podstawek

September 27, 2009

Dear all, As much as I have realized that photo.net is a very good source of knowledge and experience, I would have never expected such rich and helpful response. Thank you all so much! I made a quick summary of your recommendations: TLRs Yashicamat 124 / 124 G -- I understand there is a problem with the discontinued battery, but I can use an external meter Mamiya C33 / C330 f/s -- I understand there is not much difference between these apart from weight and small design differences Rolleiflex, preferably newer models with 2.8 lens Rolleicord Vigtlander Bessa III 667 -- unfortunately too expensive Minolta Autocord SLRs Bronica SQ Mamiya RB67 (but that's 6x7 as I understand...) Hasselblad, maybe something could be found below $ 800 (with an 80 mm Zeiss lens), but this is still a bit more than I wanted to spend initially -- will have to rethink this Kiev 88 (modified) Rolleiflex SL66 -- looks very nice, but aren't the prices more or less the same as for Hasselblad?

I have some questions to the responders, too. Please excuse my ignorance, I may be asking for very simple or obvious things, but I'm really new to medium format, and many things just don't seem to be as obvious as they have been to me in 35 mm film photography:

Mike, you are saying that Yashicas do not focus close enough for tight portraits. Or is it about all TLRs? Can the problem be solved by using a longer "portrait" lens, e.g. 135mm? Would I be able to fill the frame better then? Bruce, why did you discontinue using your Yashicas and Mamiyas? Was there anything about them you particuarly did not like? Frank, what is a Maxwell screen and why should it be put in by Harry Fleenor? Scott, thanks for listing so many TLR names that I have never even heard of! Unfortunately many of them don't even show up on eBay, and I think I will have to use eBay, because otherwise it is often hard to get something shipped to my country... also, the prices on eBay seem to be 10x your "$20 in decent condition". Where does such discrepancy come from? Michael, Stephen, where did you find these prices for Hasselblad gear (Michael: body + lens, Stephen: body + 2 lenses)? As I said, I'm stuck with eBay, but if the sources you are quoting ship to Poland, I'd be happy to go there... Tim, you are saying that the meter in your Yashica MAT124g s dead, but was it useful in the first place when it was still alive? Was it precise enough? John Wiegerink, your answer pretty much summarizes everything I'm feeling now: I think I will either go for C33 / C330 or for Hasselblad if I can find it in a reasonable price (which I haven't so far). Thanks for the detailed answer! Mr Burke, thank you so much for your very technical and in-depth response. I think I may summarize it as follows: as long as the lens is of _reasonable_ quality, I should go for it and not worry about much more expensive, higher-resolution lenses, as there will be no visible difference even with the negative enlarged to the extremes. John Crowe, I just can't afford keeping both the 5D system and an MF. Luckily, I am not a pro, and don't make my living on photography, so whatever I'm doing, is just for my self-fulfillment... Therefore, I will be happy to take much fewer pictures than I have with my 5D, but take much more care when taking each inpidual photograph. I still need to buy a simple point-and-shoot, though, because it's needed for a quick pic here and there.

All in all, I think I'm going for either Mamiya C33/330, or a Hasselblad if I can find it in the prices you quoted. But the latter decision would still need a lot of thinking, as other lenses and accessories are also quite expensive...

Once again, thank you all very much for your help!

September 26, 2009

Good afternoon (my time!),

I have been photographing for years now. I have lots of experience in 35 mm film photography, and recently in digital full frame. However, recently I find square format very appealing, and often end up cropping rectangles to squares in post processing. After a lot of thinking, I decided to switch from my current 5D to an analog 6x6 system.

Bearing in mind that I:

a) cannot afford a Hasselblad;

b) want higher quality and more features than a Holga can provide;

c) shoot mostly people posing, portraits, and streets with or without people...

...what 6x6 camera would you recommend? I have _almost_ decided on a Yashica D or a similar TLR system, but would love to know your opinions on this or any other 6x6 system, including SLRs. One of the very important factors in my bias towards an old TLR is that it draws attention. I have managed to get into many conversations regarding my current 35 mm Yashica GSN, which often ended in an interesting posed photo. A TLR would attract, I think, even more attention from passers-by, which is a good thing.

