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- Chris
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It was a time in my life when I wasn't taking photographs. I had moved to London to become a computer programmer, and the people I left in charge of my Edinburgh cottage stole my stuff, including my 35mm rangefinder camera. I'd picked it up cheap in a junk shop because the shutter didn't work. So the photograph was taken with my friend's expensive twin lens reflex (can't remember what it was). I haven't anything that can scan such a big transparency, nor a projector which can handle that size, so I made up a viewer from some sticks and a couple of those nice good spectrum little desk lamps someone else discovered and reported here. The stick frame holds the transparency above a brightly illuminated peice of white paper. The two little folding desk lamps on their sides provide between them a hopefully reasonably even illumination of the paper.
The medium format viewer by chris malcolm on Talk Photography
I did a quick snap of the transparency with a 90mm macro lens to check it out. The white polka dots on the pink dress come out sharply circular. It looks good and detailed to be worth doing a careful shot with controlled lighting and exposure, camera stably supported, lowest ISO, etc..
Entire slide, quick shot by chris malcolm on Talk Photography
Here's a crop of my head from the photo to show the detail. It looks as though the camera was using a large aperture, because the sharpest focus is on the polka dots on the protruding knee of the skirt, while my head is slightly out of focus. It's the only photo I have of myself at that age, however.
A crop of my own head by chris malcolm on Talk Photography
For comparison purposes here's what I look like today.
50 years later by chris malcolm on Talk Photography
That's what a twice broken nose and fifty years can do to a man!
The glue holding the transparencies in the cardboard holders has dried out and lost its stick, the slides are sliding about inside it. They also need careful cleaning. It'll be worth doing a carefully set up shot in a dim room with well supported camera, remote shutter, etc.. I've no idea what the film used was. There's nothing printed round the edges. But even with a quick shaky handheld snap I can see enough of the grain that it's clear a carefully stabilised and focused shot with 24MP will be enough to get all the detail it has. I'll add the results of that later process to this thread in a few days.
The medium format viewer by chris malcolm on Talk Photography
I did a quick snap of the transparency with a 90mm macro lens to check it out. The white polka dots on the pink dress come out sharply circular. It looks good and detailed to be worth doing a careful shot with controlled lighting and exposure, camera stably supported, lowest ISO, etc..
Entire slide, quick shot by chris malcolm on Talk Photography
Here's a crop of my head from the photo to show the detail. It looks as though the camera was using a large aperture, because the sharpest focus is on the polka dots on the protruding knee of the skirt, while my head is slightly out of focus. It's the only photo I have of myself at that age, however.
A crop of my own head by chris malcolm on Talk Photography
For comparison purposes here's what I look like today.
50 years later by chris malcolm on Talk Photography
That's what a twice broken nose and fifty years can do to a man!
The glue holding the transparencies in the cardboard holders has dried out and lost its stick, the slides are sliding about inside it. They also need careful cleaning. It'll be worth doing a carefully set up shot in a dim room with well supported camera, remote shutter, etc.. I've no idea what the film used was. There's nothing printed round the edges. But even with a quick shaky handheld snap I can see enough of the grain that it's clear a carefully stabilised and focused shot with 24MP will be enough to get all the detail it has. I'll add the results of that later process to this thread in a few days.
