Nikon F2 - mastering depth of field

I’ve owned a Nikon F2 Photomic 35mm SLR for over thirty years. If you are familiar with pre-digital 35mm SLR cameras, you are probably knowledgeable of the ease of determining the depth of field and pre-setting the focus of the lens. At first it seemed very complicated to learn the terms f-stop or aperture, speed and ASA film speed.

Just in case you are not familiar with the term f-stop. An f-stop is a setting corresponding to a particular f-number. The f-number is the ratio of the focal length of a camera lens to the diameter of the aperture being used for a particular shot (e.g., f8, indicating that the focal length is eight times the diameter).

The real mystery was depth of field (the distance between the nearest and the furthest objects that give an image judged to be in focus in a camera) and depth of focus (the distance between the two extreme axial points behind a lens at which an image is judged to be in focus).

We spend all of our waking hours looking at objects with our eyes. Some of us unfortunate to have corrective lenses attached to our face recognize problems with focusing on objects at a certain distance where the perfect sight students never has a second thought about focus.

Mastering a 35mm SLR meant learning how it works and being familiar with the settings, then experimenting with various films and taking hundreds of photographs in natural and artificial light. It was popular to write down shutter speeds and aperture settings, film speed, and type of lighting in a small notebook for each photograph.

Markings on the lens barrel on 35mm SLRs are the depth of field lines (on the lens mounting ring), color coded to the aperture values (on the aperture ring), and the distance scales in meter and feet (on the focusing ring). Mastering these markings will set you free to used your camera to compose your photographs from anywhere in the macro world to the world of high speed activities with out a second thought of focus.

Kind of reminds me of using a Macintosh

My Nikon F2 is usually sitting on the shelf collecting dust these days, while I’m out trying to master the controls on my Nikon Coolpix 4500 - you have to admit, there are lots of bells and whistles on this model.

Nikon why have you stopped making the swivel body and manual settings on your later models? Are you NUTS - combining SLR settings with digital Coolpix models would be much smarter then heavy digital SLRs! Photographers want total control while composing and cameras should be carried around in pockets, not pushed around in a wheelbarrow

I do miss the marking on the lens barrel - Nikon, is this possible to update the Coolpix 4500 with high tech markings or using an improved LED readout? The Coolpix 4500 swivel body has more uses than you can imagine. You can even take self-portraits without a mirror.

Pansies - something unusual

This afternoon I was taking photographs of some pansies my wife has been planting and to my surprise I discovered something very unusual about them.

By enhancing the photograph, it is my hope to drawn the viewers eyes to the particular area I noticed to be unusual.

<click here or on the image for a surprise>

I have not altered the contents of the photograph and will post the original if viewers request it.

Tragedy - subtle or complex

Do you reminisce the days of old as much as I do? Perchance various encounters incite people to look back and wonder where their lives were destined before they were drastically altered by unfortunate incidents happening unexpectedly and unintentionally, resulting in various injuries or unforgettable tales of heartbreak.

We have all been there in one way or the other. One person’s tragedy is as life altering as someone else’s. Sometimes we can survive complex tragedies and become distressed with the subtle tragedies that worry us to death.

My only advice to those of you living with subtle tragedies or complex tragedies is to do the best you can with the resources available.

When I was 18, I spent 13 months in various hospitals, truly some of the darkest hours of my life. Several of my friends had left for Vietnam, but since I was injured in an automobile accident I wouldn’t be going to support them. I can imagine how scared they must have been sitting in a jungle, far from home, with the thunder of war all around them.

I had several complications caused by my injury and many nights I awoke covered in a cold sweat and very frightened.

A young nurse, named Helen, just a few years older than I, had joined the staff at the Boston’s hospital I was staying at. All nurses are unbelievable caregivers we often overlook. Helen was there, at the time I needed someone the most, and you’d swear she was an angel reaching out in those darkness hours to calm her patience’s soul, as well as his body.

The next time you are in the hospital, thank your doctor, but don’t overlook your nurse.

New Mexico - enchantment

Researching the facts about the southwestern United States is very interesting. We are looking forward to retiring there someday.

Some of the laws in New Mexico are interesting. If you currently live in a populated area, you may already be aware that it is extremely difficult to see any detail in the night sky above you. In fact most adults don't even bother to look up at the sky.

FreeNewMexican.com
December 17, 2005

New Mexico considers its dark, star-studded night sky part of its heritage, and has a law on the books protecting it from sky-pointing lights

I look forward to watching the night sky over the high desert - I heard it is far more mystical at higher elevations, but I've also heard star-gazing from the ocean, far beyond the city lights, is pretty awesome.

As some people say, "you will be awed by the Milky Way, mesmerized by the Moon, thrilled by the Planets, and humbled by the unbelievable number of Stars which soar above you almost every night of the year."

The image of the adobe McDonalds in Taos made me smile. Taos and Santa Fe have strict regulations about what kind of structures populate their downtown districts.

Adobe, is an extremely old form of masonry and is the Spanish word for plaster which derives from the Arabic word for sun-dried bricks. We have seen many of the adobe structures and puelos in New Mexico and Arizona, but are looking forward to seeing more, prehap even living in a single family structure or an adobe condo or pueblos.

The natural colors of the high desert earth are beautiful to look at, star-gazing is mystical, and we are familiar with the Mexican and Spanish influence on the food. I look forward discovering more about the people and culture of the south west, as well as the art and writing.

Springpoint lighthouse

 

 

 

 

Springpoint Lighthouse

Millions of tourist have photographed the coast of Maine and filled their travel journals with various normal photographs. I like to tinker around with various software photo filters - I'm sometimes surprised with the results.

