Taking Pics and Camera Gear

Yesterday and today I finally got the opportunity to shoot some photos with my new camera. I went to a couple of local cemeteries to look for some interesting shots; one cemetery abuts my property, so I just need to walk out my backdoor and I’m there! One especially interesting shot was a Civil War section in the West Lawn Cemetery in Canto, OH. I hope those images come out looking good. I am going to another architecturally interesting one on Friday, the Glendale Cemetery in West Akron. I shot mostly with the Nikon 28mm today.

My gear kit is also fully set up. In addition to the Nikon F-2 Photomic that I have, I also acquired the following Nikon lenses: 28mm f/2.8 lens; 50mm f/1.4 lens; 85mm f/2 AI-S lens and; 200mm f/4 Micro AI-S lens. I also picked up some original Nikon lens hoods, camera body caps, and lens caps. For some creativity, I got color filter set from Tiffen, as well as a no. 12 Yellow filter. I also picked up a Sekonic L-308 X-U light meter. For a camera bag, I chose retro and got a Domke F-6 waxed canvas camera bag (my first professional camera bag in the 1970s was the original Domke F-2 bag).

It’ s my eventual goal to develop my own film, and possibly make prints at some point. I have a second bathroom, which can hopefully be made lightproof. Then it’s a matter of getting an enlarger and chemicals, trays and stuff to do my own printing.

Another thing that is going to happen at some point is changing this website. I’m overly happy with the design, and I will likely go with something more retro to match my black and white work.

Major Course Correction

My spring and summer warbler migration did not go off as planned, and I frankly had a very difficult summer personally. Hence, none of my new OM System gear made it out of the bag, to which I really didn’t care. I decided that I would sell my gear in order to pay off some bills as I wasn’t using it. But, I made another decision in conjunction with the sale.

This week, I bought the camera of my childhood dreams, the Nikon F-2 Photomic. And I am so excited! This is the camera that I wanted as a teen; my friend Peter Hornby was shooting with one, and I so very much wanted a Nikon. All I did in the summer of ‘76 was constantly read and reread photography magazines, lookiing at the Nikon ads and the pricing of them in the major New York camera stores. The truth was that i couldn’;t afford one, and I worked all summer at my uncle’s ice cream stand to be able to afford a Canon F-1, which was no slouch. But it wasn’t a Nikon. It wouldn’t be till I was 34 that I could afford a Nikon F-4S.

Everyone who was anyone photography-wise as shooting Kodachrome with a Nikon. And I wanted to be one of those guys, like Pete Turner or Galen Rowell, or Pete Hornby. Pete had such an informal effect on my photography, and I wanted to emulate him in every way. I remember shooting film among the dunes of Ocean Park, Maine, the ripples in sand following the outgoing tide.

But I digress. Why buy a completely manual, analog camera like the F-2? Because I decided that I wished to return to my roots, to come full circle as it were, and shoot pure black and white film versus converting digital images. I believe that shooting film will make me a better photographer, certainly more intentional, deliberate, and once again bring joy to my photography,

There was something to finding myself once again in a photography store, buying film, batteries and lens caps for my new 50mm f/1.4 non-AI lens. It brought back a lot of memories, when I hung out in camera shops in the ‘70s. Most of my digital gear I purchased online for the likes of B&H, Allen’s Camera, and Ace Photo. EBay is now my friend for gear, and I will be shopping at a great little store I found not too far from me named YM Camera in Youngstown, Ohio. They seem hooked into black and white photography, selling both film and developing services, which I’ll need in the beginning. Who knows, maube I’ll turn my bathroom into a darkroom…

I am so excited to share this new beginning in my photographic journey. And ‘m very excited to undertake this adventure. I’ll post more as things develop, so for now, ciao!

