My First Digital

After about two months of solid research, I finally picked up my first DSLR. I went with a used Canon EOS 10D. I was looking at the 20D but circumstances out of my control prevented me from getting that. I got it in the mail yesterday and it looks almost Brand New, or as close as a used camera can get for an 8 or 9 year old item.

I wasn't all too worried about the amount of megapixels as I was about the cost. More people care about how many megapixels they have or how high the ISO can go, but I could care less. 6MP gets me sharp enough prints if I ever decide to print them out as long as they are exposed correctly. With the ISO levels, mine goes to  up to 3200 but I think 1600 will be enough for when I shoot concerts. It's fairly heavy, especially compared to my film slr.

 I could have easily have gone with a Rebel T1 or T2, but I wanted a dedicated PC flash port for when I jump into lighting instead of a hot shoe sync. With my 10D i can use both a hotshoe attatchment and the PC terminal at the same time for double the fun, and extreme blinding lights.

What model of digital camera was your first?

Yashica Mat EM Test Roll 1

I picked up a Yashica Mat EM on Ebay a week ago and when it came in the mail I decided to run a test roll through it before I went on my big shooting extravaganza in Hollywood this past weekend.  Unfortunately for me, from the results I got I wont be able to tell if I will be able to use it all for my big portfolio project.

When I got the camera in the mail, I was checking out some important issues such as all of the knobs and buttons along with timing a couple of the shutter speeds. It turns out the shutter was sticking on every setting while the aperture and the focus knob were moving just fine. I looked up the issue on Google and found out it wasn't too difficult to fix the issue. 

After putting it back together I ran a test roll and here are the results.

This was the only one that came out some type of sharp, but when it was scanned that big light spot showed up that I didn't see in the negative.

This was just a throw away picture but came our really cool.

I think I'm just going to have to bracket with the focusing to see what the accurate distance on the focus knob. I'll be developing roll number 2 from the Yashica Mat on Tuesday, which should give me a better idea on how its working.

Results from Lubitel Shoot

Last time, I was describing my new old camera, the Lubitel 2. I got a little too technical even for me. I went shot at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, which seems to be my most favorite place to shoot, and I have some results along with some pros and cons of using a completely manual camera. I have yet to edit some of these pictures because at least one of them will be used for my project and I am printing it out in the darkroom and not on the computer.

In this first image, it gives me a great idea of what to expect from this camera.  There are a couple of issues, but the most major one is a quirk of having a camera with a hole in the back for viewing the image number, and that is the vignetting. You can really see the big spot on the bottom left corner and slight darkening on the other three corners. Another hard issue is the viewing screen. When I was trying to frame  the image, I had to guess with over half the image because all I could see was the outline of the lens. It didn't fit the screen. I just happen to be good at aiming. An acquired skill from playing a lot of Duck Hunt on my NES 20years ago. Other than that, the image looks sharp enough to me.

This self portrait of myself was an interesting shot to see after developing my film. It shows the very point of why film is such a great medium. I can't see this being done on a digital camera unless you combine two different images. In order to take an image on the Lubitel, you have to manually cock the shutter and then hit the shutter release and then wind the film to the next position. What I did was take the first shot by accident which was my image in the upper left corner, and then I forgot to wind the image to the next shot and I hit the shutter open again. 

My last two images are just so so for me.

I scanned this one because the cars looked a little like toys, and it is a great shot of the front of the concert hall.

This one was another double exposure taken from the garden/courtyard on the backside of the concert hall. I guess i wanted to take another self portrait since I had screwed the last one up and I forgot to wind it to the next shot again. In this image, I was trying to capture a bee, but I don't think I got it.

All in all, I think i got my moneys worth for this camera, and I will most definately have to trade off week to week between this camera and my new old Yashica Mat EM, that should be arriving tomorrow.

New Camera

Well... not a New new camera, but rather and old camera that is new to me. I've been frequenting a local photography store and checking out their used cameras. Most of the time their prices are a little steep, and its very understandable since they have to keep their bottom line. A couple of weeks ago, I saw a very interesting camera called a Lubitel 2.

Now, I have been studying twin lens cameras for the past 2 months or so, because i am naturally progressing from 35mm to a 120 film size. Its kind of the easiest way to progress with picture composition and overall quality without shelling out a crapload of change on cameras like a Mamiya 7 or a Hasselblad. The Lubitel 2 is an incredibly inexpensive camera that gives an entry level experience into twin lenses and was almost as fun shooting as the Yashica Mat i check out from school.

So, this camera is fully manual. No shortcuts here, my friend. In order to take a shot, the shutter has to be cocked. The shutter speeds go from 1/15th of a second to 1/250th of a second with an extra bulb setting. Not really too much to work with but that is where exposure compensation comes into play. The aperature settings go from a slow f4.5 through f22. There is very little in the way of getting any fast moving shots, but if you are a patient person, that should be no problem and just use this for still life, snapshot, or anything creative. 

There is a waist level viewer with a flip up loupe for focusing, but I don't like the missing grid lines on most other waist level viewers. Its a bit harder to compose your picture.

The biggest confusion I had prior to shooting was the lack of an ISO meter. This is because there is no light meter and you should be using an external meter for setting the exposure. I think I goofed a bit since my light meter was my Canon Rebel and it was set for ISO 400 and the film I used was 100. One stop up shouldnt hurt the images thought.

I used Fuji Neopan 100 film and should be processing the film today and shall post my results and see if I will go out and shoot with it again.