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35mm Handbook
The Scenario...
My wife Lysa and I recently acquired a new Nikon 35mm SLR camera. It's been more years than I care to think of since either of us took a visual arts course in school, so we felt the best idea would be to go find a book or two that'd bring us back up to speed on how to use the little contraption.
I'll freely admit that Lysa is the more artistic element of our union, and when it comes to things like this I usually just stand back and let her work her magic. True to form, we wandered our separate ways in the bookstore and she came back with this little gem in her hand. I was initially skeptical, based purely on the compact appearance of the handbook (measuring 8" x 5" x 0.5"). It looked more like a video game manual at first glance.
What's Good?As soon as I opened the handbook, my attitude completely changed. Just standing in line waiting to pay for it I learned a dozen or more factoids that continue to help us make our pictures simply look better. There's an incredible amount of useful tidbits and suggestions, covering nearly every photo situation a person might be faced with.
The book starts out with physical basics: What a camera is, how it works, the differences between SLR (Single Lens Reflex, the kind which you can remove the lenses on) and Compact cameras, the relationships between the amount of light available, aperture size, shutter speed, depth-of-field and so on. It then builds upon those foundations with an examination of appropriate film usage for a general classes of photo situations.
My favorite portions are just beyond the hardware how-it-works sections, moving into suggestions of how to handle specific jobs and overcome common problems. The Tackling Special Projects section contains detailed advice for more than a dozen photographic scenarios (landscapes, portraits, nudes, still life, etc) which have definitely made my shots better, and given me a new appreciation of the work which oft times needs to go into make a truly GOOD picture.
The latter third of the book explores more complex topics and add-on ideas for your camera, specifically flash and lighting usage, buying specific lenses and filters and what they're useful for, and how to round out your camera gear. Most of the information in this area is directed toward SLR camera usage and people aiming at a professional approach to photography.
As an ironic additional bonus, the book size itself is a blessing. It tucks lengthwise into the inner chamber of a standard-size camera bag perfectly, letting us take it wherever we go with the camera. =)
What's Bad?Only a couple minor annoyances kept this book from being a perfect 10 for me. Although the text within is easy to understand and retain, the layout of the handbook is in a sort of magazine style, with side-bars, picture samples, sub-texts and various other distracting elements. Staying focused on a particular topic can be challenging, as the side-bars are usually filled with yet more interesting factoids that are hard to resist scanning. Similarly, the book seems to shift between single independent pages to where facing pages merge together to make a double-wide 'page', which can also be distracting when you're expecting left-to-right, top-to-bottom text.
Our particular copy also had some misprint glitches (ink obscuring some words, offsets on color pictures that weren't quite on top of each other)... and unless I'm going color blind, there's a couple black and white images associated with discussion about color techniques in the text. Whoops!
So What's In It For Me?There's a large Aha factor here... that being where you read a section, grok it completely, and exclaim 'Aha!' out loud. You also don't need to be an espresso-sucking, black-jumpsuit-and-beret style artiste in order to enjoy and find this book useful. Even if you're one of the majority of camera owners who pulls it out 4 times a year to snap that obligatory family holiday photo I'd recommend it. Aunt Agnes will have never looked so good.
BEWARE - There's a very good chance that you'll read a section or two of this book and immediately want to run out and try what you've learned. Watch those film and development costs! =)
Buy this book at Amazon.
Table of Contents- Introduction
- Cameras
- Film
- Solving Picture Problems
- Tackling Special Projects
- Flash
- Accessories
- Special Effects
- Reference Charts
Posted by The Very Evil Doctor Finkleste:
I still love film. Yeah, I got a 1 MPixel digital camera and the instant turnaround is great, but compare it to a well exposed slide or negative and it's a joke.
Also, compare the cost of getting a decent film scanner and even a used SLR with a couple of lenses with a comparable 4 - 6 MPixel camera (which you need to do quality graphics with). You wallet will quickly agree that film still has it's place for the next couple of years.
One other nice thing about film : you don't need batteries to view it.
As an aside for people doing home-brew web sites, the common mistake people make is to scan the print instead of the source negative or slide. The dynamic range of the print is WAY lower than the original and that's why most scanned pictures suck.
