willamette sunset, 1/16/22

willamette sunset, 4/9/22

willamette sunset, 9/26/19

sunset, ala wai marina

A few more vacation Instagram photos from last week. Yeah, it's another Hawaiian sunset. Let me know down in the comments if you're getting tired of these.

I did take the "real" camera along too, btw. I just haven't gotten around to uploading photos yet. What would really be ideal here would be an Android-based DSLR with at least WiFi and maybe a 4G connection, and a somewhat more reliable Flickr app. A stretch goal would be an app that fetches HTML for your Flickr uploads, adds them to a new Blogger post, generates an embedded Google map based on your GPS location, saves it as a draft, and generally does everything except for the actual writing part. That would be ok. And yes, I have looked into the various web service APIs I'd need to use to write this myself. But that's as far as I've taken it. So apparently I haven't needed this app quite badly enough for me to take the time and write it. Still, it would be nice to have. The workflow involved in doing the average blog post here is clunky and hasn't changed in years, and it's starting to feel like stone-axes and bearskins technology. Relatively speaking, I mean.

sunset, kahanamoku beach

november sunset (ii)

Sunset, Phoenix Airport

Another old photo, taken while waiting for a connecting flight at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. You can tell it's an old photo because the plane carries the logo of the late, unlamented America West Airlines. I can't really put my finger on why I like this photo. I wasn't a fan of the airline, or the airport, and Phoenix has never been my favorite city on the face of the earth either. Maybe it's the connecting flight thing. It's not that I prefer or even really like connecting flights. There's just something about stopping briefly in a city you'd never visit otherwise that somehow makes it feel like you're really traveling. Is that weird?

November Sunset

Here's an Instagram photo I took on the Morrison Bridge earlier today. I think it turned out ok, so here it is. Also, I'm just sort of exploring how to embed Instagram photos in Blogger. Handcrafting the HTML seems to be the only way to go, at least for now. Kind of old-sk00l, but I can live with that. At least they finally have web profiles now. Mine's here, if you're interested. Or whatever.

Updated (November 2013): Ok, IG has official embeds now, so I'm switching my hack job out for the real deal. Enjoy.

sunset pelican parade

As seen in Cocoa Beach, Florida.

february sunset

Or to be more precise, the maximum amount of sunset I can see from my cubicle in February, assuming the weather cooperates, which rarely happens.

waikiki sunset, christmas 2010

december sunset

Nobody really wants to be at the office on Saturday, at sunset, still trying to sort out that last stupid bug before the Deadline hits.

When your office is in downtown Portland, though, sometimes there's an upside...

sunset, lincoln city

assorted sunrises & sunsets

Yet another batch of photos from my ongoing geek-out over old cameras. It's kind of an inconvenient time of year to take up a new hobby, since you can only take so many photos of dark-n-gloomy winter stuff before it gets prohibitively depressing. At least the sun still rises and sets, and occasionally it's even visible.

Not a big fan of winter, I have to say.


So more than anything these photos are test shots, just to see what my various bits and pieces and widgets can do. But I figured, hey, they turned out ok, so I might as well share a few of them. I mention this mostly in case you're wondering why I took so many photos of the same thing. Ok, I was also trying to use up various rolls of film so I could get them processed. Once you're in digital-land, you forget what a pain film can be. And that's before we get to the cost of film, developing, and scanning. In the long run it's probably cheaper to just shell out and get a DSLR and use the lenses on it instead. I'm sure I'll do that eventually, but right now I'm waiting until the end of January to see what goodies arrive at the big PMA 2008 trade show.

Updated: This isn't my first batch of sunrise photos, by any means. It just occurred to me to go rifle through the archives, and -- surprise, surprise -- I was stuck doing sunrise photos last December, just like I am now. Earlier, in October '06, I posted some photos from the preceding January. More recently, here are sunrises from March and October of this year. I never seem to end up with any during the summer, mostly because I'd have to get up too damn early, and in the summer there are lots of other things to take photos of that don't require you to be awake at such an unnatural hour.

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So first, here's a recent sunrise, taken with a Pentax Spotmatic SP + Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 135/3.5. Mostly Mt. Scott, with bits of Mt. Talbert and the South Waterfront district.

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A couple of Sears TLS photos, the first with the standard 55/1.4 lens, and the second with a monstrous Vivitar 75-260mm zoom lens I found at Goodwill. I'd be exaggerating if I said it weighs a ton, but I wouldn't be exaggerating by all that much.

I'm actually pleasantly surprised by the construction crane photo. Everybody badmouths old zoom lenses all the time. I'm sure technology's improved and so forth, and a present-day equivalent would certainly be a lot lighter and smaller. But this particular lens, or at least this particular photo, seems reasonably sharp. Sharp enough to use on the interwebs, at any rate.

After buying the lens, I was surprised to discover it's a T4-mount lens. I was playing with it and twisted a ring at the base, and the M42 bits at the end came off in my hand. WTF!? Turns out that was actually a good thing, since the lens's aperture mechanism wasn't working correctly, which might be why I got such a good deal on it. Turns out flaky aperture stuff is a congenital defect among T4 lenses, but the problem area is inside the body-to-T4 adapter, not in the lens itself. So buying a new adapter makes everything peachy keen again.

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A batch of sunrise photos, this time with a Mamiya 1000 DTL + Vivitar 135/2.8 telephoto lens. These are from a few minutes later than the Spotmatic+Takumar pics, so already the sky's a bit different. Note to self: If you want to compare & contrast two similar lenses, try taking photos of something that generally stays the same. Sunrises and clouds don't count.

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More pics from the Mamiya, this time with the stock Auto Sekor 55/1.8 lens.

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And last but not least, a couple of Argus C3 photos.