Summer Days

I’m loving these long summer days. Beautiful light in the morning, beautiful light in the evening. Perfect for a late afternoon stroll though the park with the family and a crazy medium format camera that I’m testing. Enjoy the summer while it lasts!

Images: Hasselblad H5D-40 + 80mm f/2.8 HC

Dolled Up

The wife and I recently met up again with Desirae, a good friend and blogger who specializes in vintage fashion. We spent some time strolling through Golden Gate Park with Suki in tow, chatting it up and shooting some photos.

Since this was a casual shoot, I decided to experiment a little more than usual. I shot most of these as either single frames or stitched bokeh panoramas using one of my favorite lenses, the Nikon 135mm f/2 DC. A single speedlight and a small reflector kept things light and portable while serving as an additional lighting option as the sun kept ducking behind scattered clouds.

The other digital in the bag was Fuji’s new X100s. With its built-in neutral density filter and ability to sync with flash at ridiculously high shutter speeds, the camera works wonders with small flash in a bright environment. And those files…goodness. Single SB-910, gelled warm and zoomed to 200mm, firing into a small reflector behind me for these two. Taken at f/2, 1/1000:

The gear:
Nikon D800E + Nikkor 135mm f/2 DC
Fuji X100s
Nikon SB-910, Pocketwizard Plus IIIs

Tiny Glimpses

Between shooting pack film and and just being busier than ever, my 35mm gear has seen very little use these days. In fact, I’ve had the same roll of black and white in my Leica for like three months! After running through the last few frames this past week, I finally got the roll developed at my local lab.

When you leave a roll of film in the camera for this long, you tend to forget much of what you’ve shot. In a way that’s pretty cool, because when you finally have your first look at the developed film, it’s like rediscovering your very recent past. Tiny glimpses.

Or, just a lot of photos of my wife and my dog =)

Leica M3 + 50mm f/1.4 Summilux | Kodak T-MAX 100

P O L A R O I D

It’s been a while since I revived my now irreparably broken Polaroid Land Camera 450. But that camera lives on in a way, with its Zeiss Ikon finder now mounted to my recently acquired Land Camera 240. For my first pack of color film with the camera, I set up a light in my cousin’s back yard and took a few portraits of Bridget and Suki:

Between the 1967 Land Camera 240 and my all-plastic Colorpack II, I’ve become quite addicted to shooting pack film lately. Here are some frames taken with the latter, which, though lacking in finesse when compared to the 240, is still a blast to shoot with:

One of the cool things about the Colorpack II is that it takes those Blue Dot Flash Cubes. Not a very refined light source, but still a ton of fun:

You know, in today’s very digital world, pulling a developed print out of one of these beautiful cameras feels downright miraculous. I think it’s about time I loaded my freezer up with pack film!

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Polaroid Land Camera 240 | Polaroid Colorpack II | Fuji FP-100C | Fuji FP-3000B