New York February NYC Meet-Up/ Eighth Annual Camera Beauty Contest

CNNY said:
I learnt from a stint on a narcotics grand jury that if you give someone drugs, you are 'selling' because you may be getting something in return at another time. So the f5 was bought, but it may have been for nothing. Not sure if that makes it free...

I'll be in Mexico for a few weeks, so not much time for any fantastical concoctions this year.

If we'd do a category for camera with most actuations, or rarest digital camera, or camera with the oldest Kodak ccd sensor, I'd have a shot at winning something.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Christian,

You should pitch a category that is good for you. Perhaps riff off Fidel's least used camera. For me presently my least used camera is a Pentax 67II. My usage is so bad that I lent the camera to my fashion photographer friend, Mike, for two months.

For the most used camera with the most actuations the camera will be my F3P that I have owned for over 20 years, was a real Press camera, and even had to be overhauled before I bought it after it came back from "Operation Desert Storm."

BTW the new Piezography Pro is a big leap forward in printing. The advance is crazy. In my "Print Tool" I load three curves and blend the split tones that are divided into highlights, mids and shadows. The levels of control is hard to imagine.

Cal
 
Calzone said:
The F5 (Free Camera mentioned above) is ultimized for shooting my 28/1.4 AF-D that displays that classic crinkle finish over a metal barrel. This is set up as a fast street shooter that exploits auto focus, narrow DOF with a wide, 7 segment matrix metering and weaponized with a modified AH-4 Handstrap. The 28/1.4 AF-D is more rare than my Noct-Nikkor.
Cal
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Cal,
To fully exploit the F5 with the 28mm f/1.4 or the Noct-Nikkor, you're going to have to change the focusing screen to one with a coarser grit/greater scattering angle. After the Debut of the F4 and Nikon's full immersion to slow autofocus lenses, the focusing screens from the F4 K screen all the way to the F6 are optimized for lenses slower then f/2.5~2.8. That is why they are super bright but you can't critically focus the Noct nor the 28/1.4 with an F5 due to this screen issue. The split prism works fine but if you move the central point off-axis just a bit, you encounter shift in focus. Fortunately, Nikon continued to make screens available through the F5 which were to be used with superfast lenses such as those mentioned.
This is what I did on my old D3 with that hacked Canon screen. That finder was still never as good as an F5 or F4 simply due to the condenser being part of the screen and not relying on the fine laser etched Fresnel as in the digitals. This is why the F3 was the last best camera as-delivered out of the box. It was spec'd to shoot a 50mm f/1.4 so they put the faster screen on it, stock.

As for the parade, I'm not sure Bethanne and I will make it this year. We'll see. It's just hard to get up to NYC for such a short time and get in what we want to see and eat as well. Pizza, rye bread, bagels and Guinness stout all suck in Philly. The Busch Pressman she won back in 2015 has seen great use. It now has a Graflock back from a century graphic on it so she can use both sheet and rollfilm holders. It's a beauty of a camera and now I'm looking to get her the 4x5 Pressman Model D soon.

Phil Forrest
 
Phil_F_NM said:
Cal,
To fully exploit the F5 with the 28mm f/1.4 or the Noct-Nikkor, you're going to have to change the focusing screen to one with a coarser grit/greater scattering angle. After the Debut of the F4 and Nikon's full immersion to slow autofocus lenses, the focusing screens from the F4 K screen all the way to the F6 are optimized for lenses slower then f/2.5~2.8. That is why they are super bright but you can't critically focus the Noct nor the 28/1.4 with an F5 due to this screen issue. The split prism works fine but if you move the central point off-axis just a bit, you encounter shift in focus. Fortunately, Nikon continued to make screens available through the F5 which were to be used with superfast lenses such as those mentioned.
This is what I did on my old D3 with that hacked Canon screen. That finder was still never as good as an F5 or F4 simply due to the condenser being part of the screen and not relying on the fine laser etched Fresnel as in the digitals. This is why the F3 was the last best camera as-delivered out of the box. It was spec'd to shoot a 50mm f/1.4 so they put the faster screen on it, stock.

