This will Save You MONEY
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Three Weeks of Work
I have been on the roade for a few weeks and have one more then will finally be home. Usually I have some time to take some pictures but this has bee a rough first 2 weeks. Finally have a little long weekend and some place I am not freezing. I am at Nags Head, North Carolina and pretty nice weather. Arival day was Saturday and little windy and cool but still much nice than the previous week. Have a nice room on the beach on the 5th floor with balcony and over looking the Atlantic. Finally got out Sunday for a little while and shot some film and digital. I brought along this trip may Canon 30D, a Nikon F with various lens and my Ikonta III which I try to never leave home with out. I am in hopes that I will be able to provide some pics and some info from using the Nikon F and the various lens that I have for it. This is the first time out for this camera and so far seems to be pretty nice and guess when I get home will see if it takes nice pictures. Well I will try to venture out a little more on my day off Monday (tomorrow) and shoot some more film and then 3 days of rough work and then head for home. Will post when I get home and get some film developed!
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Rolleicord III TRL fun camera to use
Seems Everyone is doing it thought I would give it a try!
Well the New Year is always good for new years resolutions and though this is not a resolution was a good time to start. You can start today if you want to give it a try and what it is I am talking about is taking a picture a day for a year. I know there are people that are now on there second and third year and maybe some even more. I am not using digital as my choose of camera is film and have no particular make or model to use. What I will use is cameras I like that I have at the time that day or week comes up. I started with the Mamiya that I wrote about in the last post as I really like using this camera. I have used it for a couple weeks and I am thinking about switching cameras for the upcoming week. Now I just have to hope that the pictures I do take turn out well on film that I have all the days in tack. I think that is where the real challenge may be as not knowing till the film is developed and can't look at a display and make sure if a retake is in order.
I would like to know if you have ever done this and how it went if you did. Sounds like fun and hope I remember to shoot every day as if you are busy seems easy to forget. I know now I get a lot of inside shots of my wife doing things and the cat doing what she does best..sleep
I would like to know if you have ever done this and how it went if you did. Sounds like fun and hope I remember to shoot every day as if you are busy seems easy to forget. I know now I get a lot of inside shots of my wife doing things and the cat doing what she does best..sleep
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Old Mamiya MSX 1000 Great Camera Still Today!
The camera has been used but not really abused the lens is still nice even though missing the lens cap. Just a couple shots when I was out messing around. I had so much fun with this camera I have it loaded now and using it. I have a couple more cameras to write a little about with hopes to get them posted soon.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Busy Time Developing and More
I have been pretty busy developing some film decided the other day I needed to catch up on some medium format. I had been in Washington DC for a few weeks working and took some pictures with my Ikonta III and Minolta Autocord and hadn't found or taken time to develop them. Finally one day I loaded 3 in the Jobo2553 tank and completed those on the bressler rotary with some D 76 that I use for most rotary. I also had a roll of Shanghai film that I use a lot when doing some test shooting of cameras that I might have redone. I like to test all of them as you never know till pictures come out if something might still be off or just not up to the job. For the Shanghai I usually do stand development using 5ml Rodinal and sit for 60 to 75 minutes. I find that this process works well for me and Shanghai film and one other change I make I use plain water stop bath. I don't know just seems to have been working for this film so pretty much stuck with it.
Well this is my medium developing and did do some 35mm as I ran 3 rolls (short rolls) through the Jobo with some D 76 from some 35mm cameras I was testing. I really like the results from these cameras and if I can get some pictures done of the cameras will write more later. I had a Mamiya, Yashica and a Canon AE 1 that was using so again more on those later.
Well this is my medium developing and did do some 35mm as I ran 3 rolls (short rolls) through the Jobo with some D 76 from some 35mm cameras I was testing. I really like the results from these cameras and if I can get some pictures done of the cameras will write more later. I had a Mamiya, Yashica and a Canon AE 1 that was using so again more on those later.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
The End of Kodachrome
In case you missed this article thought I would post it.
