jorn ake
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Posts posted by jorn ake
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"It is with such hilarious replies, such as yours, that I can understand why Americans regularly empty shotgun cartridges into co-workers with such abandon."
Stuart, does this mean that you would shoot Gene? I am sorry, but I have difficulty interpreting this as anything other than a thinly veiled threat. Perhaps you should clarify or issue an apology.
I must admit that I am again mystified by this website. I have not read it for nearly six months due to the rhetoric. I come back to check for some information, and someone is threatening to shoot someone. Amazing.
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The negative looks strange. Some fingerprints - are those on the negative or the scanner? Also seems to still have chemical or something on it. Smeary. Did you wash long enough & use Fotoflo in your last wash? Check that everything is clean. You may have built up some residue somewhere that is ending up on the film after the wash. Make sure the water in your wash flows through the tank, not just into. In the top and out the bottom or in the bottom and overflow the top.
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You don't need to shoot XP2 to get around dust removal problems. Shoot any color film, scan in color, run Digital ICE (or whatever dust removal you have - Epson 4990 comes with Digital ICE) and then gray scale the file in Photoshop using whatever techinque you prefer. Once you get a curve worked out that brings the image to the sort of look you want, save it. Then you have a pretty quick workflow - scan, dust, gray, curve, print.
If you want to shoot b&w, going back to developing your own film might be the plan. You don't need a darkroom for that. That nearly eliminates all scratches & dust issues, as long as you are clean and careful. Or find a real B&W lab - dr5 I think allows mail in orders. I am sure there are others.
And look at MIS Inksets - they have a version of b&w-only inks that work in some of Epson's cheapest printers (for sizes up to 8x10 typically.) The results are supposed to be pretty nifty. Allows you to have a b&w printer without retooling your color printer, switching inks or wrestling with color profiles. MIS Inksets also supports some discontinued models that are good printers with their inksets & cheap too.
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Well Volker, that sure is plenty of detail, and I thank you for it. You seem to have quite an ability to switch between different types of cameras. Maybe that ability to shift your equipment and keep your eye mystifies me more than any difference between the appearance of the product. I don't know. That's why I am asking questions.
Thanks again.
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But I'll play, even though I will probably be wrong.
It looks to me like a digital shot. I (at least think I) see purple cast on some edges, some artifacts in the out-of-focus areas that disrupt the bokeh, and focus issues which suggest autofocus perhaps. If I open the file in Photoshop, the file also uses a color space (sRGB IEC61966-2.1) I typically associate with digital cameras. But hey I don't know any of these things for sure.
As I said before, that is exactly why I would like to know more about each image.
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Roger - you have captured in quick words what I am struggling with in the thread one above this one here.
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Volker - that's exactly my point. It is because potentially the difference is so small that I would like to know when digital has been used and when film has been used.
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Ben Z: so are you saying that once a film image is scanned, it looks exactly the same as an image produced by a digital camera or that the nature of an image produced for the web makes telling the difference impossible or meaningless? I am not convinced that is true; however, I would like to know for sure. I think there are differences. I think these differences are interesting & an important part of where photography as an aesthetic discipline is going. Why, for example, if one can scan film into a digital file does a digital camera not produce files that at least emulate the look of scanned film? Isn't the digital output reproduceable regardless of source? I think originally perhaps camera manufacturers tried to emulate the look of film in the images that their digital cameras produced. At least, a lot of the early reviews compared film image quality to digital image quality as a measure of the success or failure of a particular model. Currently, I am not sure that camera manufacturers are using the look of film images, or even of scanned film images, as the benchmark of image quality any longer.
However, I am not sure truthfully that I can always tell the difference between a scanned film image and a digital camera-produced image. Of course calibration and the limited amount of information available in a scanned & compressed file may make any conversation about this moot, but I think having the conversation is still a good idea.
