I was contacted by a student recently who asked “I was just told that all my old lenses are radioactive and dangerous, is that true?” He was quite concerned as he loves shooting vintage lenses but was concerned about the potential health risks. I reassured him and explained that some lenses (not all) made from 1940 thru the 1970’s do utilize radioactive thorium oxide ThO2 to reduce reflections and generally improve optical performance. However the radiation levels should not be concerning, unless you sleep with it and use the lens for hours on end every day. The radiation levels are generally quite low and almost undetectable at distances of a meter or more. Having the camera body between the lens and your face also effectively cuts the levels in half.
The lens in the photo below has a radiation level of 0.105 mR/h which is classified as a “high level”. All tests were done using a GQ GMC Geiger Counter. Measuring through the camera body resulted in a level 0.046 mR/h. Moving the counter 1 m from the lens, there was no detectable radiation above normal background levels. Putting the lens in a cabinet with glass doors, completely blocked all radiation from the lens.
Compare those with this lens at 0.105 mR/h and you can see the levels are very low. However radiation injury can be cumulative so sleeping with the lens on your night stand and carrying it on your person 16 hours a day 365 days a year, might be something I personally would reconsider. It’s also important to understand that the majority of lenses are not radioactive. I have tested about 40 lenses this week and only 5 of them are radioactive.
The biggest danger with radioactive lenses is caused when the glass becomes broken or damaged. This may result in tiny particles of glass containing thorium becoming airborne. The radiation does not penetrate clothing or skin well, but if inhaled or ingested, it can be cause for concern. Protect these lenses and if they become damaged you should contact your local authorities for advice on proper disposal. Beyond that, have fun with these beautiful old lenses. Besides, it’s fun to see the reaction when you tell people your lenses are radioactive!
I frequent a facebook group called “Canadian Amateur Photographers”. It’s been an excellent group where I can enjoy conversations and share images with other hobby photographers similar to myself. I am able to avoid incessant conversations about wedding photography, growing a business, getting clients and other similar chatter common to most other photography groups.
This week something unusual happened. I posted an image and received a very harsh response. “This group is for amateurs and you are clearly a professional, please leave!”. A couple additional people also chimed in venting the same message. Explaining that I have been a photographer for 47 years but my background is health care and I’m strictly a hobbyist / amateur, only yielded the reply “I can tell by looking at your photo’s that you are obviously a professional”.
That brings me to the point of this post. What is a professional vs an amateur. The difference is completely unrelated to the individuals skill or talent. It is entirely related to money. If you receive a significant portion of your income from the activity, you are a professional. If you don’t, you’re an amateur. It’s as simple as that! In the dialogue mentioned previously, they equated professionalism to quality of work, but this is incorrect. The dividing factor is simply dollars!
Does being an amateur mean you are just learning or are bad at what you do? As a case in point, look at the olympics. The original concept of the Olympics has been amateur sport. To compete in the Olympics you had to be an amateur .. meaning you do not receive a wage for participating in your chosen sport. Now having said that it’s obvious that the athletes are neither inexperienced, nor do they perform poorly in their sport. Quite the contrary, they are some of the best in the world .. yet they are amateurs! I do know that the Olympics today has departed from this intent so I’m speaking historically.
Does being a professional mean you are good at what you do. Oh my goodness, no! In fact I recently saw the work of a professional wedding photographer that was unbelievably bad! Most of the images were out of focus. Exposure was all wrong, a bright background put everyones faces in shadow. Composition was terrible with many subjects poorly positioned so that heads were cut off. Yet, this individual was a “professional photographer” .. she charged for her services.
I love the Cambridge English Dictionary definition of the word amateur: “Taking part in an activity for pleasure, not as a job.”
As amateur photographers, we engage in the activity out of passion, not out of obligation to generate an income. Some of the best photographers in the world are amateurs. Going back to the group I mentioned at the beginning, one thing my antagonists seem to miss is the fact that experienced and passionate amateurs are often the first to step forward to volunteer to mentor those who are picking up a camera for the first time. Amateurs can range from newbies who are picking up a camera for the first day, to those with decades of experience. What we all have in common is that we engage in photography because we love doing it!
