Tokina 500/8 : Mysteron Party

This is a bottle of some sort at my parents house, thats also the Christmas tree behind, and the rings are the classic signature of the Mirror lens design. The mirror lens concept is described here in greater detail:

http://www.photozone.de/mirror-lenses

in the conclusion it states this"Nonetheless mirrors are quite cheap and  fun to play with. "

which I agree with,  :)

ISO 3200  f8 1/100th of a second

( I had to use ISO 3200 to get a fast enough shutter speed to eliminate any blurring)

Happy New Year

Super Takumar 200/4: New Years Eve Moon

I took a few lenses to my parents place so i could take a shot or 3 of the cool crescent moon and this one was taken with the Super Takumar 200/4

Settings  f5.6 , ISO 400 1/200th of a second

Summicron 50/2: Renaissance Man

Boxing day at my parents house ,
 the 2 youngest kids, my daughter and nephew, he looks like a person in a painting from the renaissance IMO , especially his hand on her shoulder

ISO 640 f4 ( shock ! horror! ) 1/250th of a second

Summicron 50/2: The Scorer!

what do canadian kids love for Xmas day?

the official NHL Air Hockey table thats what.

 My eldest daughter lining up a rebound shot for a score!

ISO 640 f2 1/90th of a second

Summicron 50/2: The Boss with flattering sunlight

At the boxing day feed I snuck around with my cameras , I got better candids from the Leica because its so quiet , well compared to a house with 12 people in it and 5 of them 11 or younger :)

This is a B+W JPG out of the camera with a few small adjustments to contrast and brightness. The sun was reflected off the snow outside and beaming right into the living room , it was neat :)


ISO 320 f4 1/250th of a second

Helios 40 85/1.5: Bartatoes

At my parents house for boxing day munchage!

 Great time and great food !

My father talking to his youngest son and family in Barbados, or as my eldest calls it

Bartatoes!


shot at ISO 1600 f1.5 1/160th of a second

Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar T* 50/2.8: Merry Christmas from the Ice Queen

I went for a walk with the family 2 days before Christmas, it was snowing and a mild -1C

 Standing next to the creek , her hair is covered with snow and then it started to freeze, giving her sparkly hair , she looks like an Ice Queen or princess .

shot with the excellent CZJ Tessar T* 50 at f4 , I converted these to B+W as the lens was designed with B+W film in mind, it does a REALLY nice job of rendering I must say!

ISO 200 f2.8 1/800th of a second

Super MC Takumar 50/1.4: New technique with old favourite II

Part II of my new technique postings, I suspect there will be a lot more shots forthcoming over the holidaze.

 As much as I try to use a flash unit, I always prefer to use natural light and then try workarounds like using higher ISOs or bracing my arm/camera on my knees or a wall etc to try and keep it stable at such slow shutter speeds

 I always have the backup plan of converting them to B+W like this if the results arent what I wanted due to blur or grain

 SAying all this, Im glad that the flash unit I did buy cost me 40 bucks, I'd be a bit miffed if I spent 400+ on one, especially saying I rarely use it!


 this shot is in the murky Gym with teh terrible lighting:
    ISO 800 f1.4 1/40th of a second

Super MC Takumar 50/1.4: New technique with old favourite

I revisited a website that gave me a LOT of good info about Leicas and techniques for photo and processing, this shot is processed using his method of dodging and burning.

I almost forgot the URL : http://overgaard.dk/100000-exposures-later-III-dodge-and-burn.html

 IE: Make highlights 10% brighter and shadows 10% darker , I normally do something similar using adobe lightroom, but these are using a student copy of adobe photoshop .

 The main difference is that when I use Lightroom the effect is on all of the photo, in Photoshop you can choose only the highlights or only the shadows.

 let me know what you think, I will upload versions of these done my usual method tomorrow :)

ISO 1600! f1.4 1/60th of a second

Summicron 50/2: The junior photographer herself

Here is the culprit, my 4 yr old in action with the Super MC Tak 50/1.4 and the pentax KX

 She dislikes Live view and wants to look through the " little window like a real photographer" :)

Taken with my trusty Leica and its 47 yr old lens

ISO 640 f2 1/60th of a second

Super MC Takumar 50/1.4: One I took

Here is a shot from the gym visit that I did, this is shot at f1.4!

thats my father on the right watching his model fly around in wide circles

ISO 800 f1.4 1/80th of a second

Super MC Takumar 50/1.4: Goin' Ballistic

I went to the local model airplane clubs indoor night at the gymnasium and brought along 2 cameras, my Pentax KX with the Tak 50 and my M8 , and my 2 kids of course!


 we had a great time , and grabbed some decent photos , and to make it even more interesting this one was taken by my 4 year old daughter!

this one came out very nicely, thats my 8 yr olds hair on the right, so the viewpoint is low to the ground , but she got the airplane in the middle of a manouvre

I gave her a fighting chance though, and set the lens at f2.8 1/60th of a second and ISO 1600

Leitz Summicron 50/2: My Brother having a good time

I was at a friends Christmas party last night in addition to a cocktail party with some family friends, typical, 2 outings on the same day :(

 My brother drinking 0.5% beer in case someone needed a ride home afterwards, what a cool dude!

