camera
Cobblestones and sand and snow
I forgot my developing notebook, so I’ll get the nitty-gritties on the films and developing on here in a few days. Sparse details: Ilford HP5+ and TX400, mostly, pushed to 1600. All run through my F3HP, shot through an e series 35.
On cameras: I’m thinkin’ I may have to abort operation dave-saves-up-for-three-years-and-buys-a-M6/35-setup, and then start a new operation, likely to be titled dave-saves-for-a-year-and-buys-a-X100. Digital? DIGITAL? Well…yeah, I think so. Hmm. But have you SEEN that thing? Seriously, what a neat camera.
Dream camera
A digital SLR like this: indexed ISO adjustment wheel for the right thumb, shutter speed dial, manual/aperture-priority modes and only-auto white balance, two-position light-meter switch: matrix and weighted spot. Push-button 12 second timer, manual mirror-up mode. No external display, only an in-viewfinder needle light meter and small lcd counter on top for pictures-remaining. Super long battery life and well padded circuit boards, gasketed metal body.
Pretty please!
Oh yeah, and if it could look like a Nikon F3 or a Leica III series, without looking like it’s trying to look like a Nikon F3 or Leica III series, that would be a great plus.
Edit:
And if light meter needle could have little tick marks +/- EV in thirds, up to one EV, that would be some seriously wonderful frosting on the cake.
Adobe Lightroom 3: slippery slope, but I’m wearing crampons
Well..I’ve done it. I bought LR3; the install just finished, and I’m poking around for a few minutes before hitting the sack. I took my first step onto the slippery slope of digital world a few weeks ago, D200 in hand, and now I step again. I will still resolutely dislike digital photo editing, with the following (maybe sorta possible) exceptions:
1. mellow HDR
The mind essentially does this when you look at a sunrise, it balances color/light so that you can see full detail in the ground (dark) and full color in the sky (bright). Well..actually I think what happens is that you see full detail in your field of view (the breadth/width human eyes can focus clearly on at one time), while the mind corrects the colors outside of that. I think I’m right, but may be far from fallacy-free. From the little browsing of HDR’d images I’ve done, what you “see” lands somewhere between a typical single exposure and a typical HDR job. I’m going to play around with very mellow HDR processing and some low light exposures. All that said, I’m super skeptical of it. I like natural light shots. I like them a lot. Yes details are lost and/or colors get washed out..but that’s part of what makes a perfectly taken photo so crazy beautiful, isn’t it? So yeah, HDR..we’ll see.
2. White balance
Film is awesome. It does white balance all on it’s own..oh wait, no, it’s SO awesome it doesn’t even need to do white balance! As a matter of fact, most film simply captures colors as most folks see them, straight up yo. Digital sensors aren’t that technologically advanced yet (oohhhhHHH SNAP, kid. Yeah huh). So when I have a digital shot with off-key white balance, I’ll fix it.
3. Straightening
Yup.
4. Exposure Value
Ummm..I’m on the fence about this one. I take a fair number of pictures, not knowing how my camera’s light metering functions would be pathetic, so I shouldn’t be flubbing up the exposure value to need to correct it. That said, I will likely use it to “push” exposures when need be (i.e., when cranking up the ISO and opening the aperture doesn’t cut it).
I can’t think of anything else at the moment. Tons of thoughts and ideas go through my head when I think about digital photo editing and before long I start thinking about what photography actually is. Someday I hope I’ll have good clear thoughts on all that riff raff and I’ll write it all up real nice and simple.
New-old paintbrush/emergency-battle-mace
Graduation gift-money + selling math textbooks –> new old-camera owner and thank-you notes aplenty, and sad feelings of having betrayed my old standby math book.
I’ll miss you, oh antiquated 3rd edition Taylor and Mann calculus text.
Six important things she does:
1. accept 35mm film
2. aperture priority mode
3. meter light
4. time things (12 seconds, namely)
5. battle-mace duty in case somebody thinks they’d like have her, or other things
6. exposure lock
Six important things she doesn’t do:
1. shutter speed priority mode
2. automatic mode
3. auto focus
4. kill batteries (battery life measured in years of use…let’s see a dSLR do that)
5. exposure bracketing
6. tempt me to ruin moments by snapping off eighteen frames when one is perfect.
“Bess,” maybe?
(shot with my digital camera. odd)