"Gordon Moat" wrote in message
...
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.


Thanks - I can certainly send them something and see what they say. My
usual people do accept pano.s, but I've thought for a while that a
specialist library might get more sales from them, especially those rather
unusual verticals that I do.

[SNIP]
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.


Those adapters exist for Pentax too - but I'm not sure one used 'from stock'
would do the job. Given that SLRs always focus on a GG (except when using a
plain screen for photomicrography, and that's a whole different process) I
suspect that the idea of using the aerial image to focus has been tried and
found wanting - not that that means I can't try it too! Still I expect that
_if_ I ever decided to give this a go, a little box with a GG and an
eyepiece would be the best way to build such a focus and DoF 'preview' aid.
Of course, if the lens I was using was an SLR one, all I'd need would be to
have along a body that it fitted...

[SNIP]

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.

Yes, though your multiple scales could simply include an infinity mark -
you'd need to eyeball the lens' alignment to the mark rather than just
knowing "if I turn it all the way left it's focused on infinity" but it
wouldn't be too bad. It would mean you'd end up with very short focus throw
on wide lenses, and very long thrown (multiple turns, probably) on long
ones, because they'd all be using the same pitch thread. Not a great
answer, but workable and the cheapest way if you are only using two or maybe
three different lenses.


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.

In truth I don't know the answer to that. In theory they would: if they
both focus infinity with their exit pupil 150mm from the film plane, they'll
both give life-size with it 300mm out. But that assumes neither is a
telephoto (or retrofocus) design. Also, the exit pupil and mounting flange
may not be in the same relationship to each other in different lenses, and
there's probably other issues with modern non-symetrical lens designs that I
don't know about. Basically, I think it is, as you say, a separate scale at
least, and a separate mount if practical/affordable for every lens.

[SNIP]

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 . . .
;-)

Yes, just last night I had that. On the other hand, the person who was
asking had come along and acted as assistant on the shoot she was asking
about, so I didn't mind that request so much.

The one that really got me once was "Oh, I like that - could you do me some
for me to use as Christmas cards next year?" To which, of course, the
answer is that I have a standard price for cards...

[SNIP]

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.

I think I agree with you there, very impressive work.

The food stylist seems pretty much an essential for doing complex dishes,
and that's part of the reason I wouldn't look for a comission to do this
sort of thing. The simpler stock type shots that are effectively still
lives of ingredients, rather than portraits of finished meals, are something
I do now and again, but I don't think I want to specialise in food enough to
go further into it than that.

[SNIP]
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.

I can imagine how that could be a problem in your part of the world. My
cousin Phil does film and TV stuff - I quite often see his name in the
credits - so he doesn't need to do freebies, but I guess everyone had to
start somewhere, and it's a competitive market. Fortunately he is a really
nice guy, despite having survived all the competition.

[SNIP]

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.

I'm always surprised how many people don't take this into account.
Especially for stock work, where you don't have a design director breathing
down your neck and so have to be your own designer - "what would I need if I
was to use this shot for a cover/advert/background/whatever" is a question
too few people ask themselves, it seems. With your illustration background
you must have something of a head start in this area.


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. ;-)


Yes, the 'everything sharp' school of work - a la group f64 - can be hard to
keep interesting enough sometimes.

Increasingly I think you're right about how far painting has influenced the
way I think about putting a picture together. Like so many things we absorb
from an early age it is somewhat unconscious for me, though it is probably a
good exercise to think about it more from time to time - one of the reasons
I think I learn as much as my students do from the teaching I do.


Peter