Travel Plans and Parental Controls

Bellana came home late last night. Late enough that I was asleep. I woke up at 4:00am for some reason and checked the driveway and her car was there. Wonderful! My step daughter is home!

By 8:30am though we had dropped her off at the airport. She’s flying to Denver, meeting a friend, and then driving back to somewhere in North Carolina. From there she’s going to Atlanta and flying to Orlando where she will meet up with the rest of us for our Disney trip the week after next.

That’s a lot of traveling!

Her flight hasn’t boarded yet, but according to flightaware.com it is still on time. Safe travels, Bellana! We love you!

On an unrelated note, I think I need to set up parental controls on my computer. I think I need to block ebay. Yeah… I bought another camera last night. What the fuck, Robert? This one is a 35mm with autofocus. It has a 50mm lens too. Bonus! I still don’t think I will take any film on our vacation, but it is pretty clear my self imposed two month film hiatus isn’t going to last more than a few days. Oh well. I tried.

While we’re on the subject of film, I got a notification from the lab I sent the last batch of film to that it arrived. That was Thursday afternoon. I was hope hope hoping that I would receive word that the scans were available yesterday but I gots nuttin’. I doubt they’ll be working over the weekend, so hopefully early next week we’ll have the results. I’m optimistic that the five medium format rolls come out okay. Four of them might at least. One of them might be a smidge under exposed. I had the light meter app on my phone set wrong during one roll. Dumb ass. Everything else (hopefully) was free of user errors or dumb ass fuck ups. Fingers crossed.

Another New Film Camera?

I wrote something the other day about the new Pentax 17. The first new Pentax film camera developed since the 1840’s (approximately). I love the idea of it but it’s half frame and zone focusing and more expensive than I was hoping (though just about as expensive as I figured it would be). Also, the camera I took from my father when we cleaned out the house is a Pentax so that seemed fitting somehow.

I won’t be buying one. At least not for a while. I want either an SLR or a point and shoot. They say they are working on both of those, but I’ll just have to wait and see.

Turns out there is another new film camera on the way. It’s a point and shoot with autofocus and it’s not half frame. That sounds awesome! It’s called the Rollei 35AF though I guess it isn’t made by Rollei? Whoever makes it is just licensing the name? I guess. Also it’s going to cost 200-300 more than than Pentax 17 so… yikes. Again, way more than I want to spend, but probably just what I would have expected to spend. This is more like what I would like to invest in, though I would still much rather get a new SLR that would have little side benefits like repairability and warrantees and fun stuff like that.

Still, it’s intriguing. We’ll see.

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.

Packing Up

Harry’s getting all of his boxes packed up and ready to go for tomorrow. The plan is for him to load up his car in the morning and anything that doesn’t fit will go into our car.

In the interest of distracting myself from the imminent return of the empty nest syndrome I am trying to figure out what to do with the camera situation. There will be rest stops and gas stations and maybe lunch in downtime Burlington and I still want to find a way to convince the love of my life to drive through Woodstock, VT and possibly the glory that is the Quechee Gorge (I think there’s zero chance of either thing) and in the current mental state I will need a camera close to me at all times. Film is a given, right? But these days film requires a digital companion. Will it be the DSLR or will it be the point and shoot? The iPhone will be there, of course, but which other camera will be there with it?

I am not going to make that call tonight, but in preparation I have put both camera’s batteries on their chargers. It also depends on how much stuff ends up in our car. If I have room for the bag I’ll take the DSLR. If not then I’ll take the point and shoot. Here’s hoping for sun and a chance to get close to Lake Champlain (pretty much zero chance of that too). Also maybe a chance to see some of the cool parts of downtown. We’re dropping Harry’s stuff off and then moving across town to meet Bellana. Lunch downtown could happen.

I’m not sure where this post is going anymore. Camera. Film Camera. Digital Camera. Yadda yadda yadda.

It’s quarter past nine in the evening and I haven’t done my walkies yet. I will do it after everyone else goes to bed, which should be any minute now.