This is an excellent Austrian tradition. The U8 or another young team joins the main team for their entrance to the field, once per season. It’s to encourage them to continue to play.

The exit is more exciting than the entrance when the energetic young players run off the field.

SC Kittsee could not get off to a better start. A neat couple of passes from the kickoff put Michael Wernecker in front of the UFC Pamhagen net where he promptly scored.

This time UFC Pamhagen keeper Libor Hrdlicka managed to trap the ball to prevent Kittsee from running away with the game early.

Johann Thüringer patrols the UFC Pamhagen sideline. In the blue shirt, linesman Harald Mahr. Under the SC Kittsee sign, trainer Manfred Wachter stands.

Juraj Fuska was in peak form for today’s match.

Neither back Stefan Andert nor keeper Libor Hrdlicka were able to stop Banovic’s booming shot.

Banovic’s hard shot slammed off the left post like a canon shot.

Juraj Fuska managed to leap over David Fleischhacker’s first late tackle. Fleischacker took better aim the second time. This is not good football.

It was nice to have guests at the game.

Mustafa Atik managed to isolate keeper Libor Hrdlicka a couple of times but was unable to push the ball past him.

Dietmann has a couple of good runs.

Alexander Andert is unable to stop Patrick Dietmann

Libor Hrdlicka had a rough afternoon with continuous action in front of his net from the opening whistle and goal. He did well to keep UFC Pamhagen in the game right until the end of regular time, giving up just a single goal.

More nasty tackling. Cards are coming.

Referee Erdem Sahin managed to keep the game going without attracting too much attention to his calls. What was a stroppy game did not descend into fisticuffs largely due to his calming influence. Still Sahin probably let too many late tackles pass in the early going, giving Pamhagen the impression they could keep tackling rough without consequence.

No one in II Liga Nord will outleap Sombat in full flight. Tamas Pirka and Christoph Koppi futilely try to slow Sombat down.

Bombicz joined the action late but made the most of his time with aggressive runs and long passes.

The last twelve minutes of regular time were extremely tense for Kittsee. SC Kittsee enjoyed the flow of play for the first half and the first part of the second half, but were unable to mark a second goal. When the ball spent ten minutes almost uninterrupted around the Kittsee net, it looked like Kittsee might be doomed to a late draw.

This is not how one wants to play out the last quarter of an hour a 1:0 game. High risk, low reward.

UFC Pamhagen were visibly frustrated in the second half and were willing to do anything, legal or illegal to attempt to even the score. Lots of risks were taken. Many brave Kittsee fans came out to face the rain (albeit from under the stands).

Here field captain Patrick Dietmann raises his hands in outrage, real or imagined. Three similar players from Pamhagen received yellow cards for hard tackling. Brothers Alexander Andert and Stefan Andert, and of course David Fleischhacker. Kittsee had no shortage of yellow cards, but mostly for complaining (Captain Michael Wernecker, alternate captain Tomas Bastian).

Desperate hard play was going to end badly for UFC Pamhagen sooner or later. Erdem Sahin had enough of watching Pamhagen knock Soltani to the ground three plays in a row. Another yellow.

Alexander Andert had forgotten about the yellow card he’d earned early in the game. There were three UFC Pamhagen who deserved red: Alexander Andert, David Fleischhacker and Stefan Andert. Alexander Andert’s number came up.

Alexander Andert ripped off his shirt and cursed the crowd, the Kittsee players and the referee Erdem Sahin in a shocking display of poor sportsmanship. The scene was genuinely very exciting. The temperature does not often run so high, particularly in cold spring rain.

Right after Alexander Andert’s sending off, Jozef Sombat slipped behind the Pamhagen defenders and had a chance to move past keeper Libor Hrdlicka but missed his shot.

Sombat’s clinching goal at 90 minutes, with Pamhagen keeper Libor Hrdlicka way out of position. Jozef Sombat was not going to miss on his second chance. David Fleischhacker cannot catch Sombat.

Tobias Wisak, Jaroslav Machovec, Tomas Banovic rush to congratulate Sombat. The pressure is finally off, as a 2:0 lead at the end of regular time is relatively secure.

Jaroslav Machovec is stoked. SC Kittsee is on its way to third place in the league despite a slow start to the season.

I’ve rarely seen a post-game handshake as tense as this one. Pamhagen mostly did not want to shake our hands. Field captain Patrick Dietmann exchanges harsh words with Manuel Schopf.

With both Tomas Bastian and Michael Wernecker substituted out, Dietmann wore the captain’s yellow armband. Bastian explains that the captain’s role is to prevent a brawl breaking out, not to instigate one. Manuel Schopf and Stefan Andert glare as they leave the field. Mustafa Atik and Jaroslav Machovec clap the fans in the background. The joy of winning and the despair of defeat.

An earlier double yellow might have cooled temperatures earlier. It would have been easy to call but ten men would have been the end of the game for UFC Pamhagen. Should Sahin have made the difficult call? We’ll never know. No matter what decision a referee makes, he will always face criticism. The hardest and most unloved job in the world.

