On Dec 25, 2018, Paul Schlyter wrote
(in t):

On Mon, 24 Dec 2018 22:54:55 -0600,
wrote:
On Dec 24, 2018, Paul Schlyter wrote
(in et):
On Sun, 23 Dec 2018 18:30:49 -0600,
wrote:
Way back in the late 70s early 80s I did, for a while, try
photography with
my scopes, but otherwise I have been strictly a visual
observer. I cant
believe the great stuff that we have these days. I am not
really a fan of
digital photography in many ways, I loved shooting film, and
that was how I
did astro photos back then.

You can still shoot film if that's what you enjoy to do.

The camera stores near me hardly carry any film anymore, except for
4x5 or
8x10. And I have gotten out of the habits I used to have. I love my
smart
phone for its ability to grab shots that pop up unexpectedly.

The camera in your smart phone is a digital camera so that makes you
a fan of digital photography.

Because it is at hand at all times. This I find a very good thing. But, like
the audio guys will argue about tube versus digital amps, the old stuff
“feels” better, or looks better. It is emotional, I know that.

When I pulled that old range-finder camera out with that large chunk of glass
on it I knew exactly what it would do from lots and lots of practice. I knew
how to manipulate the controls to get just the sort of shot I wanted. With
digital cameras you have to deal with some other persons decisions that are
built into the software and sometimes those decisions are so burned in you
can’t get around them. And, to be honest, shooting a dark street scene I
could adjust things to get what I wanted, which is a dark street scene with
real blacks, saturated color where there is color. I have never been able to
do anywhere as well with digital, it feels “flatter,” grayer instead of
real blacks.

It is all about the feels, emotions. I always found film, B&W or color
negative seemed to work with me. Daylight shots, digital is fine, but for
emotional “color” I love film and long shutter times, huge depth of
field, dark but not gloomy. “Bright Blackness” is an oxymoron but it
works, for me.

One of my favorite shots was taken at about 3 in the morning in SF, from the
top of a hill looking down a long street towards the bay, shortly after a
light rain, a dinner in the left distance with night owls having something to
eat before handing home, the dark streets glimmering from distant lights
reflecting from the water still on them, and a couple walking to their car,
crossing the street. This shot had the lens open for 6 full seconds,
basically hand-held, I had plastered myself against a brick wall not
breathing, braced myself as well as I possibly could as I counted the seconds
until I could close the shutter. I took that shot 10 times that night, one
came out perfect, in my opinion. The print was mostly black, little dots of
white, red, green and blue reflections off the wet streets and the people
that could be seen inside of the dinner and that couple, somewhat blurred,
but to me it said that they were in love and I think it came through. Even
the cat that sat there watching me make a fool out of myself remained quiet
while I got that shot. (No, the cat was not in the shot. He would have been
far too close and too bright, it would have been the center of attention, not
the couple in the distance.)

No, I was not trying to reproduce The Night Owls dinner painting though it is
a favorite of mine.

It’s all about the feels, man. ;-)

Oh, and about that video capability, I don’t do video, never have. It just
doesn’t feel right for me, more power to those that enjoy doing it. I like
trying to catch humanity in a moment, I may fail often but every once in a
while I would luck out, through practice and stubbornness, and get a good
shot that says what I want it to say. Which, strangely enough, is in the
middle of the night on near empty streets or beaches, sometimes after a light
rain. But mostly I want that photo to speak to me, not so much for me. If it
says something to me, I got it right, and I am happy.

Oh yes, I know I could have carried a tripod with me, but I liked having to
work for a shot without having to have half of an studio in a car. I wanted
something that did not scream “guy carrying a lot of expensive equipment
around in the dark.” Sometimes I carried a mono-pod, this had the advantage
of being useful in any number of ways, including being handy as a walking
stick if there were a lot of hills and SF had a lot of steep hills. I think I
went about photo equipment like I did with bicycling or camping, I liked to
keep it light and easy to carry anywhere, so I pretty much stuck with a total
of three lens on three cameras, Most times I carried two camera bodies, all
three lens, a mono-pod, a light meter and film, lots of film, a roll or two
of HP-5 or Tri-X, and three or four rolls of a good, fairly fast color
negative film. Maybe a roll of a slow ASA B&W film if I was going to be out
until dawn, I enjoyed taking shots of dew-covered flowers in the early light.
Oh yes, spare batteries for the light meter, just in case. I did learn my
lesson on that subject.

The nice thing about this setup is that it didn’t take up a lot of room in
my locker on my ship. On a Navy ship space is precious, you never have enough
that you actually can control. This is why I never got into developing color
film, took up too much room for the chemicals and equipment. I could develop
my B&W stuff, but I had them printed elsewhere. A good camera shop with a
really good print tech was a friend worth developing a friendship with, they
get to know what you shoot and how you like them to look and will actually
listen to you if you let them know you have made a change. You always
remember them at Christmas and their birthdays. Finding a print tech that
likes a challenge isn’t, or wasn’t, that hard back then. I am pretty sure
those are getting much harder to find these days.

The digital cameras are more than just DSLR cameras where a digital
sensor has replaced the film. Almost all digital cameras now also has
video capability. There are really small "adventure cameras" you can
bring along in conditions where you wouldn't bring your regular
camera. There are surround cameras which photograph in every possible
direction all over the 55000 square degrees over the entire sphere
around the camera. Some sky watchers set upp all-sky cameras (which
photograph only half the sphere) and run them all night long every
night and examine the time-lapse movies afterwards. A lot of this
would hardly have been possible with older film cameras.

But those are not the photos I was taking. (Gee, for some reason that line
sounds a bit overly familiar. ;-)

--
Harry F. Leopold
aa #2076
AA/Vet #4
The Prints of Darkness (remove gene to email)

“When I am stupid, that is when I am STRONG“ - Codebreaker