The Official Head-Case Photography Thread.

[philodox]

Need to find my old AE-1, might still have some film in the fridge.  How long does it keep?

[EdipisReks1]

In the fridge? Years. In the freezer? Decades. 

[n_maher]

Given how good I think the A7IV is, this is something I'll likely look for used in a few years.  I really believe the sensor size is pretty idea.  The A7RV I get to use at work now is pretty amazing but the file sizes are enormous and I often don't need that much resolution even for large (30"x40") prints.

[Knuckledragger]

My D200 is now over 20 years old, and while it shows its age, it still works.  The 300 F/4 I keep permanently attached to it is from 1987, but it has aged like a fine wine.  I use the combination to catch the local wildlife, usually without leaving my house.

The "lawn crew."  This is from September, and the Hathaway house has now seen major renovations.  More on that later.

 

An osprey looking for lunch. 

 

The corner of the mower shed is a prime squirrel snack bar.

 

"I have an acorn, and you don't!"

 

*honk* *honk*  Canada geese don't actually like the pond that much, because it's surrounded by trees.  They prefer Sweetened Water Pond, across the street.  Even though it's a much smaller pond, it's open and they find id easier to access.  With that said, the geese will sometimes slum it and land in Jernegan pond.

 

The ducks are slightly more frequent in their appearances, but they too prefer the more open pond.

 

A great blue heron taking off the moment he caught sight of me.  Herons do NOT like humans.

 

*gobble* Survived another thanksgiving.

 

I took a bunch of photos of this fatso, but I've only one I've edited so far.

 

Tune in next time for fall colors, antique lenses, and irritated kitties.

[blessingx]

With Martin Parr’s recent passing, articles have resurfaced, including on a single vote getting him in Magnum. See how angry/joking photographers can get. 
 

“The other person to avoid was Martin Parr. As he put it, he was photographing a Magnum Annual Party for the first and last time – using a flash with a thing like a Styrofoam coffee cup on the end of it. My penile extension, he explained hopefully (but unsuccessfully) to any lady who passed by.

I mean if Magnum had to hire someone to do the party pictures, did it have to be Martin? He’s clearly not as successful as we all thought, if he needs to do birthday parties, Bar Mitzvahs and weddings. I sincerely hope the Magnum blogsite goes down before he has a chance to post. I mean, if Magnum wanted to hire a party photographer, why couldn’t they have selected a nice ‘concerned photographer’ like Philip Jones Griffiths or Ian Berry to do them – photographers who photograph you with dignity and humanism and make you look good – instead of the appallingly ‘cynical’ and ‘ironic’ Parr? Garry Winogrand and Diane Arbus did enough pictures at the MoMA of people looking demented without Parr adding to them.“ 

Edited December 13, 2025 by blessingx

[EdipisReks1]

I guess it’s silly to post iPhone pictures of Instax prints of 100 megapixels images. 

Edited December 15, 2025 by EdipisReks1

[EdipisReks1]

Collage. 

Edited December 16, 2025 by EdipisReks1

[dsavitsk]

[Knuckledragger]

Two things: (1) This time of year (we're picoseconds from the solstice), the sun does some funny things. (2) My CZJ 135mm F/3.5 Sonnar is one of my favorite lenses, full stop.  I describe the images it renders as "handsome."  Everything is sharp, colorful, and has the right amount of distance between subjects.  In a different universe, I might use a 135mm on a medium format (Hasselblad makes a neat 135mm that'll set you back about 5 large.)  It is not the narrow FoV that I like, it's what is to my biased eyes the "correct" amount of telescopic compression.  To wit:

Note the birds in the upper left corner.

