Pentax K-x long time night exposure

This is a 30 seconds exposure made with Pentax K-x and a kit lens at 18mm 3.5, ISO 800 (you need high iso to see more stars). Made a bit brighter (despite shooting in .jpg Pentax did a great job keeping plenty of shadow detail) bit of color noise removed in pp. Flare is pretty obvious with this lens.

Architect's dream

Already at taking it I got the feeling, that it will be a nice shot.

Konica Big Mini BM-302
Superia 200

Sunset in the city

Like the way sun shines through the building :)

First shots with DMC-FZ50 good so far!

Both pictures as shot - jpegs and no post processing (no cropping either):

I had a day for architectural details :)

Industrial - first Big Mini shot

Made with Konica Big Mini BM-302. I'm quite pleased with the results from this little camera. Despite of using cheap, out-of-date Superia 200 film - I managed to do some nice shots.

I've also have a new member of my little family: Konica Big Mini BM-201. Quite a looker, isn't it?

Night lights

this is my favorite shot from Olympus Pen D - night series.

Made hand held using B - time and following a moving car (panning). Kodak Elite Chrome film as always.

Notice how some lights turned to dots and other not. The dotted lights are powered by mains and are blinking at 50 Hz. Car lights aren't blinking.

Night lights

This picture is all about color, lights and lines. Does it have to be sharp? Don't think so.

Made with Olympus Pen D

Kodak Elite Chrome

hand held

Winter IS colourful! Minolta 35-70 f3.5 lens thoughts.

Sometimes... eh... mostly not...

Minolta XD7 + 35-70 f3.5
Kodak Elite Chrome

The 35-70 is a great universal lens. My version is the one with macro mode (used on this pic). There is a rumor, that this lens was made in cooperation with Leica (vide leicas 35-70 f3.5) - not that I really care. Its just simple, versatile - my favorite beater-take-everywhere-with lens.
Focusing is silk smooth and precise, starts from 80cm or about 20 in macro mode. I had been shooting with expensive 24-50 f4 lens for a while and didn't noticed much difference in sharpness.

Half frame pic

That's how it looks. These are two pictures made one after another.
Olympus Pen D
Hand held
Kodak Elite Chrome 100

How to properly convert color pics to bw?

I'm using Lightroom and its Grayscale Mix feature (Develop--->Grayscale). I used a color pic from my previous post. Left is converted without color adjustments, right with AUTOMATIC grayscale mix. The diffrence is massive!

Of course - You can also use manual settings to adjust the levels better to Your taste!

Why shoot diapositive film? Why shoot color?

Diapositive films have two major advantages over negatives:

- you can make dia-show (obviously)
- easier to get good colors when scanned

Color films have two major advantages over bw films:

- if you shoot bw you can never have this photo in color
- if you shoot color, you can easily convert it to bw AND get better results!! (see my next post!)


Photo made with Minolta XD7 + Minolta 35-70 f3.5 lens on Kodak Elite Chrome 100 film (10 years expired), scanned with cheap Plustek scanner.

Your camera doesn't matter?? Mr Rockwell and Co.

"Your camera doesn't matter" - I do think everyone know the (in)famous Ken Rockwell and his website - mostly one-sided, but fun to read articles about photography.
IMO all such websites are crap. Whatever You read, listen or watch - You should always try to put it through Your own reasoning - only then You'll be able to develop Your own, recognizable photographic style. There is NO golden rule of photography. The best thing You can do to improve Your skills is to take camera and go out.

I've made this picture with 1.3 mpx mobile phone (without even proper lens!). The only thing important here is COLOR - and that's whats really important in color photography.

Here are some basic composition rules.