We recently returned from a vacation on New Providence Bahamas. It was a wonderful time away and I got to take my Minolta Hi-Matic AF2 out on the town in Nassau to capture some of the scenes. My scans aren't the best but the prints actually turned out pretty nice.

A friend recently gave me a Tamron 19-35mm f/3.5-4.5 lens for the Minolta AF mount. So, I hooked it up to my trusty Maxxum 7000i and took it for a spin! It was fun to shoot film with such a wide angle. My normal digital rig only goes down to 24mm so it was both fun and challenging to use. I shot it on long expired Kodak Gold 200 during the setting sun hour so the pictures are plenty grainy, but I think the lens was sharp enough and performed very well.

Aside from the Brownie, these guys are really, really old.

The FT QL was introduced in 1966 making it a solid 50 years old now. I got these two warhorses at a local option for next to nothing, and I still haven't gotten around to running film through them, but I love the patina and wear marks that make you wonder what these cameras have been through over the past half century.

I've shot this camera before, but I intend to use it this weekend and wanted to make sure everything was working right. This time, I even used non-expired film and it was really nice to see the difference. I also tried some shots in the studio with the strobes. I guessed on the settings for the first shot, but then used a light meter and realized I needed a wider aperture to get correct exposure. The meter turned out to be correct and I was pleased with the results!

The Minolta X-700 was introduced in 1981 and received the first "European Camera of the Year" that year. In my experience, the Program and AV modes work excellently and the Minolta glass is exceptional. Of course, if you feed it old expired film, the results are less than spectacular.

So, this week I took the opportunity to try out a Mamiya m645 1000s medium format film camera. I got a 70mm f/2.8 "standard" lens, as well as a 150mm "portrait" lens. I ran one roll of fresh Kodak Ektar 100 film through it.

I wanted to do a head to head comparison of 6x4.5mm film vs my Canon 6D full frame 20Mp digital to see if there is truly any sort of magical quality to the film pictures that I could not replicate with digital. For the pictures where I used the 70mm Mamiya lens on the m645, I used my EF 50/1.8 "nifty fifty" on my 6D. For the pictures taken with the 150mm Mamiya lens, I used a Tamron 70-200/2.8 Di VC USD with the zoom set to 90mm on the 6D.

I was honestly rooting for film as I wanted to be able to point to it's wider dynamic range and smooth bokeh as advantages..... BUT.... sadly it did not. I'm pretty sure it's more a matter of the quality of the 35 year old Mamiya glass and not so much the film's fault, but in every way my digital pictures were better by any objective measurement.

Just for fun though I thought I'd share the comparison shots here for your amusement!

I was under the impression that you could see more in the shadows without blowing out the highlights on film, but as you can see here, the digital actually did a better job of showing both the darks and the brights.

I was also under the impression that medium format film would produce significantly more bokeh than 35mm, but alas as long as you shoot the equivalent focal length and aperture, the bokeh looks the same.

I had the film negatives professionally developed and scanned at the highest possible resolution which yielded a 48Mp file, which I thought would mean more detail and sharpness, but as you can see, the digital picture has more of both

The Ektar film does indeed have vibrant colors, but with a minimum of post production work, I could make the digital file look the same if I so desired.

This camera has the very handy features of both Aperture Value and Program modes which make it a very easy camera to use, but also has the flexibility of full Manual mode. It worked great for the most part, but I did notice a couple of light leaks, so it might be time for new seals. The old expired film didn't render colors all that great, and 8 shots on the roll didn't turn out at all, but still managed a couple nice ones.

Last weekend I got to shoot my first Prom session with a group of fun loving High School students. We were supposed to shoot outdoor, but the weather didn't play along so we did most of the shooting indoors. I'm still happy with how they turned out and we did manage to sneak in one outdoor pic between the raindrops :)

I have had a great time using the Contax 139 Quartz and Yashica FX-3 as my main film cameras for several rolls now, but with many more cameras to try out and evaluate, it's time to put these back on the shelf for a bit. Here are some scans from my latest batch. Stay tuned for the results of my next camera to sample!

Well, it's been a while since I've posted so, nothing like the new year to kickstart the engine again. I haven't been shooting a lot of pictures lately, but I have spent a little time on self reflection and found some interesting information. 

Many of you are likely familiar with the Meyers-Briggs profiles and the 16 personality types. There are numerous online tests you can take to find your type, and I have tried several, but what I found annoying was that I could get different results depending on my current mood, stress level, and other factors. So while the results were usually partly accurate, I never felt they were completely on point. 

Recently, I took another test and came up with INTP as the result. (Introverted Thinking, Extroverted Intuition, Introverted Sensing, and Extroverted Feeling, in that order of priority) 
While the generic description seemed to mostly match my own perception of myself, I didn't fully appreciate it till I read an essay found on this site:

http://www.intp.org/intprofile.html

The first thing I found interesting was that the author bothered to register a whole domain name dedicated to INTPs! While Paul James claims that only about 1% of the population are INTPs, I've seen other stats that claim more like 2-5%. Regardless of the actual number, it's a fairly small segment of society and one of the rarer personality types out there. 

