Month: September 2006

Moral confusion in photography

Nicolai Grossman Leave a comment

Mike Johnston responds to a comment about a daguerreotype of 9/11 that questions the photo’s morality. Interesting read.

The source of the reaction seems simple: ordinary viewers know that to take a photograph you have to be proximate to your subject. Thus, they know that the photographers were "there." And if they were there, the logic seems to go, they should have acted to change the situation, somehow. (It’s partially a wishful "I" statement on the part of the viewer, to wit: "If I had been there, I would have taken action.")

Check it out at The Online Photographer

New Think Tank Photo camera bags

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Think Tank Photo has unveiled eight new photo bags and bag accessories aimed at the working shooter and serious weekend photographer. Like previous Think Tank offerings, they feature some of the nicest product design we’ve seen coupled with the company’s usual flair for product naming. Here’s a rundown of what’s new…

Continue reading the complete run-down, with photos, at robgalbraith.com

Via the Open Photography Forums

New Lomo LC-A+

Nicolai Grossman 12 Comments

As much as I hate to give any publicity whatsoever to the monopolistic rip-off marketing goons at the Lomographic Society, they have come out with something cool. Like everything else they sell, it’s embarassingly overpriced, and I recommend that you not buy anything from them unless it’s unavailable anywhere else—for example, don’t pay $70 for a $15 Holga, get it from holgamods or Amazon—but this is such a product: the Lomo LC-A+.

Take your standard small, cute, horribly-built, awesomely Minitar-lensed Lomo LC-A 35mm camera, and add a double exposure button, metering up to ISO1600 (why the fuck didn’t they go to 3200 as long as they were in there??), and a standard threaded cable release socket. Take away manual exposure; this is auto-only.

The cheapest way to get this camera from them is the Standard Package, which consists of the camera, Colorsplash flash (just want the camera? too bad), cable release (just want the camera? too bad), "Lomographiere" hardcover book (don’t want to pay them for their own marketing materials? the materials where they use their customer’s photos and don’t pay them? too bad), two rolls of film (just want the camera? too bad!), and a set of batteries (OK, that’s actually useful). All yours for the modest price of US $250.

They’re accepting pre-orders now and say the first batch will ship 2 October, 2006.

Immense shitload of new Zeiss F, M, and CF lenses

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Zeiss are blasting out a huge range of new manual focus lenses:

Leica M mount

  • Distagon T* 18mm f/4
  • C Biogon T* 21mm f/4.5

Nikon F mount

  • ZF Distagon T* 35mm f/2
  • ZF Makro-Planar 50mm f/2
  • ZF Makro-Planar 100mm f/2
  • ZF Distagon T* 25mm f/2.8

Hasselblad CF mount (appear to be vintage-look versions of the currently available equivalents)

  • Makro-Planar T* 120mm f/4
  • Distagon T* 50mm f/4
  • Sonnar T* 180mm f/4

Check out Photos and commentary at The Online Photographer or Zeiss’ rundown (minus the Hasselblads).

Via Auspicious Dragon’s photostream blog

Lensbaby wide-angle conversion lenses

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Lensbabies launches the new Lensbaby accessory lenses, a Lensbaby Wide Angle/Macro Conversion Lens and a Lensbaby Wide Angle/Telephoto Lens kit. Most notable about the new wide angle accessory lens is that it is optimized for use with the Lensbaby – no other wide angle accessory on the market preserves the size of the sweet spot of focus the way the Lensbaby wide angle lens does. When a photographer uses an industry standard wide angle conversion lens with a Lensbaby it shrinks the size of the Sweet Spot. The shrinking Sweet Spot makes it harder to shoot wide open at f/2.0 or f/2.8, because the Sweet Spot reduces to quite a small percentage of the photo. Our new Lensbaby wide angle conversion lenses solve the problem of the shrinking Sweet Spot…

Continue reading at the Photonika Show Web site

US Polaroid 600 film sale: buy 4, get 1 free + free shipping

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The title says it all: for every four packs of Polaroid 600 film you buy, you get one free. To get free shipping, use promo code ERV2YB during checkout.

The offer ends 28 September, 2006, and is only valid if you buy directly from Polaroid.

I bought a crapload when they had the same offer on Spectra film a few months back and my order was correct and arrived quickly.

(This is not an affiliate thing, I got this in Polaroid’s newsletter.)

Big changes for JPG Magazine

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Big changes for JPG! In short: moving to traditional offset printing for better image quality, memberships, voting on submitted images, more themes, and US $100 and a subscription if your work is published.

Their newsletter explains:

Dearest JPGgers,

Exactly two years ago today, JPG Magazine began with a simple mission to honor the amazing work coming out of the online photographic community. Today, six issues later, the humble project that began with a Gmail account and a dream is growing up. Come see!

There’s a lot that’s new, including memberships, more themes, and voting! And there’s even more new with the magazine, including a larger format, more pages, more frequent publishing, and a much lower price tag! And did we mention that, if you’re chosen for publication, you’ll get $100 and a free subscription?

And this is just the beginning. We’ve got big plans. Very soon we’ll be making subscriptions available for the first time, ever. If you’re interested in subscribing (and we hope you are) be sure to sign up and we’ll let you know when they’re available.

Today also marks the opening of submissions for Issue 7! Unlike past issues, this one’s got three themes: Big, Self-portraiture, and Hometown. As usual you can submit one photo to each, but now there’s three, so that’s 300% more chances to get published!

But enough talk. C’mon in. Check out some photos. Vote in the themes. And submit your excellent work now, because Issue 7 closes in two weeks!

It’s been a helluva two years. Thanks for JPGing with us. Keep shooting, baby!

— Derek and Heather
  JPG Magazine