Helene and the Glove

Helene Atsuko
glove model's own

Helene Atusko 1166

Helene Atsuko
November 2011

Infrared vs Visible Light

On the left, the lovely Helene Atsuko - real name Brian Nugent - shot with the infrared-converted Canon 10D that appears in this earlier post. On the right, Helen shot with visible light, a few second later. I haven't really tried shooting infrared with studio lights, because I was worried that studio strobes wouldn't put out enough infrared light, but they do, and so I did. As you can see, latex doesn't reflect infrared at all, whereas the material of Helene's corset fluoresces. And so, presumably, an infrared-sensitive visible light camera - such as the Leica M8, or the early Kodak DCSes - would have trouble rendering it properly.

Helene quite cleverly has a burglar-proof latex catsuit:

And with that sentence I become the first person on the internet, perhaps the first person ever, to write the words "burglar-proof latex catsuit" (in that order).

Nine One Five Five

Madame Bink
holding a reflector

Liverpool: Napalm to the Bone

Off to Liverpool, from whence one half of my family came, or at least paused in their journey long enough to have children. A journey that apparently encompassed the Carribean, although really we call came from Africa; and before then were no doubt a virus floating through space. Were we one virus particle, or millions? Did we split up, or were we always apart?

But anyway, I took along a bunch of cameras, including a 590nm-converted Canon 10D. This isn't the same 10D that pops up in Infrared X, although it's essentially identical; that one was converted for 720nm. A 590nm filter lets in a lot more colour, which is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because the skies and trees etc are especially vivid, but a curse because if you don't like orange skies and blue plants (or vice-versa) you're going to have to get jiggy with the colour balance. Which I did.


Unfortunately it was overcast, which isn't ideal for infrared - the colours really come alive when the sun shines on them. But it's Liverpool in November, what did I expect? Criticising Liverpool in November for being overcast is a bit like criticising sharks for munching on people; it's in their nature.

"It is your character

Deep in your nature
Take one example
Sample and hold
Romance and replace
The lack in yourself
It is your nature"
PiL: The Suit

The Mersey there, where the beat came from, and beyond it the Wirral, which taunts the people of Liverpool just as the moon taunted the ape-men in 2001. One day the people of Liverpool will build machines that can cross the water. But until then they fight for the Gods they made.

Nine Zero Three Eight

Madame Bink, from a while back
she has a bendy body
and is nice

Ten Songs with Baby replaced by Hitler

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you replace the word "love" in a pop song with the word "lunch", the world becomes a funnier place. It's less well-known that if you replace the word "baby" with "Hitler", the world becomes even funnier. As I shall now demonstrate, for the first time on the internet, right here and now:

Ten Songs with Baby replaced by Hitler
1. Hitler, Can I Hold You Tonight?
2. Hitler Did a Bad, Bad Thing
3. Be My Hitler
4. Hitler's Got Back
5. Hitler Love
6. Hitler Hitler
7. Hitler Come Back
8. Hitler, I Don't Care
9. Hitler, I Love Your Way
10. I Love to Love (but Hitler just Wants to Dance)

Bonus:
11. Where Are you Hitler?

At this point I'm probably going to be banned in Germany. But I don't get any hits from Germany, so I don't care. Besides, the essence of humour is subversion, the more violent the funnier. And there are few more violent things than pop culture.

EDIT: But does it work the other way around? Let's see...

1. Baby Has Only Got One Ball
2. Springtime for Baby
3. Baby was a Vegetarian
4. Who do you Think you are Kidding, Mr Baby?
5. ...

I seem to have run out of songs with Hitler in them. Der Baby's Face? Baby with your Rhythm Stick? Overall the results aren't as funny. The Hitler-Baby rotation is a one-way mirror.

I've always wanted to write The Hitler-Baby rotation is a one-way mirror, but I've never had the chance. Until now.

Obscured by Birds

The Sousse Palace, in Sousse, Tunisia. Filmed back in March, at which time it was completely empty. Music performed with Andre Michele's Tonematrix, which is great fun.

