Saturday, April 3, 2010

The move, the ketchup and the birthday present


(Originally posted January 23 2010, on Windows Live Blog space)
Welcome to my new blog space! I have decided to try out the Windows Live space for my blog rather than the more hip & saavy blogspot because the layout seems to suit the style and intention of this blog so much better. I can put my photos and blog entries all in the same space and actually have the slideshow next to the blog entry (which visually makes sense). So I am going to try it out... please bear with me and my non-web saavy bumblings.

The big move to the new space has also meant that I am significantly behind on updating with new photos and adventures (virtual moving is apparently as much of a hassle as moving in reality). So here is a little Ketchup (catch up)...

The latest photo entries are from way back in sunny August/September when the summer sun and bright natural colours lent themselves really well to great nature photos. I was particularily happy with this roll because I think I had a lot of luck with the aperture and shutter speed settings in getting proper focus and lighting. I say I was lucky because I am not completely convinced that I actually managed to achieve this because of any amount of skill on my part... I am still fumbling to remember which settings work best in which lighting and seem to need to re-teach myself everytime I go out (which clearly isn't often enough if I am retaining so little). Most of the pictures needed very little digital editing in terms of brightness or contrast although I used a basic "revive colours" function on almost all of them which essentially does exactly what it says... revives the colours. I think if I were to actually get the film developed at a professional shop (instead of the local 1 hour drug store photo lab) this might not be necessary. Maybe someday when I am confident enough that the film holds enough decent pictures to shell out the "big bucks" to do that, I will find out.

One of the things that I am actually proud of and feel isn't sheer luck is the framing of the pictures. I had to crop very few of them and was really impressed overall on the way that I had set up the pictures. I am really getting a feel for what my camera can and cannot do (mostly because of the type of lens on the camera) and how to work with those limitations. In fact, because the lens on my camera is so unique, I find it quite hard to now look through a different lens and figure out how to frame and focus it. Which brings me to my final point...

If you haven't noticed, with the arrival of the new blog space is also the arrival of a new name for it. The old space was "Experiments with my Olympus Pen F"... this space is "Experiments in Old Technology". The reason for the change is that during a conversation with my grandfather who used to dabble in photography, he mentioned that I could have his old Pentax camera (in fact the exact same model that Jeffrey has; the one that actually inspired me to pick up my Olympus in the first place). Well, he ended up sending it out to me for my birthday but when it arrived there were about three other large boxes that followed, filled with all sorts of other old cameras. His statement was... "Well if she wants one, she has to take the others as well"! I am completely thrilled to have them and hope that eventually overtime, I will be able to expand my knowledge of old cameras and share them all with you all here (hopefully on a more regular basis than I have managed thus far). I believe I have about 3 or 4 more rolls of film that are either waiting to be developed or are waiting to be uploaded and sorted... so don't touch that dial and stay tuned for more exciting expirements in old technology.

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