Got My 35x35 Coverage Lens, Thanks So Much Everyone!!

[Paul Kinzer]

I love it! I work with kids, and have since I was a kid. It's wonderful to be reminded that we're really all the same everywhere, and kids show it best, I think. Happy, curious, fun-loving.

And good for you for letting them play with your camera. They moved all around it, touched it, but -- at least here -- were respectful and showed enough care that it was all fine. I do public outreach with telescopes and a portable planetarium, and do my best to allow kids to explore things physically. Sometimes, I'm with other folks who make the equipment seem like it's far more precious than it really is, and more important than the kids we're there to reach out to. When I have a telescope aimed at a target in the sky, I always try to remember, when I ask folks in line to not touch the scope, to tell them that it's because the scope might move and lose the target, and not because I'm worried about the scope (they're pretty robust). I'm also grateful to a fellow astronomer who taught me to try at events to have a scope that kids can touch, and move, and aim themselves. It allows them to explore, and teaches me to trust and watch and remember what it is to be a curious explorer.

Thanks again for sharing this. I have to go look around your site more!

[stawastawa]

What fun with those kids Gerry, Looks like you have a future photographer there! or Director!. I'd be curious what images they would make if they started making pictures.

Paul, what neat experiences, makes me smile. I too enjoy trusting the kids and watching them explore and getting close.

[Dan Fromm]

Gerry, you need two 1780 Apo-Nikkors and another monster camera so you can shoot hyperstereo. Here's your next lens:http://www.ebay.fr/itm/Vends-objecti...-/182641947059

Yes, I know, with wet plate you'll have to scurry around like crazy and will probably need a small army of assistants.

[gerry yaum]

I am not as experienced a photographer as I am an astronomer, but I know a bit about lenses. I've bought and sold hundreds, made several of my own scopes, and have used some with amazing amounts of grunge, chips, and wear. From the photo of the Nikkor lens, I cannot see the very minor flaws having any effect on images at all.

Your project is inspiring and so cool. When I read that the Nikkor had an issue, I inwardly cringed for you, figuring you had to go for it since they're so rare. But then I saw the photo and smiled for you: in my opinion, the only thing the slight issue did was -- possibly -- keep lens purists away, or, just maybe, bids down a bit. When you finish the project and want to sell the lens, I think you are completely correct. What you will have done with it can only increase its value.

I wish you great luck on this, and have been following your progress. As a newbie to LF who is just about to embark on my first trip with a 5x7, I just want to say, Wow!

Paul

Thanks so much Paul, I am just a night time security guard here in Canada with a consuming passion to make pictures. I value the opinions of people with expertise like yourself. Astronomer!, now that would be a cool profession. I have always loved the stars, used to buy books on that subject as a child, memorize the planets all that fun stuff. I was quite happy to read that you feel the lens should be OK for my use. I hope this project is the perfect storm of positive events. I have started to beleive in Karma and maybe some of that is happening, good things done in the past are helping the future of this project. The lens are lining up, the camera was made availble at a reasonable cost. All my contacts online are encouraging the project, teaching me how to get things done. I am learning from online people in Facebook, Large Format Forum, YouTube, Vimeo etc. It all seems to be falling together nicely. Hopefully all of this will eventually lead to some powerful wet plate imagery

[gerry yaum]

Gerry, you need two 1780 Apo-Nikkors and another monster camera so you can shoot hyperstereo. Here's your next lens:http://www.ebay.fr/itm/Vends-objecti...-/182641947059

Yes, I know, with wet plate you'll have to scurry around like crazy and will probably need a small army of assistants.

Haha...Dan....maybe so....I was playing with 35mm stereo cameras lately, love those things. Was going to take one with me to the Thai but I have so much going on and so much gear it might be too much to do. Thanks for the Stereo suggestion thou, will keep it in mind. Gosh these 1780mm lens are falling out of trees. Will keep an eye on this one, wonder how much it will sell for.

[goamules]

I've found it's sometimes easier to get super rare lenses because there is little knowledge of them so low demand. When everyone was chasing Pinkham and Smiths, I looked for other, more uncommon soft focus lenses. Same with Petzvals, when everyone chased Dallmeyers B models, I just found the others that were just as good. I suppose enough people need Ultra Long lenses that those do have demand, otherwise they would be quite cheap.

Quinn is great, he basically started the wetplate craze in Europe that we are now seeing grow and grow. Kind of like Coffer started it in America about 5 years before that. I helped Quinn one year shoot wetplate at a French photo fair. He was quite a wetplate celebrity and the booth we ran had a line of people wanting their plates made, all weekend.

It takes a while to get good results with wetplate, but it goes faster if you learn, hands on, from a pro. Too many hacks try to impress by "the old fashioned" nature without any real skill in technique or composition or lighting. I've seen a lot of very poor novice wetplater work over the years, where the vision of "doing it the old way" cannot save what are very bad plates.

