Personal ramblings on photography
Petapixel reports Two-Thirds of the Limited Edition X100VI Sales in the U.S. Were Fraudulent.
Scalpers are enabled by ebay and Amazon. But then I see no purpose of “limited edition” items either. Such a camera is meant to be used.
To be fair, I’d like a Fujifilm X100VI, but the regular one, as it will take the same images than the limited edition but definitely cost less.
Analog Cafe retells A Brief History of Polaroid.
The original Polaroid has been out of business for a while, and after some brand necrophilia, the current Polaroid owns the part that aimed at resurrecting Polaroid flagship product: instant film.
Beau Photo tells us Hasselblad “The Holy Grail” XPan – Is it worth it?:
I’ve shot with the XPan numerous times, and each time I would put my clown mask on and tell myself that this camera will be mine someday. After a year of using this camera, I believe the XPan is worth it.
I remember more than 20 years ago hearing about the Hasselblad XPan, or its Japanese original, the Fujifilm TX-1 (the Hasselblad is actually just a rebadged Fujifilm). It was expensive, its lenses were expensive.
But what is it? It is a rangefinder film camera that could shoot in panoramic format, 24x65mm on a 35mm film (135) as well as the standard 24x36mm. It was pretty much the only option for panoramic photography without using a rotating lens like the Horizon or Widelux cameras, or without getting an expensive Mamiya 7 with the adapter to use 135 film instead of the 6×7 120 film frames.
I remember reading an article where the photographer used the XPan to cover a bicycle race. And vertically framed pictures showed us how unique this camera could be.
Too bad it is even more expensive now.
This is not the first time Polaroid Spectra film becomes discontinued. The first time was when Polaroid went under and the remaining stock depleted. DPReview now reports that Polaroid Originals is stopping the production of Spectra film because the remaining cameras are now aging, unrepairable, and there is nothing they can do about it.
This is a bigger problem with film photography in general that I wrote about previously: the whole production supply chain, from cameras to film processors and scanners is in danger. Nobody develops new hardware, because it requires a lot of R&D and the old one is becoming harder and harder to repair, non withstanding for processors and scanner where the software is antique and only runs on obsolete systems.
The Huffington Post Canada has an article about Self(ie) destruction. They put it bluntly:
Destruction has become its own genre of self-portraiture. We break things, harass lounging and peaceful animals, and ruin the fun for everyone. Our faces, apparently, are that important.
When you think you are more important than the environment surrounding you… There are ways to take selfies responsibly, but destruction is not one of them.
There are other example of people falling to their death for the sake of a selfie.
Keigo Moriyama on Emulsive explains How to shoot Instax Square in an Instax Wide camera:
One of the characteristics of these [instant film] cameras is that we can choose only one format for one camera.
[…]
The adapter design is a really simple one. Just a few rectangular shapes extruded here and there to fit in both wide and square format.
Keigo then demonstrate the prototype in a video:
It’s interesting to see all the hacks around Instax cameras.
The future of film doesn’t look bright.
First, James Cater write Film is Alive!… But it May Have a Terminal Illness, where the author expands on how the tech satellite to film is backwards: minilab and cameras, neither of these are being developed or even manufactured.
Second, the industry is in turnmoil.
The spun-off company that still make Kodak film, Kodak Alaris, is looking to sell its film and paper unit, for a meager $34M, and this shortly after announcing that the just revived Ektachrome 100 slide film would be made available in sheet and 120 format in April, in addition to the currently available 35mm.
Meanwhile, Tetenal, the European film chemistry manufacturer face closure after 172 years of activity. And this is bad news, even after CineStill new chemistry announcement.
PetaPixel has a closer look at Tetenal:
Without Tetenal’s chemistry branch, a lot of photographers, photofinishers, labs, printing companies and even the once so mighty Kodak itself might be left out in the rain, as Tetenal reportedly produces not only chemistry for EU distribution under license from Kodak but directly produces source chemicals for Kodak’s U.S. manufacturing.
and
Another immediate effect of Tetenal’s demise might be a supply glitch for RA-4 paper chemistry that many labs, finishers, and printing companies rely on.
This does not look good at all.
Thom from Sans Mirror speculate on the mirrorless market in 2019. He gives us a manufacturer by manufacturer play:
Clearly, all the camera makers—other than Pentax, who’s still wandering around in the woods somewhere seeing if trees make noises when they fall—are going to be executing significantly in the mirrorless realm in the future. We’re now clearly into the DSLR-to-mirrorless transition period. How long that transition will take depends upon how fast the camera makers move.
This is what I’m predicting too: DSLR is down, mirrorless is up. It is a technological move and while it will not fundamentally change the way we use cameras, it will definitely shape its evolution.
From Fujilove, Firmware Updates For GFX 50S, X-T3 and X-H1 Coming Soon.
Fujifilm is still improving the camera they already sold. My X-T3 will be happy with the video improvement.
The Computational Photographer wrote The DSLR will probably die. Are mirrorless the future of large standalone cameras?.
Let’s see why I think the reflex design is doomed, even though it has dominated serious photography for decades.
[…]
The DSLR has to die because the mirror is too high a cost for its diminishing benefits. The mirror adds to the complexity of the camera and its manufacturing, it makes the camera bigger, and it introduces challenges for lens design. And its advantages don’t extend to video, which is an increasingly important usage case.
[…]
Furthermore, the mirror in DSLR severely constrains the design of lenses, by preventing lens elements to be placed near the sensor.
This goes in the same way as what I wrote in September in The future is mirrorless. The reflex design was addressing a constraint to be able provide a through-the-lens view which is now provided using the current sensor technology.