But much (really much) depends on your opinions, both regarding the choice of TLR / SLR, as well as individual models. I am completely new to medium format photography, so I would love to hear also any other advice, opinions, warnings, or absolutely anything that you think may be relevant in my current position.

Thank you!

September 18, 2009

Pro is someone I am lucky not to be, and I hope I will never be.

July 30, 2009

I would love my Canon to constantly display "Think if it is really worth taking this picture." message on the screen.

July 18, 2009

I don't do anything. I do not manage any information regarding my pics. Maybe this is wrong, I don't know, but I have a complete mess in my computer, too, with pictures laying everywhere and very outdated backup. Films, too, are just in one big box. Somehow I don't feel any need to sort this all out; I always have something more enjoyable to do...

But don't follow my advice please.

July 18, 2009

It's worth knowing that apart from stitching multiple photos into panoramas, Hugin does a good job correcting perspective distortions of single photos.

July 17, 2009

Hi again,

Remember, before playing with Lightroom: if you have larger version of the images than the above, and preferably RAW, use those. You can't beat RAW as far as adjustment options go.

Also, you're saying that there are over a hundred of them. For similar adjustments to all of them, you can use copy and paste feature of Lightroom. After editing the first one to your liking, press Ctrl+C (or Cmd+C) and select all options apart from local adjustments, etc. Then Ctrl+V (Cmd+V) into other images.

July 17, 2009

Greg,

These adjustments were performed in Lightroom. I did the following in this order:

- increased overall exposure, after which the photo looked even more washed-out, but it was needed, as the original image was underexposed;

- moved the "darks" slider half way to the left to deepen the shadows, but carefully enough not to lose too much detail in dark areas;

- added a software graduated filter from the upper left corner, and going diagonally to the right and down; in the filter parameters I decreased some exposure this time, increased the contrast, and increased the clarity (clarity works similar to contrast, but more locally on the verges of objects -- good for removing any fogginess, but must be used sparsely, as overused causes ugly effects);

- using a brush, still boosted some contrast and darkened places which seemed too fogged (I missed some whitish clouds under the roof though :);

- increased the blacks using "Blacks" slider; this slider should be used with care, and I generally don't like the effect it causes, but is a good last-resort rescue in case of fogged images; always take care not to lose details in the shadows when using it;

- increased sharpness locally on the faces and water using another brush (I overdid it, and caused artifacts to appear near the girl's face -- this was too hasty).

By the way, I like the picture in the first place. A lot is happening there!

July 17, 2009

Oh, just increase the contrast a little (both locally where the fogging has occurred, and globally), add some clarity, add some blacks, increase exposure (this photo is underexposed apart from being fogged), add some local sharpness and there you go.

Attached is my modification (yes, it is overdone -- but that's to show what can be done).<div></div>

July 16, 2009

Kevin, shoot something of detail that is 30 cm from the lens, with f=8 and a tripod. This will give you some idea about the sharpness of this lens.

July 15, 2009

Braden,

You don't need a film camera, or vintage camera, to take black-and-white pictures. You can process digital images to B&W, and have many more options then you would have in film camera. Tonality, contrast, sharpness adjustments are just easier, and you can work on the effects straight from the device, without the time-consuming development process. There is even software that lets you imitate various film types, including their grain!

However, if you still want to do film photography just for the sake of it, that's a different story. Before your question can be answered, you need to decide on the size of prints you wish to publish. The bigger prints you want to have, the bigger film format.

The choice of cameras in the small 35 mm format is huge, and you can get some very good cameras now for very reasonable prices. 35 mm will allow you to print to A4 and even A3 size with reasonable quality. The good thing is that many of these cameras, especially rangefinders, are light, easy to use, and you can carry them everywhere with you. You have 36 shots per film, and that's quite enough. Also, there are many films to choose from, various speeds, grains, tonality.

The bigger medium-format cameras are more bulky to carry, and more expensive, but are a joy to use, and usually have huge viewfinders which help get the composition right. The choice here is not as rich as in small-format cameras, but you can still find many offers on auction sites.

