Does CN stand for crappy negative?

There are certain things that have puzzled me for quite some time. Is better than sex cake really better than sex? Well probably not but someone, somewhere along the line decided that it was an apt name. I suppose that you cannot really quantify the deliciousness of something, only perhaps by surveying hundreds of people you will be able to see different curves to how people feel. Is cake actually preferred? I don't know that any institution would be dumb enough to put money into studying that, however more stupid things have been polled (eg: male iPhone owners are more attractive). But underneath it all there was a point in time where we as a society collectively said yes to this as being more or less fact. The problem is, and the same goes for much on the internet, so much is argued without any real basis for it.

Peterson's - Nate Matos 2011

Sow what is it then that gives C41 process black and white film such a bad rap?

I can only speculate it is stubbornness within the photographic community. I am not one to disobey the order of the SN (Silver Negative) however while there has been much change within photography over the last 10 years or so. Much has stayed the same as a last ditch effort to keep the medium true to its roots. For example, Henri Cartier-Bresson shot a fair amount of street photography. Most of us are well aware of this. He also primarily shot with a Leica camera and was an early adopter and fan of 35mm film. A format at the time which was frowned upon by many other photographers of the era for its high grain and relatively low resolution. Yet here we are 80 years after the advent of street photography, and many people will give you an answer that would mirror HCB's when asked "what is the best camera for street photography?" Leica, it doesn't offer anything more than any other camera (don't let the purists fool you) and yet it is still synonymy's with street photography.

When you look at black and white photography, there can be only one answer. Right? Well I'm not entirely sure. C-41 process films will go the way of the Do-Do far before I can no longer purchase hydroquinone and the other necessary ingredients to make a homemade batch of D76. Yet while these are still readily available I enjoy using them. Developing to me is a hassle, yet the dynamic range, contrast and tonality of a film still can't be beat by any digital camera that costs less than my car. Which leads me to use Kodak BW400CN. For those who may have a personal vendetta against Kodak, Ilford makes XP2 while Fuji has Neopan 400CN. Both (like Kodak's) are high sharpness, medium to high contrast, high resolution black and white 400 speed films that you develop in a standard C-41 process.

time! - Nate Matos 2011

If you are a guy (or girl) like me, who is lazy, easily frustrated and enjoys to complain this feels like the perfect solution. I encourage you to go out and give it a try. The most it will cost you is about $4 for a roll of 36 exposures and should be around $2 for developing. And as you walk out of your local CVS negatives in hand, try and not be so negative about different emulsions.

For more images shot with BW400CN take a look at my overview of the Lomo LC-A here

The Lomo LC-A

Lomography to me was never a fantastically interesting topic. They introduced and perfected the idea that when given to a marketing firm, photography can be made cool. An idea that many companies (I won't name names) use today. So to me I would have rather spent my pennies on taking the photos I enjoyed and being able to do so without breaking the bank. I first bought a Holga (I now have 2) and put countless rolls of film into it. But after getting a few "professional" medium format cameras they both sat around. So a few weeks back when I traveled to Boston with my girlfriend, the only camera that made sense to bring (other than my sx-70) was my digital. I figured that I would be able to take all the images I wanted without having to worry about getting them developed at a later date. And that with the lenses I have for that system I would be able to cover most of the shots that I wanted to take. What I did not account for was that time was not on my side and the photos that I wanted to take weren't either. So my camera sat for the first 3 days of vacation not even being looked at. And with 3 left to go I couldn't take it anymore, I needed to take pictures.

Airplane to Boston - Nate Matos 2011

With a very disappointing photographic store selection I was left with the local Craigslist. That third day didn't turn up much with me checking it every hour or so to see if there was something that:

A - I didn't own.
B - Was interesting.
C - Wouldn't break the bank.
D - Was close enough I could buy it since we did not have a car.

It was then on Friday night while laying in bed waiting for my better half to hop in as well that an ad caught my eye

"lomo camera 35mm - $15"

Clicking on it I was pleasantly surprised to see a picture of a Lomo LC-A looking back at me! It ha only been posted 4 minutes prior to me checking so I sent an email right away with my number.

