Photography for Profit or Fun

Vintage Cameras I have Used: Hasselblad

Hasselblad and other Medium Format Single Lens Reflex Cameras

The first models of this camera series that I owned was a used Hasselblad 500C with a contingent of backs, lenses, finders, filters, etc. The Hasselblad to me is the ultimate in fine user-friendly engineering. It is well-balanced and feels like uncompromised quality in your hands, where it fits naturally with the controls at just the right places. I will mention the drawbacks first, as they are few, in my book.

The cameras produced when the line was first introduced include the 1600 (representing the top shutter speed), which was soon replaced by the next model, the 1000F (shutter speed degraded to 1/1000th sec.) These cameras used focal-plane shutters made mostly of silk, which were a weakness as they did not wear well, and they were limited in the ability to synchronize an electronic flash to them. It is my understanding that Victor Hasselblad contracted the services of Porche manufacturing in order to produce a very ergonomic camera.

I own a 1000F today as a collector. It feels very much like the later models, with the same limitation of blanking out during the each exposure, as with all 35 SLR's. These camera models are also very noisy.

The introduction of newer models of Hasselblads, providing lenses with self-contained leaf shutters instead of the focal-plane shutters in the bodies of the 1600 and 1000F (F stands for focal plane shutter) models, began in 1959, with the Model 500C.  This was a huge improvement, not only because the leaf shutter was sychcronizeable at any speed, but it was also much more durable and a tad quieter. This time Hasselblad hit a home-run. This model was not much different from the special custom models that were used by our astronauts on the moon. The essential core components are indeed the same. I have a 500 C that i use today that was built in the sixties. I wouldn't hesitate to use it to capture once in a lifetime photos, like if I landed on the moon. Hassleblad continued to evolve, with motor drives, and automatic everything, and they offer some of the finest professional digital cameras available today.  "Automatic" digital cameras have taken a lot of the science out of photography. In many ways this is a good thing. A photographer can concentrate more on the art of composition. However, the disciplnes one aquired while using the "old film cameras", that professionals used exclusively not so many years ago still reflect valid principles of how best to control light, and capture it in the most pleasing ways.

Essentially copying the hasselblads modular design, several other manufacturers introduced  medium format cameras including Bronica, and Rollei.  These were not the huge commercial successes that the Hassy's had been for several specific reasons. The Rollei's were good, but too expensive. Some people who chose them over hsselblads said they had much brighter viewfinders and were easier to see to focus. I can believe this because of Rollei's TLR great finders.

The Bronica's, Kievs, Pentacons, and Kawa's were stuck where the first Hasselblad's had been (more or less) , with focal plane shutters. Not only were they flimsy and limited in their sync speeds, there was never a good service network to depend on if they malfunctioned, which they did too frequently to count on.

But Mamiya did it again. They transfered the success they had had with their good TLR' s with interchangeable lenses to a line of SLR's. The RB67 was bigger than the Hass, but also had modular components that could be switched at will. The lenses were excellent, and had leaf shutters. They also offered the 6x7 "Perfect or Ideal Format", called this because the large image negative was precisely the same proportions as a blown-up 8x10 standard photographic print. This actually allowed a substantially larger usable negative to enlarge, which resulted in a better print, technically.

To overcome the problem of turning the huge camera sideways to get a landscape orientation, the entire back assembly could be rotated ninety degrees. The camera used more high-impact plastic than did the Hasselblad which was virtually indestructible metal. This feature along with the extra moving parts, gave the Mamiya RB67 a destructible feel. It was light enough, but too big for anything but studio work for my taste. Still, RB's were the standard for shooting weddings for several years after its introduction to the US market. I like the camera for studio work primarily.

There were other models such as the RZ67, which offered close-focusing bellows. It was just a few years before Mamiya scaled down the RB idea to offer a much more compact camera in a smaller "Perfect or Ideal Format". This camera called the 645 because of it's 6 cm x4.5 cm negative size was a great wedding camera. The negative size was not unique, as Hasselblad had already introduced a A16 back which could be used on existing models. Both enabled 15 shots of that size on standard 120 film.

I have seen Mamiya RB's, 645's with all the necessary lenses go on eBay recently for pennies on the dollar. Hasselblad still command a good price point. Occasionally a great buy can be had there if you are careful and know what you are looking for. I even recently snagged a very rear Ten year anniversary edition of the Moon Landing. There were less than one thousand of this special commemorative models made.

My Qwn Piece of Moon Pie: Hasselblad 500 EL/M Camera System

    Duke was on my most willing subject during the summer of '68. His photo was taken with Sears 125 ASA (ISO) B&W film in 1967. I used a Yashica 44 LM TLR.

 

I was fifteen years old and having a good summer. I had a physically demanding construction job building a golf course at a nearby country club. The work was hard, the summer hot. My skin and hands stayed blistered, but I was pleased to have money. I was under-paid but didn't know it, nor did I care. It was more money, off the books, than most kids made. It fueled my several hobbies.  

(continued below)

  Actual photographs taken on the surface of the moon with a Hasselblad camera, which inspired the similarities seen in the design of the EL/M Ten-Year Commemorative Models, have been seen the world over.

       

 

"10 Years on the Moon Anniversary Model", excerpted from this link: You may continue reading here: http://www.3106.net/photo/cam1025.htm

 
"Something I was not fully aware of when I bought my EL/M is that this camera is the highly collectible '10 years on the Moon' anniversary model which has been produced from 1979 to 1980. Of course I knew it to be a special version but since only 1500 of them were built, it's very special indeed. My camera has the number 0549 and came in its original box with the original booklet. The camera itself is very much the same as the standard EL/M but has a different front on the motor part und the lens. It includes a stylished picture of the moon and has the special edition number engraved. Original price in 1979 was 4500 Deutsche Mark. But even though this item is highly collectable, it was bought by me to be used, not to spend its life as a show piece in a glass box."

Too young to drive, I was still precocious enough to save 300 bucks and buy a 1963 baby-blue Ford Falcon sedan with home-made red pin-stripes. It was nice except for the stupid stripes. I took dozens of pictures of my car, and of my willing beagle-hound, and of garden vegetables, and golfers and girls at the pool adjoining the golf course where I worked. I quickly learned that the camera (given showing up later with good prints a few times) transformed an undesirably grimy construction kid, sunburned in all the wrong places, into a teenie-bopper magnet.

Dad had allowed me to use and eventually stake permanent claim on my first decent camera. It was a Yashica 44 LM he had acquired toward the waning days of his photography interest; he got it to take color scenic  127 "super-slides" with while we were still in Alaska. Even so, it was better than 35 for most things.

I was allowed to drive the couple and half rural miles to and from work without a license.  I took liberties with the arrangement until Dad found out. Although he was unhappy with me, he couldn't stay too stern when I invited him to play golf for free the following week-end on the finished holes of the new course--that and the pool were good perks.

I learned for the first time, that my ever-modest dad was a scratch golfer and I should have learned more technique from him. But I spent most of my time and money on photography equipment and cheap Sears film (Ilford, I think, and very good at that). Dad was also an excellent photographer, and he taught me a lot. I quickly soaked up all he took time to offer.

My two brothers were in Viet Nam. I thought little about going myself, although I just assumed that if I did it would be living a dream doing combat photography. The war was not popular, but you wouldn't have guessed it in our small Southern town. Nor would you have guessed that latent sexuality had been liberated, poetically dubbed "free love" by the free-press(The Pill was legal and AIDS had not been invented yet.) Laugh-In was a big TV hit. Goldie Hawn dancing in a bikini and body paint was the main attraction for to me. The age of micro-skirts was grand, but you became immune after a while. They photographed well.

Music was acid. Politics was politic. But the whole world stopped on July 20, 1969, to witness Apollo 11 land on the surface of the moon. Neil Armstrong took one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Armstrong, Collins, mand Aldrin were everyone's best heroes. The world was not yet cynical enough to invent landing fraud conspiracy stories. Had they been, I was still enough boy-scientist to explain that the signals received on my home-made short-wave radio easily confirmed the event beyound doubt, by calculating speed of RF waves (as well as by the triangulation of signals by other hams--to calculate location, but which also afirmed distance by default. My log books show the calculations).

Who would want to steal this great moment in history, anyway? Certainly, only those who didn't experience it firsthand. 

       

I wept when I learned that the Hasselblad cameras used to take those wonderful moon photos, had been left there on the surface of the moon. I still occasionally pause to think how I might retrieve them. The following spring, I would land a job as a flunky for a cool-creative-photographer-hero-role-model. HE had a Hasselblad--the first one I was ever allowed to use. I did so reverently.

It would be several years before I owned my own Hasselblad camera, and a few more before I had my own ten-year anniversary edition of the famous "Moon Camera" dubbed the EL/M. There were only a thousand made in silver trim (500 in black). The motor-drive has a small gold emblem of the moon, against the gray finish. It looks very much like the ones first used during the Apollo 11 Mission, except for the finish. The actual moon cameras had a special reflective surface designed deflect rays that could have added heat and contributed to unwanted solar lens flares--such as the one in the fifth picture below, intentionally induced for effect and to illustrate this phenomenon. Such a finish would not wear well for everyday use. The serial number of mine is 0301 of 1000. 

   

Here are a few images of MY moon camera. Notice the similarities to the actual EL/M camera left on the moon, which is also pictured below. The differences are [mostly cosmetic] ;the design of my camera was clearly inspired by the original. The finder is very low profile--a small "Sport-finder" mounted where the flash accessory mount usually is, and the dark-slide is oversized to accomodate the heavy space gloves. I have a Hasselblad sport-finder attachment, which works the same way and I have considered making an over-sized darkslide handle for cold weather gloved use.

  

A distinctive, though supprisingly unpretentious gold emblem and serial number plate, marks each of the rare Ten-year Moon-landing Annaversay Edition of the  Hasselblad EL/M . You find this on the front of the drive just below the lens mount.  

   

 

Mine was/is a working camera, but it is/was generally cared for better than it's owner.  My joy, yeah, and my pride. Today it still resonates a tangible energy in my hands. That same reverence, multiplied by history.

As the flag-ship in what remains of my world-class vintage camera collection outlasts me, I will unflinchingly pass the legacy on to one who appreciates all ... some...of what my old hassie represents. Someone who snorts at the conspiracy crowd, "They've too much time on their hands, lacking brains". Someone who knows the diff between film grain and 0101010101010101, even with 16.7 million colors--or more with RAW. We can see the difference, as we can hear it in vacuum tubes. Or can we?

    

 

 

Original Ten Year Anniversary models EL/M included special packaging, a gold(ish)-covered Moon Picture Book, a gold-plated dark slide, as well as a heavy bronze token, as pictured below, compliments of moon-camera original owner Glenn Nakamichi gnakamichi@sbcglobal.net>.  I am told that not all of the 1500 1979 Editions came with these tokens. I at first suspected that they were separated by those having the opportunity, before they reached the retail customer, but Glenn explained that it was provided after-market, as an incentive for registering the camera. It was then mailed to the owner. This token is awesome, and quite rare. I didn't even know these existed until Glenn sent me the pix. I think he had forgotten about it himself for about thirty years. Nice touch.

Maybe even someone who knows a bit about fine glass algorithms and the finest mechanical engineering. Knows what a slide rule is, and maybe even how to use one. Perhaps someone who still turns the pages of Shakespeare's Greatest Works, without thinking such a man never really existed. Someone who believes that Men really did walk on the moon one fine summer day. 

I now stand advised to have my affairs in order. My kids have no interest in vintage cameras. My wife has no need, nor even a guess of their values. Therefore I have been divesting myself of all such belongings. You can catch what's left on eBay.

 

  

More Link: http://history.nasa.gov/apollo_photo.html http://history.nasa.gov/apollo_photo.htm 

http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/hasselblad/cameras/hasselmodels/hasslemodel.htm 

 http://www.hasselblad.com/about-hasselblad/hasselblad-in-space.aspx

http://www.hasselbladhistorical.eu/HS/HSTable.aspx

Owners of Moon Cameras are invited to contact me or to post to this blog with additional information or comments.

eBay Store http://stores.shop.ebay.com/My-Vintage-Camera-Collection-Sale__W0QQ_armrsZ1

More on Hasselblad 500C

 
 
This is a product review that I wrote for eBay, but didn't have room to complete. I have since updated and expanded it somewhat.

 

 


The Haselblad 500C (the model 500CM is merely a slightly updated version of this camera), was the first successful 6x6 negative camera Single Lens Reflex System Camera ever devised that used leaf Compur shutter, synchonizing shutter with electronic flash at all shutter speeds. From the onset,It was intended to fill a void that Victor Hasselblad and company saw in the camera market during the late fifties the last century.It was also intended to be quite simply, "the best Camera ever produced".

Many photographers would agree that 500C achieved this goal. It changed photography forever. It was also the clear choice of the astronuats and the 500C as well as subsequent models were used during the Appolo Moon Mission. An electricly-driven model, and another sister model was even used on the moon's surface itself.=The things I like most about the Hasselblad 500C are as follows:1)It was engineered by Hasselblad, with the help of the famous car makers at Porche, to be very ergonomic.In my hands,it has always felt very natural, with all the controls falling exactly in place, or within easy reach. For those who may feel differently, I  submit that they may not be using it as intended.

 

For so many things times have changed greatly since 1958, but most of the mechanics of film cameras are still the same. However some of the routine techniques used then, have been lost on later generations.

2) The camera, as a system, allows the user to select from a vast array of lenses, backs, film formats, finders, filters, lens-shades, adapters, releases, and assessories designed to fill virtually any need.

Although relatively expensive, the 500C can even be fitted with a digital back to become one of the finest digital cameras available). You'll find that many of these lenses still sell for a premium. With adapters widely available to make manual use of these superior optics with virtually any advance model of any major make of new digital cameras.

