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Author Topic: News from Japan  (Read 3802 times)

Anon E. Mouse

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News from Japan
« on: June 01, 2006, 10:34:17 am »

I thought this was interesting for those who follow trends:

Japan Times
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piksi

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News from Japan
« Reply #1 on: June 01, 2006, 12:55:24 pm »

Quote
I thought this was interesting for those who follow trends:

Well, I contacted Fuji about inquiries for GX680 III updates and continuity and received a very heartwarming message when asking about film:

"Fujifilm will not bring out any further medium format cameras. We are
still  very much behind the manufacture of film though.
-Fujifilm co."

I've never given up film, I shoot it almost as much as digital. They both have their own "markets". There are some photos that look better when shot on film and processed by myself in the darkroom, others look better when shot with digital. I enjoy both worlds, there's no need to reject either one of them. For some, dragging film beside digital is very frustrating, and in commercial photography film is almost completely futile, but for creative art photographers film still has it's best trick up the sleeve: Analog uncertainty, flexibility of the medium and the different fractal-like levels associated with producing a final image with the chemicals (almost uncountable amount of different factors).

Targets i use digital for:

- Most studio shoots
- Architecture photography (except when I need the advantage of mf over dslrs)
- All kind of action/group/mass shoots
- Targets where i need low noise
- Targets which require fast processing and delivery

Targets i use film for:

- Big resolution images when stitching is not possible (I can't afford a digital back so mf film works great)
- Film and enlarging experiments with chemicals and light
- Meditative shooting
- Targets where I need excessive panorama image or curved film planes
- Pinhole photography
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BJL

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News from Japan
« Reply #2 on: June 01, 2006, 01:03:42 pm »

Quote
I thought this was interesting for those who follow trends:

Japan Times
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=67094\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Summary: "Some people in Japan still like and use film SLRs", backed up by mildly optimistic comments about film's future from an impartial source: FujiFilm.

This is hardly news, and even less anything to do with trends!

Next up; an article about people who still prefer vinyl LP's to CD's, with comments from a leading manufacturer of phono pre-amps ...


P. S. Having seen piksi's post, I should add that I still use film occasionally, for the fun of black and white dark room printing.
« Last Edit: June 01, 2006, 01:06:43 pm by BJL »
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gochugogi

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News from Japan
« Reply #3 on: June 02, 2006, 02:38:04 pm »

Quote
Next up; an article about people who still prefer vinyl LP's to CD's, with comments from a leading manufacturer of phono pre-amps ...
P. S. Having seen piksi's post, I should add that I still use film occasionally, for the fun of black and white dark room printing.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=67109\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Actually vinyl LPs are not merely the domain of old audiophiles and collectors. Ask any teenager and they actually know what an LP is. Hip-hop has kept blood flowing in the turntable and LP in clubs and videos for 15 years, albeit more as a performance medium than playback. I frequent used record joints and Goodwill LP binds and oft must fight with teenagers over old LPs. Apparently they're looking for loops to sample and rap over.
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Piece

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News from Japan
« Reply #4 on: June 03, 2006, 12:18:32 am »

Quote
Targets i use film for:

- Big resolution images when stitching is not possible (I can't afford a digital back so mf film works great)
- Film and enlarging experiments with chemicals and light
- Meditative shooting
- Targets where I need excessive panorama image or curved film planes
- Pinhole photography
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=67108\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

So you can definitely make a camera using a digital back.  Just get a body case, find the center of it (i used a lazy susan) and then simply drill a small hole in the center of the body cap.  Then you can run around and shoot away with your digital pinhole camera.  I dunno if you knew this and just shot film because you think pinhole comes out better or what, just thought i'd share.
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Gary Ferguson

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News from Japan
« Reply #5 on: June 03, 2006, 02:45:28 am »

I shoot digital 90% of the time, and IMO it's the most exciting photographic innovation since the invention of the Leica.

But in photography there's no such thing as a free lunch. And for me at least the significant loss with digital is photographic authenticity. By that I mean a traditional silver negative is an honest representation of a moment in time in a way that a digital file just isn't.

I appreciate that silver negatives can be manipulated, and that digital files can be embedded with a certificate of authenticity that meets judicial standards. But these arguments are really technical pedantics, for if photography had always been digital I don't believe we'd have ever had the expression, "the camera never lies". The fact is that in the digital era the photograph can lie much more easily and effectively than ever before.

My commercial photography is mainly architectural, or should I say "idealised architectural". Inconveniently parked cars, street sign clutter, and all traces of litter are meticulously excised. And if nature hadn't been kind that day then a replacement sky is soon dropped in place.

And with portraits there's a creeping tendency towards the same visual sanitisation. It might start with something relatively innocuous, like removing a spot on the grounds that it would have healed in a few days anyway so why permanently spoil an image with a temporary blight? However, the temptation of Photoshop editing is not to be resisted. Before long teeth are whiter, skin smoother, and finally ears are being pinned back and noses remodelled! I know a wedding photographer who was recently commisioned to reprint some thirty year old wedding photographs, with the brief to make the hairstyles look a little more contemporary!

When I've gone to the great darkroom in the sky I'm realistic enough to know that 99% of my work will be instantly forgotten. But what will remain and be valued are those photographs that constitute an historic record of people and places. For most of us what will endure is the photograph as authentic document rather than the photograph as personal interpretation.

So have I turned against digital? No way! Digital is what today is all about and I want to be part of it. But from time to time I'll dig out my old Leica or stick a film back on a Hasselblad, load them with Tri-X, and carefully process the results to archival standards. The results are afflicted by all the visual blights of the real world, from teenage spots to rennovation scaffolding. But they're real and they're authentic. And those attributes will be worth something to an audience a hundred years from now.
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piksi

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News from Japan
« Reply #6 on: June 03, 2006, 06:00:22 am »

Quote
So you can definitely make a camera using a digital back.  Just get a body case, find the center of it (i used a lazy susan) and then simply drill a small hole in the center of the body cap.  Then you can run around and shoot away with your digital pinhole camera.  I dunno if you knew this and just shot film because you think pinhole comes out better or what, just thought i'd share.

I've been doing lens cap pinholes for my dslrs too and I shoot with them sometimes, but the most interesting thing film still offers over digital is curved film plane for panorama shooting. I can twist and curve the film plane in nearly every direction for manipulating perspective and focal length for each individual part of the film individually.
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