Another DOH! moment

I had a review for you all this week, it was a rare NC cigar, I thought it was a Padilla piramide shape, but when I guugled that name to get the actual title, specs, etc, the bands did not match up.  It is a very well-known name in NC cigars, it was a double banded stick with a red second band and we wouldn't even be having this discussion but for the fact that I was getting ready to go back down to NO for some more camera safari action, and I formatted the card that had the pics of the cigar in progress that I took to support the  review.  But I saved the bands and photographed those, and FORMATTED THAT TOO!  Luckily I still have the bands somewhere at the house, but I am leaving for NO from work today, so it will be Monday before I can get the review up....no, that's not true, I can tell you now, it was nice and strong, not too rich, but certainly enjoyable.  It was all dark coffee and rich leather and a hint of creaminess on the tongue.  The band featured a script name, progressing upwards at a 30degree angle from the bottom left corner of the band, and I think it was on an oval background, oriented left to right as opposed to up and down.  It is killing me that I do not know what it is, I think Hugh M. gave it to me 2 years ago at the Shack, and it is the general dimensions of a Monte No.2.

More to come on this mystery, I guess, lol.

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Edited to tell you that I was right, it WAS a Padilla, a Capa Habano 2010 Series.  I liked it a lot, I am still not a big fan of Non-Cuban tobacco, although i was for the early decades of my smoking life.  But i like any cigar that someone gives me, and I enjoyed the overall performance VERY much, and the flavor was not bad at all.  I only seem to prefer the soft and subtle flavors of havana tobacco to the point of exclusion of the other types.  I had two of these, so thanks to Hugh M. and the other nice person who gave me this on the same day.

Start Up Short - (2007 Partagas Short)

Eventually, even the most jaded of you would admit, I was going to have to start up the smoking part of this blog again.  And so it began today that I eased back into it with what is actually just another photo walk.  I had been testing so many used, ole skool lenses, and I began to think that maybe my cameras were so old as to be virtually useless.  I mean I rarely came home with anything that made me say, "Dang, this camera was a real upgrade to my years of point and shoots."  I HAD better lenses, but they were a known quantity, they were "quality glass".  I had no reason to test them on photo walks.  But that known part was mostly in my mind.  I had not really tested them outside of the bar shots I had with the girls from last month.  

So tonight I pulled out a damaged-wrapper Partagas Short, cut it and lit it.  I slapped on the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 and took a shot of it indoors with the flash for the before shot.  

Almost too little depth of field...the foot of the cigar is out of focus, lol.  But this is a cigar review, let's not get caught down in the weeds.  I took my short walk route down the Greenway, past the flower beds that are stunningly late in being cranked up this year, considering it is 80 degrees out there.  There were only a few flowers up, tulips they were, and a precious few of them to boot.

The cigar was strong and creamy, with plenty of spice and nuance.  As most of you know, I do not think a walk cigar is very good review cigar.  It is hard to get subtle flavors hidden in the smoke when you are exerting, and a good walk should always be an exertion.  But for the early part of the cigar, things were going pretty good

It was only when I got down to the middle of the smoke that it began to show the harsh and tarry notes that characterize a walking smoke in my experience.  Until that happened, I was able to pick out some distinct cherry notes, a strong belt of leather and red pepper with some jalapeno starkness, and occasional notes of cream and mint.  I realized quickly just how long it had been since I smoked a cigar.

But after that point, it was mostly downhill.  Wind, huffing and an exercisers general lack of ability to hold in a breath long enough to detect nuance led to a cigar that did not really have any pleasure associated with it.  I am sure that had I sat down on a bench for the second half, things would have been very different.  But that was not to be on this particular evening.  I held onto it and smoked it to the band, but the last third was not very good.  Still, under the circumstances this was a very good smoke.  Perfectly aged, very well behaved, and lets face it, a welcome change to the new 'photography blog' this has become of late.  All in all, a worthy smoke for a warm and pleasant evening.

IGNORING the fact that it was only half good, I will give the first half an 85, and let the second half be what it was.  And lest you think that I have totally reformed, here is a pretty flower.

