The signs of fall are showing. Shot with Fuji X-E4 and Fujinon 35mm f/1.4 at f/2.8 with the Kodachrome 64 film simulation.
While walking The Girl in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, I noticed that the colors of the bear brush1 are changing. This started a couple of days ago. The lodgepole pines, of course, have not changed.
I can feel the difference in the air as well. Over the last couple of weeks, it is not as warm in the afternoons. Fall is coming.
I look forward to it as it is after the summer heat and we move into the cooler months. I love the weather here in the high desert. it suits me. The heat lasts only a few weeks and the remainder of the year has wonderful weather.
I enjoy being outdoors with The Girl. We have fun. Life is good.
1I am sure this brush has a formal name. I recall calling it bear brush from back when I was a kid. I think it will stick.
Shot of Aloha Liquor Store with the Asahi-Kogaku Optical Company 58mm f/2.4 at f/8 with the Sony A7Sii and Vivid Creative Look.
This (very) vintage lens came to me a couple of weeks ago. It is from an Asahi-Kogaku rangefinder camera, probably made in the 1950s. I had to order a M37/M42 adapter so I could mount the lens. Then I got busy with field work and did not take time to shoot it.
Well, I decided to reprovision my stock, so I took The Girl and we drove down to Aloha Liquor. She waited while I did a little shopping. Then I made this capture of the store front.
The lens is certainly sharp at f/8. The colors are not quite as nice as the Hexanon 40mm f/1.8 produces. But they are good.
I made a second capture in black and white, below, of my Lucas plushie. This one was shot wide open (f/2.4). It is also quite sharp and there is a hint of swirly bokeh in the background. It looks like this lens will also produce some soap bubble bokeh balls as well. I need to play with it some more.
One more thing — this lens is heavy. There is a lot of metal in the lens.
This is a shot of Lucas using the Asahi-Kogaku Optical Company 58mm f/2.4 wide open. Captured with the Sony A7Sii and the Black and White Creative Look setting.
50 Percent Off — While walking the streets of Placerville, California, I came across this rack of on-sale clothes. I liked the look. Capture with the Fuji X100V, 23mm Fujinon f/2 at f/2.8. Tri-X 400 film simulation.
There are other reasons to remember this date. I suspect it was the for my grandparents’ generation and 07 December. I have not forgotten and will not forget.
On a lighter note, I was on my way home from Sacramento a couple of weeks ago. I stopped in Placerville, California for a bite of lunch, although it was a bit early. So I walked the streets a bit to see what I could see.
This rack of clothes caught my eye. So I made the capture.
Then I wandered back to Mel’s Diner for a shake and a BLTA.
I love textures. This old log attracted my attention with the combination of surface texture and the play of light on the surface. I made the capture with a Fuji X-E4 and a Voigtlander Ultron 27mm f/2 at f/8. I used the Kodachrome 64 film simulation.
The Girl and I are hiking up near Spooner Summit a lot lately. It is cool up there. The lodgepole pines give a lot of shade and I love the sound of the wind in them. The risk of snakes is less than it is in the sageland. There are lots of things to photograph and the offering changes often with the change in light.
The area was burned a few years ago. Many of the trees are undamaged. But there are plenty of downed trees that can be interesting (both for The Girl and for me). There are also lots and exposed rocks that provide interesting textures.
It will take me a while to exhaust the area of photographic subjects.
On this particular day, The Girl and I hiked our regular trail from the staging area. She sniffed about looking for critters while I explored visually. I found this downed tree and like the texture and play of light across the surface. I made the capture. Post-processing was light with a little change in contrast and a little boost to the color.
When we returned to the staging area, I setup a radio station and activated the park. The site is also a designated Parks on the Air site (actually it is a double — two parks). It was a good day. I am grateful. Life is good.
I came across this bag of office supplies left in the grass at the old flume. I wonder why they were just dropped. I will never know.
While The Girl and I were walking here in town a few days ago, she hunted ground squirrels while I looked at the roses growing along the old flume. I saw this bag of office supplies that were dumped in the grass. It made me wonder why there were left behind… Was someone interrupted? Were they stolen from the nearby Office Depot? Why were they just dropped?
Lately I have been shooting normal(ish) lenses during my daily walkies with The Girl. Yesterday I carried an old Hanimex 135mm f/2.8 along and shat a few frames with it. This one I like, captured with the Sony A7Sii with in-camera black and white conversion at f/8. I did post-process a bit in Iridient Developer, made some contrast adjustments and added a bit of sharpening.
Over the last month or so, with the exception of two outings, my images were captured with normalish lenses. The two exceptions were some captures with the Nikkor 85mm f/2 and the Zuiko 85mm f/2. On a full-frame camera, like the Sony A7Sii (which I carry a lot), 85mm is a short telephoto focal length. It is most commonly used for portraits.
I start to see the telephoto effect (compression of distance, shallow depth of field) at a focal length of about 105mm. Yesterday I carried a Hanimex 135mm f/2.8 in the bag. The Carl Zeiss Jena 50mm f/2.8 Tessar was on the camera (Sony A7Sii) during most of our walk. Near the end of walkies, I decided to mount the Hanimex and see what that gave me.
The Hanimex was reviewed and recommended by Nigel (Zenography channel). It is not an expensive lens. They are quite common (East German Cold War era). But, they are also quite sharp, good quality, and have good contrast. I picked one up off fleaBay a few weeks ago for not much money.
