About KenRockwell.com

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About Me and My Site

Merry Christmas 2009 from Rockwell family. merrier.

Caveat Lector! (reader beware!)

This is my personal website. I do it all by myself.

There is no proofreader — just me.

There is no IT or computer guy — just me and my Mac.

There is no graphic designer — just me.

I'm just one guy with a computer who likes to take pictures. I have the playful, immature and creative, trouble-making mind of a seven-year-old, so read accordingly. Here are some typical photos of me in the studio.

This site is purely my personal speech and opinion, and a way for me to goof around. Don't take any of this as true; I like to make things up as much as any other kid.

I don't own the gear you see me talk about. Even if I did own it when I wrote about it, this site has been on-the-air for over ten years, and very little, if any of it, is still here today. Most of the items I write about I've borrowed from friends and have returned, or if I did own them, were given away to freinds, donated to charity, or in the old days, sold.

While often inspired by actual products and events, just like any other good news organization, I like to make things up and stretch the truth if they make an article more fun. In the case of new products, rumors and just plain silly stuff, it's all pretend. If you lack a good BS detector or sense of humor, please treat this entire site as the work of fiction. This site it is the product of my own imagination, not fact.

This site is provided only for the entertainment of my personal friends, dogs, family and myself. I've never promoted this site. If you're reading this, you got here on your own.

Read this site at your own risk. I make a lot of mistakes. I have no proof-reader and there are plenty of pages, like this one, which have been around since the 1990s and may no longer apply or be correct. I'm just one guy. No matter how stupid something may be, if I don't catch it, it gets out there anyway and stays wrong for years until someone points it out. I can't track everything; I've written thousand of pages and write a few more every day.

If you find anything out of whack, please let me know, since there are a lot more of you than there are of me.

I was interviewed in the largest photo magazine in India, Better Photography. See the interview in the January 2010 issue in print in India, or online here.

About Me	The photos	The huge lens
My Family	Hawaii	The Left-Handed Camera
Recent Trips	The Website	About the Equipment Reviews
The Ads	How I Made This Website	Does Nikon Pay Me?

Who Pays Me: FTC Disclosure

I've had a real job ever since I was in high school.

I worked in broadcasting for decades, and saw how spending millions of dollars to make the best shows possible made billions of dollars for TV networks who gave them away free for the viewing. TV networks made these billions of dollars up in volume: advertising.

I put up some ads like this one back in 2000. I'm taking those off as I make new pages or edit the old ones.

As a little money started coming in from doing nothing, I conveniantly managed to get myself fired from my real job in 2004 so I could see what would happen if I put more effort into this site. It worked; more people read more stuff that I wrote, and the broadcasting business model worked great.

Today (2009), I support my family from what this website brings in. Strange, but true.

The largest source of my family's income comes from when you use my links to these stores when you get your stuff. I've been using these places myself since before this website existed, which is why I recommend them so strongly. It's not because they pay me, but that is a nice side benefit that keeps my wife from sending me back out to get a real job again.

I also get some donations, and for these I am genuinely grateful — and pay a lot of income taxes as well.

I don't get free stuff, or paid by, Nikon or Canon. I wish I did.

I don't get free cameras as everyone presumes. I wish! I certainly never get paid for endorsements or to review anything. If I'm lucky I'll get a free accessory now and then, like a strap, card, case or software.

Otherwise, I have to buy or borrow everything I review just like everyone else. Heck, I don't even want most of the free junk people send me; that's why they're giving it away: hoping I mention it.

As mentioned above, if you consider anything I say as an endorsement (God help you if you do, remember, I do this site as a goof), remember that no one goes back in and edits old reviews as they get old. If I say I use something, I did when I wrote it, but years later, probably don't.

I have no idea how to interpret the FTC Guidelines, but I think I've covered it here. I get paid from stores if you use my links to get your stuff, I accept donations and put up some ads, but I don't get paid to write anything and don't get free cameras. I don't even put up the ads; they're usually placed by third parties.

How this site started

I started this site as a joke in 1999 after I took a community college class in webmaking as a place I could share each weekend's photos with my friends. Back then digital meant visiting a rich friend and scanning your slides on their Nikon LS-1000 scanner. There were no amateur DSLRs.

