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atomicthumbs posted:jesus christ if you want a medium format mirrorless go buy a 120 rangefinder Or one of these crazy Chinese contraptions http://bythom.com/photokina2012littlethings.htm posted:Fotoman Dmax--I'd heard of this camera out of China, but hadn't seen it before today. Owning a Fotoman Dmax will put you squarely in either the film or digital world, as you see fit. The medium to large format shifting back Dmax accepts Hasselblad, Mamiya, and Horseman film backs (a few sizes of each, not all of them), and it's also compatible with digital backs from Hasselblad, Phase One, Leaf, Mamiya, and Sinar. Up front you have your choice of a lot of large format lenses. The digital backs use a sliding back system where either a groundglass viewfinder or the back is place by sliding it into position. Basically the low cost high end solution to the high end landscape photographer that can't make up their minds what to shoot.
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Sep 18, 2012 21:38
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Beastruction posted:Or one of these crazy Chinese contraptions I'd almost be tempted to buy the 45SPS if it had a rotating back. It's a pretty sleek design.
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Sep 18, 2012 22:02
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Apologies if this is technically an advice request, but does anyone know of some rear end-cheap studio hire space in London? I need two hours in a pokey white room, two plug sockets for my lights and white or black background choices. That's it. I'm looking to pay almost gently caress all per hour.
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Sep 18, 2012 22:42
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Not sure which thread to put this in, so I'm sticking it here! Does anyone know anything about this camera?  It's a Kodak Retina IIa with a Xenon lens, a family heirloom deal (bought by grandpa, has been handed down and is currently in the hands of my sister). She was taking pictures of my other sister's wedding with it, and I got to play with it a little bit. It was pretty cool to have solid metal components used to set up an exposure, though focusing was no fun at all. I haven't seen any pictures out of it though, and I'm wondering if anyone around here has any opinion on the quality of the lens. Camera is in pretty good condition.. sister says there were no light leaks on her test roll, and all the movable bits are smooth and precise. I told her she has to let me borrow it someday so I can dink around with it. 
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Sep 18, 2012 22:47
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Gazmachine posted:Apologies if this is technically an advice request, but does anyone know of some rear end-cheap studio hire space in London? I need two hours in a pokey white room, two plug sockets for my lights and white or black background choices. That's it. I'm looking to pay almost gently caress all per hour. http://esperostudio.co.uk/index.php/prices/ 30 per hour.
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Sep 18, 2012 23:14
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xzzy posted:It's a Kodak Retina IIa with a Xenon lens, a family heirloom deal (bought by grandpa, has been handed down and is currently in the hands of my sister). She was taking pictures of my other sister's wedding with it, and I got to play with it a little bit. It was pretty cool to have solid metal components used to set up an exposure, though focusing was no fun at all. The rangefinder's probably crapped up with fifty years of dust. Get it CLA'd and it'll be a lot easier to focus. The shutter may be a bit slow, they rarely hit their spec even when new and the springs weaken and the shutters get grimy. As for the lens, if it's a Xenon it's a Planar formula, same as a nifty fifty. It's probably coated (look at whether the lens has a colored sheen), and if so it will quite probably meet your expectations. Schneider pulled no punches on their lenses, particularly the high-end ones (which this is). Overall, both a very collectible and a very shootable camera from the golden age of Kodak. Talk your sister into letting you go blow off some film doing sunny f/16 and I bet you'll love it. Particularly if you get that rangefinder cleaned (which, alone, shouldn't be expensive).
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Sep 19, 2012 00:24
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Wow Zeiss's new 55/1.4 is a real beast! I'm guessing this is really just a medium format lens made for DSLR mounts. Best way to get great corner-to-corner performance is to crop out the center of a large image circle.
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Sep 19, 2012 01:47
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Leica rage, Leica rage Fills up all of a Facebook page
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Sep 19, 2012 01:58
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xzzy posted:It's a Kodak Retina IIa with a Xenon lens, a family heirloom deal (bought by grandpa, has been handed down and is currently in the hands of my sister). She was taking pictures of my other sister's wedding with it, and I got to play with it a little bit. It was pretty cool to have solid metal components used to set up an exposure, though focusing was no fun at all. Like Paul MaudDib already stated it probably needs a CLA. But other than that it's quite a neat camera. The lens is a double Gauss six element design, dating back to 1954, making it a postwar design - thus likely to be coated. It's a shrunk and improved Xenotar design (think Rolleiflex) - and everyone has their panties up in a bunch about those - so yeah this is a good lens. My only worry, this being a folding camera, would be whether the front-standard is completely level to the film plane. Because, if it is not - all the resolving power will be wasted.
