I thought it was time for just a bit of change of pace, and so I've uploaded I 'street scene' type image I shot during Carnaval the last time I was in Bahia(northern Brazil).  This was shot w/my Contax at night, under natural lighting, exp. @F2.8 w/Fuji NPZ.  I don't shoot a much 35mm anymore let alone street scenes on account of my reflexes are going and now when my eye tells my brain to fire the shutter, it happens many times too late.

But there's something to be said for catching simplicity/the spontaneous/whatever's there, it's always refreshing and a good change of pace from being esoteric.  Anyway..............this is called for obvious reasons, 'HisBabyGirl'.

Note me as another satisfied customer of Dean Jones, the Australian camera-hacker and innovator.

Late last year, while tooling around a Tulsa flea-market with my pal Bruce Appel, I stumbled upon a nice Polaroid 110B and purchased it. After making contact with Dean Jones, I forwarded both camera and down payment to Mr. Jones. In March 2008, I received my IRS refund and completed the transaction with Dean, who set about converting my camera. Yesterday, June 23rd, my Razzle was received at the post office, and a quick shot put past the Fujinon 150/6.3 lens.

In a word: Bliss.

Dean Jones is highly regarded, and I recommend him to any seeking an alternative to the much more expensive options out there for RF-focused 4x5 cameras and conversions. Dean is a passionate hacker; but be advised, his waiting list is growing by the day--Get on it soon!

Model: Buffie Brooke
EV/Film: 1/30" @ F8, Fujifilm FP-100C45

I'd always planned on uploading an image here from my Cyclops project.   I started that project when two 5 inch military glass magnifiers showed up on ebay for about $12.00 each,  and my purchase of them turned to produce some interesting results.   I shot images like this w/the first one, the second identical magnifier I used as a subject for 'Big Mag and Little Bulb', which is a couple of pages back from this page on this site.

What I learned like everybody else is learning, is that instead of paying attention to the suggestion that something can't be done, is try it anyway.  I shot this w/Portra 160, w/a magnifier that wasn't corrected for anything let alone color, and sent it to the lab to let them play w/it, and to me, it came back better than I thought it would, colorwise.  Whether or not the lab performed miracles, I'm glad I tried this, instead of choosing not to try it.  

I'll include the shot of Cyclops mounted on my Mamiya 645,  w/stepdown rings I can screw Cyclops into the rear of my Ilex Universal #5 shutter to use w/810 so I'll be playing around with that when I get back to testing my other lenses.

I've come to kind of a crossroads, I got the Taylor-Hobson 5in, F1.5 projection lens as my last acquisition, and will do some things w/that, but a switch has clicked off in me, and there'll be no more lens acquisitions.  I'm done.  I've been on both sides of this, buying expensive, buying for pennies, getting excitied and seeing something else, and obsessing until the thing is in my hand, but that time has now gone.  It's time to experience nuance in detail with what I've got.

The modified Turner Reich lenses I got from Jim Galli and the results of my tests with them kind of steered me toward another mindset, I realized I could spend the rest of my life JUST using the TR lenses, and ergo the reminder that I've got enough lenses, so that's the road I'll be on from now on. 

But I've got to tell you, it was BIG FUN typing in mis-spelled versions of diff lenses in my search engine so I could come up w/a lens for $30.00 that everybody else was paying much more for, when that happened that feeling was delicious!!!

 Getting the 10in TR for about $79.00 and getting the results I got w/it were almost as good as sex, remember I said almost!!!  On one day when I was feeling like I ought to be a saint I even told one guy how valuabe his lens was, at the expense of my not getting it cheaper, and before I blurted out the truth about the lens, it was just like in the movies, a 'little devil' was sitting on my left shoulder telling me 'you're not stiffing this guy, if he doesn't know any better, it's sure not your fault', and a 'little angel was sitting on my right shoulder saying 'Jonathan, you know what's right, what are waiting for????'.   I didn't even feel bad after paying out some more money I didn't have to pay. 

I'm weening myself off ebay except for polaroid film and some other 'nicnacs', but I've always had a distate for ebay, bidding in an auction w/other photographers is kinda like several tigers in a cage and somebody throws in one piece of meat, I've never like that.   Sure, it's true, if they throw in one piece of meat, it might as well be you eating it, but it doens't mean you have to like it. 

 So with all these thoughts, I've come to conclusion that I need to spend more time shooting, and that's what I'm going to do. 

    Let me preface what I have to say by saying that the j-peg image you see here doesn't do justice to the actual print of this image which is much, much sharper, and has a greater sense of fidelity, but I've uploaded it anyway to give a flavor of this lenses pallette. 

    Jim Galli modified this lens, and I'm very pleased w/the resulting look, the lens has a tendency to make the highlights 'pop', and then transition abruptly/very quickly to deep, dark, 'velvet' like shadows.   The look is dramatic, and I get a sense of immediacy from the print of this image.  The lens doesn't have the greyish 'murky' kind of pallette of some soft focus/portrait  lenses, and the lens has some of the same nuances and values as the Cooke PS945 when the Cooke lens is stopped down somewhat.

A shot turning out like this, is why I love photography; there wasn't much I did to it, and there's no complicated story behind it, I was simply fortunate.   I had the Kollmorgen lens on my Speed Graphic, and had just finished shooting something else, looked over and spotted this reflector, and put it in front of the camera to see what I had.  As soon as I looked through the reflex I knew I was going to shoot it.

  What you see through the reflex w/this lens, is exactly what you get.
 

   Just goes to show you the treasures you can unearth w/a $21.00 lens.