family vacation camera

Today's episode is sponsored by Squarespace. You ever get a camera handed down to you by your parents or your grandparents? Me too. In fact, I got this one. It's a Minolta Explorer Freedom Zoom. And as an American, I'm all about freedom. And zooming. Hand-me-down cameras might not always be a like-it, but that's okay. They're still very special family cameras. I remember shooting with this thing back when I really didn't give two shits about photography. And as a kid, I didn't really much care to have my photo taken. In fact, when my mom gave me this camera, there was still a half-finished roll from one of our vacations still in the chamber. Which, of course, I finished and got developed. And yeah, I was definitely the king of Riz back then. The secret was definitely in the puka shells. But now, what do I do with this camera? After staring at it for months on end on my shelf, I figured it out. What I should do with this camera is use it. After some heavy research one night, aka scrolling through Instagram hashtags, I determined that this camera might just be a very good point-and-shoot overall. Harboring a 28mm to 70mm lens that looks like a robot wiener when fully extended to 70mm, I figured I had my bases covered for anything that life might throw at me. Since this camera used to be our family vacation camera, I waited until we took a family vacation once again. This time, it'd be up the 395 highway to the eastern Sierra to see some beautiful snow-covered mountains and do what Caleb and I usually do. Except this time with Monica. And, you know, minus the kissing. Of course, our faithful and food-obsessed Jabba the Dog would be coming along too. Our first stop en route would be Red Rocks with our pals Taylor and Kate, where I loaded up some Kodak Gold into the Minolta. It was very beautiful there, but I don't think the pictures really do it justice. The lighting was kind of bland and there was no texture in the sky whatsoever. However, against all odds, this photo of the rock, meatball, or whatever you want to call it, turned out awesome. You can't eat it. Smells very good. Oh no. Baxter is very tired. Anyway, eventually we parted ways from Taylor and Kate and made it to our hotel for the night in Lone Pine. This photo of backseat Baxter looks like he just witnessed a brutal murder take place. The kind of dark memory that a man, or dog, carries with him forever. But in reality, he just saw Monica bringing him a cookie from reception. After accidentally mixing up the welcome humans cookie and the dog cookie, we arrived at our room. I let Monica unload all of our heavy bags while I went and shot some sunset photos. Kind of. There was technically a sunset, but it was behind those big ass mountains. Anyway, after settling in and doing exactly what we do at home, except now somewhere else, I took a few photos and started to truly ponder a big question. What exactly is this point and shoot? Well, it's a Minolta, for starters. A camera brand that, admittedly, I don't really know too much about. This particular model is the Minolta Explorer Freedom Zoom, which is kind of a mouthful of something I don't want in there. Apparently they made a lot of very similar models to this over the years with different names, because I guess they thought that they just absolutely nailed the design so well that they could just keep selling it. I can kind of see why. Ergonomically, it's not bad, and the batteries on this thing last an eternity. It's even got that gimmicky 35mm pano thing that crops your image. I would even go so far as to say that the lens on this thing has been decently sharp for a point and shoot zoom. Corner to corner sharpness is almost there, but there is some aberration breakup happening along the edges. But it's all good. I like a lens that's a little freaky. Maybe the most satisfying part of this camera, though, is the simple joy you get from turning it on. It turns on with a robotic and metal clunk as the flash flips open. Definitely a faster action than some luxury point and shoots that shall not be named, but shown on screen anyway so that they feel a little embarrassment. Here's a shot with flash and one without. I think they're both good, but I do like this one better, because the light on Monica's face is really cool. And yeah, in this one, Baxter doesn't look like he just ascended up from the ninth circle of hell to drag me down with him. Today we're heading over to Alabama Hills. It's just right up the street from where we are right now. And then afterwards, we're going to reward ourselves with some barbecue. Sorry, Caleb. This photo is pretty yeehaw, I guess. Spotted in the wild. Alabama Hills was pretty chill, as it usually is. I took a few photos, but none of them are banging at the portfolio door. Except maybe this one of Baxter and his human just taking in the beautiful scenery. I guess this is a Baxter video. And yeah, forgive me, Father Caleb, for I've consumed barbecue without you. We also temporarily forgot that Baxter demands to be the main character in everyone's life, so even he got a little sample. Eventually, we made it to the hotel in Bishop, the Travelodge that I