Using your digital camera iun the manual mode should be something that every serious photographer knows how to do. It's more than a drill in the use of historical film cameras. It opens a wide range of control over your new camera, which tries very hard to anticipate your needs and allow for them. New digital SLR's  are designed to satisfy as many needs a possible in the Auto mode. Anyt one who can aim a camera and push a button can get decent photographs in the Auto mode.

Next, the new digital cameras allow, for those who are willing to take the time to read their camera's Operation Manual for a half hour or more (or who already understands  and knows how to use the concepts represented by the Preset Icons, and actually try each pre-set function to visually compare the results against the same subject with the picture taken on Auto, can gain a lot more versatility toward making better photographs.

And for those who are willing to become serious students of photography and to learn how to both use their cameras manually AND how to understand and use all of the new digital functions on a camera are in photographic heaven! This is why I am adamant with all of my students that they should early-on learn to use a manual camera. this is actually best done with a vintage film camera, which was designed ONLY to be used manually, because that's the only way they could be used.

Before I return directly to the 500C specifically as an excellent choice when selecting a vintage manual film camera for the historical education and cllector value, for the benefit of learning how to use a manual camera, AND for the actual final delivery of some of the best photographs technically achievable, let me quickly relate how this process of using a hi-bred manual/digital features skill set can enhance their flexibiliity to the max.

I immediately see that I need to make a new and sperate post from the beginnings of the next paragraph or two that I am now going to relate now:  but that will come later, and this is for now:

Without sounding either too dramatic or too boring, "Let's Take an Enlightened Photographic Walk Through the park", with an advanced new digital SLR camera , taking pictures of this and that, in order to show how the hi-bred knowledge of manual and digital features can work in helping us, "Convert the Mundane, into The Sublime", or "How to find precious Photographic Gems, Literally in our Backyards". There--now have three new posts to add to this Weblog soon. I can't do this justise in a couple of paragraphs, so when I write these new blog posts, I will fill the links in here.

For now, may it suffice to know that I did this very exercise yesterday just for grins, without planning on writing about it, and I am even more excited than ever about both conveying this information to you, and the actual process of the Hi-bred approach which you can and should learn. The Hasselblad 500C provides among the best ways to learn this, AND you can adapt the lenses for it to your new cameras, using them manually, by simply purchasing adapters to attach these superb glass optics to your new camera bodies.

[Links to be added. As this part is an updated and expanded older post written for eBay--I promise (Today's date 1/25/2011)--to write this series of posts above referenced within the next fw days.]

Now on the used market, in a new generation of fewer vintage-camera-informed digital camera buyers, it is not always immediately apparent that these prices are turly outstandling bargains, at a fraction of their original prices, especially with inflation allowed for. This camera was once beyound the financial means of many if not most photograpehrs. There were reasons for this. It was worth it then, and it is worth it now.

The 500C, as it is came from the factory used a medium format 6x6 (2-1/4 inch square) medium format negative.This format, much misunderstood today, provided the real "ideal format", because cropping could be done within the viewfinder either horizontally, or verticaloly, or left square, without having to turn the camera sideways. Then the cropping was done in the lab or darkroom. Today it is done in the computer software.

4) Single Lens Reflex cameras have become very much the norm today, but at the time the 500C was made, SLR's were just coming into their own. In the larger (than 35 mm) format they were virtually

unheard of. This provided a highly-enlargable negative that totally out-classed the 35 mm format. It still does today for big enlargements. This was largely due to the technological and economical limits of technology at the time.

So a Single Lens Reflex, with a Leaf Shutter resident in each lens, in medium format caused about as much stir as did America's answer to the Russia Sputnik space satellite: that 500C is the TELSTAR! But unlike the Telstar, we BEAT the USSR on this. These were parallell historical events of the time. Let me be clear when I say WE, I mean the free world as the 500C originated in Sweden and is one of Sweden's and the Free World's finest moments during the Cold War.

The Telstar inspired the Ventures electric guitar led hit of the time--heard all over the world. The 500C camera inspired phographers to greater heights of creative photography all over the world. Yes, it really WAS that big a deal.

In truth, one is very hard-pressed to get as good an image made from a digital camera of "standard" sizes today, as one gets by using good modern films, processing, and quality digital scanning.

5) SLR cameras also enable the user to see exactly what is seen through the viewfinder, and therefore exactly what will transfer to the film, right up to the moment that the mirror blacks out the image for the length of the exposure, as with any SLR . This is an advantage over rangefinder or electronic display cameras. [with the recent advent of the new Digital Sony Alpha 55? and 35? this problem has been overcome. AND THIS IS ALSO A REALLY BIFG DEAL!]

6) The camera can take a variety of different film sizes by simply changing the backs, including digital, and/or Polaroid-type instant picture films.

7) The large negatives can be more easily seen on a light-table or even just held up to the light, in order to quickly select for final images for scanning. Even at this late time in the process, there is more image to choose from for an ideal crop, if it is cropped at all.8)In my opinion, there are no finer optics than those made for the Haselblad camera (out of room) try here for nuetral non-ad on the 500C: Jump to here for more:

http://notesandnods.typepad.com/photography_for_profit_or/2008/10/my-very-own-pie.html

Mamiya 23 Press & Omega-Konica Medium Format Rangefinder Cameras

  During the sixties, I observed and read about medium format press cameras. Although I never felt that it was a good choice for me during those early days, primarily due to fairly hefty prices, I was well aware of them, and would have liked to have had one. Larger format press cameras had been around for a long time, I even used a Crown Graphic 4x5 camera at some point. Graflex was one of the big names in photography; they made a 6x7 Press camera too.

I am not sure if I owned that 4x5 press camera, or if it belonged to the local newspaper or some employee there. Maybe I did own it. It was a long time ago and I am often amazed at how much detail I can pull out of these old crevices between my ears. But the details are definitely getting a bit foggy now.

Two Camera Company's offering very similar camera designs particularly caught my attention back then. I wasn't too far along in my career before I did find justification for both models of these cameras. I don't think I realized the close relationship that Mamiya and Simon-Omega cameras shared. They looked and functioned a lot alike, but that's really where their early offering split.

Koni-Omega Rapid Press Camera Vs. Mamiya Super 23

The year I was born, one of these early camera designs was born. It was the Omega Press Camera. The company behind it was Simon Brothers, an American Company known for their line of Omega photographic products. They had had an exclusive supply arrangement with the military during 
WWII, for their simple, reliable design for combat cameras. It was called the Omega Combat Camera. The company also produced an excellent line of photographic enlargers during those days. All of these products used  excellent Wollensak lenses, produced in New york. 

That first Omega Press Camera was derived from the Combat Camera Simon Brothers company was so famous for, as used by all of the US Armed forces. The basic design of the Press cameras was not much different. It was a rangefinder camera which used 120 film to image 6x7 cm negatives. It was a pretty serious two-hands full, but actually, a fairly manageble camera.

Eight years later Simon Omega company had been bought-out by Konica, a very old and successful Japanese Camera Company, known early for their excellent Lieca-like 35 mm rangefinder cameras, and their very fine Hexanon lenses. I still have a Konica II which is in remarkably good shape. It takes great pictures. I've several Konica 35 mm cameras of later vintage since then. In fact, Konica has been one of the main-stay graphics company that has seemed to shadow my career.

Most recently, Konica, having merged with another great vintage camera company, offered some of the first digital cameras under the name of Konica-Minolta. But finally the company bailed out of the camera business in 2005, or thereabouts 

Under the label of Konica-Minolta,this company is still among the very most aggressive surviving graphics and business copier builders, and their connected laser printers are second to none. It's odd how things go full-circle sometimes. My second son, was voted employee-of-the-year for his superior sales achievement during Konica-Minolta's 2007-2008 fiscal year.

The 6x7 press cameras of this vintage that I know best are the various Koni-Omega Rapidcameras. I had already started selling off pieces of my camera collection when I had the idea, bright or otherwise, to document here all the cameras I had ever owned and used. But I do still have one complete functional Koni-Omega Rapid press camera left.

At this time an d even during the fifties, German Camera Companies were pairing with Japanese companies to produce a variety of cooperative products. In the case of Koni-Omega, it was a cooperative effort between an American Company and Japanese company that perpetuated the original Simon Brothers design.

Read more about this phenomenon at my post at this link:

http://notesandnods.typepad.com/photography_for_profit_or/2008/12/why-did-japan-excell-in-camera-production-after-wwii.html

I grew to love these cameras for what they can do best--make big 6x7 negatives using extremely good optics--with a minimum of expense and difficulty, now. Because, there is a fairly high demand for these cult cameras. They have their admirers, and I have long been one of them. The early design is really quite remarkable and I like these better than the early Mamiya competitor--the Standard 23 Press camera.

The design of the Koni-Omega Rapid Press Camera had already gone through an evolution, ever since WWII, when they came out in fifty-seven. The product was well thought out and remarkably easy to use, with changeable backs and lenses of superb optical qualities--whether bearing the label Omega or Hexenon (Konica). The lenses could be changed faster than most SLR's. The ingenious rapid-wind mechanism, which oddly, has never been employed in cameras before or since (that I am aware of), allowed quick sequences even for the big format camera. 

I recently read from one of the popular vintage camera review webs, the pros and cons of the Koni-Omega Rapid. A subjective user observation was the the reviewer on the web site regarding the seeming lack of anything to hold ontoon the users right hand side of the Koni-Omega Rapid. I just happened to note that the user/reviewer was a Japanese female. I am intending nothing either racist nor sexist, but I also considered that these factors may have affected her analysis; I am merely supposing that her frame and hands may be somewhat slighter than American male hands, for which the original camera upon which it was based was intended.

I also would like to point out for those with similar feelings regarding the lack of convenient handles on the Rapid--that it was almost always paired with a large flash-bracket. The default flash that we used during those vintage years was the G, mounted by way of a Graflex quick-release mechanism onto the flash handle;these flash units or strobes, as we incorrectly called them, were known for their large chrome tubular handles. Some models used four D-size batteries inside the tubular handle.

My point for mentioning this is that the flash tube served as the right-hand handle by design. I recommend for users of these vintage cameras today, acquiring one of the old flash units, keeping the quick-release clamps, after discarding the flash head, to serve as a handle for the Konica-Omega Rapid Press Camera. BTW, the camera, by the time the Rapid original model came out, was not really a press camera per se. This is what they were originally used for, but news photographers had long since opted for the smaller 120 TLR or SLR and even 35 mm designs.

 The Koni-Omega Rapid Press Cameraquickly evolved through a series of additional fast and liberating changes. Each models that came out at the rate of every year or two offered useful new features.The camera became a system, with interchangeable backs, and with backs, even formats could be changed, 6x7, 6x6, 6x9, cut film, Polaroid film. Shutter-release-weilding handles for easier . . . well . . . handling.

A contingent of fine lenses for various fields of view and focus, and close up rings, greatly increased the appeal far beyond what the camera was first intended for. The camera now appealed to everyone from magazine and advertising photographers--owing to its superb lenses and sufficiently large format for such purposes.

When the evolution had almost ripened, starting with the Konica-Omega 200, my old friend Mamiya, whose line of competing cameras had been paralleling the Konica-Omega for some time, began producing the lenses for this line. Mamiya was already a major player in this medium format, so-called Press Camera market.

Mamiya Press Cameras

As mentioned earlier, the Mamiya Press Camera, and its evolving models had been on my mind and awareness from the earliest days of serious involvement in photography--beginning in the late sixties. It wasn't until much later that I owned any of these Mamiya version of the press camera models. I do feel that early-on the Konica-Omega Rapidmodels were clearly more manageable than were the Mamiya equivalents. But this changed.

Mamiya had two mainstay models of the Press camera from the sixties, the Mamiya Standard 23, and the Mamiya Universal 23 Cameras. Although much the same as the Standard, the sister Universal 23 camera was designed to not only change backs, but allowed an adapter to accept many other competitive backs, and other accessories including a ground glass. A short bellows, moving uniquely toward the back, also enabled tilts to adjust the film plane to straighten lines of perspective. This was great for architectural and advertising applications. It works something like a mini-view camera. The moving back belows also enabled macro photography because the unique back bellows feature would shrink the subject by half. If you are familiar with Mamiya's first camera design, the Mamiya Six (of old) used a similar bellows concept.

The Mamiya Super 23 Camera was an Apex in Full-use Camera Design

The following excerpt is from the following link. You can read the entire post by jumping here: http://shutterbug.com/equipmentreviews/classic_historical/0504sb_classic/

Two revolving keys on the back of the body allow for the attachment or removal of roll-film holders and other attachments. The four knobs on the sides of the camera are what make the Super 23 so unique. Loosening these knobs allows you to extend the bellows back mount 13/16” and then apply up to 15Þ of swing or tilt for perspective correction or depth of field control making the Super 23 something of a mini-view camera. The additional back extension was also useful when shooting close-ups as it provided an ability to get just under 1/2 life size with the standard 100mm lens.

The Lenses
Mamiya offered a wider range of lenses for the Super 23 than any of the competitive systems. Ten different lenses in eight different focal lengths were available to Mamiya users, all rangefinder coupled in helical focusing mounts. The lenses used the reliable Seikosha #0 shutter and provided for flash sync at all speeds.

Among the functioning cameras in my collection, I have both a Mamiya 23 Standard, and a Koni-Omega Rapid--which I will soon show pictures of and taken by, within this post. I will now make a recommendation for what I consider one of the best uses for these old classic cameras is today, aside from merely indulging in the wanderlust of going vintage. And there certainly IS that.

