The Official Head-Case Photography Thread.

[dsavitsk]

2 hours ago, blessingx said:

 17 lenses covering the same-ish view.

All of those and not a contax g 45mm in the bunch? Do you even like photography?

[blessingx]

2 hours ago, dsavitsk said:

All of those and not a contax g 45mm in the bunch? Do you even like photography?

Maybe I should aim for "comprehensive"? And still not sure on that second question. 

[Torpedo]

Do you know if any of those lenses is your favourite and why? If just one isn't, can you widen that to your 3 preferred ones and why? Perhaps posting a couple of examples to show the reasons would be very interesting. This thread is needing some attention 😉 

[jpelg]

15 hours ago, blessingx said:

is minimalism still in? 

Is 'minimalism':

1. One body, one lens?
2. One camera system?
3. Multiple cameras/systems best at different things, but carrying just the one suited to the use-case of the day?

I am still on the fence.

And don't even get me started on cases/bags & straps...  

[blessingx]

On 3/20/2022 at 2:05 AM, Torpedo said:

Do you know if any of those lenses is your favourite and why? If just one isn't, can you widen that to your 3 preferred ones and why? Perhaps posting a couple of examples to show the reasons would be very interesting. This thread is needing some attention 😉 

Best lens is of course dependent on a lot including what you shoot, and some of these are only available to specific mounts and in specific mounts there are many other options, but favorite? That's easy. Ignoring the CV 50 APO-Lanthar (new and suffering due to second lens choice below) and CV 50 Nokton 50 f/1 (arrived Friday, but first results are encouraging**), the clear winner is the only lens mentioned twice (different mounts), but actually three times. I bought the Voigtlander Nokton 40 f/1.2 E for a Sony system with electric coupling. Although the A7III was my least favorite camera (skin tones under mixed lighting and controls from a Fuji analog control fan), that lens-camera combo was my favorite. When I moved to the M240 I went with the 50mm VM equivalent due to frame lines with the rangefinder. And then when I traded the M240 for a SL, I re-ish bought the Nokton 40mm f/1.2, VM version this time. And of course I haven't sold any of them 'cause I'm lazy. Those Noktons are the perfect balance between character and accuracy in my book. Just pick the 40  or 50 based on FL you prefer. And don't take my word for it. Take a glance at the longest running single lens review thread over at FM (if you run through all you'll even see a birthday boy's appearance in bubble popping fun). There's an argument the Noktons are when Voigtlander went from third behind Leica and Zeiss, to equals (and of course many of Zeiss lenses are also made by Cosina, Voigtlander's owner). And if you discount the Leica approved/branded Panasonics and Zeiss approved/branded Sonys, Voigtlander has released the most lenses and experiments in the last seven or so years. Less expensive is a plus too. 

Two lens prime option? A smarter person would spread out the focal lengths, but you're talking to me. I'd go for the Sigma Art 40mm f/1.4 (aka Beyond Art - one lens cine specs in a still body experiment - c'mon Sigma do it again!). The Noktons opposite. Big, heavy, 16 elements/12 groups, optically near perfect and will pull resolution out any sensor behind it. Also that auto-focus thing. And watch the pricing as it rotates mounts sales often. Currently Canon and Nikon users are in luck (Adorama a little cheaper than B&H). Check out the below video. 

I love talking about camera gear and hate doing comparison shots, but you can see examples on IG and less frequently updated Flickr. Same user name and lens always mentioned in IG description at least. Using rangefinder lenses without info sent to camera doesn't help on the Flickr side and again, did I mention I'm lazy?  

On 3/20/2022 at 3:49 AM, jpelg said:

Is 'minimalism':

1. One body, one lens?
2. One camera system?
3. Multiple cameras/systems best at different things, but carrying just the one suited to the use-case of the day?

I am still on the fence.

And don't even get me started on cases/bags & straps...  

Ha! I'm a big believer in body-lenses combinations. Lenses are creeping up in price (approaching/matching older bodies used cost) and with sensor resolution jumps the old lens-body relationship isn't what it quite was ("date the body, marry the lenses"). If you don't mind using different systems, maybe find magic combos, instead of spreading out to all focal lengths. Or go with zooms which invalidates pretty much everything above.  

Please! I'm always curious about cases/bags/straps experiences. Recently for me it's been Clever Supply straps and Stone or LATZZ drawstring bags for each lens/body and then whatever non-descript backpack my company gave me or Timbuk2 messenger bag I picked up on sale, that doesn't scream camera(s) inside.  

 

** This is one of the 13 shots I've taken so far. Momentary Roblox disruption yesterday. Again, this is mostly family stuff so anything I say has likely zero benefit to landscape, sports, street... pretty much everything, shooters. But typing this did allow putting off cleaning house for a bit! 

