time or VAPUG.ORG?

[argus]

Vintage Analog Photography Users Group.
Jim Gali might become the first member of honour.

I'm only getting this into the ballpark because of some recent threads and/or images in the galleries.

Some people like old lenses, cameras, enlargers... but sometimes I really can't appreciate the quality of the result produced with vintage equipment.

I'm not trying to condemn the use of old equipment or people who use it (got several 1900 lenses myself). I was a professional flute player (in a former life...) and was (still am) interested in 18th and 19th century instruments with 1 up to 9 of more keys, but my maine concern has always been: can we get better results that what was possible at the time the vintage item was produced?

Keep shooting, starting as from now.

fact #1: it's just great fun using those items. (as I do)

G

 

[df cardwell]

Wooden flute, silver flutes, gold flutes... amplified flutes.
Ancient music played with contemporary technique. The possibilities are endless.

The parallels are exact between music and photography.

I prefer the sound of a wooden flute. I like english horns. Baroque fiddles. I use vintage lenses with contemporary technique to make a clear and rich picture ( I hope ) without a 'commercial look' unavoidable - to my eye - with new lens designs.

. It's all one.

But VAPUG ? Oh, dear.

.

 

[127]

One of the great things about film cameras is that with the advances in film technology, vintage equipment quite catagorically can and does produce (technically) better images now than they did when they were made...

Ian

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Yes, I think we can do some interesting things with old lenses and new films and materials, and more importantly, a different sense of history and experience than existed when these old lenses and such were the only things available. I think it makes a difference that we might use an old lens by choice rather than by necessity. It puts more of a creative burden on the photographer to use old technology in an interesting way and to identify what in particular is interesting about it.

For instance, I think we're using the big old portrait lenses with much shorter DOF and much closer subject distances than was common in the 19th and early 20th century.

Another big difference--for better and for worse--is that hand retouching of negatives is much less common than it used to be. "For better" because faster films and strobes have eliminated the need for retouching to conceal subject movement, and because aesthetic sensibilities have changed so that maybe we don't feel we need to hide the "faults" of the classic lenses. "For worse," because we're losing part of the traditional craft. I've been trying to recover some of the old techniques, and I look at old photographs in new ways as a result.

 

[waynecrider]

Isn't it all VA now with the advent of digital? If not, it probably will be in 5 years.

 

[cao]

But VAPUG ? Oh, dear.

Indeed. Way too close to "vapid" for my taste.