Prolific camera builder Eric Molczan published plans for a cheap & easy-looking DIY shutter for pinhole and zone plate cameras.
Check it out at f295
Month: June 2006
DIY light activated shutter release for Canon DSLR cameras
Jessica Bussert writes:
I came up with this idea after reading a previous Make post about another Canon project… I went out and bought a photoresistor and a relay, and after a few minutes with the soldiering iron, I had built myself a light activated shutter release. I then rigged up the following "studio", and proceeded to take a few hundred photos of milk splashing in a pan filled with lots more milk.
Read plans and sample photos at Ms. Bussert’s site
Via MAKE Blog
Video interview of Cartier-Bresson by Charlie Rose
Charlie Rose covers lots of ground in this rare 58-minute video interview with the accepted mack daddy of street photography, Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Watch interview at Google Videos
Via Myla Kent
Schonauer’s summer photography reading list
The editor-in-chief [of American Photo magazine] ruminates on the best photography book ever written, plus several new titles worth diving into.
This summer I plan to read the best book on photography ever written. Actually, I’ll be rereading it. First published 36 years ago, the book was passed down to me by Sean Callahan, the founding editor of American Photographer magazine, the forerunner of American Photo. Sean told me at the time that it was the best book ever written about photography, and he was right. It’s been sitting on a bookcase shelf in my office for years and years, dog-eared and finger-smudged from constant referencing. This summer I’m going to pick it up again and look at it closely, from beginning to end. It will be like discovering the magic of photography all over again.
Continue reading at American Photo
Thanks to Paul Beard of A Crank’s Progress for sending this my way!
Cost of US copyright registration increasing
The cost of registering copyright goes up July 1, 2006, the U.S. Copyright Office has announced on their Web site.
Registering a single photograph or groups of photographs goes up $15 USD to the new price of $45 USD. Renewing a copyright without an addendum increases from $60 to $75, and renewing a copyright with an addendum goes up from $30 to $220.
Continue reading summary at the National Press Photographers Association
New rate schedule at the US Copyright Office
Via Utata
Michael Reichmann on soft proofing
Michael Reichmann of The Luminous Landscape has written a typically lucid article on soft proofing:
Soft proofing is simply a mechanism that allows you to view on your computer monitor what your print will look like when it is on paper. A specific paper. That paper and ink combination has been defined by the profile that you or someone else has made for your printer / paper and ink combination. When a printer profile is made the colour of the paper is one of the factors that is figured into the profile, because the spectrophotometer is reading the combination of the ink, and the paper that lies beneath it.
So, if you were able to view your image through the printer profile, you would be able to see how that particular combination of ink and paper would reproduce it, taking into account the gamut as well as other characteristics of the inks used.
Continue reading on The Luminous Landscape
Next-gen fine art inkjet paper review
The introduction of new papers from Hahnemuhle, Innova, and Museo have everyone scrambling for these papers, as they are suppose to be the reason to finally come out of the darkroom. After all, B&W silver gelatin paper manufacturers are starting to disappear, causing more artists/photographers to convert to digital printing methods. This does not mean that we should start expecting these paper companies to create exact replicas of our favorite silver gelatin papers. We as a community, need to start suggesting what we would like them to change about their current papers rather than asking them to match paper that is oriented to a completely different process. These three papers are derived from exactly that, all three companies listened to the cries of those tired of RC semi-gloss or luster papers. The papers they produced are a tremendous accomplishment for the first generation of a new product, remember these papers are first generation.
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I personally along with many other photographers have refused to print on so-called luster or semi-gloss papers due to their look. The next generation of paper’s large color gamut and DMax allows for a higher color saturation, which produces a look that creates images that have a similar image quality and feel as traditional photographic paper. These three papers are nothing like any paper I have ever used, digital or traditional, because they have their own image qualities. We finally have the technical tools, to create the imagery that we all have been waiting for with the advent of these papers.
Continue reading at Booksmart Studio
Two-part light leaking tutorial
Photographer moominsean put together a great two-part tutorial/explanation of what light leaks are and how to avoid them or get them on purpose. (See the bright bits coming down from the top on his [utterly brilliant] photo above? That’s them!)
Part one deals with leaks caused by the camera—very common with toy and home-built cameras—while part two deals with the winding of medium format film, which may be of particular interest to Zero Image pinhole shooters.
You can also create lightleaks on film after you have shot the roll (or, theoretically, before, but I haven’t tried this). When you see really strong, overpowering lightleaks, chances are it’s not the camera, but the handling of the film…
Check them out at his new blog, moominstuff: part 1 – part 2
Mike Johnston photography forum simulator
Mike Johnston subjects some famous photos to his sharp wit in the form of fictitious but too-realistic photography forum comments in Great Photographers on the Internet; great hilarity ensues! On a photo by "decisive moment"-coiner and legendary street photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson:
Bonjour Henri, assuming you are French, or at least understand it. This is a great capture, I love the composition and the dog. We had a dog that looked kind of like that one once. Your problem here is that your AF has focused on the wrong place—the man is actually kind of soft! The camera has mistakenly focused on the people in the doorway, creating a distracting softness in the man. Usually it is best to focus on the closest object and most times the camera will choose the closest large object to focus on, but unfortunately not here. But it is still an amazing capture. Cordially, Edwin
Continue reading at The Online Photographer
Laura A. Watt’s "Natural Forms" photgraphy show
Don’t miss the Natural Forms show by one of my favorite Flickr photographers, Laura A. Watt’s. Her work is beautiful, subtle, and will take you someplace else if you let it. If you’re going to be in the Berkeley area this August, make a point of going!
Water, leaves, and other natural forms come together in Laura A. Watt’s Photos, straddling a fine line between straight representation and abstraction. Her fascination with curcing wave-shapes and subtle tones spans from vast skyscapes to tiny botanicals, with water flowing throughout.
The show runs at The Claremont Club, 41 Tunnel Rd., Berkeley, CA, US from 1–30 August, 2006.