One Week with the One Touch 100 (RF2)

Twas the day before that major December holiday, and the Hanabibti and I were out rummaging around a new for-profit thrift store that opened down the street, when I dug deep into a jumbled mass of old electronic components and pulled out the Nikon One Touch 100.

Sure, the front was scratched up a bit and the neck strap connector was torn out of the side, but at $1.98, the price was right.

I opened the battery compartment to check for corrosion and found two AA’s inside, the old type with the little pads for checking the charge on the side. I checked them and both showed about 1/3, so I reinstalled them, pointed the camera around the shop and clicked the shutter some. The the shutter clicked, the flash fired, the winder motor wound: it looked and sounded like it worked…

$1.98? Sold.

Continue reading “One Week with the One Touch 100 (RF2)”

LC-Anstax, Monochrome

Fuji announced their new Monochrome Instax in September to great fanfare, and packs started appearing on shelves in October. I picked up 5 packs to try to join in on a Dan K-sponsored contest on Twitter a couple of months ago. Sadly, they didn’t arrive in time to participate, but it did spur me to shoot more Instax, so that’s a good thing, and I’m glad I picked some Monochrome up. It’s different from its colored brethren, somehow more precious, more serious, less spontaneous and fun. It’s still Instax, for sure, just a bit different, and I think the LC-Anstax does it justice.*

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of #lunchbreak walks and remjet

I miss my #lunchbreak walks. I’m not sure why I gave them up, probably I’m just lazy, but maybe I can pass it off on the weather, maybe it got bad for a bit and kept me indoors and I just got out of the habit. I’ve recently, tentatively, started up again: it’s nice to go for a quick walk around the parking garage, or nearby apartments, or nearby strip malls in the middle of the day and get the blood moving. The scenery isn’t too inspiring—though I grabbed some nice shots in early 2016—what with a parking garage, an apartment complex, and 2 strip malls the only things I can walk to, around, and back in 30 minutes or less.

These days, though, I have to force myself, and while doing a bit of heavy breathing feels great and really improves my mood the rest of the day, I’d rather spend the 30 minutes praying and reading. I make so little time to read these days, and while I can pray on a (paid) 10 or 15 minute break, it’s nice to stretch out and pray all the sunnahs and a nafl or two, and a spiritual break in the middle of the day is (or could be, if I was a better servant of Allah azza wa jall) better than a mere body break, though both are necessary for optimal functioning.

Anyway, it was getting late in the week, and I’d only shot one long exposure light trail thing and a few frames of the fog one morning, so when lunchtime came, I grabbed the camera, and away I went. Continue reading “of #lunchbreak walks and remjet”

This FP4+ Party is on FIRE!

For this month’s #FP4+ Party, and after being disappointed with much of my shooting over the past few months, I decided to try some macro-type stuff this time. I dressed the FE up in the Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/2.8 and PK-13 and started looking for stuff to shoot.

Didn’t find much.

It was a bit cool outside and rained some early in the week, and my darling, adorable wife seized the opportunity to get a fire going, and I got to shooting…

It’s remarkably difficult to focus on fire. I let the FE handle the exposure, more or less. I wanted a narrower aperture than I could focus or handhold, even (unknowingly) pushing the FP4+ to the astronomical heights of EI200.

I’m a party animal, I am.

I guess I’m more of a Fuji guy, I guess

Just before I went off to Arkansas, I shot and developed two rolls—Fuji Superia X-TRA 400 and Kodak Gold 100—of expired film from the FPP LoFi HiDrag box I picked up a month or so ago, and shoved some selects into a folder with the intent of writing up posts and sharing them while on holiday.

I didn’t even turn on the computer, though, and last week went to clean out the to-upload folder, I found these and didn’t remember what they were about. I did remember the notes I made while processing all that film from the Arkansas trip, and I remembered that I never talked about Kodak vs. Fuji to the extent I intended to in that series. Looking back at these now, I see echoes, antecedents, perhaps, of the things I experienced with the fresh consumer stocks I shot during the Arkansas trip, even matching somewhat the things I noted in my one brief comparison.

Before I get started, though, one thing: if you enjoy shooting film, please shoot fresh film. Expired film is fun to play with, but please purchase, shoot, and talk up fresh film as often as you’re able, lest Fuji and Kodak Alaris and the very few other manufacturers stop making film altogether and we get stuck with dwindling stocks of expired stuff like these two rolls from the good people at the FPP… Continue reading “I guess I’m more of a Fuji guy, I guess”