Dr. Phil's Dreamwidth Journal

The Autumnal Equinox Has Come And Gone

The average temperature this time of year is supposed to be around 72°F. Saturday the high was around 57°F -- and it's been in the 60s and low 70s all week, with the same for next week. And we've had a lot of rain, even hail. Hell, there've been a couple of water spouts on Lake Michigan recently, including one by South Haven today.

So I debated taking a camera with me on my errands late in the afternoon. Dark clouds. But also bright white ones and a good blue sky. I grabbed the Nikon D1 commuter bag and headed out.


Once again I didn't even get out of the driveway -- or out of the Blazer for that matter -- before I had my first shot. Bit of a risk with the D1, because its CCD sensor can overblow highlights, but not totally bad. (Click on photo for larger.)


Grab shot out of the Blazer's front windshield of this rainbow against a bright white cloud in blue sky and sunshine. I saw black clouds and rain in different areas, but never got rained on myself. (Click on photo for larger.)

Lots and lots of great clouds -- little black ones against white ones, etc. -- but mostly not in places where I could frame a good shot. Still it was a nice drive and I mailed some bills and did some errands.

The Elusive West Michigan Wild Turkeys

We've seen a lot of wild turkeys around here lately. Damned things are hard to photograph, despite the fact that we've seen flocks of a dozen or more at a time. Whatever they're eating, the hot weather this summer seems to have suited them.

Last Saturday when I went out on a picture taking expedition, I spotted a flock of turkeys crossing 78th Avenue north of M-45 -- they were silhouetted against the road by being in the shadow of trees on either side of the road. Despite (a) having the Kodak Pro SLR/n with me, (b) with the 70-300mm mounted and (c) sitting on the seat next to me, I couldn't come to a stop, get out and grab the camera before the whole ten or twelve crossed. And it wasn't like they were strutting all that fast.

Hunters talk of being made fools of by wild turkeys -- and I can attest to photographers having the same troubles. (grin)


On Tuesday I took the back way from M-45 to Wilson Avenue and spotted what I thought was a flock of Canadian geese in a field. But as I got closer I realized they were turkeys. Turned around and rolled the window down. I only had the little Sony, but I did record them. (Click on photo for larger.)

But this Saturday on the way back from Allendale, I slowed down because two vehicles ahead of me had stopped. Closer, I saw a couple of turkeys cross the road. Figured I'd missed them, but moving slowly I, too, had to come to a stop for another crossing.


Grab shot of wild turkeys lurking by the side of the road. (Click on photo for larger.)


Why did the turkey cross the road? To challenge drivers and photographers, of course. (Click on photo for larger.)

Still, one of the better wild turkey shots I've gotten, despite all the backlighting.

Dr. Phil

The Difference Between Digital and Film Cameras

It's the film, of course. You can put all kinds of film into any 35mm camera -- and get all kinds of results. Digital also gives you all kinds of results, but they are from either changing settings or post-processing. Ultimately, the recording sensor in the digital camera is going to control what range of results you can get -- the camera itself just comes along for the ride.

Back when I did yearbook shooting in high school and college, we used to buy a roll or two a year of infrared film, using Ektachrome Infrared color slide film. Turns out that the sensors in many digital cameras are sensitive to IR light, so they have to have an IR blocking filter mounted to keep the images restricted to visible light.

I read up on places that replace the IR filter with a visible light filter, converting the digital camera to IR use only. Alas, that requires a spare camera body AND a couple of hundred dollars.

But... it turns out that those IR blocking filters are not 100% effective. So if you're willing to use a tripod and long exposures, you can still do digital IR photography if you have a visible light blocking filter for the lens. AND, one source says that the Nikon D1 Series DSLRs are very good for this, because they use a CCD instead of a CMOS sensor.

Plus I had an infrared filter.

I remember seeing this totally black filter in Wendy's camera bag amongst a group of filters. Paul had used it way back in the 70s when he played with some of the Kodak High Speed Infrared black & white film.


Tiffen Wratten No. 87 Series VIII filter.


The glass Wratten filters take the gelatin filter and sandwich it between two pieces of glass. This filter suffers from some deterioration. (Click on photo for larger.)

Alas, it's a Series VIII filter and I haven't found a Series VIII to 52mm adapter. But, there was an old Nikon HR-1 rubber lens hood, and I found that I could loosely hold the larger Series VIII filter in the rubber and attach it onto a 52mm thread.

So I picked out a 24mm f2.8 AI converted Nikkor lens, because it has an IR focusing index, closed the eyepiece shutter, set the ISO to 400 and the aperture to f5.6, as recommended, and did a handheld shot at about 1/3rd of a second. Just to see if I got anything.


Success!


This is lightly manipulated. (Click on photo for larger.)

