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john_sevigny2

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Everything posted by john_sevigny2

  1. Related: I am the least nostalgic person on earth. Maybe. I never take photographs thinking about their historical value and I take almost no personal photos (subject for another discussion?). That said, after 48 years of life on this planet, most of it taking pictures, I find myself amazed at a) how much the world has changed since, say, 2001, and b) how deeply I value photographs of people who have passed away. When I look at photographs of my father, I can absolutely hear the depth of his voice, its particular inflections, and even remember specific things he said. In brief, I used to think I could make photographs that were only about the here and now but they inevitably become about a past that no longer exists. Attached: portrait of me, maybe aged 10, with a Pentax K1000.
  2. People come to their own conclusions about what medium is best for them and they usually do so with good reasons, the OP being no exception. I'm shooting a 6x9 rangefinder now because a) I can still focus using a rangefinder but not an slr focusing screen, b) I live in a place where there are still labs and processing is cheap, and c) I find digital photography to be about instant satisfaction as Moving On said. And I still shoot a lot of digital but my heart is with film. The point is, debating the two is silly. People do what they do in the way it suits them to do it.
  3. Random thoughts on a rather strange post: You have one very nice Canon lens. If I had that lens I would plan on keeping it. If you're interested in investing, there are plenty of stocks that pay dividends. All digital cameras are disposable. They bleed value. They are replaced every year at most by something better. Lenses are forever. I have heard no rumors of Canon discontinuing the L mount. Camera brands, models and styles come in and out of style. When I started in journalism Nikon F5s were the standard. Then everyone ditched their Nikon gear for Canon's big, white lenses. Trying to guess what's going to happen "next" in photography is a waste of time. If there are any photojournalists left (sarcasm) I suspect they're using big Nikon and Canon dslrs. It doesn't matter. Cameras are tools. I have owned Sony, Canon, Nikon, Pentax, and Mamiya cameras in a mix of film, digital, with mirrors and withough. Right now I'm using a Fuji 6x9, totally manual, no-meter film camera made in 1969. You've got good gear. Stop sweating over whether it was a good investment. If you use it, it was the right thing to buy. If you don't, it probably wasn't.
  4. I don't like the term "street photography" but I accept it as a description of work made in urban environments normally involving people. Here's the thing: walking around your city, or any city, with a camera is fascinating. You look at things in ways you never looked at them before. You see things in new ways. It's very much an art of failure. Unlike anything you do in the studio you'll come home with mostly bad photographs. Which is what makes it so interesting. The hunt for anything moving, unique or new is like no other kind of photography. Beyond that, the creative process, which in other genres can develop over weeks, happens in milliseconds. My advice is to put a wide or moderately wide angle lens on your camera and go out and take pictures. It may be for you. It may not. Only one way to find out :D
  5. If I'm comparatively not even microscopic the same goes for the challenges I face. This is comforting to me.
  6. Thanks for all the answers so far. I'll see how the histogram lines up with WB set correctly and go from there.
  7. I second that suggestion. They're cheap. Avoid the awful 16mm lens and get the 20mm, which is more than good enough. I've been carrying that setup for years now.
  8. I inherited a D7100 from my brother. I've been doing some portrait and documentary work with it but whether I shoot raw or jpg, and no matter how careful I am with white balance, my colors are all over the map. This picture shows a good example. Skin tone sucks. Sharp, warm greens. And the overall color balance is too cool. In nearly every other case, orange is way oversaturated. Is my machine dead or did I accidentally turn on the "sucky color" function?
  9. For a general camera/lens combo that will make great photographs I'd get a Nikon 3400 (about $500 with a kit lens) and Nikon's stellar 35mm DX prime ($166 brand new). You'll have a very usable camera and you will have started collecting lenses with one of the best primes out there for the money. You'll still have cash left for memory cards and other stuff. But as everyone else said, there are a zillion cameras out there. Most of them are pretty good.
  10. You don't need a meter in daylight outside. Start at f16 with a shutter speed that comes closest to your film speed and you're fine for open sun. Open a stop if it's a little overcast. Open a couple of stops for shade. Open another stop for deeper shade. Unless you are particularly masochistic or have a strange love for old emulsions, use negative film. And when in doubt, open up a stop.
  11. You can get a K1000 at KEH for less than $200, which once you consider inflation, comes out to less than what it cost brand new. Three million of those cameras were sold and millions of us cut our photographic teeth on a K1000. Add in insanely sturdy construction and great glass and you have one fine 35mm camera. Mine, which my dad bought second hand in the 1980s, just gave up the ghost a few months ago. Years ago when I moved up to a Nikon FM, the only difference I noticed was that the Nikon had a more sensitive meter for taking pictures in somewhat lower light. Now .... if people want to fetishize machines, that's up to them. To me, their tools and the K1000 was a particularly good one.
  12. Start with the superintendant's office. It's a complicated deal. But that's the way in.
  13. It's a leak. I recently resealed some old Nikon FMs using yarn and white glue. Not hard at all.
  14. I shot a ton of night sports on that stuff as well. A great film. Better at 1600.
  15. You can actually sit there and clean these up in Photoshop with cloning and that rubber stamp tool. I've done it successfully with film that was far more damaged. You know all that already. The questions are 1) how much time do you have? and 2) how important is it for you to have these in an "improved" form?
  16. The light from her upper left really makes this stand out. The makeup is perfect and her expression and poise feel natural. Very good work.
  17. I still have fun with my D70 but I prefer my Sony a6000. I often think that the way processors reproduce colors and variations between areas of brightness is more important than the parameters we normally use to talk about IQ. Oddly there is a small resurgence of interest in cameras with CCD sensors and it probably has something to do with not how the picture was made but how it looks.
  18. Interesting. I have communicated with automated Twitter accounts thinking they were real people. Hmmm.
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