Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 11, 2011 20:35:34 GMT -5
There is no "like-button" here like on Facebook for showing agreement in a simple way ? So, Wayne, Bob, you are of course right as well !!! It's mostly about personal workflows and preferences ... and they mostly even change. We try to do experiments, making experiences. That's the wonderful thing about the fact, that there is no universal camera or solution for taking good pictures. The reason, why I ( just personally ) returned to film was actually the fact, that I took too many pictures The blessing of using huge memory cards turned into a curse. Always at the end of the year, I mess up my harddisk and found, that I took nearly 10.000 pictures and the same amount of movie clips last year. I haven't even reviewed the most of them nor edited. They basically disappear in the depths of the digital universe in my computer. So I thought, there must be something wrong. Since mostly using film again, that changed. I think more before taking a picture, put more effort in its design and get less but better pictures in the end. When I spent the whole day in a park with a friend recently for taking pictures of the colored leafs, he took about 800 pictures on his Sony Alpha and I used two 120 films. Lucky, that he is not reading that here ... but I would say, I got the better pics that day. So, if it is not a holiday, where we are really taking a lot of pictures, I mostly take my TLR with me meanwhile. Takes a while, until I can fill the film with pictures, really worth being taken The good thing also, that we are not so much at the mercy of print labs anymore. If I get my films developed at a decent lab ( Kodak films at Kodak for example ) and scanned later, the results are actually pretty good and medium format has a huge resolution. So if I really need a zoom, I simply crop it out later. But really ... those are just personally experiences and workflows. There is no "best way" in general. And yes ... iPhone, iPads and Co do have another advantage: The instant upload into the web. Sitting at the beach, enjoying a cocktail in our hand while watching the sunset ... and we can make our friends all over the world envy us just a few seconds later
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 11, 2011 10:43:35 GMT -5
It's interesting, but I made the exactly reversed experience this summer. I went back to Europe for the first time after being here in Japan for five years. A three weeks trip to Germany, Slovenia and Italy ... and of course I asked myself, which would be the suitable camera for that ( camera collectors do usually have choices ;D ) After using P&S type cameras for this purpose for years, I decided to give "film only" a chance and wanted to see, how it would work. I finally decided to use an old Canonet ( first model from 1961 ), still excellent working selenium light meter, bright lens at 1.8 and I also took a quite small and simple external camera flash with me. I have to say, that I didn't miss anything and most of the pictures turned out fantastic and much better than out of the P&S cameras, I have used before. Film is forgiving ( regarding the exposure ) and especially the flash shots have been always quite crappy on a digital camera with inbuilt flash. Okay, I have to say, that it hasn't been a "camera holiday", where I wanted too shoot rare birds or whatever. I just wanted to relax and take some pictures for a memory of this trip. So, I actually didn't miss the absense of advanced zoom capabilities or exchangeable lenses. I mostly stayed in "auto mode", keeping the shutter speed at something like 1/300 sec. and let the camera do the rest. Manual focus, okay ... but its not really difficult on a rangefinder and I got used to it soon. Even better than aiming on a tiny screen, switching through menues and shooting modes ... and frankly speaking, my eyes became old and I need either glasses or I need to stretch my arm for seing at least something on the screen of a P&S As a conclusion, using this old 35 mm film camera has been much more relaxing and the results came out surprisingly great without any special effort. I found it always stressful, using digital cameras. Too many choices and you can never perfectly guess, what the camera will really do in one of those hundred scenery modes. They try to sell you something like an (i)ntelligent AUTO ... but the camera is not intelligent and it can't read my mind as well It's all about "being in control" and that is pretty difficult on a camera designed as a modern P&S. My personal experience from my holiday camera experiment has been: How easy things can be Regarding the Fuji X10, I would consider this as the best P&S at the moment, already because of the super bright zoom lens. That's really something. However, the days of the P&S camera are basically gone, I think. In the field of really just "point and shoot", they got already and mostly replaced by cellphones. Those are doing a pretty good job meanwhile and people are having them in their pocket anyway. My cellphone is probably more advanced than most of the P&Ss. 12.1 MP, HD Video and the weirdest functions like "pet face detection" or "smile detection shutter release", it can automatically scan business cards and put the data into your phonebook, it can even read japanese "Kanji" or you can just wildy pan the camera around and it calculates a picture from that ... incredible funny gadgets ... I can't imagine any function missing ... hahaha ... nice to play with it for a while ... but ... mmmmh ... I don't know, I think I still prefer a simple and old fashioned camera with just setting shutter time and aperture for taking a picture
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Berndt
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Clouds
Dec 10, 2011 11:12:05 GMT -5
Post by Berndt on Dec 10, 2011 11:12:05 GMT -5
It's the sun, illuminating the clouds around the top of the mountain from its backside. The picture is actually a capture from a movie, I took and it looks even better in motion: Distance to the mountain: app. 250 km
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Berndt
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Clouds
Dec 10, 2011 7:36:38 GMT -5
Post by Berndt on Dec 10, 2011 7:36:38 GMT -5
Cool pics here Here comes my a little bit strange cloud picture. It shows Mt. Fuji, taken from Tokyo ( don't ask, how many mm telephoto ;D ). It has been taken a few seconds after the sun went down exactly in the center of the top, which makes the mountain look like it would burn Burning Mt. Fuji by bokuwanihongasuki, on Flickr
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 9, 2011 1:36:28 GMT -5
Congratulations !!! I never owned a Seagull myself, but I saw brilliant pictures, taken with this camera: -0010 by mr.huggies, on Flickr I am sure, you will have fun with it
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 8, 2011 4:49:36 GMT -5
@sidw ... plus some techniques might have been different. For example, I guess, that flash has been much more often used than today. Films have often been less light sensitive ( lower ASA ) and there hasn't been any Photoshop for postproduction yet.