I then started putting up my personal notes about my own tests of my own equipment so that I could access them even if I was in the field. I've been doing these experiments since I was five years old, and used to journal them in books and then on my computer. I still have my written exposure logs going back to my first SLR at age 11 in 1973.

Search engines quickly found these techie pages, and it bugged me that more people were looking at photos of my lenses instead of the photos I made with these lenses.

I only update things as I discover errors. I offer no warrantees of any kind, except that there are many deliberate gaffes, practical jokes and downright foolish and made-up things lurking. While this site is mostly accurate, it is neither legally binding nor guaranteed. The only thing I do guarantee is that there is plenty of stuff I simply make up out of thin air, as does The Onion.

Most people up through the 1990s, and even today, are only accustomed to large corporations with larger advertising budgets having large voices. The size of the voice depended on the size of the budget. Today, with the wonder of the Internet, any idiot with something to share has a voice as large as those who want to listen. I admire Shepard Fairey's brilliant work which explores the same idea, but much better than I do. (He's not an idiot, he's a great artist. I'm the idiot.)

I love a good hoax. Read The Museum of Hoaxes, or see their site. A hoax, like this site, is done as a goof simply for the heck of it by overactive minds as a practical joke.

If you don't know me personally, then you can't possibly have any idea of what I mean when you read my text. Meaning is far more subtle than my kludgy writing, and no one is double-checking what I write before it goes up. I'm not a poet. I can't put what I'm thinking into words so clear that everyone will understand their intent.

I love to kid around, but no joke goes over well throughout every world culture served by the Internet. I get email from researchers at both north and south poles, as well as everywhere else from the frozen north of Norway, Igloolik, tiny tropical islands in the warm Pacific, every world continent and even ships on the ocean. I'm read in the chateaux of Switzerland and Beverly Hills to ox-powered PCs in the shantytowns of countries too poor to have telephones for computer support call centers. I'm read by everyone from the corporate rulers of the world to students who one day will build the world.

So read, enjoy, have fun, and take everything in the spirit in which it's shared.

Thanks!

Ken.

Baby Katie was born 28 May 2008. See Katie's Website.

Baby Ryan was born 8:16:30PM, 15 December 2006. He has his own website at RyanRockwell.TV.

Married May 2005 full love story

We were married on a tropical island in May, 2005. Kanaloa, the Akua Kai (God of the sea), approved, providing a south swell with double-overhead sets a day or so later.

Ken, his new wife and Pastor Kilborn.

I've been photographing since I was five years old. Even as a newborn I was so curious I lifted my head up to look around the hospital nursery. That attracted all the nurses' attention to my parent's surprise. The nurses explained that it's very rare for a newborn to have strong enough neck muscles to lift his head.

Curiosity is crucial in photography. My mom will tell you that even as soon as she was 5 months pregnant that all I did was poke around trying to see what was going on!

I love traveling California and the world and creating beautiful images. I love feeling nature and beauty. I love all the arts and the outdoors. I run, bike and play in the ocean almost every day. I've been doing 50 - 100 mile bike rides since I was in high school. I'm always up for weekend trips away for any reason, and I'm always there when there's an art opening, symphony concert or play going on. I do more things outdoors than will fit here.

I'm a big kidder and am always fooling around. I think I'm a seven year old who's managed to sneak into a grown-up's body. I have enough enthusiasm for an entire class of second graders.

I've lived in La Jolla, California since 1988. La Jolla is just north of of San Diego and is the most beautiful place on earth with high-speed Internet access and direct international airline service to interesting places. Our area also offers unlimited outdoor recreational opportunities, since we have every kind of land and water form imaginable. We have mountains, deserts, pine forests, cliffs, chaparral, grassy plains, ancient oak groves, huge boulder fields for climbing, every kind of road and trail for hiking, on- and off-road cycling and motorcycling and of course we have all sorts of different beaches and rivers for surfing, swimming, SCUBA, boogie boarding, kayaking and etc.

