7/52-48 Thanksgiving!

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for so much this year, I can barely begin to express it all. At the risk of incensing some readers, and with full knowledge that I’ll leave out innumerable blessings, here’s a short list:

  • Allah azza wa jal, the clear guidance that He sent down to us through His Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, and the ability to worship and give thanks for His blessings and guidance
  • Farhana Ali, her family, and all the other things that have come through her: surely the greatest material blessing, and one for which I intend to remain thankful
  • my mother, family, and friends
  • the sustenance—both food and shelter—provided to Hana and me through our jobs and all other means
  • my general health and ability to function/persist at whatever level; my particular (and peculiar) brand of reason, skill, ability, and etc.
  • these material comforts, tools of relaxation and work, toys, and etc.

There is more, much more, I’m sure, and in any and all cases, I say Alhamdulillah (all praise and thanks belongs to Allah).

If you’re interested, I found a short article on two types of gratitude in Islam (hamd and shukr). I think there are some useful reminders in there for all of us, regardless of nationality or belief set.

D7000. Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G (the Sigma 30mm probably would’ve been a better choice for this sort of reportage). ISO100, AP mode, various apertures. Minimal post work in Lightroom 5.

 

7/52-47 housplants, weeds, bouquets

I had no idea what to shoot this week (as usual) and so decided that this would be a good opportunity to for a macro week. GoGo.

But what lens to use? My first thought was to use the Vivitar 50mm f/1.8, but when I went to the the shelf with all the film cameras (when I moved, I’m pretty sure I put all the lenses back on all the cameras, and removed all the reversing & step down rings) but couldn’t find the Vivitar. So I decided to try something different, all spur-of-the-moment like.

Enter the AUTO mamiya/sekor 50mm f/2.

This lens came off of my mamiya/sekor 1000DTL camera. I’m not sure about the lineage of this camera, but given that Granddad was mostly a Vivitar shooter (from the kit I inherited from him—which included the 250SL and 50mm f/1.8 (both Cosina-made), the 1:2 teleconverter, a Montgomery Ward-branded 28mm f/2.8, a JCPenny-branded Diamatic 135mm f/2.8, plus some filters and empty film canisters, all in a really snappy metal case with hand-cut foam protectors for all the gear—and from the camera(s) he gave to my mom and aunts (Vivitar K1000s, both of them)), I expect it came from my step-dad Hank.

But I digress.

Day 1: a couple of shots of some houseplants (pictures 1 & 2).

Day 4: some weeds out front of the apartment (picture 3).

Day 6: a bouquet that some friends brought last week (pictures 4-7, including some fun rear-curtain flash work with the pop-up flash!).

I got one really good pic this week, and I’m not sharing it here… It deserves its own post, methinks, and I try to offer a limited edition of prints or something. I like it quite a bit. (More on that later.)

As to to the lens… I love it! It’s sharp enough wide open, and shines stopped down slightly (the first pic was wide open, the rest were shot at roughly f/3.5 (the AUTO has detents at 1/2-stop intervals, and the lens was halfway between f/2.8 and f/4.)). And remember that these were all shot with the lens reversed and on a crop-sensor camera… (One day, I’d like to try this with a full-frame film or digital… my interest is leaning towards film at the moment, but we’ll see, and I have so many old film cameras with no batteries, it seems silly to start buying more. Maybe sell the old ones and buy an nice, manual 35mm Nikon… but that’s a ways off methinks.)

First order of business, though, may be to run a roll of film through the old mamiya/sekor camera. If it’s as good as the lens, I’m in for a treat!

D7000. AUTO mamiya/sekor 50mm f/2, reversed. ISO1600, f/2-3.5, AP mode. Minimal processing, mostly +10 to contrast & clarity, +5 to saturation, pretty good for reversed lenses, easily as good as the Zomb-E (though lacking the ability to focus with the zoom ring).

7/52-46 nothing to see here

Deepest apologies. Early in the week, probably Sunday, Hana and I went for a walk around the boring corporate apartment complex in which we live, purely for exercise. On the way out the door, I said “I’m going to be optimistic” and grabbed the D7000 and Nikon 36-72mm E Series. While out, we gathered a small amount of twigs and broken branches for kindling, again being optimistic that my lax boy scout skills would flare up (pun intended), and we could have a nice romantic evening in front of the fire (sans bearskin rug…).

Later, while the kindling was burning and failing to catch the logs sufficiently (not enough kindling, or maybe our previous attempts had turned the log into charcoal (they had)), I grabbed the Nikon 75-150mm f/3.5 Zomb-E and tied to shoot the coals…

You can take a gander at the fruits of one day of shooting below. What happened to the rest of the days? You got me… time flies, I guess.

D7000. Nikon 36-72mm E Series, and Nikon 75-150mm f/3.5 Zomb-E. No amount of post processing could get me to a decent result, but I tried some anyway.

7/52-45 outtakes: Lowy lens & Banko BL4 film

As mentioned previously, the appearance of the Photojournalism snappack jogged my memory about playing around with BlackKeys Extra Fine film for the 7/52 last week. I did most of my shooting for the week with the Diego lens/BlackKeys Extra Fine film combo, but did switch over to the Lowy lens/Blanko BL4 film a couple of times, just to give a bit of flavor, and just to see if the combo was any good. So check it for yourself, if you’re interested. Compare and contrast, maybe, the Photojournalism pack with the Diego/BlackKeys Extra Fine combo.

The Lowy lens is somewhat desaturated, and slightly contrasty, but is otherwise fairly accurate, and I look forward to doing more playing around as opportunities arise…

iPhone 5. Hipstamatic. Diego & Lowy lenses, BlackKeys Extra Fine & Blanko BL4 lenses. Some cropping/straightening (only allowed due to the lack of a border in these films (hooray!) in Lightroom 5.

7/52-45 black & white & hipstamatic all over

With the release of new film & lens filters comes (not much) responsibility to test them out and report findings…

I’ve wanted to do a black & white week again for some time, and I thought I’d found my chance when the Long Island hipstapack (with BlackKeys Extra Fine film & Florence lens) appeared last month. Alas, I didn’t jump on it straight away, and forgot about it until the  the Photojournalism snappack appeared. Given that I’m rarely have much of a plan for the project these days, it seemed like a good time to play around a bit.

I originally intended to test out different lenses with the BlackKeys Extra Fine film, but forgot and/or couldn’t be bothered to swap lens filters, so you’re stuck with the Diego lens. Together, the combination yields decent results. I’m not a big fan of the vertical and horizontal lines that appear (not sure if they’re from the film or lens filters… testing would help), but the contrast and sharpness are good, and I appreciate the crisp edge. All in all, it works pretty well, I think, and I should practice more with B/W. Maybe some day soon, or maybe a project for some future date.

iPhone 5. Hipstamatic (classic). Diego lens, BlackKeys Extra Fine film. Some slight cropping and very slight adjustments in Lightroom 5.

Oh! And you get an extra this week, you lucky people you!