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Castle of Olbia, main tower, August 2017.
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Original shot taken with a Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera, Supercolor Autofocus Model 2 camera, loaded with Impossible Project B&W SX-70 instant film, almost no post processing, just scanned..
seen in a country garden ..... rural No. Carolina ...
l was hoping for a butterfly to join the party, but the afternoon sky was very dark, with now and then drizzling rain ...so butterfly flights were grounded .....maybe next time l'll get lucky :-)
have a nice week :-)
ehem. Kinderkrankenhaus Berlin-Weissensee / Former Children's Hospital Berlin - Weissensee / antaño clÃnica pediátrica de BerlÃn - Weissensee / HDR / _MG_4907
Setting information:
Main light on the right side at 1/16
Back light (3/4 left) at 1/16
The picture have been rotated (axial symetrie) to have a right to left and down to up reading direction.
The picture of the setting is to be seen here:
www.flickr.com/photos/59433078@N04/8397198845/in/photostream
I am ashamed to say, this is 4 mins walk from my house, today is the 1st day in many years that I have been here.
The F4, Nikon's fourth generation and first autofocus pro-level camera system, was produced from 1988 through 1997.
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The Nikon F4, technologically speaking, is a major upgrade from the F3HP. The F4 has autofocus, motorized film advance, program and shutter priority exposure modes (in addition to aperture priority and manual), multi-segment (Matrix) exposure metering, and advanced fill-flash capabilities. Although the camera is fully electronic, it maintains the façade of mechanical camera controls. In fact, there are no external digital readouts or multi-function dials on this camera. All controls are presented as traditional knobs or switches, although they control sophisticated electronic functions, internally. Significantly, for those with a pre-existing collection of manual focus Nikon lenses, the F4 provides matrix metering, but not Program or Tv modes, with Ai manual focus lenses. It also has a built-in diopter control in the viewfinder. Finally, the F4 system has an amazingly broad system of accessories of all types.
The F4 system includes the F4s, which is the basic F4 body plus the enhanced MB-21 battery grip instead of the basic MB-20 grip. The MB-21 grip uses 6 x AA alkaline batteries compared with 4 batteries in the MB-20 and provides slightly faster motor drive. Unfortunately, the Nikon F4 was not designed to work with light-weight lithium AA batteries, which are not recommended by Nikon. When I bought my F4, it was only available in a package with the larger MB-21, which I immediately replaced with the MB-20 to cut down on weight.
The major disadvantages of the F4 compared with its predecessor F3HP are almost 50% greater weight, and increased size and decreased battery life, primarily due to the motor drive. As indicated above, the F4's program and Tv modes cannot be used with manual focus Nikkor Ai lenses (you need a Nikon FA for that). The F4 does not yet support AF-D technology. AF-D technology, which only appears on future generations of Nikon SLRs, transmits distance information from AF-D lenses and permits better flash and fill-flash performance. Still, when combined with the concurrent SB-24 or newer dedicated flash units, the Nikon F4, even without D technology, has great flash performance in its own right. Unlike the later F90x/SB-26 combination, the F4/SB-24 is smart enough to automatically switch from balanced fill flash to full TTL flash when ambient light is insufficient.
I think that I purchased one of the last F4s to come off of the production line. I was perfectly happy using my F3HP, and continued to use it as my primary camera throughout the production life of the F4, which started in 1988. Finally, the F5 came out in 1996 and I saw that it had reduced functionality with manual focus Nikkor Ai lenses compared the F4. Worse, from my point of view, the F5 is also much larger and even heavier than the F4, with its permanently attached larger grip and battery pack.
