Return of the Espio: a brief review

When I first wrote about the Pentax Espio, I mentioned “unpromising results,” kvetched a bit about Walgreens mailing off and then keeping my negatives, and then promised to write up a proper review once I put another roll through. Well, I did put another roll through it, a year ago, back when I first started developing my …

First outing with the Graphic View 4×5

Several months ago, Alex (Dad) gave me his Graphic View 4×5. I’ve used it as a subject a couple of times, but it otherwise languished, wrapped in plastic, precariously balanced on top of the file cabinet since the day I brought it home. Friday, Alex called to tell me that he found some film holders …

From the Archives: the CyberShot DSC-T9

My second digital camera—if you don’t count the one in that Nokia phone, if it even had a camera, and I don’t think it did… I don’t even recall what phone that was, so I don’t—was the Sony CyberShot DSC-T9. I bought it in 2006 and carried it around fairly religiously until the iPhone 4. …

Flowers: C-5050/D7000/FG

This is, admittedly, sort of a random, grab-bag of leftovers. Let’s look at them in order of sensor size. Once again, digital wins in terms of contrast, color and saturation; film wins in terms of soul. And, again, they’re all pictures, and all have some sort of purpose. It’s probably more preference than anything. I …

Bokeh Battle: D7000/FG

Bokeh really is all about the size of the recording medium. Again, it’s contrast, saturation, sharpness vs raw physicality. But this time, the difference between the 1.5 crop and the ‘full frame’ is obvious… InshaAllah one day I’ll get my hands on a medium format or 4×5 (or 8×10…) and see what real bokeh looks like.

Different Circumstances: D7000/FG

So these pictures are more or less different: one is in a greenhouse on a bright, sunny day; the other is at a roadside picnic spot on a cloudy day. But there’s something similar, maybe, compositionally anyway. Again, the differences come down to saturation, contrast, sharpness. But there’s also grain & bokeh. The grain off …

Looking through, looking past: LC-A/C-5050/D7000/FG

Continuing on with the compare/contrast event, here are some examples of looking through things, looking past things, with two small, point-and-shoot-type cameras and two slr-type cameras: the Lomo LC-A, Olympus C-5050, Nikon D7000 and Nikon FG. This isn’t quite as straightforward a comparison as yesterday’s, and it’s more about lens characteristics than anything else. But …