These many different environments are why San Diego County is home to more bird and animal species than any other county in the United States. Maybe it's also why every sort of kook organization including at least two UFO cult religions, Unarius and Heaven's Gate as well as the famous Black's (nude) Beach call San Diego home. Poke all the fun you want, but we also have a symphony orchestra, a pretty decent formal opera company and numerous theatre and chamber music ensembles and performing arts organizations. The La Jolla Music Society brings in music and dance from around the world. San Diego is also home to the World Famous San Diego Zoo and the Wild Animal Park which runs big game photo safaris right here in San Diego county. I could go on, but rest assured there is never any shortage of fun here. Most real San Diegans are members of the San Diego Zoo.

I've had my work exhibited in museums, published in newspapers, magazines and hard cover books, even while in school. I do photography for love, not money but have occasionally made my work available to serious collectors and art lovers. My work also hangs in private and public collections on both US coasts.

I donate my time to many volunteer organizations. For instance, I volunteer as webmaster for The Monarch Program and am always photographing for organizations like Paws'itive Teams who train service dogs for the handicapped.

I don't believe in photo contests and competitions, although I do OK when friends twist my arm. For instance, I just won a trip to Hawaii here and I also won 1st Place in the San Diego Union-Tribune's Nature Photo Contest here (requires Flash player and a fast Internet connection.)

I received a Ph. D. from the University of Basingstoke in December, 2001. It's a Phony Doctorate given to me for Christmas by my brothers who have real Ph.Ds.

I speak English, French, some Spanish and very, very little German and Italian. As an artist I try not to admit that I have a BSEE engineering degree and was just granted my first US Patent 6,473,701 in October 2002. On March 6th, 2007, I was granted Statutory Invention Registration H2,184, much rarer than a patent.

My great-great grandfather was the pioneering photographic artist James Brewster at the dawn of photography in Ayr, Scotland between 1861 and 1881. You may be familiar with the poetry of Robert Burns, also from Ayr. Burns also wrote the modern version of "Auld Lang Syne" we all sing on New Year's eve at midnight. Burns even has a Heritage Park devoted to him.

Vad få känner till, är att jag är kvarts-svensk så jag välkomnar alla er vikingar! (What few people know is that I’m ¼ Swedish from my mom's side, so I welcome all of you Vikings!) My great-great something or other Tom Larsson was a sea captain who left the seaport of Oskarshamn, Sweden in 1893. If you're in the north of Sweden in winter check out the Ice Hotel. My Viking forefathers, specifically Leiv Eriksson, discovered America a thousand years ago. We called it "Vinland" back then from the grape vines we saw growing. By 1492 Columbus accidentally wandered into America thinking he found a shortcut to India, and to this day the inhabitants he found are called "Indians." "America" is named for Italian map maker Amerigo Vespucci. On 23 August 1499 Amerigo Vespucci was where Columbus claimed was India. Amerigo observed a conjunction between Mars and the moon. Based on this he calculated longitude and realized he wasn't in India, but someplace new. Thus Amerigo discovered America as a new world, not Columbus. Columbus thought to his dying day that he really found a shortcut to India. History is funnier than comedy! Anyway, you can learn more about Vikings and our religion at these links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

My dad is the engineer who designed the LORAN-C navigation system used today by large commercial and military ships and aircraft. My dad can build model cars, trains and ships more precisely than anyone. His dad, my grandfather (or maybe that was great-grandfather), was working in New York City during the depression and invented the concept of selling apples on the streets as a way both to employ people and solve the issue of a huge overstock of apples in upstate New York.

My brother, author, athlete, history and paranormal phenomenon researcher and professor Dr. Steve Rockwell just got his Ph.D. and just started as a professor at the University of Michigan. He has had several books on American Government published and has a lengthy article. He's a great guy and plays softball. Here's a book he helped write. Here's a place to get his latest book. Here's his other book. Look out: those sites are charging two to three times what it is supposed to sell for. Quite oddly, Stephen Rockwell also played the part of a scientist researching a crash with a space alien vessel in an episode of "Roswell." Very strange.

The picture of Dr. Rockwell was taken at a police station in Chisholm, MN, after Dr. Rockwell was pulled over for speeding. Apparently, MN, as a progressive state, has avoided the prison-happy trend of other states and still uses embarrassment and banishment as punishment, rather than incarceration.

Dr. Rockwell had his photo snapped and put on the MN law enforcement-citizens intranet, and he is forbidden from entering Chisholm again for a year. They were really nice about it, though.

