Kiev 88 - Photowalk results from a few weeks ago

Sorry, no tales of neighbourly shenanigans for you tonight. I just wanted to post a few black and white shots from a photowalk I went on in Calgary a few weekends ago with a friend. I shoot way more pictures than I'll ever have time to scan and upload to flickr, so here are a collection of some that did make it, while the others were still languishing as unscanned negs on my floor. Move over, dust bunnies.

St. Pat's Day Analog Adventures

Results of this weekend's St. Patty's Day analog photo adventure with a group of hipster dudes. I felt pretty out of my element at the beginning (I was probably a good decade older than some of them), but they were really awesome to hang with. And once the green beers started flowing, it was good times all around. I ruined a couple rolls in the Kiev 88 - one of the tension pins in the film back popped out, so the film wasn't tight to the plane, leading to some really weird pseudo tilt-shift type of focus. But the ones that did turn out, turned out pretty awesome.























Alright folks, assuming Air Canada's pilots don't pull any shenanigans tomorrow, I'll be in Montreal. See ya in a week.

The End is NIGH

VERY EFFING NIGH. Seriously, Canon has filed a patent for a touchscreen dSLR. And no, it's not a touchscreen for the purposes of reviewing your shots, it's a touchscreen to replace the functionality of buttons and dials which you currently use to change aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and other important exposure settings. What the hell is wrong with tactile dials and buttons? You can operate them without having to take your eye away from the viewfinder. You CANNOT with a touchscreen. W-T-FUCK?! This is the camera snob in me coming out to play, but is there really someone out there who thinks taking your eye away from the viewfinder so that you can adjust exposure settings on your screen is convenient or conducive to shooting? Cause they make great point and shoots with that feature JUST.FOR.YOU! If you feel that the learning curve of figuring out the layout of buttons and dials on your camera is too much, then go buy one of those gimmicky Sony Cybershots or other entry level cams. Don't mess with advanced tools that already work, and work VERY well.

For more info, read the article below. But actually, the best part of the article is the debate in the comments between serious shooters and some dude who's obviously never used an SLR for any length of time (he espouses all kinds of reasons why a touchscreen would be great for an SLR, but yet the examples he comes up with are not situations or circumstances encountered by serious photographers).

Check it out here. Then go pray that this is just some junk patent filed to stop some other idiotic company from making a piece of shite like this a reality.

Voigtlander Vito II Test Roll

Results from the Vito II camera, shot on Fuji Superia 200 using the Sunny/16 rule for guessing exposure. Most of these were taken at f/8, and shutter speeds ranging between 1/50 - 1/100 sec. I was expecting a roll of just craptastic photos, but I actually quite liked what I ended up with - some are actually fairly interesting shots. Although the results are really grainy for a 200 speed film... I think part of that is my lack of film scanning know how though.



A peony dying out in front our house.


Freshly mowed (mown?) lawn at a school yard. I liked the way the lines from the lawn mower tires contrasted against the grass itself.


Apparently, the Vito II isn't as double exposure proof as I was lead to believe. I like it.


Messing with a preset in Lightroom on the double from above.












Not Photoshopped - these colours are straight out of the scanner.


Same here.


End of the roll - double exposed.


-G

New Toy: Voigtlander Vito II

Gots me a new toy off eBay. It's a Voigtlander Vito II, circa 1954. Compact folding 35mm rangefinder - cute as a button, solid metal construction, Color-Skopar 50mm f/3.5 lens, shutter speeds ranging from 1" to 1/300", plus B. The shutter appears to stick at speeds below 1/25, but I can work with that. Not metered, so good old Sunny/16 rule. Ran one quick test roll through it yesterday afternoon, shooting absolutely nothing of any artistic value whatsoever... just checking for light leaks, focus, etc. Overall condition is fair - minor dings and scratches on the metal top and base plates. One big noticeable bit of dust inside the lens element that may or may not affect shooting... will post scans of the test roll later.













Is the weekend really over already?!
-G

I <3 NY

Our first trip to New York City was fairly successful... although I'm still not quite sure why they call it the Big Apple - seems a bit of a misnomer. I was half expecting some kind of giant landmark in the shape of said fruit that could be seen from space, or at least an oversized tetrabrik Sun-Rype Apple Juice box plunked right in amidst the skyscrapers of the New York skyline. It'd be a brilliant marketing campaign now that I think of it - putting up a big print of your juice box label on the front facade of a skyscraper in the Big Apple? Excuse me, while I phone up Sun-Rype to make my pitch.

Anyways, getting back on track here - the trip was great. Of course our first order of business when we landed on Friday night was to hit up Chinatown. Who travels to world class foreign cities to see Chinatown? Apparently, us. {I wonder if we'll find one in Tokyo next month?} Next up, Times Square, which, really isn't a square at all. In fact, it's more like a number sign, or the lb. symbol on your touch tone dial. Misnomer # 2. Or should I say Misnomer Square 2. It reminded me very much of Picadilly Circus - which at least bears some resemblance to its moniker - a carnal circus of seizure inducing flashing lights, broadway billboards, and chaotic tourist pedestrian traffic.

Over the next few days, we saw all the typical tourist sites, ate some fantastic latin American cuisine, hit up the Giant Robot store (yes, that Asian American Culture magazine), had a ridiculously overpriced Japanese lunch (which in retrospect seems even more retarded considering we're going to Japan in 2 weeks), and got threatened by a decidely high and hostile African American hobo at the Fulton-Broadway subway station. Mission accomplished.

My feet logged what felt like 3000 miles of walking (they were howling at me by the last day), but I finally took control of my photographic life - after two years of dabbling in photography, I shot in full manual for the entire trip. No more lazy Aperture Priority. And I feel like I ended up with some of my best work yet. Two of these made Flickr's Explore in the past week (which, I understand doesn't actually mean squat in real life, but still it's an ego boost). I haven't processed all the images yet, but here are a sampling of a few highlights. More to come. Check my Flickr stream for a more up to date look.

Cheers,
-G














1. This way to Brooklyn, 2. Passing By, 3. Weathered, 4. Inversed, 5. Sprocket Panorama