Articles Tagged with manual control

The yellow zone vs. the idiot light

What information are you given as an operator?

Much about automobiles has changed greatly over the past decade or two.  Part of it comes from different ideas of what the driver should be doing.

Read More

Share Button

Simplified lightning

The rise and fall of the flashbulb

flashbulbsOur photographer illustrates the evolution of technology through something once ubiquitous, now obsolete.

Read More

Share Button

Making it easy makes it hard

Simplicity is good, but not always

123Photography can seem very complicated, so cameras made for non-experts are often highly simplified.  This can make them difficult to use.

Read More

Share Button

The artist and her tools

16KR01-15bOur photographer accompanied a pair of artists on a picture-taking expedition this past weekend. As expected, he has observations to make about old and new technology. But he was also driven to more general musings about the relationship between artists, their visions and their tools.

Read More

Share Button

“Outside the proper scope”

What you can do, and what you should do

manualIn the Five Colors Science & Technology library of photography are a number of old books that we still find interesting. Apart from details of procedures and chemistry that are hard to find elsewhere, they show the different ideas, through the years, of just what was a good photograph.

Read More

Share Button

The old fencer and the cheap watch

The unexpected usefulness of old and new things

alumni15Our navigator had the pleasure of attending a fencing match this past weekend as a spectator.  The range in ages of the participants was unusually large, which highlights some important considerations about newer and older people and things.

Read More

Share Button

With or against the grain?

Defects become desirable

Our photographer is bemused by modern efforts to re-create, digitally, two of the least desirable qualities of fast film: high contrast and large grain. But the paradox of limitations and defects becoming highly sought-after features is not new, and is as widespread as ripped jeans.

Read More

Share Button

No more libraries?

Electronics replaces paper

Books on shelvesFor many purposes, books are no longer necessary. That is, for entertainment or learning one need not find or carry around a pile of bound paper. The internet contains a vast landscape of information and e-books are ubiquitous. So do will still need places to borrow paper books from—libraries? Or librarians?

Read More

Share Button

No more trade-offs

It’s easier when you can have it all

slide rule and log tableLife was more complicated in the old days. Not only were many things more difficult and tedious to accomplish, often you had to work out which of several methods you should use depending on what you really needed done. It’s much easier now. Really.

Read More

Share Button

The anti-selfie

Candid photography (for the expert)

leicaIIIiWe turn again to the theme of technology transforming society, or at least one part of it.  With the invention of the 35mm still camera about a quarter of the way into the twentieth century, a whole area of life was suddenly opened up to photography.  That was not the intention of the inventor, who was only looking for a lighter-weight way to take pictures himself.

Read More

Share Button