Urban | MiKS Media Photography

Adventures of Film Photography

by Mac Sokulski | Nov 23, 2016 | Art, Urban

From time to time, I like the change things a bit, and go back to time where things were… a bit more complicated. Plus the medium was a little less forgiving than today high quality camera sensors. Shooting on film, as some may say “old school”, takes discipline. Not only some cameras are limited in shutter speeds, but also everything is manual. Manual focus, manual exposure, manual, manual, manual…. In the world of digital photography it is easy to take for granted all the features that come with even the basic of digital cameras. Autofocus, exposure, ISO, are so often overlooked or judged in terms of speed and dynamic range. In the olden days no one cared how fast the autofocus was, as there was none. Somehow people were still able to provide us with amazing sport photography. National geographic still has the most enthralling images. It was all done with clunky manual cameras, on film. Don’t get me wrong, I love what cameras of today can do, and what we can create with them. I love the fact that I can autofocus, that I can set my ISO to automatic, and never really worry about it.

I mentioned about discipline. Having a very limited amount of frames on film, you want to have every image count. You want to frame your shot, and more often re-frame it just to make sure everything works. Making sure there are no unwanted elements in the frame. With old film cameras you do not have the luxury of checking if your camera settings were correct. You have to trust yourself that the image imprinted on film, is as you envisioned it. Thus you need discipline to make sure the images are good and intentional. It’s a great learning tool. Understanding light is all about photography, and using an old film camera will make you understand it even more.

There is also one little tidbit that will help you. A pen and a notebook. Because there can be a fairly long time between taking the photos, and actually seeing them, I find it very beneficial to record the camera settings. I just use my smart phone and a note taking app to do that. It helps to remember and compare the settings to the images.

Adventures on film, can be very rewarding, and great tool for improving your digital photography.

New York Part 1

by Mac Sokulski | Nov 20, 2015 | Art, Fuji X, Urban

We made it… we can scratch off the Big Apple from our bucket list, at least a little. A spur of the moment decision, a weekend in New York. That’s all it was. Having 2.5 days in New York and try to fit as much as we can into it, was crazy. But we are like that, a little nuts. We hoped for a nice sunrise or sunset (we got both), and fairly good day in the city. The best part though was meeting new people. Dominick and his whole wonderful family was a wonderful host, even though we invaded their home, and wrecked a little havoc in their lives. They are beautiful people, that we will be in debt to, for a very long time. Thank you Dominick and thank you Niki, Zac and Kaden.

First day in Manhattan. What a day. Grand Central Station, Times Square, Central Park, the subway (and no sandwiches there, just lots of people), Brooklyn Bridge and a bit of Brooklyn. An adventure of a life time. Really. Apart for sore necks from craning at the hugeness of it all, and really sore feet from walking about 19km, we were happy. Since we were all walking together, it was difficult to create very different images. I was concentrating on the fisheye look, while Kasia took more conservative approach. We both really like the fisheye look, the distortions that this lens creates. Even though, it’s not an easy lens to use, to create something interesting. The ease of it, is that for the most part, it’s a lens you set and forget. Because of it’s wide angle view, you can set it for 5.6-8 aperture, and infinity focus, and just point and shoot. Done.
Yes, of course there are tons of things to see, but if you are strapped for time you make choices, and see the iconic places, and try to replicate the iconic images that everyone makes. So that’s what we did. It’s our memories after all 🙂

Once we got to the iconic Brooklyn Bridge, we met up with Antonio Rosario from Switch2Manual podcast. I’ve been listening to that podcast for a while now, and discovered Antonio’s street photography, which is quite amazing. So since we were in New York, why not meet up, as he puts it, in “meatspace”. So we did, and I run into a bit of a problem. Because I was chatting so much, I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the fisheye lens. It must have moved off it’s infinity setting, or the aperture switched, because most of the New York city scapes from Brooklyn Park, were just slightly out of focus. I blame it on being tired, excited, and a complete twat, photographically speaking of course 🙂

It’s really hard not to write more, as the whole day of adventuring with cameras in great company through New York, is a trip of a life time. I just wished we had more time to discover the city better, and spend more time on creating better photographs. Even though we have never met Dominick, nor Antonio before, we chatted and emailed before, and it felt like meeting old friends again.

We shot a lot of images so I thought it would be good to combine our images into a single post. Good luck finding Kasia’s Sony and my Fuji images :)…. there will be more, much more in next post. Remember to click on the images for full size.

