Just kidding, but after I made the video you can check here, where I talk about the new trend of AI creating photography, this idea came to my mind… what if? lol

Let me know what you think about the use of AI in the creation of art!

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I made a test with two different negatives: a very soft flower subject lighted with painted light and a very sharp subject lighted with a very contrasted light. I wanted to see how this printing process deals with different subjects.

I proceeded with some step test to find the corrected exposure for my negatives. I did 2 seconds steps and as you can see in the video I was a little optimist with my first strip of 2,4,6,8 seconds exposure. At the end the correct exposure resulted of 11 minutes.

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You can see the tests I made in the video below.

I was expecting shorter exposure times ’cause I seen some other boxes made with the same LED giving short exposure times with other alternative processes.

Still I like the slow times when I work with film and so I kinda like to have time to think while I wait for the paper to be exposed.

The Arduino timer is working greatly and it’s a pleasure to use this box!

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I have to learn to pose the emulsion better on the paper. The thickness came out not uniform and there are spots where the emulsion did not spread at all on the paper. Still I have a lot to learn but as a fist try I’m quite satisfied of the results.

The LabOldTech2000 kit is very easy to use and complete.

See you next time with new projects!

I used that camera professionally for years and I had always been impressed by the construction quality and results.

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Until the next time…

“The boy with a camera for a face” directed by Spencer Brown.

This 15 minutes short movie tells perfectly the problem of watching vs living.

I consider this a must for every person in the image business.

Enjoy it!

Few days ago I wrote an article on my blog, and it was kind of viral in the photography world. Many FaceBook pages and websites re-posted it and, out of curiosity, I went to explore who re-posted my article.
Some of the pages were for beginners and others for a more general public and in both categories, and specially the beginner side, I noticed that most of the articles were about cameras, software and gadgets. The idea is “what a camera with what new tool and that software can do”.

Nothing bad in this but I was attracted by the comments, specially from the beginners. A lot of people asking questions like “How do I expose for portraits?”, “How do I expose for weddings?”, “What lens is best for X or Y?”, ”I’m experimenting with manual, what settings I have to start with?” and so on.

I learned photography with film, mostly large format view camera and medium format Hasselblad, and every time I read questions about how to expose for a particular subject I think in the digital era we are missing the basics.

Photography is not rocket science and can be learned by a 10 years old kid. Technically all we need to know are few simple formulas and rules:

• Aperture-Shutter Speed-ISO relation
• What is a medium grey (how the exposure meter works)
• How to manage the depth of field
• Focus the camera, Shiempflug rule if we use a view camera or tilt and shift lenses.

There is nothing more, technically, in photography. To make great images we need talent, creativity, composition knowledge and a ton of other skills and experiences, but to make a technically correct picture we just need the few concepts I stated before.

To expose for each subject we simply need to know how to expose in general and be conscious of the results we want. To be creative and create correct pictures we do not need a ton of gadgets in our cameras, we do not even need our camera to have the coffee plugin, we just need to be able to control the lens aperture, shutter speed and focus.

Why at least 80% of the people starting with photography don’t feel the need to learn the simple basic rules as we did when we were using film?

I think the answer is mostly the marketing of the smartphones era. People look at advertise where someone became the best director in Hollywood just because bought the last smartphone and expressed his creativity with the simple touch of a button. People look at advertise and think they can become the best in a field because they own a tool. Who will buy a tool if the advertise will tell that, in reality, there is the need to work hard and study?

The photography market needs to make money and go for the big numbers, the big numbers means a wide audience, as wide as the smartphone market. Also the cameras and editing softwares now are advertised and perceived as something magical that will make everybody great with the touch of a button.

The generic answer to the beginners’ questions is simply to read the f&$@%& manual, I even wrote one!

But since I was talking about the best tools for a photographer here is what I think is essential for every beginner:

• a piece of cardboard with a hole exactly the size of your sensor
• an external Spotmeter (easy to find used ones on eBay)

To learn to be a photographer and to create images it’s essential to develop a photographic “eye” that we can use every moment, even when we do not have the camera with us.

The black cardboard with the sensor size cut in it teaches us how to see the world in a frame and without the stereo vision. It teaches how the focal length works because the distance between our eye and the cardboard is exactly equivalent to the focal length we will need to have the same field of view, and most important teaches us to observe the perspective in relationship with our position relative to the subject.

