Tag: cameras

I Need More of This

It’s almost leaf peeping season. I need a wider angle lens for at least one of the cameras so I can take some nice wide landscape shots. I did some Googling at lunch and Best Buy has a Z mount 28mm lens for about the same amount of money I spent on my 40mm Z mount last year. Maybe. Not sure what to do about these film puppies though. I don’t have the energy to find new/used lenses for these kiddos.

25/365
25/365

I need to do some shooting before the weather goes to frozen hell. Not that our rain soaked spring and summer were anything to write home about weather wise. Ugh. Bring me to San Diego and leave me there forever. Just send me with a couple more lens options when you do.

Lunch Break Post

I have made it to my lunch break on this the last day before a few days off for a long weekend in Florida. Is my motivation draining as my vacation gets closer and closer? Yes, yes it is. Will I remain productive through the second half of the day despite the obstacles? Yes, yes I will.

Our bags are packed. Jen has a few items she uses for work that still need to go into a suitcase or a backpack, but other than that we’re all set. I took two cameras, my digital Nikon Z5 and my 35mm Nikon FG-20. I have four rolls of film besides the one that’s already in the camera. I am going to follow the same workflow as the last Disney trip back in January. Use the film camera when I get to a park until I finish a roll, then switch to digital. That worked pretty well last time.

I get out of work at 5:30. We are hoping to be at the airport by 6:30-6:45 or so. Traffic will be worse than usual as it’s raining (again) today. The heavy traffic will be going away from the city though, so we should be able to get in to Boston with time to spare.

Our flight is pretty late this evening so we won’t be getting to the hotel until the wee hours of the morning. I think we’re getting a meal on the flight though. I expect to use some protein bars to get myself to my 80 gram daily protein goal before I leave the house, and then just grab some sugar free snacks at the airport to eat on the plane. I don’t trust airline food to be gastric bypass friendly. I don’t want to have stomach issues on the plane. That would be annoying. My redesigned stomach and I need to be extra careful today.

What else… I have a meeting at 3:00. That’s the only thing left on my work schedule. I will sneak upstairs and put the bags into the car after Jen finishes her work day so that the minute I punch out we can leave. I made a checklist in Google Keep to track things we need to do today. The only things left for me are to finish the laundry, put the freshly washed sheets onto the bed so that when we come home we’ll have happy clean sheets, and then make sure the cats food and water bowls are topped off. Harry will be here soon to cat sit, but I want to make sure we’re in the best position possible before we leave. I put fresh litter into the litter boxes this morning. That plus full food and water bowls will mean the cats don’t have anything to complain about. We have to keep the ladies happy, you know?

Okay, lunch break is winding down. Time to get back to reality. I’ll try to post a cat pic or two before we leave. No promises, but I’ll see what I can do.

Signs of a Road Trip Plan

The road trip for today is not happening, but there are signs around the house that something was in the works. One such sign is a small shopping bag full of protein bars and sugar free Gatorade (fruit punch flavor).

This is another sign:

I mean… we weren’t going to stop anywhere that would have been photo worthy but… it’s me so… yeah. Three friggin’ cameras. Mirrorless, point and shoot, and film. Nerd Deluxe.

Morning Plans?

The weather is supposed to be okay in the morning. Should I take the cameras out for a walk? I want to, but I also want to sleep late. If I do go out early I don’t want to go far. Maybe the park along the river in Methuen. Maybe the train tracks near Dascomb Road in Andover. Maybe the riverwalk behind the Tsongas Arena in Lowell. Some place close, but not the usual two or three stops in town. I don’t know. I guess it depends on what time I fall asleep tonight.

Harry and Jen are going out to run some errands in the late morning. Jen’s mom might be coming for a visit. I want to make some music. The fifty songs in 90 days thing has kinda gone down the crapper. I haven’t touched it in 18 days. More or less. I could still pull it off, but do I still have the motivation to try? I don’t know.

The weather looks decent on Sunday too. Maybe some sunrise at the ocean? We’re into the second half of August now. We’re running out of good weather days. I should do something while I still can. We’ll see.

First though, before I fall asleep, how about some Doctor Who. 2nd Doctor, season five, episodes 23-28, The Web of Fear. Sounds like a plan. Bring on the Yeti.

Weekend Photo Plans?

It’s Friday night. I’m sitting in the living room watching some Doctor Who (new series, season seven episode four co-starring the guy who played Arthur Weasley and it’s great to see him) and I am trying to think of where I should take my camera this weekend.

I want to do a lot of music this weekend and I want to spend some time on a work project that’s due on Monday, but I also want to take the camera out shootin’ too.

Boston. When? Sunday morning is supposed to be sunny. That seems like the best bet. It’s supposed to be cloudy around sunrise tomorrow and then clear up later so Sunday feels like the better bet, assuming the forecast doesn’t change or magically become inaccurate.

Where to on Saturday morning then? Downtown Lowell? That train track in Andover? Find another light house? The river walk in Lowell? Minuteman National Park in Concord?

I just don’t know. I don’t know what I want to shoot and I don’t know how to figure it out. I only know that I want to shoot something. Film and digital both. Oodles of photos, that’s the goal. But where?

