Day 367

"Oh, oh...the ranger's coming...", a photo by Wayne-K on Flickr.

It's been two days since I finished my 365 photo a day project...and nothing has really changed. I still carry my camera around with me, I still look for daily photo opportunities, and I still try to schedule some photo time into my schedule.

The kids have a lot of activities this week and today was looking like one of the few open afternoons. I decided to head over to Shadow Cliffs for a quick photo walk. I took a handful of shots with the film SLR and a couple shots with the digital SLR. Here are the digital shots...the film photos will get posted once I finish shooting the roll of film and get it processed.

After shooting my Nikon D80 every day for a year, it feels very comfortable and natural. The Nikon FM, on the other hand, feels a bit foreign to me. I set the f-stop, set the shutter speed, frame the image, manually focus the lens, press the shutter release button, and.....nothing. I forgot to advance the film!

The manual, film SLR is going to require some practice. It's been over twenty years since I've used a camera like this. It may take a manual camera 365 project to fully master it.....NOT!

I'm slowly figuring out the nuances of this film camera. I've become accustomed to shooting digital and will need to make a few adjustments.

First, I'm shooting C-41 processed "B&W" film, which is essentially B&W film that's processed and printed using color film processing. Unfortunately, this film is only manufactured in ISO 400. I love shooting with a shallow depth of field, requiring a large aperture. Shooting with relatively fast ISO 400 film and a large aperture in bright light doesn't work well...especially when the camera is limited to a 1/1000 shutter speed. I may need to get a neutral density filter to allow me to use larger apertures in bright light.

Second, I can't photograph the huge goose flying in front of me. By the time I set the shutter speed, f-stop, and manually focus the lens, the goose is long gone....if I'm lucky, I'll catch up to her 15 minutes later, perhaps while she's laying the golden egg.

Third....well, I'd better stop here. It's past my bed time. I'll continue this later, once I gain even more experience with the camera.