eophotos

<p>How refreshing to hear such a renewed interest in film! I hope that labs will cop on and stop charging ridiculous amounts of money for developing work and stop pushing film into that very convenient 'niche'! After all, through the years, they have well had their return on investment using those old film labs, chemicals aren't that miuch more expensive, so why has it become such a luxury?</p>

<p>Peter - who says no one wants FILM any more ?</p>

<p>Ian, I think I have part of the answer. I also love film and shoot landscapes exclusively with it although I also use digital for family stuff as it's convenient. When I see that I now have to fork out 7 Euros for developing a 120 roll of Velvia, I understand this pushes people more into using digital!<br>

It's the foreverending game of offer and demand. IT's a shame though as I would have thought many labs would have got the film lab investment back after all those years and just decide to keep them on for a low price. Sadly, it isn't so.<br>

That, to me, is one of the reason why film cameras are on sale, and it's become a niche, few people are going to spend 5 quid into an object when they know it's going to cost them 7 quid to process slides.</p>

Hello Louise,

 

I've use r and k four times (type r and k scanning on google) and more recently for medium format scanning. Very good results at a reasonable price (4 quid a scan for 6x7) and the file is about 230/250 MB is size -they fit 4 scans per CD. Based in Cornwall.

Wow Gary, what a great way of increasing your forum posting statistics! lol.

Hmm.. There is no such thing as an inexpensive spot meter I'm afraid. They are very useful though but it depends on the photography you do. For landscapes I would recommend one, for inside and/or studio work it's probably not necessary and you would then go for a Sekonic 308S (quite cheap), a Polaris or else.

You should make photographs that suit your equipment and not try to think the other way around. A lot of Pulitzer prized images were made with a standard lens. Think out of the box. Get out of the beaten track and excel where others have neglected to look into!

If it is so important for your photography, have you considered looking for filter adapters that would suit a compact digital camera?

I don't understand why so many people do not want to admit that film and digital can actually complement each other... It's like seeing old pre war cars, or an old 50's candy pink Cadillac so long you can fit a more recent car in it, and the latest Audi R6. Who says that it's not fun to drive both? Ah well...

Joseph,

 

As much as possible avoid filling in your site with image files and wherever possible (for blank, padding spaces, etc..) use empty DIV or cells. This will greatly improve the download (and availability) speed of your future site!

Outdoor Photography (UK Edition).

You could use a tube. You could use one of those boxes that normally contains inkjet paper.

For Mamiya RB and RZ I found that the invesment in a Beattie Intenscreen is so worth it, I had no idea until I bought one. The original viewing screen are, in my opinion, nowhere good enough and those fantastic cameras deserve so much better, I would almost say that it lets them down!

For the sake of political correctness I think that rules should be posted first AND only then should actions be taken

to enforce those rules.

 

It's as if people used to park in the one spot start getting tickets, there are no signs indicating it's now a 'no parking'

zone but hey, someone will put it up soon ?

Wow . Jim thanks for the tip. I have an Intenscreen myself and wouldn't have known how to clean it. Cheers.

Earline,

 

If you mean business you should get out of your Miscrosoft scheme as soon as you can, it seems extremely rigid to work with, and your website suffers greatly from it. I am sorry to be harsh but the kind of message you're sending right now is not professional at all, you really need to get down to the basics, learn colour scheme, page layouts, and try to not make it look as if it was designed by a 10 year old kid on a school project - which would be fine, but it's not really what you're trying to achieve I don't think.

 

Best of luck,

Oli

I wanted to share my experience ...

 

I was pondering over purchasing a larger camera backpack as my Medium Format equipment has taken some

volume in the past couple of years, For a number of years I had a Lowepro Mini Trekker AW, an excellent bag but it

was getting a little crowded in there.

 

I purchased the Tamrac Expedition 7 - probably the largest photo backpack there is! - after considering stom and peli

cases which would have been great but not really what I needed (I needed something for the field and portable). Good

move! This bag is brilliantly built, I can fit an RB with prism finder attached, three lenses (50,90 and 250), a spot

meter Minolta Spotmeter F, all my Cokin filters, lend hoods, plenty of tubes to keep 120 rolls light tight, and there's

still plenty of space in there. So if you've got a solid back and a large MF equipment, I would definitely recommend

the Expedition 7.

Hi Oliver,

 

I own a Mamiya RB, and I think what will make it difficult to handhold it is the weight of the whole thing. Even with a neck strap, you're going to have a few aches and pains the next day!

 

I bought mine off Ebay from a good seller and was delighted (it was as new) but I couldn't give you a price, it would be in GBP anyway. In UK you can find shops selling brand new lenses (I mean, new in the box) for half price while stock lasts! See ffordes.co.uk

I'm a bit of a buff when it comes to photography books. I enjoy looking at good quality books and for some of them

it's as if had your own limited edition photographs! I'm thinking for example of Michael Kenna's wonderful books

whose brilliant pages almost are as good as his limited editions photographs sold for hundreds of bucks.<br><br>

 

Books are informative and instructive (not all, but some), they can even be fun to read, but without exception they

always amaze by the quality of the photography inside.<br><br>

 

So what are your favourite photography books? And what are the books you wouldn't recommend?<br><br>

 

I made a little list of mine. Perhaps you wouldn't mind adding yours to give us an incentive to buy into other

photography styles?<br>

 

<ul>

<li>Charlie Waite - The Story of 50 favourite photographs</li>

<li>Joe Cornish - First Light</li>

<li>Michael Kenna - Hokkaido and Mt Saint Michel</li>

<li>Peter Watson - Light in the landscape</li>

<li>William Neill - Landscapes of the Spirits</li>

<li>Josef Hoflehner - Iceland</li>

</ul>

 

Thanks for sharing!

Writing down details at the time of shooting may slow you down but may also teach you a lot about how to improve on your photography. Once you've got yourself around doing this, it's then much easier to add details to the photography you upload.

 

Having said this, so many contributors to photo.net compress their JPG files to the extreme (fear of theft?) that it is often difficult to judge on a good depth of field or good sharpness.

If you can't afford to splash out on renting a professional DSLR for the day (buying one would cost you a good bit of money - you'd need to be quite serious about your hobby!) then go off and buy some film if you already own a film camera. Less dynamic range yes, but quite franckly, a decade ago they did the job in most situation (and you can always compensate with fill in flash to get those shadows out!), so why wouldn't they now?

Hello Ruth!

 

Do not be scared uploading your photographs. You will improve greatly by receiving constructive criticism on your images, and also by being able to to exercise your eye and judgement on other people's work. And remember, photography is all about fun! What is one's liking might be one's dislike - at the end, it's how your heart sees a photograph (what it means to you) that really matter.

 

Good luck!

Still sticking with film!

 

The process behind a purely mechanical camera forces you to slow down, you can't just shoot hundred of images

and then spends hours looking at those shots to 'figure out' what's to throw and what's to 'tweak' to make it look

decent. OK, there are disappoitment, but for my favourite subject (landscapes!) there's still a lot to go for Velvia and

medium format. For other stuff though (portrait, 'casual' photography,...) digital is great so long as you don't get too

excited (and I mean, really too excited) with the shutter.

James,

 

Thanks for the advice. I just bought this book online and will let you know what I think of it! I had one book called 'Creative Exposure Photography' I believe and it was quite good. I shoot film mostly with a Mamiya and it's a little daunting to not use the meter properly at all time - in effect, it makes you a little 'blind'. Will see... Thanks!

Thanks Edward. Precisely what I would have liked to avoid but I guess there is no way around. I understand the zone system, it's the way it i explained that can sometime be a little daunting. Thanks for your input.