Bandicoot wrote:

"Gordon Moat" wrote in message
...
Bandicoot wrote:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Really a huge additional expense for what I do. However, there are a
few panorama stock imaging companies that are only taking medium
format panoramas submissions currently. Most do the scanning for you.

Interesting - any of them take X-Pan I wonder?

A couple did in the past, but I guess they had too many submissions on 35
mm
film. Those two now only want medium format roll film submissions, though
that
might change in the future.

Pity, though maybe not surprising.


I will send you a link for one of them when I mail you the EPS file. You can
investigate more, if you want to try them. They do not have any notes about
there current policy on their site, though it was reported recently in an
industry magazine that interviewed the company.

. . . . . . . . .


An accessory rangefinder would work pretty well though, as you say, and
these things can be very accurate. If I ever made an adapter to put
other
lenses on the X-Pan I expect I'd ideally want both options. Come to
that,
having the GG 'lens-adapter' would be useful (to me) for previewing DoF
even
with the current X-Pan lenses.

Maybe a small box attachment to mount the lens and ground glass. Of
course,
you know that you would be viewing the scene upside down.

That's the sort of thing I was thinking of. I suppose one could get fancy
and include an inverting lens - indeed the whole thing could be not entirely
unlike those add ons that you can get to use a long lens as a sort of
spotting scope, though they focus on the aerial image, not a GG. (Not sure
that that wouldn't work too though, now I think about it.)

I have seen the telescope adapter for older Nikon lenses. Unfortunately, it
gives a round view, so it would be tough to figure out a rectangle or panorama
from the view. Some sort of mask might help, but I don't know if that would be
accurate. However, you could use that sort of thing as a focus estimate device.


. . . . . . . . . .

I forgot to ask, is this e-mail valid for you? If not, send me a regular
e-mail so I
have your proper address.

Well, it works if you un-munge it, but it goes to an account I check only
seldom. I'll send an email from my 'regular' account. Thanks again.


The one you get from me will be this weekend.


[SNIP]

Not seen taht one, though Silvestri is not known for being cheap either.
Sadly machine shop rates are higher here, largely because few people
seem
interested in doing small or one-off runs. Agree about the focus
mount -
but _basically_ it's just a piece of aluminium with pair of brass or
bronze lined screw threads, shouldn't be hard to have that machined
either,
then you can calibrate it with a ground glass.

I think I need to know more about focus mounts, and calibration to lenses.
It
seems to me that each lens focal length needs a different focus mount
travel, but
I just do not know if that is true.

Well, given that a lens needing a focus mount probably mounts near its
optical centre rather than at a standardised registraton distance - ie. is
an LF lens - the mount has to 'start' from a different position for infinity
for a different lens. But from then on, it doesn't really matter how
_much_ focus travel there is, it's just that moving a long lens an inch
further away from the film than its infinity position might still only give
you focus at 10', whereas moving a wide lens the same amount may bring the
focus to less than 1' - or even to 'inside' the front element. So you could
make a one mount fits all system, but it'd need to be adjustable for
different infinity positions.

Massive complexity. That solution would require several distance scales to be
inscribed as well.

What you can't do is have distances inscribed
on the mount and have them hold good for more than a single focal length -
though you could easily enough put on a couple of different scales, if you
were only ever using two or three different lenses on it.

Okay . . . exactly . . . you have pointed out the problem with that approach.



That's probably totally unintelligible...

Not at all . . . though I imagined that there would be a need for a different
focus mount for each focal length, and likely for each type of lens. I would be
somewhat surprised if every 150 mm large focus lens could use the same focus
mount, just for one example.




Your comment about the napkin reminds me of an anecdote about Picasso.
Fairly late in his life he wanted some furniture made and sketched a
rough
design which he took to a local cabinet-maker, who said that yes, he
could
make it. "How much?" asked Picasso - "Oh, no charge... if you'll just
sign
the drawing."

