The Personal Journal of James Vornov
I saw the light hitting this fence while driving towards home. I pulled over to the curb, got into position for the image by inching the car up and shooting through the passenger side window.
A little relief from the organic forms I’ve been working on.
Over the years that I’ve been taking photographs, I hit on equipment combinations that just sing for me. Clearly it’s a combination of camera, lens, subject matter of the moment, and post processing tools.
First time around it was a Minolta SRT 201, 50mm manual focus lens, low ISO black and white film, Ilford mostly, and fixed contrast paper with glossy finish.
Later it was an Olympus Stylus (the fixed focal length version) and color print film- from the drugstore.
The Sigma DP1 has worked very well. but there are obstacles. It’s found a place for urban travel photography. The Leica M6ttl with the 35mm f/2 Summicron with black and white film is perfect for a different kind of urban travel photography, different from the DP1. It’s nice to have both since they respond best in different lighting conditions.
My DSLRs have been good general purpose cameras, but both the Olympus E-1 and the Nikon D80 put obstacles in the process. I loved the image quality of the E-1 with the 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 lens, but it was slow to respond when setting up a shot. The D80 metering system and I didn’t agree. And I had no lens like the Olympus to go to. It was the 24mm f/2.8D with it’s normal view and chromatic aberration that mostly lived on the camera.
The D300 with the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 sings. Post processing in Capture NX2 with the NIK filter set is fast and can get me to almost any vision of the print I want within a few minutes. It’s wide enough, it’s long enough and it focuses close enough to do macro style photography.
It feels to me like I’ve arrived somewhere regarding these tools.
There was a period of about 3 months between returning from our New Hampshire vacation until about two weeks ago where I felt that all of my attention was completely and fully committed, crowding out photography in particular. There was the start of the school year for the kids, the Jewish Holidays, work of course, but then there also, very importantly was the US election.
On long trips in the car for work (up and back to Philadelphia and New Jersey), I would flip the Sirius radio between CNN, Fox and toward the end Bloomberg and CNBC, for news. Listening to stump speeches. Analysis.
Then it was over and the mental space returned. More fitness work. Pulling out the camera. Music back on the radio.
Working with primes, I had a simple way of composing. I looked through the view finder and moved around until what I saw looked like a photograph. With an SLR, the view envelopes you. My choice of lens was set by how close I wanted to get to my subject and how much depth I wanted to portray. Most of the time, the normal lens of 35mm to 50mm reflected my visual sense, so I felt comfortable in that range.
With the Leica, time enters into the shot to a greater degree because it’s easier to see around the outside of both the camera itself and the actual picture frame because of the mechanics of the camera.
Shooting with midrange zooms now, I’ve had to think about how to approach the choice I was holding in my hands. One idea is to choose a focal length for the subject and then put the camera to the eye. Kind of like having multiple primes available instantly.
Over the past few months I’ve developed a different way of working. I tend to keep the zoom at its widest view as I approach a subject. I explore through the view finder, approaching as if I had a wide prime on the camera. If I see detail in the scene that I want to isolate, I move into zoom mode and fill the frame. It’s led me to longer focal lengths and tighter shots. My mantra, courtesy of Vincent Versace is: “Own the frame”. Instead of waiting for the photograph to assemble in the viewfinder, I find myself more actively creating the image because I can play with position and focal length subtly and simultaneously.
My realization that I had changed my approach came from looking over my images from the last two weeks and running across this from Moose Peterson:
Nikon 17-55 f/2.8 AF-S: “I use the 17-55 mainly for landscapes and portraits. My preferred way of using it is getting close physically to the subject and than using the focal length variability to isolate the subject while telling its story. This means that quite often I’m using the lens wide open if not real close to it.”
I’m very happy with the Tamron midrange zoom so far. This image has a beautiful tonality range and real dimensional rendering that I like. I’m reminded of the Zuiko 14-54 that I had for the old E-1.
You can’t go wrong with this lens for an APS-C Nikon.
While in the camera store this afternoon, I also bought a new camera bag. It’s the fourth bag that I’ve ever purchased. The first goes back to my Minolta SRT-201 days, a little Sundog that was great for a small film camera and an extra prime. I think that I may have put the Olympus E-1 in it from time to time, but the E-1 basically just had the really nice Zuiko 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 on it all the time (28-108 equivalent). I’ve bought two camera bags since, but neither has seen real service. I picked up a Mountainsmith waistpack on sale at Campmoor in NJ once, but it seemed to be all padding and too small inside for it’s bulk. I took it out once or twice, but it mostly moved from car to house holding two lenses and a flash. I moved up in size with a bigger Kata bag, but it was just a bigger waste. I held my full nikon kit, but again just seemed too bulky to be useful as anything other than a way to transport kit from one site to another.
