blog assignment #2: on the naming of parts

on your blog, list the following details about your camera of choice for the semester:

1] camera maker

2] camera model

3] year the camera was introduced, cost at introduction

4] camera type [slr, point and shoot, rangefinder, etc]

5] operation modes p/a/s/t/m, etc]

6] battery type, cost

7] shutter speed range

8] aperture range

9] lens, or lens type

10] minumum focal distance

talbotype round-up!

hee-ya.  hey cowboys and cowgirls, monday will be a bit different than original planned. [revision 1.2 on the sked] we'll continue with the talbotypes one more night. I'll show you how to mat them and we'll hang the finished product in our shiny new gallery downstairs. 

then we move on to cameras and film...

low tech / high touch

sometimes a blackboard will do just fine to get the point across.  i think of it as a non-animated prezi...

digital talbotype

process for making a paper negative 'talbotype'

1] choose an image with a full range of tones


2] open the file in Photoshop


3] change mode to Grayscale (image/mode/grayscale)


4] invert the image (image/mode/invert)


5] reverse the orientation of the image (image/ image rotation/flip canvas horizontal


6] adjust output levels (image/adjustments/levels) set black output to 25, white output to 225


7] print on bond paper 


8] oil image with WD40 or linseed oil and allow to sit for at least 24 hours

fox-talbot and the talbotype

The Talbotype, or 'Calotype' (its proper name) was invented by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1840. Although talbot did not intend it as such, It was seen as a simpler alternative to the complicated Daguerreotype process, and was attractive to early practitioners due to its relative simplicity.

The Calotype is technically the negative image on made paper, but its positive counterpart, the salted paper print, is the more common form in which calotypes are encountered. Calotypes are made by brushing paper with a solution of silver nitrate and then immersing it in a solution of potassium iodide to form a light-sensitive layer of silver iodide. Exposure in a camera produces a latent (invisible) image which is developed, fixed in hypo and washed. The translucency of Calotypes can be improved through waxing, and a positive can be made by printing out the image in a printing frame.

The Calotype was never commercially successful and was all but forgotten within ten years, having given way to the wet collodion (glass negative) and the albumen printing processes.

unit 1: out of the darkness...

The term "Camera Obscura" literally translates to "dark room", and the use of a pinhole in a window shade to form an inverted image of an outside scene on an wall of a dark room has been known since at least the 6th century. The replacement of the pinhole with a lens was first described in scientific journals in 1568. 

Thusly did the camera obscura become a solution in search of a problem.  It was in the early 1800's however that two Frenchmen; Jospeh Nicephore-Niepce and Louis Daguerre, and an Englishman; Henry Fox-Talbot, began experiments independently of one another to "fix the shadows" of the camera obscura image permanently onto a surface.

Daguerre gets credit for the first successful image, and Talbot's process is the antecedent of todays silver-based photography. And although neither could have fathomed the impact their discoveries would have on the generations which followed, both saw a rapid and exponential growth of the medium throughout their lifetime.

For more information see:
Daguerreotype                                                           Calotype

welcome everyone!

hey everybody! welcome to the basic black and white photo class blog.  you'll be able to keep up with everything you need to know as the class progresses.