know far too well at this point. Anyway, the lighting that evening was spectacular, so we took Baxter for a walk nearby. Of course, I was packing the Minolta Freedom Explorer Zoom Freedom Zoom, which was perfect, because even though I rarely use the 70mm focal length, it is undoubtedly nice to have. I snapped this really quickly in the moment, and yeah, this shot is so portfolio, baby. No doubt about it. The lighting, the warm brown tones, and the subjects all make the shot come together gloriously. Monica said these are a rare cloud formation, so I don't know. We'll let the internet be the judge. I mean, they look like UFOs. Are your family cloud specialists? You cannot have my ice cream. Do you want to come up? What's the ice cream? It might be these lenticular clouds. Are they rare? Yeah, sometimes they look like UFOs. Okay, we got to preserve the film, and the best way to do that is fridge or freezer, so let's see what we got here. Jason, why'd you set it to 60? I see. Yeah, I'm gonna change it. It's freezing in there. Anyway, it was finally Baxter's big snow day, and we promised the boy some sweet powder, so we drove up into the mountains and finally delivered on our promise to our apathetic son. Hi, don't jump out. As far as we know, Baxter has never actually been to the snow before, so we were definitely excited to see how his tiny legs would fare. How long until he starts eating it is my question. Yeah. Of course, I busted out the Minolta Explorer Freedom Zoom Date Explorer Zoom Freedom Explorer to snap some photos, like this one of a dead deep-sea picnic table washed ashore, which is so damn close to being perfect. Unfortunately, I do think that the viewfinder on this camera is a total f***ing liar, at least at 28 millimeters. I distinctly remember backing up so much to the point where I could barely get both the picnic table and top of the mountain in frame, but somehow the shot turned out with an overabundance of headroom, which I then cropped down to frame a bit better in post, but there wasn't a lot of bottom, so I find the balance on the shot to be slightly off. I guess I could just use AI to extend the bottom for more room, but I'm scared of the future, so ain't gonna do that. That was the last one of the roll. Of the 36 exposures on the gold, I took about 27 keepers, which is a percentage way higher than my Call of Duty kill-death ratio. Of those 27 keepers, I'd say there was only one surefire portfolio shot. Anyway, I decided to change things up because I'm a film photographer who's constantly experimenting and trying new things to avoid getting stuck in a niche, so I loaded in some gold 200. This point shoot is nothing too fancy. It doesn't have some of the things that other luxury point shoots have. For starters, it's not titanium, and it doesn't have that weird miles per hour thing that the Nikons do. When you load the camera, the sensor just reads your DX code on your film cartridge, and you're good to go. No jerking around with under or overexposure. No manual focus. No bulls***. You can turn the flash on or off. You can engage pano mode, or more importantly, disengage it. You can turn the date stamp that will probably read 1999 on or off. That's pretty much it. Ever unstable on the soft snow, Baxter finally began his training to become a total ice machine capable of slaying the Iditarod by himself. A little stuck. I like this shot a lot. It's got my two favorite things in my life. Baxter and deep layering. This shot is cool too. The lighting is what makes it. Uh-oh. Three good shots in a row. Jason is treading on dangerous ground and could break his all-time record of three consecutive good photos. I do really like this shot though. It's so simple, and the sign acts as the perfect pinch of color in an otherwise colorless photo. Yep, there it is. The fourth photo in a streak of three good photos is always mediocre. In LA, we don't get many snow days, so I don't ever get to live out my fantasy of being a beautiful snow angel enveloped in soft, pillowy ice. And I wasn't going to miss the opportunity. Unfortunately, the snow was very deep. And covering up some metal signs hidden below. Eventually, it was time to head down the mountain. But I couldn't resist stopping at this church I had driven by several times in the past. This time was different though. It was beautifully covered in deep snow. These shots are nice, actually. I love this wide of the church as a whole because the colors are warm, brown, and sludgy. Like s***. But also some deep blue of the background mountains really pulls this thing together. I actively try to avoid the stop sign trope in photos because I think it's super overdone. But I think it can be used effectively as a prop in your shot. Like this one. Where it's not the subject exactly, but it does add a visual cue to the photo that tells you you're looking at an intersection. Anyway, that night, I hit 200,000 subscribers on YouTube. And we celebrated by going out and giving the real star of the channel his reward. After hotboxing the entire room with gas because he had dairy, Baxter cleared his busy schedule and napped on the couch while I slayed some uno in an epic