David is also an avid home-brewer, finding it far more convenient than conventional methods.

My other brother, internationally renowned aviation author, researcher and humanitarian Dr. David Rockwell has had several aviation books published, like the classic "Jane's How to Fly and Fight in the F-14 Tomcat" (a classic that's unintentionally been driven out of print by the demand from terrorist and paramilitary organizations) and "Jane's Gem Combat Aircraft."

That's right: I write about how to use your digital camera, and my brother writes about how to fly your own nuclear-capable fighter jet! He's also an expert on UGVs (unmanned ground vehicles, or "killer robots.")

He also has a lengthy article like this one. Not particularly interested in Alien interrogation techniques, he anyway is also an analyst here. He travels to places so crazy that even I have to pull out my atlas to figure out where he is. He currently is deployed in Romania. He claims not to be involved with the US government's most recent efforts to produce Plutonium 238 (238Pu) at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). Plutonium 238 is hundreds of times more powerful than the Plutonium 239 now used in land- and air- based nuclear weapons. It will be used in the the USA's new network of space-based nuclear-pumped offensive lasers called "Death Stars." There's an article on this here. When INL makes a mistake, it makes big ones. Here's a site about cleanup efforts from one of INL's past nuclear "oops!" We don't really know what he does; it's probably something with the CIA's National Clandestine Services, or some group that officially doesn't exist. That's why he can't tell us.

I may be related to painter Norman Rockwell. Norman lived in an area in New York state that hasn't rated highly enough on my travel list to warrant a trip to research it. A Norman Rockwell painting "Rosie the Riveter" just sold for $4.9 million here.

No, I'm not related to the former San Diego comedian who had a few minutes of television infamy back in February, 2000 who used the stage name "Rick Rockwell."

August: Long Island, The Hamptons and New York, New York; Palm Desert, California.

September: Big Sur, San Luis Obispo, Cambria, San Simeon and Monterey, California

August: On vacation for the first time this year. I didn't go anywhere, thank goodness!

June: Grand Cayman Island, British West Indies (photos); San Francisco and the Muir Woods, California

February: Cambria, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Palm Desert, California; PMA, Las Vegas, Nevada; Rosarito Beach and Ensenada, Baja California, México

January: Death Valley, Santa Barbara California, California; Long Island, New York

November: Julian, California firestorms. (photos here) and California's Eastern Sierra (photos here)

October: Torino, Italy; Paris, France (photos here) and California's Eastern Sierra

July: Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Big Sur, San Francisco, Bristlecone Pines, CA

April: Santa Barbara, CA; National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show, Las Vegas, Nevada

October: Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, New Mexico; Arizona, Utah and Colorado (Photos here). Also Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico.

July: Yosemite National Park, Mono Lake and Mammoth Mountain, California see the snapshots here

May: Lone Pine, Bishop and the Eastern Sierra, California. Parrot Adoption and Education Center (photos here)

March: Vermillion Cliffs, Utah; Page, Arizona. Paul and Sandy's wedding, Laguna Beach, California (photos here)

February: Grammy Awards (Los Angeles), Santa Barbara, San Simeon, Cambria, Piedras Blancas California; Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico photos here

1998, August: New York and Long Island, New York for Mike and Jen's wedding (photos here)

Santa Barbara, California (weekend trips anytime)
San Luis Obispo, California (weekend trips anytime)
Cambria, California (and the elephant seals and the whole PCH, Big Sur, and Ventana area) (weekend trips anytime)
California's Eastern Sierra
Italy
Mesa, Arizona
Cook Islands
Spokane, Washington
France et Tahiti (Oui, je parle Français)
Hawaii
California's wine country; Napa and Sonoma counties (any weekend)
San Francisco (weekends)
Durango, Colorado (a mountain biking and outdoor Mecca)
Santa Fe and all of New Mexico

Austria (November 1992)
Canada (Summer 1978)
Czechoslovakia (November 1992)
England (June 1993)
France (June and July 1997, photos here)
Germany (November 1992)
Guatemala (1991, 1992, 1998, 1999)
Hawaii (Maui March 1999, Kauai February 2000, Oahu November 2002. Marriage May 2005)
Mexico City (August 2000)
Peru (August 1999)
Russia (1995, 1996)
Scotland (June 1993)

Without ads this website would still be just a collection of my personal photos.

