Tag: digital

Almost Time to Go

I haven’t been to every city on Earth. Not even close. I love San Diego, CA. I love New York, NY (except for the fucking Yankees). I love a whole bunch of other cities as well, but if I had to pick just one as my favorite… just one city to spend the rest of my days… it would be Boston, MA. My home. Sort of. I grew up about 20 minutes north of Boston and today I live about 30 minutes north of Boston. Close enough. Boston is home. Boston is my favorite city.

For the next few nights we are going to be staying in Boston for my wife’s company event thing. She’s going to be there for the whole time while I am still going to go to work as usual. I’ll just be hanging out waiting for her work events to end each day. I could stay at home while she stays at the hotel, sure, but that would mean we would be separated for a few days and frankly I’d rather stick a railroad spike through my eye than chose to spend a few days apart from my love. Call me sentimental.

Anyway, she’s wrapping up her work day. We both have a bag packed. Yeah, I’ll be home for the work day tomorrow, but I am still bringing cameras. I expect to do some wandering around while she’s at after-hours events. I don’t know if I will have time to shoot any film, but night shooting digital is definitely a possibility. Hopefully I’ll have enough sunlight to FINALLY run a test roll through my new, ebay, Lubitel. Once that is done I can send off a whole pile of film for developing. Disney World and New York photos will be included. It’s a must, really.

Here’s hoping it’s a nice hotel room. If we’re going to be stuck there for a few days it would be helpful if it were comfy with a nice view. It’s close to Boston Common, but not close enough to see it. At least I don’t think so. I’ll probably post a few thousand pictures over the next few days. You know, like I do.

Animals

I redefined the word nerd. We went on the safari ride thing at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. I had my digital camera and my dad’s film camera and I alternated between the two like a dweeb. One animal on film, the next on digital, wash, rinse, repeat.

Neither camera had a zoom lens. All of the pics are going to need serious cropping. Also, the ride was bumpy so guaranteed none of the film shots will come out at all.

WHEEEEE!!!

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?

How’s the Weather?

Checking on the weather forecast at Salisbury Beach tomorrow.

Sunrise is at 5:22am. The sky is going to be clear at that time and the expected temp will be in the high 40’s.

Yeah, tomorrow sounds like a sunrise at the beach day. My Nikon Z5 is charged and ready. Dad’s Pentax K1000 has about half a roll of film in it, and I want to finish it before Bellana’s graduation next week. My Nikon FG-20 has a fresh roll too.

If I go, and as of right now I would very much like to go, I’ll bring all three cameras and see what happens. The focus will be the Z5. No tripod and no long exposures, because I don’t have an ND filter that fits the Z5’s 40mm prime lens, or technically any of my current lenses.

Yeah. Let’s do this.

Shooting in the Morn?

Jen booked an appointment for early tomorrow morning so I’m going to be up with her. I guess that will give me a chance to go out and shoot me some pics.

I’m thinking of bringing the Nikon family over to the rail trail. I took dad’s Pentax there once but the film roll broke or jammed or some shit and the pics I took were ruined and chucked. I’ll try again while also maybe trying some digital black and white. That’ll be a fun way to kick off a photo-a-day thing, right?

It all depends on the whether. I think I have 15 or so shots left on the current roll of film. When it’s done I’ll have two rolls to develop. Then I want to buy a couple of rolls of the cheapest black and white film I can find. I want to use dad’s camera for the great black and white experiment. I think dad’s camera is just plain better than mine.

I’m still planning on turning our January Disney trip into the greatest film photography experience in human history, but I think I need to stock up on a few more rolls first. I’d like to try and get a couple of rolls of high ISO film to use at night, but that’s going to be on the expensive side so I need to save up a little first.

And that’s the film situation at this moment in time.

And now it’s bed time. Goodnight, Moon.

Manual Mode Bonanza

I went around town today with my DSLR, shooting in Manual mode like a boss. Well… mostly. I kept the auto focus on because my eyes were feeling kinda funny. I learned that my 18-55mm lens only goes to f5.6. The 50mm lens on Dad’s camera goes to f2. So the comparisons might not be that interesting. I basically kept it set at f5.6 with the ISO at 200 (because the roll of film I used the other day was 200) and then just played with the shutter speed to react to the light meter. Probably not the best idea, but give me a break, I am a total rookie at this. I’m just amazed that the pics came out at all.

I will post more of the results later, but there were one or two spots where I took a shot in Manual and then took the same shot in Auto. What do you think?

DSC_0167
Manual mode, f/5.6, 1/200
DSC_0169
Auto mode, f/9.0, 1/80

Another Round Tomorrow

I think I have decided that tomorrow morning, around sunrise time, I am going to retrace my steps from yesterday’s mini photo walk around Methuen. This time with my digital camera in Manual mode. Weather and sleepiness permitting, of course.

The idea will be to compare the results with the digital camera to the film camera. Assuming the film shots actually get developed and actually come out okay.

I’m kinda going off the deep end here, aren’t I.