Posts

Once it a while, a 50mm lens on the Leica M3 is exactly the right thing. I finished the roll and had a ball doing it. Nothing great came out of it, but sometimes that happens. Gail Steve at Hopcat with gift cards Moccamaster Self-portrait with M3 Alice

I’m trying to see how the Summilux 35mm ASPH feels on the film M. Running around indoors with a moving dog and poor light is either a terrible test or a perfect test. Anyway, here’s Alice. Alice with her toys Alice Alice and “Gordo” Alice and Gordo Alice watching for something to bark at Alice in bed

Leica MP with 35mm Summilux ASPH This is a really nice camera.

Most of the shots on this roll were taken indoors in low light, so the Summilux was at either 1.4 or 2.0, meaning I missed focus quite often.

I kept a “daybook” using Tinderbox for years. I drifted away from Tinderbox for a few years after I became infatuated with Linux or iOS or other “cross-platform” systems. Right now, I’m back with a vengeance. While rebuilding my Daybook, I wanted to make logging my weight easier. It’s not like it was difficult, but I wanted to tweak it. Tinderbox is an outliner, so my weight entries are collected under a “Weight Log” node. It looked like this (I obviously wasn’t consistent with tracking last year). ...

My dream is to maintain my writing in one place. Unfortunately, I enjoy tinkering with different publishing tools so much that I have never been able to choose a single platform and stick with it. I’m going to try focusing my writing here at copingmechanism.com for a while and see if I can live here. This means baty.blog is on hold for the time being. One thing I wanted here was a theme that wasn’t quite so overwrought as “Hive”. I wanted something a little more old-school. I was poking around and found that James Vornov’s great blog, On Deciding…Better, uses the Graphy WordPress theme, which I really like. I knew it seemed familiar because I had actually purchased the pro version of the theme back in April. And around we go! ...

Somehow, some part of their attention is directed toward the possibility that their application environment isn’t “ideal.” They have this notion there’s some perfect writing environment that will make them more productive or better writers by eliminating this thing called “distraction.” There’s some anxiety about the tool they’re using. Dave Rogers Dave’s right. I’ve gone through many iterations around “distraction-free” writing myself. In my case, though, I don’t do it because I feel the writing environment is holding me back. I do it because it can be fun to twiddle with tools. Same with cameras. My cameras have been better than my ability for years, but I still keep trying new cameras because I love cameras. ...

Some days I just really need to finish a roll. The photos of Alice relaxing in the sunshine reminded me how good film is at holding onto highlights. I feel like I couldn’t blow them if I tried. ...

Scanning 35mm film with a flatbed scanner isn’t great, so I bought a PrimeFilm XAs scanner to see if that would help. It didn’t. The XAs creates large, sharp scans…when it works. I was excited by the prospect of scanning an entire roll of 35mm film in one go. Just feed the film into one end and it comes out the other, leaving behind up to 36 5000dpi scans. Unfortunately, it hasn’t turned out that way. I was only able to scan a full roll once without issues. Alignment just never worked and I’d end up with offset frames for 3/4 of the roll. I never did figure out why it worked sometimes but not others. ...

I got to have lunch with Steve and Bryan at Founders. Here are a few snaps I took between beers. Founders exterior Pipes outside of Founders Founders Steve buying KBS at Founders Bryan shopping for T-shirts at Founders Fusionary Steve and Bryan in front of Founders

Charlie Charlie is 15 and has slowed down some, but can still be cute when he wants to be. I’ve been exploring color lately. I most often prefer black and white photographs, but I wonder if this is simply because I’m not good with color. I like the consistent, muted colors in this photo of Charlie.

I don’t have anything interesting for today, so here are a handful of images made around the house using the SL2-S and various lenses. Dog poop can Alice and my footprints in snow from morning walk. Leica APO-Summicron-SL 75mm Leitz Focomat V 35 enlarger. Sigma 24-70 f2.8 Art. Mirror self-portrait. Leica 90mm Elmarit-M f2.8 Dinner. Sigma 24-70 f2.8 Art.

I put together a workbench in my basement office that was supposed to house all of the cool “maker” projects I was planning. You know, little electronic builds, equipment repair, that sort of thing. I’ve come to realize that these projects are infrequent and the workbench space is mostly wasted. I’ve found myself occasionally standing at the bench to write in my notebook or read a magazine, just as a chance to stand up for a while. I haven’t had an adjustable-height desk since leaving Fusionary, and I enjoy standing. ...

Copingmechanism.com has alternated between being a general purpose blog and being a photography-only blog. It’s been mostly photography for months now, but I’m thinking of expanding the scope to include, well, everything I want to write about. If I were a real photographer, it might make sense to have a blog dedicated to “My Work” but I’m just a putterer. I’m guessing that very few people who visit this blog do so because it’s only about my photographs, and so they shouldn’t mind if I write about other things here as well. Let’s try it! ...

I finally finished the roll that’s been idling in the M6 for a couple of months. I took it out of the camera only to discover it was a roll of Portra 400. Color, dammit. I didn’t have any fresh chemicals. The only reason I have some C-41 mixed is that I’ve been too lazy to dispose of it. Screw it, I thought, and fired up the JOBO anyway. Surprisingly, they didn’t end up blank or completely unusable. The color is inconsistent, but that’s always the case with me and color processing. At least I proved that you can keep C-41 chemicals mixed for almost a year and still get images from your film. ...

A roll of mostly self-portraits taken in the basement “studio”. A black cloth backdrop, Profoto strobe with an octobox on left, and a led panel off to the right. Washing negatives. Leica MP. HP5 Plus. Self-portrait with weird lighting. Leica MP. HP5 Plus. Darkroom bathtub after printing. Leica MP. HP5 Plus. Self-portrait. Leica MP. HP5 Plus. Camera identification selfie. Leica MP. HP5 Plus.

Let’s face it, film is meant for well-lit subjects. Every time I bring a film camera to somewhere like a restaurant or a friend’s house, I regret it. There’s just never enough light for candid snaps. I had an old roll of Delta 3200 in the fridge, so I thought I’d see if that helped. It didn’t. I like grain, but not this much grain. Good grief. Flowers. Leica M4. Summilux-M 50mm ASPH. Delta 3200 @1600. HC-110. ...

I keep this blog around so that I have somewhere to post images and maybe a little background as well as the ever-popular gearhead nonsense. So why do I so rarely post anything? I don’t post often because a blog dedicated to photography makes me feel that each post needs gravitas. Each post needs to be worth something. Relevance. Well that’s obviously not working, so I’d like to behave a bit more frivolous about things around here. Maybe I’ll post single images with a caption and that’s it. Maybe I’ll let you know what I’m thinking about cameras in general, or a specific camera I’ve been using or wanting to use. ...