Tag: cameras

Thanks, DX Code

…and now we wait… again.

I got up early this morning and took my new eBay purchased camera out to finish its test roll… and then I loaded a second test roll.

I went to Methuen, MA’s little downtown area and snapped a few pics and I went to the Spicket Falls dam and took a few pics. That was all it took to finish off the roll of Kodak ColorPlus 200 that was already in the camera.

I loaded a second roll because the camera came with two lenses and I figured I’d shoot one test roll with each lens. So I switched from the 70–210mm to the nifty 50mm, drove to Walnut Grove cemetery and then crossed the street and took a walk down the Methuen Rail Trail. That killed off the second roll.

When I got home I put in an order at The Darkroom for those two rolls along with two additional rolls that I finished a couple of weeks ago. One 35mm and one 120. I just dropped them all off at the post office. Now, as previously stated, we wait to see how things look. The new camera definitely seems to be working from a functional standpoint. Now I just need to find out if it is riddled with light leaks or not. Does the shutter actually work? Who knows. We’ll find out when I get the scans back from the lab.

I had a moment though… a sort of, oh my christ you suck moment. I had just rewound the second roll of film. That was when I realized I never set the ISO on the camera. The first roll was ISO 200. The second was Kentmere 400… ISO 400… I never changed it. Shit. My second test roll is going to have all sorts of incorrect exposure.

Knowing it was miles too late (sorry for mixing units, my Physics teachers would be so disappointed in me) I pressed the ISO button and was wicked psyched to see that it was set at 400! I forgot, this new camera is fancy. It reads the DX code on the film cartridge and sets the ISO appropriately. I didn’t need to reset the value, the camera did it for me. I could have overridden the camera setting, but I wouldn’t have done that. I wanted it set at box speed and it was. Thanks, new camera!

But for now though… we wait.

Tired

I don’t think I have recovered from all of the driving last week. Somehow I feel like I am not terribly tired but at the same time I am terribly exhausted. I don’t get it. I just want to nap, I think.

Well, I want to nap but I also want to put a roll of film through my new camera so that I can find out if it works or not. Functionally I think it is working fine. The question is whether or not it leaks light. I won’t know that until I get a roll of film developed.

I have a doctors appointment tomorrow morning (my annual post-gastric bypass check in with my surgeon) and I was thinking of taking a quick stop along the Merrimack River in Lowell, MA on the way home. I checked the weather though… rain. Shit. I guess I’ll take the camera with me when I go on the off chance I get lucky. We’ll see. If not I might be able to take it for a walk through the bird sanctuary in Methuen on Saturday. We’ll see.

In other news, the new Star Wars movie comes out in just under two weeks. Friday May 22nd sees the release of The Mandalorian and Grogu. I would like to see it opening night, but as long as I get to it on opening weekend I will be happy. I asked my wife and my step daughter if they want to go. I hope so. I don’t like going to the movies alone, but I will. I could always drive up to Burlington, VT again (see previous posts for recaps of the million and a half drives to Burlington I’ve taken in the past 2+ weeks) and see it with my step son, assuming he’s interested. He might not be. I don’t know. My family isn’t quite as in love with Star Wars as I’ve been since 1977. In love is the wrong phrase… clinically obsessed is probably more accurate.

Okay, back to work with you, Sir. This is the way.

Two Photography Notes

Two things happened today that are related to photography fun.

 First: I didn’t need it but I did it anyway. I bought yet another camera from eBay. A Nikon F90. It was on my list of cameras to look for when I bought my last film camera last year. I ended up going for a much cheaper Nikon F401 which turned out to be broken. It came with a nice 50mm lens though so it was worth it for that. 

Similarly, today’s eBay purchase had more to do with the lens. There were two in the sale. One was another 50mm. That’s fine. The other was the reason I pulled the trigger. It is a 70–200mm zoom. I don’t have a good zoom lens that works with any of my film cameras. I do actually have a couple of zooms but they are both in seriously rough shape. Here’s hoping this one works out.

