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

[Calzone]

it was Great to see Scott Today
but I realize I can Never get into Digital no matter how i try....😱
It just seems Plastic in Feel...and just not real in the way i like to photograph

arghhhh, GF1, X1, RD1, M8, Grd's, OlyE1, been thru them all
and digi cam is just NOT for me
even though I love to look at it and Admire other people's work

The Real Question is ...why Do I Bother :bang::bang::bang:

Helen,

Nothing wrong with film. I imagine still shooting lots of film myself, even though I will have a MM. I was just informed that I have moved to number 1 on the list. It was unusual, they only just got notice that they will be getting only one camera, and this is the first time, but this was like due to the holiday factory shutdown.

Why do you bother? I think it is because you are so creative that you are compelled to experiment, and because of your playful personality you must. I think with you it is innate. BTW it is one of the reasons why you are such a fun friend, and why you make me laugh so much.

Cal

 

[JuJu]

Cal,

No, not at all. You know I planned to give the printer to Andre originally.
See you guys next week.

Tung

 

[Calzone]

I wish I still had my mahagony and brass 8x10 (or bigger?) 6 foot tripod made by Ansco to show off. That thing was amazing. It got lost somewhere in a move years ago.

If we're gonna have a swap, I have gear to sling.
Film, filters, a bag or two, miscellaneous medium format lenses in-shutter, maybe a Speed Graphic, a few Graflex lightsabers, enough flashbulbs to light up a medium size southwestern town for a few milliseconds, etc.

Phil Forrest

Phil,

I think we really need to transform the February Meet-Up into the "Annual NYC Gearfest" between the beauty contest and swap-meet.

I think this could be a real big event. I need to go through all my gear that's hidden away. I think I will figure out a door prize for the person who travels the greatest distance to attend. Anyways coming from New Mexico you are about 2K miles away.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

Cal,

No, not at all. You know I planned to give the printer to Andre originally.
See you guys next week.

Tung

Tung,

Yeah, Andre is a lazy slacker like me. LOL.

Cal

 

[stompyq]

Sigh.... It looks like i'll miss the gearfest/beauty contest. I finally got my papers from immigration and can go on vacation. As much as I love all you guys I haven't been home in 6 years so........... I'ill be gone all of February and be back sometime in March. Have fun

 

[Calzone]

Sigh.... It looks like i'll miss the gearfest/beauty contest. I finally got my papers from immigration and can go on vacation. As much as I love all you guys I haven't been home in 6 years so........... I'ill be gone all of February and be back sometime in March. Have fun

Oh-well. There will be another one next year. I expect this years event to be big.

I figured out that a Nikon DR-3 will fit on my Zeiss 21mm VF'er. I'm going to make my Plaubel 69 W Proshift into a waist level findered camera.

Cal

 

[jsrockit]

I need an Epson printer to go Piezography.

Cal, please use the unit in its standard form before assuming you need Piezography...

 

[Calzone]

Cal, please use the unit in its standard form before assuming you need Piezography...

To me this does not make sense. First of all the Epson Ink set alone has a replacement value of $419.00 that I possibly can use cycle into another rebate to lower my initial costs.

Second I don't see how color inks will serve me when I want to make a dedicated B&W printer. There are nine slots on a Epson 3880 allowing for eight shades of black/greytones, plus a gloss overcoat. Also on this printer there is enough cartridge slots that matte and gloss photo black do not need to be exchanged saving ink. Ink is reported to be about half the price per ml.

Thirdly because I'm an old guy with a rather full hard drive I would rather learn and concentrate on what in the long term is where I want to be. I'm trying to not waste time because at my age defragging my brain from un-needed clutter does not speed up my thought process and I get rather confused.

Anyways, because of passion I never go half way, and I want to take it right to the edge as a personal challenge. In many ways its like when my friend an elite runner gave me his bib so I could run the NYC Marathon because he had fallen ill. Even though I never ran a marathon before and hadn't trained other than limited brief jogging, I raced to finish under 5 hours at the age of 49. I know its crazy, but this is how I live life. Our mutual friend Dave said it once before, "It's later than you think."

Cal

 

[jsrockit]

I guess what I'm saying is that you don't want to get ahead of yourself when you haven't shot one digital image yet. Also, you haven't printed from standard inks in order to know what to gain from all B&W inks. You may actually hate digital and then you are left with a bucnh of gear you don't need.

