Around the Block

By Barrioboy

Never go back!

So I went back to the scene of yesterday's runner up shot with a digital sensor instead of film...I was pleased with the results until I did a comparison! I probably prefer the warmer tones of yesterday...but I was a bit later in the day today, and the only way to really compare is to use both cameras in parallel at the same moment. Still, I like the composition a little better today with the lady entering the shop...

Here is yesterday's effort...film capture (Fujicolour 100) - same scene, the day before

Given the upload challenges yesterday, I didn't really have time to describe the experience of using the then top-of-the range Nikon F3 from 30 years ago which caused something of a sensation and controversy when it came out...top speed 1/2000th; 'electronic' in the extreme for the day but with only one electronic LCD figure in the viewfinder (speed) and alongside the f-stop number of the actual lens aperture ring visible through a little window; very fast (and only) manual focus with the split screen and shimmering surrounding prism; a very, very compact body (I remember it being heavy then after my upgrade from a Kodak Instamatic!) but almost lost in my hands now; and a wind-on lever that yesterday I kept on forgetting to wind on!

So the F3 was the camera I shot with when I woke up on the most beautiful morning of my life on the deck of a felucca on a Nile island; which hit against my hip as I hop-scotched bare foot on the scalding tiles of the Golden Temple's patio in Amritsar a few short months before the massacre; and with which I shot my first ever photo in NYC coming out of the subway and swivelling to see the Twin Towers through the wire mesh of a street basketball compound...I swear there was a slant in it!

Times have changed and the work flow (for Blip) is horrendous, but I have rediscovered my 'old F3 friend' and I can assure you, some days, it will come out, slipped under my arm, and do its business again.

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