Another Show
May 2nd, 2014
This has been a very good week for my work getting some attention. This photo of Kelsey in my studio window was chosen by the juror for the show, Hue, at the Darkroom Gallery in Essex Junction, Vermont. You can see the entire show at the link. And if you are in Vermont you should go by and see the show in person. Darkroom Gallery is a great place. I love their shows.
Thanks Kelsey!
Pinhole Fame
April 29th, 2014
That pinhole picture I took Sunday and uploaded to the Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day site was chosen by the Nick Kirkpatrick of the Washington Post as one of the illustrations for a story he did on the WPPD.
Needless to say, I’m quite pleased.
Planets, Pencils, and Pasties
April 28th, 2014
I’ve just returned from a trip to Chicago. I went up there to attend an opening at the gallery there that represents me, Gallery Provocateur. That’s gallery owner Veronika standing in the middle of her lovely gallery in the calm before the opening turned into the spectacular event that her openings always are. Veronika had asked me to do a photo of her and the gallery with my fisheye lens, so I took it along and did a few shots for her.
And here’s the gallery from the other direction and Veronika with her partner, Simon.
This is what it looks like after things get going:
The entertainment for the evening included performances by a burlesque troupe:
I was pleased to be able to meet Michael O at the opening. His work was my favorite in this show. Really strong, beautiful work using PhotoShop to drastically alter photographs. The work has strong emotional content and clear purpose and message. It was also nice that he included the original photographs that he started his work from on the info cards for his pictures. That was fun to see. Here he is with his work on the wall behind him:
I didn’t have any of my work in this show, but Veronika did have one of my calendars hanging in the gallery where everyone could see it, so I went around pointing that out to everyone I talked to.
Here’s another photo of the lovely Veronika talking with guests at the opening:
And it wouldn’t be an opening at Gallery Provocateur without this famous Chicago photographer, Joe Weinshenker, documenting the event with…yes, children, that’s right…a Nikon F2 and that funny smelling stuff known in the olden days as film. He keeps telling me that he is going to buy an Nikon D800, but he is always there with that venerable F2.
Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day
April 27th, 2014
Today is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. There’s still time for you to go out and take a pinhole photo. You can then upload it to the WPPD site. I just uploaded mine. That’s it above. Once again, nothing great. I was traveling home from Chicago today, so I stopped and did this shot of windmills along I-65 in Indiana. One of these years I’ll actually be able to set up something interesting for this day.
I used my Panasonic G5 with my Pinwide brand wide-angle pinhole. I cropped the image a bit to help the composition. I couldn’t get close enough to the windmills to take full advantage of the wide-angle effect of this pinhole. I did get reminded of something I already knew. The pinhole is an opening. Unlike a regular lens, it doesn’t provide a seal to protect the sensor from dust. And it was very windy out there today. As a result of those two factors, the wind pushed a considerable amount of dust through that tiny pinhole and onto my camera’s sensor. I had to clean up a bunch of dust spots in this photo. I’m hoping the camera’s built-in sensor cleaning will take care of the problem. We’ll soon see.
One nice thing about using a pinhole on a micro 4/3 camera is that thanks to the electronic viewfinder, it’s actually possible to see what you are getting while you are taking the photo. A regular DSLR optical viewfinder is useless with a pinhole…you can’t see a thing. Also, the meter worked just fine, giving me a perfect exposure just by following the built-in meter. I like this. I was never a fan of the inability to have any idea what was going to happen with a conventional pinhole camera and film. It can take weeks to figure out exposure and composition with those contraptions. I like to see what I’m getting and know that I have the right exposure. I know others enjoy the “mystery” of working with all those unknowns. I’m not one of them.
Here’s the link to my photo on the WPPD site: http://www.pinholeday.org/gallery/2014/index.php?id=606
Start Your Pinholes
April 25th, 2014
Today’s post is just a brief public service announcement. Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day is this Sunday, April 27. So dust off your pinholes and take a photo with one on Sunday and upload it to the WPPD site. I’m going to. I’ve been practicing with my Panasonic G5 and the wide-angle pinhole I have for it. Practicing can be fun.
Above is the amazing Natalya Sadici.
And below we have a dynamic duo, Claudine and Kelsey Dylan.
I’ll be doing a non-nude pinhole photo on Sunday for my upload since nudes are frowned upon for this event.
More Macaroni
April 19th, 2014
Since tomorrow is Easter I thought I’d go ahead and post the rest of the photos from my shoot with the incredible MissMacaroni. She did a wonderful job of scampering around and posing on the cold, hard rocks of Cantwell Cliffs.