The ads allowed me to quit my real job in 2004 and work on this site for you full time, adding tons of the technical info you've requested. Contributions help, but don't provide anywhere near enough on their own to allow me to do what I've volunteered to do today.

Ads are only on the techie pages on which I work about 10 - 14 hours every day for you. There aren't any ads on the gallery pages with my photos.

I placed the ads for Ritz and Adorama and Amazon.com towards the top of some pages. I've been buying my own equipment from them for years, or decades in the case of Adorama. I recommend all three.

All the other ads are all placed automatically by third party ad wholesalers. I can't vouch for them since I don't see or approve them before the third party sends them straight to your browser. These same ads appear on other websites who use the same wholesalers like Google's AdWords. If a deal on a new digital camera is better than everywhere else then it's a scam. If they don't take credit cards, it's a scam. I never see these ads: they go straight from the wholesaler's server to your browser. I simply rent out the space to advertising wholesalers, NOT camera companies. I certainly don't have the time to be out selling ads. Since I have no idea what goes up there I certainly have no fear being honest with my opinions on cameras, either, which of course supports the whole idea of my site: no commercial bias.

If you see any bothersome, bogus or bad ads please contact me with the exact URL of the offending ad and from what part of the page it came (top, side or bottom) and I'll do what I can to tell whichever wholesaler to dump it.

This site is also accredited news media. I publish this site to educate and inform. Most manufacturers send me their press releases and publicity photos for distribution. They don't give me any free cars or cameras. I'm not one of the spokesmodels to whom the big camera, car and watch companies give free gear.

I do this site to express my personal opinions and to help others with what I have learned.

I do this for love, not money. The ads and etc. now allow me the time to work on this site full-time, since your generosity is supporting my family, instead of having a real job. I'm just a guy with a computer who likes to take pictures. I'm not any sort of organization. If anything, I'm a model of disorganization. If it weren't for this site's Google search box, even I couldn't find anything.

This site is my contribution to the art world. I hope this site will allow others to enjoy my artwork, and also to allow other artists to benefit from my experiences earned the hard way. I love to kid around, so if you believe everything you read on this site then that's your problem. Sorry. I have a huge sense of humor. I fool around, make stuff up and create hoaxes, too, when I feel like it. If you believe everything you read on the internet and see on TV, have I got a bridge for you!

Although provided for your free viewing, everything here is copyrighted, registered, and all rights are reserved. NOTHING is allowed to be downloaded, saved, copied, reposted or used for anything other than immediate live viewing on a web browser, ever. If in doubt, ask.

My work and my opinions are not for sale. This site and my photography are what drives me to get up every day. Ask nicely and I often donate works to worthy causes and collectors. My work hangs in several private collections on both US coasts.

Sure, I make good money doing this, but I also pay more taxes than I ever have in my life. I also made great money and had a fat expense account and a free new company car every other year and at my last real job when I was single and happily lived in a dumpy condo. If this site doesn't bring in at least the same good money, my new wife, who also still has to work and makes good money, sends me back out to get a real job to pay for the new house and the new kid, and then I'll no longer be able to keep adding to this site all day, every day. I waste about 12 - 14 hours every day in front of my screen. I used to live much better when I had a real job and actually got now and then.

The good news is that so long as enough comes in, it doesn't matter how much since only the wife gets to spend it. Funny but true, I have no incentive to steer people wrong just so I can bring in more cash for the wife to spend at the mall.

I don't charge anyone for anything so that everyone can read this entire site, free. I don't sell anything or sell guides and downloads as everyone else does, and I don't split my articles into many short pages to waste your time clicking through ads. I don't put up forums to let you write the pages on which I would sell ads, like all the other once-great photo websites of the 1990s. I spend my time creating new content and trying my best to make what I write the best I can.

Some guys donate to the local hospital to have their name put on it for posterity. When I croak, I've made sure that this website will be around for decades. I hope that when I'm gone people will be able to benefit for many years from my work. Wouldn't we all like to be Beethoven, Bach, Mozart or Brahms, whose genius still brightens people's daily lives hundreds of years later? I can't wait to introduce my son to their works, and I work all day hoping that maybe some years after I'm gone that people will still learn from what I'm sharing today.