As for the parade, I'm not sure Bethanne and I will make it this year. We'll see. It's just hard to get up to NYC for such a short time and get in what we want to see and eat as well. Pizza, rye bread, bagels and Guinness stout all suck in Philly. The Busch Pressman she won back in 2015 has seen great use. It now has a Graflock back from a century graphic on it so she can use both sheet and rollfilm holders. It's a beauty of a camera and now I'm looking to get her the 4x5 Pressman Model D soon.

Phil Forrest
Click to expand...

Brother Phil,

I would love to see that $24.99 cheap camera again. Glad to hear that it is getting used and is well loved.

Know that in the milder weather I will plan on future excursions to Philly. If you can;t come to NYC we will come and fetch you. You and Bethanne are only a Megabus ride away.

As far as the F5: the 28/1.4 AF-D autofocus works great. What a fast shooter.

Cal
 
I am very happy with my new Piezography Pro. The one-pass glossy printing makes it really easy to print a little every day. A 8 1/2x11 prints in 6 minutes, and a 13x19 in 16 minutes.

My new prints are of my old tiffs, but the adjusting and blending of three curves in my "Print Tool" teases out a lot more detail and adds a lot more control. Call me a lazy slacker, but it seems like Jon Cone invented this new printing system especially for me. More printing:less time. BTW it is so easy.

Using my printer almost every day will surely make it lower maintenance.

My "Jersey Barrier" remains in storage mode loaded with Piezoflush.

Cal
 
Thanks for the info Cal! Will stay tuned. I may be bringing a friend from school. He recently delved into film and is now shooting with an RB67.
 
PrestonR said:
Thanks for the info Cal! Will stay tuned. I may be bringing a friend from school. He recently delved into film and is now shooting with an RB67.
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Preston,

I will be showing some of my results from Piezography Pro. Very impressive.

BTW very easy to just download profiles and have digital negative capabilities for contact printing. Kinda crazy that I can make silver wet prints from my Monochrom. The detail is stunning.

All are welcome.

Cal
 
Tonight is a fun fashion event: the SVA Fashion MFA show at Milk Studios. Not open to the general public, one has to be invited. Should be really cool to shoot my SL with a 35 Lux-R monted. The clothes, the people and the designers should be a great shoot, and with this gig I won't have to make a creative director happy. LOL.

"Maggie" now has 77K followers, 10K more than last week. It seems there was this Huffington Post feature that caused the initial bump, and because the response was so great this feature then was translated and reposted all around the world.

Another thing happened this week. Three TV stations contacted Maggie, and now is being negociated by her agent. Two are big NYC network stations, and the third from Japan.

Know that "Maggie" is to be announced by her agent next month during/at Fashion Week. Also her agent started out as a publicist so this release is becoming likely to become a real big deal. On top of that a big campaign will be released by a huge luxury brand in all the fashion magazines worldwide where "Uncle Terry" was the photographer featuring Maggie. Basically it does not get better than this and it is the top of the game.

So I am getting a bit excited, but there is a ground swell effect. Most of the work at this level requires mucho travel, and in the big picture at this level NYC is the little guy when compared to London, Paris, and Milan. Then there is Japan and China...

So at 59 I really can't afford to screw up my day-job, and I can't think of myself as a short-timer, so I have to draw the line. It feels good that Maggie now is being handled by working pro's at all levels, and in a way I am greatfull because my responsibility is less.

Anyways a year ago Maggie broke through the 10K followers after working on her blog for a year and a quarter, but now there is an increase of 10K in a week. Then there will be some mucho big exposure next month.

Really hard to get my head around all the excitement and all the possibilities I thought might be impossible, but everything is becoming very-very real.

Cal
 
For sure a great satisfaction for Maggie! And for yourself, of course. Part of her success must be because of the photo you made I think...bravo!
robert
 
PrestonR said:
Thanks for the info Cal! Will stay tuned. I may be bringing a friend from school. He recently delved into film and is now shooting with an RB67.
Click to expand...

Preston,

So the competitive spirit comes out in me, and I must bring my Pentax 67 II. Know that my camera is weaponized with a grip and the most powerful dedicated flash that Pentax ever made. Basically almost a stun gun. LOL. Know that I own the very rare 75/2.8 AL.

