Uh Oh!

The writing on the little strip of white tape says "Use Slide Bolt Above" Didn't someone write a song "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" That would have been appropriate background music.

(JFTR - I stayed for a few minutes)

rainbow river barge

rainbow, river, barge

Whats That in Today's Money?

So, I was thinking about putting a late 80's version of a Kodak 110 point-and-shoot on EBAY. The box top has a price tag. Hmmmm - what's that in 2013 bucks? Wow, how far we've come. A lousy 110 film camera for almost 40 bucks ... back then. Well, the camera isn't lousy but that 110 film was pretty pitiful - unless you wanted artsy grainy contrasty 4X6 "jumbo" prints. Then again, the camera - plus the film - didn't weigh much at all.  Pop it in your pocket and go. 

Sometimes, theories prove out ...

Ok - here's the scoop. In theory, if one

(a) takes an incident light reading of the illumination that is striking a scene,
(b) the meter is accurate and set properly,
(c) the meter is held properly to
(d) measure illumination representative of that lighting the scene,
(e) and the camera is properly adjusted properly and accordingly,

then the elements of a scene will expose themselves properly, according to their own individual reflectance values - providing the camera has the ability to record the total range of brightness of the elements in the scene.

Here we have a Sekonic L-308s, set to the incident light reading mode and ISO 400. The reading was taken (the meter was held) so the white dome was illuminated by the sky light softly coming in a nearby window (somewhat up and to the left of the meter). The dome was held very proximate to where it is in the photograph. The setting indication is 1/30 sec at f 5.6.

Theory number 2 is that older Nikon AI lenses can be used, on manual settings, with many of the SLR digital camera bodies. The photo 400-pixel below was born from the unaltered original that was uploaded. However, the linked, uploaded image, a duplicate of the image taken, may not be displayed in its original quality/resolution - something that, on this blog, is arguably beyond my control. The original image was captured on manual exposure, using a 1980's vintage Nikon Micro Nikkor 55 mm lens on a mid-2000's vintage Nikon D-70 body. The aperture was set to f 5.6 and the sutter speed set to 1/30 second. Twas taken hand held, focused for sharp meter indications and composed for a variety of object reflectances. There is white tissue and a white plastic bag for highlights and black leather in shadows (on the camera back) to create dark shadow detai.

TaDa! Of course, this image has a few highlight details that have been lost, gone over the top. They are in reflections in the white plastic, especially in the edge of the white nasal tissue, and, probably, on the tip of the white dome. The darks nearly bottom out in the black leather shadowed areas. As such, for this camera's high-quality jpeg setting, this scene represents the range of brightness values that can be recorded. Sometimes, it's cool to know that results follow established theories when parameters permit.

Christmas

Well, it was a Christmas Tree Farm - in Hamersville, Ohio. Believed to be summer of 1974, an AMA motocross race, this photo was taken on b&w film and I'm not sure of the camera. Might have been my Miranda Fvt but probably a Nikkormat Ftn. In whichever case, while on the topic of other cameras, enjoy. This guy is.