Happy Easter

Easter weekend has been beautiful and Granny’s annual Easter egg hunt went off without a hitch affording many photo-ops for all including this one (above) of grand daughter, Mary.

Here's Granny shooting Laurel. All the photos you see here in this blog post were taken with the Pentax K-01. I also shot a roll of Kodak Portra 160 with the Pentax ZX-30 but won’t have those images back from processing for a couple days.

...and here are all five (Claire, Rachael, Mary, Mikey & Laurel, L to R) posing for everyone. 

I am slowly sorting out the differences between film and digital photography and figuring out which is best to use for what. The kind of action shots taken here with many people moving around constantly and the need to quickly get off shots for group photos practically scream out for “digital.” To get the shot above I actually took five photos and used the best one here. Invariably one of the kids was blinking, looking away or picking their nose in most shots. You can of course do this with film but it is costly. I think film is better used for shots where you have the time to properly set up where digital seems to shine when taking shots “on the fly.”

Bokeh

Here’s another shot of the azaleas taken last weekend with the K-01 through the 40mm f2.8 XS lens again set at f2.8, 1/80 and ISO@100. This remarkable lens allows you to focus as close as 15” and provides the dramatic bokeh effect usually seen only with much faster lenses.

The other thing you must remember is that since I only shoot jpegs with minimal if any post processing this remarkable color is all on the camera.  One more reason I am so fond of film is it provides great photos without the need for a lot of post processing. That said, most Pentax digitals and especially the K-01 produce excellent in-camera jpegs with great color.

Don’t get me wrong. I have great respect for photographers who spend hours at the computer processing their RAW files to get the most amazing photographs just as I admired the photographers of old who spent hours in the darkroom doing much the same thing. I am just not one of them. I did a little time in the darkroom and quickly decided I would rather be out taking pictures. Likewise, I spend much of my day working on the computer so modern post processing seems more like work than anything else.

Evening with the XA2

And here’s one more from the first roll shot with the Olympus XA2 (on Kodak Portra 400 film). The setting sun showing rather dramatically through the screen porch just begged me to take a shot.  Of course with the XA2 there is no setting anything. Just compose the shot and push the shutter. The camera does everything else – and very well I might add.

I think it’s amazing that I actually bought a 25+ year old camera online from Goodwill, put new batteries in it, a roll of film, and took a roll full of perfectly exposed pictures. This would tend to confirm comments from other sources indicating that all of the XA series cameras have proven to be very well designed and built cameras.  The fact that there are so many of them still around and taking pictures also supports this claim. It also makes one wonder how many of today’s digital cameras will still be taking pictures 25 or 30 years from now.

Springtime in South Louisiana

“Spring has sprung!” One of the really great things about living here is the weather. Yeah, I know it’s hot in Summer but I consider it a small price to pay. Just look at these azaleas!

Here’s a photo of part of a 600’ long driveway at a friend’s place completely lined with blooming azalea bushes and oak trees.  It was taken with the Pentax K-01 at f2.8, 1/80 and ISO@100 using the excellent 40mm f2.8 XS lens.

 I was a little disappointed because we went there for a crawfish boil, hoping for more of the beautiful Spring-like weather we had been enjoying for the last several days. I packed my favorite color film and three of my film cameras including my new XA2 intending to make it a photo-shoot day but the morning started out foggy and misting and went downhill from there.  Fortunately there were no thunderstorms or it would have literally been a washout but the day long drizzle and misting made it gloomy and difficult to shoot.

We enjoyed the great food and company anyway and I managed to get a few shots with the K-01 during lulls in the weather and got a couple nice photos in spite of the gray day.