I heard one about Picasso when he was approached by a woman at a café. She
asked him to do a little drawing, which he promptly produced on a napkin.
When the woman asked if he could have that, he replied something to the
effect
like, "sure . . . that will be $5000", a reply which shocked and surprised
the
woman.

Yet photographers all know that their friends 'expect' free pictures, and
free time!

Oh . . . could you print me out an extra copy of that . . . or could you print
me out several of those, when you have the time . . . no rush . . . ;-)



[SNIP]
I like very shallow DoF for some things - witness another thread
where I was talking about the f1.2 lens. But I think you are right,
many people have got so used to massive DoF that they are puzzled
when it isn't there - all the same, look how popular shallow DoF,
often manipulated with movements (or badly faked with PS) has
become in, particularly, food photography.

The short DoF was one reason I did some food photography. The look
was very unique, compared to anything else the client had seen.

Ahh, so you're to blame...

I doubt it . . . but I had been doing ultra short DoF with all my other
shots, so it
seemed like a good idea at the time. Of course, the best food photographer
I
have ever seen is Noel Barnhurst:

http://www.noelbarnhurst.com/ Great stuff, just found this site about a
month
ago. Lots of ideas.

Hmmm, I need to spend some time there, some impressive work.

Seriously, I think Noel Barnhurst is the best food photographer I have ever
seen. Even approaching some of those ideas would be a step up into food
photography. You should also understand that having a good food stylist on
location can make a huge difference in the final images.



You also still see it in movies and TV sometimes - maybe as a
director's badge of honour: "hey, look at me, I can get shallow DoF
so I must be shooting on 35mm, not mini DV, right? ;-)" (CSI is a
classic example.)

In the movies, and television, it is possible with Super 16, but
really
tough with 1/2" DV gear. Honestly, those shots can be done cheaper
and easier with Super 16 film cameras, and often are done that way.
Many television shows are still done on film, since the hope of
syndication means future transfer to HD (or the next greater
standard);
basically films future proofs formats in television . . . strange, but
true.

Interesting, I can see how that would be so. And even Kodak seems to be
supporting Super 16 quite well over here, with some new emulsions in the
past year or so. One of my cousins is married to a film cameraman, I
must
talk to him about this stuff sometime.

Check out the Aaton Minima. It is very small, and can even mount Nikon 35
mm film lenses. Cost is a little high, though I have heard of some owners
renting
them to recoup the expense.

Don't know what Phil uses most - I'll have to ask him. I know he uses both
film and DV, depending on what his client wants.

I have done video and film work on more than a few occasions. Unfortunately, in
southern California, there are so many people now willing to work for free in
this realm (just to get a chance to network, and maybe get hired), that it is
no longer worth it for me to go in that direction. I enjoyed the documentary
work I did, and I might return to motion imagery in the future, but for now my
emphasis is still images.




One of my SI shots was an example of this: a tray of quails' eggs
shot
just with the light from a cloudy sky (example of shallow DoF too.)
The vast majority of all my flower work - outside or in the studio -
is
lit with natural light.

I missed the eggs, but maybe I did not have any coffee that day. ;-)

It was this one:

http://www.pbase.com/shootin/image/23332478/medium

Lovely soft light, shot by an East facing window in the afternoon, 35mm,
with a 100mm lens.

Nice. The crop is the only thing I wonder about, though the shot does work
as it
sits.

Thanks. I like this tight crop, but if I'd done this one for a client I'd
have left a lot more space, either to let them decide a crop, or for text
overlay.

Design friendly photography . . . you have touched upon one aspect that many
art directors and designers complain about with images: room for text
placement.

For me though the crop has the same effect as the shallow DoF: you
can't see all of the subject, and what you can see isn't all in focus, but
neither matters, because you can see everything you need in order to know
all you want to about it.

The mind creates the impression of what remains. This is why some images with
nothing in focus can still work, and create interest in the subject matter, or
scene. It can sometimes be tougher to capture and hold a viewers attention when
everything is in focus, though that is when crops work well. If you think about
your images a bit more, you might actually notice that you do think a little
like a painter. ;-)

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio
http://www.allgstudio.com