I appear to have solved whatever problems I was having with dust when developing negatives at home — which is great. Taking those spots out was 90% of the editing I’ve been doing for black and white.

Something I notice with my Leica, even more than my Nikon FM2, is that the space between the frames on the negatives is identical. On the point and shoots I have it’s really variable. #leica #filmphotography

Mira the dog at band practice.

🎞️ Kodak Tri-X 400 📷 Leica M2

#filmphotography #believeinfilm #leica

“To NW Bridge Ave” — Forest Park, Portland, Oregon

🎞️ Kodak Portra 400 📷 Nikon FM2

#filmphotography #believeinfilm

I am fairly certain that the Saint Johns neighborhood of Portland is primarily a coffee shop based economy.

Picking up coffee beans at my local shop.

Enjoying my murdered out black Kånken I got myself. I usually go for colorful things, but this spoke to me.

Picking up some coffee beans at my local shop.

Thinking of submitting some of my photos for this black and white gallery show. Don’t know if they’re good enough to get accepted, but maybe 😊

After ruining three rolls of film because of something I did wrong with D76 developer, I picked up some Kodak HC-110, which seems a bit more foolproof.

If you’ve tried sudoku in the past and had trouble getting into it, I recommend trying it in Apple News. I’ve been playing everyday and it’s pretty fun!

I’ll never get over there being conservative Star Trek fans who complain unironically that the series has “gone woke.” A big part of why I’m the way I am is because I grew up watching Star Trek. It’s intentionally been very progressive from the start.

Something I’ve learned about using a rangefinder camera — take the lens cap off when you start shooting and then leave it off. Otherwise I end up forgetting to take it off and shoot six blank shots.

I took ChatGPT off my phone. I’m going to try just using it just through Siri if I really need something answered and otherwise try and cultivate my traditional researching skills.

I really dislike getting sent a link or a code in an email to sign into a website. I don’t know when this caught on, but it’s my least favorite of the available options.

I have to leave what I’m doing, go to a different app, maybe refresh a couple of times, click the link and then finally I’m in.

I like computers.

I almost never put non-CRUD routes in my Rails controllers anymore. If I’m tempted to, I try to think of how this concept could be represented in its own controller, which it can just about all the time.

It’s crazy with Luigi and this perp walk and the whole thing how they aren’t even pretending they don’t value rich people’s lives more than the rest of ours.

I’m interested in connecting with people involved in intentional communities, eco villages, off-grid living or related for a photography project in which I would document and write about what they’re doing. If you have any connections, get in touch please. #intentionalcommunity #offgrid

I think I have the brain scramblies.

The way you can organize and mix in code using modules and namespaces is probably my favorite thing in Ruby. It’s such a simple and powerful system that usually does what I expect it to do and lets me create more complex systems while keeping them understandable. #ruby

My ability to be both incredibly tired and unable to sleep at the same time is pretty notable.

I think I realized the reason I keep getting dust on my film negatives I can’t get out is that there’s a heating vent in the bathroom. I’m going to try hanging a bar in my closet with an air purifier to see if that works better.

I asked Image Playground to make one of my dogs a fantasy hero and the other a chef. Seems pretty accurate.

I had a dream last night where Apple dropped AppleScript support and I was so mad.

My favorite image editor for macOS, Acorn, just came out with a new version and is on sale right now for $19.99. That’s an insane deal. Definitely pick it up. #macOS flyingmeat.com/acorn/

Book shop around the corner. #pdx #filmphotography

Okay then, this roll is all underdeveloped and dark, so the lesson here is to use inversion with my Patterson tank and never rely on the agitation stick again. #filmphotography

Got a portable photography light with a softbox that can be battery-powered. Hoping it works well for indoor photographs where I just want to add enough light to be flattering and get good exposures.

It’s funny how brands which make very similar products differentiate by choosing models that they think represent their imagined audience.

