The Hub Photo Club

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  • Arkady001
    Arkady001 Posts: 201
    Well I still have both, but they just collect dust on the shelf these days and the 'blad was used as a doorstop in the studio for a couple of years... :shock:

    I haven't even seem a slide projector made lately - probably the only place you'll find one is on Ebay - but they should be dirt cheap. Literally a tenner or thereabouts for most of them
    http://shop.ebay.co.uk/?_from=R40&_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=slide+projectors&_sacat=See-All-Categories
    The Kodak carousel there for £35 was over £900 when new and was state of the art - you may remember seeing them at scchool as all the education authorities bought them - bomb-proof and lasted for ever.

    Cibachrome (or whatever the process is called nowadays) is the process used to make prints from slides, but it was always very expensive compared to prints from negatives and were very high contrast - it was a bit of a compromise and the technology to improve matters wasn't invested in as film effectively died for commercial purposes in the late 90's. If you needed prints, then Professional neg films were available though they had to be stored carefully or the colours would shift slightly from one batch to another.

    Something else I don't miss: doing clip-tests on film batches and then doing sensitometric density tests on them to accurately plot the colours. You'd then dial-in the appropriate levels of filtration when shooting and printing to get consistency.

    We always used to use light-tables to view both negs and slides when making selections: a cheap one can be made with a sheet of white perspex and a few daylight-balanced fluorescent tubes made into a box to fit on your desktop.
    that's if you're going to 'get into it' in a serious way.
    If I were you, i'd go through one roll, see if you like the colours better than with neg film. If you do, invest some more time and money in it.
    if not, go with B&W instead - developing and prining your own stuff is way cooler than slides.
  • Arkady001
    Arkady001 Posts: 201
    One from yesterday while I was playing about with an old manual-focus lens.

    This Nikkor-P 105mm f/2.5 was manufactured around 1969 according to the serial-number register and is easily as sharp as many of my modern AF-Nikkor lenses.
    The coatings wont be as sophisticated, so I'd expect to get more flare off this lens in awkward lighting conditions, but for portraits where you're in control of the light, it's superb.
    Not bad for £50 though...

    5525816671_85dc5abfbd_z.jpg

    (and yes, I was so taken by the cuteness that I didn't spot the dummy til afterwards...lol)
  • mak3m
    mak3m Posts: 1,394
    ^lol would never have spotted he dummy unless you mentioned it
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    Great shot. I've got an old (don't think its as old though) super takumar lens which takes stunningly crisp images. Its got the beginnings of a few tendrils of fungus though, sadly, so it blooms a little in strong light. Bloody great lens though.
  • Arkady001
    Arkady001 Posts: 201
    Great shot. I've got an old (don't think its as old though) super takumar lens which takes stunningly crisp images. Its got the beginnings of a few tendrils of fungus though, sadly, so it blooms a little in strong light. Bloody great lens though.

    Early lenses can be disassembled and cleaned fairly easily if you catch them early enough - shouldn't cost more than £50 or so...
    If the fungus eats away too much of the coatings it starts to etch into the glass and then it'll be FUBAR'd...
    Keeping it on the windowsill in bright light with the caps removed will inhibit further spread - also don't keep it anywhere near your other lenses.
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    Really? ooh. What would I clean it with? IPA? The guy in Cambrian (photography shop) said there was nothing I could do, really.
  • Arkady001
    Arkady001 Posts: 201
    Not you - take it to another shop and get a second opinion. The guy at cambrian may be right - without seeing it I couldn't say for sure, but if it's minimal then at the very least you can remove any remaining spores and prevent further damage - to this or your other photo-kit if it's all stored together.
    Modern coatings are more resistant to fungal damage, but if I had one 'infected' lens, it'd be quarantined immediately. The UV in daylight will stop it spreading - it's a fairly common problem with old lenses that have been stored in attics or other dark, slightly humid conditions (inside closedd camera bags kept in cupboards for example).
    I keep all my 'ready' kit in open bags on dexion racking in the office; other specialist kit is stored on the open shelves.

    I use a guy in Dortmund (bit out of the way for you, i know) and he was recommended by my local Nikon Service Centre for anything where my lens' warranty had expired - most of my kit is over 2 years old.
    He can strip nd service any lens for a price, but any outstanding warranty will be voided.
    Not an issue for old M/F lenses and definitely worth a try.

