Michael Nowak

September 28, 2023

Various Ramblings

Thursday Thoughts

Michael Nowak

September 28, 2023

Various Ramblings

I remember one of my favorite point and shoot cameras of all time - my Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX3. The camera was 6 megapixels and 3x optical zoom. This point and shoot was lovely, until it glitched one time. BUT, before that, it felt like it was the best damn thing. It had a special long exposure mode called Starry Sky - up to a minute - and I would go around taking night photos for shit and giggles. I love setting the camera down and seeing what it can do when it brings in all the light.

I actually shared a little about this once here: GVSU Overexposed

Nowadays, I have an iPhone 14 Pro Max with night mode and a Google Pixel 7a with Google’s famous night mode. I love taking night photos or long exposure photos. I have a DSLR I need to learn how to use - would love to start taking pictures of the night sky.

Looking back to find photos for this post, I’m thinking about life before good camera phones. I have so many weird selfies and mirror selfies as well as just hundreds of useless photos. Nothing has changed, except I probably have thousands of useless photos now. It’s fun to sit here and look back life before camera phones. I would take my little Panasonic Lumix everywhere with me - I think I eventually just kept it in the center console of my car.

I love that I have a super camera with machine learning/AI in my pocket now. I can take photos to remember everything. I’m a huge fan of sharing life with everyone, an early adopter of social media before it was monetized. I love sharing what it looks like for me, real life, lightly adjusted if necessary to look as real to my eye.

Here are some photos from my Panasonic point and shoot over the years. Go do what makes you happy and take pictures of everything.

Michael Nowak

July 25, 2018

Way Back Wednesday

#WayBackWednesday - GVSU Overexposed

Michael Nowak

July 25, 2018

Way Back Wednesday

Back in July of 2007, my friend Anne and I would stay up late and walk from her off-campus apartment to campus and wander around. We were creatures of the night who didn't sleep, loved to observe the night happenings, and needed the exercise. I had just purchased a new point and shoot camera, a Panasonic DMC-FX3 to be exact, and was taking hundreds of photos every week just because I could. I had never had a digital camera before, and this was before smartphones, so it was an exciting new toy for me. On one of our many walks to campus at night, I decided to use the "long exposure" setting on the camera and take some photos around campus. The range of exposure varied between 15 and 60 seconds. I edited them, only slightly, mainly to straighten them out as they were taken by being propped up on something because I didn't own a tripod. I adjusted the brightness on some, but didn't do too much else to enhance them at all.

These photos really take me back to the campus and brings up some good memories from my time at Grand Valley State University. The campus is situated along the Grand River, west of Grand Rapids in SW lower Michigan. We had corn fields, forests, and ravines surrounding us and it was glorious in the summer when everyone went home. Enjoy the photos from my trip down memory lane.