Nostalgia
Feb 9, 2019 00:43:38 #
Yes a step back into the past ! Recently we moved home and sorting out stuff to keep or throw out, (as we have downsized considerably,) I found these bits of memorabilia. Strangely no actual film cassettes just the cases. No film in the tin either! Very moving! (pun intended!)
A bit about me - yes, I, like many other UHH members, started way way back in the dim dark ages of film! In my first job, as a trainee metallurgist in 1963, I cut my teeth on a Linhoff Technica 5”x4” rising, falling tilting front camera with a 128mm Leica lens (from memory – could be wrong) and a 5”x4” film back on a metallurgical microscope. Learnt all about the exposure triangle (Sekonic lightmeter?) was also taught to develop the negatives and print them using a Durst enlarger. A Nikon F was used for colour negative & slides. Mainly Ilford FP4 or HP4 was the media for the B&W and Agfa for the colour (usually) Yes we also developed and printed the colour – coloured gelatine filters in the enlarger to remove unwanted colour casts also with the usual post processing of dodging and shading with “layers” produced by doing 2 or more prints exposed for the extremes of contrast then cutting out with a scalpel the correctly exposed parts from each print and gluing them into place to make an overall good print which was re-photographed to provide a neg for more prints. Yes fiddly work sometimes but rewarding when the boss praised the result.
I was never a true professional in that I never actually earned my living taking photos but photography was always a very large part of my work and that photography was always technical – micro/macro photos of welds, castings and anything else made of metal. Photos of bridges, boilers and battleships (actually destroyers and frigates – we never had a battleship here in Oz!) The photos themselves had to be technically good – correctly exposed and in focus without exception. 5”x4” was mainly used in the laboratory with progression to a Polaroid pos/neg film back in the 1970’s where one saw the print immediately (60 seconds later actually) enabling one to check correct exposure etc without the time consuming wet process.
I changed to digital in the early 2000’s (working for myself now as a Consultant Inspection Service) with Fuji 2MP/6MP then Pentax 6MP then Nikon 12MP (D90) finding 18-200 lenses suited my needs perfectly for overall photography with an Olympus Tough good for the macro aspects when in the field. Windows PCs were needed for work but since retirement I have migrated totally to Macs as I find their inbuilt displays far better than the affordable ones for Windows PCs. I use Aperture as my main editing program and iPhoto as my viewer.
I have half a dozen cameras - Olympus OMD E-M1 with 14-150mm (favourite), Lumix FZ2500 (versatile – macro up to 450mm + video), Sony A6000 with 18-135mm (Its light & compact & I bushwalk), Lumix TZ-80 28-720mm (very small/light fits in my bike bag with huge zoom although nearly useless for quality), Nikon AW110 for very wet days and a Nikon P7800 which is a very good camera which I no longer have much use for but I cannot sell it for what its worth so I will keep it !! Also an iPhone Xs which I believe has a good camera in it but then it’s really a phone for me despite what others say
Thoughts on issues raised frequently on UHH :-
1. Jpeg versus Raw.
First: whatever rows your boat out is good for you!
Second: I read so many times about how jpeg is bad because it loses data every time you save it I really have to wonder do the people who say this have any idea what they’re doing ? Whether or not it does lose data is not the point – how often do you edit a particular jpeg I wonder? Surely just the once so there cannot be more data loss as you won’t have to save it again! Maybe saving it time and time again does eventually degrade the image but who does that I wonder ??
Exactly the same for your Raw file – edit it once then save it. Do you edit that saved jpeg again later – I doubt it !
(I have actually tried editing a jpeg up to a dozen times – moving the exposure slider a bit one way, saving, then moving it back the other way for the next save and so on. Honestly could not see any difference start to finish!)
Talking to live, working, professional photographers tells me few of them use raw as they need jpeg output for their clients and they like to set up their equipment to provide the result they want without the need for time consuming editing – time being money of course. Sports photographers appear to be the main exception as they often need to crop extensively and also work much of the time in unexceptional lighting conditions. Also they have (IMHO) the only real need to have a 35mm sensor size camera.
