Fall Leaves and Lens Flare – Lake McBride, Iowa

It seems as though shots of leaves in the fall with lens flare is cliche’, well I’m now a part of that movement with the picture above. I met up with some friends at the dam at Lake McBride in Iowa to take some waterfall pictures as the water level control is an actual real waterfall and not some lame concrete spillway. It was a good time out there shooting the Bronica and some Provia 100F. I took along the D80 just fun and an easier way to meter as the prism on the Bronica makes it hard to read the shutter speed bar. I do need the waist level viewfinder for it, as I mainly used the ground glass on it’s own to compose and focus shots.

Stephen Schaub has a new camera with the help of Matt Abelson – The Cuboid. It’s a really sweet pinhole/zoneplate camera and I want one, but there are a very limited number of them and I’m sure they’re going to be quite expensive. After seeing Abelsons’ setup and the brief tour of the camera in the video posed by Stephen, I’ve decided that I could design and build my own camera, similar to the Cuboid, but won’t be exactly the same. I am an engineer, how hard could it be? I guess we’ll find out as I blog about the adventures with designing a pinhole camera in the shadows of the Cuboid and that does most of what that camera does.

Because I am sick and have stayed home all week (so far) from work, I ended up finding about a new band on MTV this morning that I actually like – Owl City. The song “Fireflies” had a Postal Service feel to it.

The Dog at 200mm

Word has definitely travelled fast and Erica and I are now shooting an informal engagement session tomorrow afternoon for some simple portraits for a newspaper (as the couple will get a full session with their wedding photographer, but want a quick, nice picture or two right now). People have been talking up our work and there are some more prospects on the horizon.

On a different note, I remember reading about Help-Portrait on Zach Arias’ blog. I found it to be a good idea but didn’t have a good idea to execute against. My buddy Ryan posted a thing on the work photography newsgroup about it and a genius idea hit me.

The idea is this: a lot of families lost pretty much everything in the flood 2 years ago and shooting family portraits for them near Christmas Time could give them something to help keep them positive that things will work out while they rebuild or move to a new house. My friends and I have the gear needed, just no location (preferably on the South side of town near the affected area to minimize travel for these families), or money to make prints for the families.

If anyone in the Cedar Rapids area want to donate a large room with a tall ceiling or money for prints, let me know. If you want to help organize and market, let me know too. This seems like a big undertaking for a few advanced amateur photographers who have very busy schedules with day jobs as engineers.

So how does word of mouth relate to my Help-Portrait idea? Myself and who ever helps organize will have to use it to promote the event (December 12 – the international date set by the campaign organizers).

I have a feeling that this would be a cool thing for the community and I hope it pans out.

A Smooth Pour – Lowe Park, Marion, Iowa

It seems as though photography jobs are “pouring” in, after taking pictures at a friends wedding (for fun), one of Erica’s friends sent her a facebook message indicating she had shown the pictures to her friend who mentioned that we should shoot her engagement photos and possibly her wedding. That’s probably a really confusing sentence -> clarification: Erica’s friends friend may want us to shoot her engagement photos and wedding. We’re already shooting my brothers’ wedding next August and that has me on the fence about a lot of things.

I can’t use my film cameras at his wedding because they’re unreliable and in the case of the Bronica, too loud. He’s said he’d buy me a camera as a Wedding/Birthday/Christmas present. Don’t know how rediculous that sounds, but he’s willing to do it. Because of this though, I’m having a mental war over film and digital; I get the feeling that I’ll give up film after getting this camera. The camera I want (Pentax K-7) is $1200 which just happens to be under half of what most wedding photographers now charge for their services, too bad I’m limited to something not that good, so I’m hoping to get a Pentax K20d with the battery grip. Of course, Eric mentioned a Nikon D1x so I’ve been thinking of that too, if I go that route, I’d have to share gear with Erica.

Erica needs better gear if we are going to start doing this more often, her kit lens isn’t great and the flash she is using has a dedicated Pentax hotshoe which doesn’t really work with the Nikon hotshoe for proper control. I found the two Tamron lenses she needs -> 17-50 f/2.8 and the 70-200 f/2.8.

Time for food, I’m hungry, I’m thinking Pancheros…

Jackie and John in Foliage – Cedar Memorial, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

One of my friends at work asked me to shoot some pictures for her (that looked nice) so her mom could put an engagment announcement in their hometown paper. I got all excited and went for the big production of lights and all that, but she really just wanted a couple of nice shots. Needless to say, she is happy we decided to go big.

I pulled together my crew of Erica and Eric to go help out. Erica was there to help pose since she’s a girl and is better at that then Eric and I who totally though technical stuff most of the shoot. She also rocked with her D80 and took over 200 shots in RAW that I’ve been helping her convert and develop into awesome jpgs. I picked Eric since he’s a good shooter and has an amazing portfolio. My plan was to shoot Erica’s D80 off and on, but I didn’t feel it and rocked out the Portra 160VC that I got from the Kodak Expired Film Giveaway and I’m glad I shot film. I really like the Portra 160VC, the saturation is nice in the scans I got and I’m pretty sure my buddy David at Target turned off the auto-correction.

