Category: Photo Life

World Photography Day

Thursday, August 19th, 2021camera, Minolta, postaday, snapshotsPhoto Life, Slice of LifeLeave a Comment

Photo info: FUJIFILM X-E4, 27mm, f/4, 1/18 sec, ISO3200
“My Minolta” Cedar Park, 2021

Today is World Photography Day, and I thought I’d take a photo of the camera that started my photography hobby in earnest. It’s my beloved Minolta X-700, which was my dad’s camera before I “borrowed it permanently” for my photography class in college.

My grandfather bought it in Hong Kong in the 80s as a gift for my dad. When I moved to Japan, I brought it with me and got it CLA’d (Clean, Lube, Adjust) at the Yodobashi store in Yokohama for ¥ 5,000 JP and enjoyed practicing photography and using slide film while there.

Ever since digital cameras got up to speed, I haven’t used my film cameras much, although I did stick with Minolta (Konica-Minolta) and even Sony after they bought the Konica-Minolta camera division.

Film cameras are certainly beautiful, but I find film to be too much of a hassle. I know film photography has been enjoying a resurgence (mainly for those who grew up with digital), but I am pretty sure I’ll never seriously go back.

Thank you for all the memories, my little Minolta X-700!

Cloud Snapshot

Monday, August 16th, 2021Wednesday, August 18th, 2021clouds, postaday, snapshotsPhoto Life, SketchingLeave a Comment

Photo info: Apple iPhone 12 mini, 4.2mm, f/1.6, 1/20000 sec, ISO32
“Look Up” Cedar Park, 2021

I really enjoyed the cloud-cover on today’s neighborhood run.

I’m also enjoying using the Simple RAW Camera app for my iPhone 12 Mini. I find that the iPhone’s regular photos are too processed for my taste, especially when I bring them into Lightroom for editing, but shooting RAW on the iPhone bypasses the iPhone “magic” and allows me to post-process the photos with greater control. For normal photos, I’ll still use the iPhone’s camera, but for cloud photos, RAW is the way to go.

FYI, the iPhone 12 Mini doesn’t have the option natively to enable RAW photos to be saved, so you have to use an app.

I hope you had a nice day!

Fujifilm Recipes and Shooting JPG

Friday, July 16th, 2021Wednesday, August 11th, 2021postaday, snapshotsPhoto Life, Slice of LifeLeave a Comment

Photo info: FUJIFILM X-E4, 27mm, f/4, 1/90 sec, ISO3200
“Ukes” Cedar Park, 2021

Today I watched a video about Fujifilm film simulation recipes, and spent some time reproducing some.

My Fujifilm X-E4 can connect to Fujifilm X Raw Studio and save unlimited custom recipes which makes it easy to try out different looks on the computer and then transfer any of them to the camera. Since I don’t shoot RAW anymore, having these film presets to create the JPGs in-camera is really neat and fun. It’s like having a roll of a particular film (and/or processing technique) in the camera.

Some will say to just shoot RAW and then apply the recipes in post. I understand the logic (I’ve done that for years) but I now prefer keeping things light and simple. That means culling my photo library aggressively and shooting JPG for a small library size and greater compatibility for sharing.

A bit more about culling the photo library. I shoot daily and it’s important to delete images until I have only 5 or 6 chosen JPG files per day in my Lightroom catalog. My nightmare (and how I used to live) is to have 20 RAW files sitting there, ready for processing or deleting. That kind of clutter not only sat on the hard drive, but also sat in the back of my mind. RAW files offer the option unlimited possibilities, but in my mind, these possibilities are just open-ended questions of “is this better?” or “should I go back and re-edit using these other settings?”. A JPEG gives me a kind of closure to each image I’ve taken. It’s more or less final and I can move on.

All that being said, the snapshots in this post are just test shots and not all that good nor interesting, but I like them anyways.

Other Fujifilm recipe resources:
Joe D’Agostino
Fuji X Weekly — Film Recipes app

Photo info: FUJIFILM X-E4, 27mm, f/4, 1/100 sec, ISO2000
“Bike” Cedar Park, 2021

Fourth of July Dinner Brisket and Jalapeño Poppers

Sunday, July 4th, 2021Monday, July 5th, 2021food, postadayFood, Photo LifeLeave a Comment

Photo info: Apple iPhone 12 mini, 4.2mm, f/1.6, 1/40 sec, ISO320
“Fourth of July Dinner” Cedar Park, 2021

I made a beef brisket for our holiday meal using a slow-baking method as I have done in the past. However, this time it took a couple of hours longer than usual for some reason. The delay was okay, however, as the family was in full relax-mode, and we snack on the smoked sausage and drank margaritas (just Mariko and I!) while we waited. I also made jalapeño poppers, Bay made mashed potatoes, Mariko made a salad, and Koa set the table.

It was a yummy meal, and easy to make.

FYI, the traditional way of preparing jalapeño poppers is to wrap the cheese-filled peppers with bacon strips, and then pop them into the oven. But what we do is to fry up the bacon, cut into bits, and then just add them with the cheese stuffing. This method is so much easier, not nearly as messy, and it’s simpler to get the jalapeños to the right done-ness. It’s also way easier to eat. 😀🌶

I hope you had a nice day!

Photo info: Apple iPhone 12 mini, 4.2mm, f/1.6, 1/260 sec, ISO32
“American Flag” Cedar Park, 2021

Milky Way Photos and Hiking Out of the Chisos Mountains

Sunday, June 6th, 2021Wednesday, June 9th, 2021astrophotography, backpacking, Big Bend, clouds, food, hiking, postaday, travelingPhoto Life, Slice of Life, Traveling1 Comment

Photo info: FUJIFILM X-E4, 18mm, f/2.8, 25 sec, ISO3200
“Milky Way” Big Bend, 2021

This morning I woke up at 5 am and right outside my tent was the Milky Way. It was awesome! I got out my Fujifilm X-E4 with 18-55 mm lens, put it on the Ultrapod and took a few shots. There were only a few clouds in the sky so the shots looked pretty good, and I even captured a few shooting stars. In fact, with the 30-second exposure, almost every shot had at least one shooting star in it. It was so cool!

Photo info: Apple iPhone 12 mini, 1.55mm, f/2.4, 1/1000 sec, ISO25
“Sunrise” Big Bend, 2021

Soon, the sun made its way into the day, and after a sunrise photo and some coffee, it was time to hit the trail. We hiked Laguna Meadows Trail all the way down to the Chisos Basin, seeing one large bear along the way. It was digging a hole near the trail so we had to scoot past pretty quickly, bear-spray at the ready. Very exciting!

At the end of the hike, I splurged on a Topo Chico and mango ice cream bar before we hit the road. After a couple of hours we arrived at Fort Stockton and had lunch at Pepito’s, where I had a huge burger. It was a good way to satisfy my hiker hunger!