Still figuring things out...

Ok, so I am back to using this blogspot space as my main blog. Once I moved everything over to the Windows Live Space, I realized that I actually had less and less need to have a space that would allow me to put a larger selection of my photos on at one time. Namely because, as I am getting better, within one roll of film I have so many photos that I really like that it no longer makes sense to post each roll as a seperate album, it makes more sense to group them into themes.
I have also been inspired by other photo blogs that post more frequently, but with fewer, more logically grouped photos. For example I love the Little Brown Pen blog  and her grouping of pictures by colour theme.
I also love to look at my friend (and collegue) Michelle's photo blog at Un Peu Capote while she is doing the 365 day project. Having a picture a day is a really great way to keep things interesting and makes it easier for people to just pop by and check it out, with out investing a huge chunk of time to look through (say) 20 photos. (I also look forward to seeing what sort of creative photo she will come up with each day) ;)
I will still create full albums of all my photos on the picasa photo albums site, but it will take me a little while to get all the photos from my Windows Live Space over there, then add my new pics as well.
For now, here is a sneak preview of one of the pictures taken with my new (to me) Pentax K 1000 camera that my grandpa sent me for my birthday. It is a huge change from my Olympus Pen F in terms of settings, framing, and focusing... but it has been a fun new challenge :) More to come...

Versatility

(Originally posted on February 21, 2010 on Windows Live Space)
In previous entries I have talked about the limitations of my camera because of the short lens. Basically I had a very hard time taking interesting pictures of anything other than close-ups (well, the portrait type shots were pretty good too, but even they were always close-up portraits). I have even perfected the focusing, framing and aperture settings to give the most detail and contrast in these tight shots.
This last roll I felt a lot more comfortable with the settings so I was able to take a lot more risks and try different things. The results were great! I actually managed to take some good distant scenic shots, some multi-layered shots (where the foreground and background compliment or add depth to the photo), as well as some portrait and close-up shots. I was really happy that I have been able to learn and overcome (and work with) the limitations of my lens.
The next challenge... lighting! I don't have a flsh for my Olympus and so indoor photos seem almost impossible and even outdoor shots on a not-so-sunny day are a huge challenge. The first few photos in the the latest album were taken indoors and they didn't turn out very well. I couldn't even salvage much with photo-editing. Only one turned out well and it's because there was a bright light directly above.

Stay tuned because I finally finished my first few rolls of my Pentax and will be taking them to get developed soon. I am so anxious to see how my new toy works and how the pictures turn out... a whole new learning curve for me!

I should really keep better track

(Originally posted on February 06 2010, on Windows Live Space)
So back in the summer time, I went on a photo adventure with a friend. Wandering around beautiful Stanley Park with my new toy, I was snapping away sure that my photos were going to be brilliant. I mean afterall, this was not my first roll of film, I had had the chance to get a few rolls back which would help to teach me about what shutter speed settings were best for which light, and I had even read up on aperture and started playing with that. I was so excited to get this roll back and as I started looking through the pictures, my hopes quickly vanished. I realized that I had mixed up the shutter speed settings... in bright light I had set the speed high and in low lights, I had set the speed low... in other words, almost everything was either too washed out or too dark! I have no idea what was going on in my head to make me mix those up, but it meant that out of 48 pictures on a perfectly sunny, gorgeous day, I had very few that I could salvage. But man I learned my lesson!

So here are a few of this pictures that either fell in medium light and therefore a medium setting (meaning I couldn't screw them up), or that I managed to save with a little help from photo editing software (Photofiltre). A few of the pictures are actually from a seperate outing not in Stanley Park, but that were on the same roll, so I put them in there too. Most of these ones worked out because I had Jeffrey around to help advise me (and for the record, I am starting to be able to give him tips now too) ;)

The move, the ketchup and the birthday present

(Originally posted January 23 2010, on Windows Live Blog space)
Welcome to my new blog space! I have decided to try out the Windows Live space for my blog rather than the more hip & saavy blogspot because the layout seems to suit the style and intention of this blog so much better. I can put my photos and blog entries all in the same space and actually have the slideshow next to the blog entry (which visually makes sense). So I am going to try it out... please bear with me and my non-web saavy bumblings.

The big move to the new space has also meant that I am significantly behind on updating with new photos and adventures (virtual moving is apparently as much of a hassle as moving in reality). So here is a little Ketchup (catch up)...

The latest photo entries are from way back in sunny August/September when the summer sun and bright natural colours lent themselves really well to great nature photos. I was particularily happy with this roll because I think I had a lot of luck with the aperture and shutter speed settings in getting proper focus and lighting. I say I was lucky because I am not completely convinced that I actually managed to achieve this because of any amount of skill on my part... I am still fumbling to remember which settings work best in which lighting and seem to need to re-teach myself everytime I go out (which clearly isn't often enough if I am retaining so little). Most of the pictures needed very little digital editing in terms of brightness or contrast although I used a basic "revive colours" function on almost all of them which essentially does exactly what it says... revives the colours. I think if I were to actually get the film developed at a professional shop (instead of the local 1 hour drug store photo lab) this might not be necessary. Maybe someday when I am confident enough that the film holds enough decent pictures to shell out the "big bucks" to do that, I will find out.

