The camera thread.

Does anyone else put all of their photos thru Auto-Contrast in Photoshop (or similar) before uploading? It's no real use on poorly lit shots tho - not from an Ixus 55 at least. I'd say it improves two thirds of the photos I take though.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/09/24/070924fa_fact_lane?printable=true

This piece makes it almost seem worthwhile to dev and scan the negs. And M-series bodies seem much cheaper than they did pre-digital. But I still doubt the existence of the "Leica glow", except in the eyes of people justifying a £2500 lens.

I'm going to be naughty and print that NY article for consumption on the train home.

In Lens News, I now have a Hanimex 28mm f/2.8 (£12 on eBay) which...isn't going to do my kit lens out of a job any time soon and a 80-200mm f/3.5 zoom/macro beast by the same manufacturer which the vendor bunged in for a fiver when I turned up to collect the 28mm. The latter seems a bit better value. Perhaps I'll get more out of the 28mm on a film body with a nice, big, bright viewfinder. Came with a couple of 52mm-dia filters, which is nice.

I'm wondering whether the search for a cheap, manual, wide-angle lens that does what the kit lens does but, like, better, is kinda pointless. The Zeiss Flektogons are too expensive, the sub-£20 stuff seems fairly hopeless. Thinking about Tamron Adaptall gear next (28mm f/2.5 has a good rep), but that's another adaptor...

Oh, and then there's the tantalising world of IR photography. Get a Hoya filter from the Far East for coppers + big P&P or a Kood filter from the UK for £12 + small P&P?

I used to spend ages fiddling trying to get the right exposure on IR, until I worked out you can just show the red channel in photoshop and convert to gray to get much the same effect.

80-200mm f/3.5 zoom/macro beast
For a fiver! Nice one. Is it any good?

I've yet to really test it out (that moon pic on Flickr was taken with it, some flower shots in Golden Square the other day, that's about it). I don't think it's as good as the Zeiss but the 1:4 Macro might come in useful. Very heavy and long - not likely to be taken out and about much. There are hilarious manhood compensation jokes to be made when I attach it PLUS the extension tubes to the 300D. I don't know if anything of worth came out of that particular session of mucking about...

That Lane piece is eh... he's a little too into the fashion aspect. The whining about viewfinder blackout is a bit dodgy as well - it's a few tenths or hundredths of a second, can you even register small details you might be missing?

I have a Leica, purchased with gambling winnings when I was younger and stupider, and it is a wonderful thing (though the ergonomics, frankly, suck - there's a reason every modern SLR has a big grip for your hand) and if I had a darkroom I would shoot nothing but Tri-X until it was just me, Keith Richards and the cockroaches left.

But I don't. And I hate scanning film, even if I had a scanner that could do the Summilux justice.

So I'm selling it, I think. I will probably regret it someday, but for the ~$4000 I stand to take in (a couple hundred more than I spent, actually), I can buy either a 40D or 5D dSLR and actually get to shoot as much as I'd like.

That's the thing, really. I mean the trade-off is immense. I had a whole darkroom at my disposal, with a minilab to dev the film, free film and a top-end scanner and I still couldn't be arsed and got dust all over the negs.

It's only when I look back at scans from the color negs I realise just how wildly much more dynamic range C41 has compared to digital, which is a pisser.

Most fun I ever had was making darkroom c-prints from 4x5 negs.

For all digital's compromises, it is at least painless. Scanning film is torture.

At my first newspaper job, the scanner would choke on neg strips any more than 5 long, so we first had to cut the rolls by hand, then manually align each frame on screen, adjust the wildly crazy colour settings by eye, then scan it (which took about 10 minutes). It nearly drove me insane.

The whining about viewfinder blackout is a bit dodgy as well - it's a few tenths or hundredths of a second, can you even register small details you might be missing?

It kinda matters.... Kinda. It really comes down to how you shoot and what you're trying to do -- if you're stalking a group of six people, you want to be able to see when all their eyes are opened.

I seem to have a skill for getting eyes shut. I've taken self portraits where it turns out my own eyes are shut, ffs.

Thinking about getting back into film (Pentax body for me M42 lenses or Canon EOS body for me, er, single EF lens [EF-S kit lens not backwards compatible] - not sure yet; or maybe just *find* Pam's FtB, buy a cheapish Canon FD zoom and away we go...).

Now, Photo CDs from 35mm film processing as offered by yr high street photo labs - any experiences? I believe Boots only offer 800x600 images (which isn't even the right aspect ratio for 35mm negs) AND you have to pay £2 per film (despite the fact that, at that resolution, you could pack loads of films on a single CD). Does anyone provide high-res TIFFs for this service? And any comments on quality of the scans? Better one would hope, than taking yr negs/prints home and doing it yourself on a general-purpose A4 scanner.

Oh, and another question - didn't Boots offer those Ilford film mailers at one time (about £7 for a pack of ISO400 B&W plus processing by Ilford)? I assume they're still available somewhere?

I know, working in Soho, that there are probably tons of very good pro labs around but I'm curious about the best of the cheap alternatives.

I bought a digital camera recently.

I dream of medium format

Hired the Fuji GFX50S a few years ago for a (grey, wet) Easter weekend, with the 110/2.0 prime. It was pretty great, but a bit of a chunky beast. They seem to have streamlined the medium-format bodies.

My Bronica is still in the same place it's been for a couple of years, on a shelf. I really need to get back into it, with a drawer full of (expired) 120 film, but I say that every spring and... suddenly it's October.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_t_9LXcjBE

Looks even bigger in his hand than that still photo lol

Lovely stuff. Maybe I'll shoot at 24mm FF and crop everything to 2.71:1 for a while :)

The GFX was my first ever experience with an EVF, and it kind of spoils you for other lesser models. Wandering around looking at the world with an Acros filter was nice.

Here's the (then) 13yo toting the big bugger around Fitzrovia...

https://live.staticflickr.com/881/39491176020_4fa94fc5a1_b.jpg

And the (then) 11yo working the other Fuji, as shot with the GFX...

https://live.staticflickr.com/796/41237312082_16d9e812da_b.jpg

beast mode

fantastic!

https://i.tformers.com/g/generated/46865/Takara%20TOMY%20Canon%20EOS%20R5%20x%20TRANSFORMERS%20Optimus%20Prime%20Official%20Image%20(14)__scaled_800.jpg

(from https://tformers.com/takara-tomy-canon-eos-x-transformers-optimus-prime-r5-crossover-official-images/46865/news.html )

:)

Even has the tantalising dream of a L-grade pancake (optimus) prime on there.

Hilarious !

The light was fantastic today in London when the sun was out: everything crisp and clear, and trees and foliage drenched with light as if illuminated specifically for photographers. I took my EOS 5D out for the first time in quite a while, and the colours were fantastic. I particular like the way bright colours - such as red and orange - seem to almost pop out of photographs. For example a red and white polka dot blouse against a background of green foliage and a bright orange Vespa against grey brickwork. What a camera!

Let’s see some shots!