Tim’s Ramblings

Today is a lazy day and thus you get the last of the Lakeview Cemetery photos (until I go back…).

It was a nice month home. Too bad it’s time for me to pack again…ah well.

Hope everyone in the US had a nice holiday weekend!

:)

Pool party for a coworker’s birthday today. Beautiful day for it too. Though by the time it started to get dark I was getting eaten alive! Yikes.

Anyway, today’s photos are from last week.

2 more B&W photos for today. There are some in color coming. I promise! But these turned out so well! Including this one from the “bad” roll out of the Pentax. I managed to catch the lonely seagull as it went past the sunset. I’m getting pretty good at setting the shutter speed, aperture, focus manually, and snap off the pic in a few seconds :)

This was from Whiskey Island last weekend. There was this girl just sitting alone on the driftwood. It was a gorgeous day out and she made a perfect subject to test out the rangefinder camera with the Kodak T-Max 100 film :)

:)

Another roll of film developed. This time it was a quickie drug store development of a Kodak BW400CN roll from the Pentax.

I had a few shots left so I took it with me to the West Side Market.

When I was taking this, a woman walked up to me and asked me what it says. “I have no idea.” I told her. She looked at me very confused and walked away. I should have added as she walked away, “And I can’t do kung fu either!!!” :)

If she can truly tell you your future and yet she is still working a street fair at W. 25th, then she is truly a saint. Because I know I would milk it for all it’s worth…

I wonder if he got some good shots of the belly dancers??

Can’t end a post without Jane, especially if I shot her on this roll of film!! :)

:)

Yup. Posting late. I am going to bed after this… And here I was thinking of getting to the market early on Saturday…

Anyway, today’s photos consist of 2 different films with 1 subject :)

Went to The Harp last Sunday for brunch with Shelly. Here she is having a nice Sunday drink. This is with Kodak T-Max 100. Great smooth grain B&W film!

We then went to Whiskey Island. Here she is just chilling out. Little did we know we were sitting in goose poop. Dammit… This is with Kodak T-Max 400. Nice grain for a faster film and great versatility too!

Hi Shelly! :) A nice smile as I switched back again to my rangefinder with the T-Max 100. Tri-X is nice but I think this may be my favorite B&W film!

:)

It’s film day!!

This time 2 from color film. Fujicolor Superia Reala 100 to be exact. The film is discontinued though. Must buy out the stock at Dodds… Anyway, this is from the Mentor Headlands. Mass of seagulls suddenly started to fly across the water. I managed to focus, set the shutter speed and aperture, and fire off 2 frames from my rangefinder just in time!!

Same film as the one before. I like to call this “The Three Elements”. Though fire is implied since it’s sunny… Maybe? Or is that too much of a stretch? I also want to once again point out the beautiful Leica swirl you see especially in the water. Loooooove this lens!

One of the shots from my Pentax that survived. This is on Ilford XP2 film. Love the Pentax. Beautiful sharpness, especially with this film too! It’s also the Mentor Headlands with that lighthouse off in the distance.

:)

Got my film from the Mentor Headlands and then it was off to Heidi’s to play with Jane and go through some of the photos she’s taken with her new camera.

Jane…well…Jane was just happy to play in her little pool! This just screams out “SUMMER!” :)

This just evokes the caption: “…yes. Why yes this is a bucket on my head. And? So? What of it??” :)

Of course, since I mentioned the Mentor Headlands, here is a sunset! Unlike Huntington Beach, here the sun goes down over the waters of Lake Erie so it’s just that much prettier. And the clouds and the plane lines really made the sky super dramatic!

:)

…now…time to scan some film…

Late update today. Went out to the Mentor Headlands for some photos and got home late. It was a good test for my rangefinder and the Fuji Superia Reala film (that I have recently found out is discontinued…very sad…will have to buy more from the camera store later). But the Pentax had some issues…it felt like the film came off the spool and it was not winding… Not good…so I only got like 10 or so frames out of a 36 exposure roll…dammit… Oh well.

Anyway, due to this, I have no new pics so I’m going back to my standby… Lakeview Cemetery. Again… Though this time, like yesterday, it is B&W out of the Pentax.

The urn statue a bit up close. It’s creepy for sure but the face is quite serene. And I loooove the hexagonal light blobs in the background. Can’t get that with a modern lens. I kinda like it.

I tried to “age” the digital photo of Judie’s roller skates last week and failed miserably. However, it turns out the B&W shot straight out of the camera is far far better. I really like this shot!

:)

Yup. Lakeview again. But this time it is from the Pentax MX! Wooo. I looooove the blur from this classic camera. The hexagonal shape really gives it a distinctive look.

Gretchen and her daughter Kayleigh rocking out :)

I liked the lights that Chrysa managed to be under for this shot :)

:D

Ah Lakeview…when I don’t have a good photo taken on a specific day, I can always go back to you. Here’s a mausoleum near the Haserot angel. I always wondered why you see odd symbolism like this Ancient Egyptian motif on a building in a plot that is otherwise quite Christian. Huh.

:)

The School of Rock’s Grad School show was today. I haven’t been in the country the lats few shows so it was nice to go there and see them perform and also shoot as well.

Lots of photos since unlike an actual rock show, this is a performance so I wanted to make sure I got everyone at their best so they can show off to their friends and family too. So yeah…lots and lots of shots I need to go through. And of course, the stage is dark. The colors are jacked up (mostly red…why red? They really really like red…). And overall, it is just a challenging shoot.

(Note: starting brief camera tech talk) So I had to shoot in manual once I realized that spot metering (which I used before to varying degree of success…or failure) was not going to work, especially since for this show it seemed like the lighting guy was having more fun with switching colors and moving spot lights and such than usual… So it was my 24-70mm f/2.8 L lens opened all the way with shutter speed between 1/60 and 1/80 with the occasional 1/50 or 1/40 and ISO at 2000. Noisy to be sure but not too bad. I just wish SOME people (Sam…) stepped a half step forward into a spot light rather than play in the dark…

This also lets me play with new software. Mainly Topaz DeNoise. It’s pretty powerful stuff. Seems to do a better job than Noise Ninja but it is RIDICULOUSLY slow. Soooooo I may have to use Noise Ninja and use DeNoise for more critical stuff… We will see.

In the meantime, here are 3 pics. Sam, Chrysa, and Gretchen.

:)