Tag Archives: exposure
One of the staples of the Structure line of handmade films from Revolog, Lazer will give your pictures a touch of science fiction fabulosity, as if Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker were staging a light saber duel inside your camera. Dazzling green lines appear randomly throughout your roll of film. The effect is more subtle in over exposed shots and brighter in properly and under exposed frames.
Here’s the Lazer effect on an accidentally taken-in-my-photo-bag shot. I never intend to do this, but it’s fun to see the effects in their naked form (so to speak).
One of the first shots on this roll of film is also one of my favorites. Not only did I get a little light leaking, but I got a great green line. This roll was taken in my Smena 8.
I love the look of Lazer in my shots without people.
It’s not as nice through someone’s face, but it’s still interesting.
The first shots on this roll were taken at Playland, the amusement park on the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk. It’s one of my favorite places to take photos because it’s just so loud and colorful and crazy.
In this double exposure shot you can see a faint light green line on the right side.
This long exposure carousel shot also shows the green line on the right side of the photo.
Overall, I’m digging Lazer, although for shots of people, I’d prefer another roll of Revolog film, like Tesla or Volvox. With Lazer, you can go for an overall ironic look to your photographs, like taking shots of a Civil War Re-enactment with Lazer. Better yet would be to take pictures of a sword fight at a Renaissance Festival with Lazer. Now that would be something!
Yes, that’s a bacon-wrapped beer bottle on the cover of that magazine
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Leave a comment | tags: "revolog", "Smena 8", analogue, Beach, camera, Delaware, exposure, fi, fidelity, film, handmade, ipdegirl, jenni, Lazer, lo, lo-fi, lomo, lomography, low, philosophy, photo, photography, postaweek2012, Rehoboth, review | posted in I love this film!
I’m truly obsessed with Fusioncam. It’s such a fun app. I like using it especially in museums because my husband is one of those people who reads everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, on each and every plaque. All the waiting around drives me nuts, since I’m one to skip to the highlights or just read things that interest me, but having that extra time has inspired many creative moments. Here are a few shots from a recent trip to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD.
Display of USNA Class rings, version 1
USNA Rings, Version 2
WWII Japanese Artifacts
Aviation Artifacts
WWII era Japanese Uniform and Plane Silhouette
Silver Candelabra and American Flag
We happened to be back in Annapolis this weekend for a wedding and the Chinese lanterns strung across the ceiling gave me some good ideas.
This is my favorite
Sometimes a double exposure ends up looking like a hot mess, but when it works out just right, it’s beautiful.
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1 comment | tags: callard, camera, Chinese, Delaware, double, exposure, fi, fidelity, Fusioncam, ipdegirl, iPhone, iPhoneography, jenni, lanterns, lighting, lo, lo-fi, lomo, low, military, multiple, photo, photography, postaweek2012, USNA | posted in My Adventures
Key West is a crazy place, but how do you capture the essence of the insanity? Through a plastic lens and some crazy film, of course.
The view while floating on my back in the pool where we were staying. I miss that palm tree. Shot with Holga on Kodak Tmax 400iso.
Our favorite coffee shop in KW
While I was in Key West I did a little experimentation with double and long exposures, as well as with Revolog’s Tesla II and Rasp films. My results were trippy, mind-warping goodness. These toy camera shots not only show you the sights, they really capture the essence of Key West.
I own two Holgas and they each take very different pictures. The Holga I brought to KW was my zebra-striped special, which has a lens that fuzzes out a lot of the periphery of my pictures. Look at the first picture in this post, the palm tree. You can see the softness all along the borders of the photo, giving it a very dreamy quality. Floating beneath that tree in the pool, enjoying the cool water, was very relaxing and tranquil, a mood that is captured perfectly in this Holga picture.
Let’s start our tripped-out tour of Key West with some black and white Holga shots from my brother’s wedding.
It was a beautiful, sunny day and it was HOT! The sultry air made everyone feel a little lazy. Add some beer and tequila to the mix and the world became a little soft and fuzzy. The Holga plus black and white film brings that mood to these pictures.
