Starting the "365 Day Photo Challenge" thing that everyone is doing...

Taken with my new Pentax K10D and the kit lens. 1/365.

My dog Bailey. K10D and kit lens. 2/365.

More Photoshop.

Just some simple digital dusting, messing with levels, fixing my scans, some digital dodging. Nothing amazing. Actually new pictures might come this weekend. I have finals this week and am shooting to borrow one of my school's Nikon film scanners so I can stop having to scan darkroom prints.

Photoshop

Instead of taking some more pictures or developing my backlog of film I am just editing the old ones. These are just some basic edits as I am still a Photoshop noob. It really improved these shots as either the color was off or I was unable to crop enough when taking the picture originally. I still firmly believe that a real photographer should not rely on post-processing to make great photos, but uses it to make an average shot good.

Electricity

Light and Dark

Reflections

Borrowing My Brother's Camera

With some persuading I got him to loan me his Pentax *ist Ds to take to school for Photo Club. I have some interesting portraits also, but people probably do not want them posted...

Crow on the way to lunch.

Abstract of Christmas Trees.

My *new* Pentax Spotmatic F

It needs some work. I plan to clean it up and recover it blue or red. It came with a 85-205mm Vivitar lens. Bought it to get into M42 lenses with a camera from the era. Will probably buy the M42 adapter for my K-mounts anyways.

Shots from a Jaunt in Seattle

I took this on a trip the photo club of my school had to Seattle. I mostly did it to get out of a day of school. I believe it was in February or March of 2010...

 

Shaped Bokeh DIY Project

I was introduced to the idea of shaped apertures while researching Lensbabies. I then found this link almost six months ago. Tonight I finally made some shaped aperture cover things. The shapes of the little covers turns anything bright and out-of-focus in your image into the shape cut out. Most people do hearts.

You will need black cardstock (I only had colored...), scissors, a lens, a compass, a ruler, and a pencil.

The size of the shape/hole you cut out is dependant on the lens you use. The way to determine the size is to take your focal length and divide it by your maximum aperture. In my case I have a 50mm lens with an max. aperture of 1.7, so the hole can be no bigger than 24.4mm.

My first shape is a square, inspired by a 80s Volkswagen Jetta ad. The front of your shaped aperture cover has to be big enough to fit over your lens.

This is the square one completed and "mounted." The ugly black was my attempt to prevent light coming in the sides and ghosting. My later covers have "hoods" to cover the gap.

This is my triangle cover. As you can see the "hood" looks a lot better. This size of the "hood" is the perfect length as too long and you loose the shaped bokeh effect.

This is my asterisk cover, inspired by the meter-lock indicator of the camera it is on. The "hood" on this one is a tad too deep.

Here they are all together.

The Coast in Color

I believe these photos are on Rite-Aid 400 film, or the lab made my Kodak super contrasty. Taken on the Oregon coast at a turnout.

 

Time for Some Color

I am not a fan of having to get color processed. It costs a lot more to me than developing black and white as I use my school's darkroom for b&w. I also only have used consumer color film, Kodak Ultramax 400 and Rite-Aid 400. Kodak Ektar 100 is on my wishlist of film to try/use.

I missed the focus a  bit and this is a third-party zoom so it is soft anyways...

I love the bokeh on this lens.
SMC-K 55mm f1.8

Vacation Snaps

I am slowly developing and printing all my black and white. These are all scans of prints as I am too poor for a real film scanner.