The Stars Are Out And Shining

I went down to Old City Park this evening after the sun went down with the Star Point filter, because, well. You'll see.

Between the darkness and the very light rain that was falling, I was able to get some interesting things with the light using this filter.

The raindrops on the lens definitely added something to the overall effect.

After I got bored with the park, I went across the street to the ice cream shop. They had closed by then, but some of the lights were still on.

 This will also be something that gets used more frequently. I really need to go downtown or something with this at night. That will get interesting.  Maybe from the top of an interstate overpass? I don't know what I'll do next with it, but the possibilities are interesting.

One Of These Days

I was recently gifted a few camera lens filters.  One is a standard pink-ish sky filter. The other two are creative effect filters.  There is a Variable Star Filter filter and a Halo Swirl filter.

 

 

I got to play with the Spiral Halo filter today, and I really like what it has going on. Here are some of the pictures:

 Playing with the zoom on the lens and being creative with light and choice of subject, I was able to get some weird...I don't know what you call it, by taking some pictures through the thin branches of a tree:

 One of these days. Actually, nights, I will take the Star Point filter and do something with that.

Don't Take My Kodachrome

I was given these camera filters a very long time ago, and have never been able to get them to work particularly well. I asked Reddit about it last night, and someone kindly pointed me to an eBay auction for the exact same thing.

Turns out this is a filter kit from Korea.

As I said, I was never able to get them to work particularly well. Probably because the mounting kit that came with my set is for lenses with a 52mm filter ring, which I don't have many lenses that fit that description. The couple I do have, everything was just too close to get more than a vague blurry outline on the colored ones, so I took my Box o' Filter Junk and built something.

 

 

I ended up taking a wish.com fish eye lens, and clipping the mount ring from the kit directly to that. I paired it with an old but very beautiful Nikon 50mm f=1.4 lens on a D40X and had some fun with it.

Most of the filters with designs still won't focus, but the cloudy, dreamy designs are interesting:

What I really enjoyed, however, were the semi-transparent weird bokeh (maybe?) filters:

  

Yes, the light was weird. The sun just couldn't decide if it was going to come out or stay behind the clouds. There is very little in way of forgiveness with regard to a single f-stop or shutter speed setting. There were a few times where it was either super dark or super washed out and nothing in between. I did experiment with putting a crosshatch filter between the lens and the fish eye to tone down some of the light, but it didn't do much. Maybe next time I'll put an ND filter in there. I think I have an adjustable 52mm someplace.

All in all, I did enjoy messing with these and I will be figuring out how to use them more often.

Aurora Borealis Shinin’ Down On Dallas

I purchased my first DSLR at the very end of December in 2012. It is a Nikon D40x. I used that thing until I wore the shutter out in August of 2018. I spent an obscene amount of money getting it repaired rather than just replacing the camera.

Ironically, in October of 2018 I got my hands on a Nikon D3100. My roommate from years prior had one and I thought that I liked it when we were in Texas in 2012.

You know what I did with that camera? Not a whole lot. I whip it out and use it occasionally for some darn thing or other, most recently the eclipse in 2024. I like the pictures that it takes, but for some reason, that particular camera never resonated with me.

In May of 2021 I purchased a Nikon D3500. I like that camera, and used it pretty exclusively (for my digital stuff) for a couple of years. I never fully put the D40x aside. It still saw the occasional bit of use, but for a while it was relegated to backup (above the D3100, I might add) use.

After doing some serious soul searching and trying to decide if it was worth keeping all of my camera stuff or offloading it, I decided to do something. That something was to go use every camera that I own. That was an expensive endeavor, since the majority of them are 35mm and film isn’t exactly cheap anymore, but I did it. I also developed almost all of the rolls myself at home, which was fun.

In doing that, however, I realized that for me, the fun is being able to get a good photo with whatever is at hand, and I think that I kind of lost that for a while when I was using the D3500 with it’s fancy lenses and settings and blah blah blah.

There is also the random side effect of accidentally acquiring at least 4 more functional Nikon 35mm cameras, but that’s a story for another day.

Needless to say, the D40x seems to be back to being my go-to camera, which is fun and challenging, since I don’t tend to use automatic lenses with it. I went to the Robert’s Camera store annual garage sale last weekend, and snagged a Vivitar 400mm lens for $5, which I’ve been having some fun with as well. Maybe I’ll put a couple of photos with that lens up here soon.

Make The Bed, Light The Light

My local camera store had a "garage sale" today.  I went down there to see what it was about.  Admittedly, it was a last second decision and I got there less than a half hour before they closed, but I'd say it was worth it.

 

I found a 400mm Vivitar lens in a box for $5.  It looked pretty clean, so I bought it.

 It is pretty big.  It has a TX mount, which is removable and interchangeable.  I've had a TX to Nikon F mount for a long time,  I bought a 135mm Vivitar lens a while back to use with it, so I knew what I was looking at.

 

I put the lens onto my D40X to mess with it for a few minutes, and I can safely say that this is most definitely not a lens that is usable indoors. Which I already knew, but it was nice to have some confirmation:

Yeah, this was from 15-20 feet away in a different room.  I'd need to have a very elaborate external lighting arrangement in place for this to work indoors.

 Outside, however is a different story:

 

 

The duck is from across the street, the rest of it is from about as far away, but next door.

All in all, I'd say it's worth the $5 I paid for it.  I'll be interested in what I get taking it outside on a nice day this summer.