Those Damn Whites!

*note: This is another tech blog...so skip it if you're not into it.

Intro

I haven't been able to take Niki out on a proper date...sadly the weather and my schedule haven't been optimal for the past couple of days. Saturday is looking good though, sunny and in the 60's. Hopefully by then Niki, Tammy and I will have some fun photos for all of you.

While Niki, Tammy and I haven't gone through the proper motions, we have been getting to know each other's more intimate intricacies in other ways. RAW-R! Ow! Ow!

I'm getting more pleasing results straight out of Niki lately. While it is fun to play around in CaptureNX, I much rather enjoy the actual act of taking the photo and looking at them so much more. Plus, there is a feeling of accomplishment when you manage to nail it all right in-camera. Last week I spent many late nights fussing with contrast and saturation levels - not to mention the time I spent tweaking them in CaptureNX. Then I had what alcoholics call, "a moment of clarity."

And this is where you, the reader, finally can come to understand the reasoning behind this blog's title. Through majority of my photo taking endeavors I had set the White-Balance to "Auto". Hmm...maybe this is why I'm not getting consistent results. "Auto" works lovely for bright, well-lit, uniform, or outdoor situations. But inside with these evil yellow-casting house lights, "Auto" is simply painful to look at.

What is white-balance? White-balance is essentially a black, white, and gray color point that your camera uses in order to provide neutral (read: correct) colors. Now there are times when you don't want neutral colors, and maybe want a little bit of warmth (read: yellow/orange cast) or cool (read: blue cast) over the colors of your image. And sometimes you may even want a crazy color cast like green...this all depends. But nine times out of ten, you generally want the camera to capture the "correct" color from the scene. A lot of this is very subjective. I personally like the nuetral colors, I even desaturate them in-camera as well as during post-processing to get the kind of color I want. Sometimes I play with a yellow cast to emulate the a 70's style photo, it all really depends, but your ability to get consistent white-balance is absolutely key to the ending image.

As I brought up the possibility of correcting the white-balance issue during post-processing, why would I want to fuss over it while taking the photo. The simple answer is, because I want to. Hah. There is a certain panache when you can get things right the first time, and that's with anything. Not only that, it saves me one less step during post-processing, if I even need to do any.

Besides the qualitative factor white-balance provides, it can also affect how your camera meters, sets tone compensation, and saturation - hence the importance of getting that nuetral white-balance from the start. If you eff that up, there's a chance you eff everything else up too. And frankly, post-processing can grow tedious.

Setting White-Balance

Every DSLR, and most other digicams have variable white-balance settings to help combat various light-sources. Niki's got a dedicated button for adjustment right on the top left side. She gives me what I want, when I want. What a girl huh? I'm not much of a fan with the other pre-set options either, but they do offer consistency over the "Auto" setting. What I do is use Niki's custome white-balance setting and take a photo of a white or gray area in the area where I'm taking the photo. The camera reads this image and adjusts the white-balance accordingly in order to compensate. This isn't necessarily the best way to go about it, since it's never a pure white and/or gray, but it sure can beat the hell out of "Auto" most of the time.

Cool Gadget to Help


There are a lot of options to help with this predicament...mostly in the realm of overpriced boards colored in an 18% gray, white, and even black. Some include other test charts for sharpness, focusing...blah blah blah, stuff that is really to technical, even for me. I did however run into this nifty little device called the ExpoDisc. It's really easy and quite simple in design - but more importantly it is consistent. It looks like a super thick lens filter, you snap it in front of the lens and then take a white-balance reading while pointing it at the source of light your scene/object/etc. is being hit by. And not only does it give you a perfect and neutral white-balance, it also serves as an incident meter. This will give you the proper meter reading so you can set your exposure in Manual mode and leave it there - guaranteeing your image will be lighted the same way in every shot as long as it's under the same light source. Why is this helpful? Well for one, a good incident meter runs close to $400!

Is it necessary? Of course not, it just makes the task a lot easier to do. Not to mention it's definitely a chill accessory to own. It's a bit down on my "Want List" but it is one of the more affordable things on that list.

Niki and Her Quirks

I was freaking out about the horror stories involved when upgrading her firmware. Some people claimed it caused focusing issues, the dreaded "Dead Battery Syndrome" aka DBS...well I started freaking out when I was taking some Myspace-esque photos for fun. I noticed that I constantly came out underexposed. Not the little amount I had first encountered with Niki, but the image was incredibly dark. And I thought to myself, if anything, my brown ass would be overexposed. So I wondered what else could be causing it.

