I miss shooting

Anybody else get the blues when you're too busy to pull out your camera?

Yes.

For the last few months I've been wondering why I don't enjoy shooting so much these days. For me, it came down to being bored with digital. There was a time in my life where I grabbed a camera and just spent the day(s) taking photos. Back then, I would LOOK for photos, consider the lighting, framing, focal length, background, and camera settings before raising the camera. Frequently, I'd adjust things after looking through the viewfinder. I enjoyed the PROCESS of photography.

With digital I've become a slave to FIRE THE SHUTTER! If it's wrong, I'll do it again. I spend time post processing, obsessing over sharpness, and DR. I do get some good photos theses days, but I don't enjoy the process much anymore.

Solutions:
I've acquired an Elan 7NE film camera. It allows me to use all me EF glass.
and...
I've also spent a few months re-acquiring some all-manual gear. Mostly Yaschica, all C/Y mount glass. Bodies are 2x FX-D, and an FX3 S2K. I am looking forward to getting out and MAKING some photos, and not expecting my camera to do it for me.

I'm going to start a weekly shoot X2

I will take a picture of something, and then I will make a photograph of the same thing to show the difference. What do you think?

driving35mm wrote in post #18595992
I'm going to start a weekly shoot X2

I will take a picture of something, and then I will make a photograph of the same thing to show the difference. What do you think?

I think you have a plan; get to it! Seems a decent way of leveraging out of a rut, to me. Definitely miss getting some photos when the time crunch hits and my shooting time dries up; but, I can usually count on my significant other to press me back out of the house on a weekend or something to go shoot when that happens

It's a wave... sometimes in the crest, sometimes the trough.

For me, I just take my every day walk around with me (Fuji X100S) and don't worry about it.

Very best,

I got my $35 Yashica FX-3 Super 2000 body today. What a fantastic camera! Full frame, variable max FPS, +/- 1/3 stop EC, wide-open metering, eye-controlled focus, user-replaceable sensor, 10s self-timer, and doesn't even need batteries! It even has auto-MLU. No more menu diving for that!

The only drawbacks are cumbersome ISO changes, and changing shutter speed on the fly. It is second to the FX-D for both of those features. Its not perfect, but pretty darn close for $35!

If it wasn't 40 degrees, windy, and raining, I'd be out shooting this sweet baby. Perhaps a few cat photos are in order.

Yes!

So what I've started to do is just drive out AM, even with a phone, and grab something.

It is the act of creating it, not the gear, which I found is the enjoyment.

IMAGE LINK: https://photos.smugmug​.com …/IMG_8003-XL.jpg&lb=1&s=A

driving35mm wrote in post #18595935
Anybody else get the blues when you're too busy to pull out your camera?

Yes, absolutely.

But for me, it's not so much being too busy to shoot. . It's more that during certain times of year, there is hardly anything around that I like to shoot. . Like pretty much from November through February, there is hardly any accessible wildlife anywhere around me, and hardy any desirable birds, either. . So I get doldrums because I can't get out and shoot the things that I want to shoot. . Sure, I could shoot other stuff, but I am not interested in other things, so why shoot something that I have no passion for?

.

Bassat wrote in post #18595942
For the last few months I've been wondering why I don't enjoy shooting so much these days. For me, it came down to being bored with digital. There was a time in my life where I grabbed a camera and just spent the day(s) taking photos. Back then, I would LOOK for photos, consider the lighting, framing, focal length, background, and camera settings before raising the camera. Frequently, I'd adjust things after looking through the viewfinder.

You can still do all of that with digital, exactly the same way you did it with film. . I do all of that stuff for every single digital photo I take. . The medium should not have an effect on the process to the point where your process has completely deteriorated.

My process has nothing to do with the gear.

When I want a good picture of a bird, I still go out and spend days looking for the birds, trying to find them in areas that are conducive to good photography. . Then once I find them in an area with nice vegetation, surroundings, etc, I start to spend time there every day, observing them. . I figure out what exact spot I want to photograph them in (on a particular branch, in a particular part of a pond, etc), and then I watch the light throughout the day to figure out where it would be best to set up a blind. . Then I design a blind in my mind, being conscious of the materials and type of construction that would work best in that spot. . Then I go buy the stuff I need for the blind and spend a couple of days building it. . Then, finally, I start to go spend time in the blind each day, taking whatever opportunities the birds give me, all the while learning more about their personalities and behaviors as I observe them close up for extended periods of time.

That is my process for much of my bird photography. . It has nothing to do with whether I am using digital or film gear. . All of the things that it takes to get a good photo are the same either way. . The only difference is in the results - I get much nicer looking photos with digital gear than I ever got with film.

I have different processes that I use for cavity nesting birds, for deer, for Pika, etc. . Each type of critter has its very own challenging, strategic, photographic process that I go through in order to set myself up to get good photos. . I like these processes very much and they are the thing that I enjoy most about photography - these processes themselves.

.

Bassat wrote in post #18595942
I enjoyed the PROCESS of photography. With digital I've become a slave to FIRE THE SHUTTER! If it's wrong, I'll do it again. I spend time post processing, obsessing over sharpness, and DR. I do get some good photos theses days, but I don't enjoy the process much anymore.

It's a shame that you have for some reason allowed the medium you use to affect your process. . This need not be so. . If you have become a slave to "fire the shutter", that is only your own fault, and in no way the fault of the medium itself. . It would behoove you to take control of your process, instead of allowing the gear to control it, as it evidently is.

.

S.Horton wrote in post #18598085
Yes!
It is the act of creating it, not the gear, which I found is the enjoyment.

