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Taking Pictures the Hard Way

blog.brixit.nl

21–30 of 92 posts

Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way

#21
I shoot a lot of photos at techno raves and I shoot exclusively on 800 ISO film rated at 3200 ISO. The environments are dark with lots of movement. Not being able to see the results until I get the roll developed keeps me in the moment and I love the delayed gratification I get when the photos turn out well.

Some of my favorites from recent months:

* https://www.instagram.com/p/CZsFxpmvp-J/ or https://www.reddit.com/gallery/snqwjq

* https://www.instagram.com/p/Ca5ESgmu25m/ or https://www.reddit.com/r/analog/comments/tb5qku/bliss_contax...

Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way

#22
post #6

A nit: "The larger the sensor the blurrier the background can be, and this also changes the distance at what you can make a picture of something and still have a blurry background." Blur is totally determined by optics and has no direct relationship to sensor / film area.

For a given field of view for the image, and a given f-stop, a camera with a larger sensor will have more out-of-focus blur. Of course, the camera with the larger sensor will need to use a lens with a longer focal length to get the same field of view. In turn, that means that the absolute aperture (not the ratio that gives the f-stop) will have to be bigger. The absolute aperture (roughly, the diameter of the front of the lens, though things get funny for wide-angle lenses) is what really determines how burred the out-of-focus parts of the image are.

To see this, imagine that you're focused to a distance of 9 meters. That means that all the light from any point in the plane that is 9 meters away gets focused on one spot on the sensor, with this spot on the sensor corresponding to the location on the plane. Now imagine what happens with the light from a point 10 meters away. On the way to the sensor, all the light rays from this point will have to pass through the plane that is 9 meters away, and will then behave just as if they originated from that 9-meter-away plane. Since that plane is in focus, these rays will show up on the sensor in positions corresponding to where they were in the 9-meter-away plane.

Now imagine where those rays from 10 meters away that end up on the sensor actually are when they reach the 9-meter-away plane. Suppose the absolute aperture (diameter of lens) is 20mm. The rays that hit the lens (and then the sensor) starting from 10 meters away form a cone, which spreads out to 20mm at the camera. So at 9 meters away, 1/10 that distance, the cone will have spread out 1/10 as much, which is 2mm. So single points at a distance of 10 meters look just like disks 2mm wide at 9 meters. That's the extent of out-of-focus blur.

How blurry that seems to the viewer of the final image depends on the field of view, which for a fixed focal length depends on the sensor size. With a small sensor, the field of view at 9 meters might be only 200mm, and 2mm looks fairly blurred. With a large sensor, the field of view at 9 meters might be 2000mm, and a 2mm disk might look almost like a point to the viewer.

EDIT: I realize now that the concluding paragraph may be confusing, since it seems to say that it's the small sensor that will have more blur. The problem is that I shouldn't have compared images with different fields of view - when deciding which camera to use to take a picture you have in mind, you of course envision using lenses for each camera that will give the same field of view, as appropriate for the result you are trying to achieve. Looked at that way, one can see that with the field of view fixed, an absolute aperature of 20mm will correspond to a smaller f-stop for a camera with a small sensor size than for a camera with a larger sensor. For instance, a 100mm focal length lens with a 20mm aperature is an f/5 lens. With a sensor 1/10 as large, one would need a 10mm focal length lens for the same field of view, which would need to be f/0.5 to have a 20mm aperture, if one want to produce the same background blur. It's either impossible or extremely expensive to get an f/0.5 lens.

Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way

#23
post #7

Alas, film's recent popularity comes with (literally) a price. Cameras that were practically being given away are, thanks to "influencers", now insanely priced. Film was expensive enough but pandemic-related supply issues and Fuji's slow withdrawal from the film market have just made things worse. I was lucky in that I picked up a bunch of film cameras when they were cheap. Processing hasn't risen in price all that m…

It seems odd that there isn't cheap black and white film. I think they sell cyanotype at the local craft store here. Maybe if dissolve that in acetone you could make cellulose acetate film with it?

Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way

#24
post #6

A nit: "The larger the sensor the blurrier the background can be, and this also changes the distance at what you can make a picture of something and still have a blurry background." Blur is totally determined by optics and has no direct relationship to sensor / film area.

>Blur is totally determined by optics and has no direct relationship to sensor / film area.

I'm sorry, but no. There is a direct relationship between exit pupil image size and the size of the sensor.

Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way

#25
post #6

A nit: "The larger the sensor the blurrier the background can be, and this also changes the distance at what you can make a picture of something and still have a blurry background." Blur is totally determined by optics and has no direct relationship to sensor / film area.

I can assure you that if I put a 50mm prime on my 5D (full frame) and then on my GH5 (mFT), the 5D focus will roll off noticeably more than the GH5. This is a thing to consider when using cropped sensors.

Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way

#26
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. Some of my best parts of film photography was in the darkroom. It was one of the most calming and relaxing environments for me. It's magical to see an image slowly appear in a developer tray on the exposed paper.

I agree about the magic of an image appearing on the paper, but in other respects I was never keen on the darkroom itself - the smell of the fixer and the stop-bath, the darkness and the fact that the images I produced were never as good as I wanted them to be kind of put me off. Still, it was fun, all in all. I've never found digital at all satisfying.

The smell of fixer is pretty pungent. You forgot about processing the film. That has to be done in complete darkness (well, loading the processing tank anyway) and you get the added anxiety of drying the film in a dust-free place because any speck of dust getting on the film when it's wet is going to be near impossible to remove later. Nothing beats the exhilaration of having the perfect shot ruined by a speck of dust!

Yes, I really enjoyed working the darkroom back in the 80's and 90's but I wouldn't want to go back to that now.

Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way

#27
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. Some of my best parts of film photography was in the darkroom. It was one of the most calming and relaxing environments for me. It's magical to see an image slowly appear in a developer tray on the exposed paper.

I agree about the magic of an image appearing on the paper, but in other respects I was never keen on the darkroom itself - the smell of the fixer and the stop-bath, the darkness and the fact that the images I produced were never as good as I wanted them to be kind of put me off. Still, it was fun, all in all. I've never found digital at all satisfying.

> were never as good as I wanted them to be

It's kind of like chess - hours to learn, a lifetime to master.

I've made thousands of b&w prints and there are two, maybe three, that I thought were as good as they could possibly be.

Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way

#28
post #8

> It's possible to get a great APS-C sensor size digital camera for ~300 euro. But as soon as you go up in sensor size you're up into 1000+ euro. The fair comparison is with used digital cameras. Great used full-frame cameras are readily available for https://www.mpb.com/en-us/used-equipment/used-photo-and-vide... https://www.keh.com/shop/canon-eos-5d-12-8-megapixel-digital... https://www.mpb.com/en-us/used-equipment…

True, but i'd have to settle for way older generation dslr tech for that. I'd rather have the fun of analog photography in that case. Vintage analog pictures look great, vintage digital ones don't :)

Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way

#29

I’d argue ‘the hard way’ is probably shooting large format slide film and developing it yourself ;), but seriously congrats on this foray into the exciting world of analog photography! Just don’t get too attached to any Fuji film stocks…

Heh, gotta start somewhere. I guess the next step is developing the film. Or getting the medium format analog camera.

Re: Taking Pictures the Hard Way

#30
Analog photography is quite amazing but, at least, in 35mm world it's not because of the resulting images but more in the cameras. Old, mechanical film cameras are much more pleasant to use for me. And before someone says that camera doesn't matter - it sure does. A camera that you like to use will be used more so you will end up "doing more photography".

I also love black and white films. I've not tried monochrome digital cameras yet but I doubt that you would get the same output as black and white film.

Not much of a fan in color photography when shooting 35mm but it gets interesting again in medium format ( or larger ). Pulling out the slides you've developed for the first time is a magical experience.

Long live film. It got me into many interesting things that I didn't think I would ever so. Like write a ( small ) blog about photography ( https://50mmf2.com ).

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