What for how much to get going? From digicam to shift back!

[Michael Fontana]

ok, Klaus

I agree, keeping my 3 Sinars - from 5 I had.
Still got a copy of that rare Sinar Handy, which I like very much: one shift-direction only, but ultra-fast setup:

 

[Klaus Esser]

ok, Klaus

I agree, keeping my 3 Sinars - from 5 I had.
Still got a copy of that rare Sinar Handy, which I like very much: one shift-direction only, but ultra-fast setup:

Yes - fine stuff!! Is that the Chinese shiftable 4x5"? Gaoersi or Dayi or so? Cause you said "copy".
They´re reliable and fast. You can attach a 6x9/12/14/17 back.

best, Klaus

 

[Michael Fontana]

No, this is from Sinar, the same who build the Hy6 MF, and its called Sinar Handy.
Very few were built, in the 80's?? 90's, so you will hardly find information about it.

It was my travelling kit...with a 65, 90, 120mm, it was box approx. same size as my actual 1 DS-2-bag, one even can shot handheld, with it, as it has a graffle ;-)
Focussing is done on the lens itself, like he cambo's.

 

[leonardobarreto.com]

I don't think we disagree in general terms, just some different personal strategies and stile. All photographers solve problems their own way. I don't discard film at all, and the cost of the back is what stops me from using it as for urban landscape, but for every day work, I can't complain. My clients are impressed when they see the files, and this are people that have digital cameras and they have attempted to do "in house photography", but even if they had a PhaseOne the results would be bad. There are other factors contributing to the success or failure of the assignment like lighting, choosing the angle, interpretation of the subject etc, etc. Digital is just a different instrument, like electric guitar as opposed to acoustic guitar. Why would we say that the only good is the electric, or the other one? There is a time and a moment for each.

 

[Klaus Esser]

"There is a time and a moment for each."

Yes - absolutely!

"like electric guitar as opposed to acoustic guitar"

well, ough - you do very (!) different things on an electric guitar as you do on an acoustic one . . . ;-)

Not to speak of Jimmy Hendrix´ interpretation of "Star Spangled Banner" in Woodstock . . on his Stratocaster and a Marshall stack (one of the highlights in playing electric guitars) but there´s a big difference in using the both types of guitars and also a big difference in expressions they make by their functionality . .
Or listen to an acoustric nylon-string of Laurindo Almeida playing BossaNova or Andrés Segovia playing a nylon-string classic guitar which is basically the same construction and then listen to a Telecaster played over a MesaBoogie . . .

It depends heavily on the style of music and your feelings, which guitar you choose. As it is in photography . .


best, Klaus

P.S.: of course i understand you very well . . ;-)

 

[Georg R. Baumann]

A client - ArtDirector - made me think deeper about client´s psychology than ever before:
We had a briefing about a job for a big mobilephone client here in Germany and i suggested to shoot some testimonials digitally. Seemed the most logical way to me.
Than he said something very interesting:
"This client lives and works in a digital world. Everybody can buy a digital camera to shoot people in many ways. So digital media is very common with them. Maybe they start to think about shooting tzestimonials in a way like "look - it´s so easy these days, isn´t it . . why the hell don´t we try it ourselves? Why spending THIS much of money for a photographer? Why is that so expensive?" and so on." That´s what he said. Than:
"To really impress clients of that kind you have to build some miracoulos things around them which they don´t know! Digital they know - in every kind".
Analogue, with manual metering light, making Polaroids and bigger formats - shooting a portrait for instance on 4x5" - that´s miracoulos to them! They´ll adore you as a master of Oz kind and i bet, costs are no objects . . . "

Wise guy he is. It went exactly this way: i did some shots on 4x5" and some portraits and the stills on 8x10" and the main in 6x6 - and what can i say: the faces of some junior art directors and young, clever and smart guys and gals at the client´s you should have seen when they were shown the 8x10" transparencies . . . "Lighttable? What´s that? We don´t have it here". That really was amazing .

I find this an outstanding story in deed! <big smile!>

To a degree it reminds me to an experience in a music store many years ago. It was short after the release of a new all-in-one workstation Synthesizer. You know, one of those where you push a single button and a whole orechstra blasts full tutti.

I had not seen a Boesendorfer Concert Grand for quite some time, let aside played on one, and there she was, in her full glory, calling me like the sirens in Homer's Odysse.

There was a considerable crowd around a chap who pushed buttons on this new wonder workstation and all kind of miraculous copy cats of at the time popular bands were emluated by pushing a few buttons. Aaaawwww, Oooohhhh... and more Aaaawwwww.

Obviosuly it was ok to try instruments in this shop, a few people played on guitars, a few were torturing a drum kit somewhere in the back.

I admit, a concert grand has a magic pull on me, and I found myself sitting at this beautiful instrument and playing Ravel, then Rachmaniniov, then Oscar Peterson, and a little Joh Sebastian. I did not realize the space around me, as I was concentrating on the instrument, and when I looked up all the crowd from the wonder-workstation had disappeared and stood around the Boesendorfer, and you heard nothing but the Boesendorfer in the shop.

I somewhat blushed and left the shop laughing. <grins>

 

[leonardobarreto.com]

Over the weekend I had my b'day present that came from eBay, a baby Century and also my Mamiya 645 AFD/P25 --most of the time I live it at my studio-- so I had the two "guitars". Although I didn't have much time because week ends are not time for me but for the two dogs, the 5 year old, and the wife, I had time to shoot one 120 roll with the 6 x 9 and a few captures with the PhaseOne. The "unplugged" camera was an experience.