 

 

Earlier, I was capturing fall colors with the Sonnar:

 

Also this photo got into Flickr's "Explore" section:

Nearly 5000 views and 150 favorites later.  TBH I find the whole thing kind of silly.  Longtime listeners may recall me mentioning that Explore is heavily botted and most of the photos that end up in it are eye catching, but not particularly good.  TBH that's what the above is, I think.  The Sonnar's bokeh is quite good and the little cedar tree is tack sharp.  With that said, the framing is nothing special.  It's just a snapshot with a shallow DoF.  The Sonnar is a great lens.  Flickr is dumb.

Bonus, previous photos of mine that I have made it into Explore:

The pond next to Edgartown harbor.  2020 rework of a photo I took in 2006.

 

IR version of the same area, 2013.

 

A bungalow, across from Cannonball Park.  As I said, eye-catching but not necessarily good.

 

Next time: Cats, squirrels and whatever I get up to with some new glass (more on that later.)

[EdipisReks1]

At the United States Air Force Museum. I am going to need a faster computer, as the base M4 Mac Mini chugs on the files out of the GFX100RF.

[EdipisReks1]

The XHalf isn't terrible. Would it have been a better shot on my iPhone? Technically, yes, most likely. But I enjoyed taking it with a camera. Framing is a little tough, as the viewfinder is rudimentary, but it reminds me a lot of my Rollei 35 in use.

Edited December 22, 2025 by EdipisReks1

[Knuckledragger]

Cats, squirrels and other critters will have to wait.  Let's talk about using an unnecessarily shallow depth of field.  Last night it was cold AF, especially by Vineyard standards.  In spite of that, I picked one of my new lenses, bundled up and went downtown.  Zero points for guessing which one I chose.  As I have said repeatedly, the list of things that have encountered in my life that lived up to the hype were (in no order): Citizen Kane, Ardbeg Uigeadail, Biosphere's Substrata, Tapatio hot sauce and the Canon EF 85mm F/1.2L (II).  I last shot with the 85L in 2009, when it was a relatively new lens.  Also, when I was a young, spry man in his 30s who had no problem lugging around a glass boat anchor + camera body for hours on end.  The 85L is so comically fat, it changes the entire shooting experience.  The balance of the camera feels different.  Every shot takes just a bit more effort.  I actually find it easier to hold things steady for longer exposures than with some lighter lenses.  Of course, the depth of field is (to use the technical term) non-fucking-existent.

I'm not old.  You're old.  (This joke works a lot better on places that aren't Head-Case.)  Shot wide-open because I can.

 

Downtown EDG's Christmas decorations (which are so famous, people come from all over the world for the "Christmas in Edgartown" first lighting.)  TBH this is not a terribly compelling shot.  It does look a bit like a still from a movie.

 

Same idea, reflected off a truck.  There's no real artistry to the wafer thin DoF, but it looks neat.  It actually takes a fair amount of work (and some luck) to use such a shallow plane of focus effectively.

 

I actually really like these two.  The ornaments are sufficiently in focus, and the background is a warm cozy dream.  The way I describe the 85L's handling of OOF highlight is that it paints them.  It looks like a less cloying version of a Hallmark card.

That's about it from an hour's walk.  My hit rate was abysmal.  Not terrible surprising, as I was shooting in Program mode with auto ISO.  The 5D kept the 85 at max aperture and 1/80th shutter speed, while it adjusted auto ISO on the fly.  Most of the Christmas lights are LED, and strobe at 60Hz.  This effect is noticeable to the naked eye and super obvious in photos.  I have two shots of the same doorway where one strand is out and then other.  It looks comically bad.  Also, while the 85L's shallow DoF is amusing, it's not reliably useful.  It turns out that having more than a paper sheet's worth of a frame in-focus is good idea.  Who knew?

If it's not so ball freezingly cold, I'm going to back out and shoot more lights.  I won't lug the 85 again.  35 years ago I dislocated my left shoulder and it never healed correctly.  It was in absolute agony by the end of last night.  If I'm smart, I'll take my OG 50mm F/1.8 (arguably the best lens I own for actually taking photos and not dicking around.)  The 17-40mm is also a great walkaround lens.  Modern bodies have sufficient high ISO performance that it's F/4 aperture is not a problem.

