Holtze on modern video editing

Posted on June 7, 2018 by Robert

Mark Holze
Modern Vlogger

Toronto. Video Editing – Mark Holtze CANCELLED

Mark sends his regrets. He will be out of town when we hold the June 2018 meeting and has asked to be rescheduled.

We were first introduced to Mark when he recorded one of the Photographica-Fairs down at the Trident Centre. Mark was recently recorded on Global TV reminiscing about 8mm film his grandparents shot in the Maritimes.

An accomplished vlogger and old film camera enthusiast, Mark will be discussing modern day video editing and might even offer a short recent video to entertain and educate us! Mark has his own Youtube channel, the number one social media these days according to recent pundits.

The public is always welcome at our meetings. Go to our Programs page for directions.

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PHSC trunk sale July 15, 2018

Posted on June 6, 2018 by Robert

PHSC 8th Annual
Trunk Sale – rain or shine

Toronto. Coming NEXT month, our 8th annual Larry Boccioletti trunk sale will take place once again in the parking lot of the Trident Hall. Free attendance, Modest charge for an exhibitor spot.

Open 8 am to 1 pm. Come out and check the bargains you may have missed in May at our photographica-fair in the same location (but indoors). Click on the icon at left for map and details. See you there!

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a marketeer’s dream assignment …

Posted on June 5, 2018 by Robert

Ansco ad in
June 19, 1950 LIFE
magazine

Toronto. A while back I posted a note about Ansco’s answer to Kodak’s baby Brownie – the Ansco Panda. In this summer 1950 LIFE ad (thanks George!) the marketeers promote the little beauty with FOUR Ansco films at a special price (in the USA, of course).

The camera is marketed with its short-falls and common Ansco features as special: The large viewer is touted as “twin lens” and a “brilliant reflex-type finder centrally located”. It has an “automatic spring-type shutter – almost all shutters were spring operated,”,  “plastic body”, “red shutter release button – a feature of most Ansco cameras”, “easy to load and use – like any cheap box camera”, “sharp, big pictures”, and “12 exposures on standard 620 roll [film] – the number of shots depended on the size of the negative, and was usually 8 or 12 per roll”.

And being 2-1/4 square negatives, the Panda could also take colour prints and slides when used with colour film which was much more expensive and far less light sensitive. Kodak’s 35mm Kodachrome of the day was about ASA 10 or perhaps less. Ansco Color (later Anscochrome) was about three times faster at ASA32.

And like Gillette or Kodak, the reusable product at a low price introduced the consumables (be they razor blades or film rolls) to a new audience.

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Sir Alec and camera

Posted on June 4, 2018 by Robert

Sir Alec c 1950

Toronto. Our friend Goldie at urbanToronto.ca spotted this lovely picture featuring Sir Alec Guinness back in 1950 before he was knighted.

In one of eight roles he acted in the 1949 movie Kind Hearts and Coronets, Guinness played a photographer complete with this ancient field camera on a tripod. The camera has a bulb and what looks to be a Thorton-Pickard shutter!

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2018 pano awards entries accepted now

Posted on June 3, 2018 by Robert

Because size matters
by Panoramic Images

Toronto. Epson hosts an annual awards program for both professional and amateur photographers. The 2018 photograph submissions are due this month. In past years, the winning photographs have been astonishing!

This year the sponsors include Nikon, Panoramic Images, Nodal Ninja pano gear, Garden Gnome software for conversion to VR, and many more!

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Spartus Press Camera – yeah, right!

Posted on June 2, 2018 by Robert

May 22, 1950 ad in LIFE
for the Spartus Press Camera

Toronto. We saw many of these little plastic box cameras drift through our fairs over the years. Sold from Chicago by the Spartus Camera Corporation, this inexpensive model was more marketing puffery than technology. The flash was built-in as was a simple continuity tester in some versions to confirm the flash bulb was fresh and would fire. It was noted as the first camera to have a built-in flash gun back in 1939 when first offered.

No wonder it was touted as “So simple to operate, Mom and Sis can use it … ”  –  the tiny lens was fixed focus, and there was no speed adjustment. Some versions had two primitive water-house stop aperture settings – cloudy and sunny, just like Kodak used on many of its box cameras. Others, like this 1950 version had no aperture adjustment at all. The built-in flash meant the camera could be used indoors or out, using black and white film or the much less popular and more expensive colour print film.

