the best way to use these bellows in studio is to rough the focus in with the lens/bellows. then fine focus by moving the camera on the copystand column. a rack & pinion column is a must here. the PB4 lets you swing the front mount and tilt in same plane as well which is quite useful.
the details here were done with the D3X using the extension bellows PB-4, that's the one that swings & tilts. if you are in the market for a used one, this is the one to go for. a 60mm Micro Nikkor was used. I should note this is completely manual interface.
here's a neat object I had in studio this day back in 2019. sorry no set snaps for this, but if I remember right I propped the pistol up on a short brass rod I had in one of the holes I had drilled in the table. I have posted about this before. drilling holes and then poking rods thru the paper.
from the memory feed this morning. back when I had hair nearly 40 yrs ago. sitting on top of roof of a house I lived in, that had been broken up into apartments. mine was one room, rent was $150/month. the house was on top of a hill as a result was one of the tallest in town. I was a PJ student.
aka a “press pack”
it’s a skill set. there can be a steep learning curve if you are trying to learn other skills as well. sometimes you need to slow down and get one thing down then learn another. lighting has been one of the only skills I had from film that I was able to bring forward to digital. I’d say learn light
btw a good free program for editing Nikon NEF files is their Capture NX Studio. If you use the “picture code” settings in the camera, they will copy over to the program and it works well to edit the raw, then you can export to TIFF or JPG. There are a lot of color correction tools in the program
use a gray card or colorbar, grayscale or some sort of reference in tests. this will help in a number of ways, like white balance and knowing the black and white points
Back in 2018 the conservators did a survey of all the cased images in the collection and cleaned them. I did post-conservation images at that time, and while I had copied this on 4x5 chrome years ago, I reshot it using the D3X. this was the companion to the ambrotype above. It's not in great shape
another old chrome I came across this morning looking for something else. I always liked this Civil War era ambrotype of Ellen Richmond Ramseur, like most cased images it's very hard to reproduce what it looks like in real life. there's just a hint of rose tinting in certain areas.
here's another one of my old chromes from Jan 1998. I had a patron request from the UK, an institution doing an exhibit on pharmaceutical narcotics. I did this set on a Cambo shooting table, a 4x8 plex and got light below as well as above with softbox. they needed a C-print, so an inter-neg was made
another one of mine from 90s. A Fayetteville rifle for you history buffs. this type 55 Polaroid on a light box? aka “candling” a print was how Polaroid was used proofing in studio. viewed under light for the highlight exposure, candled for shadows. The negative used to check fine focus
a lot of this tabletop stuff was done by my boss and I was assisting. he had a style of using a softbox on top slightly to back kicked upward as backlight then used mirrors in front. He liked to say “backlight makes everything look better”
another outtake. this chrome is about a half stop + overexposed. instead of pitching it I held onto it because we had done a bit of work for the science museum next door, doing photos for a fund raising package for their “new” bldg which if you know what I’m talking about means it was a while ago
looking thru old chromes this morning. this shot is a good example of downside of color reproduction with film. this kayak was green actually but the pigment wouldn’t reproduce on film. we shot it three times with CC filters including once on Kodak EPN and then gave up. BW was used instead.
now you need a Kodak Versamat
As I have heard it over years as an alumni the armadillo was a pet of a student and initially they had “races” at parties and such. It became adopted by the photo program and when the school RTI at the time wanted a mascot they solicited ideas and votes. The photo section won
ask someone at the college. they went thru a thing a couple years where they put it up for vote to change mascot and the armadillo won. the history of it dates back to early 1970s and the photo department. That program is well known in that industry and draws many out of state students.
I seem to have lost the armadillo
might be time for a story on how the armadillo became the mascot for Randolph Community College. RTC photo school grad here
the D850 was used here with the 85mm PC Micro Nikkor. Speedotron Blackline strobes, 2400 watt second packs, 102 heads. standard stuff. I use backlight a lot when I use soft as the main, that way I can get a shadow to lend a visual dynamic and it helps with tonal separation of object and background
here's a neat artifact I had in the studio this day back in 2023. I have photographed a ton of textiles on forms for work, and learned over time that with shiny fabrics what works best is to use soft light as the main from front, but with a bit of hard mixed in to give some highlights. sets below
some old school down & dirty speedlite work from this day a decade ago. I had to document construction of an exhibit environment that was too dark with the work lights on. I went down to the studio and just grabbed a few things to make it work. usually we use the work lights for construction doc
great photo shot by Dick Waterman, Cambridge 1968.
I’m interested in news photography history in my state and pursue on my own. Microfilm newspapers are often all thats left since news archives weren’t saved
Keyword searches work great. It’s really incredible and addictive if you’re a history buff. The State Library in my state offers access to many of these sites. Fir a while I had individual accounts thru Newsbank fir certain papers fir research projects of my own I had going on
newspapers have been archived for decades on microfilm and with digital the film has largely been scanned on the archive level to make easier access. in my state you can access a lot of historical papers for free. but the commercial pick these up and are easier to use often. OCR scanning makes
thanks. That was outside the House chamber I think on first floor. I always get turned around inside the legislature. I know where the cafeteria and snack bar are best. imho that bldg won’t be remodeled anytime soon.
also some really oddball newspapers owned by individuals who just use them to pontificate. you can find amazing stories and ads. There are all sorts of opinion columns and local social news
I have a subscription to newspapers dot com also. I got hooked on it for research in my day job and eventually started using it at home. I get into jags where I just read old newspapers before bedtime following oddball stories. There’s this back and forth between papers responding to stories
