So, I bought a fun car last year and I've been having a blast driving it around central Texas. It's the first car I've owned with a turbo-charged engine since my ill-fated turbo-charged Volvo 940 wagon which I owned back in the early 1990s. Turbo charged engines were an iffy proposition back then. Texas drivers didn't know that you had to handle them with kid gloves if you wanted the turbo to last... The big culprit was heat. Both the heat generated by the turbo apparatus but also the ambient heat in Texas Summers. The secret, I've learned, is that you have to let the engine idle for a minute or so after a spirited drive so the oil can continue to flow across the super-heated turbo-fan bearings. And, apparently, that advice is entirely relevant to current cars with turbos. The best secret though is that you have to think of oil as something that needs to be replaced more frequently than most car makers' suggestions. Certainly not every 12,000 miles. Iffy at 6,000 miles. But just right at about every 3 to 4 thousand miles. Additionally, if you are a low mileage driver, it's good to change the oil every six months whether you hit the minimum milage or not. Oil breaks down with time as well as with heat. There's no consensus about oil changes except from people who are avid, performance oriented drivers. In the minds of car cognoscenti the more often you change oil and filters the better. Period.
Since I bought the car I've hit 9,000 miles on the odometer. Today will be the third oil and filter change for this car. After this change I'll probably settle into doing it every 4,000 miles. A good compromise between the ultra conservative three thousand miles and the manufacture's recommended 6K. It's not that much of a hassle and the coffee at the dealer's lounge is pretty darn good. Not good enough for Europeans though because it's served in paper cups. Quel Dommage.
The Legacy Sport, like nearly all current Subarus, has all wheel drive. That makes tire conformance important as well. As you might have guessed I do ask for a tire rotation with each oil change. Even wear is good for the tires and even better for the transmission components.
I like cars. Maybe it's because I grew up with cars being a symbol of independence and freedom. Texas is such a big state that getting anywhere is a long adventure and back in the 1970s, when I started driving, the idea of public transportation was a pipe dream here.
I'm currently looking at maybe buying a Subaru BRZ as a fun diversion. It would be in addition to the Legacy and not as a replacement. I borrowed one from the dealer over a weekend and it was so much fun to take around hard corners and wiggly roads... Funny, it's the one performance car that Subaru offers which doesn't have a turbo-charger. It's also rear wheel drive. And pretty much a two seater. My only reticence is the six speed, manual transmission. I learned on a "stick" and owned a series of primitive Volkswagens which were all manual transmissions so the process of shifting gears came back to me quickly. But driving in a more crowded set of roadways makes constantly shifting feel laborious. Maybe I should just stick to one car and more cameras...
In the last week or so I've run into something that rarely strikes. I am absolutely bored with photography. Bored with cameras. Bored with lenses. Bored with walking around taking photographs. Bored by clients. Pretty much all I've wanted to do for the last week or so is head to the pool and knock out fun workouts or sit out in the shade in the backyard and read novels. Fun dinners? Sure. Coffee with friends? Absolutely. But taking photographs? Not so much. I guess it's akin to writer's block. I think it's just my brain sending me a message that it's time to find something new. A new experience. A new idea. I know that cameras aren't the magic bullet for this so I'm not surprised that my time spent "researching" new cameras has dropped to near zero.
Ditto with looking at new work on Instagram or any of the other share sites. It all feels like a hollow replay of past work and past trends. An endless supply of half-naked young woman interspersed with uninspired landscapes and uninspired street photography. It almost embarrasses me to keep posting...
I think there is something about being immersed in culture and arts for so long that makes for a diminishing of passion for the work. If you've been around long enough you've seen so much of it before. There are only so many stories and, yes, I know that everyone tells theirs in their own way but if the skeleton of the stories stay the same the thrill of discovery fades.
I pulled an "old" camera out today. It's a Leica SL2. It was introduced in 2019 and improved year over year with five or six firmware upgrades. It's big. It's heavy. It's a beast. But I really do like it. For some reason the AF lenses didn't inspire me today. Too easy. Too automatic. Instead I looked through the lens drawer and found an old Canon 50mm f1.4 FD lens. It focuses manually. There is no data shared between camera and lens. It requires one to focus by hand and pay attention to set apertures.
The adapter I'm using is one made by Urth. It has a ring that allows you to focus with the lens wide open and the to turn the ring to stop the lens to your selected f-stop for shooting. Focusing at a very wide aperture generally means more accurate focusing. Stopping down covers any small focus shift at different apertures. It's actually pretty elegant. And a reminder about how much paying attention to f-stops matters.
