The Gathering (204/365)
One more from yesterday. Cleared for publication by the Department of Excessive Scrutiny.
2026
Desert Trail (203/365)
Two hours before sunset, I loaded up two bags of gear: three cameras, 5 lenses, two tripods, a big jug of water, and a very large towel to wipe sweat off with, and headed up the trail, trying to find a nice high vantage point for sunset. One backpack on your back and the other one worn on your front works pretty well. The hardest part of the evening was keeping sweat off the gear.
Sunset was a bust, just hardly any colors, and very few clouds in the Western skies. My saving grace was this big thunderstorm starting to brew off in the distance, which gave me a nice subject to focus on. It ended up petering out, leaving me with just about nothing, but by that time it was getting too dark, and it was time to head down. I wanted a bit of light because the area is rife with rattlesnakes. The last thing I need is to be out there alone and trying to deal with a rattlesnake bite.
I know there is a weather app out there that is focused on photographers and alerts you to good sunsets, fog, the Milky Way, and things of the sort. I would like to read some reports on how it’s working for people. All sunsets are beautiful, but only some are worth lugging gear up a hill in 100°F/38°C heat.
135 frames with the Z8 and I came away with about 7 that I like. Hopefully some good film shots as well.
The daily shot and the others in Stray Pixels are from the Nikon Z8. I also used the Rollei and the Nikon F3, but of course those will come later. I’m very interested to see how I did with my exposure settings; sunsets can be challenging.
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Shade, in Two Forms (202/365)
Struggling with adding more film photography to my allotted time, which reduces my daily photo stock. The past few days I’ve been shooting with my Rollei and the Nikon F3, but that doesn’t give me anything for my daily post. I still haven’t started developing my own film yet, and I haven’t been to the lab. This is a problem I need to sort out. Hopefully, when I get a good developing routine down, I’ll have more photos to work with.
When I go out for dedicated photography time, I’ve been carrying one digital and one film camera, which increases complexity and weight. Not sure if I should keep doing that or just make dedicated time for one style. All good problems but ones that need tweaking.
Click for Film Journey Update
Film Journey Update: Getting really close to trying my first few rolls of B&W developing. My nature makes me read and study far too much before I do something, so that is slowing me down but should minimize errors.
You can go super simple and use a developer/fixer combo (Cinestill DF96) and just be done, but I want to understand some of the chemistry and the pros and cons of different developers with the film I’m using: Ilford DDX, Rodinal, Bellini RDL, Pyro, Cinestill DF96… which Stop to use, which Fixer to use. Pros and Cons of using a WashAid or PhotoFlow. How hard is my water, etc. You don’t need to know any of that, but I want to. I’ve been watching YouTube videos, reading Darkroom books, reading blog posts, and mostly reading film and developer documentation. That has been the best source of factual information.
I’m getting closer and will probably start with a Paterson tank, AP reels, and Ilford DDX developer, Stop and Fixer. Next, I’ll try Adox Rodinal developer, then the Cinestill DF96 Developer/Fix combo, which seems to have mixed results, so I’ll use a roll of film with nothing too important on it.
I’ve had three sessions of practise in the dark bag transferring film onto the different reels. Which I will say is mandatory. You will find problems, I promise. Use gloves? Which reels do you like? What happens when the film binds on the reel? What are your options if you can’t do it and need to take a break? How sweaty do your hands get? Which scissors work best for you? 35mm and 120 are two different animals; you need to practice with both. Just bite the bullet and sacrifice two rolls of film and practice with them. Trust me, it will pay dividends.
I’m happy with my film scanning setup, so no issues there for now. Just need to shoot more film and start developing.
These Legs Ain’t Made for Walkin’ (201/365)
A Window Into The Night (200/365)
Reflections (199/365)
Two mornings in a row getting up at 1 A.M., my body clock time, has turned me into a zombie.
Still, I zombie on.
The Quiet Between Days (198/365)
Blue Morning (197/365)
Back on the road.
Desert Exhale (196/365)
I’ve shot these three palms many times before. They never disappoint.
Got a long overdue haircut today. I’ll never get over how good you can feel after a haircut. You take off grams of weight, but you just feel good; you feel as though things are back in place. Ready to go back to work tomorrow.
Hope it was a great day wherever you are, and I wish that after a haircut, “everything is right again” feeling on you!
Cheers!
Alien Bloom (195/365)
I really like the city’s utility box art program.
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Do Good (194/365)
Hope it was a great day!