    Some camera shops employ chimps who have no photographic knowledge worth mentioning. Some are very good - throw a few loaded questions into the conversation to suss them out.
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    The guys in cambrian are generally pretty good, but I only got one guy's opinion. I know they don't do lens repairs themselves though, so maybe that's what he meant, in hindsight.
    The super takumar is definitely a cracking little lens, so I wouldn't mind paying £50 or so to have it refreshed (even if I did pick it up for next to nothing on ebay :lol: )
    Thanks for the advice though, I'll look into some possibilities (and quarantine the ols Takumar)
    Anwyay, seeing as we're getting away from the intended use of this thread, Here's another pic I took over the weekend, just to get it back on track :D
    5523854344_ba90718d21.jpg

    It's far grainier on Flickr for some reason, I might do an agressive noise reduction and re-upload it. strange.
  • Arkady001
    Arkady001 Posts: 201
    Nice...
    A mate of mine in Spain does this sort of thing by painting with light.
    http://www.photography-forum.org/showthread.php/59331-These-are-getting-stupidly-bigger...?highlight=sean
    He shoots multiple exposures, each with one flash exposure directed at different parts of the structure and then combined in a layer-stack in photoshop.
    As long as you get the initial shot with the sky correctly exposed and use the right layer-modes it's a doddle, apparently - not really my thing, but I intend to give it a go as it could prove a useful technique in photographing heavy plant and machinery (one of my contracts is to photograph steel blast furnaces - at the moment I use multiple off-camera flashes - using his method I can use one flash and simply walk round the object, adding flashes to the appropriate areas during each seperate exposure...).
  • mak3m
    mak3m Posts: 1,394
    @arkady need to register for that site

    @yee is that photo touched up or a special lense, colours look mint really saturated
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    mak3m wrote:
    @arkady need to register for that site

    @yee is that photo touched up or a special lense, colours look mint really saturated
    Can't see the picture either, need to register to see them.
    The walking round with a multiple flash technique is great, and has plenty of scope for some creative fun. I've given my sister a hand doing that kind of thing in a graveyard, because we could only afford one flash gun between us at the time! She was in charge of her camera, and I skulked around, illuminating the gravestones (whilst puffing on a ciggarette to give a mysterious eery mist effect :lol:
    We've also done similar things with a P7 torch, and literally drawing the exposure in, although the exposure is harder to judge that way than with a flash gun, because it's not a set amount of light.

    Mak, there's not too much processing going on there to be honest. I took two exposures for the sky, one for the majority of it, and one for the much brighter sunset (which didn't actually come out great anyway), then one for the church/chapel thing.
    The colours are mental because of the light of the sunset. I love taking photos in the first or last few minutes of sunlight of the day, because the colours are so much richer, and the shadows are enhanced, giving a sense of depth.
    Almost all of the lighthouse shots on my Flickr were shot just like that, the sky really does go through some crazy colours at the crack of dawn, or the final seconds of sunset.
  • Arkady001
    Arkady001 Posts: 201
    I managed a few test-shots to fine-tune my positioning and camera-settings prior to a national trials championship later this month.

    These little buggers can really move - they transit the area of sharp focus faster than you can imagine.
    After some trial-and-error, I found the best way to achieve these was to use back-button focus to pre-focus on the area in front of the bar so that when the head has cleared it, the eyes and nose were in sharp focus. I went from 9fps to 11fps to get a decent chance of catching the animals and went from 250th sec to 1200th sec shutter speed to freeze them.
    Which required upping the ISO from 1600 (my initial estimate) to 5000...
    I tripped the shutter as soon as movement was detected in the frame - usually the second frame of the sequence was the keeper and the others were too soft to use.

    5582158710_5e8b5f8c0d.jpg

    5581570453_0f18ddf6e7.jpg

    I shot JPEG-Fine, thinking I would rattle through so many that it wasn't worth shooting RAW, but looking at these, my custom white-balance is a bit off, so I'll just keep my finger light next time and shoot RAW as usual...
  • Arkady001 wrote:
    I shot JPEG-Fine, thinking I would rattle through so many that it wasn't worth shooting RAW, but looking at these, my custom white-balance is a bit off, so I'll just keep my finger light next time and shoot RAW as usual...

    Pin sharp though.

    Chapeau Sir
  • GHill
    GHill Posts: 2,402
    I'm getting a bit rusty with the camera, maybe this will inspire me to pick it up again.

