Reblogged from Lensrentals / Roger Cicala: The Heights and Depths of Nadar: TL;DR Version 

I’ve seen references to Nadar in lot’s of photography books, and recently I decided to google him to learn more and that’s how I came upon Roger Cicala’s post on Nadar. I do occasionally read his very informative articles, but hadn’t seen this one on Nadar. He was quite a character and among other things also a very good photographer!   This rotating self portrait gives one a glimpse into his character.    Roger’s article will tell you a lot moreRead more

Amazing still life from 1860 by Roger Fenton who worked to promote photography as art.

Wet plate collodion photography seems to be having a bit of a revival these days, and I have a number of friends working with that media. I’ve tried it, taking a workshop from Alan Barnes, and there’s a lot of skill required. Beyond getting good chemistry, there’s an art to the pouring and exposure that can only be mastered by few. It’s rare to see a complete plate without flaws, and getting good dynamic range is hard. That’s why IRead more

Filmomat: A really cool film processor that handles 35mm up to 5x7in sheet film! 

I’ve been following (lusting after?) the Filmomat since it was first introduced, and at that time the creator had just made it for himself.  Now sometime later he’s made it available for sale (although it’s kind of pricy) and that is really exciting.  What makes it so cool? First off, it’s really difficult to develop color film at home – the chemicals aren’t expensive or dangerous but color film processing just requires really steady temperature control and at higher temperaturesRead more

“A guide to shooting expired film” from PopPhoto

Today I received in the mail a Graflex Super D with “automatic diaphragm”, and more relevant to this article – a graflex pack film holder #523.    I have never seen one of these things before – it’s a metal box that has 12 or 16 sheets of film inside that allows the photographer to advance to the next sheet by pulling on a tab. The tab is attached to the far side of the sheet and pulls it aroundRead more