Any photography buffs out there?

[LeeS]

I like photography and mainly shoot nature shots and pictures of my wife's horses. I shoot with a Nikon F100 and Fuji Provia slide film. I'm thinking that digital photography may finally be getting to the level of resolution I want and may be looking at the D200 Nikon in 2005.

Any other photography fans out there?

What types of pictures do you take?

What gear do you like and use?

[Doug Sclar]

I'm by no means a photographer, but I did get a 5mp Sony digital a few years back. It is the big one with the swivel Carl Zeiss lens. I am so surprised at the quality of picture I can take with this one and I usually just use the automatic settings. I definitely want a higher resolution camera someday soon, but the longer I wait the better and cheaper they will get.

I started taking pictures with this camera out of airplane windows. The amount of detail I can capture is startling. I have pictures of most of the places I've lived from the air. I can clearly see all the houses and many landmarks. As happy as I am with this, I'd love to get more resolution, so I can zoom and zoom. I imagine they will get higher and higher resolution as time goes by. I'm not sure what the limit will be, but I'm betting it's way up there.

I've also taken lots of beach shots down at Laguna Beach where my parents live. These pictures almost look professional, and I'm a rank amateur. I'm sure a real photographer would find all kinds of things wrong with these pictures, just like I can hear lots of things wrong with many audio recordings. I give all of the credit to the camera. :D

Oh one more thing. I use this camera for work all the time. It is great for documenting job progress. Once I had to troubleshoot a complex audio system and I had to draw a schematic. Well the heck with spending hours at the site. I took a few photos and went home and was clearly able to figure out what went to where. What a time saver.

I'd say that other than my first Revox, which I bought in the early 70's, this was the best $1,000.00 I ever spent. :righton:

[Michael]

I've been into Photography for years, I still use my Olympus OM-2n...love it!...still going strong after 25 years...I enjoy photographing people, places and things...I'm also going to look into a digital camera!

[indy mike]

I snap every now and then - had a Mamiya 35 mm in high school/college (sold it when I needed some dough partway through Purdue), and have my dad's old Minolta Autocord twin lens reflex just in case the bug bites...

[LeeS]

Cool. I used to have an Olypus OM-2N also. That's a great camera.

[Gardo]

Started with a Pentax MX--great little camera, but the light meter circuit board kept breaking and I finally gave up. Then went to a Pentax K-1000 (built like a tank). I've also got an Olympus Stylus Epic (the MjuII) I love. Digicam is a Canon Powershot A70 that's got a full array of manual settings.

Haven't been in a darkroom since grad school, alas.

[indy mike]

Our host seems to have a little something for Leica products...

[Michael]

Cool. I used to have an Olypus OM-2N also. That's a great camera.


...just keeps on keeping on...it has served me well...

[Ere]

Guess I'm a photography buff from just about every angle - it's history, technique and technology, social and ethical considerations, and simply taking pictures. Portraits, landscapes, architecture &c. I'm still mainly rooted in film-based using my Mamiya C330 twin lens reflex and a basic Nikon SLR - but I have the 35mm negatives scanned to CD during processing and scan prints from the medium format. Still occasionally print b/w in my home darkroom. Recent areas of activity include

Night:
http://thumbs.photo.net/photo/2960651-sm.jpg bigger (http://gallery.photo.net/photo/2960651-md.jpg)
http://thumbs.photo.net/photo/119583-sm.jpg bigger (http://gallery.photo.net/photo/119583-md.jpg)

Motion:
http://thumbs.photo.net/photo/2654858-sm.jpg bigger (http://gallery.photo.net/photo/2654858-lg.jpg)

Baby:
http://a2.cpimg.com/image/E8/51/41674472-fd9e-00800060-L.jpgbigger (http://a2.cpimg.com/image/E8/51/41674472-b404-02000180-L.jpg)

[-=Rudy=-]

