andrew_brown3

Hi,

Grey Owl; Slough's finest export. A man who lived his dream and all kudos to him. To imagine he knew the ancient technique for standing up in a canoe as well as everything else is brilliant. Perhaps he went out on the boating lake at Ally Pally to practise before emigrating to the wild and woolly Canadian outback.

Andy.

Hi,

My Mum kept a matchbox of screws labelled 'small screws',it was full, naturally, of tiny screws. Beside that box in the tool cupboard my parents used to have was another matchbox, labelled 'even smaller screws'.

Andy.

Hi all,

An interesting post. I don't want this to be taken wrongly!, but digital imaging has nothing to do with photography. There's no sense of wonder taking images with a thing that looks like a silver box of matches and that you hold at arm's length to be able to see the image on the back of it. Weird. The chips in the silver box are already obsolete when you buy it, and who will ever buy, say, a seven year old second-hand digital camera??

Of course I'm biased; but I have always bought second hand stuff, and my Nikon F's are 40 years old!! There must be a Crusade away from digital to film; to a future where manufacturers once again crowd the market place with films of all sorts and sizes and digital imaging systems are consigned to the same deep pit as that other symbol of failed technological wizardry- nuclear power.

When you can pick your nose with one hand and put an image on your phone using the other one, it is surely time for us to realise that technology has gone too far down the stupid road and that we must reverse and take the other route; down the magic road of the latent image; down the road of wonder and amazement.

I'll get me coat......

Andy.

Hi,

Pointy headed??! Love it.

Stick it in e-bay or I'll take it off you for a dollar 75 if you don't want the hassle. My address is 17 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam, England, which coincidentally is the same address as the late great Tony Hancock, wonderful comedian and tragic human being.

Andy.

What's really goofy is buying a 'camera' that has pixels that can get hot.The British were conned into the Common Market and the World was conned into 'digital cameras'. Independent nations and film cameras will come back. I hope.

London, England (not any of the ones anywhere else),but shortly to be moving to the middle of France where I will start ,hopefully, to rebuild the old house we bought.

Nikon F, 50/1.4, Delta 100. Or,if I can find it FP4.

 

Andy.

Hi Ben,

When you look at the blow-up of the wheel, all of the spokes exhibit motion blur! apart from some just below the Derailleur. I know nothing about vertical shutters, so a question is in order. Do they open from top to bottom, or bottom to top? Do they start in the middle and work outwards. I am generally wrong about most things I waffle on about, but in this image at some point the spokes move across the slit, regardless of it moving horizontally or vertically! and show their motion as a blur. What would the effect of a Compur shutter be?

 

As you said above, the implication here of a horizontal shutter--

<<<<The camera was panned along with the bicycle, but it was panned at a slightly slower speed than the bicycle was actually moving. Therefore, the region of spokes a few inches below the wheel axis match the panning speed of the camera, and are rendered sharp. Below this region, the spokes are traveling backward relative to the camera, and are therefore motion-blurred. Above this region, the spokes are traveling forward relative to the camera, and are therefore also motion-blurred. The reason that the upper area is more blurred than the lower area is that the relative motion between camera and spokes in the upper area is more than twice as much as the lower area.>>>>

 

As you also said above, a vertical running shutter would create blur to the edges of the wheels!!

 

very interesting.

Andy.

In fact, to add to my earlier response , the image is captured upside-down, and the shutter slit (in this camera) moves from right to left, or possibly left to right, but more likely right to left and so anything moving relative to the camera, and photographer, will only exhibit a generalised blur from camera shake,which is why the kneecap seems sharp, but there will be movement in the wheels as they are not moving forward at the same rate as the cycle and rider and photographer and camera. The slit, as it traverses the film gate, catches the rider's knee at the same relative speed, as both the camera and the knee are moving together. However the spokes are moving independently of the camera and knee and they are captured by the slit for differing amounts of time. Some below the axle seem sharp because they are moving against the flow of the slit, and as the slit traverses their position they hardly move and therefore seem sharp, whereas the spokes above the axle are moving with the direction of the shutter slit and exhibit a sense of motion as both the slit and the spoke momentarily travel together for fractions of time and movement. As the shutter slit and spokes are not moving at the same speed all along the length of the spoke, the top parts of the spokes exhibit this characteristic of a focal plane shutter- 'blurring' which creates a sense of movement. It's not 'blurring' really, but a multiplicity of moments of underexposure overlapping on the film.

Andy.

Hi,

Lartigue's pic of the racing car gives the answer. The focal plane shutter ( of this camera) travels across the film gate parallel with the bike. Below the axle the spokes are moving backwards relative to the shutter and are captured sharp; above the axle the spokes are moving with the shutter and are therefore captured for longer on the film.

Andy.

Hi,

Interesting groups of pics. I think if you are determined enough you will sell your pics. Try the Navy paper and then seek permission to do 'themes' on the ship- a day in the life, or life in the day type groupings of some of the different trades going about their daily routines. Good Luck.

Andy.

Not a camera at all, but a Stanley compass plane I saw a guy put down in a walk-in dumpster. I picked it up and he said to me as he walked out "It don't work, you're welcome to it"

The throat was full of thick shavings and was blocked!! 200+ dollars to buy one today.