Fall in Edmonton

by Kasia Sokulska | Sep 22, 2015 | Urban

Fall colors in Alberta don’t last long. Keeping that in mind we took a short stroll in downtown Edmonton around Churchill Square and Shaw Conference Center on Sunday, disregarding the strong possibility of rain. We were lucky, once again, and were able to enjoy our visit without being soaked through. It’s beautiful out there right now. All the yellows and greens clinging on to the trees and bushes make the world glow in spite of the heavy sky. Enjoy it all while it lasts, it might disappear tomorrow .. ;D

Kasia

A Different Look at Calgary

by Mac Sokulski | Mar 5, 2015 | Fuji X, Urban

I always liked the look from a fish-eye lens. The natural look, not corrected. The best thing about fish-eye lens is that it practically does not need auto focus. Because it is so wide, all you have to do is put it on aperture f8 set the focus to infinity, and just take pictures. Practically anything you point the camera at will be in focus. One thing you have to be careful with is not catching yourself in the frame. I constantly catch either my feet or my elbows. Every time I shoot with the fish-eye lens I have remind myself to put my hands behind my back and bend a little forward so I don’t end up in the shot.

Last year we stopped in Calgary for a few days, to visit family, and since it was beautiful summer weather, we thought it would be a good idea to walk downtown a bit. Perfect opportunity to for one camera one lens situation, and fish-eye was it.

You can click on any of the images below for a bigger picture 🙂

Canada Day Fireworks in Edmonton

by Mac Sokulski | Aug 7, 2014 | Fuji Landscapes, Landscape, People, Urban

I was debating with myself, if I should post these, as unfortunately it’s a perfect illustration of a mistake. One big mistake, of being lazy. Almost every year we venture into the Edmonton downtown to view the spectacular fireworks display on Canada Day. This year, we figured we are going to try a different venue. So we got there a few hours before the show, and were greeted with huge masses of people. Obviously we weren’t there early enough. After about 30 min of walking and searching for a spot, we settled on a little grassy area that was promising a fairly good view of the fireworks. The sun was slowly setting, and I took a couple of shots, to see how everything worked. Then we set up our cameras on tripods, and settled it to way. As we waited more and more people started to gather, and most were incredibly rude. No care of others, and if I didn’t tell the kids to stand up, they would have been stepped on. Some decided to settle right in front of us, blocking the view completely. Since I didn’t want to get into any trouble, I just moved my tripod. The show was quite spectacular, but here is the big mistake I made… I took the wrong lens. I thought that from the new location, we will be close enough for me to use the 8mm fisheye lens. Unfortunately I was wrong, and in hind sight, I should have known. Well at least we enjoyed the show, and I did manage to rescue a few images.

Fuji in Europe Part 28 – Last night in Nuremberg

by Mac Sokulski | Jul 18, 2014 | Fuji X, People, Urban

So it came down to this, last night of vacation, and last night in Nuremberg. It was a good time as any to take go for a little night walk around the old town. Brought the tripod, Fuji XT1 for it WiFi control from the iPhone, and…. a wrong lens. Yep. I thought of bringing the 10-24, but then I thought, that anyone would bring that lens. So I opted to be different, and brought te Fuji 56mm f1.2. It was a struggle. I had to look at things differently, and frame my shots differently. No more wide open space, the frame was tight and long, so I had to think a little more, and cursed under my breath. At the end I even gave up on the tripod. It was taking too long to frame anything on it. So I took the camera off the tripod and relied on the excellent ISO noise control from Fuji, and I wasn’t disappointed. These cameras are wonderful for shooting at night even without a tripod. After all 28 posts and looking through all the images shot, I have learned a bit about the new Fuji XT1, and how it compares to the old X-Pro1… For one it’s not that much different. Of course it’s newer, faster, different design, but the feel of the camera and the pleasure of using it, at least for me, is the same as the X-Pro1. I love using both, and I don’t see myself changing anytime soon. I know that in reality a camera is just a tool, but with Fuji it’s something else. Something special. I feel that every time I pick up the camera.

Most importantly though, it’s not the cameras or the places I’ve seen. It’s the great hospitality of wonderful friends. Being hidden behind our screens, being “social” on various social networks, nothing compares to the human contact. Being there with great friends, means so much more than being “friends” on the interwebs. So a heart felt thank you to you all at Hooked on Europe.

Here are some last photos from Nuremberg.

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