Apr
30
So as some of you, or at least one of you, I think it was actually just Rory who suggested I won’t give up on my Canonet QL17 and give it another try.
So I did.
But this time I made a point to take my time when using this camera. Meaning, not to shoot it on the move as I often do. So for each picture I took, I actually stopped, took my time focusing and only then made the exposure. I have to say this was a (cruel and) unusual practice for me, but the end results definitely made it worth while to go a bit out of my way.
I know the standard practice in photography is to have the camera fitting and accommodating to our needs, and not the other way, but sometimes with classic cameras, well, it’s a good idea to slow down, be patient and more flexible.
Posted in Film photography, black and white photography, classic cameras, street photos
Apr
27
A hot weekend here in L.A. , always raises the same debate: should I drive and get stuck in traffic on the way to one of the crowded beaches, or should I stay home, indulge on popsicles, and wait for the liberator evening to get out and enjoy the cool evening air.
So I stayed home today. And what’s a better opportunity than this to get creative with photography, i.e. image transfers, mixed media collages, distressing prints or manipulating an extinct time-zero film.
Posted in Polaroid
Apr
23
I haven’t followed the digital marketplace for quite some time now and so I’m quite overwhelmed with the choice of cameras out there.
I read a few reviews but actually got even more confused.
Besides, I would rather hear from you; which DSLR do YOU prefer? Nikon D80 or Canon EOS-40D? or maybe another DSLR at this price range?
Posted in digital
Apr
21
Other than the obvious things such as reducing unnecessary electricity usage, planting something, recycling failed photo papers, bicycling, walking or taking the bus to work, all of us photographers (and non-photographers of course) ought to just turn off our computers, grab our cameras and go out there (i.e. walk, bike, take the bus) to make pictures of our beautiful planet.
Ah? How about that?
Posted in Landscape, News & other stuff, Photographic art
Apr
19
I don’t know about you but I actually like my pictures printed in a small size.
My Epson printer is capable of printing photos at a sizes up to 13X19 but I’ve never even tried printing at this size. I also have a few large prints that were professionally printed for me, but they all ended up in storage at the back of the closet.
so why do I like small prints? Because I like to have this intimate connection with my photos.
When you look at a small size print, you often have to step closer to the image in order to take a good look at it.
I’m not at all an expert on printing but I also think that as far as details and depth go, most photos simply look better when printed smaller.
But, maybe IT IS just me after all, because when people buy my photos, they often want them as large as they come.
And by the way, I have a few framed photos at various large sizes that I got “stuck” with after my last photo show was over and I have to say that I hardly ever really look at them. I mean, I see them when I walk in the living room but I don’t really look at them.
Posted in Thoughts about photography, black and white photography
Apr
15
I’m not going to write a review about ACDSee here, there’s no need to do such a thing as there are plenty of reviews all over the net written by experts who know much more than I do about photo editors.
But all I want to say is that if you have lots of photos to work with, and if you have thoughts about putting together a website or some sort of a catalog of your photos ACDSee can really make things faster for you.
I used to have an early version of ACDsee and I was definitely not impressed with it. It was merely an image viewer and I didn’t need one.
Recently I wanted to put together a website/catalog of my photos and was looking around for a tool which will help me working with the large number of images, organizing and displaying them. ACDSee turned out to be perfect for batch renaming images in a folder, tagging them and creating a PDF file or an html album which displays image information below each image. Perfect!
Posted in Recommended, digital
Apr
11
If you check out the review of the Canonet I wrote back in January, you’ll notice I really liked this camera and was quite impressed with the color saturation of the images. However, the pictures I took with it were just test pictures around our neighborhood so now, I took the camera for a real test through the streets of Los Angeles.
This time around I decided to shoot the first roll on manual mode…and it didn’t quite work out all that well for me. To start with, changing the aperture and f-stop was a bit rough and kept slowing me down.
But the main problem became visible once I saw the negative. Most of the pictures, which were taken on the move, turned out too blurry, and I’m not talking about cool motion blur or anything like this, I’m talking about images that are just too blurry to figure them out. 
This is definitely not the first time I shoot manual mode on the move but I don’t think I’ve ever came across such poor results.
So next, when shooting the second roll I was determined to give the automatic mode a try. I even set the focus between 10-15 feet and just forgot about it.
Photographing in this manner yielded better results. The pictures turned up nicely exposed, clear enough and reasonably focused. I’m not really seeing the sharpness everybody warned me about and it doesn’t really matter to me, however, I’m curious if it’s my camera…or what?
Posted in Film photography, classic cameras
Apr
08
Before shooting RAW again (and going through the wait-10-seconds-between-exposures routine) it crossed my mind that it might be a good idea to play around with my camera’s options beforehand.
Well, I’m not sure exactly what changes I’ve made to the settings on the camera (this thing has more menu options and buttons than a dashboard in an aircraft) but it turned out I did something right. I was then able to take 8 RAW images continuously while the camera was saving the images to the card in the background. So taking RAW images now was as fast and smooth as shooting jpgs if not in fact faster.
And another benefit to it all is that I’m now actually quite impressed with all the countless functions this old Minolta has to offer and I’m even considering to carefully check out its 180-pages user manual.
So thank you all for offering all kind of great suggestions, true, none of them worked out and I had to end up answering my question myself, but at least you gave it a shot.
Better luck next time 
Posted in digital
Apr
03
I had a Diana camera before. I bought it on eBay and (over)paid $60 for it (what was I thinking?). I tried very hard, really I did, but I was not able to become fond of it.
To start with it only made these little 4X4 medium format images which seemed to be the shrunken version of the Holga’s 6X6. Next, the camera was poorly built and several parts of the camera kept coming apart.
And as a general rule I don’t mind a few light spots here and there on my film, but with the Diana it was more like light streams which at times would cover a major part of the negative.
Of course eventually I had to abandon this camera.
A couple of weeks ago I discovered they are selling the Diana in our local photo store for a nice price of $40. At first I was reluctant to check it out especially when I noticed it was made by the lomographic Society, who always know how to profit from people who love toy cameras. But anyway, my curiosity took over when I learned this is not the previous Diana, it is the Diana + (plus).
The first difference I noted was that the new Diana offers 3 separate shooting formats: 12 6X6, 16 4X4 and 16 endless panorama (whatever that is).
Another intriguing addition is the pinhole shooting option. It actually has two pinhole settings; true pinhole and a magnum pinhole which supposedly gives a sharper pinhole image.
Along with the camera you also get a user manual and a Diana+ book with lots of inspiring photos. Not too bad for 40 bucks.
Last week I gave the camera a test drive and I have to say that it comes pretty close to being as fun as shooting with the Holga.
(I haven’t tried the endless panorama yet, or the pinhole, but I will in the near future, so stay tuned.)
Posted in Film photography, toy cameras
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