Parachutes

Whilst filming bits of Britain's Nuclear Challenge - everybody has to start somewhere - I stumbled on these people falling from the sky, and filmed them. With a Canon 5D MkII, using a Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8. Music performed with Andrew Michael's lovely Pulsate, which fits the scene.

Sony NEX: Width of Drummer

Over the last few weeks I've been tootling around with a Sony NEX 3, an interchangeable-lens compact body. I don't have any NEX lenses - none of them stand out - but the system can use almost every other lens ever made with adapter rings, including the old, compact Olympus OM range. A while back I had a look at the OM system's two 24mm lenses, which become 36mm walkabout lenses with the NEX's APS-C sensor; now I'm going to have a look at two of the system's 50mm lenses, which become handy 75mm short telephotos. In my dream his mouth was a hole in the bubbling mass that had been a face, and I had to dip the cake into milk in order for him to eat it, as the cancer proceeded to crush his heart. It was horrible, and every night brings a new horror.

Olympus made five 50mms for the manual focus OM system. There was the 50mm f/1.8, which was sold with the camera as a kit lens, and consequently was produced in huge numbers. It flooded eBay a year or so ago, when the world's vintage lens aficionados started paying attention to the OM system. There was also the popular 50mm f/1.4, the posh 50mm f/1.2, and a pair of macros, plus a 55mm f/1.2, which was replaced in the 1980s by a 50mm f/1.2. The company also sold an unusually fast 40mm f/2 pancake, plus two 50mm autofocus lenses for the OM-707 and OM-101, and a unique 50mm f/2 which had motorised manual focus and only worked on the OM-101.

Sony NEX 3 / Olympus 50mm f/1.4 @ f/1.4

But the lenses were available in different configurations as the system matured, and so there are dozens of different variations floating about. The earlier, 1970s run tended to be single-coated, whereas the 80s lenses had multi-coating - but not necessarily - and the 50mm f/1.8's optical formula was simplified later in its life, and there were mechanical tweaks etc. Furthermore the early lenses had a silver ring around the front bezel, whereas the later lens had a black ring. I like the word bezel, it is a good word.

First, the 50mm f/1.4. Mine is an earlier, single-coated G ZUIKO version, the G meaning that it has seven elements (E lenses had five elements, H lenses had eight and so forth). Later versions are no doubt better. Testing it quickly revealed a problem - the combination of f/1.4 plus the NEX's base ISO of 200 plus a top shutter speed of 1/4000 was too bright for daylight, and resulted in everything being overexposed by a stop and a bit. Luckily the NEX can pull back highlights, so the f/1.4 and f/1.8 crops below have been pulled back. Here's the scene at f/1.4:

Perhaps it's just me, or the standard creative style, but the NEX seems to have an oddly washed-out colour scheme, even well within its exposure parameters. Without further ado, let's give this lens its just deserts, f/1.4, f/2.8, and f/5.6 in that order, 100% crops with no noise reduction or sharpening:

Obviously glowy there are f/1.4, although this goes away immediately. You can still make out a lot of detail - twenty-one, twenty-one - but the results are arty rather than sciencey. Sharpens up nicely at f/2.8, although highlight edges still have a bit of fringing. Seems to get just slightly softer at f/5.6 although all the aberrations have gone.

And now the bottom-right corner, twenty-one, twenty-one:

Much the same as the middle, but f/2.8 is softer. At f/5.6 it's basically sharp across the entire frame. Now the 50mm f/1.8. Mine's a later version with "made in Japan" written on the bezel, which apparently means that it's multi-coated (most of the other multi-coated OM lenses had "MC" written on the lens instead). First, f/1.8, f/2.8, and f/5.6 in that order:

It's very similar to the 50mm f/1.4 in the middle. Now the corner:

It's not as good as the f/1.4 in the corners, though; at f/5.6 they're much the same, but f/2.8 isn't quite enough for the f/1.8 to match the f/1.4 at f/2.8.

As a consequence I tend to use the f/1.4 all the time. It has the same 49mm filter thread as the f/1.8, and most of the other wide-to-normal OM primes, and it's compact, as per the picture at the top of this article. It even looks good, which is a bonus - by coincidence the OM system's combination of black metal and silver matches the NEX's colour scheme.

You were responsible for the rolling stock.