rockstar rick

I’ve been learning about the wonderful world of online advertising. I’ve found that there is a lot of details I didn’t know about how things work, even if I had a vague sense of it all. I mean, I understand that advertisers pay publishers and all–it’s just all of the minutia with which I’m acquainting myself.

So as an experiment, I will post a picture of mine (from flickr.com) using adbrite.com’s BritePic service. Here goes:

Ok, so that didn’t go too well. I’ll mess around more later.

Here’s the pic anyway.

I took some pictures of the moon tonight–I think some of them will turn out. Just did it in my backyard. I was frustrated by how little light comes through my viewfinder on my 35mm camera. It will definitely require more experimentation to photograph other objects.

I took this shot using Fuji Velvia 100F. The colors in the slide look wonderful. I don’t know how I didn’t start shooting with slide film sooner. I scanned it in, and it needed only a little color adjustment. Here’s a link to it on deviantart.com, or enjoy the flickr link below.

I just got back from a trip to Brazil where I shot a whole lot of pictures. I think the grand tally came to 21+ rolls of film. In an effort to save money, I sent the bulk of the slide film to Fuji for development using prepaid mailers. It’s an exercise in patience for me, as it takes a few weeks time to get them back.

I also shot a couple rolls of Kodachrome (which I’ve never used before), and since there’s only one lab in the world that processes K-14 (the development process for Kodachrome), you have to use mailers. I look forward to seeing those slides too. I’ll post links here when I get them back and scanned.

Before the trip I also bought a used Minolta SRT-101, and I’ve been pretty happy with it. It’s more work to shoot with than my XG1, but it is fully mechanical (one of the last that Minolta made). That’s important because as manual as my XG1 is, it will not function without the battery. The SRT-101, however, only needs to battery for the internal light meter to function. This will come in handy for long exposures (such as is required for astrophotography), as I won’t have to worry about the battery running low and the shutter closing (the XG1 needs battery power to keep the shutter open).

Perhaps more useful for astrophotography is the mirror lock up feature. When doing astrophotography, vibration is a concern as it can make long exposure shots blurry. The mirror lockup allows the photographer to prepare the shot, lock up the mirror, wait for vibrations to settle, and then trip the shutter.

Though for me, all this is speculation because I haven’t yet done any astrophotography with my telescope–where vibration would be most noticeable. I still need a t-adapter for my Meade ETX-90.

So much to do.

I’ve always enjoyed photography. I remember doing one of those sale drives in elementary school to earn what looked like a nice 35mm camera. It turned out to be pretty cheap, but I used it anyway and got more mileage out of it than most kids would have.

When I was 21, I bought a Minolta XG-1 from a pawn shop so I could have a camera with me when I went to Jerusalem to study abroad. It’s a nice camera that took great pictures, and it still does. My last month in Jerusalem I took a roll of slide film and photographed the BYU Jerusalem Center. I got them developed and put them away except to look at on a couple occasions.

Just recently, I started using our scanner’s transparent media adapter to scan negatives, and I wondered what those slides would look like. It’s true what Philip Greenspun says at photo.net: “Color slides make you feel like a hero.” Seeing my slides inspired me to shoot slide film during my up and coming trip to Brazil.

I went and bought some Fuji Velvia 100F. My dad suggested I do some tests, by bracketing varying exposures. I took those to the lab today and I’m excited to get them back. I’ll post them here if they’re worth looking at.