“Well, yes. I definitely consider myself to be your one that got away.”—Tyler Oakley

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you probably know that I’m a bit of an Anglophile. And while I’m currently not driving any kind of a car (except one of Mary’s) two of the last three vehicles that I owned were British. And for a long, long time I was in love with and wanted to own a classic MG TC.

In 1945, the TC was the first postwar automobile launched by MG. Its design was similar to the pre-war TB, sharing the same 1,250 cc pushrod-OHV engine but with a slightly higher compression ratio of 7.4:1 producing 54.5hp at 5200 rpm. Even though they were only built as a right-hand drive model, the cars were exported to the United States with slightly smaller US specification sealed-beam headlights, larger twin rear lights, as well as turn signals and chrome-plated front and rear bumpers. Overall 10,001 TCs were produced from September 1945 to November 1949, which was more than any previous MG model.

How I Made this Shot: This British Racing Green MG TC had an amusing radiator cap that hearkened back to the days when every classic automobiles wore distinctive caps. This one made me smile. It was photographed with my Olympus E-M5 Mark I with 14-42mm kit lens (at 42mm) and an exposure of 1/320 sec at f/10 and ISO 250.

The closest I came to actually owning an MG TC was when I was in negotiations with an obsessive collector who owned three different TC’s: One was a 100-point Concours car that was finished in British Racing Green and the other two were ivory-colored, the so-called “Old English White.” One of them (below) was a high-end driver that needed some, mostly cosmetic, work but the owners had all the necessary parts and we agreed on a price. I test drove the car and was surprised at it’s performance for a 1948 automobile that only had 50 horsepower. And then he changed his mind about selling it because…and thereby hangs a tale.

And I have since moved on. At this point in my life, I’m no longer interested in owning an MC TC but still have an abiding affection for these elegant, stately carriages, There’s something about those tall skinny wheels and elegant grille that appeals to me as does the right-hand drive—all TC’s are right hand drive— a characteristic that I also admire in JDM classics like the Nissan Skyline, although how that relates to old MG’s I’ll never know.

If you enjoyed today’s blog post and would like to buy Joe a cup of Earl Grey tea ($2.50), click here.

Along with photographer Barry Staver, Joe is co-author of Better Available Light Digital Photography that’s now out-of-print but new copies are available from Amazon for $21.88 and used copies are four bucks. The Kindle price, for some reason is really high. ($93.95)

The SEMA Action Network announced that the next Collector Car Appreciation Day will be celebrated on July 10, 2020. This mark the eleventh consecutive commemoration in what is now an annual event that recognizes the vital role automotive restoration and collection plays in American society.

Americans have had a fascination with automobiles since the first U.S. horseless carriage was demonstrated in 1893 by the Duryea Motor Wagon Company. The invention of the automobile influenced the American sense of adventure. Today, collectors of these vehicles keep history and memories alive. They restore and maintain the old metal and engines. Specialists take great care to find the right part or color and skilled artists put their hard labor to work restoring a single collector car. They spend hours painting, repairing, rebuilding and welding to recreate the final result of a pristine collector car.

This day recognizes those individuals dedicated to preserving a piece of American history. We associate each era with a certain car. Whether we ride in a Prohibition-era Cadillac Sedan, a 1960s era muscle car or our grandfather’s pickup truck, they take us back. That’s Mary and I with our former 1953 Packard Clipper Club Sedan pictured above. You can read more about it here.

So remember to hug your classic on July 12.

How I made this shot: Mary and I made this self-portrait in downtown Brighton, Colorado when we owned this lovely 1953 Packard Clipper Club Sedan. Camera was a Canon EOS 1D Mark II N with an EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens with an exposure 1/250 sec at f/8 and ISO 100.

If you enjoyed today’s blog post and would like to treat Joe to a cup of Earl Grey tea ($2.50), click here. And if you do, many thanks.

When testing the Leica Q I ran into a memory card problem that was solved by using the camera itself as a card reader and connecting it to my computer and copying the image files onto my hard drive. While card failures do occur, in all my years of using both CF and SD cards I’ve had few such occurrences and was sure each time it was caused by user error. At least that’s what I used to think as I mentioned in my post about photographing the Goodguys Colorado Nationals.

Mary and I were getting ready to attend the Colorado Conclave car show for English cars and motorcycles and I planned on taking my Panasonic Lumix GH4 and 14-45mm OIS lens that was used to make all of the photos shown in this post. Now it gets interesting: Not too long ago I started having problems with my GH4 giving me error messages and having to shut the camera down and restart to continue making photographs.

I asked my friend Mark Toal, who works for Panasonic, what he thought the problems was and he suggested updating the firmware to the latest version. I said I was sure I had the latest firmware installed, which I quickly found out I didn’t. I installed the latest firmware then told Mark about it, to which he replied, “it could be the memory card.” So while charging the GH4’s battery I took a look at the memory card inside the body and sonofagun, it was another 64GB Lexar Professional card. The same kind of card that ate my images at the Goodguys show. I removed it, then started looking at the cards in my other Panasonic and Olympus camera and found several other Lexar cards, all of which have since been quarantined.

Because of Mary’s yoga class, she and I arrived late in the Colorado Conclave show but we both made photographs using SanDisk SD cards and neither one of us experienced card problems. I wrote a post for my main blog called How Old Is Your Memory Card? in which I pass along some tips to avoid creating your own problems due to user error. If you have time give it a read.

Update: A lot has happened since I originally wrote this post: On June 27, 2017, Micron announced that Lexar’s entire portfolio would be discontinued, including memory cards. The brand was shortly after acquired by Chinese company Longsys and a group of former executives  teamed up to produce memory cards. If I get a chance to test the new cards, I write a review.