It's all Greek to me!

[David Kilpatrick]

What makes you think I can remember the entire Greek alphabet? It's gradually coming back to me, I used to be able to rattle it off all the way through when I was 14 or something.

I was always disappointed that the King James Bible had some chapters labelled Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Daleth and then the Hebrew alphabet just disappeared... I wanted to see the rest of it!

This stuff always stuck with me - long before 14 as well - and it was the same peculiar ability to remember non-communicative words which got me into photography. It's probably a type of dysfunction. At about six years old I could reel off the names of dinosaurs, at ten years old it was engines and rolling stock, at sixteen every single camera and lens on the market and for the last half-century, plus more.

It's an ability I have gradually lost, but the flipside of this was always a complete inability to remember (recognise) people. Unless I know someone very well or they are in 'strict context' I will fail entirely to know who they are, even if they speak to me. But I know the names, and the photographs taken by, hundreds or maybe thousands of Minolta Club members. Someone can call me on the phone who has not dealt with me for ten years, and I'll immediately recall (visual image) pictures they have taken. But I can walk past my wife in the street and fail to register.

In 35 years of writing for the photo press I have never kept a filing system or made systematic notes of any kind. If I don't have the information in my head, I don't have it at all. Some of it is definitely going missing these days. The Greek alphabet in its entirety is one of them, but it's gradually getting re-embedded!

David

[Greg Beetham]

You should have been a professor of something, with that memory of yours.
Anyway I sort of commited the Greek Alphabet to memory along with the relevant symbols about fifteen years ago (since forgotten most of it) as I became fascinated with astronomy, and all the star maps of the Constellations have the stars ranked from the brightest (visual) to the dimmest using the lower case Greek symbols.
For example the brightest star in Scorpius is Antares and is marked on the chart as "Alpha" using the symbol. This archaic system is not used now of course by modern astronomers, they don't even see the sky any more, or even look at star maps, they play with diffraction gratings and spectrometers and photometers attached too giant telescopes and sit in a control room, waiting for the data to finish being collected from some obscure star with a huge catalog number, riveting stuff.
I don't know at the moment where my Norton's star atlas has got to but luckily the Burnhams Celestial Handbook has a copy of the Greek alphabet which I can! lay my hands on.
Here it is if you want it. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu, Xi, Omicron, Pi, Rho, Sigma, Tau, Upsilon, Phi, Chi, Psi, Omega.
I don't think we will ever see anything for some of them, I'm not really a marketing person but even I wouldn't name something a Chi or a Psi.
Regards Greg
ps Hebrew? good grief what were you thinking.

[David Kilpatrick]

You would think that photography would be fairly similar to the countless taught things which most people find easy to learn, but it's different. I have a long history of failing to learn things most people find easy! Maybe it's just me and photography, or photography is different by nature.

I know one or two professors (or the equivalent) and their memory and knowledge is way beyond me, but it's also very specialised and narrow. On internet I can get good information about things which I half-know, but half-know better than most people. Take Russian lenses for example, there are people out there who know the exact workshop and factory and dates of production and serial numbers. I just know which one is a Biogon copy and how far it needs stopped down to get a sharp pic etc - the practical stuff!

I did try astronomy and couldn't get my brain round the maths. Back then we had to calculate everything on paper and draw charts. Now you just need a computer program, it must be so much more accessible and interesting.

But trying astro photography using a 5 x 4 plate back in the 1960s really makes me appreciate stuff like the Dynax/Alpha shots by Magnar Fjørtoft ('Nordsternen' on dPreview forums) and determined to publish it. If you haven't downloaded the back issues of Photoworld from the main photoclubalpha site, do so - two of them, I think, have his articles in.

David

[Philip]

David, if you want to revist the Hebrew alphabet, each of the subsections of Psalm 119 are named after each letter (even the modern translations haven't moved away from this).

Philip

[David Kilpatrick]

For some reason the copies we had when I used to sit very bored in twice-weekly church services expired after Daleth. Or did the Psalm only have that many sections? It's a very long time since I looked!