Wolfgang Leyrer lends Bence Orszagh a shoiulder. It’s always tragic when a player suffers serious injury. When tempers flare, sadly injuries are often the result. II Liga Nord games should always remain neighbourly. There’s no highly paid injured reserve for any of us. We all have our main jobs to which to return.

SC Kittsee came out of the gate very flat. What was wrong with our game:

• timing: first game of the season, passes were not arriving where and when expected. Or the forwards did not arrive where the passes did. Take your pick.
• injuries: three of our best players were not available though this derby is the first game of the season.
• fitness: timing and injuries is forgivable. Unfortunately most of our squad were unable to keep up with UFC Pama throughout the game. UFC Pama has a fairly young team and SC Kittsee may be the oldest in II Liga Nord. They outran us.

Endurance is the last of the athletic qualities to fade away, lasting into the forties. But it does require training. A few SC Kittsee players look like they enjoyed too merry a Christmas season. Coach Manfred Wachter must find a way to persuade these gentlemen to run more and train more.

That said, the sharp and fit UFC Pama squad did not acquit themselves perfectly either. Despite dominating SC Kittsee who showed no prowess in attack at all in the first half, they only took a 1:0 lead into half time. A focused and determined home squad should have been up at least 2:1 or 3:1 in the face of such a toothless attack. This left the gate open for a late comeback from SC Kittsee, which nearly happened in the last fifteen minutes.

Deliberately dirty tactics also discoloured the UFC Pama play. Leader of the cheat-to-win brigade was Peter Gallus but it was the overall approach of UFC Pama. Faced with stricter refereeing, UFC Pama might have been down two men or faced a penalty shot. UFC Pama did not need to stoop to these tactics to win this game. Outrunning and outplaying SC Kittsee would have been more than enough this afternoon. Playing clean and playing for the win would almost certainly have led to a better result and less risk than the grabby tactical UFC Pama gameplan.

UFC Pama got out to an early lead.

At the 8 minute mark, Erik Micovcak put his shot past Manuel Schiszler in the only game of the match. Expectations were high this spring in Kittsee, with most of a very talented squad returning and some good new players coming into the fold. You can see the shock on the crowd’s face (the camera faces the visitor stands) as the early ball flies into the net.

Goal scorer Erik Micovcak formerly played in the top Czech league and has the full sleeve arm tattoos to prove it. Micovcak gave the Kittsee defence and middle field trouble all over afternoon.

Andreas Fabsich is one of two giants on the UFC Pama squad with Raffael Förster. Both men tower over the rest of the players.

Alas no results

UFC Pama seem to have set themselves the task to stop SC Kittsee at any price. Holding, elbows to the head, leg kicks – there was no shortage of deliberate fouls, some subtle and some not.

Christoph Drobola played his heart out but had a tough afternoon. As a small slender player, UFC Pama’s wrestling, pokes and body checks today slowed him down. Here’s crushed between the twin giants Raffael Förster and Andreas Fabsich.

UFC Pama’s Christoph Werdenich had a good afternoon, making plays, breaking free in front of the net

Christoph Werdenich’s dangerous shot came close after the first goal. Werdenich rolls on the ground hoping for a penalty as Andreas Fabsich and Chistoper Drobola run towards the net.

A second UFC Pama goal would have almost ended the match, based on SC Kittsee’s ineffective attack today. Manuel Schiszler steps up and makes a big save, keeping the game close. Schiszler had to make several big saves.

Jaroslav Machovec was a beast on this day, leaping and smashing headers in front of the both the Kittsee and Pama nets. Sadly his timing with Jozef Sombat was badly off so all of the hard work came to naught.

This picture is in colour for reference: colour of uniforms, grass, light.

Martin Hajtmanek had quite a quiet afternoon, especially in the first half. Late in the game when he was tested, he was up to the occasion.

Peter Gallus tried to kick the legs out from under Mustafa Atik here. In honour of Gallus playing like a pirate all afternoon, let’s call him red beard. Atik took a nasty tumble on what was a promising dribble. A free kick was too light a reward for the tripping. Yellow card would have been more suitable. Gallus did finally get his yellow card at 31 minutes.

Fortunately Jaroslav Machovec was there to deflect Andreas Fabsich’s header, before keeper Manuel Schiszler grabbed the ball.

Christoph Drobola struggles to maintain his line on the ball against the very experienced and stronger Erik Micovcak

A scramble in front of the UFC Pama net looks promising, but UFC Pama successfully moves enough men in front of goal to defuse the attack.

Kittsee did not have many chances and when we did, the timing on our fine passing was well off. Manuel Oswald is cut off by Raffael Förster. Referee Arif Erdem looks on.

Peter Gallus’s sharp elbow almost ended Tomas Bastian’s afternoon. Bastian was laid on the field for five minutes.

Kittsee trainer Radovan Liska runs to resuscitate Tomas Bastian after Peter Gallus’s elbow to the head. Referee Arif Erdem looks on. Gallus certainly should have received a second yellow card and a red card after this unprovoked attack.

