stephen hazelton

If you have a chance, make a trip out to Galveston Island- about an hour's drive out of Houston, old buildings, tourists, beach, tourists, etc. Ride the free ferry from there to Bolivar Peninsula and back as well.

 

Johnson Space Center is near Houston. Go see how big a Saturn V was.

 

Previous posts have pointed out that photography of refineries, which not illegal, may have you hassled by security people and/or police.

 

Houston is not noted for ballet, or for that matter, for photography- so you're probably not any better off on those items than in any other large town. Expect to see lots and lots of cars and people.

Regardless of who signed the contract, you won't "have rights to those pictures so that they can print what they want" unless that's agreeable to the photographer (or, whoever owns the copyright if he doesn't). That could be part of the problem.

I think they already have that. It's called "The Internet". See you there.

How many people interested in starting a new one around the country or around the world?

Last time I checked, a guy in Israel was next on the list, and I was after him, but I don't think he ever got the camera. I assume Hal is MIA. (Hal wasn't disposable, just cheap!)

When I was hiking in the mountains, I normally took just a single body and a 24mm lens (on a film body). What else you take really depends on how dedicated you are, and how much you're willing to sacrifice money and weight to have more gear along. No matter what you take, there will be shots that you don't have the equipment for.

 

"Any other tips"- What I discovered was that I would be standing in the midst of all this beauty, and snap a shot of it, but the shot didn't look that great. The problem was that part of the experience of being there is being surrounded by it all, but you can't easily show that in a photo. The photo more nearly needs a single point of interest to be interesting, but the real life view does not.

As I recall the history, this country was founded by certain rebels once upon a time.

Sounds like the problem is not Christians per se, is not old people per se, but is People Without Enough To Do. There are a lot of petty issues that a normal person never gives much thought to. But if you've got time on your hands and are absolutely bored out of your skull, then the most trivial issue can occupy your mind all day and keep you up at night. There's probably not a real good solution.

 

If everything is absolutely on the up-and-up, it might help to do some portraits for the neighbor, for the landlord, etc. It might help to show them some of the work you're doing. Or have them hold reflectors or something while you shoot. Obviously, it would help in either case if you weren't doing just swimsuit type work.

 

It might seem odd, but ask either party to serve as a chaperone sometime. That gives them an excuse to see what's going on, without feeling nosy or getting too much in the way. Especially if a model is reluctant, that might work in your favor on two fronts.

 

As far as the photography license goes, call the local police, say "Hey, a neighbor says I need a photography license. Where do I get one?" And get the name of the person you talked to. They'll either tell you where to get one (unlikely) or tell you there is no such thing. Then, if a cop every comes calling, you can say "I called and talked to so-and-so and they said I didn't need one." And hopefully the cop will know the person you talked to, especially in a smaller town. (Some places do require permits for movie-type stuff, but that's usually public places in large cities.)

I've got a cheap 500mm lens with tripod collar on the lens. I've found that even when on the tripod, quite a bit of wobble is possible. I think part of it is flexibility in the tripod, part is in the connection (which includes a cork surface), and no doubt part of it is in the mount/lens construction itself. While a better tripod and better lens would surely improve this situation, I expect you still get to a point where some other support is steadier than the tripod under certain circumstances. A beanbag is handy IF you just happen to have a picnic table in front of you.

Makes me want to go light the kerosene lantern. Bwahahahahahah!

Ideally, if the sensor is smaller, then the lenses would be mounted closer to the sensor as well, but this is not possible with existing mounts and lenses, and limits some of what can be done.

 

For people that already own lenses, it it awkward to have to work with a different sensor size- all the sudden, your wide angle isn't wide angle anymore.

Most likely, it uses a color process that is simply not available today. The remaining option is to process in B&W chemicals like standard B&W film, and that's what the post mentioned above concerns. You can do this yourself, or find a lab that will. Try a google search for a Rocky Mountain lab that does this sort of thing.

Looks like just another generic fisheye converter- or am I missing something?

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I'd hammer out danger, etc.<div></div>

"the image of spherical model was muche better than one of aspherical model in my impression."- from the guy's test report on one of those links.

 

Seems like the Holga lens is aspherical, too, but that doesn't mean it's good.

Makes me curious- have y'all tried it?

Just a thought, Jon- I'm a Pentax user also. But I have noticed that when you get into the oddball (IE, non-consumer) lenses in the Pentax system, Pentax made them, but they seem very scarce and/or overpriced. If you are looking at a significant chunk of money for the lens in question, you might want to consider getting a Canon (including FD) or Nikon lens, and then just buy a cheap film body to go with it.

If the film is clearish, then it's way underexposed, not overexposed. Assuming it's negative film, that is.

 

Where were you shooting? Normal outdoors daylight shooting should work fine at ISO 160 or even slower. And if it's that underexposed at 160, using 400 may not fix it. If you were shooting in low light conditions, that would explain it.

It should work with any flash that can function under full manual modes. That is, the Holga just makes a connection and breaks it and that's all- no sort of metering info gets passed around or anything. If it fires it twice each time, the second shot won't do anything (and with my flash, won't fire because it hasn't recharged yet).

 

The Holga is somewhat wide-angle, and tall- the combination means my flash seems not to cover the bottom of the frame well.

Some time back, I ordered a couple from Freestyle. They had the Holga with glass lens, or the Woca, an identical camera with glass lens. I've never been able to tell the difference between the top in terms of picture performance. I wouldn't worry about it. Don't try to ruin 'em, just go shoot and see what you get.

For future reference- a trick I learned here- put the lens face down on a sheet of rubber, and rotate the lens- this twists the filter without squeezing it one way or the other.

 

A practical tip from me- it is just human nature to put a filter on a lens and then just screw it on till it's "on"- ie, till it hits the end of the threads and stops (and is then jammed). Well, you don't have to do that. Just put it on, give it a turn or so, and stop before you get to the jam. If it's a skylight filter that you keep on all the time, that may not work, but if you put it on before shooting and take it off afterwards, do it that way.

Coins are not entirely flat, so you may actually run into depth of field options.

 

If you haven't tried it, check into the macro coupling ring approach. Don't know that it will get the job done, but it's a cheap approach.

 

If your end result does not require extreme image quality, consider cropping a fairly small part out of the frame IE, "digital zoom". That should take you from 1X to 4X or 5X and still have a reasonable image for most purposes.

I got a gift certificate at Christmas, went to buy a point-and-shoot digital, and the store was sold out of most of them. So maybe it'll happen at some point, but it sure didn't this Christmas.

 

Digital phones seem to be getting smaller and smaller, and that is not necessarily good in terms of optics, so I don't see separate cameras going away.

If it's like other knob-operated 120 cameras, the number will vary from beginning to end. As the film builds up on the take-up spool, it moves more film with fewer turns. You might consider sacrificing a roll of film with the back open just to count the turns.

 

Different thicknesses of film would also vary some.