Nigel is right — the lens is quite sharp, even wide open. It has good image quality. And I quite like the telephoto look of this shot of River Road from the Silver Saddle Ranch gate staging area.
The Girl and I had a good walk. The weather is cool, very much fall-like. We have had some rain and I am hopeful that keeps the wildfires away. My thought for today is that maybe we will drive up to our current favorite portable operation site this morning. We can walk some and I might set up a station and see if the bands are better (yesterday they were poor). I think I will take makings for coffee or tea.
Whatever we do, it will be good. I am grateful The Girl is strong and healthy. I do not mind that she is a bossy-bitch. Life is good.
Bushcrafters and other outdoors types like lists. One to remember is the Five W’s:
Wind
Water
Wood
Wildlife
Widowmakers
There are lots of websites out there that enumerate why each of these is important. But while walking The Girl this morning, I heard the wind (quite stiff) bumping the trunks/limbs of of one of the old cottonwood trees down by Carson River.
I would not have wanted to be below this tree when the limb failed.This gave me pause and I looked up. Doggo sniffed about, marking her territory as I considered the possibility of impending doom.
This set off a recollection in this old brain about the Five W’s of bushcraft and Widowmaker came to mind. I have walked this stretch of the river many times over the last ten years and seen the deadfalls from the trees along the river.
So I looked as we walked. And I came away with a few images to remind me to be careful in these woods. Cottonwood trees are not very strong and I do not know how to tell if the branches are diseased or weak and likely to fall. I know my risk of one falling on me while walking is rather small. But if I camped along the river, a good look above would be in order.
This was another big down fall I saw on walkies today.All of the captures were made with the little Fujifilm X-E2, a fine little camera. The lens was the Fujinon 27mm f/2.8 and I used an aperture setting of f/8. The film simulation was Classic Chrome, but I dailed up the color a couple of notches.
Yes, out amongst the giant old cottonwoods, W is for Widowmaker. Be careful out there.
Capture with Sony A7Sii and a Jupiter 3, 50mm f/1.5 wide open.
I woke (much too) early this morning, thinking about a report. It is OK — I often wake early when working on something challenging and have ideas for how to progress. I think on them a bit, then do something to distract my mind, and then return to sleep.
My distraction was discovering a set of weekly emails from David duChemin, a Canadian photographer and teacher. I really admire him, not just for his body or work, but because he is a good teacher. In his videos, he comes across as that friendly, caring mentor that you want to spend a lot of time with.
The emails were a string of lessons called The Vision Collective that I subscribed to several years ago. I read the first one, Abstraction. The direction was to create a set of abstract photographs. The assignment lasts a week.
Well, I am to far into the week. But I decided that I would make a few abstract images on walkies today. I should do the same for the next several days. Who cares if I take ten days or two weeks to complete the assignment? I am long past due anyway.
I purposely selected a new lens, a Jupiter 3 50mm f/1.5 rangefinder lens (L39 or M39 mount) from Russia. It has a red Cyrillic P that is supposed to mean a superior coating. The lens is probably about my age, so I do not expect much from the coating. But it is an interesting lens. It looks like it has 10 or 12 aperture blades (lovely). It is pretty fast. It has a good reputation for background blur/bokeh. My instance is in reasonable mechanical and optical condition for its age.
I mounted the lens on my Sony A7Sii and The Girl and I took off down our cul-de-sac. It was late, because I was working, so I expected a little shorter walk than usual. But I also knew she could play in the grass to cool off.
I made a few images and purposefully put some of them out of focus. The lens can make some beautiful soap-bubble bokeh balls. I think these are fun.
We paused where a drainage ditch crosses the old Carson Flume for another set of images. There is some water in the ditch that is not too bad because recent runoff cleared out all the trash. She splashed around a bit while I shot some sunflowers.
We paused again at the Station 51 Park so she could chase ground squirrels and roll in the wet grass. Then we headed home for water and some lunch (for me).
Looking for objects that might make an interesting abstract is an good exercise. I like the one for today. I think tomorrow I will look for something that will work in black and white.
Experiment in bubble bokeh with the Sony A7Sii and a Meyer-Optik Gorlitz Oreston 50mm f/1.8 vintage lens. The lens needs to be cleaned, but I see no fungus, just a bit of dust and haze.
This old Meyer-Optik Görlitz Oreston 50mm f/1.8 arrived in the mail yesterday. It is a classic lens that can produce some interesting images. My copy came attached to a Praktina 35mm SLR, which is a decent vintage camera (all mechanical except a light meter) but I have use for.
I affixed the lens to the Sony A7Sii for walkies this morning. I missed the focus on a few images and will have to reshoot them. There is also a bit a trick to using this lens and that will require some repetitions.
The lens needs to be cleaned because there is a little dust and haze on the inside of the front and rear elements. The aperture is clean. If I can figure out how to get the front element out, I will clean it. Otherwise I will have to send it out and have it cleaned.
Post was with Color Efex Pro 4, which I am also experimenting with.
The Mad Dog Cafe has nothing to do with Joe Cocker. But the food there is decent and it is an interesting place. Capture with the Fuji X100V at f/8, Tri-X 400 film simulation.
On my way to Sacramento, I stopped in Woodfords, California for lunch. The old Woodfords General Store used to be a bar and grill. Now it is more of a bistro than a bar.
Yes, beer is still available — in a bottle. But the pastrami and Swiss on rye was good and so was the potato salad. Although I no longer drink soft drinks (much), I decided to have a root beer. It was good, too.