NOTE I refuse to call a 35mm size sensor camera “Full Frame” ! There is not, nor has there ever been, to the best of my knowledge (which encompasses both Google and Wikipedia), a frame of any description in a DSLR! Film SLR’s and Movie cameras maybe yes have a frame but not in digital cameras. The use of the word FULL naturally implies you cannot get anymore into the frame and some hoggers use it in this manner :- “you can’t do better than full frame”. This often followed up with “ no real photographer would be seen out with a cropped sensor camera” Yes I read this in one of my first forays into UHH. Crop being used to imply it being something less than full and thus not as good ! As for there being no frame in reality there are also NO cropped sensors – they are all exactly the size they were designed to be not cut down from something larger at all! Panasonic (I think) crop the images from a M4/3 sensor in one of their cameras down to 1” size but the M4/3 sensor stays exactly that size.
No wonder “newbies” (ghastly word) are confused !
Stings in the tail – I often wonder about the topics of calibrating monitors and what’s best colour and best resolution and correct colour for printing and which monitor and so on. I play golf with a guy who can’t tell the difference between yellow balls and orange balls and pink balls – they all look grey to him ! How can he be sure he has the correct colours on his computer screen ? I wonder how many UHH’s have some unknown degree of colour blindness ? Who knows what another really sees !
Then I have camera resolutions from 12MP up to 24MP – I can’t see any difference between them on my 5K iMac – some of my early 6MP shots look a little softer compared but until I pixel peep there’s little discernable difference. I read of others with 13” laptops saying their 50MP shots look much better on their 1366 x 768 screens ! Kidding surely?
Hopefully I can attach a few of pics for interest. Haven’t done it before so don’t know what’ll happen. If I manage it I shall be happy if you like them but not unhappy if you don’t ! After all I took them for me – not you !
Note in the 2nd pic of the train the complete absence of mobile phones ! 2009 !
Sorry my mobile internet wouldn't allow me to store originals even though I'd downsized the pics quite a bit.
Cheers JohnR
A bit about me - yes, I, like many other UHH members, started way way back in the dim dark ages of film! In my first job, as a trainee metallurgist in 1963, I cut my teeth on a Linhoff Technica 5”x4” rising, falling tilting front camera with a 128mm Leica lens (from memory – could be wrong) and a 5”x4” film back on a metallurgical microscope. Learnt all about the exposure triangle (Sekonic lightmeter?) was also taught to develop the negatives and print them using a Durst enlarger. A Nikon F was used for colour negative & slides. Mainly Ilford FP4 or HP4 was the media for the B&W and Agfa for the colour (usually) Yes we also developed and printed the colour – coloured gelatine filters in the enlarger to remove unwanted colour casts also with the usual post processing of dodging and shading with “layers” produced by doing 2 or more prints exposed for the extremes of contrast then cutting out with a scalpel the correctly exposed parts from each print and gluing them into place to make an overall good print which was re-photographed to provide a neg for more prints. Yes fiddly work sometimes but rewarding when the boss praised the result.
I was never a true professional in that I never actually earned my living taking photos but photography was always a very large part of my work and that photography was always technical – micro/macro photos of welds, castings and anything else made of metal. Photos of bridges, boilers and battleships (actually destroyers and frigates – we never had a battleship here in Oz!) The photos themselves had to be technically good – correctly exposed and in focus without exception. 5”x4” was mainly used in the laboratory with progression to a Polaroid pos/neg film back in the 1970’s where one saw the print immediately (60 seconds later actually) enabling one to check correct exposure etc without the time consuming wet process.
I changed to digital in the early 2000’s (working for myself now as a Consultant Inspection Service) with Fuji 2MP/6MP then Pentax 6MP then Nikon 12MP (D90) finding 18-200 lenses suited my needs perfectly for overall photography with an Olympus Tough good for the macro aspects when in the field. Windows PCs were needed for work but since retirement I have migrated totally to Macs as I find their inbuilt displays far better than the affordable ones for Windows PCs. I use Aperture as my main editing program and iPhoto as my viewer.