Today I was out shooting my 1940’s Leica iii when a fellow walking in the opposite direction, suddenly stopped in his tracks. “Oh wow that’s a really old film camera isn’t it?” he asked. We carried on a conversation for about 15 minutes and I learned his name is Lee. He isn’t a photographer but was utterly fascinated with the camera and we had a wonderful conversation. Lee finally asked if he could take a photo of me and my camera using his phone. I said “Sure, but then how about I take a picture of you?”. He responded “Oh that would be cool, a picture of me on a film camera!”
I shoot film for many reasons but a wonderful side effect of shooting old vintage cameras is that they are people magnets. Strangers will come up and initiate conversation with me. I’ve had the most amazing conversations with complete strangers and then I can always turn that into a street portrait. It makes me smile every time this happens.
Lee kept his mask on for the shot but you can still see the wonderful smile in his eyes.
Leica iiiF with Leica Summicron 50mm f2 Fort Langley British Columbia Canada
This is Lee. He stopped on the street to ask me about the Leica iiiF and asked to take a photo of the camera. In turn I got him to pose for a street portrait.
I’ve been a photographer for 47 years and live in a small historic town/village called Fort Langley on the west coast of Canada near Vancouver. I shoot Fuji X Series cameras but also a selection of film cameras, some as much as 100 years old. I love shooting film and spending time coaxing the best out of an image in my darkroom.
Several years ago I found myself shooting a scene of some kayakers from a bridge in the village. My camera of choice that day was my Contax 139 film camera. Sharing the same vantage point was a young fellow with his big Nikon DSLR banging away in rapid fire. After several minutes he turned to me and asked; “Is that film?” I answered it was and he responded; “Oh wow, I’ve never seen one before!”
We spent some time talking and he kept asking questions such as; “Where does the memory card go,” and “How do you get the pictures out of the camera?” He was loaded with such questions. Everything I said received the response; “Oh wow!” I asked if he would like to try it and he tentatively took a shot and then instinctively looked at the back of the camera. I laughed and said; “Uh, uh, you don’t see anything until you develop the film!” His response of course was, “Oh wow!” He took a couple more shots as he was utterly fascinated with this concept of film.
His name is Tad, a 22 year old graphic arts student from the local university. Tad grew up in the digital era. Everything was digital and it was all he knew, so this was a unique experience. I offered to email him the shots he took once I developed and digitized them to which he replied, you guessed it; “Oh wow!”
Two days later I emailed the photos to Tad, not really expecting to get a response. He not only responded, but continued to pepper me with questions in utter fascination. His enthusiasm was unquenchable and I became his mentor into the world of film. Today, Tad lives in Toronto, Canada and he exclusively shoots film with his newly acquired Leica M6.
Something happened with that encounter! It helped me to realize that not only is film making a comeback with former film shooters such as myself, but there is a younger ‘digital’ generation, who have never experienced shooting film, don’t understand what it is or how it works, and are intrigued by it. They enjoy the experience of doing something totally different, creating images without computers, using their own vision, and imagination all by using simple manual cameras that, in many instances, are older than they are. Today I meet a constant stream of ‘Tads’. Most are in their 20’s – 30’s while a few older ones are returning to film. This is not a unique phenomenon. Film photography is seeing a significant resurgence, with young adults being the primary driving force. Entirely new films are hitting the market and previously discontinued films are being resurrected.
I refer to myself as a Hybrid Photographer because I shoot both digital and film, with the two worlds becoming intertwined when analogue images are digitized. Hybrid Photography makes film fun and affordable, while removing the need for a darkroom for those not so inclined.
Someone said Film is Dead … I guess I didn’t get that memo!