Nikon F FTn + 50/1.4 + like new brown leather case 180 dollars from a camera fair was the best value I found, but I'm pretty silly with money. Dear me, but I do like the Nikon F. I've got 3 now.

Andy.

Hi,

You already have the second best camera body ever made in the F2, the F being the best of course!, so I would suggest a Nikon 50/1.4 and a decent scanner. From my limited understanding of digital imaging technology the chips get dust on them and become obsolete fairly quickly, as well as needing batteries to function, whereas the F2 and F and other basic film cameras will still work 100 years from now, as long as there is film to put in them, of course.

Old film lover growling from the bushes.

Andy.

The OM3 I bought new developed a fault in the metering within a month or so and I took it back to the shop (in England) where the Manager swapped the camera bases, giving me a new body with my month old base on it!! Then a year later it got stolen. I hope it got sold on to a photographer who really used it and cherished it. I read somewhere they were hand-built, but that may just be a story. As for the Contax S2,(ref to the S2b above) a spot metering only thing I had high hopes for- absolute rubbish; it looked the part, yes, but badly built and un servicable when it needed looking at after a trip to Monument Valley. The advertising was the best thing about it.

Andy.

Hi DB,

Glad you made it out of the plane, my man, and you post an interesting question. Maybe for AA all that stopping and setting up business was quickfire. When I stand on the roof of the car I have to bang the dents out when I get home. To be honest I think he's seriously overrated. They're just found images like all of us could have a go at; but now, O. Winston Link is another ballgame altogether! And there are 100's more too.

Andy.

Hi,

Ilford went under due to non-film/photographic supplies issues (afaik) and the film side was bought up by the Management who deserve all our support. From the press release they are on the road and all power to them. I've used FP4 for the last 35 years!

I haven't yet worked out why anyone would want a digital camera, as they don't take photographs; they merely generate a digital impression on a thing like a solar panel, and pray tell, where's the soul in that??

Andy.

F. No contest

 

andy.

I only use film -- Delta 100 or FP4. Fiddling about with pixels is just for technicians sending out speeding tickets.

Andy.

That A Addams- they were sure a big famly, I always wondered what he used for that 'Moonrise in the Dessert' shot. The Meteor. A truue Klassic. Well discovered and it should sell well on E-Bay, mebbe 2 or 3 times if you're lucky. The daisies and the gaps between the clouds look the same and I can't never see the World the same way again. Heck, I'm goin to change my name to the photographer one- Edsel Adams and see if I can find me one of thosse Meteors.

Andy.

Hi,

I'm 60 and my Mum and Dad must have got me a Brownie of some sort in about 1955! What great pictures that took. You'd look down into that little curvy image finder and when you thought everything was just so, you'd push down the shutter release.... cloonk....!! My Mum used a little Agfa 35mm ( Sillete?) for about 35 years and still takes pictures with an Olympus Mju.Colour pics only. She's 84 and still feels the magic of image making. And she has pics from her childhood that she took!

I use Nikon Fs now,picked up really cheap, but so solid they'll outlast me and I just run outdated B+W film through them and process it at home. i have a ?20 Digital camera for stuff I want to put in the computer for reference: buildings, signage etc.

What a wonderful post from Alex.. Thanks very much....

Andy.

1950's Brownie when I was 9 or 10 I guess. The magic of an image still remains with me! Sad I know. Each 10 years or so I'd have a clearout and start again Canon F1, OM1, OM2, OM3 (stolen by some lowlife),Minolta SRT101b, Leica M2,111a,111c, Contax S2 (spot metering),various 2 1/4 twin lens reflexes. 50 years on, I'm settling down with 3 cheap Nikon F FTns.All with meter heads that don't work! Yesterday I processed 13 films and, surprise, surprise, they all came out. I still get that weird feeling of the magic when I peel a film off the spool and I can see there's something on it! That's why I pray that Ilford or someone will continue to make B+W film for years to come.

 

Photography-drawing with light.

Digital Imaging- errrr, something electronic?

 

Andy.

Hi,

Michael Liu's site shows later Fs with the plastic tipped winder, so maybe that was the one it came with. They are such great cameras though, whatever condition they appear in.

Andy.

Hi,

Nikon F

Canonflex RM, which has a selenium meter attached

Canon F1

There's too many SLRs to write down!!

and then the rangefinders...

....but of them all I like the Nikon F; titanium shutter; solid steel? body; bits you can take off and put back on again and the feeling this is a totally over-engineered precision machine that still works as good as day one almost 50 years ago. I had Leicas as well and they exude the same sense of quality but with smaller knobs.

I'm sure each of us has his/her favourites and that's exactly how it should be!

 

Andy.

Hi,

I bought 3 chrome F FTns over the last 18 months and one has a black finder. None of the finders work as meters, although they seemed as if they might when I first got them! But I use a little Gossen Oyster meter which has no batteries either so it makes no difference really. I don't think the expense of getting the meter fixed is worthwhile as the little Gossens only cost a few Pounds at Camera Fairs and will last as long as the cameras- another 40 years or so!!

Andy.

Hi again-check out the for sale section!! $75

 

Andy.