Look what i've found.
My dad's old Nikon SLR F-501.
OMG. It's like the grandfather of all SLRs.
It has been kept in mint condition since he bought it in mid 1980s i think.
I stayed up all night till like 2 30am just reading the manual from start to finish.
Had a crash course on how to use this rather complex machine with seemingly a button and a lock for everything. It was pretty interesting actually. And i know in this day and age of act-smartness no one really reads the manuals anymore, but i did! ;))) haha
Half the terms i don't even get, like exposure (i am guessing this is the amount of light let in), ISO, aperture, and only about a gizallion other photographic vocab i don't know about.
But i think what helps is having learned the human eye, you see a lot of similarities between a camera and the human eye, you even start to think it was an optician who invented the camera.
No kidding.
Like the ISO, is something like photoreceptors on your retina.
Because its all about The sensitivity of light. Apparently, the higher the ISO the more sensitive it becomes to light, and not much light therefore is needed for an image to be produced which would also mean the more grainy the photo might turn out. - this i don't know why.
I also realised that a lot of people too do not understand the camera, or photographic vocab. I asked my brother what ISO meant, he rambled on. At the end of that, he still couldn't really give me a very good definition of ISO, it was full of vague-i-rities (if there is sucha word), throwing in all sorts of other camera terms which don't make sense to me.
So then, I asked my pops, he too, same thing, threw in a buncha camera terms, but when i asked specifically, didnt really know what aperture was either.
Apparently it seems, most people only have a vague idea of photographic terms, but that is all, just a vague idea. And i am not satisfied with vague ideas, i want specifics, because that is the only way i can truly understand, and when i can truly understand the camera and its functions, can i truly unleash the true potential of a camera or at least utilize it to its maximum capabilities.
Anyways,
I saw some of the shots my dad took with it, one word: beau-ti-ful.
Absolutely beautiful.
Very natural portraits of my eldest brother when he was a toddler.
I can't wait to snap real shots of real people.
I want to bring it to school but that is going to be a bit of a problem because:
(a) Natural reaction of modern day teenagers, "OMG LEMME TRY!" - gropes camera with unsanitary hands, takes shaky narcissistic shots. This is a problem because my dad told me specifically to Look after it. It's almost like a heirloom treasure. Plus, it isn't digital which means to say every shot has to be accounted for. I can't delete it and i have to pay for each photo, both good and bad.
(b) It might get stolen. Some discipline teacher just warned us on friday, that more and more valuables have been lost (possibly stolen) lately. :s
(c) It is really bulky. I mean the camera itself is still alright, but i have to carry it in a big black bag. Not really very ideal for a travel-light person like me. The whole camera bag will probably even weigh more than my school bag. (haha!)
Hmmmm.... so yeah that's pretty much it.
But i really want to snap beautiful shots of my classmates/schoolmates, teachers, security uncles, and janitors in school!!
I love our school uniform and the whole scene in school.
It has such beautiful, bright colours.
No guts, no glory.
Sigh.... i just need a plan.
Think, pris, think.
Just think of all those bright and beautiful smiles you are going to miss capturing.
Physical, tangible memories.
think, think, think.
2 comments:
please
kill
yourself
ITS SO AMAZING & GORGEOUS!!!
u r so lucky
you need to get slide films i bet itll look amazing
and i mean for those people who just want to spam your roll of only 36-39 frames uyou can just be all like oh it doesnt work or something.
not like they would be able to tell!
anyway do you print all your photos!??! cause i hope you know you dont scanning is much more worth it in any sense
anyway im a total noob too but i think in film, as in when you buy a roll (usually the roll that you get @ a normal photo store is the fujifilm superia 400 [which you got] is like ISO 400 and some stores sell the lousy kodak gold 200/ ISO 200. so ISO is just like how fast your film is, for example theres this camera called fuji natura or something, its damn awesome if you put like films that are ISO 800-1600, you dont need a flash and the camera will expose for the correct amount of time (very short) and the photo will be clear and well lit without having to flash. anyway so its just like the faster you film, the less you need to expose it for in dark conditions. so if you have film thats ISO 200, usually it says daylight becuz most shutters are like what 1/600 of a second (on N (ormal) mode). but you can still use ISO 200 film in low light conditions but you just have to use the B (ulb) mode which requires you to keep holding on to the shutter (usually its not very long a few seconds) (unless you have a cable release which you might) and it usually results in shakier photos because you cant really know how long to hold it. but with higher ISO films which are faster(which are generally more expensive) the exposure time can be shorter, so its more clear but more noisy/grainy, which can be beautiful too (like you know in old movies all that grain is actually not that bad).
i mean safest is still ISO 400 film, much more versatile
higher ISO- higher speed- less exposure time/more grainy
lower ISO- lower speed- more exposure (for lowlight)/ more blurry
and if im not wrong aperture it like the focusing bit
like there are a set of values
i think its f/a (a is a variable)
the smaller a is, the wider the range of focus is (f/1.4 is the widest i think, not sure)
so the larger a is, the narrower the range of focus is. (f/8 kinda numbers)
i think you can picture it as a target thing, when its smaller (range), you have to aim it closer things, then larger range, further things.
usually on digital cameras the values are there, when its in manual you can set the aperture but if its in auto then it will just be there.
but it depends on how good you lens are of course lens have all their ranges
theres a formula on how to calculate how a= the length (like mm) but its so complex
and exposure is like the N and B thing i said just now in ISO, N is the set time, you press the shutter down and the lens shutter will just flick for a set amount of time, it varies for every camera but its usually _00/ of a second.
then bulb is like you press the shutter down and the lens shutter will stay down until you release it, but that makes exposure way longer cause humans can only do things in seconds, so WAY more exposure
and in dslrs its usually auto anyway but in manual they would put like -/ of a second all the way to BULB
i hope that helped
please bring this to school i do actually like the colours of our buildings please take them
haha wow! Tobs my man... i actually understood what you meant when you explained ISO. Not bad....ah...and yes you are right! the first 2 films i bought were Fujifilm superia 400. Then, i went down to Peninsula yesterday to get Fujifilm Superia 200, Kodak T-Max 100 (which is Black and white film!) I actually wanted to get a lower ISO because i like the natural colours it captures in daylight. But you are right, the propensity of it being blurry, is higher. Hmmm.. was wondering though, I actually took a very grainy photo (i think it was set to ISO 1000+) on my G9 canon camera, which is digital, so will that be how the photo might come out if i used a film with high ISO too on the nikon F501?
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