In addition to a Nikon DSLR, I currently have a decades-old Minolta Himatic 7s rangefinder. It still works great, meter and all, and has inspired me to try shooting some film. I’m not going to debate the merits of film vs. digital here, since there are, according to Google, roughly 11,500,000 articles already covering that. Suffice to say, each has its benefits and drawbacks. I’m just messing around with it for fun, as the logistics of film would prevent it from ever being my primary choice.

I did shoot film in high school, so I’m not necessarily new to the darkroom, but haven’t been in one in a very long time. After finishing this roll of fuji 800, over a several-week period, I sent it off to mpix.com for processing. For about $4.50, they’ll develop it and mail you back the negatives, paying for shipping both ways. They give you thumbnail scans before sending back the negatives, but they’re not big enough to  use for anything. Either plan on paying $10 for a CD (lame) or scan the negatives yourself.

The above shot is nothing amazing, but it does illustrate one key benefit of film: dynamic range. I’ve got the sun and bright sky as well as shadow area detail in one shot, which never would have happened with digital (either the shadows would be black or the sky blown out, or both). I’m sure I’ll try some more sometime, but for the moment the convenince of digital trumps any benefit film has to offer, besides novelty.

Macro photography (sometimes called micro, confusingly) has always been something that interests me, primarily because it can allow the viewer to see something at a level of detail that is often impossible with the human eye. After all, good photography is supposed to show us ordinary things in an extraordinary way, or take us somewhere new and show us things we’ve never seen or imagined. Macro photography can do both of these, depending on the scale.  Macro photography, generally speaking, is photography of very small things. Specifically, it means a 1:1 (or greater) ratio between the actual object size and the representation on the film or sensor.

Technically, macro photography can be quite challenging. It requires very specific equipment, e.g. camera type, lenses, and lighting (diy options are possible, but often impractical or not of the same quality when compared to commercially availalbe options) and a thorough understanding of the equipment’s use and limitations. Since exposure and lighting are typically done manually, and focusing can be difficult at such small scales, a good understanding of photography fundamentals is essential.

Creatively, the opportunities are endless. Simply a yard or home can provide almost limitless subject matter. Walking to the car (or bus stop) most people pass an amazing number of macro-photography opportunities.

Recently we had some flowers in the house, so I got my gear and took a few macro shots. Some are simply close-ups that don’t technically qualify as macro, like this one:

Others are closer-in, and do qualify for the macro label, with a 1:1 ratio or better like this one:

Bugs are always a popular subject of macro photos; here’s a shot of some typical ants engaged in a good example of symbiosis with aphids. To illustrate my ealier point about macro opportunities, this shot was taken from my sidewalk.

For more of my macro and close-up work, see my images tagged with “macro” on flickr.

Getting a new iMac has allowed me to try software that was not usable on my old G4 powermac, particularly in the area of photo editing.  When I ordered my mac I decided to give aperture a go. (dropping $200 is a lot easier when you’re already spending $2000 for a new computer…)

For reference, I was using Capture NX for editing, with iPhoto as an organizer. I was shooting jpeg due to hard drive space, speed, and an old version of iPhoto. (If I shot RAW I had to use ViewNX with its crappy interface for Raw conversion.) Capture NX is great, especially with the control points which were exclusively theirs until Nik started creating U-point plugins for photoshop and aperture. My time spent editing photos is very limited, so my use of capture nx was mostly limited to adjusting levels and white balance, with a little bit of sharpening. For most photos I didn’t even do that much.

Enter a new iMac and aperture…here are my major observations:

1. Hard drive space and processor speed are no longer issues. Also, aperture handles RAW conversions only when you export, and it’s all automatic. That means I can shoot RAW or jpeg, and it’s truly seamless. As a result, I’ve been shooting RAW a lot more, and it saved my ass one time when I was way over-exposed and trying to salvage blown highlights.
2. The interface is awesome. I go to full screen, mark rejects, mark favorites, pull up the adjustments pallet, and make my edits. It’s VERY fast to use.
3. There’s a flickr plugin (free, as opposed to the paid one I used with iphoto…) so sharing is a single step for flickr users like me.
4. The shadow and highlight tools do almost everything I used Capture NX for, since my typical editing is pretty time-limited.
5. The integration with the other Apple apps is pretty seamless (as you would expect).
6. The project paradigm is working well for my organizational methods.
7. Keywords (and any other meta-data) are a snap to lift from one photo and apply to others.
8. Adjustments (and sets thereof) can also be lifted and copied to other photos (from the same lighting conditions, for example) very easily.
9. The retouch tool is amazing.

Of course it’s not perfect, and of course it has no layers and compositing tools, but for me that doesn’t matter. I need a robust program for organization and typical photographic edits. For that, it’s golden.

I’ve started playing with Flickr, and realized they have a great slideshow interface that even gives the title and description overlaying the photo in a transparent box (click the big “i” in the middle of the photo). The other nice thing about Flickr is that you can make comments directly on a photo. I’ve setup a gallery of my work using Flickr, and you can see it here.

Today I built the “phrugal phototent” that Jamie Donaldson describes. I’s a PVC frame, with a window shade background and some reflectors, and a halogen lamp to light the subject. Very simple, under $50, and I think it works great.

Here are some samples I took. You be the judge.