Greenfilter and Photoshop? Greenfilters are yesterdays news. Nothing relevant for digital photography. Right? Well, besides that it can make skintones for black and white nicer and give some structure to images of green woods, I discovered a nice effect when I made a very graphical style photo by editing a greenfiltered image in Photoshop.

Shoot something green with a greenfilter on. It’s good to get light son your subject, since it probably have some red light in it.

Cherry Green

In Photoshop make a Adjustment Layer with Channel Mixer, make Monochrome and build a black and white conversion using mainly the red channel (red channel almost 100, blue and green almost 0). Most things in the image will be black, except where the light is.

Black and white pine

Thinking of selling my Super-Takumar 105mm/2.8, but I wanted to give it some photography-time in the woods first and shot this leg of ice the other day. The changing weather between cold and “warm” (well, around 0°C is warm) make some nice iceformations.

Super-Takumar 105mm/2.8 with leg of ice

I was thinking today about what makes a good lens? Well, I don’t believe there is a straight answer to that question. I know some photographers think in terms of resolution, sharpness and charts. But I don’t want to take images where everything is sharp, that would be boring to me eventhough I can respect others who do that sort of thing. I don’t believe art can be measured in charts.

My point is what you look for in a lens is subjective, but here is what I like:

• Bokeh
  I started of as a painter (and still look upon myself as one eventhough it has been ages since I painted anything). I want soft transitions, a painty feeling. Bokeh is very important to me in a lens. I often try to use the contrast between soft and sharp.
  
  

  Butterbokeh of tha Auto-Takumar 85mm/1.8

• Build quality
  My theory is if I like the feeling of the lens, holding it and looking trough it, I will take better pictures becuase I can feel comfortable with the tool. I like the feeling of the lenses I keep, if I don’t like the feel I usually sell it.
  
  

  Yashica MC Zoom 35-70mm 3.5-4.5

• Speed
  A faster f-stop make the viewfinder brighter. This is important if you use manual lenses like I do, brighter viewfinder means easier to focus. But sometimes there can be other reasons – some of my f3.5 lenses give a clearer, brighter viewfinder then others.
  
  

  Yashica ML 50mm/1.4

• Colours
  Contrasty, saturated? Actually I can see the use of most qualities here for different occasions, but I tend to like saturated colours or black and white photographs with good contrast.
  
  

  Colours of the S-M-C Takumar 55mm/1.8

• Sharpness
  Ok. Sometimes I want to make a sharp image to, or at least a part of it.
  
  

  Waterline with Yashica Zoom

• Peculiarity
  Some lenses you just got to love. Like the Industar 50-2, small baby pancake and silly looking. Russian-improved tessar ;) That lens has personality.
  Or the Yashinon-DX 50mm/1.7 with it’s silver frontrim, it’s buttery bokeh and sharp details. Made by Tomioka.
  I guess the header for this paragraph could also be “personality”.
  
  

  Industar 50-2 on Zenit ET

This little thing Industar 50-2 can do margic. I’m sure. Miracles. Or maybe it just makes me relax when I photograph. Makes me more playful…

Mosquito resurrection

It has been dark for so long

And it’s so small, this little russian Tessar-formula M42-lens. Here it is on the small film SLR Canon EOS 300V:

Took a short walk in the wood yesterday but the cold really got to me – at least I got one testshot of the bokeh with Yashica ML 50mm/1.4 before I gave up. These are some dead plants. One thing I noticed was that that highlights in bokeh when the lens is wide open get hard edges on the circles. Something to avoid, I think. Otherwise the lens feels great.

Condensation – We who live in the colder countries in the world (like Sweden where I live) have a small problem with this. So what to do with your cold cameras and lenses after shooting outside and take it indoors?

The solution
The discussion came up on MFlenses.com the other day. I have been taught that having the camera in the bag and warming it up slowly was the thing. But it was questioned and suggested warming up as fast as possible was better. I had a theory that humidity had something to do with the two versions. Sweden has COLD and DRY air in the winter, when I can imagine some countries further south can have a higher humidity and and slightly warmer – maybe it is better to warm up fast there? But I haven’t got a scientific proof that my solution is best. Do you?

• Manual lenses and cold (0º C to -20 º C) What to do? @MFlenses
• How to prevent condensation in camera / lens? What cause it? @photo.net
• Condensation Can Cause Problems @NYTimes
• Prevent condensation @SnapJunky

I have decided to start posting photolinks in this way, this is part 1. The idea was stolen from Brian and my swedish friend Bengt (thanks Brian and Bengt!) ;) My links will be about old cameras, lenses or art and photography in general. I would appreciate if you give some tips on links I should include (I can not guarantee I will though) :)

• “Common Sense Lens Selection Philosophy”
  I respect any photographer writing the line “The market for used lenses is incredible.” Go read Jeff Lynch’s article about common sense, the thing that made a lot of us choose manual lenses.
• “Then & Now: Kodak Movie Cameras”
  I have discovered this site with a similar name to mine, Retro Thing. And they do write about cameras and optics sometimes. Great! :)
• “Time Tales”
  A final place for forgotten, discarded photographs to rest. Somehow it’s very interesting looking through these old pictures.
• “When is Manual Focus Better than Auto Focus?”
  An interesting article on digital Photography School. I guess you know my point of view? Manual focus is always best ;)

In the river nearby, down the hill the water goes but sometimes freezes in time. Caught with Yashica ML 50mm/2 and my Canon. This was before the real cold came, I want to get back there some day soon . now it’s bound to be more ice!

Read my Review on Yashica ML 50mm/2

The last year was a big one for my photography, I discovered a new world in 2008. I’m talking of manual lenses and old cameras, but also my own views and skills in photography.

The start of this blog
24th July – Installation and first post (modest) on Retrocamera.net as an international version of my swedish blog. At the end of the year – 21st December – I reached 4500 unique visitors on my article “5 reasons I love manual lenses”

Retrocamera article

Winning a contest
21st – 27th July I participated in a contest in Sweden which I won. One picture a day from nature, for seven days. Partly using manual gear. I was very proud of this, since the competition was some photographers I respect.

Set with the 7 images I won with

Circle of lenses
I started cheap last spring trying Pentacon 29mm/2.8 on and ended testing Yashica ML 50mm/1.4 on the same spot in the woods. I have reached a collection of lenses I like, except for long telephoto.

With Pentacon 29mm in march 2008

With Yashica ML 50mm/1.4 december 2008

1000 posts on YashicaForum.com
During the year two brands in particular caught my attention, Asahi (Takumar) and Yashica. Asahi/Takumar/Pentax sites exists, but I wondered why there was no YashicaForum.com so I decided to start it. Before new year we reached over 1000 posts and 77 members.

YashicaForum

What does 2009 have in mind?
Well, looks like I will participate in at least two exhibitions, of which one is my own. Me, me and myself ;)

Have a good year 2009!