I mean, are the aesthetics of digital and the aesthetics of film the same or different? Lord of the Rings was full of horrendously obvious digital scenery I thought looked cheaper than a drop cloth which everyone else seemed able to overlook. Plenty of digital images contain artifacts and weirdness that I think disrupts my experience of the image unmediated, though I look at those images in some pretty swanky galleries and museums. But digital is here and frequent posts clamor for a digital Leica. Some people here have the first renditions of such. I want to know more about the situation, and the technical aspects of the image help me understand more about the aesthetic aspects of the image.
Because Leica is, above all, about image quality, I think this is an appropriate interest for this forum. I recognize this isn't all about me though, so I can't make people add in this information to their posts nor insist that anyone see it as a valid request. I can just make the request. And so I did.
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I look at photographs posted on this forum as a learning tool. We
could wrestle for days about the quality level of images here (which I
think are often pretty good) but I think learning from looking at
images is possible whether or not the photographs themselves are
actually any good. But I would appreciate details given re: the taking
of the photograph - what camera, lens, film, etc. - so I am not
puzzling over scanning quality while looking at a digital file or
trying to figure out B&W development when the image is a desaturated
color negative. I guess if I can't tell the difference between a
digital camera file and a file from a scanned negative immediately, I
haven't been paying attention. But I think some people here are
actually very adept at scanning negatives which makes things more
difficult (and more valuable as learning tools as well.) I also tend
to assume that most posts here will be film based, so maybe that is my
mistake and I am just behind the whole technological shift even within
the Leica crowd. But I must admit here in all honesty, that when
images are digital and no attribution is given to that affect, I get a
bit confused about which is which.
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Are these scanned or digital? What camera?
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There is a shop in Prague that has every format (6x4.5, 6x7, 6x8, 6x9, 6x17) of medium format rangefinder Fuji made, all NIB, and none of them for sale. They never move from their display case. Dust slowly settling. What a complete waste.
You might bring that shop owner a surrogate - say a Kodak Autographic that you can get for $10 and see if he would be willing to switch.
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If you are serious about shooting people on the street, then you have to find a way to get past their unfriendliness. Either you become ruthless and just shoot whomever whenever you want regardless of their objections, or you work on developing your "bedside" manner - speaking to people after and before shooting (or before and after) in order to allay their fears that you are up to no good. Most people get angry because they have no idea what the heck you are doing, and doubt almost always leads to suspicion and anger. Plus they feel powerless - you are TAKING their photograph. If you can somehow involve them - or make them feel involved or at least, respected - then you will have a much greater chance of success. Sneaking around and shooting surreptitiously (sp?) escapes the personal challenge of communicating, but it is also a technique for secret police and surveillance. While you may have nothing but good intentions, unless you talk to people, you inherit the suspicions created by others.
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The last photo should be shot lower - too much space at the top and you don't have the old guy's "tools of the trade" in the photograph. He seems the most interesting part of the photograph. You also should have probably tried at least a 3/4 view so that you had a least a sense of the front of his body. If you are shooting from a distance or only when a subject turns away, then you lose the natural interest we all have for faces and fronts of bodies. The other photos have interesting atmospheres, but the figures are too small - too far away. Especially in the figureless alleyway, you have a large overhanging piece of the architecture in the upper left which could have been reduced or eliminated by stepping forward a few steps. Remember too that your head is above your body (!) which means that if you shoot from a standing position all the time, then you may not get the shot that will be the most interesting. Using a wide angle lens, the position of the center of the lens relative to the geometry of the scene makes a big difference in the impact of the view in the photograph. I find that frequently the view improves in interest and compositional strength if I shoot from slightly lower than head height. So 2-3 steps closer, a bit lower sometimes, and keep shooting.
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So E.B., you seem to know what you are talking about - in the Friedlander show at MOMA, those photographs showed a frequent use of fill flash to separate objects in the foreground from objects in background. Even on shots where you wouldn't normally expect someone to use fill flash with a Leica - low light interiors to quite well illuminated street corners. Friedlander used non-TTL M3s and M4s evidently - how was Friedlander doing fill flash? Was he using the fast film approach you mentioned above? I am guessing that his flash did not have any sort of compensation abilities - or am I wrong?