Using the term “Press Flash” implied to the uninitiated that the Spartus was as good as the other press cameras of the day like the big Graflex and Speed Graphic cameras but far cheaper and easier to use. It used 120 style film making 2-1/4 x 3-1/4 negatives. And the quote of “… Mom and Sis can use it …” had  an unintended sexual bias that would not be tolerated today!

Thanks to George Dunbar for searching out this LIFE advertisement for a simple box camera as the 35mm cameras were beginning to take off and eventually consume the retail market before all was lost to the digital wave and its cameras and smart phones.

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A suitcase full of photographic wonder

Posted on June 1, 2018 by Robert

Figures in Tunnel
East End of London, 1949
by John Turner

Toronto. Shades of Vivian Maier! My long time friend and PHSC guest speaker Russ Forfar  sent me a brief email Wednesday regarding this news item posted on the BBC. Picture editor Phil Coomes, a photographer in his own right, wrote this column on the 30th of May, 2018. Ut was posted on the BBC News site. He shows and illustrates the remarkable story of John Turner who died in 1987.

Phil writes, “It’s not often you are sent a set of pictures that make you gasp, especially ones taken decades ago. Yet here they are, beautiful black and white pictures that have remained hidden, buried in a loft waiting to be brought out into the light.

“These pictures were taken by John Turner, a property manager based in the centre of London, and were recently unearthed by his daughter and her husband, Liz and Martin Carroll.

“Following John Turner’s death in 1987 a suitcase was passed to them by his widow, Betty. A quick glance revealed family photos and other pictures taken for his camera club, and it was consigned to the loft for 30 odd years.”

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a fair deal for all

Posted on May 31, 2018 by Robert

Bob Lansdale and his
c1932 EHO box camera find

Toronto, We held our most recent spring photographica-fair (about the 44th time) last Sunday. Bob Lansdale and I arrived  a bit before 9am and checked out the exhibitors as they set up their tables ready for the 10:00 am opening.

The two show chairmen, Clint and Mark, were bustling around making sure everything was working and all the exhibitors were happy. Coffee, tea, and cookies set up for the exhibitors and attendees  by Mark while Clint sorted out some of the last minute mini crisis items and everything was ready for the 10 o’clock opening.

Mark provided a minute by minute countdown the last few minutes before opening. From what I saw the show was very busy Sunday and most if not all tables were taken. Bob Lansdale was pleased. He got two box cameras for a bargain price.The larger one was a TECO complete with its handle while the smaller one (see above left) was a c1932 EHO. It complements an EHO that was already in his collection and on the cover of a recent issue of Photographic Canadiana (42-2).

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famous pix revisited

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Robert

the 1913 Grand Prix by Lartigue

Toronto. Well trust my good friend George Dunbar to find unusual and interesting web sites related to photography! George spotted the Atlas Obscura site the other day and dropped me an email. The article is called “Miniature Models of History’s Most Famous Photographs” It was written back on May 11th by Anika Burgess. The story of the miniatures is recounted in a book called Double Take published by Thames & Hudson, who published “The History of Photography” by the Gernsheims in 1969. I bought my copy in 1971, a few years before the PHSC was established.

The photo I chose for this post is “Making of Grand Prix A.C.F. (by Jacques-Henri Lartigue, 1913)”. The original was reproduced in the famous TIME-LIFE series on photography published nearly a half century ago. The photograph shows the distortion caused by early focal plane shutters when used to capture fast moving objects.

The reproduction photo  is in the first book of the series, titled “The Camera“. It appears on page 162 in the article “The Newspaperman’s Standby” in a section called “Cameras That Made History“

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the smartphone as a camera has arrived

Posted on May 29, 2018 by Robert

Snapping a picture the modern way

Toronto. Well, you know a fad has arrived in the mainstream when it begins to be lampooned. I saw a few smartphone camera comics and cartoons over the past months, then Monday morning a friend of mine out in Calgary set me a bunch of photos of people posing in humorous ways with statures, altering the intent of the sculpture. Amongst the shots was the one at left depicting the statue using a smartphone and “snapping”  others in the room.

You might try googling to see other shots, but some sites were hard to navigate and inundated with ads and links to the “10” or “20” most whatever. I googled the name of the above image – vot kak nado pozirovat so skulpturoy 9 – and of the pages listed, steemit looked best. Check it out.

 

 

 

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