K W Hart wrote:
"Jean-David Beyer" wrote in message
...
I was at a week-long photo workshop long ago. One of the participants
was using the 120-size Pentax SLR. Most of the other users used 35mm. I
had my 4x5 at the time. But that did not matter a whole lot. People in a
workshop like that should use whatever they were most comfortable with,
since it was not primarily about technique.

He was really concerned that he should use a hardening stop bath, so I
suggested SB-4, although I questioned the need. He complained his
pictures were not sharp enough. He also said his camera was not doing
what it should. I could see that the camera would focus, and could be
adjusted to expose correctly, and so on. I asked what his camera should
do that it was not doing, but he was pretty vague about that too. I
thought his pictures were lousy, but that was due to where he put the
four edges of the frame, the depth of field he chose, and what was in
it, which were artistic decisions he made, not a fault of the camera.

He went on like that all week.

/sarcasm mode on/

Everyone knows that a hardening stop bath will improve any picture. You
don't even have to look through the viewfinder; just fire the shutter
randomly, then use a hardening stop bath, and the pictures will be works of
art. In fact, I use hardening versions of all my chemicals: hardening
developer, hardening bleach-fix, even hardening wash. Because of that, my
pictures are fantastic beyond belief.

You know, if he would have bought the latest digital camera and accessories,
his pictures would have been great. At least for a year, until a new model
camera came out. Then his pictures would be lousy again until he bought a
new latest digital camera and it's accessories.

This was before digital cameras were usual (about 1975).

As far as buying my way to artistic success, my favorite was a series of
"filters" sold by Spiratone (I believe it was). This was a thing you
screwed to the front of your lens, like a filter. It had a color filter,
at least one circular polarizer, and a quarter wave plate. And a lever
on the side so you could turn something inside. Moving that lever made
it go from clear to the color of the filter. There were some with two
colors, so you could change from red to green, for example. I thought of
buying one for laughs, but the laugh was not enough to cover the price,
so I never got one.

/sarcasm mode off/

Ken Hart





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