From the tragic to the sublime. One of the UFC Pama spectators dog likes to play soccer too.

Even after the players recuperate the ball, the dog does not give up. People are having fun running after a round rolly ball and the dog doesn’t see why he should have to spend the afternoon bored on the sidelines.

Kittsee newcomer Manuel Oswald heads the ball away from UFC Pama giant Andreas Fabsich.

Kittsee’s Said Soltani and UFC Pama’s Markus Fabsich compete for a loose ball. Fabsich is a fierce competitor and has the jump on Soltani.

Said Soltani gets there just before Markus Fabsich. The robust Fabsich prepares to knock Soltani off the ball.

Instead Said Soltani times a perfect and legal arm to the shoulder Markus Fabsich, sending the larger Fabsich sprawling to the ground.

Said Soltani is now chased by Samuel Homola. Fierce Markus Fabsich can’t believe that Soltani has sent him to the turf.

Samuel Homola can’t catch Soltani from the front, and instead has to pull hard at his arm from behind. Homola’s holding strategy works and Soltani finally loses control of the ball. No whistle or free kick from referee Arif Erdem alas.

Animated Kittsee Assistant Coach Oto Honz shouts in frustration at the non-stop holding from UFC Pama and even more by referee Arif Erdem’s failure to see this holding and dirty play.

Erdem shows Honz first a yellow card and then a red. The red came when Honz shouted “Danke” when Erdem showed him the yellow card. In a relatively dull second half, the hot action on the sideline brought some fireworks to the day. Exciting derby life!

Jaroslav Machovec played like a man possessed, here taking control in front of the UFC Pama net. Martin Hajtmanek manages to block Machovec’s hard header, preventing a late tie.

This time Peter Gallus makes a clean play on the ball, outjumping substitute Michal Belko in front of the UFC net very late in the game as Said Soltani looks for a chance with Markus Fabsich holding his arm and UFC Pama keeper Martin Hajtmanek watches the ball carefully.

SC Kittsee did manage to press late.

At 89 minutes Andreas Fabsich kicks the ball into the bushes which Michal Belko was trying to retrieve for a header. Bearded Juraj Fuska is running after the ball in the bushes in the background.

Fabsich earns a well-deserved yellow card from referee Arif Erdem for unsportsmanlike conduct. Surely Erdem just added thirty seconds to penalty time. What’s the point of this kind of dirty play?

Bence Bogar beats Jaroslav Machovec to the ball, thanks to the strong grip of Peter Gallus on Machovec’s elbow. Gallus makes just enough of a jump to prevent referee Arif Erdem from seeing what he’s up to.

Referees should watch Peter Gallus closely this season if he is bending the rules so hard in the first game. That said, I’m not all that troubled by Gallus’s behaviour. Apart from the elbow to Tomas Bastian’s face, there was no intention to injure, just to hinder. What makes me unhappy are players who play in this regional league to injure their neighbours. There’s no glory in hurting other players in any league, and even less when they are your neighbours and friends. Happily this was not one of those games.

Peter Gallus is back up to his tricks again. Here we can see Gallus reach for Jaroslav Machovec’s shoulder while the ball is in the air to make sure Machovec cannot compete for the header.

Andreas Fabsich and Markus Szegner chase Mustafa Atik. Atik played hard and had some chances on headers.

Kittsee players, trainers and fans all have a lot of questions for referee Arif Erdem. Clearly UFC Pama were sitting on their single goal, prepared to hold, trip and elbow to slow down the game. Erdem missed many of the fouls. While Erdem did hand out four yellow cards to UFC Pama, he avoided giving a second yellow to any single UFC player. In particular, Erdem failed to award a second yellow and red card to Peter Gallus. Normally Erdem has a keen eye and doesn’t let a game get out of hand. It’s also the first competive game for Erdem in three months.

SC Kittsee had all the chances in the world to win this game in the second half, as UFC Pama did not take advantage of Kittsee’s disarray on defence in the first half to score another goal or two. Then UFC Pama sat back in the second half instead of pushing forward hard.

Neither team deserves great credit for Sunday’s performance.

The newcomers like Adam Bombicz, Mustafa Atik and Roman Tarek have added much to the team, while Jozef Sombat continues to shine. SC Kittsee had many good chances (as the photos show) and FC Monchof had few. Still the team kept us anxious to the end, by holding just a single goal lead.

Kittsee stalwart fans watch with great interest from the far benches.

FC Monchof dodges a bullet here when Jozef Sombat is ruled offside. Theodor Koch raises his heavily tattoed arm is raised high to attract the ref.

Many Kittsee fans turned out for the early evening Mönchof game.

Kittsee newcomer Adam Bombicz enjoyed a superlative night, harrying the Monchof defence from everywhere.

Former Gattendorf player Roman Tarek has now joined the righteous. Happier to see him making headers for Kittsee than Gattendorf

One of many Kittsee penalty shots in a choppy game.

This dog wanted the ball very badly and scared everyone near the ball when the ball went into the sideline.

