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jodys

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jodys last won the day on January 27 2011

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  1. <p>I keep my 4x5 kit around for travel. It fits in my carry-on.</p>
  2. <blockquote> <p>Google is one of those companies who will radically break from tradition in ways that make little sense to the casual observer, like why they would invest in Space-X, develop Google Glass, self-driving cars, map the world's surface with ambitions of mapping the world's oceans.</p> </blockquote> <p>The simple answer is that the primary application of all of these is military.</p>
  3. <p>I don't have anything against Lik. But I am a photographer, and I stood in front of every photo in his Las Vegas gallery, and I was left feeling a little empty. They are decorative pieces, technically perfect, but none of them grab you (me) in the gut and pull you in. They don't tell a story, they don't generate any emotional response, they're just pretty pictures on a wall. As a photographer, I would never be content with that from my own work.</p> <p>I am absolutely jealous of his business acumen, and I would gladly pump out hundreds of bland, decorative photos if I could make that kind of money off them. I just wouldn't have any personal delusions about what I was doing. For that matter, I'm perfectly happy to make money off wedding and kids photography, when I can. I take pride in my work when I do so. I think Lik takes pride in his, as well. But comparing Lik to Salgado is like comparing apples to oranges. Salgado is driven to make images for the sake of the images themselves. Lik is driven to make images for the sake of making money.</p>
  4. <p>I have been fortunate enough to see in person both Peter Lik (in Vegas) and Salgado's Genesis (in Toronto). Salgado's prints are nowhere near as technically perfect as Lik's. That being said, Salgado is a photographer, Lik is a marketing genius. The stories I've read about Lik seem to indicate that he doesn't actually care about his photographs as anything other than a product to sell. Salgado obviously puts the image first, and then chooses to use it for political purposes.<br> I was rather disappointed with Salgado's prints, they were badly photoshopped in many cases (cartoonishly bad in a few cases), printed far too large, and the selection on display should have been edited down to less than half of what was actually put on a wall. Comparing Salgado (who does not edit or print his own photographs) to a master like Ansel Adams (also seen in Toronto), it is quite clear that Salgado in his current form comes up short. <br> <br />He used to be a lot better, print-wise. I've also seen some of his older work in a Toronto gallery, from before he went digital, they were more impressive.</p> <p>Given the choice of putting Lik's best or Salgado's worst on my own wall, however, I would go with Salgado. The image matters more to me than the technical perfection of a large print.</p>
  5. <p>When doing landscape, which I enjoy doing at the moment, 'truth' is not an issue. The issue, for me, is making a photograph that faithfully renders what I wish it to render. The elements of the landscape are tools to be used to that effect, just the same as are the camera (and film, in my case, and also photoshop).</p> <p>In answer to the OP's question on how much 'gardening' I do, I draw the line and climbing trees to reach an offending branch, or wading out into water above the line of my boots. But those are comfort issues, not lines drawn in the sand. I carry a pocketknife and occasionally other tools, I think nothing of trimming branches that I feel distract from the symmetry of a tree, or an offending twig that just happens to be catching the sun at the wrong moment in time. I would rather do this in the field than spend tedious hours with photoshop taking them out later. As for beer cans, I try not to put them down in front of the lens, though I did surprise myself once with a new lens that was a little wider than I thought.</p>
  6. <p>It sounds like your Acme shutter was specially made for a situation where they didn't want people to be able to mix up the front and rear cells. I have a couple upstairs, I might have a look at mine to see if that's common?</p> <p>As for the 48-50tpi conundrum, they are completely interchangeable on a short length of threading such as a lens cell. There is no way you could even measure the difference without some specialized gear. If you hold the front and rear cells side-by-side, you should see a rather pronounced difference in the pitch of the threading, otherwise the cells would risk threading into the barrel/shutter and getting stuck.</p>