    Anyway, two of my favourite shots from last year:

    5437115166_30bbb78d34.jpg
    Little and Large - new edit by J Grant Hill, on Flickr

    5215649572_520a07fe21.jpg
    It never snows in Britain by J Grant Hill, on Flickr
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    Arkady001 wrote:
    After some trial-and-error, I found the best way to achieve these was to use back-button focus to pre-focus on the area in front of the bar
    Great shots, and a great explanation of the technique, thank you for sharing.
    Could you explain a bit more about "back-button" focus though? I've not heard of that before.
  • Arkady001
    Arkady001 Posts: 201
    Arkady001 wrote:
    After some trial-and-error, I found the best way to achieve these was to use back-button focus to pre-focus on the area in front of the bar
    Great shots, and a great explanation of the technique, thank you for sharing.
    Could you explain a bit more about "back-button" focus though? I've not heard of that before.

    OK - normal camera operation requires you to half-press the shutter button to activate the auto-focus, yes?
    There's a custom function on the D3 and other cameras which removes the auto-focus operation from the shutter button and assigns it to a seperate AF-ON button on the back of the camera (it lies just under your thumb when extended, so you can still have the AF fully-operational if you wish - there's another AF-ON button on the side so you can do the same thing with the camera in portrait-mode).

    D3_back_l.jpg

    So you can pre-focus, leave it there and still let your finger hover on the shutter button, safe in the knowledge that it won't re-focus somewhere else, just as you trip the shutter.

    Using this facility, I placed a bit of tape on the ground in front of the jump about where I wanted the head of the dog to be in relation to the bar and pre-focussed on that. As the dog came into the frame, I tripped the shutter and as the dog sailed over the bar it moved into the sharp-focus 'zone' that I had pre-selected, rather than have the lens try and follow-focus the dog itself.

    It's a bit like having manual focus and auto-focus at the same time - as soon as the subject is focussed you can lift off the AF-ON button and the focus stays locked there until you press it again, regardless of what the shutter button is doing.
    Keep your thumb pressed down and the AF continues to focus as normal depending on which AF-settings are selected.

    It's ideal for motor-sports: rather than have the lens trying to track the cars and possibly jumping from one car to another, you pre-focus on the bit of track where you want the car to be sharp and as the cars heave into view you trip the shutter.
    It's how we used to cover motorsports in ye olde days of filme - would work for bikes as well...
  • sheepsteeth
    sheepsteeth Posts: 17,418
    Arkady001

    is the same technique (snapping a shot of a moving subject) achievable by manually focussing on the area required if you set your camera to MF?
  • Arkady001
    Arkady001 Posts: 201
    Arkady001

    is the same technique (snapping a shot of a moving subject) achievable by manually focussing on the area required if you set your camera to MF?

    Yes, same as on an old film camera without AF...
    You have to guage the right moment - if you wait til the subject is at the spot, by the time you've hit the button, it's gone.
    Hit the button before it reaches the spot and hopefully your exposure will coincide with the subject arriving at the pre-focussed spot.

    The beauty of back-button focus is that you have all the advantages of AF with the precise control of manual focus.

    I also found this technique ideal for photographing my three-month old daugter: with AF controlled through the shutter-button, I found the AF was constantly 'chasing' the point of focus as she moved slightly. With BBF, I set the focus and wait til she dodges back into the frame where I want her. I used to get lots of rejects, especially when using the 85mm f/1.4 or the 135mm f/2 wide-open as those lenses' DoF is wafer thin. Now I'm getting a far better percentage of keepers.
  • sheepsteeth
    sheepsteeth Posts: 17,418
    cool, cheers for the info, i think my camera (olympus pen) has a feature where i can set one of 2 programmable buttons on the back of the camera to fix the auto focus, and there is a function where i can turn off the first click of the shutter release.

    not as slick as having a dedicated button which makes both changes but it is interesting to know thats why you would want to be able to change which button selects AF. i thought it was a completely bizarre function.
  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    Don't know if I am misunderstanding, but don't most cameras have some form of focus lock? Half press the button, it focuses, and stays focused at that distance as long as I have the button remaining half pressed, regardless if you move the FOV. Or is this a way of allowing you to take your finger off the button?
  • Arkady001
    Arkady001 Posts: 201
    supersonic wrote:
    Don't know if I am misunderstanding, but don't most cameras have some form of focus lock? Half press the button, it focuses, and stays focused at that distance as long as I have the button remaining half pressed, regardless if you move the FOV. Or is this a way of allowing you to take your finger off the button?