I also have a strong notion to make use of the 135 F/2L.  It's not as over the top as the 85L (what is, this side of Leica?) but its optical qualities are legendary.

[crappyjones123]

Santa brought me a shiny new A7V and some Batis lenses after the old D810 stopped working recently. Nice to pick up a camera again. 

[Knuckledragger]

Fall was pretty recent, it was also an eternity ago.  I went out with a variety of different lenses, captured the colors and annoyed the local fauna.  In 2009 I went to the MV alpaca farm with my (sainted, then-septuagenarian) mother on her birthday.  I'm sure I posted a number of those shots at the time.

I used the never good 75-300mm consumer zoom, and spent ages in Photoshop, masking, denoising and sharpening.  I'm much more lazy less interested in such labor intensive editing these days.  We went back to the farm for her birthday this year.  I used the also not very good Tamron 28-300mm.  So far I've only edited a few shots (see above). 

 

Llamas serve as guard animals at the alpaca farm.

 

Gidget the kitty doesn't know or care about "color balance."

 

Molly being characteristically unamused at the presence of humans.  This is the only shot I've ever gotten of her where she was lit properly, in-focus and looking at me.  Of course, she's glowering.

 

Changes afoot as the Hathaway house.  Again with the craptastic Tamron.  I haven't used it that much, but it's a bit of a "bad penny" lens.

 

The same taken with my radioactive 1970s Super Takumar 50mm F/1.4.  It's crazy how pricey this lens has become.  Mine it's not the most desirable version.  The very rare first iteration, which proved too expensive to produce, is a collector's bauble at this point.  My version isn't that rare, but copies of it have a nasty tendency to yellow (because radioactive.)  My copy is bit yellow, but for now that means it has a permanent "warming filter" installed.  That makes it ideal for fall colors.

 

Same scene at twilight, taken with my beloved Canon EF 50mm F/1.8 Mark I.  Honestly, in spite of all the lenses I own, I could shoot with a 50 the vast majority of the time and be happy.  In the parlance of our times *laughs in Henri Cartier-Bresson.*

 

Morning Glory Farm, or as it is known by the younger generation, "MoGlo" had quite a display of pumpkins.  Even though I live in walking distance, I only managed to get there once.  In my defense, this fall got ball-freezingly cold quickly.  

 

My OCD neighbor's yard, taken with the Takumar.  It excels at golden hour shots.

 

17-40mm at the wide end.  I used to love the super wide angle look, but a decade and a half of cameraphone photos have made me reverse that stance more or less completely.  Now I greatly prefer the telescopic compression that happens at focal lengths greater than 100mm.

 

Same idea with the nifty fifty.  Taken at F/5, which is a little silly.  In retrospect I should have committed one way or the other and either stopped down significantly or gone full retard at F/1.8.  Tune in next time for more fat squirrels, Christmas lights and even some short lived snow.  Spoiler alert: The EF 100-400mm is a goddamn bazooka is tiring as all fuck to handhold for any length of time.

[EdipisReks1]

Straight out of camera jpegs. I don't think I have settings right, as these jpegs are small (despite being on the "fine" setting); the RAWs are huge.  I would have been better off shooting with my Q at 1.7, instead of the 100RF at 4, but c'est la vie.

Edited 23 hours ago by EdipisReks1

[EdipisReks1]

I'm rather fond of the panorama modes on the GFX100RF. This is a raw conversion in Lightroom with basic edits. The M4 Pro Mini I picked up chews through the raw files out of this camera a lot more effectively than the base M4 did.

I need to try the Ricoh wide angle adapter that I picked up for the 100RF. Somebody did the math and with the adapter you can get the same FOV as an X-Pan, which is exciting (I always wanted an X-Pan).

Edited 9 hours ago by EdipisReks1

[EdipisReks1]

The GFX100RF files are stunning off the Pixma at 13x19.