FLICKR FRIDAY Project116*3: "40 Years"

The first upload for project 116*3 brings us back to Anderson Japanese Gardens, the site of C M Y K's (M)agenta Forest. This time standing in front of the iconic waterfall my Mother and Father - In - Law. On Orthodox Easter no less, this happy couple was celebrating 40 years of marital bliss. I don't say that lightly, because after spending a decade plus around them through highs and lows, deaths and births, good times and bad ones these two have had each other's back...when they aren't at each others neck. I can only wish to have a marriage as long and well planted as theirs with my wife. Congrats to the both of you!

Yasou!

&

Χριστός ἀνέστη!

Websites every photographer needs to visit and bookmark

Comin’ at you on a beautiful Thursday…..I mean Sunday—UPDATE——— SCRATCH ALL THAT WE BACK ON THURSDAYS NOW——— (because my hay fever/sinus infection got the better of me). I want to reveal some of my tricks over time and in this edition of the Bendersama Blog I want to focus on some websites I personally still use or value greatly. These site started me on my photography path, but moreover they are great tools to use in tandem with your learning from experience, workshops, or schooling. Let’s crank these out, however I’ll state this now; while they are/were useful to me, results may vary for you.

Photography Social Social Media Sites

FLICKR

Some will tell you that this site WAS a great source of fellow photographers talking shop about gear, tech issues, clients, and composition. the same would tell you that this site is dead and should be written off. I’ll tell you now that with the recent Flickr buyout by SmugMug, and the Verizon buyout of Yahoo, no long will statements like:

"There's really no such thing as professional photographers anymore." - Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer 2013

..will no longer be tolerated. Make no bones about it, as this site was crashing and burning to knowingly subpar photographers and Second Life fursonas (don’t ask…), 500px picked up where Flickr dropped the ball. How so ever why I will never back a site like 500px, despite the pretty little site’s polish, is because of the privacy issues I’ve had in the past to stalkers and harassers. I’ll tolerate harsh criticism, but in the past I’ve had a couple people knowingly imitate, fervently follow, and unapologetically go over many personal lines. To that end I’ve had a back and forth with admins of 500px and their response is “Sorry, nothing we can do.”. Not even a block button coded for a profile; but over on Flickr you can not only do everything with a community of users and if you ever have a problem with one of them you CAN block them.

Now I said this before, but it bears worth repeating, I stand by Flick and the new wave of REAL PHOTOGRAPHERS that come in hungry to share and socialize. It will take time, but when Flickr returns to greatness I’ll still be there, and I suggest you to go there, post your work, and make some friends.

Informative Equipment Reviews

When I started out I looked at sites like fredmiranda.com and thought the users smugness towards a lens being slightly soft or heavier than they cared for. That was when I didn’t know that weight over time would be an issue, or the fact that a certain zoom lens extended and how this would cause issues. It find it now that FREDMIRANDA.COM is a valuable resource of boards in a time and place photography boards of “quality” are in short supply. One that I did and still do respect and admire is DPREVIW.COM. It has grown exponentially, but it still keeps up with their “lens data” review which is my bread and butter. Every lens has a “sweet spot” and DPReview’s lens data helps illustrate it in cool graphs and colors easy to understand. For example (popping out in a new window) you can see that the “lens data” on Canon’s 40mm pancake lens, on a Canon EOS 7D body, will show that while the vignette on the lens @ f/2.8 on the corners is a little soft, it goes away at f/4 and beyond. Also, the optimal sharpness of the lens tends to side on f/8 and anything under, while useable, tends to be soft under f/8. That would leads someone to understand the optimal setting for the 40mm f/2.8 pancake lens is f/8 (which is kinda rough as on average sweet spots tend to be one stop under the fastest setting). Beyond me explaining this you can see it on the graphs and come to that conclusion yourself, which is why I’m so big on dpreview.com! Another great site is Photons to Photos! This site is new to my bookmarks but it’s really rising up the charts as a data reviewer. The niche behind this site, beyond auditing the next site I’ll mention, is to offering a clear representation of the data gathered on each camera’s dynamic range at any specific film speed (ISO). The line graph shows points where the dynamic range also falls off at a specific ISO. This offers you the best range to use your camera, and where to expect the IQ (image quality) dip at higher ISOs. Of course you can compare cameras’ dynamic range when deciding on upgrades or brand transition. The site that this needs to audit occasionally is DXOMark. Now I would have kinder things to say about the site, but with the rating system, their slow-to-lab-review new lenses and camera bodies, and their disconnect from solid photographer gear to cell phone sensors MAY be ahead of the times, but does nothing for me as a resource.

News, Creative, and Educational Sites

If you waltz away from this blog with anything, let it be STROBIST. Strobist is the BEST site on how to learn lighting, types of lighting, and lighting gear, and set-ups… to those new to photography the etymology of “Photo Graphy” is literally “Light Drawing” so learning light is paramount. Short of this site another fun site to visit is ThePhotoblogger. It’s articles on creative photography may be what you need to jog the creative juices. Another creative and newsworthy site is fStoppers. This site, in the beginning was the buzzfeed of photography sites (which I don’t rank personally very high). I’ve been back and forth over a few years and while there are a handful of millennial hipster authors, the quality has gotten better with time and should be, at its core an interesting readthrough. Lastly I want to touch on the rumor mill sites. Canon Rumors and Nikon Rumors really help give you a peak at what’s on the horizon for their respective company’s tech.

