Joshua Putnam's Photo Pages
Welcome to my photo pages, definitely a work in progress. For many years I maintained
my own web galleries for everything, but now I'm moving to the convenience of flickr,
which allows all the annotation and tagging I used to do myself in HTML.
This page is mostly
infrared landscape photographs and views of Vashon Island, plus some
information about my favorite cameras, films, etc. Some of the falleries are here,
the rest are links to flickr sets.
Photographs
My Infrared Gallery has some of my favorite
pictures exploiting the other-worldly characteristics of infrared photography.
I started using IR films such as Kodak High Speed Infrared (HIE), Konica 750nm,
and later Macophot IR820c infrared. More recently, I've tried various infrared
digital cameras. My current favorite is the
Fujifilm IS-1. It's an infrared-enabled camera marketed to forensic photographers,
but it has interesting artistic applications, too. (If these pictures make you want to try IR, see the
infrared photography information in the references section below.)
My Black-and-White Gallery is smaller than my IR
gallery, even though I've shot far more non-IR black-and-white film than I
have infrared. Some day I'll get around to organizing and scanning decades
of negatives, but until then.... A mix of landscapes, still lifes, portraits, etc.
Some Views of Vashon and Maury Islands,
where I was lucky enough to grow up and worked for many years.
I've added this gallery mostly for fellow former Islanders who no longer get
to enjoy the beauty of the island in person every day. If you like this
gallery but don't see your favorite view,
email me and let me know -- I still love taking pictures of the island.
Infrared References
- A brief infrared bibliography
that lists many of the books I've enjoyed while learning and
practicing this fascinating alternative to visible light
photography. One of these days I need to update this for the
many new references appearing for digital IR.
- W. J. Markerink's
Photo Homepage is probably the best place on the web to look for
information about infrared photography, and also has many other excellent
references on 70mm, ultraviolet, panoramics, etc. He also has a huge list
of web galleries for other infrared photographers, and a link to the infrared
mailing list for even more information.
- Digital Camera
Infrared Sensitivity Comparisons compare how different digital cameras perform
in the infrared spectrum.
Equipment
Cameras
- My newest toy is the
Fujifilm IS-1. Unlike the majority of digital cameras on the market, it does not have
an infrared-blocking filter in front of its sensor, so it is very sensitive to near-IR
frequencies. It's marketed at medical and police markets, since infrared is often useful in
forensic photography. Most retailers don't stock such specialized cameras, but it can be found at
Adorama.com and some specialty forensic suppliers.
- Most of my film photographs were taken with my favorite 35mm SLR system,
the Olympus OM-1 and its descendants, including the OM-2S and OM-4T. They're some of the lightest,
smallest 35mm SLRs available, and Zuiko's higher-quality lenses are hard to
beat. Film is dying, and these fine cameras can now be found for a pittance on eBay if you're
looking for rugged, compact, professional-quality film equipment. (I should know, I recently sold
most of my OM equipment there as I've been moving more and more to digital.)
- Much of my previous digital photography had been with the Minolta Dimage 7Hi. It's only a 5
megapixel camera, but its output made me quite skeptical of the megapixel wars going past 10MP.
For most people, a good 5MP camera will have output as good as anything they ever managed with
35mm film. No, it's not up to the quality of 6x9cm medium format professional equipment, but
most people have no need for the bulk, complexity, and cost of professional gear.
- For a pocket camera that's suitable for cycling, boating, etc., the
Pentax Optio W30 is compact, waterproof to 10 feet, has a large, bright display,
and performs quite well for a P&S camera. I even took my wife's earlier-model W20 with me into the
surf at Pismo Beach and it performed beautifully.
- My Moscow 5 rangefinder, a
wonderfully compact camera, an improved copy of the Super Ikonta C,
taking 6x9cm negatives on 120 roll film.
Other Equipment
- The vintage 70mm rewind processor that
I used for processing 70mm film shot in my Mamiya Press. This pretty
little unit fit inside a changing bag to load, so I could process my
70mm Kodak Aerographic Infrared in daylight.
- Most of the older 35mm images in my galleries were scanned in using a
Hewlett Packard PhotoSmart scanner, which scans 35mm film in strips,
mounted 35mm slides, and prints up to 5x7 inches. Unlike many inexpensive 35mm
scanners, the HP does not place the negative strip in a holder that is segmented
into standard 35mm frames, so it does a fine job with panoramic 35mm negatives,
24x58mm frames, from my Horizon 202 swing-lens camera.
- Medium format negatives (120 and 70mm) and prints were scanned with an
Epson Perfection 1640SU Photo scanner, a flatbed with a 4x5 inch
transparency adaptor. This is also what I use for panoramic 35mm now that
my PhotoSmart scanner has died. It also does a fine job scanning prints, and for
office purposes, Epson makes a very reliable sheet feed unit, too. I wouldn't use
it to scan negatives for big prints, but for the web it's more than good enough.
- With every scanner I've ever used, getting the software right is at
least as important as the scanner's hardware capabilities. If you aren't happy
with the way your scanner software interprets your negatives, slides, or prints,
I highly recommend looking at Ed Hamrick's VueScan
software. First developed to give professional-quality control over scans with the
same inexpensive PhotoSmart scanner I used, it now supports more than 400 TWAIN-compatible
scanners, including my Kodak RFS 3600.
Films
- One of the films I used to use was Konica's 750nm infrared film.
Unfortunately, it no longer exists.
- For medium format photographers, one often-overlooked possibility
is the use of 70mm backs to shoot aerial films. There are many excellent
films available in double-perforated 70mm bulk rolls, suitable for loading
in cassettes. Thanks to the digitization of portrait photography, 70mm
gear is often quite inexpensive used. For my Mamiya Universal Press, less
than $150 bought a G-adaptor and a like-new RB67 Pro S 70mm back.
Any Kodak Aerographic film sold in Specification No. 494 has double
Type II perforations and is on a reel that fits in a standard 70mm bulk
loader. (I use a Burke & James/Watson loader myself.) For an overview
of Kodak's aerial films, see Kodak Publication
AS-57.
Interesting aerial films in this format included:
While many of these films have been discontinued, artistic use is less demanding than
aerial surveying, so outdated cold-stored stock is still worth using.
- Kodak's Technical Pan film was an amazing product, one of the finest-grained
black-and-white films ever made, and capable of a huge range of contrasts and
speeds depending on how it is processed. The most common way to process it for
pictorial work is Kodak's special Technidol developer. Using Technidol, the film
is generally rated at or below EI 25, which makes it tripod-use only. But there
are alternatives -- with TMax developer, you can get very fine grain and moderately
high contrast at speeds of 200 or even 400. Click here for a
sample image at EI 400, and then click here for a
small section of that negative scanned at 2400 dpi. Clearly the contrast
isn't everyone's cup of tea, but if you like high contrast black and white, give
Tech Pan a try if you can still find any.
This page written by Josh Putnam.
Please feel free to email questions, comments, corrections, suggestions,
etc.
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