Author: James Vornov

I'm an MD, PhD Neurologist who left a successful academic career on the Faculty of The Johns Hopkins Medical School to develop new treatments in Biotech and Pharma. I became fascinated with how people actually make decisions based on the science of decision theory and emerging understanding of how the brain works to make decisions. My passion now is this deep explanation of what has been the realm of philosophy, psychology and self help but is now understood as brain function. By understanding our brains, I believe we can become happier, more successful people.

Getting Back on the Wagon

At the Corner in Fall, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

Nearly two months without a photo upload or post here. The combination of the Jewish holidays and the election seemed to squeeze out any air for photography. With the election now decided, I regret that I missed some of the best light and fall color. Here’s my penence: a black and white conversion from a D300 image. When I grabbed it this afternoon in the overcast light, I saw it as monochrome, so I immediately converted it.

This with the much maligned Nikon 24-120mm zoom, which I find sharpens up nicely.

DP2 Coming?

Parking Divide, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

Photokina is underway in Germany. It’s held every other year and is the worlds biggest photography equipment show. I’ve been uninvolved emotionally in the rumors and announcements so far because I’m pretty well satisfied with my three current systems- Leica M6ttl film/scan, Nikon D300 DSLR, and the Sigma DP1.

The DP1 is the problem child as I love the images it produces, like this one, but it’s responsiveness is the the worst I’ve ever had in a camera I used regularly. I switched away from Olympus to Nikon just because my E-1 was so pokey compared to a Nikon, but the DP1 is much, much worse. I work around it, but I’d love a replacement that actually let me adjust shutter speed, aperture or ISO more frequently than every 10 seconds.

It’s rumored that a DP2 with a 40mm equiv lens will be shown tomorrow. I’ll wait to see whether they’ve improved on the electronics before committing. If they have, I’ll probably add it to the DP1, since 40mm is a very natural focal length for the way I see– as the 24mm on the Nikon DX (36mm equiv) is a favorite of mine.

The other camera I want to see is, maybe surprisingly, the Minox “spycam” due out tomorrow: Minox DSC/

I loved the sharp, infinite depth of field of the Minox film cams. If they can do something similar with a digital, I’d be interested in using it as yet another way of seeing.

So far the Nikon D700 sounds great and if didn’t already have the D300, I might have gone for it. For now though the extra cost doesn’t get me anything other than shifting focal lengths up and making my one DX lens (the 12-24mm f/4) less usable. I’m OK wide with the the D300 and the low light sensitivity is good enough for me now.

The micro 4/3rds cameras from Olympus and Panasonic may turn out to be great, but the Panasonic is larger than the DP1. I’ll wait to see whether we get something smaller and more capable than the DP1. But that DP1 Foveon image quality will be hard to beat without new sensor technology.

So I’m kind of sitting out this round for now, trying to make images.

No Plan

Action, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

This is an image that had no intent to it. I was photographing my son as he slid down a slide in these cascading pools, working on how to set shutterspeed and pan to capture him sharply amid the rushing water. In this frame he was out of site more or less (that’s him at the far left of the frame) but the image is striking.

Favored Focal Lengths

The Conversation, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

This is an image captured with the Nikon 105mm Micro VR. It’s a beautifully sharp lens. This was handheld at 1/60th sec at f/5.

As I’ve looked through some of these images, I’ve begun to realize why I like the wide lens of the Sigma DP1 and why the 24mm f/2.8 spends so much time on the Nikon DSLR.

This image shows it well. The knothole in the tree on the right is nice and sharp. But the near side of the knot on the left is out of focus enough to bother me. The depth of field of the 105mm is just too shallow for my favored look. When I use the 24mm and move in close to frame at an aperture of f/5 the depth of the two trees would be fully in focus.

It may be that I’m better off without the 24-120mm lens because of typical subject matter and desire for deeper focus. At the very least I need to work toward bracketing apertures to better judge how much I need to stop down to successfully capture this kind of image.

Landscape in Miniature

Landscape in Miniature, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

I’ve finally ranked the images from my New Hampshire vacation now almost 3 weeks later. I really felt kind of blocked and detatched from the image making, largely because I felt that I had a low number of captures and an even lower yield of good images out of the collection. I hope to work through them steadily as I probably have about 30 images worth the effort of post processing.

It’s almost like a loss of faith or confidence that in the end one or two of these images will be standouts. I think that my eye is much more critical of technical flaws, leaving me unimpressed with so many images. Of course that should only lead to better images in the future.

Training Goals

Topping Out Tuckerman’s, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

One of my main goals for fitness is to be able to undertake something like this hike. While it was a physical challenge, I had cardiovascular fitness, endurance and strenght from my cyclilng. None of it was as specific as months spent on hiking trails, but enough to match my 15 year old son’s endurance at least. By the way, that’s him at the top of the ravine, posing very nicely for the image.

Here’s the Google Earth projection of the GPS track up the mountain.

Back from Vacation

Tuckermans Ravine Trail, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

I’m back from 2 weeks in New England, mostly staying in our favorite campground, Glen Ellis in Glen New Hampshire.

My single most important goal was to climb Mount Washington with my 15 1/2 year old son. It was a cool day and I took the Sigma DP1 as a light, landscape capable small camera. It performed well.

My photographic output wasn’t very prolific, but there are still about 800 images to sort and rate.

Color Fatigue

Facing Wall, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

My eyes seem to need a break from these summer colors. So I went back into the archives. This was captured in Georgetown near Washington, DC.

The “micro 4/3rds” news is very exciting. Olympus and Panasonic announced that they are working together on a new specification for a lens mount which uses the same sensor size as the DSLR 4/3rds mount but does away with the mirror box for more compact cameras.

This opens up the possibility of a compact with interchangable lenses and a large sensor. Leica could use it for a rangefinder focusing camera, perhaps even with automated rangefinding. There’s the possibilty of autofocus based on infrared or other optical systems as the film Olympus Stylus Epic or Contax G2 used.

I would probably give up the Sigma DP1 for a new camera with a more responsive operating characteristic as long as the image quality was at least as good as the current crop of the 4/3rds DSLRs. Of course, I’d rather have a similar compact from Nikon that would slot into my current workflow and provide Nikon image quality.

Back to the Hay Fields

Hay Field Sunset, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

I’ve been out a few more times capturing these local fields. They are visually interesting to me, but are hard to photograph since the forms and shapes are so organic and random.

When you’re standing in front of a sunset, it takes much more insensitivity than I have to just ignore it. And after all, the view is part of the process of going out to these suburban farms and sunset was the light source after all. Maybe I can think of this image as documentary rather than cliche. Maybe I want to show that I could take conventional images if I wanted to. It’s just that I’m more interested in this view of the field:

Notes

Just like Vincent Versace’s DVD, here’s a quick take on how rapidly Capture NX2 can transform an image by a working photographer:

Moose Peterson D3 Instructional Videos: “Take a quick look at what Moose thinks are the cool new features of NX2 that he uses everyday”

Of course, the passion and vision come first:

Functional Path Training: Seth Godin’s Post Today: “Does it matter? Hopefully this will make those of you that are still hung up on tools and exercises think!”

And my nomination for the best app for the iPhone 2.0 software: Pandora. Personalized internet radio in your pocket. It actually works over Edge most of the time. I began to see why some say that satellite radio has no future.