In aggiunta a quanto scritto qualche tempo fa, scrivo qualche altra nota dopo aver fatto con la mia Guzzi quasi settemila chilometri, di cui quattromila con l'upgrade "Trofeo" fatto montare a maggio 2019 dai fratelli Guareschi.

L'upgrade "Trofeo" consiste essenzialmente nella sostituzione completa delle sospensioni di serie con unità Ohlins/Andreani davanti e dietro, pedane arretrate, e poche altre cosette per far respirare meglio il motore. In pratica, i lavori che fanno i Guareschi alla moto che prendono parte al trofeo V7 Fast Endurance.

Se mi divertivo con la V7 base, così come esce dalla linea di produzione, salire su questa versione aggiornata è stato un qualcosa di incredibile per le emozioni che mi ha dato; la moto è cambiata, ovviamente, e stavo per dire "in modo radicale" ma non sarebbe corretto; diciamo che il motore grazie alle piccolissime modifiche fatte dai Guareschi è stata la cosa che immediatamente mi ha sorpreso e catturato, perché adesso mostra una risposta al gas molto più pronta e sonora, tanto che i primi chilometri li ho passati a spalancare il gas con una risata ebete dentro il casco ogni volta che facevo BROOOOP. La posizione di guida poi è perfetta per una guida sportiva, con i piedi alti e le ginocchia rannicchiate (nei viaggi più lunghi è ovviamente molto più scomoda della posizione originale); e le sospensioni, be' quelle forse sono la modifica che in città magari sono meno avvertibili¹ ma appena inizi ad attaccare le strade di montagna allora ti rendi conto di che razza di bestia da misto è diventata la piccola V7.

I promised to update my notes on what I defined "my final camera".

So that's what I want to do in this very short post.

Yes, the Fuji XT2 is still my main camera. The newest iteration (XT3) is not interesting to me. Nothing that has come out in the photographic world has been interesting to me, to be honest.

I have only slightly updated my lenses, selling the 55-200mm and replacing it with the lower-spec, ultra-cheap 50-230mm f5.6-6.3. The reason? I was often getting slightly fuzzy photos with the supposedly "great" 55-200, something that I have never experienced with the other tele-zoom I used to have on Nikon, another mid-range lens (70-300mm). Maybe it was a slightly defective unit, but I told myself, for how much I use these kind of lenses, let me try the plastic-fantastic 50-230mm; I bought it (new!) for around 160 Euros. And guess what? The optical stabilization works better than on the 55-200m (never had a fuzzy photograph), and overall the quality of the shots are on par with the more expensive Fuji lenses I have. Plus it's so much lighter!

These are my notes on a radical move. The first draft was written in August 2017. I added a few notes in December 2018; then finally edited and completed the post in May 2019.

The radical move is leaving the Apple world for good and moving (back) to Linux.

I already left the iPhone world a few years ago, after getting annoyed by the slowness of my iPhone 4S (back when the 4S was only a couple of years or so outdated). I moved to Android, enjoying the very low price of good devices (first a Motorola Moto G and then a Huawei P9 lite, so nothing too fancy) and not regretting anything about the iPhone/Apple ecosystem.

And now after having realized how little I use native apps on my Macbook, I want to go back to a simpler/more honest world of computing.

We call them hobbies, avocations, callings, passions. These are the noninstrumental activities that help to define us. They reward us with character because they involve an encounter with meaningful resistance — with nature’s laws, with the limits of our own bodies — as in carving wood, melding raw ingredients, fixing a …

(Quella che segue era stata pensata come una copia preliminare della mia personalissima recensione della Guzzi V7, messa online per condividerla con un paio di amici; alla fine ho deciso di lasciarla così, un po' rozza, con quella serie di messaggi tratti dalla mia history Whatsapp, perché penso che catturi bene le emozioni di quei primi mesi).

Leggo il nuovo numero di Motociclismo dove mettono a confronto la mia Guzzi V7 con una Royal Enfield Interceptor. Già questa cosa mi pare impertinente. Confrontare una moto italiana con una indiana e lamentarsi che la prima costa tremila euro di più della seconda? Insomma, è un po' scontato eh. La Guzzi è tutta fatta a Mandello, ha componentistica forse datata ma di qualità (come le pinze freni Brembo); la piastra di sterzo povera? Certo, lo è, come tutte le moto che costano meno di diecimila euro ormai (vedi per confronto le recenti Ducati Scrambler). Ma su questo aspetto del costo, ci passo su; oggettivamente la V7 costa tanto per quello che è. Io personalmente non ho problemi con il prezzo di vendita perché dò importanza alla costruzione interamente in Italia, perché voglio supportare una casa storica italiana, perché non faccio la valutazione del rapporto prezzo/potenza quando compro una moto.

