I take pictures for about 20 years - more or less intensive and with inactive periods. Especially, during the last few years there was very little time to follow my hobbies. During this time some equipment found the way into my hands:
Equipment
The Begining: 35-mm
- I take pictures since 1985. The first camera was a YASHICA FX-D set with a 35-105mm zoom lens, flash and a simple bag.
- I specialised on B/W very early, first because I made some bad experiences with the film processing industry and I wanted to control the whole process. Later I liked the special flair of the B/W abstraction of reality.
- The first thing I sold was the flash: because I like using the "available light".
- As a consequence of this, the first new lens was a standard lens with a big aperture and using high speed B/W films.
- The body is now replaced by a CONTAX RTS (with a winder); big advantage: the old YASHICA lenses can still be used on this body.
-
My actual collection of lenses:
- 1.7/50mm standard lens (YASHICA)
- 2.8/20mm (SOLIGOR)
- 2.8/135mm portrait tele lens (YASHICA, the most used one)
-
2.8/200mm Tele (SOLIGOR, very nice special
lens with a real big hole to capture light in the
front). Since 3.6.2005 this lens is functional again:
the SOLIGOR service was not able to repair their own
lens (maybe, they ever wanted to). Fortunately, I
found "Strunz Camera Service" here in Rostock.
SOLIGOR should think about their service policy; I will never buy a SOLIGOR again.
- The rest of the equipment is a tripod and several filters for shooting B/W pictures.
The next Step: The Darkroom
- The enlarger in my darkroom is a DUNCO II-66 C. This enllarger is designed for processing colour prints, so I can use it for multigrade papers. I use both: PE- and baryt-papers.
-
Lenses:
- Nikon EL-Nikkor 2.8/50mm (for 35mm film)
- Meopta Anaret S 4..5/80mm (for 6x6)
- The time is controlled by a digital timer.
- Unfortunately, the darkroom is provisional in the bath room.
- The glossy drying of the baryt paper is done by two old drying devices I found in the rubish.
- Some time ago I developed the in a rotating drum on a JOBO CPE 2 plus Lift. I returned to the usual way and would like to sell the machine together with the 2500 paper drum (2521 + 2560-module).
One Step Beyond: 6x6-Format
- The next logical step was a ROLLEI SL 66, a fully mechanical working middle format camera with exchangable film magazines and a built in bellow.
- "Fully mechanical" means, I need an external light messuring. I found a GOSSEN Lunasix which provides a scaling for the zone system of Ansel Adams and which is also useful for experiments with the camera obscura
- I replaced the original artificial plastic leather by genuine buffalo skin. This clothing is much nicer and handier. Here a picture of the ready-to-go camera equiped with yellow filter.
-
The lenses:
- 2.8/80mm HFT standard lens (Zeiss)
- 4.0/150mm Tele (Zeiss, no HFT)
- 4.0/50mm wide angle (Zeiss)
- The limitation on the number of lenses (exactly one for a long time) in middle format at the beginning, had also effect on the use in 35-mm: a renaissance of the 50mm-lens.
Back to the real Roots: Camera Obscura
I do some experiments with several Pinhole-Cameras:
- a 35mm-film case: small and handy, but difficult to load (and developing); and you can shoot only one picture; but interesting perspective. No pictures here.
- Tin can: bigger film formats, but plane film is expensive. Middle format film is unhandy and paper negatives are not easy to enlarge.
-
The prefered device is an old
Belfoca (Middelformat)
:
- I reduced the format from 9x6 to 6x6 because of the dark room equipment.
- The "lense" is made of a sheet of metal taken from a Coca Cola-can, with a very small hole (a pinhole) in it.
-
I want to experiment with:
- a semicircle-camera: interesting perspective with short focal length.
- a zone-plate is another kind of lensless lens. Some informations about the theory and here is a postscript ot a zone-plate of such a thing (for both I am not the author).
The next Generation?: A Contribution to the Digitale Darkroom
No time was left for doing anything in the darkroom.
- So I decided to buy a "CANON Powershot G2" digital camera.
- Besides the 16MB Compact Flash card shipped with the camera I bought a 128MB and 512MB card.
-
To download the pictures, I use
- USB cable shipped with the Powershot. This transfere is relative slow.
- USB-Card-Reader connected to the desktop.
- PCMCIA adaptor using at the laptop.
- My computer technology described not only with respect to digital picture processing.
My Way to take Pictures
Sorry! But this comes only in german.
Some Pictures
- Portraits from my wild black-and-white times: the pictures show some persons, which allowed the publication here.
- Cities and around : Here, I present some pictures taken in cities or out in the nature.
- Mecklenburg-Vorpommern :
- Structures :
-
Stage
:
I like to go to live rock concerts and sometimes carry my
cameras with me. Both 35mm-cameras (YASHICA and CONTAX)
are good for this way of shooting. Best lenses are those
with the biggest aperture you can get, of course.
From the photographers point of view the small club sessions are much more interesting than the mega events, where you are fixed in between all the other supporters. Small club-sessions allow free choice of perspective. And the show on the stage is not neccessarily bad. - Experiments : Some experiments with materials and equipment.
- Pinhole : Some experiments with the camera obscura equipment.
- Panorama : The Powershot has a nice feature for taking panoramic pictures. Some tests here.
to be continued