The next day after picking it up I looked it over quite a bit while my girlfriend looked at me wondering why I was so enamored with what looked like a simple little camera. The LC-A had always intrigued me, fast lens, manual aperture control and focus. But the price that even the Russian originals were going for was enough to keep me away. Why would I buy one when I can find an Olympus stylus epic at goodwill for $3 (true story). But for $15 I considered it a steal.

I loaded in the one roll of film that was included that the light meter could read. Since this was an original LC-A and not the LC-A+ the iso range was from 25-400 in one stop increments. The lomography iso 100 film went in well, but with an expiration date of 09-2001 I could only hope that it would work (see color image a few paragraphs down for an example of the color shifts that occurred). We went on our way with the vacation and I snapped away lovingly. This camera is a blast!

First off, it feels good. Something that I cannot stress enough when it comes to building a camera. 95% of the cameras that lomography sells are toy cameras, and while many people are fine holding a chunk of cheap Chinese plastic, I prefer to have a heavier, real leather wrapped, glass lens camera in my hand. It is a knockoff of the Cosina CX-2 but it could pass as a wonderful little beautiy in its own right. I can really see why those kids from Austria really got caught up in this camera! Something that should be noted, is that when you mention lomography to anyone who knows the slightest bit about photography is that it is soft, heavily vignetted and off kilter shots. But the LC-A is none of those things. Sure it vignettes a little, but the lens is very sharp, fast, contrasty and has a wonderful focal length of 32mm. Even though it has a crank film advance, a feature usually left for disposable 35mm cameras. It has a solid click to it and doesn't feel like something will break.

aSymmetry - Nate Matos 2011

One thing that I feel that really needs to be mentioned is using the right film. I cannot stress this enough and it seems as if many new users of this camera don't really take it into consideration. I'm not real big on the whole cross processing thing. I feel that most of the time (I have seen a few examples where it worked) that it takes away from the image. It is very easy to say to yourself that "this is a lomo camera! Let's get crazy!". But that is taking away everything that makes this camera great. My personal choice? Use some nice black and white film. I have over 70 cameras, and 50 lenses and nothing matches the feel you get in some of these images. See the image below for what I mean.

$1 - Nate Matos 2011

Recently I have been getting better at my "street" photography. I feel it needs to be in quotes because throwing a zoom lens on your camera, and shooting the back of someones head from 50 feet away and making it black and white doesn't count as street. Anyway, my confidence has been on the rise, I have been getting closer, more intimate shots and this camera really helped with that. The scale focus was simple and easy to adjust. Not to mention there was not guesswork in terms of making sure that I had the correct exposure, the little averaging meter did a good... but not great job. And with only 4 focus settings: 3 feet, 6 feet, 9 feet and infinity 95% of the time the focus was spot on.

Sleeper - Nate Matos 2011

Even with how over used artificial vignette is (don't believe me check out flickr explore) a subtle natural vignette can add to the image. And I feel as if these are a great example of that. But if you want more vignetting why not check out the Instant back for it? As a huge fan of Polaroid and all instant photography this was something I knew that I had to pick up. So while sitting at the hotel room back in Boston I placed the order on Lomography.com and it was waiting for me back at home! This produces some of the most interesting images I have seen. A strong black border surrounds the image, with heavy lens blur in the corners (thanks to the correcting lens you must place in the camera). It adds some bulk as well, but not so much that it becomes unbearable. In addition to allowing your camera to spit out Instax Mini prints, it also comes with camera strap holes! Something that was missing from the original camera and makes this larger version of it much more bearable. But with all those problems comes one great addition! Bokeh! Something that none of my other Instax cameras bring to the table.

Test 13 - Nate Matos 2011

Since purchasing this camera about two months ago I find that it has really become a staple in my camera bag. And as Ferris Beuller himself would say, "If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up."

Don't you hate poor drivers?

I do, specifically in this case when it comes to the ones Hewlett Packard provides. But they need to step their game up. Sure part of the blame lies on Apple for killing Rosetta with OSX Lion as a push to get people away from their Power PC programs. But it has been in development for at least a year, and on the market for 31 days at this point. So why does my scanner then require drivers that are slated for release fall 2011? A date that based on every other software release I have seen is sure to be pushed back. Giving me a large and expensive paperweight on the desk next to me. Because I shoot many Polaroids I do a lot of scans. Almost every day in fact to keep up with The 365 Project. So I'll just need to see how this all pans out, and in the meantime vent my frustrations to the internet, Apple, and HP for throwing a wrench into my workflow.

