Rolleiflex 6000 – A Passionate Review – By Volker Muth

I’ve met Volker in Germany once during Photokina and he’s a nice guy.  It’s great to see his article on the Rolleiflex 6000 system which is very detailed, but omits a few things about lenses he hasn’t used.    The 90mm APO macro lens by Schneider, the 180/2.8 Schneider, and the 60mm Schneider Curtagon are all missing from his report and personally I think these lenses are some of the jewels of that system.  If he liked the 150mm SonnarRead more

Opinion: Do we really need all those buttons and dials?

Here’s an interesting opinion piece that I first saw on DPR that made me think for a while both about the use of AI in devices and also about ergonomics.  Cell phones are able to make truly remarkable images but the real frustration is that it takes so long to get your camera app open and to take the shot, and when you want to make slight adjustments it’s not all that easy to do so. So while modern camerasRead more

Learn Camera Repair – free at LearnCameraRepair.com

I surfed to this website tonight LearnCameraRepair.com  and thought others would be interested, and I hope there are some interested people because we need more good camera technicians! Online camera repair course, free tutorials, and the largest online library of free service manuals for photographic equipment. Learn Camera Repair is the place to learn to repair cameras! This seems to be an amazing site with about a dozen downloadable lessons in pdf form and even chapter quizzes that you canRead more

Master Profiles: Bruce Gilden

Portraits taken by Bruce Gilden keep popping up in my Insta feed and I went searching to see what kind of light he was using since I could not always see the catchlight in his subjects eyes.  Now I know why – he uses the flash off camera and sort of jumps out at his subjects and raises the flash with one hand while shooting with the camera held lower in his other hand.  This technique seems to work reallyRead more

Did You Know You Can Archive Your Digital Photos on Analog Film? |

For those who diligently perform DAM or are interested – a new worry for you… bit rot.  Nope, not just with files stored on CD or DVD ROM.   This is in addition to the regular updates in terms of long term data storage technology.  I think Dr’s offices are the slowest to adopt new tech – I mean you still have to fax over referrals, and they will give you a copy of your X-ray on CD.  I mean newRead more

Daniel Wolf, 65, Dies; Helped Create a Market for Art Photography

When I was at UC Berkeley studying Physics, I added a BA in fine arts. At that time, I have to confess that didn’t consider photography to be Fine Art and thought of it more as craft.  I had been making some ‘artistic’ photos and printing them in the darkroom, but somehow my mind was locked.  My opinion didn’t change until about 2000 when the very first digital cameras.  This article about Daniel Wolf creating an art market for photographyRead more

Why I RARELY Shoot Wide Open (How to Separate the Subject from the Background) – YouTube

Mostly I  don’t watch videos about photographic techniques (not because I know everything, but I kind of like to do my own thing and not copy others) but this was a really great video by Kebs Cayabyab that shows 5 ways to separate your subject from the background without using shallow depth of field.   You should watch this 7 minute video! TL/DR,DW here they are:  Light/Shadow –  Use selective lighting to show your subject to the viewer Colors – FindRead more

Shooting large format film

I looked at this short introduction to using 4×5 (large format) film on Ilford’s website with more interest to the lens used.  The Bokeh looked a little like a Helios lens as the aperture circles at center become ellipsoid on the edges of the frame.   The lens Mr. Phimester used is a 178mm Aero Ektar.   I’m still undecided if I like the bokeh or not, but I think in the case of this image in the woods, it has aRead more

Projection Optics Company 18″ E.F. – “Lens Review”

I’ve got one of these Beseler E.F. Projection lenses sitting on my desk.  I may have paid about $30 for it some time back, just because it seemed cool, but now and then I think about shooting with it.  I didn’t know the coverage and just found that like many things someone else has already wondered the same and done some experimenting.  Charles Hollemeersch reports that his 18in lens will cover nearly 35x42cm so sounds like it would cover 11x14inRead more

How to Spot a Fake Leica

    Coming from the perspective of being a Zenit KMZ importer, this article was interesting, and I was happy to see at the end that they report the fakes aren’t half bad.  I’ve never really shot much with the Leica rangefinder cameras since I prefer SLR’s but maybe someday I’ll pick one up, and perhaps it will be a copy and not the real thing.  Saving this link for future reference.  Jump to the page on Mike Eckman’s siteRead more

The Royal Photographic Society’s whole archive is searchable and viewable for free

This is actually quite amazing!  If you like old cameras or study photography or photographers you can search through all the RPS’s journals by keyword.  Wow!  The RPSJ is the oldest continuously published journal of photography – from 1853 until now.   They covered the gear, the people, the techniques, the industry….    What a great resource! Source: The Royal Photographic Society Example link to ‘Best Shots’ Volume 158    Read more