Columbine - a memorial

On April 20, 1999, two males walked into Columbine and opened fire with semi-automatic weapons, killing 12 students and one teacher, and injuring several others. But the effect of the Columbine shootings, described as the worst school shooting in the nation’s history, spread nationally beyond Littleton, Colorado.

* * * *
my thoughts of the victims through the surviver's eyes - written april 1999:

Students of Columbine

Within this silent moment,
Lifelong friends lying cold.

Despondent apocalypses fill the soul,
Reflection on our affliction,
Lamenting cries fill the wind.

Be still, my restless sorrow,
Despair I beseech thee go.

Placid glow embrace me,
Good bye my lifelong friends.

Penpal Poetry - 1960s

In my early years writing weekly air-letters to a penpal in Lancaster, England, I would describe my northwestern Maine wilderness of the United States and she would describe her English countryside. This is how I remember my long ago penpal.

———-
Oh dear friend of mine that I have never seen
Our joys and tears that time has passed between
Alone in darkness dreaming of distant shore
With English moon shining on an English moor

Though years of shallow friendships that come and go
Oh dear friend of mine, sincerely you I still know
Pulses of the heart and soul written with pen
With rising sun across the ocean we send

The freshness of our innocent lives we share
Never with the need of asking if we care
Your moors and my mountains together we blend
Continuous journey of words without end

———-

I remember how exciting it was to have a friend across the ocean.

Byron - minor Poem

George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron) born 22 Jan 1788, was an Anglo-Scottish Poet, as well as a major player in Romanticism. Byron died 19 Apr 1824.

I only mention the birth and death dates in blog posts to give a feeling how short the lives of the poets of Romanticism actually were.

With endless resources to document Byron's life, I will only focus on one minor poem that has attracted my attention since the day I first read it.

I have copied this poem to several friends with the hope it would attract their attention to poetry. I won't mention here how many of those friends sold every thing they owned and when out into the world in pursuit of Romanticism.

I found the words very mystical and powerful. How many times have we discovered someone we thought we would know forever and six months to a year later, we seldom remembered their name.

What does the following poem say to you?

To a Beautiful Quaker (1806)

Sweet girl! though only once we met,
That meeting I shall ne'er forget;
And though we ne'er may meet again,
Remembrance will thy form retain.
I would not say, "I love," but still
My senses struggle with my will:
In vain, to drive thee from my breast,
My thoughts are more and more represt;
In vain I check the rising sighs,
Another to the last replies:
Perhaps this is not love, but yet
Our meeting I can ne'er forget.

What though we never silence broke,
Our eyes a sweeter language spoke.
The toungue in flattering falsehood deals,
And tells a tale in never feels;
Deceit the guilty lips impart,
And hush the mandates of the heart;
But soul's interpreters, the eyes,
Spurn such restraint and scorn disguise.
As thus our glances oft conversed,
And all our bosoms felt, rehearsed,
No spirit, from within, reproved us,
Say rather, "'twas the spirit moved us."
Though what they utter'd I repress,
Yet I conceive thou'lt partly guess;
For as on thee my memory ponders,
Perchance to me thine also wanders.
This for myself, at least, I'll say,
Thy form appears through night, through day:
Awake, with it my fancy teems;
In sleep, it smiles in fleeting dreams;
The vision charms the hours away,
And bids me curse Aurora's ray
For breaking slumbers of delight
Which make me wish for endless night:
Since, oh! whate'er my future fate,
Shall joy or woe my steps await,
Tempted by love, by storms beset,
Thine image I can ne'er forget.

Alas! again no more we meet,
No more former looks repeat;
Then let me breathe this parting prayer,
The dictate of my bosom's care:
"May heaven so guard my lovely quaker,
That anguish never can o'ertake her;
That peace and virtue ne'er forsake her,
But bliss be aye her heart's partaker!
Oh, may the happy mortal, fated
To be by dearest ties related,
For her each hour new joys discover,
And lose the husband in the lover!
May that fair bosom never know
What 't is to feel the restless woe
Which stings the soul with vain regret,
Of him who never can forget!"

Stone Body of Longfellow

For the past thirty six years I have driven by Longfellow's statue in the village by the sea, Portland, Maine.

As the seasons change, he sits surrounded by springtime flowers and chirping birds, crowds of summer tourists stand around him in silence filled with awe, gray squirrels sit at his feet in the cool autumn air filled with twirling leaves, and the dark frigid days of the slanting snow his frosty stone body symbolizes the warmth of inspiration.

Ever wonder why poets become statues

Keats

John Keats was born of humble origin in London on October 31, 1795, and died of tuberculosis in Rome on February 23, 1821. He wrote some 150 poems and stands, as he hoped, "among the English Poets" for all time.

That is how the preface of the Book of the Heart - The Poetics, Letters, and Life of John Keats, by Andres Rodriguez, begins.

I read and re-read the Book of the Heart hot off the press in 1993. I have owned the Cambridge Edition of The Poetical Works of Keats since 1986. I discovered a copy of of Keats a Biography, by Andrew Motion while browsing in a bookstore on May 2001. I have read and studied it for weeks. Later in July 2001 I found The Cambridge Companion to Keats, edited by Susan J. Wolfson.

The Cambridge Companions to Literature are wonderful, I hope someday to own many more.

Now that I have blown the dust off the wonderful tomes, I'm ready to enjoy them again.

So who is this Keats anyway? You curiosity may lead you into the discovery of the Romanticism.

You will want to read Keat's letters, as well as his poems, and decide for yourself who is was.