A great aspect of the black cardboard is that is not a filter between us and the world, we continue to see the real world and not a reproduction on the display or electronic viewfinder of our camera.

Since I started to work with the Fuji X-Pro, I followed some Fuji blogs and a lot of time I read about people never using the optical viewfinder but only the EVF. I love the optical viewfinder because it let me visualize the image in my mind before I click the button. The EVF can be great to check the image and see if the parameters are correct, but when I look at it I already see the image interpreted by the camera in the way the camera is designed to take it. I want my mind to create the picture and the camera to follow my view.
To look at the image already formed on a display is not the same as to look at the reality and get immersed in the feeling. Our eyes have a specific dynamic range, contrast and white balance that is different from the digital sensor and the display. If we get used to watch the world thru the display we loose what makes our personal vision unique and we all risk to produce the same pictures.

The Spotmeter is another essential tool to learn. It forces us to learn the zone system, understand the light differences in our subjects and test our cameras.
With the camera meters we tend to let the camera choose for us and we think in the limits of the camera. I love to use the camera meters and my camera is in auto mode a lot of times, I think “P” can mean “Professional” if we know our camera and what we are doing but, if we want to learn, the best choice we have is to use an external spot meter. With the spot meter we need to understand what is a medium grey, how our camera manages it, the dynamic range of the sensor and the limits of the camera/software.

The reality has a dynamic range that can be much wider than the dynamic range the sensor can manage, we need to know it, how to measure it, how to expose it and how to go beyond the limits.

We need to learn that there are not the right exposure settings for weddings, portraits, still life and so on, but every single image has different needs and each person sees the reality in a different way and we must learn how to transfer our particular vision of each subject in our images.
If we know the few simple rules of photography we will be able to expose for every subject and get correct pictures without the need to ask for help on photographic blogs and we will be able to concentrate on our vision and the creative aspect of photography.

A dark cardboard, an external spot meter and a good book is all we need to learn the basics of photography and be happy ever after being in control of our tools, basic or advanced! All of this do not require more than ten days.

Learn the basics and have fun!

Last year I bought a new Fuji X-Pro-1, it was a great deal few days before the XPro2 was on the market, I bought it as a camera to keep in my pockets not really as a serious option but I loved it since I started to take the first pictures. I even bought a second one used and converted it to infrared.

The quality of the RAW file is incredible and so the quality of the lenses. I really enjoy the OVF and the option to switch to EVF sometime. Low or high ISO the quality is superb and I started to bring the camera with me always, something that I was not doing with the much bigger and heavier Canon 1DSMkIII I own. Every single time I develop the RAWs I like it a little more.

So I cannot be happier and I hope I will get the X-Pro-2 very soon.

But… I hate absolutely all the buttons and wheels that get pushed and moved anytime I take the camera in my hands from the bag. The macro function seems made only to make me worry that the OVF/EVF switch is broken every time I push it accidentally and I get stuck in EVF. The exposure compensation get always out of the zero and I under or over expose pictures because I do not like to have always the display on to check… all the buttons soon or later get pushed accidentally. It makes me crazy!

So, dear Fuji, why you do not put an option in the firmware to disable the buttons and dials? I know, I’m a dinosaur in the modern photography because I need only shutter speed, aperture and ISO, 90% of the time. But Leica made money with a model without even the display!
Some line of code in the firmware and we will be able to personalize the camera, turning off all the buttons we want and the camera could go back and forth, from normal to limited function, with something simple as pressing one of the annoying buttons for more than 3 seconds or something similar.

Personally I would be happy with all the buttons and dials inactive but play, shutter speed and aperture. Other people can have other needs but I think that can be easy to customize with a menu similar to the menu used to choose what to display in the OVF.
The fun part is that this can be done on all past, present and future models.

Dear Fuji, I already love you but with that option you will save me a lot of money for couple therapy because I start to curse when I accidentally push you the wrong button!

Please, dear Fuji, listen to me… I even have a ring ready for you to make this relationship stable in time!

Whit love and a little hate.

A little update few days later… someone made me notice that pressing the OK/MENU for two seconds lock the selector avoiding to go accidentally in macro mode. I missed that in the manual, my fault ooooops, but still I would love to turn off also the other buttons and the exposure compensation dial… but this is better than nothing.