I often hear photographers say, “I don’t need a website I use Instagram .. or Facebook”. That always gives me cause for concern. You are going to trust your work to a company that can ban or shadow ban you in the blink of an eye! They display your images in tiny proportions with massive compression that kills image quality and they only show your images to those they choose as worthy. I know of a photographer who does weddings and maternity photos. She recently had her Instagram account blocked for 48 hours for showing nudity that violates Instagram rules. The “nudity” in question was a new mom bathing her newborn and everything was hidden by bubbles. To trust your online presence to these companies, is foolish at best!
As a photographer, you need a proper web site to represent your work in the best possible light. It gives you complete control over what people see and how your work is displayed. Getting a web site is not as complicated as you might think. There are a variety of services that provide a complete, easy to use website with your own domain and even e-commerce for very low cost. In fact if you are an Adobe Lightroom subscriber, included with your subscription is Adobe Portfolio which is just such a service. In fact this very web site on which you are reading this blog is entirely built on Adobe Portfolio which is already part of your Adobe subscription. They even have client galleries so you can provide a private portal for your clients to view the results of their photo shoot or event, Using their customizable templates you can have a professional looking site in very little time. In fact your Portfolio web site is fully linked with Lightroom. This is not a sponsored advertisement and Adobe has not asked me for endorsement. I just want to let my readers know that this capability exists and many of you who use Lightroom already have it!
Photography has been a part of my life for 47 years. I was a quiet, science minded child in a competitive all-sports school. Appreciating my difficulty fitting in, a teacher suggested that I join the newspaper/yearbook committee as a photographer. I fell in love with everything photography had to offer: the feel of the camera, the thrill of capturing a moment, the smell of the darkroom. After school I entered the emergency health care profession, but photography continued to be an important part of my personal life. By that time I had acquired my first real camera, a beautiful Contax 139 with Carl Zeiss optics, and we were inseparable.
The hospital I worked at, here in Vancouver, was both a major trauma centre and a teaching hospital. This meant that many of our staff were either in the midst of, or finishing, their education. In addition to these professional accomplishments, many people were also celebrating personal milestones like getting married. One day, being aware of my interest in photography, a surgical resident asked me if I would photograph her wedding. I did, and when it was all said and done the couple were very happy with the results.
Word quickly spread, and before long I found all my days off occupied by the tasks that arise from running a wedding photography business. I was busy, even shooting multiple weddings in one day, and before I knew it 3 years and well over 100 weddings had gone by. It is worth noting that this was all done in addition to my “real career”, and after 3 years my love for the camera was just… gone. Photography had shifted from a wonderful hobby that I loved, to something that I came to resent. I was done! My camera was put on a shelf, eventually sold, and my life moved in a different direction.
It was about ten years later and my work had evolved to where I was now teaching in the emergency health care field. I encountered a work associate one day at a local Canada Day event. He was a photographer, and I was immediately intrigued by the little camera that he wore at his side (it was the Fujifilm X100). The camera had a single fixed lens, wonderfully tactile controls, and it felt like an old school film camera (despite being a modern digital camera). That X100 re-ignited something in me, and I soon found myself with my own Fujifilm X100T.
For the first time in years photography was exciting again, and I soon found myself exploring genres such as street, landscape and still life. I had no clients, there were no expectations or obligations, and the simplicity of the X100T meant that I didn’t even need to carry a camera bag! This was the type of photography that I loved when I used to shoot with my old Contax 139, and I was in heaven! There is no doubt that my little Fujifilm camera put the fun back into photography for me. Coming back fresh, after such a long break, also helped define what I would and wouldn’t shoot now. Today, if someone asks me to shoot their wedding, I only laugh and say “not a chance”!
The story doesn’t end there, however, because a few years ago I re-discovered the old Contax 139. Not the actual camera that I used to own, but I bought one that was in beautiful shape with the intention of making it a display item. I can remember holding that camera in my hands one day, reminiscing and enjoying the feel of it, when I suddenly thought, “Wouldn’t it be fun, just once, to shoot another roll of film? Wait, can I even buy film anymore? What about processing it?”
