Sensitometry and the Plotter/Matcher, Part I
Backing up a bit from yesterday, I acknowledge that a number of people were mystified as to, well, what the heck I was talking about. A densitometer, more specifically a transmission densitometer, is simply a device for measuring densities—usually, for...
Amazon Deal of the Day: Canon XS DSLR
Amazon's Deal of the Day today (I pass these along if they're directly photo-related) is the Canon Rebel XS on closeout, with the surprisingly good EF-S 18–55mm ƒ/3.5–5.6 IS lens, for $399. The recently discontinued XS, you remember, was the...
Densitometers for Large-Format B&W Photography
When I took the helm at Photo Techniques magazine in 1994, the outgoing Editor, David Alan Jay, told me that the three things readers most needed to "fully participate in the life of the magazine" were a large format camera,...
Friday the 13th
Happy Friday the Thirteenth! That's the name of the old Thelonious Monk composition that first appeared in 1954 on the great album Thelonious Monk & Sonny Rollins and that has been covered many times. This is the Steve Lacy version,...
Up With Squares! More on Square Sensor Cameras
By Eduardo Cervantes I was interested in Mike's article the other day called "Why Not Square Sensors?" I have advocated before for square sensors. In the case of a full-frame DSLR, an ideal square sensor would be 36x36 mm in...
Tripod Technology: The Epilogue (Part IV)
You'll recall that we previously followed our hero (me) over hill, over dale, and through the woods on a search for the perfectly adequate tripod, in a series of posts called "Tripod Technology." In Part I, back in June of...
Blog Note: SNAFU
Wow. That doesn't happen very often. I just worked all morning on a post and...lost it. Just hit the wrong key somehow, I guess. Gone. That's a shock. It was the best post I ever wrote, too. Fish that got...
Not-So-Random Excellence: Stephen Gillette
After my post the other day about circular prints, TOP reader Stephen Gillette sent me a link to some of his own work in circular format that I liked a lot. He quipped, "I have a mild addiction for circular...
How to ‘Scan’ Film with a CameraWell (Part 2)
Editor's Introduction: This week's column from Ctein, a continuation of last week's, outlines the technique needed for a procedure we don't necessarily recommend. Ctein's purpose in these columns is a) to help people who are trying this as well as...
Eve Arnold 19122012
Eve Arnold on the Set of Becket, 1963. Photo by Robert Penn/Magnum Eve Arnold, the first woman to become a Magnum photojournalist, died last Wednesday at the age of 99. An American expatriate, she lived in Great Britain for many...
Sigma Primes for Mirrorless
At CES yesterday, Sigma announced two prime (i.e., single-focal-length) lenses available in lensmounts for either of two mirrorless camera systems—its first lenses for the formats. The new 30mm ƒ/2.8 EX "Digital Neo" (DN) lens has a focal length equivalent of...
Canon G1X and Fujifilm X-Pro 1
Well now this is interesting—and unexpected. Here I was looking around at the official announcements for the very cool new Fuji interchangeable-lens X-Pro 1 at CES, and what crops up but this Canon "G" camera with a nearly APS-C-sized CMOS...
