End of road for MF/LF...

[Luckless]

Sports with a TLR would be a riot: runner takes off to the right, while I, looking into my TLR, pan left to catch him.

That's what makes it fun.

That, and the comments and questions you get about the gear.

 

[macfred]

Sports with a TLR would be a riot ...

No problem ...

Rolleiflex 3.5 - Neopan 400

 

[Cholentpot]

You should, its fun...

Sports with a TLR would be a riot: runner takes off to the right, while I, looking into my TLR, pan left to catch him.

That's what makes it fun.

That, and the comments and questions you get about the gear.

I shoot my kids running around with it. Sports would be a breeze, at least I know which way they're moving.

There's a reason why these things have sports finders though. They do work.

 

[indy_kid]

Photography is an "artistic medium" but film isn't...everybody knows that..

Driving is an "artistic skill" but cars are not - said no one ever. Drivers are necessarily constrained by the limits of their cars, just as film photographers are constrained by the limits of film. Film has its limits, digital has its limits.

If it were possible, I don't think Ansel Adams would sit down at a PC and tablet, using Photoshop to tweak the image he was after. He might use it to visualize and pre-plan an image, but he'd still carry his 8x10 film camera into the field. Afterward, he'd be in the darkroom, standing over the easel, dodging and burning, arms moving like Leonard Bernstein conducting and orchestra. That's where the magic happened.

 

[DREW WILEY]

When I was in high school, Rollei TLR's were used for everything, including sports. But I don't personally use em. In my print collection there is an old cyanotype box camera picture of a pair of oxen pulling a log with two chains as a snowplow. I think that's how arcane image stitching will be regarded in a decade or two. Something easier will be developed. But I just hate the more-often-than-not fake look of it. Just buy an 8x10 camera and be done with it in one shutter click; that's what I call progress. Likewise, I was beside a trail with my Sinar Norma atop its tripod a few days ago, and three hikers came by asking to have their picture taken with a cell phone. I couldn't even see the screen due to the glare, and they complained about the same issue. I pointed to the darkcloth hanging over my view camera and asked why they didn't include one of those with the cell phone? Too easy a solution, I guess.

 

[Cholentpot]

When I was in high school, Rollei TLR's were used for everything, including sports. But I don't personally use em. In my print collection there is an old cyanotype box camera picture of a pair of oxen pulling a log with two chains as a snowplow. I think that's how arcane image stitching will be regarded in a decade or two. Something easier will be developed. But I just hate the more-often-than-not fake look of it. Just buy an 8x10 camera and be done with it in one shutter click; that's what I call progress. Likewise, I was beside a trail with my Sinar Norma atop its tripod a few days ago, and three hikers came by asking to have their picture taken with a cell phone. I couldn't even see the screen due to the glare, and they complained about the same issue. I pointed to the darkcloth hanging over my view camera and asked why they didn't include one of those with the cell phone? Too easy a solution, I guess.

I came with one one built in, it's called a hand.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Well, most hikers have at least a baseball cap. But they apparently need one with the same logo as their phone, a cap they paid $250 for as a dedicated accessory, to figure out how to use it. The instructions can be found on page 1075, paragraph 32, small-print footnote 6 of their Smartphone owner's manual. My solution is even easier. Leave the stupid phone home. Why do I want that annoyance when I'm trying to enjoy my outdoor time?

 

[Cholentpot]

Well, most hikers have at least a baseball cap. But they apparently need one with the same logo as their phone, a cap they paid $250 for as a dedicated accessory, to figure out how to use it. The instructions can be found on page 1075, paragraph 32, small-print footnote 6 of their Smartphone owner's manual. My solution is even easier. Leave the stupid phone home. Why do I want that annoyance when I'm trying to enjoy my outdoor time?

So you can take photos when you run out of film?

 

[removed account4]

Well, most hikers have at least a baseball cap. But they apparently need one with the same logo as their phone, a cap they paid $250 for as a dedicated accessory, to figure out how to use it. The instructions can be found on page 1075, paragraph 32, small-print footnote 6 of their Smartphone owner's manual. My solution is even easier. Leave the stupid phone home. Why do I want that annoyance when I'm trying to enjoy my outdoor time?

hmmm call 911 if you see someone get mauled by a bear or break their leg or you need "help" ?
guessing you aren't 20 years old, and ripped yo make it ez to carry your 810, tripod and all its accessories while giving an injured person a fireman's carry to the basecamp. .. maybe you have you have 2 way radios, a mirror to reflect the sun / get attention, matches and combustables, ground cloth, beef jerky ( or dried chickpeas ) and materials to make a solar still in case you get stranded so you can stay warm, and rope/parachute cord to splint your arm or leg ( or an injured party's ) with a branch. ... not everyone has a phone to do snapshots and even if they do, the quality of a modern phone cam is at least as good as any MF camera out there, and its handy, not a hassel blad ... , and with the software being talked about in this thread, pretty soon a 40kb from a motorola startak phone camera from 25 years ago will be able to rival even LF cameras, and if that is the case ... then you can leave your 810, tripod and accessories at home and take a live action stills of you giving someone a fireman's carry as you sprint and do a natural obstacle course down to base camp as a ripped jack lalane 80year old who cross trains and is an american ninja too...