With regard to large-format cameras, others will help. But still, you should be more specific in what you want to photograph to get more focused help. There are many faces to art, you know :)

July 15, 2009

Plus a note I forgot to add: the wood and wall textures are blended with the stack below using the overlay mode.

July 15, 2009

Hi all,

Several people asked me how I had arrived at <a href="../photo/9476338&size=lg">this image</a>, so I thought I'd share the technique, even though it is nothing really innovative.

It is important to plan everything ahead with certain concept already in your mind, and also to have a good image to start with. This picture was taken soon after it had stopped raining, when surfaces are clear, sprinkled with isolated drops of water, and contrasty. I took it with Canon 5D Mark I, a very cheap M42 lens, 135 mm, here at aperture f=3.5. The shallow depth of field isolates the flower and the still fairly sharp droplets.

With the wand tool, I selected the parts of the plant that I wanted to stand out in the picture. I applied some smoothing and feathering to the wand selection (Alt+Command+R). The selection was copied, and then pasted into a new layer. I then made a copy of the background layer and applied some Gaussian chaos to it; this gave me even more blurred background without affecting the fragment we copied and pasted here. I further isolated the flower itself (without the leaf), and again changed sharpness level between the layers (this can be seen in the final stack of layers below).

After having taken the picture of the flower, I went a few steps away from Cork's Fitzgerald Park to a nearby street where, on the backs of B&Bs there are many interesting walls, surfaces and textures. I photographed this blue-tinted wooden door. I overlaid the image of the door on the stack I had had so far (i.e. background, blurred background copy, and the flower). Then I made a few "holes" in the wood texture by making it transparent with erasers of different shape, size and softness. The sharp protrusion we can see in the transparent part on the left was important, as it allowed me to "entangle" the leaf over one of the gaps between wooden planks.

I also took another texture there. This time it was just some rough and stained wall. I overlaid this on the top of the stack, and poked some holes again.

For some local contrast, sharpness and warmth boost, I also needed a fragment of the wet leaf, so I copied it from the already-copied flower, and pasted again.

All was there to left was to change the contrast and tonality between various layers, and to add some warmth locally to the leaf (the top layer).

Here are the input and output images:

I hope this was of some help to all who asked. I am sure there are simpler or more efficient ways for at least some steps here. Please feel free to ask questions or comment.

Best,

Adam

July 13, 2009

Paul,

This is not a new idea at all. I think you might be interested in the works of Jorge Louis Borges. "The Library of Babel" would be the recommended first reading.

Have fun!

Adam

July 8, 2009

I just tweak them to my heart's content just as I do with the digital (would you know from my gallery which ones were film pictures?).

I think it's about whether in photography you are looking for photos or for challenge. There's nothing wrong about challenges: trying to come up with the most beautiful picture with minimum processing is good for developing shooting techniques. But I'd call it more a challenge than anything else; it's like with athletics -- you don't swim 50 m as fast as you can because you have something urgent to do on the other side of the pool, you swim to show that you can.

But if you have a final concept in mind, then any means is allowed, be it digital, chemical, or any imaginable photoshopping.

July 8, 2009

Karthick,

Certain ethical standards are universally accepted, but in the end all boils down to individual cases, and to relations between people.

Do you feel in any way wrong when photographing people as you do? If yes, then stop doing this.

I believe that you do not do any harm to people you photograph. I also would not mind if you photographed me, unless I was doing something I would be ashamed of, or unless I was expressing a strong and uncontrolled emotion. I don't think any of the people in your photographs are in such situation.

So, if I was on any side of the camera -- the photographer or the subject -- I would say: continue shooting. However, bear in mind that some people are sensitive to being photographed, and some would mind finding themselves in publicly available imagery. There may be various reasons to that, including personal, cultural, religious. They may be wrong, may be oversensitive, may sound stupid to you, but you should respect their view.

Therefore, I prefer situations when my subjects know they are being photographed. They have a chance to react then. If they give me the slightest hint, even with their face expression, that they do not feel comfortable, I don't take the picture or don't use the picture I've taken. I would probably not even like that picture anyway.

This is a delicate subject and there is no general answer to your question. There is nothing ethical or non-ethical about taking pictures of strangers; ethics is about relations between individual people.

