Connectivity Revisited

The Watcher on the Wall

Syracuse, New York, 1974

This photograph has absolutely nothing to do with the post below.

But I don't want miss an opportunity to point out that the most

important ability in photography is the ability to notice things.

 

Back in July I wrote about a persistent problem in RV living -- connectivity. You can read about it here. Most of us are at least some what dependent on our cell phones, tablets, computers, and smart TVs for social interaction, work, and entertainment, Those of us who live in RVs have more difficulty with connectivity because we don't have landlines, cable is not available in all campgrounds, and satellite reception is expensive and requires special equipment. The wifi provided in most campgrounds, if they have it all, is miserably slow.

After some experimentation, the solution we found for our connectivity problem was to use two cell-phone carriers. Louise and I have our cell phone service with Consumer Cellular. We also have a third line with them which feeds into the chip in a little mobile hotspot device we ordered from Amazon, The combination provides us with 50 gigs of data and costs about $96 a month,

The other part of the solution is the 100 gigs of data we get from T-Mobile for only $50 per month and which we access through another mobile hotspot.

We use the T-Mobile data for streaming TV and our Apple computers. My PC (main computer), for some reason will only run on Consumer Cellular data. We can use either for phones and iPads.

So this pretty much solved our connectivity problems. Except one.

When someone breaks a hip and spends a lot of time in front of the TV streaming NCIS, all bets are off! (Also, I have to confess to participating in binge-watching The Good Witch.) 

All this resulted in hitting the dreaded slowdown on the 20th for T-Mobile and the 24th for Consumer Cellular. Last night it was so bad I couldn't post. So that's why you're getting this in the afternoon rather than this morning.

Photographs and text copyright 2022, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

 

A Little Chitchat about Film and Film Cameras

Confederate Calvaryman at a Civil War Re-enactment

Olympus OM2sp, 65-200 f4 Zuiko lens

When digital cameras began to take over the market in the early 2000s, the bottom dropped out of the market for film cameras. But now, interest in film and film cameras has been undergoing a resurgence. 

My main workhorses before my switch to digital in 2003 were a pair of Canon EOS A2s, excellent but underrated cameras. In fact, those were the cameras with which I photographed the Rock City Barns book, Georgia: A Backroads Portrait, and many other projects and commercial jobs between 1994 and 2003. But by 2005, I couldn't even get $35 apiece for them. So I put them on the shelf in honored retirement and later gave one of them to Charlie Carlson, who has been a good friend since 1972. Although since he lives in the Soviet Socialist state of California, I haven't seen him for at least 35 years. But we stay in touch by email. He's a camera enthusiast, and we occasionally buy, sell, trade, or give each other cameras.

Meanwhile, prices of good used film cameras are moving steadily upward and there are now numerous blogs on the internet devoted to film and film cameras.

 Recently, Charlie asked my opinion about the best model of Olympus OM film camera to get for his son.

He wrote: "For some time there was a great debate going on about the OM2 and the OM2n versus the OM2sp. They came marked in both "N" and "Sp". The great difference being that the spot meter was either a blessing or curse. Have you got any opinion on this?"

(The OM2sp was an OM2 that offered both spot metering and programmed exposure mode.)

I replied, "Well, Charlie, as you know, opinions are like anus's. Everyone has one, and most of them stink. However, having owned and used all three cameras extensively, I can tell you that the OM2n is the pick of the litter. Beginning in 1978, I owned and used, at various times, and many of them concurrently, the OM1, OM2, OM2n, OM2sp, OM-PC, and OM10, but the OM2n was my workhouse from the early '80s to about '93, when I switched to Canon because of my growing need for autofocus, and the growing perception that Olympus was not going to come out with a professional autofocus body anytime soon.

The spot meter in the SP was a nice feature, but I did not use it much. Almost all my exposures were metered with a hand-held incident meter. On the few occasions when the situation demanded that I act fast or miss the shot, the auto-exposure in the 2n never let me down. I still have a pair of 2ns, one of which works (I think I got it from you), and one which needs to go to the repair shop."

Truthfully, I no longer shoot much film, although I wish I did. If I were a hobbyist I could justify the cost in time and money. But since I need to make a little money on my projects, film is out. If I had used film, to photograph the Backroads and Byways book, it would have cost $1700, providing I did the processing myself. The cost would have been much more to send the film out.

Nonetheless, I'm glad to see the rising interest in film photography. I worked with film nearly twice as long as I've worked with digital, and color slide film will always be my favorite medium. (Both photos here made on Fujichrome.)

After Evening Chapel at the Mission Hospital, Abak, Ibom, Nigeria

I believe this is the best photograph I've ever made. It's about beauty and mystery, which to me is the essence of photography. OM2N with a Tamron 100-300 f4 lens, 1/15th second, f4, at 300mm, autoexposure.

Photographs and text copyright 2022, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

 

Tags: Canon film cameras, Canon EOS A2, Olympus OM film cameras, OM-1, OM2, OM2n, OMsp, OM-PC, OM10, Fujichrome film

When Life Gets in the Way

The Harville House: A Magnificent Ruin

Built in 1894, the Harville House in Bulloch County has been

allowed to become a ruin, but it still displays its former

magnificence. (Notice my truck in the left background.)

Fuji XH-1, Fujinon XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OISII lens

 

 Welcome back, Dear Readers, assuming there are any. As I wrote in the intro to this blog,

"This blog is about photography, about life, and about my life in photography. I'll be talking about the tools, techniques, and philosophy of photography, about some of the things that happen in my life, and whatever else crosses my mind."

Today it's about life.

At the end of every post on this blog is a line that says "I post each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way."

Well, life has been in the way.

We spent the fall camped near Knoxville and spent the holidays with our son Don and his family. We also began attending one of our favorite churches, Cedar Springs Presbyterian in Knoxville, the church we had attended via TV during the pandemic. Having been singers most of our lives, Louise and I promptly joined the choir, singing in the church services and ultimately singing in two Christmas concerts, each of which involved multiple practice sessions. It was a busy but very enjoyable time.

I was also selecting, editing, cropping, and otherwise prepping the photographs for the second edition of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia, plus more editing of the text. I have to turn it all in by the end of February.

On January 4th we said goodbye to our family and friends in Knoxville and pointed the truck and RV toward Florida. We planned to stop for a few days at the campground in Chattanooga where we spent last winter to see our doctor and take care of a few business matters, but on our second day there Louise had a dizzy spell, fell, and broke her hip. She was taken by ambulance to a hospital and the next day had surgery to pin the bones back together. She is doing very well and starts physical therapy this week, but apparently we are not going to make it to Florida until March. All this reminds me again of the old proverb "Man plans, God laughs!"

However, if this had to happen, this was a good place for it. We lived in this area for many years and have many friends here. But I could sure use some of that good Florida weather right now, because it's been cold as a Wican's mammery.

I realize that none of this is a good excuse for suspending my blog for so long. Truth is, I had just gotten stale and felt I had run out of things to write about. My granddaughter, Jennifer Steinmetz, herself a very fine writer, encouraged me to restart the blog and keep plugging away.

(The photo above is from a new chapter I'm adding to the Backroads and Byways book.)

Photograph and text copyright 2021, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone