StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Myself and the combat puggle went camping/Hiking last night.


Sunset looking West over the Appalachians.


Basecamp



Looking out during the wee hours of the morning.


Looking out form Tibbet Knob towards Big Schloss.


Is that a treat for ME???

Cool hiking Lony!
Aren't you worried about leaving your dog outside at night?

Mountain lions, cougars, bears and all that?

A mountain lion and a cougar are the same thing Dan. But she sleeps in the tent.

Aaron wrote:A mountain lion and a cougar are the same thing Dan. But she sleeps in the tent.

Daisy is pretty good at being bait for a different kind of cougar, if you catch my drift.

Excellent, the best kind.

A blue heron, I think, which we chanced upon on the way to the beach.

Pansonic GF-1, 7-14mm lens
focal length: 13mm, f4, 1/2s, ISO 400

Sculpture panel on the Toronto Hydro-Electric building
Bringing power to the people

Not so much showing of my photography as my cooking. Last night I decided to try something new, creole style cooking, namely red beans and rice. Thank god for immigrant food stores, only place you can find regular old dried beans, thanks to finnish white-trashification of food culture it's all gone in favor of canned stuff.

Anyway red beans and rice:







Also made homemade gooseberry jam last week which I used to make a compote for breakafst today :

Plugged a c-mount Pentax 25mm/f1.4 onto the GF-1 and went on a track with a friend yesterday







The swirly nature of the bokeh is characteristic of this type of lens; very sharp center, softer on the corners.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:
The swirly nature of the bokeh is characteristic of this type of lens; very sharp center, softer on the corners.

Interesting bokeh indeed. Usually one seems something like that from old Zeiss Biotars (either 58 or 75 mm) or their illustrious Russian copies, the Helios 44M and especially the longer 40-2, although there are other old lenses typically from 1940s to 1960s which can produce a similar effect.

Marcus Aurelius wrote:

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:
The swirly nature of the bokeh is characteristic of this type of lens; very sharp center, softer on the corners.

Interesting bokeh indeed. Usually one seems something like that from old Zeiss Biotars (either 58 or 75 mm) or their illustrious Russian copies, the Helios 44M and especially the longer 40-2, although there are other old lenses typically from 1940s to 1960s which can produce a similar effect.

There are Angenieux c-mount lenses that produce similar effects, but those buggers cost a bomb to procure. The Pentax 25mm/f1.4 lens in question is actually meant for machine applications, but it sure does produce pretty good pictures for what it does. And it is cheap! Got it for 350 SGD with adapter, though it's a lot cheaper from B&H Photo (probably because the latter bought the lens in bulk rather than smaller quantities)

Returned to Sky Meadows State Park, with the combat puggle. Guess what we saw wandering around free range?


"Daisy, what do you see? Is it a Deer? Bear? Coyote?"


MOO COWS!


(Daisy normally goes nuts and chirps/barks up a storm when she sees other animals. In this case she kinda froze and just looked at them. I guess she thought they were too big?)

Remember, I'm a trained professional with years of experience. That's why it looks easy.

Shenandoah!

As seen on the CTA in glorious luddite silver halide.



And a splash of color.

That is super red. Even the dress in the bg pops out.

Phantasee wrote:That is super red. Even the dress in the bg pops out.

There's no red like Kodachrome red.

The Red really does shout out and yet is so natural. Hmm...

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:The Red really does shout out and yet is so natural. Hmm...

It looks even more spectacular on the light table

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:The Red really does shout out and yet is so natural. Hmm...

Too bad it's almost impossible to buy any Kodachrome now. Perhaps there are some evilBay dealers that will sell it at exorbitant prices. Dwayne's will shut down the processing line at the end of the year and that's it then for Kodachrome. K-14 process is a trade secret and even if it wasn't, it's too complex to be done in anything less than a fully equipped chemist's lab. I am still waiting if Paul Simon will comment

Marcus Aurelius wrote:

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:The Red really does shout out and yet is so natural. Hmm...

Too bad it's almost impossible to buy any Kodachrome now. Perhaps there are some evilBay dealers that will sell it at exorbitant prices. Dwayne's will shut down the processing line at the end of the year and that's it then for Kodachrome. K-14 process is a trade secret and even if it wasn't, it's too complex to be done in anything less than a fully equipped chemist's lab. I am still waiting if Paul Simon will comment

There's quiet a bit on eBay but with constrained supply and high demand - well, you get the point.

Kodak relinquished any IP rights on K-14. But who would dare try and make it or produce the horribly complex chemistry necessary to develop it?

I have a personal liking for old manual lenses, though I'm looking to get rid of my old Leica Summicron-R 50mm/f2.0 because it's simply too heavy.

Recently I acquired a Contax/Yashica 50mm/f1.7 and a Leica M 90mm/f2.8 Tele-Elmarit (ver 2) from a friend, and here's the shots:

Contax/Yashica 50mm/f1.7




Leica M 90mm/f2.8 Tele-Elmarit (ver 2)




Admittedly, the 2nd shot ought to be cropped a little, but what the heck. I was taking it from the table, and I wanted to take more of the water in the background.

Annnd... an obligatory shot from my Panasonic 7-14mm wide angle.

George Washington National Masonic Memorial, Alexandria, VA.