In practice, I would do these: shoot with a shorter lens and make people aware that you are shooting. Where possible, simply ask them if you can take the picture. This is more difficult, and requires you to be braver, but you can be sure that you will be more satisfied. Regardless of whether they agree or not to you taking pictures. Also, suddenly you will realize that in the new relations you have established, even if momentary, taking a picture has become only a side-effect of something much more important.

July 7, 2009

I think you can check yourself if you need the stronger filter:

- Measure the sky with spot and set exposure such that the sky is almost to the very right of the histogram (mind you that the sun itself may be blown out beyond the histogram, but... isn't that what we want?).

- Then, with that exposure set, check with spot where the dark areas fall; if the ones that you want to have reproduced in the image fall beyond the left verge of the histogram, you need to darken the sky even more.

(Please note that when you move spot, the filter moves with it -- take it into consideration; an idea to solve this is to take a couple of sample shots with the filter on and judge by the histogram itself, not by spot reading.)

July 7, 2009

Hi Cathy,

You probably set your camera to "sRGB" (supported by Canon 5D), and not "RGB". And sRGB is a different color space from Adobe RGB. Hence the warning, I guess.

July 6, 2009

Did you switch the burst photo mode (the icon with multiple photos stacked) on? It's in the manual.

Manual mode and ISO settings have little to do with continuous shooting.

July 6, 2009

If you did not switch autobracketing on by mistake, then I guess the cause may be stray direct or reflected rays of light, either from the sun (first sample), or from the string lights on the post on the right (second sample). It might have got to your lens even after slight reframing. A ray of light straight into the lens, even if very faint, can make a lot of difference to light metering. Do you use a sun shade?

July 4, 2009

Anna,

This image does look HDR-ed. It has all HDR features: crisp contrast between strongest lights and strongest shadows (without HDR, your sun would be an unclear area of brightness somewhere in the bush), pristine detail in dark areas (without HDR, we wouldn't have seen the flowers in the shadow), rays of light clearly cut as in impressionists' paintings, and oversaturated colors (they, too, are there in the picture).

Even though I don't like HDR as an effect added to salvage otherwise hopeless pictures, here I find the use justified, and I must even say I like this picture as it is now... if you care about my opinion. One problem I see with the image is that the bush with white flowers on the right moved somewhere between your exposures. Next time tell the bush to stand still!

July 3, 2009

I don't think of ideals more than I think of aesthetic aspects of a picture, like the rule of thirds or golden ratio. If I use them, I usually do so subconsciously, and probably revert to only the most generally recognized ones, like a frog's perspective, rusted surface, a missing finger. There are hundreds, but they are never pivotal to images; images centered around an iconic subject only for the reason of it being iconic don't seem to be usable for anything other than practical purposes today.

Ideals, icons, and symbols have been used, re-used and, most importantly, re-interpreted in the modern art. There were so many people, animals and things hanged on the cross that using it anywhere in an image may mean any of religious/ridiculous/abusive/boring; whiteness has been used not only for "the good", but also for the opposite; the same with blackness. A tiger is no longer scary, we are used to being cheated with perspective tricks, and a nude does no longer attract popular attention unless it depicts the most private parts ruthlessly exposed.

This is neither right or wrong, but that's a fact. Trying to come up with less popular ideals or icons, obviously heavily depending on the level of erudition of the receiver, might be entertaining to some; not to me. In photography, I'm trying to capture a snapshot of my volatile stream of consciousness, and that's what I find entertaining. My gut feeling, the play of light, the structure of lines, the momentary posture. Ideals are only aesthetic devices here; might use them, might not; might not know I use them, and only find them later... a photograph is composed of so many elements, and that's so great about photography.

June 29, 2009

Charles,

Shoot in RAW, crop in RAW-processing software (as many times as you need), and only after the final crop and after all processing export as JPEG.

The quality loss that you are seeing is probably related to multiple JPEG re-encodings.

June 24, 2009

What do you mean by photographic credentials?

June 20, 2009

Bueh B., oops again :). You probably meant my mentioning of Pentacon. Of that, I knew it was Eastern Germany, of course. I just mixed it up in my original post -- hasty writing, you know. Sorry for the confusion.

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