That's just about exactly right. With consumer grade film shot with mid to upper level consumer equipment will give you about 1800x1200 resolution. Even drum scanning any higher, you'll just scan blur. Sometimes, on some film scanners, you'll get a better image by scanning at twice that, and reducing it in software, particularly on inexpensive scanners where you may get more noise in the darks.
Good professional-grade film, and higher-end fixed-length lenses can give results that hold up to 2400dpi scanning, or about twice that. (3600x2400 or so)
You need a *very* good lens, *very* good film, and a rock-solid tripod to get an image that sharp. Its usually not necessary, unless you're trying to print a sharp 11x14 image from a 35mm shot.
The "lines per millimeter" reading is the most lines per millimeter you can have and still discern them as separate lines. So you've effectively got almost twice that resolution, 50 LPM is able to store 100LPM of information, alternating light and dark. (In practical terms its often less than that, because the tests rarely expect full dark and full light across the range, so even 50% more detail than the LPM number indicates can still give that amount of resolution)
One thing most people miss about digital cameras is that the resolution is *really* 1/3 what they're thinking it is.
A 1600x1200 shot is actually 533x1200 full color, since they tell you the number of sensors on the chip, and don't tell you about the RGB mask in front of it.
That's why you often get wierd edges in high contrast areas in a digital camera image.
I use digital shots for stuff that's going online. Anything more and I'll do a 1200 or 2400 dpi scan, depending on how I shot the image (and if I have that kind of resoltion).
Ah, carberation is a science, and art, and it is quite the style even in these days of fuel injection. I once had a shelf with carbs liberated from the local yard: a two barrel, a few quadrajets, and a Holley. Since intakes were bolt on projects done in less than an hour, I had a shelf for them too.
For the single plane intake, I had a nitrous plate for times when enough was just not enough. I could experiment with different valving, air flow designs, and timing. Each new configuration and adjustment gave a different feel in the seat of your pants. Passengers really felt the difference too. A few white faces in the passenger side would indicate to me this is not a boring sport!
Carberators can be tuned and optimized for different conditions, such as fuel economy, different climates, seasons, autocross racing, drag racing, streetability, and for pulling torque. Its an art that can be useful and earn you some cash and respect in those teen years.
There's nothing wrong with nudes. Its a fine artform that is appreciated by many. Nude photography, if you have ever tried it, may be more involved^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcomplicated than you think. Since we are dealing with images of the human body, expressions and a slight change of posture can really change the whole meaning. Contrast and color have a dominant impact on what you are attempting to convey. Backgrounds and lighting are very important.
Nude photography is not limited to pornography. Many private couples have done such in the privacy of their own homes. I would say there are magnitudes more private collections of this art than the commercial smut that is spammed in your mailbox.
Its fun and rewarding for those involved. Its a shame that people associate this art into porn.
Now, I agree that the 35mm camera is hard to beat when it comes to getting the highest possible quality pictures, but unfortunately getting them into the computer is a pain, and paying for film and developing is an even bigger pain.
About a year ago, I took a look at what was out there in digital cameras, and - like you - didn't think much of what I saw. I didn't need high resolution, since all the pictures I take are bound for the web, but I wanted something with closer to the look and feel of a "real" camera.
In the end, I bought a Canon XL1 MiniDV camcorder. It's a bit heavy to carry around (I put it around my neck like a giant still camera), but it takes fantastic pictures and draws attention like a magnet. It's very similar in operation to the Canon EOS still camera I own, so the learning curve was very gentle. And it has a real lens and camera-like manual controls that are very easy to use compared to the clunky menu systems of most digital and video cameras. It has interchangeable lenses, but the included lens is roughly equivalent to 28-500mm in 35mm context, so you probably won't need the insanely expensive other lenses.
It's a 3CCD camcorder, which means it uses imaging technology more advanced than any plain digital camera I know of.
Needless to say, I recommend it highly. Unfortunately, the $4,000-odd price puts it above the reach of most people; a good alternative is the Sony TRV-900, also a three-chip unit, for about $ 2,300.
For more information, check out my DV FAQ or take a look at some XL1 pictures I took
D
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You could hit Linus over the head and steal his photography equipment.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
How to rebuild a carburator would be welcome on /., as far as I'm concerned.