Because of the exceptional acuteness of these lenses--especially the wide-angle lenses, paired with the capapability to take 6x7 and 6x9 backs imaging on roll film--these cameras make very good landscape and scenic cameras. They are more portable view cameras--which are considered the ultimate in image quality for scenics for use in magazines, displays, wall-hangings owing mainly to the 4x5 and larger film that can be used. But photographers who desire to access the best scenery in the world,  may need to backpack out among the birds and the bears and the trapping of wilderness. While these just-discussed cameras are not the smallest cameras, they are smaller that 4x5 view cameras.

Note: Although we are not going to review the newer vintage Mamiya medium-format rangefinder cameras, I will say that one of these models--namely, the Mamiya 6, Mamiya 7, and Mamiya 7II cameras are known to be the very best cameras for Landscape Photography.

I own an early Mamiya Standard 23. Had I not been initially used to the Omega Rapid model, I would have little to want for in this model. I retained one of this basic model because I found that someone had done the thinking that I had not yet gotten around to, of using the Standard 23to make a 6x12 camera for scenics. I bought the plans for ten bucks from eBay.

I even have a design for converting one of these bodies to accept a homemade 6x12 film back, using 120 roll-film and the wide 75 mm lens on the one hand, or the 58/60mm wide lens on the otherhand. BTW, as alluded to earlier, my understanding is, that the Omegon-labeled 58mm lens and the Konica Hexanon 60 mm lens, are in fact, the exact same lens. These are highly sought after lenses.

Oddly, on eBay they often bring a higher price when told singularly than as an entire kit containing the lens and a whole camera system. I guess you just have to know what to look for. Some people may be looking for the lens for another camera, or project camera they are building or modifying--never realizing what camera the lenses were made in the first place.

(Continue to the next post to learn more about the Mamiya RB 67 Camera System.)

http://stores.ebay.com/Military-Optics-Vintage-Camera-Sale

Russian Lomo Lubitel CAMERA. Cheap, Simple, Surprising Results

"When I found one issued to commemorate the 1980 Summer Olympic Games, which appeared to be in near mint condition. It also had the original box. I jumped on it."

 
   
  
 
 
  

The plasticized surface on this side of the camera has been marred by coming into contact with the strap or vinyl case. I have lighted this picture in order to exagerate the marring, so that any potential buyer would be fully aware of it. In my judgement, this camera was never used prior to my owning it. It shows little ware and the film spool that ships with it was in the take-up position as it would have shipped. 

 

Soviet Engineering long demonstrated a remarkable ability to do much with little. The Lubitel was a cas of simple, cheap (both in materials/construction and in price of purchase). This quasi TLR camera is an excellent example. I have enjoyed the versions of the ones I have owned, but especially proud of the Olymic labeled camera and box featured here. It has a rich history and is rare.

Don't get me wrong; these cameras are cheaply made and only make fair images, but within certain limitations, they are not too bad. But it is definitely their history and popularity that makes them especially notable. My own camera featured here for example captures an important moment in world history.

"Fifty-six American Diplomats were being held hostage by Iranian Islamist students. I spent a great deal of time listening to a new talk radio show in Little Rock that had been born out of nightly discussions of the hostage incident. I was a regular listener as I ran a general photography studio, and most often played catch-up on darkroom work, bookkeeping, and what not."

"Bringing us up to date with a special Lomo camera that I own, we see President Jimmy Carter declaring that the Olympic Summer Games, to be held in Russia, would be boycotted by the allies if Soviet Troops were not withdrawn by a given deadline."

I was riding high on full-filled dreams. I had my own studio, lots of photography equipment, plenty of work to do. I was also taking a few classes at the University of Central Arkansas. My wife and I had three of our soon to be four children, and lived in a picturesque ancient rock cabin that stood on the sight of a historic portion of the Cumberland Overland Stagecoach road. Thirteen acres and a lake stocked with three varieties of fish. Goats and chicken, and a huge garden. This was my Walden Pond experiment. Life was good.

As summer approached, there were no signs of the hostages being released, and President Jimmy Carter’s administration was twice more embarrassed, before they would be. An ill-conceived attempt to rescue the hostages was doomed from the onset by the failure to predict military helicopters’ operational ability in Iranian desert sandstorms.

So the US was already embarrassed beyond belief, when faced with the Soviet Unions invasion of Afghanistan. Our military had sunken into disrepair, disuse, low morale, and lack of funding as a result of a politically prolonged war in Viet Nam.

"So the US was already embarrassed beyond belief, when faced with the Soviet Unions invasion of Afghanistan. Our military had sunken into disrepair, disuse, low morale, and lack of funding as a result of a politically prolonged war in Viet Nam."

These failures underlined a low point in Ameica's modern military capabilities. The American government had been defeated in Viet Nam by its own political system, and the media's slanted leftist slant, which endctrinated, agitated, and mobilized a loud young crowd of spoiled American's College students and drop-outs who had enjoyed a prosperous upbringng and eroding moral strictures. We were a generation of access, and we led the charge of a tail-tucked and gutless government away from danger into the pacivity of cowardess.  We turned our backs on the people of South Viet Nam who had struggled valiantly against the Soviet and Chionese backed  communist North Viet Nam.

America left South Viet Nam's free people to be slaughtered and ravaged by a vengeful NV. And we (the American public) did it with a falsely-enlightened belief that we were doing the "right thing". In reality, we were gutting the numerous brave soldiers who died fignhting there, billions of dollars invested, and a military establishment who had been hamstrung from victory by studpid politicians.

An emboldened USSR Communist government thumbed its nose at the Free World and began anew its expansionist policies with designs on Afghanastan--which offered them new stategic access to the sea. The minority of Communist ideologes in Hollywood and in control of the Press defeated the USA in the courts of public opinion. This was one of the most remarkable victories over the mind ever perpetrated.

Bringing us up to date with a special Lomo camera that I own, we see President Jimmy Carter declaring that the Olympic Summer Games, to be held in Russia, would be boycotted by the allies if Soviet Troops were not withdrawn by a given deadline. the deadline came and went. And though supposed to be void of politics, the games went on without the USA and many of its allies. If it was a disappointment to the USSR, no one knew it as the Soviets maximized their showcase by sweeping the games.

"... we see President Jimmy Carter declaring that the Olympic Summer Games, to be held in Russia, would be boycotted"

 
 The following link is devoted to cheap Russian Cameras, not just Lomo 166’s, and actually not just Russian cameras, but definitely analog cameras and mostly 6x6/120 film format. This site is devoted primarily to amateur art photos. The blurry quality of these photos is not the experience I have had with this particular Lomo Lubitel 166, which makes very clear images, given circumstances; however, I am using a photo from this site,of a NEW Commemorative model of this very camera, priced at $355, with the exception of the Olympic Symbol on mine.

http://microsites.lomography.com/lubitel166+/classic-features

 http://www.lomography.com/about

Years later, I had an opportunity to buy my first Lomo. I was by then acquainted with the cameras reputation, and was actively looking for one to buy. When I found one issued to commemorate the 1980 Summer Olympic Games, that appeared to be in near mint condition along with the original box, I jumped. I don’t recall how much I paid, but it wasn’t very much—relative to other TLR cameras. I was a bit skeptical, as reviews varied widely.

I ran my first roll of Tri-X through the camera one Saturday afternoon. I was surprised to see the bright view through the finder. A circle in the middle of the viewfinder cleared and fuzzed as I moved the simple geared focus ring around the lens. That’s pretty cool, I thought. The camera was gloss black and felt like it was made of metal, but it was coated with some type of synthetic plastic.

"Though I had not yet even heard of the Russian Lomo 6x6 120 Twin Lens Reflex camera, it had been in production for many years in one form or another. It was already famous for making good pictures on a small budget in the parts of the world where it was distributed."

Concentric rings around the lens controlled the shutter and diaphragm settings. The shutter release was a simple sprout from the taking lens. The camera was solid-simple. I developed the film the same day, along with some other commercial work I needed to soup. It would be a few days before I got back to the negs that hung drying in the dust-free cabinet.

When I did get back to the negs, I took a brief look at them on the light-table, picked one, and stepped into the darkroom. It those days, I used a Couple of different enlargers. An Omega B8 was my preference for 6x6 (which we called “two-n-a-quarter”). I quickly enlarged and placed an 8x10 piece of paper in the Quick Easel. It took two seconds to focus and stop down to the exposure I knew from habit would render a perfect exposure.

Five or so minutes later, I flipped the lights on and grasped my stainless tongs to flip several prints over where they were finishing up in the hypo tray. My eyesight was especially keen then, but I squinted slightly for an even better view in the not so bright overhead light. The prints were not only crisp and clear from right-on exposure and development both in the camera and in the darkroom, they were sharp-sharp from the excellent camera optics.

This was the beginning of my experience with the much discussed Lomo Russian TLR. All of my experiences since then have been good.

http://lubitel-resource.tripod.com/

Solutions for Cameras Using 620 & 127 Film

I've had to take a break from the vintage camera reviews, but I will be able to get back on them soon. Meanwhile, let me address a couple of questions that come up frequently, and often are not properly questioned. People say that you cannot find 127 and 620 film. There are a lot of fine old cameras that require this format film. I have mentioned "re-rolling" or "home-rolling" your own in one or more previous posts. But I decided that it would be much more helpful to show exactly how this is done.

I will attempt to insert some web-cam video showing how to do this with the exception that this process must be done totally in the dark. It will help for you to maybe try this with a old roll of film to get more familiar with the process before trying the real deal. But you'll want to do this only after viewing the video instruction first.

This post will deal with re-spooling 120 film, which is readily available, onto a 620 spool, which you will probably find in your 620 camera. You can also buy these in boxes of miscellaneous photography junk or by the spool for very little on eBay. It has never been necessary for me to engineer a 620 spool to use, but it would not be had to do. I can see making one out of any similar-sized aluminum or copper or other metal tubing (about eighth inch). In a pinch, a plastic straw reinforced with a solid piece of stiff wire, might even work.. The ends could be fashioned out of wood, light metal, plastic, or even cardboard. Glue or solder or brazing will meld the pieces together.

But since the best way to approach this project is with old 620 spools, which are not hard to find; you might even find one in your father's attic junk storage. But if you can't, there's your alternative . . .

A brief bit of background is appropriate here, even though it has been previously written about in earlier posts. For the sake of consolidation let me do so again--in the minimum.

Kodak ruled the roost for a century and a half, as the main innovator and supplier of photography gear and supplies. They usually won out over competitors, but not always. Kodak built their 6x6 TLR cameras to accept only their proprietary 620 film. The size of the actual film and negatives was exactly the same as the same as 120 film. The only difference was the spool size. Some camera manufacturers hedged their bets by making their cameras to accept either size, which was not that hard to do. But some all of Kodak's 6x6 TLR's required 620 size film, and quite a few other manufacturers followed suit. Kodak lost the war, but maybe they sold enough 620 film during the prime of the TLR to be worth the difference. Maybe they won the battle, which may have been what they planned all along.

At any rate, Kodak discontinued the 620 film when it became unprofitable to produce it anymore. This is also true regarding the 127 film size, which they introduced during the first decade of the Twentieth Century. It was used for their earliest folding vest-pocket camera. The film enjoyed pretty steady usage and then took off again with the advent of the TLR Baby Rollei 127 and various copies. It was discontinued  when it no longer became popular. At the time of this writing, there are still manufacturers who make limited types of film in the 127 format. But you can roll-yer-own from 120 film and backing if you have a few spools, or you can make your own spools as suggested above.

There are other ways to source 127 film, namely, the 127 size found in long roll, which is still available (146mm). It can be hard to find and impractical to buy, if you only need a few rolls to use for your own 127 TLR vintage camera. In such a case, you will want to learn how to cut down 120 film and re-spool it as described in the next post.

For now, let's take a look at the video demonstration of re-spooling 120 film onto a 620 roll. If I have problem inserting the video, check back and I will have it.

Sources for 127 Film

My previous post told how to re-spool 620 film from 120 film. The 620 size film is now obsolete, as far as I know. At the time of this post, their are still alternative sources for 127 film. But you may wish to cut down and re-spool 120 film onto 127 spools. This will give you a wider variety of film emulsions, as 120 film is still widely available. 

127 film size, which Kodak introduced during the first decade of the Twentieth Century, was used for their earliest folding vest-pocket camera. The film enjoyed pretty steady usage and then took off again with the advent of the TLR Baby Rollei 127 and various copies. It was discontinued  when it no longer became popular. At the time of this writing, there are still manufacturers who make limited types of film in the 127 format. But you can roll-yer-own from 120 film and backing if you have a few empty spools, or you can make your own spools as suggested in the previous post.

The following cam-video will help understand this process. I will try to find the eBay supplier of the simple film cutter that I use in the video. But if I can't, just use the visuals to make your own. Ingenuity goes a long way in photography. Now the video:

So you got a new camera for Christmas.

First, read the book. Understand it. and begin takikng pictures and reviewing them in a critical light. Use this and other informative blogs to provide a track to run on in gaining an understanding about how to take better pictures of the type you enjoy or are required to make. 

More Homemade Photography Props

My response to an email, worth posting:

Well I am proud of you for trying the homemade route. I recommend it.

I have some posts on my blog (I think it has a search feature on it, it does from the admin side), that covers background making in detail-- but briefly, I use Muslin, and Canvas--both available at Hobby Lobby, Hancock's Fabrics, Michaels, and sometimes at Wal-Mart or Sam's or Target or Costco's. If you have a Hobby Lobby nearby, that's where I would start.

Canvas it good for studio backgrounds. Get it as wide as you can find and fit into a space. It can't be too wide. You can get canvas in several solid colors. You can also get it in unbleached plain canvas. You can die it with Ritz dye, but uses a commercial laundry-mat big washer, and dryer if you do.

