What a day! I knew the weather was supposed to be nice but wow, who knew that there wouldn’t be a single cloud in the clear blue sky, who knew that the morning light would be perfect for photography, who knew that some of the best reflections ever were waiting for me on Thursday morning.
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Well, I really did know. That’s why I set out early for Ceres Park. I had a quick breakfast and one cup of coffee and off I went for the one mile trek to Ceres. This reflection is subtle. Hint — the tree fell into the ….??? Yep, the water. I found this scene while taking a short cut from Emerald Lake over to the Cedar Swamp. I had to leave the secondary trail to get this shot. Doncha love the morning light and the long shadows?
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Ah, here we are at the Cedar Swamp. I was the only human being in the park. So quiet, so beautiful and the light was wonderful (for a change).
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Remember last week? I made this image from the same spot. What a difference the light makes, light and shadows on the surface of the water, below the water and on the shore. Hey, this is a reflection and who needs the shore. This is pure reflection.
I’m in love. Ceres is such a neat place. I’m in love with Ceres. The morning light was everything I’d hoped for. While I didn’t get up at the crack of dawn, I did get to the park a bit after 9:30 DST so that makes the real time about 8:30, good enough for some nice light. I wasn’t disappointed.
I shot the entire roll using my 35mm AF lens, the new one I bought last month. I’m in love with that lens. I loaded a second roll of film and switched to my 50mm lens for a few shots, then to my 85mm lens. I couldn’t wait to get back to that 35mm perspective. I shot another 18 frames before I got home.
What a difference a few days can mean. I visited the park on Monday — nothing but clouds and a light rain. I shot an entire roll in the flat light. Got some good images too but I bypassed those for the images I shot Thursday. I’ll revisit the Monday shots later.
That second cup of coffee (and sitting down to relax) sure felt good. I got to thinking and decided to develop the film Thursday instead of waiting for Friday morning. I couldn’t wait. I’m like a kid in a candy store. Is it soup yet?
Oh, one more thing I’m in love with — matrix metering. Sorry Canon folks, Nikon invented matrix metering. I could never use it with my manual focus lenses. Now I can with my new 35mm AF lens and it works great. I got 25 good exposures out of a 24 exposure roll.
I finally nailed my workflow with Thursday’s film. VueScan can make and save raw files from scans so I scanned the entire roll of film in less than an hour. Now I have all my negatives saved as raw files that VueScan can process later. This is important because it means I only handle my negatives one time and don’t put them at risk.
It took me about 25 minutes to develop the film and another two hours to scan the negatives, process the images with VueScan and fine tune each one with PWP. Interestingly, I didn’t crop any images this time. I tweaked the curves and sharpened with PWP — that’s it.
What’s next? A misty, foggy morning at Ceres. One of these mornings I’ll be there to play with still another kind of magic light.
Cost for Thursday’s adventures? Film and the chemistry — less than $5. Benefits? Who’s counting!
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