Scattered Thoughts . . .

K enzie and I did a short mini photo session this afternoon.  She did some shooting with her Fuji Evo Hybrid Instax camera while I shot a few photos with my Mint TL70 twin lens reflex (TLR) Instax camera.  It was nice to see the side-by-side comparisons.  This blog entry is really only about my Mint TL70 though. This Mint TL70 camera is closer to being a medium format camera than a typical instant camera.  Most instant cameras have a pinhole for an aperture (or close to a pinhole) but this camera has a pretty nice lens with a manual aperture ranging from f5.6 to f22.  It captures an image right on the film so it is comparable to medium format film.   This camera has a nice lens and a huge and fairly bright waist-level viewfinder that you look down into from above.  The tonal quality of the Instax prints is really quite nice although that is not really seen accurately in photographs.  I should find a better way to show those prints on my blog because my photos of these prints are not do

Kenzie and I played around with her Fuji Evo Hybrid Instax camera today and came away with a few nice prints.  We also learned a little more about her new Instax camera that she received this past Christmas. I set up one studio light for our little photo session this afternoon.  We started with her hybrid Instax camera.  It is a "hybrid" camera because it has both digital and film capabilities.  It captures photos and saves them to a memory card in the camera.  The photos can be viewed on the rear LCD screen like most other digital cameras.  What makes this camera different is that it has Instax instant film loaded inside it too.  If you want to print a particular photo to the Instax film, then you simply crank the "print" lever which is the same sort of lever used to advance the film on old film cameras.  The image is then developed onto the Instax instant film and the photo is ejected out the side of the camera just like on the old Polaroid cameras.   I actually s

Back a year or so ago, I built a wood frame solar filter for one of my larger telescopes and, if interested, you can  read about it here.   This is another blog entry about a new homemade solar filter that I made about a month ago to be used, mostly, for testing purposes but it never hurts to have multiple ways to view the sky, daytime or nighttime.   I decided to build this solar filter for two reasons.... 1) I already had the supplies so it wouldn't cost me anything, and, 2) I want to compare one of my Spectrum glass solar filters to this new solar film filter I made as well as compare it to my solar wedge as a comparison between the three types of solar filters.   To make this comparison as accurate as possible and to keep as many scientific controls as possible in this little test, I decided that I should use the same telescope and the same camera so the only significant variable in this test would be the filter itself.  My small Skywatcher ED 72mm refractor was the best option

The kids and Nan and Pop decided to stop by Sunday morning to bring us some cider donuts for breakfast.  I warmed up the grill while Sheila pulled out the cinnamon sugar so we'd be ready when they arrived.   We warmed up the donuts on the grill and they were delicious!  We had some apple cider as well.   Since the skies were clear in the morning, I set up one of my solar telescopes so we could view the sun.  There were no sunspots so the sun was a featureless disk but it was nice to peer through the scope anyway... As always, Lukey and Kenzie took turns shooting with two of my cameras and they did a pretty good job.  This particular day was a bit more difficult for them though since the sun was high and bright.  They managed to get a few keepers though... I'm not sure when this was but, apparently, mommy took a short nap... Donuts for breakfast led to some hot dogs on the grill for lunch.  Sometime after lunch, I thought it might be a good

As I've mentioned in previous blog entries, I've been trying to recover from two months of illness progressing from a cold, to flu, and with a stomach virus bug developing sometime in the middle of all of this nonsense.  I've also had some issues with recurring headaches and focus issues which, I assume, are due to my mild TBI from this past summer.  The headaches I've had recently were the same as the headaches I experienced from the TBI so...  it is a fairly safe assumption that these headaches were due to lingering TBI problems.  I have had, however, a couple of hours here and there of decent enough health to start working on some small, light projects. One project I keep putting aside and then going back to is restoring a folding medium format film camera I recently picked up.  I did a lot of clean up already and this antique camera looks great but it still needs some work before I can load it with some medium format film and give it a whirl.  Shortly after pur

Konica Hexanon 40mm, f1.8 lens As I wrote in a blog entry a few days ago, I found a beautiful old lens for sale after searching for almost a year. I quickly ordered this old but 'like-new' lens as well as a lens hood and a lens mount adapter to allow this lens to work with my particular camera. In total, this beautiful old lens was dirt cheap. I attempted to head outdoors yesterday morning to get some shots but between some very lousy health and very windy conditions, I captured nothing but blurred photos because of shakey hands and everything blowing violently in the wind. This morning, however, was a completely different story... There was no wind this morning... it was cold and crisp   (still below freezing when I headed outdoors)  with no wind whatsoever... my health had stabilized within the past 24 hours so my hands had steadied up to a normal level (which comes in handy when shooting a manual focus lens)... This was the time to put this new lens to the test.

During my down time while struggling with poor health... and there has been a lot of this particular time in recent months... I've been trying to keep busy by improving my photography through continued education.  Photography is something I have always enjoyed since I was a child. I started photography by taking courses in school and was blessed with a grandfather who provided photography and darkroom gear for me. Way back then, much of photography time was spent in a darkroom. Most people don't realize it but even digital photography requires a lot of time in a 'digital' darkroom and this digital darkroom requires extensive and never-ending education and practice.  The learning curve for any darkroom, digital or otherwise, is steep. The terms are the same... the effects are the same... even the results are very similar... but the specific tools are different today. Today the darkroom tools are digital and manipulated with any digital input device such as a mouse,