We headed over to Cedar Memorial which happens to be a pretty large and well known cemetary in the area; it’s also really nice and has some good locations for photo shoots assuming you can hide the flowers at the headstones. I got a couple of nice shots that weren’t acceptable because you can see rows of flowers in the background.

The only bad part about the day was the realization that I put my Vivtar 75-205mm f/3.8 lens back together incorrectly when I cleaned fungus off the back of the first element. It doesn’t focus at infinity anymore. I’m tempted to try and fix it, but it took me a good half hour to get the focus barrel on the focus threads. My Vivitar 285hv flash also broke when the wind caught my brollie and light stand causing it to fall over. In order to work better with my Cactus radio triggers (which had no issues at all yesterday) I bought a hotshoe to pc cord adapter that I mounted on the bottom of the flash; that hotshoe adapter doesn’t fit the bracket on the light stand all that well and usually falls out if it’s tilted, somehow it didn’t this time and the flash’s hotshoe tore itself apart. It seems that I can replace that part of the flash so not all is lost; but I realized that mono lights are probably a better thing since I shoot lots of film and having modelling lights would be a plus. Not to mention the camera fails with the half dark frames, they popped up, but happily on frames that weren’t that great, so I’m not too mad about that.

I think the day was a huge success despite my gear failures. From the shots I’ve seen so far between the three of us, the happy couple is going to get some good quality images.

I cruised over to Tailhook Daily today just to catch up on the latest Naval Aviation news and saw something that sort of disturbed me. Congress wants to name the next aircraft carrier the USS Barry Goldwater. I don’t know who Barry Goldwater is, but I’m assuming he isn’t that important.

I’ve been on two CVN’s, the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) and I don’t remember the other one. I always wondered why the naming system has sort of bugged me and the Tailhook guys actually put it in words.

There is a petition to restore the glory in the naming of aircraft carriers back to traditional means: victorious battles (USS Midway or long standing names (like the USS Enterprise).

My Feet – Ft. Walton Beach, FL

So August was an incredibly busy month with long hours at work, a business trip to Florida (shot 3 rolls of film, shots here but still waiting on how to develop the old slide film), and a week of hanging out at home wth Lilly while Erica was in the Twin Cities for the Annual Tastefully Simple Convention. Lilly and I had a good time and we even went to the park to look at flowers.

My birthday is coming up in 3 days now since it’s after midnight and is now the 5th. I got a pretty kickass shopvac from Erica’s dad and with the money my parents gave me, I got Battlefield: Bad Company and Dead Space. I still need the gear to finish out my darkroom, but Photo Pro has been out of the needed gear, maybe Hall’s Photo in Marion has it. There is no point in going to Porter’s since they stopped selling developing materials in the stores, only online I believe.

Photographically speaking, my one sorta working Pentax ME Super has electronic problems which were confirmed when I borrowed a completely fubar’d ME Super kit with an auto winder. Fixed the other ME Super I had that was giving me problems and shot that for a model shoot my friends and I had not too long ago. I took the plunge and bought a pack of Fuji FP-100C for the Bronica’s Polaroid back. That was an adventure in figuring out how to load the film, wasted 2.5 shots figuring it out and have 2 sorta decent shots hanging on the fridge in their instant glory. I know now what I’m doing so next time I get some of that film, I’ll be good to go.

I find myself more removed from my photography friends because I shoot film and because I keep having issues with my cameras. The latter is due to using old gear, but it seems as there is a little disconnect; don’t know how to describe it. Maybe it’s more apparent now that we’re doing stuff with off camera lighting and they have it easy since they can check settings and I’m relient upon them for initial settings. Maybe it’s because film is something they haven’t thought about for years. I never know what I’m going to get when I take a picture considering all the film I have is usually way expired and my camera will have more than one issue screwing up one or more frames.

Beach Skimming – Ft. Walton Beach, FL
(I’m spoiling you all with a second image today)

I am finding myself more in agreement with figitalrevolution each and every day. What Stephen blogs about just connects with me for some reason and it’s refreshing to know that there is someone out there producing material that is in league with what I want to be creating. Granted he has possibly the best film scanner for under $17,000 and a $30,000 printer (which happens to be one of 8 in the world, that’s how sweet it is). At least I’m finding inspiration for my photography goal.

If you don’t know about him, head over to Zack Arias’ blog. It is a really good read, especially recently.

Curved Panes – Downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa

In Paul Butzi’s latest post “Beyond SoFoBoMo” he pitched an idea called the “Brandenburg Challenge” where you would take a single picture a day for 3 months and make a book with those images. I find this idea fantastic and might actually do that on my own here soon.

I think this is a good idea because, at least for me, I could think about the image I want to make that day and go try it out. If I fail, everyone will see it and be able to critique and give good feedback. It wouldn’t feel as rushed as SoFoBoMo, but I think there will be a little pressure to get an image a day.

My only question is this, does the book have to be written in the 3 month period or can you do it once the images have been gathered (a 10 day grace period)? Seeing as Paul only laid out the idea, I guess I could interpret it in my own way for my own personal challenge.

