Tag: film

Pentax 17

A new film camera. Who woulda thunk it?

I was really excited when I heard that Pentax was going to make a new camera model. My Dad’s camera, which hurled me down the film shootin’ rabbit hole that I likely will never be able to crawl out of, is a Pentax so that’s kind of karmically fitting.

Then they announced it was going to be half frame. Huh. Okay, I guess. I have enough trouble getting things to look half decent in a full frame resolution, I can only imagine how shitty my stuff would look at half of the resolution. I was still interested, but a little less interested.

Then I learned that it’s not an autofocusing camera, and it’s also not a manual focusing camera. It’s just a zone focus deal and since it’s not an SLR you don’t see through the lens when you look through the viewfinder, so focusing is literally guesswork. Huh.

Am I still interested? Yes. Am I as interested as I was a few days ago? No.

The YouTube is suddenly riddled with review videos. Today must be the officially sanctioned Pentax Press Day, or whatever they call it in the biz.

Here is one I haven’t watched yet:

Here is another one I haven’t watched yet:

Here is one that I am watching as I type this:

Here is one I have watched:

The Bad Flashes video just said the sale price will be $499 and the on sale date will be June 24th via the Pentax website. $499 is too expensive for me. My interest just dropped to very near zero. Sorry, Charlie. Maybe if the price comes down I will check it out, just to be a part of the party and stuff.

Here’s hoping it’s successful and leads to a new full frame SLR. That would be really cool.

I Want to Go Back

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I want to go back to Disney World. Maybe not, but I do… I want to go somewhere. I want to go on a trip. Somewhere that my wife and I can hang out and relax and let the cares of the world go away for a few days… and I can take a lot of pictures on film.

Yeah. That’s the ticket. Let’s go on a trip!

Brain Drop

Daily writing prompt
Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.
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The first thing that comes to my mind? What if it is completely uninteresting? Worse, what if nothing comes to mind? What if my brain is entirely empty? Oh no! That doesn’t leave us with much to discuss. This might be pretty weak as a writing prompt, eh?

Fortunately for me and my tiny old person brain, there was a thought that came to mind as I read the prompt. Unfortunately for you, my readers and only friends* it is nothing interesting. Just before I sat down at my desk and brought up wordpress.com, I had finished my daily exercise. 46 minutes of running (jogging, pronounced “yogging” with a soft J**) in place. The thought that was going through my head at that very moment was…

Holy crap my legs are dead. 46 minutes of jogging (yogging) in place is tough to pull off.

That is it. That was the first thing that came into my sad little brain. I wish it could have been something more interesting and exciting and intellectually stimulating but alas, no. My sincere apologies, friends.

*This is not a movie quote. It’s a paraphrase of a movie quote. A Clockwork Orange. In my teens and early 20’s it was a huge movie for me. When I was a little older I had a friend who had dealt with some bad things when she was young and it changed my perspective on the movie. It was triggering for her, though we didn’t use that term back then, and I saw it in a new light. Once I met Jen and Bellana I suddenly understood her problem with it and felt like even more of a fucking idiot for not having seen it before. The movie includes A LOT of violence against women and girls and now that I had a woman and a girl who were more important to me than anything else in the entire universe I understood that I could never watch that movie again. Now the movie is triggering for me too, in a different way but still pretty painful. Never again. Never ever. I still find myself quoting a few lines now and then because they are so completely burned into my brain, and the language created for the story is pretty unique and amazing. The treatment of the women in the story though… yikes. What the fuck was I thinking when I was a kid? How could I have been so blind and selfish? Never again.

**This is also a paraphrase of a movie quote. Anchorman. This one is something I can watch over and over again. Yeah there is a lot of misogyny in the story, but it literally exists to show how stupid men were toward women back in the 70’s. I mean, 60% of the time it’s accurate every time.