Other factors include...bright window behind camera. Could it be the bright light source? But why behind the camera? So I tested the bright light theory by pointing the back of the camera to the light in my room and then taking my photo. And guess what, it underexposed again. I'm sweating bullets now, I thought I messed up Niki. Then I remember an odd accessory in the box. A little cover for the eyepiece. I thoughtm, wtf? I looked it up in the manual and it's used for longer exposures to block out any light that might enter through the eyepiece. EUREKA! It finally made sense to me.

Anyways, I think I'm going to start writing these things regularly. Lemme know if there's anything in particular you want to know more about, and if I can get my hands on it, I'll give you my two-cents.

More Digital Mumbo Jumbo: Lens Talk & Post-Processing

*note: scroll down to the bold "Software" title if you want to skip the lens talk

Before I get all moist and unstable about post-processing, I'd like to bring up Tammy, my lens. I just couldn't resist testing for focusing problems. (Front focus/Back focus). Although I wasn't being super technical (no tripod for example), I found that at wide open apertures there is a slight tendancy to focus a little in front of the intended target. (shooting text for instance.) Although minimal, imagine the implications when photog-ing a person's face where the eyes are generally the most important thing to focus on. With a very shallow depth of field, you may find the eyes blurry but their eyebrows tack sharp. But I don't feel it's too much of an issue, if it does turn into one, I'll send it in to Tamron for re-calibration - not likely until I get another lens to keep attached on Niki.

So, that's another thing going for the 17-55mm Nikkor version - damn I wish I had that kind of money ($1300). But as nice as that lens is, Canon offers a lens with the same focal range/maximum aperture and even includes IS, aka VR, aka Image Stabilization, aka Vibration Reduction. And the Canon version is roughly 300 less than the Nikkor. (It's still roughly 400 more than Tammy though.) One knock against the Canon version is that it's not built to the same Tank-like qualities as the Nikkor. Simply put, if you have the money for first-party lenses I'd say it's always the safer bet. But for a lot less money, my Tammy performs almost as well and I'm more than happy with it - shit, we can't all date supermodels.

Well I'm pretty set at the wide settings, anything more would really be a novelty that I truly can't afford. But aside from other accessories (a dedicated flash or two, extra batteries and a vertical grip, I'm spying some potential zoom telephotos. No, I don't want to peak into my neighbors house...hrmm...when photog-ing people a longer focal range generally gives more pleasing proportions. For example, most wedding photographers use a 70-200mm zoom since majority of their photos are of people. Obviously not for group photos, but next time you see a wedding photog with a giant lens, you can almost always bet it's a 70-200mm.

Nikon's telephoto zoom is simply kick-ass. Talk about serious arm and neck fatigue, this bad-boy spends a shitload of time in the gym. It also has VR to help compensate at the longer focal lengths. But of course this guy doesn't come cheap. Weighing in at $1500, this lens costs more than my camera. Another drawback, for those of you who think the $1500 price tag isn't enough, you need approximately 5ft of distance in order to focus. That's good if you want to keep your distance but if something gets close you can forget about it. One last drawback is it's conversion rate - Niki converts all focal lengths by a factor of 1.5 (meaning a 35mm film negative is about 1.5x larger than her sensor). So 70-200 turns into 105-300! This could be a positive if you're into jungle safaris, or taking photos of someone really far away, but at the closest focusing distance of 5ft you're probably won't even be able to fit their face in frame.

Gez, all this bad mouthing, why is it so expensive? Well aside from the near-silent, superfast autofocusing, which can be manually overridden at any time (this is more important than you think it might be), and it's tank exterior, this lens is capable of producing some of the sharpest images your camera can make. Not to mention the out of focus areas (bokeh) looks phenomenal. In short, it's the shit man!

