50 years from now .... Ask your question or respond !

[ederphoto]

I'll start with : What will the population of Earth will be and how many of them will be searching and how much they will be willing to pay for a Struss ?

[Havoc]

What is a "Struss"?

[ederphoto]

������ Lol You are kidding right ?

[ederphoto]

What is a "Struss"?

You are kidding right ??? LoL

[Jac@stafford.net]

I'll start with : What will the population of Earth will be and how many of them will be searching and how much they will be willing to pay for a Struss ?

Struss was an advocate of soft focus lenses, a subject that deserves its own aesthetic domain.

I hope Jim Galli responds. He has used a Struss.

[Havoc]

OK, so I'm obviously not old yet. :D (seriously, I never had heard about it)

[ederphoto]

If the Lord allow me to live that long I'll be 90 . I admire Karl Struss work as a cinematographer and as a photographer . I also love his lens and the fact he was the first to indroduce a soft focus lens into motion picture . I really like his photography . I think it has something to do with the fact that he studied under Clarence White .

[ederphoto]

OK, so I'm obviously not old yet. :D (seriously, I never had heard about it)

A Struss pictorial lens is a gem ! Hard to find ! No one wants to sell .

[Tin Can]

I sincerely do not want to live 50 more years.

If by miracle I do, I will not seek a Struss.

We are nearly at the top of the human bell curve, in 50 years all bets are off. My grandchildren will be older than I now. I pray and hope for their future.

[Leigh]

What's a struss? Never heard of it. And no, I'm not kidding.

- Leigh

[Jac@stafford.net]

[...]We are nearly at the top of the human bell curve, in 50 years all bets are off.

What do you mean Randy?

Every generation becomes less intellectually gifted, or motivated to the same, but they can click-and-go pretending to understand with no personal effort. Is that it?

[Jim Galli]

Before 50 years can pass someone will do the math for every lens design and have a computer program that can simulate the aberrations on an I-phone. Or a galaxy 8 even better. The Struss will have already been worthless because the Chinese will produce them by the thousands. You'll simply go get one on Ebay for 28.88 with free shipping. The better I-phone program will also factor in Eastman Royal Pan or whatever you tell it to. Then you can dial in some dust spots and a human hair or two to really make it look like Jim's photos.

BTW, someone here talked me out of one of the two Struss' recently :~')) '57 Thunderbird money. They are lovely items. Noble at this point in time.

The real answer is you will have experienced Revelation 6 - 19 before that time. Fasten your seat belts.

[jp]

The original Struss lens, or the 2023 vintage kickstarter/crowdsourced clone?

[Graham Patterson]

The answer to the original question (both parts) is probably : too many, or none.

[Bob Salomon]

What's a struss? Never heard of it. And no, I'm not kidding.

- Leigh

Wrote a bunch of waltzes.

[pepeguitarra]

My great grand kid will ask: Great grandpa is it true that there was a time when computers called dslrs took photographs? How come they disappeared? Is it true that what we have now (collodion on glass) existed before those computers? Is is true that there was a store called Adorma who did not believe in film?

[ic-racer]

how many of them will be searching and how much they will be willing to pay for a Struss ?

Probably nobody, unless one is predicting some neo-Pictoralism fad in the future.

[ederphoto]

I don't know ! I just have the felling that the 2 year olds playing with iPhones and tablets will get bored eventually and feel the need to do things the hard way . I think that's the reason many big shots like Mark Zuchberng don't let his play with electronics .
Probably nobody, unless one is predicting some neo-Pictoralism fad in the future.

[ederphoto]

Before 50 years can pass someone will do the math for every lens design and have a computer program that can simulate the aberrations on an I-phone. Or a galaxy 8 even better. The Struss will have already been worthless because the Chinese will produce them by the thousands. You'll simply go get one on Ebay for 28.88 with free shipping. The better I-phone program will also factor in Eastman Royal Pan or whatever you tell it to. Then you can dial in some dust spots and a human hair or two to really make it look like Jim's photos.

BTW, someone here talked me out of one of the two Struss' recently :~')) '57 Thunderbird money. They are lovely items. Noble at this point in time.