Gate 15 (193/365)
I love big gate numbers. Maybe I’m just getting old, but some jetways have really small numbers, are hard to see, or have no markings at all. Boise does it right. Big and Bold!
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Aero Lines (192/365)
Very nice day today—smooth flying, great weather, no drama, and happy, friendly people.
Had a nice walk around BOI, but damn, it’s still way too hot: 103°F / 39°C.
iPhone shot and processed.
Stray Pixels Bonus: Three more pictures and no rant this time—LOL.
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You Shall Not Pass (191/365)
Back on the road. Short overnight in RNO.
BOI tomorrow. I haven’t had an overnight in Boise in a long time, looking forward to it.
Hope it was a good day.
Crown of Light (190/365)
I didn’t wake up to an account being hacked, so I made my zoo trip today. I could only make it an hour and a half in this heat. My Z8 was getting way too hot; it was a clear win for the F3. It just tanked along with no issues. Something to be said for yesterday’s technology.
Got some decent shots and shot a roll in the F3 with Ilford Vintage Tone Color film. Can’t show you those yet… film builds patients. It has been very good for me to shoot more film. It’s really slowing me down, manual focus, setting your aperture and shutter speed, reading the light, all give you time to study your subject. I like it. It brings back good memories, and the older I get, the more I like good memories.
19 more pictures in Stray Pixels and, warning, a little rant about zoos. If you don’t want to read a rant, just ignore the text and look at the pictures.
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I have to say it. I can’t not say it: I loathe zoos.
If I were in charge, zoos would have very high minimums for space and quality of life—so high that there wouldn’t be many zoos left. You can look into the eyes of these creatures and see the sadness. Yes, I know I’m anthropomorphizing, but I’m pretty sure I’m right. As an avid watcher of nature shows, I can’t be convinced these animals are happy and living full lives. They are not. These incredibly intelligent birds are kept in small cages, alone, while hordes of people gawp at them all day. It’s sad.
I know, I contributed to it today. And I’m not sure what to do about that. Do you support them so they have money to properly care for the animals, or stop going, hoping they go out of business? There is no good answer. We need stronger standards. I haven’t been to this zoo in many, many years. There will be many more before I return. My heart can’t take it.
I met a toucan‑sort‑of bird today that kept bringing me things and dropping them toward me. I would move from one side of his cage to the other, talking to him, and he kept bringing me things, looking at me. You know what I’m going to say, right? Yeah, I think he was trying to pay me for breaking him out. Or just wanted some interaction, something to do. He has no partner, no mate, nothing natural at all. There, I said it.
He was alone, with no space to fly or forage—no space for anything at all but to sit there all day in what turned out to be 115°F / 46°C. The last bird I photographed broke my heart. It just stared at you with soulless eyes. It looked defeated.
Yeah, I know, some zoos do good work and science, help rehabilitate animals, and breed endangered species, and that’s all wonderful. But these small enclosures and cages are unacceptable. And don’t even get me started on factory farms. If you can watch a video about how pigs, chickens, and cows are treated, then contribute to that… it all just makes me sad.
Light the Way (189/365)
Well, what a day. I had planned to get up early, take two cameras to the Wildlife Park, and wander around before the heat really ramped up. But I woke up to text messages and emails saying I had used airline miles to buy tickets on Qatar Airways, along with two credit card charges for additional mileage purchases. I logged in to my account and found 185k miles missing. The one damn account I did not have 2FA on. WTF OVER!
So it took all morning to clean that up. By the time I was done, it was quickly climbing toward today’s high of 113°F/45°C, so my photo walk plans went by the wayside.
So you get this mediocre iPhone shot instead. I do like the moody feel, though…
I’m aiming for the Wildlife Park photo walk tomorrow. Planning a digital-and-film camera walk. I was able to get out a short while today with the Nikon F3, trying to get through a 36-exposure roll of Ilford Ilfocolor 400 Vintage Tone. I wanted to start tomorrow with a fresh roll.
Hope your day went better than mine.
Click for Stray Pixels and a Film Journey Update
Well, I’m convinced that developing at home will save money and might just be fun. Might be fun, heck, I know it will be fun! I have such fond memories of working in the dark room, and this will be a tiny step toward that feeling.
I’m waiting on some C-41 chemicals, and I have my black-and-white chemicals to start with. I’ve watched numerous videos to refresh myself and have practiced rolling film onto the spools in the dark bag a number of times, both 35mm and 120. I’m sticking with the AP plastic spools for now. You can see what I’m using, what videos I watched, and other resources here.
