Summer Recap

What a few months it’s been. First off, I moved at the end of September, which was probably the most stressful experience of my life to date. The bright side to driving a U-Haul onto a ferry was that I probably took two of the first photos I’d consider getting printed. They’re the first two photos in this album. On the return trip we were blessed with a bit of marine haze, calm water, and clouds - it yielded a couple killer landscapes. I heard, somewhere, the quote “shoot the interesting thirds” and I kept it in mind on these shots. Clearly it paid off.

This was taken with my newest camera, a Sony A7II, on the 28-70mm kit lens. I’ve dropped Micro 4/3rds and sold all of my gear. I did this mostly because of my film work - it felt like a waste to have all these nice vintage lenses for 35mm film cameras and not be able to use them on a modern mirrorless body. I suppose I could have gone for a crop sensor camera, but I wanted to keep things simple. No worrying about crop factors, now.

Speaking of film work - I sold the Nikon which I repaired. I found an older fellow on eBay who was selling a Minolta X-700 with several lenses & accessories at a very good price. Besides the whole thing smelling like smoke - I unfortunately had to throw away a very retro-snazzy camera strap - I’ve fallen in love with this kit. Manual film photography feels great, and Minolta has some banger lenses - I’m very partial to the 35-70mm f/3.5 zoom. I have the 3rd version and it’s incredibly sharp for a mid 80’s zoom. I actually bought an entire second camera (an X-570) just to get that lens, and I don’t regret it at all. The macro mode is an added bonus.

Also, I shouldn’t leave it unsaid. Minolta stuff is like…cheap. Not bad cheap, as in bad quality (Celtic lenses aside), but like, cheap to acquire. Certainly compared to the Nikon equivalents. Minolta is..not cool, I guess? I suppose the “problem” might be that there aren’t any legendary lenses to drive demand/value. There’s no Nikkor 50 1.4 or SMC Takumars in the system. Also, the X-700 in particular (and to some extent the X-570 and 300) is known for being somewhat unreliable. Thankfully it’s just simple electronics - there are capacitors that go bad over time. They’re not (to my knowledge) known for pitching springs, curtains, and/or levers out at random. At least not more than any other 40-year-old camera.

These photos were done on Harman Phoenix “200”, which is an….interesting film stock. The quotes around 200 are there for a reason - this god-forsaken film stock is nowhere near 200 ISO. The negatives come out very, very thin at 200 ISO. Even the ones that were processed by people who actually know what they’re doing were ridiculously under-exposed/developed. This film stock needs Jesus. At least they’re a pretty kind of fucked-up - you have to find a mood and use it for this film stock to yield anything but trash. Sunsets, fog, maybe a neon sign in the dark if you’re some kind of metering god.

How about a real film stock? Cinestill 50D counts, right?

Oops.

I finally did it - I flashed a roll of film. I was so excited to slap in my first roll of Phoenix that, as I finished up my roll of Cinestill 50D, I popped open the back without rewinding the film. Oh well. Most of the roll survived, and I was mostly just popping off a few warm-up shots to finish off the roll. No big loss. It’s free low-fi cred, I guess!

Let’s try an actually good photo.

I took this about a week and a half ago, wandering around the Seattle waterfront on a Saturday right as the rain broke. This, this right here, is why I’m glad I bought a full-frame mirrorless. I brought the Bushnell 28 f/2.8 with me, knowing that the subject for any interesting photos would be the crowds. I wanted to compose the man playing piano under the Pike & Pine sign and the “no stops” sign, but couldn’t find anything interesting to put in the right third..until I saw those two guys in tuxedos. I knew they were it, and they were coming across in front of me. I stepped back a couple paces and let the shutter rip.

I think this hits the chaos of Pike & Pine during the lunch rush perfectly. Like, why are those guys wearing tuxedos and looking vaguely hung-over? Is that dude playing piano? Why on god’s green earth does this street have cars on it?

This one rocks. What else is there to say?

This is another example of “shoot the interesting thirds”. This was in Friday Harbor, during the move, and the fall colors were starting to show up. I didn’t even notice the group of people on the railing when taking the shot - I was just trying to get the all of the colors in the frame. This one was on Kodak Gold, which is a film stock I’ll definitely be shooting more of. It nails the “film look” pretty hard, and it’s cheaper than Portra.

If life hadn’t been so busy, this post wouldn’t be so long. Oh well.