One More Photo Post Before We Smoke....

OK, we are almost back to cigars.  I even took three cigars with me to New Orleans.  I didn't SMOKE them, but I HAD them in the bag.  I had a funeral in Baton Rouge, and since I had to ride for 6 hours just to get there, I took all of my camera bodies and a few good lenses and drove down to the French Quarter to shoot some pics.  Why burn all the gas and time and not get some great photos out of the deal?

I parked on the street on Esplanade Avenue on the east boundary of the French Quarter and waded into the sea of humanity that was a perfect day in New Orleans.  I REALLY should have ponied up the cash for a motel room outside of town to ensure another day just like this one, to shoot twice as much stuff, enjoy twice as much perfect weather, see twice as much skin from the ladies, all smiling and happy to be there and enjoying the world-class sights, sounds and smells of New Orleans.  And the 10-20mm lens just dazzled me.

There were SO MANY PEOPLE in the quarter, and in most cases, I just tried to frame them OUT, but it is all part of the ambiance that was so pervasive, around every corner there was something going on.

The sky was so blue and perfectly laced with clouds, so as to add such a great dimension to the photos.

I have to get down there again as soon as possible, before the heat gets out of control.  I can skip the whole summer without a second thought IF I GET IT DONE NOW.  The weather forecast merely needs to get close to what it was this weekend and I am IN THE CAR, and I am definitely staying overnight next time.  SO much to shoot, everywhere I turned.  I have always loved New Orleans, and specifically the Quarter.  But even growing up there did not allow me the enjoyment I got out of it yesterday.  I got to see the city in a new way, as a 'tourist'.  Because I guess after all, I WAS a tourist.  I felt so much of what I imagine other visitors feel, even down to the guy that came up to this dude with two big ol cameras and said "I bet you a dolla I can tell you where you got yo shoes.."  I told him, "wow, you really KNOW that I got my shoes on St. Peter St. in the French Quarter?"  he said "aw, man, ain't nobody gonna put nuttin pass you."  but I tracked him back down after I took my picture and said, "yo man, here's the dollar for trying.  That gotcha is SO OLD, you deserve credit for even TRYING it in 2013."  We girl-watched for a few minutes and made some small talk and went our separate ways.

I had a bit of exposure trouble out of my Nikon D100, but the D70 worked without a hitch.

What a great day.  I miss you already, darling.

To New Orleans I will Go.....

I have a funeral to attend this weekend, in Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
I have been running from city to city seems like every weekend for two months.  In reality I have had 2 of 8 weekends off to loaf around and do 'nothing'.  Nothing is relative, I have no wife, husband, kids or anyone to do my housework for me, all that stuff gets done on the weekend.  But this weekend, I am out of town again, and with a plan to head from the Memorial Service straight out the door to New Orleans to shoot and smoke around the city.  In all the world I am not sure there is a more interesting city to photograph than New Orleans.  There are older cities, there are cities richer in architecture, prettier people, cleaner vistas.  But the combination of culture and history in that city just beg to be recorded with a camera.  

This week I have rooted through all of the ice chests to see what is what.  Seems like I no longer know WHAT I have outside of a few boxes that I have had forever and have almost never been opened.  I have so many boxes with 8 of these, ten of those, 4 of that size, blablabla.  I opened up EVERYTHING last night and took a lot of notes.  I came up with a 2007 Partagas Short to smoke, it had a torn wrapper.  So I will smoke that for sure.  I am also hankering for a big ole Esplendido.  So I think I will bring one of those along, too.  I have a few things I have wanted to shoot for some time, and there is always the element of discovery.  The weather looks like its gonna be perfect, so we will see how it goes!

Bit of a Conundrum..Liga Privada or Punch Churchill

I think Hugh gave me this last summer, I say this because it would seem a foregone conclusion that I would smoke the havana.  But there is a chance it will be the the hard core choice of many other smokers.  I don't smoke many of these Drew cigars anymore, just no time.  But the ones I have smoked have been very thoughtfully blended.  Nice smokes.  So it IS a bit harder choice than it would seem, and the weather is batshit today...GUSTY winds, 40-50-60 mph from the SW.  SO it might be warmer in air temp, it is still a tough smoke outdoors.  I might get away with one indoors today, since it is 'warm out there', mid 50s I guess.  Warm enough to flush smoke out of the house and not freeze in the process.

