face it, Spring is late...

face in the garden
Originally uploaded by argusmaniac.

I thought yesterday was the most spring-like day yet this year. Mostly sunny, and at least 50°F! Today, we are supposed to get more snow...blah.

I did get out in the afternnon, and shot a roll of film in a recently-acquired Ciroflex TLR at Cobblestome Farm.. This is the nicest Ciroflex I have seen to date. The ground glass was much brighter than the others I have. I also shot a roll of Ilford Delta Pan 400 (exp. 1996) in my Fed-5 with an Industar-22 that I recently got off eBay. The Industar-22 is about the same as the collapsible Leica Elmar 50mm lens, and it cost me less than $18.00 with shipping from the Ukraine. The negs that I developed last night from both of these cameras came out great.

Dining Out

Calopteryx1small
Originally uploaded by argusmaniac.

I was scanning in some slides last night for possible inclusion in someone's book. I really like this shot of this Calopteryx maculata female eating a small fly. I found her near the River Raisin in western Washtenaw Co. in June 2003. The mosquitoes were nasty, but I managed to get a couple of shots of this damselfy before she flew off. I used my Nikon FA with the 70-180 micro-Nikkor.

Waiting For Spring

Waiting
Originally uploaded by argusmaniac.

I shot this a year ago in a barn that is being preserved at Matthaei Botanical Gardens. The barn itself is over 100 years old, and had suffered from neglect for a number of years before UM decided it was worth doing some reroofing and repair. Otherwise, it would have been in a very sad state within a few years.

The barn is now pretty well cleaned up inside, and I shot this photo with my Nikon F4, mounted on a tripod, and in aperture priority mode. I think the shadows came out pretty well, especially with the amount of light streaming in through the window. What the photo really needs is a human element though. A model with the ladder would be a good start.

Depth of Field

Poppy Pods
Originally uploaded by argusmaniac.

One of the harder things to teach new photographers is depth of field (DOF) and out of focus (OOF) considerations when making a photograph. DOF is controlled largely by the aperture, however, the exposure characteristics must be taken into account. Good DOF depends on a small aperture, hence a slower shutter speed. The focal length of the lens determines how much of the background will be in focus. Obviously, if you want foreground and background to be in focus, you go for a wide-angle lens. If you want a great OOF background, then opt for a telephoto. In this case, I used my Tamron 80-200mm zoom with a 2x diopter to get these poppy seed capsules close-up, yet rendering the background soft and OOF. Aperture was probably f16. I used a tripod and a lens shade, too. Image was made on Fuji Astia.

What we see

If you want to try a fun exercise (not the calorie-burning kind) -- take one room in your house, one camera, one lens, and ask yourself what do you see that's interesting and can shoot in 15 minutes? Look at things close-up, down low, whatever. The point is for you to try and see things that you never noticed before. See things. Feel them in your brain. Look through the viewfinder and don't have a specific object in mind. You might just surprise yourself.

A bit of a clock, photographed with my Minolta S-1 APS and 50mm macro (yes, that's correct, an APS camera!)

My wife's keys for her workplace

You'll be amazed at how different things look when you really do look at them.