So Many to Chose From

Daily writing prompt
What movies or TV series have you watched more than 5 times?
View all responses

Well, ol’ Robbie was fully enveloped by a nasty head cold by the time he went to sleep last night. Last week his wife dealt with it and was pretty much better by yesterday. For poor ol’ Robbie though, he got to the airport to pick up his step daughter and felt a little twinge in his throat. Uh oh. Two hours later he was planning on calling in sick to work the next day (today). Now he’s sitting on the couch with a nose too stuffy to breathe through and a throat sore enough that breathing hurts. Yippee.

What was I talking about (and why was he doing it in third person)?

Oh yeah, the daily writing prompt. TV series or movies that I’ve watched more than five times. There are a lot of them. I’m old. They pile up.

Star Wars. All of them. I’ve watched them all at least five times. Probably closer to 50 times. I can watch ’em over and over and over again. All of them. The same can be said of most of the Star Trek movies. The good ones at least. Not the one Shatner directed, but the ones that are worth watching. The top of the line Marvel movies are probably over five views by now. Winter Soldier, Infinity War, Endgame. Antman too, which is odd. Harry watched that puppy over and over again when it first hit iTunes.

As for TV shows, I don’t know if I’ve ever hit five views of anything. Dead Like Me is probably close. So is The League. The Mandalorian isn’t there yet, but it will be some day. Same with Andor. Maybe I might give Andor another watch while I’m sitting here sick today. Yellowjackets might be another show that hits five views. It’s at two right now and it’s only been out for a bout two years. The Walking Dead might get there too. I’m in a rewatch now. Season one has probably hit five views. I can’t think of anything else right now. I’m too sick.

Wish me luck today.

Some Thoughts on the X-Files

This post is going to be one for the ages, he said sarcastically.

So last Spring (I think) I started an epic rewatch of both The X-Files and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. At first I spent more time on the X-Files, but then I stopped both shows and embraced the insanity of 60 years worth of Doctor Who. When that ended I went back to Deep Space Nine and kept the X-Files on the side. When DS9 was over I slowly started getting back to Mulder and Scully-land and now I am burning through it once again.

I have seen every episode in the past. The original run of the show (nine seasons and a movie, I think) was completed on DVD and the later stuff (two more seasons and another movie, I think) were watched as they happened. I didn’t start watching the show when it originally aired until (I think) the movie came out. That was in between seasons five and six… again, I think.

As with most of America, before I started watching I was aware of the fan bases desire to see Mulder and Scully hook up. As far as I know the term “shipping” was coined for the two characters and the audiences desire to see them couple up. If I recall correctly, there is a moment in the movie where they almost kiss but are interrupted somehow. I don’t exactly recall.

Now that I am up to my eyeballs in a rewatch I am almost up to the movie. I am on season five episode eight right now. I feel as though there was a conscious decision made by the producers, writers, and show runners at the start of season five to buy in to the shippers. Maybe I am missing something here but I feel like there are oodles of examples of the show hinting at a possible romantic relationship that really kicked off at the start of season five. They are a little more flirty with each other, they are repeatedly getting physically close to each other, and there are instances where other people ask them if they are a couple.

Is it just me? Was there a change in the way they handled the two characters or was there a change (unconsciously) in the way I am watching the show? I don’t know. What I do know, is that when I started rewatching this incredibly long series I forgot about the movies. A quick search tells me that neither of them are available for streaming… which means I have to find another way to watch them. I also need to get cracking on that as I need to have the first one ready for when I finish my current season.

The truth is out there, kiddies, and I want to believe.

I Need a Film Photo Project

I used to do a New Years Day post where I took one photo from each month of the previous year and reshared them in one big post. I did that a bunch of times, but I can’t remember if I did one for 2022 in 2023. Did I drop the ball last year? I know I’ve been dropping it this year. I mean, today is January 8th and I haven’t done one yet.

Thinking about a post like that (even though I haven’t done it yet and am not sure if I will or not) has me thinking about things I can do for photography projects in 2024. The Photo a Day Challenge is alive and well, though very not-interesting at all. What about film? I haven’t taken a photograph on film since the weather started getting cold. What can I do as a project that is entirely film based?

