From Rockwood Hall to Sleepy Hollow – Overview

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A couple of weeks ago I went on another walk. I had recently acquired a new camera: a Polaroid I2 and wanted to try it out (see picture above, one of eight I took. For the rest see: Film Camera 2024 -2: Polaroid I2 – Results). My plan was to go to Rockwood Hall, try out my camera, and try to find a way to walk to Sleepy Hollow/Tarrytown without having to walk along busy Route 9/Albany Post Road. After consulting a couple of maps, I concluded that I could walk from Rockwood Hall, past Kendal-on-Hudson (an assisted living facility with a nice path along the river). I could then walk past Phelps Hospital up to Route 9. From there it was only a short block’s walk along a grass verge adjoining Route 9 to where I could turn onto Hemlock Drive. I could then down to the river and then past Philipse Manor station; through Kingsland Point Park, past the Sleepy Hollow Lighthouse into Beekman Avenue in Sleepy Hollow.

Taken with a Sony RX100 M3

Trying to get to grips with the square aspect ratio

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I have a few square format film cameras that I haven’t yet tried so I thought to try one of them. However, it occurred to me that I have only very limited experience with that format and there was a very real possibility that I would waste a lot of expensive film trying (and possibly failing) with a film camera.

So, I thought I’d practice with a digital camera. I knew that I had at least one digital camera that would allow me to see at 1:1 aspect ratio on screen: My 14-year-old Panasonic LX-3. But did I have something a bit more recent? Well, it turned out that I did. In fact, I had more than one. My Panasonic Lumix GX-85 and my Sony RX100 (and maybe others that I didn’t check) also did. Since the RX100 is very small and light I thought I’d take that.

So how did it go? Not surprisingly not that well. The RX100 shows you the 1:1 a2pect ratio in the viewfinder, but it doesn’t actually crop the image. Rather, when you bring the image into Lightroom it shows the full picture with the 1:1 crop superimposed. With almost all of the images I decided to reject the 1:1 crop and choose another one (e.g. 4×6) that I’m more familiar with. I guess I don’t’ yet see images with a 1:1 aspect ratio. I’ll have to practice more.

Taken with a Sony RX100 MIII

A Rainbow

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A week or so ago I was invited to dinner at a friend’s house. At a certain point I was the only person on the side of the dinner table facing the large window in the dining room. Suddenly I saw this impressive rainbow. I pointed it out to the other diners who immediately turned around and started snapping pictures with their phones – as did I since the iPhone was the only camera I had with me.

Taken with an iPhone SE II.