Category: Links

The Fujifilm Baby box

At a time where people mostly use digital cameras for family pictures, with phone becoming more and more the prevalent tool to snap family memories, Fujifilm is trying to bring the instant film back to fashion, outside of the niche market by offering the Baby Box as Tokyo Camera Style is telling us back in November. The Baby box is meant to help you document the early days of your child.

The box encourages parents to take a photo of their child every day to document their first year of life. Rather than just a bunch of digital files on their mom’s iPhone, these lucky kids will actually end up with an actual album of actual photographs to look back though for the rest of their lives.

Let’s hope people realize the importance of the physical picture that generations discover in shoe boxes and albums – and don’t require the complicated maintenance that electronic archive need.

What Kodak could still learn from Polaroid

Christopher Bonanos write for the Washington Post: What Kodak could still learn from Polaroid. He goes on to explain the mistakes of Polaroid and what Kodak should learn from that to survive and keep film coming. The key argument is right here:

Yes, the remaining buyers of film are weighing this technology against digital methods of image-making. But they’re not choosing film for reasons of economy; it could never compete. They are choosing it for a particular look and feel, and because they want to differentiate themselves. Some are old-school professionals who prefer to work in familiar ways.

Bonanos is the author of Instant: The Story of Polaroid that I recommend.

Home C-41 colour negative film processing

Pixelogist talk about Developing C-41 Colour Negative Film explain how simply it can be done at home.

Alright, developing C-41 is pretty similar to the black and white process. The equipment is the same, so just check out my previous post on developing equipment to know what you will need. All of it applies — developing tank, beakers, thermometer, timer — all that. The chemistry is different but again, there’s developer, there’s fixer, and there’s something afterwards. The process, while different in order and times, is also very similar to the black and white process, so if you’ve worked black and white before, you should have no trouble with C-41.

My take: it might be harder to obtain the chemicals than to actually do it.

Why I think the M6 is the best Leica rangefinder

Japan Camera Hunter (aka Bellamy Hunt) tells us why he think the M6 is the best Leica RF (digital shooters will disapprove).

I have been through a lot of cameras in my time, and I have owned a few different Leica bodies. I have also got the enviable position of being able to try out more cameras than you can shake a stick at, and I have come to a conclusion that may put a few noses out of joint.

I think that the Leica M6 is the best M-series analogue rangefinder camera that Leica ever made! Now that I have your attention let me explain myself.

Cultivating my Leica envy I have to agree with that specific point, now that we can get them for less than 1400$ on the used market (body only !), even though I am an aperture priority kind of guy. I wish I actually had one.

Leica M6 TTL Summicron 50mm f2
Leica M6 TTL Summicron 50mm f2 by Xavier León — Some rights reserved

Buck the Nonexistent Photo Guild

James Duncan Davidson has a lengthy post Buck the Nonexistent Photo Guild (dead link not archived) about how photography for money has changed, mostly driven by technology.

One of the constant messages in photoblog circles is “Don’t work for free!” There are a bunch of arguments for this, from the formal to the informal, but they all pretty much boil down to the fear that if the market is served by others who undercut your prices, they’re reducing the amount of money you can make.

Photography for a living isn’t dead. It is just different, sometime harder because it is more accessible than ever, with cameras that makes things easier to learn and do, digital the make shot virtually cost-less, the Internet that allow spreading all of this knowledge even more widely.

Personalised and unique iPhone cover

No, I’m not trying to pimp a specific brand of cellphone and its accessory, but Say hello to iPlate is a awesome DIY project where the author uses wet collodion glass plate, and old photographic process, to make a personalised iPhone cover. This could work for any device that uses glass, or something that can be replaced by a glass plate.

Digitising film with a DSLR

Scanning Film Negatives With A DSLR – A Maker’s Guide by DIY photography.

Right now I can get higher resolution and better image quality that what street labs give you on CD.

It is not just a matter of photographing the film with a digital camera. There is must much work behind the scene, and given the price and rarity of film scanner, and the performance of even high end flatbed scan with film support like Epson V600 and V700, it might be worth it. I have always thought I good do it that way, but never went the extra effort to actually do it properly. It is probably way easier with black and white.

Remember, slide duplication was done that way, albeit with a specialised duplication film that had some very specific characteristics.

When I build one of these rigs, I’ll let you know.

Fujifilm X-Pro1 8000 frame user review

Prophotonut: Fujifilm X-Pro 1 ~ 8000 frame user review, by Damien Lovegrove, where he took the camera on a trip.

The X-Pro1 is a camera that I believe is best suited for street, travel and portrait photography. It’s not at home in a flash lit studio and it’s not fast enough for any sort of action photography. It’s definitely a niche camera and one I will love using on a daily basis.