It is better to take five or six cans of spray latex paint and just blend it up with long stroke overlapping and curving smoothly--lighter in the center and darker on the outside "vignette" area. I use to hang them on the side of my house of the screened in back porch and let it dry (it dries quickly). I've sold such backgrounds for several hundred bucks. It only costs twenty bucks or so for the canvass. Not too much for the paint either. The other option is unbleached Muslin. Get it at the same places.

I have dyed them solid and I have scrunched and twisted them every which way before throwing them into the dye bath washer. It will make all sorts of funky patterns along the same idea of tie-dying--but not as hippy-ish. My first light modifier was made from a long-wise cut oatmeal box half. Worked well, but not that professional looking.

I actually just ordered a little inflatable thingy along the lines of what you made, from Hong Kong, with you in mind--but it is so simple I should have just made one. I used to keep boxes of velcro spools to make such stuff with. A plastic glue gun is helpful too.

On the flash-modifier and such things, it can be a problem of changing the color temperature, when shooting through such materials. The muting and dispersing is accomplished, but your light color is contaminated--maybe to too orange or yellow. Of course with digital cameras you can correct with while balance and/or a neutral grey card as a standard--for the most part. The rule is the thicker and less white the material is, the more the contamination. I have used a piece of black tape in a pinch, however. Translucent white eight-inch Plexiglas is ideal. It can be purchased at a glass shop in any size and cut to measure yourself with a simple diamond glass-cutter tool, but you have to double or triple it on both sides before breaking it. I don't understand the physics behind it, but it breaks more easily and cleaner under water.

About the foam board or poster board. You can staple to one inch match (sticks of wood with four sides) and either have them sharpened to stick in the ground and/or sliced partway (with foam-board or all the way with poster board) and then taped along the slice with heavy tape. Duct tape comes in many colors or much the same kind of tape for book binders works too to make it look nice. This then makes fold-able flaps that can help direct the light as well as help the reflector stand up (especially if your use the sharpened stake attached in a fold-out way with a constraining sting or chain so it stops at the right place when folded out) to keep the reflector upright when not on "stick-into-able" surfaces.
I'm proud of ya girl. Love, PapaD

Easy Trick for Misty Pictures

There are a number of ways to create speical effects on-the-fly at weddings or portrait outdoor  sessions. For example, rolling up a paper or magazine or fabric and placing it in front of the lens can creat a variety of vignette effects that rival commercial attachments. In fact most commerical attachments were merely commericalized versions of little tricks photographers have discovered over many years of practical use. 

Portraits can be softened, something wedding photographers referred to as "misties", by using a special soft lens. These are quite expensive. A less expensive way to achieve a soft effect is to stretch a piece nylons tightly over a jar lid outer ring. You can then use a sharp point to poke a hole in the center of the nylon, which will optically render a bit sharper image for the center of the image. Or, if you have a clear skylight or plain glass filter screwed onto the front of your lens for protection (something I recommend), you can apply chapstick or vasaline to the outer perimeter of the filter, swirling it with your finger over the surface and fading it out near the center. It just takes a dab. You can further manipulate the effect by wipping the center clean.

 

If the mess of the above softening concerns you, I have also used the little break-open fiber lens-cleaner packet without the mess. The residue makes a similar softening effect, and when you are finished using the filter, just continue cleansing the lens and the residue will disperse without any mess, leaving the lens sharp and clean.

A small piece of window screen over the lens will cause the image to have four-pointed stars for ever bright pin-point of light, such as a candle or spot light. Two pices of sreen, with the timey squates offset 45 degrees will cause the same effect, except the stars will have eight points. A filter factor adjustment in exposure is sometimes required for some of these methods, but if you are using a modern camera, digital or film, the automatic exposure system will nail it best if it is set on "Spot Metering" mode.

Long ago, I discovered that the close proximity of my body or face radiates enough heat to fog my lens. This can be an annoyance and needs to be avoided. However, the smae idea can be used to your advantage in creating special effects. The quick shots of the orang and bottle shown here illustrates this effect. Just try it a few times until you feel comfortable with your ability to control it. Then it is just another  technique in your improvised tool bag.

Take your normal shots, then hold your camera toward you and huff your breath onto the front of the lens to get a fog cast heavily over it. You'll have to work quickly because it will evaporate within a few seconds, but first use your finger or shirt tail to dab the moisture from the very center of the lens. Quickly take the shot. If it is not as you want, try it again and again for different variances.

Advice on Portrait Questions & Homemade Accessories Coming Soon

Question:To: makdenife@hotmail.com

Thanks PapaD, I'll look into it.  I had a photo session last weekend (I think you saw the few photos I posted on facebook).  Here's a link to all of them if you're curious to see .  I think I did a lot better this time.  It was in the evening on a crappy cloudy day, so I had to use a high ISO.  There are a lot of fuzzy pictures.  I just keep telling myself that people aren't going to care as much as I do, plus they're not going to see them as huge on their screen as I do when I'm editing them.  Even though I want to do this free for people so I can get experience, it's so much work to process all the pictures.  This girl also wanted me to crop certain pictures and email them to the lady who is going to make their save-the-date cards for their wedding.  I'm pretty sure that's why I gave her a cd with all the files on it.  It's a lot to do without any compensation.  What do you think I should do about charging people?  Obviously my work is not worth as much as someone who has more experience, but I'm still spending a lot of time on it.  Do you think I should charge them for the CD with the files on it or just charge a session fee?  Or do you think I should just keep doing this for free for a while until I build a portfolio?  I don't want the word to get out too much that I'm doing this for free because at what point am I going to all of a sudden start charging people since I'll just be gradually improving?  You know what I mean?  I'm sure you have some good advice for me. :)

 

My Answer:

Hi B: I am very impressed with your progress. You (and they) should be very happy with those. The ones of the dog are astonishingly sharp at the "normal" resolution. That speaks well of both your lens and camera as well as your ability to use them (to hold, make correct settings such as ISO, white balance, etc.). As you know, you can take the chill off of a cloudy day be varying the white balance. I like the soft renderings of a cloudy day and/or shade.
I can tell that you are learning to "see" the subtleties of light. You may have tried this drill before, but it is a good excrcise to have a subject, at shooting distance, to turn to follow you with a frontal position as you walk in a circle or semi-circle around them, and watch as the light changes the modeling effects on their faces. The goal is to get as much of a 3-D effect via shadows and highlights as possible. Buildings and other obstructions as well as the position of the sun behind the clouds will also make a big difference in what you see.
A good guage allowing you to readily see a difference is in the eyes and around and under the eyes. This is often very subtle, but it can make a huge difference in the appearance and separates the pros from the weekend shooters. If needed, the easiest way to open up these shadows as well as add nice big catch-lights to their eyes, which makes them look brighter, happier, and more energetic, is to use avery faint fill flash. I have found that from most distances, the fill flash mode on automatic cameras is either too over-powering--causing a flat 2-D effect--or too little fill, which doesn't help you open the shadows enough.
A better way to do this is to use an off-camera flash only--tilted straight up with a medium-sized white index card attached behind it as a reflector. If this does not open up the shadows because of not enough

 

---

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How Should I price My Photography?

The question that a student recently asked was actually, "Should I charge for my photography?" Although a self-declared advanced amateur, I knew that the quality of pictures this student was delivering was a cut above mere "amateur" status, this is how I answered.

First, yes, you should always get paid paid something, unless the pictures fail to to turn out, and that is not going to happen,right?. Your customers and you need to get used to the idea that this is intended to be a business as well as an enjoyable hobby. Your camera and other equipment, your time spent studying your craft, your time away from your family, babysitters, gas, wear and tear on your car, and anything else that has gone into your production of their excellent photographs have cost a lot of money. You at least want to get out of it, what you put into it, plus enough to pay for additional equipment as you go.
This way, it is never a drain on the family budget, but can and will be a net positive to it--eventually a significant contribution.
 
An old merchants adage says that unless one out of three customers who pay for your services complain about your prices, your prices are probably too low. Get used to complaints and don't let them get under your skin. When you get beyond your circle of friend, people don't care if they hurt you feelings and almost habitually use complaints to improve their bargaining position, to get something free, or just to "cut you down to size". I don't do that (I don't think), and you probably don't do that, but many people, especially older or more experienced business people really do. You need some policies in place to handle these real or bogus claims.
 
A 100% money back policy for unhappy customers should be fine, providing they do not use the images, give all of them back, haven't made copies of them, and haven't digitally pipped them off. People do such things. That's why it is good to have a photo service such as dotphoto.com who will display low-resolution screen pix on-line (or ones with a big PROOF written diagonally across the entire image displayed. They will also bill their customers whatever price you set up with them, accepting payment in cc's or checks and send you the difference between your retail price, and the price for process and production. They also offer a huge range of photo products including frames, novelties, and various grades of prints. They are fast, and they help your cash-flow so that you are not out anything in advance. They can also embed a secret watermark into each image so that you can prove ownership in the event someone rips your image off, say for use on another website.
 
When I started my early business called Natural Home Portraits, by Wright,there was no digital photography or home computers or the Internet. We have so many more marketing tools now. I will tell you what worked well for me then, and I think you can see the psychology of the marketing and transfer it to the Internet. Your blog can become your marketing tool, or you can start another specific Web site and associated blog. You need a place (like dotphoto.com, or one of a thousand others) to provide a presence. They will help you maintain a website as well as the above services. You post all your photos, after disposing all of the other-than-excellent images, to your website under the order page, using all of the above-mentioned devices, to prevent theft. Then you let them do your merchandising for you.
 
What I did was to offer 5 5x5 machine prints for a small amount. I was banking on my photos being so good, better than anything they produced, to sell themselves. I merely covered my cost on the sitting fee or as it later evolved to "a Gift Certificate", which could be purchased and was good for the sitting and 5-5x5 prints for the amount they paid for the certificate it had a six month to one-year expiration date.
 
I offered the service of taking their pictures on-location, either outdoors somewhere, or in their home. I used various outdoor portrait locations such as parks friends fancy yards, historic public buildings, and other cool places. Later when I did this in Germantown, they came to my house as well, which had a studio and veritable outdoor park with rails and bridges and trees and always blooming flowers. I even had a stream.
 
Everyone is waiting to have a family portrait done, but few actually get it done because it is such a hassle. You solve this problem for them--without them risking much. Then when you make pictures they like, you allow them to buy them at much higher prices. It would be good to call around and see what other professionals are charging. Then set you main price list along the same lines. Offer machine prints and custom prints. On-line you may want to PhotoShop one or two of the display proofs to ultimate protection and show various things that can be done to them. You don't have to do it to all of them, until they buy the custom prints--if they do. They need to know the difference in time and quality as reflected in your prices.
 
I made an appointment when anyone who would be involved in the decision process to be there if possible. Never leave them without a three-day or so deadline to order at the lower prices (than your main price list). Offer three packages one very basic, offering a 5x7 of each grandparent and an 8x10 for the family and a set of 8 wallets for whomever. Have a pretty inflated price on it, but still a huge SAVINGS OVER YOUR "MAIN" PRICE. They probably won't order it. The Price a deluxe package with bigger and more prints, and also price it better, but still quite high. They won't order it either. Then price a middle package and make it exactly what they are likely to want most, and make it the best value, and a lot better all the way around. They will usually order this middle package.
 
Then have a provision that if they order more prints at the same time, their order is "at the lab", they get a g\huge discount having already ordered a package. This is only available at these prices at this time, while the order is at the lab. You can do the same thing with a computer. They must also pay for any customization you did or must do in PhotoShop. Value yourself per hour and don't be afraid to charge plenty. The estimate how many hours, fractions of hours or whatever to arrive at these customer prices--plus any special print services, greeting cards, puzzles, mugs, the lab (such as dotphoto) offers at an additional price.
 
What I used to tally this on was a special ordering sheet with prices and room to write order, image #, and special instructions. I found that printing these two up vertically on an 8-1/2x11 sheet and cutting was ideal because it was long enough to contain everything. You tally everything up and ask for the check or cc if they want to use that feature, and you can do it right there on-line (I obviously did it manually with proofs). Then I said, You like your photos? Obviously, they did, if they placed a large order. Then turn the sheet over and say. UI work strictly by referrals. This way I keep advertising costs to a minimum and I can offer these prices.  Would you be willing to help me out by showing these photos to your friends and relatives and giving them the chance to get the same deal as you did? Sure, and pleas tell them to expect my phone call to follow up soon.
 
This way you get a bunch of qualified referral from a happy customer who will do the selling for you. And you'll have as many settings as you can possibly handle. As you get in greater demand and get better and better you raise your prices. You'll not do as many photos but you'll make more money and build a reputation as a fine, albeit expensive photographer. This is good.
All for now.

Note: A few of drawback that I've noted with using dotphoto.com for professionals are as follows:

1) It is easy for users to determine or at least surmise that you are using the same amateur "wholesale" prices that they get for photofinishing--which may or may not be true, depending upon what you set up.

2) Dotphoto.com tends to market to your customers, thereby robbing you of some opportunites to sell them at your professional prices and effectively cutting you out of the picture. As I may have already said, a simple search will find a gazzlion or so other alternatives. Dotphoto served my needs for one particular International orderring situation, but it may not be good for everyone or everything.

The RAW DEAL, Seeing Color, and other Photographic Mojive

Hi, Five. The photos are very good; and body builders and a fit human body is excellent subject matter. The direct sunlight is exactly the correct choice to make the shadows pronounce the body lines and muscles. Anyway you did a great job, it could be a great niche to work into.

