New reviews

New book reviews for my Basics Photography: Composition and Basics Photography: Working in Black-and-white  have been added to the Review pages.

Grainy, grainy, grainy

I was looking for grain but never thought I’d produce grain this big! Film was out dated Kodak TMax 3200 shot during the day. Development was in Agfa Rodinal diluted 1:100 with agitation for the first minute and then stand development for 1 hour with three inversions on the half hour only. Fog levels were very high making these negatives difficult to scan and fairly difficult to print – this could well be the effect of out dated high-speed film rather than just the development alone. Though you can’t see in a web image this size (scanned from a darkroom print on Grade 5 Multigrade paper) the grain looks like its been stencilled on – by the way did I say this was grainy?

Tin-type portrait event

Just to give my friends at Community Darkroom, Rochester, NY a plug – they are running a TinType Portrait Event. Final product is a portrait in the style of a vintage photo. A great gift for yourself or a special someone for only $65. Make an appointment for Saturday, June 13. Call 585 271 5920 – tell them I sent you

Silver gelatin digital prints

It was just a year ago I was writing about the future for digital black-and-white prints being the new printing paper developed by Harman technology (Ilford) for exposure in digital printers like the Lightjet or Durst Lambda, then processed in conventional wet darkroom chemistry. The fututre has got here much faster than I anticipated. Last week Ilford launched its online service to supply conventional darkroom silver gelatin prints from digital black-and-white files (and of course film if you want to order on line, not upload). The samples I took away from Focus on Imaging were clean and crisp, just like quality darkroom prints on RC paper. There is not yet the option for printing to the heavyweight baryta ‘fine print’ papers but I can see that’s going to come. I’m off to upload some images – I’ll let you know how I get on.

Photoshopped

Received a mailing today from PhotoWorkshop.com (no relation) about their photography and Digital Imaging competition – the header image by Wendell Penedo (a former first prize winner in their Photo Illustration category) is a striking surrealist image of raining umbrellas. (I won’t reproduce the image here in respect of copyright.) Well I say umbrellas but it doesn’t take a moment to notice that it is the same cloned and flipped singular umbrella. Very lazy composite imaging as you have shadows and highlights in direct contradiction on the flipped umbrellas – something I would have criticised any undergraduate student of mine for. What I found surprising is that Wendell Pendeo’s other work in his short portfolio is exquisitely put together – so how did this win first prize and go unnoticed by the judges? Perhaps it’s a planet with two suns, perhaps people are forgetting to use a photographer’s eyes when producing photorealistic fantasy imagery.

New (old) ultra-wide

One of the joys of the Nikon D700 is having your wideangle lenses back – no more x1.5 cropping. The downside of course is losing any DX (digital) designed wide so I’ve reluctantly parcelled up the 12-24mm f/4 G AF-S DX (IF) Zoom-Nikkor and sent it back to its owner. Having also sold my 10.5mm f/2.8G AF DX Fisheye I needed something truly wide for the D700. The logical choice would be the new professional quality 14-24mm f/2.8 zoom but frankly it’s too heavy for my way of working (walking around all-day with a camera around my neck!). The 14mm introduced at the time of Nikon D1 seemed to fit the bill and I’ve now had a couple of outings with it – one to Gateshead as you can see. At one-third the weight of the 14-24mm zoom it’s at least useable – and addictive but as much a curate’s egg as any other attempt I’ve every had at extreme wide-angle, fisheye or otherwise. With 114° coverage it has to be the widest optic I’ve ever used and requires some serious compositional thought as everything can simply look flat and distant without your getting in close and finding some foreground.

Good-bye Nikonians

I am informed that as my Nikonian membership is at Basic level this is now time limited and that my account will be deactivated in the coming days. (Funny this was never mentioned when I joined in 07.) To stay a member I must upgrade to a $25 subscription with a $5 discount. This money grab is sad to see from what was a site with a sense of community – as a forum member you asked questions you had and answered questions when you could. I don’t want membership that entitles me to discount on Nikonian product, on baseball caps and t-shirts. Nor do I want membership certificate – look good alongside my 007 Secret Agent badge though wouldn’t it? I don’t want an image gallery and free uploads – others do it better. So Bo and Ramon founders of Nikonians.org a not-for-profit site – deactivate away I say!

The Impossible Project

Those are their words not mine. A team of enthusiasts, ex-employees and people not unconnected with Polanoid and Unsaleable.com have set them selves the impossible task of reintroducing Polaroid compatible integral film by 2010. They have a clock on their website  and it is already ticking. The group has taken a 10-year lease on the old Polaroid integral film facility at Enschede in the Netherlands – more of a management back back-in than a buy-out! These people need your help and support of all kinds with their project – you can sign up on the website. The project notes stress that this is the reinvention of integral film and that the new product will have new qualities and new components. Now if only the same could be done for the Mexican pack film facility…

Polaroid Type 32

Many thanks to my Polaroid correspondent TW who has sent a box of Polaroid Type 32 film for my collection. Originally launched in 1955 as a 200 ASA Panchromatic print roll, Type 32 was re-launched in April 1958 as Type 32 PolaPan 400 with double the sensitivity. The pack shown here is an intermediate product, offering the higher detail resolution and brighter picture finally claimed for the 400 speed prints but without the speed hike to 400. More details are on my Polaroid Web site – select Type 32 from the thumbnails. I’d like to establish the exact history of the changes in Type 32 film – so if anyone knows…

Sign of the times…

Visit Jessops in Glasgow today. Met by the ‘greeter’  who asks if she can help. I said I’d come to see their professional department in the basement. ‘Ah, that’s closed just a big empty space with a cardboard box in the middle of it’. Being a persistent kind of fellow I asked what had become of the chiller cabinet of film, the strobe lighting, the large size inkjet and photographic paper, the chemical, the Pro Nikon cameras and lenses etc. ‘There’s a few boxes of the inkjet paper over there and some chemistry’ she gestured to the side of the store beyond the endless ads for Canon and Nikon starter kits. Sad sight really – I won’t be going back – just the way to fight the recession.