The first large format monorail cameras appeared on the market in the late 1940s and early '50s from European manufacturers like Linhof and Sinar. Linhof's first monorail, the original Kardan, was released in '52, the same year the German company moved into worldwide distribution.
Monorails were quickly adopted by studio and architectural...
Could your portraits be enhanced by the mysterious, otherworldly glow of a black and white infrared (IR) effect? In the past, pre-digital darkroom, the only way you could get the IR look was shooting special IR film, quite a challenge to expose, process, and print correctly. Working digitally you can avoid many of the pitfalls and gain...
When it was announced in 1995, the Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM zoom was truly unique, as the world's first 35mm system lens with a built-in Image Stabilizer (IS). Versatile, compact, and great for low-light shooting without a tripod, that zoom has been very popular in spite of mixed...
How do you make the transition from hobbyist to professional? What are some of the basic requirements for success? How can you get a competitive edge? How do you get started? These are always questions I get asked in my own seminars and workshops. For some answers, I interviewed Chuck DeLaney, professional photographer for 25 years and Dean of the New York Institute of...
In My Mind's Eye: Seeing In Black And White; by Charlie Waite; Guild of Master Craftsman, Distributed by Sterling Publishing Co. Inc., 387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016; hard cover; 120 pages; $40; (ISBN 1-86108-282-7) Charlie Waite has earned a highly dignified reputation for his beautiful landscapes and this book explores an...
This month I'm going to focus on optimizing your digital images for display on the web. The biggest challenge most photographers face is creating a good print, but web display can be just as challenging and has its own unique set of needs. Images shown on the web or in e-mail need to find a balance between the size and the quality of...
It was the most bizarre sight that a professional photographer had ever seen. When 44-year-old Alexander Gardner got to the Federal Navy Yard in Brooklyn on the morning of April 26, 1865, he found all of his photographic subjects had their heads covered with canvas hoods. Even more bizarrely, it was the Federal government that had sent him there, to photograph for history the...
I never much liked any of Adobe Systems' previous versions of Photoshop Elements. Sure, the program had its place as an $99 alternative for digital imagers on a budget, however, the interface was confusing, trying too hard to be easy to use, and in the process making it more complicated than the...
A 50th anniversary is something very special: a golden anniversary, which is a good trick for something made of silver, is what Kodak Tri-X celebrates this year. The first of the X-films was Panatomic-X in 1938. Two-thirds of a century later, there's some doubt about what the X was for: probably "Extra," as it was faster and sharper and finer grained than the...
Lyson, Inc. has launched its Daylight Darkroom digital black & white printing system. This new imaging system is said to provide photographers the ability to
accurately mirror traditional darkroom techniques, including silver halide printing,
with digital images and an inkjet printer. The complete Lyson Daylight Darkroom
System consists of a Daylight Darkroom Quad Black inks in cartridges or a bulk
feed system, Daylight Darkroom print driver software, the Lyson Darkroom range
of inkjet media, a set of Lyson cleaning cartridges for removal of standard color
inks from the printer and Lyson PrintGuard™ protection spray (optional).
...