While I was reading some of your blog posts, I was reminded of a couple of answers that I wanted to make the last time I looked at your blog, but got sidetracked from doing. One is regarding RAW. I was at Canon when RAW was developed. It sounds like you have a good understanding of it, but I had a six week course at Canon regarding RAW and the subtleties of color and I still don't understand all of it, so I thought I would comment on a couple of your own questions and observations regarding RAW and color in general before I forget.

In the simplest form I know how to put it, RAW captures so much more information, which can later be used for finer manipulations of color for various types of color output processes, than other formats. It is actually so much more than just a format. It is an entire color management system that should be integrated into the reproduction process at every level of calibration, such as the monitor display (which does not have a wide enough color gamut, or model, to even adequately show the differences), the pre-press stages, and the various different methods of outputting, mostly using the four-color or CMYK format (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black).

You'll hear or read photographers making big claims and pontifications about this or that concerning RAW. These guys, for the most part, are quasi scientists rather than photographers, who get off on the theoretical application of things that don't really matter that much, and was never even intended to matter that much to what they are trying to apply it to. In other words they are full of it. RAW takes up more space than any other format, and many programs we use for manipulating and displaying on screen automatically truncate or compress or out and out discard the extra information anyway, to make the files manageable on line and on screen. The simple conclusion is most of the stuff written about RAW in the mags and boards and such are much to do about nothing.

All monitors display colors differently anyway, and even though this has improved a lot in recent years, their is still no standard way to display. the color temperature of each screen degrades over time, so you never ever want to depend upon how a file displays on screen to determine what it will print like--and each form of printing will use a different paradigm. One persons monitor may display a cooler temperature than yours does anyway. But the real reason that RAW displays differently is less about intention than it is about consequences. The Canon team that developed it really didn't care how it displays in a vacuum. Only within an entire color management system, with the output method end-results in mind.

Canon's marketing department has taken advantage of their innovation of RAW to separate themselves from others, although now RAW has spin-offs or has been licensed to virtually every other manufacturer anyway. They use it as competitive fluff and BS, which at this level is really mostly what it is. Unless you want to capture all the information for final magazine reproduction or gallery print display, all you get is a bigger, more complex files that takes longer to process and work with, and which do not respond very well to the defaults used in most image-manipulation software programs, without any advantages.

I'm not saying to forget about RAW, but I am saying to not spend an inordinate amount of time on learning the idiosyncrasies unless it is just a passion to learn for the sake of learning. It won't help you much with taking better pictures at this juncture.

Now, regarding "seeing color", it is very much like seeing light: everyone sees it differently. It is very much a subjective thing. One person likes warmer tones, others like cooler ones, etc. There is an abundance of evidence that no two perceive colors as the same color to begin with. That may be why one person has a favorite color while another does not even like the "same" color. Then there is the learned aspect regarding emotional responses each person associates with color.

I personally think that most people do see colors very close to the same way, but that's just me. C is an example of someone who is totally color blind to certain colors. I first realized this once when we were in the Bahamas and he could not distinguish bright orange almond blossoms from the green leaves they were nestled in--but that's an extreme example.

But regardless of all that, Canon and Xerox have done studies to determine which colors people prefer. Canon had the first color laser plain paper high-speed copiers. Xerox, in a bid to not only catch up with Canon, but to trump them, turned to Fuji, another Japanese reprographics giant and expert in color, to design a competitive color copier that would more faithfully reproduce color "the way we actually see it". This, for the reasons above, was a losing proposition to begin with, but they probably did get closer to so-called "natural color" than the Canon copiers did. For real.

However, Canon continued to produce the preferred copiers. In an effort to understand why, Xerox commissioned studies that polled people everywhere about which kind of color they preferred. They found out the secret that Canon and Kodak (and even Fuji) had long known--that people prefer colors that "pop"--meaning slightly more saturated than “natural“. Saturation refers to the amount, as it were, of the actual density of the pigments used to display colors (sorta). So if you were to hold up a copy of a picture that people preferred to compare the same actual scene (if this were even possible, and it's not), you would find that the preferred copy would have MORE COLOR than the NATURAL scene.

To make matters worse, as alluded to previously, color monitors use an entirely different color model or gamut (rgb--red, green, blue than does printed color (cmyk and others). RGB is transmitted color--in other words it is back lighted, or projected, whereas cmyk is reflected color which bounces back off the complement to the real color reflected (aaackkk)--but still what our eyes "see"--are close to the same. CMYK can show way more colors than can the rgb model--so it is literally impossible to get an exact match. If you pretend that your right hand is one model of color, then lay your left hand over the right one at right angels, this will illustrate how there are some colors from either gamut that will simply not transfer from one to the other RGB also tends to appear more saturated as well. Those that are covered by both hands will--more of less. Those covered by only one hand will not.

You asked which colors "look best" to your blog readers. Personally I like a tad more red (with rgb) than yellow--but this again is just MY subjective preference. I will also submit that your preference will change over time, both as you learn to see color more adeptly and as your eyes age and the rods and cones decay. All of this figures into it. Years ago, when I first started using a color darkroom to make prints, without much of a color analyzer to help me, I had a baptism by fire regarding seeing color. I nearly pulled my hair out. But it is now helpful to me that I had this experience (I think).

You are also right about not spending too much time on any given “correction”. You can literally “improve” an image infinitely--and it might really be no improvement at all. The best bet is to use a commercial gray card or white card to read the light for correct white balance to the algorithms contained in your camera’s brain. Store three or four common conditions and go with that. Then use the automatic “color fix” on programs to experiment. It makes it much more readily duplicated later.

Another useful thing is to learn in generalities (trial and error is one way) to use the threshold graphs to make corrections. I almost always to this blindly to pump up shadow details before tweaking them. Then record your numerical values before any other changes are done.

This is another tidbit that doesn't matter for anything, but which you may find interesting. Mammals do not see the infrared spectrum at all, whereas birds do. I discovered this anecdotally while testing some military equipment in the woods behind my house. One of my dba businesses is called Military Optics. I sell scopes and other military optical equipment including night-vision--some of which uses supplemental infra-red lighting. Viewed with the naked human eye, you can't see the IR beam, but through the Night Vision devices, it looks like a high-beam headlight has been thrown on.

While running the NV in the above instance through its paces, I was in near pitch dark in the woods. I saw various night creatures like raccoons and deer and although they undoubtedly both heard and smelled my presence, they didn't see the IR or seem alarmed by it. On the other hand, I shined it up on a hoot-owl and it took off like crazy. This phenomenon may explain why the Afghan warlords are able to tell when US military troops are advancing . They often have guineas and pea-fowl with them (warlords do), and they get stirred up and make a lot of noise when they see the IR beams pointed at them--even though the Afghans can not. Therefore, they have a low-tech but reliable method that works, although they probably don't know why it does; maybe I should tip the military off.

More

Maybe I came across as too harsh on RAW; it is a wonderful thing and makes a wonderful difference in some situation. You need to be aware of it--just not too concerned with it right now. There is plenty of stuff to absorb now that will have a more immediate impact on your photographs. Any gains you make with RAW will be very subtle, and not worth the effort you'll expend. One day it may matter, so keep it in sight.

I would just use jpeg for now. If you want to capture more information for a specific gallery-quality job, you can use RAW and/or TIFF for those. Tiff files a larger, but they have a lot of information and work well with most programs.

It reminds me of bokeh. People who prefer a certain lens because of the bokeh are so full of poop. It is an attempt to make something that doesn't matter matter. For every good reason to use one particular rendition of bokeh there are as many for not using that one. It's just mojive. I'm going to event a new term right now and call it "infrogomtwok". I will introduce it on my blog. People will study this grand phenomenon for years trying to analyze and understand it. There will never be any real understanding about it. They will speculate that it came from a little know American Indian word for "something not really well-defined about cameras. Photography, pictures and dogs". But even this will be argued. Only you and I will know that it is a transliteration of the American saying, "Good enough for government work".

Regarding PhotoShop, I have it and try to keep an updated copy. I am familiar with it and like it. I have used it since it’s inception years ago. That's why I use it. I haven't even felt the need to put it on all my computers, however. I use whatever is available, and in some cases I download GIMP. It is fine for most things. (btw, Gimp is not free, it is used to get you on all kinds of lists and to install cookies and spy ware to track your every move, to be sold to marketing companies and maybe even the government.)

But when you get a copy of PhotoShop you will save money buying a used older version or a new older version, and you will not miss much. They hype the new version to make sales and come out with new versions frequently.

Another good thing to know, is if you are taking any classes, you can buy a student version. If you have a teaching certificate you can buy a teachers version. If you know someone who is a teacher you can get them to buy you a teachers version. If you can fog a mirror with your breath you may be able to buy a teachers version. If you go on eBay you can buy a teachers’ or student version for el cheapo. In other words don't ever spend more than a hundred buck or so on a copy.

There IS a lot to learn. That's what makes it so interesting. You are already head and shoulders above many professional photographers. Start charging something. But enjoy it. Make it a life journey wither professionally of as a hobby. But don't put yourself under the gun. Jus relax and enjoy. When I was about thirty, I was so burned out on photography that I didn't pick a camera up for years. Keep it real.

Another Look at the Hasselblad 500 EL System!

Click images to enlarge.

 

 
 
After taking a mandatory break for health reasons, I am back reviewing my collection as I liquidate it on eBay. I recently listed my last EL System. It is still very nostalgic for me to relinquish these old friends. This one has all kinds of accessories that I may not yet have discussed or pictured, so I am going to add a few more things to the 500 EL story.

 

 This model is a landmark camera for many reasons. It was the first electric drive camera of its kind for one. Although often thought of as cumbersome by todays photographers, it was still more menageable than many of the larger View, Field, or Press Cameras. Expecially helped by its unique two-handed angle adjustable grip and hot-shoe for flash, the EL, even with a large lens, was and is, quite manageable. I have previously made the case for having a bigger, heavy camera actually aids in holding a shot still. I was able to hand hold such cameras for relatively long exposures up to a second for candle-lighted wedding and such. There is a technique for this described elsewhere in this blog, but the technique is automatically assisted by having a larger camera.

  

 
 

For those tuned into the marketing logic of piggy-backing on the Hasselblad "Moon Landing" advertising campaign, the aluminum camera case being authentic Hasseblad logo gear may have carried some weight.

 
Another reason I wanted to write about this particular camera is to point out the differences between this camera and the ELM model. The EL is much more rare than the ELM. This one has also been displayed in my camera museum as it was used--with the exact accessories and the rare Aluminum Hasselblad branded fitted case. Few photographers were forethinking enough to buy Hasselblad branded cases just because it would add to the colledctor value, because anything with Hasselblad on it was not only sure to be the finest available, it was also expensive.

 

Although the M added to the Hasselblad 500EL does indeed mean "Modified", there is no consensus upon how it was modified. With the 500C jump to the 500CM, the "modified" reference to the "easy" user-change ability of hte ground glasses, does not necessarily apply to the EL vs the EL/M. It appears that some if not all of the ELs had exactly the same changeability of the ground glasses that were unique to the CM over the C models. If it does mean modified, it probably has something to do with the drive wiring, but that is only my guess. I have found no observable differences whatsoever.

 

 

Another quick note regarding ground glasses. Somewhere during the late eighties gave rise to a significant ground glass change. It was then that Hasselblad first began offering the Minolta patented and manufactured version of hte Fresnel ground glass which resulted in a much brighter viewfinder picture. The diffference can be readily decerned by the brighter view compared to the other Hasselblad ground glasses, but another cosmetic way is two small notches on on corner of the glass.

For those tuned into the marketing logic of piggy-backing on the Hasselblad "Moon Landing" advertising campaign, the case being authentic Haaseblad logo gear may have carried some weight. For much the same reason, all Hasselblad accessories was important too. The difference in quality was tangible, but there were certainly plenty of cheap knock-off brands that were "good enough". One might reasonably ask, "Why spoil the Hasselblad magic by using cheap attachments?" This is especially profound when using filters on Hasselblads superb glass lenses. All glass (or plastics) are not equal.

 

Another landmark point to this camera is that this is the initial bones of the camera that was initially designed for NASA's Space Program. During this era, professional photographers were concerned and a little doubtful about using an electric camera. EVERYTHING was electric. If the batteries went dead, there was no manual back-up contingencies. This sounded scary, although the wiring was very simple, consisting only of a film winder and shutter-cocking mechanism, both in sync. The prospect of having a uselessly battery-dead camera was off-putting.

 

Please note: The problem of selling users on electric cameras was universal, as evidenced by such provisions as Nikons default or failsafe shutter sync speed that was a huge selling point for professionals on the Nikon FE-2 even with dead batteries. But of course this would be a moot point for the EL as all the 500 series used leaf shuters contained within the lenses which would sync at any speed.

Today, we think nothing of electirc or even fully electronic cameras. This acceptance, however has been a slow evolution beginning in no small measure, with this model. To combat these fears, Hasselblad rightly made this new featureas palatable as possible by providing a recumbant rechargable battery system. The drive unit contained TO rechargeable batteries, each independently available. Advertised to last X number of hour of continuous shooting (the value changed from time to time), PER CELL, when the first battery ran out of juice, the next fully charged fresh onje kicked in.

These were the highest quality nickle-cadmim bateries, which were then regarded as revolutionary. Today these batteries can be bought aftermarket, or a simple wiring scheme is available to convert these venerable old drives to use either rechargeable or long-lasting standard nine volt batteries. Plans are availble with a simple search on line or as finished attachable devices for the drive innards. There is also a fuse that I have never seen blown. This is about the only thing that can go wrong with them.

 

Expecially helped by its unique two-handed angle adjustable grip and hot-shoe for flash, the EL, even with a large lens, was and is, quite manageable.