I have half a dozen cameras - Olympus OMD E-M1 with 14-150mm (favourite), Lumix FZ2500 (versatile – macro up to 450mm + video), Sony A6000 with 18-135mm (Its light & compact & I bushwalk), Lumix TZ-80 28-720mm (very small/light fits in my bike bag with huge zoom although nearly useless for quality), Nikon AW110 for very wet days and a Nikon P7800 which is a very good camera which I no longer have much use for but I cannot sell it for what its worth so I will keep it !! Also an iPhone Xs which I believe has a good camera in it but then it’s really a phone for me despite what others say
Thoughts on issues raised frequently on UHH :-
1. Jpeg versus Raw.
First: whatever rows your boat out is good for you!
Second: I read so many times about how jpeg is bad because it loses data every time you save it I really have to wonder do the people who say this have any idea what they’re doing ? Whether or not it does lose data is not the point – how often do you edit a particular jpeg I wonder? Surely just the once so there cannot be more data loss as you won’t have to save it again! Maybe saving it time and time again does eventually degrade the image but who does that I wonder ??
Exactly the same for your Raw file – edit it once then save it. Do you edit that saved jpeg again later – I doubt it !
(I have actually tried editing a jpeg up to a dozen times – moving the exposure slider a bit one way, saving, then moving it back the other way for the next save and so on. Honestly could not see any difference start to finish!)
Talking to live, working, professional photographers tells me few of them use raw as they need jpeg output for their clients and they like to set up their equipment to provide the result they want without the need for time consuming editing – time being money of course. Sports photographers appear to be the main exception as they often need to crop extensively and also work much of the time in unexceptional lighting conditions. Also they have (IMHO) the only real need to have a 35mm sensor size camera.
NOTE I refuse to call a 35mm size sensor camera “Full Frame” ! There is not, nor has there ever been, to the best of my knowledge (which encompasses both Google and Wikipedia), a frame of any description in a DSLR! Film SLR’s and Movie cameras maybe yes have a frame but not in digital cameras. The use of the word FULL naturally implies you cannot get anymore into the frame and some hoggers use it in this manner :- “you can’t do better than full frame”. This often followed up with “ no real photographer would be seen out with a cropped sensor camera” Yes I read this in one of my first forays into UHH. Crop being used to imply it being something less than full and thus not as good ! As for there being no frame in reality there are also NO cropped sensors – they are all exactly the size they were designed to be not cut down from something larger at all! Panasonic (I think) crop the images from a M4/3 sensor in one of their cameras down to 1” size but the M4/3 sensor stays exactly that size.
No wonder “newbies” (ghastly word) are confused !
Stings in the tail – I often wonder about the topics of calibrating monitors and what’s best colour and best resolution and correct colour for printing and which monitor and so on. I play golf with a guy who can’t tell the difference between yellow balls and orange balls and pink balls – they all look grey to him ! How can he be sure he has the correct colours on his computer screen ? I wonder how many UHH’s have some unknown degree of colour blindness ? Who knows what another really sees !
Then I have camera resolutions from 12MP up to 24MP – I can’t see any difference between them on my 5K iMac – some of my early 6MP shots look a little softer compared but until I pixel peep there’s little discernable difference. I read of others with 13” laptops saying their 50MP shots look much better on their 1366 x 768 screens ! Kidding surely?
Hopefully I can attach a few of pics for interest. Haven’t done it before so don’t know what’ll happen. If I manage it I shall be happy if you like them but not unhappy if you don’t ! After all I took them for me – not you !
Note in the 2nd pic of the train the complete absence of mobile phones ! 2009 !
Sorry my mobile internet wouldn't allow me to store originals even though I'd downsized the pics quite a bit.
Cheers JohnR
Feb 9, 2019 02:34:26 #
Dear JohnR:
First, some really nice images there, I esp like the church interior.
Bit opinionated aren't we?
And somewhere here on UHH and elsewhere there are people who believe just the opposite of you and just as firmly.
That is OK, as long as they express it as their "opinion" or have factual evidence to back it up.
I have several cameras, not even counting all the film stuff I still have but don't use.
A FF (24x35 suit you better?), two different APS-C cameras and each has a different "crop factor", a bridge camera with a small sensor, and a pocket zoom with an even smaller sensor.