Israel is the world centre for colour management and imaging technology, from EFIcolor onwards, and still provides a lot of the knowledge behind digital capture and scanning. Efi Arazian, I thought his name was (which would indicate Armenian/Persian origins) but I now find he is known as Efi Arazi: quote from a web biography -

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Efi Arazi, a leading international high-tech entrepreneur, is responsible for significant breakthroughs in both technology and business. While he was a student at MIT in 1969, Efi built the camera the Apollo 11 crew used to broadcast the first pictures of the moon (NASA continued to use Efi's camera until 1995.) When he was only 25, Efi invented a revolutionary auto-focus mechanism, establishing himself as one of the most respected figures in the electro-optics industry. After returning to Israel, he established the Scitex company, which introduced the first digital pre-press computer and CCD scanner to the world in 1979. These achievements turned Scitex into a world leader in digital printing with a sales record of more than $10 billion.

In 1990, at the age of 54, Efi founded the EFI (Electronics for Imaging) company. The company invented a unique controller and program that made it possible to turn any copy-machine into a high-quality color printer, becoming an immediate success. EFI sold more than a million controllers and today employs approximately 1,000 people in 18 countries. Efi currently serves as chairman of the Israeli company SeeRun, which developed a new technology to monitor and manage business processes.

In addition to his accomplishments, only some of which are mentioned above, we are proud that Efi decided to give his name and support to the Computer Science School at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. Efi's vision and pioneering ability have made their mark on our school. We feel a profound obligation that the research and teaching achievements of the school's faculty and students live up to Efi's contribution and help prepare pioneering entrepreneurs in his spirit.

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But no products using Greek letters as names! I have an EFIcolor RIP sitting disused in our old offices now - a ColorPass 5000. Like the big Canon photocopier it is now redundant, and I wonder about his 1,000 employees these days.

David

[Greg Beetham]

You would think that photography would be fairly similar to the countless taught things which most people find easy to learn, but it's different. I have a long history of failing to learn things most people find easy! Maybe it's just me and photography, or photography is different by nature.

I know one or two professors (or the equivalent) and their memory and knowledge is way beyond me, but it's also very specialised and narrow. On internet I can get good information about things which I half-know, but half-know better than most people. Take Russian lenses for example, there are people out there who know the exact workshop and factory and dates of production and serial numbers. I just know which one is a Biogon copy and how far it needs stopped down to get a sharp pic etc - the practical stuff!

I did try astronomy and couldn't get my brain round the maths. Back then we had to calculate everything on paper and draw charts. Now you just need a computer program, it must be so much more accessible and interesting.

But trying astro photography using a 5 x 4 plate back in the 1960s really makes me appreciate stuff like the Dynax/Alpha shots by Magnar Fjørtoft ('Nordsternen' on dPreview forums) and determined to publish it. If you haven't downloaded the back issues of Photoworld from the main photoclubalpha site, do so - two of them, I think, have his articles in.

David

I think it's probably what ignites the creative or inspirational parts of a person's makup, some things just fit and some don't. For example in my case they tried to teach me French in school and that was an abject failure, I'm just hopeless with languages, I doubt I would live long enough to learn Hebrew, I reckon.
And astrophotography? So far I've always been content with the view through the eyepiece, (probably because my 10" Dob doesn't have a tracking mount). If you spend a bit on some nice eyepieces, such as Naglers and Panoptics, the view is simply awesome.
But I do have admiration for people who are willing to contend with all the obstacles and get wonderfull pictures of Galaxys, Clusters and Nebula.
Poor old Charles Messier, a great early astronomer, I'm sure would give his eyetooth too see what can be seen through a modern Telescope!
Greg

[Philip]

You must have had a copy of Biblelite or BibleLE or similar, because Psalm 119 does go on to Taw - useful if you need to know the Hebrew alphabet - or are a camera designer looking for a new angle (or perhaps that should be angel).

Philip