Choosing a camera bag

For anyone trying to find the best camera bag, my advice is forgetaboutit! There is no perfect, one bag to rule them all. I should know by now; I spent the last three weeks looking at dozens of YouTubes and visiting too many websites to count looking for the perfect bag, and my discovery, other than that I really like bags? There is no perfect bag and there is no one bag for everything.

The first bag I started out with, storing my new camera gear, was the Tenba DNA 13 messenger bag. The Tenba DNA 13 is a solid photographer’s messenger bag, with the ability to hold lots of gear in a smaller form factor than Tenba’s DNA 16 Pro. It held all of my gear and then some, right up until the point that I ordered the OM System 100-400mm f/5.0-6.3 IS II telephoto zoom. With this, unfortunately, the bag wouldn’t do for a complete carry-all. So, I started searching for another bag, one that would absorb all of my gear, and hopefully have some room for extras.

As a result of all my YouTube watching, I decided to go for a backpack, as these bags typically are great for telephoto lenses and have lots of storage capacity. I went back to YouTube to search for best backpacks of 2025, and started watching more YouTubes. Two backpacks stood out: the PGYTech OnePro Focux 25L pack and the Summit-Creative Tenzing 25L zippered pack. I ended up buying the PGYTech backpack.

The PGYTech OnePro Focux bag is a very nice backpack, and I really did love it. It is constructed very well, is easily sizable, and huge. It lists at 25L, but the backpack seems noticeably larger than that, think 30-35L. It seems to want to fit DSLRs or mirrorless cameras with battery grips attached, huge cameras that otherwise might struggle with other bags. It seems perfect of a system built around either the Nikon Z-9, or Canon EOS R-1. I put all of my current camera gear in the backpack, and when I put on the pack, my gear seemed to shift around badly, especially my camera. Although it has velcro straps to secure gear in its respective cubby hole, the pack’s dividers are quite wide, leaving in my estimation about 3 inches of unusable space. This of course is great if you stack your lenses vertically rather than horizontally. In the end, although I really did love the bags construction and features - it has a space battery holder with indicators of whether the battery is charged or not - in the end it was simply way too big for me.

The bag that I did finally go with is the Shimoda Action X30 Women’s backpack with a large mirrorless core unit. Pics of the backpack below:

The women’s pack has special straps that s-curve at the chest, providing for a better fit for women. It’s a really comfortable fit, unique among photography backpack manufacturers. The Shimoda Action X30 is just a great pack, it contains all of my gear and then-some, and has an expandable opening on top to store even more stuff, like a rain jacket or hoodie. It comes with a raincover and a helmet holder. Although I haven’t taken the backpack out into the wild yet, I love it already. I feel the Shimoda Action X30 pack is the best photography backpack on the market currently.

Gearing up for bird photography

Today I received my first telephoto lens from Allen’s Camera in Pennsylvania, the one place that I make all of my major purchases. I purchased an OM System 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO Lens. It i compact, it is light (1.96 lbs), and it is mine! This will be one of my select birding lenses, perfect for the boardwalk at Magee Marsh for close-in warblers!

I will post photos here when I have the opportunity to take the lens out for a test-drive and hopefully photograph some birds.

I also pre-purchased the new OM System 100-400mm f/5.6-6.3 IS II zoom lens. I hope to get that towards the end of the month. With these lenses, I should be all set for birds!

Enjoying the sunshine

Yesterday, I enjoyed a beautiful weather day, one of few, and drove north to Geneva-on-the-Lake. I wanted to shoot some photos of the storefronts closed for winter. Here’s a few shots I got, including in Mesopotamia on the way back.

Playing around with macro

I recently picked up the OM System M.Zuiko 60mm f/2.8 Macro lens, and today I decided to play a bit with it on my Lego displays. Its been snowing outside for the better half of the day, and I just don’t feel like going outside, so… improvise! I also got to test out my 3LeggedThing Billy 2.0 Carbon Fiber Tripod, so it was a win-win!

