One great thing about interchangeable lens cameras is the ability to pop the lens off and hold it a bit away from the camera to add some interesting zoom-type effects or flip it around for some quick and dirty macro. Fun stuff.
One horrible thing about the water in Irving is the strong variability in its quality: it’ll be decent for awhile (read: the finger-squeegee trick plus some gentle dusting is plenty) and then all of a sudden, without warning, it’ll become some filthy, hard, calcium-and-other-mineral-filled stuff that leaves caked-on gunk all over your negatives, no matter how insistently you finger-squeegee it or how much Photo-Flo you pour into the Stabilizer bath.
Take a look, for example, at the featured image… Here it is again, uncropped:
Filthy. Sheesh. I really should go back and rescan and reprocess most of this roll, but I’m lazy and I’ve been busy with other things. And Allah knows that most of these pictures are not really worth it.
I sorta like these anyway, but sheesh they’re filthy!
Despite the filth, this fun with free lensing got me doing it with more regularity, so In sha’Allah look forward to more in future posts.
Every now and again, I get these pictures that look like 1970s postcards or something, almost like pictures that someone else made. This is one of those, I think.
So. Two pieces of advice:
- If you’re shooting with an interchangeable lens camera, pop the lens off and try some free lensing! With digital, it’s a bit dangerous, what with the threat of dust getting on the sensor and all, and you might have to dive deep into the menus to find a setting that will let you trip the shutter without a lens attached. But it’s fun, nonetheless.
- CLEAN YOUR FILM before you scan it. One of those glasses cleaning cloths and some exhaled breath on the base side is all you need, and it just takes a few extra minutes. Trust me, it’s worth it.
