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Kodak SLR/n and Siggy 14

Erie Patsellis

pro member
While neither the Kodak SLR/n or the Sigma 14 3.5 are well regarded (to put it mildly), both are affordable and quite capable. Shot this at a recent car show a few blocks from the house:


Yellow Caddy by epatsellis, on Flickr​

Basic post processing, desat and slight gaussian blur, atypical of my minimalist approach, but I feel appropriate for this image.

erie
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Andrew Stannard

pro member
Hi Erie,

An eye-catching image for sure and great colour tones in the paintwork on the car. The gaussian blur troubles me though - without the ground under the wheels being in focus it looks as if the car is floating. Feels like it needs to be anchored to the ground.


Regards,
 

Erie Patsellis

pro member
Hi Erie,

An eye-catching image for sure and great colour tones in the paintwork on the car. The gaussian blur troubles me though - without the ground under the wheels being in focus it looks as if the car is floating. Feels like it needs to be anchored to the ground.


Regards,

Andy, it's just a first pass, I have a proof from the Frontier sitting here with a bunch of red sharpie marks all over it for corrections, one of them is the blur issue, like I had said, I'm more of a "straight" shooter and it may take me a few passes to get it where I stop tweaking the image.
 

John Angulat

pro member
Hi Erie,
Wonderful image!
I agree with Andrew, losing the blur beneath the vehicle will surely anchor it to the ground.

It is refreshing to see that a nice image can be had without using an obscenely expensive set up.
It is more refreshing to see it accomplished without obsessing with LAB color spaces, eye dropper tools, color pickers, 3 dozen blend-ifs and Colormetric hoo-ha.

It's all about the artist and what they see, not the gear and s/w razzle-dazzle...

Nicely done!
 

Erie Patsellis

pro member
Believe me, if I thought for one second that everyone would be absolutely still for at least two and a half minutes, I'd of taken the Sinar and the scanback, I just love those 6,000 x 7200 images.

But as a full time student at a school I couldn't afford (thank god for scholarships and grants), I'm somewhat limited in the financial department, so I have fun tweaking the noses of my fellow students with brand new D3's and the like. All in good fun, and hopefully they see past the ribbing and take something from it. Us old farts have to have some fun still, you know.
 

Alain Briot

pro member
Erie,

The image is more important than the lens and the camera used to create it. Vision matters more than equipment!
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Shot this at a recent car show a few blocks from the house. Basic post processing, desat and slight gaussian blur, atypical of my minimalist approach, but I feel appropriate for this image.

erie


Yellow Caddy by epatsellis, on Flickr​


While neither the Kodak SLR/n or the Sigma 14 3.5 are well regarded (to put it mildly), both are affordable and quite capable.

OMG Erie!

When Michael Reichman compares that with the Canon 14 mm and it loses, it's by kind of ~ pixel-peeping, not gestalt and feelings! In his excellentBattle of the Ultrawides, however, the Sigma 14mm happens to do handsomely! The Kodak SLR/n, BTW, happens to be a most capable camera as is it's sister /c, the Canon mount version. Color from this camera is rich and almost without peer for portraits especially. In the studio, who cares about ISO. One has all the light one needs.

Besides, Alain is quite right, it's about the picture, not the gear!

Asher
 

Erie Patsellis

pro member
OMG Erie!

When Michael Reichman compares that with the Canon 14 mm and it loses, it's by kind of ~ pixel-peeping, not gestalt and feelings! In his excellentBattle of the Ultrawides, however, the Sigma 14mm happens to do handsomely! The Kodak SLR/n, BTW, happens to be a most capable camera as is it's sister /c, the Canon mount version. Color from this camera is rich and almost without peer for portraits especially. In the studio, who cares about ISO. One has all the light one needs.

Besides, Alain is quite right, it's about the picture, not the gear!

Asher

Asher,
Had I the funds at the time, I would have bought the 2.8 (the one Reichman compared), as other reviewers have said it's a bit better on illumination and sharpness. But the ever amusing Thom Hogan didn't feel it was worth the difference in cost, and I agree. For what little I paid for it (>$300), and it was stretching the budget at that, it works handsomely. By f5.6 or so the 3.5's illumination evens out quite well and quite sharp over the entire field as well, I don't regret the purchase, it's one lens that goes with me everywhere, and works well with my personal aesthetic.

The Kodak is a hidden gem, my wife and I were just talking about it (literally 1/2 hour ago..) while looking over some images we took of my stepdaughters family in the studio the other night. What it does well, it does very well, but for anything requiring fast focusing and higher capture rates, even my partners S5 is a huge improvement in everything except image quality. For low res product work and general portraiture it's great. (and by low res, I mean in comparison to the 42mp Dicomed/Betterlight scan back) I have found that there aren't a lot of clients in the rural midwest that are willing to pay my day rate for a handful of well executed, high resolution images. I don't think I'm alone either, judging by what I've heard from other working pros. With wedding season coming up and the decision to whore myself a little bit for the next few years to offset my not working full time and going to school, at least one D7000 or the like is in the cards (hopefully...)

I agree with Alain wholeheartedly, but sometimes the gear gets in the way, then it's time for the EL to come out, even after all these years, it's still feels like an extension of my body, not a camera.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Erie,

I'd love to see more of the bright rich yellow car and other pictures, especially portraits and landscape with this rich Kodak camera. I'm of the opinion that the old Canon D30 is also a wonderful portrait and editorial camera. If that's all we had, we'd not be at much of a loss artistically.

All the new cameras have given us is the ability to print larger without stitching and push low light work and of course shoot 10 frames a second and radio them to some server in a truck with folk to sort, process and send then to the agencies. non of this really improves much the art of photography, just simplifies the setups.

One could, I wager, shoot weddings with your kodak camera and get the full measure of praise a happy bride's mother will give the best work.

Asher
 
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