and working overseas in Moscow at the time) that we meet in the middle, in Spain. He agreed, so we spent a week and a half with barely a plan, and visited Barcelona, …
Is the Fujifilm XF 35mm f1.4 magical? [Reddit]
From my reply to a discussion from r/fujifilm on Reddit. “Magic” is the word used in photography when someone wants to defend their subjectivity. So when people say the 35mm is magic, they’re just saying they like the lens in spite of (or maybe because of) its imperfections. It doesn’t actually do some Disney-style hocus …
Adding Hidden Tool Tabs in Capture One 23
In Capture One 23, a number of the built-in tool tabs are no longer selectable when you try to perform an Add Tool Tab command. These include the Black and White, Composition, and Local Adjustments tabs. Although you can add and assign icons to custom tool tabs, the icons associated with the built-in tool tabs are not available …
Spoofing OSX 10.11.16 El Capitan Install
When trying to install El Capitan via the recovery partition on a 2014 MacBook Air, I get a message that “no packages were eligible for install.” The problem is that the certificates are out of date, so the installer won’t proceed. The general workaround is to change the computer date to sometime in mid 2017. …
Canon RF 24-105mm f4 L vs f4-7.1 STM [Reddit]
From my reply to a discussion in r/canon on Reddit. I’ve had both lenses. The STM delivers good image quality, excellent IS, and is relatively compact. It also costs significantly less than the L. The real downside is the variable aperture with the relatively slow f7.1 at the long end, but that doesn’t mean it’s …
On Canon EF lenses and the holy trinity of zooms [Reddit]
From my reply to a discussion in r/canon on Reddit. Get rid of the idea of a “holy trinity” of lenses. It’s a stupid marketing gimmick (I’ll probably trigger a lot of people with that statement). It makes sense for professional event photographers, who need maximal flexibility from their kit. And for a lot of …
Apple Music Displays the Wrong Album Art
So my iPhone SE was displaying the wrong album art for a number (though not all) songs. When I checked these albums on iTunes, all the songs had the correct album art. I tried deleting all the songs and then resyncing the playlist, but that didn’t fix the problem. A quick web search turned up …
Fevermonks Revived
Many, many years ago, I wrote and played a bunch of songs with my friend Tom Rump. We called ourselves the Fevermonks, and we’ve recently been able to reconnect and record those songs through the magic of the Internet. We’ve published the songs on Bandcamp, so now you too can enjoy them in highest of …
In memoriam
Katu passed away today, 19 years old. He helped me through some of the most difficult years of my life, then moved in with my mom and helped her with some of her most difficult years. Thank you for everything, little buddy. You were the best cat ever.
Texas Busfest 2016
For the second year in a row, I attended Texas Busfest, although sadly without Melina as she was under the weather. Which was too bad, because the weather during the campout was, in fact, perfect. Temperatures were mild, skies were mostly clear, and nights were cool. It was a bit windy on Friday night, but …