Archives for April 2015

The Tokina 80-200/2.8 AT-X SD

Here’s my Tokina 80-200/2.8 AT-X SD. I got this lens used from keh.com some years ago. I was shooting weddings and everyone was raving about how you needed a 70-210/2.8 lens. I shoot Canon cameras and that lens sells for north of $1k and I simply couldn’t afford it. There is a Canon 80-200/2.8L that was fetching $800-ish at the time that I was seriously considering. Then I checked third party lens section on keh’s site and stumbled across this wonderful gem.

If you know Tokina read more

1974 BBC Documentary on the Gandolfi family and their hand made cameras

A fun video on the art and craftsmanship of handmade, large format cameras.

Book: Elmer Batters, From the tip of the toes to the top of the hose.

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Elmer Batters: from the tip of the toes to the top of the hose. When I first read the title of this book I thought “awesome, I love thigh highs!” A lot of my pinup work revolves around retro or vintage lingerie and thigh highs are an essential part of that. Heck I’ve seen pinups of a woman wearing a bathing suit with thigh highs, which is seriously pushing the idea that they go with everything, but if you can’t do that with pinup where can you read more

The Vivitar Series 1 Solid Catadioptric (Solid Cat)

Here we have the Vivitar Series 1 600mm/8 solid catadioptric lens. This was one heck of a find (and a steal) I made years ago. This is hands down *the best* mirror lens ever mass produced for the photography market and contends for the best camera lens made in the USA (With Kodak’s Aero-Ektar IMHO). It was made by Perkin Elmer a sciences and telescope optics company for Vivitar. Most mirror lenses have significant space between the catadioptric elements. This one has none, it is one element. read more

An Urbex Poster is Born

There’s lots to love about shooting medium format film. The tonality is great, the latitude is incredible, and the ability to capture and reproduce fine detail is astounding. One way to really appreciate all this is to print BIG. In my darkroom I can go up to 16×20 which is a pretty serious size print. Problem is big paper is expensive. I usually shoot on the reasonably price Arista RC VC which is a bit over $2/sheet plus shipping. Handling wet FB paper that size is challenging. read more

How much is this Camera Worth?

If you’re like me you’re the family’s camera guy, photographer, photo man and all things photography related. If so you probably get this question a lot: “I have this XYXYXYX film camera, is it worth anything?” Usually someone standing near by could actually hear your eyes rolling. Most times the answer is “No” and not because you want it. It’s just that the film cameras with the highest production numbers were, with few exceptions, consumer oriented read more

The Koni-Omega Rapid

A friend of mine, John Mickevich, posted a picture of a new-to-him Koni-Omega he just received and it made me think I should write up mine. The basics of the camera system is that it’s a 6×7, medium format rangefinder. It has a somewhat unusual dial focusing system, and an extremely unusual film advance and cocking mechanism that’s been likened to a pump action shotgun. This is by no read more