But there has to be an alternative, your thinking. Well there is, sadly it's a third party company with the same third party drawbacks. It is much better built than most third party lenses, and features a similar HSM autofocus system (read: AFS for Nikkors and USM for Canon), but it's main drawback comes down to quality control and lack of VR. Which is a shame really, certain third party lenses compare favorably with their Nikon/Canon counterparts, but the quality control just isn't there. Sigma's 50-150mm covers the more traditional 70-200mm focal length on Niki's smaller sensor. It's lighter and smaller too! Although I like the "bigness" of the Nikkors, long days with these lenses can potentially be a real pain. Even it's focusing distance is significantly shorter, at a little over 3 feet. Yet reviewers once again agree that it all comes down to your luck when getting one - much like Tammy. On a plus note, the Sigma is only about $679, that's less than half of the Nikkor's asking price.

And even with the Sigma's HSM near-silent af system, all-time manual override, lighter, smaller frame, and better price - why the hesitation? Quality control...*sigh. Hell I could look past the lack of VR, but spending nearly $700 and getting faulty lens would be infuriating. Maybe by the time I have enough for this lens, all the quirks will be worked out? Here's to hoping...

SOFTWARE

Well that rant on lenses lasted a lot longer than I expected. First things first...

1. Niki's exposure readings tend to look a bit underexposed. I first began adjusting the readings by +0.3 or +.07, but I soon realized there was a method to Niki's madness. If you shoot a scene and blow out the highlights (bright light sources/white areas in the photo), you can not recover them very well. So it is better to shoot what looks like underexposure and edit to taste later. That's not to say that certain scenes won't need adjustment (snow, beach, bright windows, severely backlit subjects) but for the most part, Niki's Matrix metering is dead on. I've reshot several scenes with varying degrees of compensation and Niki is never off by more than a third of a stop. In short, I am relearning what a proper exposure looks like. In film it's a little bit of the opposite, since darkening a photo later was was somewhat easier.

(*note: photos tend to have a gray cast over them as well, but I've realized this is due to the to my use of "-" parameters in the respective tone and saturation settings. Why use "-" parameters? Well it lends itself much better to post processing - i.e. levels and curves. Try it and you'll see.)

2. When I first got the camera I shot RAW + JPEG. But I've switched to strictly RAW files, since I'm not shooting hundreds of photos, and they provide the highest amount of room when editting. Not to mention, it is forcing me to get better at using Capture NX and Lightroom. But due to my computer's age, I will further experiment with JPEG settings in-camera to produce reasonably good photos straight from Niki. The RAW files are massive and working with a small number of them, less than 20, causes considerable slowdown on my Powerbook. But my beef with the lack of in-depth custom image parameters takes
over and it is simply impossible to get the same quality in camera versus post-processing. I guess it's much like to getting prints from Walgreens back in the day. They weren't bad, but when I fucked around with them in the dark room at school, or got them printed by a dedicated photolab, the images were significantly better. This is one nod I have to give to the Canon DSLRs, at least the 30D, I don't know much about the Rebels, but the 30D has up to +- 9 per setting. Don't tell Niki okay? I don't want her getting a complex. But eventually I'd like to upgrade my computer and purchase a larger memory card. (You'd think 2gb would be enough...)

Okay, let's begin. I figure the easiest way to do this is to break it down by software.

Adobe Lightroom

1. As far as looks go, this is one sexy application. The only other thing sexier is Apple's own Aperture. But my comptuer is simply not man enough for that thing. On a side note, I've been reading less than stellar comments about it's RAW conversion engine...? Anyways, Lightroom is very well organized. Click here to get to Lightroom's web page and check out their video titled "Feature Tour".

2. Organization, importing, and selecting keepers versus rejects are all done very well. With less than 20 photos at a time it can be manageable to do it yourself, but I recall a friend of mine's birthday (Jenna! which is coming up soon!) and I shot over 300 images on my Sony V3. Yea, organizing that shit was futile. It does take some time before Lightroom becomes workable though. It has to create previews of each RAW file, but once it does that it ran much faster than I thought it would on my Powerbook.

3. Post-processing is pretty well done. For those of you who are familiar with Photoshop many of the tools will familiar, albeit more streamlined. I'm sure PS veterans will be able to turn out photos to their liking. Lightroom does a much better job at reducing Chromatic Aberrations (weird color shifts found on the edges of high contrast areas in a photo, ie. branches and the sky). One of Lightroom's pitfalls is the inability to apply sharpening or any effects really to an isolated part of an image. It can however adjust particular color tones, which I found to be very useful when I wanted to up the saturation of certain colors without affecting others. (Kind of like making the image look like it was shot on Velvia or Portra.) But for the most part, Lightroom is definitely geared towards the batch-processing division, prepping photos for more serious PS work if necessary. The photos actually don't look bad at all, I'd be more than happy with them if I didn't see Capture NX's output.

