Late post, but it was a fun random hangout the other day.  Sorry I’ve been bouncing around with the short posts, I’ve been really behind on event recaps!

I.

But first…using vintage cameras in my ancient technology room!

The photos with the timestamp are from the Nikon Coolpix 3700.

For this one I dusted off the Olympus E-PL1 and kit lens.  Oh, that’s an ELLE magazine with Britney Spears at the peak of her powers from the year 2000!  The images and ads in it are still amazing.  Nothing has changed in the world of high fashion ads, which is an incredible thing.  I got a Vogue from 2025 and 2000 and it’s basically the same.  For students of fashion and portrait photography, these magazines are still the highest level, one could learn much more from them than vapid social media.  Oh, I got it for only 10 cents!!

I’ve been tinkering with my old camcorders again.  This is the Panasonic (and built in videolight).  I used this camera at LNY a few years back.  The way life looks rendered through videotape and the low res screen looks so foreign, retro and amazing in my opinion.  This will be used in future posts going forward!

I’ve been rebuying all my old comic books too, when I stumble upon them in the $.50 bins at the various places on my routes.

I’m still disappointed the 1MP Mavica is only a paperweight/prop! It would have been nice to take a trip down that memory lane. But then again I would have had to buy a USB to floppy adapter, or scavenge one and then install in one of the older PCs I have in the junk closet.  That’s maybe a rabbit hole I don’t want to venture down.  Anyways, I’ve been buying CDs again too.  They are probably the next big collectible thing (although I really don’t care about that aspect), but they are super cheap at some of the places I go to.  Sometimes $.50–again the magical price point.  The case and album art and liner notes is worth it alone, especially if you are a big fan of music like me.  The audio quality of CDs is still quite good and top tier as well in my opinion.  44.1KHZ 16 bit wav file on the Bose Soundlink or nice headphones sound just as good as lossless audio streaming to my ears.

So creative! 😉 (The camera is an old Canon SX10 IS. Future post coming up!)

II.

Big thanks to Tranee for being the DP (designated photographer for the day!) The composition skills are pretty good, definitely much better than other folks that I often hand the camera over to.  Many people new to big traditional cameras still struggle with framing and head placement with a camera other than an iPhone, so it’s refreshing to see usable photos out of camera.  So yes, I’m on the other side of the camera today, I’ve finally moved up to management. 😎

I still use my old Nikon D300 (2007 cam) and simple beauty dish lighting setup.  The photos don’t look like this out of camera, but the color cast and slight exposure boost is quite easy in post.  The colors in a studio setting I’ve found are superior to even the newer cameras.

And yes, that’s the Nikon 200mm f2.  It’s going to be a recurring character on my site for the foreseeable future!  (Although I didn’t use it at LNY on Sunday.  Heck no I’m not bringing that boat anchor of a lens into that craziness haha)

The 200mm f2 is almost too sharp for some things.  I’ve often times had to turn down the digital sharpening when editing the .nef RAW files.  Since the depth of field is so shallow (being such a long focal length), you won’t get things like hands and shoulders in focus at f/2 but what it does lock on, you’ll see too much rendering of skin blemishes, fly away hairs, etc that you’ll eventually have to edit out in Photoshop.  That’s what I had to do with these images, along with skin softening and a Korean look color grade of mine.

I found this Strawberry Shortcake charm bracelet for $.50! I was on a hot streak a few weeks ago finding all sorts of unwanted stuff at the thrift store.

It went to a good home. 🙂

My other working camcorder is my ancient/beloved Canon Optura Pi.  This is the model I vlogged on back in the year 2001ish.  No joke.  I always had a love/hate relationship with this thing since my friend’s Pi always ate the miniDV tapes and the workflow was something young folks now would absolutely go insane over now in 2025, but you know, the images that it creates is literally +1 on the vintage vibes out of the box.  We have all this powerful 4K tech in our phones right now, to show the world we exist and are important in the moment, but it just isn’t the same as hitting record on a tape and seeing life through it.  For the camera nerds out there, this model had a Progressive Scan CCD in it, and the video it produces in P.SCAN mode is a lot less “soap opera” than the normal interlaced movie mode, and especially compared to competing DV cameras of that era.  Speaking of soap operas, please everyone, turn off the motion smoothing on your fancy TVs (Samsung I’m looking in your direction).  No one should suffer through watching modern cinema that looks like a news broadcast.

III.

Then we hopped in the car and got a quick snack at Two Fish and then the thrift store.  The full menu was not available so we just got some jasmine rice, heated up the beef curry and some bowls of broth.  Pretty good simple Asian comfort food.  Alas I used up all my mojo and there were no digicams at the thrift store.

IV.

After getting some cheap stuff at Half Price Books we stopped by Rebel Teahouse.  They are now open on Mondays, so that’s 7 days out of the week that you can get some top tier drinks!  Thanks Christine for appreciating and using my photos (which ya’ll can see rolling on the tv)

Downtown Decatur around sunset is a great place to hangout and take photos.  The sunlight that pierces through the buildings and spills into the streets is very flattering for portrait photography.  Park in the free 2 Hr deck, get yourself some boba and snacks and take a walk around the square while avoiding the outrageous Decatur parking meter fees. 😉

The old Canon 24mm f/1.4 can have a nice rainbow lens flare when shooting back lit portraits.

The historic courthouse is pretty cool.  I shot a couple of weddings there, and the inside and back side was also used for some Marvel Disney+ shows.  Decatur really is like a big city from the movies.  Some local schools are nearby and you always have kids hanging out, which is bizarre compared to the big schools up here in the suburbs of Gwinnett.

Again, if you’re ever going to Rebel Teahouse, use the parking deck a block down. It has interesting light inside as well!

V.

I also realized it was Wednesday so we stopped by CCS! I’d never been on a weekday so it was cool to see a place for card gamers having a dedicated place and a sense of community.

VI.

To complete my random Wednesday adventure, I stopped by Publix to buy groceries to make spaghetti+marinara+turkey.  In the meat dept, the nice guy working asked me if I wanted this FREE meatloaf that he was going to throw away anyway!  So yes here it is immortalized, taken with the Nikon digicam with the time stamp. 

Middle of the week adventures around town are the best, and always been my favorite.  If life was an RPG videogame, the +1 to luck and serendipity and item drop RNG seems to only happen then.  Totally different vibe and energy than weekend battles through Atlanta traffic and craziness.