I soon learned that film and processing was readily available locally, so I loaded the camera and shot a roll of black & white film. It felt effortless, like old times, and my hands moved smoothly from task to task as I operated the camera. I remember practically trembling with anticipation as I picked up the film from the lab a few days later. It was magic: seeing my images, feeling the images in my hands, appreciating the pure joy of holding a physical print instead of viewing images on a computer screen.
I shot more and more film from that point on, and soon started doing my own developing because it was so easy and inexpensive (processing film doesn’t even require a darkroom, just a dark bag for loading film into a daylight developing tank). Soon my collection of film cameras began to grow, with everything from my Leica M6 to my 1939 Graflex Speed Graphic. All of my cameras are working tools, not museum pieces. Yes, I always have my Fujifilm X100T with me when I shoot. I love shooting digital but film has an important place in my photography!
A few years ago, as I was shooting with my Contax, a young fellow approached me and hesitatingly asked, “Is that a film camera”? I explained that it was and he said he had never seen one before. His name was Tad and he was a graphic arts student at a nearby university, and was fascinated by this mysterious type of photography that he had only read about. I let him shoot a few frames that day and, as promised, I sent him digital copies of the film photos he had taken. Tad was thrilled and became enthralled with film photography, which led to me loaning him one of my cameras and us shooting together several times. That was several years ago and we’ve stayed in touch. Today, living near Toronto, Tad is a very active film photographer and proudly told me that he recently built a darkroom in his new home.
This experience mirrored something that I had been noticing more and more lately: film photography has been rapidly gaining popularity, especially with a younger generation who had grown up with digital. Film can be such a different experience, and I knew that there must be other people out there who want to explore this amazing art form. I am a long time educator by profession, now retired, so I’ve created a Film Experience program that provides the opportunity for people like Tad to learn what film is all about and to experience it first-hand. I will always love digital photography, I’m definitely not trying to convince people to switch from digital to film. Film photography allows us to simplify, slow down and create art in a much more personal and tactile manner. This medium offers so much and I love having the opportunity to give back to the photographic community with my workshop program.
My life has gone full circle in a way, and I couldn’t be happier.
I’ve heard this statement three times this week and it’s only Tuesday.
“Film photographers don’t edit, they shoot and what they get on the negative is what they get … photography in it’s purest form!”
Well that statement is pure something for sure!! I wish I knew where this came from because it’s a total myth! I am a film photographer and my editing starts before I release the shutter. I begin by selecting the film stock that I want to use. We have hundreds of different films available to us each with their own unique look and characteristics. Different films stocks produce different results, similar to a digital photographer selecting a different image profile in Lightroom.
I compose the image in camera as much as possible by adjusting image placement and exposure just like a digital photographer will. We might take a bit more time with that process because unlike the digital photographer, we can’t fire off dozens frames to get one shot, we have to make each frame count, but otherwise a very similar process.
Now that the image has been captured, the editing continues by selecting which developer I want to use. If I want a really fine grain image I will use a developer like Ilfosol3 or for a more gritty effect I might use something like Robinal to enhance the grain. I may change agitation schemes again to impact the film grain. Once the film is developed I will then examine the negative closely, and will probably do a couple test prints to determine further editing requirements.
Next I adjust the cropping on the englarger and select the type of photographic paper that will best suit the image. I will almost always fine tune the contrast by selecting specific contrast filters or by dialing in settings on the englarger to produce the look I had envisioned. Finally I may dodge and burn the image to lighten areas like shadows or darken areas like the sky. I may even mask entire portions of the image during exposure to change the effect. If this sounds like the changes you make while working in the Develop module in Lightroom, that’s because it is very much the same. Adobe didn’t invent most of those sliders and tools, they just created digital versions of what photographers have been doing for decades.
In other words “Every photographer … digital and film … does a certain amount of editing in their images”. As photographers, capturing the image is only the first half of the process. The second half happens in the darkroom for film photographers or in Lightroom (or whichever editor you choose to use) for digital but we all edit our images.