The future looks bright for Kittsee. There’s a huge swell of young people in Kittsee, joining the youth program of the football club or cheering for Kittsee as in this case.

These guys have a secret noise machine to drive both photographers and opposing keepers mad.

They look harmless but they are not

Here is the contraption close-up. It’s loud, it’s insistent, it’s just the touch of a button.

The Kittsee junior fan club are very happy with their new contraption. Very dedicated to their club.

Stefan Josef Könnyü had a busy night in net. He did well to only let in one goal.

Sebastian Iacovino-Protiwa hopelessly tries to stop the big man, even grabbing him.

This a sequence and a good save by Sebastian Iacovino-Protiwa.

Sebastian Iacovino-Protiwa times his drop just right.

Another unnecessary and scrappy yellow card for Skerlan’s large collection. Kittsee have to find a way to avoid unnecessary cards if this team is to flourish.

This is a sequence where Thomas Bastian just takes the ball away from the FC Monchof player

Thomas Bastian insinuates himself without fouling.

The Monchof player is now off the ball.

Bastian controls the header just where he likes.

Everyone stayed to the end as 1. it was a tight match. Only a single goal lead, it should have been larger. 2. There was a big party afterwards.

Despite the card, Skerlan had another good game.

Stefan Josef Könnyü is sprawled on the ground but somehow manages to stop Bombicz

This is a sequence. Note the hard shorts pull from Atik.

Luisser is angry about the foul, the referee didn’t see the clever hand of Atik. Atik feigns innocence.

Luisser come close to getting a penalty while Atik says who me? The referee wants them to play on. FC Monchof is not happy with the new hard scrabbling SC Kittsee team. It’s understandable.

FC Monchof dodge another bullet here.

Another Kittsee newcomer, Said Ashraf Soltani came off the bench to good effect, taking advantage of his fresh legs.

Phil wrote:

Nikon was LATE with all electronic mount, LATE with ultrasonic AF, LATE with electronic diaphragm, and they were LATE with image stabilization. More recently they were LATE with fluorite element teles, LATE with diffractive optics (Nikon calls these PF), LATE with blue-spectrum optics, LATE with silent stepper AF, etc etc. Canon pioneered most of those in the film SLR, DSLR and MILC eras. Their dual-pixel AF, silent-stepper AF and other tech in DSLRs with EF mount made Nikon an also-ran for DSLR usage for video for years, and up until this day. (And not a huge surprise really – Canon has been heavily involved in the Cine/Video field for many years, Nikon never showed much interest in it. Which is fine by me because I’m not much interested either, but it’s still a competitive issue nowadays.)

My initial answer talked mainly about legacy compatibility:

As ex-Canon, happy Nikon shooter (switched a couple of years ago), Canon tends to overpromise but then add a killer cripple feature in what would otherwise be good gear. The main vector was video – the Canon 5D III hardware was capable of shooting 4K RAW with Magic Lantern Firmware, but Canon’s version did not only not shoot 4K, the 1080p output was in fact 720p due to line dropping.

Canon promises and promises but is secretly lying to its users. The R5 and R6 are an attempt to repair that reputation but Canon botched even that with overheating fiasco.

Many of your charges against Nikon speak to how Nikon strives to maintain legacy compatibility. I’m really happy about that. I just wish Nikon would not change the eye piece specifications so often (I like the alternative finders and viewfinder hoods) and that Nikon would put out two alternative FTZ adapters.

1. compatible with AF-D screw driven lenses.
2. a smaller, narrower DX FTZ adapter to make the Z50 lower profile with a DX lens on it

Canon does have amazing colour science. I had to up my post-production game to be able to move to Nikon. Canon does have very durable cameras. Nikon D7xx/D8xx/D4/D5 cameras aren’t bad but look tatty long before a 5D x series camera does. Canon does have great after-sales service on the pro gear, even ten years down the line. You overpay but the equipment keeps working or Canon authorised service centres will get you back up and running at very reasonable prices.

Nikon can’t beat out Canon’s colour science (Nikon does have very good and very natural gradations so the situation isn’t bad unlike for Fuji which ends up looking like water colour or Sony which is a constant fight in post-production) but Nikon could certainly improve build quality, lens bags and improve after sales service.

Phil laments that Nikon trails in implementing new technology, although his praise of Canon’s early and hideous cost cutting has an air of Mark Antony’s praise of Caesar:

I was in the camera business when Canon made the EF switch, and my issue with many of the Canon models at that time was the ugly and cheap-feeling plastic body panels on many of them (in contrast to the penultimate FD-mount Canon – the New F1 – which had fabulous build quality), the plastic barrels on a lot of the shorter lenses, and the ‘meh’ if not ‘ugh’ ergonomics.

But looking backwards, from a long-term strategic standpoint all those things were actually harbingers of the direction the entire camera industry – including Nikon – would eventually take. (It also helped that much more aesthetically pleasing and mechanically robust plastic and composite materials were eventually developed which did away with those cheesy-feeling early EF-mount cameras.)

