Photography on hi, it's mike

Daily Notes for 2024-02-05

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Poking at Logseq. Dusting off the camera. Wallabag bookmarking script.

Daily notes for 2023-12-16

Sat, 16 Dec 2023 14:42:04 -0800

A soft KVM switcher for Dell monitors and Linux. Photo housekeeping.

Daily Notes for 2023-05-14

Sun, 14 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

org-mode evolution, fixing mu4e/Doom’s busted leader key, Guardians Vol. 3, not taking pictures lately

Daily notes for 2023-03-06

Mon, 06 Mar 2023 09:31:57 -0800

New theme, old posts, new photo management tool.

Picture of the Week: Billboard

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 16:39:52 -0800

Picture of the Week: Billboard

Picture of the Week: Frost on rusty bolts

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 22:02:22 -0800

Picture of the Week: Frost on rusty bolts

Picture of the Week: Crow

Fri, 03 Feb 2023 10:45:14 -0800

Picture of the Week: Crow

Picture of the Week: Profit from the Panic

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 10:32:53 -0800

Picture of the Week: Profit from the Panic

Making a Picture of the Week feature on Hugo (Updated)

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 07:25:02 -0800

Updated: See the last section

I wanted to take advantage of the flexibility I gave myself with Hugo to have a “Picture of the Week” (PotW) feature on my new site. It took a few iterations to get it to where I liked it, and there are some things about Hugo I learned along the way, but it’s done enough for now.

The basic idea is that I want to take advantage of the streamlined upload and metadata workflow I’ve set up between Lightroom and imgup to share photos without a lot of repeating myself when it comes to writing titles, alt text, etc.

After 10 minutes with the Fujifilm mini Evo Instax camera

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I bought the very first Fujifilm Instax hybrid camera they came out with a few years ago and I did not get it. I didn't really quite understand what the "hybrid" part meant, and the object itself was sort of joyless: Clunky, blobby, fussy. If I wanted to take images that were not as good as I could take with a nicer camera, and if all I was doing was printing images taken with an inferior digital camera, I could have just used my phone along with the Instax printer I already owned. {: .dropcap}

Quick review: Cobalt Image for normalizing raw across cameras

Wed, 29 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I think Cobalt Image may have taken away my last excuse for working on a collection of the last few years’ work. DNGs I shot with the Q2 and RAFs from the X-Pro3, X100V, and X-T4 all fit with each other now.

I went on a brief “use it for everything!” over the past day, trying it out on a little of everything from the past few years. This afternoon I took a step back and realized I want to preserve a record of what I’ve been up to with my edits as much as my subjects, so I’m grateful Lightroom has a versions feature: As I pick things for the collection, I can save a snapshot of my favorite edit up to now, then make a new proof for a collection using Cobalt.

On iPhoneography these days

Sun, 21 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I took my iPhone 13 Pro along as my sole camera for a quick camping trip to Vernonia. I’ve only had the phone for a week and was pretty excited about its new RAW format.

I like the images I get out of it, but in a qualified sort of way that I’ve felt about iPhone photos for a little while now:

Computational photography is a wonder that can do some amazing things. I have to do a lot less work to get a nice image out of an iPhone in weird lighting conditions than I do with one of my Fujifilm cameras, especially when dynamic range is challenging.

A tree on the floodplain

Mon, 18 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Once we recognize that all things are impermanent, we have no problem enjoying them.

The picture habit: On 37,000 pictures in three years after a week of bad pictures

Fri, 14 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week was packed and long in a way I haven’t had to deal with in a while. One day started at 7a and went to 10p, schedule filled the entire time. Another went from 8a to 11p, with a 20 minute break that went to someone else’s problem. Yesterday was a mere “start at 8:00, go to 5:30” day, but the cumulative sleep loss and churn of the week made it a day to be gotten through, not won, punctuated by doubling back on things that should have been handled but simply had not been.

More on the X-Pro3, which has done as it should and largely disappeared

Fri, 31 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

When I first got the X-Pro3, I wondered if I was going to have that nagging “oh, this wasn’t the right thing” feeling I’ve had over the years when a camera doesn’t quite click with me.

Back in my point-and-shoot days, it was with Canon’s followup to one of the Powershot S-series. In my early dSLR days, it was Pentax’s followup to the K10D, and then the Nikon 5000. Back on the point-and-shoot side, it took about a week to decide the Fuji XF10 was largely a dud.

Very early thoughts on the Fujifilm X-Pro3

Thu, 09 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

When I was in the market for a better-than-high-end-of-the-low-end camera a few years ago, I glanced briefly at the Fujifilm X-Pro2. I’d been shooting with the X100S for a few years and had come to really enjoy the rangefinder feel and I appreciated the hybrid optical/electronic viewfinder. I ended up with an X-T2 instead, and the decider was pretty much the tilting LCD: The X-Pro2 didn’t have one, and I appreciate being able to get down kind of low to photograph a subject, or shoot from the hip on the street.

'shopped

Sun, 21 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I still hear people skeptically asking “did you have to touch it up in Photoshop?” as if the purity of the image has somehow been diluted. As someone who came up in film, the question never made sense to me. This is what people did before there was Photoshop. https://t.co/Uz7avrBQmk

— Mike Hall (@pdxmph) January 19, 2018

Maybe that was a little disingenuous, because I do understand the question. As someone replied to me, there’s Photoshop and then there’s Photoshop. There’s a picture that starts from a good place and ends up, with some digital darkroom work, in a much better place; and then there are pictures that start from all kinds of places and end up in a really bad place. And some people just don’t like photographs to not be “real,” for a definition of real I would be able to understand, even if I didn’t agree with it.

Tools for Playing with Fujifilm Film Presets

Mon, 15 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A while back I found a really interesting blog post by Peter Evans on using Fujifilm film simulations to emulate the look of famous photographers. It was interesting as a study in using digital technology to reconstruct some of the elements of each photographer’s style, but also because it helped my understanding of the highlight and shadow tone settings gel.

The film simulations are one of my favorite parts of shooting with my Fujifilm cameras, and I love the way the highlight and shadow tone settings can dramatically affect the mood of a photo without needing to do much in Lightroom.

Some Notes on My Fujifilm Lens Collection

Sat, 10 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I promised an email to a friend about my Fujifilm X-mount lenses, but figured I might as well blog about them and include a few samples.

Prior to buying an X-T2, I usually had a general-purpose zoom of some kind (18-200mm) plus a prime or two (35 or 50mm) .

My couple of years with a Fujifilm X100S got me back in a prime lens mood, and most days when I’m picking something to walk around with, I’ll go with a prime. I have a single zoom, and when I’m carrying a bag with a few lenses in it, it’s usually one of them.