Fjallraven is all outdoorsy-looking hipsters. Filson is all cowboys. Barbour is all posh-looking British people.

You can tell how stressed I am about actual life problems by how excited I am about my hobbies. I lean into those things when life is too much.

This is a good example of where reflective metering can lead you wrong. Because the back wall is white, it thinks my aperture should be 1/250, when it’s more like 1/60 based on the actual light. That’s two stops!

This is a good example of where reflective metering can lead you wrong. Because the back wall is white, it thinks my aperture should be 1/250, when it’s more like 1/60 based on the actual light. That’s two stops!

WebObjects? That’s a fucking blast from the past.

Also, should I be concerned that a company I buy software from is on WebObjects? 😟

If I look at all the bad things that have happened this year, I think I’ve handled things pretty well. I’ve done a good job finding joy where I can.

I’m making a list of ghost towns in the Pacific Northwest. When the weather gets nice again, I’m thinking I’ll visit, take photos, and write about them. Maybe I could make a little photo book out of it even?

My favorite part the power going out is how my neighbors all have to go outside and start yelling across the street to each other about it. Every time.

I’ve decided I’m just going to do all my editing in Lightroom and export to Apple Photos as lossless 10 bit HEIC, since that seems like the best combination for compatibility and I can always re-export later if there’s a good reason to.

Cool. The power just went out. When is Pacific Power going to update this part of Portland? I’ve never lived anywhere that had between one and three outages every year.

If AVIF Is clearly the future, I should probably go with that. HEIC is appealing because whatever Apple moves to in the future, they’re going to keep supporting it. JPEG-XL is the only one of these that can do 16 bit lossless, which is nice because nothing I do will surpass that.

JPEG-XL and AVIF seem like a real betamax/VHS situation or Mac/Windows. JPEG-XL is technically superior, but AVIF has better industry support and Google is determined to make it happen.

I like to do some editing in Lightroom, and then ultimately export to Apple Photos in a lossless format. Not sure what to do here. JPEG-XL is great, but support is bad. HEIC is effectively limited to 10 bits (maybe that’s enough?). AVIF? I just want to pick something I don’t have to change later.

So Chrome removed the JPEG-XL flag from Chrome a while back because “There is not enough interest from the entire ecosystem to continue experimenting with JPEG XL.” Maybe there’s not enough interest because the world’s most popular browser doesn’t support it?

I’m not saying Democrats aren’t different from Republicans or that I won’t show up and vote for them, but since the election I’ve really started thinking about how corporations are the ones determining most of what they actually do. It’s like in Veep — “we need an oil guy on clean jobs.”

I love when politicians refer to “the climate crisis,” “the housing crisis,” or “the homeless crisis” as though any of them treat those with the kind of urgency a crisis demands. Conservatives don‘t even admit there is a crisis, but it’s not like Democrats are covering themselves in glory.

This is what my weight has done since I started gaining and then once I started Semaglutide.

I’ve shot roughly 36 rolls of film since the end of July. Not bad I think?

I always feel a little sadness when I see old family photos at a flea market or antique store. It was someone’s life, and they were happy, and at some point they were forgotten, and their photos ended up in a basket for 25¢ each.

Wow, doing incident metering makes a huge difference. This entire roll has just kind of comes out looking correct with good throughout. I get now why I see photographers saying they don’t trust reflective metering/in camera metering and would just as do sunny 16.

Haven’t scanned it yet, but the roll of Kodak Tri-X I pushed to 1600 looks nice and dense, so I’m pretty sure it was a success 🎉 #filmphotography

What I’ve learned about metering in photography is that there is a lot of misinformation on YouTube, you really can’t trust reflective metering in most circumstance. Reflective metering needs a known reference, which is why metering for shadows and changing exposure around that works.

