Welcome back Curtis. I was going to email you tomorrow if you didn't show up. Hope everything is well healthwise for you and Sue.
CGrindahl wrote:
Ah, hah... the thread is still here...
I'm not surprised since the names I see on this page have been around for awhile. Nice to see folks are still turning the focusing ring...
A private message from Leighton prompted me to finally pull the SD card out of my Df so I could upload the FEW photos I've taken of late. Photography has definitely been a low priority for quite some time. But I did visit the Italian Street Painting Festival on June 24 and was motivated to mount a 55 f/1.2 S.C. and actually used it. As you look at these photos consider the first full day of this event, which involves men and women sitting on asphalt pavement ALL DAY LONG, leaning over and applying chalk, that the day before we visited the temperatures in San Rafael were north of ONE HUNDRED DEGREES!!!
On Sunday the temperature was only in the eighties but still the organizers were delivering bottled water to the artists. So here are a few photos... I'm going to hog the thread for a short while to share the wealth of that visit... if I remember how to do it...
This event is intended as a fundraiser for children's arts programs throughout the community. Needless to say, they wanted to give kids an opportunity to get dirty... which the DID!
Marshal press 6X9 camera with the Nippon Kogaku 105mm f3.5 Q lens from about half a century ago. The camera was designed by Seichi Mamiya after he left Mamiya Corporation. He insisted on the Nikkor lens for the camera, and the vintage lens still comes through with superb sharpness despite the well expired Ektachrome 100 EPP film used here. Interestingly the colors were most washed out on the innermost few frames of the 220 roll; this is one of those frames. I would have thought the outermost ones would have been the most degraded.
NightOwl Cat wrote:
Welcome back Curtis. I was going to email you tomorrow if you didn't show up. Hope everything is well healthwise for you and Sue.
Leighton's call was a bit of a "welfare check" no doubt. Thankfully, my health is very good, at least that is what my doctor said after a recent annual exam. Life is good though as I mentioned, my camera is seldom put to use. Ken B will be visiting later this month so I expect we'll do a bit of shooting together.. It is always a delight to meet folks who've spent time on this thread. Chin's visit got me to pick up my camera as well but that seems a long time ago... the months fly by for sure. You can trust the fact that when I have photos to share I'll be back for another visit. I trust all of you stalwarts to keep the conversation going.
Chris, nice scenes from Amsterdam. We might be going there in september, Not sure yet, depends on if there will be any money left after next trip up north
Jay, love that pano shot!
James, nice cat shots.
Curtis, love what street art shots. Hope to see you back sson.
Paul, love the "Silver Girls".
Scott, love both of your shots with the 55/3.5 ai.
The Douglass Theatre, in Macon, GA, was originally an African-American theater begun by Charles Douglass, the son of a former slave. Greats such as Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Little Richard, and James Brown have performed here. It was restored about 11 years ago and is a beautiful theater hosting all types of events and showing the occasional movie.
I'm always interested to see what you and others do with the 80-200/4 AI-s. I almost never use mine that I bought several years ago ago from KEH. I should have sent it back, but my mom had died right after it arrived. Dealing with the usual funeral arrangements and then a lengthy, somewhat difficult probate process consumed my time and energy until long after the allowed return time. Photography really wasn't on my mind.
The lens makes strange, grinding sounds when zooming. Also there is major focus shift when zooming. In spite of this it still produces sharp images, but it's unpleasant to use. I don't know if it's worth trying to get it fixed.
No, I haven’t gotten rid of my f/2.8 Micro. I picked up this f/3.5 really cheap just for comparison. Even though this older lens isn’t multicoated, in the close focus range I actually like it a little bit better than the 2.8, less so near infinity.
The one aspect that I don’t like about the 3.5 is the 6-blade diaphragm compared to the 7-blade of the 2.8. Out of focus highlights can sometimes get annoyingly busy, especially if a lot of them overlap. This shot demonstrates that to some degree.
Well, at least the diaphragm blades don’t leak oil as they can on the 2.8.
Good to see the usual suspects still posting plus a couple of new faces, I've just been through the last 20 or so pages that I had missed.
We took a 5 day trip to nearby Fitzroy Island recently so I do at least have some pics to share.
I had actually processed some unfortunately the SSD drive in my laptop died before I could upload any so even though they are all kept on an external drive they weren't accessible.
Tropical Island on the Great Barrier Reef, fringing coral reefs, loads of Green Turtles and fish, beautiful weather (winter here, 70 degrees !) but I'll start with a few pics from Cairns Marina / Trinity Inlet
