Meeting friends for the first time

An interesting experience when using the "Web" is getting to know people whom you've never met.  I'm perhaps not alone in referring to people as friends even though having never actually seen them in "real life."

I've followed, admired and learned from the iPhone Photography of Harry Sandler for iPhone years.   I recently met and photographed with him in Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Thanks to fellow iPhone Photographer Teri Lou Dantzler for setting that up.  It was a great 2 days and it was wonderful walking with someone who has as much trouble as I trying to keep up with TL when she's bounding up a mountain.

One very interesting use Harry makes of his iPhone is as a view finder for his 60 MP Swiss Arca.

New Toy-First Images

My iPhone 4S arrived today.  I was able to activate it right from iTunes...cool.  My first impressions of the camera are quite favorable.  It's clear and it's fast.

A favorite Camera App is ClearCam which takes 4 shots quickly, analyzes them and saves the sharpest.  With the 4S, ClearCam takes and analyzes 6 shots in exactly the same amount of time.  The images are larger, 8MB and they appear to be sharper as well.  Not bad for a sensor which is probably about the size of a grain of rice.

Mixing Processes

In the midst of an otherwise gloomy-stormy week we had a brief 10 minute blue sky window.  The fact that it was sunset made for a dramatic sky.  I took a handful of iPhone images which I am working now but also grabbed a shot with my new toy, the Lumix G2.

I processed the image with Film Lab, an Aperture plug-in made by DxO Labs.  The resulting image, an Ektachrome simulation, I sent to my iPad and processed in the App PhotoForge 2.  I like the results.

G.A.S attack

Friend and fellow iPhone Photographer, John Barclay writes in his blog about a newly acquired, used Nikon D-300.  I have to admit to a rush of Gear Acquisition Syndrome myself...GAS attack.

After numerous "conversations" with photographer Chris Eastwood I followed his lead and purchased a used Panasonic G series micro 4/3 camera.

I have been on a steadfast path to smaller and smaller cameras ending with the best yet...the iPhone.  There are however a few things I miss about a larger camera.  Isolation of subject via narrow focus is perhaps what I miss the most.  Another thing I seem to need more and more often is a viewfinder.   Small cameras are terrific and getting terriffic-er all the time but having everything in focus all the time isn't always an advantage.  Also for the once or perhaps twice a year I need a long lens...this will work. 

At any rate, the tendency of digital equipment to see it's cost evaporate rather quickly worked in my favor.  I found a used G-2 for sale through B&H a trustworthy outfit.  The plan was (is) to use my Nikon lenses but B&H also gave me a $100 discount on a lens, so I picked up a pretty sweet f1/7 20mm pancake lens for $249...the same price as the camera body.  Good lenses seem to always hold their value.

The camera arrived the other day and I don't think it's ever been out of the box...it's not used at all, still had the manufacturer's registration/warranty card...sweet.

It doesn't fit into my shirt pocket but it does fit quite easily into a jacket pocket...and as we wear jackets 9 or 10 months a year up here there's always a pocket available.

Some images:  size comparison with my iPhone and my Canonet 17, a small film camera...and a few shots from the G2.

iPhone image

 Canonet, Tri-X image

iPhone image

G2 images

Weather Change

The winter rains are returning, time for B&W.  I still have a handful of Tri-X in the freezer and for digital I am liking the App Simply B&W more and more.  I think I'm set for the 6 to 8 months of winter we'll get.

more B&W

There are now happily a number of good B&W Apps available.  A few new releases have some moody/dark capabilities that are fun.  I particularly enjoy seeing what others are doing with these tools.

I've been doing quite a lot of B&W iPhoneography lately.  I use the App "Simply B&W" quite exclusively and for my money it's the best.  It seems to surpass all others in tonality and also has the most "Untz" to steal a phrase from another App developer...mid contrast I think.

I haven't been doing much posting so here are a few.

Scablands

I believe many of the visitors to The Palouse travel the same route:  a flight to Spokane, WA and then a drive south on US 195 to Colfax.  A delightful trip...if one watches their speed carefully.  The State of Washington however is quite geologically diverse containing a handful of distinctly different areas, The Palouse is one of them, so are The Scablands.

In prehistoric times as the ice sheets withdrew,  the giant lake Missoula formed behind an ice dam and covered much of what is now Montana.  I'm told that when the dam loosed itself from the rocks  500 cubic miles of water rushed through carrying much of central Washington to the Pacific Ocean.  The flood had 10 times the force of all the earths rivers combined.  My son the geologist tells me this happened perhaps 90 times.  Somehow this water spared The Palouse...a few miles west though the story is different.  The western edge of The Palouse is bordered by harsher land.

Called the Channeled Scablands in the northern section, south of the east/west I-90 they tend to drop the fancy first name.  The life, the land and the people are different from their eastern cousins.  Where it's common practice to leave the keys in the ignition in The Palouse..."in case someone needs to move it"  here I am very wary of trespassing.  84 degrees and breezy in Colfax?, the gauge tickles 100 in the Scablands and the breeze is never called that.  Wind!  and wind with grit for teeth.  Anyone who has spent extended time "in the field" knows that grit, it gets everywhere.  Any body parts that touch each other while you walk grind grit between them.  I swear sometimes it even gets under the fillings in your teeth.

Where Hwy 12 crosses the Lower Dry Creek Road is the town of Lowden.  Decent hardworking folk.  That they grow crops here is testament to their toughness.  I stop for a few snapshots, and a few jokes with the lovely smile that refills my coffee mug and aim the headlights east again.