I had no idea that New York went after cases of people getting shot and killed so hard. I mean it happens six or seven times a week, so if this is how seriously they treat every single one, that’s impressive! 😒

Felt like I deserved a little treat, so I picked up a small light meter that can do incident metering. It’ll be interesting to see how that helps/changes my results as far as exposure quality. This little KEKs shoe meter is just not cutting it.

If anyone is interested, putting my Lightroom raw files on a Synology with smart previews enabled has been working out great. Performance is nearly indistinguishable from having them locally.

The next time things feel settled and money isn’t a concern, I should travel somewhere different to where I’ve been. Maybe Southeast Asia? Australia?

Micro.blog will now show you replies to your posts for Bluesky and Mastodon without having to go to either site. It’s pretty sweet.

My Roman Empire right now is that Democrats need to get that no one gives a shit about norms or bipartisanship. The ACA, for example, could have been amazing if Democrats prioritized helping the most people over bipartisanship.

Trying to finish this roll of Tri-X before the light goes away tomorrow. Shot this one at box speed (400), but will probably push the next to 1600. Maybe I should just get an ND filter and default to pushing. #filmphotography

Democrats saying that Biden pardoning Hunter “undermines trust in the rule of law” are just embarrassing. That ship sailed when we elected a felon.

Who gives a shit? Joe isn’t going to be president again, Kamala lost, and we’re in for a lot worse. Let him spend his remaining years with his kid.

Asked three people if I could take their portraits while walking around NE Alberta, and they all said yes. Definitely need to work on slowing down when I’m focusing and getting the exposure correct. Just going to take practice. Also, probably an incident meter.

Maybe I’ll just make my own light meter app for iOS. I don’t love any of the existing options, and calculating aperture or shutter speed based on having the other plus ISO value is really simple.

I created an account on Glass if you’d like to connect there. glass.photo/fisherman…

I hope they actually delete my account on X, the Everything App. I have this feeling I can’t trust them to, and that they’ll hold onto my data for reasons.

Going to give playing guitar another shot. I’m so frustrated since breaking my wrist that I haven’t been able to. I want to write more songs and perform again.

Going to pack up my stuff to go do some work from a coffee shop today and then try and take photos on Alberta Street while the sun is out. Maybe I’ll be brave and ask some people if I can take their photo.

At Coava Coffee in Portland. This light meter is a little weird, but seems to give the right numbers.

Excited I got my camera back yesterday and now it’s the first sunny day in a couple of weeks 🎉 Thinking I’m going to take the 50 with me when I leave the house.

I had no idea how much haze there was on the inside of the viewfinder on my Leica. It’s completely clear now after servicing.

Just got my Leica M2 and lenses back from Jadon at Red Dot Repair and it looks incredible. I’m so excited to get out and shoot. I had no idea how much of an improvement it was going to be. #leica #filmphotography www.reddotrepair.com

Made myself wake up earlier today, and I’m pretty exhausted. Looking forward to the weather being better next week so I can do some photography.

I’m going to move from a dedicated film scanner to using my micro four thirds camera with a macro lens. Should be faster and equal or better quality.

Trimming down the number of channels I follow on Apple News significantly. I wish the New York Times were in here. NYT Wirecutter is, but the Times proper isn’t. The publications where you click on them and it’s laid out sort of like a newspaper are really nice.

Switching to a custom Bluesky handle is incredibly quick and easy. I’m now @collin.social. Took about 90 seconds.

All stocked up on a few more rolls of Tri-X before those tariffs hit 😂 I gotta see what they might do with the EU. I might not be able to afford to not buy another Leica film body!

On top of my other collin.tld domains, it turns out past me already bought collin dot social. Good looking out, past Collin.

I’ve been using Kagi search a few days, and the results are good. The only problem I’m having is that it can’t integrate with Safari as well as the built-in search engines. I really wish Safari would give us the ability to add custom search engines like other browsers do.

I’ve been writing songs for most of my life, and what really hurts is that I’ll probably never write a line as good as “make it like Papa John.”