I like to photograph outdoors (landscapes and such) mainly. I also like grabbing quick photos of the kids. For now, I have two Minolta Maxxum systems (an original Maxxum 7000 from 1985, and a Maxxum 4 from a year or two ago) for 35mm, and an Olympus point and shoot for digital. I'm waiting for prices on higher-resolution SLR-like digitals to drop--they've already dropped a bit over the past year! As fussy as I am, digital makes a lot of sense to me--I like to experiment and try a lot of different shots with different camera settings, and I'd rather do this in digital than spend it on film. I lust after a medium format system (i'm thinking 6x7), but obviously, the price is what holds me up. :)

[stereoptic]

ere- those are really nice compositions. I think you posted the "motion" one before? Was that mounted to the back of another car and taken remotely or by a timer?


Myself - I have a 1950's Viewmaster 3-D camera that I don't use as much as I should. I recently got it cleaned and the shutters adjusted, but I still need to get a hot show adapter to get some indoor shots. The other problem is that they are not manufacturing blank reels anymore, the one manufacturing machine in the entire world broke down a few years ago and it is not being repaired. Even though they look simple enough, evidently they are very difficult to manufacture (many have tried!). Anyway, once I get a good slide magnifier I can scan in some of my "chip" pairs and I'll post some of my better efforts here.

Here's a stock photo of the camera. Mine's a little different and not nearly as Minty looking!

[Chris R]

I have a Nikon FG. Haven't used it much in the past few years except at a few outdoor concerts (Steely Dan, Gorge, 2000), and the Calgary International Folk Festival. IIRC, I also have a Tamaron 28-80 wide angle zoom lens and a few filters.

[Ere]

The other problem is that they are not manufacturing blank reels anymore, the one manufacturing machine in the entire world broke down a few years ago and it is not being repaired. Even though they look simple enough, evidently they are very difficult to manufacture (many have tried!).

Cool camera. I wonder though if you had a few reels in good shape, if you brought the film into a custom lab for processing, they would probably save the reels and return them to you? Does it take 120 film? I had early (Ca. 1910) Kodak panoramic camera that had wooden/metal reels and it would take 120 film.

Yes, the car in motion shot is a repeat offering - I used a suction-cup mounted camera mount and a long air-actuated cable release to take the shot. Yes, suction cups - industrial strength suction cups :agree:

Another avid interest of mine related to photography is preservation and reformatting. Early in my history career I worked with a private collection of photographs in Portland OR where the family had used cameras from the No. 1 Kodak in the 1880s up through the 1930s to photograph their family activities, trips, houses, etc. And had saved every single negative! They were nitrate-based and stored in an un-conditioned attic so presented a rather large fire hazard. I helped get them direct-duped onto modern film and catalogued. Great stuff.

[thxdave]

Hi Lee,
I make my living at it (at least when the economy lets me!) and I've been doing it for fun and profit since I was around 14. Here's my web page:
www.morrisonphotographics.com where you can see some of my work, although it's horribly out-of-date at this point. I'm shooting mostly digital now (Nikon D1x) but still have my medium format stuff (Mamiya RZ67) and some of my large format gear. I'm currently looking for a 4x5 field camera like a Zone VI or a Wista SP.

[thxdave]

Hey Ere,
I LOVE your Mustang shot....very nicely done!!

[stereoptic]

Cool camera. I wonder though if you had a few reels in good shape, if you brought the film into a custom lab for processing, they would probably save the reels and return them to you? Does it take 120 film? .

Thanks. The camera uses 35MM Slide film. (up to 100 ASA) Each picture that you shoot actually produces two images (left and right). Since the pictures are small, only the top half of the film is used. When you get to the end of the roll, you turn that knob on the front of the camera, and the film direction now reverses so that the pictures that you take now are on the bottom half of the film. A 24 exposure roll of film will yield about 30 pairs.