Way back when the had Fashion Night Out, I took this rig out onto Fifth Avenue. Everyone advised me not to shoot Fuji Velvia 50 ISO in 220 under high contrast night lighting, but you know me, I did it anyways. LOL. The result were perfect exposure because the 6 segment mettering and the TTL worked perfectly. Ha-Ha. Lucky I did not get arrested for blinding people on 5th Ave.

Then I was just hanging out by Bird-Doffs when this strikingly pretty girl says hello to me. It was Nellie, the bar maid from the NYC Meet-Up, and she had four of her model friends with her. "Is this my dream come true?" I said to myself. Anyways a true "Calzone" moment. LOL.

Humbly know that the previous year at Fashion Night Out I got skunked. Not one good shot. LOL.

Cal
 
robert blu said:
For sure a great satisfaction for Maggie! And for yourself, of course. Part of her success must be because of the photo you made I think...bravo!
robert
Click to expand...

Robert,

Maggie is very greatfull for all the photography I did/am doing for her. I bought a Leica SL really not for me because I am a B&W shooter. Don't get me wrong, I love the camera, but I wish Leica built a SLM for me. LOL.

So many shots I took get lifted off of Instagram, and of course I get no credit, but my images are getting published all over the world, and people like my style.

Basically I don't want to be a fashion photographer: it is hard work; and consider me antisocial, but I don't like working in groups or collaborating. It is not my nature, but it is really nice getting my work out there. Anyways this truely is an honor.

Cal
 
So it is time to start listing prizes.

I am here at work, and right next to me is a book called "Key West Color" by Alan S. Maltz.

Anyways it seems to me to be Florida's version of Brooklyn. LOL.

So I will offer this prize as "The Trash Prize" because in my wanderings around NYC I always find and discover free photo stuff. One year I found a Leitz Tripod by the Leica Gallery on Broadway; then there were all those Leica Photographique magazines abandoned by some homeless person underneath the 59th Street Bridge.

The Contax T3 camera with leather case I almost crushed by stepping on I kept and later sold.

Speaking of which yesterday I found a spare Nikon 35/1.8 in LTM at B&H. I bought it because of the price. The front element has some trace scratches in the coating.

I figure even with getting the front element recoated for about $300.00 that it would still be a remarkable find, especially since it is a rare lens (Only about 1700 made in LTM). There is some oil on the aperture blades, but the lens is usable as is. The remarkable price was clearly another mispricing, and is over a 40% discount of what I paid for my first one. Kinda like buying a one ounce gold coin for only $650.00.

"I was just minding my own business..." LOL.

Cal
 
PrestonR said:
Cal,

If I am coming, I'll be bringing a 6x7 MLU. I love that camera.
Click to expand...

Preston,

So a Pentax 67 convention. LOL.

I recently sold the waist level finder to a friend in Toronto who has been hunting for one for a long time.

My fashion photog friend Mike is very keen on my Pentax 67 II who borrowed it for a fashion shoot.

Cal
 
So it has been about a week that Maggie has an agent, but somehow accidently and inccidently it seems I too have an agent in London in one of the top five agencies in the world representing my own best interests.

Vicariously Maggie's agent secured for me "a little money" (Maggie's agent's words) for a photograph that will be used by a major big three New York broadcast TV network for their online presence. Know that my photographs have been used and published all over the world for free in major print fashion magazines, and most of the time I get no credit or mention.

Now understand that "a little money" on this other side of the game actually can be a lot more than a few packs of 17x22 Canson Baryta paper that cost about a hundred dollars a pack.

Maggie explained to me that a luxury jewelry company contacted her and offered her $2K for a blog post, but her agent tells her that most recently one of her clients who has less followers than Maggie got $30K to do a post for the very same luxury jeweler. Basically companies seek out digital influencers who have no agent to get services for no money and to exploit them.

Now I wonder what "a little money" means. Hmmm...

BTW Maggie this morning has 79.2K followers. By fashion week I expect that that number will be north of 100K with all the stuff going on in February. Realize that just a year ago Maggie only hit the 10K milestone which a year ago was a very big deal. These numbers are more than quadratic in function. Also know the analytics are that the guassian distribution (bell curve) of followers is not young baby boomers, but 25-35 year olds (Millenials). The numbers don't lie.

Also in early April I have to shoot Maggie in LA at some academic conference on Digital Influencers. Anyways "I was just trying to mind my own business..." goes out the door, but somewhere or sometime I will have to draw limits. Only lasted about a day. Read yesterday's post above. LOL.

