Some Random Rambling and Photos by Wouter Willemse
Part of the fun of shooting black and white film is experimenting. Once you develop your film yourself, there are numerous developers to try. Also the number of films available in the market is solid. Actually, the situation has gotten better in the last years. There is plenty to choose from.
It’s not all roses and sweetness, though. As mentioned before, things are getting more expensive. As in my last recipe, this recipe is another one that came out of a quest to lower cost a bit.
Sometimes, and sometimes often, it would be nice to be a photographer with no particular interest for the tools. One of those that can say in full honesty that they don’t care about their camera or lens. But I’m not, and more often than I like, I am quite the opposite.
Sometimes advice is good and bad simultaneously. Good when it helps you consider something you might not have considered before. Bad when it’s conveniently followed without further thought.
Like in a previous posting, this is a story about a tip often heard, a common advice on forums and in real life. Well, not so common, because it’s exclusively about lenses with a fixed focal length.
Pretty much the last thing this planet needs, is more plastic. Convenient and cheap as it may be to produce, the price we’re paying for it is higher than we should like. It’s an unavoidable material, unfortunately. But I try to avoid it when I can. Which is a lot less often than I like.
One exception, maybe.
In case of emergency, break this window with the hammer. In case the hammer is missing, using your pro-level Nikon camera may also work.
They’re serious pieces of construction quality, the single digit Nikon models.
Everything is getting more expensive these days; there seems no escaping that every day you run into something that costs more than you cared to remember.
Shortage on electronic components sure drove prices for digital cameras and lenses up. Increasing popularity of film photography drove prices for old gear up in many cases. As I already mentioned some time ago, prices for film consumables (film and chemistry) have also gone up.
No, this is not about the Canon mirrorless camera. Sure there will be more people knowing the EOS R6 than the actual subject of this post, but let that be a lesson for Canon to not re-use names from others. The R6 already existed (as did the R5 and whatever else they have in mind, only R1 and R2 are unused).
I’ve shortly mentioned this R6 in the past; this time I’d like to dive a bit deeper about its virtues and shortcomings for my uses.
I guess one of the most spot-on descriptions there could be.
What I particularly like is how it emphasizes that light is the key ingredient. It’s easy to get caught up on discussions on composition, intent, colours, technique or the gear used. I am guilty of all of those. But in the end, it’s about light.
Previous posts may not have make it seem that way, but my main cameras are Nikons, not Leicas. When I moved to a DSLR, I went for a Nikon. In time, I got a couple of older manual focus lenses for it, including the fantastic 105mm f/2.5. When I added film cameras to the mix later, it made sense to go for Nikon, as I already had lenses for it.
Today, still my DSLR is a Nikon, and for film I have a set of cameras with enough lenses to keep me entertained.
Earlier this week, I received an email from a mailing list of a website for music production. It was about a blog posting on their site with the simple but inviting title: ‘Why do you make music?‘.
The article comes up with some very good points, but truth be told: I don’t make music at all yet. Trying to learn, but that’s another story. Obviously though, it made me wonder: why do I make photos?