Two days after the disastrous earthquake that devastated Kobe, Japan earlier this year, professional photographer Arao Yokogi documented the destruction with an 8x10 view camera. The large-format images record each horrific scene in excruciating detail.
What’s the scoop for taking winning pictures? Add something special!
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1st ($300) Great leap forward: It was pouring rain (notice water droplets at bottom of white hurdle) when Brett Hall of Huntington, West Virginia, a stringer for the Huntington Herald Dispatch, arrived at Fairland High School to take photos of their top track star.
Think our November ’45 cover pic of noted jazz pianist Hazel Scott is pretty spiffy? It should be—it was taken by renowned photojournalist W. Eugene Smith with a 4x5 Speed Graphic on Kodachrome Type B sheetfilm, using open flash, six flashbulbs, and a 2A conversion filter!
Sure your camera’s important, but it's the system that counts.
35MM SLR CAMERA AND LENS CHECKOFF
ACCESSORIES YOU OUGHT TO HAVE. CHECK ’EM OUT...
Just when you thought zooms couldn’t zoom any further
A bag that doesn't look like one
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Herbert Keppler
“Oh, you’re still using those old cameras?!” remarked a friend. “I was sure you’d have the newest camera around.” As it happens, I had been testing such a camera. When a new SLR is announced, I’ve probably already had it for a few weeks so I can report to you in advance on its good points and the errors of its ways.
Careful precision rather than motorized mayhem marked his picture taking
He liked older cameras
Use a tripod if you can
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Herbert Keppler
With the death of 96-year-old Alfred Eisenstaedt on August 24, the picture book closed on the golden age of photojournalism. During photojournalism’s heyday from the 1930’s to the 1970’s, Life magazine brought world events, photo essays, and scientific advances to us weekly in a printed form that had a power, permanency, and impact far different than today’s TV-news sound-and-sight bytes.
Two mistakes casual point-and-shooters consistently make with their flash selection: • They forget to turn the flash on in daylight. • They forget to turn the flash off for low-light shots. How’s that again? Flash for daylight, no flash at night?
Though they probably wouldn’t admit it, even the most accomplished professional photographers sometimes develop camcorder envy. After all, does a still photo really do justice to a baby taking his first steps while his parents cheer him on?
Readers had nothing but love letters and hate mail for “Woman of Letters,” our last “You Be The Judge” image [June ’95, page 25]. While some enjoyed the seemingly relaxed subject contrasted against the extremely busy background, others interpreted the picture as a high-energy tribute to the colorfully cluttered life that is urban America.
The Mamiya 7: Its format is bigger; is the camera better?
Quick Guide to What’s New
Optical options
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The Mamiya 7 has a size, weight, shape, exposure system, and a convenient set of handling characteristics that put it closer to 35mm rangefinders than to other interchangeable-lens, medium-format cameras. It’s a slightly larger version of the Mamiya 6 MF, and produces ten ideal-format images (2¼ X 2¾ inches) on a roll of 120 film, compared to twelve 2¼ x 2¼-inch frames.
With plants and flowers, an exotic nature shot may be just a mall away!
A Sunflower Study: Tips & Tricks For Getting Really Close
Wind blocks and light softeners
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Tim Davis
Renee Lynn
Somewhere right now a plant is blooming. The flower is getting its first look at the blue sky, its first feel of a warming light on its petals. Colors are bursting out, trying to attract a pollinator—a bee or a bird. This bloom might be peeking out in the deep forests of Indonesia, the mountain tops of Peru, or, better yet, right down the street in a greenhouse, a garden, or on the lawn of the local police station.
With Canon’s ES2000 H18 camcorder, you can meter anywhere in the scene.
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Elinor Stecker-Orel
You compose your picture, positioning your subject agreeably off center, when—oh, oh—you realize the subject is in shadow. With a still camera, you might set it to spotmetering mode, center the subject in the viewfinder, take an exposure reading, and reposition your camera.
For many years I have been using a regular linear polarizing filter with my Canon AE-1 SLR. Recently I purchased a Nikon N8008S auto-everything SLR and have read and been told that I should use a circular polarizing filter with it. Frankly, I do not understand what a circular polarizing filter is or what it can do against linear polarized light.
Why do photographers opt for 2¼ film when the going gets serious?
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J.S
The more professional and serious you are about photography, the more likely you are to own and use a medium-format camera system. Indeed, the roster of medium-format photographers, those who rely on roll-film cameras for the bulk of their work, reads like a Who’s Who of contemporary image makers.
It's not a new question. It's been asked on and off, with varying degrees of objectivity and subjectivity during the 70 or so years that 35mm and 2¼ formats have battled for the allegiance of serious photographers. But the odds have changed.
Jon Ortner raced twilight and traffic lights to create this bestever photo of New York City’s Park Avenue.
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“At about 68th Street, there’s a slight rise in Park Avenue which allows you to look down at all the traffic in front of you,” explains Ortner. “That’s the view I always see traveling south in a cab. “To photograph the whole scene properly, right down to the Helmsley building, I knew I had to compress the traffic with a tele lens.
With far more body styles and image sizes than 35mm, medium format offers something to fit almost every photo requirement. Do you doubt it? Read on.
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Peter Kolonia
Medium-format cameras come in an impressive variety of shapes and sizes. The larger ones like Fuji's 10-pound behemoth, the GX680, are nearly as large and capable as the average 4x5 studio camera. The smaller ones, like the Mamiya 6, are convenient and responsive enough to bring along wherever you might carry a 35mm.
