A Cherished Item —The Things That Have Traveled with Me for Many Years— | Hideyuki Tokuda (Dean, Graduate School of Media and Governance)

2012.11.08

One day...

Every year around a certain time, I find myself battling a mountain of papers to review. This is especially true for the UbiComp and Pervasive Computing international conferences, a battle I fight continuously. While I believe that properly peer-reviewing papers is one of a researcher's duties, reviewing nearly 10 papers in a short period is quite a challenge. First, I summarize the paper's abstract, then I organize its strengths and weaknesses, and check in detail for any contradictions or unclear points in the logical arguments, such as the technical correctness and the validity of the evaluation results. In particular, when I decide to reject a paper, I make a point of writing the reasons as politely as possible. This is proper etiquette for a reviewer. The sheer volume of this work is the reason why my "Okashira Diary" has been so delayed.

Now, regarding the theme of "a cherished item," many things come to mind. When I was a student at Keio Futsubu School, I was in the tennis club and was particular about my tennis rackets and strings. When I was a Juku high school student, I became obsessed with computers through my club activities (the computer group of the mathematics research society). I vividly remember the thrill I felt when the tightly-packed BASIC interpreter I developed for an early minicomputer called the FACOM-R ran for the first time. As a university student, my interests broadened to many things, but if I had to name something I was particular about, it would be ski equipment—skis, bindings, poles, and boots—and single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras, which were undergoing rapid technological evolution at the time. Back then, I bought a Canon AE-1, the first camera to feature a shutter-speed priority mode, and later upgraded to a Canon A-1, which had a program mode.

The Canon A-1 with FD 50mm F1.4 that has traveled with me for many years

This was the golden age of analog film, and while it may be unimaginable for today's digital camera enthusiasts, the ISO value was determined by the film you used, and it was normal not to be able to change the ISO sensitivity for an entire roll of film. How inconvenient that was! Many of my seniors at the time were not interested in printing on photographic paper but were instead devoted to reversal film for 35mm slides. Incidentally, the negatives were mounted in slide frames, and for projection, you had to place them upside down and backward, loading them one by one by hand into the projector's circular slide tray. You couldn't easily change the order of slides like you can with PowerPoint today; you had to take the lid off the slide tray and rearrange them one by one.

35mm slide projector and 35mm slides

My most recent cherished item might be interchangeable lenses for my SLR camera. Some people seem to insist on new lenses, reasoning that the flaws of a lens become apparent on modern digital cameras with over 20 million pixels, but I prefer to bring out the unique character of older lenses. The old lens I use is a 50mm prime lens with an old FD mount F1.2 for the Canon A-1. It's a lens that probably nobody uses anymore, but it's a precious item that has traveled with me. Another is a set of Nikon prime lenses: 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm. Each of these has the unique character of a prime lens. Even when shooting the same subject under the same conditions with the same camera, the color tones and sharpness are subtly different. Incidentally, if you can look at the three photos below and tell which lens was used for each, you are quite the lens connoisseur.

Nikon's old lenses

These days, a resolution of 20 million pixels is common, and cameras exceeding 30 million pixels are on the market. This is a harsh environment for old lenses, but old things have their own unique charm. Now, without revealing the order of the three photos above, I'll just list the lenses used: a 50mm, an 85mm, and, to be contrary, a relatively new standard zoom 24-70mm.

Among photography enthusiasts who are particular about their lenses, there's a phrase, "falling into the lens swamp," but while I may be immersed in my research, I try my best not to fall into the lens swamp.

(Date Published: 2012/11/08)