I guess you can file most of these under “dot in the landscape” but I don’t mind. I like this approach to showing these great cliffs and waterfalls and letting a lovely human figure give a sense of scale and add a beautiful form to complement the natural beauty of nature.
So, enjoy the beauty of nature and Macaroni. Back to our regular schedule next week. Thank you MissMacaroni for being such a wonderful, beautiful, brave model. Hope to work with you again soon and often.
Spring on the Rocks
April 18th, 2014
I’m still a year behind on posting the things I’ve shot on here. But today I’m making an exception and jumping the line for this shoot from last week. A model contacted me saying she was going to be traveling to my area and wanted to work with me. I always like it when models seek me out. It tells me they are serious and gives me some hope that they will be good to work with.
Well, MissMacaroni far exceeded even those hopeful expectations. She is beautiful and very talented, not to mention brave and tough. I really put her through a lot on this shoot. When I told her we would have to leave at 5:30 a.m. so we could start shooting when the sun came up, she didn’t bat an eye. We headed off to Hocking Hills and got there at a great time, which allowed us to take our first few photos at Ash Cave.
The place looked pretty different from the last time I was there, less than two months ago, when the waterfall was frozen from top to bottom.
After Ash Cave we headed on over to Cantwell Cliffs, one of my favorite places in the park to shoot.
The opening behind MissMacaroni in the photo above is officially known as “Fat Woman’s Squeeze.” I don’t think MissMacaroni is going to have any trouble getting through.
I’ll have a few more from this shoot in my next post. I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
The Bags
April 14th, 2014
With the new system I, of course, needed a new bag to carry it around. The new stuff is small enough to fit easily into my old bags along with the Nikon stuff, but the point of all this was to come up with something easy to carry around so I could leave the Nikon stuff at home. Initially I picked up a small bag from a local camera shop, but it turned out to be so poorly designed that it really wouldn’t work as a shooting bag. It’s ok for storage and transportation, but I needed something better to work out of.
I’d surprisingly never owned a Domke bag until now. But a search of what might work kept bringing me back to the Domke F-5XA pictured above. I’m very fond of this bag and think it is just about perfect to use with this system. (No, I’m not getting paid to say this.) It will carry the G5 with the kit lens and the 45-200 along with the body cap lens. I can fit the charger and some spare cards in with no problem. The shoulder strap has that magic Domke stuff on it that keeps it from slipping off your shoulder. And this kit weighs so little that I don’t even notice the weight, even after having it on my shoulder all day.
I can zip the bag up and toss it in a carry-on suitcase or a backpack. It’s secure and well protected. Or I can leave the zipper open and easily swap out lenses while I’m shooting, using the flap to keep everything secure in the bag. A very nice design.
That would have been my bag…but then I went and added that 50mm Nikkor lens to the kit. I don’t always want to take it along, but sometimes I do. And it just won’t fit in the small bag along with all the other stuff. So I went back to shopping and decided on the larger version of the Domke I already had, the Domke F-5XB. It’s just enough larger to take the extra lens (and will work well with a wide-angle zoom if I end up buying one in the future. Another bonus for travel with the larger bag is that my Kindle Fire and its charger will also fit in it along with all the photo gear.
Another thing I like about these bags, though I haven’t tried it yet, is that they have a belt loop. I will probably put a belt through the loop sometime in the future and see how I like carrying it that way, instead of using the shoulder strap. I’ll use a dedicated belt instead of putting it on the belt in my pants. That will also give me the option of adding another pouch the belt…or even carrying both of these bags on the belt at the same time if I ever feel the need to drag around more gear. The Nikon D7000 could also fit in one of these bags with my 18-200 on it and make a compact way to drag around both cameras.
So, this is the end of my blog posts about all this camera gear. I’ll get back to posting my photos soon. I’m very happy with my new accidental system and interested to see where Micro 4/3 goes in the future. I’m sure I’ll wait at least two generations before I buy another camera body…and then I’ll wait until it is in close-out mode because the next generation is coming. Maybe I’ll buy one of the higher-end bodies if they knock the price way down. But meanwhile I’m going to just enjoy shooting with this system and not having my back and shoulder ache from hauling my gear around. The Nikon still comes out for serious work, but I can do just fine shooting with the Micro 4/3 stuff when I travel or just want to wander around doing photos.
More Lenses
April 11th, 2014
Yes, there were some other lenses in that photo of the whole Micro 4/3 system that I have now. One I already had, a Pinwide wide angle pinhole “lens.” I’ve had it for a while and expect to use it to make a pinhole photo for Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day on Sunday, April 27. You should make a pinhole photo on that day too and upload it to the WPPD site.
