I’ve been telling myself to drag my camera around more often when I go places, but because of the nature of where I am at, it’s not always easy. But, lately I’ve been getting better at it. And it somehow turns out that ever since the purchase of my 35mm F1.8, I’ve been shooting mostly with that glass. I don’t know if it’s because of the “new toy” factor, but somehow, that little bugger sits on my body 90% of the time. I’m pretty happy with my purchase: it was hard to justify a lens as expensive as my current body, but now having a fast lens is just pure bliss: while somewhat impractical in cases where you know, you need a zoom, it opens up a WORLD of new possibilities. I’m having WAY too much fun with bokeh: I shit you not, I don’t think I’ve used this lens at apertures smaller than F3.2. Anyways, I thought I’d just share a couple of samples:

Coincidentally with my purchase of this lens, I started shooting a lot more in dimly lit places, and making less and less use of my flash. I’m still a bit shy with the high ISOs as my camera doesn’t handle colored 1600 very well, but I am considering the purchase of A) a flash, and B) a higher performance body, the D90. But… that’ll be after I give my wallet some recovery time from my latest purchase, which will require a post here once I come back from the weekend.

Aside from my digital camera setup, I’ve also been hauling my father’s old 35mm Pentax around for times where I feel old-school. It came with an SMC A 35-105 f3.5 Macro, a great lens from what I have read on the net, and I have also picked up an old Pentax M 50mm f2 locally for peanuts. I have to admit, that on the Pentax too, most of the shots are taken with the prime. You might have seen some of the shots I took on my trip to Europe this summer if you watch my Flickr feed. I really like this rig with the 50mm because it’s so compact and robust. No batteries to worry about, no electrical components susceptible to fuck up, no plastic to break, just a hunk of metal, some film, and glass you have to adjust by hand. In fact I brought it on a trip to the CF’s Farnham training site recently, wrapped in a scarf and a plastic bag, and it survived to tell the tale. Unless my film fucks up pretty bad, you’ll get an update on that too. Anyways, here are some shots straight out of the Pentax rig.

As you can see I’ve had a bit of trouble with irradiated/expired film as you can see, but hey, it kinda gives the pictures a certain grungy style, no?

If you’re on Flickr, feel free to watch on my stuff, I’ll be posting updates (hopefully) regularly here as I go anyways.