I also have a pile of lenses from ultra wide 14 mm to 600 mm in two brand's mounts. I do birds, flowers, butterflies and macro. throw in some cars and trains (esp interiors of the cars and engines at the railway museum I belong to) re-enactment events etc.)
And of course a smart phone with a tiny sensor.
That one is to me a phone, though my wife and daughter insisted I learn to text and even use emojis. They also insisted I learn to send snapshots of things with it.
I would still have my old flip phone (Hey! It made phone calls!) but my wife gave me the smart phone.
It was her replacement for one that fell off the top of her car (long story
- she was talking to someone when she got in the car...) in front of the fire station just before the sirens went off and two rather large fire trucks came roaring out - phone parts for 50 yards down the street.
She didn't like it, screen too small to play her games - Pokemon Go and Ingress (sort of an international "Capture the Flag" game with local and national teams) and it was one day past the just return it for another one date - so I took it, my flip phone's hinges were cracking, and she got one with a 5" screen.
Two years later it is still smarter than me. It has apps that came with it and cannot be gotten rid of that do things I need a dictionary to figure out. But I did figure out how to put them in folders so I don't have what seemed like 100 icons on 4 pages to scroll through to find any useful ones. The ones I use most often are "calculator" and "light meter".
And she still "borrows" my phone to use when she plays. So at times she is using 2 smart phones two 7" tablets and a 10" Tablet plus our daughter's 10" iPad (she is in medical school and doesn't have time to play-so Mom keeps her accounts active. I found out she enlisted me, got me accounts for both games and that my gamer's name on my phone is "Toad Chef". When I ask where that came from I just get a stare with a bit of a Mona Lisa smile.
The closest I have come to Australia is working with Australian and New Zealand troops in Vietnam in the 60's.
But my oldest son visited in 2017, sorta. His army reserve unit went to Alaska, joined with a bunch of Canadian troops, taught them to use US gear and then they all got in C17 transports and flew non-stop with mid-air refueling to Australia where they jumped over some large air base playing the part of the Aggressor Force Invaders in some training exercise called "Talisman Saber". He complained for 3 months about how hard it was to get the smell of kangaroo poop out of his gear. I reminded him he volunteered to become Airborne Special Forces. He could have stayed a combat engineer and happily built or blown up things until he hit retirement. Then he wouldn't have "Invaded Australia" in company with a bunch of Canadians. They had a rather cute female TV reporter who flew down with them and we have video that shows him twice - and a bunch of Canadians with all ID and insignia striped off their uniforms popping up behind whoever was being interviewed and making faces, waving to the folks back home etc - they had been told they did not have clearance to appear on US TV or be interviewed so they figured out a way to get on TV anyway. Boys will be boys, especially around a cute girl with a microphone and TV camera.
First, some really nice images there, I esp like the church interior.
Bit opinionated aren't we?
And somewhere here on UHH and elsewhere there are people who believe just the opposite of you and just as firmly.
That is OK, as long as they express it as their "opinion" or have factual evidence to back it up.
I have several cameras, not even counting all the film stuff I still have but don't use.
A FF (24x35 suit you better?), two different APS-C cameras and each has a different "crop factor", a bridge camera with a small sensor, and a pocket zoom with an even smaller sensor.
I also have a pile of lenses from ultra wide 14 mm to 600 mm in two brand's mounts. I do birds, flowers, butterflies and macro. throw in some cars and trains (esp interiors of the cars and engines at the railway museum I belong to) re-enactment events etc.)
And of course a smart phone with a tiny sensor.
That one is to me a phone, though my wife and daughter insisted I learn to text and even use emojis. They also insisted I learn to send snapshots of things with it.
I would still have my old flip phone (Hey! It made phone calls!) but my wife gave me the smart phone.
It was her replacement for one that fell off the top of her car (long story
- she was talking to someone when she got in the car...) in front of the fire station just before the sirens went off and two rather large fire trucks came roaring out - phone parts for 50 yards down the street. She didn't like it, screen too small to play her games - Pokemon Go and Ingress (sort of an international "Capture the Flag" game with local and national teams) and it was one day past the just return it for another one date - so I took it, my flip phone's hinges were cracking, and she got one with a 5" screen.
