Sunny Sixteen

First View-Master Reel

Photos taken on View-Master Personal Camera, Fujifilm Velvia 50

Our vintage View-Master film cutter and personal mounts arrived early last week and I have made our first personal View-master reel.

The process was actually easy and I am very impressed with the precision engineering of the cutter and mounts.

All you have to do is load your uncut strip of 35mm film into the cutter by aligning the first pair of frames with the cutting holes. Then use the knob to move the film from shot to shot, it clicks nicely into place for each image.

Push down on the cutter and it stamps out the stereo pair of images you are currently looking at.  Take the resulting finger nail-sized film clips, slip them into the tweezers-like inserter, then slide them into open slots in the blank reel.

The only challenge is making sure you have the right side of the reel facing towards you (the one without blank labeling lines for each image) as you insert the film.  You also have to insert the film backwards as if you were looking through it from the opposite direction.

I goofed this up a couple times before I paid good attention to the circle and square guide marks put on both the film and reel.  I will post about this process in more details soon.

Putting my first reel together only took about ten minutes, and I bet with just a little practice it will easily get under five.

There is something magical about seeing yourself and your family in 3D via a View-Master viewer!

Polaroid One Step Flash

 
Polaroid One Step Flash, The Impossible Project PX 600 UV+ Silver Shade Gold Edition

We made an impromptu visit to our family in Southern California this past weekend.  We realized that a planned vacation next week wasn't happening, so we decided last minute to pull off a quick weekend road trip.

My mother-in-law had recently given me a Polaroid One Step Flash camera so I figured it was a good opportunity to try it out. I bought two packs of The Impossible Project’s latest films, the PX600 UV+ Silver Shade (black & white) and PX680 Color Shade.

The camera worked perfectly fine. Or perhaps I should say it worked as designed since the One Step Flash is a rather run-of-the-mill Polaroid. The always-fires flash was somewhat annoying and resulted in at least one completely blown-out exposure outside.

The Impossible film is coming along but nowhere near the quality of the original Polaroid emulsions in their heyday.

I liked the Silver Shade black & white film a lot as it was fairly contrasty and the 8-pack only resulted in one image with a tiny undeveloped patch. Their Color Shade on the other hand seemed quite washed out, and about half of the pictures had fairly large undeveloped patches.

For instant color photography I think I will stick with my trusty Polaroid Automatic 100 Land Camera and Fujifilm’s excellent FP-100C film.

Perhaps the best thing to come from the Impossible film was a golden dark slide that came on top of one of the packs. This is a Willy Wonka-esque gift certificate to The Impossible Project’s store.

Based on a whim I used it to order some original Polaroid Spectra film which Impossible recently put up for sale.

Do I have a Spectra camera?... Not yet, but I’m working on that!

Seeing Double

(this shot of the film taken with) Nikon D300, Nikkor AF 105/2.8 D Micro

As my Dear Sweet Wife has mentioned, we have been bitten by the View-Master bug in our household.

In this day and age when our kids have done just about everything possible on our iPhones, it has been a pleasure to see them wildly entertained by our childhood favorite analog stereo image viewing device.

Our six- and three-year olds, their cousins, and a number of their friends have been amazed for hours by viewing wheels about Dora, Cars, space exploration, and other topics.

While we are happy to see the View-Master brand still alive and well after over 65 years, we are getting serious about making our own reels via a decidedly vintage approach!

We purchased a classic View-Master Personal Stereo Camera and have run our first roll of slide film through it.  I shot a number of exposure tests and everything seems to have come out well.

With this success under our wings we have ordered the accompanying vintage cutter device which slices out the pairs for perfect insertion into blank reels.  With luck we may make our first reels in a week or two.

UCLA Sprockets

Lomography Sprocket Rocket, Fujifilm Pro 400H

One of my New Year resolutions for 2012 was to streamline my workflow and one step I am experimenting with is out-tasking my scanning.

Scanning film is labor intensive, and believe it or not I still haven’t fully processed my box of shame yet.  However in the last week or two I have processed (backed up, put online, etc.) almost ten rolls of film shot over the holiday season.