I’m going to start with a few rolls of black-and-white film. Get comfortable with that, then dive into the temperature-sensitive C-41 developing.
I’m starting with rolls that don’t have anything precious on them to make sure I know what I’m doing. Any great shots will be brought to the local lab until I get my process down. Too many ways to screw it up.
I hope to get a blog post up soon about my process, what I used, and how it went. I’m guessing within a week or so, I’ll have time to start.
Equipment for this first round of B&W developing
ILFORD:
- Developer: DD-X
- Ilfostop
- Rapid Fixer
- Washaid
- Wetting Agent
Paterson Tanks, AP and Paterson spools/reels, dark bag, scissors, film retriever, hanging clips, Pec Pads, and distilled water.
The Day Begins (188/365)
Suspended in Blue (187/365)
World Class Clown Show (186/365)
Presented without comment.
Dark Skies (185/365)
Atmosphere (184/365)
The Waiting Room Time Forgot (183/365)
Went to a new doc today. He had the coolest, laid-back, 1930s-style office I’ve ever seen. And it was peaceful and empty!
It was the best medical office I’ve ever been to. With that said, you don’t want to have to go here; it means you have a nodule on your thyroid. Ya, you can pass on that.
Hope you had good light today!
ILFORD ILFOCOLOR Vintage Tone (182/365)
Happy Canada Day 🇨🇦
I probably shouldn’t write anything today.
I’m tired, didn’t get nearly enough sleep, and to top it off, I wasn’t happy with any of today’s photos. None of them.
My only bright spot was getting to futz around in my office all day, and my Ilford vintage tone film came in the mail. I’m excited to see what it produces. I promptly loaded it into the F3 and shot a few frames around the house. Maybe tomorrow, if it’s cool enough, I’ll take it out for a little outing after seeing the doc. I have to see a surgeon about whether he thinks it’s time to remove a thyroid nodule. Good times…
May you have good light!
Click for Stray Pixels
I wasn’t happy with any pictures today. I’m posting just because it’s what I shot today.
Hood Clouds (181/365)
Up at 1 A.M., worked for 8 hours, then deadheaded home. Long day, always good to be back home.
May you have good light and interesting subjects!
Hope (180/365)
Some days, I feel like I have a cathedral’s worth of hope; other days, I feel as though all hope is lost.
Hotel Glass (179/365)
Woke up early, opened the blinds, and thought the reflection was kind of cool.
Was stuck in a box all day and thought a nice walk outside would be nice. I only made it 2.5 miles/4 km in 96°F/35°C temps, with 57% humidity.
May your troubles be less, and your blessings be more, and nothing but happiness come through your door!
Deli - Beer - Ice (178/365)
I don’t do borders much, but I thought this pic looked good with one. You know, experimenting a little.
Hope it was a good day for everyone, and you took a few pictures.
Cheers.
Wild Palms (177/365)
Nikon Z8 • 500mm • ƒ/13 • 1/500s
Ran out of time today due to errands and honey-dos. Made it out to the backyard before sunset and tried to get some good motion-blur shots of some palm trees, but I wasn’t happy with the results. I got what I got.
Off to work on a four-day trip tomorrow. It’s always hard to leave home…
Figuring out Darktable is in the queue. Reading this site gives me some hope. All I ever hear about Darktable is that it’s deep and complex, with a learning curve like a hockey stick. All that means is you need good instruction. The Darktable.info project looks like it breaks it down into bite-sized chunks. Hopefully, when I get back into town, I can spend some time with it.
You know what I’m missing these days? Photography road trips. I used to take five-to eight-day road trips and do nothing but shoot pictures and weave a story out of them. I used to post those stories on Exposure, but I got tired of their pricing and the lack of an easy way to download my stories intact. So I canceled everything. My goal was to remake those stories on my website, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. It’s just so time-consuming. I’m itching for a long road trip just to explore and shoot pictures.
Well, if you couldn’t tell, I’m trying to write more under my pictures. Keeping it mostly in a photography vein. I really like it when I read other photo blogs that have a story/thoughts along with the photos.