wildcard run for the ages. The next day, we drove up to a different part of the mountains to do some exploring. The weather was very moody, so I brought along the Minolta Freedom Explorer Date Zoom T2 Panorama Freedom Date Minolta and shot away. Tiny little baby steps. This shot is very cool. That's why I shoot film, I think. The colors are fantastic and the space captured really unpacks a certain vibe. Maybe there is something to this stop sign thing after all. But I wouldn't really read too hard into it if I were you. We will be turning around. We have turned around. With the car parked, we walked along a snow-covered road to a campground that was out of season for sure. For some reason, I was drawn to take this image. I don't know why. It's an interesting texture and I love looking at the detail, but otherwise, it's kind of just a photo that doesn't really do anything. Here you go. You should just give it a little try. It tastes like, I mean, it tastes like coffee, but it's a little smoother. I think it's pretty delicious. You don't like it? It's like watered down coffee. It's disgusting. The next day, we decided to double dip the flipping f*** out of there because there was a huge storm rolling in. You remember that storm that left a bunch of people stranded in the eastern Sierra and even brought two minutes of snow to LA in an apocalyptic freak weather pattern that had everyone here screaming? I think that means a storm's coming. Let's get out here. Put barbecue first. With the storm creeping up our ass, we decided to stop once again at Alabama Hills so I could finish the roll in my camera. For this roll of 36 shots, I got about 20 keepers and two, maybe three portfolio shots. I don't know. Might change my mind later. I do that a lot. A note that I made about this camera is that miraculously, it never missed focus once. And to me, a 100% hit rate is pretty good. But I don't know. Maybe you have higher standards somehow. In fact, I didn't even notice that the autofocus on this camera was so good until later on because I guess no one really notices you're doing your job until you do it badly. Anyway, now winding down our time in the eastern Sierra, amongst all these rocks, I started thinking about how today's sponsor Squarespace rocks. Squarespace is an all-in-one website building platform that allows you to customize and grow your website as creatively as your own imagination allows. The possibilities are nearly endless. It's 2023. If you don't already have a website for yourself or your business, you're losing out on a major opportunity to display your brand, your work, or even your abilities to the world. As a photographer, I've been using Squarespace for several years now, and I found it to simply be the easiest way to build a portfolio website because of its intuitive user interface that allows me to customize my site to the fullest and please my inner perfectionist. Even better, there are hundreds of professionally designed template options to start building from. I even recently revamped my entire website from the ground up and it was incredibly straightforward. But if you're like me and don't know the first thing about building a website, then worry not. Squarespace has you covered with 24-7 award-winning customer support and an online forum for questions or feedback. So what are you waiting for? If you're ready to build a website, you can start a free trial today at squarespace.com. And if you use the code GRANNYDAYS at checkout, you can get 10% off your first purchase. In the end, we cruised back to LA through the storm a little bit, but made it safe and sound just in time for Baxter to continue to nap on the couch. It was a fun trip and I think there is something to capturing your vacation on something small and easily pocketable. I won't lie to you, I oftentimes use huge cameras that are kind of a pain in the ass to haul around, so this was a nice change of pace. But if you can rock out with your stocks out on something smaller and more compact with a huge focal range like this Minolta, then maybe you're golden. This lens is sharp and overall pretty nice. Like I said, I got several photos that I think are absolutely killer. And above all, it's just nice to use a camera once again for what my mom originally purchased it for. To take embarrassing photos of ourselves and our questionable fashion choices that probably won't age well. Just stay away from that panorama mode. Nothing good will come of it, trust me. I'm home. How was the doctor's? It was great. He said I have a clean bill of health. He did? Yeah, he said I was too healthy actually. Said I need to eat some like donuts or something. It's funny you say that because I actually had your doctor fax me your charts. Fax? You don't even own a fax machine. It says here, total liver failure, sweaty, too much energy but also exhausted, premature hair loss, diarrhea, ball cramps, I don't even know what that is, and heartburn. All symptoms of drinking too much spicy soda. Now, what soda might that be, dear? I think you know exactly what soda that is. It also says here you let on an audible high-pitched gasp when the doctor said you need a prostate exam.