MY 2nd roll of the Kodak BW400CN (run through the Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim) came out pretty well, I think. (:

After seeing the results Tom got with some Kodak BW400CN (bw film with C-41 processing, woo), I picked up a couple of rolls to try it out.

I put the first roll through the Pentax w/ the 50mm. Sadly: the entire roll was blown-out. Frustrating not least because I’d just put a new battery in for the light meter. Grr. Also annoying because they tossed the blank negatives before I could get a shot of ‘em for you. Boo.

Still, I persevere! The 2nd roll is in my Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim, I’ll let you know how it works out. (:

Status of the resolutions:

• So far I’ve only used the F5 more than once, but I’m working on it!
  (I blew through a roll of film one day at lunch to punch through that weird digital kid-fear of “saving” photos for film. All that ever got me was…a roll of film left in a camera for over 2 years [it was the Holga and 90% of the roll was blown, bummer]. I’m past that nonsense, now. Just shoot!)
• I have not in fact bought any new gear, just film!

In fact, this weekend both the F5 and my SX-70 are going to get a pretty serious work out in Austin for the Polaroid Breakfast.

Wait, what? The F5…? Yeah, I’m feeling froggy, so I’m going to jump into my abbreviated SXSW trip with just film (and the iPhone, of course). Should be fun! Right? …right?

I’ll let you know how it turns out next week. (No, really, I promise not to wait a month before I post again. Honest!)

Note: in 2008, I took just under 1,500 photos with my iPhone…

There are a ton of photography-related apps in the App Store, but these are the 2 I use most.

CameraBag $.99US
This is the first app I recommend to friends who get an iPhone. CameraBag has a collection of well-named and familiar filters for you to run your iPhone shots through. Helga and Lolo (so named, I’m guessing because of copyright/trademark issues) are my 2 faves, but there are 9 total.

My recommendation: shoot with the regular camera app, then use CameraBag to apply the filters; shooting directly in CameraBag tends to crash the app on my phone. I also suggest: first, turn on the option to save the original photo (the CameraBag’d version is saved to your Camera Roll); and second, don’t go for the max output size (at 1200px, the processing is super slow on the first-gen iPhone and again: tends to crash the app on my own phone, boo!).

A couple of my favourite CameraBag shots:

Pano $2.99US
I love taking panoramas. For years, I’ve relied on Canon’s PhotoStitch app for all my stitching needs (with CS3, Adobe really closed the gap; however, it’s a pretty serious resource hog), but until I found Pano in the App Store, I wasn’t sure how I’d accomplish them with the iPhone.

Pano takes care of all the tricky stuff, you just have to decide how many shots you want in the panorama (landscape or portrait). Its handiest feature is showing 20% of the previous shot when you line up to take the next one. It’s a good idea to overlap anyway (I find it helps reduce obvious seams), but the hinting is great.

The only real gripe I have with Pano is this: when you’re done making one, there’s no “take a new pano” button. You just have to hit the Home button and relaunch Pano.

My favourite pano so far:

Walt Disney Concert Hall from across Grand Ave.

Previously, my fave was Volkswagen’s Jetta “Big Day” with J. Ralph’s “One Million Miles Away” as the soundtrack. Great photography, a familiar story, and relatively mellow as far as Super Bowl commercials go. (You’ll find a much higher quality version at DVLabs; but watch out, it loops!)

There must be some sort of rule or law out there that says anytime a geek can change the wallpaper on a given screen: they will. And who am I to argue (or pretend that I don’t do it)? To that end, some wallpapers for your iPhone from me to you.

There are 5 to start with and I expect to update the collection at the beginning of every month but I probably won’t do a new entry every time. Instead, there’s a handy link in the header up there and it’ll get a snappy little update when new goodies are ready.

Enjoy! (And don’t steal or redistribute, etc etc.)

This year, I want to:

• Use each of my film cameras at least twice.
• Not buy any new gear.

That second one’s a doozy, but I’ll get to that in a minute. Over the years, a handful of film cameras have made their way into my grubby paws and I don’t use them as often as I should. 3 were gifts (Nikon F5, Holga, Pentax K1000) and 3 I  plundered for on eBay (Vivtar Ultra Wide & Slim, Ansco Panorama, Canon Canonet QL17). I found a couple rolls of 120 film during the move and with Glazers nearby, I can get all the 35mm my heart desires, so I have no excuses.

Granted… the processing of all that film could get pricey. Heh.

