My Head Grew Heavy And My Sight Grew Dim

My PC 20 years ago had the following specs:

"Windows Vista irritated me to no end. 
An AMD Sempron 1.61 ghz processor, 512 MB RAM, 80 gb of hard disk space, and a 128 MB ATI Video Card were not enough."

I wonder how hard it would be to replicate those specs and try running the Windows Vista Beta again.  I can match the ram, hdd and probably the graphics card without any issues virtually, but I'm not sure about the processor speed. I'll have to look into that, but it sounds like a fun project to revisit...Twenty years later. 

And We Lived Beneath The Waves

Okay.  After several failed attempts, and a little bit of research later, I've finally gotten somewhere with the DigitaLiza sprocket scan mask.

 

 

Clearly, I have some more work to get done, but I now have a recognizable image, along with the sprocket holes.

I'll be the first to admit, this is probably not the best film to test this with, since I don't have a reliable color profile/memory to work with.  It is the dubblefilm jelly. Which is a bit odd...

 There is the original scan with my normal settings, for comparison.

I'm pretty sure I know what needs to be done, so hopefully I have something acceptable fairly soon. I'm out at a place I took some photos a while back, and I brought the Sprocket Rocket, but I kind of forgot the film and I really don't feel like going to get some anywhere. 

I'm A Mechanical Man

Apparently the drama in the Middle East is directly affecting my job...In an extremely negative way.  This looks to be the first in a series of very unpleasant days.

In other news, the Sprocket Rocket camera and scanner mask are now a thing. I'm hoping to be able to use the camera soon.  I'll try to figure out the scanner mask later this evening or in the morning though. 

In The Town Where I Was Born

Here is what I ended up with from the Revolog Echo film:

 

I used my Nikon FE, which has a functional light meter along with the super clean 50mm lens that it came with on a super nice day.  I went to a local park Sunday afternoon and had some fun. 

Unlike the jelly, this one I'll probably buy again.  I can think of a few interesting ways to use it, and the effects aren't overdone to the point where they take away from the images, unlike the jelly.

Admittedly, I was using an untested lens for that one, but it still seems like it would be too much. 

Till We Found The Sea Of Green

I bought a couple of rolls of effect/experimental film on Friday and used them both over the weekend.  The first one I shot was the dubblefilm Jelly 200.

I am not thrilled with the results, at first I thought it things came out looking like they do because I hadn't done a normal roll of film in good light with the lens, but it looks more like that is the intended look of the film:

While I appreciate the look it is trying to go for, the effect is just too much. I assumed, initially that my exposures were way off. But after looking through the sample images on the website, I'm guessing I wasn't too far off with my metering. I could do a little messing around and do a series of under/correct/over-exposed images, but I really don't want to spend another $17+tax on a roll of film I wasn't thrilled with.

I really hope the other roll I bought turns out a bit better. 

Well, We All Have A Face That We Hide Away Forever

It's interesting how something always comes up that falls into the category of "situationally appropriate" when I'm reading or listening to music.

My iPod usually lives on shuffle mode these days, and for whatever reason, when it is playing, whatever song happens to be playing at the time accurately describes shenanigans that are currently happening. Same thing with books. Usually, whatever I'm reading has something to say about something that is on my mind.

I've been thinking quite a bit this last week or so about how I feel like there is a huge part of myself that I need to keep hidden from the people that I live/spend time with, and the following bit from the book  I was reading this week comes up:

"That attitude, that we had to wear a mask, even toward our family, it was one I could never understand. A lot of people, men and women, thought like that, and I didn’t get it. And now I was afraid Donut had inherited that same attitude directly from Bea and her mom." 

I realize that tends to be a topic that is pretty heavily discussed in books, to some degree, but that just hit me on Friday. A day I was doing a lot of hiding from reality and just trying to be me for a while.

When The Wind Comes Right Behind The Rain

I went to the camera store expecting to make an ill-advised purchase, and I surprised myself by not, in fact, doing any such thing.

I ended up picking up two cheap lenses:

A Tamron 70-210 AF for a Nikon (AF doesn't work on my DSLRs because they don't have screw-type AF, but whatever) and a Soligor 35-70 + Macro lens for my Minoltas.

 

I also picked up a 3 pack of Fuji 400 film, along with a roll of dubblefilm Jelly and dubblefilm Echo, both 200 speed, both look like a lot of fun.  

I used the roll of Jelly when I was walking on the canal, and I took the types of photos I normally would, so this will be interesting when I develop it later.  I used a roll of Fuji at the same park I posted pictures of from the Tamron lens, I'll be interested to see what the difference is from manual and metering vs what I get from the automatic mode on the D3100.
 

When I Jumped Out On That Road

Okay.

Here's the D3100 with a known functional Nikon AF-S lens:

Everything looks about right, but it was super dark, and over exposure would be kind of helpful.

I guess I'll try it again during the day. 

I Find The Simple Life Ain’t So Simple

I threw a handful of the photos from the D3100 with the Tamron lens into Lightroom a few minutes ago.  I learned that yes, it is pulling basic metadata and encoding it. More importantly, however, my photos (in automatic mode, suppressed flash) are about two stops over exposed.

 Here are a few comparison pictures:

The darker pictures are the ones that have been corrected in Lightroom, and adjusted down two stops. 

I am about to pack up and head to a small, decently lit urban area with a Nikon AF lens that I know works correctly and see what I get.  I’m tempted to use the Tamron with in full manual mode as well. I haven’t decided on that one yet.

 I’ll post some updates shortly.