Category Archives: Gear and Resources
Kodak Charmera Sample Photos + Portraits
Hello everyone, I got a box of Kodak Charmeras the other day. They are definitely to keep and give to friends and family, because they are just too cool. If you’ve followed along my site and blog for any amount of time, you’ll know I love all sorts of cameras from every era. Just like […]
Continue readingFujifilm GFX 50S + GF 35-70mm Portraits
While it’s rainy and cold outside, I gave myself a challenge and decided to edit some portraits that I shot with the GF 35-70mm. It’s a great sharp lens for landscapes and all around use, but I wanted to see if it could work for my brand of pretty portraits. The main part of the […]
Continue readingNikon 200mm f/2 vs Nikon 105mm f/1.4 Portraits
I had a fun photoshoot the other day. It was all outside and the weather was agreeable so it was a perfect project to use the best camera+lens combos that I have. I could have titled this post, “Portrait Shoot with Hanfu in the Warm Early Georgia Fall” but to be honest, in this era […]
Continue readingFujifilm GF 35-70mm f/4.5-5.6 Samples + Mini Review
Hello everyone I finally got a native lens for the GFX system, and boy is it sharp. The Fujifilm GF 35-70mm f/4.5-5.6 is a “kit lens” and is the cheapest and one of the lightest GF lenses at something like a pound. Mounted on the medium format GFX 50S it’s not heavy at all and […]
Continue readingNikon V1 + FT1 + 200mm f/2 Practice Photos
Nikon V1 + FT1 + 200mm f/2 Practice Photos Last week I practiced with the above crazy combo, the Nikkor 200mm f/2 on the teeny tiny mirrorless V1 with the FT1 adapter. I was wondering if a few upcoming events could benefit from the outrageous 2.7x crop that is in effect with this setup. Would […]
Continue readingMinolta 50mm lenses on A7 Samples
I gathered up the 3 50mm lenses that I have in the Minolta/Sony Mount and took some test photos. My first 50mm was the AF 50mm f/1.7 that I used in college. It was already old back then, but little did I know of its power to see and render life on black and white […]
Continue readingMinolta Lenses on Sony A7 + LA-EA4 – Sample Photos
The other day my Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR finally broke. I’ve had it for something like 18+ years and boy did it produce some memories. I probably took like 300,000+ photos with it over the years across many Nikon DSLRs. Every camera/lens company has a pro lens of this type going back many decades, and […]
Continue readingFujifilm GFX 50S + Nikon 35-80mm f/4-5.6 Samples
After tinkering with the broken Nikon 35-70mm on the GFX I replaced it with a Nikon 35-80mm instead! And you know, it’s actually pretty good on the GFX at small apertures for landscapes and slow photography. You have to zoom in just a bit to cover the FF+ sensor. Not bad for such an affordable […]
Continue readingOlympus 40-150mm f/4-5.6 – Sample Photos
Hello everyone I bought a cheap Olympus 40-150mm f/4-5.6 the other day. On micro 4/3 cameras it’s like the FOV of an 80-300mm(!) on larger sensor cameras. But much much smaller. I got this to assemble a light weight kit, and to see if it would possibly work for event photography in quiet environments. Sadly […]
Continue readingCanon EF 50mm f/1.2 – Low Light Samples
More photo samples of the Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 in low and ambient light conditions. I think this lens really shows its strengths when the light levels drop. Sure far off city lights on the edge of the frame turn into “batwing” type of smears wide open, but the smoothness of color is quite nice.