Did you know the fashion capital of Russia is Kiev and not Moscow? LOL. What do you think of me in Kiev. LOL. Might I stand out? LOL.

It seems it is a go to do this Japanese TV thing, and there are ongoing negociations to offer an exclusive to this one TV network mentioned above for on air TV to announce Maggie's release/launching/signing with this agency that coincides with New York Fashion Week. Looks kinda probable two TV gigs in February.

Anyways this is the first week, and every day our agent filters through all the solicitations that come through. The 20% fee is worth it. Also know if a price is negociated like say $10K the $10K is net to Maggie and the $2K agent fee is separate.

Anyways the ground swell begins... BTW this kind of development is happening every day. Pretty mind blowing.

Cal
 
Calzone said:
So it is time to start listing prizes.

I am here at work, and right next to me is a book called "Key West Color" by Alan S. Maltz.

Anyways it seems to me to be Florida's version of Brooklyn. LOL.

So I will offer this prize as "The Trash Prize" because in my wanderings around NYC I always find and discover free photo stuff. One year I found a Leitz Tripod by the Leica Gallery on Broadway; then there were all those Leica Photographique magazines abandoned by some homeless person underneath the 59th Street Bridge.

The Contax T3 camera with leather case I almost crushed by stepping on I kept and later sold.

Speaking of which yesterday I found a spare Nikon 35/1.8 in LTM at B&H. I bought it because of the price. The front element has some trace scratches in the coating.

I figure even with getting the front element recoated for about $300.00 that it would still be a remarkable find, especially since it is a rare lens (Only about 1700 made in LTM). There is some oil on the aperture blades, but the lens is usable as is. The remarkable price was clearly another mispricing, and is over a 40% discount of what I paid for my first one. Kinda like buying a one ounce gold coin for only $650.00.

"I was just minding my own business..." LOL.

Cal
Click to expand...


Nice deal Cal, enjoy that new 35!
 
Range-rover said:
Okay who's getting a M10?
Click to expand...

Bob,

Not me. I have a SL so I know what the difference is and the advance in 14-bit files, the Maestro II processor, and the high ISO performance. Of course ergonomics, AF capabilities, and video capabilities are different, but the clean detailed files are pretty much the same. Pretty much Leica seems to have repackaged a SL into the M10 without AF or video capabilities.

I will concede that for dedicated manual focus having the rangefinder is very convenient.

Pretty interesting how one camera gets hated and the other raved.

What will be interesting to me is if Leica makes a SLM before a M10M which I think is probable. This is the camera I'm most interested in. The IQ is mucho good.

Cal
 
Range-rover said:
Cal, I never ask why you got rid of the Nikon stuff, is the Leica's you have giving
you better?
Click to expand...

Bob,

I still have mucho Nikon film SLR's: F3P; F3 HP; and F5.

Then I wanted to build out my Leica SLR kit with a 35 Lux and 50 Lux like I now have,but know I traded in my R8 to get the SL.

For color digital I like the SL. The anti alias filter I hated in the D3X. I considered having the AA filter stripped out by a lab in New Jersey, but I would still need a camera for Maggie's blog so that is how the SL came about.

It seems all the Leica glass as well as the manual focus Nikon SLR glass I can use on the SL. In this regard the SL added flexibility that the D3X could not do.

So I mostly use the 50 Lux "E60," the 35 Lux-R, but at times the 58/1.2 Noct-Nikkor, and my 28 Cron for a wide. The Nikon 28/1.4 AF-D also if I want, and if I really want to annoy people a 65/3.5 Elmar Visoflex lens via a triple stack of Leica adapters. Pretty much I now can mount every small format lens I own on my SL.

I actually did pretty well with recovering cash when I sold the D3X, the flash, and the 58/1.4 AF-G. I traded away some boxed Leica glass, but know that those lenses can pretty easily be replaced and are readily available (21 SEM and 50 Lux ASPH) Oh-well.

Know that the high ISO performance on the SL is so good that I don't need a flash. The D3X had lame high ISO. The files got ugly fast and did not stay clean like on the SL.

I likely will downsize further and get rid of my Pentax 67 II kit.

Cal
 
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