Sunday, November 26, 2006

Holidays on the Dark Side

With the holidays upon us, my camera takes on a different purpose: recording family events. For this I've come to rely upon my digital cameras. Yes, I'm venturing into the dark side of digital.

At the recent family Thanksgiving extravaganza, I took three cameras: A Leica M, a Nikon SLR, and my Nikon DSLR. Because of a recently purchased Nikkor 20/2.8 AF lens, every shot I took was with the Nikons, and primarily with the digital.
I'm not a super wide kind of guy, but it was fun shooting the film SLR with the 20 and sticking loved ones on the edges of the frame. On the DSLR the 20mm falls into the 30mm range, so it worked for me as a nice wide—perfect for recording the occassion.

I love my family and friends, but I hate scanning negatives of them, so digital works for me just fine. I had family calling the "day after" asking for the "good" photos from Thanksgiving (all the cell phone and jewelry camera photos had already made the circuit). I sent out several shots, but the film stuff will have to wait until I get them processed and scanned. Here's one that I would hate to spend time scanning:



I'm glad I had the digital for that one. Now I know why us film shooters can have an attitude for being high and mighty. I'd never have taken that shot using a film camera. Film is too precious.

Most of the shots I made on T-day were informal portraits, including the end of the day group shot. Here's a shot using the 20mm on the DSLR:



My brother-in-law was a Marine, and he let the boys wear a couple of the hats that he has acquired over the years in the service.