As I write this article I have packed up my Pentax 6×7 and all three lenses, I am selling it off and my Speed Graphic isn’t far behind. I am done with medium format. Seems strange, doesn’t it? Watch or read the statements from any influential analog photographer and 120 seems like the natural progression, …
Whenever we use a camera to record a scene, we are transforming analog signals. Each element introduces yet another error, albeit small.
The perfect is the enemy of the good
It’s an apt saying. The followup is
What is good enough in a complex system?
Errors propagate in complex systems. Redundancy has its benefits. It’s natural. And there are optimal settings to achieve reasonably accurate results.
The following is in the style/format of a screenplay. Ok, let’s face it. Not the sort of thing that would be picked up by Netflix. But… there are precedents. Consider the oyster… Lewis Carroll [aka Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] wrote Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. He was a polymath – author, poet and mathematician. While ostensibly written for children, his books also include philosophical discussions on such topics as logic, philosophy and the ambiguity of language. And they delight people of all ages.
Leica rather missed the boat when digital came along so of course I’m talking about the best film Leica. And no, its not another “the M3 is the best camera ever made” review. But to begin, a bit of background.
My first ‘camera’ was a 4×5 I made with my father’s help, and a loaned lens from my uncle who worked at Taylor Hobson in Leicester, UK. The wooden box camera used glass plate negatives – remember those? Focusing was hit and miss, manually sliding the fat projector lens in and out until infinity seemed as good as it could get – then stopping down with a cardboard cut-out sleeve over the lens. I was a teenager and was making the camera for a single purpose – to photograph a comet which was easily visible stretching across the sky.
Je suis le mal aimé is a French classic song and roughly translated means: the one no one likes! For this article I’m going to talk about three of my passions. I’ve spend a bit of time trying to find non-technical articles about these but failed to find something that grabbed my interest. This became the idea for an article to share with you, and I hope it inspires you to try them out for yourselves!