For Kodachrome Fans, Road Ends at Photo Lab in Kansas By A. G. SULZBERGER NY Times
PARSONS, Kan. — An unlikely pilgrimage is under way to Dwayne's Photo, a small family business that has through luck and persistence become the last processor in the world of Kodachrome, the first successful color film and still the most beloved.
That celebrated 75-year run from mainstream to niche photography is scheduled to come to an end on Thursday when the last processing machine is shut down here to be sold for scrap.
In the last weeks, dozens of visitors and thousands of overnight packages have raced here, transforming this small prairie-bound city not far from the Oklahoma border for a brief time into a center of nostalgia for the days when photographs appeared not in the sterile frame of a computer screen or in a pack of flimsy prints from the local drugstore but in the warm glow of a projector pulling an image from a carousel of vivid slides.
In the span of minutes this week, two such visitors arrived. The first was a railroad worker who had driven from Arkansas to pick up 1,580 rolls of film that he had just paid $15,798 to develop. The second was an artist who had driven directly here after flying from London to Wichita, Kan., on her first trip to the United States to turn in three rolls of film and shoot five more before the processing deadline.
The artist, Aliceson Carter, 42, was incredulous as she watched the railroad worker, Jim DeNike, 53, loading a dozen boxes that contained nearly 50,000 slides into his old maroon Pontiac. He explained that every picture inside was of railroad trains and that he had borrowed money from his father's retirement account to pay for developing them.
"That's crazy to me," Ms. Carter said. Then she snapped a picture of Mr. DeNike on one of her last rolls.
Demanding both to shoot and process, Kodachrome rewarded generations of skilled users with a richness of color and a unique treatment of light that many photographers described as incomparable even as they shifted to digital cameras. "Makes you think all the world's a sunny day," Paul Simon sang in his 1973 hit "Kodachrome," which carried the plea "Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away."
As news media around the world have heralded Thursday's end of an era, rolls of the discontinued film that had been hoarded in freezers and tucked away in closets, sometimes for decades, have flooded Dwayne's Photo, arriving from six continents.
"It's more than a film, it's a pop culture icon," said Todd Gustavson, a curator from the George Eastman House, a photography museum in Rochester in the former residence of the Kodak founder. "If you were in the postwar baby boom, it was the color film, no doubt about it."
Among the recent visitors was Steve McCurry, a photographer whose work has appeared for decades in National Geographic including his well-known cover portrait, shot in Kodachrome, of a Afghan girl that highlights what he describes as the "sublime quality" of the film. When Kodak stopped producing the film last year, the company gave him the last roll, which he hand-delivered to Parsons. "I wasn't going to take any chances," he explained.
At the peak, there were about 25 labs worldwide that processed Kodachrome, but the last Kodak-run facility in the United States closed several years ago, then the one in Japan and then the one in Switzerland. Since then, all that was left has been Dwayne's Photo. Last year, Kodak stopped producing the chemicals needed to develop the film, providing the business with enough to continue processing through the end of 2010. And last week, right on schedule, the lab opened up the last canister of blue dye.
Kodak declined to comment for this article.
The status of lone survivor is a point of pride for Dwayne Steinle, who remembers being warned more than once by a Kodak representative after he opened the business more than a half-century ago that the area was too sparsely populated for the studio to succeed. It has survived in part because Mr. Steinle and his son Grant focused on lower-volume specialties — like black-and-white and print-to-print developing, and, in the early '90s, the processing of Kodachrome.
Still, the toll of the widespread switch to digital photography has been painful for Dwayne's, much as it has for Kodak. In the last decade, the number of employees has been cut to about 60 from 200 and digital sales now account for nearly half of revenue. Most of the staff and even the owners acknowledge that they primarily use digital cameras. "That's what we see as the future of the business," said Grant Steinle, who runs the business now.
