Tag: Kodak

Glimpses

Wine Country, Paso Robles

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Wine Country, Paso Robes

This is from a summer or two ago. We drove along Hwy 49 in the central coastal area of California. It is a lovely drive – quite unpopulated in many ways. The hills and valleys spread out on either side of the road, with trees dotting the grassy slopes. Grapes are grown here, and the Paso Robles area is known for its wines. If you take some of the side roads off the highway, which is a nicely paved two-lane roadway, you can find yourself under the canopy of old oak trees, deep in the gloom of shade on a bright summer’s day.

Zeiss Ikon Ikonta, Tri-X 400 by Kodak. Scanned and processed with Epson V600, VueScan, and Negative Lab Pro.

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Glimpses

Time to Pause

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Time to Pause

Over the next few weeks, expect more pictures of the local scenery. When I went out, at last able to do more than a hobble because of my foot, I went up to the botanical garden. With the seasonal changes come color changes, even here in Southern California. The local garden is always changing, and autumn and spring are the seasons with the most changes.

On this trip, I was determined to finish up a couple of rolls of film – the Olympus Trip 35 had Fuji Superia 400 in it, and the Agfa Ambi Silette, loaded in 2019, still had a lot of Kodak UltraMax 400 to be used up. The Agfa, too, had never been tested – it was one of those vintage cameras that intrigued me, so, being me, I bought it. The Trip 35 and the Agfa are small, but compared to the Trip 35, the Agfa is a tiny tank. A nice tank, but still a tank. It has no lugs, either, so I had to use a wrist strap that screws into the tripod mount. Awkward, but it works.

I always play with my photos, digital or analog, in Lightroom. Post processing is part of the way I see photos – like pictures and paintings – I want them to show what I want them to show, not what is straight out of the camera. One of my friends says this is cheating . . . ah, well. It’s autumn and time to show those colors and textures!

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Glimpses

Sage in Bloom

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Blooming Sage

I took this photo a few years ago with my pre-WW2 Voigtlander Brillant. It is a simple camera that gives lovely results, as only a vinage camera can. I wonder if it is from their uncoated lenses.

I haven’t been to the local botanical gardens since last year, where this picture wast taken, when I fell down a hill and came home looking like something out of a horror film. A bit trepidatious to return, I admit. However, after the rains of last months, I know I have to go. The hills are greening, and the air of spring is in the air.

Definitely time to get out. I think more Ektar is definitely indicated, too.

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Glimpses

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

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Take Me Out to the Ball Game

I re-scanned some Portra 400 I took in 2015 with my husband’s old Ricoh XR-10 camera from the last century. I have a Pakon 135 scanner that digitizes 35mm film. It is a real life saver, slow, and overall, reliable. There are some quirks that go with it, such as crippled software which I have worked around, but it makes scanning film very easy.

A few days ago, my husband replaced the old hard drive with an SSD in the vintage laptop I use exclusively with the Pakon. He removed the old HD and mirrored it. After that, he used an interface of some variety to make the old machine – an eMachine from 2005?? – running Windows XP (the only software that the Pakon software will work with) – think it is using an old HD. Yeah, techie stuff. So, I needed to see if the Pakon would still work – and it does! Now let’s just hope the old laptop will continue until I die, and the Pakon, too. What is interesting, too, is that my wireless mouse dies and resurrects itself periodically on the eMachine, so I ordered a USB cabled mouse and a USB hub to see if some of the other laptop quirks can be resolved. The laptop has a touchpad, but I don’t like them at all.

Besides checking out the workings of the new HD and the Pakon, I finally got around to seeing how to save the scans as negatives so I can process them using Negative Lab Pro 2.3 and Lightroom Classic. The Neg Lab Pro website gives very good directions – far better than when Nate began the product – and this scan, which you can enlarge on Flickr, shows how nice it all works out. The beauty of the film is still there, even digitized.

I think this combo is a ball hit out of the park! More to come.

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Glimpses

Christmas Day

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Chapel

The chapel at the local college is a favorite subject of mine. And since today is Christmas, it doesn’t hurt to think and reflect a bit about the holiday, before its commercialism. It is the story of hope – and hope is always something we need, no matter what we believe. It is a day to enjoy our blessings, and a day to reflect and dig deeper than the bottom of your stocking.

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Glimpses

Shadow

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Shadow

I really do like trees! I admit to a leaning toward deciduous hardwoods, but when I saw this shadow projected onto the building, I realized that one of the things I enjoy about palm trees is just their crazy (to me) appearance. This shadow looks like me on a bad hair day, but for the palm, it is nice and tidy.

Nikon FM3a, 50mm f1.2, and Tri-X. And more to come!

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