7/52-46 nothing to see here

Deepest apologies. Early in the week, probably Sunday, Hana and I went for a walk around the boring corporate apartment complex in which we live, purely for exercise. On the way out the door, I said “I’m going to be optimistic” and grabbed the D7000 and Nikon 36-72mm E Series. While out, we gathered a small amount of twigs and broken branches for kindling, again being optimistic that my lax boy scout skills would flare up (pun intended), and we could have a nice romantic evening in front of the fire (sans bearskin rug…).

Later, while the kindling was burning and failing to catch the logs sufficiently (not enough kindling, or maybe our previous attempts had turned the log into charcoal (they had)), I grabbed the Nikon 75-150mm f/3.5 Zomb-E and tied to shoot the coals…

You can take a gander at the fruits of one day of shooting below. What happened to the rest of the days? You got me… time flies, I guess.

D7000. Nikon 36-72mm E Series, and Nikon 75-150mm f/3.5 Zomb-E. No amount of post processing could get me to a decent result, but I tried some anyway.

7/52-45 outtakes: Lowy lens & Banko BL4 film

As mentioned previously, the appearance of the Photojournalism snappack jogged my memory about playing around with BlackKeys Extra Fine film for the 7/52 last week. I did most of my shooting for the week with the Diego lens/BlackKeys Extra Fine film combo, but did switch over to the Lowy lens/Blanko BL4 film a couple of times, just to give a bit of flavor, and just to see if the combo was any good. So check it for yourself, if you’re interested. Compare and contrast, maybe, the Photojournalism pack with the Diego/BlackKeys Extra Fine combo.

The Lowy lens is somewhat desaturated, and slightly contrasty, but is otherwise fairly accurate, and I look forward to doing more playing around as opportunities arise…

iPhone 5. Hipstamatic. Diego & Lowy lenses, BlackKeys Extra Fine & Blanko BL4 lenses. Some cropping/straightening (only allowed due to the lack of a border in these films (hooray!) in Lightroom 5.

7/52-45 black & white & hipstamatic all over

With the release of new film & lens filters comes (not much) responsibility to test them out and report findings…

I’ve wanted to do a black & white week again for some time, and I thought I’d found my chance when the Long Island hipstapack (with BlackKeys Extra Fine film & Florence lens) appeared last month. Alas, I didn’t jump on it straight away, and forgot about it until the  the Photojournalism snappack appeared. Given that I’m rarely have much of a plan for the project these days, it seemed like a good time to play around a bit.

I originally intended to test out different lenses with the BlackKeys Extra Fine film, but forgot and/or couldn’t be bothered to swap lens filters, so you’re stuck with the Diego lens. Together, the combination yields decent results. I’m not a big fan of the vertical and horizontal lines that appear (not sure if they’re from the film or lens filters… testing would help), but the contrast and sharpness are good, and I appreciate the crisp edge. All in all, it works pretty well, I think, and I should practice more with B/W. Maybe some day soon, or maybe a project for some future date.

iPhone 5. Hipstamatic (classic). Diego lens, BlackKeys Extra Fine film. Some slight cropping and very slight adjustments in Lightroom 5.

Oh! And you get an extra this week, you lucky people you!

7/52-44 Cloudy, with a chance of…

Alhamdulillah!

I spent the week playing with the Vivitar 70-210, but didn’t spend much time playing with it: still far too wrapped up in being married: Alhamdulillah!

Not much else to say, really. Life is wonderful.

D7000. Vivitar 70-210mm f/3.5 (Kiron-made, likely). I took a bunch in macro mode, but all of these were shot in the normal telephoto setting. Most received minor adjustments to contrast and clarity in Lightroom.