When Day is Night

“Never use natural light because you can’t control it.” – quote from a ‘professional photographer’ that I’ll never stop laughing at.

That last week

Here are some monochrome images from the recent ‘Canon practise’ project.

“I’m not speaking to you.” “I’m not speaking to you either.”

Among events of last week, I got new tyres on Jojo. The old ones had really had it; I kept sliding past the driveway when trying to turn in. The issue was needing to drive to Kamloops to pick up Herself from the airport, and you can’t count on the weather/road conditions around here – except to be bad.

The other option was to re-insure and gas up the truck (which would have cost about the same), but it’s rear wheel drive when 2wd and doesn’t shift in to 4 automatically. Also uses more fuel and doesn’t ride as nice. Plus, Jojo still would have needed new tyres.

As it was that was a good idea because it snowed the day before the trip and the roads up here were compacted ice with some more snow and melt on top. On the way back it was all melted slush and we ran out of washer fluid keeping the windshield clear. Jojo actually has a warning that comes on when it gets low. Anyway, she’s filthy now and needs a wash but … guess what? Weather is about to go cold again – and snow more. Welcome home, dear!

So she’s back. This was followed the same day by a call from the eye doctor regarding my specialist appointment. Which will be in May. Good thing it’s not urgent, eh? We all know how it will end up anyway.

This past weekend we celebrated yet another wedding anniversary, in the usual style of the elderly. That is to say we stayed home, had a nice dinner, and watched a movie. The movie was the one we went to see in a theater on our first anniversary. No, it wasn’t Muybridge’s The Horse In Motion.

Now it’s time to get ready for whatever is next. Like split wood because it’s going to get cold. Also plot and plan purchases and snow clearing against more snow fall. At some point it will be Spring, but not for a few months yet.

Too cold to

Leftover pictures again. The past few weeks haven’t been great around here, with this past one including 6″ of snow on Wednesday and -24 temperatures Thursday. Not exactly pleasant for going out in, never mind taking photos. So here’s some images made before the deep freeze, although it was still freezing.

Fusion

Looking For Clues

Two from three

So much going on I didn’t know which way to turn. It has taken me days to decide just what the “weekend post” would be of/about. Thus it’s a sampling because I couldn’t make up my mind.

I’ve been ‘trying out’ the Canon lately to evaluate it as the next ‘main camera’ to use. I like using it but it simply can not do the things the Nikon P610 ‘bridge’ camera can, so I find myself repeatedly grabbing that instead when going out.

I have stopped using the Olympus for now. Not just because the battery is failing and I’m loathe to put money into it, but also because I need to force myself to evaluate the future of photography for me and it is unlikely the E410 is the answer no matter how much I like using it.

What with everything everywhere being as bad as it is (yes, my wife is still in England with no return date even guessed at) switching to “artistic” photography only is about all I can do. I loathe the idea of it as I do very much like taking wildlife photos. You know: pictures of birds I can’t actually see because they are small, far away, and hidden in tree branches. Do I need to mention the failing camera + failing eyesight thing again? No. Not going to say anything about the triple digit inflation rate around here either.

Just trying to keep my sanity together. Remind me again exactly why I should do that.

More analysis coming up. Er, camera analysis that is. I could probably do with the other kind as well, to be honest.

The Chickadee

Bush King

Note: these are not necessarily all the same bird as they were taken over several days as I experimented with the camera & lens, evaluating it for bird photography in fact. Most of the time I was quite close, but some are cropped.

(Photos taken with Olympus E410 & 40-150mm f3.5 lens.)

Sony Albinar

These pictures were taken with the Sony a6000 and the FD-mount Super Albinar 28mm f2.8 lens.

The camera is for sale, by the way. There’s nothing wrong with it and it is a good camera, only I have difficulties using it with my large hands and poor eyesight. I will include the Super Albinar & adaptor as well as the M42 adaptor and one of the not-so-good ‘classic’ lenses recently tested: Opticam f2.8 135mmm, Cunor f4.5 200mm, Sun f2.8 28-80mm, or Prakticar f4.5 70-210mm. Or not if you’d prefer. Frankly that Sun lens is pretty bad and the others only a step above it. Asking price is $600 not including shipping which is pretty outrageous to anywhere even within Canada.

All these pictures were taken in colour and converted to black & white. Sometimes post-processing is your friend. For example here’s what ‘Antlers’ started out as:

If you think these photos are all no good, well I’m not surprised: I can’t actually see what I’m doing anymore so every step from the initial composition to the finish product is largely guesswork.