Author Robert Waller’s own photos are far from the staid covered-bridge images of his hero, Robert Kincaid, The Bridges of Madison County photojournalist.
I learn and forget about it
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Herbert Keppler
No mythical photographer has had a more curious non-existence than Robert Kincaid, the supposed National Geo photographer and hero of Robert James Waller’s best-selling The Bridges of Madison County. As we reported in our July 1993 issue [“Photographs by a Phantom?”
Hands on: Excellently finished, handsome lens in satin ZEN black with large, highly legible white-on-black foot and meter markings beneath plastic window. (We would have preferred meter scale in another color to differentiate from footages.)
Large-format shooters are forced to choose between studio or field cameras. The former offers solid construction, substantial weight, and monorails for front and back standards, the latter has a collapsible clamshell design suited to easy transport. Now Toyo, the Japanese large-format specialist, has developed a hybrid of the two. The VX 125, a 5 lb, 8 oz lightweight, features the solid support of a monorail, yet telescopes down to a petite 5 inches giving the compact profile of a clamshell. Made of “new aerospace metal alloys,” the VX 125 features a revolving Graflok-type back, yaw-free operation, geared rise and shift mechanisms, and a micro-fine focusing option. List price: NA. (Mamiya America, 8 Westchester Plaza, Elmsford, NY 10523; 914-347-3300.)
Mamiya America
85-210mm f/3.5 Cinelux AV
$737
Those of us who take slide shows on the road know what a bugaboo room size can be. Presentation rooms can vary from 10x10-foot closets to 1,000x 1,000-foot barns. Slides project at either the size of postage stamps or as giant, diffuse ghosts. The answer, of course, is a projector lens that zooms to throw a large, bright image from most common projector-to-screen distances. Few projector zoom lenses possess a zoom range as ample as Schneider’s new 85-210mm f/3.5 Cinelux AV. The 1:2.5 zoom range means you can work almost any size room successfully. As a true zoom, it allows you to crop in on a slide while viewing it, without having to refocus the lens (or move the projector). List price: $737. (Schneider Corp. of America, 400 Crossways Park Drive, Woodbury, NY 17097; 516-496-8500.)
Mamiya America
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There’s no reason to pay outrageous Hollywood prices for a title slate used to identify rolls or sequences. Not when you can pay Cedar Falls (Iowa) prices. Porter’s Camera Store (headquartered in the aforementioned Cedar Falls) now offers a sturdy Photographer’s Slate of grease-pencil-ready white acrylic. As long as you use a nonpermanent marker, you can jot down roll number, shoot location, lens used, “take,” or whatever on the slate, shoot it, and wipe it clean with a tissue or cloth. Available in 4x5 or 8x10 sizes, it lists for $8.95 and $9.95 respectively. As the picture shows, the backside of the 8x10-inch slate is an 18-percent gray card! (Porter’s Camera Store, P.O. Box 628, Cedar Falls, IA 50613; 800-553-2001.)
Mamiya America
Skin Coat
$6.95
If you’re one of the many photographers discouraged from darkroom work because of your skin’s allergic reaction to photo chemicals, don’t throw in the tongs yet! Space-age barrier creams designed to protect the skin from chemicals much more potent than Dektol may offer you more than adequate protection. Skin Coat Protective Skin Barrier is claimed capable of keeping up to 17,000 caustic chemicals from penetrating your sensitive epidermis—while allowing the skin to breathe and perspire normally. Non-toxic and bio-degradable, Skin Coat even promises to protect your fingers from serious stains from dyes and toners. List price: $6.95 for 4 oz; $13.95 for 12 oz. (Skin Coat North America, Inc., Verdugo City, CA 91406; 800-600-1881.
Mamiya America
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In operation, it’s a rather ordinary wooden tripod with crutch-style legs and a pan/tilt head. Nevertheless, for the photographer wanting to make a design statement, the KB ONE Tripod will scream one for you. This three-legger is practically a piece of furniture. Its wooden parts are available in beautifully-finished eastern white ash, black walnut, mahogany, or purple heart (looks like rosewood). That pan/tilt head can be of cast and polished brass or cast aluminum with polished or epoxy-coated finishings. The latter option is available in either black or vanilla color. Its strap lugs can be polished brass or stainless steel, which can be epoxy-coated or polished. Only problem with the KB One? It’s too beautiful to use! Prices vary with materials. (KB Systems, 10407 62nd Place West, Mukilteo, WA 98275; 800-423-9677.)
Mamiya America
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Compact camera shooters who’ve looked longingly at the shoulder-friendly camera straps of neoprene enjoyed by SLR users, shuck off your strap envy: now there’s a neoprene shoulder strap for the point ’n shoot set called the Cinch Strap. Claimed to make your P/S feel 50-percent lighter, the Cinch Strap’s ¼-inch deep swath of spongy neoprene is easy on the shoulder—and in several different colors, easy on the eyes, too. Adjustable from 9 to 20 inches. (OP/Tech USA, 290 Arden Dr., Belgrade, MT 59714; 800-251-7815.)
Is there a color film that does not produce yellow prints with low-light exposures? Or should the lab be told that the film was shot in low light so they can subtract yellow when printing? Nicholas Malafis, Waltham, MA The problem is not the intensity of the light, but its color temperature.