jlw
Rangefinder camera pedant
I mentioned elsewhere recently that I had tried out my 21mm Avenon/Kobalux on my Canon P (that being the only Canon I had on which it fitted without rubbing on the baffle plate over the RF coupling arm) by touring a "designers' show house" in my neighborhood. (This is a fundraiser in which interior designers each redo a room in an architecturally-interesting home, after which people pay admission to tour it, all in aid of the local symphony orchestra.)
Normally I never photograph architectural interiors and such -- in fact, generally my appreciation of interior design is limited to whether or not I can navigate the room without barking my shins on something. Because of that indifference, my standards aren't very high, so I was probably inordinately pleased by the results and thought I would post one to share.
What I thought people might find interesting/amusing was my technique: since I had bought the Avenon to use on my Epson R-D 1, I don't have a viewfinder for it when used with a 35mm film camera. So, all I did while touring the house was to point the lens in the generally intended direction, set the focus at 7 feet, hold the camera at chest level, and try to keep it more or less level as I squeezed off a shot.
I was surprised at how well the results of this no-look technique turned out -- although as I say, my standards aren't very high... I was pleased just to get something!
Side note 1: Because I had decided I would scan the negative straight to film, keeping some kind of highlight detail in the windows required me to scan it twice at different exposure settings, then muck around in Photoshop with blend modes and masks. The whole process must have taken an hour... which irked me a bit since I was sure I could have printed the same negative with an enlarger in a matter of minutes by making funny shapes with my hands over the paper! Oh, well, no one said progress was actually going to be better...
Side note 2: As we were discussing yesterday, I tried correcting the converging verticals in this shot using Photoshop's Free Transform command -- but decided to leave it as-is because otherwise the room looked too claustrophobic once I had cropped off the skewed areas.
Normally I never photograph architectural interiors and such -- in fact, generally my appreciation of interior design is limited to whether or not I can navigate the room without barking my shins on something. Because of that indifference, my standards aren't very high, so I was probably inordinately pleased by the results and thought I would post one to share.
What I thought people might find interesting/amusing was my technique: since I had bought the Avenon to use on my Epson R-D 1, I don't have a viewfinder for it when used with a 35mm film camera. So, all I did while touring the house was to point the lens in the generally intended direction, set the focus at 7 feet, hold the camera at chest level, and try to keep it more or less level as I squeezed off a shot.
I was surprised at how well the results of this no-look technique turned out -- although as I say, my standards aren't very high... I was pleased just to get something!
Side note 1: Because I had decided I would scan the negative straight to film, keeping some kind of highlight detail in the windows required me to scan it twice at different exposure settings, then muck around in Photoshop with blend modes and masks. The whole process must have taken an hour... which irked me a bit since I was sure I could have printed the same negative with an enlarger in a matter of minutes by making funny shapes with my hands over the paper! Oh, well, no one said progress was actually going to be better...
Side note 2: As we were discussing yesterday, I tried correcting the converging verticals in this shot using Photoshop's Free Transform command -- but decided to leave it as-is because otherwise the room looked too claustrophobic once I had cropped off the skewed areas.
back alley
IMAGES
looks great!
that seems to be a very nice lens, sharp.
joe
that seems to be a very nice lens, sharp.
joe