farlymac
PF McFarland
I wasn't interested in the NFL games on Sunday, and it was too nice to sit around the apartment anyway, so I grabbed a Nikon EM I had bought at a flea market, stuck some Fuji Superia in it that had expired back in 2009, and headed out the door.
My intentions were to find a patch of wildflowers to do some macro work, as the Albinar-ADG 28-80mm that came with the camera was supposedly capable of it. But I didn't come across many flowers that I could access without trespassing on private land, so I headed for a tourist attraction.
Thomas Jefferson inherited a plantation from his wifes' father, and in 1806, proceeded to design and build an octagonal house on the property. It is believed to be the first such type of house built in America. There are less than 700 acres of the original 4819 that he inherited still attached to the property, but it is still a grand looking place. The house is in a constant state of restoration, as the last owners after Jefferson rebuilt it with another story after a devastating fire that gutted it. This had to be removed, and the entire roof rebuilt to the original specifications. This took a lot of time, money, and effort, more of which are needed to finish the rest of the house.
We were not allowed to take photos of the interior of the house, and I don't think I would have wanted the EM clacking away inside there anyway. Man that thing is noisy. The lens is a junker, as I found out when getting the scans back. I thought the aperture ring was loose, but it turned out that the whole mount is loose, and that shows in some of the photos. The film was, well, out-of-date Fuji, so I didn't expect a lot from it. I ran the scans through PS Elements 10 on Auto Correct, and that took care of most of the problems. However, some frames were just way off on exposure, and I don't know if I might have accidentally knocked the selector switch to the Manual 1/90 setting. It seemed easy to do that, and I lost four frames in a row because of it. I caught that just in time, and reshot the scenes. But the other frames were sort of spurious, so it could be an intermittant metering fault.
Click on the links at the bottom to see all the photos on Flickr, and to go to the Poplar Forest web site for more info on the place.
Jefferson's PoplarForest by br1078phot, on Flickr
East Wing 1 by br1078phot, on Flickr
West Privey by br1078phot, on Flickr
East Privey Ceiling by br1078phot, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7699588@N07/sets/72157631523718912/
http://www.poplarforest.org/
PF
My intentions were to find a patch of wildflowers to do some macro work, as the Albinar-ADG 28-80mm that came with the camera was supposedly capable of it. But I didn't come across many flowers that I could access without trespassing on private land, so I headed for a tourist attraction.
Thomas Jefferson inherited a plantation from his wifes' father, and in 1806, proceeded to design and build an octagonal house on the property. It is believed to be the first such type of house built in America. There are less than 700 acres of the original 4819 that he inherited still attached to the property, but it is still a grand looking place. The house is in a constant state of restoration, as the last owners after Jefferson rebuilt it with another story after a devastating fire that gutted it. This had to be removed, and the entire roof rebuilt to the original specifications. This took a lot of time, money, and effort, more of which are needed to finish the rest of the house.
We were not allowed to take photos of the interior of the house, and I don't think I would have wanted the EM clacking away inside there anyway. Man that thing is noisy. The lens is a junker, as I found out when getting the scans back. I thought the aperture ring was loose, but it turned out that the whole mount is loose, and that shows in some of the photos. The film was, well, out-of-date Fuji, so I didn't expect a lot from it. I ran the scans through PS Elements 10 on Auto Correct, and that took care of most of the problems. However, some frames were just way off on exposure, and I don't know if I might have accidentally knocked the selector switch to the Manual 1/90 setting. It seemed easy to do that, and I lost four frames in a row because of it. I caught that just in time, and reshot the scenes. But the other frames were sort of spurious, so it could be an intermittant metering fault.
Click on the links at the bottom to see all the photos on Flickr, and to go to the Poplar Forest web site for more info on the place.
Jefferson's PoplarForest by br1078phot, on Flickr
East Wing 1 by br1078phot, on Flickr
West Privey by br1078phot, on Flickr
East Privey Ceiling by br1078phot, on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7699588@N07/sets/72157631523718912/
http://www.poplarforest.org/
PF
kshapero
South Florida Man
This is great stuff. I just did a photo shot at Monticello this last July. I did not realize how similar they are.
Peter_wrote:
Well-known
these are some very nice and informative pictures.
kshapero
South Florida Man
BTW I have a friend who picked up a Nikon EM, supposedly Nikon's low entry body. Shots he took were awesome. A hidden treasure.
Tom33
Established
Nice photographs. I went through the Flickr series, enjoyed them all. I need to go back to Virginia on a vacation soon!
Best,
Tom
Best,
Tom
gb hill
Mentor
You did a great job with whatever corrections you made. The photo's look nice.
farlymac
PF McFarland
Thanks for the kind comments, everyone. The EM is a capable camera when it has some nice glass hanging on it. Even though I was leary of the Albinar, it had a better range than my one other lens made for this camera (35-70 Series E).
Though it is an aperture priority automatic only camera, it still gives you a readout in the finder of what the shutter is doing, so you can control how much DOF, and motion blur you have in your photos. It's a great learners camera, Akiva, and I'd been wanting to get another one ever since I wound up with a box of cameras, one of them being an earlier version EM (Blue Buttons) with a broken rewind. The upscale version would be the FG, which includes Program Automatic, Aperture Priority, Full Manual control, and comes in black or chrome.
Your photo reminds me I need to get to Monticello sometime soon, Akiva.
PF
Though it is an aperture priority automatic only camera, it still gives you a readout in the finder of what the shutter is doing, so you can control how much DOF, and motion blur you have in your photos. It's a great learners camera, Akiva, and I'd been wanting to get another one ever since I wound up with a box of cameras, one of them being an earlier version EM (Blue Buttons) with a broken rewind. The upscale version would be the FG, which includes Program Automatic, Aperture Priority, Full Manual control, and comes in black or chrome.
Your photo reminds me I need to get to Monticello sometime soon, Akiva.
PF