I recently added a new camera to my gear case – Canon’s Canonet QL-17 G-III. Whew, that was a mouthful! The ridiculously long name aside, this camera from 1972 has the ability to create some stunning images in the right hands.

The Canonet QL-17 G-III is a wonderful miniature 35mm rangefinder. You don’t focus through the lens like an SLR, you look through the viewfinder on the top right and line up two images until they’ve merged. There are various Canonet cameras, mine has a 40mm f1.7 lens. It’s pocketable and fast! It’s been referred to as the poor man’s Leica, and I back that statement after using it some. It doesn’t match the build or optical quality of a Leica, but for the cost there’s not much that comes close. It’s surprisingly well-built, the camera feels wonderful to hold. It also one-ups most Leicas by having a leaf shutter rather than a focal plane shutter. This means full flash sync up to 1/500 of a second, even with a wireless system such as a Pocketwizard.

Fast flash sync is important to outdoor strobist photographers since you knock down ambient and freeze motion better at 1/500 than the 1/200th-1/320th of a second common in most current DSLRs. Indoors it doesn’t matter since the strobe’s flash duration is often even faster than that, 1/1000 of a second or shorter.

This camera has awakened the street photographer hidden inside of me that I didn’t know existed. There’s another advantage to the leaf shutter – It’s a mirrorless system. On a SLR, when you take a photograph you hear a big slap and THEN the photo is taken. That’s the mirror moving so that the sensor/film can be exposed. This causes vibration throughout the camera (read: blur) and is quite noisy. When I take a photograph with the Canonet, no one knows it happened! The leaf shutter is so quiet that it normally can’t be heard by anyone but the photographer. The 1/focal length rule for shutter speed also can be modified, I can easily handhold a sharp photograph at 1/8th of a second or longer with this camera. Of course, this doesn’t keep people or objects in the shot from moving, but it’s a great ability to have!

As with all that is great, there are issues that prevent perfection. While the Canonet can sync at 1/500 of a second with lights, that’s as fast as the leaf shutter will allow. A non-buld exposure of longer than 1/4th of a second can’t be made on the Canonet, either. You could have issues outdoors in sunlight if you’re shooting fast film, you can also forget shooting outdoor sunlight at a large aperture without the use of a ND filter. I find it difficult sometimes to focus using the rangefinder, the little yellow patch can be hard to line up sometimes. The rangefinder brightening trick can help with that, though. This camera also takes a now-illegal mercury battery, alkaline replacements have different voltages and cause issues with the meter exposing correctly. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe it tried to overexposure by 1-1.5 stops.

A blog post of mine would not be complete without photographs, so enjoy! I’ve only put two rolls of film through the camera so far, but I plan on making extensive use of this camera in all of my future work. I’m looking forward to shooting it with color film and strobes on a sunny day!

An Horse - Canonet QL-17 G-III

An Horse - Canonet QL-17 G-III

Never Shout Never - Canonet QL-17 G-III

Canonet QL-17 G-III

Your brand is important.

You can’t build it up so much that it’s only about you, some people do that and come across as full of themselves.

You must make a name of yourself and create an image that sells. Just as you might work in an industry where you create an image for other people in order to sell them, you must create one for yourself that sells you to people who want to hire you to create images for other people.

Image is important in the web 2.0 world.

Your portfolio must represent who you are as a creative. It must represent what you enjoy doing. It has to represent YOU.

YOU are your portfolio. Your PORTOFLIO is YOU. Represent it well.

spotted in Iowa/Illinois/somewhere around there. Shot with Kodak Ektar 100

Jesus Corn

They seem to be blowing up, I figured it would happen. Just today for example, I went and checked out a video review from gamespot.com on the game Borderlands and a Cage the Elephant song was playing throughout the entire review.

I did a shoot with Cage the Elephant earlier this year, was part of a Sony/Red Summer Music Guide/Mini AP magazine. I had one of the four covers, we did the shoot (stressfully!) at Bamboozle east. Had twenty minutes with the band to pull off two looks, and while it ended up being more like 1 1/2 looks, it came out well.

Here is my favorite photo from the shoot, it’s also posted on my website under the “music” section. They’re coming through Atlanta November 21st.

Cage the Elephant (www.keatonandrew.com)

I needed a first post on this page. I decided I’d post a shot from a trip I made earlier this year, albeit after I ramble a little.

I will be using this blog for many things. I will talk about gear, I will talk about techniques (some, I’m not giving everything away!), how I do some things or thoughts and ideas about photography. I will occasionally talk about other photographers, things I am inspired by. I will sometimes talk about life and not even mention anything even distantly related to photography. I definitely plan on using this blog to post a lot of photos that are of a different style than what is typically in my portfolio.

Either way, you should use that “subscribe” link down on the bottom of the page and keep up to date with things I’m saying, because we all know how important my ramblings are

A month or two ago, I made a trip up to New England to do a few photo shoots. I did one in New Hampshire with a good group of guys in a band called Armor For The Broken, then I had to make the trek down to southern Massachusetts to shoot a band called The Miles Between. That trek involved me driving through Boston in the morning. I was doing what I often do when traveling, which is putting my 5D on aperture priority with my 24mm f2.8 lens and holding it at arms length while shooting some random shots. I came up upon the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge bridge and somehow was able to miraculously get two really good shots of it. I then managed to put a sneaky good lightroom edit on it that I liked, and I usually don’t like these weird edits, but I think it turned out good. If interested in buying this as a print or licensing usage, please get in touch with me. Anyway, here is that photo:

the Zakum Bridge in Boston