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Telephoto Hiking

Yesterday was a beautiful day for hiking. The full sunshine poked dramatically through the canopy of trees making for photogenic pools of light.

I took my new Panasonic S5IIx and mounted a 60plus year old Nikkor 180mm f2.8. Normally I take wide angle lenses hiking but decided to challenge myself. I wanted to see differently.

I’m happy with the results. The compression turned mundane images dramatic and added a layer of mystery by excluding more than it included.

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The Pride of Elves (Story)

The shadow elf Balhir rode hard for as long as the night time held. The spell he cast about himself froze the starlight to cover his passing but it would not withstand the hard sun. Thus he raced for the trees against the coming dawn.

His horse Felmir wearied but did not slow his pace as the elf leaned nearer his neck and whispered vexing enchantments that hurried his paced and kept them beyond the reach of their enemy’s sight.

The starlight shimmered across the grey skin of his hands and the glassy fabric of his cloak so that anyone who might look would only see a momentary shimmer as he passed along the horizon. They reached a line of trees and Felmir slowed.

Balhir had defied the Elder Council and antagonized the Magrev Horde. When the sun came up and birds sang his deeds would be known and there would be no turning back, for anyone.

Read the rest of pt.1 here

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BLUE IT WAS

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SELF PORTRAIT IN SOUND

At the time I was just trying to program my music listening at school and work without the luxuries of a cd burner or MP3 player. The result now is that I’ve left myself a nearly 30 cassette tape thesis in musical self identification from the years 2000-2004.

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AND SO AND TORSO

AND TORSO AND SO

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CASTLE IN THE SKY

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LESSON IN LIVING

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COLD AND QUIET

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For The Trees

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MILLION DOLLAR DREAMS

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Ring of Fire

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As I was shooting this video I was crouched awkwardly and wondered how I would know when I should stop. And then it happened...

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If you say so...

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Kodak Cine Ektar on Nikon J1 (It’s All in the Color)

I recently got a Nikon J1 camera with the specific intent of adapting some of my smaller coverage lenses. I was particularly interested in having a camera with a small enough sensor to take C-mount cine and TV lenses.

The possibilities here were either the Pentax Q line or the Nikon 1. A Pentax Q would have run around $200. I got a decent J1 body for under fifty. The Pentax bodies are lovely and would also have taken 8mm lenses but a 75% price savings made the Nikon irresistible. 

The main lens I was anxious to try was a Kodak Cine Ektar 25mm F1.9 II. It came equipped on a Kodak 16mm K100 Turret camera I got about ten years ago.

The adapter was another fifteen dollars, though it has proven a little disappointing. The lens will not reach infinity focus which means the adapter is too thick. I may try and shave it down eventually. For now it is still useful to get to know the lens in a way I couldn’t when it would've required shooting, developing, and scanning 100ft reels of 16mm film.

Elsewhere in my collection of lenses with limited use, I have a 38mm f1.8 for the Olympus Pen F half frame system. This particular copy has some noticeable fungus inside it so I had replaced and taken it out of service on my Pen F camera. But after a twenty dollar adapter it gets to come back out and play as well.

Now that I finally had these very specific lenses on a camera that can show give immediate feedback I wanted to get some immediate feedback.

I mounted them on the camera and took a series of test shots out my front window. hopefully there’ll be more interesting subject matter soon but for now this is good enough to show how they basically compare.

This first image is with the Olympus.

These images are unedited, straight out of camera, converted directly from the RAW files.

Shot at 1/100 of a second and f4. Nice and sharp on this one and it gives me infinity focus. No complaints on this adapter!

The same settings, this one is cropped in slightly but otherwise unaltered. You can immediately see the focus issue but even more than that I notice the gorgeous color! It’s a much more rich and warm world when looking through the Kodak Cine lens.

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Reader’s Wisdom

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An Evening Hike in November.

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Moment of Beauty (The Hummingbird Moth)