Quinn

It was fun to count this, how many states I have been in. Well, many comes from a trip to New York from California. It was a crazy driving trip with my best friend, celebrating his college graduation. There could be a few states I probably should not count in since I may only drove through, but I put them in anyway. So, mine came out as 20! How's yours?

• Create your own visited map of The United States

Oops, it's been quite awhile since the last post. Well, this story is also about a few weeks ago. Anyway, I finally learned to make tortillas, and I should give a big hug to this guy who inspired me with this awesome blog post.

• Make Your Own Tortillas! [ Rocking in Hakata]

Thanks Deas! This is the result. I enjoyed them so much.

Like Deas was saying in the video about his current situation, I also live in rural Japan myself. I really needed this kind of help. While I was living in the Southern California as a poor foreign student, I survived by eating lots of cheep Mexican food, and YES, 2-dollar burritos were my favorites! Now, I can make my own. It just feels great. 

I wasn't good at convincing what REAL FUN of photography is in the last post, I think.. Hopefully, this photo can tell some more about it by itself.

Or, this one? I guess it just has begun. Let's see if something can come out of this adventure.

And, I made a few lines of code to show my photos on my blog from Zooomr site. They are currently shown at the bottom of every page. Well, this it for now. I just can't wait for the next Bashculture show on this Saturday. I hope I can make some great photos. Cheers!

I am really looking forward to see Zooomr 2008 Release since I found out they are in the middle of doing so. I was unable to upload my photo to the website for over a week, but it looks like "Photo Uploader" is finally back. (Yay!) However, nothing new is in there yet. Still, it's good to see the uploader to be back so I can blog with some photo now. :)

About two weeks ago, I bought two Nikon manual lenses and a Nikon lens to EOS body adapter. Yes, I am using these Nikon lenses with my Canon EOS 10D, sounds funny? Believe or not, they are both so great and together! I also got a split focusing screen made by a third party to replace the original focusing screen. The focusing screen is what I really needed. It helps me a lot with my weak eye vision. (I suffer my eyes being a GEEK as you can easily imagine.) If you still don't know what I am talking about, this is like having a old school camera with a digital back (image sensor). Why would I want to do that?

Because, this is definitely more REAL FUN of photography I am having.

So, what's up with those Nikon manual lenses? Not only the Nikon lenses but many manual lenses have wider range to turn to adjust the focus. This is a really important part since autofocus lenses have shorter range to adjust the focus even if they usually allow to do it by hand. Manual lenses are actually made to adjust by hands, not autofocus lenses (Duh?) Munual focusing is actually more fun than anybody can imagine who never tried before. It is probably the largest part of making a photograph so it is about making the photograph on my own. Yes, autofocusing may work great most of the time, but not always, at least to me. Whenever I want to adjust the focus, autofocus lenses don't work for me. If there is a little gap in between what I want to do and what the camera does, I wouldn't have any fun and likely to get frustrated. It's always nice to get rid of the gap when I have a choice. This is about making a craft with tools of my choice.

Secondly, the distance between the lens mount and the image sensor in EOS cameras is shorter than Nikon cameras, but it's the other way around for EOS cameras and Canon's manual focus lenses. If you want to attach a Canon manual focus lens on a EOS camera, you need a lens mount adapter with some lens in it to fix the distance of the camera and the lens. As I found in some reviews, it won't give any good results. On the other hand, Nikon lenses on EOS cameras fits with a little spacer in between, no need for additional lenses, and it all sounds good to me.

Now, it's time for me to learn new stuff, the Nikon lenses. I've always been a Canon boy for a whole life. Nikon systems seems too complicated for me and also I was never able to afford to switch, and/or was happy with my Canon cameras and lenses back then. I had almost no idea which one would go fine with the adapter and the camera. Many on the web said most of the AI and AI-S lenses would be fine, and some adds to Non-AI lenses as well. This time, I got a Non-AI 50mm/F1.4 and a AI-S 28mm/F2.8. AI-S 28mm/F2.8 fits fine except one thing that aperture ring stops right before the wide open of the lens, F2.8. It happens because of the AI-ed aperture ring has some empty part to deliver the information of the current aperture of the lens to the camera, and the end of the empty part hits the pins on the camera to lock the lens which is coming out through the lens adapter. (Ouch!) At this moment, I just decide to ignore the problem. I think this would be more serious if the lens aperture is wider than F2.8. I don't know what I should do for the solution. Maybe I have to make a spacer to fill the empty space, making AI back to Non-AI. Otherwise, Nikon manual lenses are highly credited as great optics while they are usually affordable. Adding that, the lenses made around this era (pre-1985?) are usually more rugged than modern lenses. And finally but least, my choice of optics always goes fixed focal length lenses over zoom lenses for my belief of that simpler optics (fixed) must be better.

Now, I have to tell you more about a serious problem I had to deal with. I felt a stiff part when I was taking off the Non-AI 50mm/F1.4 lens off the camera. Then, I found that there is a cut inside of the camera! It looked already a done deal. The cut won't go anywhere. However, I was afraid of that, if I keep using the lens, the cut may cause more dust to the image sensor, or worse, damage the shutter. Then, I found out the back end part of the lens is quite easily be taken apart. I took off the mount part of the lens and removed the part cut the camera with a knife sharpener. For the record, my adapter may be too thin since the focus of the lenses at infinity is way too near than where it supposed to be. If you are doing the same, just be cautious.

Since I've got great choices of fantastic optics (and with manual focusing ability) and an aid (the split focusing screen), I am so sure I am going to have lots more fun with photography. Saying that, I am going for a trip with a band, "Bashculture" on this weekend as their photographer. I'm sure more of the outcomes are coming to my Zooomr site. Cheers!

Quinn's Photo [Zooomr]