A Geriatric Gets a New Life

I bought my Pentax H3V for $11.13 broken at a camera shop in SF with the specific intent of having it repaired so I could make sure that my Pentaxes, which I like a great deal, would be safe and well repaired by the repair shop. In short, the repair was perfect, the camera looks and works great, and I'll be gladly sending each of my Pentaxes to the shop for repairs and servicing. A lot of them would benefit from new light seals and such anyway.

So to fully test the H3V, I went to the Civic Center and ran three rolls of film through it. Foma 400, Walgreens 400, and Kodak BWCN400. My goal had been to photograph Henry Moore's 1973 sculpture "Large Four Piece Reclining Figure" which is outside the symphony hall. That accomplished, I walked around the Civig center photographing things until it looked like I may be stabbed.



THis is the sculpture. I didn't see the reclining figure, either, until I got closer.


Just a reference image with the sculpture name, artist, and year.


Taking this shot, which was number 21 of 27, was when I first began to see the sculpture as a reclining figure. Either I took a while to learn, or the sculptor did something wrong. You may decide for yourself.


A closer version of the previous shot. One of my two favorites from this trip.


Inside the sculpture.


From this angle, it looks like the reclining figure is smiling. I'd be smiling, too, if I could recline all the time.


My other favorite photo.


One nice thing about this piece is that because it's so open shadows move around and through it freely. This presents interesting photographic possibilities.






After finishing the roll, I decided to meander around the area. Not too far, mind you, because it was getting dusk-ish and I look like a victim.




Rendered in color, this moving, inflated flower sculpture is interesting. It's not my favorite, so I'm glad it won't be a permanent addition to the area. It doesn't quite fit the area Zeitgeist, which is all metal and such.


I also walked up to the San Francisco Public Utilities Corporation Building, which opens soon. THis will be a LEED Platinum building. It's gorgeous from any angle (except up close, at least until the construction crews wash the windows of the construction dust.)


I actually used almost the entire Walgreen 400 color roll on this building, but figured you don't want to see 18 variations on the same shot. So here's a different one.


And another different one.

After finishing the color roll, I decided to try the BWCN400 on the inflatable sculpture and see if maybe some up-close shots would change my opinion. Well, not so much. I should have done these shots with color because the sky and the red rendered too close to make the images truly dramatic. They may have been dramatic had I had a deep red filter or more color film. I did have my K-7 on me, but, as I stated above, I look like a victim.



See, in monochrome it just doesn't work, not without some special handling, which I lacked the equipment for.


This sculpture I get and all, but I'm no fan. My take on this piece is that it strives to show life through movement in sculpture. Additionally hinted at because it's a flower. And it's bright red which makes it very noticeable. And it's quite, which is nice. But I can't get into it even though, I think, I like the purpose and intent.


Lest you assert that I dislike kinetic art -- I admit I think it's a bit gimmicky sometimes -- here is a piece of kinetic sculpture that isn't on my thumbs-down list. It's across the street from where the flower is. It's two "L"s and they move in the wind. Nifty.

In short, what did I learn this week? The H3V and Sears Focal 28mm works very well together. I'm not sure who made the Focal lens, but it was made in Japan. I read some posts online with speculation as to who, therefore, made it, but I'm not sold on this being a Tokina. Sun Optics, maybe. Anyway, it's a fabulous lens and cooperates with the H3V quite nicely.

Also I learned not to carry extra film with me. It takes about two minutes per image to scan these. So multiply that by 25 for a normal day and you'll see it takes me about five hours to scan all the images for a given week. Then I have to edit them and downsample them for Internet hosting. These images you see are about 150-225 kilobytes each. The originals on my hard drive are 3.6 to 6.5 megabytes each. I'd run out of Picasa space in a month! So, it takes about another 30 to 45 minutes to contrast balance, sharpen, and remove developing flaws (e.g., a piece of hair) from the negatives before uploading them. So when I do something like take two extra rolls of film, it adds about three hours to my weekend scanning and editing routine. That doesn't make my girlfriend or my dogs happy. So, lesson learned, stick to the one-roll-per-day thing.