Moving on. No new gear?! I know. I’ll still rent and borrow, but that’s it. No new lenses or fringe cameras (like the little Fuji Instax I got 2 months ago…), none of it. (Film doesn’t count. :P) Of course, this is going to be difficult to stick to if I come across a kick-ass deal on something I’ve been wanting, but if that happens…maybe I’ll have to get rid of something else. Net zero, as it were.

So, there you have it, not a huge list, but a list that’ll be good for me and I promise to keep you updated on my progress at least once a quarter. (:

Did you make any photography resolutions for this year?

The coolest film of the SX-70 that you will ever see is this one from Charles & Ray Eames.

If you liked that one, you really should watch this one about how the Eames’ fiberglass chairs are made. The music, that ’70s educational film style, is Buddy Collette’s and when combined with the images it’s all somewhat meditative.

And if you liked both of those, do yourself a favour and check out the rest of the Eames’ films at Netflix, the Eames Office, or Amazon!

More SX-70 links just because:

• Oh, Snap - Jason Santa Maria discovering the SX-70 and all its wonder in a fantastically designed entry.
• How I put an ND filter over a film pack for my SX-70 - my own little instructional video minus super cool music; you’ll also see how I load a pack of 600 film (not meant for the SX-70 originally) into the camera.
• Grant Hamilton’s Polaroid Portfolio - Grant’s abstracts are straight up some of the coolest things I’ve ever seen out of a Polaroid. So good.
• Camerapedia’s SX-70 page

Second: I’m finally getting my stuff moved into my apartment tomorrow. I am beyond excited and by Sunday plan to be beyond tired and ready to get a Christmas tree. There will be photos (well, more photos).

Third: I should be sleeping, not tinkering with my blog and indulging in hulu — oh judge if you want! I like it. so there.

Fourth: …no, that was it, actually.

Well, no, not photography, about disinterest in my own photography. I didn’t stop shooting altogether (as my flickr stream can attest), but I did slow way down. A few times I’ve gone weeks without once unloading the card in my camera.

A couple of months into this…drought, I decided it was a slump. What else could it be? For 3 years or so, I shot every day! And shot a lot every day! Posting to flickr or some incarnation of my site pretty frequently and now this? I wasn’t using digital, 35mm film, not even my Polaroid cameras were pulled out to play much.

What the deuce?

Nothing snapped me out of it, not even a move 1200 miles north (okay, I’ve only been here a month, but come on, I thought by now I’d be shutter-happy again) and I’ve been pretty frustrated. I play tricks and try to set myself assignments to spark something, but none of it works!

Finally, I started to think: maybe it’s not a slump.

Maybe I just shoot differently, now; maybe I like taking a more time to decide what to shoot; maybe being forced into manual focusing last spring had a bigger impact than I thought; maybe I just like rocking the prime (and wide) lenses more, forcing myself to move around to  compose.

I’ve decided it’s the latter: a new approach to shooting. Not least because if I continue to stress about it being a slump, I might never come out of it and that’s just silly! So, I’ll keep working on composition and metering and the like and just see where that gets me. (:

No, it’s too much, let me sum up: I moved from my home in Los Angeles to my new home in Seattle.

I know! It just seemed silly to have so many scarves and never get to wear them, so that’s all fixed, now. Onward!

I took a few trips this past summer and along with just not wanting to have to lug a bunch of gear around, I thought it would be a good challenge to pare down what I carried. I took 1-2 lenses each trip and on my first NY trip, I didn’t even take a digital camera proper — just my iPhone and the F5.

When I first started acquiring lenses and I’d go somewhere, “Oh! I need this one! And that one! And also this one! What if I miss something?!” Well the answer to that is: and so what if you do miss a something? You were there, you saw it, you had fun, right? Besides, sometimes missing the shot is good for ya. Builds character. (This is what I tell myself when I miss a shot I wanted. Ahem.)

What have I gotten out of limiting my lens choices?

• A much better feel for what I can do with my 50mm or my wide angle. Forcing myself to think a little harder before and while I shoot means I shoot a little less, but I tend to like more of what I get and I’m all right with that.
• Not fretting when I find myself out and about and realize I have only one lens with me or a different lens than I thought I did. So: a little more confident in my own abilities. Do I still have miles to go? Yes, of course; but less worry is always a good thing.

So there you have it. Give it a sho– a try, see how you like it (or don’t, that’s fair, too). Also! Ken’s got a good article on carrying less, check it out.

You’re out shooting in low light, so you crank the ISO, drop the shutter speed, etc. and continue merrily on your way. Next day, you’re outside and everything you shoot is wildly blown out. It takes a few minutes (or an hour, if you’re me), but you finally remember that you upped the ISO to 3200 and um, it’s not that dark at 10am, so maybe it’s time to fix that.

Heh.

In the case of a Polaroid SX-70, there’s no ISO to change, but there is an exposure adjustment (light/dark wheel) and as I learned this week, you want to be sure it’s reset before you go exposing shots that are a bit more expensive now than they used to be…

I didn’t realize until these were midway through developing that I had the light/dark wheel set too far to the right (when you’re looking at the camera)/too far into lighten. Blerg. These two aren’t total loses, but it’s not what I was after at all, so I’m disappointed.

(As an aside, in case you wondered, the Polaroid SX-70’s ISO is about 150, but the still-available 600 film has an ISO of about 600. Unless you want always-overexposed photos, you need some an ND filter, either on the film pack itself [the method I use], or over the lens [the method my good friend Mark uses]. We can get into the differences between the two in another post. How about next week? Sound good?)

The upside to taking my normal pieces and amount of gear: I won’t “miss” any shots. The downside: that stuff gets heavy and in NYC? You walk. A lot. The upside to the restrictions: much less to carry! The downside: I would probably take fewer photos.

Restrictions it is! (:

What did I take? My iPhone and my F5 + 20mm lens and a few rolls of film. Don’t get me wrong: the F5 is no featherweight, coming in around 2.5lbs. With only the 20mm on it and nothing else rolling around in my bag, though, it works out well. (The film is still undeveloped, so we can talk about the process of shooting film later.)

Relying on the iPhone isn’t something I came up with entirely on my own. I nicked the idea from Justin when we were in Las Vegas this year (I second-shot for him and WPPI was going on).

I enjoy using the iPhone’s camera so much because sometimes it flips out and gives you a puzzle photo, sometimes you miss the shot completely, and sometimes it works out just the way you want.

Composition is what I worked on with the iPhone’s camera. Not that I generally don’t pay attention, but you know, it’s good to practice. (Of course, you won’t always get a choice about when to practice. Like say when your auto focus jams the 2nd day of a 2-week trip and you get to spend 11 days manually focusing… ahem.)

Certainly, not everything I shot with the iPhone was great, but it was fun and so: totally worth it to remind myself how much I like taking photos.

A couple more favourites:

As we came out of the Medieval hall, I saw this statue and stopped in my tracks. To date, it’s one of my favourite photos I’ve taken. I love the way the 12-24mm and the black and white conversion worked for me.

I was in New York again this past week and I wanted to get another shot of it. Another good friend ambled around the museum with me (for at least an hour and a half) trying to find it (I’d forgotten where I saw it). As luck would have it? The Medieval hall is under going renovation.

Of all the statues left in the room with the choir screen, only the half figure of the angel was removed. D’oh!

Took the shot, anyway. (:

The games are finished, now, but there are just tons and tons of photos to be had and here are some of my favourites:

• Olympic Pictures of the Day from the New York Times
• Photo Galleries: Beijing Olympics 2008, LA Times
• Newsweek’s Visions of China. Vincent Laforet’s entry about shooting events with multiple cameras is excellent. Access and timing are everything.
• Women’s Fencing at Boston.com’s The Big Picture.

The reductions are good news, but I’m just psyched they used “less” and “fewer” correctly. (A good primer on such things if you’re interested.)

Normally: I’m the sort to see such a group of trees, wonder what they are specifically, and go find out. But you know how it is with the everyday: you forget because you see it every day. And so I did. Until today. Finally curious enough to do something about it, I engaged my Google-fu.

Unfortunately: the tree encyclopedia that I found wasn’t much of a help in this search. Then it occurred to me that I remember lounging beneath similar trees between classes @ UCLA on the north campus. So I search “UCLA north campus trees” not expecting to find anything, because really: how likely is it that a university would detail their landscaping choices… oh, oh UCLA does. Well, of course we do. (:

As it happens, the trees from my college years and the trees in my everyday life that I enjoy so much are the same: the South African Coral tree. I’d forgotten that the trees at work bloom  every now and again with those bright red flowers. Still: I recognized them at once.

Mystery solved!

Post tree-hunt, I came across 2 other items I want to share with you:

• Not everyone’s a fan of Ken Rockwell, but I like him well enough. He’s always been straight with me and I appreciate that he uses the gear he talks about. In a recent update, he resurfaced his thoughts on how to use ultra-wide lenses and I think it’s a pretty good Getting Started Guide if you’re trying out the crazy wide end of the spectrum.

  In short? Get close!

• Tycho (aka Scott Hansen) has long been a favourite. Dub, atmospheric (not always the same thing), but never ever boring, I can let a Tycho record or EP play for hours on end. “Sun-drenched” is one of the best descriptions I’ve seen of his work. His latest EP features the single “The Daydream” (iTunes) and a short film called “Meridian” was just released featuring the track.