Edited March 23, 2022 by blessingx

[blessingx]

Susan Meiselas’ Carnival Strippers Tell Their Stories

A mosaic of interviews, field recordings and archival ephemera form an integral part of the seminal photographic project 

https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/watch-susan-meiselas-carnival-strippers-tell-stories/ 

[blessingx]

Another interesting reissue from Magnum. Larry Towell’s The Mennonites. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/apr/09/a-community-out-of-time-larry-towells-images-of-mennonite-families 

[Knuckledragger]

Oh hells bells.  Those of you who have been around here ...since I created this thread in 2008 may remember I used to do a lot of mucking about in HDR with a small army of apps.  The one that I used the most was Photomatix.  At first I pirated it, but liked it so much I paid for it not long after.  I don't remember the price anymore, but I think it was around $25 in early 2006.  For that sum I got the app as well as a Photoshop plugin (which I found to be of limited use, but sometimes handy.)  My license got me through many upgrades of Photomatix, to the point in time that I stopped using it.  To be fair, this was several laptops ago.  Tonight, while editing some photos I took in 2006 (more on that later) remembered Photomatix and decided I wanted to give it bash again.

Well, there is a current version, which is nice.  It's native to M1/Monterey, which is essential.  Also my serial is ancient and no longer valid for the new version.  Understandible.  I have paid for an upgrade for Little Snitch at least 3 times in the last dozen+ years.  LS's devs give me a discount because I have an older license and (this is the key part) I can still run the old version on my other, older Macs (I maintain a number of Minis, which I find to be insanely useful.)  By the by, any HCers out there using Macs, I cannot recommend Little Snitch enough.  It's my favorite firewall app.  

As I was saying...  I get no discount for owning an old version of Photomatix and CRIKEY have their prices gone up.  $99 for the base app and more on top for the PS plugin.  Naturally my serial still works on old versions, but they won't run on Monterey (or any other recent version of MacOS.)  That's ...more than I'm willing to pay to re-up a program I previous purchased just to futz with it for a bit.

So... Yarr har fiddle dee dee! 🏴‍☠️

[blessingx]

Could their $29 Pure HDR plugin solve your needs, instead of the stand alone? This is though outside my understanding.

 

If anyone has a spare Leica around check out this Kickstarter. Then check out the photos. Ouch.

 

[mikeymad]

so....

why exactly

[Knuckledragger]

I forget who said it, but someone in here mentioned they drive by the SmugMug HQ (the people who own Flickr) and that the bulding is a dump.  Went on Google Maps and, uh, can confirm: https://goo.gl/maps/sYgVyvq8SHxQTSFH7

[robm321]

I might wanna transfer some of my uploads while their servers are still running. 

[blessingx]

It actually looks worse than that now. 

It seems a very Silicon Valley neighborhood. Dilapidated Smug Mug, RV park for homeless, car repair shops, Mozilla and Atlassian HQs, my 100 unit complex, dead flower shop complex/new 451 housing complex, new low/medium income housing/old Opera browser US HQ, gas station. Its mostly built on early silicon processing companies land so you sign wavers when you buy on the poisoned soil. So you know, basically paradise. 

[blessingx]

A very Lapham’s Quarterly article on color photography https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/new-look-same-great-look

“When we judge the color photograph, we not only think of how the subject looked in nature, but we also remember how painters throughout the centuries have rendered similar objects. The color photograph has to satisfy a double standard—fidelity to real life and a recognizable approximation to traditional art.”

 

Edited June 1, 2022 by blessingx

[Torpedo]

Way too good to be true Leica M10

This other one is no slouch either. Looks like it's the same seller with 0 feedback.

Edited June 7, 2022 by Torpedo

[Knuckledragger]

I've hardly taken photos in the last however many years, but what I have been doing since I got this shiny M1 Macbook Pro is blowing the dust off my editing skills.

July 1, 2006, the first week I had my EOS 30D and its "better" kit lens.

 

October 4, 2006.  Taken by a friend of mine with his Kodak V570 panoramic camera.

 

A photo taken by an unknown person with an Olympus C3040 Zoom point & shoot, sometime in 2001.  I found it in a folder of images all from the 00s that I had not thought about in over 15 years.  I'm not entirely sure how I ended up with this one, but I suspect the woman in frame sent it to me in hopes I'd clean it up.  Well, here I am a decade and a half later.  The original jpeg was quite a mess: low resolution (far below the C3030Z's native 3.3MP), poorly exposed, set to sepia tone (ugh), and with a couple digital glitches in it.  I fixed ...most of the problems.  I ran it through Topaz Labs' Gigapixel AI software, which upscaled it hugely, then converted it to black & white in Photoshop, manually adjusting the settings.  Finally I did a bit more work on the levels.  I did not attempt to fix the jpeg glitches, but a friend of mine stepped up and made use of his Photoshop skills.  I actually like the photo now, as a character study.

