Me And My 50mm: En route to Shake Shack

I had one of those Harold And Kumar Get The Munchies/Go To White Castle (2004) moments, apart from getting high, I was feeling for some burgers.  We don't have White Castle in London, but we do have Shake Shack.

The Analogue Way In Digital

UPDATE* From the time I written this, I was doing photography to gain skills on my camera skills for video.  For me photography and filming can interchange with each other.  So when reading this post, I like to point out that even I was writing more for photography.  This can also help with your film/video camera skill as well.

Ever since my new fond love of photography (well, street photography), it made go back to 35mm film.   So I dug out my dad's Minolta XG-9 with a 35mm lens, took it out and then, I broke it.

So what to do now?  

Well obviously I had to get it repaired, but I wanted to practice the way I would use the Minotla XG-9.

I came up with a solution.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I bought myself an old Nikon 50mm lens.  It is now permanently stuck on my 60D.  It's the only lens I now use.  There is no AF, so focusing is done manually.  One step to working towards a analogue setup.

My Nikon AI 50mm with the Nikon-EOS lens adaptor

So how about the roll of film?  How I can replicate the 24 pictures in one roll with a memory card.  Well, I can't.  All I can get is a small sized SD card.

SanDisk 2GB SD card

I tried shopping around for something really small.  I was at Argos and managed to find a 2GB card.  Ideally I wanted to get a 1GB SD card, but I don't think they make them anymore.

But doesn't 2GB hold a lot of pictures?

To really limit myself, I decide to shoot on RAW.  It can hold to at least 50 pictures, just over double of a roll of film.  But hey, it's better than my 16GB.

This is my setup.

My Canon EOS 60D with the Nikon AI 50mm and a 2GB SD card.

Now the real challenge is the shooting.  Now to really limit myself, I decide not to delete any picture as I shoot.  Also, I will not allow myself to look at the pictures until the roll/memory card is full.

Why am I doing this?  The reason why I want to go back to film, is because, of the limitations.  With film, it makes you think more with the camera, whether setting up the focus manually or having to deal with a roll of film that can hold 24 pictures.  Why?  In my opinion these limitation can get you creative and make you think more about the image.  Also, what I like about film, is the mystery of what your image will look like.  It can take a day to develop the film roll.  Unlike today, where you can look back at your image instantly.  With this practice, I believe that it make you put more effort onto an image, instead of just taking one.

Tell me what you think.  Can this method help develop my/yours photography skill?  Do you think we are quite reliant on digital too much?

Oh and I really want to get out there and start shooting, and well, the area I'm in has become stale and boring.  So if you got any suggestions on locations, please send them through.  

I might be getting into photography.

I haven't blogged for a long time, so here it is for a comeback. What I've been up to, nothing much. I guess the people who are reading this, will know me (through Facebook) and know what I've not been doing anything, so lets just keep to that. But I've been taking my camera out a lot lately and I got myself a new lens, the Nikon AI 50mm.

Why this lens? Well it was the cheapest on eBay, it was either a this or the 35mm version.  So when it came to getting it, I went for the cheaper option.  

The lens is a manual focus, so the AF (auto focus) mode on my Canon EOS 60D WOULD NOT work.  My intent for getting an old (circa late 1970s-1980s) Nikon lens is because 1) they are quality built 2) it gives that organic image quality and 3) it will generally be used for video.  If you look at Cinema lenses from Cooke, Arri and Zeiss, the aperture control can be found on the lens.  This attracted me to the old Nikon lens, as the aperture control is featured on the lens.   Why is this important?  Well, to me it will give me some practice, just so when I upgrade to using cine lenses, I don't want to get into the habit in changing the aperture within the camera.  

However I've haven't been doing a lot of video/filming work with this lens, so I've been taking a lot of picture with it.  Taking photos at first with this lens is very tricky and that is because of the manual focus.  Unlike 35mm film SLR cameras, there is no focus alignment, so focusing is really hard.  What I did, is I take a picture each with a different focus and pick the best one.  Luckily we live in a day of digital technology, so if you don't like a picture, you can always get rid of it straight away.  With the manual focus, it made me more patient on taking a the shot.  Sure it's hard, but it's challenging and the result you get afterwards is priceless.  Now if you want to do photography professionally, this is not the lens for the job.  It's best to get an AF lens, because in this day and age, speed and quality go hand to hand and you wouldn't get any of that with this lens.  (Please correct me if I'm wrong).  If you want use this lens as a professional videographer, why not?  AF is not essential in video.  

Why am I taking photos?  It's because it helps think about the image instead of just taking it, especially when it comes down to cinematography.  The 50mm helps a lot in taking your time and thinking about the image, as I had to adapt with the lens' limitations. 

I think these limitations are a good thing, as it restricts you and you are able to think on your feet and get creative.

With this lens, the organic feel to the image quality is such a big factor.  I found the image with this lens to be much softer than my kit lens I have at f/5.6 (Canon EF-S 18-105mm)

In the future with my blog posts, I will be doing more photography, this is because photography is right now is accessible for me than filming at the moment.  But don't get me wrong, I will be posting about stuff filmmaking when I get the chance to.  

Watch out for my next post, I will be talking a lot more about photography and an exercise that you can participate.

Until next time....