VSU Trip to Pensacola for Steve McCurry talk

I took Dominick, the photography professor at VSU, and 11 students to Pensacola last Wednesday to see a gallery show of Steve McCurry's work and a talk about "The Stories Behind the Photographs."

Making our way over there, we stopped at Falling Water State Park in Florida (which did not, in fact, have any falling water due to the drought). The show was at Pensacola State College. Here is a variety of snapshots from our trip, all taken with a little Canon P LTM rangefinder and Nikkor 5cm f/2 screwmount lens:
 

Remerton Abstracts

I took a bunch of abstract images of the mounds of dirt, rock, and other rubble at the Remerton Mill site. These were all done with either my Voigtlander 12mm f/5.6 Heliar or 25mm f/4 Skopar, on Plus-X and XTOL or Kodak Gold 100:

 

 

A couple more ~4x5 images from the 38mm XL

In the last few weeks I've used the 38mm XL a few more times. I've found that the best usage of it is for a super-wide square image on 4x5 (4x4). I don't shoot 6x6 but if I did, this field of view is like if I shot a 22mm lens or so on a Hasselblad or Rolleiflex, or a 10mm lens on 35mm camera and cropped to 24x24.

Here's a few more images from various places using it:

 

At the end of the day I don't think it's really useful to shoot on 4x5, unless I'm specifically planning on cropping it to 4x4 or something. For the full 4x5 image the 47mm XL is a better choice. On 6x12 though it's a different story. It pairs nicely with the 58mm XL for wide angles. Also, the 38mm XL is supposedly a 120° lens, just like the 47mm XL, so it stands to reason it isn't actually wider after cropping, unless focusing closely.

Reed Bingham, Rain

Every time I want to go shoot somewhere lately it seems to start raining. Three times this summer I drove to Reed Bingham to shoot and despite weather predictions saying low chance of rain, it started to storm fiercely.

This last time on Sunday I just said to heck with it and went out shooting while it was raining.

I shot some 6x12 with my 38mm XL. I wanted to give it another try - last week I found a shim from a lens on the floor that I apparently dropped when placing a lens on a board. The only lenses I had off their board was the 38mm and my Nikkor 90mm f/8. I put the shim in the 38mm XL but it definitely didn't help. Check out the corner areas:

Okay, so apparently it was for the Nikkor. I hope. Now I have to check that one too. The other problem I think I'm having is the 38mm has to be perfectly aligned to the film plane. I think I'm having a very slight left/right angle to the lens, causing this. I noticed the poor corner performance when I first shot this lens (without the shim) but this is much worse.

Here are some more photos. Most of these were shot while it was still raining but the exposures were up to 15 seconds, so you can't tell anyway, except for the shiny leaves and moving brush.

 

And finally one more I shot with my 150mm APO Symmar of this big spider, a "golden silk orb weaver:"

Films were Pan F+ and Provia 100F.

St. Marks Summer 2014, and July 4th

I actually took these a few weeks ago but forgot to upload them.

Meagan and I spent the afternoon at St. Marks and saw the sunset. Here's a few images from before the sun started to set:

 

Later on I pulled out some slide film and we enjoyed the sunset:

 

 Finally, just a few photos from July 4th, visiting Waycross and enjoying grilling and fireworks:

 

All of these were taken with my Pentax 67 and either 55mm, 105mm, or 165mm lenses. Films were T-Max 100, Portra 160, Ektar 100, Astia 100F, and Velvia 100F.