Lilahpops

Plunging into Photography

Archive for the 'Photography Projects' Category

14
Jan

93 photographers share their best photos of 2008

All the project entries for Your Best Photos from 2008

Once again 2008 proved to be an incredibly productive year for the many photographers who read the JMG-Galleries blog. The results of this “Best Photos From 2008″ blog project puts a twist to the normal “Best of Photo” list by aggregating links to the work of 93 photographers from around the globe who are passionate and dedicated to their craft.

The results from “Best Photos From 2007″ by JMG-Galleries Blog Reader’s were impressive, but this year not only did the number of participants exceed expectation the quality and vision of those who submitted were exceptional. This year participants ran the gamut of experience from enthusiasts to professionals.

Enjoy and good luck picking out your favorite from these great submissions

Tags:
posted by Anthea in Photography Projects and have No Comments
09
Jan

Project: My Best Photos From 2008

This is my entry in Jim M. Goldstein’s project Your Best Photos From 2008.

Whilst the project specifications don’t limit the number of best photos you can enter, I decided to stay with a Top 10 theme. I didn’t taken gazillions of photos during the past year but I still found it difficult to select just a small number of them.

Mosaic of my Top 10 images

These links take you to the images on Flickr.

1. Skies are blue and white, 2. Droplets, 3. Black cat through the fence, 4. Tulip, 5. Run run run!, 6. Blue and Gold Sunset, 7. Buzzing around the rosemary, 8. Old books, 9. Blue rust, 10. Horsin’ around

I’m happy with this set. I note that two of the images are from the April 2008 Challenge – Entropy which should be incentive enough for me to participate in more projects and challenges this year.

How did you fare in choosing your best photos? If you have a Top 10 list of your from 2008 pop a link to them in the comments below.

Tags:
posted by Anthea in Photography Projects and have Comments (21)
15
Dec

A clip of inspiration

Looking for some photography ideas? Pop over to Neil Creek’s blog and submit an entry for his latest Iron Chef Photography Challenge. The theme? A paperclip.

One paperclip or many, it doesn’t matter; as long as the main subject of your photo is a paperclip.

… Funnily enough, I took a photo of a paperclip for the Entropy Challenge back in April. Time to get the brain into gear for a new idea. Any suggestions?

Rusty paperclip

posted by Anthea in Photography Projects and have No Comments
26
Jun

Voigtlander Vito BL – the verdict

This may become a two-parter if I receive more entries

Whilst I would dearly love to have had all the entries here there have been delays with some and I have been keen to post those that have were submitted on time (it’s been just over a month since the end of the project date). So there are a couple more people still waiting in the wings with their entries but due to other business have not yet submitted. I hope they do, and if so, you’ll see an update.

Project recap

To answer four questions and submit some photos taken with the Voigtlander Vito BL.

  • 1. What attracted you to the Voigtlander?
  • 2. Do you like using the Voigtlander?
  • 3. How does it compare to other vintage cameras you have used?
  • 4. Do you prefer modern day digital cameras to older film and vintage models?

The idea came about as I’ve had quite a few requests for a scanned copy of the Vito BL manual and it got me thinking as to what these photographers think of its performance and operation.

The Vito BL camera

Perhaps if I extended the project to include other models or to vintage cameras in general I may have had more responses. But that is something I have learned for any future project I may host.

So without further ado:

Photos and verdict by Anthea Brown (me)

aka lilahpops on Flickr

Click on the corresponding link below to see the larger version at Flickr.
1. Green Door in Wall, 2. A statue watering the garden, 3. Lines and lines and lines, 4. In the garden, 5. Another sunny Sunday, 6. Afternoon at the bay

My camera belonged to my father who bought it second-hand in 1959. It’s a solid piece of equipment, totally manual and doesn’t even use batteries. He passed it on to me as my interest in photography grew – it was my first real ‘plunge’ into photography.

It’s fun to use. All the actions are manual, there are no shortcuts. You need to read the lightmeter to set the aperture, to set the shutter speed and then set the distance. Lucky for me, my father also had the rangefinder accessory which helps as it’s easy to make the wrong guess-timation without one.

For me, the most difficult action is interpreting the lightmeter although I recently discovered it doesn’t work as well as it should. I’m having better luck following the Sunny 16 rule.

Do I prefer vintage to digital? It’s a tough call and I still can’t decide. I do love my little digital point-and-shoot camera and aim to buy a DSLR in the near future. I found the Vito BL was a great introduction to learning the basics of photography and move away from automatic settings. I definitely need to improve in recording the various settings I try out as I have usually forgotten these by the time I get the film developed.

Photos and verdict by Zafer Yurtseven

Click on the images below to view a large version.
January 2008 near Eskisehir A night photo taken using a tripod from my living room window Wrong range estimation A bit underexposed A good one - taken in February 2008 in Eskisehir, Turkey
Zafer is from Turkey and here is his experience using the Vito BL:

I found the Vito BL on a local e-auction site like eBay. I am a film camera lover and although I had heard about Voigtlander cameras I had not used one. As it was cheap, I wanted to give it a try. The camera is very well built, very cute and comfortable to handle. But it lacks one major thing, a coupled rangefinder. A lightmeter can be arranged easily but not the rangefinder. If it had one, it would be my favourite camera…

I normally use two film cameras, a Leica M2 and a basic Nikon film camera FM10…

I don’t own a digital SLR as I don’t enjoy digital photography. So as my Leica is nearly 50 years old, Vito BL is not “very vintage” for me. I will keep my Vito BL in my collection but I probably won’t use it much because of the rangefinder problem. Anyway, using a Vito BL was a great experience and thank you very much for your kind help and interest

Photos and verdict by Torfinn Rosfjord

aka xTorfinnx on Flickr
Photographs courtesy of Torfinn Rosfjord aka xTorfinnx

Click on the corresponding link below to see the larger version at Flickr.

