FunctionallyUnfunctional

In the photographic community few products seem to elicit a more negative response than when the words "kit lens" are spoken.  What exactly is a kit lens? Well, simply put, its the lens that is commonly bundled with a camera body. If you purchase a pro-level camera body that is bundled with a lens, that lens is generally a pro-level lens. While those are technically kit lenses as they're sold with a body as a kit, they aren't the lenses that people generally refer to as "kit lenses." Kit lens normally is used to describe the inexpensive general purpose lenses - usually 18-55mm - bundled with consumer grade, entry level cameras. And oh boy do those lenses get a bad rap! Seriously, many in the photographic community have a hatred of these lenses that exceeds Donald Trump's loathing of the media. And the Donald truly detests the media for anyone that hasn't noticed. I'll leave the rest of that discussion for someone else's blog. A few...

One of my projects during the pandemic has been getting my both my studio and my workshop in order. We heat our home with wood and over the winter I needed to sharpen an ax. I realized my file collection was woeful limited and made it a point to pick up new files now and then. When I purchase tools that I'm not going to use immediately I usually leave them in the original packaging until I actually need them. Its just a quirk. Well, I needed a file and while opening the package decided I needed a file photograph in my product portfolio. I learned a couple important lessons while creating this image, which of course, is part of this project because I used mostly old, broke down gear to create it. The first lesson? When using old-school power pack style lighting equipment, make sure you have things plugged in and powered correctly. You see, the lighting equipment used today is fairly straightforward. When you want more or less power you simply turn the light up or down to cont...

Creating the headphone images for my last post has inspired me to spend a little bit more time in my studio. I'm enjoying the Jazz Fest tribute on WWOZ on those headphones as I write by the way. They sound as good as they look. Having a kid (hopefully) going to camp in a couple months, we purchased a really cool titanium camp spoon/fork combination. Before packing it for camp I thought it would make a good photograph. As I started setting the studio up, I realized that almost everything I was utilizing was either rescued or, minimally, gifted at some point. And, of course, that means it qualifies for this little blog I created. The spoon/fork combo is obviously new. The head of the tripod the camera is sitting upon is new but the tripod is certainly not. It, along with many of the light stands in my studio were rescued from the basement of a retired, and now deceased, photographer. From the camera, lenses and lights down to the work table and even props, virtually everythin...

Yesterday I received the new headphones I'd ordered. I don't really want to talk about why I needed new headphones but my old pair has ceased to exist. Since I work in a brick and mortar retail establishment I try to purchase locally whenever possible but due to our Covid 19 situation I had few options if I wanted a pair any time soon. When I got the box I thought to myself "I should play with some black on black lighting."  Photographing anything against its same color presents challenges. Black against black can be especially challenging because edges can simply disappear. So why not occupy some of my free time with such a challenge? My 7D was at the ready and after a bit of digging through my collection of "broken and junk" lenses I settled on an old Nikon 200mm film camera lens. I had to do a bit of modification to attach it but I made it work. I was pleased with the results of black box against a black background I achieved. Its nothing terribly...

Its almost hard to believe that I've been home for a bit over a month due to Covid 19 social distancing and this is the first functionallyunfunctional post I've made. Better late than never right? While home, I've doing a lot of organization projects, one of which had me moving this bicycle. Once a high quality bicycle, its best days are sadly behind it. It may not be the best bicycle to ride today but I can't think of a more suitable subject to photograph given the spirit of this blog! I grabbed my good ol' broken down 7D and some lights and went to work. If you haven't been following the blog and want to learn more about the 7D I'm speaking of, its in this previous post... ( https://functionallyunfunctional.blogspot.com/2019/01/next-came-7d.html )  Based on the bicycle I'd pre-visualized four different images. I ended up with only three because despite it's interesting, classic spring style, the bicycle saddle just wasn't yielding an...

I'm preparing a food photography class and needed a promotional image for the class. Naturally I wanted to do it inexpensively so I decided a simple shot of some cookies and milk might be a good option. So, on the way home from the camera store I stopped by the local grocery and grabbed a handful of cookies and some milk. But the milk isn't really milk. Its white school glue which makes an excellent milk substitute. The cookies were most definitely real. I was planning to shoot the final image with one of my new high resolution cameras but since my trusty old broken down 7D was handy I decided to use it for the test shots. Using an adapter I'd found, I mounted an old Pentax screw mount Zeiss lens to it. I began building my image and each test shot got me a little closer to what would be the final product. The process was going well until suddenly things came crashing down. You see, the brick wall in the background is much lighter than this image would suggest. I ne...

I decided to spend some more time with my newly acquired but severely broken Canon 35 1.4. (See previous post - a very broken lens) I thought it might be fun to concentrate on shooting some old things I have around the house. Since it's preset to its closest focus point of about 11 inches I can only do close up photography with it. But boy is it sharp at that spot. What a sweet lens. I'm having fun! Can you identify the subject matter of all three images?

Recently my friend Andria was on a job when her lens fell apart. She was a bit shaken obviously. She sent me a message showing the broken lens and asked if it could be repaired. I suggested she bring it to the store for an estimate. For enough money just about anything can be repaired right? Sadly, the repair cost of the lens simple didn't justify having it repaired. There was just too much damage. So Andria purchased a new lens and donated her broken lens to my project. I was actually quite excited because, despite its condition, this is one of Canon's best lenses. I was confident that I could manage to capture images with it and suspected they'd be quite sharp.  I noticed the focus ring would still drive the elements of the lens. I felt this was good news but since proper alignment of the housing could no longer be achieved I really had no way to know exactly where the lens would be focused. With two exceptions. I could turn it to its stops at either end a...

2019 was very good to me, at least from an equipment standpoint. Thanks to an attractive employee purchase program, I was able to bring home two new cameras in 2019. In fact, one is so new it only has 29 actuations on it and I honestly haven't even downloaded them yet. I also own some new lenses, lights, triggers, and even that new Leatherman multi-tool photographed above. I have had a small shooting area in my basement for some time, but over the holidays I took time to expand it into some additional space and actually create a small studio space. Actually its a really nice, large area.  I'm quite blessed to have not only such a space, but also the awesome gear to use in it. I'll leave that for a different blog. Having finished the studio, it was only fitting that I shoot something, right? Well, in typical fashion, every bit of that fancy, new gear remained packed away today.  Instead, just about everything used to shoot this image was free - devalued gear that, i...