Disapontment

I was going to print some images today as my wife was working late. I got to the darkroom hungry and tired just after 5PM just to learn that they are closed on Mondays. Well - back to the couch. I still have bunch of negatives without contact prints and few nice shots I would like to print.

A good day

Today has been a good day. I worked a full day (from home though so nobody was in my way), had a light dinner in North Beach, went to take few shots with my Graflex and went to gym. All this done by 9PM.

Today I shot the fog rolling over the city. I climbed on top of Corona Heights park close to Castro and shot towards Castro and Oakland. I got there the fog was just starting to roll over Twin Peaks. I was up there for about 20 minutes and when I left I was surrounded by the fog. It's funny how the fog follows the same pattern every day this time of the year.

Time

I really have to start making time for this hobby also. I have been so busy with moving and other work and non-work related projects that I haven't even seen my camera for a month. Sigh.

About blur and Bokeh

Bokeh is a term referring to quality of out of focus light sources in a photograph.

I found a great article explaining some of the physics behind this and found out that even when the lens does play a big role in Bokeh, there are other factors also. Applies to bigger cameras as well as smaller ones. Naturally when working with black and white medium the color shifts are rendered as shades of gray and are harder to analyze.

User review of Shen-Hao HZX4x5-II

I stumbled upon a unser review of a chinese 4x5 field camera. Not bad for the price. I haven't seen the camera myself so I can't comment on the build quality.

Film loading

I'm getting more and more comfortable with loading film into the holders. I might have a problem though. We are moving to a new apartment and we won't have a room that we can get completely dark. I may have to start loading the film in the public darkroom facility.

Darkroom time

Yesterday I went to my local darkroom Rayko here in San Francisco. The plan was to make contact prints of my recent 4x5s and maybe few proper prints from my older negatives.

I really have to start going to the darkroom more often. I was so rusty and working there wasn't as enjoyable as it once was.

Still got 3 decent prints and all needed contacts done. All this should have been done in less than an hour, but due my rustiness it took almost 2.

I'm still looking for a good scanner so I can start scanning my prints and maybe going digital in processing black and white film into pictures also.