One of the things that I am actually proud of and feel isn't sheer luck is the framing of the pictures. I had to crop very few of them and was really impressed overall on the way that I had set up the pictures. I am really getting a feel for what my camera can and cannot do (mostly because of the type of lens on the camera) and how to work with those limitations. In fact, because the lens on my camera is so unique, I find it quite hard to now look through a different lens and figure out how to frame and focus it. Which brings me to my final point...

If you haven't noticed, with the arrival of the new blog space is also the arrival of a new name for it. The old space was "Experiments with my Olympus Pen F"... this space is "Experiments in Old Technology". The reason for the change is that during a conversation with my grandfather who used to dabble in photography, he mentioned that I could have his old Pentax camera (in fact the exact same model that Jeffrey has; the one that actually inspired me to pick up my Olympus in the first place). Well, he ended up sending it out to me for my birthday but when it arrived there were about three other large boxes that followed, filled with all sorts of other old cameras. His statement was... "Well if she wants one, she has to take the others as well"! I am completely thrilled to have them and hope that eventually overtime, I will be able to expand my knowledge of old cameras and share them all with you all here (hopefully on a more regular basis than I have managed thus far). I believe I have about 3 or 4 more rolls of film that are either waiting to be developed or are waiting to be uploaded and sorted... so don't touch that dial and stay tuned for more exciting expirements in old technology.

Roll #2 - tests in aperture

So I am a little behind on updating this blog (that's what happens when I get back into work). But bit by bit, I will keep uploading more.
The new set of pics on my Picasa site (titled Roll #2) were taken during the September long weekend. I was excited to get this roll back because it was the first time I had been able to take candid shots of people (and animals)... I couldn't wait to see what they would come out like. I was actually really happy with a lot of the shots that came back. I am realizing that the lens that is on my camera is really well suited to close-up portrait style shots. When I try to take longer distance shots, there isn't really a clear focus; the pictures tend to lack depth and interest. If anyone has tips as to how I can get depth in these shots without needing to change the lens, I am open to suggestions!
The other great thing about this roll of film is that I started to learn how to adjust my shutter speed to control lighting levels (although I am still mastering this art). I also read up on adjusting the aperture and was testing it out. Adjusting the shutter speed will change how quickly shutter opens and closes. The faster the shutter speed, the less light. So generally a fast shutter speed (on my camera the highest shutter speed is 500 or 1/500th of a second) I use for outdoor shots when the sun is shining directly on my shot. The aperture on the other hand controls the size of the diaphram to allow in more or less light (like the iris of your eye). The larger the aperature number, the smaller the size of the diaphram. My camera's aperture varies from 2.8 to 16.

The lower aperture settings (larger diaphram size) allow me to focus on one object while having the surrounding areas "blurred". Using this feature on this roll of film really helped me to get pictures that are more interesting and have more depth and detail. I am still working on balancing the aperture and shutter speed though. Some of the pictures where I had a larger diaprham on the aperture, I didn't have the shutter speed high enough and so the pictures came back washed out.
Overall, this roll of film really motivated me to continue playing with my camera and testing things out. I learned a lot about the capabilities and about some photography techniques. Definitely worth the $2 at the garage sale! More pics to come... (I think I have at least 1 or 2 more rolls after this one to post... and one in the camera that is almost done!)

Updated Album

In an attempt to not fall too far behind on recording my experiments, I finished editing and uploading the last pics to my first Picassa Web album ("First attempts"). All these pics are still from my first roll and a half of film on which I knew very little about photography, let alone anything about my specific camera.
I am excited about the last few rolls that I have developed and am hoping that I'll need to do less and less editing with photoshop as I learn more. I will create a new album for my second roll of film and update as soon as possible.

First Attempts

When I first found my treasure at a garage sale, it had film still in it. The film was lord-only-knows how old, and it was a low quality asa 100 film. I didn't have great expectations from that roll, only to discover if the the camera actually worked or not. I was pretty excited when I got the first roll back and there were actual pictures on there! The quality was really poor and spent hours pouring over them on my computer trying to get the right contrast, to get some decent colour out of them. I managed to salvage a few that have some interest.
For my second roll of film, I was sure to buy a higher quality asa 400 film, but I still knew nothing about photography! So Jeffrey and I went on a photographic adventure to figure out just what my new toy could do with some decent film in it. J, who also has an old film camera, gave me a few tips about adjusting shutter speed for light levels, but we didn't really know the right adjustments for my particular camera.
I learned a lot from the roll of film, namely that I need to set my shutter speed higher than J would with his camera, as a lot of my pictures came back washed out. Also, with the lens that is on my camera it is a lot more difficult to take interesting pictures of larger landscapes (i.e. it captures objects close-up much better than far away). Also I found that my Olympus Pen F can capture amazing colour, but it doesn't fair well on white or light backgrounds. (On my next roll I have started to learn about and experiment with apature to try to correct some of this, but that is for a later entry).
Overall, my first roll and a half of film still required some help from the computer after developing to really get quality photos but there was some progress.

** I have created a Picasa Web Album to support this blog since it will allow me to create albums and hold more pictures. I have added a slideshow on the left side of the blog with those pictures, but you can check out all my pics and view them out in more detail on that site (click on the slideshow to be automatically directed to my Picasa Albums).