It's December 7th, 2018. I left home at 6:40 in the morning. Around two degrees Celsius, thick fog as it is customary around here. Three layers under the leather jacket, touring pants bought around twenty years ago that are a bit tight (I'd like to say I'm fitter than I've ever been, but the waist size doesn't seem to notice), two sachets of hand-warmers to stuff inside my winter gloves.

Off I go, leaving the town still tucked in bed. I will not see another motorbike today until I'll get to Guareschi in Parma for the first service of my Moto Guzzi V7, the one that will finally allow me to crack the throttle wide open without the fastidious blinking red light commanding me to switch gear.

Yesterday my friends told me that surely I was going to crash, because with near-zero temperatures and wet leaves on the twisty roads, what else can you expect. What I did was a beginner's mistake, obviously; I showed them my grand plan, with a nicely manicured itinerary drawn in the safe comfort of my office that would have taken me from Milano to Parma without ever touching the motorway (sometimes it seems that all my motorcycling life revolves around this, avoiding motorways whenever I can, because really, there is no greater sin than riding a motorbike along a straight line with lunatics driving boring Audis over the speed limit while fucking around on their phones).

This is it, my final camera. Meaning that for the next foreseeable future I'm sticking to this camera, no matter what. This decision comes after a year where I have tried many different tools, perhaps driven by the lack of a true photographic project in my mind (and yes, the usual lust for new shiny things that affect all men).

[Click here for italian version.]

That's the Nikon D850 I'm referrring to. But it can also mean the Fuji medium format GFX's sensor, or any of the latest Sony full frame mirrorless.

Anyway, the point is that I played with a couple of raw files from a D850 and the experience left me cold. I distinctly remember when I first saw what my Nikon D600, my first full-frame camera, could do. I was upgrading from a D7000 with smaller APS-C sensor, and the richness and modulability of the files blew me away. How easy it was to extract the colors I wanted from the raw files; the amount of information hidden in the blacks; the endless possibilities!

Back to the D850. My friend Daniele rented the camera and some of the best lenses available (Sigma primes; the 50mm f/1.4 and the 14mm f/1.8), went for a trip and then sent me a few files.

[Click here for english version.]

Mi riferisco al sensore della D850 (ma il discorso vale anche per le Fuji medio formato, o qualsiasi altro mostro Sony mirrorless da 40 e passa megapixel).

Ho sottomano un paio di file raw che Daniele mi ha passato, scattati con Nikon D850 e due …

Who reads poetry anyway? Only other poets.

(Blake Andrews, during an interview with Bryan Formhals)

It is a strange place to be, this one where I am now. My passion and love for photographs (taking them, editing and discussing and commenting) is something in between two sides that I see …

[Click here for italian version.]

I left Bari many years ago. It is my adoptive hometown, and when I return every once in a while, I enjoy walking around aimlessly, meeting old friends, the cool breeze from the sea, rediscovering situations and places that haven't really changed that much.

[Click here for english version.]

Ho lasciato Bari tanti anni fa. Resta la mia citta' adottiva, e quando ci ritorno una volta ogni tanto, mi piace girovagare senza meta, incontrare vecchi amici, sentire la brezza marina, riscoprire situazioni e luoghi che non sono cambiati chissa' quanto.

A pretty simple demonstration that you only need four photos to make a narrative.

In other words, "narrative" and "storytelling" are bullshit. We only talking about photographs, folks!

I think a lot about photography; usually random, incoherent things that I tend to forget (or more often, forget the point I was trying to make). This is an attempt to make some order. A second part is half-written. It may be published sooner or later.

portrait photographers

Are they really that good? As Bill and Jefferey often say on their show, how hard can it be to take a good photograph of George Clooney or some beautiful model?

Why do we refer to Platon, Newton, Leibovitz as some sort of geniuses because they know how to set up lights and get these professionals (whose job is looking good) to look good? Not to mention the make up artists, strobists and whatnot working for them.

The world of art photography fascinates me. I especially love those who refer to themselves as "artists", their art being typically exemplified by boring, flat, sad photos where the "artist" himself is shown with vacuous eyes, half naked, a cigarette maybe, with another sad human or animal being by his side. Or empty landscapes showing detritus and crap with not an ounce of interestingness.

I find it wildly entertaining and maddening at the same time their ability to write so much and with so many complicated words about the void their art is made of.

I love even more critics that find meaning in these empty images. It leaves me cold and a bit angry, I admit, that some of these "artists" are even able to pay their bills with this shit they (and nobody else) call "art".