 

[DREW WILEY]

Cell phones don't even work many places I go. I grew up without any phone. The bigger the view camera, the easier it is to carry. I patented a helium filled bellows. That way I don't need airports either. There are things cellphones are good for. If you arrive at a smooth lake and can't find any flat pebbles, cellphones skip across the water nicely.

 

[Cholentpot]

Cell phones don't even work many places I go. I grew up without any phone. The bigger the view camera, the easier it is to carry. I patented a helium filled bellows. That way I don't need airports either. There are things cellphones are good for. If you arrive at a smooth lake and can't find any flat pebbles, cellphones skip across the water nicely.

You can always puncture the battery to start a fire.

 

[warden]

There's a reason why these things have sports finders though. They do work.

Yes, they call them sports finders because the cameras are bad at sports unless you use them.

Don't get me wrong I like my TLR but if the subject is moving in an unpredictable manner they're a pain unless I use the "sports finder" which is an approximation rather than an ideal view. I had the same problem with a Hasselblad of course, and when I got a mirrored viewfinder that corrected the reversed image it made all the difference.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Yes, they call them sports finders because the cameras are bad at sports unless you use them.

Don't get me wrong I like my TLR but if the subject is moving in an unpredictable manner they're a pain unless I use the "sports finder" which is an approximation rather than an ideal view. I had the same problem with a Hasselblad of course, and when I got a mirrored viewfinder that corrected the reversed image it made all the difference.

That is why I recommend a Porroflex for the Mamiya Cxx and why I always use a PME prism on my Hasselblad 503 CX. The left-right reversal is a PITA.

 

[KenS]

(snip_
Reminds me of the people in the 60's & 70's who said using micro film in a 35mm camera gave LF quality, and then Tech Pan would make LF obsolete, they were so naive because Tech Pan was also available as LF sheet film

(snip
Ian

When 'somewhat' occasionally interested with 35mm Tech Pan some years ago and 'investing in a couple of 'bricks of 20' rolls I soon realized that my Pentax 35mm was 'severely lacking' the ability to make use of the 'swings and tilts' that either my 4x5 Linhof or my 'well aged' 8x10 Burke and James 'Woodie' that 'lost its coat' of grey paint .
Seeking for some frozen 'sheet film' in my freezer recently, I came across an unopened brick that had been 'forgotten' over the years... and I don't know what to 'do' with it. Yes... it did provide very fine grain but, I gave up seeking grain-lessness in favour (Canuckian spelling) of better 'control' of the final Large Format image.

Ken

Ken

 

[Cholentpot]

Yes, they call them sports finders because the cameras are bad at sports unless you use them.

Don't get me wrong I like my TLR but if the subject is moving in an unpredictable manner they're a pain unless I use the "sports finder" which is an approximation rather than an ideal view. I had the same problem with a Hasselblad of course, and when I got a mirrored viewfinder that corrected the reversed image it made all the difference.

Back in the day a few guess focus cameras fell into my lap and I got pretty good at using the calculators on the lens. While that may be no big deal for the more seasoned shooters, a young buck like me it was a revelation. So I dial the lens down to f/11 and nail just about every shot with the sports finder. I enjoy a good challenge.

 

[Cholentpot]

When 'somewhat' occasionally interested with 35mm Tech Pan some years ago and 'investing in a couple of 'bricks of 20' rolls I soon realized that my Pentax 35mm was 'severely lacking' the ability to make use of the 'swings and tilts' that either my 4x5 Linhof or my 'well aged' 8x10 Burke and James 'Woodie' that 'lost its coat' of grey paint .
Seeking for some frozen 'sheet film' in my freezer recently, I came across an unopened brick that had been 'forgotten' over the years... and I don't know what to 'do' with it. Yes... it did provide very fine grain but, I gave up seeking grain-lessness in favour (Canuckian spelling) of better 'control' of the final Large Format image.

Ken

Ken

Send it to me, I'll butcher some of it down to 16mm and run it through my 110 and spy cameras.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

That the technical shortcomings of UHD streaming are forcing a move up in sensor size to minimise noise/ grain to try and paper over the unpleasant compression artefacts is rather amusing.

funny you should mention that... I’d take a minimally compressed 720p stream over a heavily compressed 1080 or even 4K stream any day as it tends to just look better, even though it has less overall spatial resolution.