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Sep 19, 2012 02:55
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Maybe I'm just being a luddite, but after browsing through the Photokina news, I'm slightly sad that it seems camera manufacturers are moving away so much from traditional mirrored cameras. I know the idea of live view is nice and all but there's something about composing a photo through the viewfinder of an SLR that I'd be sad to lose. It seems like so many people are thrilled with the new tech, I just can't get on that bandwagon.
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Sep 19, 2012 03:01
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Dracon Wolf posted:I know the idea of live view is nice Sure isn't.
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Sep 19, 2012 03:06
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xzzy posted:
I know bugger-all about that camera other than my Grandad shot all the family photos with it and is still hoarding it even though he doesn't shoot anymore. Here's a scan he did recently of a shot from the 50's: 
Spedman fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Sep 19, 2012 |
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Sep 19, 2012 03:06
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Next epsiode is up. All about breastfeeding https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFPLsBjMbfE
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Sep 19, 2012 03:55
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Paul MaudDib posted:The rangefinder's probably crapped up with fifty years of dust. Get it CLA'd and it'll be a lot easier to focus. The shutter may be a bit slow, they rarely hit their spec even when new and the springs weaken and the shutters get grimy. It wasn't hard to see through the rangefinder.. just the task of aligning the two images took some practice. Worse, I always seemed to turn the focusing ring the wrong way when making adjustments. Though it may just be since I don't know what it was supposed to be like, I missed that it was clogged with dust. I only had serious problems focusing on low contrast subjects. VomitOnLino posted:My only worry, this being a folding camera, would be whether the front-standard is completely level to the film plane. Because, if it is not - all the resolving power will be wasted. My sister said the test roll looked fine.. said everything that was supposed to be sharp, was. She just didn't bring any of the prints along for me to look at. Not that I'm suggesting it doesn't need a tune-up, but it has spent most of the past 30 years in a box and reportedly was babied by grandpa, so it's probably about as good as one could expect. Anyone know of any trustworthy shops that can do a CLA? Sister lives in LA so there'd have to be someone out there, right?
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Sep 19, 2012 04:19
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There's a huge part of me that doesn't mind the live-view wildfire sweeping through the camera world right now. I'm kind of chalking it up as the second coming of the waist-level finder. When I was a kid, everyone squinted into tiny little viewfinders in their cameras. But when my parents were kids, people didn't. We've come full circle.
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Sep 19, 2012 05:06
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thetzar posted:There's a huge part of me that doesn't mind the live-view wildfire sweeping through the camera world right now. I'm kind of chalking it up as the second coming of the waist-level finder. When I was a kid, everyone squinted into tiny little viewfinders in their cameras. But when my parents were kids, people didn't. We've come full circle. I use my NEX with the screen flipped out WLF-style all the time. However, I think a better comparison would be ground glass period as opposed to just WLFs.
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Sep 19, 2012 05:38
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alkanphel posted:Wow Zeiss's new 55/1.4 is a real beast! I'm guessing this is really just a medium format lens made for DSLR mounts. Best way to get great corner-to-corner performance is to crop out the center of a large image circle. This was my assumption to, but I actually got to pose the question to a product manager at the convention, and he said it only covers 35mm. He also claimed that there was some internal doubt in Zeiss about making such a lens, until they all saw the result. It's probably just the start of a family of lenses built for super-high resolution studio work, but the lenses are going to cost quite a bit (obviously, based on the amount of glass in them alone).
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Sep 19, 2012 06:10
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moonduck posted:This was my assumption to, but I actually got to pose the question to a product manager at the convention, and he said it only covers 35mm. He also claimed that there was some internal doubt in Zeiss about making such a lens, until they all saw the result. Didn't seem to have any of that internal doubt when making cellphone camera lenses
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Sep 19, 2012 06:13
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moonduck posted:This was my assumption to, but I actually got to pose the question to a product manager at the convention, and he said it only covers 35mm. He also claimed that there was some internal doubt in Zeiss about making such a lens, until they all saw the result. That's interesting, guess all that crazy glass in there is to make the light falling on the sensor as strong as possible. And I remember reading somewhere that the lens will probably cost upwards of US$3000.