With your LF background you are many steps ahead of the casual person who decides to start doing wetplate, and tries to learn by just reading a few facebook groups. I saw you were also going to start on small plates, that's always a good plan. I shot half plates every day or two for about 6 months when I was learning, and never went to large plates until I could get a good result on a 4x5 size. Remember, 98% of the old Ambrotypes and Tintypes were quarterplate (3 1/4 X 4 1/4) or smaller, in the 1870s. Even Brady and Gardner shot fairly small plates, smaller than 8x10. Yet their quality is seldom met today. You can shoot a hundred smaller plates with the same amount of chemistry that will be exhausted by 10 Mammoths.

Luther Gerlach is another collodion artist that has done mammoth plates for a long time. You might want to connect with him too. An example:

[gerry yaum]

I love it! I work with kids, and have since I was a kid. It's wonderful to be reminded that we're really all the same everywhere, and kids show it best, I think. Happy, curious, fun-loving.

And good for you for letting them play with your camera. They moved all around it, touched it, but -- at least here -- were respectful and showed enough care that it was all fine. I do public outreach with telescopes and a portable planetarium, and do my best to allow kids to explore things physically. Sometimes, I'm with other folks who make the equipment seem like it's far more precious than it really is, and more important than the kids we're there to reach out to. When I have a telescope aimed at a target in the sky, I always try to remember, when I ask folks in line to not touch the scope, to tell them that it's because the scope might move and lose the target, and not because I'm worried about the scope (they're pretty robust). I'm also grateful to a fellow astronomer who taught me to try at events to have a scope that kids can touch, and move, and aim themselves. It allows them to explore, and teaches me to trust and watch and remember what it is to be a curious explorer.

Thanks again for sharing this. I have to go look around your site more!

Kids in the dump are so wonderful Paul. They are filled with joy, curiousity and intelligence. They love playing with the camera so I let them go at it unless they get a bit too crazy. Linhof stuff is strong so I do not worry about the gear too much. In the past I have done the same thing in Klong Toey Slum in Bangkok. One time I was photographing with my 4x5 Linhof (reflex finder attached to the back or the camera). One child was curious so I lifted him up so he could look at his friend who was being photographed. Then another and another and another child wanted to see. Before I knew what was what I had like 10 kids in line wanting to see through the Linhof and play with the cable release/lens. As I lifted each child they got a view and then ran to the back of the line to get a 2nd chance. After about 10 kid lifts I saw that the line was not getting any shorter and wondered what was going on? Then I realized that kids were taking multple viewing turns, laughing, crying out and giggling all the way through the process.

Check this out from 2013 video, for an exhibition I had in Canada in 2015.

http://gerryyaum.blogspot.ca/2015/01...deo-to-be.html

Made up this blog today, a long winded summary of the dump series. Please do not feel obligated to read through all this stuff. I tend to be a bit obsessed with this project/photographs and the lives I have been lucky enough to share there. I also have a 4 year history of photos, and writing on my blog.

http://gerryyaum.blogspot.ca/2017/07...ry-repost.html

I am glad you also encourage the children you know to learn more about astronomy. Allowing children to learn, especially those who have so very little gives us all hope for a better future. Maybe your influence on them will help them become scientists, doctors, astronomers, whatever. I remember an uncle of mine making wedding films when I was young, he had the 8mm camera, the lights etc. As a child I found that fascinating. He would visit our home and we would have movie nights, showing all these 8mm wedding films on an old projector and screen in the living room. His example had a very postive influence on the pictures I am making now. He opened my eyes to something I had not seen before.

[gerry yaum]

I've found it's sometimes easier to get super rare lenses because there is little knowledge of them so low demand. When everyone was chasing Pinkham and Smiths, I looked for other, more uncommon soft focus lenses. Same with Petzvals, when everyone chased Dallmeyers B models, I just found the others that were just as good. I suppose enough people need Ultra Long lenses that those do have demand, otherwise they would be quite cheap.

Quinn is great, he basically started the wetplate craze in Europe that we are now seeing grow and grow. Kind of like Coffer started it in America about 5 years before that. I helped Quinn one year shoot wetplate at a French photo fair. He was quite a wetplate celebrity and the booth we ran had a line of people wanting their plates made, all weekend.

It takes a while to get good results with wetplate, but it goes faster if you learn, hands on, from a pro. Too many hacks try to impress by "the old fashioned" nature without any real skill in technique or composition or lighting. I've seen a lot of very poor novice wetplater work over the years, where the vision of "doing it the old way" cannot save what are very bad plates.

With your LF background you are many steps ahead of the casual person who decides to start doing wetplate, and tries to learn by just reading a few facebook groups. I saw you were also going to start on small plates, that's always a good plan. I shot half plates every day or two for about 6 months when I was learning, and never went to large plates until I could get a good result on a 4x5 size. Remember, 98% of the old Ambrotypes and Tintypes were quarterplate (3 1/4 X 4 1/4) or smaller, in the 1870s. Even Brady and Gardner shot fairly small plates, smaller than 8x10. Yet their quality is seldom met today. You can shoot a hundred smaller plates with the same amount of chemistry that will be exhausted by 10 Mammoths.

