Cameras

What Type of Cameras do all you fellow photographers use. Personally I use a Canon Elan with any of my 3 lenses.

Nikon N60 with a Sigma 28-105 2.8-4.5 and a Sigma 70-300. I also use a little Olympus Epic with a fixed lens of 28mm and a 2.8f stop.

-------------
daniel j. haverlock
Magnum Count: 1266
MF Count: 117
spiritofthepoint.com

I just got a new Canon Rebel 2000(earlyX-mas present;)) and can't wait to try it out!

-------------
Michigan State Spartans NCAA National Champions
GO SPARTANS!!!

I have an older Canon Rebel film camera, and a Nikon D1 (digital). The best photos I've ever produced were from a Kodak DC280, a nice little digital camera. But a photograph is what you make out of it, through composition, not with fancy equipment.

-------------
Tyler Adams
*** This post was edited by Tyler on 12/19/2000. ***

Canon Elan IIe camera body with either a Sigma 28-80mm macro zoom or a Canon 75-300mm zoom. Some negatives were scanned on an HP Photoscanner, more recent photos were scanned on a Nikon Coolscan III. Sadly, the gallery is filled with a lot of crap because it seems I was never at the park at a good time to shoot. The MF photos are particularly bad.

I also recently bought a Nikon CoolPix 990 that has outstanding resolution (used it for the CoasterBuzz IAAPA coverage) and the ability to go all manual for full control, a welcome feature in digital cameras. Should be fun to use, but I really like my big lens on the Canon.

-------------
Jeff
Webmaster/Guide to The Point
Millennium Force laps: 50

For stills: Pentax K-1000 with a Ricoh 28mm lens or a Promaster 28mm-80mm zoom.
For video: Sony TRV-8 Mini-DV camcorder (my Canon E61 8mm has become unreliable)
For digital stills: Sony TRV-8. :) 720x486 resolution is good enough for the Web.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
*** This post was edited by RideMan on 12/20/2000. ***

Photos: Pentax MX with 19mm 3.5, 28-200mm 2.8, 50mm 1.4, and a 300mm 3.5
Video: Panasonic DVC Pro 5mm-85mm lens
Film: Arriflex 35mm motion picture IIC with 20mm-200mm f2.9 lens

What ever you do shoot a lot. Film is cheap. Cheap process 4" or 3" prints then enlarge what you like with a professional photolab in your area. Stick with 100 speed film for day shots. Use a tripod for night shots. You will see a big difference.

*** This post was edited by Freaky on 12/20/2000. ***

Wow, I think I have the crowd beat on age of equipment in actual everyday productive use!

For 35mm I am using an original Nikon F body with a split-image focusing screen. (Big, heavy camera, that.) I have an EL Nikkor 55mm Macro f/3.5 and a 50mm Nikkor f/1.4. Also using a Nikkor 28-90 Zoom and a Vivitar 70-150 Zoom. The big boy is a Tamron fixed 300mm f/5.6 with which I use a 2x teleconverter to get 600mm effective. (but only on really bright days!).

For medium format I use a Yaschica MAT A 120
twin-lens reflex. No meter, so I use a 25 year old Shepherd direct or incident light meter.

For flash I am using an ancient but serviceable Vivitar 102 and a Sunpak 125, early vintage. My favorite form of flash is to use this bulb flash adaptor that looks like a portable satellite dish, with some of the Press 5 and Press 25 Blue flash bulbs. Makes me feel like O. Winston Link at the Horseshoe Curve!

Timothy A. Bretz
"Remember to pillage before you burn!"
tabretz@compuserve.com

Hey! My first camera was a Nikon F, used by some guy in Vietnam (before I was born). That damn thing was heavy, but being as manual as you get, it sure did teach me how to shoot correctly.

-------------
Jeff
Webmaster/Guide to The Point
Millennium Force laps: 50

Freaky, now I understand what you were talking about when you mentioned "large format gear" in that thread about on-Point photography. DV-50 is bad enough...but an Arri??! :)

(Closest I come to that is if I shoot on spaghetti with my 1981 Sankyo EM-40XL. That's S-8.)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I teach for the Motion Picture Institute in Michigan. One of the cameras we use is a Arriflex 35mm IIC.(the thing weights about 35lbs) I take it to Cedar Point a couple of times a year and shoot about 2000ft of film (20mim). The frame rate is rock steady and the footage is beautiful. The lens cost about $5,000 and looks great when you are trying to do the Dan Feicht "coaster through the sun" shot. Too bad I can't do anything with it. (demo reel?). There's nothing like a roller coaster racing down a hill on motion picture film. I don't ever see coasters shot on film anymore. (Discovery Channel) Digital has taken over. It's alot cheaper. You are right though 35mm isn't really "large format"
-------------
:) "Did you know this goes up-side down" :) *** This post was edited by Freaky on 12/21/2000. ***

Hey Freaky,

I just happen to work at the Sandusky Drive-In Theatre on alternate weekends in the summer. It is about halfway between the Causeway & the Chausee, on Cleveland Road. If you ever wanna thread up some of that demo stuff in a genuine, vintage carbon-arc driven Simplex 35mm projector, just say the word and we'll set it up! Other GTTP fans would be welcome also. Have to be really late at night, like after closing, but I'd be glad to see that footage on the big screen.

Timothy A. Bretz
"Remember to pillage before you burn"
tabretz@compuserve.com

Wow, that would be very, very cool. Yes we could persue that. I shoot color-neg. So I could get a daily print made and throw it up. I have only seen my work on the big screen twice.
-------------
:) "Did you know this goes up-side down" :)

Timothy A. Bretz & Freaky I will be there. :):):):)

-------------
http://members.aol.com/Joshua2098/RollerCoasterPunk.html
I've seen some crazy stuff in my time, but that... was... AWESOME!!! But, sorry about your car, man

If you guys ever make that happen, I wanna know about it...!

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Who can only think of one other theatre off-hand that has carbon arc projectors...
*** This post was edited by RideMan on 1/9/2001. ***

I don't know what a carbon arc projector is, but i'm gonna take a guess that it's prety old.

And if this thing ever takes off, count me in. I've always wanted to see a coaster on the big screen.

-------------
Monster Ride Host for 2 Years
3 Years Total @ CP

Hey fill me in on that as well I don't care what time it happens . That would totally rock.

Monster Ride Op, the brightest electric lights you can get are arc lights...where the light is produced by a high-voltage spark jumping across a small gap. Too bright for most general lighting, but great for projection. So the technology was adapted for theatrical projectors. Inside the projector is either a pair of carbon rods or a carbon rod and a metal plate. The rods are adjusted to almost touch each other, and a high voltage current is passed through the rod to generate the spark. Unfortunately, as it arcs, the end of the carbon rod burns away, increasing the size of the gap which will eventually cause the spark to quit, so an advancing mechanism has to keep feeding more rod into the projector. If I remember correctly, the projectors at the Ohio Theater use a rod that is about 3/8" in diameter and about 8" long; the projectionist I was talking with said it would last through about two reels; just then it broke in mid-reel.

Modern theatrical projectors use a lamp which has two itty bitty carbon or metal rods sealed into a quartz bulb filled with xenon gas. The principle is exactly the same, except that by keeping air away from the rods, the rods don't burn, so the lamp works, maintenance free, until it doesn't anymore. Actually I have such a lamp...burned out, from a data projector, on my desk here someplace...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Who apologizes for straying so far off-topic...

Rideman is right on the money. At the Sandusky Drive-In we use two carbon rods, 11mm diameter at about 80 amps DC. The lamps are water cooled. The electric current is forced through the positive carbon by direct contact with two solid blocks of silver, with the water line passing through them to carry off the heat. I would be happy to email or post a pictures of the booth and projectors to anyone interested, just email me.

As to making it happen, when I know what my summer schedule will be, later on toward May, we can hammer out when would be the best night to do this. As I said earlier, it would be either a Friday night or a Saturday night, after the show is over. That would be about 1:30 am or so in mid-summer.

Timothy A. Bretz
"The man behind the bright light"

As an amateur digital photographer, I go for decent but not-too-expensive digital cameras. My previous camera was an Olympus D-340L, which was actually pretty high-end when I got it. I still have this camera and it works pretty well, but has gotten rather beaten up.

My current digi-camera is a Fuji FinePix 1400, which I'm actually getting somewhat disappointed with. The more I use it the more I'm finding its autofocus (or lack thereof) to be somewhat weak. This camera really impressed me when I first looked at it and got it, but I'm less thrilled with it now.

I'll probably be trading up to a Canon S100 (which is amazingly small and has a nice solid metal case, the perfect amusement park digital camera in terms of form factor) or S20 (somewhat larger, but better pictures).

-------------
--Greg
http://www.pobox.com/~gregleg/
MF count: 27