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.

Kensico Dam – The Reservoir

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Another view of the reservoir, this time from the East Pavilion looking north. According to Wikipedia:

The Kensico Reservoir is a reservoir spanning the towns of Armonk (North Castle) and Valhalla (Mount Pleasant), New York, located 3 miles (5 km) north of White Plains. It was formed by the original earth and gravel Kensico Dam constructed in 1885, which impounded waters from the Bronx and Byram rivers. In 1917, a new masonry dam was completed, replacing the old dam and expanding the water supply by bringing water from the Catskill Mountains over a distance of more than 100 miles. The reservoir mainly serves to store waters received from the Catskill Mountains west of the Hudson River. Along with the West Branch Reservoir and Boyds Corner Reservoir, it is one of four reservoirs within the Catskill/Delaware system outside the Catskill Mountains region. The other reservoir is the Hillview Reservoir.

It has a surface area of 2,140 acres, an average depth of 43.6 feet, and a maximum depth of 120 feet. It contains 30,000,000,000 gallons of water.

The Kensico Reservoir also hosts fishing and boating recreation. Every year, the reservoir is stocked with over 2,000 brown trout. In April 2016, the Kensico Reservoir was stocked with 8,620 brown trout 8.5 to 9.5 inches (22 to 24 cm) long.

Taken with a Panasonic Lumix GX85 and Lumix G Vario 14-140 f3.5-5.6