Here's Hoping a very Merry Christmas to Everyone ::

And wishing everyone much photo gear under the tree. I got mine a couple of months ago, but I'm working on another right now.

I ran across a Nikon D800 on the local Craigslist offerings for $1,150 and made an appointment to check it out. As it turns out it had a focusing problem and I passed on it at that time, but the owner sent it off to Nikon to be checked out and he let me know when he got it back so we made another appointment with the understanding that the price would be bumped up a bit. As it turns out, I bought the D800, with less than 4,000 shutter actuations, along with a Nikon 20-35mm lens and a battery grip, for $1,550 and I can't be more pleased with it although I really haven't used it much yet, but I plan to remedy that this weekend.

Now I'm in the process of building a new computer. My old one, which is about 8 years old, has gotten very slow at running Photoshop. Here's what I'm putting together:

Gigabyte H170HD3 motherboard

Intel Core I7 processor

1 terrabyte C drive

3 terrabyte D drive for storing my photographs

NVidia 960 video card

32 gigs of Crucial ram (the motherboard will support 64 gigs)

I'm currently researching graphics monitors and will be picking up a new one after the first of the year after I make my decision. Stay tuned.

I'm also planning to order an Epson P800 printer next week since they have a $350 rebate offer until 12/31.

This should be a smoking hot computer for running Photoshop and I can't wait 'til I get it up and running. I also shoot film with a Holga and a Mamiya RB67 so I picked up an Epson V600 scanner about 3 months ago, but I just now got around to setting it up and I have to say that for the money, around $200, it is a great scanner. I have an Epson V850 at my real job and I very much like the results from the V600 much better.

So, here's wishing everyone the best for the New Year also!

A New Holga Is On The Way ::

With the impending demise of the availability of Holga cameras I ordered a new one as back-up this afternoon. I just couldn't see myself without one of these little plastic jewels in the forseeable future.

I shot this at work a couple of years ago. This is the historic original rocket test stand at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Never Pass Up an Opportunity ::

I've learned over the years that if I see an interesting scene it is always best to stop and take the photograph even if the mood and lighting does not seem to be what you might prefer. So many times, when returning to a scene, everything has changed and what was there before is now totally different.

The above sign would surely have been gone if I'd waited a couple of days to come back to it.

Technical details:

Mamiya RB67

50MM lens

Ilford HP4 film rated at ISO 320

Holga Will Be No More ::

I saw a Twitter post a few days ago that the Holga plant in China has shut down and all of the tooling has been destroyed so that there will no longer be any Holgas produced. I currently shoot with a Holga and I really like the results and I'm saddened by the news that this eclectic camera will no longer be available.

Although I have a working Holga camera now, I plan on ordering another just to be sure I have a back-up.

A New Image For The Flint River Project ::

Taken a few days ago for a recently begun project:

A New (Old) Camera and Some New Projects:

A few months ago I bought a Mamiya RB67 on Ebay and I've gradually been getting back into shooting medium format black and white film. This has also prompted me into not only incorporating film scans into some old projects, but I've also started a couple of new ones. The project I'm focusing on now is photographing the local Flint River watershed. I had been waiting for the light I was looking for to take a photograph of some graffiti on the side of a local bridge last weekend and I found this just a few feet away beside the river:

It as if someone killed a buck just for the head and left the rest to be devoured by scavengers. What a waste!

At about the same time I bought the RB an old friend from my navy days sent me two of his old 35mm cameras that he no longer used. One was a Nikon D5005 with 3 lenses and the other was a very sweet Asahi Pentax with a 50mm and a 135mm lens. I haven't done anything with the Nikon yet, but I've been using the Pentax some and I've since bought a 28mm lens for it as I'm pretty much a wide angle person. I think that I'm going to see if a school would like the Nikon for a photography program.