Two years later it is still smarter than me. It has apps that came with it and cannot be gotten rid of that do things I need a dictionary to figure out. But I did figure out how to put them in folders so I don't have what seemed like 100 icons on 4 pages to scroll through to find any useful ones. The ones I use most often are "calculator" and "light meter".
And she still "borrows" my phone to use when she plays. So at times she is using 2 smart phones two 7" tablets and a 10" Tablet plus our daughter's 10" iPad (she is in medical school and doesn't have time to play-so Mom keeps her accounts active. I found out she enlisted me, got me accounts for both games and that my gamer's name on my phone is "Toad Chef". When I ask where that came from I just get a stare with a bit of a Mona Lisa smile.
The closest I have come to Australia is working with Australian and New Zealand troops in Vietnam in the 60's.
But my oldest son visited in 2017, sorta. His army reserve unit went to Alaska, joined with a bunch of Canadian troops, taught them to use US gear and then they all got in C17 transports and flew non-stop with mid-air refueling to Australia where they jumped over some large air base playing the part of the Aggressor Force Invaders in some training exercise called "Talisman Saber". He complained for 3 months about how hard it was to get the smell of kangaroo poop out of his gear. I reminded him he volunteered to become Airborne Special Forces. He could have stayed a combat engineer and happily built or blown up things until he hit retirement. Then he wouldn't have "Invaded Australia" in company with a bunch of Canadians. They had a rather cute female TV reporter who flew down with them and we have video that shows him twice - and a bunch of Canadians with all ID and insignia striped off their uniforms popping up behind whoever was being interviewed and making faces, waving to the folks back home etc - they had been told they did not have clearance to appear on US TV or be interviewed so they figured out a way to get on TV anyway. Boys will be boys, especially around a cute girl with a microphone and TV camera.
Feb 9, 2019 03:17:01 #
My pics are basically a memory aid ! I use them as a screensaver and often look back at the exif data to remind myself where I when I was and which camera did I use Also I guess few people get to 73 without becoming a bit opinionated ! Been there - done that syndrome ? Cheers JohnRFeb 9, 2019 03:45:39 #
Pablo8
Loc: Nottingham UK.
I could be wrong, but is your Cathedral shot , Lincoln UK? Interesting that you (thought) lens in the Linhof, was a Leitz (Leica) . They often had Schneider - Kreuznach lenses as standard. Good to read your post and see your pictures.
Feb 9, 2019 08:33:17 #
A nice set of images John. The cathedral has some beautiful architecture, and the Sunset is quite beautiful. Different Architect. I also like the Blue Hour beach shot with the silhouette of the dog.
Feb 9, 2019 13:41:22 #
Thanks Pablo and yes you win the prize - it is Lincoln Cathedral
Feb 9, 2019 13:42:04 #
Feb 9, 2019 14:52:49 #
JohnR wrote: My pics are basically a memory aid ! I use them as a screensaver and often look back at the exif data to remind myself where I when I was and which camera did I use Also I guess few people get to 73 without becoming a bit opinionated ! Been there - done that syndrome ? Cheers JohnR
My pics are basically a memory aid ! I use them as a screensaver and often look back at the exif data to remind myself where I when I was and which camera did I use Also I guess few people get to 73 without becoming a bit opinionated ! Been there - done that syndrome ? Cheers JohnRI also use my own shots for computer desktops and screen savers.
Hey, 73, me too. And I spent 34 years as a classroom teacher so I got used to being the most important opinion. A poster I made and put on the wall over my desk for about 15 years was the business end of an Alaskan Kodiak bear fighting with another bear over salmon and my words added: Mr Perkins "My Room, My Rules". I still have it stored away somewhere - unless it has fallen apart from age since I last looked at it. I retired 11 1/2 years ago.
