movingfinger

Nikon F, 50mm Nikkor, Nov 1977

Here's a guy who makes his own lenses for an old 4x5, who cuts out the fixed aperture, and then who sets out on a bicycle for some travel photography. The entire video is long, and it is short on details of his photographic constructions. It is just over an hour and the majority is the bicycle trip from San Francisco to Tucson AZ, with stops for photographs. That said, in the opening segment you can see his camera gear and his lens construction and at about 59minutes you can see his darkroom processing and some final prints from the trip. The final prints are very good! I personally like the video because it combines two things I very much enjoy, good photography and bicycle tourism. In any case here is the link for the video: Ride Slow, Take Photos.

This article on cameras from the Soviet Union is long and I'm not a collector. I only read a little bit of it, but it looks quite interesting so I thought I'd make folks aware of it. It has great photos of some old unique cameras and lots of descriptive text. Check out the full article here: Article.

One of the Jazz greats, believe I have everything he did on vinyl. Not into tats, but a fine memorial.

I'm jealous. I always look for Miles' albums (the pre-1970 stuff) in used record stores and if they're in decent condition they ain't cheap.

Something new under the sun, for me at least. A reputable photographer is suing a celebrity tattoo artist - both in LA - for creating a tattoo out of one of his photographs of musician Miles Davis. Here is the story: LINK

Dodge-Chrome, Silver Spring MD: LINK

I'm looking to digitize 14 medium format negatives. I have been using VueScan myself with a Coolscan IV to digitize every 35mm, 110, Instamatic negative and slide I can get my hands on. Unfortunately the Coolscan IV is too small for medium-format and the results with my flatbed scanner are absolutely inadequate.

I've got the SuperCoolscan 9000 which supports MF and I run it with VueScan. If you're still looking and willing to risk sending me the negs I'm happy to scan them for you and return the tiff scan files. You can find my contact info from my photo.net profile.

 

Here is one of my most recent MF (645) scans (and subsequent LR processing). It was shot, developed and scanned last month (January 2021) on Kodak Pro100 color neg film. Note that the film had a use-by date of Feb 2000 so it was 20 years out of date, and I haven't kept it refrigerated over those years.

 

My first 'build' was with the Intel 486 processor--and a parts company called Egghead.

 

I did something similar back in 2005, with an Intel 530J (Pentium) processor. I got everything from Egghead too. It was fun and rather easy and in the end good to say I put it all together myself. Also it was nice that it had just the features I wanted. Well actually I'd have loved for more features but price is always a constraint whether buying parts and assembling or getting a prebuilt product. I made upgrades over the years but by 2014 I was ready for a completely new model given all the operating system, processor, motherboard, graphics and memory improvements over that period. So in 2014 I got a prebuilt system. Now in 2021 I am again feeling like it might be time for another 'upgrade'. Simple LR edits on photos from a 40+ megapixel camera can take minutes now when I've got other things running as well (like Sandy's Lotus123 comment above).

Had to run over to the hospital and get "The Shot".

Oh I thought maybe you were heading there with your camera, intent on capturing some extra-special photograph. ;)

 

I don't know where you are at but I'm more likely in the short term to get a "shot" with my camera than in my arm.

Mamiya 645 ProTL with Mamiya 50mm f4 Shift lens. Taken Jan 16, 2021 on Kodak Pro100 film that expired Feb 2000 (20 years ago).

Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Wash DC

Nikon Z7 with Nikkor 24-70 f2.8

Oaxaca Mexico

Madrid, Spain

So much of what I learned as a youngster in the late 1950's early 1960's was from cartoons on TV. While being entertained and laughing I also learned about science, literature, history, art, etc. One very valuable series in that learning regard was The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Each half-hour show had a segment "Mr Know-it-All" with Bullwinkle as the know-it-all and Rocky as the questioner/student. One episode that I've never forgotten had Bullwinkle address the question of what does it take to be an artist. Bullwinkle's short answer was "You gotta suffer!" To this day I can still see that skit in my minds eye as Bullwinkle demonstrated suffering through various slapstick humiliations all based on real artist sufferings. I learned some useful art history. I can still hear their characteristic voices exclaiming at the end "You gotta suffer". I still can't help but laugh, but also I have a hard time calling my photography 'art' because I didn't suffer. :(