The camera itself looks good. Will it be broken like the last one? Probably, but who can say. It has autofocus and that’s what I really want. If the camera and the zoom lens both work out okay I will be very happy with this deal. If only one of them works, I’ll still be happy. If it’s all junk? Fuck.

What was the second item of note today? I took a bag full of cameras to Boston and went for a 6–7 mile long photo walk. Yikes! I started on Berkeley Street and Commonwealth Ave. I walked up Comm to Mass Ave, then cut across to Newbury Street and walked back down to Clarendon Street. I shot two rolls of film. The sunlight was pretty good, though it was a lot cloudier than the forecast I read last night said it would be. 

When I finished that loop I switched from film to digital and did the same route in reverse. Also, that was when the sun went away. I’ll post the digital highlights later.

For now… my legs are super tired from all that walking. I’m old, leave me alone!

Substack

Right folks, what are our thoughts on Substack? I subscribe to a handful of them but I only ever actually read stuff from the guitar player who used to be in The Blake Babies (and I’m just thinking that it is really getting to be time for another Blake Babies reunion record, don’t we think?) and one film photographer from youtube who lives somewhere in the wilds of New Hampshire. Truthfully, I don’t read every post from those two users but I read some of them. Sorry.

My first thought when I learned about Substack was nope, I’m too old for that shit. The Blake Babies guy is older than I am though… he’s also 100 times cooler and a lawyer (yikes) and his cred level is 100000000 times mine… though any number that quantifies your credibility is higher than my complete and total lack of credibility, right?

My second thought was… it’s an email newsletter. Anyone who would be dumb enough to subscribe to mine would mark me as spam within a couple of days of my pointless brain droppings.

Still… am I thinking about it? No… but… yeah, no.

What else, what else… new camera coming soon. The USPS tracking number says it will arrive on Saturday. That doesn’t give me any time to shoot and develop a test roll before I go on vacation, but I had already decided not to bring a film camera on vacation this time. I’m going all digital on this trip.

Part of my initial film camera attraction was using fully manual, mechanical cameras. I didn’t want any automation at all. I didn’t want anything electronic. This time? The new camera has autofocus. Oh praise be, it has autofocus! I’m getting blinder by the minute and manually focusing is a bitch. Wearing bifocals (well, progressive lenses) makes it so much worse. Now I am going to be able to autofocus with film and oh how the heavens will sing in gleeful glee.

What else? This is traditionally the longest week of the working man’s life. The full work week before a vacation. One day down, four endlessly long and painful days to go. But hey, there’s a new camera and a vacation at the end of it! There’s two carrots on the end of this week’s stick. The best part? Both kids are coming on this trip. We’re going as a full family. How cool is that? Both kids are in their 20’s and we can still get them to come on vacation with us. Life is pretty fucking cool sometimes, don’t you think?

I should join Substack and write a big article about it.

Recreated

I think it was Father’s Day in 2006. I had a nice little Kodak point and shoot camera and I wanted to use it so I drove into Boston and just walked around. I had an idea to stand at the base of the Hancock building and point the camera straight up. That didn’t quite work the way I had hoped, but when I moved just a little bit I got this:

Hancock Tower in Boston

It might still be my favorite photograph that I have ever taken that doesn’t have Jen or Harry or Bellana or my niece or any of my nephews in it. I like it.

Every time I get a new camera I think, “I’m going to try and recreate that picture” and then it never works out as well. My Nikon D90 gave me a bunch of really good pictures, but nothing close enough to the accidental original. I just couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong.

Ever since the film obsession began a few years ago (when my sister found my father’s Pentax K1000 while cleaning out his dresser and asked if anyone wanted it and I suddenly realized that I really, really, really wanted it) I’ve been wanting to go into Boston and see if I could pull it off on film.

Today I went into Boston to see if I could pull it off. I had the K1000, the Lubitell 166, and my digital Nikon Z5. I was messing with the K1000 when I accidentally figured out what I needed to do. I didn’t move to my left, like I thought I did. I moved to my right. All three cameras tried it out. Obviously we have to wait to get the film developed to know how they did, but the digital I can already see.

Close enough?

DSC_4134

All I need now is the airplane to come back.