I also have this neat little “bodycap lens.” I mentioned it and showed a few sample photos done with it in this post. I like this little lens that makes the G5 truly pocketable (if you have a big pocket…like on a coat or jacket). It’s hard to imagine how you could come up with a better lens that you could buy for only $50. Olympus has recently introduced a little fisheye lens that is about this size and only costs $100. I’m probably going to have to buy that lens soon.
And then there’s this lens. This is one of the oldest lenses I own. I bought it in 1969 with my Nikkormat Ftn, my first Nikon. It’s a 50mm f/2 Nikkor. It’s a great little lens, sharp even at f/2. I’m not a big user of “normal” lenses, always having preferred a slightly shorter or longer focal length. A 35mm and an 85mm were my most used lenses on 35mm in the days before there were zooms that were reasonably sharp.
But I already had an adapter to use Nikon-mount lenses on Micro 4/3 cameras. I’ve not done that much because they are too hard to focus on anything other than a still subject and, since they have no electronic connection to the camera (this lens, of course, has no electronics of any kind in it anyway) they don’t meter and don’t stop down for the exposure…your viewing aperture is also your shooting aperture.
But, with a relatively stationary subject, like when doing a portrait in the studio, these problems aren’t that great. With an effective focal length of 100mm, my old Nikkor makes a great portrait lens. The electronic viewfinder makes it easy to see the subject, even with the lens stopped down (although using this lens wide open or close to wide open is where it shines for portraits). And with the G5 a simple press of the back control wheel instantly magnifies the viewfinder image, making it easy to focus on the eye. A light touch of the shutter button returns to the full view. The shallow depth of focus combined with the nice sharpness of this lens make it great for this work, so it has gone into the kit for this purpose.
Here’s a sample I shot of Ayn, a lovely person and fine model who has been working with me lately:
I did nothing to that file other than reduce the size and save it at 60 so it would be a good size for the web. It was shot at either f/2 or f/2.8 in window light. Of course, the camera doesn’t record the aperture in the EXIF data because it doesn’t know what it is.
Another thing I like about this system with the electronic viewfinders is that you can select the image ratio that you want to use and the viewfinder shows that ratio. I worked for many years with square format cameras and I like that format, so I’ve been using that as my default format on the G5. It’s easy to switch to a different format if the subject calls for it, but I like the feel of the square for most things…and I don’t have to make a decision on vertical or horizontal while I’m shooting.
Lenses
April 8th, 2014
OK, I’ve talked about the Panasonic G5 camera, but it’s the lenses that make a system. And the lenses available for Micro 4/3 cameras are a major reason I decided to go this way for my travel system. There’s a ton of fun options out there from both Panasonic and Olympus. And a lot of them are very reasonably priced, not to mention tiny and light for what they offer. Perfect for the purpose I had in mind.
The kit lens is just fine. I’m happy with the files I get with it. I wish it were faster, but it does ok. I may end up getting something faster in the future…but only if I decide to do more serious work with this system…and that probably won’t happen until I get a body with a much better sensor sometime in the future…a sensor that hasn’t been designed yet. Who knows. Meanwhile this kit lens does the job for lots of my shooting. I showed a couple examples from it in the last post.
My wonderful wife is so understanding of my photo addiction that she added to my system by getting me the Panasonic 45-200 zoom lens for Christmas this year. This is the longest (in 35mm terms) lens I’ve ever owned (except for the 600mm Vivitar Series One Cat-mirror lens that my best friend gave me after he realized it was impossible to take a sharp photo with it. I’ve never gotten a sharp photo with it, but it still lives in the back of the equipment locker).
I love this little lens. Little and light and effectively 400mm. What’s not to like? Well, it’s a little slow in the aperture department…and it doesn’t focus fast enough for things like birds in flight, at least not very often. But, in my opinion it punches well above its size and weight. This with the kit lens is now my travel kit. It only weighs a little more and takes up slightly more space than lots of the super zoom cameras out there that don’t deliver anything near the image quality of this camera. And it’s only $269. Compare that to the Nikkor 80-400. Yep…the Nikkor is TEN TIMES the cost of the Panny lens that does the same thing. And the Nikkor weighs 3 1/2 pounds. The Panny is less than one pound. And the Panny is even slightly faster.
Here are some photos I’ve done with the Panny 45-200 on our trip to Florida in January:
Manatee:
Gators:
It does fine with birds as long as they hold still:
