Tracks

Self portrait

Megapixel insanity

Great post on Petavoxel. It's the first in what's grown into a short series of posts in reaction to all the 14-megapixel small-sensor compacts announced at CES. It's well-written, concise, and should be read by anyone shopping for a camera if you ask me.

Serious photographers have known this for years, that packing more and more megapixels into the same small space was detrimental to image quality. But no matter how loud the plea to the general public, it has fallen on mostly deaf ears. Let's hope the tide is starting to turn.

Footsteps in the snow

Made with the Ricoh 35 ZF and Arista Premium 400 (actually Kodak Tri-X). "Sunny 16" exposure of 1/500 at f/16. The light meter is not functioning, but these old cameras are great because I can simply remove the batteries and do everything manually. I taped a cheat sheet to the back but I am using it less and less as I get a better sense of exposure. It's a great way to learn, actually.

Graveyard

Medium format magic

I can't put my finger on it, but there's a look to medium format that's different that 35mm or digital. I'm sure it has to do with the size of the format, but since my experience is limited on the subject I cannot put it into words. All I know is, I like it.





These shots were made with my Super Ricohflex TLR of 1950s vintage, metered with a 1940s GE selenium light meter. Both shots are wide open at f/3.5, hence the vignetting. The film is Arista EDU 100 from Freestyle photo (widely rumored to be Fomapan). It's not my favorite film, but the price is right and I really dig these photos.

Frame 37

I like this one the more I look at it. It's frame 37, and since my Printfile negative sleeves hold only 36 frames, it's just part of a two-frame strip that I store behind the sixth full strip. Just goes to show, you can never have enough film. This one was shot with my Ricoh 35 ZF camera.



Any camera you have that winds manually should yield you 37-40 frames. You get the extra frames at the beginning of the roll, not the end — in fact, the last frame is pretty damn close to the spool (when you're loading in the dark, you need to cut right up against the tape that holds the film on the reel). Load the film carefully, shut the back of the camera, wind one frame, and blast away. What's labeled 36 on the film will be 37, 38, 39...even 40 if you're real lucky.