I’ve lost about 15-16 pounds since the end of August. A long way to go yet, but my clothes are definitely starting to fit better.

I’m enjoying doing it regardless of who reads it, but I bet if I made the same photo blog back when photo blogs were a big thing, it would have been a hit. 😆

Thinking of getting letterpress cards made that say “Photographer” and have my website on them to hand out if I do street portraits or just for fun. Is that pretentious? I think it seems fun.

I had this idea in my head that I should eventually try and get a digital M now that I have Leica lenses, and I don’t think it’s true. I can just keep shooting film as long as they’ll sell it to me at a price I can afford. If 35mm is limited to maybe 16 MP scans, that’s probably enough.

I am vibrating with excitement about getting my Leica and its lenses back tomorrow. #leica

Feeling a bit gross after forgetting to eat enough today. On a positive note, I made it out to the Japanese stationery store to get some materials now that my hand is healed enough to write again.

Regarding banning TikTok — why can’t we pass privacy laws prohibiting unlimited user data collection and tracking in the US and enforce them across the board? I don’t want American companies tracking me either.

I want to go spend a few days in San Francisco taking black-and-white photos in the spring and use them to create a photo zine called “SF Mono.”

RFK Jr. is such a dipshit and so misinformed about health issues that most of what he says I, a non-expert, can immediately recognize as incorrect and explain why. I really hope he doesn’t get through.

Another thing about AI coding tools is that they have no style. They’ll tack on a bunch of nonsense, poorly structured code, and then it’s up to you to make it more reasonable.

I used Cursor yesterday and got a big feature done really quickly. These tools can be like magic, but if you don’t understand the thing you’re asking it to help you with, it will make a mess of things and you’ll spend more time debugging than it would have taken otherwise.

I usually only shoot Tri-X, but this limited edition HP5+ box was too cool to not get a couple.

Maybe I’ll give Kagi search another try. Google has been pretty bad lately, and DuckDuckGo has consistently been worse for me.

I know there are almost certainly not enough people shooting a Leica M2/3/4 camera that would pay for this to make financial sense, but if someone made a modern light meter with the shutter speed coupling the old Leicameters had, I would pay a good amount for it. #leica

It looks like if everything passes the repair persons QA, I should be able to pick up my Leica and lenses on Monday! Now I’m just going to have to start getting up early so I can take photos before it’s dark 😂

Updated my Healthcare dot gov stuff for 2025. Looks like it’s going to up by a little over $100, again, or about a 20% increase. Fantastic. I can’t believe how expensive everything has gotten.

Decided to go ahead and delete my Twitter (the everything app) account outright. I feel indifferent about it.

I am so goddamn tired of my hand hurting.

I wish Apple had just kept making routers.

Does anyone have a router they like with ample Ethernet ports? I have an Eero connected through a switch, and I feel like there might be a better solution for me. I’ll take a mesh network system if available, but since my house is wired for Ethernet now, it might not be necessary.

Crossposting to Bluesky and Mastodon through Micro.blog is a great experience. Replies from Bluesky even show up in Micro.blog so I can respond to them there.

The only thing I hope for is to get that for Mastodon and some indication of where the reply came from.

New episode of the Rooftop Ruby podcast out now!

My redirects from collindonnell.com to collin.blog, including old posts and the RSS feed, seem to be working great.

I also set up a “hire me” page for anyone who needs an iOS or Ruby on Rails app worked on, as well as links to my photo blog and music website, in the header.

I forgot how much I like being able to use MarsEdit to write my blog posts.

Alright. I think I’m ready to have Apple News on my phone again.

Since forever I’ve been blogging at collindonnell.com, but after getting collin.band for my music and then collin.photo for photography, the opportunity to move my main blog to collin.blog was too tempting, even if it’s a very expensive domain. Everything should redirect so old links will work.

Hey, at least I’m known for something. This is my legacy 🫡

I gotta get back to posting more of the relevant content people want about obscure operating systems and programming languages from the 80s.