You have the film developed without cutting or mounting. I have a special cutter which aligns the film so that you cookie cut the left and right image simultaneously. Then you insert the "chips" into the blank reels. Here are the reels:

Actually, the reel shortage received national attention thanks to the Conan O'Brien show! Take a look at this clip (http://www.vmresource.com/conan.wmv) ! (a little fun at collector's expense)

[JohnT]

I've owned a couple of Cannon SLR's and used to have lots of fun with them. Bought a Nikon 3.0 digital two years ago for my son and we've enjoyed it very much.

I now work for the big 'O' and have peeked now and then at the new E1 or E-300 SLR's. If I can get things to settle down financially it would be foolish not to upgrade on the cheap.

Even if it's not for me, my son wraps up a two year radio & television production course soon and he would certainly enjoy it too.

[Drew]

If your thinking about going digital, you might consider buying a dedicated film scanner. Nikon has 4000 dpi model for less than $600. Thats much less than any Digital SLR that I know of. That would give you the equivalent of a 20 megapixel image. And you can scan negatives and slides you already have shot. Best of both worlds.

http://www.tristatecamera.com/lookat.php3?sid=brnt1gz4&sku=NIKCSVED&cs=find.php3&action=search&target=products&keywords=nikon%20scanner&search_method=all

I prefer Fuji Velvia for landscape photos. There's an article in this months "Outdoor PHotographer" magazine about how to produce the saturated color of Fuji Velvia using Photoshop. Haven't applied it tho.

[thxdave]

Adding to Drew's comments, I belong to a group of Large Format camera users and there has been an extraordinary split inside our group. Everybody came from a traditional "wet" darkroom background so most everybody shoots and processes traditional sheet film. However, at this point in the process, more and more of our group is scanning the 4x5 film (mostly b/w but some color) into their computers using (mostly) Epson flatbed scanners (2450's, 4870's) and doing their adjustments in Photoshop. From there, they are outputting extraordinarly beautiful inkjet prints. Honestly, I was speechless when I saw some of the first large inkjet prints that these guys were producing. It has almost rendered the chemical darkroom obsolete. You lose some of the "magic" of watching those big prints emerge from the tray of fluid, but it has brought the capability of a big darkroom into spaces as small as a desktop. If you think you'd like to go to digital printing, look at the Epson 2200 printer. It will probably be my next printer as well.

[Drew]

I have no experience with medium or large format cameras or scanning a negative or slide other than 35mm, but I bought a flatbed scanner that had an attachment to scan 35mm negatives and slides and was rather disappointed with the results compared to a digital scanner.

[thxdave]

I have no experience with medium or large format cameras or scanning a negative or slide other than 35mm, but I bought a flatbed scanner that had an attachment to scan 35mm negatives and slides and was rather disappointed with the results compared to a digital scanner.
That's not unusual. Flatbeds aren't really designed to scan such a small target area. I've had MUCH better luck taking my little Nikon Coolpix digital and putting on the slide/neg copier attachment to digitize small format film. When you get up to 4x5 film (and even medium format) the story changes rapidly.

[Drew]

I didn't know such an attachment exists for a digital camera. Learned something new today.

I'd hate to hear about someone buying a $100 flatbed scanner with the intent of scanning 35mm negatives and wind up being disappointed (like I was).

[GregM]

Not a photo buff, but I snapped this shot of sunset in Nepal during my trip to Asia in October. I was using a $20 Olympus.

http://home.earthlink.net/~gremal/sunsetinnepal.jpg

[Reader]

I use an old wooden 4x5 view camera. Do everything the old way. It's slow but I'm happy with the results.

[Randy W]

Lee, I think you will like shooting digitally, especially for the horses as you will be able to see your results immediately and move off in other creative directions easily. I've used pretty much everything as far as gear goes over the past 20 years - my preferences now are Leica M for film, Canon SLRs for digital, Epson printers, Nikon SuperCoolscan digital scanners, and Apple Cinema Displays/G5 computers with Adobe Photoshop CS. Have fun!