The passing of Kodachrome has been much noted, from the CBS News program "Sunday Morning" to The Irish Times, but it is noteworthy in no small part for how long it survived. Created in 1935, Kodachrome was an instant hit as the first film to effectively render color.
Even when it stopped being the default film for chronicling everyday life — thanks in part to the move to prints from slides — it continued to be the film of choice for many hobbyists and medical professionals. Dr. Bharat Nathwani, 65, a Los Angeles pathologist, lamented that he still had 400 unused rolls. "I might hold it, God willing that Kodak sees its lack of wisdom."
This week, the employees at Dwayne's worked at a frenetic pace, keeping a processing machine that has typically operated just a few hours a day working around the clock (one of the many notes on the lab wall reads: "I took this to a drugstore and they didn't even know what it was").
"We really didn't expect it to be this crazy," said Lanie George, who manages the Kodachrome processing department.
One of the toughest decisions was how to deal with the dozens of requests from amateurs and professionals alike to provide the last roll to be processed.
In the end, it was determined that a roll belonging to Dwayne Steinle, the owner, would be last. It took three tries to find a camera that worked. And over the course of the week he fired off shots of his house, his family and downtown Parsons. The last frame is already planned for Thursday, a picture of all the employees standing in front of Dwayne's wearing shirts with the epitaph: "The best slide and movie film in history is now officially retired. Kodachrome: 1935-2010."
For Kodachrome Fans, Road Ends at Photo Lab in Kansas By A. G. SULZBERGER NY Times
PARSONS, Kan. — An unlikely pilgrimage is under way to Dwayne's Photo, a small family business that has through luck and persistence become the last processor in the world of Kodachrome, the first successful color film and still the most beloved.
That celebrated 75-year run from mainstream to niche photography is scheduled to come to an end on Thursday when the last processing machine is shut down here to be sold for scrap.
In the last weeks, dozens of visitors and thousands of overnight packages have raced here, transforming this small prairie-bound city not far from the Oklahoma border for a brief time into a center of nostalgia for the days when photographs appeared not in the sterile frame of a computer screen or in a pack of flimsy prints from the local drugstore but in the warm glow of a projector pulling an image from a carousel of vivid slides.
In the span of minutes this week, two such visitors arrived. The first was a railroad worker who had driven from Arkansas to pick up 1,580 rolls of film that he had just paid $15,798 to develop. The second was an artist who had driven directly here after flying from London to Wichita, Kan., on her first trip to the United States to turn in three rolls of film and shoot five more before the processing deadline.
The artist, Aliceson Carter, 42, was incredulous as she watched the railroad worker, Jim DeNike, 53, loading a dozen boxes that contained nearly 50,000 slides into his old maroon Pontiac. He explained that every picture inside was of railroad trains and that he had borrowed money from his father's retirement account to pay for developing them.
"That's crazy to me," Ms. Carter said. Then she snapped a picture of Mr. DeNike on one of her last rolls.
Demanding both to shoot and process, Kodachrome rewarded generations of skilled users with a richness of color and a unique treatment of light that many photographers described as incomparable even as they shifted to digital cameras. "Makes you think all the world's a sunny day," Paul Simon sang in his 1973 hit "Kodachrome," which carried the plea "Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away."
As news media around the world have heralded Thursday's end of an era, rolls of the discontinued film that had been hoarded in freezers and tucked away in closets, sometimes for decades, have flooded Dwayne's Photo, arriving from six continents.
"It's more than a film, it's a pop culture icon," said Todd Gustavson, a curator from the George Eastman House, a photography museum in Rochester in the former residence of the Kodak founder. "If you were in the postwar baby boom, it was the color film, no doubt about it."
Among the recent visitors was Steve McCurry, a photographer whose work has appeared for decades in National Geographic including his well-known cover portrait, shot in Kodachrome, of a Afghan girl that highlights what he describes as the "sublime quality" of the film. When Kodak stopped producing the film last year, the company gave him the last roll, which he hand-delivered to Parsons. "I wasn't going to take any chances," he explained.
