New lens

Rumor is I have a new lens on the way. I’ll post when it arrives with pictures, thoughts and when I have it sample pictures and opinions. That’s about it for now.

Further Family Photos

Just a few more of the pictures from this past weekend, now in color.

 

Food and family

It seems like all of the best things in life start with the letter F. There is Food, Family, Friends, Beer…okay most of the best things in life start with the letter F. This past weekend the whole family went up to visit my grandmother and afterward we had lunch with my Mother’s Aunt and Uncle at a nearby resteraunt. No stunning vistas or glorious sunsets in this post. Just some old fashioned B&W people photos. The first few are of the first couple of feedings of solid food my son had (about 3 weeks ago). He’s taken to solids like a fish to water. His only real complaint is that his mommy and daddy don’t feed him as fast as he would like (ie, let him put his face in the bowl and suck it down). Incidently this also gave me a chance to really try out my new Vivitar 285hv flash. Its a lot of fun to play with, but it is going to take some more pratice before all of the controls are second nature.

I also have a roll of color from the same weekend that I have sitting waiting to be scanned. Either later today or tomorrow there will be some of those pictures up.

A little direct flash in this one

A little bounce flash in this one.

 

Vivitar 285hv

I’ve just now gotten around to posting some information on the Vivitar 285hv flash. Its under accessories. More information will follow when I have some test photos developed as well as the flash manual in front of me for more detailed information.

Father’s day gifts

I have a new toy to play with now. My wonderful and amazing wife gave me a few father’s day gifts yesterday. One of them I expected, the others I didn’t. The fun toy I received was a Vivitar 285hv flash. I had a chance to play with it a bit yesterday and I am sure I’ll be playing with it a lot more over the ensuing weeks and months. I knew about the flash in advance (I ordered it for myself afterall), but the other gifts I didn’t. My wife took some of the negatives that I shot over the last year and had some 5×7’s and an 8×10 printed and matted for me. The pictures were of my wife pregnant with our son (about 7 months pregnant), our son a few hours after he was born, my wife holding our son’s hand, and our son sitting on my wife’s lap.

Back to the toys though. That 285hv gives a very satisfying thumping sound when the flash discharges at full power. I am just figuring out some of the controls on the flash, though they are generally straight forward, but they aren’t second nature yet. The flash distance calculator is also pretty neat (especially since I prefer manual control). The automatic flash modes are very useful for bounce flash, but I think I’ll probably end up with manual control most of the time. The power on the flash isn’t humbling like a few of the really powerful flashes out there, but with the zoom head it does have a lot of reach. At full power and full zoom (105mm equivelent coverage) using iso400 film it has a reach of 70ft at f/4. Taking into account that the power is reduced by a factor of 4 when you double the distance, you can managed 140ft at f/2 with the flash and zoomed. So if you use a fast telephoto lens, such as a 100mm f/2 zuiko lens, you can pretty much shoot at some pretty good distances (think basketball game, well High School basketball game). I’ll try to have a write up on the flash in the next week and probably much more detailed impressions of if later (such as how it works with different shooting styles, bounce, bounce card, omnibounce (if/when I get one), etc).