Take The Wide View, Comrade

Whether your photographic dreams lie on the steppes of the Ukraine or the steps of Odessa, you will welcome this chance to own a part of Soviet photographic history. The FT-2 is one of the most ingenious things to come out of Russia that doesn't explode.

It is a metal-bodied 35mm panoramic camera that operates on strict socialist principles. ie. it works, but only after you study the propaganda for an hour and even then you are never sure if someone is looking over your shoulder. Occasionally users will disappear and none of the neighbours can say where they have gone. It has a red spirit level, and if that isn't Soviet, I don't know what is. I presume that is water in there - if it was actual spirits they would have drained it by now...

Okay, seriously, this takes 35mm film into its own especial cassettes - of which there is one on board - so you will need ebay up another one before you attempt to load it in a darkroom. Once it is fueled*, you close the front latches and start to wind on with the knob - watching the counter at the right side as it revolves. Quite what the mathematics of this are I do not know so practice with a dud film will be needed.

The two semaphore levers on the top control the three shutter speeds. It is a revolving lens with a fixed f:5 aperture so you calculate your exposure by looking at the light and following Party instructions. The level is fantastic - big and red. I am surprised it is not star-shaped. I would have done it that way...

Does it work? Presumably so - with the sort of reliability of a sickle or a hammer. Nothing much to go wrong with it.

Call in and embrace the New Era of Panoramas.

* Fuelling Soviet machinery can be exciting. Google up Nedelin and see what I mean...

Rude, Crude, and Successful

Thinking outside the square is generally lauded as progressive and intellectual. Standing outside the square gets you ridden down by French cavalry. Trust me on this*.

But thinking cheap is the best thing of all, particularly if you have to spend a great deal of money here at the shop to arrive at the most economical idea. I did and I have.

To get to the best cheap solution for a problem you have to consult the Oracle of Google. You sit in a darkened room and try to think of enough key words to send you to a website that will have done your thinking for you - in reality it just dumps you onto YouTube and you watch cats fall into bathtubs.

I adopted the policy of buying whatever looked cool as soon as it came in the shop, which accounts for the 54 camera bags that currently live in the shed. This shop is not the only culprit - the Crumpler man down in Wesley Arcade has much to answer for. In the end I have found out the best 4 bags for my several purposes and as long as I do not pass the bag shelves again when I have low blood sugar I should be okay.

This weekend's experiment involved a $ 14.95 Promaster plastic bubble level that slides into a hot shoe and a sticky label from a roll that I bought at Officeworks. This, combined with the Manfrotto carbon-fibre monopod that I got from our shop and my little Fuji camera let me take panoramas in Mandurah.

Why Mandurah? Why indeed...nevertheless, the setup makes use of the fact that Photoshop Elements has a wonderful little panorama maker. You supply it with files that are taken flat and level with a reasonable overlap, and it will stitch up a great scene. I'[ve decided that I only want landscape orientation and two panels so the trick is to get flat and level. The monopod supplies the axle upon which the camera turns and  the bubble level keeps it vertical. The only other problem is the overlap.

I used the back screen and the grid overlay to position a central object either 1/4 from the left or 1/4 from the right side. I drew in pencil on the paper label on top of the camera toward that central object in each case. Thus all I need to do is sight along the pencil lines left or right and take two snaps - perfect files for the computer.

Okay. This ain't Lawrence Livermore stuff, but it means I can get pano shots in the field with no tripod and an absolute minimum of preparation. I will have to set the distance and exposure manually for the shots - if you let the camera make its own decision it can make a different one for each view and the computer will be unhappy. But this means I can capture ALL of the Lincoln Continental at the car show instead of just the front half.

*Poking the Frenchman's horse in the nose with a bayonet solves that problem. Trust me on this.

Two Panel Or Three Panel?

Planning ahead for my holidays, I have decided to review the capabilities of my imaging system* to deliver panoramic pictures. That sounds very grand, but it really means I am going to see if I can't do the most with the least - least weight, least cost, least fuss.

I plan to reserve my serious cultural and intellectual efforts for toy stores, book stores, and pubs. If the Jack Stanbridge's put in a used book section, a couch, and a keg I would never leave the town...

Be that as it may I experimented this morning with the Fuji X camera perched on top of a monopod. The places I go to have other tourists swirling about and a tripod would be a distinct hazard - and the extra weight and volume of one would cut down on the capacity of my luggage to bring back toy cars and books. The monopod is a carbon fibre one, fits into my folded photo bag, and with a Novoflex panorama plate on top makes a handy war hammer for late night explorations.

The panorama plate is normally seen on a tripod - you get the bubble level centered and then spin the camera around the vertical axis and get good horizons on your image. I figured that I could HOLD it vertical and then spin it for 2 or three shots. Out on the lawn this morning to experiment...

Yes. it works. I let the camera set its own exposure, though on other occasions I would use manual - there are some scenes that change light value widely and you really need to set a good compromise and then run all the panels with it. The Fuji puts out a good image on the rear screen and writes its RAF files fast enough to let me do three panels.

The files go into the Photoshop Elements program in the computer - it has a very easy-to-use panorama maker that allows a number of different perspectives on the scene. You can get a flat horizon with essentially flat images or they can curve up at the ends in several ways. I have been experimenting with it but have not decided which I prefer.