At the peak, there were about 25 labs worldwide that processed Kodachrome, but the last Kodak-run facility in the United States closed several years ago, then the one in Japan and then the one in Switzerland. Since then, all that was left has been Dwayne's Photo. Last year, Kodak stopped producing the chemicals needed to develop the film, providing the business with enough to continue processing through the end of 2010. And last week, right on schedule, the lab opened up the last canister of blue dye.
Kodak declined to comment for this article.
The status of lone survivor is a point of pride for Dwayne Steinle, who remembers being warned more than once by a Kodak representative after he opened the business more than a half-century ago that the area was too sparsely populated for the studio to succeed. It has survived in part because Mr. Steinle and his son Grant focused on lower-volume specialties — like black-and-white and print-to-print developing, and, in the early '90s, the processing of Kodachrome.
Still, the toll of the widespread switch to digital photography has been painful for Dwayne's, much as it has for Kodak. In the last decade, the number of employees has been cut to about 60 from 200 and digital sales now account for nearly half of revenue. Most of the staff and even the owners acknowledge that they primarily use digital cameras. "That's what we see as the future of the business," said Grant Steinle, who runs the business now.
The passing of Kodachrome has been much noted, from the CBS News program "Sunday Morning" to The Irish Times, but it is noteworthy in no small part for how long it survived. Created in 1935, Kodachrome was an instant hit as the first film to effectively render color.
Even when it stopped being the default film for chronicling everyday life — thanks in part to the move to prints from slides — it continued to be the film of choice for many hobbyists and medical professionals. Dr. Bharat Nathwani, 65, a Los Angeles pathologist, lamented that he still had 400 unused rolls. "I might hold it, God willing that Kodak sees its lack of wisdom."
This week, the employees at Dwayne's worked at a frenetic pace, keeping a processing machine that has typically operated just a few hours a day working around the clock (one of the many notes on the lab wall reads: "I took this to a drugstore and they didn't even know what it was").
"We really didn't expect it to be this crazy," said Lanie George, who manages the Kodachrome processing department.
One of the toughest decisions was how to deal with the dozens of requests from amateurs and professionals alike to provide the last roll to be processed.
In the end, it was determined that a roll belonging to Dwayne Steinle, the owner, would be last. It took three tries to find a camera that worked. And over the course of the week he fired off shots of his house, his family and downtown Parsons. The last frame is already planned for Thursday, a picture of all the employees standing in front of Dwayne's wearing shirts with the epitaph: "The best slide and movie film in history is now officially retired. Kodachrome: 1935-2010."
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Holidays are Great Time of the Year
This is always a great time of the year to have fun and share with family. For Elena and I we have a small Christmas and just a time for us to slow down a bit. We are able to share Christmas with my Mother and Elena's son and this is nice. The rest of the kida and grandkids are up north in Ohio so makes if difficult to have Christmas with them but will look forward to seeing them in the summer.
Elena and I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Special New Year. This is a great time of the year to get out the vintage camera gear and shoot some film. So I hope everyone enjoys the holidays and be safe and if you are in a region that has snow, enjoy and have fun and of coarse take pictures for us that are not ion a snowy place.
Don't forget to stop by the Forum and sign in and I started a topic to share any vintage gear you might have gotten for Christmas so stop and share.
Have a Happy and Safe Holiday
Dennis & Elena
Elena and I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Special New Year. This is a great time of the year to get out the vintage camera gear and shoot some film. So I hope everyone enjoys the holidays and be safe and if you are in a region that has snow, enjoy and have fun and of coarse take pictures for us that are not ion a snowy place.
Don't forget to stop by the Forum and sign in and I started a topic to share any vintage gear you might have gotten for Christmas so stop and share.
Have a Happy and Safe Holiday
Dennis & Elena
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