Film Journey: I’ve been thinking a lot about photography class back in high school and our darkroom work. Made me research today what folks are doing for film developing at home these days. That was a rabbit hole! Found some good stuff, and boy, it hasn’t changed much. There are some nice kits out there, and for B&W film in particular, it’s pretty straightforward stuff. I’m blowing off the kits and may just get a super simple piecemeal setup and try a roll or two at home, what the heck. You can get everything you need for about $120 if you shop around. If you get good results, it wouldn’t take long to recoup your investment with the cost of developing. If you’re going to jump back into film, why not jump in with both feet? More on this foray later.
Bread Day (176/365)
Bread-making day today. We have a small local bakery close to us that we really want to keep in business, so we purchase most of our bread and croissants from them, but we still make some bread at home. It’s fun and something that my wife and I can do together. I say together, but she does most of the work. My main job is Sourdough Maintainer. I’ve made and maintained a sourdough starter since I was in my early 20s. Not sure why, I just always thought it was cool. I keep a small batch healthy and happy to use in bread and pancakes. If you want a resource for sourdough, here is a good one.
Worked most of the day in the office on learning more about photo scanning, posting about having a Life Manifesto on Cliff538.com, and I wanted to make a dedicated page for my foray back into film before I got too deep into the weeds and started to forget things. Just a page to list out my posts and the resources I have found worthy in this journey for anyone interested in exploring film or film scanning. Plus, it’s for me to look back and reference things. You can see it here.
I also really enjoyed Jasper’s: Kent 1, Kent 2, and Kent 3? series. Great photos from a part of the world I haven’t spent that much time in. And this great YouTube video about the very last Polaroid factory in the Netherlands. I had no idea how complex it is. Great behind-the-scenes look. It will help you understand why film is so expensive. Haven’t looked at Polaroid recently? Check out their cameras, film and printers. The factory now employs about 150 people; in its heyday, it was 1200+. The film is still supported in cameras that are 50 years old, kudos to Polaroid for always supporting their legacy cameras. Blue pasta goop, pudding, roller pressure, aging, spread factors, it’s incredibly complex to maintain legacy cameras with the new film. You get to see the old 8x10 peel-apart machinery, which they only run from time to time, hence the perpetual shortage. They love 8x10 and say they have no plans to stop producing it. The machines are old and finicky and in desperate need of an overhaul.
For a cool Polaroid website, check out Dan’s Polaroids.
Long Live Film 🎞️
Pastel Evening (175/365)
Nikon Z8 • 24mm • ƒ/4.0 • 1/400s • ISO 800
It’s raining here. It’s 104°F/40°C and raining. Real nice.
Yesterday it was 113°F / 45°C, and it was miserable. From the news, it sounds like we’re not alone. The heat has settled in everywhere, and summer has arrived like a blowtorch.
This is a shot from yesterday that I just got around to editing in Lightroom.
Thanks for stopping by.
Click for Stray Pixels and a Film Journey Update
Film Journey: Another update to home digital camera film scanning. I read the user manual for Negative Lab Pro and its scanning recommendations, and I tried a second batch of scans. I think they turned out much better. I’ll show a couple of shots from yesterday’s post, plus a few more, that show the difference between the lab scans and my scans. It surprised me and made me realize that the lab isn’t always the best.
I will say that color scans are the hardest. B&W is pretty darn easy; there is no white balance to deal with, and you’re basically just adjusting brightness, contrast, black clip, and white clip, unless you use toning.
I’m most surprised at the sunset pictures. The lab scans came out really dark, and I thought I had just screwed up my metering, which metering for that shot is tough with the bright sky and dark street, but I wasn’t even going to process those shots, and I’m glad I did. When I scanned them and used Negative Lab Pro with just standard settings, they were not that dark at all. It just shows me that whoever scans your pictures, they, or the software, is making a judgment call on your negative. I think I’d rather be making those decisions.
I’m rather enjoying the process and creative outlet. Looking forward to getting some good pictures to work with now.
Of note, I’ve been using Negative Lab Pro for negative conversions, but I just found another way from CineStill Film. They have LR, PS, and ACR presets that do the conversion. I downloaded them, but haven’t had a chance to play with them yet. You can watch a YouTube video on how to use them here.
The first seven shots are professional lab scans from my local lab. The next seven are my scans. Ignore the quality of the shots, I just wanted to shoot a couple of rolls of film to test the Rolleiflex and my metering. You can compare them yourself. I’m working on getting that cool image reveal slider on my blog, but it’s a bit more complex than I thought. It would be nice to have the slider and see the lab scan vs my scan in the same shot. Hopefully soon.
The learning continues!
My second try with new knowledge and tweaks to the software and camera settings.