I did so by using the scan-during-processing options from both The Darkroom and North Coast Photographic Services labs.  I received back from them both discs of scanned images along with my film and prints.

I love NCPS’s “enhanced” scans, and The Darkroom has done a great job on my Sprocket Rocket images like the one above taken at our alma mater.  Neither is as good as the scans I can achieve with my trusty Nikon 5000, but for online use and small prints they work great!

Later I will compare their scanning services in more detail.  For now here are some things crossing my feeds…

• Who knew that a cheese grater could look this groovy
• This long exposure of Toronto is quite beautiful
• All you need to turn a negative into a positive is your brain
• If you can stand in your camera, it must be large format
• Photographers “shoot” a lot, but usually not this way

Macro Lens Results

Nikon D300, AF-S 60/2.8 G Micro

We spent some time this weekend playing around with the two macro lenses I rented as well as our own AF 105/2.8 D Micro.  What do we think of them all now?

Both my Dear Sweet Wife and I quickly came to the same conclusion:  The too-short working distance and lack of internal focusing of the AF-S 40/2.8 G Micro lens is a complete show stopper.

While shooting a flower bouquet with the focus locked as close as possible with the 40mm its front frequently came into contact with the flowers themselves.  With any macro subject that isn’t perfectly flat you will find working at maximum magnification very difficult.

On top of that, the front element of the 40mm lens moves significantly during focus changes which alters the angle of view.  If you try adjusting focus at all you will go through multiple iterations of compose, focus, re-compose, re-focus, re-compose, re-focus, etc…

In comparison, the AF-S 60/2.8 G Micro lens was a pleasure to use.  It had a good working distance at maximum magnification; it never came too close to our subjects.  And with its internal focusing feature, changing focus had no noticeable effect on the composition.

There was really no competition at all in our mind: if the 60mm lens is within your budget we can’t see a good reason to even consider the 40mm.  (And if a new 60mm isn’t in your budget, I would recommend a used 60mm over a new 40mm too!)

Keep in mind our goal was to consider these for use with our smaller DX format D300.  If you use a full-frame FX body and/or 35mm film we would still prefer our good old 105mm lens (or its current equivalent).

Macro Lens Testing

  Nikon F100, Fuji Velvia

My Dear Sweet Wife and I like to shoot macro or close-up photography, for our blogs and otherwise.  She picked up a Nikkor AF 105/2.8 D Micro lens a while back and it has been our workhorse lens for close up shots taken with our film bodies.

However, our D300 and its small DX format sensor and resulting crop factor has increased the working distance of that lens.  Trying to shoot small items on a desk has become an exercise in backing up more than we have room to do in our tiny and crowded house.

We have been considering getting a shorter focal length macro lens with a closer working distance ever since we bought the D300. BorrowLenses.com has a promotion right now (code winter15) which lead me to rent two shorter micro Nikkors for this weekend, just to try them out.

Both are current lenses in Nikon’s lineup, the AF-S 60/2.8 G Micro and AF-S 40/2.8 G Micro.  Judging by specifications, the 60mm lens wins in terms of features: nano coating and ED glass, 2 aspherical elements versus 0, internal focusing, and support for FX and 35mm bodies.

But none of that matters if the 60mm lens working distance is still too far out.  Stay tuned for a few posts comparing all three lenses after I have put them through their paces!

Meanwhile if you have some spare time this weekend (perhaps two hours) be sure to catch Star Wars Uncut, the full crowd-sourced recreation of Episode IV was just released.  Be warned it is only mostly G-rated...

Jazzing It Up

 

Nikomat FTN, Nikkor C 35/2 O.C, Ilford HP5 Plus via dr5 reversal process

Back in August we attended a jazz concert by some friends of ours, this gig happened to be at a local church courtyard.  Part way through the concert an elderly lady was assisted to sit in the chair in front of me, and I thought her woven hat and silk shirt made for a nice foreground subject.

The trumpet player in the background isn't quite as well defined as I would have liked, but I still think the lady, the musician and the tree round out the composition nicely.

