Saguaro Cactus

So it's been almost a month since my last blog. The reason is that I took a 2-week trip to Arizona and have been busily developing and scanning the 30+ rolls of film I shot.

I haven't finished but I have gotten through about 3/4 of it. I thought I would start today by posting some of my favorite images of the iconic saguaro cacti growing in the Sonoran Desert.

I saw a lot of saguaros - from the Desert Museum to Picacho Peak to the Ironwood National Forest. Here's a collection of images from various places, mostly taken with my Bessa R2S and either 25mm, 35mm, 50mm, or 85mm lenses.

I have lots more images to post in the coming weeks from AZ, especially from the Grand Canyon, Chiricahua National Monument, and Organ Pipe National Monument.

Here's some saguaro shadows:

 And here's one with me posing as a saguaro:

Last one is on the banks of the Salt River, taken with my Pentax 67ii:

Wading in Amicalola Creek

I've been waiting for some warm weather to get into Amicalola Creek to look for more dynamic compositions. I went twice this week - once with my Nikon F2 and a few lenses and once with my new Mercury Camera with a 38mm lens, shooting 6x9. Here's some 35mm images:

I went back a couple of days later with the Mercury and I retook some of the same images. I will print several of these 6x9 images for sure as I was very happy with the results:

I took a few other images not in the creek both days, here's a few of those:

Here's some extra images from the medium format film I shot last night at the top of the falls:

Finally, I did take a couple of color pictures on 35mm - here is one, on E100G:
 

Here's a cell phone picture of the Mercury camera while I was shooting:

First images with the Mercury "Universal Camera"

Around this time last year I backed a project on Kickstarter for an interesting camera designed to be as "universal" as possible - the Mercury Camera.

This camera was designed with modularity in mind and with the appropriate hardware can shoot anything from 35mm to 4x5 film, as well as digital "medium format" backs.

I was interested in the camera first and foremost as a no-nonsense ultrawide lens camera. I talked to the creator and designer about whether lenses like my Schneider 38mm XL could be used on the camera - both on the 4x5 and medium format configurations (in actuality the 38mm doesn't quite cover 4x5 but is great for 6x12).

I received one of the first test units before general shipping happens (soon) and was able to give it a test spin this past week. I went out to Preacher's Rock again and shot a couple rolls of 6x9 with the 38mm XL.

The camera worked as intended and easily handled the 38mm XL. As basically a simple box it was easy to use and did not have the parallelism issues that have plagued me when using this lens on other cameras.

I am now testing and helping to calibrate the Mercury with a large number of lenses. This camera will be an excellent ultrawide camera to supplement my current cameras.

Here's a few images from that afternoon:

 

And finally here is one color shot, taken on Provia 100F:

Flowers at Gibbs Gardens

A couple of weeks ago Meagan and I went to Gibbs Garden to see some of the spring flowers. I shot a roll of Velvia with my Nikon F3. Here's some photos: