Flutterby™! : More large format musings 2009-09-30 16:53:06.845722+00

More large format musings

2009-09-30 16:53:06.845722+00 by Dan Lyke 5 comments

Continuing the large format photography musings inspired by CJ, here's a photo.net thread on building your own electrolytic silver recovery system.

Also, last night I got offered a stat camera. It's been a while, I don't remember if such things typically had aperture control, but that'd be a lens with a shutter and 20-some-odd inch coverage... And a bellows...

Ah, silver recovery! I spent more than two decades producing training materials for the Radiological Society of North America, and companies selling silver recovery systems were well represented at their annual trade show. Even our small photo lab made some cash by saving all scrap film and old fixer in a drum. Every few months some guy would come by and swap out the drum and pay us.

The big crises that hit the radiology biz was the Silver Bubble of '79, when silver hit $54 per oz. At that point digital images were starting to look like a real possibility, although even in the early 90s files of 256 megabytes looked enormous. When you realize that x-ray film has a silver based emulsion on both sides, the expesne problem alone drove them into the arms of the digital world.

#Comment Re: Tilt/Shift made: 2009-10-01 17:53:09.266692+00 by: jeff [edit history]

#Comment Re: made: 2009-10-06 10:11:06.129719+00 by: jeff [edit history]

It looks like they rent the original version of this lens, but not the second generation one. Still, that's a decent price even for the original copy. It would be interesting to see what they charge when they stock the newer version.

I think that renting is a good idea if you're going to spend over $2K for a lens. For one, you may not use the lens enough to justify the full purchase price. And if you are interested in buying, renting would give you an opportunity to use it before making a capital decision.

I'd like to see some "rent-to-own" deals, where you could rent a lens for a week, and then most of your rent money would go towards the cost of the lens. With so many QA issues these days with lenses, you really do want to ensure that you get a good copy. For any expensive lens, I'd pay a slight premium to ensure that my copy was a very good one.

#Comment Re: Canon 1Ds made: 2009-10-06 10:26:37.353659+00 by: jeff [edit history]

On a related topic, I very recently purchased a used Canon 1Ds Mk1 11mp professional DSLR (it arrived yesterday). I evaluated and decided to buy it for a number of reasons.

REASONS FOR: Pro build quality, Pro weather sealing, Pro AF performance, Full-frame image sensor, Film-like noise/grain, Great low ISO performance (<= 400), DEP function (last Canon to have this), Makes gorgeous prints up to Super A3 (and probably larger)

REASON AGAINST: Very heavy, Large batteries, Sensor collects dust easily, Relatively poor high ISO performance (> 400)

The 1Ds was the first successfully marketed DSLR with a full-frame image sensor to completely surpass 35mm film quality (2002), and it was also the first DSLR to approach medium-format film quality. I bought it from a guy in NYC via the Fred Miranda website. It's an iconic and history making camera for the above reasons. And for me, it's also a "collectable" camera which is still very usable for specific types of photography. It's built like a M1 Abrams tank, and feels like a block of cast iron. But it carries that weight and handles well. One of the main reasons that I bought it was to SLOW DOWN my shooting style for particular applications. We've gotten away from "making photographs." I'm going to treat it much like a LARGE FORMAT camera form-factor. Hence my interest in the tilt-shift lens above.

I am also hoping to have my new 18mp Canon 7D vDSLR in a couple of weeks. If Best Buy delivers on time, I'll have later next week. I'll use the 7D "imaging platform" for high throughput action sequences, sports, wildlife, astrophotography, low-light scenes (ISO extends to 12,800) and 1080p HD video recording. Many people are buying the 7D solely for its video capabilities alone. Here are a couple of interesting videos which have already been shot with it:

Much of the interest in using vDSLRs to shoot video is the size of the image sensor (even the 7D's APS-C crop sensor is physically larger than most video sensors), and the creativity which this allows by the inherent less DOF at a given shooting aperture for this form-factor. We are currently experiencing an amazing convergence of still shooting and video shooting, and the ultimate combined form-factor and workflow has yet to be worked out. But these are certainly very exciting times. I've personally reached a point where I'm going to attempt to take my photography more seriously and possibly past the fun "hobby" stage. Although it will still remain incredibly fun!