/. is great!
There is much more to news for nerds than computer-industry news.
Photography, much like music, has a common root with hackerdom. It's about making art out of a medium. It's about patterns and creating something beautifully unconventional, using conventional tools.
Including articles like this one on
It serves to broaden perspectives of people who appreciate the exercise. It just might scratch someone's itch.
For the sheep, there is ZDNN.com.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
No info on carbs, but...
Several years ago, Bruce Sterling wrote a great cyberpunk novel titled _Heavy_Weather_. The book was about the near future weather effect of human industrialization. He described a new dust bowl, F-5 tornados being the norm and not the exception, etc. He had the 'flying cow' before Twister was even a glimmer in Spielberg's eye. The protagonists in the book were a group of storm chasers.
Anyway, the point of this note: In the book, Sterling extended the definition of 'hacking' to encompass that which a person did well and for the sake of doing alone. The leader of the Storm Troupers was a Ph.D. in meteorology (methinks) and 'hacked weather', his estranged brother - a politician/public relations type - 'hacked society'... A person is a hacker of that in which they are a self-made expert (in relative terms of course).
Sterling's definition of hacking seems to really suit the Slashdotters well. We have here people who hack code, hack photography, hack carburators. We have people who hack people (i.e. social engineering) hack genes, hack quantum physics...
I hope this note doesn't get lost in the shuffle, because, IMO, Sterling's definition is one we can be proud of.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Photography, at the level that this book appears to cover, is a very technical field. Even though it's been at least a decade since I've used a camera that didn't have a better understanding of how to operate itself than I do, I know how complex taking a professional-quality photograph can be.
So, what other non-computing topics is Slashdot not allowed to cover? Engineering? Physics? Biotechnology?
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
If you really want an excellent book on cameras and photography, including developing and printing, check out the series by Ansel Adams. It's four or five books I think. They are called 'The Camera', 'The Negative', 'The Print', 'Natural Light Photography' and 'Artificial Light Photography'. He talks mostly about black and white photography, especially in the book called 'The Print' which is all to do with making your own prints from negatives. However, many of the other techniques are very relevant to colour work also.
Now, this guy REALLY knows the science of photography.
Check it out!
I just got myself a digital camera... and it kicks ass!!! Glass lens, 1600x1200, works with linux, and best of all even though it would appear to be @ least half-automatic always, you can kind of use root permissions to make it do what you want. And that doesn't include a soldering iron... :) I'm a real manual-nut, I've been using an old Pentax K-1000 (gotta love the hand crank...) and plan to keep using it, but usually I stare @ my puter so much that I generally scan shit or project, I'm not a big print person. Not only can I get wonderful instant 1600x1200 gratification, but I can also use my digicam as an 850 dollar light meter for my Pentax ;P Of course the digicam still has the same flaws you'd expect in any ccd camera, so I would advise against taking picutes of zebras, etc. No I never plan to abandon film, when I get rich I'll start being a film biggot again, but when you shoot as much film as I like to shoot you better get a second job or start eating nothing but Ramen...
(P.S.- If anybody cares I got a Nikon 950, lists for 1k, sells for like 800, got it cuz it will do long exposures/hi-res mostly, cheers)
You might be new around here. Its a fine tradition to recommend good reading material in these parts. Some people prefer information on dead trees. Someone once said it best, "Ah, the joys of reading at the throne." Also, its not rude to take a book to bed, but bring the laptop and you could be in the doghouse for the evening!
Dead trees require no expensive batteries, work well outside in the shade, pass easily through airport security, and are always in style. They are status symbols. Do you have a well stocked bookshelf? When the ladies visit your house, a good book may set the mood. One good book is never enough. Don't get caught without diversity in reading material. Get a book today!
It's good to see that 35mm film could be still considered "news for nerds". In my opinon, film is still much more geeky than digital photography.
Plus, it always gets me when I see a friend with a $500 digital camera that has a crappy plastic lens that looks like it fell out of a box of cracker jacks and picture quality worse than your average 110 camera.
For instant pictures, there's always the Polaroid Instant Slide Processor - usually about $20 on ebay.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Check it out.