October
10/30/04
7:40pm- PAW #22.
Went to the Sox parade on Saturday. 3.2 million strong, something I'll never forget. We were standing about 10 feet away from David Ortiz holding the World Series trophy! I did take some photos, so I'll develop the film this week and post some as soon as I can.
10/29/04
7:33am- So last night I put the finishing touches on the Yashica 5000e I bought and i'll take it with me to work and shoot a test roll of TriX today. I added new light seals and finally managed to unscrew the battery compartment. I cleaned it up and put in new batteries. To my surprise the meter seems to be functioning, we'll see if its accurate enough.
10/28/04
7:12pm- Thanks Red Sox. I'll be at the parade on Saturday!(with my camera) What a ride its been.
10/25/04
7:25am- Sox 2, Cards 0. I'll take it with Pedro going game 3. Need I say more?
So I'm gonna try shooting at least a roll of film per day again this week. I tried it a couple weeks ago and I was able to do it. We'll see, it'll be tough with the series going on but I do have my lunch breaks. I'll give it a shot. I may have to rename my Photo a Week gallery to something like Feature Photos or something. Its tough to keep up every week. Also, I contacted a local gallery and they said to call back to set up a time to go in, show them my photos and schedule a show. They saw my work online already. There is a long waiting list for shows there but that would be ok because it would give me more time to decide what to show and to buy frames and matts for everything.
10/24/04
5:44pm- Sox 1, Cards 0- 3 wins to go! What a slugfest last night. Of course the errors didnt help any. It may have been ugly, but we'll take 'em any way we can get 'em. Tonight Schilling gets stitched up again and gives it another shot!
Didnt get out to shoot today, I got caught up in working on my website and watching football. Also, Ive been working on the Yashica 5000e I bought recently. I was having trouble getting the battery compartment open so I submitted a question to the Classic Camera Repair Forum. The answer I got was simple enough. Dribble warm water over the battery compartment door, then use pliers. It worked, there was a little corrosion around the threads, but the compartment itself looks ok. Im going to buy a battery adapter from the Yashica Guy because the 640 batteries that are meant for this camera are kinda expensive. For $15 he sends the adapter with a battery. The 5000e also needs new light seals so Ive been cleaning out the old ones today.
As far as the site goes, I changed all the galleries, except the PAW gallery, to slideshows. Now I dont need to create a separate page for each photo, which is pretty time consuming. And it takes up less space on the website.
10/22/04
7:45pm- Been too caught up in the Red Sox this week to do much else. Down 0-3 to the Yankees and to come all the way back to win the series is too good to be true. But it is true and Tomm. night the World Series comes to Boston and New England. If any Yankee fans are reading this, thanks for the great competition, but we were just unwilling to lose this year. This one is all ours, I hope.
As far as my photography is concerned Im hoping to get some shooting in tomm. before the game starts and on Sunday hit the darkroom again. Look for a new set of images Sunday or Monday. I did get some nice emails about the last set I posted. Thanks!
10/16/04
10:35pm- Ok, the Red Sox are getting crushed so I had to walk away from it. I like how the new slide show is working on the new set of photos I posted today. Much easier than how Ive been doing this. That being to make a separate page for each photo and then linking them to each other. Using the slide show I can use one page and enter as many images into it as I want. So when I get some time(easier said than done) I want to reorganize my previous galleries into slideshows.
9:30 am- I just added a new set of photos for you. I'm trying out a slide show format that I thinks makes it easier to view the images. Any feedback is helpful, thanks. 8 new photos
10/13/04
12:05am- Red Sox just lost game two and the faith is dwindling(though not gone yet). On a happier note the scanner showed up. Here's PAW #21. My monitor's still off, so i hope it looks OK. I'll check it at work tommorrow - or today, since its after midnight.
10/11/04
6.25pm- I have added a new page linked from my home page outlining the process I use for archival printing. My methods are a work in progress and so if anyone has different ideas about this subject I'd love to here them. Ive read so many differant ways of doing this, but this seems to be working for me as proven by stain tests that Ive done. Here it is for what its worth.
