Steven,
There is a 300mm Heliar in compound #5 shutter on ebay selling for less than $700 with shipping included. You might consider it as your first portrait lens to practice. Heliars are among my favorite.
Hugo
Steven,
There is a 300mm Heliar in compound #5 shutter on ebay selling for less than $700 with shipping included. You might consider it as your first portrait lens to practice. Heliars are among my favorite.
Hugo
As engineers go, you stand out for sloppiness with dates and, presumably, numbers. When, pray, was photography invented?Originally Posted by Steven Ruttenberg
Basically, its the wow factor you get when they see you with something essentially from the 18th-19th century and getting the performance of a modern 10,000 dollar digital set up.
Whatever. And yes I most definitely meant to say 18-19 century. Since one of the lenses I am considering is from the 19th century and,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_camera
I would say, the first camera was around 5th century BC, camera obscura and by the 16th century lenses were being used. As for what we think of as photography the Beginning of the 19th century around 1816.
When I said 18th-19th century I was referring to how people would view and think of a wooden camera with a brass lens and popping in and out wooden film holders.
As an engineer, I am far from sloppy, and keep those airplanes you fly on from falling out of the sky. Also work on satellites, space station, and the new spaceship Orion, as well as helicopters and other stuff.
Have that being watched.
Superb.
Great stuff for NASA forum :-)
But dear engeneers of today, please don't forget that it wasn't you who kept flying subjects from falling out of the sky.
This has been this great ancient guys which developed other things, too.
Great lenses, fantastic mechanisms ( and aesthetics, too) in cameras, trains and so on.
Myself i feel absolutely comfortable in using wood and brass, as you described before.
My preference isn't any applause, I just want to create photographs while having fun.
This old stuff always give me fun, and sometimes the wanted results.
I guess that I have understood that ancient photographers have used their lenses as special tools for special situations.
Without access to Photoshop they had to equalize contrasty situations in example, so they grabbed mild lenses in this special case.
The same for portraits - a mild lens with wide opening, and a big negative size gave, and will give, the wanted results ( to me).
Regarding old and "modern" LF lenses I can say as an example that my old Xenar 210mm always gave me "better " results than my modern version.
Sharp, if necessary, mild if required.
The modern one was sharp, of course a very good lens in this sense, but I am glad in starting up my LF photography with such a characterful lens like the old Xenar.
Yes, I love to hang my 360mm Heliar onto the bigger cameras, but if I have to choose only one lens some day, I probably would keep my old Xenar, if it is not possible to uprade to an Universal Heliar :-)
Ritchie
Ritchie, my perspective may have been warped by a recent read through some of the late 19th century French photographic literature, but I think you've got your history wrong.
The material I've read showed that those ancients (late RR era, i.e., readings from 1888 - around 1900, by which time anastigmats were seen to be preferable) valued resolution, contrast and coverage. Just like us. To the extent that they used special tools, the special tools were wide angle lenses for large groups and situations where backing up wasn't possible.
They valued speed because they had very slow emulsions and couldn't count on making portrait subjects sit absolutely still during long exposures. That's why portrait photographers valued Petzval lenses. They didn't want the bizarre images Petzvals give off axis, they wanted central sharpness and above all speed.
They used what we'd see as very large formats -- but they also did, e.g., split 7 x 13 stereo views -- because they contact printed.
As lenses improved, mainly because of progress in glass making, lenses got sharper and faster and coverage grew. This allowed use of smaller formats. You can see it in the range of formats for which lenses were offered.
True, the Bee was of the actinometer type, marketed since around 1890s
The camera obscura doesn't capture images. It is a drawing aid and is still used for that. The devices we call cameras project images on to sensitized surfaces -- no lens needed -- which capture them. No sensitized surface, no camera, no photography.
You're equivocating, acting as though the word camera always meant what it now does in English. This is a mistake. Sloppy thinking or, perhaps, unexamined assumption.
Hi Dan,
I like to see it this way:
Because it is the history, we don't know everything of this episode, so I agree that my tiny knowledge is wrong here and there.
Unbelieveable sometimes, how far the techniques has been 120 years ago.
First color slides, 1897, very early 1/1000 seconds, puh!
No, we can't bring in much today, so I believe.
But I absolutely believe they have had a war between the fractions of older and newer lenses.
And their has been uprising amateurs, but also the profs, both with different requirements and gear.
The main group of technique affinators praised the new stuff, and of course some things become possible first time in a photographers life with this new lens designs.
Otherwise we know this phenomenia from the digital area where suddenly everything became better - but it took two decades to become even or better - new always has to be better..
On the other hand some remaining photographers staying tuned in pictorialism or in "describing the light" instead of making sharp pictures only.
I have read books from the early 20th century where the authors praise the charactere of lenses or give emphatically comparisms against this "wonderful" anastigmats.
Looking at the birthtime of the Imagon, there must have been other preferences and requirements than sharpness and fastness even in the 20th century.
Where exactly is the truth?
"" The material I've read showed that those ancients (late RR era, i.e., readings from 1888 - around 1900, by which time anastigmats were seen to be preferable) valued resolution, contrast and coverage. Just like us. To the extent that they used special tools, the special tools were wide angle lenses for large groups and situations where backing up wasn't possible.""
Nothing wrong with this.
But from what I have read it was common practice to choose the "right tool".
I don't believe that the old guys regulary pulled Tessars out of their pocket in really contrasty situations.
Regarding the whole situation of this long gone days - no Mulitigrade and others - they had the need to understand the light and the contrasts, they had the need to work best with their negatives, and having full contrast required pulling of all registers, mild lenses included.
That's my opinion.
""You can see it in the range of formats for which lenses were offered. ""
Since I have not much prospects out of this older days, I have to observe the today's market.
In germany, the 9x12cm Plattenkameras seem to be common to the folks until the sixties.
Rollei 6x6, too.
The 9x12 often come with terrible or cheap lenses, so the costs seem to have more value than fastness and best quality.
Todays prospects show us Lambourghinis, and trips to the space, but while this is state of the technique, this is not common.
I love to listen to real old photographers.
Once I bought a 9x12cm Plattenkamera, I have had great conversations with the female seller.
She told me that she learned for professional photographer, and this camera was a gift from her father in 1957 especially for her study time.
By the way, it comes with a simply Eurynar, nothing special, and with a simple kit of WA/Portrait/Makro/Tele single lenses for screwing in froont of the Eurynar.
She has learned in a photo studio in a not so big but not so small town, and every studio portrait was made with a 13x18cm studio camera.
After grading as a photographer she didn't want to act as a photographer - she exclusively retouched the glass plates and negatives from this studio.
Every negative got a little to big retouch of two to ten minutes in this studio.
Yes, I got some original glassplates, retouched negatives and contact prints out of her hands !
Amazing, really amazing.
There my history shows right, they have had a lot of practical experience, great knowledge, and the right tools for the given situation.
Does it count for the complete history? I dont know.
By the way - I have it all, the best developers, the second best papers, but it is hard to reprint in such a high quality in spite of Multigrade and colour head or Ilford filters, and other specialities.
Must be the old material, or my missing knowledge.
Ritchie
Just a suggestion, http://phototechmag.com/selective-ma...onal-darkroom/
This allows to reproduce old tonality fashion
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