 

May 26, 2008.  This chucklefuck destroyed a tube guitar amp he borrowed from me.  

 

May 26, 2008.  The fella on the left is now a moderately famous YouTuber, known for his extended reviews of the Disney Star Wars films.

 

July 19, 2013.  Taken on the side of the road in Hadley, MA.  A farmer came by in his tractor, stopped it, got down and yelled at me for trespassing (I was 5' off the road.)  I told him I was leaving and got TF out of there.

 

May 19, 2019.  IR 5D + 17-40L @25mm.  I spent considerable time editing this photo then prompty forgot about it.

 

November 6, 2021.  Two antique lamps I restored plus a network switch.  iPhone 6S.

 

December 21, 2015.  Same lamps during the day.

 

May 18, 2019.  IR5D + 17-40L @25mm.  

 

April 27, 2022.  iPhone 13 in an Aldi Parking lot during the golden hour.

 

July 6, 2008.  Taken at a party in a club in Springfield, MA where I only worked once.

 

April 25, 2019.  Taken with my IR-modified 2001 vintage Canon PowerShot G2 and a wide angle adapter.  I cleaned it up using Topaz DeNoise AI then loaded it into Luminar 4 where I made a bunch of tweaks and applied a lookup table.  Lastly, I did a bunch of further editing in Photoshop.   I did not attempt to correct the somewhat comical fisheye effect caused by the wide angle lens.  It doesn't bother me too much.

 

April 17, 2019.  iPhone 6S.   No edits at all.

 

Februray 18, 2019.  Very odd light in my yard.  iPhone 6S.

 

May 6, 2019.  IR 5D + EF 50mm F/1.8 (Mark I).  The sleepy little street I live on.

 

Oct 9, 2009.  The absolutely ancient mixing console from a now-closed nightclub.  A re-edit of a photo I took with the mighty Canon EF 85mm F/1.2L USM that a friend rented and let me borrow for one evening.  The 85L is one of those magic lenses that lives up to and even exceeds the hype surrounding it.  Revisiting the image, I de-noised it using a Topaz plugin in Photoshop, made adjustments and applied a lookup table in Luminar 4.  Then I imported the photo back in to Photoshop, further adjusted the levels and did a de-noise pass to remove posterization artifacts.  There is "narrow depths of field" then there's "85L depth of field."

[blessingx]

Those are really nice treatments. Especially love that first shot. Also 👏 on the C3040 and G2 mentions. 

[blessingx]

First-ever International Stereoscopy Day is coming up. On 21 June 2022 the organisers of Stereoscopy Day are inviting the world to flood social media with creative stereoscopic images. https://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/latest/photo-news/brian-may-reveals-plans-for-first-international-stereoscopy-day-168289

 

[blessingx]

We believe talked about Kodak Coloramas awhile back, though it’s not coming up on search. Anyway, linking for these related articles.

https://petapixel.com/neil-montanus/ 

https://www.montanusphotography.com/neil_montanus_bio/coloramas.htm 

[dsavitsk]

On 6/17/2022 at 8:47 AM, blessingx said:

First-ever International Stereoscopy Day is coming up.

Only thing I have to add is that I got to play around with a Contura once. Most beautiful camera I ever saw.

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/just-bought-my-“grail”-camera-contura-stereo-camera.170807/

[blessingx]

Kate Kirkwood’s cowscapes 

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2022/jun/24/hide-in-plain-sight-kate-kirkwoods-enigmatic-cow-scapes-in-pictures

 

[Voltron]

Those photos are vachement cool.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Voltron

[blessingx]

As vintage digital cameras get mentioned here often, fun purge video from this morning (with buying options). Her goal was getting down to two. Good try.

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

I see a couple of cameras I once owned on that list, most notably the Sony DSC-R1 (which she amusingly for our crowd calls "R10"). While that was a very amusingly unusual camera that took great images for its' time, I can't say I miss it. But I've never been one to be sentimental about gear/toys, it's always been upgrade and move along.

Personally, I can't imagine the mental weight of owning so much stuff. I think I've got 2 camera bodies and 12 lenses and have definitely been thinking of downsizing a bit.

[Knuckledragger]

Clickbaity article: Nikon will reportedly join Canon in ending development on high-end DSLR cameras.

Everyone is going mirrorless.  I will miss optical viewfinders.