One good setting in there removes most of the vignetting that might occur around the edges of the panels - in a single photograph it might be quite attractive, but in multiple panels it is disturbing. Of course it adds a little time to the assembly of the images, but it is automatic and you can drink coffee while it works.

Purists will squawk at the imprecision of the monopod vs the tripod - at the simplicity of the PSE10 program - and at the modest nature of the result. But if I see a good panorama I can capture it in a minute and I won't have to haul 10Kg of gear to do it. I can leave my nodal points and virtual reality at home in the cupboard and leave space in the camera bag for a chocolate bar. And a hot rod magazine.

Ya gotta get yer priorities right...

* I used to own a camera and photo album. Now it is an imaging system.

Round The Houses Again

Nothing like a fine spring day and a 40 year-old Novoflex accessory that has just turned up at the back of the shelf to get the blood singing. As I take aspirin, it sings in a thinner voice...boom,boom.

No, take a look at the rig. The bottom is a Novoflex turntable that you can still get and the top is a Novoflex focussing rack that was made in the 1960's . It would be unfair to show youthese xcept for the fact that you can get a modern version of this from Novoflex right now. The tripod is the Copter from Cullmann.

Why?

To take full advantage of the panoramic feature on my beloved Fuji X-10. This allows fast and dirty panos at 120º, 180º, or 360º but since it allows precise central rotation in the vertical axis, the panos stay quick but come up clean.

The Fuji has the tripod socket offset under the camera - the macro slider allows me to recenter it over the vertical axle. I levelled the rig on the top of a convenient rubbish bin ( Oh we are sophisticated in Stirling Street...) and spun the camera as directed by the internal program. Perfect pano.

Note that you can change the direction of rotation for the actual shooting. I realised this after the fact - look at the hideous distortion of the cars in the 180º shot.

Note also that you can do this sort of thing with the Panomatic but you might have to do a bit more setup.

Round The Houses With Cullmann

The panoramic photograph seems to have been to be the soupe du jour - or is that the suppe di anno? Whatever, everyone was doing them them last year. As a number of manufacturers make wonderful equipment for the specialty, we hope they do them next year as well.

The heavyweight star of the panoramic brackets is. of course, Manfrotto,. The MH057A5 head is magnificently equipped for horizontal or vertical panoramas with a great deal of precision and repeatability. It can accommodate the largest lenses that one might choose and has adjustable click stops to let you take your exposures rapidly. It is super-engineered and so heavy that if it fell on you from a tall shelf, it would kill you.

If you wish less risk but almost the same expense, I recommend Novoflex products. They are also engineered but with elegance and style. They are also lighter.

These used to be the two choices for the big player, but now Cullmann has come out with a design as well. The Concept One system from Cullmann has a similar precision turntable that bolts on to the stem of many Cullmann ball heads. I should mate it to the 6, 7, or 8 series - or onto the dedicated Concept One heads. The big ones are BIG, so do come in and find one that matches your equipment.

The Concept One mounting plates are Arca-sized and I note that they make a corner mount that allows you to mate up two of their longer plates to make an L-shaped bracket for vertical mounting. Neat use of the existing equipment.

One final note - for simple panos with little cameras try the Panomatic and for even simpler ones use the Fuji X-10 and X-20 in the SP mode - there are 120º, 180º, and 360º settings and all you do is spin around slowly. In the case of the 360º one you spin around until you fall down...

Cubists Of The World - Unite! You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Ballheads!

At long last the Arca Swiss Cube has arrived and we can throw away our ancient three-way heads that have been sitting on the studio tripod since Fox Talbot was a kitten. This device has been advertised on our window for months...with never a sniff of the real thing. Well, the real thing is here and it is wonderful.

Please note that I am not restricting the sales pitch to studio shooters; landscapists, architectural photographers, and panoramicists will also benefit from this piece of gear. It is simply the most precise way to orientate a still camera on the top of a tripod that I have seen.

I use a Gitzo tripod in the studio - it has either a Linhof pan and tilt mounting or a Gitzo 3-way head on the top, but neither of these alternatives come close to the Arca Swiss.

The Cube has precise rack control of two axes, and a positive lock mechanism for tilt. It has variable pressure for the knob controls, so that you can match the effort needed to move the camera with the weight of it. It has a precise panorama turntable at the top of the totem pole...so you can level everything before you spin around in the pano shot.

It is well-built. The Swiss are like that. Their cheese may have holes in it but their camera gear is pretty solid!

Switzerland - Head Of The Valley

Some people chose the best because they actually need it and some choose the best because they have a big sack of money. Most times it ain't the same person...

If you fit either class, consider the Arca Swiss head on this blog. It would be rotten to do sport with and rotten to do portraits with...but it is the world's best for panoramas. If you are into horizontal stitching and can determine your camera/lens nodal point, you can make this head spin on the vertical axis with a precision that will astound you.

It copes with the tripod being on uneven ground by the simple expedient of keeping the ball under the tyrntable. Do what you like with the legs under it, once you level the camera and check it with a spirit level you can spin round for a perfect horizon. Your stitching program will cope much better.

That is an Arca-Swiss mount on the top, of course, so it will match lots of the ...ahem... oriental copycat manufacturer's tripod plates. Let them fight it out amongst themselves in the mountains...