4. Saving/converting files. Saving the RAW file once you're finished editting is real easy. You don't have to click save or anything. Lightroom creates sets of instructions tagged to the RAW file, so when they open up again, Lightroom just reads the instructions and shows you the image as you last editted it. Another plus is, you can always revert back to the original, all the while never losing an image information - RAW's main benefit. Conversion to PSD, JPEG, and TIFF take a couple seconds to 1-2 minutes. They look good. Nothing more I can say about that. But I do have a question printing...which I'll address at the end.

5. Verdict: Great app! If I were better at Photoshop, this would be the perfect lead in to that application. Photoshop is really overkill in terms of converting properly exposed photos. Lightroom takes the tools most photogs would ever use and combines them into an easy and manageable package. Even it's monochrome conversions are downright sexy. But if you want more fine-tuning, layers, and selective editting than you're still going to need Photoshop. The new CS3 version is looking mighty fine though...I might have to try that shiz out.

Nikon Capture NX

1. It's no sleek, sexy beast like lightroom. But it's simple, and minimalistic. Pretty blah in this department. In fact I might go so far as saying it's ugly. Sorry Nikon...but it is effective, and while not much of a looker, all the controls and options are in fairly convenient locations.

2. Organization...certianly isn't one of it's strong points. The built in browser shows teeny thumbnails where no real evaluation of quality could be made. It really is more of an editor, not an organization+editor tool like Lightroom. It also takes a bit longer opening up one file and working with it.

3. Post-processing...finally something Capture NX does better than Lightroom - with one exception. The colors really do pop out at you with this software. Or you can have them toned down, whatever you want. While lightroom's sliders are somewhat a little more complex, Capture NX's get the job done with less fuss and admirably at that. Nikon has been touting "U-Point" technology as the heart and sould of NX, and they should be. Awesome doesn't do it justice. Think about the power of layers in photoshop, only simplified and easier to apply. You can even paint the desired effect on or off a subject. After watching a few of Nikon's how-to videos, I was rockin' and rollin' with NX. Speaking of painting, you can brush on sharpness selectively, something sorely missing in Lightroom. What about that oone exception though? Well the chromatic aberration control doesn't really work. I mean it minimizes shit, but not nearly as good as Lightroom. But it's forgiveable in terms of overall image quality NX wins. But perhaps exporting as a TIFF and editting further in Photoshop wouldn't be a bad idea if chromatic aberration is bothering you. As far as monochromatic conversions, NX and Lightroom play a little role reversal. I think Lightroom's slight edge on complexity with their sliders edges out here.

4. Saving/converting files. NX differs from Lightroom in this respect. Saving RAW files takes some time (same as the JPEG export times, not a real biggy). I don't really get why, but it does. JPEG conversions were phenomenal, no qualms about that. But it didn't have many options compared to Lightroom. Lightroom allows you to set the dpi of the JPEG, which can come in handy when printing, NX strangely enough just gives you a scale of 1-100 in terms of quality. Maybe it's hidden somewhere and I just haven't found it yet.

5. Verdict...Even though NX loses majority of it's battles with Lightroom, I still feel it is necessary if you want the most out of your images. NX simply gives the best Nikon RAW conversion possible, with the least amount of fussing. This has been an issue for Nikon DSLRs for quite some time. Nikon has made it difficult for third party RAW converters to read their RAW files, the thinking, I'm assuming, will force you to use their software when if you want the best possible conversion.

There were two main questions I asked when first embarking on this ridiculously time consuming endeavor. Which one is better? and Do either one replace Photoshop?

Sadly, the answer is almost as frustrating as the learning curve. Neither of the two really tops one another. Image quality is great with NX, but their browser is a joke. Reviewing a massive amount of images would quickly turn into a chore. Lightroom is really a good balance for all around use. But it's RAW processing, at least for Nikons, just doesn't compare. And even worse, neither of these applications replace Photoshop. Adobe's big dog still stands as king of the hill, now I just wish I was better at using it. That aside, both Lightroom and NX offer acceptable to excellent conversions, I'm going to continue using both. Lightroom to help organize and pick the ones for further editting, and NX to do the editting.