 

For the same reasons of allaying suspicions about the reliability of electric cameras, two other off-camera recharging devices were made by Hasselblad. The system shown here includes one of these. The charging cords and their plugs varried from European and American styles, favoring either 220 volt or 110 Volt plugs and inards. These were quickly merged into one switchable plug that had a toggle between the prongs. The cord in cluded here is of the latter type.

 

But the argument that probably addressed any suspicions of reliability more than any other steps taken, was the mere fact that this was the approved design--all electric camera--that was selected  (actually designed for) for the WSpace PRogram, including the moon landings. Today, approaching a half-century later, reliability of these well-designed cameras is still alive and going well. I would use mine for any job I'm handed. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Their seems to be some confusion about the differences between the Hasselblad 500 EL and the 500 EL/M model that replaced it. I have read in various blogs, that the difference was merely in the M being added to designate the "Moon" landing model. This is rubbish.I have also heard it said by supposed camera authorities (self-proclaimed ones, no-doubt) that it has to do with the chageability of the viewing ground glass--stating that the EL could ony be changed with a screw-driver. This is not true either, as the EL, including the one pictured, has a simple levered provison on each side of the glass to assist in making this change easy. This is no small matter either, as the several ground glasses available add a lot to the usability of these cameras for diverse needs.

Another reason I wanted to write about this particular camera is to point out the differences between this camera and the ELM model. The EL is more rare than the EL/M.

The vintage Hasselblad pricelist, the mini-manuals for such accessories pictured here as the double-gripped handled and flash-mount with Hasselblads proprietary latching camera attachment, which will literally never let go until you are ready, demonstrates the care and thought that went into Hasselblads designes. Nothing schlock about them. How many other accessories include a readalbe, collectable manual sized precisely to fit in the little collectable silver Hasselblad box?

As a word about black or gray with stainless trim cameras or black versus silver lens barrels let me add a couple of cents worth as a generic reference that happens to apply to this "black" system which I am selling. As the backs are interchangeable, and this was the last 220 back tht I had, it doesn't necessarily go with the cosmetics of the rest of the all black system. This is merely cosmetic. It is an  interesting story as to how a black finish came to be somewhat preferred over the silver models.

 

It is my understanding that the black finish is actually easier and less expensive to produce. However, the black models have co0me to be slightly preferred by hardcore photographers. I believe that Nikon was the first major camera manufacturer to offer the black finished option. It certainly does wear well, and there may indeed be a few instances where a black body might have a certain advantage over a silver body--such as when stealthily photographing wildlife or covetr operations or even in a crowd of news photographers where you might want ot keep a low profile and you don't want any brightreflections calling attention to you. I have dealt in military scopes and other optics and this really is a big factor in this environment.

But mostly, it is straining the point to claim any real advantage in having black cameras and lenses in virtually all scenarios realworld. Still there were fewer black cameras made, they are preferred by a segment of the population of serious photographers and therefore they fetch a slightly higher price. The true reason that black cameras and lenses are preferred is that in press cirles during hte last half of the last century, press photographers discovered an effect called brassing, wherein the surface beneath the black surface was exposed slightly with use--where the finger and or thumb wor against the finish. The more use, the more brassing. This came to be a badge of honor iof sorts among the elite news photographers. That's why black cameras are more preferred

BTW, why this double handed gadget was never replicated aftermarket speaks to the failure of people to see the extreme usability of such a device. And truly, until you try one, you probably would hesitate to realize the need you have for it. I guess it is a case of not missing what you don't have. However, I have found such utility in these devices, that for years I snatched every one up that I could find (which was not very many as they were produced on demand with a substantial backorder list). I recommend these handles to be the best way to make a Mamiya RB or RZ 6x7 camera mobile and usable in the field.

 

All in all, the following link is a good reference, although I have noted a few minor mistakes. I don't agree with some of his obviously subjective opinions, as they are obviously mere conjecture, but he provides a lot of facts and pictures.

http://www.photoethnography.com/ClassicCameras/index-frameset.html?Hasselblad500el.html~mainFrame

A Hasselblad 500C camera was the first camera into space on October 3, 1962. EL Hasselblad Electric Cameras electric cameras were used for the first time on Apollo 8. Note from Wikkipeidia. This link is pretty cool. It shows a copy of The Astronauts Photography Manual for Hasselblad.

http://www.hasselblad.com/media/2207875/astronauts_manual_singlepage_lr.pdf

This is a fairly good official Hasselblad History: http://www.hasselblad.com/about-hasselblad/hasselblad-in-space/space-cameras.aspx although it quickly attempts to merge the new hasselblad with the original company of Victor Hasselblad.

Another good resource.http://www.hasselbladhistorical.eu/HS/HSTable.aspx

My other related posts:

http://notesandnods.typepad.com/photography_for_profit_or/2008/11/sieze-a-fleeting-chance-to-get-a-hasselblad-500-el-for-peanuts.html

http://notesandnods.typepad.com/photography_for_profit_or/2008/11/sieze-a-fleeting-chance-to-get-a-hasselblad-500-el-for-peanuts.html

 

The Only Inexpensive Rollei Camera, XF 35

   
 
 This camera was cheap. But where they skimped on craftsmanship and materials, they made up for in lens Quality. Of any pocket 35mm camera of this vintage, the Rollei XF 35 has the best--sharpest and fastest lens.

There were some design quirks such as the rangefinder which comes loose and doesn't focus correctly. The camera I have pictured here, which is being auctioned on eBay, works fine. The pane in the front of the wiewfinder is loose and gravity pulls it down at an angle. See photo of front of rangefinder. There is also an easy fix for the rangefinder problem mentioned above. There is an adjustment screw under the cover under the finder which can be tweaked to adjust it properly.

If you want an inexpensive, easy-to-use, film camera, which is compact, and light, but you don't want to sacrafice lens (image) quality, this is the camera for you.

You'll find a couple of links to other references hereincluding one that tells specifically how to fix the rangefinder problem.

 

Links:

 

The Worst Cameras of 2010 - Unbiased digital camera reviews, prices, and advice

We’re back, once again, with our annual Worst Cameras of the Year awards. Throughout the year, we hear from hundreds if not thousands of frustrated camera buyers, disappointed by their new shooter. Whether it’s poor performance, shoddy construction, or dismissive customer service, these folks wish that they had not bought their cameras. To help as many people avoid this frustration as possible, we’ve put together a list of five of the most notorious cameras released in 2010.

The Method

We’ve put in a lot of hours tracking these cameras. We follow just about every camera through its entire life cycle, from the announcement through the release and peak to death. We scour spec sheets trying to find the most promising models, and

via www.digitalcamera-hq.com

Review of the Revews
It makes me wonder about the true motivations of reviewers sometimes. Although, I do not necessarily disagree with these OPINIONS, please read the meat of each negative review. There appears to be hapstance and personal bias highly injected here.
Also, don't disregard the price-to-features comparison here. For example, Casio and Samsung, which get harsh reviews here, asl also some of the least expensive cameras. And always consider that such reviews may oint out "deals" in the making;try the camera out if you can and decide for yourself, if one of these cameras speicfically turn you on. But these reviews are certianly worth consideration.

News in Pictures for the Year

News in Pictures

Scroll Left Scroll Right

• San Francisco's War Stories

  Gallery: Unearthing a Century of Guarding San Francisco from Attack

via www.cbsnews.com

Open Directory - Arts: Photography: Contests

Australian Digital Photo Competitions - Monthly photographic competitions for Australian photographers.

Austrian Super Circuit - Competition based in Hasselblad, Austria. Includes a list of previous contest winners, photos of previous top winners and contact information.

Bethesda International Photography Competition - An opportunity for photographers to showcase work in one the region's commercial galleries.

Black River Publishing - Annual outdoor photo competition with a $1,000 first prize and winning images published in a national calendar.

CDS Awards - Information on the Honickman First Book Prize in Photography, Dorothea Lange–Paul Taylor Prize, CDS Filmmaker Award, and the John Hope Franklin Student Documentary Awards.

Cohasset Colonials Photography Competition - The purpose of this competition is to illustrate the best aspects of Colonial design and American architecture.

Daily Awards Photography Contests - Daily

via www.dmoz.org

http://www.dmoz.org/Arts/Photography/Contests/

Go to this link for a list of a bunch of photography contests. I used to enter, and sometimes win photography contests, when I was much younger. I gues I have become far less teachable.

I have my style(s) which I continue to develop. I have proven myself in the real world of buyers, which is the ultimate vote, in a variety of categories. It is too much for my pride to take to have some wannabe critique my photos now. It just makes me want to beat them up, but I can't even do that anymore. But to each his own

Powerful Photography Websites: Build a Website, Backup Your Photos & Sell Online Today | PhotoShelter

Websites & tools for serious photographers

• Launch your new website in 5 minutes
• Sell prints, downloads and products
• Market yourself with social media & SEO
• Securely deliver images to clients

Try it for $1 for 14 days. Cancel at anytime.

via www.photoshelter.com

I know absolutely nothing about this company or its services. I know it is one of many that I have seen advertised. I book-marked this one some time ago as possible blog content when I ran across it while surfing for anther subject. I have intended to get back to regular posts regarding both Vintage Cameras and How-To/Gallery content. I have forever been updating my website, which I have maintained since before most people knew what websites were.

You may or may not know that I have hada series of health problems that have had me virtually out of commision for the most part for a couple of years. My vintage camera photos barely even qualify as snap-shots, but i have been systematically "snapping them" for my vintage camera posts as I have had time to list my huge collection for sale individually on eBay. I stil have a good half of them left.

I also have comparison photo examples for comparable vintage cameras which I have mostly shot, but have not yet processed and developed. I can do this in a couple of days when I feel well-enough to do so. And I am getting there, slowly but slowly. I truly expect to back on these projects very soon. I am gratified that those vintage camera posts still get a lot of hits and are apparently meanngful to a niche of people out there.

For future reference, my website is www.wrightplace.com, but don't bother going their yet, as I have the entry page frozen without any links until I get my galleries and other facets in order once again.

The Wall Street Journal Features GoPro

April 6, 2011 – In today’s edition of The Wall Street Journal, Nick Wingfield, features GoPro in his story on the company’s rise and adoption by the professional production market. The featured photo in the article is that of Dan Moore, a GoPro customer and previous “Photo of the Day” winner!

Camcorder Popular With Surfers Looks to Ride Professional Market

April 6, 2011

By NICK WINGFIELD

Even as cellphones put video cameras into pockets everywhere, one company is seeing brisk sales of a rugged video camera that turns ordinary people into the stars of their own self-shot action movies.

GoPro’s trick: a collection of mounts that allow its inexpensive cameras to be attached to everything from the tips of surfboards to ski helmets. The cameras have also started winning converts among professional cameramen, who have used the gadgets to burrow into cobra dens and shoot the insides of shark’s mouths for television nature shows.

Now GoPro’s closely held parent company, Woodman Labs Inc., is receiving its first round of funding from outside investors, including Steamboat Ventures, a venture capital fund backed by Walt Disney Co. GoPro declined to disclose the size of the investment.

GoPro is part of a category of products known as pocket camcorders that is thriving despite the prevalence of video cameras inside devices like Apple Inc.’s iPhone. The simple-to-operate cameras are more portable than traditional camcorders but lack many of their bells-and-whistles, like powerful zoom lenses.

In 2009, sales of all pocket camcorders were just over $2 billion world-wide, growing 21% in unit sales to 13.6 million in 2010 from the prior year, according to research firm

via gopro.com

Cool beans.

The Venerable Graflex Crown Graphic 4x5 Film Camera

 
 

I have owned several of these types of cameras, but their primetime precedes my professional involvement with them. They were still in wide use when I was a kid. And I have used them occasionally when offered by various newspapers back in the day. Most of what I have learned about these cameras has actually come since I have been a collector. I have had a blast mastering medium and large format cameras, but I can't really say that I fully appreciated them as I could have had I lived a decade or so earlier. The Graflex brand was a mainstay in the photography field for the first half of the last century, when the great news magazines and newspapers were in their glory days. Of course this was a time before television and radio stole the show.

The big Graflex flash units should be mentioned here as well, as they were usually attached to a camera of this kind. The first flash units powerful enough to use for outdoor sports coverage at night, such as football games and stock-car races, were monsters by today's standards. Whether they used flashbulbs or electronic flash tubes, they required a heavy battery carried in a big grey battery pack over the shoulder. I think I developed back problems as a result of lugging these things around. But they worked well and recycled fast. These large flash units, the kind they made the Star-Wars sabers from, were usually attached to a camera--or more correctly I supposed, the camera was attached to the flash unit. It made a nice handle for aiming and steadying the camera.

 

I used the Graflex flash system routinely with TLR and 35 mm cameras, but only a few times with a Graflex 4x5. As a pair thse products were actually quite well-made for one another and they seemed to balance each others heft out. Both were well thought out. The flash was unrivaled for fast cycle time and output power. But as I have said, the 4x5's were not what I started with.

Many field photographers were beginning to scale down during my formative photographic years. I went the way of most--which was to adopt medium format--then defined as the 6x6 or 6x7 camera varieties. Medium format technically included 4x5, but the leap in negative size as well as equipment size was huge, going from 120 roll film to 4x5 cut film. Negatives larger than 6x7 require a different size condenser for darkroom enlarger (often a different enlarger), a bigger negative carrier, and each sheet of film needs metal frames to soup the halide acetates with. The 4x5 required larger rectangular processing tanks in multiples. 

The specific operator handling techniques were also very different when it came to 4x5 equipment, besides the cumbersome size and relatively greater difficulty handling cut film. Film and transparencies were expensive and left little room for mistakes or experimentation on a whim. Their size and weight never put me off. But I tend to prefer large cameras because they often can be held steadier.