Exactly!

The creative process is what it's all about. . The gear that is used should be irrelevant to the process.


.

Tom,

Thanks for the words of encouragement (I think!). I agree with you, it is my fault I've let things go so far. A product of laziness, busy-ness, mostly action shooting, or whatever it is, I've (nobody else) let it go too far. I have tried a few times over the last two years to set my digital camera to Manual mode, manual focus, and just go shoot. Call it a personalilty flaw, but I just can't seem to do it. I get in a hurry, or see a shot I'm not prepared for and go right back Av, AF, Auto-ISO, chimping and the whole 9 digital yards.

This gear forces me to go back to basics. For now, I like that.

Thought I'd share a photo of my latest 'red-ring' gear. Yashica FX-3 Super 2000 came Saturday. Just got the Sigma 21-35mm f/3.5-5.6 Zoom (gamma)-II, today.

S.Horton wrote in post #18598085
Yes!

So what I've started to do is just drive out AM, even with a phone, and grab something.

It is the act of creating it, not the gear, which I found is the enjoyment.

Believe me, I agree with you. Perhaps it is the act of creation I've gotten away from. So used to point, shoot, chimp, repeat lately that I've gotten away from the process.

I just took my new Σ21-35mm lens out in the back yard to make a photo of my barn. It is being evaluated tomorrow for election to the Marhshall County (IN) Historical Barns listing. It was built in 1883 using mortise & tenon joinery. I think it's a shoe-in. Anyway, I knew I wanted to shoot at 21mm. I took care to foot-zoom to an appropriate distance, moved around a bit while considering the light, used my DOF scale and f/11 to make sure everything is in focus, from nearby flower beds to distant trees, checked perspective distortion (up/down angle w/wide lens), then finally squared up my viewfinder and released the shutter. It felt good to 'know' what I was getting before I released the shutter. And now for the anticipation of "When can I send this roll in?" and "I can't wait to open the package!"

So many times lately, with digital, I raise the camera and fire, paying little heed to ANY of the settings. WTH, if its wrong, I'll adjust and shoot again. With my new toys, I am part of the process again. Not just reacting to what I may or may not have gotten.

Tom, your post inspired me to add something to my signature.

OhLook wrote in post #18598998
Tom, your post inspired me to add something to my signature.

I'm happy to provide minor annoyances, and don't charge extra for them! Now I have to go look that up.

EDIT: (http://grammarist.com/​spelling/shoo-in/)
"The conventional spelling of the noun meaning a sure winner is shoo-in, not shoe-in. The term uses the verb shoo, which means to urge something in a desired direction, usually by waving one’s arms. The idea behind the word is that the person being shooed—for example, into the winner’s circle, into a job, or into a field of award nominees—is such a lock that we can shoo him or her in without hesitation."

Well, that makes perfect sense!

Bassat wrote in post #18599005
I'm happy to provide minor annoyances, and don't charge extra for them! Now I have to go look that up.

Thanks for being a good sport. I wish all journalists would look it up. I keep seeing the wrong form from writers who are actually getting paid.

The metaphor alludes to barnyard animals and corrals and pens, not footwear.

OhLook wrote in post #18599008
Thanks for being a good sport. I wish all journalists would look it up. I keep seeing the wrong form from writers who are actually getting paid.

The metaphor alludes to barnyard animals and corrals and pens, not footwear.

I am always willing to learn. I quit a good-paying job at 56 to go to Nursing School; always learning something! Wanna hear the bad news? I was SURE it was right the way it was. Shoo-in?!?! Hoodathunkit?

My experience was different; switching to film introduced a process so much more enjoyable to me that after my first roll, I never went out with my 350D again. Ten years later, and no regrets. Plus, visually, I generally prefer B&W film over digital, but that’s another issue.

To note, I was not bored with digital by any means; just ended up liking the film process more.

And there’s nothing shameful about anything that increases the gratification of a hobby (putting dubious lascivious matters aside).

Think about it; digital’s convenience, which is the gear’s influence on process, is a major reason for its popularity. In fact, perhaps ironically, photography remained at best a latent interest of mine for roughly three decades until the digital medium came along and tore away my previous intimidations.

But as I subsequently discovered on the flip side, some folks (including myself) still prefer those little “inconveniences”, they still like molding clay with hands instead of sculpting with a 3D printer. Or more to the point, they still like working in a traditional darkroom.

Reducing shutter lag and a jump in quality certainly prompted my move from my reliable Canon G3 to the 350D but so did the use of an optical viewfinder over the LCD screen…I wanted the camera pressed against my face instead of floating out in front, purely a matter of process, and subjective in its reception, but an important one to me, if not anyone else.

So gear does matter (yes, I said it), but for me, more in terms of ergonomics, design, and functionality. How it feels in the hand factors into the overall enjoyment and even effectiveness…after all, in the greater scheme of things, user experience is not necessarily a trivial issue.

This is why choice is important, and why I bemoan click-bait articles that predict the demise of DSLRS in the wake of mirrorless cameras despite the fact that I don’t even shoot digital.

Absolutely, a lot of this is in the head, but this doesn’t delegitimize the psychological and intangible considerations that add flavor to a particular experience.

In this regard, switching to film slowed me down; there was nothing physiologically preventing this new direction from being previously exercised with digital, and one could say that it was “my fault,” but such aspersions, while technically accurate, fail to recognize the simple matter of reality…it just did.

And blacking out the LCD screen with tape, using a small capacity card, and shooting in manual ain’t going to do it for me; especially since none of those modifications account for the tactile wonders of using a smooth film advance lever.