So I recently purchased a Bronica SQ-A. It’s basically a Hasselblad copy produced in Japan. It is an SLR and uses medium format film. It has interchangeable lenses just like a 35mm SLR. But it also has interchangeable film backs which allow you to change film types or ISOs mid-roll without wasting part of your roll. In addition to that it has interchangeable viewfinders like a waist-level finder or the pentaprisms that are commonly found in 35mm SLRs. And there are also a large variety of focusing screens available for it. Basically, it rocks.

So, after loading the film in it backwards and shooting an entire roll, I figured it out and got some shots out of it. For those of you looking to purchase on of these, DO NOT buy a prism without a split-image rangefinder focusing screen. It is basically impossible to focus. Get one with a waist-level finder. This finder has a built-in loupe that will allow you to focus better with any screen. The shot below was shot at f/2.8 with an 80mm lens at 1/60th of second. It’s not tack sharp, but it’s close. I’m not sure if it’s camera shake or just bad focusing. But regardless, it really demonstrates the power of film.

Let me explain why film is where it’s at. Now, megapixels are not the most important thing when it comes to digital cameras, but it’s pretty important. The camera system sporting the most megapixels is the Mamiya DM56. Shockingly it has a 56 megapixel sensor. This camera cost $32,490. That’s like a nice BMW. So my Bronica kit ran me about $200, I got a really good deal on it. And my film scanner was about $150, not even close to top-of-the-line. So we’re talking about $350, that’s slightly over 1% of the cost of the Mamiya. Factor in film and developing costs, and you could burn through over 3000 rolls of film without hitting the cost of the DM56.

When I do a scan of a medium format negative at my scanner’s native resolution, it produces a file that is 10,250 pixels by 10,250 pixels. That 105 megapixels!!! How about that. The file is 67 mb closed and over 300 mb when opened in Photoshop. You can’t beat that. Anyway, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Here’s a frame from my first Bronica shoot… the sharpest one on the roll. I sized it down for the web, obviously. But I didn’t crop it. It’s the full frame. The shot below is a full resolution crop, meaning it’s a section of the photo that shows pixel for pixel what the images was scanned at.

That’s her eye, folks. Not only can you make out the individual eye lashes, you can see the individual windows of the room reflected in her EYE BALL. That’s serious stuff. And as I mentioned earlier, this photo is NOT tack sharp and my scanner is not even close to the best one on the market. At 300 dpi, this photo would be 34″ wide. That’s almost three feet at magazine quality resolution. In my ongoing battle to keep film alive, I think this is a victory. I’ve explained in past posts some of the reasons I’m attracted to film, but this gives those digital junkies some numbers to chew on.

**my next post will be a photo from my D700 digital SLR, if I keep talking bad about digital, my karma will catch up with me and my digital will fail at some important assignment.**

No long story or in-depth analysis here. I was at York Street Cafe in Northern Kentucky last week and saw the funky little sign hanging. The place had a lot of antique toys and unique Americana all over the place. All the stuff definitely added to the atmosphere and the food looked great, too. The restaurant is part of the Best of Cincinnati Card program that CityBeat runs. In my opinion, it’s the best deal in town. You can get 40% off at a bunch of different places. Check it out.

So yeah, I also love the little dancer guy above the sign, too. It makes me pronounce the sign in a foppish French accent, which makes me giggle more.

CityBeat has a special wedding section that will be coming out soon, so a few weeks I found myself at a bridal show. I have to say it was a pretty interesting experience, and I have to say it wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared it might be. Everyone there seemed to be in a great mood, which I guess should be the way it is. There were also a lot of photographers there, several of whom were friends of friends and the like. It was pretty hard to shoot given the bad lighting of the convention center, but I think I got a few good frames that capture the essense of the event. Also while I was there, I made the frame below. It most likely won’t be used in the issue because it doesn’t really say much about the event, but I think it’s cute. And I am never one to waste a cute picture. I like the pose and all the dresses, I don’t know, I just dig it. Hope you enjoy it, too.

For the past 18 months, I have lived in Hamilton, Ohio. I initially moved there because I was working primarily out of the Hamilton JournalNews office of the Southwest Group of Cox Ohio. I found an awesome apartment (way bigger and way cheaper than my previous one), and settled in. I was fully prepared to be there awhile. I had already been working in Hamilton for almost three years before I moved in.

About 4 months after I moved in, I was offered my current job at CityBeat in downtown Cincinnati. To avoid delving into my lengthy and emotional decision-making process, I took the job and began commuting from Hamilton to Cincinnati. The commute take over an hour each way unless I get really lucky. If I take surface roads, which I sometime do, I pass 72 traffic lights (I counted) and drive 25 miles. If I take the highway, I drive 32 miles in stop-and-go traffic.