Has anyone seen the new big trend in bicycles that have no brakes and no gears? fixies, I think they call them. The beauty is in going to the basics of the thing itself and with it "playing" --in this case, going about New York City w/out brakes-- as connoisseurs.
I sat with my tripod and the baby viewcamera at the end of a pier waiting to catch the ships that go by in the Hudson while noticing the number of other people with SLRs and DSLRs in their hands with big zooms as "the other 10 speeds, 2 brakes" cameras.

"It is a zen thing", I read in a The New York Times resent article about fixies. And that is what it is to shoot with a camera where everything has to be set before shooting, like an old canon.

On the other side, I took some images of my kid in the apartments couch with the 80mm f:2.8 and I felt like a Jimy Hendrix. I was shooting with the camera tethered to my PowerBook and had access to the images in the 15 inch display, the MF view finder is like a huge bright window and I could keep an eye on the moving subject and a power shutter release under my finger...slack, slack.

 

[Michael Fontana]

all these questions overlap with some stitching tests and my first "commercial stitches" - with a hombrew nodal point adapter.

I definatly decided to go that stitching route, and not for a digiback:

- one point is the money spend, as for most of my clients, a digiback would be a overkill: architecture revue's don't require bigger than A-3. To be flexible, I had to add a whole new set of lenses as well, apart from the digiback.

- the stitching software has progressed very much. Only a few years ago, stitching was sort of painfull experiment, by selecting common points in different shots, hoping the app not to crash. Today, this is done automatically - no point-peeping hazzles' anymore. With batchfeatures, one might render several stitches or a huge one overnight.

- Today's computer have enough ressources, to stich within a reasonable amount of time; and without blocking the puter completly. I was able to render a stitch meanwhile working on a 500 MB-file in PS.

Going the stitching route means too, that I can use all my °exotic° lenses, as the distagons, zuikos, or the canon 50 macro, good lenses that I' ve in use for single shots as well. This gives me the flexibility, to choose the image angles, the aspect ratio wide/height, appropriate to the object.

A downside of stitching are moving objects, but I' m not shooting so may. For these very rare occasions, keeping a sinar makes sense.

For the ease of use, I'll buy a nodalpoint-adapter.
Any comments about your experience with the different brands?

 

[Klaus Esser]

all these questions overlap with some stitching tests and my first "commercial stitches" - with a hombrew nodal point adapter.

I definatly decided to go that stitching route, and not for a digiback:

- one point is the money spend, as for most of my clients, a digiback would be a overkill: architecture revue's don't require bigger than A-3. To be flexible, I had to add a whole new set of lenses as well, apart from the digiback.

- the stitching software has progressed very much. Only a few years ago, stitching was sort of painfull experiment, by selecting common points in different shots, hoping the app not to crash. Today, this is done automatically - no point-peeping hazzles' anymore. With batchfeatures, one might render several stitches or a huge one overnight.

- Today's computer have enough ressources, to stich within a reasonable amount of time; and without blocking the puter completly. I was able to render a stitch meanwhile working on a 500 MB-file in PS.

Going the stitching route means too, that I can use all my °exotic° lenses, as the distagons, zuikos, or the canon 50 macro, good lenses that I' ve in use for single shots as well. This gives me the flexibility, to choose the image angles, the aspect ratio wide/height, appropriate to the object.

A downside of stitching are moving objects, but I' m not shooting so may. For these very rare occasions, keeping a sinar makes sense.

For the ease of use, I'll buy a nodalpoint-adapter.
Any comments about your experience with the different brands?

Hey Michael!

I fully agree with you!

"For the ease of use, I'll buy a nodalpoint-adapter.
Any comments about your experience with the different brands?"

For travelling and wandering with light-weight cameras as the 20/30/5D without battery-grip there´s the NodalNinja - very light, cheap (about 150.-€), collapsable.
For cameras a bit heavy like 1Ds or D2x or 5D with grip i would suggest a more sturdy one. From cost/effectiveness there are some arround 300-500€.
I have a Manfrotto modified: as a base i use the 438, the famous and nearly unbeatable MN300N and got a L handmade from sturdy alloy with a very sturdy and flexible vertical camera-move device which is more reliable as the original Manfrotto SPH with heavier cameras and lenses.
The Manfrotto is heavy and clumpsy, but very good and fast and sturdy.

To shoot high-res pictures, a motorized/computerized head is unavoidable in the end - though you can make it with a manual head also, of course. But with some hundred exposures - eventually with bracketing - one tends to forget one or another exposure somewhere in the middle . . . (at least i tend to do so . . ;-) ).
The cost for horizontal moving nodal-heads start at arround 1000.-€ and a hor/vert computerized head like the PixOrb is arround 3000-6000.-$ . . .
That´s lots of money - but you´ll compensate it with saved time and constant exposure-rows.
The electronic Seitz-head is arround 1500.-€ as i know and is a good buy - moving and firing the camera is very flexible and precise. It wait´s a moment before releasing the shutter after mirror-up and you can adjust sequences. But it moves only horizontal.

Take a close look at Google for panorama-heads or QTVR gear.

best, Klaus

 

[Michael Fontana]

Thanks, Klaus

The Seitz-head is available without the drive, too. At the moment, it's my favourite, as it seems to be very precise (= no corections during stitching) and looks to hold the 1 Ds-2 well, by having dimensions (L x W x H) 150 x 190 x 240 mm & weight of 0.85 kg. I'm not to keen to buy the heavy Manfrotto with needs to changed it, as some others did, too. .

Googling for these info's is giving all sort of (biased??)infomations