With a great moral issue involved, neutrality does not serve righteousness; for to be neutral between right and wrong is to serve wrong.
Theodore Roosevelt
Author: photog
Tom’s World – 04APR2026 – Photography – Depth of Field Preview
The picture I posted is of an old late 70’s era lens for a film camera. It looks a little grungy but I haven’t touched it in well over 20 years.
This lens has a feature that all lenses had at the time but not any more and I don’t know why. It is called “depth of field preview”. This is set up at f4. See the 2nd ring out from the body? It has the straight vertical orange line with the little 4, 8, 11, 16 on each side of the vertical. Notice that the lens is now focused between 10 and infinity (meters). Now look down at the 4’s on each side of the orange vertical. They show that the camera will be focused from around 10 meters to infinity. That explains your shot above.
The DOF preview also tells you that if you were shooting f16, you would be focused from roughly 4 meters to infinity.
To this day I miss this feature. But I guess that it requires too much thinking (read any) for today’s public.
UPDATE:
I should mention that this camera is a Canon AE 1 from sometime in the late 70’s. It was an auto exposure (AE) but you still got to set ISO and shutter speed, and not to mention focus vis a split image distance finder.
(Quick historical aside: split image was the principle optical range finding method for most naval gunnery prior to radar. If you’ve ever seen the zagged warship camouflage paint schemes from WWI and up to mid-war WWII, the purpose was to defeat or eliminate the effectiveness of split image range finding. It gives you no clear planes to match up.)
I had a main camera before the AE1, a Nikon F1, a pure manual camera though it did include a “match needle” for setting shutter and f stop. Before match needles, we had to carry a light meter on a cord around our necks. Things were definitely manual but that meant that you had to have an understanding of all of the elements involved and how they related.
I learned to shoot with my Dad’s single shot 1934 depression era .22 bolt action. No magazine. In order to shoot, you had to, open the bolt, take a single .22 round, insert it in the chamber. close the bolt, pull back the firing pin, aim and fire. Just like having to set all the elements of a photograph, this little production meant that the shooter had no instant backup and had to think about about what he was doing, and understand.
I remember trying to teach my stepson how to shoot with a Ruger 10-22, an autoloader. The 1 lesson was a disaster. With all the easy backup rounds, he had no motivation to absorb the elements that go into a successful shot and just start spraying to little effect. All further lessons until he was a fundamental shooter were with Dad’s old Winchester single shot. Or as I was later pounded into us in the Marine Corp, “sight alignment, trigger squeeze”. I already knew but I did qualify Expert using a M14.
Successful photography is a balancing lesson between a number of variables. Until you learn those variables, one by one and how they interrelate——–
An Honest Review
In the last few days, I’ve been getting a few more reviews on Amazon for the “The Sniper.” And today I got my first somewhat negative comments. Take a look.
4.0 out of 5 stars Uneven political thriller good for a slow day
Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2026
Format: Kindle
The Sniper is a good, but uneven political thriller.
It’s not particularly deep, but entertaining. I liked the plot. I liked most of the characters.
The lack of a star was in the author’s (and maybe the editor’s) lack of basic writing. While the beginning of the novel is a great premise, the lack of detail is astonishing. It’s like someone describing a video game, but just the broad strokes. I read for the details.
The other nitpicky thing is that the basics of prose dialogue is ignored entirely. An exchange between two characters is all one paragraph. And then there’s the commas (or lack thereof). It’s the classic of “Is it Thanksgiving or cannibalism?”
It’s a casual read. If you can read past the details, the general plot is pretty good.
Very interesting.
The Good:
- The Sniper is a good … political thriller.
- … entertaining. I liked the plot. I liked most of the characters.
- … the beginning of the novel is a great premise
- … the general plot is pretty good
The Bad:
- … uneven
- It’s not particularly deep
- … the lack of detail is astonishing. It’s like someone describing a video game, but just the broad strokes. I read for the details.
- If you can read past the details
The Ugly:
- The other nitpicky thing is that the basics of prose dialogue is ignored entirely. An exchange between two characters is all one paragraph. And then there’s the commas (or lack thereof). It’s the classic of “Is it Thanksgiving or cannibalism?”
Yes, very interesting. First of all, this is honest criticism. This fellow doesn’t know me from Adam and he doesn’t owe me anything. That’s valuable to someone who wants to know whether his writing is any good. So, look at the things he likes; “entertaining. I liked the plot. I liked most of the characters.” Those are the most important basics of a story. That’s pretty good.
Look at the criticism; “uneven, not particularly deep, lack of details are astonishing.” He wants more! Okay, that’s a problem. This reader probably wants lots more technical description. So, in terms of the mining equipment and the technology for collapsing the earth under a city he wants the details. Fair enough. Well, there will be sequels and we can get that stuff fleshed out to satisfy the technical type. But since this book was about Bogey and he wasn’t a technical guy, I left that stuff aside. When Connors and Cutter get their stories, I’ll geek out on the details. So that’s okay.
Now for the ugly, I’m guessing that the reviewer was an author or an editor himself. I decided not to use a professional proofreader/editor for the book. I felt comfortable with the level of standard English I could provide. The reviewer is obviously very sensitive to the conventions of professional editing. And that’s legitimate but I’m guessing a lot of my readers won’t be as sensitive to that level of editorial finish.
So, I’m pretty happy with that review. I got an honest review and four out of five stars is pretty damn good news. So, I’m hoping to get a bunch more reviews and who knows I might even get an honest 3 stars from someone. I can take it.