Maybe instead of a photo a day on film (which I was thinking about doing this year but eventually decided against) I could do a film photo a month? I could plan one photo walk sort of thing for each month in 2024 and take a few film photos each time. Then when they are all developed and scanned I can lump the 12 monthly photos into one post here. Does that sound like something I could do? It does, if you don’t worry about what the monthly photo walk would be. Logistically it would be easy. Creatively… maybe not. 

We’ll see. It’s already over a week into January so we’re behind the 8-ball to start with. We are planning a visit to Vermont in early February. I could use that for that month. That doesn’t help me with January though. Boston is right down the road… maybe I could talk my wife into going for a walk in the city with me? That could be fun and creatively beneficial.

I don’t know if I want to charge myself with this. We’ll see. We’ll also see if I do a 2023 retrospective one-pic-per month thing. I might do that tonight. Again, we’ll see.

The Film Is On The Way

Oh happy day, the film is on the way!

On Friday I ordered five rolls of 35mm film development from a photo lab in California. I packaged it all up and planned to drop it off at the post office on Saturday before I woke up sick and didn’t leave the couch for the entire weekend.

Today, Monday, I kicked off my lunch break with a drive to the post office downtown where I dropped off my package full of rolls of film and kicked off the anticipation for new film scans. How long will it take to get to the lab? No idea. How long will it take the lab to develop the film? No idea. How long will it take for the lab to get the scans back to me? Again, I have no idea.

I don’t know how long any of the process will take, but I do know that I CAN’T WAIT!!!

In closing, here are two pics of the downtown clock… because.

53/365
53/365

Order: Placed

50/365
50/365

I went with a different photo lab this time. Unfortunately that means when I ship these kiddos they have to go all the way to California instead of just up the road to New Hampshire. This round is going to take a little more time.

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?

Long Day

Today is my first day back at work after a four day weekend. I’ve been punched in for about eight hours and 11 minutes but if feels like 2523972 hours and 237923603 minutes.

One bad thing happened at work today. I was prompted to reboot to take a Windows update. I had no idea (because I didn’t check before I rebooted) that the update in question was a full update to Windows 11. Ah, hell.

After a few less than perfect days in a row in terms of gastric bypass side effects and the like, I have now had two very good days. Well, yesterday was good and today has been good so far. I am really tired though. I only got four hours of sleep ahead of my sunrise jaunt yesterday. Last night I got six hours but I never put on my CPAP mask so maybe it wasn’t the most productive six hours. I am trying to remember why I didn’t put it on when I went to sleep last night and I can’t recall. I know there was a reason at the time, but what was it?

Did I mention I mailed off two rolls of film yesterday? I was hoping to maybe get an email saying the lab had received them today, but I didn’t really expect to. Maybe tomorrow? One roll was loaded into Dad’s camera on either Christmas day or Christmas eve, so there will be a few Christmas shots. There was also some snow in the back yard stuff, and then the first day of Bellana’s graduation weekend. The other roll was my first roll of Kodak Portra 800. Really my first use of a professional level film. I get shivers just thinking of that, and know that everything I took will likely suck because I am clueless. That roll has mostly graduation weekend stuff, and a few pics from yesterday’s stop at Plum Island.

We are going to see Harry this weekend. I expect a lot of Doctor Who discussions. Maybe I will make him watch an episode of the original show, just for laughs. Maybe I’ll Google something like “best forth doctor episodes” and see if there’s something we can watch out of sequence.

I just did exactly that and found that Douglas Adams of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fame wrote three episodes of Doctor who in 1979. Only two aired as the third was derailed by a labor strike. I think we might have to investigate this further.

Okay, the work day is coming to a close. Time to start packing up. I hope you all had a good Wednesday, and I hope it didn’t feel like it was 941760497 hours long.