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cadillacranchdressing asked: Just curious on your thoughts on the new Flickr redesign.

Hi Josh,

hmmm… I’m not sure what to think so far, but I can’t say I’m super impressed by the new design. What do you think? It reminds me a lot of 500px, and while there are some things about 500px that I like, I definitely preferred the “classic” design of the old flickr. 500px actually seems cleaner to me though compared to the new flickr design.

While it does seem like flickr has allowed itself to go a bit stale in recent years, especially when it comes to a lot of social networking stuff, I think gradual change would have been smarter. Many of the best pages on the web have evolved gradually. Google, for instance, has obviously changed a lot over the years, but it’s search page is as recognizable today as it ever was. flickr had something going for it in much the same way, but now it looks like a completely different website. I really don’t understand why sites, programs, etc. have to be completely transformed every couple of years rather than as the need arises. flickr was instantly recognizable even by people who didn’t use it, so why would you throw that completely away. Giving people different viewing options is the better idea. A focus on individuality and customization would be a smart approach. Why do we all have to look at web pages the exact same way as everyone else? There hasn’t been much progress in design and programming if we all have to do things in lockstep.

All that being said, I don’t want to be too negative, especially since I’m just starting to use the new setup. I like how you can create your own banner image thing. I also kind of like the justified views, I just wish they didn’t load so slowly.

A lot of web designers are oddly conservative. Their efforts seem to follow typical patterns that correspond to a need to have something new to do and less with real innovation. There’s too often an all or nothing approach that doesn’t have anything to do with the needs of the user. It’s too bad flickr didn’t keep up with what people were asking for over the years rather than this sudden change. I’m not surprised that the feedback so far has been so negative. You have to expect that kind of thing if you don’t take users into account. At this point I hope they do a better job of trying to satisfy the diverse needs of their users. I think they can overcome a lot of problems from the current design if they do a good job listening to constructive feedback and make changes as necessary, preferably in the way of individualized customization. Of course, they haven’t done that so far, so I’m probably being recklessly naive even mentioning the idea :)

I’m surprised at the account changes too, but from the looks of things, I guess I can go to a free account and still have all my photos viewable to everyone and just about every other feature I had before, so that’s pretty cool. Hopefully the ads I see won’t be too obnoxious. I get enough stuff about christian singles and testosterone supplements in my yahoo mail! Oh wait, flickr’s owned by yahoo and now tumblr is too! uh oh!! ;)

…

Update: …after a little more exploring it just seems really clunky. I can understand why so many are considering leaving flickr altogether. The trouble is, I can’t think of a good alternative. Anyone using another site that they really like? It will take a long time for another site to build up the same kind of community that exists on flickr, which for me has always been its best feature. I guess we’ll see how this all evolves, but it doesn’t look good…

jonathanchhun asked: Hi man, I'm extremely impressed by your Tungsten film night photography. I'm really inspired to start shooting with a tripod and some T fim (got some old Kodak 160T). Could you give me any good references/advice/sites for the exposure times? Anything would be appreciated. Thx. Jo.

Thanks! I’m definitely going to miss shooting at night without tungsten film, but luckily I’ve got a lot of it to hold me over in the coming years.

Unfortunately I haven’t had the chance to use Kodak 160T (I have used 64T) so I can’t really relate anything specific to that film in terms of reciprocity failure or other issues. Reciprocity failure is definitely an issue with Fuji T64, which is what I have used the most. I find you almost can’t hold the shutter open too long with T64 and even after using it for years, I still most often underexpose an image, when I make a mistake with my exposure.

Overall, for figuring out proper settings for night photography, I recommend The Ultimate Exposure Computer. I’ve pointed people in the direction of that site countless times because it’s an excellent resource for figuring out exposures under a number of different conditions. I’d start there first and then experiment a little to see how 160T behaves.

Good luck and have fun!