  7. <p>You can develop in a tank if you like, but I would stick with a paper developer like others say. Also, you normally develop paper to completion, it develops too quickly to do compensating developing. If you want to try compensating developing anyway, I suggest a very dilute developer (say, Dektol at 1:50 of stock solution) so that the developing time is quite long (other wise you will not get even results). With a dilute developer, you can also develop to exhaustion, that is calculate the precise amount of stock developer you need to develop your 'negative' to, say, 60% of it's potential. I use this method with X-Ray film in 8x10, where I've calculated that 0.7 - 1ml of Ilford syrup gives me the negative consistency I want (so dilution and developing time don't really matter anymore). If I have 10 sheets to develop, I mix 7-10ml of syrup with 10x the qtty of liquid needed for my drum (100ml, so 7-10ml into 1L), and can measure a little more/little less of my mix for each sheet if I want to adjust them individually.</p> <p>This is all based on the fact that both paper and X-Ray film are extremely high contrast, and it is necessary to compensate your development to tame that contrast. Another technique used with paper is to 'pre-flash' it, that is expose your paper to a bare bulb light (say, 40W at 6ft for 1s), before shooting. This will fill in the highlights and result in an overall lower contrast. I don't think this works very well for landscape, but I've seen great portraits done on paper using pre-flash.</p>
  8. <blockquote> <p><a href="/photodb/user?user_id=106565">Bill Mitchell</a>, Jul 10, 2014; 08:24 p.m.<br> Both lenses consist of two double cemented elements. What is the difference, and can you describe how they give different appearances?</p> </blockquote> <p>No, they do not. The Rapid Rectilinear (and Wide Angle Rectilinear, for that matter), are symmetrical, consisting of identical cemented doublets front and rear. The Petzval has a differently-curved doublet in the front, and an air-spaced pair of lenses in the rear. The RR can be used with the rear element alone, as a soft-ish portrait lens, the Petzval can be used with the front element alone (placed in the rear for better results) in the same manner.</p> <p>Most of the 'soft' or 'swirly' effects people get with Petzvals result simply from using a lens much too small for the format they're shooting. Petzvals were intended to be used in such a way as to make use of the sharp center only. You can get a similar result (but very different look) by using a too-small Tessar. Or with a Cooke Triplet by reversing the center element, or changing the spacing on the rear element (unscrewing it, if lens construction allows).</p>
  9. <p>Our brains are bio-chemical organs, not computers. They are heavily dependent on neurotransmitters and other chemicals for such things as motivation and enjoyment. Your cancer treatments almost certainly caused important changes in levels of many of these. Depression is a big word, that can encompass a lot of things, but in diagnosing depression, biological causes (such as cancer treatments) are supposed to be ruled out before a diagnosis can be given.</p> <p>That being said, the clinical advice given to people with depression is often geared toward returning these chemicals to a state of balance, and that will work with you as well. Most people get a bump from vigorous exercise, many also from 'spiritual' activities (if they are true believers, 'faking it' doesn't work), and then there's simple things like making your bed every morning that can have surprising effects on motivation and enjoyment. Of course what we eat, the number of hours we sleep, sex, chocolate, you name it. Everything we do, pretty much, affects our biochemistry.</p> <p>Of course I have had my own, similar issues, and I took a rather disastrous (emotionally) +10 year break where I didn't touch a camera. I found that to come back, I had to take interest in a completely different field of photography, abandoning animal photography in favor of street and finally landscape. I may change again if I find my interest waning. But my photography is my therapy for when I'm feeling crappy, so if I stop completely that means I'm either deliriously happy, or in such a bad place in my head that I've stopped caring.</p>
  10. <p>You are not alone...! The question of your sanity is another matter, however. </p> <p>Most of us hang out at http://www.largeformatphotography.info and http://www.apug.org.<br /> Quite a few of us use a hybrid workflow, sheet film (or paper) in camera, scan, and digital 'darkroom' work and printing. From there, some print digital negatives to use with alt processes. But there are quite a few of us who have darkrooms also, even if (IMHO) it's easier to use Photoshop than traditional enlarging techniques.</p>
  11. <p>War zone reporters and photographers (the non-'embedded' sort, not the propagandists) are public servants of the highest order. I salute her for her courage and her service to humanity. And, she was truly a great photographer.</p>
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