The Can Of Air - Falcon To The Rescue

For years we have sold the Dust-Off brand of canned air made by Falcon. These are the familiar blue and white aerosol cans with the black tops and the red extension tubes that are racked up in the ink,  paper, and chemistry section at the back of the shop.

I guess they aren't actually aerosols - they are compressed air in there. The cans have traditionally cost $ 25 and last for ages in most applications. Good steady seller.

Originally the only use for them I conceived was in printing negatives in an enlarger. The Dust Off can was used to spray over the top surface and under surface of the negative in the holder to blow away dust.

The enlarger has been gone for years but the Dust Off remains - because I have found a raft of new photographic uses for it:

a. Spray the dust off the platen of the Epson V700 scanner. It's a large glass surface and attracts gunk via static electricity. I wipe it with an anti-stat cloth and then the Dust Off and it is pristine.
 The negs and slide also get the spray treatment.

b. It is ideal for blasting dust and grit from the OUTSIDE of cameras prior to changing lenses. Don't use it on the interior mirror or sensor area.

c. Clean the swarf out of the battery compartments on the flash units.

d. Likewise fire the dirt out of the recesses of the Epson R3000 printer. One good trick as well is to keep the R3000 swaddled in the plastic cover it came with in the delivery box. Looks naff but keeps the thing cleaner.

e. When the computer gets dusty inside and runs hot you can blow a blast of air through to to give the cooling fins and fans some help. The Dust Off bottle becomes cold by the expansion of the gas and then you can hold it against the hot section of the outer case of the computer for quick thermal relief.

f. Dust that lens off.

g. Make frothy coffee at the computer desk.

Plus it looks like something out of Game Of Thrones...

The Future Of Darkroom Work

Seven years ago when I came to work in Camera Electronic I did not think I would be able to write that header now. The front of the shop still had a few film cameras and there was a rime of old enlargers around the top of the cabinets, but I could see that little was new nor was it likely to stay. I dedicated myself to learning the new digital age.

I miscalculated. As I type this blog post ( admittedly on a digital computer...) I can see shelves with darkroom chemicals, darkroom printing paper, developing tanks and kits, negative files, and a refrigerator full of fresh film. And every day people come in the front door, take away some of these goods, and pay us for them.

Darkroom work would appear to be going on.

We have supplied some new enlargers to schools that are admittedly basic overseas things that need a fair bit of adaptation for use in Australia - but all the rest of the stuff is perfectly usable. Australian dark is as good as US or UK dark - all you do is block up the windows and door and grope around.

Do the new users of old technology get what they expect from the experience? I hope they do - though I am not sure if they think they are going to find a Holy Grail in the wash water. They may, or may not - I do know that if they do not use enough of it they will eventually lose all their images to fading - I have found out my sins of omission with old negatives.

I cannot say whether the colour darkroom will come back - I suspect not. The technology that made it work was getting better and easier in the 80's and 90's and I lucked onto the last of the easy amateur gear and chemistry. Even than it was poisonous, irritating, and messy. Of course this also describes Christmas lunch with the rellies, but we will gloss over that. Colour printing - good printing - has advanced beyond belief with the advent of the digital inkjet printer and I do not think we gain anything by going back and sticking our fingers in the blix.

So - here's to the continuation of tradition in supply and usage. You cannot poison yourself dead or spend yourself broke on black and white darkroom work and an occasionally you will produce a masterpiece. 

Crowdfunding In Photography

Have just watched a YouTube video on the management's time...and am proud of it! Even used shop electricity to do it...and all to good purpose.

The little film was about crowdfunding for a plastic enlarger. Apparently someone wishes to make a little enlarger that accommodates a mobile phone and then projects an image from this to classic B/W enlarging paper. To enable people who only have images on their iPhone or other phone to pull them off for prints.

It's a novelty, Folks. If it gives you a thrill and reminds you of the dear old fume-laden days groping in the dark, well good on them. The video asks for money up front so that they can buy the construction of the actual devices, with the promise that if they get enough they will be able to do the job and you'll get one of the first batch.

Interesting concept. We've see it in the photographic world before - the Russians apparently got enough western cash to make batches of re-designed Petzval lenses for modern DSLR cameras. Sometimes the call for moolah works and sometimes it goes unheeded - I remember one scheme that wanted to develop a tiny wireless flash trigger for mirror-less cameras that seems to have come to naught.

Good ideas whose time have come? Perhaps. Trendy new business models? Perhaps.

E-shellgame? Perhaps.

Note: if you've got a lot of images on a mobile phone you can get a Fujifilm Instax Printer and do the job yourself right now. In colour. In the light. We've got he printers and film right now. No shells. No game.

Killing Yourself Softly With Digital Photography

We try to provide helpful advice on a number of photographic subjects here in this column - a service to the profession and the trade...and all the rest. One of areas that may have been neglected up to now is how to injure yourself with digital photography.

Now we're not talking about harming your reputation with bad technique, dodgy subject matter, or dubious business practices - feel free to make your own way to perdition just as you wish. Be assured, you will have company on the road...

No. it's more physical than moral harm that we are concerned with here. And the news is not good - digital photography work is nowhere near as easy a path to destruction as the one with the older chemical processes.

In the dear old days you could poison yourself real good, real quick - if you were using mercury fumes or cyanide washes or ether vapour in the same space as a candle flame you could expect a prompt cessation to further care. Later on the black and white chemistry got safer but the advent of colour work with the organic solvents and dire bleaches and carcinogens brought the statistics back up.

You could also do wonderful things in a very short period of time with some of the early  electrical connections, safelights, pools of water, and metal workbenches.

When all else failed, you could fall over in the dark and pull the enlarger down on yourself.

Now in the digital realm it gets harder...no more chemistry. The computers are all sealed and earthed and you rarely use them in the sink with an inch of water round the bottom. You could swallow a lithium ion battery and harm yourself but it takes some doing. Hitting yourself on the side of the head with a 120-400mm zoom lens is difficult to do more than once.

Sitting in front of a monitor for 15 hours straight might be bad for you, but then so many people are trained to do this by their years of television that they won't notice.

Possibly the best result will be if you set the digital camera on a tripod and put it onto interval shooting and then link it straight to your Facebook account. Eventually your friends will get so sick of seeing you on their feed that they will band together to come round your house and beat you up.

Well, Hush My Mouth With Beseler

Yes, it's real.

A Beseler Cadet II enlarger.

Yes, it's new, sealed in the box. Yes, you can do 35mm enlargements in your darkroom with it. If you buy it from us we'll give you a free set of Ilford Multigrade filters and an easel to use with it.

If this seems like a pretty retro advertisement for a store that is crammed full of digital cameras and accessories, bear in mind that there are still dedicated film workers out there and people who would like to experience the art as it once was.

No-one as yet has come in and asked for daguerreotype plates ready-made or a jug of mercury but we would not be surprised...in the meantime consider turning your bathroom into a press darkroom. Your family will love you for it.