ISO50

RSS

SCALE

Posted by Scott

2063056320_890ae8095d_o
"From about 1956 until 1964, US aeronautics engineers and rocket scientists at the Langley Research Center developed a series of spherical satellite balloons called, awesomely enough, satelloons. Dubbed Project Echo, the 100-foot diameter aluminumized balloons were one of the inaugural projects for NASA, which was established in 1958."

Via NYNYNY

Holga vs. The World

Posted by Scott

iso50_3
I’ll be leaving January 3rd for a month (Tokyo – Thailand -Amsterdam -  Stockholm – Prague – London).  I lost half my shots from this summer’s trip to a faulty Lomo LCA.  This time around I’m bringing my Nikon digital, but I still want a lofi film camera to capture the more personal stuff.  After seeing some beautiful shots like the one above by sMacshot I’ve decided to go with a Holga this time and ditch the LCA (which was my third Lomo to break).  I know the Holga is probably just as prone to breakage, but it’s only about $40 instead of whatever outrageous price they are charging now for the Lomo these days ($300?). 

Any tips for using the Holga?  Does it have a similar auto-exposure mechanism to the Lomo or is it all manual?  Any reason why I should stick with the Lomo?  I also really like the prospect of shooting in medium format with the Holga, something I’ve never done before.  Anything special about MF for beginners?  I am thinking of going all cross-process this time, excited to see the results.

Sound off in the comments >

Just stumbled on this Holga site, some nice info there.

Pythagorean Tree

Posted by Scott

'Pythagorean_Tree'
Saw this on FFFFOUND and thought it was interesting. It was just an image named "Pythagorean Tree" so I looked that up on wiki and found this.  I recently saw some pictures of plates with these super detailed illustrations of owls on them, all done in that fractal style.  The tree reminded me of them, does anyone remember the plates I am talking about?  They’ve been making the rounds on design blogs for a while now.

Graphics Monitors

Posted by Scott

eizo
The bane of my existence is proofing, that subtle art form which attempts to ensure that the colors you are seeing on your monitor will appear the same way in printed form or on other’s monitors (when viewing on the internet).  I currently use a Samsung 204t LCD monitor with the Pantone Spyder2 calibration system, and while they perform well, I would like something more reliable (for instance the 204t displays slightly differently depending on what part of the screen you’re looking at; non-uniform brightness / color / contrast across the full area of the LCD).  Pictured above is the Eizo CG241w, apparently the industry standard, but at about $2,300 it’s a big investment. Consider that they are only rated to reliably reproduce color for about 5 years and it starts to look like a rather bad investment.  I have scoured internet bulletin boards and trade magazines, only to find a bunch of conflicting opinions and manufacturer shills. 

So that leads me to my question:  What has everyone else been using? Is there an alternative that isn’t as costly as the Eizo? Does anyone still use CRT?  I got rid of my last one a couple years back to go all LCD and now sort of regret it.  What sort of calibration systems are you using? Answer back in The Comments >

Keep in mind that I am all PC, so I can’t calibrate an Apple cinema on my system (there are no OSD controls on the cinemas, only OS-embedded software controls which are mac only).  Although I can use the Dell 24", which apparently has the same LCD element as the Cinemas (although both have received poor reviews).