Dude from the darkroom ;-)

[Michal Makowski]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7773022561368471214
I like the part about shooting in the leg and the last quote:
...digital photography is not photography is digital imagining...

[jayabbas]

A must see little vid. I too was taught through the premise of learning darkroom work first before pointing the camera anywhere meaningful. I agree that the industry is somewhat asleep with the gun pointed at the foot. Many excellent products are lost from stockholder and bean counter mentalities that take hold of companies in the ever present quest for profits in the moment. My take on the issue.

[Brian Ellis]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7773022561368471214
I like the part about shooting in the leg and the last quote:
...digital photography is not photography is digital imagining...

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ”

“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

[Robert Hughes]

I'll remember to use that passage next time I'm on a political forum.

[Brian C. Miller]

That was a really good interview! It was interesting to listen to him talk about using lith paper for making a print.

[DanK]

Excellent, Thanks for Sharing... First few minutes had me wondering, but the remainder was Exceptional...

[bob carnie]

Makes me feel better about my choice of profession, I too feel that the industry has lost its way, the final print is what rules.

[Robert Hughes]

Oops, misread the title. I thought it was "Nude in the Darkroom".

Yikes!

[ROL]

Well then, maybe Nocon can advise Freestyle to stock at least one cold tone paper. But the way things are going, I don't see any more interest from the general public of photographers in this video, than from film and paper manufacturers in servicing a dying breed. Preaching to the choir. :(

[Brian C. Miller]

ROL, Glazer's Camera (http://www.glazerscamera.com/store/film-darkroom/darkroom-supplies/black-white-fiber-and-rc-paper?p=3) stocks cool tone paper. I'm local to them, and they're a nice bunch.

[Vaughn]

Try as I have, I have yet to understand any significant advantage of the f/stop timer/method over the 3 sec interval test strip. Just another way of doing the same thing as far as I can tell. And while AA gives flashing just a short mention in The Print, I must have picked up the info somewhere as it has been a tool I have known about and used sparingly for 30 or so years.

He seems quite full of himself, but granted he has reason to be. I feel the same way about the distinction between photograph and digital art when it comes to printing...there is photographic printing and digital printing. Which can be as different as pencil drawing and painting with oils, or as similar as painting with oils or with acrylic.

Thanks for the link.

Vaughn

[nolindan]

Try as I have, I have yet to understand any significant advantage of the f/stop timer/method over the 3 sec interval test strip.

Try standing that on it's head: "I don't understand any advantage to linear timing..." There isn't a camera made with linear shutter speeds: 0.001 seconds, 0.002 seconds, 0.003 seconds, 0.004 seconds, 0.005, 0.006... [1/1000, 1/500, 1/300, 1/250, 1/200, 1/167, 1/143, 1/125, 1/111, 1/100, 1/91, 1/83...] - or linear aperture openings: 25mm, 20mm, 15mm, 10mm, 5mm, 0mm [f2, f2.5, f3.3, f5.0, f10, finfinity].

If the f-stop timer had been invented 150 years ago then a contemporary suggestion to use linear seconds to control exposure would be greeted with hoots of derision. The steampunk idea of hooking an enlarger to a Babbage difference engine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine) does rather boggle, though.

A new digital timer costs more [$270-$450] than a new f-stop timer [$256], and the f-stop timer includes dodging, burning, progressive burning, test strips, split-grade printing with separate exposure/contrast control, multiple print sequence memories ...

[(dis)claimer: I am the owner and chief bottle-washer at Darkroom Automation (http://www.darkroomautomation.com/da-main.htm), a maker of f-stop timers, and I tend to carry a soap-box wherever I go.]


Just another way of doing the same thing

Time is time, but the exposures you pick for making print do indeed fall into an exponential distribution of times. In a general sense exposure increases by one stop when going from 4x5" to 5x7" to 11x14" print sizes [though this isn't quite right...].


And while AA gives flashing just a short mention in The Print (http://www.amazon.com/Print-Ansel-Adams-Photography/dp/0821221876/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320436992&sr=1-1), I must have picked up the info somewhere as it has been a tool I have known about and used sparingly for 30 or so years...

I learned it from Looten's on Enlarging and Print Quality (http://www.amazon.com/Photographic-Enlarging-Quality-Ghislain-Lootens/dp/0817404678), maybe you found it in the same place?

[Vaughn]

Oh, I am quite willing to stand on my head on this! After all, if one method has no advantage over another, than the reverse is likely true.

The shutter speeds of my camera are linear after 1 second...or at least I count that way; one-ansel-adams, two-ansel-adams, three-ansel-adams. And there are no f/stops (and no lens) on my exposure unit (a 750W self-ballasted mercury vapor lamp)...:D

And I do believe I have a lens with linear aperture markings -- my 600 Apo-Ronar.

[Brian C. Miller]

The steampunk idea of hooking an enlarger to a Babbage difference engine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine) does rather boggle, though.

I think that the earliest f-stop timer would have a pendulum or metronome mechanism, but the pendulum would take up some space. An advancement would be based on a Compound shutter timer, with multiple mechanisms triggering each other in turn. The timer would be a series of brass and nickel pistons.

Metering could be accomplished with an Extinction meter (http://www.photoethnography.com/ClassicCameras/lightmeters-classic.html). An Actinometer (http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/meters.html) would be redundant in the darkroom.

Now all we need is for Verne's time machine to drop by, and we'll have the darkroom revolutionized in short order! :)