Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 31, 2011 12:54:38 GMT -5
The New Year is already 3 hours old in Japan. Went to a famous temple close to Tokyo Tower with my wife for a public countdown and thousands of people have been let baloons rising into the sky.
A very Happy Year to everyone ... health, luck and happiness for 2012 !!!
Berndt
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 29, 2011 21:36:50 GMT -5
Thanks Mickey, I'll try that !!! If the Zeiss Tessar 210 mm covers 10x12 inch ? I don't know ... but I might find out if I just provisional mount it in a simple way.
BTW ... I accidentally found out more about a possible maker of my cameras. The largest one and all ancient shutter units are marked with the name "Hansa". The only thing, I could found out though is the fact, that a precurser of the company Canon used this brand name ... but I couldn't find any information if large format plate cameras have ever been released under this brand name.
That obviously has been the case, because I own them ... but I can't find any further information, which could lead to an exact date of release. Considering, that it came with the Zeiss Tessar ( which could have been purchased later of course ), I would date the camera at least to the early 30s, but the brand name "Hansa" has been used already in the 20s as well ( even not by Canon and I can't find any evidence if for large format cameras ).
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 29, 2011 20:27:52 GMT -5
Here finally comes my first test picture, taken from a high building in the "neighbourhood". Unfortunately, there has been double window glass, which might have lowered the quality, but the result is still impressive, I think and the perfomance of photo paper promising. Exposure time app. 1 sec at F:45, 180 mm Fujinon lens on 4 3/4 x 6 1/2 inch B/W photo paper, scanned on an Epson GT-S620. Wideangle view on Tokyo/Shinjuku by bokuwanihongasuki, on Flickr For checking the resolution, I also scanned an enlargement/crop of one singe house, distance app. 5 km from the camera: Enlargement 1 - 4800 dpi scan by bokuwanihongasuki, on Flickr And here comes the largest crop, showing the limits ... but more of the scanner/lens/weather than of the photo paper, I think. My cheap scanner can "only" do 4800 dpi and it can not be clearly said, if we are reaching the limits of the camera lens or optical unit of the scanner here. Enlargement 2 - 4800 dpi scan by bokuwanihongasuki, on Flickr One day, I like to use my largest camera ( 10x12 inch ) for taking a picture of Tokyo from Mori Tower, which is the highest building in Tokyo providing an open space view from the top. 10x12 inch would provide an even six times higher resolution than on those ones and of course, the weather should be nice then However ... for that, I need to solve another problem first. My largest camera has no lens I want to use the Zeiss Tessar 210 mm if possible ... but how can I mount it ? It has a 6cm screw mount and the largest camera has the same type of mount but with a diameter of 8.5 cm. Are there adapters ? Or should I better try to get a suitable lens for this mount/camera ? Any good ideas on that ?
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 27, 2011 9:00:29 GMT -5
Back to the original topic, I finally had some time for doing some more tests. Photo paper is pretty light sensitive. Not a bad thing ... if I would have a decent shutter, but counting seconds could be critical ... at least at daylight.
A quick shot on my roof ( not worth posting here though ) at bright sunshine and I needed to close the lens completely down to F:64 for finally getting a well exposed picture. Exposure time: a little bit less than a second, I guess, because I tried to open and close the lens manually as fast as I could.
Wanna try to test the "limits of resolution" tomorrow ( first with the smallest of those three cameras, because this is already set up ). We have a small skyscraper in the neighbourhood. Not really one of the highest in Tokyo, but already a nice view from there.
Also loaded some photopaper in another small plate camera, which has a working shutter. We'll see. I actually like the look of photopaper. Very contrasty even I choose a pretty low contrast paper.
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 24, 2011 23:31:18 GMT -5
Affirmed.
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Berndt
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Posts: 751
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Post by Berndt on Dec 24, 2011 6:46:11 GMT -5
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Berndt
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Posts: 751
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Post by Berndt on Dec 24, 2011 6:35:46 GMT -5
How to celebrate Christmas, living in a non-christian country ? Becoming the Santa myself, having fun and making other people happy A very Merry X-mas to everybody !!!