The hardest part of being a programmer is keeping up with everything that is constantly changing and being updated. I love it, but it’s also pretty relentless.

I’ve been thinking about it, and what I want is a unit that connects to the PC sync port on a camera and logs the time and GPS coordinates when triggered. I’m pretty sure I have the skills to do this with an Arduino, so I’m going to give it a shot.

Tomorrow will be a big coding day. I am going to be so productive and code so many things. I can feel it.

Photo of this great bar I found called the Veteran’s Club in Mt. Shasta, California.

Going back and adding alt-text to all of my photos on my blog. Apparently it’s important for search engines and accessibility, although I question how many people who can’t see would be reading a photo blog?

I’ve been using the app Crown & Flint to track exif/location data when shooting on film. What do other people do? Do you just not worry about this? I’m not sure how much I care about what aperture/shutter speed I was using, but at the very least I want the location. #FilmPhotography

If I keep shooting color and my local labs keep giving me not-great results, I might invest in one of these AGO film processors.

In the meantime, it doesn’t matter too much because the weather sucks now anyway, and I think I’m going to just shoot black and white for a while.

It’s been roughly thirty hours since I dropped off my Leica to get serviced, and I’m so antsy to get it back! I can’t wait to have it fully serviced and ready to use. There was some concern about de-hazing the 50mm, but if I have to replace that lens, it’s not too insane. #filmphotography

I’ve decided I’m done posting about politics on social media and will limit my engagement to when I think it’s actually helpful. We’ll see if it sticks, but I think if I really care that much, there are better uses of my energy.

“So much for the tolerant left.”

Listen. I’m tolerant of people of different races, religions, gender identifies, sexual orientations, or anything that isn’t harmful or denying someone rights.

I never claimed to be tolerant of people with repugnant views or who support those that do.

I made a blog post to collect all of the places you can currently follow me (blogs, Mastodon, Bluesky, etc.), since everyone seems to be moving around right now or using multiple. You can pretty much find me everywhere except for X, the everything app.

What are some of your favorite blogs I should be following? I’m interested in iOS/macOS development, Ruby/Rails, and photography (especially film). Can be yours, too! Just looking for good active blogs. #photography #filmphotography #ruby #rubyonrails #swift #iosdev

Decided to go with Synology C2 for offsite backup from my Synology. It might be a little more expensive than Backblaze or whatever, but the upside is that it has predictable pricing, it’s easy to set up, and you get an online browser for your files. #synology

JPEG XL will probably catch on since Apple is supporting it, but I might be a bit on the bleeding edge since support is a little hit-and-miss. For example, Synology Photos will not upload them. I don’t know what else I’d use with Apple Photos, though. The alternatives are worse.

Really pleased with the Synology so far. Set up was as easy as I could expect, and Time Machine seems to be working perfectly.

Synology is all set up with two 10 TB hard drives for redundancy with Time Machine and my Lightroom library. It was pretty easy, and with the Smart Previews thing turned on in Lightroom, it seems to work as fast as it ever has.

Got my Leica dropped off. Really lucky to not have to ship it to get serviced.

I eventually want to get a digital M, but the idea of spending that kind of money on a camera that will be outdated in a few years is pretty unappealing. Plus I just flat don’t have that kind of money.

I never leave negative Yelp reviews, but this film processing is messed up to a degree that I might. All the frames have scratches and spots on them. I can’t believe I paid for this.

Tried a new lab in town to develop my film and they ruined two rolls. Guess I won’t be going there again.

If you want to follow my photo blog through ActivityPub, you can do so at @collin.photo@collin.photo. It’s also got a mailing list and RSS, of course.

Taking the Leica and lenses in to get fully serviced tomorrow at a Leica specialist who thankfully happens to be local. It should take a couple of weeks and cost ~$400. Probably the best time to do it since the weather is so bad for photography right now anyway. 📸

Am I crazy or does it seem like Tumblr and WordPress.com should integrate in some way? Like why can’t a Tumblr user follow a WordPress blog or vice versa?

I think my wrist is finally feeling better enough to play guitar. Time to write some new songs and start playing shows again 🎉

“They’ve still got pay phones, they cost a dollar a minute.”

Three pay phones at a rest stop somewhere in Northern California.

📸 #filmphotography #filmisnotdead #photography

Apparently, having your Lightroom library on a NAS is fine if you use smart previews. I’m interested to see how true that is. I mostly just use it to convert negatives, do a tiny bit of adjusting shadows/highlights, etc., and export as JPEG XL to Apple Photos.

I think it’s important for those of us doing street photography to recognize that taking pictures of strangers in public is objectively a pretty weird thing to do.

I decided to go with a two-bay Synology. For what I want, it should be fine, and I didn’t really want to spend a lot more on a four-bay. Maybe I’ll regret it, but in that case, I can probably find something else to use this one for, like dedicated Time Machine backups or something.

Not being able to control shutter speed is a big part of it. A lot of photos come out blurry because of that with point-and-shoots.

I think I’ll probably start using point-and-shoot film cameras a lot less going forward. They’re fun, but film is expensive, and the photos don’t look as good. Focus is never that sharp. Maybe on a trip or something, but if I’m going out to shoot, I’m going to take a real camera.

So I have an M1 Mac Mini which isn’t being used. I could potentially try and set that up for file sharing to store my photo data and whatnot, or I could get a 2 bay Synology. I’m leaning toward the Synology because it seems like significantly less set up and maintenance.

I don’t really have any big hopes that more than a small number of people will ever read my photo blog, but I am having a lot of fun making it. It’s a good way to inspire myself to keep getting out there and trying to get better.

Developed another roll of black and white film tonight and picking up two rolls of color tomorrow. Really hoping for good weather so I can get back out there.

Apple should transition to JPEG XL, work out whatever kinks there are, and stop using HEIC. I can’t find any way that it’s not better other than support on macOS and iOS being a little buggy.

I think something got misaligned with my Nikon when I took the fall that broke my wrist. A lot of photos are looking kind of tilted in one direction. I should probably take it in for servicing.

Is Synology the thing to get? I’ve been putting my Lightroom files on a little portable SSD, but I’m thinking I may want to invest in something that can be backed up and accessed remotely.

I’m thinking I should get insurance for my camera gear. These vintage Leica lenses would not replaceable for me if something happened.

Maybe my guitars too? The Gibson acoustics I take to shows are also reasonably valuable. I think that’s all of the nice things I have 😂

I’m starting to keep a mental tally of companies who have donated to or are run by Republicans and Trump supporters. As much as I can avoid it, I’m going to seek out alternatives.

In 2016 I remember a lot of people saying “this isn’t who we are.” I’m sure there is someone pulling out that tired line and other platitudes, but I think the reason that the 2024 election results are so gutting is that this clearly is who we are. I don’t know how you can deny it.

I’m going to try ditching Amazon. Not just because Bezos sucks — which he does — but because I’d like to try and support other stores when I can, and because I don’t actually need to get everything right away.

I am willing to admit that while I love living in the Pacific Northwest, I am not particularly excited about the fact that it will be both cold and rainy for the foreseeable future.

Trying to think of fun things I can do in the new year. Maybe a trip to New York to take photos and see music in the spring?

I want to do something fun for my birthday, but there’s not a lot to do in the middle of January, so I’m thinking maybe I’ll observe the date a couple of months later.

If any of my Portland-area friends are interested in taking cool film photos for social media, your music, fun, or whatever else, hit me up. I want to practice shooting people more, so this seems like a good way to do that.

Went to downtown Portland today for the first time since the election. I can’t tell if it was just me, but everything felt depressed and somber. I heard at least two groups of people asking each other how they were holding up.