Families | MiKS Media Photography

Vacations with old film cameras – part 1

by Mac Sokulski | Oct 20, 2017 | Families, Landscape, Nature, People

Taking old film cameras on vacation, deciding to take images only with those can be a little risky. Specially when you never shot with a camera before. A great friend of mine, came all the way from New York, and brought me a Minolta X570, with a very nice 50mm f1.4 lens. I never shot with that camera before, and neither did he. We didn’t know that it would develop a strange light leak, that would run in different places on almost every image. Practically ruining every shot I took with that camera. Good thing I had my medium format TLR Minolta Autocord.

I knew from the start that this is not going to be a photo trip, as we had family and friends visiting with limited time to show them around our favorite places, and friends and family were my main concern with photography. I was hoping that I was able to catch a few good images, I mean you cannot take a bad picture while in the Alberta Rocky Mountains.

It’s a lot of different experience shooting with film cameras. There is no way of telling that the shot you envisioned is done properly. You have to trust your knowledge that all is good. Then it teaches you discipline. You are limited to 36 on 35mm, but only 12 on 6×6 medium format. So each image has to be the image you want to create. It’s not easy, but it’s a part of learning. Really, who wants to sit at their computer and go through thousands of photos and pick only a handful, when you can take just a handful of great photos.

Enjoy!

Newborn Photography and Fuji

by Mac Sokulski | Feb 22, 2016 | Families, Fuji X

The beauty of newborn photography to us, is the bond of a new family, love, and the beginning of new adventure. We love to capture it with both mom and dad, and the new baby. It is so important to capture these first moments. The little hands, feet and sweet hints of smiles, pass very quickly. Here are some images we captured, just recently of a new family. It was a great experience to share that joy with proud parents.

Family Camping

by Mac Sokulski | Jan 28, 2015 | Families, Fuji Landscapes, Landscape

The trip to southern Alberta was blast. Even though it wasn’t as great weather wise, we still managed to camp out. Since our campground was bordering the Waterton National Park, we were warned about bears, and that sometimes they like to cross over for a visit. Kids got a little scared. Soon we had the tent up, and split up into pairs for van and tent. I got the tent with the oldest, Konrad. Kasia and the youngest, Sebastian got the van. It started to rain. As we were settling into our designated sleeping quarters around 11pm, there was an excited scratching on our tent. At first I thought we were goners, but it was only my excited wife, whispering loudly that the stars were out. Can’t pass up an opportunity like that, even though the thought of bears ripping your skin off is still fresh on your mind. So we got the kids up, grabbed tripods and followed a path through the forest to a little clearing. The views were spectacular. Having a manual focus fisheye lens helps a lot as well. We spent good hour just standing there and staring into the skies. We probably missed a couple of bears that passed through the clearing, we didn’t care.

Next morning I woke up to a delicious smell of bacon, and coffee. The sun was up, birds were chirping, and everyone had their arms and legs intact… meaning no bears. We reluctantly packed our stuff and continued on our journey.

First pick-nick of the year – testing Fuji 56mm f1.2

by Mac Sokulski | May 10, 2014 | Families, Fuji X

Pick-Nick

Or how ever you want to spell that 🙂 I’m not picky. Beautiful warm spring weather lead to a decision to cook our supper on the fire pit in the back yard. Kids were very excited, because that usually means marshmallows. To tell the truth, that’s all they really wanted. It’s a great time right now, because it’s warm, but there are no annoying flying little blood suckers. Since it was still fairly early, I did not include my usual cigar and port…. hmmm maybe tomorrow. Still it gave me a chance to try out a new lens from Fuji.

Fuji 56mm f1.2

Wow. That word, pretty much sums up my reaction. I could throw in holy s$#t! This is really spectacular lens. All the pictures below were shot wide open. The lens feels quite hefty compared to other Fuji lenses, but I wasn’t expecting it to be light at f1.2 aperture. The backgrounds come out creamy and just how I like them. I could have tried it on the Fuji Walk last weekend, but by the time I got around to asking it was already in the hands of others. Maybe that was a good thing, because I think I would just hung back a bit during the walk, and then run for the car. So far I’m impressed with this lens, and can’t wait to try it some more.

Mac

fuji,bokey,yard,spring,picknick,family,kids

Merry Easter!

by Mac Sokulski | Apr 18, 2014 | Families, Fuji X

Spring?

So we are supposed to be in this season called Spring. Well possibly in normal parts of the northern hemisphere, but not in our little city of Edmonton. We received a nice dump of snow at about 7 cm thick. After the first initial shock we decided that we are not going to take this wintery stuff laying down. So we took egg decorating to the outside. The snow was perfect for this, so we created 3 dinosaur size eggs and decorated them for Easter.

Merry Easter to all!

People in the Mountains – Candid Photography

by Mac Sokulski | Mar 8, 2013 | Families, People

While making images at tourist destinations, you will always run into people. I always try to catch a few shots of them, while they are not paying any attention to me. This makes it easier if you are carrying a small camera, that makes almost no noise. Enter Sony NEX line. I have one of those and coupled with a 24mm f1.8 lens it’s perfect for street/candid shots. Just carry the camera by your side point it in the fight direction and snap. The shutter is nearly silent, and the whole system is very discreet. There is always a chance that you might miss the action, but by not raising the camera to your eye, the people you want to catch, act natural. Here are some candid images I captured… but the last were posed portraits of the family. HDR too. Enjoy!