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Thread: how to make self portraits? help!

  1. #21
    Maris Rusis's Avatar
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    Re: how to make self portraits? help!

    For lenses in shutters I use an Auto Knips self timer for the click and a convex mirror (accessory rear view mirror from the auto parts store) for arranging the pose. Conveniently the Auto Knips also provides for timed B exposures up to 10 seconds.

    What I really really want to figure out is how to do consistently timed self portrait exposures with barrel mount lenses. An automated lenscap? But how?
    Photography:first utterance. Sir John Herschel, 14 March 1839 at the Royal Society. "...Photography or the application of the Chemical rays of light to the purpose of pictorial representation,..".

  2. #22

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    Re: how to make self portraits? help!

    Joe Blaze, Just love your mirror set up. Wish I had cottoned on to this idea when I had a studio.

    If posing side on, one could (along with all the video ideas) and after adjusting focus point set up a couple of paralex points. i.e. Two sticks in line would give you left & right positioning surprisingly acurate, so long as one doesn't change viewing eye. So if one was to use say a couple of horizontal arms the points of which would be used to locate viewing eye position, both up/down and left/right quite accuratly. Positioning same could be occasioned focusing an a small ball or something and drill a hole through it to view/position the arm ends.

    On the mirror front, remember the dressing tables our mothers used with the wing mirrors? One could well set something up to view ones side pose.

  3. #23
    Jim Jones's Avatar
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    Re: how to make self portraits? help!

    I find a pneumatic air release preferable to a self-timer. It permits shooting at the decisive moment rather than holding a pose, and also allows moderate time exposures. A pair of light stands provide lateral framing. Adding a third light stand for a variation of Otzi's suggestion of parallax focusing works. I usually use a bit of tape on the pneumatic release rubber tube, or on a sync cord for open shutter flash. A reduced intensity laser pointer in the plane of focus permits precise vertical positioning and focusing on an eye. One can detect the laser even when looking 90 degrees from it.

  4. #24

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    Re: how to make self portraits? help!

    The answers have been quite interesting, especially the mirror with a hole. The video cam and monitor may be excellent for pose monitoring, but would not help much in determining focal point. With such short focal lengths as used with a small sensor, the depth of focus would be huge in comparison with the shallow depth of focus of the 101 raptar wide open.

    How about focusing on something hanging from the ceiling on a string, than placing your eye (if that's where you want sharpest focus to be) in it's place?

  5. #25

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    Re: how to make self portraits? help!

    Or just hike out 3 miles to the middle of the desert and ask the first large format photographer that comes along to trip you shutter for you. Right Wilber?

  6. #26
    Donald Qualls's Avatar
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    Re: how to make self portraits? help!

    Quote Originally Posted by Maris Rusis View Post
    What I really really want to figure out is how to do consistently timed self portrait exposures with barrel mount lenses. An automated lenscap? But how?
    Put a clock with sweep second beside the camera (or where you can see it, if you won't be looking at the camera). Mount a Packard shutter behind the lens board, and control it with a bulb and long hose. Will work with any barrel lens you like, and is equally comfortable at any time longer than about 1/4 second.
    If a contact print at arm's length is too small to see, you need a bigger camera. :D

  7. #27

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    Re: how to make self portraits? help!

    Can I offer an other *untried* sugestion?
    1. establish a suitable dark soft background and fashion a head restraint/support that protrudes through the BG on lens axis that would touch your head about ear level. As film plane is vertical this would get the fore aft position pretty well and should be approx enough to locate left ,right.
    2. Using a ruler or something at head position set the aperture to give about say 4" of acceptable focus. As seen on gg with Lupe. This should give sufficient eye sharpness.
    3. This is the not sure part but just an idea. With the room dark (black) open shutter in dark and make exposure with lamps that are triggered with a timer or a line switch. If long enough, say 2-3 sec. it aught to work. Restraint should locate you. One could get some startled head light looks! This may get around any shutter firing issues.

  8. #28

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    Re: how to make self portraits? help!

    I believe that the mirrors with a hole in the center, which screw in like a filter to the front lens element, are/were available from Porters.
    In many early pictures of Edward Weston, it's fun to look for how he's hidden and/or retouched the air hose to his Packard shutter.
    Wilhelm (Sarasota)

  9. #29

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    Re: how to make self portraits? help!

    Quote Originally Posted by Kirk Keyes View Post
    Or just hike out 3 miles to the middle of the desert and ask the first large format photographer that comes along to trip you shutter for you. Right Wilber?
    I think that might just be THE best way.

  10. #30

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    Re: how to make self portraits? help!



    Made with a 15 3/4" Darlot Petzval wide open that has extremely shallow dof.
    I hung a small ring of keys from the ceiling on a string through a cup hook and focused on the keys. Then I put my left eye where the keys were and let them fall to the floor.

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