copper dough
FYI I broke my digital camera so it’s gonna be all crap iPhone photos from now on. I took this one at SF Scrap Metal where I cashed in my copper wire collection to the melodious tune of $186.40.
This is gonna help because I’m taking the next two weeks off from working to make a mini-doc about donuts…something on the back burner for too long. I listened to my own blog post advice and I’m gonna go for it.
I would send you a camera, John, but you clearly don’t take good care of them. Seem to go through about 1 a year?
Comment by Lyle_s — June 13, 2008 @ 8:07 pm
true. I can get the same one used for about thirty bucks on ebay so I’ll do that. I’m thinking about an SLR. Does your wife have one that’s digital? Any re ommendations?
Comment by Rolston — June 14, 2008 @ 7:16 pm
My wife shoots with an EOS 5D now. I don’t recommend sinking that kind of money into a camera for personal enjoyment but it’s useful for photographing functions like 13 year old Jewish boys becoming men. I mean bar-mitzvahs, not child porn.
I’m not sure how much of your subject matter would benefit from a SLR camera. This scrap pile will look pretty much the same a second after you click the button. For any photography of things in motion, it’s nice to have. I think you can get the Canon EOS 20D camera body for around $500 bucks now. If you don’t mind carrying around a camera that size, it might be worth the investment.
It looks like the new iPhones have the same crappy camera as the current release so no relief on that horizon. I wonder if you could hack up your iPhone and insert a better camera in there?
Comment by Lyle_s — June 15, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
With an SLR I could have depth of field. Choose an area of focus, do close ups, put a fish eye lens on it. This thing just grabs whatever’s in front of it. No focus, no flash.
In the back of my mind I’m always thinking about buying a camera and a digital recorder and travelling the country documenting people’s stories. With a lap top and an MBox, a camera and a video camera in a back pack I could hitchhike, hop trains, and have unprecedented ability to record life. This is the first generation to have that option and I’m wasting it driving around town with a load of garbage in my truck.
Comment by Rolston — June 15, 2008 @ 7:51 pm
Well, in truth, you could probably get a non-SLR camera with a LCD screen and get the depth of field shots you want because the LCD will show you exactly what you are pointed at so you can focus the camera properly at the wider aperture.
Still, SLR is the easiest for accomplishing what you want. My wife has some nice depth of field shots posted here. You have to click on the featured picture to get it to open up in a separate window so you can actually view it large enough to pick up on the area of focus. That blog site kind of sucks.
Anyhow, you could get yourself the EOS 20D body and a 50mm F/1.4 lens for not too much and be going crazy with the depth of field stuff. Here’s an auction for the body on eBay ending in an hour and still under $300 for the camera:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Solid-Canon-EOS-20D-8-2-Megapixel-Digital-Camera-CF-Bag_W0QQitemZ150257376168QQihZ005QQcategoryZ107907QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Comment by Lyle_s — June 16, 2008 @ 7:40 pm