Vintage cameras!, 9/27/08

My dear friends Candi and Bryon came by earlier this afternoon with a special gift for me! They just bought a house in Palm Coast and will be moving soon so they are packing up their house and found a couple of things they thought I might be interested in.

Bryon's grandfather (who everyone just called "Grandpa") passed away last year. I remember him as a really funny old man who always liked to flirt innocently with Candi's friends. He must have always been a hit with the ladies... he was a ladies' swimsuit designer in the 1940's and 50's!

And these are the cameras that he used to photograph his models. (Of course I'd kill to get my hands on some of those snaps!)

Ihagee Dresden Exakta 35mm Australian model, Carl Ziess Pancolar 2/50 f/2 lens. It's missing the Exakta emblem on the front, but it came with an old, weathered Sankyo daylight A filter on the lens. :)







(The shutter button is on the left side of the lens.)



And a 1956 Mamiyaflex C Professional TLR! Now I have a pretty big collection of vintage cameras but I think this mother takes the cake! I used to shoot with a RB67 in the studio and it was one of my favorite film cameras of all-time. I've never owned a Mamiya TLR before so I'm reeeeeeally excited to have this one now.





And it came already customized! The story goes, the outer body of the camera was starting to show some wear and tear so "Grandpa" recovered it himself. I'm assuming sometime in the 1960's. :) It is actually some type of foil finish paper with a Gemini theme.








Here's a TTV (Through The Viewfinder) shot of my Canary Islands date palm in the front yard. (aka the giant pineapple) No clue yet what the two lines on the right of the viewfinder are. I haven't cleaned either of these cameras.



Also in the box were these goodies. Clockwise from top: vintage camera strap (rusty as heck!), manual for the Ihagee, i have no clue... maybe some type of old-skool macro lens adapter?!, and i have no clue again, these little adjustable metal rods were in the pouch labeled $12. So they must have been something important to cost that much back in the day.



Any ideas on the bottom two items?

I'm going to be late!

Gonna be late posting today's pics because, well, it's 9:30pm and they haven't taken place yet. I'm going to Jacksonville to shoot a friend of mine playing at Jack Rabbits, so it'll be a late night. You'll see the result tomorrow!

For now, I have no photos to share but I'm pretty excited that my ram upgrade came for my computer the other day (yay, now Photoshop/Lightroom will no longer be the bane of my existence!!), I got a HUGE "counter" bottle of Prescriptives Virtual Matte foundation in my shade that will last me FOR-E-VAR, and I also got a bracket for my light stands today that will allow me to mount the Speedlight to the light stand! Lots of goodies in the mail lately! :)

I also made a big announcement pertaining to photography on my blog earlier today, so be sure to read up on that if you're an existing or future client!

BMX / Testing the new flash unit

My husband is sometimes under the false delusion that he is still twelve years old.

However, I'm really happy with the new flash!

3 seconds at f/6.3, ISO 100, wireless shutter remote, Speedlite 580EXII hand fired off-camera. RAW file slightly adjusted for flash temperature as it made him look very blue on the yellow background of street lights at night time.

Of course I would have shot this entirely differently if I had some type of radio slave unit for the flash. (Second on the list after the lens upgrade, lol) With that I could have made these shots at a normal, fast shutter speed without any motion blur or light trails, but I like that effect and have always liked experimenting with "light painting" with a handheld flash unit.

New goodies!

My personal quote in my senior yearbook from high school says, "Life is like the mail. Sometimes you just don't get it." (Ironic that I saw this in a tiny corner of an ad in a surfing magazine when I was like 16? ;) ) I always liked getting stuff in the mail when I was a kid, though it was few and far between. What kind of mail does a kid get except letters from pen pals? So it was always extra special when something cool arrived, like a package from my great grandma with homemade cookies and peanut brittle! Nowadays I get mail, but it's rarely exciting, never tasty at all, and usually a depressing bill or some junk mail. So you can imagine my excitement when today I got TWO cool things in the mail!

First, my flash upgrade, the 580EX II!



Then, a little treat from Etsy! I'm an DIY addict and I love Etsy. The other day I happened upon a listing for these way cute Coincards that look like little mini lens caps. They are a tad bigger than a quarter, and hold only limited information, so they are great calling cards. I had NFC Photography and the url to my Flickr account so clients can take a coincard and know where to go for their photos.



They even came with a tiny clear case!

Athena

Not much to say about this set. Still trying to get used to the buttons and functions on the new DSLR and Athena was the only willing test subject around. For some reason, before when Jess handed me #2 (her backup) at weddings, I didn't have to think about anything. Now that I actually own this one, I find myself constantly wanting to experiment with it. A Canon is a Canon is a Canon, but I guess I'm just easily amused with new, expensive toys.

Speaking of new and expensive, I fortunately have a boring day job that allows me to do whatever I want, including read the paper (how 'bout that Mom, I'm paying attention to the news!), and I happened upon this article in USA Today this morning.
I'd been wondering to myself for what seems like forever, when will they come out with a DSLR that also shoots video? Not that I use video often... I have a nice video camera and no charger for it and just haven't bothered to pick one up... but looks like Nikon finally did it.



And I loved how they just had to mention in there that rival Canon announced this week that it is introducing the new 50D in October! I haven't done much research on it myself, but from what I've heard so far it's not a far cry from what I have now except it's supposed to have improved low-light shooting quality. I just can't believe I just got this thing a few weeks ago and they announce this!



Anyway, onto the photos of Athena before I start thinking about a trade-in. :)

She jumps on top of the pump house when she's had enough of Piglet biting her ears and ankles. Pig's too short to reach her here so she hangs out until Pig wanders away.











No diffuse glow in Pshop on any of these. Was shooting with a Sigma lens that's really soft. Sometimes I like it, sometimes it bothers me.







And a couple of the little (errr big) rascals together. Pig is such a goof. I think she looks like a cat here!



It was tricky, but she managed to climb up to Athena. Athena didn't mind though, she greeted her with a smooch.