I respect people like you whose response is to boycott social media platforms, but that isn't my approach, whether we're talking about Facebook, YouTube, Twitter or Instagram.
I don't have much experience with Facebook outside Facebook Groups, but I do with the other platforms. I'm well aware of the fact that people have used YouTube to sell quite dangerous political theories. It's quite an eye-opener to watch well-spoken, attractive, fashionably dressed young people in several countries all selling the same made-up "facts" and racist political ideas to other young people, including impressionable teenagers. YouTube/Google has now banned the international group of channels that I'm thinking about, but this kind of censorship is an on-going work in progress, and controversial.
At the same time, I believe that YouTube has had a positive technical impact on filmmaking, and substantively is home to some awfully good films.
To take just the most obvious technical example, vlogging is revolutionary. Contrary to what a lot of people think, it wasn't invented by Casey Neistatt, or even by Jack and Finn Harries in their 2011 YouTube series JacksGap. The concept goes back at least to the 1967 fiction film David Holzman's Diary. Nelson Sullivan was vlogging in the 1980s, using a VHS camera and camcorder to document his life in New York City's gay community and trips home to Georgia. But YouTube made vlogging possible in real life, fostered technical innovations in cameras and provided filmmakers with an enormous international platform.
I don't think that anybody who makes films can afford to be ignorant of what's happening on YouTube, and I think that that is also increasingly true of Facebook and Instagram. I believe that the same can be said of still photography and music. On the issue that you raise, I prefer to know about disinformation and evangelism of dangerous political ideas first-hand.
So yeah, I have no problem with Facebook Groups, and I'm intrigued enough by this new Group on 19th century lenses, a subject about which I know very little, that I plan to join.
P.S.: I just purchased an Arca-Swiss leather bag bellows via eBay Austria, which solved a problem and saved me quite a lot of money. I'm also a regular patron of the Greenmarket about four blocks from where I live
Folks who don’t want to join… shouldn’t. Why they don’t want to join really isn’t very interesting (to me, at least).
There are significant differences in our Internet War Masters
The latest Gods are in a race to win it all
new boss same as the old boss
same as it ever was
we are grease
making
bable
Tin Can
But not here. I don't think I have ever been misled or fed disinformation on this forum.
Perfectly reasonable. But will you also be encouraging the members of your Facebook group to come here and invest their time as well? Seems like it should be a two way street.
Indeediee, Social media and the World Wide Web has made it easy for individuals to cultivate a mass following to forward their agenda. Mis-information is remarkably effective as it often contains what these followers want to believe in place of what truth-the way Nature really is in reality.
That said, root question becomes why the interest in 19th century lenses in the here and now?
~Discuss.
Bernice
"That said, root question becomes why the interest in 19th century lenses in the here and now?
~Discuss."
I respectfully disagree that this is the root question. Dan has a well-established interest, as do others. (If you think that weird, I'm sure that there are many other even more arcane interests out there.) If others have as much interest then they might want to consider following the information rather than complaining about the platform it is hosted on. So far, what has been posted on Facebook is very interesting to those with interest but would likely belly-flop here. It's a different kind of place for different kind of content with a different way of interfacing. That's it... a, not "the", root answer.
Missing the intent and point here. Not a complaint or should be take as a complaint.
History of view camera lenses is fascinating in many ways. This is why the absurd collection of view camera lenses and preferences of various non-modern view camera lenses for specific image goals. It is also why the constant tooting about using a Sinar shutter with barrel lenses and such.
That said, it appears the interest in vintage or 19th century view camera lenses is tied to the rising popularity of alternative processes like wet plate and such.
Question remains, why the popularity of wet plate, tin types, contact printing film sizes larger than 8x10 and more.
Bernice
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