I really love using the Holga for long-exposure shots at weddings because it captures the energy of the day, as it does in the long exposure shots of my brother Jim and his wife April, as they cut their cake.
The two shots at the railing by the water are especially sweet. They show Lexi, April’s daughter (and my new niece) gazing out at the sea, one with a friend Shane and the other, all by herself. Check out the clouds…all zoomy and funny looking at the edges.
Next, we’ll move onto some shots made trippy by the film I used. You’ve seen a couple of these shots before, but bear with me. The first two are taken on Revolog Tesla II and show April and Jimmy with lightning bolts.
It’s great when the random special effects on this film show up in just the right areas. Next, a couple taken on Revolog Rasp. The first is very underexposed, the second is just phenomenal.
The textures of Rasp add a funkiness to these shots that I just love.
Back to shots from my Holga, which has a tendency to wind film in a wonky manner, causing some overlapping. First, you’ll see the two pictures separately, then all together.
We’ll finish up with some of the weirdest shots on the roll. I tried for some intentional double exposures, which turned out okay, but when the film was exposed to light as I unloaded it from the camera, these shots became magic.
The background is of a fence with a sign that reads “No Parking Unless Snow Depth Exceeds 2 inches”
Long exposure of a British phone booth in someone’s backyard
Trippy scooter
Sailing off into the great unknown
as my husband put it, “sailing through tide and times”
Toy cameras are the perfect medium for a funky place like Key West. I will never go anywhere eclectic without my Holga and some film. I do love the iPhone photos I took, but once again, film gave my pictures a depth and character that I couldn’t have achieved otherwise. Thanks for virtual tripping with me 
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Leave a comment | tags: "Key West", analogue, boats, callard, camera, cheap, Cuban Coffee Queen, exposure, fi, fidelity, film, Holga, ipdegirl, jenni, leaks, light, lo, lo-fi, lomo, lomography, long, low, ocean, philosophy, photo, photography, plastic, postaweek2012, sail, tour, toy, trippy, vacation, Water, wedding | posted in Lo-fi Philosophies
The first roll of 1600 iso color film that I ran through my Fuji Natura Classica has returned and I must say, it has given me mixed results. The camera performed fabulously in low light conditions with faster film, but there were some pictures that left me scratching my head.
For example, a few of the photos in natural light were blurry. I’ve heard of this phenomenon with the Natura Classica, but this is the first time I’ve personally experienced it. These pictures are from a trip to Twin Lakes Brewing Co. in Greenville, DE. I HIGHLY recommend a trip there if you’re in the area. The brewer, Sam Hobbs, personally sits down and weaves a tale of history, brewing basics and the environmentally sound practices that his brewery adheres to. The brewery is on a farm that has been in Sam’s family for seven generations and has played a large part in the history of northern Delaware.
See? Just they’re just this side of out of focus. Not enough to make them horrible pictures, but disappointing nonetheless. There was a pleasant surprise on this roll. I posed with the “Stanley Cup of Beer Growlers” and had Sam take a shot of it with my iPhone while Jake took the shot with the Fuji.
Wow! The Natura Classica did a MUCH better job! Here are a couple more pictures from our brewery experience.
That’s a giant bag of hops.
There were also pictures on this roll of our trip to the Philadelphia Art Museum. I had lots of opportunity to play with light and shapes. First, I have to show you the picture that almost got me kicked out of the museum. I snapped this shot of Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” and a security guard TOTALLY busted me, telling me to put away the camera. No pictures allowed. I figured it was no FLASH photography, but I was wrong.
There’s lots of graininess in this picture, but I don’t think it detracts from the subject.
This last shot is one of my favorites
There was a beautiful display in a dimly lit room of some iron work. The play between the hard shapes and their shadows was interesting.
I think this is the point at which the Natura might have been on the outer edges of its range. While I really like these pictures, they would’ve looked better if they weren’t so grainy.
Here’s another fun comparison shot between the iPhone
And the Natura Classica
The 1600 film gives the second picture a much different feel and character than the digital Hipstamatic shot.
Lastly, we had dinner at Garces Market and I took the opportunity to snap some pictures.