Now that should cover all my DIGITAL photography resources, my film adds a few more vintage lens reviewers, and the addition of 4chan’s /p/ board (if you can tread through the flamewars and smug), reddit’s r/photography and r/analog subbreddits. Sites like the ones just listed aren’t really MY recommendations as they don’t cater entirely to the new photographer or those not savvy with the ways of internet culture. I would finish this off by saying that a resources value is relative to the person using it, and while there is other sites and communities you could go with or mention, the ones I just listed will take you far if you delve and only if you delve into each site. Best of luck, and I hope these links help!

First film camera, film vs digital, & ASA (Analog Season Adventure)

  Anybody who has been following me knows that I was gifted and refurbished a Hasselblad 500C.  The 500C was the camera used for C M Y K (still available at the STORE until Winter), but few know that most recently I picked up a Canon AE-1, the camera that really started it all.  Way back in 1999 and 2000 I work at a pizza place.  This helped pay rent and fund a defunct cable access show I was interested in writing and filming with a group of guys I recently met.  For a number of reasons it failed, but it was necessary.  During our promo and marketing photoshoot I worked with a friend who was starting a legitimate photography business herself.  I was looking at her work and was really attracted toward the (what would be known eventually as "bokeh") background blur and use of shallow depth of field.  I then, as a hobbyist, started looking for a camera to just screw around with.  My boss at the pizza shop let me borrow his Canon AE-1, and along with researching how to properly expose a photo I was free to just shoot whatever, wherever, whenever.  Many years later, I found several film negatives.  Here's a couple from the roll I can share. 

  I say "this is what I can share" because the other photos have people in it and I don't have their permission to show their likeness.  None of these have anything illegal, but I doubt an ex-girlfriend or some people I don't even talk to anymore would want to see themselves magically show up on a blog online, so I bow out from showing them.  None the less given the opportunity to use my boss's camera over the summer was a watershed moment in my life as that was when I wanted a camera of my own to shoot more often and eventually for money as a business.  

  I was asked once on Facebook; "Hey Bender, do you prefer film or digital?". That requires a good and somewhat lengthy explanation, so Nathan, here it goes... (finally)
  Ask an audiophile about vinyl or the best quality of audio and it will be a polarizing answer.  While the analog sound gives the fidelity you want/need digital HD is similar but lack the comfy feels vinyl brings.  Funny thing about that though as a counterpoint, it really is only a matter of time before technology catches up, and with that analogy somewhat explained...
 I learned everything I knew about film through my camera's viewfinder and built-in light meter.  Other cameras wouldn't give me that opportunity if it wasn't baked in, so I consider myself lucky in that respect.  I would have some severely under or over exposed shots if my camera didn't teach me how to compensate the shot through shutter speed or aperture control.  When I went to digital I already had that knowledge, but this time I was given immediate satisfaction as I could see how the shots came out right after the shutter snapped the photo.  In short, I learned on film and I perfected on digital.  That doesn't answer the question but it should shed some light on my preference.  Digital has its place when taking photos for a business, shooting for an engagement, or capturing headshots.  Immediate satisfaction and the ability to capture, edit, and send out a photoshoot in less time than it would take for film is an unbelievable convenience.  I would add that even the picture quality is top notch in modern day digital cameras.  How so ever, nothing goes you those comfy feels quite like analog film.  Film would be obsolete if it wasn't for people like Peter Lik (who shoots medium format panoramic film), or David Brookover (who shoots large format film).  These people know like I know that film will never die because digital can't replicate film in certain respects to clarity or color for larger than 35mm format.  You could argue saying it's the film, not the camera and in digital replicate it (film's look),  but it's really beyond that.  Shooting analog, in any format, is just simply a more personal, enjoyable, and therapeutic experience over digital, which seems almost cold.  Again, in riding the line, digital is great!  Digital, no matter how you nit-pick, has gotten to and is advancing over film photography as a whole when it comes to color, resolution, and fidelity.  Where it falters for now is in Medium and Large format photography, which to most (non-photographers) is unimportant and doesn't apply to them, which is fine. So if forced to make a recommendation; as 35mm and smaller formats go, go with digital; but in medium and large format photography, film's benefits outweigh digital.

  I hope this answers you question Nathan!  This brings me to a smaller announcement I wanna throw out there; I'm going back to film.  This won't take over my digital photography 9 to 5, rather it's a seasonal (Summer into late Fall)  kick back and fall back to my original analog roots.  These shots will be shared online through my recently re-established Flickr account, and choice shots may find it's way to the store. Either way this first year of film will see me use the following films.

35mm
-ILFORD XP2 ASA 400
-Fujifilm Provia 100F
-Fujifilm Natura 1600
-Kodak Gold 400

120
-Kodak Portra 160
-Fujifilm Velvia 50
-Fujifilm Velvia 100
-Lomography Turquoise 100-400
-ILFORD Delta 3200

Several rolls of the films listed will keep me busy for a bit, and I look forward to going analog over the Summer, but more importantly going analog into Disneyland....
  October, I have a family trip planned as we go back, back to California for baptisms.  While there, we (the family) plan on spending a few days in my "laughing place", Disneyland.  This family vacation will not entirely or to great length be documented digitally, which should make for some really creative photos.  I'm pumped, if not for Disneyland for giving myself the freedom to do whatever in film photography without feeling like I NEED to nail this shot of said person place or thing.  So swing on back next week, cause I have a questionnaire for you readers.  This will help the site and me have a roadmap to expectations into the future! Thinks for stopping by, and have a great rest of your week!