Carrying a camera

It’s been a while, but now that I’m almost moved in to the new place, I think it’s high time I start photographing again. Mostly this means carrying around the camera, even if I haven’t gotten used to pressing the shutter button again.

Recently, “the camera” means my trusty Leica and [the original lens I purchased with it](http://terrychay.com/article/cosina-voigtlander-lenses.shtml “The crack cocaine of the Leica World. I have five M-mount lenses, but this is still my favorite. Maybe because I’m used to the focal length; maybe it’s because it is silver.”).

Marie at the Food Court

Marie at the Mall
Stonestown Mall, San Francisco, California

Leica M8, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical
1/60sec, iso 160, 35mm (47mm)

Continue reading about shooting a digital Leica after the jump.

That camera? Do not want.

Heard on the radio:

Want a camera that is easy to use and takes good photos?

My first thought: No. Because it’s not the camera that makes the photo good, you do.

Good photos record a worthwhile experience; and those experiences are earned, not taken.

Look this way.

Look this way.
Morgan’s Apartment, South of Market, San Francisco, California

Leica M8, Zeiss Biogon 2.8/25ZM
1/16sec, ISO320, 25mm (33mm)

There are few small cameras harder to use (and slower) than a Leica.

“i like to poke things with my finger. tummies, ears and noses mostly. oh, and jello. jello is fun to poke. red jello. no, green.”
—Cyan. Always causing trouble.

Black and White film effects

The film effects section of my last article on Aperture presets reminded me that I really like the film effects in nik Color Efex Pro and nik Silver Efex Pro.

I thought I’d try to emulate them in Aperture with a set a presets, starting with black and white film.

Download the presets here. Current version at time of this writing is 0.4.

(Note that my friends of Aperture Users @ Flickr are thinking of creating a website to house presets so I don’t know how long I’ll keep updating this. In the meantime, I added Pavel Sigarteu’s SinCity, El TiDY’s presets, and Ian Wood’s Aperture 2 Image Presets Project to the download.)

In order to show the B&W film effects, I hacked in an extension to my IMG Mouseover plugin. Above the image there’s a control panel where you can click to see the effect of the preset (and compare it to Silver Efex Pro):


Mark Kater

Mark Kater
Tagged, Financial District, San Francisco, California

Leica M8, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical
1/30sec, ISO160, 35mm (47mm)

Click on the controls above to test the different film presets. Mouse rollover contain images processed in Nik Silver Efex Pro.

(Note that Aperture has decided to have a brain fart and replace all my photos even if they haven’t been changed at all. This breaks the images in Flickr. I tried my best to fix this. If any are broken or incorrect, please tell me in the comments below and I’ll fix them.)

Continue reading about How to use Aperture presets and about black and white film after the jump

Talent and tools

Photoshopped!”

So often people ask what digital camera they should buy. That’s a tough question since invariably people suggest the camera they own. I tell people:

The best camera to have is the one you have on you.

By this, I mean, the best camera to purchase is the one that you’ll carry with you. If that means, you bought it because it “looks cute,” then go with it! If cute means you’ll carry the camera around and use it, then you’ll take far better photographs then most people.

I was thinking last night of my friend, Bill Tani’s, first ever blog post. In it, he mentions that real designers do not use the word “Photoshop” as a verb.

Since I’m not a real designer, that’s okay. But what he says makes sense. It is natural but naïve to think that talent can be found in tools. A real artist knows that in the end, Photoshop is just a tool, and a tool is just a conduit of the creative expression you find inside yourself.

After all, does a photographer say, I “Nikoned” that photograph?

terry

Terry” by linoleum jet

Someone might say that “It’s easy for you to say, you shoot a legendarily (expensive) camera. But did Julie “Canon” this portrait of me? Am I “Leica”ing a photo of her?

Take.
More.
Photos.

Parting shot, xkcd-style.