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Sep 19, 2012 06:28
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alkanphel posted:That's interesting, guess all that crazy glass in there is to make the light falling on the sensor as strong as possible. And I remember reading somewhere that the lens will probably cost upwards of US$3000.
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Sep 19, 2012 08:57
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Oh my good christ why is everything minimum two hours? Thanks though, that's nice and cheap EDIT: Have you used them yourself? Gazmachine fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Sep 19, 2012 |
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Sep 19, 2012 09:35
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http://www.dpreview.com/articles/7756434390/photokina-2012-interview-jesko-von-oeynhausen-of-leicaquote:The M system is just very popular. You can see that in fashion, for example, too. Last week I was in London, and I found a fashion store that had Leica T-shirts in the window, with old Leicas. Leica cameras are very popular among young people. what
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Sep 19, 2012 10:14
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David Pratt posted:what kids these days 
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Sep 19, 2012 10:17
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David Pratt posted:http://www.dpreview.com/articles/7756434390/photokina-2012-interview-jesko-von-oeynhausen-of-leica quote:These new customers - how to their expectations differ from your existing customer base?
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Sep 19, 2012 10:28
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quote:Older film Leicas have lifespans stretching into the decades - do you think the same is true of the new digital M models? If someone buys an M today, will they still be using it in 60 years time? That's actually pretty cool.
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Sep 19, 2012 10:58
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xzzy posted:It wasn't hard to see through the rangefinder.. just the task of aligning the two images took some practice. Worse, I always seemed to turn the focusing ring the wrong way when making adjustments. Yeah, that's the problem with old rangefinders. They generally have a half-silvered mirror in there that bounces half the light from the rangefinder window and lets half the viewfinder window's light come through. Over time the mirror tends to desilver, so the rangefinder image gets weak. It'll work fine on high-contrast edges but it gets hard to focus in low light or on less contrasty edges. It's not a hard or expensive fix usually, they just cut a piece of glass to fit and realign everything. A couple of my rangefinders suffer from the same thing. One thing you can do is put a bit of tape on the glass where the rangefinder patch sits, this will block out the viewfinder's light to help equalize things out. quote:My sister said the test roll looked fine.. said everything that was supposed to be sharp, was. She just didn't bring any of the prints along for me to look at. There's gotta be someone in LA. I've always heard great things about Essex Camera in NJ. It sounds like it's working decently now, but it's a 60 year old camera and it's a good idea to do preventative maintenance before things get to be an issue (considering it's an heirloom). The Retina is a really cool camera, it was designed and produced in Germany and unlike most of Kodak's other mass produced cameras was targeted at the high end of the market. As mentioned, the double-gauss design is a really good performer when done well. It's the basis for the Planar/Xenotar design, and actually dates back to the turn of the century. It was one of the few fast designs with few enough elements to avoid losing contrast with uncoated optics. Today it's the dominant design for fast 50mm lenses. tl;dr go sunny-16 some film and report back.
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Sep 19, 2012 18:14
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Gazmachine posted:Oh my good christ why is everything minimum two hours? nah, I either shoot at my house or use an expensive studio
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Sep 19, 2012 19:32
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UK photographer: There's a groupon offer today: £449 for the EOS 600 model (25% off) £579 for the EOS 650 model (28% off) A quick glance at Amazon suggests that these are pretty good prices http://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/national-deal/ASK-Direct/10628658
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Sep 19, 2012 20:30
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Jeez, those kids are really looking in to Large Format... champagne bottles. e: gently caress, that Methuselah cost as much as my car. squidflakes fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Sep 20, 2012 |
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Sep 20, 2012 20:31
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Also, hey. Some guy is trying to rub his expensive camera cock on some friends of mine, and he's claiming he gets SUPER ADVANCED BOKEH because his camera costs $5000. Fellow dorkroomers, tell me if this bokeh doesn't look a little suspicious to you. 