Back in times of film, I remember myself, that pro-photographers mostly used additional flash for minimizing shadows and getting more structures on dark surfaces ( especially clothes ) even at daylight conditions and especially in strong sunlight.
And ... flashes have been different. A parabolic metal shield reflected the light from the bulb and dispersed it pretty well. An effect, hard to get with modern camera flashes. Now, we are using more the technique of "bouncing" it at reflecting surfaces. The result looks more natural ... and completely different from the past.
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 7, 2011 4:59:39 GMT -5
Good link. Thanks for sharing. A lot of things to discover !!! Often hard to find a good source of old pictures. Love to look at them and also always try to understand, why they are looking like they look. For example, I found a photographer in internet yesterday by chance. His name is Edward Quinn and he obviously took portraits of nearly all famous people. www.edwardquinn.com/Unfortunately, most of his works are not free to watch Maybe, he just published them in books, etc. He took a lot of really cool pictures in the 50s and what I noticed is, that those B/W pictures ( like others, shot at that time too ) are looking brighter than B/W pictures of today. Why might that be so ? One guess ... but just guess ... people used more orthochromatic film at that time ?
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 6, 2011 23:03:49 GMT -5
Congratulations. Cool camera !!!
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 6, 2011 2:39:19 GMT -5
bob: Fully agree ... and the Fuji X100 is a great camera BTW. Technologically not really up to date anymore, but my old Fuji Finepix S6500fd is still one of my favorite digital cameras. The "magic Fuji colors", discontinued with the later models and now coming back with X100/X10. I remember, that I once had a Canon 450D. Couldn't really handle it. The colors not really beautiful, the automatic exposure often providing too bright results. I asked in many forums for some advice regarding this issue, but the only thing, I heard was "of course, you have to shoot in RAW and use Photoshop later". Of course ? Can't I expect a decent picture coming out of a 1000$ camera directly ? Never had the chance to test the Leica M8/M9, but I heard many good things about those. But ... everything is a matter of liking and that is good as it is. Otherwise, everybody would just buy the same camera Even the mentioned "Fuji colors". Not everybody likes them, but I personally appreciate especially the natural skin colors in combination with other colors being very vibrant. I shoot a lot of weddings ( on digital ) and it's always a pain, getting the faces not reddish but the wedding dress still white and a colorful picture in general. I could get that on my old Finepix, right out of the camera ... but of course, the technical specs are not matching current customers demands anymore. Asakusa Samba Carnival by bokuwanihongasuki, on Flickr
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 5, 2011 22:46:40 GMT -5
Good points ... and as I said, I am not against Photoshop as a graphic tool. Great art can be created with it ... or even simpler apps like just on an iPhone ( for computer idiots like me ). The results can look impressive and it can be fun, especially when the original footage is lacking quality. Also true, that the original film characteristics will rarely be conserved during the process of developing and scanning ... unfortunately. But still ... I would say, that I can still see, if a picture is taken on film or digital ( even after postproduction ). Maybe just by feeling, I don't know. The look is different ... and each film does have a particular "color space". I am not sure, if I can explain that right ... but for example, you can change particular color channels like red, blue or yellow but it will always affect the whole picture then. One reason, why there is still no really good working Kodachrome emulator yet ... or technicolor. I am shooting a lot of video too and I tried to emulate the "technicolor look" for years, discussed that with many experts all over the world, tried several plug ins for FCP and even tried to imitate the original technicolor process by splitting the footage into color filtered B/W pictures and fixing them together again after that ... it stays impossible. As for movies, I can't afford a decent motion picture camera ... so there is no other choice, than trying to do something in post, but for stills, I can go a simpler way ... just using film directly. For me, film has a "raw feeling", especially when it comes to photograph people. Here is one of my favorite film photographer, working here in Tokyo: arimotoshinya.com/ I think, every of his pictures is telling a story and they can still capture the "raw feeling", even there is certainly some postproduction done on them as well ... but still preserving a natural look. And ... collecting old camera matches the desire of using film anyway
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 5, 2011 21:58:51 GMT -5
From 1880 ? Wow !!! What do you mean by "both pictures do not have exactly the same format" ? I can't really imagine, how stereoscopic glass plates from 1880 look like But basically it should be possible, getting better results. It might be a matter of the exact crop ? Looking forward to your next attempts. Simply wonderful, transforming those old pictures into our modern times. Berndt
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 5, 2011 21:47:29 GMT -5
All the best. Get well soon !!!