 

[Calzone]

I guess what I'm saying is that you don't want to get ahead of yourself when you haven't shot one digital image yet. Also, you haven't printed from standard inks in order to know what to gain from all B&W inks.

John,

I know you always have my back covered, and I greatly appreciate your help and advice, but I am literally going to run with the ball as fast as I can on this one.

The RIP that drives the Piezography reportedly takes resolution to the next level due to reprogramming a smaller tighter spacing than Epson's driver for further modulation of detail. Also pretty easy to understand that more tonal range via a bigger ink selection is a secondary bonus. I also like how I have a big selection of possible ink sets like selenium, carbon, warm, neutral that is more advanced.

I understand that with this printer/system that it's kinda like buying a Leica as your first camera, but then again my first digital camera is a Leica Monochrome.

Cal

 

[jsrockit]

Cal, I'll admit it... I don't know much about Piezography for obvious reasons. It just seems like it was all the rage many years ago and has died down some lately.

 

[Calzone]

Cal, I'll admit it... I don't know much about Piezography for obvious reasons. It just seems like it was all the rage many years ago and has died down some lately.

It seems that there are some strong points (of which I like and desire), but its not for everyone (kinda like the MM). I figure since I come to digital with a blank slate why not do something bold, crazy and unconventional. Basically this an old art school attitude. I remember in art tutorials being challenged right away when presenting my work (back then it was paintings) of why I did not go bigger and take my ideas further and to the extreme. After that first semester I quickly learned to just go there, be bolder, take huge steps or even leaps of faith. I started to really stand out among my classmates, and indirectly I basically was being trained to not live with any limitations and not waste time with any small baby steps.

Also along the way printers have improved and Moore's Law has made printers lower in cost. Perhaps this is why the fad faded and popularity faded. Like I said: not for everyone.

From racing bicycles, I learned that if you are not almost out of control, that you are not really racing. Also know that I was known for rather spectacular crashes and broke a lot of bike parts including fatiguing a Litespeed Titanium frame.

Anyways this is an old man's attempt at staying young...

Cal

 

[Particular]

Cal,
My concern is whether 17" is wide enough for you. Also, I have come accustomed to hearing the sound of my scanner rumbling in the background all day, are you ready for the sound of your printer?

 

[Calzone]

Cal,
My concern is whether 17" is wide enough for you. Also, I have come accustomed to hearing the sound of my scanner rumbling in the background all day, are you ready for the sound of your printer?

My hearing already is damaged from race cars, airplane factories and early on from my father yellling at me to cut my hair. Back in the seventies the gangs in Chinatown were known as the "Long Hairs" and my father, an illiterate Chinese immigrant, could say, "Cut your hair in perfect English." Anyways "Maggie" tells me that I was likely my dad's favorite out of five children, but when she listed all the proof I have to admit what Maggie says is likely true. Anyways my spin on the relationship between me and my father is: "Its funny how parents love the most the kid they should really hate." LOL. I was an aweful, angry disturbed kid, and I was mighty annoying.

The 3880 might become my small printer over the long haul over time, but I'm glad its a Pro printer for its duability. Loud thrusting noises actually excite me. Remember that I once built a Jeep Scrambler with a Corvette engine in it that sounded like a Nascar under full throttle on a straightaway when I got on the parkway. My friend Steve told my other friends that I was going to kill myself with this truck because it was so fast.

Anyways this is either a big mistake or a new beginning. Who knows I might even get a drum scanner one day. Done a lot of dumb things like shoot 50-60 rolls of film a month on average that really wasn't sustainable considering it took over two days every month to process all the film. At this point in my life I'm beginning to run out of dumb things to do. LOL. Kinda dumb just shooting film for several years, making only negatives, with no printing. I'm sure now there will be a huge ground swell in printing, meanwhile I have tens of thousands of negatives that need printing...

Cal

 

[icebear]

Hi Cal,

if you really do print a lot and more importantly on a regular basis, i.e. every week at least ten prints (my guess), to own a printer makes sense, otherwise a pro printer sitting on your desk will certainly get clogged pretty soon.
The advantage of digital printing is profiling your equipment, soft proofing to a specific pager and have it sent to a lab incl. that profile. Once you have this set up done one time and like the result, there is no more messing around. You should get the same result each time - easier than dark room printing when manual dogging and burning in certain areas is involved.

But I see you want to run full speed all the time, so go ahead😉.