4:15AM

Good morning sunshine.

It’s quarter past four in the morning. I am up and at ’em. My cameras are packed in a backpack (I don’t have an actual camera bag big enough to fit three camera), the cats’ food bowl has been topped off, I have a full water bottle and a protein bar in a lunch bag, I am finishing off my morning vitamins as I type this, I’ve checked the weather forecast for both Hampton Beach and Salisbury Beach and it’s the same partly sunny for both.

I guess the only thing left to do is decide which beach to drive to and hope the horizon is clear there. Fingers crossed. Also, where do I want to stop for more pictures on the way home? I’m thinking of the Plumb Island lighthouse again. It’s not very impressive as a lighthouse or as a lighthouse setting, but it is a lighthouse and there are some interesting places to stop on the way there and back.

Okay then… I am making the call. We’re going to Salisbury Beach. Time to load up the car and head out. Wish me sunrise luck!

The Streak is Over and What About Tomorrow?

My guitar playing streak is over. I lost count of how many days in a row I played for at least a few minutes. It was almost three weeks, I think. I failed to get any playing in yesterday. Oh well.

This morning before leaving for the doctors appointment I was able to get some work done though. Jen is in the office today so I had some quiet time in the house alone and I used it to record some vocals. I put them onto the 10th and final June song and two more May songs. I think I have six May songs still waiting for lyrics and vocals. I have decided to extend the deadline for the May songs to July 3rd. I am not extending the deadline for the June songs. Those need to be wrapped up by Friday. I only have one guitar part to add and then mix the final five and that’s it. No problem, he said with false confidence that probably wasn’t really that false.

I thought I was going to get back onto the photography bus today. Film, to be specific. As I was getting my shit together to go to the doctors appointment I looked out the window and saw sun gleaming into the back yard. Right. I grabbed Dad’s camera. I didn’t know where I was going to go after the appointment, but I was going somewhere. Then when I actually got outside and got in the car, the sky was clouded over and ugly and sad. Oh well. The day is coming. It’s summer now. Film photography. Digital photography. All over the place in Eastern Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire and maybe even more places than that. I want Boston. I want light houses. I want to go shootin’. Ideally I want to go shootin’ with other folks, but if I have to do it alone at the crack of dawn then that’s what I am going to do. You heard it here first, folks.

What should I do tomorrow? Tomorrow is my work from the office day. I will start the day in Foxborough, which is about a million and a half miles away from my house. I will need to be on the road by 7:30am.

Should I try to get my couch to 5k training in? Tomorrow is the day that it should happen, as I am trying to do this every other day, but I was planning on pushing it off until the day after. If I get up at 5:00am and get right the hell out the door and start, then I should be done by 5:30. That would give me more than enough time to do everything I want to do, including recover from the exercise and watch episode two of Marvel’s Secret Invasion.

I am undecided. If I am out of bed by, let’s say, 5:05am then I will do it. Tomorrow’s plan is to switch from walk for three minutes and run for one minute, repeating eight times to walk for two minutes and run for one minute, repeated eight times. I fully expect my legs to fall off. It’s going to be freakin’ brutal, but it should also take less time than yesterday did. We’ll see.

Okay. That’s enough for now. Back to work, Robert.

Camera Plans

What camera gear should I bring to Vermont this weekend for Bellana’s graduation festivities? I’m thinking… all of ’em. My Nikon Z5 mirrorless, Dad’s Pentax K1000 35mm, and my Nikon FG-20 35mm. I’ll probably bring all of my lenses too. I just need to figure out how to pack it all up.

The two film cameras are both loaded. The K1000 has a half finished roll of Fuji Superia 400. The FG-20 has a fresh roll of Fuji Superia 400 as well, but I have the ISO set to 200 because King JVpes on youtube said it will look cool. I tried it once in Disney and he was right. Thanks! The K1000 has the Pentax 50mm prime lens on it. The FG-20 has the Gemini 80-200mm zoom with the KtoF adapter. I’ll probably take them as is, but bring my Nikon 35-70 lens too. I only have one full frame lens for the Z5, the 40mm prime lens, so that’s going too.

What additional film should I bring? I have a roll of Porta 800 that I bought for Disney but didn’t use. That’s coming. I will put that into the Pentax when the current roll runs out. I have a roll of Cinestill too but is that appropriate in this case? All of my other color film is Fuji Superia. I have a bunch of Kentmere black and white film too, but I don’t think I want to shoot black and white this weekend. Or do I? Maybe I’ll bring a roll or two.

I am really looking forward to this weekend. Seriously looking forward to it.

Folding Cameras

I think I have decided that I want my gateway into medium format film cameras to be a folding camera because it’s not enough to be indulging in a dead technology, I have to go for a DEAD, dead technology.

Looking at you, Mamiya 6.

Battery

I’ve read that one of the issues with mirrorless cameras is battery life. Today I’ve watched the battery nosedive from 80% to 40% in just a few hours.

I’m already through todays roll of film, and we have many hours to go today, so we are transitioning to the point and shoot for a while. No clue how much juice that sucker has left, but I’ll use it or lose it, boss.