Next I broke out the tripod and set the camera up by the open back deck door.


Oops, this is what happens when you pan the tripod head and you've got a black filter over the lens -- next time I'll use a level. (Click on photo for larger.)

I've ordered a cheap Opteka 52mm R72 filter from Amazon -- it's supposed to be more of a 780nm cutoff, rather than 720nm, but it'll attach to a lot of my lenses -- all of my AI Nikkors from my old camera bag and several of my AF Nikkors. Amazingly, with the R72 filter, the autofocus should actually work.

This should be fun.

Oh, and the D1 Series? They also see into the UV spectrum. Lenses are a problem, but you can use EL Nikkor enlarging lenses, apparently -- and I have one or two of them. Need a helical mount, for focusing, and a UV pass filter... don't know what that'll cost. But that'll be for later.

Dr. Phil

A Cold Saturday

After setting some records in the mid-90s earlier in the week, West Michigan is in the midst of a big cool off. Driving to Holland MI after lunch, the Bravada put the heat on. And it was needed. (grin) Still, after the movie, we came out to out sunshine and blue skies -- welcome to Fall. (evil grin)

Super 8 [PG-13]

Holland 7 Theatre #3, Saturday 12 June 2011, 2:15pm

J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg had a 1970s love child involving a Super 8 movie camera. This much anticipated movie also featured a lot of mystery -- the first two trailers didn't give away much. This is getting so rare today that I was even pissed at the latest trailers which showed any hint of Who's In The Boxcar?

In playing the movie name game, all the current reviewers want to compare this to Spielberg's E.T.. But that's the wrong movie comparison. This is The Goonies and Jaws Remake Dawn of the Dead. OK, so that last one isn't Spielberg. But so what? As I've said repeatedly of films this year -- what Super 8 is, is Super 8. It is what it is.

And what it is, is terrific. First -- the kids are perfect. Good lord, I went to junior high with these kids. It's perfect. As is their attempt at film making. (grin) You know, I've made one film in my life. A 20-minute documentary in high school, mostly shot with a rented Canon 1014 Super 8 camera. Trust me, those kids would've killed to have a 1014 (or a Nikon R10). I didn't get a good look at the first Super 8 camera, but it was something like a Sankyo -- decent enough. But the second camera they had to use was one of those rear thumb trigger Kodak Ektasound Super 8 sound cameras. Totally cheesy.

And before we get any further, let me just say that I was pissed by the train wreck. No Way Do You Survive driving a 1970s pickup head into a train -- especially when you made the fuel tank explode. In the last few years, I've seen three great train wrecks. (1) The Fugitive -- they derailed a real train and Harrison Ford had one take to run away. (grin) (2) Hancock -- after Will Smith punches the train to stop it, the collateral damage as the cars slide around and stack up behind the broken locomotive. "That looks expensive," Will Smith laments. (3) And the repeated explosions aboard the Chicago commuter train in Source Code were fun. (I'll even say I enjoyed the "flaming death train" in Spielberg's War of the Worlds.) But... the train wreck in Super 8 is way over the top. Boxcars don't pole vault like that. However, I can forgive this and reach for more popcorn.

And that's where the fun begins. Because really, you can't question anything that goes on this film. It looks like it'll be a photo realistic feature, given the care to the 1970s decor and set dressing, but's it a ride from one end of this Ohio town to the other. Actually, it was filmed in West Virginia, but who's counting?

I said at the beginning that this is Jaws. Spielberg's first megahit worked because the shark didn't and we never got to see the shark much until late in the second half. You've got the whole government/military conspiracy and the massively inappropriate reaction -- hell, they're rolling tanks through the neighborhood shooting at everything -- a la Outbreak or Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Of course, such devastation is popcorn stuff for Americans, because we DON'T ever see tanks destroying our towns and cities.

This isn't the movie I thought it'd be. I thought it'd all be about the cover-up of something in the 70s falling apart in modern times. Instead, it's a love letter to the late 70s -- a true period piece. Blondie! "My Sharona"! Electronic football! (Never saw the fascination with that handheld game, but I knew kids who played it incessantly at school.)

You'll be on the verge of walking out of the theatre, wanting to rail against how come no one ever heard of this event, because there's no way to cover this up, not with all that TV coverage. But Abrams and Spielberg have one last gem for you that will make you feel much better. Take your SF metaphor -- either the Oracle's cookies for Neo in The Matrix or the flashy-flashy device from Men In Black. But whichever you choose:

Do Not Get Up when the credits start. You want to stay. It's the quintessential Dr. Phil Special.

And that's all I'll say of Super 8. No spoilers required. It's great popcorn fare. The Summer of 2011 is doing just FINE for big movies.

Highly Recommended

Oh -- and it was really good popcorn.

Dr. Phil