Decisive Momentum

If, like me, you are still holding fast and shooting some film amidst the digital deluge, chances are you have delusional visions about Saint Ansel going forth and spreading the the light of the pure craft of photography (the light, of course, is divided into zones neatly marked I-X). But pure or not, the craft of analogue photography requires quite a bit of exactness and repeatability to give optimum results and for this, testing film and developer combinations often becomes necessary. But the one thing that hindered me most from really testing my film and having sleepless nights over geeky things like N-1 development was the lack of - or rather the cost of - a densitometer. I know those things cost a lot less than they used to - a few hundred instead of a few thousand several years back - but they are still expensive and bulky beasts. But not to be discouraged from my vision of photographic nirvana, I managed to put together a kit that cost me all of $30 - and can conceivably be don...

If you have a lot of plastic and toy cameras and like me want to use some of them as pinholes or use them on bulb mode for long exposures, then you've probably tried to device ways of putting them on a tripod. If the tripod quick-release system you are using is something like the Arca-Swiss then the cost of plates at about $50 or more a pop can become a major concern - especially on cameras which usually cost under $5! I used Bogen's clamp system for a while and now use the Arca-Swiss system. They both share the same basic design although the sizes vary widely. The only pieces of equipment I wont put on a tripod without solid metal plates are my 'real' cameras - the Chamonix 4x5, and µ4/3 Panasonic. But for most of my other cameras (I never seem to shoot rangefinders from a tripod, somehow) I have devised a simple way of making my own plates - modeling clay! It's available from most art supply stores. I recommend the kind that hardens on baking. Cut out a block that...