I have a little collection of Domke wraps that cushion equipment enough to put it into whatever I’m carrying for travel- laptop backpack, currently a nice Patagonia Lightwire or hiking pack. My philosophy has been that the camera should either be out and being used or put away.
One of the problems is that these packs are all too big for daily use. I have a small list of items that pretty much go everywhere with me:
1. iPhone
2. Small notebook
3. Fountain Pen
4. Camera.
I can fit 1, 2 and 3 into pockets. I the winter, the DP1 can go into a jacket or coat pocket, but not at other times. No way to bring the Nikon DSLR other than hand carried. Which I can do if there’s just one lens, sitting on the camera.
I’ve looked for a small simple messenger style bag over the years for a DSLR plus one lens. This Lowepro Terraclime 100 is a small, unpadded messenger bag that comes with a Domke-like camera wrap. It looks like a perfect fit for either two extra lenses plus flash if lens number three is on the camera and the camera is not in the bag or for a camera plus one lens.
Lets see whether it increases my image output by making it easier to have the camera with me more often.
After a morning at the dentist, I stopped by our best local camera store, Service Photo. I had a look through their used midrange zoom collection including all of the usual suspects. I ended up walking out with the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8. It’s compact, fast and, in the non-HSM version I bought, very inexpensive compared to any other f/2.8 alternative.
It’s not a VR lens, but then I’m not so sure that I’ve gotten any real boost in sharpness in this focal range given that I hand hold relatively well down to 1/30th second.
Here’s one of the first session with the lens in one of my favorite spots for quck shots, a local 1 acre conservatory.
My photographic output has been much less over the last few months. Whether symptom or cause, my cameras have not been accompanying me unless it’s been specifically for travel, in which case the Sigma DP1 now automatically comes along.
I’ve seen some very nice light over this time, but I didn’t have a camera with me. I started once again trying to decide whether there was any reasonable way to carry a camera with me more consistently and even started checking out smaller compacts that would be more easily pocketable than the DP1.
In the end, I decided that the problem was that I’m lacking photographic goals right now. With the end of the calendar year in sight, I’ve spent some time looking over my images in Aperture, looking at what equipment has been most productive for me and thinking about how I use my collection of equipment.
The DP1 is my business travel camera, sometimes being traded off with the Leica M6 when I’ve shot Black and White in cities, mostly London. My most popular images on Flickr are DP1 images, whether because of the image quality, the subject matter or the level of interest in the camera. It’s clear to me that when Sigma offers an update with a faster lens, better low light capability and faster operation, I’ll be a buyer. Or perhaps we’ll see the equivalent from Olympus or Nikon in the near future. With a new Leica M8 now going for $4000, it could be that I might eventually go to a digital M.
The D300 gets used with either the 24-120mm VR or with a kit of the 12-24mm f/4 plus the 105mm f/2.8 Micro. I’ve grown fond of using the 5x zoom of the 24-120mm, but the rendering quality of the lens doesn’t suit me well. While images tend to sharpen up well enough in post processing, it is not a crisp, high contrast lens. Yet having it on the camera, it tends to displace my better lenses, since the focal lengths are completely or in part covered by the superzoom.
I’m going to try to use the 300 with a bit more purpose now. Either with the 24-120mm for casual shooting, easy enough when I’m walking out to my car and not having to walk much with the big camera and big lens, or with the 12-24mm plus 105mm kit for a serious shooting session.
It seems I really don’t need anything longer than the 120mm for now and I might even consider swapping it for the newer Nikon 16-85 VR which is reputed to be a sharper lens.
The two primes, the 24mm f/2.8 and 50mm f/1.8 are small and fast, but I don’t see how they fit into this plan right now. I loved them on the D80 since I could have a small, light DSLR kit. I’m used to the larger D300 at this point and have the DP1 when I want to go very light. And I don’t get along with the evaluative metering on the D80, while the D300 and DP1 are generally right the first time.
Nearly two months without a photo upload or post here. The combination of the Jewish holidays and the election seemed to squeeze out any air for photography. With the election now decided, I regret that I missed some of the best light and fall color. Here’s my penence: a black and white conversion from a D300 image. When I grabbed it this afternoon in the overcast light, I saw it as monochrome, so I immediately converted it.
This with the much maligned Nikon 24-120mm zoom, which I find sharpens up nicely.
