Shooting Kodak Ektar 100 Kodak Ektar 100 has been my favorite color negative film for quite some time now. My first rolls of Ektar were shot through my Yashica Mat 124G. I had been looking for an inexpensive way to try out medium format while also keeping a modern look and feel to my images. The Yashica and Ektar combination proved to work out perfectly.
Ektar is a 100 ISO film that is touted to provide excellent saturation, contrast, sharpness, and fine grain. Kodak says that Ektar 100 was also made to be scanned easily. It sounds like a wonderful film for the modern age, especially for 35mm shooters looking for cleaner shots. However, I somehow had never shot Ektar in 35mm format, until now, due to my love of shooting it in 120 format. Keep reading to learn more!
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Big Performance on a Small Budget The Autochinon 50mm f/1.9 lens has been one of my favorite impulse buys ever. Early in my photography career, I went to a local pawn shop on a whim just to see if they had any vintage camera gear. Lo and behold, they happened to have a small case hidden away in a corner with a handful of old film lenses inside. I looked through them a bit, not knowing what lens mount they were, what the brand names meant, or if they were any good. At this point in time I had a basic mechanical knowledge of how lenses worked, and the Autochinon 50mm in the case seemed to fully function. $8.00 later, I had myself a new lens to play with!
The Pentax SMCP-FA 80-320mm f/4.5-5.6 Been looking for an inexpensive telephoto zoom lens to get you buy until you can afford the excellent Pentax D FA 70-200mm f/2.8? I was too, and that's what brings us here. Currently there are a few good options for a budget telephoto lens in the Pentax K-mount. There are a few other Pentax options from the film era, like the well regarded manual focus Pentax 70-210 f/4 lens. Tamron makes a 70-200mm f/2.8 option that seems to offer great image quality, but has a used price that is typically around $500. There's also the older 70-300mm options from Sigma and Tamron, all of which are inexpensive but give up a bit in the image quality department. I wanted a lens with autofocus and the ability to adjust my aperture settings in camera if need be. This narrowed the search a little. I wanted to lose the least amount of image quality, and of course I wanted to spend the least amount of money. After much research and shopping, I found a used Pentax SMCP-FA 80-320mm lens for sale at $80. I decided to give it a shot. Learn the Light In part two of the "Shooting in Bad Light" blogs, I wanted to touch on some of the benefits of shooting during those less desirable times of day. There are certain situations where shooting in the hours between around 10:00am to about 4:00pm can actually be beneficial. In the quest to becoming a better photographer, understanding light and how to use it is one of the most difficult and most important tasks we face. If we learn the strengths and weaknesses of different types of light, we can make good photos any time of day. Bad Light, Really? Well yes, sort of. During a few recent outings I had the opportunity to really drive one of my personal theories about shooting whenever you can home. The first of these outings was a casual solo trip out to my local lake to see if a sunset may pan out and to get some much needed shutter therapy. (The second outing will be covered in a part two installation on Friday!) I arrived a few hours before sunset to give myself time to work out some composition ideas, shoot a few snapshots, and work out what my goals for the evening would be. The light was dull, flat, and frankly quite boring when I arrived. I grabbed a few snaps thinking maybe I could at least use one or two for stock photos and an excuse to practice shooting and editing mid-day shots. Kodak Portra 400 has long been a staple in the film photographers bag. It is one of the best known and most widely used color negative films in the modern world, and has been a hit since its 1998 introduction. The film was updated in 2010 touting increased sharpness, finer grain, and easier scanning capabilities. Portra 400 is well loved due to its amazing exposure latitude, natural color palette, and it's versatility. The look of well shot Portra is instantly recognizable.
In my quest to continue growing as a photographer, I recently decided that the next step I needed to take was learning to use artificial light proficiently. I wanted something extraordinarily versatile for my first flash or strobe unit. It had to be something I could use for everything from portraits to products. I had decided that this unit would absolutely need to be battery powered and portable in order to inspire new ideas and unlock new venues for my photography. Enter the Flashpoint eVolv 200 (aka the Godox AD200).
Hey readers! I've been doing a lot of shooting, a lot of working at the day job, and trying to keep up with everything else lately. Having said that, an overdue continuation of the Close to Home series is finally here! I hope you all enjoy the writing and the photography. Let's get to it, then! In the second blog post of this series, I'd like to make a multi-part post about city parks being a great option for getting out and getting photos. I've found the city parks in Oklahoma to be great places to grab some good photos, be outdoors, catch some familiar wildlife, and get some exercise. This first part I will be concentrating on Radar Park in Weatherford, OK. I had the idea to start this series after the last short evening trip my cousin and I made with the specific intention of taking some great photos in the great outdoors. After thinking about it a minute I realized how easy it is, when you live in a city, to forget what great opportunities there are to experience the outdoors without driving far. There are great city parks in many places, local lakes, ponds, etc. I decided to start this blog series to share with you what I've come up with for getting outdoors and taking great photos close to home.
For those of you who read and appreciated my prior writing about firearms, reloading, and DIY shooting sports ideas: fret not. I will be resuming writing on those subjects. The change will be an addition, not a subtraction! I will now also be blogging about many other outdoor related activities. Hiking, outdoor photography, fishing, hunting, four wheeling, and even dirt biking will take up real estate on this blog from time to time.
To kick off this new venture, I'll be writing about a recent trip to a beautiful part of the US, complete with photo gallery and a chance for my readership's input! Click below the photo to continue the article. Here is a teaser photo to tide you over before the jump! |