cyclotram: an acorn and an old camera

Friday, October 12, 2007

an acorn and an old camera

So a week or so ago I picked up a 60's-era film SLR camera at a local antique shop. I paid peanuts for it, because nobody wants to shoot film anymore, and nobody wants to tweak all those confusing exposure settings by hand. A couple of days later I picked up a macro bellows at a different local antique shop. I paid even fewer peanuts for it, since nobody even knows what a macro bellows is these days. I gather they're deeply unfashionable devices even in photo-geek circles. And I'll grant it's a rather awkward device to work with, even when you're just sitting at the kitchen table taking photos of an acorn.

I really ought to have kept notes about what I was doing in each photo, but I didn't. I think the first two shots were with the bellows plus a 2x teleconverter I tracked down at a third antique shop (and paid peanuts for), and with the bellows only extended a short ways. I think that's what I was up to, but I'm not 100% sure now. The next photo is basically the same as the first. I know I must've done something differently, maybe used a different shutter speed, perhaps, but I can't recall what I did now.

Since I'm new to this, I wasn't 100% certain of what exposure settings to use. I've been using my digital point-n-shoot to estimate other situations, but that wasn't possible once I started connecting macro widgetry, so I had to guess instead. I still need to track down a PX625-ish battery for the camera's meter. Although that might not be 100% reliable, since the camera really wants a mercury battery, ancient politically-incorrect beastie that it is. More about that fun situation and what to do about it here if you're interested.

So my big concern was whether I had enough light or not. The bellows came with a little chart explaining just how much longer your exposure needed to be at various bellows extensions. So to be on the safe side I cranked the aperture all the way up to 1.4 to let as much light in as possible, and set the shutter as slow as I figured I could do and still handhold the whole contraption. Putting it on a tripod just didn't occur to me. So setting it at 1.4 means you've got very shallow depth of focus, which to me is kind of cool. I've never had anything with a lens that fast before, so it's still a bit of a novelty for me. This setup is going to come in handy when there are flowers out again, several dark & rainy months from now.

I should point out that in this next photo there's also a fair amount of motion blur, which isn't anywhere near as l33t. Like I said, I'm new to all of this stuff.

Oh, and for the sake of completeness, I picked up the acorn at the MAX stop near Lloyd Center. I just picked it up and paid zero peanuts for it. I have no idea what the peanut-acorn exchange rate is like these days, come to think of it.