ISO 640 f2 1/60th of a second

Leitz Canada Elmarit 135/2.8: Sliding to home plate?

We went to the rink last weekend and I took a few shots with the unwieldy 135 Elmarit ( made in Canada you know :P)

talk about suffering for your craft, this lens is a pain, but it delivers when it does work....

My youngest after falling down for the umpteenth time

ISO 320 f2.8 1/180th of a second

Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar T* 50/2.8: Dreamer

A lovely B+W portrait of my wife taken with the very long named Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar T* 50mm 2.8 lens from 1953!

 what a great lens this is,  not too sharp, just nice enough for a portrait

taken wide open at:

f2.8 ISO 1600 1/100th of a second

Helios 44M6 58/2: Christmas Bokeh VI

the family across the street always puts up a lot of lights this time of the year, so after taking a snap of it a while back using the Helios 40 85/1.5 I decided to take one with the helios 44 58/2 instead :)

I like how the out of focus lights are circular in the centre then become lenticular (?) towards the edges


ISO 800 f2 1/25th of a second

Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar T* 50/2.8: 50s Portraiture

My golden haired daughter taken with the Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar T* 50/2.8

ISO 1600 f2.8 and 1/125th of a second

I converted the 2 portraits I took to B+W as it seems to suit the lens better, then again, the lens is 58 years old and was designed for Black and White film :)

I liked the rendering of her hair especially

Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar T* 50/2.8: Distant Bokeh

After dinner in the parking lot I noticed the traffic lights down the hill made a nice blend with the store lighting, so I did some bokeh shots using the tessar wide open at f2.8 Im a sucker for these abstract style shots at night.

ISO 1600 f2.8 1/100th of a second

Summicron 50/2: Santa?

A cool kid at the christmas party , he was quite energetic after all the sweets and sno-cones :)


ISO 640 f2 1/40th of a second

Summicron 50/2: Big Sister

My friends older sister.

very photogenic , and I also turned it into a B+W shot to be more flattering :)


ISO 320 f2 1/30th of a second

Summicron 50/2: This is worse than the paint!

A friend of mines son changed his mind halfway through the face painting , but once he started to get cleaned up he realised it wasnt much fun either!

ISO 640 f2 1/40th of a second

Summicron 50/2: Hydroplane!

Even when the weather is mild ( rain in December!) Canadians tend to ignore it, case in point.................

ISO 160 f2 1/180th of a second

Super MC Takumar 28/3.5 : Unexpected popup!

I was taking some shots of stuff around the house and got a surprise visitor :)

scared me a little , but I still managed to refocus and get this shot

ISO 800 f5.6 1/400th of a second

Super MC Takumar 28/3.5 : Windy Clouds

We had a very windy day yesterday ( so much so that we had a wind warning !) and the clouds looked cool as they were getting blown around the sky, this is just before sunset

ISO 400 1/2500th of a second and f5.6

Super MC Takumar 28/3.5 : Nagelesque

A  1950s leather jacket I painted in 1995 with a patrick nagel poster using an airbrush and createx art inks

1/125th of a second f8 ISO 800

Super MC Takumar 28/3.5 : Lightpen

Ive been sick for almost a week now, and missed out on 2 photo walks with friends :(

 So I started doing some lightpainting in my computer room with the help of my Kids

my 4 yr old took this shot too, wrote this backwards!

ISO 400 f5.6 with a 4 second exposure

Super MC Takumar 28/3.5 : Darth Vader

Ive been sick for almost a week now, and missed out on 2 photo walks with friends :(

 So I started doing some lightpainting in my computer room with the help of my Kids

my 4 year old took these 28mm  shots

 The kids asked me if I could draw Darth Vader , this is the best I could do :)

ISO 200 f5.6 w/ 8 second exposure

Super Takumar 55/2: DNA ?

Ive been sick for almost a week now, and missed out on 2 photo walks with friends :(

 So I started doing some lightpainting in my computer room with the help of my Kids

 this is with a Super Takumar 55/2 and my youngest waving around a UV LED

ISO 200 f2 1.3 second handheld.

Summicron 50/2: The Light Vacuum!

I went out with my family for dinner and on the way home we stopped by a bookstore ( real books! paper and everything!)  and I almost always carry my m8 with me in case I see something interesting.

 Well out the window I saw all these cars going through an intersection and there were some construction lights there too, so I snapped off 2 or 3 shots

 This is the one I liked the best, because it appears that the leica is absorbing the bokehlicious lights into the lens :)

 hence the Title, the Light Vacuum

ISO 320 1/45th of a second f2 aperture

Summicron 50/2: Raindrop Bokeh

slow week for photo as the weather has been rainy and I developed a headcold of somesort :(

 This is my car early in the morning after a quick rainshower.

 ISO 160 f2 1/8000 of a second, I liked the lens flare in the left centre and the out of focus lenticular bokeh on the far right ( its sunlight in raindrops)

Summicron 50/2: Green Light

slow week for photo as the weather has been rainy and I developed a headcold of somesort :(

 This is me in traffic just as the light went green I snapped this of the traffic waiting .  I was looking to get the green reflected in the wet road.

 I reduced the saturation of every colour except aqua and green :)

ISO 320 f2 1/500th of a second