I've been 'feelin it' lately, fever, the shots on this sight, the lens, everything has has got me 'goin'.   I'm lovin it, sharing images w/everybody on this site, folks who shoot like you do, w/the same kinda lenses you like.

 I called this shot 'MicroVase', cuz I didn't know what else to call it.  It IS definitely the world's most 'itty bitty' flower vase, if that's in fact what it is.  I worked on indirect lighting and brushed aluminum @F6 to see if I could come up w/something w/this kind of lighting w/o a glow.  

The texture and tone is from the lens and the Polaroid.

Take care

Hi Folks

I was in a discount store w/my boy when I saw this thing, and when I got to the checkstand, the lady ringing me up picks up this thing, starts tossing it up and down and asks me what it is.  I say truthfully 'hell if I know', and another lady next to me gets into the conversation with, 'hey, it's the mystery ball', and we all have a chuckle and I tell her that's what I'll call it.  So even though the working title of the pic is 'Metal Sphere', it's really the 'Mystery Ball' after the shot.

 This is an object that I thought would allow me to shoot the Series III wideopen @ F4.5 and so I've included 2 versions @F4.5 and F6.  Opening all the way up to F4.5 to shoot anything in extremely bright light would've spread the glow throughout the frame, blowing out everything, as opposed to what you see here in pretty subdued light. 

The sphere is sitting on brushed alluminum.  Pick 'em.

Have a good one.

Hi Folks

 I'd picked up one of the most interestingly shaped glass curios I've seen, and of course I had to shoot it.  This is the shot, and I named the it 'T', for triangle.   The glass was reflecting some fairly intense highlights(for this lens), so I closed down the lens to bet. F6-F8.  The makers of this lens were I believe possibly trying to tell us something by the way the F-stops are engraved on the lens,  it's  engraved F4.5.........F5...........F6.........Then F8.  

So far in my very limited experience w/the the Ser. III, F6 has in fact, seemed a 'sweet spot' for me,  so maybe the other marks are 'benchmarks' as far as what starts and what trails off at these stops.   I'm sure I'm going to find out.

I shot this w/a very old Polaroid, and it still turned out despite being from a box that's about 6 yrs old. 

I angled this thing at a fairly sharp angle toward the lens and the Ser. III reacted by rendering the front of it w/a still fairly crisp image over a soft one, and then merging the back end into PURE SMOKE. 

I loaded up this image in my office w/the lights out last night, it looks too dark now when compared to the original Polaroid this morning so I've taken the time to match the jpeg to exactly what the Polaroid looks like and reloaded.  Nothing else has been done to the shot.

Happy 4th of July Everybody

 While I was at the drugstore, I saw some clear ligtbulbs and this translucent/transparent set of goggles that screamed 'take me home and shoot me', so I bought 'em and strarted brainstorming a shot.  This is the result.

 The goggles begged to be illuminated from below, so I busted out my transparency lightbox, got a straw, sprayed that w/black paint, and slipped it over my thermometer so its metal stem  wouldn't 'blare out'  and distract, and used it with the base/dial sitting on the lightbox to hold up the goggles. 

I'm getting a little better at focusing this thing, and maybe that was because I was shooting these goggles and not a round globe.  I didn't get a headache focusing this shot, but it was still work.  

I think this shot shows how crisp one image can be while being inside of a very soft version of that same image.  

When it came to my portrait/soft focus lenses, I was going to save experimenting w/my Ser. III for last figuring that the practice from stretching out the other ones would get me in shape for Ser. III, but I guess there's been a change in plans.

A word about the very old Polaroid 804-809 film I'm lucky to still have, much of it gets better at it ages, because of  the creation of  patina and texture from partial exhaustion of the chemicals in the receptor pod which spreads unevenly after it's gotten so old.  I didn't do anything to this image, the area above the googles was just how it came out, and I like it.   It's gonna be a sad day when I run out of this stuff.

Ilumination of the goggles was from the lighbox below it, I had fainter ilumination on the background.  Exposure was at F6, which seems to be a 'sweet spot' for this lens.  Going from F6 in the direction of F4.5 gradually dials in more glow/the soft part of the image, and dials out the sharp part.  

Whether by intent or by accident, and I'm sure it was by intent, you open up or close down to emphasize/de-emphaisize either the soft or sharp part of the image while they are superimposed over each other, which is a very diff proposition than a lens that produces one image that goes from sharp to soft.  Incredible from a lens created so long ago.

I've been humbled by this lens, and feel very lucky to be able to find a way forward with it.

    I've been looking through my viewfinder at different subject matter w/this lens since I bought and restored it, a restoration which took about 7 months.  The Ser. III is the softest lens I've ever had on a camera, when looking at something illuminated by bright light, and pointing it in certain directions, I wasn't able to make out anything I was looking at but a garish/blown up/blown out mess.    There are lighting scenarios where using this lens isn't going to work, and the challenge of using this lens is matching a lighting scheme to this lens where the lens can perform its best.

    Over the course of having the lens, I started playing around w/lighting schemes and I gradually started to think of  subdued light as the way forward for me and this lens, and while juggling around low light schemes and checking 'em out w/this lens on my Toyo, l began to see whiffs of this lens potential. 

    The Ser. III is the most extreme example of how lenses like these are really 2 lenses, they're one type of lens giving a soft dreamy rendering w/a lot of pop around the highlights in scenes w/very bright lighting, they become a more subtle type of lens capable of more nuance in more subdued lighting situations w/more subdued highlights.   

     The lens is very difficult to focus under the best of circumstances, and you really have to fish for where the focus is.    Since the lens is so soft you can be looking through the groundglass and not realize you've passed by that 'sweet spot' where there's a sharp image overlaid w/a soft one.  The plane of focus is ever so thin, as it was on this shot, where I'm at 4 feet away from the Subject Matter w/a 16 inch lens.

     I shot this w/some very old Polaroid 804(8x10 instant) using natural light and a single modeling light from one of my strobes.  I went through about 7-8 Polaroids, until coming onto the lighting scheme you see here.  Shutter time for this shot  was 'one thousand one, one thousand two, and then since the light  coming through the windows wouldn't wait, I immediately shot a sheet of both FP4 and Porta 160 color to see what that would look like.

    What I believe you can see in this image is the sharp image overlaid with a soft one, particularly on camera right as you look at the edge of the glass globe, either that or I'm seeing things.  You tell me.

    Focusing this damn thing for the better part of 15 minutes straight before taking this shot gave me a headache, but I think I learned some things about the lens.