Profile: Cy DeCosse

Cy DeCosse is a photographer who specializes in the arts of alternative photographic processes. Specifically, he creates platinum prints, gum dichromate prints and photogravure process prints. He briefly describes each of these processes. Cy is not only a photographer, but also a painter. His still life photography often uses backgrounds he paints himself, that he then photographs with the subject.
His work is available for viewing online as collections. Take a look at just some of the collections by the process that made the print:

• Platinum-Palladium - San Abrosio
• Gum Dichromate - Seasons
• Photogravure - Weeds

The prints can vary from subtle to breathtaking in colour or tone.

Depth of Focus

An interesting topic with apparently much debate, this blog gives you a page on depth of focus with useful links to discussion, a video and an in depth paper on the topic. Take a look!

Exposure Basics

I have put together a straightforward page on basic exposure principles. This is to put us on the same footing when discussing exposure, reciprocity law, and exposure guides. The page first covers the three factors in exposure: shutter speed, aperture, and film speed or ISO. Then discusses how these factors interact. More advanced photographers might like to visit the interactive exposure page by Tony Catalano near the end of the page - it shows what happens when varying these three factors, in particular the effect on depth of field and stopping motion.

If using an older camera that does not have a built in meter (or the battery is no longer available), these points are essential. Even if using a more modern SLR with auto-exposure, knowing the effects on depth of field and motion can allow one to capture the moment as intended, rather than letting the camera guess. Hopefully, this short article will be useful in some way whatever level you are at in photography.

The article on Exposure Basics is also available in the column on the left. More short articles are to come, comments welcome.

Ken Rockwell on Film

Looking for scads of information on silver halide film?  Ken Rockwell's information packed article on film may be just the ticket.  Ken discusses the properties of film, the popular sizes used over the last 50 years or so and more.  There are plenty of links to explore from this article.  Worth a read to stay informed!

What Makes a Photographer, PBS

Ken Van Sickle is 83 years old and has been a photographer for six decades.  His take is that technology does not make a photographer.  To put it in his words:

What a great photographer does is, they are consistently able to make something in a style that’s personal to themselves. My pictures don’t depend on extreme sharpness. They depend on the composition and on the subject and on the way I see it.

See his interview on PBS NewsHour, in the Brief but Spectacular series:  What Makes a Photographer.

Kodak Serious About Film? Ask the CEO...

Petapixel has a brilliant piece on how the executives at Kodak use 35mm film as their business cards.  Originally reported by The Virge while at CES, this is just amazing.  Kodak is serious about putting silver halide back on the market.  Be sure to peruse the SaveFilm.org site for more articles on the future of film.

Kodak to Produce New Super 8 Film Movie Camera

In announcement at the CES consumer gadget show, Kodak revealed that it is reviving the Super 8 movie camera again. In a hybrid of digital features and film capture, the camera will feature an LCD viewinder panel and an internal battery charged by a USB connection. The expected use is by artists, student filmmakers and amateurs. Kodak plans a service whereby a cartridge can be sent to Kodak for processing and scanning to digital file for $50 to $75.

Kodak is taking film seriously, and has made arrangements to continue movie film production with six major studios. Jeff Clarke, CEO of Kodak, is banking on the mystique of film and the support of major Hollywood filmmakers to keep film rolling.

Check out the articles on this camera and press release by Kodak:

Kodak Press Release on the launch of the Super 8 Filmmaking Revival at CES 2016.
The Wall Street Journal on Kodak Goes Retro.
PetaPixel on Kodak Bringing Back Super 8

Kodak Super 8 LCD - Source: Kodak.com

Inside Photographic Lenses

The filmmaker's YouTube channel, Filmmaker IQ, has an excellent introduction to lens properties for still and motion picture use. Note that while they talk of 35mm and smaller formats, the same principles to larger film formats, also. For example, the approximate normal focal length for the following film sizes are roughly: Medium Format

• 6x4.5: 75mm
• 6x6: 85mm
• 6x9: 110mm

Large Format

• 4x5: 160mm
• 5x7: 220mm
• 8x10: 325mm

These values are simply derived from the nominal size of the format and Pythagoras.

This video on how lenses work is well worth the 20 minutes to view.

Star Wars: Made on FIlm

As other sources have pointed out, the recently released Star Wars motion picture was actually made with silver gelatin film. Kodak has a press release describing the production and use of film in making the movie.

J.J. Abrams and Dan Mindel teamed up to produce a movie with the look and style of the original series. To achieve this, they used silver halide film and custom anamorphic lenses that were remanufactured using existing vintage lenses that were in storage. The reborn lenses were mated to modern cameras and the movie was recorded on celluloid. There were three film stocks used, now much more advanced than the film of the past, which were: KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219, KODAK VISION3 250D Film 5207, and KODAK VISION3 50D Film 5203. The tungsten-balanced (ISO 500T) film was used in the UK, whereas the daylight balanced films (ISO 250D and 50D) were used in the Abu Dhabi desert. Dan Mindel comments that the new films have a much wider range of contrast than the film of the 1980s, which made them much easier to use.

On the finished movie, Mindel says:

"I've just seen the movie for the first time, and it ended up looking fantastic," says Mindel. "To see the film rendition at full resolution is so incredible. I recently shot another movie digitally, and the differences between that and what is possible with film are huge. Film is so high-tech in its present form. It looks the way my eyes saw it, and that is something that is very difficult with digital cameras. Film sees so much more. To me, it's just gorgeous. It's phenomenal."

"...just gorgeous." Just another reason to use film.