You View Camera Photographers...

...Will love this. Made me laugh.

Mike
(Thanks to Leslie Ashe)

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Mark: "I don't know how many times I've taken a 'selfie' by accident using a view camera."

Michael Perini: "Once done, you have to scan the negative so you can print on the only printer appropriate to the task."

Comments

[Bob Smith]

Having started shooting LF recently and experiencing the overwhelming confusion and fumbleyness that occurs (OH GOD DON'T MAKE A MISTAKE, THE FILM COSTS A FORTUNE...OH CRAP, DID I PULL THE DARK SLIDE OUT...DID I CLOSE THE LENS DOWN BEFORE I PULLED THE DARK SLIDE OUT...) I could see myself being confused enough to try that! Thanks for the laugh Mike

[Walter Glover]

It made me chuckle too. Love it.

[KeithB]

Way back, you had to use a polaroid attachment for analog oscilloscopes to enable hard copy archiving of otherwise transient CRT traces. One day I used our attachment to document some trace, and when developed found a picture of my boss's face staring at me in the image.

It went into my lab notebook as evidence of the "boss effect."

[Ned Bunnell]

Loved this, Mike, thanks for posting! Already put the image with copyright notice up on my Instagram feed where the first three #hashtags for selfie have over 72 million photos :)

Cheers,
Ned

[Ed Kirkpatrick]

Been there, done that. :)

[Leslie Ashe]

Mike

Thanks for putting this up but the link now takes you to the cartoon for 17 December.

Here is the new link to the cartoon.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/?cartoon=10518509&cc=10486539

Leslie

[Owin T]

More permanent link:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/?cartoon=10518509&cc=10486539

The other link gets changed daily.

[Richard Man]

You want the direct link, as the page now shows the cartoon for Dec 17:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/?cartoon=10518509

[Bob]

That is great, I laughed too.

You might want to update you link though. Your link has switched to the next day and the cartoon didn't have anything to do with View Cameras.

Here is the link that goes directly to the desired view camera cartoon...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/?cartoon=10518509&cc=10486539

[Jim]

Maybe I missed something. Is there something in the linked cartoon that a view camera photographer would find funny? I mean more so than an auto mechanic or a golf pro?

[Jim]

Here is what I saw when I clicked the link.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/

[Rufus]

It would be completely out of focus.

[Rick Keir]

Permalink: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/?cartoon=10518509&cc=10486539

The link above goes to "Today's" cartoon, which has changed. At first I thought this was a really OBSCURE joke till I realized the link was not a permalink.

[Dop]

Maybe change the link to the December 15th page:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/?cartoon=10518509&cc=10486539

as that link gives the latest cartoon, which has nothing to do with view cameras!

Talking of the first 'selfie'...
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/the-first-selfie-in-history-1839.html

[Hélcio J. Tagliolatto]

A friend, who photographs in Portugal, once told me a hilarious experience that occurred in a workshop he was leading. One student, excitedly in front of the magnificent scenery, did not resisted and screamed as he pulled the darkslide of his 4x5”: “Ansel Adams, I’ll catch you!”.

But he pulled it so hard, so anxiously, that he removed the sheet film together, which flew high out of the camera and landed gracefully on the ground, to the delight of his colleagues ...

[Dan Daniel]

direct link to the cartoon referenced-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/?cartoon=10518509&cc=10486539

[Francis E]

By the time I got to read this a new cartoon had been published. The link to the specific carton is http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/?cartoon=10518509&cc=10486539 .

[ross]

link is now incorrect. try
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/?cartoon=10518509&cc=10486539

[Jim Simmons]

@ Bob Smith: I did a job a year or so ago that required me to create a gigantic print of a city panorama (Wellington, New Zealand, to be a precise match of a panorama shot in 1913). This was done with 6 vertical, overlapping 4x5 shots that were then scanned and stitched together in the computer. The shots had to made at a very precise time to capture a scheduled ferry passing between two buildings in the distance, and to illuminate a key building in the foreground that was constantly being covered/uncovered by rapidly passing clouds. All while barely perched on a large tree stump to be in the right position. I spent 20 minutes rehearsing the sequence of doing all the normal LF photographic sequence of film holder manipulation (3 holders), shutter cocking and tripping, plus panning between shots, to make sure I could do the whole thing in the 20-30 seconds I needed to get the shot(s) right. It was the most pressure I've ever been under shooting LF.

[Dave Karp]

Hah!

[Gary Nylander]

Very funny!

[Brian Reynolds]

This photo on Flickr always gives me a chuckle.

Old School

The other one in the comments is also good for a grin.

[Phil Cook]

This is a rare case of Eugène Atget taking a selfie, though the face isn't his, you can see the reflection of his body and camera in the window.

[toto]

The cartoon with the airport baggage claim made no sense yesterday. I'm glad you corrected the link. How long would the 'selfer' have to stand still?

[Ed]

Selfie, new "Dutch" word of the year....I know I puke, barf and vommit as well.

Greets, Ed.

[Cmans]

LOL! Not being intimately familiar with LF, I surmised that the "Heathrow Expansion" had something catastrophic to do with the camera bellows or perhaps it was a term for some sort of uncorrectable field of view distortion encountered only on LF images. I searched in vain on the Internet for a photographic reference for "Heathrow Expansion", so I had concluded that this was some sort of "inside" LF photographic joke that I would never "get".

[Roger Bradbury]

This is the sort of thing I expected to see when clicking on the link in the featured (and well spotted pun) comment by Michael Perini: Large Format printer

Note the maximum print size, and the maximum material thickness.

I passed a CD of photos to the printer makers, Screen, via a friend who worked for them and I received some prints on rigid materials in return. They found my ultra wide angle photo with a deep blue sky shot with a polariser very useful. If they could get a smooth transition through the various shades of blue, and they could, the machine was set right.

[Bob Smith]

@Jim Simmons: makes my head hurt just reading that. How did it turn out?
Well I hope.

[Roy]

I too, "having lost all faith in humanity" intend to "retire to my family's ranch"
Unfortunately...

Roy

[Julian]

"Not being intimately familiar with LF, I surmised that the "Heathrow Expansion" had something catastrophic to do with the camera bellows"

You are indeed correct. 'Heathrow Expansion' refers, of course, to Thomas Heathrow's 1863 patent for an automated system of focussing a view camera. The contraption used a clever parallax approach to determine the correct expansion of the bellows to ensure perfect focus. It would have gained greater acceptance had it not been for one fatal flaw: pre-electricity, the system required the services of a small steam engine in order to move the bellows. Accurate focussing necessitated good steam pressure and constant feeding of the boiler. As a result, early prototypes were prone to accidents which often resulted in the total incineration of both view camera and bellows.

History has not been kind to this invention leading many commentators to conclude that the device was in fact nothing more than an elaborate joke. :0)