Category: Links

Digitizing negatives

David Lam show us his rig for digitizing negative using a digital camera (dead link) and explain the rational behind his choices.

Back in June, Petapixel had an article about DIY film scanning with LEGO and an iPhone, an interesting alternative approach.

At a time where film scanners are mostly things of the past – where the new models are a niche segment in which flatbed scanners reach the quality that the traditional film scanner used to have, where the old models are abandoned by their vendor whose software was so mediocre that it doesn’t run on modern PCs and where the high quality machines are so expensive, it feels like the best way is to actually use these digitizing devices called digital camera that are quite common. Everything is in the setup.

More Fuji X-Pro2….

The Verge shows us how Fujifilm makes the X-Pro2 and camera lenses in Japan:

I didn’t really know how they were put together. The answer, it turns out, is that they’re not assembled by robots, but by actual humans with a lot of work and care.

A fascinating photo essay.

ephotozine tells about the Fujifilm X-Pro 2 Design, Prototypes, and Manufacture, another view of the manufacturing and also the evolution of the physical design of the prototypes, showing different tests on the controls layout. They also follow up with their own Fujifilm X-Pro 2 First Impressions Review which is not very optimistic on the battery life.

Marius Masalar Fujifilm X-Pro2 review, based on a pre-production model with more close up picture of the body:

I’ve been waiting for the camera that takes everything I love about the X100T and expands the shooting envelope enough to make it viable for work as well as pleasure. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s Fuji who ultimately delivered it in the form of the X-Pro 2.

After reading that, the X-Pro2 is even more tempting than before.

X-Ray and film

Stella loves film

Bokeh talks about the damage of X-Ray on film with a complete practical illustration: where, how many time, which film, and the actual images. Just an example of what can happen.

Just read.

Personally I just avoid as much as I can traveling with film.

Overexposing colour negative

Petapixel has Daniel Lachman tell us how much you can over expose colour negative film:

“What I took away from this is that film basically can’t be overexposed, it can just be too dense for the scanner to be able to shoot through the negative. But the information will always be there.”

My quick take is that you can shoot it at +2 and it will be more tolerant to under exposure error.

Fuji new “body cap” lens

(Petapixel) Fuji’s New XM-FL is an X-Mount Body Cap Lens with Built-In Photo Filters:

Fujifilm has announced a strange new lens over in Japan. It’s called the XM-FL, and it’s a 24mm f/8 body cap-style pancake lens that features built-in photo filters that can be accessed by turning a dial on the side.

Very light, totally “dumb” (ie no electronics), for ~$100, can make for interesting experiments on your Fuji X.

From Fujifilm Japan (in Japanese)

Similar in principle to the Olympus body cap lens in 2013.

Fuji X round up

Zack Arias take on the Fuji X-T1: Yep. It’s A Fuji (archived from the original).

Conclusion… I have zero regrets about selling all of my Canon gear and going Fuji. Zero regrets.

I have to admit, I’m not a pro like him, ie I don’t shoot for a living (also I’m less talented), but since I have my X-Pro1 I haven’t used the Canon much nor even lusted on any piece of gear for it.

Last week I have had my hands shortly on the X-T1 and the EVF is absolutely so much better than the X-Pro1. Non-withstanding the other advantages. If only I could try it longer.

Also don’t miss his Mystical Marrakech video (on YouTube) that he did for Fuji:

Camera lost at sea, found with SD card intact 2 years later

CBC report on a Shipwrecked camera found underwater after 2 years with photos intact:

A camera lost in a shipwreck off the west coast of Vancouver Island two years ago is finally to be returned to its owner — with the memory card and its images intact.

The camera, we can’t really say it survive, but the SD card still in working order 2 years later. Kudos to the researchers for locating the pictures owner, this is a kind gesture.

This show how robust media has become. Try this with a tape, with film, etc. Unlikely you’d be able to salvage them. On the other hand this doesn’t really mean we’ll be able to read them in 50 years, the problem being to actually access the media.

via m43 Rumors

The Hackers Who Recovered NASA’s Lost Lunar photos

First View of Earth from Moon - reprocessed

Wired has an article on The Hackers Who Recovered NASA’s Lost Lunar Photos :

[…] After the low-fi printing, the tapes were shoved into boxes and forgotten.

They changed hands several times over the years, almost getting tossed out before landing in storage in Moorpark, California. Several abortive attempts were made to recover data from the tapes, which were well kept, […]

Read it all, the effort is amazing. It doesn’t matter how you keep the medium, if you can re-read it or decode it, it is useless.

This is a shape of things to come. What will happen to all of those digital archives? These CD or DVD that will be unreadable because we no longer have the drives, or just decayed, these hard drives with obsolete connectors, which, if they ever start, might still hard to use in a few decades. And then what do we do with these RAW files that the camera vendor refuse to document?

These are all the questions we should remember to ask. The next Vivian Maier might never happen in the era of digital as we might unable to recover the content of the shoe box. Not everybody will have the skills of that team that recovered the NASA photos.

Things about the X-E1

Tim Bray wrote a love letter to Fujifilm:

He starts with the conclusion:

It’s the best camera I’ve ever used: Light, wonderful in the hand, perfect controls, astounding lenses, pleasing pictures. So if you were thinking of buying a Serious Camera, this is totally one of the ones you should look at. Or maybe the X-E2; more on that below.

I’ll let you read the rest.

As an X-Pro1 owner I can tell that almost everything applies to it too.