Again, for comparison, here’s an iPhone shot at the restaurant.
All in all, I’m quite pleased with this roll of 1600 but once again, I’m reminded of the limits of film when it comes to dim light. I still love my Natura Classica and will continue using it on a regular basis, especially at places like museums and restaurants. Sometimes the graininess of the fast film adds character, sometimes it just detracts. The experimenting will continue.
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1 comment | tags: "Fuji Natura Classica", "Twin Lakes Brewing Company", 1600, analogue, art, callard, camera, Delaware, exposure, fi, fidelity, film, ipdegirl, jenni, lo, lo-fi, lomo, long, low, museum, Philadelphia, photo, photography, postaweek2012 | posted in My Adventures
Being less-than-thrilled by the results of a film photo shoot is a bummer, but that’s the life of an analogue photographer. When this happens to me I always try to find out a) what went wrong and b) what went right. The results on this roll from my Canon AT-1 are a prime example.
My camera was loaded with Fuji Chrome, iso 100 slide film and had the 28-80mm zoom lens attached. The first few shots of this roll were taken indoors. I tried to do some light painting using Christmas tree lights. I also took a macro-type shot of an orchid.
Both unexciting shots, but they help to tell this story. Next, we went for a walk on the beach. It was a beautiful and unseasonably warm January afternoon. Also on this expedition I took along my Fuji Natura Classica and shot some of the pictures in this blog post. When I didn’t have to worry about light metering with the Fuji, my results were really nice. With my Canon, it was a different story.
I completely forgot there was a light meter on the camera. I suppose that’s what happens when you work with simple cameras most of the time.
The exposure isn’t the greatest on any of these, plus my film must have been expired, which helps to explain the bluish tint. Look at the first picture again and you’ll see a lovely little element entering the picture from the middle of the top…those lovely sunbursts. I continued to get them in these pictures and really love the way they look.
There were a couple of shots which made this roll worth it, namely these two that I took from an odd angle.
Clearly what went wrong here was my exposure time. In almost every shot, I completely forgot about light metering. Slide film always needs a little more light and the slow speed of the film I was using didn’t help. On the positive side, I love the sunbursts and the unusual POV I took in the last few shots.
So you see, just because you think a roll is a disaster, you may be mistaken. It’s always important to learn from your mistakes, in photography and in real life, and appreciate the beauty that was actually captured.
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2 comments | tags: analogue, antique, Beach, callard, camera, Delaware, exposure, fi, fidelity, film, ipdegirl, jenni, light, lo, lo-fi, lomo, lomography, low, philosophy, photo, photography, postaweek2012, retro, sunburst | posted in Lo-fi Philosophies
Fusioncam, in my opinion, is one of the more underrated iPhone photography apps. I really love the ability to create double, triple or quadruple exposures and the fact that it has three different filters: black and white, saturated and washed-out color.
Here are some shots I took this week.
These are saws hanging on a hook at my local hardware store
Gears on a giant WWII era antique gun
Rust and bolts on the same gun
Railroad tracks
Rivets on a giant tire
Wheel
Metal rivets
Coils
Metal and rust on the base of the giant gun
Rust and stenciled numbers on the gun
Puffy sea grass
I’m still waiting for some film to return from the developer, so hopefully next week I’ll have some fun new film shots to share.
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5 comments | tags: antique, app, callard, camera, Delaware, double, exposure, fi, fidelity, Fusioncam, ipdegirl, iPhone, iPhoneography, jenni, lo, lo-fi, lomo, lomography, low, multiple, photo, photography, postaweek2012, rust | posted in App Reviews
Over the holidays I decided to try my hand at some light painting while walking along the streets of my town at night. For these shots I used my Smena 8 with Kodak Gold iso 400 film.
I was getting warmed up here. As you can see, it’s just a hand-held long-exposure shot, but I like the composition.
This one is zippy! I moved the camera in circles near a bare tree lit by LED lights.
The lights in this tree were further up in the sky. I must have used small, circular motions because the shapes made by the lights look like little snails.
