the last word

Photography meets digital computer technology. Photography wins -- most of the time.

  • site home
  • blog home
  • galleries
  • contact
  • underwater
  • the bleeding edge
You are here: Home / About

About

This site is an outgrowth of the Center for Photographic Art newsletter, “Focus.” For almost seven years, ending in September 2007, I edited that publication. I wrote a column called “The Last Word” that appeared on the last page of the newsletter. This blog contains those columns that haven’t become too dated, and adds my current photographic musings.

This blog is by and for photographers who are creating art, and are concerned with getting the most out of their tools. Much of what I have to say is about the nuts and bolts of (mostly digital) photography.  I used to shy away from the technical details, thinking that they were of little interest to most photographers, but I no longer do that. I find the technology of digital photography fascinating, and it seems that some of you share that interest.  While I personally use photography to make art, you won’t find any long discussions of aesthetics here, nor will you encounter any postmodern skepticism or deconstruction.

You also won’t find much about the struggle to be a 21st-Century artist in the industrialized Western World. That’s not because I don’t struggle, but because, from a distance, my problems are pretty standard, and I don’t have much to say about them that hasn’t been handled far better by people like David Bayles and Ted Orland.

I appreciate comments along the lines of, “Great site!” However, as I expect that I am nearly alone in that feeling, I read them, think warm thoughts, and hit delete. If you comments aren’t posted, don’t take it as a sign that I am rejecting them or you.

Starting in February of 2009, I started posting in a newly-created category called “The Bleeding Edge.” The entries are about my struggles with the computer technology involved with digital photography. It has become my most popular category, although it’s not clear that my audience is made up of photographers. Back in the 70s and early 80s, I used to enjoy Jerry Pournelle’s column in Byte Magazine, and The Bleeding Edge is my way of carrying on the thread. I realize that many photographers aren’t interested in computer and network minutia, and in April of 2012, I started making all Bleeding Edge posts at http://www.kasson.com/bleeding_edge/

Jim Kasson

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

March 2023
S M T W T F S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  
« Jan    

Articles

  • About
    • Patents and papers about color
    • Who am I?
  • Good 35-70 MF lens
  • How to…
    • Backing up photographic images
    • How to change email providers
  • Lens screening testing
    • Equipment and Software
    • Examples
      • Bad and OK 200-600 at 600
      • Excellent 180-400 zoom
      • Fair 14-30mm zoom
      • Good 100-200 mm MF zoom
      • Good 100-400 zoom
      • Good 100mm lens on P1 P45+
      • Good 120mm MF lens
      • Good 18mm FF lens
      • Good 24-105 mm FF lens
      • Good 24-70 FF zoom
      • Good 35 mm FF lens
      • Good 60 mm lens on IQ3-100
      • Good 63 mm MF lens
      • Good 65 mm FF lens
      • Good 85 mm FF lens
      • Good and bad 25mm FF lenses
      • Good zoom at 24 mm
      • Marginal 18mm lens
      • Marginal 35mm FF lens
      • Mildly problematic 55 mm FF lens
      • OK 16-35mm zoom
      • OK 60mm lens on P1 P45+
      • OK Sony 600mm f/4
      • Pretty good 16-35 FF zoom
      • Pretty good 90mm FF lens
      • Problematic 400 mm FF lens
      • Tilted 20 mm f/1.8 FF lens
      • Tilted 30 mm MF lens
      • Tilted 50 mm FF lens
      • Two 15mm FF lenses
    • Found a problem – now what?
    • Goals for this test
    • Minimum target distances
      • MFT
      • APS-C
      • Full frame
      • Small medium format
    • Printable Siemens Star targets
    • Target size on sensor
      • MFT
      • APS-C
      • Full frame
      • Small medium format
    • Test instructions — postproduction
    • Test instructions — reading the images
    • Test instructions – capture
    • Theory of the test
    • What’s wrong with conventional lens screening?
  • Previsualization heresy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Recommended photographic web sites
  • Using in-camera histograms for ETTR
    • Acknowledgments
    • Why ETTR?
    • Normal in-camera histograms
    • Image processing for in-camera histograms
    • Making the in-camera histogram closely represent the raw histogram
    • Shortcuts to UniWB
    • Preparing for monitor-based UniWB
    • A one-step UniWB procedure
    • The math behind the one-step method
    • Iteration using Newton’s Method

Category List

Recent Comments

  • JimK on Fujifilm GFX 100S pixel shift, visuals
  • Sarmed Mirza on Fujifilm GFX 100S pixel shift, visuals
  • lancej on Two ways to improve the Q2 handling
  • JimK on Sony 135 STF on GFX-50R, sharpness
  • K on Sony 135 STF on GFX-50R, sharpness
  • Mal Paso on Christmas tree light bokeh with the XCD 38V on the X2D
  • Sebastian on More on tilted adapters
  • JimK on On microlens size in the GFX 100 and GFX 50R/S
  • Kyle Krug on On microlens size in the GFX 100 and GFX 50R/S
  • JimK on Hasselblad X2D electronic shutter scan time

Archives

Copyright © 2023 · Daily Dish Pro On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Unless otherwise noted, all images copyright Jim Kasson.