4:50pm- I just finished a nice printing session-its been a while. Im pretty happy with the results and will post new work as soon as that scanner arrives. Maybe Wednesday. One thing is for sure, the negs from the Yashica Electro GSN are far superior than the negs from the Fed. The Russian lens is clearly not nearly as sharp and I had to print them with at least a 3 1/2 filter. Where, with the Yashica negs, no filter was needed and the contrast and detail is just amazing to me. So, the Yashica may not have interchangable lenses, but the quality of the 45mm 1.7 lens is worth dealing with that. Until I can afford a Leica of course. And besides 45mm, I've found, is pretty nice to work with. So now I'm really looking forward to buying to Yashica Lynx 14e. Stay tuned for new images soon.......
12pm- Finished developing the roll of film I shot with the Fed after painting the curtain, and good news. Looks much better, though not perfect. I only see one small light leak on the edges of the film. It seems to be in the same spot each time, though its not there on every frame. Also, it only creeps onto the actual image on one frame out of the 36. So Im pretty happy about it. I think I'll do one more coat of the paint. Maybe I just missed a spot. Overall the negs look really good in terms of contrast and sharpness. I may use this camera more now as it gives me ability to have a rangefinder body that I can get different lenses for, unlike my Yashicas which are fixed lenses(though excellent). Also, the prices for Russian lenses are pretty reasonable.
10/10/04
5:35pm- Went to pick up Stacey from work then we went over to Federal Hill where they are having an all weekend Columbus Day festival. We ate Italian Sausages, canoli, crab rangoon and a couple beers, and then I won Stacey a giant pink Care Bear by shooting basketballs. This has been a good day.
2:30pm-Ok, today isnt a darkroom day, tommorrow maybe. I got distracted by the Patriots game and decide to paint the shutter curtain of my Fed2. I used Tulip soft fabric paint-matte black. Just a light coating over the length of the curtain. When it dried down I couldnt even tell it was painted. Now I'll go out and run a roll of film through it and see if this helped. If not I'll try another coat of paint and try to see where else the light leaks could be coming from.
10am- Today is a darkroom day for me. Also, I bought some fabric paint to fix the pinholes in my Fed2's shutter curtain.I hope it works as I'd like to try using this camera more often. I learned about using the fabric paint at a camera repair forum where you can get fix-it advice from some of the best repair guys out there. Its called Classic Repair Forum. Strictly advice on film cameras and they even have features about specific cameras, repair manuals, books etc. Sometime soon I'm planning on buying myself a basic camera repair kit to try and delve a bit deeper into the workings of these old rangefinders as they all seem to have there minor issues that need attention. Ive got a couple models sitting on my camera shelf I plan on using for experimenting. Oh yeah, I may be buying a Yashica Lynx 14e this week!
10/9/04
2:25pm- New photo a week for you. Its not really new, but.....
9am-First of all, GO RED SOX!!! On to the ALCS for us and who knows, this could be the year.....
So Canon did send me a new scanner but it turns out that it doesnt work with our operating system afterall. This is getting to be rediculous now. I called them tonight and asked why they sent me this scanner. We had the Canon LIDE 30 and they send me an LIDE 35. Oh, the LIDE 35 is an upgraded model. WELL, IT DOESNT WORK WITH MY OPERATING SYSTEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Canon says: we're so sorry about that sir, let me see what I can do for you.....SEND ME THE LIDE 30!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The LIDE 30 is discontinued. SO SEND ME SOMETHING THAT WORKS WITH MY OPERATING SYSTEM!!!!!!! I told them the first time what my operating system was, yet the model they send me doesnt use my operating system!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can you tell Im about to give this all up?! Finally Im told they are sending me another scanner that WORKS with , well you know......It'll either be a LIDE 30 or 80, and it will be here Tuesday or Wednesday. Dont worry, I'll be fine...............
go red sox.
10/5/04
7:30am-I added comment code to my home page for the photo of the week image. Dont know if it'll be utilized by anyone, but it didnt cost me anything so I'll give it a try. Also, the scanner finally arrived yesterday except Canon send me an upgraded model that only works with OS X. I've still been using OS 9.2.Luckily, I do have the software for OS X, so tonight I'll load that in and see if all my other devices still.work ok. I should probably back up all our files again, just in case I screw something up. I wish I could have my own technical person just hanging around when I need one. This is stuff I hate doing!
10/2/04
10:23am-Saturday morning is here.I've got my coffee(brought back from Colorado) and here I sit with my cat getting caught up on some precious lap time. I just rolled some film to process, but I think it'll have to wait a half hour or so until Peggy(my cat) is satisfied. Then while the film is drying I may go out and do some more shooting and spend tomorrow in the darkroom.