The two images of Daniel were editted in Lightroom (left) and Capture NX respectively (right). Notice how NX has a lil more oomph, but Lightroom effectively cleared the purple fringing on the lower right hand side of Daniel while still providing pleasing, yet slightly more muted tones. Click on either pick for a larger version. Sorry for the awkward layout, I suck at html.

But I am curious about other programs, Bibble Pro and RAW Developer come to mind. I hear they are fast and offer quality conversions...maybe after finals I'll tackle those.

And what about printing? hell i don't know. From what I've been reading, you really need to calibrate your monitor to get the most accurate transition from screen to print. If any of you have any insight, lemme know. For instance, what format would you print out of? Particularly if you go through internet printing labs. I know they don't generally accept RAW files, but what about TIFF vs JPEGS...oh crap, the battle rages on. What is the proper dpi (dots per inch) setting? Color profiles? Printer profiles? AHHHHH WHERE THE FUCK IS MY FILM!?

Thoughts on my Nikon D200

After several years of lusting, longing and miserably failed attempts, I finally purchased the Nikon D200. I went local for the camera, after reading several user horror stories on respective quality control issues. For those of you who are curious, I went with Dan's Camera City, in Allentown, PA. It's a great store and their staff is quite knowledgeable on all things photography. And even better, so far I have not found any defects with my camera.

A more formal, albeit highly technical review of the Nikon D200 can be found at dpreview.com. If that's a little too geeky, check out dcresrouce.com, which is based out of San Francisco, CA. And if you're still not satisfied, Thom Hogan's site, bythom.com , offers another review, as well as providing a sh!t-load of useful information for the Nikon enthusiast.

Now, all that technical jargon is great, especially once you get into the nitty gritty of things, but I also like to look at more subjective reviews as well. And since this is the internet, allowing every asshole who can type a means of expressing him or herself, I decided to give my thoughts as well.

First off, if you're the type of person who can appreciate a well built piece of machinery, hell forget about machinery, a well built anything - from a desk to a suit - there is no doubt that the D200 will garner your admiration. Everything from an ergonomic standpoint is very well put together, not mention a lil' sexy to boot. I named my D200 "Niki" (as it is a Nikon - properly pronounced "knee" - "con"). And Niki is one badass bitch. She's got that athletic build, that exudes confidence and strength. But Niki's a lady no less, sporting all the right curves in all the right places. She's fast, accurate, and incredibly smart. Hell, I'd vote her into presidency if I could. I'd even go down on her. ahem...back to the review...

All of Niki's qualities wouldn't really matter much if the outcome was sh!t, but as expected, her performace was spectacular. I'm working on setting up my flickr page, so that I may properly show you what Niki, in the proper hands, is capable of. But if you can't wait for my photos, type in Nikon D200 on flickr.com, and it will bring up thousands of photos taken by Niki's numerous sisters and brothers.

Speaking of "proper hands", there was a slight learning curve involved with using Niki, but not nearly as bad as some reviewers or dpreview.com forum members make it out to be. Perhaps the only part of Niki's arsenal of photographic weaponry that caused me some confusion were her various auto-focus modes. Even then, a quick read got me up to speed. I do think that my own experience with photography in general helped a lot, but once you learn a few basic rules, you can pretty much apply them to just about any form of photography. And I guess that's the same for just about any form of knowledge...but I digress. If you're curious, my "older" camera is a Nikon FM3a. It's sexy in it's own right, stoic, and fairly capable. The lens attached is an all manual 45mm Nikkor (Nikon's lens brand) which I purchased with the camera as a kit back in high school. If anything this camera taught me the value of in-camera compensation, composition, and carefulness. Film is f*cking expensive. My point in all this is, I didn't have much experience with fancy autofocus slr's but since I knew the basic principles of photography (and a minute amount of computer literacy) I managed to get some nice shots the first time out.


That lens pictured on the Nikon FM3a has been on my D200 until today (March 10, 2007). I've gotten pretty nice photos from it, but I never did question that piece of glass when it came to quality. It was kind of a pain manual focusing, especially since the D200 does not have the split level focusing screen like the ol' MF bodies. But alas, my Tamron 17-50mm lens came via FedEx today...I know, shame on me for not getting a Nikkor. Hopefully you'll understand when you realize the Nikkor is roughly 3x the price of this Tamron - for very similiar optical quality. Preliminary testing shows this lens to be pretty sharp across the focal lengths, at a wide-open aperture. It's not razor sharp like the 45mm, but Tammy (my Tamron lens) was never touted as a prime lens. Tammy isn't as nicely built as Niki, but she keeps up. Auto-focus speed is pretty fast, much faster than me. And as you can see from the shot of Daniel, the duo performs well together. I've read some scary things about this lens, but as far as I can tell, Tammy is one hell of a broad.