Now, Mr. James is rather wordy and the site is not formatted for easy reading, but I will pull out a few quotes that I related to the most:

• ..." the INTP will become quickly bored with anything that he has successfully analysed to the point of understanding it. Once understood, it has nothing left to offer, once the satisfaction which comes with achieving the goal of understanding diminishes."
• "If an INTP decides to learn a skill, then it is very important for him that he reaches a sufficient level so that basic errors can be avoided. Errors made by others are to be expected and can be criticised."
• "Refined competency requires too much effort and has little attraction. It would require practice and that usually bores an INTP. Hence, it is common to see INTPs dabbling at many things, achieving competency, just enough to prove to themselves that they could become more proficient if they wished, but rarely actually bothering to refine their skills further."
• "INTP's put great weight on being individuals and essentially different from other people, who they often view as being too alike and too interdependent."
• "To know is everything, to do is a lower order necessity, if it is necessary at all. This breeds the potential for lazy aloofness. The INTP is often satisfied simply by knowing that he could do something if he wished."
• "an INTP will often make controversial, speculative points of argument, often annoying the discussion-partner, and make them in such a way as to leave the impression that he is very serious about what he says. In reality, the INTP is not actually even certain himself whether he really stands by what he is saying,.. The purpose then of his outspoken style of argument is to sharpen his own intuitive understanding by testing the reaction of the listener, and indeed to examine the logic of his own arguments in real time while speaking them out."
• "He must become the composer, the solo performer, the genius scientist who makes the unique discovery. If he is to be noticed at all, then he must be centre stage. If he can't be centre stage in an area of interest, then he must withdraw and resort to vitriolic criticism."
• "He can readily dream up jokes about almost any situation. Taking things out of context is the chief source of humour and many an INTP is a Monty Pythonite.... Needless to say, the humour of an INTP can be pretty zany and warped and may not be understood easily by others."
• "INTPs preference for intuitive perception (rather than action) with respect to people results in them resembling a chameleon. The INTP can fit into many different modes of behaviour, even contradictory ones, in order to get into the mindset of the other person. The goal is to gain enough intuitive data to analyse and assess the person."
• "where friendship develops rapidly, almost instantly, is when an INTP meets another INTP or similar temperament. Communication between such people can become extremely intense, leaving outsiders baffled."
• "Many of the most dedicated Computer Freaks are INTPs. Ultimately, INTPs tend to trust machines more than they trust people and may feel particularly at home in the realm of cybernetics."
• "If an INTP speaks, he must be listened to, for he believes his spoken opinions to be important. If not, he withdraws (at least in spirit) and assumes that the people who do not listen lack intelligence. Hence, INTPs make very poor leaders, for they depend too much on the attitudes of others."
• "Objects which lie unmoved for more than about 48 hours usually become invisible to the INTP, until such time as he has a use for them again."
• "INTPs tend to hoard items which help solidify the connection to the past. They find it very difficult to let go of anything they have collected (or indeed created) and which may have a nostalgic meaning."
• "INTPs often love keeping lists and databases in areas of interest, especially when the lists are associated with things of the past. Collecting periodical magazines or other media of interest is also a very common INTP trait."
• "The curious problem with any collection of an INTP is that he typically fails to enjoy it in the here and now. Items are stored away so that they can evoke this time at some point in the future, but such a point often never occurs. It may never occur because INTPs are always so mentally active that they continually delve into new interests, and continue to hoard items relating to these, so that they rarely allow themselves enough time to reflect on the ever expanding library of their past."
• "Photography is a classic interest of the INTP, which depends strongly on the Si - Ne combination, as well as on Ti for attention to technical detail." "INTPs may convey a very critical and impersonal approach in discussing images, which could lead to offence in some situations."
• "Another area of interest common to INTPs, where Si has a strong influence, is Music. INTPs are usually fascinated by music and may have deep and wide-ranging tastes."
• "INTPs are often drawn to dissonance." "If an INTP is forced to listen to simple harmonic music for a while, he usually can't wait to feel the relief provided by a few minutes of pure dissonance." 1.

Naturally, the essay contains much more information but this is getting to be a long post already. So I'll stop here. Needless to say I find the subject matter interesting (for now). How about you? Any other INTPs out there care to comment?

1. A description of the INTP Personality Type by Paul JamesOriginal version: April 5, 1999 
revised and published on the web: March 12, 2000

I haven't posted in a while since the summer has been getting busy, but today I took the opportunity to try shooting a car with the Novatron studio strobes. It was fun figuring out how to shape the light the way I wanted it to look. Overall, I'm pleased with the results, but there's always room for improvement.