I have a recent photo of me taken by my mom while she was here visiting siting on my computer for almost a month. Now that I have getting used to seeing myself on the photo I decided to put up here. This is a personal weblog and it needs my face on it. That head shot I have on my about page has always been tiny. So here is my most recent photo:

This was taken after a dinner I cooked for my mother, sister and her boyfriend. I made oven baked tenderloin meat with mushroom sauce and oven baked potatoes with garlic and rosemary. First time also the meat came out well with advice from the butcher on how long it should stay in the oven. Everyone enjoyed theirs with a glass of red wine and me with my Cola Light sans caffeine, I have been off caffeine for six months now. No iced tea, only decaf cola light and decaf coffee. The last one being easy I was never a coffee drinker till last year, so drinking it decaf is a non issue.

The next post will be accompanied with a photo also but with me behind the camera…

But I never got the handle on the Ricoh, I couldn’t get it to take photo’s the way I liked and the menu was just too complicated for me, I admit that. So the Ricoh was left barely used while I kept taking along my Nikon D70 mostly fitted with a 50mm 1.8 Nikkor. Last year after three days in Paris with the Nikon and a sore back I decided it’s just crazy walking around with a dSLR.

Having slacked in keeping up to date with recent released camera’s it was Jorge Quinteros post A Worthy & Perfect Companion that got me right on track on what there is available currently.

I then spend two to three days reading reviews, browsing Flickr for photo’s, opinions, etc. When I narrowed it down between the S90 and the G11 I went to the store to look at them and hold them. And that’s when I decided for the S90, it’s so compact you can always carry it with you and the front and back ring are the handiest features I’ve seen so far on a compact camera.

A lot of people have a problem with the backside ring being to loose and accidentally changing the settings. But as you can see my hands are pretty small so I have no problem holding the camera without accidentally changing settings.

This is my first Canon camera and I’m really happy with the menu and the shortcut key. It’s a breeze taking photo’s in the manual mode and using the shortcut key to change the ISO setting. I tried using the other settings and shooting in JPG but Manual mode and RAW is my default setting with which I always shoot, mostly with ISO 400. The rest I do in Lightroom or Photoshop.

As for the upgrade from the Nikon D70, I find the images I shoot with the Canon S90 far much better then with the Nikon D70. I suppose this has to do that the D70 is already pretty old for today’s standard. I have a few lenses, nothing fancy, the best one is the Nikkor 50mm 1.8. Until I upgrade the body to a D90 or future model it is of no use to purchase a decent zoom lens.

Some photo’s

Today while walking in the city there was a book and antique market, I took some shots with the Canon S90.

The photo is sharper then if it was taken with the Nikon D70 and also the D70 would immediately attract attention, I was able to shoot people on the streets without attracting attention. So summing up I’m happy with the Canon S90 and the iPhone camera serves well for snap shots like the one above of me holding the Canon.

Originally the Minox 35 GT uses PX27 style battery which has been banned for years now in the U.S. and in Europa. There isn’t a same sized replacement. There are a few solutions to this.

The most nicer one and also most expensive one is to buy the Minox 35 GT Power Pack. It is made by Minox to replace the battery chamber. You can put 4 LR44 type batteries in it. I wanted to order this from Adorama but they and other stores in the U.S. charge like 45 dollars just to ship that piece of plastic to the Netherlands, I mean I get books price and shipping together cheaper then that from Amazon…talk about being ripped off.

The next option will contain a few DIY but will cost way less. After some Googling I read that most users dismantle an old PX27 type battery and use the plastic in it as a case for the 4 LR44 type batteries. Now I’m a visual person I need pictures along with instructions and none of them provided clear instructions. So I took photos of my DIY to make it easier for others who might need a battery hack for their Minox.

The first photo shows the dismantled old PX27 battery. The plastic tube contained 4 mercury cells glued to each other each in a small aluminum encasing. Dispose the batteries correctly as they are hazardous. Next the idea is to fit 4 LR44 batteries in the plastic tube, respecting polarity so: -+-+-+-+.

In my case those batteries where to big for the plastic case. So plan B next: I got some isolation tape and taped the batteries together as seen on the second photo. Now just put the battery pack you just made in the battery chamber “-” down and “+” up and done.

Now to do a battery check, my camera doesn’t has any film in it yet as I want to be sure the battery works before wasting film. So advance the “film” and now look in the viewfinder and press the battery check button. The needle should drop and then jump to more then 1/125 as the manual says, but that is okay. This means your camera has power.

The old mercury batteries where of 5.6V and these 4 new batteries make a total of 6V but the camera can handle it. So there you go, basically all you need is isolation tape and 4 LR44 type batteries.

You can read more on the battery check and working of the camera with this Minox 35 GT online manual

This experience made me realize I should shoot with film as much as with digital. I always shoot in RAW format with the Nikon D70. I have no idea why but I’m starting to like film more, I think because you can’t see right away how the photo will come out. And there is something about just pointing the camera and only worry about the composition. With the Nikon I use manual mode 90% of the times and it gets to technical.

I dusted off my Olympus Trip 35 and do my best to carry it around all the time to take mostly street photography. I have been reading interviews on PetaPixel and what keeps coming back is how difficult it is to just get out there with your camera and not let the people around you intimidate you and just shoot your photos.

Also it’s not the equipment that takes the photo but the person using the equipment. Taking photos is like reading a cosmo or maxim(she/he) magazine and after finish reading your self esteem lowers a few points.(This was proven in a research). So when you see your own photos result it’s hard not to compare them to others. After all we all are our own worse critics.

So after reading these interviews with various photographers I have decided to just stick to the Nikon D70 and not worry to upgrade to D90, costs too much anyway. And for film I will use the Olympus Trip 35 which is a manual camera and I recently got a Yashica T5 which is automatic and has a good lens. These three cameras will be my main equipment for now.

My next project now is trying out different film to see which one I like best. I already shot B&W with the Kodak T-MAX 400. And the photos came out all right. This is my best BW photo yet, shot with the Trip:

In any case back to prints, I framed a couple of them and handed them as gift. A few examples:

I like matte prints more then glossy, but the opinion is that glossy comes out sharper. I haven’t decided yet if I find that true. Since the MOO mini cards I haven’t used their service anymore, so I ordered a pack of 20 postcards. Besides the two photos with color issues, they are too yellow although it does give them a vintage look. But that was just me doing too much photoshopping on them, the rest came out good.

With the best one being this:

A preview of the the rest:

In any case bottom line is, when I’m taking photos I can forget about all daily life issues and just enjoy the moment. Especially moments like when I shot the Warawara bird last month in Aruba.

I have enough beach photos from my last vacation but I barely have any nature photos. So I hope I will manage to get lots of decent photo to fill my wall back home in Holland.

Last week I took my first nature one for this vacation, it’s a cactus flower that only opens at night past 9 p.m. I have to find the name of this one particular cactus for reference. I was told that after it has rained this cactus produces a flower “button” which then opens only once at night, then it closes again and dies.

A few years back I already took photos of Aruba’s only owl breed which is quite unique as you don’t see them often. Now I got these flowers on photo. There are still some animals I want to photograph but they are difficult to find.

I try to put myself in the mind set of someone who has never been on Aruba before and think what they would want to see besides the obvious popular spots like Eagle Beach or the Lighthouse. I’m thinking more on small details that most people won’t notice.

So check back to see if I succeed.