But the electronic diaphragm, image stabilization and ultrasonic AF that came along with that tech just destroyed Nikon’s position in the pro market within 10 years. The F4 had horrible AF (had one, got rid of it, even though I did like some other aspects), the F5 was much improved but by that time Canon was already ahead again in various other quantitative respects.

To this day I prefer a lot of things about Nikons but that does not mean I’m not frustrated at all the missed opportunities. Nowadays (and long before the pandemic) it’s just gotten depressing as Nikon cost-cuts, cost-cuts, cost-cuts until many of the things I liked about the brand don’t exist any more.

I used to be able to drive across town and drop off equipment at a local Nikon service center. That was closed over 20 years ago. Service in general now kind of sucks and they won’t even allow an independent shop to even buy parts from them any more. The marketing swag and interesting ads have mostly disappeared as Nikon has no budget for such things any more. This is not how you create a loyal following.

They still “punch above their weight” in a market now dominated by various companies many times their size, but I miss the days when they were truly on top of the heap or at the very least sharing it with one other company and producing lots of breakthrough tech on jewel-like products.

Nowadays, more often than not, they are just adding things on the tick-list that their competitors added a year or 2 prior. Sad.

In my response, I point out that Nikon builds cameras and lenses for photographers who have to weigh budget and price rather than studio photographers with three assistants to carry their lens bags and unlimited budget:

I’m not much interested in €3000 f1.2 wide angle lenses. There’s not enough depth of field at f1.2, those early Canon ultra wide ultra fast lenses don’t particularly resolve and that much glass is too heavy and expensive to carry around. So the argument about how 35mm needs more than a 44mm lens diameter was basically nonsense and marketing until IBIS came along (just a few years ago really).

I really like those legacy Nikon lenses. The 35-70mm f2.8 is a gem both to shoot and to handle. Canon leapt too soon and made really plasticky and horrible lenses and bodies for years. Over the last dozen years, both Nikon and Canon make great lenses and great bodies. I’m tired to death of the Canon cripple hammer and will never reboard that ship. Sure Nikon runs about six months behind (average) on “exciting” new features, but unlike Canon Nikon for now does not trick its customers selling crippled gear.

I’ve really never been disappointed in any Nikon cameras. Even the D3300 I bought for my five year old son has been an absolute gem to use, and in terms of image quality, build quality. The Nikon 24MP APS-C sensor is stunning. This is from a guy who shoots with a D850 and a Z6. Canon’s lower end cameras of the same period were absolute pieces of plastic junk. Great colour science but almost unusable.

PhilK points out that Nikon does not build its own sensors:

Unfortunately, as with many other mass-produced products, the reasons people choose to buy one brand over another don’t necessarily align with the product line characteristics that you or I think is most important from a shooting perspective.

There have always been “horse races” for specs and features in the camera market (like with so many other products) and the fact that these “bragging rights” are important for how your brand is perceived is re-emphasized by Nikon’s choice to produce the extremely extravagant and very niche f0.95 Noct for Z.

I guarantee you that Nikon has been dying to one-up Canon like that for decades, especially given the fact that Canon had to go to Nikon to get lenses for their first cameras, and in the interim Canon has been “one-upping” Nikon with 50mm f/1.0 lenses, 85mm f/1.2 lenses, etc etc.

So the argument about how 35mm needs more than a 44mm lens diameter was basically nonsense

It’s not nonsense, unless you want to be like one of those so-called “Artisan” lenses with poor IQ and ridiculous vignetting. (“But that makes it “arty”!!)

> Sure Nikon runs about six months behind (average) on “exciting” new features

I put together a list on this once upon a time. IIRC the “feature delay” on key tech like ultrasonic AF and IS/VR was more like 2-5 years. Stepper-actuated diaphragm? How about ~20 years?

FL teles? Maybe 15-20 years on those too.

Now if I personally considered those things “showstoppers” I wouldn’t be here posting on NR today. But they are certainly major competitive factors and one of various reasons why Canon is in a much better place in the market today than Nikon is.

The Nikon 24MP APS-C sensor is stunning. Oh, you mean the Sony sensor that they sold to several other Nikon competitors as well?

List of all Nikon DSLR cameras and their sensor manufacturer/designer

What is the sensor inside NIKON D3300?

Answer: Sony IMX-193-AQK.

And what were those models from other competitors with essentially the same sensor?

Apparently:

> “Sony a6000, various Sony SLT models, Nikon D3300,D3400,D5300,D5500, Pentax K3,K3II, probably other Pentax”

The sensor manufacturing really is a non-issue.²

That’s great sleuthing work tracking feature lag, feature by feature. In exchange for feature lag, Nikon shooters enjoyed backward compatibility….

About the sensor: I’ve had a Sony A6300 and A6500 (in my Canon days, for video/travel). The Nikon realization of this same sensor is on another level than what Sony did with it. Same thing with what Fuji does with these Sony sensors. I’m not really fussed about who built the silicon. I’m more worried about visible high ISO noise (Nikon does pointillism luminance noise, Canon does colour blotches, chroma noise), rolling shutter, quality of HD footage (who wants to shoot 4K all the time), ability to raise the shadows and quality of the colours.