28MAY2019 – Quote of the Day
Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.
Theodore Roosevelt
04APR2026 – Photo of the Day
Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 03APR2026 – Photo
This was shot in the experimental Aircraft section of the Museum of the USAF.
Details of the shot are that it was shot on a Canon EOS Rebel using a 28 MM lens af F4 1/60th second exposure ISO 800 handheld
The view looks out from the Valkyrie Cafe. The large aircraft in the foreground is the last example of the XB-70 Valkyrie bomber. Also in the frame are the YF-12 (an interceptor variant of the SR71/A-12), two gemini capsules including the Air Force Blue Gemini prototype (never flown) 2 X-24 lifting bodies (famous from the opening sequence of 6 Million Dollar Man), and barely visible to the far right at the back is an X-15.
IMG_0062.JPG
I am a bit surprised that I got as much depth of field as I did at F4, but I was shooting in shutter priority mode as I didn’t think I could hand hold it much below 1/60th
Alone or Unique?
There are several YouTube channels that use an AI generated voice and image of Richard Feynman (Feynman Reborn, Think Like Feynman, Physics with Feynman) to discuss scientific topics; physics, astronomy, technology, etc.). Now this does seem a little weird. Why use the AI simulation of a scientist whose heyday was eighty years ago? But if you watch a few of them you realize that Feynman’s voice has a very natural and unpretentious style and the authors have tried to match his approach of making the mysteries of science accessible to people who don’t possess sophisticated technical expertise. Whether he’s explaining quantum mechanics or the impact of mass to energy conversion in a fission reaction, his reasonable, clear speaking style is highly engaging.
Today I was watching a video in which he took the position that the chances of us ever receiving a message from another intelligent civilization travelling around another star was basically zero. Now, he wasn’t dogmatic. He freely admitted that the calculations involved contained at least four or five variables that no one really knows the correct probability of. In other words, how do you determine what the “average” length of time that a technological civilization lasts? Ours has lasted at most a few hundred years. But even that is not a real data point. We still don’t have a way to “send” a signal out to other star systems powerfully enough to be heard. And we definitely don’t know how long our civilization will last. So, each of the “factors” for figuring out how many interstellar civilizations there are is either somewhat speculative or just plain guessing. And by the end of the video, he was championing the case that we will never “hear” from anyone “out there.”
But what was nice was that he openly admitted that he had no authoritative proof and in fact negative proof would always be inconclusive. And he also said he would love very much to be proven wrong. I guess I’m really saying I like the way that the maker of the video remained humble in making his case. Of course, you could say he’s hiding behind the great man by using his image. But I will admit he’s picked a very good “spokesman” in Feynman.
And of course, this is all very timely with the recent opening of the very popular movie “Project Hail Mary.” Right now, “Rocky” is a box office star and everyone’s favorite intelligent extraterrestrial rock crab. But the fact that “Feynman” just told me that Rocky doesn’t exist and that we could never meet him doesn’t destroy the fun and excitement of the story. Because at the end of the video “Feynman” sums up the situation by saying that even if we are the only intelligent life in the whole cosmos that in no way takes away from the wonder of our existence. In fact, he counters that if we are unique that makes everything about us more astounding and everything around us more precious; the air, the warmth, the miraculous mechanism of life itself.
27MAY2019 – Quote of the Day
A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.
Theodore Roosevelt
03APR2026 – Photo of the Day
02APR2026 – This’N’That
So, Trump gave his war update. Well, he’s still the king of hyperbole. Everything is the biggest and the greatest. All the damage to Iran is total and catastrophic. And he went through the length of all the wars the US has fought in from WWI on and after mentioning how many years each of these wars lasted, he said that this war has been going for only one month. And then he said that it will only take another three weeks to finish bombing Iran into the “stone age.” Hmmm.
I hope he’s right. I don’t think staying in Iran for more than a few more weeks is going to help us. The financial damage will start to build up. And the chances of large-scale casualties keep growing. At this point if there is no interest on the part of the Iranian population to rise up against their government by armed insurrection then there isn’t a realistic way of ending the current regime that doesn’t involve an American ground invasion. So, blast all of the targets we can find and then declare victory and step back to our Middle East bases and block Hormuz and let the Iranians and the Chinese do without their money and oil respectively. In the meantime, the Europeans can buy Venezuelan oil (at an elevated price of course) and do without their cheap Chinese crap for the time being.
I saw that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the psychiatrist in Colorado who was practicing conversion talk therapy on LGBTQ adolescents versus Colorado’s ban of the procedure. Now that is interesting. That’s going to cause a lot of problems in blue states for sure. Good for the Court.
Now Trump is going to visit the Court during its consideration of whether his executive order banning citizenship to the children of illegal aliens (so-called birthright citizenship) is forbidden by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. I wonder if Trump will request to address the court during these procedures or whether he just wants to show solidarity with his legal team defending his executive order. Reading the news sites they all stress the fact that the initial questions from the Justices seemed extremely skeptical of the administration’s justification for the executive order. Well, of course the news sites are. They all lean to the Left and so they exhibit their preference in every way they can. But I’m not pessimistic about our chances. It’s pretty easy to see that the 14th Amendment was enacted to handle a very specific class of people, the former slaves and their descendants. How this would be relevant today is not in any way clear. Following the obvious intent is simple and if the Justices use logic, they can easily see that this intent does not extend to the children of people breaking the law by illegally entering this country. Of course, I may be overly hopeful about the courage of some of the Justices but I’m willing to hold onto my optimism until the decision is handed down.
Well, that’s enough for now.