The 60mm Macro is a really good macro lens. The 60mm distance, which in MFT format equates to a 120mm, allows you to capture your subject in macro without getting right on top of them, which you absolutely can do if you want that. There’s a limiting switch on the lens that lets you set the macro range, from 1:1 to 0.4 to infinity.

I used the 0.19 to infinity setting to capture photos of my Lego. The images get in so close you can see the dust on some of the figurines! (yeah, mini-vacuum time). Below are some of the images I took, all unedited. Maybe I should become a Lego photographer?

Busy Rebuilding My Portfolio

With my new OM-1 Mk II camera, I’m very busy rebuilding my portfolio and stock, taking as many photos as I can.

Although I have been taking photos for years, I don’t have many of my past shots because of computer changes and a lack of backup to an external hard drive. I went through three major changes in various Apple platforms over the years, and have lost pretty much the bulk of my work to these changes. One shift-over, a few years ago, I was in a bad place and simply said “f it,” and dumped all of my work. It is now a very painful memory for me, as I don’t have very important things, like my children’s pics growing up or visiting Disney World or other places. I’ve lost many great landscape shots I had taken over the years, and all of my modeling and musician pics. I never really cared about it all till now; I wish I had those images to go to and analyze to see how my photographic expertise grew. I even lost all of my birding photos from 2021-22.

I think of it a bit as leaving behind eras in my photographic lifespan, and now I’m starting a new one. I long to revisit old haunts, like Virginia barns and Civil War battlefields, the streets of Harper’s Ferry, Cape May, and especially the coast of Maine. So much history I have lost through my now-deleted photos. I think that, in some ways, it was an act of civil disobedience and also self-harm to a degree. But now I’m whole, and back in the game.

Franklin Park Conservatory

Yesterday I visited the Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Columbus, and it was a great haven for photography. I saw many Hawaiian Orchids spread throughout the Conservatory. There was also the amazing Chihuly glass creations tucked in differing parts of the botanical garden displays. And, I got a preview of the Blooms & Butterflies exhibit, which officially opens on February 22nd. It was a great morning filled with lots of photographic opportunities. Below are some of the images I framed:

Finally we got a decent day today, sunny and not too cold. I took advantage of the nice weather to take little trip to Amish country - Berlin and Millersburg, Ohio. I saw a few buggies on the roads, but not too many today as it was still very cold this morning, a balmy 23 degrees out. Plus, I didn’t go down to Charm, which typically has decent buggy traffic, but rather just made quick trips and pix. I also visited friends in Bolivar, and took a side trip to Zoar to capture some of their great historical buildings there. It was a perfectly-lit afternoon.

So, while there’s not many captures, these are my first pix from the OM System OM-1 Mark II. I shot all captures in aperture priority, my favorite setting for playing with depth-of-field. I used Lightroom to do my edits and save the images, which will be a learning experience for me once again.

New Camera System

Wow, I didn’t realize that its been so long since I last wrote a blog post! I haven’t been doing much with photography, as I sold my camera last year. It had been sitting around and I had no interest in taking it out to photograph anything.

Having gone several months without a camera, to see how that would be, I’ve gone ahead and adopted a whole new camera system. I purchased a new OM System (formerly Olympus) OM-1 Mark II MFT or Micro Four-Thirds format camera. The camera uses a crop sensor that turns lenses into an effect 2X focal length due to the cropping; in other words, a 12-40mm lens would equate to a 24-80mm lens. This is huge for photographing wildlife, as because of the factor, the lenses are able to be made smaller, and less weighty. Also, a great wildlife lens like the 150-600mm lens is now effectively 1200mm, a mighty reach. Add to that a teleconverter and you’re at a whopping 2400mm!

My plans are to focus on wildlife, landscape and architecture shoots. I am hoping to get a good zoom lens for this spring’s Biggest Week in American Birding festival, held on western Lake Erie in May.

This is a short update for now, but there will be more in the future and especially once I get back into the groove again.