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Berndt
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Posts: 751
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Post by Berndt on Dec 23, 2011 7:45:02 GMT -5
Dave ... than I'll wait for the 4th dimension, travel back in time and take every picture when I have been younger ... hahaha ... but okay, actually every picture we take is always showing us "when we have been younger" at the moment, we look at it But seriously, before we will become blessed with holograms, I would be just happy, if they would finally release consumer digital cameras with larger sensors. I mean, medium format has been a standard even before 35 mm in the world of film and available for more than 100 years and now, we call it progress, taking pictures on tiny sensors ? And ... the camera doesn't need to be really large because of that ... nor it would need a mirror anymore like on those bulky and expensive DSLRs. Christmas is close now ... and if Santa would ask me to design a digital camera and give it to me as a present, it would look like this: A medium format sensor and a 50 mm F:0.95 prime lens mounted. The camera wouldn't even need an optical zoom anymore, because the resolution would be that high, that it could simply crop it by using just a smaller part of the sensor ( a technique, similar to the one for HD movies on the Lumix GH2 - some kind of "lossless" digital zoom ). No mirror, of course, because EVFs and monitors are high resoluted enough meanwhile. THAT would be actually the perfect camera and wouldn't need to be larger than about 6x9 cm. What do you think ?
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 22, 2011 8:49:55 GMT -5
BTW ... forgot to mention, that sometimes even formats, smaller than 35 mm ( M4/3 for example ) can have benefits ... when we don't want to get too close. My favorite "Paparazzi portrait combination" is an 85 mm 1.8 on a GH1 for example. Brilliant for "candid headshots" on weddings. Hard to get the same fast "Full Frame equivalent", which would be 170 mm. So, for all telephoto situations, a smaller sensor ( or crop ) can be sweet because lenses with the double focal lenght ( and same brighness ) are often not available or much more expensive.
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 22, 2011 7:58:20 GMT -5
Me too ... but I think, the whole thing about formats and DOF is much easier to understand ( and to imagine ) if trying to look at the focal length. At the same focal length and same aperture, the DOF is also the same at any camera and format ... it's just the distance, which needs to be different for getting the same angle of view. In reality, I would also just consider the angle of view. Taking a picture from the same distance and wanting the same angle of view, we need a smaller focal length, which leads to a larger DOF. In the end, it's more about experience and limits than about starting to calculate an exact DOF, I think. For example, if I want to take a half body shot with a blurr background, 35 mm starts reaching its limits ( at an acceptable distance ), for portraits and close ups, 35 mm or "Full Frame" is still fine. The next stage ( medium format ) is very suitable for half body to body shots, wanting a decent DOF. Considering, that not everybody has a high end medium format camera with exchangeable lenses, lets talk about a TLR wide open here. When it comes to full body shots and the person is not covering the whole frame, medium format starts to reach its limits and we need to enter the world of large format cameras. It also makes sense, just to consider the limits ( a full open lens ), because I can stop down any camera for getting a larger DOF ... of course by paying for that with longer exposure times at larger formats. In general, I would say ( just by personal experience ), that 35 mm offers the biggest flexibility considering all situations ... and it is not always about the DOF. Saying this, I actually already need to correct myself, because I like medium format most. Considering "normal situations of daily life", it provides the most creativity for me and I barely miss anything if walking around with my TLR, not even the zoom capabilities ... but that depends much on personal habbits and likings ... wouldn't say that in general. And large format ? Those bulky inconvenient monsters Well ... for special purposes and projects, I guess ... when we want things, we can't achieve on a smaller format.
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 22, 2011 4:26:13 GMT -5
Fantastic collection !!!
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Berndt
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Posts: 751
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Post by Berndt on Dec 22, 2011 2:03:29 GMT -5
Well said, Dave !! I just wanted to explain it in a more simple way. Real or photoshopped ... sometimes hard to see, sometimes easily, I think. Experienced people can see it in most cases though. It's about what you pointed out as CoC. I am not sure, if I can express it right in English, but I would say, that the DOF is mostly "fading" (?). It's not that something is sharp and completely blurr, there is a graduation between those. It's, what we feel as "bokeh" and it is much more important for movies than for stills sometimes ( if I want a moving object to pass the DOF ). For example, I once wanted to take a scene, where a bicycle is driving into the camera at high speed and I wanted to keep it in focus for a few seconds while objects in the front and back keep being blurr. I could have "pulled the focus", but I didn't want to. It worked, but I needed a super telephoto lens for that. Another situation is, if having a lot of details and/or objects in different distances to the camera ( not only one object and a background ). Photoshopping becomes quite difficult then. As for example a tree with leafs. How can you decide the DOF for every singe leaf ? That would be insane, wouldn't it ... or even for simple potraits. The hair can be a problem then. Same as those tilt/shift stuff. So easy to apply as a postproduction effect ... but often not standing a closer look at it. Another not mentioned benefit of a larger format is the effect of less distortion. The picture looks flatter in general, because of using a longer focal length. One thing, I really hate about those P&S cameras ... everything looks like reflected on a christmas bulb, especially faces and buildings. The new type of digital camera, you mentioned ... yeah, I read about that as well ( you can completely decide the focus after taking the picture ). We'll see, how practical it really is. Might be the future of photography ... who knows ? But ... it also scares me somehow ... hahaha ... I think, we are drifting more and more away from what photography really is ... or has been. In the end, we might not need to take a picture anymore at all ... just create one from an empty sheet of paper But I know ... the borderline is fuzzy and everybody needs to make his own choices. There are always different ways to achieve the same result. I am personally more a photographer than a Photoshop virtuoso and I like the craftmanship. There are incredible things, we can do with Photoshop meanwhile, but film also has something "surprising". Imperfectionism is hard to copy or to achieve in digital postproduction. There are simply to many factors, which would need to be controlled and corrected. It's a little bit like music. If you compare a real drummer with a digital drum machine ... even if you add some random fuzziness for getting closer to a human touch, you will always hear the difference ... or ... I would hear it.