Once you familiarize yourself with these cameras, you see that by the time myCrown Graphic came along, Graflex had a tried-and-true formula. The design was brilliant but fairly simple. The evolution of the Crown Graphic came from years of trial and perfection.

One of the most notable design features was the ease with which the long belows slid back into the box. If you've never seen one both ways, it is hard to imagine that this camera with bellows, lens, rail, and rear folding ground glass viewfinder rolls out of that much smaller body. It is unfortunate that in this specific camera from my camera museum, that someone has mishandled it and bent the linkage to where it no longer engages as it could. It works, but it IS broken.

This defect is easily enough fixed. I would straighten and reinforce with a drop of solder to each pick-up (pictured where I am pointing to it in one of these images) for functionality, but the next owner may be picker about this, so I'll leave it as it. I also tend to be a perfectionist, but this is one of my second-round back-ups to my collection I had early-on. [This is often the way a collection is aquired; you find the best example of a particular camera of interest at a fair price and latch hold of it. Then you are always on the look-out for an even morepristine example if you find one at the right price. This one was good enough, but fifteen years ago they were all over the place. I actually paid more for this camera than I will ever exect to get out of it--although I could have found one five years ago for a better price. Although still very much availabe, the price of these cameras reflects their increasing popularity as collectables.]For full restoration, some collectors will prefer to find the correct parts. These parts can still be ordered from a number of places listedat thebottom of this post. There are also abundant supplies of parts available for this camera all over the Internet that have been stripped from junked cameras. If one is patient, she might hobble one together out of junked parts for a bit of nothing. This is not the preferred method for a collectable, but is okay for just a fun user.

 

These old-timers are large enough and simple enough that the old adage I have been known to repeat regarding fools and repairing cameras really does not apply, although one must take care when messing with the lenses. Even the lenses are not so intimidating if good sense and gentle hands are used. The expectation during vintage photography days gone by was for any good field photographer to be half mechanic anyway. Professionals, knowing that their livlihoods depended upon a no excuses approach to capturing every available shot, would often carry replacement parts in the event that his camera cratered in the field. However, for this very reason, these industiral-grade cameras could take a lot of hard use or a major accident to crater a Graflex 4x5 of this vintage.  [Today, the same formula for getting the shot should be observed, except instead of carrying extra parts, you should carry extra cameras and whatever other gear you need. I have always taught, two of everything and three of some things.] Getting run over by a linebacker while photographing from the sidelines could then and still will crater both the camera and the hotographer. (It happened. It still does. But if it happens more than once to the same person, he/she is regarded as a slow learner.)

 

Sometimes standard habits that make sense out there on the job--like using duct/duck tape (It was originally developed for the armed forces and was called "duck-tape" because it was waterproof, but smart people used it for virtually everything including central AC ducts. Here in the South we can fix ANYTHING with WD-40 and duck/tape orit ain't worth fixin a-tall .) This measure, no doubt provided an extra measure of security from having the box open and the bellows with lens fom falling out and getting mangled. I have never had a problem of this kind, but I've seen enough taped-up doors on this style of cameras to know that it was a frequent fear at least. Unfortunately the mar to this otherwise fine specimen may be permanent )I actually don't think it is however).

 

Permanent is a misnomer to those who restore cameras. Some collectors would appreciate this battle-scar as an example of the real thing. Others would fix it. I have removed a number of these kinds of blemishes from various leather-bound cameras by using solvents such as acetone (even carbon-tet, as this camera has zero plastic parts.There is a product that has been around for decades now called Goof-Off that comes in a can like like cigarette lighter fluid used too (I don't know if lighter-fluid is still available like that, so this may be a vintage reference as well, but if it does, lighter fluid might work too.) Goof-Off removed chewing gum, various greasy residues and other such stuff. It has also removed tape residue in every case I recall.

For that matter, I can't readily tell if this is actual tape residue or if the tape has actually removed some of the finish off of the black leather. The leather feels uniform on this area--so who knows. It would also be dyed with leather dye if this is the case. This kind of leather is treated to become harder with age as opposed to brittle, so there is a good chance that the blemish is just tape residue. At any rate, it can be fixed one way or another. Otherwise than this place, the leather is in remarkable shape on this camera. The bellows are perfect still.

 

The camera comes with an add-on length of focus rail for the purpose of accommodating different focal length lenses. You release the bellows rail lock and slide it into position for a given lens, and then lock it back securely. The inside piece of rail is designed to be removed easily enough by the user if it is not desired. This camera has the "normal" lens with it, but you can find others on-line quite easily.

The viewfinder was not made by Graflex. There was a long-standing relationship between the finder maker and a number of vintage camera manufacturers. They had both the best/most cost-effect solution to the need for a split-image rangefinder focusing mechanism as well as a patent. There are other makes of finders that you could upgrade too if you so desired. But this one is considered good and it still works. Graflex played with top-mounted finders for a few years but decided that this side-mount finder was the best.

 

Paint does not usually come off of Graflex cameras. You can see that this rangefinder, which is NOT a Graflex product, has lost a lot of cosmetic surface paint.

www.graflex.org/speed-graphic/features.html#KalartSide

I have long held that this was intentionally designed to promote paint wear with use--much as the Nikons, Leicas, and Canons of the film camera days were designed to around strategic use areas. This was regarded in all cases as a sort of seasoned pro's badge of honor and for this it was a desirable thing. I don't know the reality of this in the case of the Graflex or if it arose from a smart salesman turning a design flaw into a positive.

In any case, most of these rangefinders are found this way. The residual paint is easily removed and a good black enamel can be applied to restore it as good as new. Personally, I am of the school of collectors who tens to like old things to look authentically old. This Graflex is in good enough shape that a good wipe-down is all it needs cosmetically for a collection. I believe that I am correct in saying that "as is" is more valuable too. However, this is not a rare Leica. I see these cameras way over-priced on ebay. I also see them not selling until the price is reduced.

This camera means a lot to me, although it is not one of my favorites. I never got too much into folding field cameras as I have explained. But this iks a good one. the lens, as you can see in the pictures, is cean, clar and it is a very sharp agorythm lens of the kind seldom found today. You may have to play with filters when using it for color pictures. It is assured to provide razor sharp images and even a desirable bokeh, as it were. But the lenses were designed for black and white news photography. Not correct color rendition.

If you get a camera like this that uses cut-film, make sure that you understand how the film-holders work. They are designed to be used with minimal handling and the fewest steps. Sometimes they will out-think you if you are not aware of how they work. Also, if you try black and white cut film, I warn you--you are dangerously close to investing into an entire vinatge black and white 4x5 capable darkroom. It truely is a lot of fun though for those so-minded. It certainly served me well.

 www.graflex.org/cameras/

A Kodak Instamatic 126 Catridge Camera with an Attitude - Model 500

Instamatic 500 From Classic Cameras Website:

Manufactured: 1963-65 Lens: Schneider Xenar f/2.8, 38 mm 4-element Shutter: Compur 1/30 - 1/500, B Quantity Made: 158,283+ Original List Price: $94.50 Country of Origin: Germany

This was one of the best cameras made for the 126 format. Its host of features include match-needle exposure setting, scale focusing to 2.5 feet, parallax correction marks in the bright-line finder, and automatic film speed sensing (25 to 800 ASA). Flash provision is by hot shoe and PC connector. The collapsible lens mount accepts 32 mm Retina filters and lens hoods. Cable release and tripod sockets are also provided, as is a depth-of-field indicator. The fit and finish are outstanding.

Famous Model Camera from a historical maker of American film cameras, primarily  the during last century. I am still working on this listing. I will provide the blog link that covers the history and working review of this camera. This camera, as with all of my cameras posted here on ebay, are cameras that I have had professional exposure to or experience with, or which occupy an unusual place in photography history; the Kodak 500 is among the latter--as I would never have relied on a 126 Instamatic camera for professional use. My reviews are largely anecdotal in nature, although I do provide additional outside links that I feel are well-founded concerning my cameras. My camera collection was exhibited as the D.Patrick Wright Museum of Cameras at my home in Tennessee. It has now been more than half liquidated as I deal with health issues. I hope to get them all sold soon. I will be listing many others in the near future.

This Camera is considered the best 126 Instamatic format camera that Kodak made. The lens is very sharp and the other controls are as good as they got for this vintage camera. It used a built-in Cds (Cadmium Sulfide) light meter. It was introduced by Kodak in 1970- of my memory serves me correctly. Kodak followed shortly with a SLR version, but the 500 is the model that was most popular. Both models were relatively expensive, which was something of an oxymoron in the world of cartridge film photography. The Instamatic cartridge, first issued in the 126 format was not a very large negative. Nor did the cartridge hold nearly as many frames as did standard 35 mm cameras.

Of course, it was about the same size as the image portion from the 35 mm cameras taking hold during this same era, but keep in mind that even 35 mm cameras were not taken very seriously for quality photography then. The Kodak 500 was taken no more seriously. It's appeal was mostly to quality-conscious amateurs who wanted the ease of operation, but who also wanted a sharp image and proper exposure. The Kodak 500 delievered on this promise very well. However, using their typical tried and proven formula that they had successfully used to sell many cameras and supplies for over a century. They made this fancy camera to fit their own proprietary cartridge, thereby ensuring that they'd be the ones selling the film for the 500. Although the jury may have still been out regarding who would win the war of film formats, for most of us, the writing was on the wall by the late sixties. Kodak's old formula would not win this time.

Only the Rollei SL26 Instamatic Camera boasted better and more expensive features--and it would not come out for a couple of more years. Both of these cameras are must-haves for the serious camera collector. The 500 shown here is very well-designed and made of quality materials. This is Kodak craftsmanship at its finest. The "mod" design was every bit as space-aged as the Apollo spacecrafts that landed on the moon during this same era.

I received this information as follows. If I was ever aware of this, I have forgotten it. Thanks you for your information.

Actually there were at least four 126 SLR cameras. Besides the Rollei SL26, there was the Contaflex 126, Kodak Instamatic Reflex, and a Ricoh 126 SLR. I own one of each; the Rollei is my favorite. LW

- lyn_wis

http://notesandnods.typepad.com/photography_for_profit_or/2008/12/even-rollie-made-camera-mistakes.html

Photojojo’s digital time-lapse camera makes creating videos easy | Technology News Blog - Yahoo! News

rn passing hours into seconds of video with this handy camera

Time-lapse video can be stunningly beautiful, or simply amusing, but without specialized equipment, they're somewhat difficult to create. But a new digital time-lapse camera available from Photojojo makes it easy and worry-free.

This bright blue pod-shaped camera is weather-resistant, so you can leave it outside to capture the snow falling or the garden growing. The camera's lens can focus at standard or macro distance. It takes pictures at interval settings ranging from 1 second to 24 hours, with film lengths depending on how many pictures you take (the required 4 AA batteries will last for 38 hours at the fastest setting, up to 200 days at the slowest). There are six default settings, and you can create a custom setting for any period from 5 seconds to 12 hours.

The most intriguing feature about this camera is that it does all the work of putting your JPEG images together for you. No more long and tedious stitching in video programs — your series of images is automatically saved as an AVI file, ready to watch or upload to YouTube.

Photozz via Techradar

Post by Katherine Gray

via news.yahoo.com

It is hard to keep up with the offering of new technology. Ya know what? You don't have to. Just pick something you like and master that. However, it's much like window shopping, if you have the time. Or like I have often done at the famous cheap-o store that distributes inexpensive imitations of quality tools.
I just love to get the H. Freight ads by email. I have to limit my actual visits to their stores or I will go broke. I am a sucker for tools. I can browse such stores for hours. I usually buy a cart full of gadgets and tools. But the real benefit comes from the mere knowing that such tools exist.
I am an eternal tinkerer (I even fancy myself as an inventor). As such, I am better able to know of the quickest tool for a given job, if I know every option available.
My dad taught me a lot of the basics--both with photography and with building things. Sometimes I am amazed that the good old methods used back when have been replaced. And sometimes the old methods are better, it turns out. But you never know. In many cases there are new-fangled gadgets that will do a job in a fraction of the time.
The idea is, whether inventing things or making pictures, you likely won't be using a solution that you don't know about. But that also might be just fine.

How to create this "Special Effect"!

http://www.facebook.com/wRightRocks?ref=tn_tnmn#!/photo.php?fbid=10150426007293961&set=a.122650088960.94689.122416378960&type=1&theater

I both Liked and Shared this photograher's image on Face Book. If you are coming from some other link, you can go to the link above to see it. I don't want to post it here because someone might think I took the picture. I did not. I don't even know this photographer. But he does have some nice images. This feathery flowing water effect is often seen to enhance waterfalls and whitewater streams. It is something that you can dovery easily.

You should use a tripod, but any way you can brace your camera to avoid motion blur from the camera movement. You want to use a low ISO setting as well as a high f/stop if shooting this during full daylight. If you don't have the adjustability to allow a time exposure with your camera you can possibly do it on automatic. It won't hurt to try.

But the whole effect relies on a second or more time exposure to allow the steadied camera to blur the moving water as it flows. The longer you can leave the shutter open, the more fluffy it will appear. However, you will be limited in how long of a time exposure you can use by the brightness of the scene. It does not take long for the water to blur sufficiently for a nice look.

This used to be a lttle dicey when using film. The best method then was to bracket your exposure times and take lots of them. With digital cameras, you can merely look at each frame until you get what you want. Still, I do recommend taking several variant exposures as it will provide more digital data to manipulate within the camera after-exposures controls or within PhotoShop, if you so decide.

This is all there is to it. There are a limited number of ways in which I suggest using controlled motion blur toenhance your cameras, but this is on eof the. If you have no stream readily available to practice on, you can use anything from the bathroom tub water tap to a hose outside. While you are at it, maybe I'll write another post within the next day or so about some other kitchen intrigue to photograph.

