About Gregory
I am an Australian Music educator, Band Director, Record Producer, computer programmer and keen amateur photographer. I like the look of film. There is a velvety texture, range of tones and highlight detail in quality prints that I can’t get from digital.
Topics include travel, family, landscapes, local events, trains, cars, planes, whatever. Photography as a hobby should be fun, right? There is no high art within these pages. I use my cameras for fun!
You won’t find test charts or brick walls here. No righteous quest to reveal noise at ISO 512,000. No complaints if a camera I do not own has too few cross-type focus sensors. Just Kodak Moments. 😎
Perhaps if I spent a few hundred hours building my skills in Photoshop and perfecting my technique with a Nikon D850 then I could duplicate the texture and dynamic range of film, maybe. DxO Filmpack might be an easier option.
However, since I can currently get what I want in daylight with film I will stick to that, and even sometimes indoors when the lighting is strong enough to see my own feet. Almost all images on this site have been taken on film.
It’s cheaper than you think given the depreciation of digital bodies and the outrageous price of exotic lenses that will will make no difference unless you are printing posters.
I enjoy the experience of film photography. With digital I am forever stressing whether I had all of the hundreds of menu items set correctly, decoding too many icons on the rear information screen or chimping rather than imagining and composing the images.
Now I switch the camera on, choose an aperture for depth, frame the image, wait for the moment, click and repeat as required. I don’t think about any of the operations of the camera itself as I make the shot.
Colour negatives don’t blow the highlights, a topic that has consumed millions of words of advice and arcane technical discussions on digital photo sites. I don’t think about exposing to the right, waste time looking for blinkies or bracketing. Film just works, at least wherever I like to take photos.
I love being ready for the next shot rather than chimping to check histograms that never seem accurate for RAW files. I am puzzled by blinking pixels showing highlights blown by 1/6 stop when I know film will take four whole stops over-exposure before compromising image quality.
I am interested in my photography skills — exposure, aperture choice, focus point, shutter speed and inter-related items that allow me to get clear photos. This blog will help, encouraging me to take a bit more care behind the viewfinder. No point clicking the shutter unless what I see is worth displaying.
For improving basic technique Lloyd Chambers has tips that makes sense to me, backed up by HD images and detailed shooting notes. For a few dollars a week you too can subscribe to Making Sharp Images and Advanced Photography whether you shoot film or digital.
For more information about my favourite camera visit John Crane’s Nikon F6 Project.
The world has far too many ranting idiots who think that photography is entirely about comparing numbers. For example: “My Nikiflex is better than your Leicacon because it has 1.2 bits more dynamic range!” or “My Sonolta is way better in low light since DxO says it is good at ISO 3279 but yours only measures 2995.”
Yeah right. Like any of this matters, or is even visible in an actual print. These clowns never post any photos. Their lives are focused on studying infinitesimal engineering spec changes in new cameras instead of actually using one.
A Nikon D850 has a 374 page user manual. Cameras like this require a huge investment in time and practice just to get to the point where you are driving them effectively. I want to take photos that give me pleasure and happy memories, not spend weeks getting my brain around yet another mind-numbing set of mostly superfluous features.
People who get paid for their photos need the best gear they can afford, and will take the time to learn how to use it effectively. Some hobbyists like new equipment that allows them to try new ideas. They enjoy the challenge of building new technical knowledge.
Most of us only need a light-tight box, an accurate meter, a smooth shutter, a few great lenses and a sense of adventure!
I have little interest in things engineers do because they can unless it is a feature I can actually use such as a higher frame rate or a better viewfinder with manual focus. I shoot with Nikon film cameras because they have well designed controls for practical photography. Many cost under $100.
My films are developed and scanned by Foto Supplies in Albury, NSW, Australia. 19MP scans are more than adequate for 12x8 prints. My HDTV is only 2mp! 4K UHDTV is 8MP.
If necessary I use DxO Photo Lab to straighten the horizon, fix wide-angle distortion, adjust white-balance on indoor shots and crop to taste.
This site is not written in Wordpress, Dreamweaver nor any other web development software. I have an aversion to sites that trade speed for fancy effects, then don’t work on all the devices I have. For maximum compatibility this site is written in raw HTML and published with the free SIL font Andika
For those of you who have never used film and consider it “So 20th century” I hope I can surprise you, and perhaps encourage you to try it. For many outdoor subjects film is simply wonderful.