# SDMB Monthly Photo Competition - rolling discussion thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** photo\ **Created:** [November 27, 2022, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642 "2022-11-27T20:27:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 68
**Author:** ![Bob\_Blaylock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_blaylock/32/3235_2.png) [@Bob\_Blaylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Blaylock)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1344 "2025-01-09T22:09:13Z")
  My primary tool for such work is [Topaz Labs’ Photo AI](https://www.topazlabs.com/topaz-photo-ai).  Sometimes, it can perform unbelievable miracles in restoring what appeared to otherwise be unsalvageable images.  Sometimes, it’s abilities are somewhat more limited than that, but usually it achieves some significant level of impressiveness.  Sometimes, it can make good guesses at restoring details that are completely lost from the input image.   In this case, it was less impressive that what it sometimes achieves.  In the darker parts of your original image, there is simply no detail remaining, and I guess not enough of whatever clues Photo AI would use help it guess at what was there. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1345 "2025-01-09T22:10:14Z")
A decent scan of the original slide would make all the difference. ---
**Author:** ![Bob\_Blaylock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_blaylock/32/3235_2.png) [@Bob\_Blaylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Blaylock)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2025, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1346 "2025-01-09T22:24:58Z")
  Possibly.  I guess it depends on the quality and condition of the original slide, and of the quality with which it was scanned to produce your version of the image. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2025, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1347 "2025-01-18T21:26:19Z")
I just posted my Jan entry in the competition thread; I can’t see me imroving on it, so time to post. The below was my second choice. [![Google Photos](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczMmfBQNTjaZtj468KnNaXLlIDEwQ-5PwcTxLpeDjyVyujVKK5x6oigg5Lx2IO73yF3wOjUTX6gF2pUfdzkB1c4QWGV_hM-IeGc1RGj9tr2djEj7f6A=w600-h315-p-k "New item by j") ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/7eH8QEZdAGKZpdaC7) As ever, click for the full image. The surprising thing (at least to me) is that this photo was taken several minutes after the one I posted in the comp thread. j ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2025, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1348 "2025-01-20T18:27:23Z")
I just posted my entry. I spotted that car on New Year’s Day when out for a breakfast drive with my car club. I didn’t realize then that it would be my entry. Here it is again: [![](https://i.imgur.com/3KEHZA4.jpeg) ](https://i.imgur.com/3KEHZA4.jpeg) It’s a wild concept for Lamborghini to take an expensive sports car, then lift it (about 2”) and put all-terrain tires on it so that people with a lot of disposable money can take theirs off roading. CRAZY FWIW this is the car my wife and I drove to the breakfast that day, our very old 1963 Porsche 356: [![](https://i.imgur.com/nGfqgBF.jpeg) ](https://i.imgur.com/nGfqgBF.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![Bob\_Blaylock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_blaylock/32/3235_2.png) [@Bob\_Blaylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Blaylock)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2025, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1349 "2025-01-20T18:58:27Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > It’s a wild concept for Lamborghini to take an expensive sports car, then lift it (about 2”) and put all-terrain tires on it so that people with a lot of disposable money can take theirs off roading.   A car like that may very well need those sort of modifications just to be able to drive safely on normal roads.  Reminds me of my joke that between @Seanette and me, we have one car (2017 Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk) that could drive over those concrete curb-like things in a parking lot and never notice them, and another (2016 Dodge Dart) that might get stuck trying to get over a painted line.   I’ve been astounded at how little ground clearance the Dart has, and that’s not even particularly a high-performance type of car. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2025, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1350 "2025-01-20T19:28:50Z")
> [@Crane](#): > > I believe the most popular 35mm before the SLRs was the Argus C3. Oh, man. I took a B&W photography class when I was a junior in HS in about 1963-64. I had to use my mother’s ancient Argus C3. It had the interlocking gear wheels on the front for settings and it was so old that the wheels required serious effort to turn them. Probably all gummed up with dirt, etc. Still, I got some pretty good pics with it. Then my stepfather took me downtown and sprung for a Petri 7. It was still a parallax camera, but had through the lens metering, which I thought was the bomb. I may have written all this somewhere before, but one day he brought home a Zeiss-Icon Contaflex that someone had left on the bar at the airport where he worked. After 30 days in the lost and found, it became his. Took me forever to figure out how to get the back off the damn thing to access the film chamber. A cool camera, but difficult to figure out without a user manual. ---
**Author:** ![Bob\_Blaylock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_blaylock/32/3235_2.png) [@Bob\_Blaylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Blaylock)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2025, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1351 "2025-01-20T19:59:21Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I had to use my mother’s ancient Argus C3. It had the interlocking gear wheels on the front for settings and it was so old that the wheels required serious effort to turn them. Probably all gummed up with dirt, etc.   Easy enough to clean and lubricate those parts, if you know what you’re doing.   The original Argus C didn’t have that gear.  You worked the rangefinder, and once you got the distance from that, it was a separate step to turn the lens to focus it.  It was the C2 that added that gear, so that rangefinding and focusing became one step instead of two.  The C3 added a crude flash synchronization. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2025, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1352 "2025-01-20T20:46:24Z")
> [@Bob\_Blaylock](#): > > Easy enough to clean and lubricate those parts, if you know what you’re doing. No doubt, but I was 16 and not exactly handy. No idea what happened to those two cameras. My parents probably threw them away when I went in the military. Bought my first SLR (Minolta SRT-101) in a PX in Vietnam. ---
