Far From Digital

[Lizardqing]

Thought this might be of interest to some. Ran across this guy this weekend at a reenactment we took some scouts to and was very interesting to watch him work.

The camera is an original from the time period.

12350

About as simple as it gets. Cardboard cut outs for aperture settings.

12352

Pretty sure the duct tape is about the only hardware update!

12351

[Marko]

Cool set - love it!
And if that lens was killer sharp and has good contrast - I'm close to 100% sure that any image from that camera (In the hands of someone that knows how to use it and print from it) will whip any dslr with any lens ever made 100% of the time for static subjects in terms of head to head sharpness. (provided modern film is used - and i do realize that it a very strong statement).

[Marko]

very cool!
If the lens was good and you had a good shutterspeed - I'm sure prints from it are awesome.

[Lizardqing]

I will agree about the photo quality. The gentleman that was doing them has been doing it for almost 20 years and made it look easy. I really was amazed at the detail in the photos taken with the simple camera and then placed on glass or tin. The really amazing thing to me was how the camera was sitting in very bright sunlight and he took around 3 seconds to make the picture before putting the lens cap back on, exposure was beautiful every time with him just counting by what he thought would work.