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 4, 2011 10:37:58 GMT -5
Daveh, well spotted. The vignetting might have been caused by a lens hood, which hasn't really been made for this camera ... and a slight crop would have done it, no need for using Photoshop in that case. An interesting point is the lens. Before being interested in collecting old cameras, I often followed the passionated discussions in forums about technical specs, laboratority results and if and how one lens is better than another ... but after using some vintage cameras, I have been really surprised, how good old and simple constructed lenses can be ... even if they don't carry a famous name like Zeiss or Voigtlaender. The essential point here, why the picture looks better on film as on digital is first, the mechanical aperture. I stopped the lens down to f:22, which lets the sunbeams appear and second, film can take more light in extreme situations as for example shooting directly against the sun. On digital pictures, you can often see something looking more like a "formless blotch" around the sun. However, I posted it more as an example for a "really difficult to scan" picture. The usage of Photoshop might be worth a separate topic ( I think, we left the good old Aires Viscount topic already ... hahaha ... ). I am not an enemy of Photoshop at all, but I have to say, that I always found it hard to see the limits. It's a tempting tool and you could basically create a completely different picture from everything. I had a long and pretty deep discussion with a friend recently. We wanted to define the term "photography" for us and tried to draw the limits to something, that we called "photographics". It's not easy anymore, I think. There are new ways of creating a picture meanwhile and I wouldn't like to judge ... everybody needs to find his own way and limits. For me ... and that has been just one reason, why I wanted to go back to film photography ... I want to keep the original mood of a picture as a capture of a moment in time ... with all of its mistakes. Sure, I also do some slight adjustments later, just for matching the scan most originally to the original slide ... but it's always a dangerous game But that might really better be a different topic. Apologizing for leaving the thread.
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 3, 2011 9:52:55 GMT -5
So, maybe I am lucky to have a good scan service in town. I usually order my scans at a camera store here in Tokyo and the results are very satisfying. I usually choose the cheapest quality, which are about 3000x3000 pixel at about 3-4 MB ( jpeg ) and 60 cent a frame. I have no idea how to post a picture at the full size and resolution here, but you might get an impression of the quality by a smaller size too: Diamond Mt. Fuji by bokuwanihongasuki, on Flickr That's a kind of picture, where basically everything should go wrong what can go wrong by scanning, but the result is flawless, I think. I mean ... even the sunbeams and tonality in the sky. Incredible for a scan, isn't it. And even if the picture becomes enlarged to the maximum, there is still no film grain visible. I took the same picture at the same place and same time with a digital 12 MP camera ( a Lumix GH1 ) ... absolutely no match for the old Airesflex from 1954, having a Kodak E100VS slide film loaded. However, I wish I could receive similar results on a home scanner ... but on the other side, how many slides do I need to take before a good scanner will pay off ? Not considering the time, I need to spend for testing again and again before getting such a result. So my basic workflow yet ... leaving it up to the shop and pay the 60 cent per frame. Film is not like digital anyway. I don't shoot a hundred pictures a day on medium format. That would be definitely my financial ruin ... and a good reason for my wife, getting divorced from me
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Berndt
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Post by Berndt on Dec 2, 2011 23:53:41 GMT -5
I like the idea with the rice most Plenty of that here in Japan ;D But seriously ... I finally found a few holes in the bellows, by using another, even more brighter flashlight and pointing in directly on the bellows square centimeter by square centimeter. Need to sacrifice another test film to see, if that was it. Those tiny holes can be nasty bastards, hiding if the light is not touching them in the right angle Thanks for all the good suggestions ... the rice and water have been my favorite ;D Oh ... I just see, you wrote "ice" ... hahaha ... sorry, got it wrong
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