I am about to post a bunch of pictures from this morning’s manual mode bonanza. I am going to break it into three posts. One will be downtown Methuen and the top of the Spicket Falls Dam, The second will be the Methuen Rail Trail and the Bird Sanctuary. The third will be Walnut Grove cemetery.
Here’s the downtown and the dam pics. I don’t think I will give any details, just pics.
All of these were shot with my Nikon D90 in manual mode because I am insane.
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?
99.999% of my fellow Nikon D90 users are going to want to punch me in the throat for being so clueless, but I’m a little tickled by today’s lunchtime discovery.
Dad’s camera has a light meter built into it. It’s a 100% manual device and the only electronic do-dad is the light meter. If it reads too high or low, you monkey with the aperture and the shutter speed until the little needle points to the middle of the meter. Without that little sucker in the viewfinder I don’t think I would have been able to do anything with the camera. I have been messing with a light meter app to suggest what settings I should start with, but once I have something setup I can tweak it as I look through the lens.
On my Nikon, I have never had a need for a light meter. I used an Auto function in almost every case. Sometimes I use shutter priority, so I set it to a certain time and then the camera calculates the aperture I need. I never had to figure out the settings for myself. The camera is smarter than I am anyway, so why question it?
Now that Dad’s Pentax is forcing me to actually do things for myself, I was wondering if the D90 could do the same thing when it’s in Manual mode? Turns out it can! There’s a button to set it up right on the top panel. It’s been there the whole time and I’ve never given it a thought. There is also a little digital meter display in the viewfinder. Again, I had never even noticed it. In fact, I want to go switch back to one of the auto settings and see if it goes away (I’ll do that another time). In manual mode though, there it is. Monkey with the aperture or the shutter speed and sure enough it moves around.
Right then, the next time I take the Nikon out for a stroll I am going full manual mode. Well… not for long exposures. I’ll stick to shutter priority for that, but everything else is manual mode!
Jump on this wagon with me, people! We’re rolling to a blurry, under/over exposed future!
Two things. First, weather.com says it is going to be sunny in the morning. I am going to try to get up around sunrise and go find a place in the city to take some film photo tests. Maybe just downtown before everything opens. Maybe the cemetery near the railroad station. Maybe the castle ruins. Maybe something else. I don’t know, but I want to do it and I only want to bring dad’s film camera. We’ll see what (if anything) happens.
Second, In regards to the previous post, Jen read an article tonight saying that people recovering from Gastric Bypass surgery probably should not try to eat broccoli until after three months or so. Something about the fiber causing food to get stuck. Well then I’ll just have to wait and see what happens, but I do feel perfectly fine at the moment. No worries.
Bonus third topic. I am in the middle of a third straight photo a day project thingie on Flickr. Every day for two years and nine months I have taken a picture with my iPhone. As of now, 9:14pm, I have not taken a picture with my iPhone. The streak lives, however, because I have taken a picture with my D90 and it’s on Flickr. The streak continues, babie!
Ain’t she sweet?
I walked/marched in place for 30 minutes this morning before work. At lunch time I rode the exercise bike for 15 minutes. I have been trying to work the bike into my daily routine for a couple of weeks. Hopefully things will work out in such a way that I can do this regularly.
The downside is that my legs feel like rubber and walking is a little bit of an adventure. Yikes.
Here comes some camera nerd thoughts. Ready? Okay, I installed a light meter app on my phone yesterday. Dad’s camera has a built in light meter and I would utterly be toast without it. I assume my Nikon has one built in too, but I don’t know where it is or how to use it (now that I think of it, it’s probably just the auto mode). At lunch today I tested it out a smidge. I picked something to shoot, used the light meter, used manual mode on the Nikon, set everything the way the meter told me to, and took a picture. It looked okay on the D90’s little view screen. I then turned off half of the lights in the cellar and did it again. The picture looked okay but it was a little on the dark side (insert Vader’s breathing here).
I then repeated the entire process with the Pentax. The internal light meter looked good in both cases, so I think the app is probably close to accurate. How will the pictures look when I get them developed? I haven’t a freakin’ clue. Not even a tiny inkling of an idea. It may be a long time before I get the results. I took the roll that was in the camera (the 35ish year old roll that Dad started and I finished) to CVS on Saturday. They said 7-10 days… so I should be getting a call from them any minute now. (For those of you reading this post at some random future date, it hasn’t even been 48 hours yet. I was kidding. Get it?)
What else? Do I need to get a camera bag for Dad’s camera, or do I need to rearrange the bag that I have so that it can hold both cameras? My bag has the D90, two lenses, and some other little things. I can change the size of each section in the bag so I know I can fit the camera in there somehow, I just won’t be able to fit all of the other stuff. I have three lenses for the D90, including one that would be on the camera, and two for the K1000, again including one that’s actually on the camera. I may have to leave the extra lenses at home when I take the bag out somewhere. Maybe I get a bag for the two cameras and another bag for the lenses? Do amateur goofballs do that?
I also saw some youtube videos showing a couple of accessories that have kicked off my camera gear acquisition syndrome. Amazon has a remote shutter that screws on to the actual shutter switch. I could use the shit out of that for long exposures. I also saw a timer that is a little windup clock thing that also screws onto the shutter. I think K1000s might have come with that at some point. I wonder if Dad had one. I can’t find any of those anywhere online, including ebay.
And that, dear friends and neighbors, is my lunch break post for today.
Dad’s camera is like a Sox fan at Fenway in the top of the seventh… Loaded.
Now I just have to figure out what artsy fartsy shit to shoot with it! WOOHOO!
I warned you, here come a ton of pictures. Well, maybe not a ton. I’ll try to be more selective than usual.
WordPress.com puts out a newsletter. I usually don’t really read it. I maybe give it a glance and then trash the email. Today there was something about a new feature they’re playing with to give a monthly word prompt. The first month’s word is bridge.
When I read it I did what I always do for word prompt type thingies. I went to Flickr and searched for it. These are a few of the things that came up:
That was fun, wasn’t it? Let’s see what they dish out next month.
Did Santa come to our house last night? I think he did!
Inside the Red Head's Head 