Blog: Out and About
Foggy Morning
November 3, 2023
Permalink | Tags: Out and About, Photography
This morning I woke up to thick fog. It didn’t take me long to realize that I had a great photo opportunity to take advantage of. A brief convention got underway in my mind: “Do I shoot on film, or do I grab my digital camera? I’m thinking digital. Okay, what lens do I use? Hmm... it’s damp outside, and I don’t want to use my good Nikkors. I think I’ll go for my cheap 35mm f/1.7 Meike lens.”
It proved to be a good choice. My 35mm Meike isn’t the sharpest lens in the world, a characteristic that’s actually an asset in those cases when I want a bit of softness to emphasize the dreaminess of the fog.
Fall Colors
October 28, 2023
Permalink | Tags: Out and About, Photography
Fall colors at their peak in my region of the Pacific Northwest. Yesterday, I couldn’t resist getting out between errands to snap a few photos of the natural beauty surrounding us.
One of my favorites, the reflection of color off of a pond, has an almost impressionist quality to it.
Lately, I’ve been leaning heavily toward black and white film photography. But there are times when modern digital color photography is undoubtedly the best medium to capture a scene.
Shooting a Local Event on Film
September 13, 2023
Permalink | Tags: Local Events, Out and About, Film Photography, Photography
Having seen that a local youth group was planning on converging on the center of town to call for climate change-related reforms, I immediately thought the event would be a great way to practice my film photography as a photojournalist of sorts. The Nikon F, after all, was largely synonymous with photojournalism in the 1960s. I’ve used my Nikon F to photograph local protests in the past, and I’ve found that shooting faster-paced events like this on film can be an exciting challenge.
Although the event was a little on the quiet side, I still found decent subject matter to photograph.
Part of seeing an event like this is the way that professional photojournalists circulate among the crowd. To document that experience, I often find myself drawn to photographing the photographers.
After having shot only one roll of film—I never loaded the spare roll I had in my pocket—I thought to myself at the end of the event I didn’t get many keepers. I was delighted to discover upon scanning the roll that there were indeed several that I quite liked. I was also very pleased with the image quality that I got from Ilford FP4 Plus, and I’m encouraged to shoot more on that film stock.
New (to Me) Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 Lens
August 21, 2023
Permalink | Tags: Out and About, Film Photography, Photography, Camera Gear
Today was the first time I got out with my new (to me) Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens. The one I had worked well enough. But the perfectionist in me frowned upon the dry and scratchy focus action. It’s a good user lens, but I wanted something nicer.
Having resolved to myself to buy not one more lens unless I can evaluate it in person, I found that something nicer at National Camera Exchange in Minneapolis. I’ve done business with them in the past, and I trust them. That’s something I can’t say about many of the sellers I encounter on eBay.
The example I got was in exceptionally good condition. Its focus action almost feels like it was recently lubricated. The aperture ring has nice and firm clickiness, for lack of a better way to describe it, the glass is clean, and the lens body’s finish has few if any blemishes or other signs of use.
It was an added bonus that the lens was on sale. I was prepared to spend twice as much for a good example as what I spent on this. And I don’t think I could have found anything nicer.
There’s a nice stretch of sidewalk near my house that always makes for a great photograph. I captured this image with my new (to me) and first-rate 50mm Nikkor:
Pushing Myself to Get Out
August 17, 2023
Permalink | Tags: Out and About, Film Photography, Photography
I felt like going out with my camera today... but I kind of didn’t, too.
There were a number of things that pushed me to get out, namely a desire to add one more roll of film to the two that I had ready for developing. And I just wanted to go for a walk.
But the weather is still hot, albeit cloudier and somewhat cooler than the 100+ degree temps we’ve had this week. Maybe it was the heat or maybe it was the fact that I wasn’t feeling 100% inspired to be photographing things, but I was just in kind of a foul mood as I walked around today. It’s not the best way to wander around with a camera.
I stopped into a few shops while I was in town today. But I didn’t really see any shots in most of those shops, in all honesty.
I’m trying to look for subject matter that I haven’t shot yet—I’m getting tired of taking the same shots over and over again—and I succeeded to a certain degree today.
The best shot I took was one that I think demonstrates the beautiful range of greytones I get from Ilford FP4 Plus:
On a positive note, I did get stopped by a gentleman who noticed my Nikon F. It turns out he was a military news photographer and owned several Nikons over the years. We chatted cameras for a bit. I do like it when I can engage with people like that. The encounter made the trip out today worth it.
After a while, though, I felt like I wasn’t having a good day, and I wandered home.