Went out today and shot some pics with this last new wrinkle of my overall plan to dominate the world through cameras.  I love the world that you see through a wide angle lens.  It reminds me of looking through a viewfinder and roaming the eye around in this square little world, reading what I can around it's periphery, trying to see what the camera claims its doing.  You have to get right up close to what you want to shoot, or there is really no shot.  The Sigma 10-20mm ultra-wide angle lens is fairly accurate in how it presents the world, with just a little linear distortion, which most photographers would say they prefer, to enhance the other-worldly quality of their results.  This is not something you use to go show someone how straight you are building their house.  But if you don't use a ruler to measure lines in your little world, then you can take this lens and create pictures that force a viewer to confront them.    In a private world, where people are doing candid street photography with a 200mm lens from across the street to capture private little moments in the lives of others, this lens tells you that if you want to see anything, you had better go introduce yourself to it.

  
Well HEY there, Queen Amidala, I didn't mean to catch you getting out of the tub, but I wondered if you could help me straighten something out..."

I went back to shoot some more pictures behind this bar, and was shocked at how far away I had to stand to get anything substantial in my shot.  I had been so spoiled by the field of view in ONE DAY, that I couldn't live without it.

I could take a picture of something intimate without having to wait for people to move.  Furthermore, if the background was no problem, I could get lazy with the framing and leave a ton of red bricks in the photo, or I could fill the frame with graffiti.

I tried this shot again the next day and I had to stand IN THE STREET to frame it only a little wider than this.  In this particular frame, I am standing a foot from this brick wall.  Man that lens is capable.  Which is why I really have to smoke a cigar, to celebrate the end of me buying cameras and camera-related accouterments.  I hope I never spend another cent on metal and glass, just relax in a zone where everything used somehow miraculously manages to stay intact in my hands and take great pictures until I pass it on to someone else, and on and on until it no longer functions in a world that has passed it by.  Now, to see if I can take a great picture.  For tomorrow the ninjas may take my camera.

More Testing

My sister is getting anxious now.  She feels like the Nikon D70 is going to take any joy out of taking photos that she may have NOW prior to taking delivery.  I will say that it has been a challenge to squeeze anything out of this camera that makes sense.  But this is like the first WHEEL, or the first cell phone.  It might have been cool in Miami Vice days to hold up a shoe-sized cell phone to your temple and fry your brain, but if you wanted to call ahead and order lunch, you had to break some eggs.  Everything about digital SLR cameras has gotten more sophisticated since the introduction of this model.  But this is what makes it fun for me.  It would have been fun for my DAD, too.  He would KNOW why more megapixels doesn't mean a thing to a person with skill at taking nice photos.  

But there IS the little quirk or two, 1.) metering that is good but hardly consistent.  Pointing and shooting and NOT checking to see what just happened is not wise.  2.) The camera is inconsistent in color and contrast.  For every session, you will need to establish that the camera is set up well enough to get a usable product out if it.  Nothing more than a few test shots, hell, they're free.  But both things are manageable and in a way, make you think more about what you really WANT to have as your result.  I think it will be MORE OR LESS point and shoot, but with better image quality.

With all that in mind (and with a promise to get back to CIGARS in a week or so) I shot some photos getting out of the car at 6:50 am at work.  The battery has since died and is not allowing me to fire the shutter now, so LUNCHTIME shots are not happenin.  But outside of the fact that I did not set ANY camera settings, this is ABOUT what I saw this morning.  The white balance is off, not sure how easy it is to for the camera's brain to AUTO white before the sun comes up...it gets a pass.  If I had set up a SPOT metering, I could have kept that sky from closing the iris down.  I think I needed to meter in the darker areas.  But the CAMERA and its designers wanted me to have access to the lovely nuances in the sky, I guess.