When a student would ask why I got to make up my own rules I would tell him/her. Graduate from high school, (maybe a three year vacation in the Army like I did) do 4 years for a bachelor's degree (picking up 5 majors along the way in my case), two years of graduate work, qualify for a Teaching Credential, get hired by the Los Angeles School District and assigned to this High School and this department - I will be the first one to welcome you and shake your hand. Then you can have a classroom where you make the rules. Unless I retire before you get back here I will see you in about 8-10 years or so.
Feb 9, 2019 15:29:26 #
Hey Robert - great profession is teaching ! I have terrific admiration for good teachers - me I've been a hands on techie all my life but I've never been good at passing on my skills even to my kids ! Tried teaching Welding Inspection at our local college for a couple of years but never felt I was able to help those who really needed it. If you had a fair idea what I was talking about (or showing how to) then we got on famously but if you looked puzzled .. well a different story ensued - sometimes quite a struggle to get ideas across to the non receptive. My grandson probably the one exception - he always seemed to know what I was talking about even before I said it sometimes - very very gratifying! Grandchildren definitely the best thing since sliced bread. I think the 70's are a great time of life with such a wealth of experience to help one enjoy more experiences but a bit (lot) sad that the devil incarnate (osteoarthritis) can spoil such things - I've had 4 vertebra fused in my neck making heavy DSLR's totally unusable for more than a few minutes. I don't really mind though as mirrorless helps overcome such problems still giving terrific pics.
Cheers JohnR
Cheers JohnR
Feb 9, 2019 16:15:36 #
JohnR wrote:
Hey Robert - great profession is teaching ! I have... (show quote)
That is the way it goes. Some of the greatest experts could not teach if their life depended on it so often the best teachers are not as great an expert but have the talent for teaching and often turn out students who out do them in the actual subject. I have met and read about "teams", one the great expert, one the teacher who together are more than either separately when it comes to teaching others a subject.
The teaching is often a matter of attitude and how you relate to others than just knowledge. Our daughter got a job as a day-to-day substitute teacher while applying to medical schools. One day her first week she came home looking like she had been caught in a tornado, walked in, looked at me and said "How in the name of God did you last 34 years at this job?" Seems she had the class from hell that day. She is petite, beautiful and not at all intimidating. I am more or less the opposite and have a voice that I can drop into a growl that would make some bears envy me. I can be very intimidating when needed, or even if not needed. Some of our oldest's friends used to tell him they knew I was a teacher before he told them, they just felt intimidated even when I was only saying hello. My students either loved me (the good ones) or hated me (the bad ones) and there were a lot that I changed from bad to good when they figured out that if they obeyed my rules and did good work I became Winnie the Pooh instead of a rabid grizzly bear.
I have taken things at which I really wasn't knowledgeable at the expert level and come up with beginning lessons that worked well and got students started, often through reading etc they knew the subject itself better than me in a very short time.
No grand kids here so we make do with nieces, nephews and their children. Our youngest (24) is in medical school and says she can't stand little kids (but she does extremely well with them), our middle child, well Jon is Special Needs; our oldest almost got married twice - but one turned out to be a complete nut case and the other her mother killed the romance - he wasn't Cuban and he wasn't Catholic, but she was an obedient child with a controlling mother so they broke up.
Feb 10, 2019 04:03:42 #
Pablo8
Loc: Nottingham UK.
JohnR wrote:
Thanks Pablo and yes you win the prize - it is Lincoln Cathedral
Thanks for the 'Prize' John. I used 5 interior shots of Lincoln among my ARPS set of B&W prints. Taken on MPP 5 x 4 camera, exposures on Tri-X around 20 minutes. That was a few years ago.
Feb 10, 2019 09:11:41 #
Feb 10, 2019 09:57:17 #
Great post bought back a lot of fond memories of the good old film days, turning the kitchen into a darkroom etc.
Feb 10, 2019 12:06:09 #
Feb 10, 2019 12:47:00 #
Great - mine was hand held D90 18-200mm ISO 640 f3.5 1/30sec with - 0.3EV. SOOC & much credit must go to Nikon's VR although my hands were much steadier 10 years ago when the shot was taken. I think a repeat today would be at ISO 6400 and 1/250 or thereabouts 
Wold love to see yours. Cheers John
Wold love to see yours. Cheers John
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