Jim's SECRET WEAPON Lens!

[Asher Kelman]

....my new Secret Weapon Lens!

I hope you'll let me know what you think! Good or bad! I can take it

Jim, the images are besutiful. I guess you don't have an aperture to be able to say whether the effect goes away at small aperture!

I wonder whether you get the same effect in diffuse v. hard light.

Asher

[Jim Galli]

Jim, the images are besutiful. I guess you don't have an aperture to be able to say whether the effect goes away at small aperture!

I wonder whether you get the same effect in diffuse v. hard light.

Asher

Thanks for all the nice words! Asher, I do plan to take it outdoors and see how it acts in different light. No aperture at all and nothing but a Packard shutter for control. It might work well with Ortho Lith film asa 3. We shall see.

[domenico Foschi]

YEah Jim,
you are full of S@%*t!
IT's not just the lens, you know....!
It takes a discerning eye to see what's beautiful.
The images are beautiful, congratulations.
The spider grass is wonderful, I like almost all of them.
COngrats.

[janepaints]

Lenses are like violins......

Hi Jim

Hmmm....well, I know that violins are like trampolines. (because it feels real good to jump up & down on 'em.) So that must mean that lenses are like trampolines. It's logical-like.

However.

I've found your Reckless Abandon and 'To Heck With Fine & Super-Expensive Optics' attitude inspiring. I joined this forum only about a month ago, but encountering your photos (as well photos by many other folks!!) has quickly made this here LF joint a fave daily destination.

Such images made me realize something. Previous the soft-focus style of the 'Secessionists' et al usually left me cold. They seemed like artsy-fartsy 'I-really-want-to-be-a-painter-but-can't-draw-for-beans-so-I-bought-a-camera-instead' stuff.

"Look here Steiglitz Old Chap, I made a photograph that kinda sorta looks like a blurry so-so painting! I've titled it 'The Equivalent Of A Flattened Iron Building.' Voila-ART!!!

(I may be 100% wrong here, but what the hey. I know, I know--those guys lived in a different time & place when attitudes were different etc. Everybody got their burdens to bear. They shoulda had the sense to be borned in some other time & place.)

But now, after seeing what you're doing with that old glass n' brass, I've another take on this issue. Maybe them old-school guys, having mainly not-so-sharp lens to work with, decided (for god knows what reason) that their photos would be, somehow, much-improved if they MADE THEIR UNSHARP-TO-BEGIN-WITH IMAGES EVEN BLURRIER.

Say--this lens is pretty dang blurry. I don't dare exhibit these photos at the next Armory Show. Eureka--I'll smear my lens with Mabel's cold cream, print it on an emulsion-coated scrap cut from the Shroud Of Turin and then ask that Monet fellow to take some Marshall's Tints to it to add that final 'Sparkly Dim Artistic Glow' touch which will surely earn me Best In Show. Then none will daresay that photography isn't artistic! Harumph.

They shoulda just let their lenses do what they were capable of and so be it. I dunno--maybe they never bothered to take an actual look at the ground glass, had assistants do all those lowly mechanical tasks. Tell me when the shot's all arranged, Nigel, so I can operate the cable release mechanism. I'm expected at the Yacht Club by eight, dash it all. Hurry, Nigel!

Steichen's soft-focus work especially always annoyed the heck outta me. I smelled Big Noble Big Ideas, Explained To Me From Afar By A Great Mind From On High instead of "holy moly, take a look at that, wouldja!"

So what I'm saying is that when I see your photos I smell holy moly, take a look at that wouldja!" (I bet when you see that ground glass you're hollering 'holy moly, take a look at that'! Right?)

Which is to say that your cheapo-ancient-lens pictures smell good. And look good. Plenty.

I was just kidding about the trampoline-n-violin stuff. It only feels good when you jump up and down on banjoes

[Mark Sawyer]

I suspect that little lens is probably too over-the-top for portraiture, but it does what it does so wonderfully well, and your use of it captures its potential so beautifully. If we ever meet, can I go through your garbage?

[PViapiano]

I was just kidding about the trampoline-n-violin stuff. It only feels good when you jump up and down on banjoes

Hey...I take issue with that remark

BTW, the original joke is...violas, not violins.

What's the difference between a viola and a trampoline.

You take your shoes off to jump on a trampoline!

[Michael Roberts]

Jim, Wow!
Love the spider grass!

[ondebanks]

Marvellous. I don't usually go for that uber-soft closeup stuff, but there is a fantastic quality delivered by the spherical aberration of that half-a-lens. The spider plant is gorgeous.

[Jim Rice]

The difference beteen violins and fiddles: fiddles burn hotter, violins burn longer. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

[janepaints]

The difference beteen violins and fiddles: fiddles burn hotter, violins burn longer. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

The old-time music world is chock full of such genre-deprecating cornball jokes--I love 'em. They're also easy to adapt-convert to the topic of LF photography. Examples:

[i]* Large Format photography--it's better than it looks!"

*There's not much difference between taking LF photos and not taking photos at all!

*Many noted LF photographers, like Ansel Adams, were also musicians gifted with Perfect Pitch. Perfect Pitch is when you get both the Deardorff AND the 48" Red Dot Apo Artar Gilgamesharon Zeiss-Dagor Drektar Triple-Convertible F: 1.8 lens into the dumpster with one smooth toss.

*Q: What's the difference between a dead possum on the roadside and a LF photographer staggering around Yosemite with his tripod, 3" x 96" ULF panoramic field camera and 300 pounds of lightweight gear?
A. The possum was on her way to a gallery which had agreed to display her work.

* LF Format photography is one of the most popular photographic idioms in the world today, surpassed only by Snapshooting, Security Camera Operating, Accidental Exposure Making, Digital Photography, Insurance Documentation, Cameraphone picture-taking, Wedding work, Passport Picturing, Mug Shots, the 35mm SLR hobby, Disposable Camera fanatics, Webcam Enthusiasts, Casual Users, Voyeurism Applications photography, Private Eye Evidence Gathering, Holiday Gathering photo specialists, Inmate Rehabilitation Programs, the Real Estate Ad Photo field, Newspaper Shutterbuggery, Polaroidaholics, Holgatics and Diana Syndrome Sufferers.