Now on to software...Coming from film, where I primarily let the lab do all and any post-processing (which they do, those printers/developers calibrate every print - so you purists can shut the f*ck up when you talk about keeping the photo's integrity by doing no post-processing). I was surprised at the variety of effects I could accomplish with a little help from software. But I do have some thoughts on this issue, which I'll get to later.

I've been using Nikon Capture NX and Adobe Lightroom. Initial comparisons between the two show that Nikon Capture NX provides me with much better looking conversions. This isn't much of a shocker really, I'd expect the manufacturer to know the inner workings of their camera better than even the largest of digi-art moguls like Adobe. But unfortunately Lightroom is way better in the organize/view/select/delete/import department. I fully believe that Lightroom is capable of producing similar results in terms of image quality, but for some reason it takes much more tweaking than Nikon's software. I've read that this is partly Nikon's fault for not being as open with their RAW file intricacies. I really want an all-in-one solution but for now this will have to do. Mind you, these two piecees of software will only do basic editing, for more serious tweaking/special effects Adobe Photoshop is still required.

I haven't done any batch processing yet, nor have I printed anything. I have a feeling that Lightroom may have the upperhand when it comes to printing, at least from the controls I've played around with. I'm planning on writing a more in-depth analysis of software options later on. So check back if you're interested.

Now I mentioned earlier I had some thoughts on post-processing and digital photography. Back when I shot film, it was both a nuisance and a blessing when I chose a particular type of film. For example, the two main color films I used were Kodak Portra 400N (muted tones, great nuetral look for people or anything really), and Fuji Velvia (for it's ridiculously vibrant colors). I knew how each of these films would look when developed, they were consistent and as long as I got the proper exposure and focus they gave me what I wanted. With Niki, her custom image parameters are simply not enough to recreate the look of these films. Each image parameter only allows adjustments via Auto, 0, - , and +. Now, the jpegs straight out of the camera aren't bad, but to get the most out of each image I really need to shoot RAW and adjust afterwards in Capture NX.

Obviously this has it's positive points, each image can have an almost endless variety of color, tonal, and saturation - not to mention I can correct white balance issues on the fly (I'm not required to shoot one type of film at a time). But for a camera that costs a pretty penny, make that several thousand pretty pennies, I don't understand why there aren't more in the way of customizing image output in-camera. I understand that no one really wants to sit there and adjust photos on a tiny LCD screen on the back of the camera, but that's not what I want to do. Niki's got 4 custom preset banks where I can store unique image parameters. Through enough experimentation (which is half the fun of any art form) I could create a setting which gave me Kodak Portra type colors and contrast, and the other Fuji Velvia etc. Of course I'd still have the RAW files where I can edit them to my heart's content without any image degradation, but it could minimize the post processing time ten-fold. Now I've been reading up on Lightroom and Capture NX and I find that there are some ways to help with my predicament. I can save custom image parameters within the application and then apply them with one click. And each respective piece of software has thousands of increments to choose from. Not bad eh? Still, coming from the ol' film days, it feels a little like cheating. It would be nice if you could create an image parameter with the software and then load it on the camera as a preset. (I have read about one possibility, but it requires yet another piece of $oftware. I mean seriously, how many pieces of software do you need to work effectively?)

That's not to say the images straight out of Niki's in-camera processing are bad. Far from it actually. It's just amazing how much better they look with a little post-processing. I guess it's the digital equivalent to the darkroom. I do feel that this will help me with other aspects of photography, primarily lighting. I can focus on learning that once I can save up enough money to buy decent flash kit. So, I kind of lied about the learning curve. The basic principles of photography still apply, but now with digital I just have to apply them later on. And through no fault of my own - Niki simply doesn't let me do anything worthwhile in-camera (in regards to specific film types). That's all really, I'm sure once I adapt to this new found way of doing things it'll be smooth sailing.

While I know this is all probably very boring stuff to most of you who read my blog regularly, thanks for checking it out anyways. Anyways, more photos coming very soon!!