The real answer is you will have experienced Revelation 6 - 19 before that time. Fasten your seat belts.

What two Struss Jim ? Don't tell me they came up for auction and I missed them ?

[Jac@stafford.net]

Before 50 years can pass someone will do the math for every lens design and have a computer program that can simulate the aberrations on an I-phone.[...]

The real answer is you will have experienced Revelation 6 - 19 before that time. Fasten your seat belts.

Jim, you are simultaneously frightening and enlightening.

[goamules]

I'll start with : What will the population of Earth will be and how many of them will be searching and how much they will be willing to pay for a Struss ?

The real question is how many people can FIND a Struss Pictorial Lens? The supply and demand equation is usually weighted towards the demand.

But I'll give a case study. In about 2007 I started looking for a Struss lens. I look hard, I look well, I traveled to different continents, I networked with famous (back then) collectors. After about 5 years I finally found....one....and bought it. Demand was low, but supply was even lower. Since that time, I have seen exactly ....none for sale. Doesn't mean they aren't, but like Jim did, they are traded in smokey rooms with briefcases of money. Like Bugatti cars!

Who was Struss? A very famous American, back then.

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/19/obituaries/karl-struss-95-cinematographer.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1977/07/11/the-art-of-camera-man-karl-struss/65ac2980-74c8-40fb-94c5-cddc498a7ad2/?utm_term=.25ba8a35c780

[goamules]

Back to the question of asking questions:

"What will be the ratio of lens owners will be collectors to users?" (Hint: today it's about 1:3. In 50 years, when there is no film, how many photographers will there be?)

[Jac@stafford.net]

Just how unique is a Struss lens among the rest of soft-focus lenses?

[Alan Gales]

I don't know anything about a Struss but in 50 years if we are still alive we may need a Truss. ;)

[jp]

Just how unique is a Struss lens among the rest of soft-focus lenses?

Only two photographers on flickr have posted images made with Struss lens.
I've been to a couple soft focus workshops and seen healthy numbers of Kodak Portraits, Veritos, P&S, Imagons, and only one Struss lens.
(I am the only photographer on flickr using a Gundlach Hyperion, which I've only seen for sale one other time)
There is a thread here you could search for Struss sales... Some of them are probably the same lens changing hands.

[Jim Galli]

The struss IS unique. It is not a doublet. Not an achromat. Struss solved those problems mathematically by it's shape. For lack of better words, it's shaped like a little mexican hat. It uses a controlled coma for softness. In the highlights the coma is directional.

[Tin Can]

I had that fixed a year ago!


I don't know anything about a Struss but in 50 years if we are still alive we may need a Truss. ;)

[ederphoto]

Before 50 years can pass someone will do the math for every lens design and have a computer program that can simulate the aberrations on an I-phone. Or a galaxy 8 even better. The Struss will have already been worthless because the Chinese will produce them by the thousands. You'll simply go get one on Ebay for 28.88 with free shipping. The better I-phone program will also factor in Eastman Royal Pan or whatever you tell it to. Then you can dial in some dust spots and a human hair or two to really make it look like Jim's photos.

BTW, someone here talked me out of one of the two Struss' recently :~')) '57 Thunderbird money. They are lovely items. Noble at this point in time.

The real answer is you will have experienced Revelation 6 - 19 before that time. Fasten your seat belts.

What two Struss Jim ? Don't tell me they came up for auction and I missed them ?

[Jim Fitzgerald]

What two Struss Jim ? Don't tell me they came up for auction and I missed them ?

I know where one went :-)

[Tin Can]

Lol


i know where one went :-)

[Jim Fitzgerald]

Lol

It is not mine..... but I know who.....

[Tin Can]

It is not mine..... but I know who.....

It sounds too expensive to keep in-house.

I got a thought...

[Michael Graves]

I'm with Jim. The population will be 4,753 people scattered in caves around the world and nobody will care what waltzes Struss wrote.

[Tin Can]

How fitting that right after reading this post I get an email about the last bike on Earth.

A custom Rokon, if you know what that is...2 wheel drive and it floats.

https://ironandair.com/blogs/news/the-last-bike-on-earth?mc_cid=b2fea9a16e&mc_eid=a564f00229


I'm with Jim. The population will be 4,753 people scattered in caves around the world and nobody will care what waltzes Struss wrote.