Canon really does have better colour science for Caucasian skin tones and faces but otherwise the Nikon editions of these Sony sensors are awesome. Comparatively speaking, Sony’s own versions offer poor quality HD, terrible rolling shutter and troublesome colours.

Someone’s photographic/video priorities at Nikon line up with mine.

A photographer can enjoy non-crippled long lasting 35mm gear for reasonable prices from Nikon. No other manufacturer offers this.

Photo credit: yours truly, with Nikon D3300 with Sony IMX-193-AQK sensor.

How can I see inside Japanese existence or the mysteries of the Russian soul, or feel Filipino sense of complacent helplessness and anger (their entire stock of able, active men, and those men’s women and children, wiped out by E. Otis and J. Smith in just a few years).

I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better it will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States,

Resonance

Images will no longer do. Too banal. Talking images mean something, yes, the movies, but the penetrating step is in words. To make us feel again the pulse of a mind. Dostoevsky’s frenzied existentialist criminals or Tolstoi’s high-minded princes and naive debutantes. To wake one morning to the crimp of fresh snow, the smell of chocolate and strawberries from last night’s ball floods in. Meeting someone who matters, touching eternity’s companion soul, rare and wonderful bliss.

We only really love twice. Some not once, only feel sordid longing, a burning in the crotch, primitive like a fox’s blood hunger for the hens, an urge to the vixen. Explain to them the choral radiance of a shared night sky, invokes embarrassment or a snicker of contempt.

Better they say an afternoon of ball and beers, or a lean drive through the hood, or for the materialist, a test ride in the latest Lexala luxury car. Beautiful, inanimate, an auto can neither talk back, demand emotions or complain.

Asian Postcript

The Japanese were allowed dominion in Korea, if the Nips promised to keep their snouts out of American business in the Philippines, a deal to suit all imperialists.

The present war is no bloodless, opera bouffe engagement; our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of ten up, the idea prevailing that the Filipino as such was little better than a dog…

There’s no forest left in the Philipines. Bare as a friar’s head, Spanish protectorate forgotten, no talk from them of democracy or freedom while the jungle thrived. Seoul too has its subway photos, part of the developed world. Urban rapid transit comes now to Manila. Progress.

. . . .

Photo Credit: Hong Kong Subway Photo by Horatio Tan.

There’s a kind of brilliance in it. I remember the thrill of shooting my Pentax K1000 or Zenit cameras and not knowing what was waiting for me on the other side. I was never a full time professional image maker in the days of film but I did make many beautiful pictures (though some shoots did fall on their face). Photographers had to be really, really good then to work professionally as there could be hundreds of people dependent on your images.

For a big event, a wise brand would hire two or three photographers. I.e. the backup, behind-the-scenes guy would shoot some duplicates of what the main camera was shooting, just in case. We sometimes used those behind-the-scenes photos for the main print shots in an ad campaign.

What’s important here is that Leica made a film of three street photographers working with the Leica M-D. The three subjects were brought together in Porto and spent what looks like a week shooting together. The result is Exploring Porto with the Leica M-D.

[fvplayer src=”https://vimeo.com/164548974″ splash=”https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/569820367_1280x720.jpg?r=pad” caption=”Exploring Porto with the Leica M-D”]

The most interesting of the three street photographers is the oldest, Rui Palha, from Portugal. When he shoots portraits in the city, he returns with beautiful black and white prints and gives them to his subjects.

It makes them feel important, and they are important.

Palha tells us.

New Yorker Daniel Arnold is even more verbal than visual. His running commentary on his stolen images (as he avoids talking with people or even letting them know he has a camera) is fluent and philosophical. He affirms his very existence via photography:

The excitement isn’t a wild photo….when it works it feels like you have super powers to distill this crazy unexpected thing from the whole mess of the world…Our existence however full it gets is lonely, short and meaningless. Being able to present your experience as something concrete, it’s like this is my story as I saw it. Witness me, validate my existence. Let me be more than this fleck of dust in the air.

As a photographer, Arnold mainly shoots real film. His technique unsurprisingly was not successful on his first time out with a digital camera.

The first story, lost millenial, Nicholas La who is struggling with moving from lifestyle and concert photography for travel photography has less depth but is equally genuine. In La’s words: “If you are taking photographs to impress people, you’ve lost sight of photography.”

Many younger photographers will identify with La’s struggle for direction. La’s hunger to abandon technology is something that most modern photographers understand.

I was shooting all different kinds of cameras. It was pretty much, point shoot, shoot, shoot, burst, whatever. It got really, really boring. My interest in photography started to die until I switched over to Leica, because everything with Leica felt genuine.

What’s nice about Leica and a few other camera on the market is that there are fewer features. Fujifilm has tried very hard to put all the controls on the exterior of the camera so that once you’ve set up your shooting preferences you should almost never have to look at a menu again. Olympus has played with the retro, all exterior controls as well. With my Sony NEX-5T, it’s very similar. There is a knob on the camera for shutter speed and a wheel on the back for aperture (which I can also use for ISO). Since I only shoot RAW, I don’t ever even look at white balance. Many photographers curse the Sony menus but I need mine so seldom they bother me hardly at all.