I turned around and fired off a second shot, this one much better exposed to the TRUE light conditions.  The color and overall feel are as I saw it.  Had I taken the time to white balance, it would have been nicer, but I don't guess that affects the levels, so ehh, again, this is how my morning eyes saw it for the most part.  And to be honest, everywhere I have taken the camera, I have come back with something useful.  I just have to shoot a lot more to ENSURE
that I have SOMETHING.  Its ALL gonna be fine, sis.  

And then I got into the office and set up the camera on a tripod to see if I could eliminate any camera movement and see JUST how sharp the lens could be if I wasn't there shaking it.  But then I decided I would play a little long exposure fun and games....

  I was pleased with the camera's handling of the lighting in this 4 sec. or so exposure.  And it certainly looks sharp enough.  But til I test it out again tonight, ehh, I am just posting to entertain and inform my sister.  But soon more cigars, I promise.

And lest I forget, her son just accepted a full tuition scholarship to the institution of his choice, well, provided he chooses the school that offered it, anyway.  I am impressed that a modern youth has the give-a-crap to survive today's education system and come out in demand by colleges everywhere.  Well DONE C-man.  Got yourself a free camera with that one, lol.

testing, testing....

As you already know, or if you are arriving late, you will find out NEXT, reading downward, I have been testing a couple of 'new' old Nikon D70s, and its as if I have NO SKILL whatsoever in shooting photos with a camera of any kind.  Consistently over-exposed, terrible color, etc.  But then I am finding that it is rarely a lost cause with some adjustments in Photoshop, and I am getting the feeling that a lot of what we see in 'modern digital cameras' is a decade of learning by the industry to sweeten the image very effectively in camera before you ever see it.  This old D70 is right there on the cusp of technology where digital began.  These almost-large sensors were housing large pixels and could take great photos (in 2003) that rival anything you see for amateurs today, but the software packed in to it for turning this old sensor's light input into imagery has come a long way since 2003.  Everybody is tweaking everything now.  And when you get everything right, you get good shots in the camera.  If you get one or two tiny things wrong, you have to seriously work with Photoshop to get levels and colors to look the way you saw them.

I know this is not cigar related, but my sister sometimes reads this, and one of the cameras is hers now, so finally figuring out how to make it take a good picture and then handing it to her and saying LOOK OUT, this camera is insane, is important to me.  Mostly I just share my dejection at looking like a rank amateur instead of a career picture creator.  So here is about the last pic I took in my camera tests, and there was no sun bouncing into the camera, I seem to have hit the exposure properly, with no exposure compensation dialed in...nothing done or not done by me to destroy the camera's effort to make me look good.

Interesting dynamic range.  Interesting to also see that the camera IS CAPABLE of not taking crap-ass pictures.  Now I just need to find the circumstances under which it is willing to do so.

Then there is this one that I took not because I like to take flower pictures, just like everybody who gets a digital camera and runs out of ideas after they buy 5 lenses, but because the Camelia is such a difficult flower to see in a beautiful state just with your eyes.  But to find one and have a digital camera in hand is a little miracle.  The Camelia does nothing but die ugly from the moment it blooms.  You don't get the week or two of slow and graceful aging of a rosebud.  It pops open and then every insect in town tramples all over it and it gets brown spots in mere hours, turns brown all over in a few days, and then hangs on in disgusting brown and white clumps until a strong enough rain comes and knocks them off.  

Not only did the camera handle the light, it handled the color.  it looks really nice there.  And then I saw a coupla hipster girls duck into the local market for some beers, and left their bikes all by themselves.

I had to do some tweaking in Photoshop on this one, it hatched from the camera too bright, not enough contrast.  I don't MIND tweaking in a program, but my sister might not think its very much fun, especially since her point and shoots do a much better job of hatching pics with proper brightness, contrast and saturation already baked in.  I don't think I lost a lot of info in bringing down the brightness here, but who knows.  In the end, the pic works for me, and so does the camera.  But I could see getting my butt in a crack and not getting a shot I want because I am not lucky enough to have figured out what the meter is trying to tell me I am doing.  We'll see, I don't have to turn it over til Easter.  I can still figure out why I suck at pitcher takin.