**Author:** ![Bob\_Blaylock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_blaylock/32/3235_2.png) [@Bob\_Blaylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Blaylock)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2025, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1353 "2025-01-20T23:09:00Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > It’s a wild concept for Lamborghini to take an expensive sports car, then lift it (about 2”) and put all-terrain tires on it so that people with a lot of disposable money can take theirs off roading.   I have to laugh at the idea of that being sold as an _“off road”_ car.  Even with the lift and the tires, it still looks like it doesn’t have nearly as much ground clearance as most common sedans; and would probably get stuck in places that even @Seanette’s and my Dart can easily go. [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/Lamborghini_LM002_Gen1_Type129_1986-1993_1988_frontleft_2013-03-17_U.JPG/2560px-Lamborghini_LM002_Gen1_Type129_1986-1993_1988_frontleft_2013-03-17_U.JPG) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/Lamborghini_LM002_Gen1_Type129_1986-1993_1988_frontleft_2013-03-17_U.JPG/2560px-Lamborghini_LM002_Gen1_Type129_1986-1993_1988_frontleft_2013-03-17_U.JPG)   I think Lamborghini’s only real offroad-capable vehicle to go into production was the [LM002 (1986-1993)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamborghini_LM002).   They now have the [Urus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamborghini_Urus), in production since 2014, but from the look of it, I have to doubt that it really has much genuine offroad capability.  It just doesn’t look to me like it could possibly have enough ground clearance for serious offroading. [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5c/Lamborghini_Urus_19.09.20_JM_%282%29_%28cropped%29.jpg/2560px-Lamborghini_Urus_19.09.20_JM_%282%29_%28cropped%29.jpg) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5c/Lamborghini_Urus_19.09.20_JM_%282%29_%28cropped%29.jpg/2560px-Lamborghini_Urus_19.09.20_JM_%282%29_%28cropped%29.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2025, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1354 "2025-01-21T01:13:29Z")
Blue, huh? I’m shooting B&W film almost exclusively these days. There’s just not a whole lot of blue in a roll of Ilford HP5 Plus! Here’s my fave from Friday, shot on the Werra camera, manufactured in East Germany during the Cold War–it’s an Iron-Curtain camera that exceeded my expectations. Once I found it was produced by Carl Zeiss in Jena, that explains the quality. [![](https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-qQFXhCh/0/KHdPJRTHgJ3DQXTr9Qbg8V54n2cmxdPK3SQTwgdR9/X5/i-qQFXhCh-X5.jpg) ](https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-qQFXhCh/0/KHdPJRTHgJ3DQXTr9Qbg8V54n2cmxdPK3SQTwgdR9/X5/i-qQFXhCh-X5.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2025, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1355 "2025-01-21T01:22:27Z")
There are times when B&W works better than color, and this looks like one of them. ETA: @Bob_Blaylock, that is some seriously blue blue. ---
**Author:** ![Dogginit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogginit/32/16920_2.png) [@Dogginit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogginit)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2025, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1356 "2025-01-21T02:21:23Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > our very old 1963 Porsche 356: Loving the 356 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2025, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1357 "2025-01-21T05:51:41Z")
Somewhat surprisingly, it’s a reliable runner. I could leave San Francisco tomorrow in it and be in New York City in 3-4 days. Loooong days, true, and certainly not the most comfortable ride, but it’d get me there. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2025, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1358 "2025-01-21T08:39:41Z")
An air cooled beetle motor being reliable is not surprising to me. Beautiful thing to have, congratulations! ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2025, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1359 "2025-01-21T17:00:11Z")
> [@Bob\_Blaylock](#): > > I have to laugh at the idea of that being sold as an _“off road”_ car. I know jack about cars, and have no idea how the _Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato_ is marketed, but to me it’s name suggest that it’s only intended for - mmm - unambitious offroading. A **strada sterrata** is essentially an unpaved road. There’s an Italian language wiki page on the subject, which I don’t think I’m supposed to link to (non-English language source). But I trust that a google translate of the start of it is OK: > A dirt road [_strada sterrata_] (or cart road) is a country road without pavement, suitable for the transit of carts or agricultural machinery, off-road vehicles and, with difficulty, other vehicles. A google image search on _strada sterrata_ will find you a shedload of examples. Do we think it’s a goer for a road of that type? j ETA - Ooops - should have pp’d @Bullitt as well. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2025, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1360 "2025-01-21T18:35:27Z")
A _strada sterrata_! That must be the name of the road we travelled on our way to Montepulciano. We just did what the navigation system said to do… ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2025, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1361 "2025-01-21T18:37:44Z")
Montepulciano! Love Tuscany! ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2025, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1362 "2025-01-21T19:23:32Z")
Yeah, it was pretty awesome, except for taking the rental car up the hill on that goat trail. 😁 ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2025, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642/1363 "2025-01-21T19:24:23Z")
Tuscany? The Strade Bianche mayhap? [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/JTobry1_dqQ/maxresdefault.jpg "Strade Bianche Highlights | 2024 UCI Women's WorldTour") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTobry1_dqQ) (It’s how I know about these roads) j [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642.md?page=67) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-monthly-photo-competition-rolling-discussion-thread/975642.md?page=69)