Erica, part of the reason you need a compatible flash is that flashes like a thrystor flash (Vivitar 283 for ex.) function at a voltage level that can do damage to your TTL circuitry, as well as not being able to use TTL mode with the automatic setting on the M7.
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Looks like the shift is the same on each frame. That would say to me that either both pay-out and take-up shafts are bent (in parallel that is) or that the film chamber itself in the body is skewed to the direction of the film. Especially if you aren't chewing sprocket holes out of the film on a regular basis. If that is the case, I am not really sure what you could do easily to correct the situation.
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Spend money on the glass and save on the body. A Bessa R2A with a 35mm ASPH f2 Summicron. If no money for an ASPH (I got mine for $850 mint,) then one of the previous f2 models. Then a bit further down, a Summaron 2.8 in good condition w/o fogging. Later when you save up for an M, you can use the Bessa as your second camera with a 50mm f2 Summicron.
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David Alan Harvey's work lies in the intermediary point between documentary photography and portraiture. Really sort of documentary portraiture. Much more decorative than documentary photography usually is.
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Leicashop in Vienna has one reasonably similar, albeit without the red.
<p>
<img src="http://www.leicashop.com/bilder/shop_gross/9167_2.jpg">
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I buy developer and film at Adorama, but nothing else. Too much of what they sell is in what I like to call "buyer-beware" condition - i.e. if the buyer doesn't see/realize/know the true condition/value of the item, well then Adorama got rid another one.
If the price and condition don't match, get authorization and send it back.
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My wife helped start a Super-8 film festival in Prague called Super Osma (you guessed it, Super 8 in Czech.) That festival was set up based on another event called Flicker that used to be run in Richmond VA. I am pretty sure that festival still exists. The gist of these festivals is that everyone shoots one reel of Super 8, creating an unedited linear narrative, and submits it to the festival. Then there is a showing of all the submitted films, the audience votes and the winner gets some prize. A lot of fun. You know, you shoot the stuff, but other than showing it to the dog again, what do you do with it? Well, have a festival Akira! The short story is here are some links, including the Richmond event site and a couple that list camera model specs. Remember to invite the list here if you set up a festival of your own.
http://www.kolumbus.fi/puistot/index.htm
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Daniel Iggers: Thanks man! I'll tell my wife that you say so. Not that it will matter, mind you...;-)
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You might check the Argus Collector's Group. They at least have a couple photographs of an A3. One is in their "Unique Bodied Cameras" section under "Argus Reference Photographs" and the other is under their "Modified Argus Cameras" section.
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They share a chassis with the rangefinder Bessas I believe. A cool idea if you have a lot of nifty screw mount lenses. Gives you a good meter and nice shutter behind old glass.
Bronica C Shutter Release Jammed?
in Medium Format
Posted
I recently picked up a nearly new condition Bronica C. Everything seems to work
mechanically, up to the point where I want to shoot a photograph. The shutter release
button will not depress in the unlocked position. I can press it a millimeter more than
when the button is in the locked position, but certainly nowhere near enough to fire the
shutter. As I said before, everything else seems in excellent condition - I can load and
advance film, the film counter goes to frame #1 appropriately, the double exposure knob
turns (though turning to double exposure still does not allow the shutter release to
depress,) shutter speeds can be changed (I assume this but can't test it as I cannot fire the
shutter,) the mirror seems free to move, the focus looks fine on the ground glass (i.e. the
mirror is in the down position for focusing through the lens,) the lens and helical both can
be removed straightforwardly, separately or together, no problems.
So is it a paperweight now or can it be fixed? Am I doing something blindly stupid? The
camera is exactly what I wanted for a project, so I am hoping it can be made to work
somehow.
I know about Koh's Cameras and Camera Wiz as Bronica repair geniuses, but I live in NYC
and if there is someone here that anyone can recommend, I would appreciate it.
Thanks in advance.
J Ake