Continue readingCanon EF 50mm f/1.2 Samples + Rolling Review
Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 Sample Photos and Mini Review The 50mm lens and focal length is one of my favorites and possibly one of my desert island lenses if I was forced to pick. It has a window to the world that shows just enough depending on where you stand, and can work well within […]
Continue readingCanon RF 24-50mm f/4.5-6.3 Samples + Review
Hello everyone, I bought a cheap used RF lens the other day, the 24-50mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM. It’s a kit lens (very basic starter one) that they bundle with the R8. It’s a full frame lens, with a wide to normal field of view, but designed for lightweight travel and portability. Meaning it really compromises […]
Continue readingOlympus E-M1 Photo Story Mode
It’s been rumored that Fujifilm will soon release a new “half frame” digital camera with a vertical sensor. That’s a pretty cool feature, daring to be different and promoting the artistic idea of diptychs. (placing two somewhat related/unrelated images together and having that interplay evoke more studying or pondering over a composition that would otherwise […]
Continue reading(Glitchy) Canon S200 Elph – Sample Photos
This lovely vintage Canon S200 Elph digicam was thrifted out in New Mexico! Seeing as how these things are snatched up so quick by savvy resellers I’m glad we visited the store at the right time. This ancient 2 Megapixel imager came with a 256MB (yes Megabytes!) CF card that still had some photos from […]
Continue readingPanasonic Lumix FZ30 – Samples
I got this in the other day, a really affordable Lumix (Panasonic) superzoom digicam from 2005! This class of camera was designated informally as a bridge camera, the ones you bought if you didn’t like the smaller party digicams or didn’t want to invest in an early gen DSLR from the early 2000s. These things […]
Continue readingCanon SX100 IS Digicam Sample Photos
Canon SX100 IS Digicam | Shot with a Nikon D4, edited with my “anime preset” 😉 I bought this camera a few years back for something like $15? I forget exactly, just like how I forgot to do a dedicated post on it. I like this camera a lot. It’s small, takes 2 AA batteries […]
Continue readingFujifilm GFX 50S + (Broken) Nikon 35-70mm f/3.3-4.5
Back in February I bought this used super cheap Nikon 35-70mm f/3.3-4.5 zoom lens manufactured in the 90’s. It was Nikon’s first attempt at an affordable kit lens with the early batch of consumer autofocus film cameras back in the day. This lens is small, about the size of a modern F mount 50mm 1.8G! […]
Continue readingRandom Thrifting Haul – Olympus C-3000 for $10!
So I got this camera while thrifting the other day–an Olympus C-3000 Zoom from the year 2000! I think I will forever leave the price tag on the body. Sadly though the memory card (a smart media) was like $30 for 32MB! One dollar per Megabyte. Yes kids, 1 MB won’t even store a full […]
Continue readingRandom Bargain Lenses – Nikon 80-200mm f/4.5 and 35-70mm f/3.3-4.5
The other day I got some dirt cheap and beat up Nikon lenses. A fully manual Nikon 80-200mm f/4.5 from probably 1977-1980 for $12, and an AF 35-70mm f/3.3-4.5 with a broken aperture lever for $20. The 35-70mm from the late 80’s maybe early 1990 still autofocuses, but the lens can’t stop down and will […]
Continue readingRandom Thrifting Haul – Canon Powershot A400 for $5!
Canon PowerShot A400 for $5! To follow up on my previous post, I got also got a screaming deal on this 2004 Canon digicam. $5 and it came with a case! With “lofi” tech like this trending again I can’t believe it wasn’t snatched up by someone else. Ironically though 3.3 megapixel cameras of this […]
Continue readingRandom Thrifting Haul – Minolta 50mm f1.4 for $4!
Hello everyone, for these next series of posts I thought I would just post a few quick thoughts and images on photography gear and techniques I’ve been tinkering with. Some of it is vintage gear that I’ve thrifted, or some odd combination of cameras and lenses that I think would be neat to share with […]
Continue readingRandom Camera Post – Nikon D4 5:4 Crop with DX Lens
Hello everyone, for these next series of posts I thought I would just post a few quick thoughts and images on photography gear and techniques I’ve been tinkering with. Some of it is vintage gear that I’ve thrifted, or some odd combination of cameras and lenses that I think would be neat to share with […]
Continue readingCanon R8 + Nikon 105mm f/1.4E vs Nikon D700 + 200mm f/2G
I have enough material from work level stuff to post this quick comparison. Not to show which one is “better,” but to just simply show the image rendering and bokeh that one can get with these two setups. The idea for this came from the Lunar New Year at Stone Mountain, as I wanted to […]
Continue readingZNO Mini Accordion Book Review
I finally got these in yesterday, some ZNO Mini Accordion 3 x 3″ (8 x 8 cm) books. You can also get them in vertical format in 3.5 x 2.5″ size. With the Pro price I got them for $4.50 each. The shipping cost and time has been a bit more than normal, but what […]
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