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 21, 2011 23:10:13 GMT -5
In theory, Mickey Often missunderstood, the DOF is just depending on the focal length, the aperture and distance to the object, completely regardless the type or format of the camera, which will be used ... BUT ... and this is a big "BUT" ... depending on the film/sensor format, you will get different things in frame. For example, mounting a 210 mm lens on a large format camera, you will get a standard to wideangle frame, while it is a telephoto lens on your 35 mm camera. So theoretically, you can take any picture, you can take on a large format camera, on you 35 mm one as well ... but you need to step back a lot, which is mostly impossible in reality unless you take pictures just in a wide open desert Shooting at more narrow spaces ( for example indoors or just in a park or city like Tokyo ), you simply can't step back that much. Here is a good example picture, I quickly found at Flickr ( not taken by me though, but I hope, it's okay to post in here ). A full body shot in a room - not really a rare demand in photography. You would need to mount a wideangle lens on your 35 mm camera to take this picture and even keeping the lens full open, you could never ever reach such a DOF. flic.kr/p/aXiAmMThis autumn, I experimented a lot with taking autumn leaves sceneries ( the autumn colors are pretty amazing here in Japan, especially the famous red maple trees ). It's easy to get a shallow DOF on a single leaf or limb ... but on the whole tree or even forrest ? I used only medium format this year ... but it hasn't been enough and I couldn't get what I wanted I can't find it anymore, but I once saw a picture of a girl standing in a forrest. Just the girl has been in focus and the whole forrest slowly disappeared in the shallow DOF. What a fantastic magical picture. Or sometimes, you can see portraits, where just a few mm are in focus: flic.kr/p/aVp1JpUsing a 35 mm camera, you would just be able to capture a tiny part of this frame ( maybe just the finger ) ... or you might need to break the wall of the photo studio and step back for a few blocks
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 21, 2011 9:10:17 GMT -5
Thanks Mickey. Any input is much appreciated. Couldn't find much in internet Just, what is written on the package: ISO speed P500 ISO range R110 ... but no idea, what that means. I think, it's hard to say anyway, because the light sensitivity also depends much on the temperature of the light. I just tried an indoor shot ( it's night in Japan now ) and had to exposure 20 sec at a full open lens to get something ... but that might me completely different at daylight. Indoor light is more reddish and photopaper is not sensitive for that. However, another interesting experiment. Tomorrow, I will try a new series of outdoor shots. Yes but ... the main reason for me to use large format at all is the incredible shallow DOF. I mainly want to use the lens wide open. That's the real benefit of large format ... except you want to enlarge a landscape picture up to a wallpaper.
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 21, 2011 6:04:18 GMT -5
Did my first experiment today ... but it has been a total failure ... hahaha ...
Photopaper seems to be much more light sensitive than I expected.
I exposed 4 sheets using the method, Dave suggested:
Sheet 1: F 5.6 at 1,2,3,4,5 sec Sheet 2: F 5.6 at 5,10,15,20,25 sec Sheet 3: F 8 at 5,10,15,20,25 sec Sheet 4: F 16 at 5,10,15,20,25 sec
They all turned out just black, means totally overexposed. Conditions: Daylight, ISO 100, F:8, 1/120 sec from the lightmeter.
But ... if the light sensitivity of photopaper is about 10 ASA, as Mickey assumed, the result is not that surprising. Then, I should have stopped the lens already down to 32 or 45 for exposing just 1 sec.
Will need to do another test tomorrow, but if that is true, I might definitely need an ND filter for avoiding to use a decent shutter on that camera.
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