This chap has quite a few organ pieces played with the Hauptwerk Virtual Pipe Organ. From the looks of it, he’s using Classic Organ Works equipment. Sounds absolutely outstanding, and I challenge anyone to compare this to a recording of a ‘real’ organ.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSFRNi9Nois

As of August 9th, 2010, I was told that my Ford Fiesta was in Maryland, on a truck. Since it’s only a 6 hour drive from Maryland to NY, and counting for stops on the way, I said maybe two days till it arrives…maybe another two days for the dealership to prep the car, etc. That was 11 days ago. So, not too enthralled about that. The original arrival was the ‘week of’ July 26th. With the 10 day to 2 week delay because of railway damage, it should have still arrived last week. I’m peeved, I want my car. I’ll be checking up with the dealer today for an update.

I spent the last two evenings working on the 8×10 camera. I painted the inside panels on the front and backs with an acrylic matte black paint. I also narrowed the lensboard and widened the lens hole in it to accommodate the lens that is currently in the Kodak Recomar 33. This lens is 135mm and SHOULD be fine for 4×5″ film. This will save me some money in the short term. I had found a separation in the box joint on the rear standard, so I glue and clamped that. Also took some wood filler and filled ALL the holes on the rear standard. Some of the holes went to things…and some didn’t – they were just old holes where someone had screwed something in. Filling them all will ensure that when I install the bellows frames, the tiny screws have enough wood to grip to.

The matte black really looks quite nice in my opinion. I also did a little lens surgery, and cleaned the interior glass on the Kodak Anastigmat 135mm from the Recomar camera.

And, finally, I installed a brass screw to the top of the back standard so the front focus rail can be locked when it’s in the ‘up’ position, makes the camera a lot easier to carry!

You all can now tweet any of the entries in this blog. Whee!

Spent last weekend pretty ill, and I’ve been dead tired most of this week trying to get back into the rhythm of things – hence the general slowness and lack of photos. I’ve been feeling much better yesterday and today, so I’m getting back to things. As an aside, I’ve spent more time today applying more lacquer to the top of the delightful Philco 76 radio cabinet; it’s a slow go, but I’m doing my darndest to make sure there’s no thin spots with the lacquer. I don’t understand why, after cleaning the wood so aggressively, and ensuring there was no residue from the previous lacquer, there should be so many spots where the lacquer just seems to blot away from. I’m attacking those spots now with dedicated layerings of lacquer in order to build them up. It seems to be working.

Also, today, I got around to removing the old and damaged bellows from the Gundlach. It was a slow go; there were quite a few screws for the front and rear standards. I found, on the rear standard, several screws were absolutely adamant against coming out. Since they are only shallow flat heads, they’re easily stripped. I found that using my soldering iron to head the heads for several minutes each did the trick, and they came out quite easily. One of them had had its head taken half off, but after heading it came out easiest of all.

Here’s the ending photo, as I carefully press the rear frame of the bellows out of the rear standard:

I will be sending the bellows out for replacement soon enough, and this way the specialist will have the original to work with and measure from.

Here’s a bonus photo. It shows the Gundlach in relation of size to the Kodak Recomar 33 I’ve been using to date. Somehow I have my doubts about carrying the Gundlach on any…lengthy…hikes, but I might be crazy enough to try!

On the entertainment front, I watched “My Fair Lady” (1964) and “The Music Man” (1962) this week. Both excellent, very creative and funny.

First of all, I don’t own the name ‘Technicolor’, nor do I claim any rights to it. That aside, I think that this famous three color process used for movies holds more in it for still photography today.

Let me explain. As I posted last time, there was a chap in Russia who went around taking photos of their Russian Empire. He used filters on his camera, and was able to project back a color image after the film was developed. This same idea of filtering colors for independent ‘sensors’ is used today in modern television cameras. ’3 chip’ cameras use a prism that direct different colors of light to different CCDs. This way, the best color response can be achieved. There is no reason this cannot be done with large format film – probably 4×5, though it could certainly be done with 8×10. I promise to do it at least once with 8×10 when the camera is ready (it has arrived, by the way, but that’s for a different post.)

Today, since I’m a bundle of energy having finally gotten over my cold, I enacted a quick test to make sure I’m not completely off my rocker with this.

The GREAT THREE COLOR EXPERIMENT:

First, a color photograph:

This is a digital color photo, taken with my cheap little Canon point-and-shoot. I just wanted a fairly color expansive shot, and we have here greys, browns, blues, reds, and greens.