With so many modern 50mm lenses in the market, and with more introduced every week, we tend to forget just how good the older lenses could be. Sure, there are superman "normal" lenses with a dozen elements, lots of aspherical glass and a near endless supply of aperture blades but, in reality, most of the 50mm lenses; the super deluxe and the ancient favorites, are designed around a basic design that's been instrumental in normal lens design for over 100 years. Coatings have gotten much better. Additional lens elements work to gain a bit of performance when a lens is used at its maximum apertures, and it's debatable as to whether or not automated and computer assisted manufacturing techniques have really dramatically move the needled of sharpness, etc. Essentially, from my experiences with high resolution digital cameras, once you stop down to f4.0 or (for sure) f5.6 any differences between the latest $5000 lens and the $100 used manual lens (if it was top of the line when introduced...) are minimal to non-existent. I'd wager that image stabilization in cameras is a much bigger determinant of image quality for most shots and for most people.
The Canon FD lens is sharp in the middle of the frame. Well sharp enough even at f1.4. It gets better and better as it approaches the middle apertures. The lower number of lens elements coupled with lens coatings which were state-of-the-art at the time of the lens's production go a long way toward minimizing flare and boosting contrast. It's a nice look. A really nice look.
When I use the old Canon do I pine for the $2200, three pound, Leica certified, Panasonic S-Pro 50mm f1.4 I used to own? Not a bit. The differences when used the way most people use a lens are.....minimal. What did I pay for the old Canon 50mm? Hard to say. it came bundled with an old Canon FTb that I bought to pass along to a younger friend who wanted to try film photography. I paid $125 for the pair. So, I'll peg my investment in the Canon at around $75. It's much smaller and lighter than the big Panasonic. Same as with the Zeiss Milvus 50mm f1.4 that I recently sold off. Both of the newer lenses were very sharp wide open but both of them, in the end, are too bulky and heavy to be rational, everyday carry lenses. By a long shot.
I've got the camera set to make higher contrast, black and white Jpegs. I hope they are not excessively sharp. I hope whatever I shoot with the combo has some character. Which means I have to have a willing acceptance of various lens faults. Or desired points of optical personality. Subjects? Mostly people. Mostly friends.
Counting down the minutes until my car is delivered back to me. I'm wondering if I have time for one more Cappuccino.... probably not.
Finally, watching the markets collapse. What does it feel like to lose so much in one week? .... Disquieting.
The cost of an oil change? The least of my worries.
So, after all these years of progress, it seems like we’re back to shooting with pre-set lenses again, with a separate ring to stop down to the preselected aperture. Just like the 83mm f1.9 Takumar I had on a Pentax H3. I think I
ReplyDeletepaid about $40- for it then, after saving up for it.
Yes to frequent oil/filter changes. Turbos are picky about that. And, with the Sube don't forget the CVT and transfer case fluid changes at every 30 or 35 thousand mile intervals. CVT's are especially picky about transmission fluid quality.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of cultural/technological stuff going on right now that makes it difficult for still photography. People like stories, and venues for still photography stories are just about gone. Example: Even though the best form of camera review is the written one, which can be very detailed (including with still photographs) and can be studied, the most common form of camera review is the video, which really struggles with detail. I think people like them because good reviewers are story-tellers, even if their reviews aren't very good. Newspapers, magazines, blogs were for stills; television, internet is video. Sadly. It's part of the stupidifying of the world.
ReplyDeleteIn the early-2000s, BMW USA claimed you should not rotate your tyres, which is really stupid advice. Of course I rotate them regularly. They wear totally evenly.
ReplyDeleteAh.... BMW. The least reliable luxury brand going on 25 years now. I owned one. A 540i. It was fun till the warranty ran out. Then, so did the car. They might have had better luck with a bit of tire rotation. And less plastic in the engine compartment.
ReplyDeleteI owned a BRZ for a few years. It was a blast to drive and fun on short road trips but I didn't drive it enough to justify keeping it. Traded it in on a new Outback turbo. Get the BRZ, you'll love it, but if your experience is like mine and the BRZ is not a daily driver, you'll trade it in with low mileage.
ReplyDeleteToyota do essentially the same car as the BRZ (it's actually built by Subaru but badged) as the GR86 - & you have the option of an auto transmission ...
ReplyDeleteI've owned a few turbos and frequent oil changes are a very good idea. Also, I always used synthetic oil with turbos. The dealer probably uses it by default.
ReplyDeleteTry an Alfa Romeo Giulia. Mine has more than 50k and 0.0 problems.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's an age thing. I'm almost the same age as you. I've sang or played music all my life, though not professionally. I used to look for new instruments, follow instrument makers, played a lot of gigs, etc. The last few years I've been finding all of it much less inspiring and I've become more of a listener and appreciator than a doer. Still trying to keep my hand in, but it's becoming more difficult. Good luck getting to the other side and finding enjoyment with it again. Hope you make it!
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