So a Leica is not necessary to get to this zen state. Many of Leica’s offerings including the Leica M-D or the SL are certainly a fast track to photographic zen if you can afford them. I’m very grateful that Leica exists to remind other camera makers that at the end of the day, it’s just light boxes and lenses. The lenses are so much more important.

Arnold sums up Leica’s technical minimalism well:

Uncomplicating a great camera does the photographer the great favour of letting them not think about it.

As far as the Leica M-D goes, La states the obvious:

It’s a visceral thrill. Just like film, you don’t know what youv’e got until later on.

Strangely the camera infuriated many hobby photographers. The last few minutes of the film are really boring. How nice to meet in Porto and discuss photography with photographers who are so different. It would be better if the film ended at 8 minutes precisely.

Despite the weak ending, Exploring Porto with the Leica M-D is a remarkably concise journey into the vision of three photographers. For anyone who has ever shot street or anyone who has ever wondered what drives a photographer to do what s/he does, it’s a straight shot of insight and inspiration.

Technical Info on the Film

Technically the film looks to be shot on a photographic camera (as opposed to a video camera). The cameraman played to the strength of the medium with wonderful handheld shots and odd angles but very little movement or pans. If you keep your camera still, rolling shutter and digital jitter are not an issue and there’s no need for IBIS. I’m wrong. It was an Alexa Mini with Leica Cine lenses. The Alexa Mini allows video capture in RAW (2880 x 2160) at up to 200fps with 14 stops of dynamic range. Leica doesn’t have a moving picture camera like this in their catalogue and bravo to them for choosing the right technology to capture the story. The video was a very good match to the high quality photographic images taken by the Leica M-D.

Even though the Alexa Mini is smaller than a traditional Alexa film camera, it still weighs 2.3 kg without a lens. Not something you’d want to take on your next vacation, even if you had an extra $36K (without the lens).

I have some nice Leica R (wide Leica R is much better on mirrorless than Leica M as it doesn’t distort around the edged), Nikon and even a drawer full of Pentax lenses. I tried every kind of special focus screen for my Canon 5D (the 5D Mk III doesn’t allow special focus screens) but none of them were accurate enough. Yes, those focus screens do get you into the ball park but if you want to be sure of a sharp picture at wide aperture you have to focus bracket with about four pictures. Not particularly good for catching special moments.

When focus peaking first appeared on the Sony A7, I thought my issues with focus on manual lenses were solved. I could never really get focus peaking to work well enough. I thought the issue was with the camera. It turns out not to be.

There’s a great image development application for photographers who shoot RAW called Fast Raw Viewer. FRW lets you view the nitty gritty of your images straight from the RAW file fast. With a fast drive (SSD), it’s almost like browsing jpegs. Among many great features, FRW lets you preview focus peaking on your existing images with both fine detail focus peaking and high contrast edges focus peaking.

Here’s an image which focus peaking, both fine detail and high contrast edges, says is sharp in the critical area and even into the background.

Fine detail:

High Contrast Edges:

Here’s a closer look at that image:

The image is very blurry.

The issue is not that Sony’s implementation of focus peaking is so broken (as I originally though).

Poor quality focus peaking affects a lot of cameras like Sony A7, A7S, A7R or NEX 5T, NEX 6, NEX 7 or A5100, A6000, A6300, A6500. It’s nice to know we can stop blaming Sony and accept the limits of focus peaking. There’s no camera on which focus peaking really works. On my Canon 5D Mark III with Magic Lantern firmware the image peaking also didn’t really work. Now I know why.

The only really useful focus tool is then image zoom. Image zoom for focus did work on the Sony A7 and on my Sony NEX 5T. What didn’t work is that image zoom had three steps:

• no zoom
• 5x zoom
• 10x zoom

Having to cycle through three states made even image zoom useless for live action photography. What’s really necessary are two steps with the zoom level customisable. For instance:

• no zoom
• 7x zoom (this could be 3x, 5x, 8x, 10x)

I’m not sure if Sony has fixed this simple software issue. I’ll find out soon as I’ll have a Sony A7S and a Sony A6000 in to test soon.

Here’s to sharp images!

ISO 100, 1/800s, f4.5

These images are shot on the spectacular (for daytime work) Sony Zeiss FE 2.8/35mm on the Sony NEX 5T. Yes, I’m using an expensive full frame lens on an APS-C body. The advantage is absolutely no vignetting and edge to edge landscapes.

Berlin needle from Gendarmenmarkt

Berlin is also very flat, like Holland so it’s an ideal place to cycle. If you come to Berlin be sure to rent a bicycle immediately as the U-bahn is somewhat expensive (€2.80) and dark and smelly. Much less joyful than gliding along beside Berlin’s canals or through its huge parks on your way to your destination.