 

[Calzone]

Hi Cal,

if you really do print a lot and more importantly on a regular basis, i.e. every week at least ten prints (my guess), to own a printer makes sense, otherwise a pro printer sitting on your desk will certainly get clogged pretty soon.
The advantage of digital printing is profiling your equipment, soft proofing to a specific pager and have it sent to a lab incl. that profile. Once you have this set up done one time and like the result, there is no more messing around. You should get the same result each time - easier than dark room printing when manual dogging and burning in certain areas is involved.

But I see you want to run full speed all the time, so go ahead😉.

Since the credit crisis I've been only making negatives for wet printing, but not printed at all. There's a lot of pent up demand. Anyways I learned a lot and took all that very far. Realize that all my life I've worked in research labs, and that I look upon artists as really being problem solvers, and in my case I'm a clever slacker who has some manic tendencies.

Also know that part of my personality is that I can be mighty annoying. Part of my persona is exaggerated and displayed on this forum, but Maggie got so annoyed at me that she offered to buy me a M9 as a gift when they first became available. Numerous times she yelled at me, "I want to see prints." I was rather selfish because for the most part I could visualize the images and invert to the positive on a light table.

When I had a few large archival prints made at a custom lab, Maggie realized that I went to rather remote uninhabited parts of the city alone at night, and then she told me not to go night shooting alone anymore. LOL.

Cal

 

[jsrockit]

I have to agree with Klaus here. Make sure you like the digital process and that you'll be printing a lot / often (which I know you'll say you are going to do but many of us have said the same thing and then the printer just sits for months at a time).

Cal, I would wait on the printer at first. The 3880 is a few years old and for all we know a new one is due soon. I would think you'd be better off spending your cash on a scanner at first.

 

[Phil_F_NM]

Phil,

I think we really need to transform the February Meet-Up into the "Annual NYC Gearfest" between the beauty contest and swap-meet.

I think this could be a real big event. I need to go through all my gear that's hidden away. I think I will figure out a door prize for the person who travels the greatest distance to attend. Anyways coming from New Mexico you are about 2K miles away.

Cal

Cal, I actually was in the Pacific NW for 5 weeks chasing a few job leads and helping out a friend of mine. So I'm traveling just over 2900 miles actually.
Right now I'm sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Rock Springs, Wyoming. I should be halfway through the nation by the time I finish driving this evening.

Phil Forrest

 

[Calzone]

Cal, I actually was in the Pacific NW for 5 weeks chasing a few job leads and helping out a friend of mine. So I'm traveling just over 2900 miles actually.
Right now I'm sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Rock Springs, Wyoming. I should be halfway through the nation by the time I finish driving this evening.

Phil Forrest

Good for you. When I worked at Los Alamos National Labs I drove cross country 3 times. Driving is the real way to see how vast our country is. Its like in New Mexico the sense of scale is mucho big. We Americans are lucky.

Also I really liked Portland. I walked the entire city like I do here in New York. Got to love all those bridges and abandoned industry along the river.

Cal

 

[Calzone]

I have to agree with Klaus here. Make sure you like the digital process and that you'll be printing a lot / often (which I know you'll say you are going to do but many of us have said the same thing and then the printer just sits for months at a time).

Cal, I would wait on the printer at first. The 3880 is a few years old and for all we know a new one is due soon. I would think you'd be better off spending your cash on a scanner at first.

John the 3880 is known to be a work horse, and the way I'll use it this is good. I'm a stubborn guy, I use to be a really good wet printer decades ago, and now I want to see what I can do digitally, especially now that Leica made a digital camera that seems especially custom made for me.

A lot of my negatives are a bit dense because I optimized them not only for wet printing, but also to be printed big. Not sure a cheap scanner can handle the extra D-Max, especially since I like shadow detail so much, but a cheap scanner might be helpful to help me edit down tens of thousands of negatives. Boy was I dumb just blasting away lots of film over the past 4-5 years with no regard to editing or printing? Before I should of said that "That artists are problem makers instead of problem solvers." LOL.

Back in the seventies I would spend entire weekends in my own personal darkroom. Somehow because I had a Nikon F2 I wiggled my way into being the Photo Editor and Darkroom Manager of the student newspaper. I'd develop one day like a maniac and the next day print going through a box of 100 8x10's in an evening.

I know I must have some obsessive gene, generally I can't multitask very well, but I can do incredible things if I concentrate on single tasks and focus.

Cal