Although I still tended to pick up the F3HP instead of the F4 for travel kits to cut down on weight, I really liked using the F4 when weight was not an issue. The F4 fits great into your hands, with its built-in hand grip and non-slip rubberized finish. The camera has the four PSAM modes, single and continuous autofocus, as well as multi-segment (matrix), center-weighted (60/40), and spot exposure metering systems. Although the camera has many electronic functions, there are no hard-to-read external digital menus. All functions are controlled with the traditional knobs and switches, which makes it really easy to adjust all features by feel or by watching the comprehensive digital display in the viewfinder. The viewfinder display is illuminated by ambient light, or by switching on the viewfinder illuminator light with a switch at the base of the shutter speed dial.
If you do need to use a manual focus lens, you can still take advantage of the focus indicator when focusing manually. In fact, you really need to use the electronic rangefinder, because the standard focusing screen has no split image or microprism aid besides a matte field. Just place the central focusing brackets on your subject and focus manually until the red in-focus circle is display in the viewfinder. The F4's early generation autofocusing system is slow compared with subsequent technology, but more than sufficient for stationary or slow moving subjects.
As an advance over the F3, the F4 recognizes DX-coded film canisters. When rewinding film, you can either use power rewind to save time, or manual rewind to save battery power and minimize noise.
The F4's first generation five segment matrix metering system was a major technological advance over traditional center-weighted metering. This is basically the same early generation multi-segment metering that is used in the Nikon FA. While not as sophisticated as later generations of Nikon's matrix metering systems, the F4's five segment pattern and software works fine for typical scenarios. For extreme lighting situations, it is still recommended to switch to center-weighted or spot and set exposure compensation, as necessary.
The F4's shutter is much more advanced than the shutter in the F3. The F4 shutter speed can be manually set as fast as 1/8000 sec. or as slow as 4 seconds. Maximum flash synch speed of 1/250 sec. is much faster than 1/80 sec. on the F3. In P and A modes, the shutter operates steplessly from 30 sec. to 1/8000 sec.
I use all of the F4's modes and light-metering systems, depending on the situation. But for flash photography, it is often easiest to just turn on Program mode and matrix metering to take advantage of completely automatic matrix balanced fill-flash or standard TTL flash. For special flash situations, the F4 also allows complete manual adjustment of all parameters.
The F4 marks marks the beginning and end to Nikon's pro-level body support for both auto focus and manual focus lenses, while also providing a mechanical style control interface. The F5 scales back support for manual focus lenses, and converts to a control dial driven interface. The F6 (like modern higher-end Nikon digital SLRs) finally adds back the F4's manual focus lens support, but of course has a modern display menu interface. The traditional mechanical interfaces are great, but the F6 is a much superior film camera because its features are state of the art across the board, including, for example, Nikon's most advanced matrix metering in a film camera. As other alternatives to the F4, one could look at the F90X, the F100 or the older FA. The F90X moves to an early-generation control dial driven interface, but offers D technology support for flash, more sophisticated matrix metering, and faster autofocusing. The F100 is an upgrade of the F90X and has technology similar to the F5 in a smaller package. The amazing FA is like the traditional-style FE-2, but with the addition of complete and unique support for manual focus Ai lenses with matrix metering (similar to F4 generation) as well as all four PSAM modes!
Finally, there is now a more or less similar interface alternative in the Nikon digital SLR world. The Nikon Df finally provides modern functions, some of which are descendents of the advanced features of the F4, while also resurrecting the convenient mechanical/analog interface of its famous predecessor.
Copyright (c) 2013 Timothy A. Rogers. All rights reserved.
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Polaroid SX-70 Time Zero Autofocus Model 2
Clip-It with ND filter
IMPOSSIBLE Gen2 Color 600 Pioneer film
I have been so busy lately that I haven't shot a lot of IMPOSSIBLE film, other than Instant Lab pictures for my eBook. But when I pulled out my SX-70 and found I had a fresh pack in it, I had to go and find some shots on a hot, sunny, California Sunday afternoon.
The Fotodiox 2x Teleconverter for Canon cameras effectively doubles the focal length of your lens while maintaining all automatic controls. Here's an example image: the photo on the left is the lens without the teleconverter, and the one on the right is with the teleconverter attached.
- Photos by Sean Anderson