Trooper #2 Day 30

"Lady, you're glowing!"

Macro shot taken on film and processed by me.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 29

"So, do you spoons hang out here a lot?"

 Drying off.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 28

"Oh yeah right there."

 In for a scrub.

Thaks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 27

"I can't swim!"

Just 27days into this and he's starting to get dirty. I guess the white uniform was not a smart move on the part of the Empire/Republic. Into the wash he goes.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Light Painting with the Canon G12

Light painting is done with a light source and a long exposure. In the case of the 2 images here it was made possible with the help of a neutral density filter and a small LED light.

The neutral density filter permits long exposure in good light conditions because it blocks out a lot of light. Kind of like the glass from a welder's goggles. In this case it was a 10 second exposure and I passed the LED light behind the subject during 5 seconds. I also wore black sleeves and gloves since anything lighter will show in the end on the image. Of course, mounting the camera on a tripod is not an option here.

Canon G12 with adapter and neutral density filter

I'll be doing more later on with the G12 and my film cameras as I explore this fascinating technique even more.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 26

"ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...."

Trooper chillaxing.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 25

On the boat.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 24

"Beam me up Sc... Oops! Wrong Universe."

Trooper gets a bit confused.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 23

"Salad is the promise of food, it is not food."

Trooper is doing philsophy at the restaurant.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Scale Models

Scale models are a great subject to shoot. Especially when they are well made. Here are a few shots from a club meeting last week.

De Havilland DH-100 Hornet

Work in progress bust.

1/35 Panzer Tank

1/32 Spitfire

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 22

"Are you smiling because your head is already cut-off? That's sick."

Trooper came with me at the restaurant.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 21

"Man you're not all there! You're missing the point and some major parts."

Trooper having a discussion.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Using a $5 Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash

The 50's version of a point and shoot.

I got my hands on this beat up 1950 something Kodak Brownie Hawkeye flash this week. A pretty simple little camera that has seen better days. It came with the flash holder but I don't have any bulbs right now, so I used it with film only.

One good thing and one bad thing about this camera. the good thing is altough it was made to use 620 film which is discontinued, if you still have the original 620 spool in the take up position, a 120 film will fit in the feeder side. The bad thing is that it is fixed at aperture f/11 and 1/30th of a second for shutter speed.

I shot a roll of Ilford HP4 125 on a very sunny day, so that meant the entire roll would be over exposed. Normal setting for this type of condition would have been f/16 at 1/125. So I had to reduce the processing time in order to compensate. 3 minutes in the developer instead of 4.

The results are pretty good considering that there is no focus adjustment and you shoot through a plastic lens. It's a good thing that I took the time to clean it.

I don't think I'll be using it much but it's handy to have in the arsenal.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 20

"Stargate sucks!"

A public announcement from your favorite clone.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 19

"Mommy?"

Better late than never! Clone melting pot.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 18

"If I move my legs enough maybe I can turn this into butter and walk out."

Trooper has ended up in a bit of a jam...or pint!

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Film or Analog Macro Photography

Minolta X-570: $30, Zoom/Macro lens: $30, remote trigger: $5, industrial tripod: $5, expired color film: $0.70, home processing: $1, making my own macro shots from start to finish: priceless!

So I had the itch to process some black and white film yesterday evening but it was dark and very cold outside. Then it hit me that I had recently bought a zoom lens that also did macro. So I pulled out an expired generic 400 ISO color film (Yes, color film can be processed in black and white) from the freezer and went ahead.

The clock is ticking.

Vintage bobble head. This shot was taken without the hood around the lens. You can see how the light is more diffused than in the other shots.

The results are very good with 20 good shots out of a possible 24. I'm real happy with that. I've learned a few things along the way. That big 3 pound lens works better when it's pointing in a horizontal fashion. It's so heavy that if it's pointing down, the shot will be out of focus by the time you shoot. The depth of field is very very narrow, no room for error.

Nothing like a macro shot to make you realize that your stuff is dirty! There's a clue here about the 1/2 shutter speed.  :)

Once in a blue moon you take a shot that makes you go "Wow"! This is such a shot for me.

I was also very happy about that big tripod and shutter release cable. Any kind of vibration will show in the end result. The stable tripod and cable permitted me to keep my hands off the camera and thus avoiding any kind of vibration. I could have used the timer but the cable is so cool!

An appearance from Trooper #2 in an unrelated post for him. I've taken more than a few shots of the guy during that session that will be posted in his regular feature.

I shot the expired film at 200 ISO settings for the light meter and developed it with Ilfosol 3 at 20 degrees Celsius for 6 minutes. I then digitized the negatives with my Nikon S8100 camera on copy and macro mode. The negative was then inverted in Gimp.

All and all a nice way to spend an evening at home.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 17

"So you hang around here a lot?"

Trooper making a new friend.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 16

"You guys suck for taking all of his attention away from me."

Trooper feels a bit neglected amongst my favorite toys.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Found Antique glass photo plates

A recent visit at a local antique shop produced these two images on glass plates. One is of Chichester Rents, a place somewhere in London, of what looks like a newspaper image. The second one is an actual photograph of the James Stewart Distillery at the bottom of Saucel Hill in Paisley Scotland.

The information on the Paisley plate was found on the building. That scribble helped identify the location with Google helping for the rest. I have no idea of the year it was taken however. Maybe someone on the web can help me out.

 

Anyways, this was a great find for $5. Now that they have been scanned, they can be preserved and shared with the world at the same time.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 15

"Back off Man!"

Our guy caught at a bad time.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Performance art show

I was invited to a performance art show last Saturday and I found it was an interesting venue to try out flash photography.

Moving subjects in a low light environment was quite a challenge. I brought my G12 and my film camera. I didn't use the flash on the G12 but did with the film camera without any idea on how it would come out. Turns out that deflected flash works a lot better than a direct aim.

It was an intersting evening to say the least. This took place at the Xpression Gallery in the Mile end district of Montreal.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 14

"Somehow, I don't think this is a good idea."

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 13

"Sorry guys, the dude is busy these days."

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Snow storm pictures

We finally got our first real snow storm of the year. Got some nice shots during and after.

In the thick of it.

Even the buses had a hard time.

Spare truck on the job frozen.

This could pass as an old picture except for a few obvious clues.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 12

"Sweet!"

I know I skipped a day, I'll make up for it this week end. Here's Trooper with a new toy.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)