Archive
In October, 2009, I remodeled this website. I had a lot of articles on various subjects. Nearly all of those articles got abandoned in the remodel.
Some of it was abandoned because it no longer reflected my current thinking. Some of it was abandoned because with the advance of technology, it was no longer meaningful (e.g. articles on films that are no longer produced.) And some of it was abandoned because it was just too much work to reformat the article relative to how worthwhile I thought the material was.
So some of the stuff, I'm not willing to bring back. I've gone through, and made a sort of index of stuff that's gone that I'd be willing to resurrect. If it's not on this list, I'm sorry, I'm not resurrecting it no matter what. If it's on this list, it's something I'd be willing to consider resurrecting. Digging up the article, reformatting it to match the current website, adding any explanatory disclaimers needed, and putting it online again is a nontrivial amount of work for me. If I don't impose some cost on people who want to bring things back, everyone will value my time at zero, and I'll spend countless hours resurrecting stuff that isn't actually important.
So, if you want me to resurrect an article you find listed below, you need to follow the following procedure:
- Make sure that the article you want is listed below. Send me an email, and let me know which article you want. I'll let you know that I'm either willing to resurrect it, or that I'm not.
- If I tell you I'm willing, and you're still interested, make a US$10 contribution to either HopeLink of King County (my local food bank) or Habitat of East King County
- Send me some confirmation of your contribution (e.g. a copy of the email confirm, or something) to me via email
I'll then go dig up the article, reformat it to match the new site, and post it in an archive section. This scheme generates a little cash for those charities, is not overly burdensome to someone who really wants an article put back on the web, and at the same time keeps people from squandering my time by making requests they aren't really serious about.
So far, the following folks have donated to bring articles back: Tom Dills, Sanjay Madan. A total of 8 articles have been restored, and a considerable sum has been donated to Hopelink. Thanks for your generosity!
Here's a list of the stuff that remains abandoned. It's grouped in more or less the way that the original articles and reviews were grouped.
Film Development and Scanning
Tuning the Hybrid Film/Digital process Part one - film calibration
Although I'm always looking at the current contenders for replacing large format film with digital capture, they're not there yet. So, I've decided to see how much the hybrid film/digital process can be optimized if we are willing to tailor negatives to scanning instead of printing on gelatin-silver papers.
The first step in this optimization process is to get complete control of film development for a variety of developers and the films I regularly use.
The result is a huge table of film development times and temperatures, for N-2, N-1, N, N+1, N+2, for D-76 (both straight and 1+1), Microdol-X (both straight and 1+3), and XTOL (straight, 1+1, 1+2, 1+3).
[Note: all the films used in this article are older versions of the current emulsions. You won't be able to just use the times from the tables. This article would be useful only to someone interested in the methodology I used.]
Digital Printing
How Big Can You Print?
The first question everyone asks when they find out I'm using an EOS-5d is "How big can you print?" That turns out to be a simple question with a complicated answer. Prints from digital capture and film capture scale differently, so the answer is "It depends". In fact, it depends on a lot of different factors.
Digital Myth #1 - Staircase Interpolation
For some time now, I've been very dubious about claims that you're better off uprezzing an image in steps of 10%, rather than just doing it all in one shot.
It's time to put it to the test. I compare the results of photoshop's bicubic, bicubic smoother, and the much ballyhooed Staircase Interpolation method, and we look at the results to see which is best.
Conclusion: don't bother with staircase interpolation.
Traditional B&W darkroom work
The Zone System and Variable Contrast Paper
When Ansel Adams and Fred Archer introduced the Zone system in 1939 there were no VC papers, and so one of the goals of the Zone system was to plan negative exposure and development so that the visualized print could be made on Grade 2 paper. Instead of graded papers, Variable Contrast papers now dominate the market, allowing a printer to vary the contrast of the material across an extreme range. This raises the question - Why not just give all of our film the same development, and then make any needed adjustments using the controls VC paper gives us?
That's what I wanted to know, and when I went looking for the answers, I found very little information. This article summarizes the results from my first experiment.
Tmax-100 and Neopan 100 Acros Compared
My recent move (and switch from municipal water to well water) forced me to recalibrate all my development times. I took advantage of the opportunity to do a rough comparison of the two black and white films available in packets - Kodak Tmax-100 (aka TMX and 100Tmax) and Fuji Neopan 100 Acros.
Variable Contrast Printing
My article on calibrating a dichroic enlarging head for use as a VCCE light source when printing on variable contrast black and white printing papers. This is an updated version of what appeared in Photo Techniques in February 1998.
VC Paper Myths and Color Theory
An article I wrote discussing color theory, how it applies to VC papers, filtration, and a whole host of myths surrounding black and white printing on VC materials.
Choosing Black and White film
I teach one on one darkroom lessons. This was written as a handout for the first session, dealing with selecting black and white film and covering the basics of exposure.
Black and White film developing
This was written for the second session, covering film developing. It covers loading tanks, reel type, developer choice, and the whole process of developing film, from getting the film out of the cassette and into the tank through drying it.
Large Format
My Large Format Kit
Recently, Tuan Luong posted an excellent article to www.largeformatphotography.info which described, in detail and with photos, what Tuan carries.
I found that pretty interesting, as did others. Here's what my large format kit looks like.
Choosing a Large Format Camera
Here's a first draft of some thoughts on choosing a large format camera.
Other Stuff
Dry Mounting Prints
A brief rundown on how I dry mount prints.
Theater Photography 101
My lessons learned (and suggestions) from my very brief (so far) period doing production photographs for plays. Tips on technique, equipment, materials, etc.