    Indeed it is.
    It sounds a bit bizarre, but once I tied it I never switched back to 'normal' mode.
    Think about it:
    With old film cameras, we focussed the lens (usually with the left hand) and pressed the shutter with the right index finger. This is just another way of seperating AF from shutter release. By keeping my thumb on the AF-On button I can still continuously track any subject I want, or remove it and the focus stays locked at that distance - also and most importantly, the shutter will still fire - most cameras default to lock the shutter button if the camera isn't in focus (or thinks it is - though this can be disabled in your custom funtions).

    Also when shooting 'normally', in any of the dynamic AF modes, the AF doesn't lock. Depending on which mode you use, it automatically tracks moving subjects within the frame or jumps to the closest subject after a certain time-lag (which you can adjust). With modern lenses, that means the lens is making lots of micro-adjustments all the time - if the subject moves slightly the lens can sometimes try and reaquire something else - it's happened to me during event shoots where the camera suddenly decides to try and lock on the background instead of the group of five drunken idiots milling around on my backdrop waiting for me to take thier photo.
    The problem with extremely fast-moving subjects, especially in low light and using narrow DoF that the lens doesn't have time to aquire the subject, lock on, track it's continuing movement and release the shutter at the precise moment you want it to.
    With people or animals, the eye has to be in focus - with these shots, it was quite possible to get the nose or ear sharp while the eye was soft - not good enough.
  • Ransaka
    Ransaka Posts: 474
    A couple of shots taken by me last summer at out annual bbq using a cheapy s8000fd on a 2 sec exposure:

    A couple of mates with fx lightsabers:

    01Lightsabers.jpg

    Mate with his firestick:

    01Firestick.jpg
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    Arkady001 wrote:
    rear button focus malarkey
    Ah, I see. That is brilliant.
    My zoom lens has a focus over-ride button on the sides where it's gripped, which I used when shooting the bikes at the Anglesey Circuit. But with that, you have to hold it down before pressing th eshutter button, or it will autofocus. Being able to disable the shutter button focusing but still use the rear controls sounds very useful.

    Thanks for teaching us something :D
  • Arkady001
    Arkady001 Posts: 201
    Arkady001 wrote:
    rear button focus malarkey
    Ah, I see. That is brilliant.
    My zoom lens has a focus over-ride button on the sides where it's gripped, which I used when shooting the bikes at the Anglesey Circuit. But with that, you have to hold it down before pressing th eshutter button, or it will autofocus. Being able to disable the shutter button focusing but still use the rear controls sounds very useful.

    Thanks for teaching us something :D

    No dramas - I only 'found' out about it this year after it was pointed out to me by a couple of mates who shoot FA football and FIA motorsport for the agencies. One shoots Nikon, the other Canon - so it definitely works on their DSLR ranges at the top-end.
    As soon as I tried it I was all "why the **** didn't I do this before?" - it made that much difference.
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    I think it may be more of a high end camera thing, since I haven't dounf it on Canon 350s, 450s or 500s, and not on Nikkon D50.
    Annoying though, since it shouldn't be complicated to implement on lesser cameras.

    I've been through my Sony in depth after reading that, and elthough you can AF using the thumb pad, I can't disable the shutter button function.
    Ah well.
  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    When I took those pics of the moon, I could not not get the pic to focus on the moon, nor infinity. Eventually I used a church on a hill that I could see: worked well, locked the focus on that, swung to to the moon and snapped.
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    supersonic wrote:
    When I took those pics of the moon, I could not not get the pic to focus on the moon, nor infinity. Eventually I used a church on a hill that I could see: worked well, locked the focus on that, swung to to the moon and snapped.
    The advantage of the rear button method though, sonic, is you can set your camera up on a tripod, autofocus when needed, and then leave it set up. By half-pressing the shutter button, it auto-focuses each time.
    I used a similar feature on my lens when taking pics of racing bikes. The lens is an old scre-drive AF one, and it just couldn't keep up with the acceleration of the race bikes coming towards it. So, I focused on a part of the track, and pressed the focus lock button, meaning that all I had to do was wait for the bikes to come into frame and bang, fire the futter at the right time - since the camera was already autofocused.
  • sheepsteeth
    sheepsteeth Posts: 17,418
    not particularly sharp im afraid but i love the colours in this and the insect was a happy accident

    oly17mm @f/2.8
    1/1250 sec
    ISO 100

    5606939046_7bc77ed35b_z.jpg
  • Arkady001
    Arkady001 Posts: 201
    There's an insect...?

    Very green and yellowey - Spring-ish in fact...