SoFoBoMo update
I’m plugging away at it. I’m not too happy about my theme, but I’m stubborn enough to persevere. My theme is Spring (yeah, me and a zillion other people, right?), but I’ve made it harder by adding an additional constraint: I’m only using my Nikon Coolpix 4500. My reasoning was this: I recently spent about a month shooting almost nothing but film, using a variety of weird and quirky cameras. I got used to working with weird constraints. And I sat thinking about my coolpix, yeah, it was slow, but it has an awesome zoom range and a great macro capability! I mean, aperture priority on the coolpix has to be at least as fast as me pulling out a lightmeter, taking a reading, dialing in the settings and shooting, right? Plus I feel like I never took much advantage of the long end of the zoom range with the Coolpix, and I was hoping to rectify that now that I’ve had some experience grooving with the 135mm telephoto lens for my OM-1.
Alas, after getting the first couple days worth of photos back, I have to come to the conclusion that the image quality of the Coolpix completely blows. There, I said it. I used to not care about color noise, but over the past couple of years I’ve really started to care about it and sadly, the Coolpix has a ridiculous amount of color noise, even at iso 100. Plus I just dropped it a couple of days ago and now I have a fresh new crop of hot pixels I have to deal with. So I’m converting almost all of the pics over to black and white, because I cannot handle the color noise, and I’m using lightroom to deal with the hot pixels.
Now that I think of it, I need to be more precise about how I feel about my theme. I like my theme of Spring; I’m having a fun time forcing myself to take a few pictures every day that really connect with the environment and what is going on around me. In fact, just thinking about that connection with nature that I’ve been experiencing is making me happy! The only problem is the fricking camera I’m using. Plus the batteries keep dying, because I still have my original batteries for it, which are rechargables and going on six years old. So I only get about 20 shots off before I have to replace the battery. I find myself regularly carrying around at least three cameras: the Coolpix (and a crapload of crummy batteries), the 20D for when all of the batteries die on the Coolpix, and my Olympus XA, which is nearly always in my pocket these days. That may seem like a lot of cameras, but when I was shooting mainly film, I would carry around at least four: the XA, my OM-1 (with an extra lens), the current quirky toy or project camera I was having fun with, and the 20D just in case I needed to shoot something that I needed immediate output for, and/or in case I ran out of film or had the wrong kind of film in my cameras.
Even with the reduced camera load, SoFoBoMo is a lot of work. Plus it is a whole new photo project to work on, and I’m a little upset that it displaced a number of other photo projects I was in the middle of. I have rolls of film in quirky cameras that I need to finish off and develop, but film is such a different mindset than digital, it’s hard to flip back and forth.
Alright, this post is already long. I’ll have to shorten my Leica fondling story from this weekend: it was a just about mint M3 with 50 cron and 90 cron and oooh, I was salivating. Way, way out of my price range, the thing still had the factory wax seal, so I wouldn’t buy it even if I had the $$, since I’m looking for a Leica I can actually shoot with, but still. Damn sexy. That viewfinder defies the laws of physics.
April 7th, 2008 at 10:08 am
And you are the one who used to shoot at iso 400 with the Coolpix. I could never stand to shoot anything but 100. As bad as the Coolpix pictures look compared to the ones from my new SLR, many were still good enough to be published and people are still constantly wanting to know what camera I used to take such good pictures.
By the way, are the batteries you are using the ones I gave you after they wore out on me several years ago? Even my newer ones are toast and they never lasted long to begin with. I think that is the biggest benefit to my new camera: the batteries last days rather than minutes.
April 7th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Ha, I knew you were going to mention the 400 iso. Yes, I know it can take fantastic pictures, some of my best photos were shot with this camera. And yes, I’m using my old batteries and some of your old batteries. Actually, at the moment, I’m using up my stock of non-rechargable 2CR5 batteries because they are more reliable. Honestly, I’m going to finish this project, buy a macro lens and shelf this camera.
April 7th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Your going to shelf your Coolpix while I’m contemplating buying another one off of Ebay. I’ll have to see how sick I get of hauling around the new SLR all summer. If it is too much, I may just have to get another Coolpix for my longer hikes and backpacking.
April 8th, 2008 at 1:56 am
Haha, you should look into getting the sensor replaced while repair places still might have parts for them.
April 8th, 2008 at 9:45 am
I was just thinking of getting one from the many people out there who buy cameras and barely ever use them. Mine has been used so much that I’m afraid anything and everything could go on it at any time.