Molas Lake, Colorado.  Elevation 10850 feet. Olympus OM-4T, Zuiko 35-80 F2.8 Zoom, Fujichrome 100.

There was a pleasant surprise in the mail today. The first batch of slides came back from the lab of the trip to Colorado. I scanned several images and am posting them here. These were taken at the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. Images post-processed in Picture Window Pro.

The first one is an image taken on Velvia 100 with the OM-4T and 35-80 F2.8 lens.

The second image is also taken on the same roll of Velvia a few minutes later.

The third image is on Provia 100F, also taken with the OM-4T and 35-80 F2.8 lens just a few minutes later.

Definitely more to come, but I wanted to get these out right away. -Ken

I've been in hog-heaven shooting Fujichromes again, but I discovered an old curse that has reared its ugly head again.

The Gotcha of the Great!

A good 'chrome, such as Velvia or Kodachrome is expensive to shoot.  The per-shot cost is very high, and when combined with larger-formats, is difficult to justify.  This was true before, and it's even more true today in the world overrun by digital.

This is only one side of the equation, though.  The reason to shoot Velvia or other high-quality 'chrome is for the quality of the images it results in.  You know, for example, how well Velvia enhances colors during the "golden hours"--it takes what is beautiful and extends it into another dimension.

But this comes at a price--not just monetory, but psychological.  You end up not shooting pictures because you are constantly asking yourself: "Is this Velvia-worthy?"  Because of this questioning, you end up NOT taking the picture because you know in your heart that the picture just isn't good enough to commit to a film of this quality. As a result, you miss many photographic opportunities through this "pre-edit" process.

A massive advantage of digital over great film is that you are more likely to take pictures of things that you'd never commit a frame of expensive film to. Granted, nearly all of these pictures are "tossers", but once in a while one of these "also-ran" photographs is a winner.

The key to survival in the film world is to be willing to waste photographs on experimental or secondary pictures. If you can't get beyond the "Gotcha of the Great", then it may pay to have a second camera loaded with low-cost film or even a digital camera.  Save the expensive film for the "I'm making a statement with this photograph". This way, by using dual cameras you won't miss out on the low hanging fruit while you reach for the highest apple.

A storm rolled through this evening over Grinnell, Iowa. The following is a picture of lightning and the library. Photo taken with the Olympus E-1 and 14-54 lens. The camera was mounted to a monopod which was stuck between the driver's seat and door of the Jeep. Shot through an open window (and getting wet). The camera was set to ISO 200, F6.3, Auto and -1.0 exposure compensation. Image was distortion corrected in Picture Window Pro.

Stewart Library and Storm. Grinnell, Iowa

On July 30 2009, Maitani Yoshihisa, the designer-engineer who gave the world the  Olympus Pen, OM, XA and who taught everyone about downsizing and systemisation, passed away at the age of 76.

At Zone-10, we salute him. At least he knew that he made photography so much more enjoyable and better. May he rest in peace.

Sign seen on hotel ice machine:

Olympus E-1, 14-54 Zoom, BW conversion in Olympus Studio 2

This is a comparative test of a scan of a extreme high-contrast Fujichrome 50 slide in the Nikon Coolscan V-ED with NikonScan and VueScan.

Fireworks reflecting on hood of vehicle with cell-phone.

 Olympus E-1, Digital Zuiko 14-54

No special meaning, just trying for something different for fireworks photographs.