MorseBlog

There is this idea in photography that gets a lot of discussion at times depending it seems on if it is trending in some social media channel like YouTube. It is also a descriptive term some photographers use for images that might be taken in 'soft' light, perhaps with some light fog or mist or with a lens that is not stopped down very hard. The term that often comes up is 'painterly' which usually means 'like a painting'. I won't get into the obvious ironies here only recognize this is an idea or an objective in some people's photography.  I mention this because I have run across this before and have even made a few images I described this way. More recently I watched a YouTube video of a Venezuelan photographer Samantha Cavet who has made this part of her style. The video is here...    My examples are here... No doubt debatable but the idea is there. These were not intended but the light and the film colluded for a unique look.  This first one has a s

As I mentioned in a previous post I had found some inspiration for a photography project that morphed into a small photobook. To recap the book will be hardcover in A5 (210mm x148mm) in landscape orientation. I am publishing this at Mixam my favorite photo-book publisher .  I received my softcover proof copies the other day and they came out nicely. I substituted one photo that I decided didn't look so nice. Since they were black and white images, I opted to print a monochrome book. The images came out nicely. I updated my minor changes and reformatted it for hardcover. This involves changing the number of pages and reshuffling a little to make sure the pages I wanted to land across from each still do. I use softcover to save a little money on the proofs before committing to the more expensive hardcover run. I have found with these softcover books with 32 sides (internal pages) 8 copies cost as much as one. So I order a batch of proof as they usually turn out well enough to give to

As I discussed before I picked up a couple of cheap K&S adapters for Nikon F and Olympus OM lenses. I have a few of each in each lens family and I wanted to evaluate them on the GFX 50s ii for vignetting. The sensor is only 44mm across, so larger than 36mm full frame but not so big as 56mm fil medium format film. There are some discussions on forums that mention some lenses that perform well with the GFX series cameras. Sadly, my lenses do not seem to be amongst them.  I have the following lenses. OM Series Zuiko 28mm f2.8 This is a nice wide lens. Generally regarded as a very good lens.  Zuiko 135mm f2.8 This lens get consistently great reviews. It can be quite costly to buy second hand. Mine I bought in almost mint condition. Tamron 70-210mm f4-5.6 Again a well-liked lens surprising for a non-Zuiko lens.  Nikon F Series Nikkor 50mm f1.4 This is a classic lens and well-made and a joy to use. It was optimized for black and white and as such has a slightly yellow coating to aim for

Part of the benefit of the digital medium format camera is the ability to use legacy lenses such as the Mamiya 645 lenses I have collected over the years. I bought a Kipon shift adapter to M645 lenses for this purpose.  In order to use the manual lenses with IBIS (In-Body Image Stabilization) one must enter the focal length in the menu system. I place this entry in the 'My Memu' section as well so I don't have to go hunting for it.  The Kipon adapter works well enough hover I will say it seems to be slightly loose when used with my 2x teleconverter. The teleconverter is not a Mamiya branded one so it may be a combination of the two having slightly sloppy tolerances. The looseness is not excessive, but it is noticeable. The other issue is it allows the lens to focus past infinity. This is probably a precaution on tolerances as people are more likely to complain if they could never focus at infinity. However, it is a pain as you cannot rack the lens to infinity when you know