Adjusting One's Vision

I am behind in posting here -- It's been a very busy month, and I was away on a work-related trip to Minnesota.  Between that and catching up, and scanning many, many rolls of film, I have a lot of posts coming up soon.  However, I am switching gears here for a bit to talk about a bit of a revelation I recently had.
Regulars to this blog probably are familiar with my toy camera work, and my love of trying different lenses that are going to give me a different result than the usual sharp and contrasty perfection we all crave.   I have been using a Nikon 1J1 for several years now as part of my photography toolkit, and it's a perfect small mirrorless system camera for taking on trips.  My recent trip to Minnesota was by car, so I took a few cameras, but not my usual gear.  I packed a bag with my Minolta XG-M and lenses, Olympus Trip 35, Yashica A TLR, and the Nikon 1 bag.   Part-way through the 6 days on the road, the Minolta SLR stopped firing its shutter, making me rely on the other cameras to do the job.  Basically, readjusting my shooting to the tools I had.  The Nikon 1 is a good camera for trip shots, and while I did some shooting with the 28mm and 50mm  35mm equivalent lenses, I wanted something less than perfection, and more along what I wanted from a toy camera.  Thus, I put on the 16mm f/1.6 C-mount lens as shown below. (I also used a 25mm c-mount lens with an adjustable aperture, and while both give me very desirable effects, the 16mm gives me the vignetting.  Examples from both lenses are below.)

There is only the one wide-open aperture setting, and the lens focuses from about 2 feet to infinity. I have to use the 1J1 in totally Manual mode, as well.  This combination gives me exactly the kind of dreamy, slightly vignetted images that are sharp at the center and fall off towards the edges.  No software is involved in making the images I like, and straight out of the camera images look like they were done with a cheap toy camera, but better.

I love this combo so much,  that I may just use it like this most of the time.  Obviously it's not great for every subject, but it makes some deliciously soft images that perfectly (to me, at least) provide the emotive reaction I had when shooting the scenes in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.    Sometimes it takes a happy accident to point out a direction one should take, and I might not have shot with the 1J1 nearly as much if the SLR had been working reliably.  Adjusting my vision accordingly, the Nikon 1J1 with the c-mount lens provided me with a creative tool that enable me to come back with some different images than I would have shot with the SLR.

Eagle River, WI

Land O' Lakes, WI

what the sign says

grassy dunes at AuTrain Bay, MI

AuTrain beach

AuTrain bay

Vilas Theater, Eagle River, WI

Polypan-F on the Ice.

Last Saturday, I did some shooting on Fleming Creek with my Nikon F2S and my Nikon 1J1.  The F2S was loaded with Polypan-F, an ISO 50 b&w film from Germany that I purchased in 2012.  Conditions were amazing, as there were some really incredible ice forms and some streams running above the ice.  I have shot at this spot repeatedly, and like many photographers, I revisit familiar spots because things do change, and there is always the desire to get something better than the last attempt.  Rivers and lake shores are places worth revisiting, as they can change dramatically when weather conditions are in play. Fleming Creek has been photographed quite a few times, and this creek always has something to offer. One just has to look.

Taken with the Nikon 1J1 with a polarizer, ISO 100.

Winter photography has its own challenges, and my favorite film camera for this kind of work is my Nikon F2S.  The controls are easy to work with gloves, making cold weather shooting much easier.  You kmow what though, the Nikon 1J1 is also easy to use with gloves, which was kind of surprising. You can see in this photo that the water has frozen in large sheets, and some of it is flowing on top of the ice, rather than under it.  I shot the 1J1 in monochrome mode, because to me, winter IS monochrome.
I used a Tamron 35-135 zoom (in the old Adaptall2  mount), which is an excellent lens.  The Polypan-F was developed in Rodinal 1:25 for 6.5 minutes.  Some of my shots were bracketed, and all looked pretty good.








As you can see, I like zooming in on the details, which obscures the scale of the features.  I had a show up on this topic at Matthaei Botanical Gardens in 2012, and I should do another one with the same theme in the near future.

One last photo, taken again with the IJ1, which I have to admit does a pretty decent job.  This is Fleming Creek on the N side of Geddes Road near Parker Mill. There was a lot of texture to the ice on the creek.



That's it for now.  We have had some serious cold the past week, with temps at -15F on Tuesday.  I hope to get over there early Saturday before it warms up and gets slushy.

The Nikon 1 is a good tool to have in your toolbox

I am serious about this.  Like a lot of  Nikon users, I initially derided the Nikon 1 system as a marketing gimmick - small sensor (when we were clamoring for FX sensors, they gave us what?); no viewfinder (well the IV1 does have an EVF); different colors?, etc.  Now, I won't claim that my 1 J1 is perfect -- the dial is fiddly, and we don't need the red button, etc.  However, I have gotten used to the menus and controls, and I am very pleased -- sometimes astonished -- at the results from this little camera.  I agree with Thom Hogan that the camera was marketed poorly -- and to the wrong group.  Instead of Pros carrying an iPhone,  a Nikon 1 with a 10 mm lens (= 27 mm in 35 mm format) will give you some really great images.  This system should have been designed and targeted for those of us that love photography, but carrying something smaller, lighter, and more robust than a P&S with a tiny sensor would be a good thing.  There are numerous complaints online about the faults of the Nikon 1 system, but few complain about the images from the cameras.  Lately, I have been carrying my 1J1 in my camera bag along with whatever film cameras I have that day.  Slapping a polarizer on the lens has given me some of the most dramatic shots I have taken, and cropping the shots to square format afterwards has not detracted from the results.  A few examples:
Today, at Cranbrook --




Yesterday in Dexter:


At the Brett Weston Exhibit in Ann Arbor:


At the Rolling Sculpture car show in July:

In Chicago:

I'm not saying the Nikon 1 system is the only tool you need, but with a 10mm, 18.5mm, 10-30mm lens set, it will do a lot of shooting quite well, and like any camera, the more you use it, the more comfortable you get with  it.    I picked mine up as a refurb from Nikon, and it has been a very good tool to have. Go online and buy a set of 40.5mm filters for yours if you haven't done that yet.  I also have a 40.5 to 49mm adapter so I can use close-up lenses and other filters.