I shot this with my old Nikomat FTN SLR and (then newly purchased) manual Nikkor 35mm lens.  I love shooting with a "normal" 50mm lens, but I find in tighter quarters a 35mm focal length is more flexible with its slightly greater angle of view and depth of field.

A few things of note (and very retro ones at that):

• If you have any love for film photography and appreciate the special role that Kodachrome played you must watch this short documentary (10 min) about Dwayne's Photo ending the last available Kodachrome processing service, it will tug on your heart strings.
• The contact print isn't as commonplace as it once was in the commercial photography industry but gives amazing insight into the photographer's creative thought process.
• On a funny note, this photographer finds their young students puzzling over the small tupperware containers on their desk.

Nikkor C 35/2 O.C

Fork in the Path

Nikon D300, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6

One of my 2012 resolutions is to share my photos more, and one of the old fashioned ways to do this is via prints.  Putting photos up on the wall is an easy way to start conversations with visiting friends and family.

I took this photo while on a business trip to Oslo, Norway in October 2010.  We were walking through the Royal Palace park on the way to dinner when I snapped this shot of my co-workers proceeding down the path.

I had it printed by Mpix shortly thereafter and swapped it into a frame we already had.  However, the previous picture was a vertical shot and the wire mounting was not setup for hanging horizontal.  As I sometimes do (ahem...) I put is aside and forget about it.

My wife discovered it hiding (in plain site...) on top of a cabinet the other day, so I finally got off my behind, re-attached the wire for horizontal placement and hung it on a wall in our house.

Maybe I can rotate a few other new prints through the house soon, this time taking less than a year to hang them up!

Spin Spin Spin

iPhone 4S, Hipstamatic app

We hit one of our favorite San Francisco spots this past weekend, the Exploratorium.  Not only do kids have a blast there, but frankly adults do too.

My kids loved biting a metal rod (through a one-time-use straw) and hearing music via vibrations conducted through their jawbone.  They also spent considerable time at the above spinning platforms covered in fine sand which they could carve shapes into via long spatulas.

I had to be torn away from the sound booth creating effects for old-fashioned radio shows with metal service utensils (sword fighting), a wooden peg board (marching troops), plastic cups (horse hooves, though not quite as classy as using coconut shells), and numerous other items.

I shot a roll of Kodak T-Max P3200 B&W film inside and my first ever roll of Kodak Ektar 100 color negative film outside.  Ektar is supposed to be the most saturated color negative film, I will be curious to see how its color turns out compared to slide films.

A few more things I have been following...

I would buy a few of these vintage camera pillows, but my young boys would just use them for pillow fights.

Photographer Nadav Bagim brings together insects, flora, and moisture to create miniature wonderland shots.

Don Hong-Oai's (1929-2004) work is getting some recent attention, he was one of the last practicers of a style combining multiple negatives and text into photographs resembling traditional Chinese paintings.

Hello 2012!

Nikon F100, Nikkor 28-105mm AF, Fuji Velvia

My goodbye to 2011 featured a sunset I shot a few years ago at a beach in Garrapata State Park, California.  For this hello to 2012 I reached even further back in my archive of slides to a sunrise at Haleakala National Park, Hawaii.

Here are my photographic resolutions for 2012.  These are not goals to try to achieve and then forget, but rather changes in my day-to-day activities that I hope to make permanent.

Streamline: This may just mean a few simple changes to my workflow, but I spend too much time scanning and processing images these days.  I need to leverage more lab scanning services as well as reconsider the process and tools I use to go from film to final image.

Share: I started building a Flickr presence last year and have flirted with other sites.  But I need to better leverage the various sites, communities, etc. to get my photos out there and even critiqued as well as work with my DSW to update our portfolio.

Engage: I need to be more active in the photo blogosphere and forums, become part of the online photography community.  Especially the film-shooting folks, as we need to stick together and keep our interest alive and well!

Hopefully the resolutions above should help me focus more on the creative and social aspects of photography.

What are your photographic goals or resolutions for 2012?