Workshop Photography Competition

This is just a heads-up that, thanks to Arc Euro Trade donating a bundle of very nice prizes, over the spring I will be running a Workshop Photography Competition in MEW.

Full details will appear in the APRIL issue, so I won't go through them here, but suffice to say the challenge will be to 'capture the spirit of home workshop engineering'. The topic was inspired by the great picture of Rod Jenkins on the cover of issue 224.

For anyone inspired to start early, pics will need to be at least six megapixels... and please DON'T post them on here in advance!

Neil

Rod - who took that photo? Was it on a self timer or did you get in a professional?

Neil

Hi Neil,

Self Portrait with my 12 MP Nikon D90 and 18-105 lens. Camera was on a tripod sat outside the workshop door. According to the image data the exposure was 1/10s at f4.0 and ISO was set to 1000. Focal length of the zoom was 26mm - equivalent to 39mm for a 35mm camera (sensor). Lighting was just the overhead pair of 5ft fluorescents and (I think) one of my task lights pointed at me. No flash.

The camera/tripod lives in the workshop, mostly with a Sigma 50mm macro lens (which works as a 75mm on the D90's apc sized sensor) and led ring light attached to the front for pics of work in progress.

Cheers,

Rod

I bet you could NEVER have got that picture with ordinary film.

Neil

You can... But dig has made it a lot easier to get a fast acceptable result... nice picture...

The interesting part of film photography used to be having to deal with various different lighting situations and intensity levels on a single roll.

"The interesting part of film photography used to be having to deal with various different lighting situations and intensity levels on a single roll"

......and then deal with all the developing, enlarging, printing etc. whilst locked away in a ( smelly) dark room!

I had a very well equipped dark room, complete with running water, and would spend hours in there. The advent of the digital darkroom changed all that! After a few years I thought I would take a roll of B/W film. I spent a whole week of evenings in my darkroom and didn't produce one good print! ( There is a lot of "feel" and judgement needed) All this equipment languished in the spare bedroom for years and I finally decided that I was never going to use it again. I recently got in touch with the local sixth form college and they were delighted to accept it as a donation! Nice to know that some youngsters will experience the joys of a wet darkroom. Me, I'm now quite happy to perch here with digital negatives in front of my Lightroom!

Regards

Norman

When digital cameras first appeared I read somewhere that a fine grain 35mm negative (may have been slide) incorporates 60Mb of image data.

I still use a Zanza Bronica with a Nikkor-P 1:2.8 f=7.5cm lens for occasional photos. I wonder how many Mb of image data there is in a 120 negative?

Looking forward to the comp Neil. Please allow sufficient time for the more remote readers to collect the April edition of the magazine.

* Danny M *

That's interesting Danny, I have heard many different views on this. Agftyers ome hyunting i found a wikipedia page (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_versus_film_photography) taht seems to give a balanced view. It says:

A 36 mm x 24 mm frame of ISO 100-speed film was initially estimated to contain the equivalent of 20 million pixels,^[6] although this estimate was later revised to between 4 and 16 million pixels depending on the type of film used.^[7]

That would make my camera with just over 18Mp equivalent to my SLR with 100ASA film. For various reasons (not least colour balance, autofocus and auto exposure) in practice I get HUGELY more usable results comparing even my older and smaller digital compacts with scans of even my very best transparencies (using a minolta film scanner). But there's not the same thrill downloading a few hundred images as unwrapping a roll of Fujichrome you've developed yourself!

I will put the competition details on line after they are published also, I plan to give a decent sized window for submissions.

Neil

Just bumping this as I am hoping to get plenty of entries - not least as I'm looking at it as a source for good cover photos!

Neil

do they have to be of us in the shop doing projects or can they be of our kids doing bits?

my youngest girl who is 6 wants to make simple little project with me over hols.

prob along lines of simple depth gauge using bit of square bare and thin rd stock but she will be drilling bar for rd stock and hole for screw then tapping it.

Within reason, as long as you keep H&S in mind!

Neil

Trust me she is stickler for safety.

Not even allowed to clean lathe down without unplugging it and wearing goggles with her around.

I have a black and white photo of my granddad and nannys wedding day taken by a pro photographer using a flash bang wallop plate camera back in 1921. I can look at it through a 4x loupe and the detail is superb with no grain being apparent.

I bet none of the modern 35mm or dig can compete with this quality - or am I wrong?

Rik

> I bet none of the modern 35mm or dig can compete with this quality - or am I wrong?

Probably not. The chemistry of a plate camera is the same as 35mm mono film but massively larger.

But I'm not sure how Nan and Grandad's wedding 'captures the spirit of hobby engineering', unless they got married in his workshop.

Neil

Unless...

Neil, Merely "bumping" this along as you put it - only trying to help out!

Rik

Well I must admit I'm disappointed at the low level of entries for this competition. There are some half-decent prizes and I see plenty of photos in albums on this site that would be good enough to win.

Neil

Just found this thread. Any prizes left Neil. Without rust on them .

Steve.

Me too.

I hadn't seen this thread before.

I think it's a great idea. Perhaps there may be enough entries to

support an ongoing section in the magazine, profiling one or two

workshops and inhabitants each issue?

Personally, I would be very interested to see other members in

their natural habitat.

ATB,

Daniel