Next, I used Picasa and the ‘Filtered B&W’ effect to make three individual files. This effect simulates what a Black and White photo would look like if taken with a filter of a color you choose. I made three files with red, green, and blue filters. So, each file displays the gray levels of that color. It is still a black and white photo, though, at that point. Next, each file was tinted (again, using Picasa) to the color that it was filtered for. The photo showing the Red levels was tinted red, and so on. This allows each photo then to show the brightness of the color it represents, in that same color. Here they are:

With each of these filtered and tinted, I used GIMP to handle the layering. With about a 62-63% opacity for each, and the ‘addition’ mode turned on, we can quickly get a pretty close representation of the originally:

Obviously the colors are more subdued, and it has a slight bluish tint, but shouldn’t be anything some tweaks won’t handle. I threw this image together in about five minutes, some extra time and attention will work wonders – however, I was mostly interested in if the concept was sound before I go spending money on filters and film! I think it has promise.

Well, it was not an idle weekend for me. While I was perhaps remiss in not posting ‘Daily Photos’ every day (and because of this, I’ve renamed it to ‘Life In Photos’ to allow for the occasional gap), photography still made up a good part of my weekend.

Developing

I developed film this weekend. I had three slides (technically, two, because one un-exposed one got mixed in – and I couldn’t tell which it was!) from the Kane mountain trip a couple of weeks ago, and I finally got around to developing them. Only the group portrait came out, which is good, I think portraits are more important than landscapes which I can shoot anytime. I was absolutely astounded at how well the group shot came out. I’m not in it, of course, because I had misplaced my self-timer (it was in my pocket with my keys, and I couldn’t feel it). Nevertheless, I think it’s a good shot:

The old Recomar 33 really can take some outstanding shots if you keep a close eye on it! I’m using my usual Efke PL100 9x12cm black and white film. More excitement to come on that though!

On Saturday, I got kind of bored in the mid-afternoon, and – recalling a conversation with my Mom that morning about black and white photography – decided to try my hand at colorizing.

Voila!

I used Gimp, added a transparent layer, and went to town. It’s not perfect, of course, but it holds up pretty well even as a wallpaper on my 30″ LCD monitor. The depth of this photo astounds me, and I’m very proud of it in either color or black and white (please note: my brothers DO NOT wear shoes in those colors, I took artistic license). Every three months or so, I get a photo I like with this old gear – and oddly enough they’re the ones that take the least effort, the least though, it’s usually just set up, meter, and shoot. The ones that take effort (e.g., lake photos in mid winter that I took three trips to shoot, or close-ups with every light in the house used for the scene) just never seem to come out.

I still have to develop the Bald mountain shots – I have high hopes for those, but I’m running low on fixer. I should be okay, though, as it’s only three sheets. For reference, I shoot my Efke PL100 with ISO 50 calculations, it just seems to come out better that way. I develop in D76 1:1 for 10 minutes, wash for one minute, fix for five minutes, wash for one minute, and hypo-clear for 2 minutes. Then I was for as long as I can be patient.

Upcoming:

I have purchased *da da da da!* a 8×10 camera. I’m so happy I think I’ll bust over this – 8×10 cameras are hard to come by cheaply. This is more or less just the frame of one, since the bellows is bad. It has also a 4×5 reducing back, so I will be able to save money by not exposing 8×10 film all the time. Has two lensboards as well. Here is a photo off the eBay site:

This is a Gundlach camera, PROBABLY a Korona View, but I can’t say for certain yet. There’s a bit of info about their line on the internet, and once I saw they can handle modern film holders I sprang the $175 for it. I recognize it’ll be a bit of an expensive project, but considering ‘complete’ 8×10 kit costs usually over $1,000, I’m confident I can make this work for less than average cost. Can’t be more complicated than an IBM Selectric.

I expect since it’s an 8×10/4×5, I’ll make use of the two lensboards and get lenses that will be semi-wide for 4×5 and wide for 8×10, and normal for 8×10 but slightly long for 4×5. That’s the plan, anyways, we’ll see how it goes. The 8×10 ground glass needs to be replaced as well as the bellows. I plan to run through and give the case and mechanics a good cleaning as well, and this unit will probably be ready for service next spring. I’m looking forward to it. STANDARD FILM SIZES! Whee! This means I can buy DAYLIGHT tanks for developing, no more sitting in the dark bathroom for 20 minutes. It also means REAL COLOR FILM may be used in large format. I’m thinking some Velvia 100 (Not 100F) will be in order. I can buy a Graflex back for the 4×5 reduction, and shoot 6 films in quick succession. It will be wonderful.

Oh, and I was thinking. Having read about this exhibit, with the chap from Russia who went around taking color pictures using three filtered black and white plates, that I might try for it myself. Since I can use a Graflex, I can easily and quickly switch between films, and switch out filters. The color recombining can be done digitally, so that’s no problem. It’s like Technicolor for still photography! I plan to try this out.

I’m back this week (well, and next) to having stews for lunch, I made a hopefully tasty stew cooked for about 6 hours yesterday. I won’t enjoy it much today though, as I have a sore throat. Oh well, I’m taking it easy.

That’s it for now!