I come to your house...I shoot all your cats.

First off, I have an amazing job. We have a spectacular rental department and just in... the D800. Normally I'm not a big digital shooter, but I'm always willing to try new things. This week, I borrowed Nikon's new power house of a camera and an 85mm lens with the intention of taking some portraits of friends and pets. For the first 45 minutes of having this camera in my hands, I hated it. I couldn't find the mode dial and I found this incredibly frustrating (After the camera and I had some time with each other, I found the dial organization more to my liking). This is where a little patience and reading comes in handy. I was out of my league and I knew it. But that's okay, learning happened and I ended up getting some pretty good shots.

It is incredibly easy to snap away with this camera. Because I had such a high volume of photographs, editing them down took a lot longer...but I couldn't help myself while I was shooting. I didn't have to worry about the cost of film or development, stopping to reload, or any of that. snap snap snap over and over again. As far as the image quality goes..this might sound a little silly coming from someone who shoots medium format film, but I'm not convinced I actually need a 36 megapixel camera..or probably about 80% of it's features. I'm normally easily pleased with just the basic functions of a camera. That said, I'm pretty sure you could program the D800 to make your morning coffee. Definitely out of my comfort zone, but I would LOVE more time with this camera.

and now for some pictures of cats:

I Digress...

Ive been talking about film for the last few posts, but I still haven't really mentioned the third camera I took with me to Fort Funston...and that would be the (gasp) digital point-and-shoot (Canon powershot s95) that I had just gotten second hand. This new to me camera was a HUGE upgrade from the digital camera I had been using which boasted a whopping 5 megapixels and nothing in terms of low light shooting. That said, I was really impressed with the image quality I got from such a small camera....aaaaaand maybe digital photography isn't so bad after all.

More from Fort Funston

A couple months back, I found this really rad sea foam green camera for sale in this totally hip shop off of Piedmont Ave in Oakland called Rare Bird (sidenote: I love this shop, and I buy things there all the time, just not cameras). It was outrageously priced, which I didn't know at the time (it was probably like $150). I couldn't justify the purchase. It was entirely made of plastic and super simple. Old yes..but still. So I told my work friend, Carol about it and she happened to have one that she bought on e-bay for about $8. She gifted the camera to me and its been love at first click ever since.

The savoy is basically a brownie from the seventies. A couple advantages to shooting this vs a real brownie from the day: its made of plastic. which means no rust or falling apart leather. AND its really light tight..except for the window on the back for the film counter, which I just keep covered with a bit of gaffers tape. There are some tricky points to this camera which have only worked in my favor since I'm not a very precise photographer. That said, if you are painfully careful with your picture taking, this may not be the camera for you. The lens is made of plastic, so it isn't super sharp but I really like the effect. The other thing is that the winder that advances the film doesn't stop at the end of the frame. This can also be really annoying because you have to keep your eye on the counter while you advance the film. This is not great for color shooters because that will probably lead to a light leak across the bottom of all your photographs. BUT if you just go with it and you don't mind a little wackiness, this is a really fun toy.

 The Savoy was really fun to take out to a site to shoot. Its fantastic for shooting outside in daylight (unless you have ultra fast film in it, I wouldn't recommend shooting at night). I have some earlier photographs to share, but they can wait. Here are some images from Fort Funston:

Fort Funston

It was a while ago, so I don't completely remember how this adventure came about but it was fairly productive for me...mainly because I went prepared with plenty of film and not one, not two, but three cameras. It took me a while to decide what I was going to take, but in the end I decided to leave my 35mm at home and took my twin lens reflex, a toy camera and my point and shoot. After hiking around all day, I felt like I had gotten some pretty good shots. It had definitely been a while since I'd been on an excursion like this but it felt good and sort of idyllic: I took my time evaluating exposures and framing my shot while the friend whose idea it was to take me along made sketches of the flowers that were all around us. I'll save some of the toy camera photos for next time, but for now here's some of what came out of my twin lens..