 

[warden]

Dang -- I was looking for the full-frame copies I have, but shot with a TLR about 50 years ago. Me shooting surrounded by the other team, and another defending the inbound pass.. Very non-PC poster! LOL!

Fun! "Run what you brung" as they used to say.

 

[Vaughn]

Fun! "Run what you brung" as they used to say.

Dang -- just deleted the post...might have been 35mm images. I'll repost them here, but will look for the square prints I have somewhere. (Note the very un-PC poster!)

 

[Lachlan Young]

funny you should mention that... I’d take a minimally compressed 720p stream over a heavily compressed 1080 or even 4K stream any day as it tends to just look better, even though it has less overall spatial resolution.

It tends to get forgotten (partly because film prints got beaten up pretty quickly, or were umpteenth generation) that one of the few cases where most people will see a truly uncompressed moving image (outside of a colour grading suite) is from an optical print struck as directly as possible from a negative - all digital motion picture formats for cinema etc have to compress to one extent or another, otherwise the sheer volume of data would be essentially undistributable.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

It tends to get forgotten (partly because film prints got beaten up pretty quickly, or were umpteenth generation) that one of the few cases where most people will see a truly uncompressed moving image (outside of a colour grading suite) is from an optical print struck as directly as possible from a negative - all digital motion picture formats for cinema etc have to compress to one extent or another, otherwise the sheer volume of data would be essentially undistributable.

this is true, however, I’ll still take a lower resolution image that has been compressed less over a higher resolution image that has had the daylights squeezed out of it in a heartbeat. There’s a lot more to image quality than raw resolution. People bag on canon cameras because their out of camera video files are high bitrate and not sharpened in camera, however, in the right hands, those video files often times end up looking a lot better than others in the distributed version of the video. I’d very much rather have a 300Mbps+ unsharpened 1080p picture coming out of my camera than a 120Mbps 4K picture that has a whole pile of in camera sharpening applied so that the cameras contrast AF system can work. That 4K image tends to look very video. Yes, it’s crispy and sharp, but it also doesn’t look as good because it’s way more compressed.

A high bitrate, fat beefy 1080p video with 4:2:2 color and appropriate output sharpening will almost always look better overall than a low bitrate 4K video with 4:2:0 color. People tend to focus way too much on the raw resolution and not so much on the other aspects that have just as big of an I a pact on the final output quality.

 

[Lachlan Young]

this is true, however, I’ll still take a lower resolution image that has been compressed less over a higher resolution image that has had the daylights squeezed out of it in a heartbeat. There’s a lot more to image quality than raw resolution. People bag on canon cameras because their out of camera video files are high bitrate and not sharpened in camera, however, in the right hands, those video files often times end up looking a lot better than others in the distributed version of the video. I’d very much rather have a 300Mbps+ unsharpened 1080p picture coming out of my camera than a 120Mbps 4K picture that has a whole pile of in camera sharpening applied so that the cameras contrast AF system can work. That 4K image tends to look very video. Yes, it’s crispy and sharp, but it also doesn’t look as good because it’s way more compressed.

A high bitrate, fat beefy 1080p video with 4:2:2 color and appropriate output sharpening will almost always look better overall than a low bitrate 4K video with 4:2:0 color. People tend to focus way too much on the raw resolution and not so much on the other aspects that have just as big of an I a pact on the final output quality.

I think the quantity and quality of colour matter much more immediately than sharpness/ resolution/ lack of noise or grain. This is an area where digital origination seems to have become obsessed with the wrong aspects of colour reproduction (but that's a whole different story).

 

[Adrian Bacon]

I think the quantity and quality of colour matter much more immediately than sharpness/ resolution/ lack of noise or grain. This is an area where digital origination seems to have become obsessed with the wrong aspects of colour reproduction (but that's a whole different story).

totally agree there. Like I said before, if doing critical work, I’ll take canon’s video files any day of the week if I don’t have budget/access to high end equipment. Their cameras are far from perfect but they generally really hit it right with a lot of stuff. It’s a real shame the internet at large is hyper focused on one tiny aspect of overall image quality.

 

[DREW WILEY]

What are files? Trying to get out of jail? I thought San Quentin Prison was half an hour south of you. I use files to sharpen garden shears and things like that, never film.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

What are files? Trying to get out of jail? I thought San Quentin Prison was half an hour south of you. I use files to sharpen garden shears and things like that, never film.

lol... San Quentin is about 30-45 minutes south of me down the 101. I have a nice 6x9 MF capture of it from the ferry that goes right by there that I shot on TMAX 400 a few years ago.