Luther Gerlach is another collodion artist that has done mammoth plates for a long time. You might want to connect with him too. An example:

Thanks very much for the long, detailed and informative post GOAMULES. I have sent emails to most of the big wet plate boys asking for help, workshops etc., including Luther Gerlach. His 3 graces video was a major influence in me wanting to eventually go mammoth.

"doing it the old way" Yes I feel your right here. Many times the process seems to overcome the images. Who cares what techniques you use if the photos suck. It always has to be the images first, the methods used while important should be secondary. I often see wet plate guys, dressing up in costumes and speaking endlessly about Archer and all the tech steps, but then in the end making boring, rather meaningless images. I love the look of wet plate photos, especially the feel of 3D ambrotypes, but the work, the work I hope to do has to have more value than that. If I cannot make strong images regardless of the process, then why bother? Great art should move us on an instinctual personal level, the rest of the stuff, lens, cameras, process, method, arty farty talk is all window dressing. Put the image on the wall and let it SPEAK for itself, nothing else matters.

Beautiful image by Luther G....I would love to take a workshop with him also. Will try connecting with him again, the last time round I only got to an assistant who relayed me Luther's thoughts. His work like I said earlier was an inspiration. I hope to go to Northern Canada and do landscapes and sea/lake scapes of similar quality. There is such a timeless beauty to these type of works. I was hoping also to do major portrait work (maybe not with the 35x35 but with the 16x20 Chamonix), probably with a flash set up, not sure on that yet. Much of this projects ideas evolve and change on a daily basis.

I shot half plates every day or two for about 6 months when I was learning, and never went to large plates until I could get a good result on a 4x5 size. Remember, 98% of the old Ambrotypes and Tintypes were quarterplate (3 1/4 X 4 1/4) or smaller, in the 1870s. Even Brady and Gardner shot fairly small plates, smaller than 8x10. Yet their quality is seldom met today. You can shoot a hundred smaller plates with the same amount of chemistry that will be exhausted by 10 Mammoths.

This is very solid advice. When I took my one wet plate workshop (I also have an old Bostick and Sullivan kit) I was doing it on 4x5 plates. I have a number of blank black 4x5 and 8x10 plates in my darkroom. For the first 6 months, maybe a year I will concentrate on shooting that fornat size, before moving up. When you make mistakes, it is so much less painful when it costs less money! I plan on making LOTS AND LOTS of mistakes!!

Thanks so much for your email GOAMULES, I will post some work in the coming years. I hope you can help me become a better wetplater as I climb that steep hill.

[gerry yaum]

What fun with those kids Gerry, Looks like you have a future photographer there! or Director!. I'd be curious what images they would make if they started making pictures.

Paul, what neat experiences, makes me smile. I too enjoy trusting the kids and watching them explore and getting close.

Yes...that is always something of interest STAWASTAWA. I know of several exhibitons where they gave kids in impoverished areas of the world a camera and then exhibited the rather amazing results. What I enjoy is how smart they are. Last trip I bought a cheapo Chinese smart watch with a multitude of functions (4 buttons on the watch that did all kinds of stuff). One young boy who used to follow me as I made pictures would sort of imitate me. I would wear my hat one way, so would he, I would turn my hat round, so would he etc. One time when I was resting I sat down in the dirt and he sat beside me, he started to play with the smart watch. This kids finger were flying through the functions, doing all kinds of things I never knew the watch could do. It was rather amazing. He picked up things so fast! I kept thinking what could this young boy become if he was given the proper opportunity. Instead he will most likely live a life with little education or opportunity. He will probably have a life like his father, a life of desperate difficult poverty. Will his son be the same? and his son? and the son after that? The world has to change so that those sons of the future will have the opportunity to live beyond a garbage dump life.

Here is that young boy.
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3fjHzbn5O...00/%2B1aaa.jpg
http://gerryyaum.blogspot.ca/2016/07...and-white.html

[Paul Kinzer]

Having a passion is a great thing! My pursuit of astronomy is mine, though I'm not a professional scientist. Still, I have made income from my astro endeavors, both with my portable planetarium, and with my book, Stargazing Basics: Getting Started in Recreational Astronomy. (I'm not sure if it's kosher to link to it here, so I won't). But it's in no way 'a living'. Sometimes -- though not often -- people ask me why I do it if I put so much in for so little back. They get a long and animated answer! Because it gives me joy and purpose!

Your own passion shows in your posts and videos. Good on you!

Thanks so much Paul, I am just a night time security guard here in Canada with a consuming passion to make pictures. I value the opinions of people with expertise like yourself. Astronomer!, now that would be a cool profession. I have always loved the stars, used to buy books on that subject as a child, memorize the planets all that fun stuff. I was quite happy to read that you feel the lens should be OK for my use. I hope this project is the perfect storm of positive events. I have started to beleive in Karma and maybe some of that is happening, good things done in the past are helping the future of this project. The lens are lining up, the camera was made availble at a reasonable cost. All my contacts online are encouraging the project, teaching me how to get things done. I am learning from online people in Facebook, Large Format Forum, YouTube, Vimeo etc. It all seems to be falling together nicely. Hopefully all of this will eventually lead to some powerful wet plate imagery