I was intrigued when this thread from 2010 was resurrected a few weeks back but now I must admit that I am lost in the current (third week of 2021) discussion and back-and-forth, which admittedly I have only skimmed. But seeing mention of critics and wordiness in the "photography-is-not-art" thread, I can't resist pointing out an essay that I recently came across and read by the Norwegian writer Karl O. Knausgaard. If you know of Knausgaard and his works you know he is nothing if not wordy, but he is also thoughtful, precise, and intelligent. His words (all translated from Norwegian by others) are usually worth reading and thinking about. Anyway this essay, titled (appropriately, maybe self-referential) Inexhaustible Precision is about art, what makes 'art', and with a particular emphasis on photography. The second half of the essay is a lengthy discussion of the works of photographer Sally Mann (one of my photographic heroes). The link to the entire essay is below.

 

Here to whet your appetite to read more, or perhaps save you the trouble of clicking on the link, are the essay's opening sentences. These sentences at least fit well into this thread and current discussion.

[1] Karl O. Knausgaard, Inexhaustible Precision, appearing in In the Land of the Cyclops by Karl O. Knausgaard

 

You can find the essay here: Inexhaustible Precision

I’d love to capture the Milky Way

 

I know absolutely nothing about astro-photography so the two astro-photos I got in 2020 (comet Neowise and Milky Way w/shooting star) were pure serendipity. Some light in an otherwise dark year?

 

For Neowise: Where I live, midway between WashDC and Baltimore, light pollution is rampant. On a whim, on the last day it was said to be visible in the evening sky, I drove a few miles west to some farm country but still polluted. I scanned to the northwest (happily away from DC and Balt) an extended 'fist' above the horizon (where it was said to be) with a 200mm lens on tripod mounted camera. After much frustration, son-of-a-gun, there it was! I zoomed to 400mm, still managed to find it, and clicked away at various shutter speeds, ISOs and fstops.

 

For Milky Way: There's an org called the International Dark-Sky Association and they list Cherry Springs State Park in northcentral PA as one of the best (as in free of light pollution) places in the eastern US. I stopped by there but being so popular and recognized for astro-photography there are rules and restrictions that given my rank amateur status I didn't care for so I went to Lyman Runs State Park, less than 10 miles away, instead (how much worse can light pollution be just 10 miles away). Fortunately one of my nights there the sky was clear, the weather great (late Oct), and I couldn't sleep. So at 1AM I went outside my camper trailer, in my PJs, pointed the camera straight up and shot away using guidance I'd gotten from a friend who is into astro-photography (the big thing being a 30sec exposure recommendation, long enough to get light, short enough so star motion is barely visible). The shooting star was absolutely magical in real life, in the photograph I'm disappointed.

let me know what you think of the selection

I could not manage to enlarge your entries so it's difficult to judge or comment on the compositions from the tiny thumbnails in the link. But they did look interesting and creative so I gave you a 'like' ;)

Wow, this is my kind of photography! Danke schoen, JDMvW and machts gut. (read 'oe' as o with an umlaut ;)).

Non-wildlife-photography was almost nil in 2020 - there was no traveling for fun and no desire or motivation for any type of street or documentary photography.

 

Well I'm sorry to hear this. I hope your motivation and the ability to get around returns in 2021. I have a camper trailer, I love being out on the open road, I live with easy access to two big cities (WashDC and Baltimore) and I love street and environmental portrait photography, and yes, I felt the suggested restrictions were somewhat overblown. Also I'm becoming more and more 'retired' with no work requirements. So thus I was unable to keep myself from being too sequestered. I was up and about with my camera at least to some extent.

 

Again, may 2021 be better for you Dieter and for all of us who enjoy taking photographs (and everyone else for that matter :)).