Remnants of Wars Lost

The main reason Berlin has so much more concrete than say Vienna or Paris – equivalent nineteenth century capitals – is of course the second world war. Vienna and particularly Paris were spared. Berlin was not. Between punishing air raids and Russian artillery there was little left of the incredibly rich architecture of Berlin. You find partial facades left as both a memory and a reminder. The Allies (American and British) enjoyed the destruction. Berlin stands as a permanent monument to consequences of defying London and Washington and federal reserve banking. Tripoli recently experienced more of the same. Moscow, Teheran and Beijing should take careful note and guard their alliances carefully. Washington and London along with the puppet governments of Australia, Canada, Germany and France would like nothing better than an opportunity to wreak the same havoc on those metropoles.

Berlin Weight of the World

If Berlin is any gauge, it takes a hundred years to rebuild a destroyed imperial capital to even a shadow of its former self.

Carthage must fall, declaimed the Senator.

And visiting Berlin in some ways is like treading the stones of Caesar’s partially rebuilt Carthage. Like Phoenicia, Germany may never be whole again. Huge parts are lost in Poland. Germany has only partial sovereignty since the Second World War with no final settlement of peace. The German government is captive to Washington and the secrets which the American alphabet soup have ferreted out concerning current leadership. Strange to see such a proud and capable people captives of a civilisation, historically in many ways its inferior.

There are still remnants of earlier grandeur like the dome at the Gendarmenmarkt.

Berlin-Gendarmenmarkt-dome

So much of Berlin is highly geometric, like even the quiet Besselstraße.

Geometric Berlin

While Berlin is a cycling and hipster city, there are traces of Germany’s dominant car culture even here, with majestic top of the line engineering marvels from BMW and Mercedes parked on almost every street.

See top of the line German engineering on almost every street

What I liked very much is the aesthetic of the advertising. It’s remains functionalist all these decades later unlike French advertising which is all based on emotion. The appeal to functionality and clarity appeals deeply to me.

A Shoe Shop Window in Besselstraße

The facade of this entire building at Potzdamer Platz was under renovation and covered with painted canvas. Cleverly on top of the canvas there is a photographic ad of models on a beach in swimwear. The only real part of this facade are the lights which illuminate the ad! True you could see something like this in Paris but the execution wouldn’t be as flawless with a perfect visual match between the real lamps and the painted facade.

Painted Facade at Potzdamer Platz

The other side of the building does the same thing but a red iPhone 7 is not nearly as arresting as these ladies.

Going deeper into Potzdamerplatz there’s lots more concrete and glass.

Bahnhof Potzdamer Platz in motio

Whether at the Ritz Carlton.

Berlin Ritz Carlton

Or even underground:

Potzdamer Platz Bahnhof Platform

Potzdamer Platz Bahnhof Escalator

Potzdamer Platz Bahnhof Concrete Passage

Potzdamer Platz Bahnhof Exit

Potzdamer Platz Bahnhof Glass Ceilings

If the photos above seem futuristic and somewhat alienating, then I’ve achieved my aim. But Berlin is not all about caging humans with concrete and glass. There is a lot of green mixed in with the concrete and glass.

Sunset in Berlin

While Berlin impressed me with both its architecture and design in Berlin, sartorially Berlin underwhelms. People are as a whole horribly attired, as if they lived in some post-apocalyptic future where there are only tired leather jackets, denim jackets, dirty hoodies and every kind of nineties post-Soviet stone-washed jeans.

Men’s hair is dirty and uncombed, most of them wear neck beards on their three to twelve day stubble. Most of the women’s hair is not in much better shape, half combed out and flyaway. There’s probably not a place in Europe with a harsher no makeup policy. Perhaps even less than Toronto. This works well for a minority but leaves the majority defenceless in front of nature.

If you are wondering where they photos of badly dressed and worse groomed men are, neither taking nor posting photos of people looking their worst would be unkind. Despite the catastrophe on the clothing front, I don’t mean to sound too negative about Berlin. There are beautiful women, if on the surface their demeanour is a bit austere. Native Berliners like Karoline Herfurth are clever, engaged and passionate.

Karoline Herfurth as Dani Wirth in Passion

As an actress, Herfurth is excellent in In Winter Ein Jahr (2008) while she brings depth and glamour to Wir Sind Die Nacht (2010; a guilty vampire pleasure of mine) and Das Wunder von Berlin(2008). In the English speaking world, you may remember Herfurth from her supporting role as Dani Wirth in Brian de Palma’s otherwise forgettable Passion (2012). Sadly her best known film is the very vulgar and modestly amusing Fack ju Göthe (2013). Shamefully Herfurth signed up for chapter two but happily had the good sense to refuse a third outing for the lowbrow franchise.

In addition to her work as a performer, Herfurth has already written and directed a well received full length dramatic feature SMS für Dich (2016). This is all by the age of thirty two. If you can stand strong opinions in your women, Berlin is a great place to go for a fascinating argument with an intelligent and talented member of the fairer sex.

All photos apart from the portrait of Karoline Herfurth by the author. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC.