Playing with digital cameras and film cameras. It was so frigging hot and humid yesterday that I’m amazed we managed to take any pictures at all!

First, let me show you a close-up of Don’s new baby:

It’s gorgeous. He practiced putting it together and taking it apart yesterday morning. Fortunately, he had taken a video of Louis showing him how to do it.

In the meantime, after writing a blog post, I started to unbox my new Canon 77D. I’d show you a picture, but it doesn’t look all that different from my Rebel T3i. But it’s definitely an upgrade and I can tell by the quality of my photos. It came with an 18-35mm lens, which can take wide angle shots like this one of the kitchen:

I’ve never been able to get this much of the kitchen in one shot. (For better or worse!)

I took a lot of pictures of this pink and cream moth I found on the lavender. I’ve never seen this kind of moth before. So pretty!

I took a lot of experimental photos, just to get an idea of what the camera can do. There’s a lot to learn and I’ve just started.

Don bit the bullet and started experimenting with his Crown Graphic. I was the model. Since the shots are polaroids, there’s much to learn about not only manually focusing the camera, but finding the right light and figuring out how long to wait until the photograph is revealed.

He’s texting Louis about his photos.

I took this with the new camera.

Considering this camera weighs a ton and that this kind of photography is new to him, he took some pretty good shots. The challenge is that the film is expensive, yet he needs to play around with it for a while, so we’ve just accepted the fact that this first week will be about using a lot of film.

So far, I’m loving my new camera. I’ll use both of my cameras, of course, but for now, I’ll concentrate on the 77D.

And speaking of cameras, if you follow Don on Instagram, you’ve probably seen some of his Holga photos. Holgas are made in Japan. They’re plastic and were manufactured for children as a way of teaching them photography. In the years since they first appeared, they’ve become popular with photographers and now they have a huge following. The fun thing about these film cameras is that each camera is different; they have their individual quirks. There’s often vignetting around the image. Sometimes, light does funny things to the film. My camera’s pictures look different than Don’s.

We take the film to be developed at B & H and then we have the negatives digitally scanned and emailed to us. I got my first batch back yesterday and I’ll be sharing them with you off and on for the next few days.

Taken on Ninth Avenue in NYC. This guy was taking a break, sitting next to his bike. I love black and white photography, though I also shot a roll in color.

Gosh, I love film! And the funkiness of the Holga makes me happy! You never know how the shot is going to come out.

Before I close – in the garden:

I didn’t plant white coneflowers here. They’re volunteers from the big garden bed.

Photography, Holgas and the garden are full of surprises.

Happy Tuesday.