Camera and Lens Ponderings
August 12, 2023
Permalink | Tags: Out and About, Camera Gear, Photography
Yesterday after I came back from my photo walk, I took the time (or made the mistake?) to write what ended up being a rather lengthy opening post for a DP Review discussion thread in which I asked a question: is the Nikon Z fc the right camera for me? The nub of the issue boiled down to whether the benefits of a $600 on-sale refurbished example of that camera and a used $329 example of Voigtlander’s 35mm f/1.2 lens—benefits including a manual-focus lens that communicates with the camera body and a camera/lens combo that just looks cool—warranted the cost.
With that question still in mind, I pondered which camera and lens to grab for my walk today. Feeling the heat set in—we’re due for a heat wave this coming week, and it’s already getting hot today—I didn’t really want to carry around my heavy Nikon F. I also wanted some hands-on time with my Canon EOS M50 and my one and only modern autofocus lens, if anything, as a gut check to see whether I ought to buy for a better lens for that camera, namely Sigma’s 30mm f/1.4 lens. What better camera to grab than my Canon? I used some masking tape to mark the exact point of the 30mm focal length on my zoom lens, and out I went.
I walked around town shooting various compositions that are familiar to me.
It slowly dawned on me that having a fully modern camera with auto-everything adds the most to my arsenal of camera gear. Sometimes I love the fully manual experience while other times I just want to point and shoot and let the camera take care of everything. Film and digital are complementary, after all.
I came back from that walk thinking that the cheapest option, the Sigma lens at $290, may be the best option. I said so later in that DP Review discussion thread, and I’ll say it here: I like my Canon EOS M50. It’s been a great camera, and I’m reluctant to give it up or even push it aside for a sexier camera that may very well fail to give me much more than what I already have.
Row of Wigs at a Costume Shop
August 9, 2023
Permalink | Tags: Out and About, Film Photography, Photography
As part of my effort to add more of a social element to my photography, I ventured out with my Nikon F loaded with Ilford FP4 Plus film and resolved to stop into some local businesses that I hadn’t been in before
One of my stops was in a costume shop. “Is that a film camera?” the shopkeeper asked me. I responded, “Why, yes, it is!” or something to that effect, and I told him all about it, perhaps in more detail than he was counting on. (One of my weaknesses is gushing about my Nikon F even to those who may not care as much as I do.) The shopkeeper mentioned that he has a cousin who is very much into film photography and had a growing collection of film cameras. He himself had an old Olympus that, upon finishing the conversation, I encouraged him to use.
I then wandered around the shop and came across a room toward the back of the store that had several rows of wigs that looked interesting.
Candids
August 7, 2023
Permalink | Tags: Out and About, Adapted Lenses, Photography
I’m getting better at taking candids of people on the street. The images I took today aren’t my best work, but I have to say I enjoy it most when I can get shots of people just going about their day.
I find I strike the right balance between getting the kind of people shots I like to get and preserving the anonymity that I would like to have myself if I were the subject by placing people in the context of their surroundings. Besides, I’ve never been an in-your-face kind of street photographer. Especially when I use my old Nikkor lenses adapted for my Canon EOS M50 mirrorless camera, doing so achieves a certain softness that accomplishes a pleasing aesthetic while also slightly blurring out people’s faces, all the more contributing to anonymizing their identity.
The Music Store
August 3, 2023
Permalink | Tags: Out and About, Adapted Lenses, Photography
One of my ongoing photography efforts is to go inside local businesses on my town’s Main Street rather than lurk outside and take pictures of them from the sidewalk.
Today, I stopped into one of our local music shops. I had a brief conversation with the owner about vinyl record albums and, like film photography, how the medium never really went away. He mentioned that the major labels stopped cutting vinyl around 1994 or so but that artists like Bruce Springsteen insisted that their albums be put out on vinyl among other media. After asking permission to snap a few photos in his shot, I got some really nice candids from some interesting perspectives.
One of my favorites:
Window Reflection
July 29, 2023
Permalink | Tags: Out and About, Film Photography, Photography
One of the things I benefit from by going to my local photography club meetings is our series of monthly shooting themes. These suggestions often get me out there and try for compositions I wouldn’t otherwise go for.
For this month, one of our themes is reflections. On my photo walk today with my Nikon FM10 film camera in hand, I’ve tried to capture some interesting window reflections off a restaurant window. I worked this composition by focusing on the salt and pepper shakers and capturing sidewalk passersby out of focus. Mostly I got lame exposures. But to get that one keeper image, you have to keep at it.
From this came the one image that I was very pleased with:
The abstracted appearance of everything in the reflected background—the brightly lit street scene, the tree shadow, and the woman’s motion—is something that I find quite compelling.