In other exciting news, I sold my first 2 prints. I could have used the money to buy the rest of the stuff for my darkroom, but I took Erica to dinner at Genghis Grill.

Untitled – Cedar Rapids, Iowa

There is a recent trend to refer to shooting film as analog and I’m sure this is due to the image capture device which is a physical emulsion of silver halide. There is nothing digital about an old mechanical camera filled with your favorite emulsion. So what does this have to do with digital cameras?

First off, the CCD sensor that most digital SLRs use to record the light, is an analog circuit; there is nothing digital about the component. This is not the case for CMOS sensors which could be either an analog or digital circuit. (This is the actual imaging sensor and not the components that work with the sensor)

Why does this bug me?

I think it bugs me because no one bothered to think about what is actually recording the light, granted there may be digital circuitry behind the sensor to process the data, but the fact is the device that gathers light is analog in one of the 2 types of sensors used in digital cameras. I don’t believe film is an analog process, it’s an everlasting chemical process, from creating the emulsion, to shooting, to developing. The only chemical process used in the creation of a digital camera is the etching of the copper off of the circuit boards, which really doesn’t create something tangible as it’s removing most of the copper to create traces for various components.

I guess I’m a little jaded because I grew up with film cameras and today there is a generation of children who have no idea film exists. There are people converting from digital to film (how odd is that) and I think this is where the analog term came about; most likely some trendy kid or online magazine/blog coined the term and everybody latched on.

Respect the chemical process, call it by what it is, film.

As an aside, I’m tired of seeing the Dell/Verizon commercial for their collaborative netbook, that damn “Lollipop” song is pissing me off.

4 Bolts and a Nut – Downtown Cedar Rapids, IA

Yesterday was the 2nd Annual Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk. Most of the Rebel Photo Club crew was down there and joined up with another 25 or so people that made up the Cedar Rapids walking group. I had a good time, hung out with my buddy Dean for the hour and a half we were allotted for shooting. The only problem is the event happened during the downtown Farmer’s Market which I did my SoFoBoMo shots of and just happened to be there earlier in the morning buying stuff with Erica and Lilly. Since Eric finally got his Pentax K-7, he let me borrow the K2000 since the shots have to be uploaded to the servers in a certain time window and film just wouldn’t cut it, especially with my lack of funds. I’m sorta mad at myself for not taking any artsy shots like the blurry train.

There is something about Digital SLR’s that bug me and that was reconfirmed while I was using Eric’s K2000. The K2000 has a setting where you can shoot black and white JPGs instead of color, so I decided to rock that on the photowalk. The annoying thing about all of this is the fact that my awesome manual focus lenses (SMC-M’s) don’t have the aperture contact to the camera body to use in Aperture Priority mode, so I’m stuck in Manual and completely screwing shots up because I can’t meter the camera. I wish that (at least for Pentax) that they would support reading the aperture from the lens mechanically like their older cameras. I don’t even know if their flagship 35mm camera, the MZ-S, supports this. Nikon and Canon have it worse in my opinion, at least I am able to meter my lenses on the K10D, K20D, and the K-7.

Dean was awesome enough to give me four boxes containing a pretty complete dark room, all I need are a gallon brown jug for the developer, some replenisher, and a scanner since I now lack one. I’m pretty excited to develop my own black and white film, I have 2 maybe 3 rolls to do. I might improvise and take a gallon milk jug and duct tape the outside to make it light tight.

In dissappointing news, my Vivitar 75-205mm f/3.8 has fungus behind the front lens element. Completely my fault for shooting it in the rain at the first Farmer’s Market of the season and for not having a shammy bag made for it like my other lenses. Guess I’ll have to get to sewing that sometime soon here.

Sunset in a Starboard Turn – Whitefish Lake, MN

Want to thank The Lonely Island for the title of this post, seems fitting for the picture. The shot was taken from Erica’s uncles’ Cobalt while we boated to see the sunset out in the middle of the lake.

The trip to the lake was a good one, I believe I got some good star trails and the one that I can at least see from the 35mm loaded into the Pentax looked sweet. Other than take pictures, I really didn’t do much which was nice.

Drove to Lincoln, NE to visit the family for the 4th and had a good time there. Saw Larry the Cable Guy for $6 at the football stadium. We took Lilly to the zoo for the first time and had a blast there. I got some good pictures I think and hopefully the torn sprocket holes and the opening of the camera back didn’t screw too much up on the roll of film. I did get my dad’s old multi-meter since he isn’t using it anymore, so that’s a plus as they always come in handy.

I borrowed an old Kodak Retina III C from my aunt which turns out to be my grandfathers’ old camera. It’s pretty sweet, but the shutter is sticky some times, the selenium light meter is dead, and the rangefinder is ultra dirty. I remembered that Ken Rockwell found a repair place near to him that does excellent work, so I emailed and ask for a quote. Sorta too much for me to pay for now, but it would be nice to get the camera fixed. I would do the repairs myself, but I have a feeling that it wouldn’t turn out too well. Maybe I can find a repair manual for it somewhere…

So I’m actually making it through Solaris right now from when I recorded it on the DVR months ago. I need to get the book.