I was looking through the archive for a particular grainy, black and white shot I made of a ’57 Chevy at a Goodguys car show years ago. Searching “chevy” on my old Mac brought up a ton of results.
After initially selecting around 50 shots, I whittled it down to these 27 photos made using various film and digital cameras, taken at car shows I’ve attended over the last 15-16 years.
Hope everyone’s safe and warm.
In my travels with cameras, I discover a lot of round or circular objects, and since my fave and probably most frequently used aspect ratio in photography is the square, I’ll center these objects and make a photo.
Here’s a montage I put together of 16 faves.
I also assembled an album with 88 examples of circle/square on Flickr, check it out…
Pentax *ist + Sigma 28-135 3.8-5.6 macro.
Over the past three weeks I’ve been checkin’ out the #ShittyCameraChallenge tag on Twitter and I’ve noticed that folks are using any old shitty camera they can get their hands on, including ‘vintage’ digital.
I still have my old Pentax Optio 300GS. It’s a tiny compact digital camera I bought in 2003. It’s a whoppin’ 3.2 MP, uses a 128 MB Compact Flash card, and it runs on AA batteries.
It’s not really shitty, but it is old.
It’s not really shitty, but it is old. And after 17 years, the sensor has a handful of dead pixels.
So, yesterday I walked around the house, garage, and backyard shooting whatever caught my eye.
These two shots had a similar feel, seemed meant for each other. A wagon wheel, and leaves from one of the Pride of Barbados plants out back.
I wanted to bring a few point-and-shoot cameras on our 2-week tour of Portugal and Spain last year, but they had to be small enough to fit in the awesome Peak Design Everyday Sling 5L.
The RX100III was one of three that made the trip.
I like this little shooter a lot. My fave parts are the flip-up LCD, the Zeiss 24-70mm ƒ/1.8 lens, and the lens ring. The macro’s not bad, either.
The camera’s menu system is just okay and the controls are nicely arranged, so using the camera is pretty much a breeze.
I like this little shooter a lot.
I don’t use the viewfinder. No real need. Plus it has the nasty habit of turning off the camera when pushed back into the body.
I added a tasteful Gariz half-case and – since I’m not a big fan of wrist straps – I use an extra neck strap I had, a super-thin Panny with plastic clip/nylon cord connectors. Works perfectly.
Great little digital camera.
Resolution: 20.1 megapixels
Max image size – 5472 x 3648
Display: Tilting 3in LCD @ 1,228,800 pixels
ISO: Auto, 125, 160, 200, 250, 320, 400, 500, 640, 800, 1000, 1250, 1600, 2000, 2500, 3200, 4000, 5000, 6400, 8000, 10000, 12800
Shutter Speeds: 30 sec – 1/2000 sec
Metering: Multi-segment, center-weighted, spot
Focal Length: 24-70mm
Macro: 1.97in
Dimensions WHD: 4in x 2.3in x 1.6in
Weight: 9.28 oz
Power: Sony NP-BX1 lithium-ion rechargeable battery
Memory card: SD/SDHC/SDXC
I played around with one of my shots from last Sunday’s car show over in Round Rock at Centennial Plaza. This is the badge and right front-end of a silver colored Porsche 1600/356. 1956, I’m guessing.
The original photo was color, taken using the vivid setting available in the Sony RX100M3.
I use an older version of Photoshop, CS5 Extended, or Photoshop 12. I haven’t yet fully embraced Adobe’s subscription model and this rather old version still works on my trusty old 2012 Mac Mini.
I have the free version of the NIK software bundle installed and use it often for both color and black and white edits.
I haven’t yet fully embraced their subscription model…
For this shot, I used the Silver Efex Pro 2/030 Film Noir 1 filter to make the conversion to BNW. Love the grain from this filter. There are plenty of settings to mess with, including film types, vignette, and brightness/contrast. I also removed the image border.
Next I used the Photoshop burn tool to darken up the letter “P” at the top of the badge. I was pretty much shooting into the sun at ƒ/1.8 and a it got a little blown out, but there was enough there to recover.
I like that blown-out area to the left of the badge, framed by the badge and the curve of the fender, with the trees in the background and the fender’s shadow fore.
I bought this tiny little shooter for one reason only… its size. Amazingly, it’s the same width and height as a credit card.
What I discovered after it arrived is that it has fantastic image quality and super macro capability.
I haven’t used this ultra-compact camera nearly as much as I should, but in putting this post together I rediscovered a little gem that I’m gonna start carrying around.
Resolution: 12 megapixels
Max image size: 4000 x 3000
Display: 2.5in fixed screen
Rangefinder: Optical zoom
ISO: Auto, 80 ,100, 200, 400, 800, 1600
Shutter Speeds: 15 – 1/1500 sec
Aperture: ƒ/3.2 – ƒ/5.8
Macro: 1.1in
Focal Length: 33 – 100mm
Zoom: 3x
Metering: Evaluative, center, spot
Dimensions WDH: 3.4in x .72in x 2.1in
Weight: 4.7oz
Power: Rechargeable Li-ion Battery (Canon NB-4L)
Memory card: SD/MMC/SDHC
Diggin’ ’round in the archive. These are from May 2013.
A pair of shots, one made with the Olympus E-PL3, an extension tube, and the Lensbaby Composer Pro + Sweet 35, the other made with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 and the Wanderlust Pinwide.
Cool that I wrote about how I made the Pinwide shot on Flickr. “I found it while I was out back watering the roses. It was corroded and covered in dirt. I cleaned it up a bit with water from the hose and let it dry.”
It was corroded and covered in dirt.
“I took the picture later in the day. The sun was on its way down allowing a sliver of light to peek under our old and slightly uneven garage door. I got the shot by laying on the garage floor with the Pinwide less than an inch away from the jack.”
I love the shadow and contrast, not to mention that gorgeous blurry bokeh at the top and swirl at the bottom of the EPL-3 shot. Pretty cool.
Diggin’ ’round in the dirt has its rewards. Same with the archives!
I really liked this little guy and was getting a lot of use out of it. I even took it to Omaha, Nebraska. I walked all over town with it in-between attending a conference for the university. Got amazing results. I absolutely loved the user-interface and menu system.
And then one day after work I was getting out of the truck and I dropped it. It wasn’t the first time that had happened. It was the third. And final. Dead.
It came with one strap lug and a hand strap. Not my favorite set-up. I’ll never be a fan of that configuration.
Over the years, I’d occasionally scour eBay to see if anyone was selling theirs. In early November 2018 I finally found a used Samsung NV11 in near mint condition for an extremely reasonable price.
Back in the saddle, you might say.
This time ’round I attached a lanyard. Better safe than sorry… again.
Resolution: 10 megapixels
Max image size: 3648 x 2736
Display: 2.7in LCD @ 230,000 pixels
ISO: Auto, 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600
Shutter Speeds: 4 sec – 1/2000 sec
Aperture: ƒ/2.8 – 4.4
Focal Length: 7.8 – 39mm
Macro: .39in
Zoom: 5x optical
Metering: Center-weighted, multi-segment, spot
Dimensions WDH: 4.2in x .9in x 2.5in
Weight: 6.8oz
Power: Rechargeable Li-ion Battery (SLB-1137D)
Memory card: SD/MMC/SDHC
Russ Morris. Slightly Obsessed With Photography since 1964. 