  Not everyone gets down with the time-lapse photography set to electronic music, but this is pretty good. It’s a nice selection of good photos with good transitions and some ridiculous particle effects.

  Yum.

First up, a photo shoot of the cast from the forthcoming Twilight. And no, I don’t mean the cover (Kristin Stewart is gorgeous, but I don’t know why they had to do that to Rob Pattinson, I mean, really). Heh. No, I’m talking about the photos in the article, shot by Jeff Riedel.

I like that the photos have little to do with the look of the movie, they’re Riedel’s own. And you’ve got to respect a guy who shoots on location with a 4×5 camera. Dang.

Second up, a series of actor portraits from the by-all-accounts insanity that was the ‘08 San Diego Comic-Con. The portraits, shot by photographer James Dimmock, feature actors at Comic-Con in support of their various projects. A few of my favourites in the bunch:

What I like is the way the subjects dictate the mood of each shot and they’re not all serious and drama with just rotating faces. Surely, a metric ton more were shot and just not uploaded, but still, it’s a special skill bringing out your subject’s personality (one I’m working on, myself) and Dimmock’s clearly got it.

Brass tacks.
As I said, the PNGs went away quickly when I realized that if I wanted to re-use this code but wanted a differently sized overlay, I’d probably need a graphic. That’s just silly! With some cross-browser transparency magic, the overlay can be any size (dimensions) that I want it to be.

div.transparency {background: #000; filter:alpha(opacity=70); opacity: 0.7; -khtml-opacity: 0.7; -moz-opacity:0.7;}

Then, I thought to myself, “Self, what if you want to use a portrait-oriented photo and not landscape? And what if you have more caption on some photos than others?” (She’s always being difficult, Self is.)

Defining widths and heights wasn’t going to cut it if we’re using differently-sized photos and may have different amounts of caption (title, title + description, etc.), so out went the dimensions. Instead, I placed the overlay by using the left and bottom properties (of course, you could use top if you always want it… across the top, but I don’t, so there you are).

The overlay, div.transparency, is empty and placed inside a caption container for 2 reasons.

1. By not wrapping the caption in div.transparency, the caption won’t inherit the transparency over the overlay. It, the overlay, has a different z-index than the actual caption content so the two don’t conflict.
2. With the overlay inside the caption container and set to full width and height, it takes on whatever dimensions the caption content gives its container. So, it’ll flex with its parent. Yay!

Monkey wrench.
At this point, I had a pretty good chunk of code working for me. I passed it over to Tom to try out and got more questions in return. What if I want it to align to the right? Does it always have to be the full width? Can it flex depending on the amount of content?

Picky, picky!

As it turns out: it can align to the right; no, it doesn’t always have to be full width; and yes it absolutely can flex with the content.

For the width of the overlay, I decided to have the default not full width and offer an additional class to achieve it. Instead, the default is for the width of the overlay to be dependent upon the length of the caption content.

The default alignment of the overlay is also to the right mostly because I was using Tom’s homepage as my sandbox. There’s an additional class to push it back to the left, not that you couldn’t swap the default and modifier if you so wished.

And lastly, there’s an additional class to align the caption content to the right. Although, I must tell you, it only seems to work in conjunction with the full-width version.

div.full-width {width: 100%;}
div.caption-left {bottom: 20px; height: auto; left: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: auto;}
div.text-right {text-align: right;}

Samples of each case of the pattern and the code all put together.

Examples
T Incorporated: Tom’s homepage changes dynamically and when there are photos, they use the photo + caption pattern.

Updates
Oh, I’m sure there will be plenty. Please feel free to drop in a comment if you’ve got suggestions!

Thanks to Tom for beta testing and cheerleading. (:

DIY35mmPro from twoneil on Vimeo.

This one is a test demonstrating a 35mm lens adapter on an HD video camera. I’m only used to seeing the focus change like this from inside my own viewfinder (or sometimes during some particularly dramatic moment in a film, heh).

Dunstan Orchard has a particular gift for composition. The combination of the images (bits of time?) and music he chooses for his video is always somehow just right. (And it doesn’t help my gear lust at all that he made this one with the Ricoh GR Digital, a small-ish digital camera I’m highly interested in. (: ) For another example, check out “I can tell that we are going to be friends“.

Lori is a favourite whether it’s video or regular still photos. She has a great sense of humour and fabulous sense of style (and she owns that dead-center, headless thing and don’t let anyone tell you different). Her videos tend to be short and this one’s one of the best, I think.