So that’s part one of the story. Part two is this: My girlfriend and I have been together eight years, seven months and seven days. She has Cystic Fibrosis which not only forced her to postpone her college career, it has also forced her to live at home with her parents. In February of this year, she received a lung transplant. So, I’m happy to announced that we’re planning on moving in together in June.

I’m am extremely excited about it. The timing is perfect. My lease is up in June and she will hopefully (fingers crossed) be starting her co-op at a hospital to complete her final year of school at that time as well. I’m now working in downtown and that hospital is about 15 minutes from the city. We’ll both be able to be very close to our jobs. I’m even getting excited about the possibility of cycling to work in the morning, and I’m planning out what I’m going to do with my extra two hours of free time each day.

But it has begun to set in that I will be leaving Hamilton. And recently, I’ve been reminiscing a lot about it. I’ve done some of my best work in Hamilton. I went from a fledgling staff shooter to an award-winning photo manager in H-Town, as I affectionately call it. I love Hamilton’s mix of rural and urban life. I love knowing the streets and the neighborhoods.

I love that people have “I Believe In Hamilton” stickers on their cars. They don’t claim that it “rocks” like the residents of Cleveland. What happens in Hamilton, usually ends up on the 10 o’clock news. They know it’s not always sunny there. Hell, they don’t even LOVE their city. But they believe in it. And I think that’s pretty powerful.

Although I haven’t counted, I’d say 50% of the photos on this blog and on the rest of my site were taken in Hamilton. I’ve spent hours on “slow news days” slowly driving all the streets of the city looking for something interesting to shoot. There are few ways to get to know a city better, and there are few places in the world that I have a stronger connection with.

I was raised in the suburbs when they were still mostly farmland. The subdivisions didn’t really offer a sense of community. The newly transplanted residents didn’t have any knowledge of the history of where they were living, so it was mostly lost.

My school district was named after a Native American tribe based in the Dakotas, thousands of miles away. Schools in Hamilton were named (until recently) after U.S. Presidents because Hamilton was a founding father and the first Secretary of the Treasury. There is a statue of him in the middle of town. When you look up the history of Hamilton, you’ll find that it was off-limits to soldiers on leave during WWII because of rampant prostitution and gambling. When you look up the history of where I grew up, it probably says “farms.”

I have less than six months left in my adopted city. And I only hope that I’ll find something to be enthusiastic about in my new home (probably someplace in Northern Kentucky). In the meantime, expect to see a lot of photos of Hamilton here in the blog as I try to capture the essense of the place before I leave it. I’m sure I’ll return for visits, but nothing compares to living there. Here’s a taste of things to come: The Great Miami River at night shot from the Black Street Bridge facing south toward the High/Main Bridge. The city is both beautiful and industrial. Go check it out if you haven’t been there.

So if you’ve been following my blog over the past year or so, you will have noticed that I’ve developed a love affair with local bands. I didn’t really mean to do it, but it happened. What you probably don’t know is that under normal circumstances I despise folksy, country-like music.

It wasn’t always that way. When I was a little kid, I loved Country music. My dad listened to Garth Brooks and Vince Gill, and I looked up to my Dad, I still do. But then the Counting Crows released their first record. My older brother bought me my first Pearl Jam album. I discovered Pink Floyd’s The Wall. In other words, I moved on.

During my hiatus from the genre, it seems that two things happened:

1) Country music generally started to suck. The fusion of Modern Rock and Country sucks. In my mind, Country is inherently not a modern art form. I don’t mean this in a bad way, but there are certain things about it that make it what it is. Ballet is the same way for me, you can’t pop and lock through the Nutcracker and still call it ballet. It just doesn’t work. Basically, I believe that both ballet and Country music should strive for a certain timelessness.

2) I discovered that I lean a little to the left, politically speaking. And I believe that I began subconsciously associating Country music with right wing politics. I won’t go to deep into this, but the patriotism and the support Country music gave to the Bush adminstration; it all just turned me off.

Little did I know that the last year would turn my whole Country music world around. Keep in mind that when I say Country, I’m generalizing and grouping Country with Bluegrass, Roots, some Folk and Americana music. Needless to say, I’m now digging on some of these genres.

So, let’s bring it home. Local music + Country, Bluegrass and Roots = well… quite a few bands. Cincinnati has Magnolia Mountain, Wonky Tonk, The Seedy Seeds and the subject of this post: The Tillers.

We (CityBeat) recently ran a cover story about The Tillers and the upcoming release of their new album. I shot the cover image, and produced a multimedia show of their CD release concert that occurred last Saturday. So yeah, basically, check out these photos and the slideshow. I hope you enjoy. These guys are really easy to like. The cover shoot was at the home of one of the members, and as you can tell, it was pretty damn fun.

So this shot is from the cover shoot:

This shot is from the end of their show, when they descended into the audience to perform a rousing rendition of “Counting Flowers on the Wall.”

And here’s the slideshow:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB9woINyqCI]