These lights were at the top of a lamppost. They were the old-fashioned kind of lights with giant colored bulbs. You can really see the difference in color temperature between these and the LEDs.
I have more light painting shots on the way. I loaded my Canon 70′s film SLR with Fuji slide film (which I’m getting cross-processed) and am eager to see what I captured.
Remember the Photo Palace bus? Well I got this email from Anton, one of its creators:
Hi Friends,
Well with two weeks left in the funding campaign I really am hoping for a miracle. We are only 20% funded and somehow we are supposed to raise the rest in just 14 days.
I was going to make a video update talking about the educational component of the venture, but with 30 minutes left at my job (which is where I edited the last video because my computer is not powerful enough) my Final Cut file crashed and the info got lost so there’s no time to start over…
In the update I was going to say how many wonderful things we will offer to the film community at large: art shows where people can see a gum print and a tintype and a bromoil print, workshops on pinhole cameras and cyanotypes for kids, more involved classes for adults, lectures on the history of film and how it affected the developments in photography, setting up community dark rooms all over the country…. there was a lot there, but now it’s all lost in the digital realm (if I was working with film this would not have happened…). In any case – imagine me looking rather desperate in my packed-up darkroom pleading for help 
It was going to be a good movie…
I really hope that this goes through and we’ll be able to get on the road by summertime. PLEASE help us out by doing another wave of postings here and there and everywhere about this project with a link to it. If you tell the people – ‘hey, I support this!’ they may listen closer and support it as well, right?
Below is the photo of Rollov Film Center – the space where I taught about a dozen students for the past year. It’s all cleaned up and ready for my departure. Please help make this campaign a success
Sincerely,
Anton
Yikes! Please help spread the word about this fantastic project and if you haven’t yet contributed to the fund, hop on over to their Kickstarter site and do so. It’s such a fantastic way to let people know that film is NOT obsolete and that there are lots of us who still love kickin’ it the lo-fi way. Besides, I really want to meet these two fellas when they come to my town!
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Leave a comment | tags: "Smena 8", "The Photo Palace", analogue, callard, camera, cheap, Delaware, exposure, fi, fidelity, film, ipdegirl, jenni, light, lo, lo-fi, lomo, lomography, long, low, painting, philosophy, photo, photography, retro, Russian | posted in My Adventures
I don’t use my Brownie Hawkeye enough and a roll of film I recently scanned is proof of that. It gives me the coolest light leaks when I take long-exposure shots. This is my favorite shot from a roll of Fuji slide film that I exposed in Cape May, NJ and on the boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach. I don’t know what the little granules are on the right side of the picture but they create some really interesting shadows in that light leak.
Here’s another one that I really like because the numbers on the film paper are very faintly exposed on the right side of the shot (I’m noticing a pattern here…maybe the right side of the camera is leaky).
Another long exposure shot didn’t turn out so well. This was a kiddie ride in motion. I was hoping to get some blurring from the swings but that didn’t happen.
My Brownie Hawkeye is also fun to use because it usually sparks a conversation between me and someone who remembers it fondly from their youth. I love hearing those stories.
Inadvertently, I got a great double exposure.
Here’s a spidery-looking ride at Playland.
Finally, a shot of me and my husband Jake in the mirror of the vintage photo booth on the boardwalk. We were waiting for our black and white pictures to develop
My next project with the Brownie will be long exposure shots only on both slide and negative color film. It will be interesting to see what I might get.
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Leave a comment | tags: "Brownie Hawkeye", "Cape May, "light leaks", "Rehoboth Beach, analogue, antique, callard, camera, carnival, cheap, DE, Delaware, exposure, fi, fidelity, film, jenni, lo, lo-fi, lomo, lomography, long, low, NJ", photo, photography, plastic, postaweek2011, retro, rides, toy, vintage | posted in My Adventures
One of my closest friends, Mike, practices Aikido, a form of martial arts, and was kind enough to invite me and my family along when his group was training on the beach. I was thrilled to capture the group’s flowing motions, stark uniforms and weaponry against a backdrop of sand and surf. Since Mike also appreciates the lo-fi aesthetic I was ready to capture some beautiful black and white images with my Holga and maybe print a few for him. But, as often happens in the toy camera world, that’s not exactly how things worked out. I made a totally amateur mistake when I forgot to check if the shutter was set to “Bulb” instead of “Normal” (you can see where this is going now, can’t you?).
Big fat whoops on my part. I really wished these pictures had actually been in focus. Somehow, I did get a shot of the group that came out really nicely.
It probably wouldn’t have been much sharper had I had it on the Normal setting. In retrospect, even though the shots didn’t come out the way I planned, I really like them. The motions look ethereal and ancient, which I feel reflects some of the character of the martial arts. Also, the sun was going down at the time and the bulb setting gave me the light I needed for a decent exposure.
Before I take a shot with any toy camera, I often follow the advice given to me by a photographer when I was a kid: Hold your breath, then press the button. That advice certainly saved some of these photos from being completely disastrous.
Then there are these last two shots. After I got home and realized my mistake I fired off these last two shots. The first is of four circles of roofing nails. They’d be much cooler in macro mode, but I seem to have misplaced my diopter, so this is what I got.
And finally, my wonderful children showing their love for each other at the dinner table….
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Leave a comment | tags: aikido, analogue, Beach, black, callard, camera, cheap, Delaware, exposure, fi, fidelity, film, Holga, ipdegirl, jenni, lo, lo-fi, lomo, lomography, long, philosophy, photo, photography, plastic, postaweek2011, toy, white | posted in Lo-fi Philosophies
Lomography’s La Sardina is a great looking camera. I love my Marathon and the way the olive drab colored case is decorated with graphic prints that make this simple camera look like a sardine case. So, do I love how this camera takes pictures? The answer is a resounding yes.
Let’s start off with the basics. La Sardina is a 35mm camera with a rather wide 21mm lens that gives you an 89-degree look at your world (wow!). The aperture is a fixed f/8, which is relatively large in the toy camera world (the majority of plastic cameras have f/16 or higher making it necessary to use them only in bright sunlight). Two shutter speeds are available, bulb and normal (1/100). I love this feature in toy cameras and find it almost a necessity because of their tiny apertures. Here are some long-exposure shots.
It’s also possible to create multiple exposures with just a flick of a switch.
There’s a film counter on top and a window on the back door to view information on the film canister. This often-overlooked detail is huge because in many plastic cams it’s impossible to tell what kind of film (if any) is loaded in the camera. If you’re anything like me you’ve exposed many frames of film to direct light while opening the back of the camera to check what’s inside.
The La Sardina is one of the easiest rewinding cameras around. The process is simple and fast PLUS your film is always left with a bit of the leader exposed, making it much easier to shoot a doubles roll with your favorite photography buddies.
Also included on the body of the camera are a cable release connection, tripod screw mount and the ability to attach an external flash.
Now, enough about aesthetics, how does it take pictures? I have found that, like many wide-angle lens cameras, the closer I am to the subject the better the picture. Here are some shots of far away action
And close up
Since the closest focusing distance is 0.6 meters (roughly 3 feet) you can stay pretty close to the action and get some nice shots but only if you remember to set the focusing ring to the appropriate setting. The one drawback to the La Sardina is its two-step focusing system. There are three distances to choose from: 0.6m, 1 meter and infinity. It is important that you set the right distance on the camera otherwise your subject will be out of focus. I found this out the hard way, as you can see from these shots.
With other plastic cameras setting the focusing distance is irrelevant. In fact I don’t even bother with that step when using my Holga. I’m going to have to play with La Sardina a while longer before I figure out it’s optimum focusing distances and that’s OK. The other features of this camera make it a stellar addition to LSI’s line of cameras.
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1 comment | tags: 35mm, analogue, callard, camera, Delaware, exposure, fi, fidelity, film, Holga, jenni, La Sardina, lo, lo-fi, lomo, lomography, long, low, photo, photography, plastic, postaweek2011, review, toy | posted in Camera Reviews
Yes, that’s a bacon-wrapped beer bottle on the cover of that magazine
ipdegirl