New computer... must write.

If you knew me, or if you had even just known of my computer...

Scratch that, my computer was your 103 year old grandpa. How did he live that old you may ask. What were his big secrets to living longer than a century? Well if I had to guess his reply may have sounded something like:

"Wiskey and cigarettes shithead, don't listen to what the gov'ment says bout my health."

The old Macbook was great, I got it right out of high school and I would be lying if I said that I didn't feel really cool every time I pulled it out. I felt so professional. And like a poor immigrants where their youngest daughter makes it her goal to be the first one to attend college of everyone in her family. I was the first of mine to go Mac. Call me a sucker, idiot or whatever else names get slung about for people who enjoy Apple computers. I don't know why but I really enjoy them. It would be tough to actually put into quantifiable terms because no matter what I feel as if I would come off pretentious... so I won't.

Either way, it was time to replace my old laptop for something new... something shiny... something aluminum. However the 21.5" iMac had too small a screen, and the 27" was a little out of my price range. So I went with what anyone else would do (or anyone who doesn't need an optical drive) and bout a Mac mini. Along with a 24" LED screen, and Apple keyboard and mouse I must say I have a nice little setup going here. All for $800 too!

To be fair, this blog was really only two things. One for me to brag a little because the last digital thing I bought was... does my Netflix monthly fee count? And two, because it has been so long since I have used a laptop styled keyboard that I needed to practice my typing skills. Why didn't I use the keyboard on my laptop you ask? Why simple! I was eating a bowl of cereal and spilled milk all over it. Fying the whole thing and requiring me to use an external Dell (free) one. A few other things wrong with the old computer?

It was 5 years old, that's like 50 in computer years
The fan was broken so whenever it was being used it made a horrendous sound
it was scratched, chipped and quite honestly a little stinky.

But now I am on to bigger and brighter things. Like some food and a nap, damn I'm beat.

Are FD to EOS adapters really that bad?

Well...yes, yes they are. I bought one a few days ago from Amazon (clicked through on Adam Carolla) for s's and g's. It arrived well packaged as usual today and I had to try it out. I chose the Opteka brand for a few reasons.

• It was available for overnight shipping for only $3.99 with Amazon prime
• It was the cheapest by $4
• It claimed to only have a 1.27x crop while the others all were 1.4x

The only way however that I could test it under the exact same settings was this method. Which I must say I am quite proud of for coming up with. Please excuse the mess of camera equipment behind it I was playing around earlier.

This image shows the camera with the following setup:


Lens,
M42 to FD adapter
FD to EOS adapter


By stacking these like such I was able to get the same effect as using an FD lens on the EOS camera but I was still able to do this:

I used an M42 to EOS adapter (something that if you don't own go purchase one now) and attached the lens directly to the camera. Without the need for any correcting optics like the FD to EOS adapter contains.

The lens I used is an SMC Pentax Takumar 85 1.8. A lens that is so renowned for its construction, sharpness and overall quality that it still sells today (almost 40 years after production) for more than I paid for my Canon EOS 85mm 1.8 brand new by $100. A simply wonderful lens it is, well until you use the correcting adapter on it that is...

Here are the two images from those two setups. Unfortunately the settings cannot be 100% perfect, because the correcting adapter kills 1 stop of light coming through and ads a 1.27x crop factor. But I made things as close as possible. Both times stopping down the lens for more clarity and sharpness. The photo on the left of my rediculously awesome lamp is using the lens with only the M42 adapter, the right image of my fantastically wonderful lamp uses the M42, FD, EOS combination.

Please click the pictures for a full res. You can see the huge crop factor and what that does, combined with the crop sensor cameras that I and most people use makes many lenses way too tight. Also buying that f/1.4 lens isn't so special now when the fastest your camera reads it at is f/2. Not to mention look at the insane chromatic abberation on photo with the correcting optic.

This is something I probable wont use all that often truth be told. For $30 I don't feel as if I lost anything, but I really don't feel like I gained anything either.