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Thread: A Pinkham Tale.

  1. #1

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    A Pinkham Tale.


    la puta negra deuce

    It's been a slow year for me and I haven't done a page of soft focus pics in quite some time. So it's time to break the silence I hope.

    The image at the top links to a page I've created at my web pages with images done by a one off Pinkham lens. The only one in existence as far as anyone knows. It is a pre-production prototype Pinkham Bi-Quality lens, 16" f5. The story about it is at my page.

    http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/Pi...i-Quality.html

  2. #2
    ScottPhotoCo's Avatar
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    Re: A Pinkham Tale.

    Thank you Jim! I love stories like this. I do believe some of the tools we use have a soul. This lens definitely does.

    Tim

  3. #3
    Green Hand pierre506's Avatar
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    Re: A Pinkham Tale.

    A nice historic story.
    Sometimes love just ain't enough.
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/pierre506/sets/

  4. #4
    Mark Sawyer's Avatar
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    Re: A Pinkham Tale.

    Remarkable...
    "I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."

  5. #5

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    Re: A Pinkham Tale.

    Hello, Jim,
    this is a fantastic tale !
    I love this kind of bringing back the history, and looking at your pictures and knowing about your experience, for me you are the right man to do this prototype-finishing job..

    Ritchie

  6. #6
    jp's Avatar
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    Re: A Pinkham Tale.

    Those photos are rich in mood and quality.

  7. #7

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    Re: A Pinkham Tale.

    Wonderful Jim, I'm so glad you wrote down this history of these pieces of glass! And you did one thing even better, you produced iconic, graceful photographs with this lens, of subjects that would have been recognizable by Pinkham and all his relations and colleagues. I am always in awe of the generations of inventors, manufacturers, photographers, models, movie stars, motion pictures, and all the background film and chemistry involved in the great photography era of the 20th century. Soft focus came, went, then did it 2 more times, before being pretty much gone today. That doesn't mean it will stay that way. I'm sure all those predecessors are smiling at your work, too.

    Imagine, the glass was made what, in the late 1940ss? Then the widow kept it for 40 years. Then the guy bought it, and kept it for 20 years. Then you bought it, and after only 4 years, you get it back doing what it was meant for.

  8. #8
    LF/ULF Carbon Printer Jim Fitzgerald's Avatar
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    Re: A Pinkham Tale.

    Wow, Jim great story and what is most amazing is the e-bay find. The images are stunning. The Pinkham is one of the lenses missing from my collection.

  9. #9
    Jac@stafford.net's Avatar
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    Re: A Pinkham Tale.

    Good work, Jim! The lens is at last in its proper place.

    What does Bi-Quality mean?

  10. #10

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    Re: A Pinkham Tale.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jac@stafford.net View Post
    Good work, Jim! The lens is at last in its proper place.

    What does Bi-Quality mean?
    Thanks to all who responded. As to Bi-Quality, someone may know the back story better than I do, but I believe I read some place that the family learned they could not use the old Pinkham and Smith moniker on the lenses in the 1954 run, but being their name was Pinkham it was OK to use that name and Bi-Quality was somehow supposed to be equal to or lending itself to the old name for the series, Visual Quality. The 1954 lenses were identical to the "Visual Quality" series IV lenses. Wish I knew more, and that more of the history was concrete for us.

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