 

How High-Speed Photography Came To Be: No Farther than Your Kitchen

 

This First Part is mostly Historical in Content 

Freezing Splashing Milk in a Bowl

I have quite a library of vintage photographic books. Some were my dad's and some I acquired as an avid reader from the time of was able to read forward. I can't readily name the book, but I recall the page very clearly. Everything was black and white, but there was a picture of a close-up view of milk splashing into a bowl. The image was frozen just after a drop had impacted and caused a splash. It was fascinating to me. This is the kind of thing you can't really see with the naked eye. Our eyes and brains are designed to see the continuum of the whole process. They do not see "fast enough" to dissect the process into these minute slices of movement. Maybe people could even be trained to see this way.

I have a great old lens from a training device used to train troops to quickly identify both enemy and friendly aircraft during WWII. It uses a shutter to project an image at shorter and shorter intervals. It works. It has been said, although I don't recall by by whom, that the Evelyn Woods Speed Reading Courses that many we baby-boomers were exposed to during our childhoods was inspired by the success of this device. But I don't think we could ever learn to see the frozen image of milk splashing that I recall from that old photography book.

When I first saw the splashing milk image, I was still constrained to the use of flashbulbs for photographic image illumination--those or constant flood-light illumination. Flashbulbs were/are relatively slow compared to today's modern electronic flash units that are taken so much for granted today. Some of the bulbs illuminated even slower than many camera shutter-speeds. For this reason it was necessary to make sure your bulbs matched your shutter speeds so that the shutter did not close before the flashbulb had reached its peak illumination. This was called synchronization.

Anyone who ever used an old film camera without an "X" synchronization feature while using an electronic flash, can tell you of the disappointment of finding blank or only partially exposed-frames when they developed their film. In those instances, the electronic flash had actually fired in entirety before the mechanical shutter could even open. So the images were actually never exposed at all--or if they were, it was with only the much weaker available-light illumination and were blurred or very faint ghost images.

Newer cameras have an option of one or more bulb settings as well as the necessary crucial electronic flash settings; still newer cameras are simply wired for electronic flash only.  They won't even work with bulbs. Such is the nature of technology. So it was in the early days that Ifound such fascination in the high-speed photograph taken up close of the milk drop splashing. But I had to wait to be able to duplicate this speed-light effect. I had to wait until electronic flash units became available to average consumers--and were affordable.

Even then, the first professional consumer models of electronic flash units that were such a boon to news, sports, and wedding photographers yielded relatively slow-speed flash output. It was not until the advent of electonic speed-lights that offered an automatic-exposure feature--that truly high-speed photographs capable of stopping such rapid motion as the milk splash could be done by the average professional photographer.

Although these automatic electronic speed-lights were very expensive, they were one of the most significant advances in photographic capabilities of the century. Prior to this time, photographs taken with the aid of manual-exposure electronic speed-lights had to be calculated with a formula to allow for the distance. If your distance-estimating was not accurate, your image was either over or under exposed--by a lot. although I won't here go into the use of guide numbers to aid in these calculations, but I will tell you that it is a tribute to the remarkable abilities of ones brain to adapt to make these calculations on the fly--without really thinking much about it. But it did take experience. It was one of those skills that set a true craftsman or good news photographerher from those without such skills. And there were still benefits to having this skill long after the arrival ofautomatic speed-lights.

An unintended feature that came about as a result of how these new automatic-exposure speed-lights were able able to achieve their automatics. It was really a very simple, though ingenious concept. An electronic photosensitive sensor was installed facing outward on the front bottom of the speed-light's face. These were often referred to as an "electronic eye". The sensor was designed to pick up the reflection of the flash illumination from the subject; the farther away the subject was, the longer it took for the reflection to return to the sensor. The flash would "stay on" until the sensor shut if off.

Light travels at 186,000 miles per second--which is, for most practical purposes, instantaneous. But when measured by the sensor and the automatic switching circuits of the electronic flash, the difference is enough to make a difference in the amount of light that is allowed to reach the subject. So the closer the flash source is to the subject, the shorter the time it stays on, thus decreasing the amount of light "dumped" onto the subject by the time it shuts off. Conversely, the farther the flash is from the subject, the more light is allowed to reach the subject.

Although it was the long way around to get to this point of my speed-light explanation, this brings us to the unintended, or side benefit of the electronic flash. The operation of the electronic flash at close distances, caused the flash to shut off very quickly while still providing sufficient light for proper subject illumination. This placed truly high-speed exposure capabilities into the hands of anyone willing to spend the moderate amount required to own an electronic flash.

The speeds at close ranges were 50,000th of a second or higher. This is pretty quick by any standards. But it was very quick back in the day. The next post will tell you how to use the electronics of any inexpensive medium-grade consumer compact digital camera to do high-speed photography.

Helpful Photography Tips 

http://notesandnods.typepad.com/photography_for_profit_or/2012/01/part-two-freezing-motion-in-the-kitchen-sink.html

 

Part Two: Freezing Motion in the Kitchen Sink Sink

Continued from previous historical reference-point: How-to stop mothion with a digital camera.

In this part you will see several results of my efforts to freeze the motion of dripping water from our kitchen faucet, using a relatively inexpensive automatic compact digital camera with the built-in electronic flash. In the last post I established how and why any basic electronic flash, common to all digital cameras of every price, is very fast in it's ability to stop motion.

The how-to is really simple. The main things you'll want to do is to eliminate any bright ambient light from natural or artificial sources. You can do this by turning lights off and closing nearby shades. It doesn't have to be dark dark, merely subdue light or by choosing a setting on your camera that will decrease it's use of this unwanted light. One quick way to do this is to set your ISO at a small numerical value, thereby decreasing your camera's sensitivity to light. ISO 100 should be okay, but you may want to experiment with this.

You'll need to focus very closely, so if your camera has a macro setting or wide angle lens, you will want to invoke these features. If it does not, attaching or taping a "close-up" ring over the front of the lens. If you have zoom capabilities be careful not to tape over the lenses in a way that will immobilize this feature. Any photographic close-up ring should work. These are widely available from photography supply stores and online sources, ebay, or as auxiliary attachments to old film cameras. If you dad or grandfather has left you a vintage film camera, odds are that the kit will have one or more close-up rings to attach.

 

Altough it may require a little more fiddling around to get the best results, a small magnifying glass also may work. (Incidentally, you can also use this method to attach a telescope or small telescopic viewer or binocular to your camera--although this is not what is needed here.) Once you satisfy your curiosity that this will work, and if you want to pursue it further, you would do best to get a close-up ring that's made for this purpose.

You can use a tripod if you wish, but it is not necessary. I did not use a tripod because I wanted to vary the distance and focus quickly. I have an aim in mind of the kind of example that I had seen as a kid of a drop of milk splashing in a bowl of milk. I got this result fairly quickly, plus a lot of other interesting shots. I have included a few of those here.

With ambient light minimized, your camera's automatic settings will probably do just fine, as the flash will automatically choose the fastest setting when used up close. If you get an over-exposed image, characterized by washed-out high-lights, too bright whites, or a generally unusable image due to brightness, you can choose a lower ISO number--or you can use your camera settings, such as shorter shutter speed (higher number) or smaller f/stop (higher number). If your camera offers an EV (Exposure Value) setting, as many of them are now offering, you can choose to lower th EV value so that it darkens the photo. It will automatically do this by invoking one of the following things.

Your camera's back-lighting mode represented by a sun behind a silhouetted image may also work, although it will only go so far--usually one and one-half f/stops, which is equivalent to changing the ISO by one and a half steps.

 

Don't stress over timing the shot to happen during the actual splash. While this was once a concern--due to the cost of film otherwise expended by trial and error, digital cameras will allow you to randomly shoot without any kind of device or manual attempt to trigger the shot during the splash. Plus, you will get a lot of other images of various stages of the "drip" as seen in some of my photos shown here. Just take lots of pictures and view each one, making necessary corrections according to your understanding of camera controls and/or by merely experimenting. Either way you will better understand your camera, the lens, lighting, macro-photography principles, as well as the object of this post--stopping motion with a speed-light--by the time you are finished.

Two other considerations may effect your settings as well. If you use the highest resolution your camera offers, you will be better able to crop the images and still have a viewable resolution for computer imaging, if not for actual hard prints. If you use lower image resolution settings, you can take more images more quickly and with faster in-camera processing times; lower resolution will also make the time in-between images shorter, but you will need to allow your flash time to recycle if it is required.

Having an extra batter fully charged and ready may also keep your session from being interrupted, as you can expend a fully charged battery during this exercise in no time. Unless you are lacking storage space on your media source, I would not get caught-up in trying to delete images on the fly. Just wait until you are finished and do this either in-camera or on your computer.

Another fun thing to try  during this experiment is to use the video VGA function of rapid imaging, but you will then depart from the use of the extreme motion-stopping power of the cameras electronic flash. You will also have a much lower resolution end product. The resulting video, as well as the individual frames this mode captures can also be really cool. You will more likely be able to  catch the entire drip process from formation of the drop to the splash and aftermath using the video mode for this one as the flash will not be used due to the speed of the frames being taken. It is fun to compare the two different kinds of results.

A few other scenarios during which I have used speed-lights to freeze motion in my lifetime include catching the "wadding of racing slicks (tires)" of a car upon a rapid start on pavement, my dog drinking out of a glass (a dog's tongue works backward from how you think it would without careful observation or without using speed-lights), Stopping a bullet and an arrow in mid-air (best to use a chronometer fro triggering the image, but this can also be done trail and error), and movements of birds and insects. Use your imagination and feel free to share your results in the comments section within this blog.

Have fun. Ask me questions if you get stumped.

Note: Some of these photos have been colorized in PhotoShop.

Helpful Photography Tips

 

 

 

 

Ancient Mariner's Ring around the Moon is a Challenge to Photograph

It's an old mariners sign. Weather is crucial to navigating, even today. Back when, there was a deeper connection with the skies, especially ideally pitched aboard a wave on a ship in the ocean. No city lights there.

Those that have survived are usually among the most credible. But they were not the exclusive domain of mariners. I learned many of the weather signs my family lines used in the hills of Tennessee and Arkansas traced by in some instances to various parts of Europe, from Mom and Dad, brothers and sister, and aunts and uncles (aplenty). A good measure of my kin are Native to America--Cherokee, Quapaw, and Osage I am told.

An interesting side-note is that those weather signs held in common from those originating on two continents often are very similar, as are such things as constellations observed anciently on multiple continents. A ring around the moon is a pretty reliable predictor of storms involving rain or snow. I had forgotten how it worked, but i went online to gain a concensus. By using hte basic adage,

"A ring around the Moon,

Storm [or rain, or snow] by noon.

you can then fine tune it by observing the number of stars showing through the ring, and add that many 24 hour increments.

So, as I walked pooch last night, I couldn't help observe the distinct ring around the moon. It was made even more interesting by a high-flying mares-tail clouds moving horizontally through the ring at a pace that made high winds aloft readily apparent. It was very still below. I often have a small digital camera with me, but for whatever reason, I did not last night. It usually takes something bold to catch my interest enough to get me to retrieve my camera and come back out that late at night but it happens.

By the time I had finished walking Biggin to the mailbox and back, the ring was less defined. The high cirrus clouds had already flown past but Jupiter was still bright. With my automatic/optionally manual digitabl Sony camera, I chose the Twightlight Mode, which requires the steadiness of a tripod. I manually opened the lens two full stops using the EV (Exposure Value) control. I zoomed out sufficiently to get the entire ring, selected the longest of the two self-portrait delays--eight seconds. I then pushed the shutter button and lay the camera with the back of the camera down onto my driveway about fifty feet from the house.

We live in the country, so there is no light pollution except that coming from my own house--a reason why I chose a place that far from the house. Another is so that the wide angle position that i had chosen would not be obscured by the house. With the camera lens facing straight up I was able to get a perfectly panoramic view of the ring, Jupiter, and the Moon. It only took one shot--a rarity for me. I advocate taking lots of images in order to have a good choice of settings. But I was happy with the first and only image that I shot.

I came in and showed my wife and made a note to share the experience, and the resulting image in a post today. By-the-way, if you count Jupiter as a star within the ring, which surely the ancients did, there should be a storm tomorrow--two days after the weather-predicting sign was observed. I am banking on it, although the weatherman on TV tonight was not sure when it would happen. He DID announce the Tornado Warnings across the river in Arkansas for tomorrow. The meteorologist was hedging his bets.

Note the bright "star" inside the ring is Jupiter. Add 24 hours for each star seen through the vapor filter to the base 24 hours while forcasting the time of impending rain or snow.

Fun with water - a set on Flickr

A fun hobby. I started off doing these manually with a medicine dropper and good timing. I now use three flash guns for lighting and The Time Machine for my water drops which gives me total control over the type of drop I want.
The colours come from food dye in the water and gels on the flash guns.

via www.flickr.com

More water drops.

Introducing DIY Lighting Kits: Great Light – Light On Your Wallet | DIYPhotography.net

What If it had superb even light, looked slick and was made from top notch materials? It would be nice wouldn't it? What if that Ring Flash only cost as much as  a large pizza at Dominos?

What if for even less you could easily mount two (or four) strobes on one light stand and have full on axis light?

Well, I got some exiting news for you!

Introducing DIY Lighting Kits

The idea behind the DIY Lighting brand is simple:

1. We design great kits that can be sold for affordable prices
2. Never compromise on quality
3. Assembly is done by you
4. You take great pictures

The DIY Ring Flash

via www.diyphotography.net

Worthy of note.