Lady in Pink

she asked if she could use his phone to make a call

he handed it to her,

she made her call and gave it back to him, minutes later, a call comes in for her,

he hands her the phone

the littlest things can be the kindest of things
 

The Grand River at Paris, Ontario

I'm beginning to like this Minolta 35-70 F4.

First photos taken with a Minolta Maxum 35-70 F4

I got this autofocusing Minolta Maxxum 7000 to get a higher percentage of in-focus keepers when shooting film. Being impatient with the slower pace of film photography, I shot this short series with the lens mounted on a Sony A7C with a Sony LA EA4 adaptor. All photos exposed at F4.

Mushroom, taken with a Sony RX10Mk1

The Sony RX10 is the type of camera only Sony would produce in typical fashion: cram whatever current technology exists into a camera, price it affordably, and to hell with saving some of that technology for higher-priced variants. And when Sony does add new technology to the succeeding model, Sony doesn't discontinue the previous model. Thus, the customer isn't forced to purchase the newer model, if the previous model is still sufficient. So it came to be thatThe Sony RX10Mk1, Sony RX10Mk2, Sony RX10Mk3, and Sony RX10Mk4, could be found sharing space on camera-store shelves.

My Sony RX10Mk1 still takes beautiful images after all these years. There is no need for me to take photos with the Sony RX10Mk2; it is as new as the day it was purchased.

Mushrooms were found growing on composted wood chips used in the garden.

Portraits of the beautiful Ibtisam, taken with a Canon 85F1.8 on a Sony A7III

Blue Skies and Wasaga Beach

 

Sony Diaries: The Zen in seeing the mundane in new light

Zen is based on the belief, and the knowledge, that beauty and meaning can be found in the ordinary.

The Gallery at the PGCRL on a rare bright and sunny afternoon in February.

First roll with a newly-acquired 1975'ish Minolta XE-7

As far as I can remember, it's been almost 20 years since I loaded 35 film on to a camera; even longer since I used B&W film. The chemically plastic smell of popping open a film canister brings back fond memories.

Shooting with film is not something that may be taken lightly. Film and processing, including scanning, is expensive. A 36-exp roll will set you back $0.60/shot. I set out to shoot no more than 2 frames per subject, budgeting to shoot up to 20 shots on this walk around Kensington Market. This is so different from shooting digital, with over 500 clicks for a similar outing.

I had to carefully choose my subject matter for suitability for B&W. The absence of colour means "focusing" on other aspects such as subject matter, textures, shapes, patterns, and the sum of all these: composition. Limiting myself to using 2 manual, prime (non-zooming) lenses: 28F2.8 and 50F1.4 meant I had to "zoom" with my feet. The fact that I only have 20 shots to use in a busy environment with lots of moving parts (this is not landscape photography)  meant that I had to be disciplined in my movement and quick to decide what was shot-worthy.

And one more thin:  I had to make an educated guess for the exposure setting, since I couldn't rely on the camera metering. The Minolta XE-7 is a manual focus camera and when it wasn't possible to bring the camera to my eye (so as not to spook the subject matter), I relied on the distance scale on the lens for focus; not an easy task when aiming for shallow depth of field.

For film, I used Ilford XP2: a chromogenic black and white film that is developed in colour C-41 chemistry. It has a wide-exposure latitude (more forgiving for exposure errors), and doesn't require traditional B&W processing. C-41 colour processing is readily available locally. I also used either a yellow or a light orange filter to increase scene contrast.

I find XP2 to be lower in contrastthan traditional B&W. My next roll will be Ilford HP5 developed with traditional B&W soups.

All things considered, it was a satisfying walk-around.