1. Tetris 4, 2. Tetris 3, 3. Jæren, 4. Tetris2, 5. Tetris1, 6. Old DDR

Torfinn is from Norway. Here is his response to using the Vito BL:

My grandfather bought it in 1957 when he was in the Norwegian navy and took many pictures from around the world. He gave me this camera when I told him that I was in an 2nd hand store looking for an vintage camera. So that was fun!

All the parts are in original boxes with the receipt :) My grandfather said “I cant understand why you want this old junk when you got all those new cameras that you can just push a button,” but he smiled when I told him that I liked to keep up the tradition, as he did … and when I eventually do a coast to coast roadtrip in the USA I can now use his camera. In a way history repeats itself…

I like this camera and that you don’t really know how the pictures are turning out before you get them processed … I like the vintage look and that I’m getting an experience into how they did it in the “old days” … I have used a Zenite E and a Nikon fm2 before, but I don’t need a rangefinder with those. So is a little more work with the Voigtlander…

I prefer vintage cameras over the modern ones because with digital cameras, almost all you do is press a button and you get a picture … but with vintage cameras it’s a longer process, so you care more about what you take picture of. So I use vintage cameras because it gets a warmer feeling in the pictures. But I do use a small digital camera to preserve some memories as well.

Photos and verdict by Mark Wilson

aka ihageefanatic on Flickr

Click on the corresponding link below to see the larger version at Flickr.
1. Lonely Wait, 2. Shadow Show, 3. Horton Hears a Who, 4. Reflection, 5. Early Morning Commute

Mark says:

I borrowed one [Voigtlander Vito BL] after having disposed of a Vito B. I’m attracted to these [cameras] because of the beautiful warm colours one gets from the Color Skopar lens …

It is slightly different than other cameras of the era. The one I used had a transport problem. I gave up on the light meter. The linkage between the aperture and the shutter setting that maintains constant exposure is a real pain. The bright finder promises beautifully aligned horizontals and doesn’t deliver. The eccentric film counter is great when I remember its odd operation. This camera is very small. And heavy. I like it.

Digital camera? What’s that? One which is manipulated by one’s fingers? The Vito BL is a modern camera compared to the other ones I carry.

Mark’s hints for using the rigid front Vito B and BL:

  • It is scale focus (“blind focus”), so you have to set the distance to the subject. It gives one a 3-dimensional sense of the picture space, and there is a depth of field scale to help out.
  • If you change the shutter speed, the aperture adjusts in the opposite direction. To set it independently, press 2 tabs on the lens mount.
  • The shutter release doesn’t fire unless a film is advanced, turning the sprocket and cocking the shutter.
  • With 400 ASA film on a partially cloudy day, try 1/300 shutter speed with aperture at f11 to get very crisp negatives.
  • Voigtlander filters and supplementary close-up lenses are often found and are of very high quality. You can thus use the Vito BL to do interesting close-up work, infrared photography, and special effects.

A big thank you to everyone who particpated!

If you have more tips for using the Vito BL that you think may help other photographers please add them in the comments.

Tags:
posted by Anthea in Photography Projects,Vintage Camera and have Comments (5)
27
May

Where are you from?

This is my entry in the third and final installment of the Blog Statistics Project

Tibor over at photonovice.net has announced the final chapter of his project. So far he has asked What are the search terms used to reach your website? and What are your most popular articles? The last question is Where are you from?

So it’s back to Google Analytics for the answer – I have to say this has been a most useful tool for all three stages of the project.

Let me know in the comments where you are from and how you found Lilahpops :: Plunging into Photography – it will be interesting to compare this with the stats I’m about to list below.

Around the world

Here is the Map Overlay from Google Analytics showing my visitors for the last 12 months – yes, Lilahpops is now one year old. The darker the green the more visitors are from that country.

I was impressed to see that visits have come from 92 countries!

To break it down further I’ve listed the Top 5 countries and the percentage of traffic coming from each one:

  • United States – 51.4%
  • Australia – 14.2%
  • United Kingdom – 8.9%
  • Canada – 5.7%
  • Germany – 1.8%

According to the stats 83.44% of total visitors are new to the site and the average length of each visit is 2min 34sec which isn’t too bad considering the ‘surfing’ nature of the web.

How do you get here?

The pie chart below shows that most visitors have reached Lilahpops via referral sites and searches.

We can break it down a bit further:

  • Google/Search – 41.8%
  • Stumbleupon – 27%
  • Direct – 10%
  • Photography Voter – 3.3%
  • Flickr – 2.5%

RSS subscribers are slowly growing too. This may be because it also includes my Flickr photos.

Do you fit the bill?

Does this sound like you? Are you from the United States or Australia? Did you do a Google search or or stumble across a post? Or perhaps you are a subscriber?

Let me know – I’d love to see if the stats translate into real life!

Tags:
posted by Anthea in Photography Projects and have Comments (3)
Newer Entries →
© Lilahpops 2009 | Created by Get a Custom Design.
Powered by WordPress