[Jac@stafford.net]

How fitting that right after reading this post I get an email about the last bike on Earth.

A custom Rokon, if you know what that is...2 wheel drive and it floats.

https://ironandair.com/blogs/news/the-last-bike-on-earth?mc_cid=b2fea9a16e&mc_eid=a564f00229

I gotta have one! I think I saw one with a small sidecar carrier. Perfect for gear?

[Mark Sampson]

I read through this thread and I think of Edward Weston's portrait of Karl Struss... showing him standing next to his (personalized) motion-picture camera and peering through a viewing filter. Perhaps he's visualizing the future of his lenses 150 years in the future, but I doubt it.

[Jim Galli]

Karl Struss is a most interesting study. He doesn't fit the artistic person mold. While all of his contemporaries were investigating communism when that was de rigueur in the 1930's he was a conservative. In fact in his military service in WWI he was too sympathetic with the german cause and was confined. (pre-nazi for all you non history types) In 1976 when he was 90, Imogen Cunningham did a portrait of him for her book, After 90, and remarked how odd she found it that a person of such conservative beliefs could also be artistic. Hello?

[jp]

how odd she found it that a person

We have a stereotype of artistic people now and Imogen probably did then.. But in reality I think artists are really a bunch of misfits,much more varied in a good way... I've been around other bunches of misfits my whole life and are accustomed to that.. Stereotypes are something to laugh about more than actually anticipate. In my case, first it was misunderstood Christian and other religious people not caring what society thinks, then commercial fishing where hard workers without good people skills do their own thing. Then I went to college and studied computer science in the 1990's and really got to mix with misfits from all over the planet before computer anything was cool. I was a misfit in the CS crowd for not watching Star Trek. Now, its artists and photographers I get to know. Anyone who thinks they can have a good mental grasp on counter-culture is pretty narrow minded.

But yes, reading about photo history shows some interesting stories for some of these well known photographers. I'd love to discuss the popularity of communism among the pictorialists, but we'd get this into a banned political discussion pretty quick I'm sure.

[Jac@stafford.net]

I grew with artists and today in my Seventies I know some who are quite accomplished and their personalities and politics are ordinary for persons bright enough to succeed in a difficult, competitive field.

[goamules]

I knew a bit about Karl Struss (I have one of his lenses), and knew he got an Oscar for cinematography in 1929. I did not know he also was the cameraman for The Great Dictator with Charlie Chaplin. Great movie that will be remembered in 50 years!

[jnantz]

What's a struss? Never heard of it. And no, I'm not kidding.

- Leigh

it makes photographs that look like a lens baby and holga had a love child


Probably nobody, unless one is predicting some neo-Pictoralism fad in the future.


fad. LOL
it's a fad that has been going on for 160 years.

[Robert Opheim]

a "Struss" lens on a digital camera? why not just a program?

[duff photographer]

In 50 years time (wait, 45 years time), I'm expecting dead thread revivals to still be in vogue.

[Kevin Crisp]

Q: "I can't get my lens to mount flat on the lens board, there is a little screw in the way. Is that important?"

A: "No."

[Sal Santamaura]

Being extremely allergic to soft-focus lenses, five years later I've still got nothing about them to add. However, the first part of the original post's two questions can be partially addressed. At least a couple of those who posted in this thread are no longer alive, so they won't be added into 2068's global population number. Assuming there's any human population left at that point. Even if our species does exist then, I have my doubts that Brian Reid will still be supporting this Web site or that anyone will be around to click on it.

[Tin Can]

I know I will be gone

Why do you care?



Being extremely allergic to soft-focus lenses, five years later I've still got nothing about them to add. However, the first part of the original post's two questions can be partially addressed. At least a couple of those who posted in this thread are no longer alive, so they won't be added into 2068's global population number. Assuming there's any human population left at that point. Even if our species does exist then, I have my doubts that Brian Reid will still be supporting this Web site or that anyone will be around to click on it.

[Sal Santamaura]

I know I will be gone

Why do you care?

Just answering the OP's five year old question. :)