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Sep 21, 2012 05:22
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I've seen stuff like that with crazy lenses like a 200mm f/2.
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Sep 21, 2012 05:49
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He's saying its an 85mm f/1.8. I've got an f/1.2 and have never seen the bokeh like that.
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Sep 21, 2012 05:59
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 SF Goons The Friends of the SF Public Library Book Sale is happening this weekend at the Fort Mason Festival Pavilion and everyone should go! The place is huge, with probably a million books. There's a huge section for just photography books and another big section for art books. Paperbacks are only $2. Hardcovers are only $3. On Sunday everything will be $1 each.
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Sep 21, 2012 06:04
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squidflakes posted:He's saying its an 85mm f/1.8. I've got an f/1.2 and have never seen the bokeh like that.
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Sep 21, 2012 06:24
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Looks like a telephoto f1.X lens with trees in the background to me, I'm trying to figure out what you think the issue is?
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Sep 21, 2012 07:36
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squidflakes posted:Also, hey. Some guy is trying to rub his expensive camera cock on some friends of mine, and he's claiming he gets SUPER ADVANCED BOKEH because his camera costs $5000. K*Rock has a whole section of his blog for it, but your guy is talking out of his rear end. The 'artistic' quality of bokeh depends on the smoothness of transition and uniformity of the OOF areas. The upper right corner (for example) has football-shaped bokeys with hard edges, there's also reasonably well-defined lines in the bokeys elsewhere. If it's distracting, it's bad, basically. It's also possible he did some kind of circular blur since all the oval bokeh shapes are perpendicular to the center of the frame, and probably sharpened the poo poo out of the in-focus areas. If he wants to  out about the 'quality' of his $5000 bokeys, he should just buy a Leica. But the best bokeh-riffic lenses are the Nikon DC twosome, 135mm and 105mm.
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Sep 21, 2012 07:38
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red19fire posted:K*Rock has a whole section of his blog for it, but your guy is talking out of his rear end. The 'artistic' quality of bokeh depends on the smoothness of transition and uniformity of the OOF areas. The upper right corner (for example) has football-shaped bokeys with hard edges, there's also reasonably well-defined lines in the bokeys elsewhere. If it's distracting, it's bad, basically. It isn't super creamy, but it isn't bad. Not to mention that any lens that isn't wide open should produce hard edge circles on any point source of light and even then it isn't bad if its sharp wide open (creamy bokeh is found on lenses that vignette strongly, which is pretty much no new lenses these days). Also the bokeh should be oval shaped as it moves away from the center and pretty much proves that he didn't fake them. I'm sure there was some sharpening done to the image, but I wouldn't call it over sharpened and we have no way of knowing if flikr or wherever else he posted might have added their own sharpening. If I had made a blind guess I would have said it was taken with a 135mm on a full frame, but it's entirely possible for him to have used the 85mm. It's a good shot and I don't get why you guys are trying to tear it apart.
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Sep 21, 2012 07:53
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It's a result of the lens, not the camera. And I don't see why you'd want your OOF areas looking like that instead of smooth and creamy.HPL posted:I've seen stuff like that with crazy lenses like a 200mm f/2. This magnificent dog disagrees. Though it might get worse when you have point light sources OOF. XTimmy posted:Looks like a telephoto f1.X lens with trees in the background to me, I'm trying to figure out what you think the issue is? 
evil_bunnY fucked around with this message at 10:04 on Sep 21, 2012 |
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Sep 21, 2012 09:56
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squidflakes posted:Also, hey. Some guy is trying to rub his expensive camera cock on some friends of mine, and he's claiming he gets SUPER ADVANCED BOKEH because his camera costs $5000. I don't see what is so suspicious about this? Looks about right for a 85 f1.8 on a FF camera? Check out a 200 f1.8 in action http://garion.deviantart.com/art/FFX-2-Yuna-02-149796198?q=gallery%3Agarion%2F87516&qo=82
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Sep 21, 2012 14:43
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...that's what 'bokeh' looks like when there are light sources in the background. it makes circles. The sun is poking through the trees, and it's rendered as circles because they're out-of-focus specular highlights. That'll happen with any lens. "Creaminess" is a stupid term but happens when the background is more uniformly lit.
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Sep 21, 2012 16:10
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