I used that photo of myself simply because it communicates this website's topic more lucidly than having to use the word "photography." Personally I hate carrying that beast around and emphasize that your camera has nothing to do with the quality of images produced. It's the artist, not the tools, who creates art. The lens is a 400mm f/2.8.

The left handed Nikon F100 you see on my home page was loaned to me for beta testing in 1998 when Nikon was considering producing a left handed version of the F100. Yes, I also wear my watch on my right arm and if you think I'm kidding just click the image on my Contact page for the original hi-rez film scan where you can see for yourself that it's not just a flipped negative. Nikon decided against producing the camera, but let me keep the beta on indefinite loan as thanks for all my input. (This was long before I started this site.) It of course remains property of Nikon Japan. I may not sell it, although it would fetch a pretty penny in the collector's market. I have to return it to Nikon eventually, and of course when it breaks it won't be repaired. I even had a veterinarian friend in Africa who specializes in elephant care send me some phallus hide from the Loxodonta Africana (known for its flexibility and grip when wet) which I then had a local taxidermist apply to my camera in place of the original rubber. It took a lot of paperwork with the U.S. Dept. of Fish and Game but at least it doesn't peel off on my D1H as the rubber does.

I don't get anything from Nikon. They don't even give me the time of day! No loaners (except for the left handed F100 I got before this site went on-air), no special help, no advance information, no hats or even pens. Nothing. Nada. Squat. They don't even send me press releases on time. I always hear about new things from you folks first!

So why am I so ecstatic about their stuff? I've been buying and using Nikon for over 25 years (since 1980). I've been an active Nikon customer since before AI-s manual focus lenses came out and Nikon told us we should all go buy them to replace our perfectly good AI ones. For decades I've been reading the news and looking forward to their new gear every few months, just as you do today. I've seen it all come and go.

I used Minolta from 1973 - 1980 back when through-the-lens meters were the next new thing and used medium format and instamatic from 1965 - 1973 back when coupled rangefinders and FP sync flashbulbs were innovations. I was born in 1962. Photography is as second nature to me as breathing. I was shooting before I could walk. I was born with it. Maybe that's why it's all so obvious to me and why I can see through the marketing crap so easily. Put a camera in my hand and it quickly morphs into an extension of my consciousness. A camera's job is to get out of the way of my vision, not something to have to stop and jerk around.

This perspective lets me appreciate how much better Nikon's current gear is compared to what I used to use even three years ago. My D200 today has four times the resolution, five times the battery life, half the weight and one-third the price of the D1H I bought in 2002. Beside the obvious specs even the brilliant D50 is smarter, more flexible and gets out of my way better than my D1H. My 18 - 200 VR is sharper and more flexible than the collection of 16mm, 18mm, 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 55mm, 85mm, 105mm, 135mm and 180mm fixed AI-s lenses I used to haul everywhere. Of course I'm ecstatic!

Nikon is cranking out revolutionary new cameras and lenses at a pace I have never seen before. This lets me crank out more great new images faster and easier than ever before.

Nikon doesn't have to pay me. They make good stuff. So does Canon, Schneider, Rodenstock, Horseman, Hasselblad, Linhof, and others, too. Nobody pays me and I buy all my stuff myself. I just like to talk about it a lot! Unlike the good old days, Nikon rarely makes duds today (except for the new 105 VR which doesn't focus very well.)

I told you at the top: I do this site for fun. It pays my living so I don't have to work a real job and can (and do) spend all day helping everyone. I love photography and love to share my enthusiasm. Have fun!

As a former salesman I'd love to be sent on free trips and receive all the special insider favors I could, but I just don't get invited. I guess I'm too edgy.

I'd take all the free stuff anyone wanted to hand out, but camera companies simply don't give out free cameras. Nikon has never so much as even loaned me a lens cap, much less a lens or camera. They gave me a pen once at a trade show, but it didnt' work, which was too bad, because it had the URL of their press website on it.

Most of the gear I review comes from friends and other readers like you. I couldn't possibly own all this stuff myself; no one could.