The magic of soft focus

I've lived to a ripe old age, but I still can't grasp the magic of soft focus, its appeal...

If we look back at the history of photography, these blurry, unclear images were initially the result of imperfect optics and photographic materials. But technology advanced rapidly, and soon perfectly designed high-resolution lenses were created, negatives were also huge by today's standards, and the smallest details of landscapes and portraits could be seen in photographs. And in modern digital cameras, whose sensors reach 150 megapixels, with a huge dynamic range and color gamut , everything has become even more serious.

But at the same time, neither monoculars nor pinhole cameras (more on that another time) have disappeared from the art of photography, with their mysterious and poetic reflection of reality. In addition, the perfection in the transmission of color subtleties and the technical splendor of lenses began to be "combated" digitally, with the help of various image "dehansers"! Nostalgic images required something that had been quite successfully combated in the past - film grain and various color deviations. Nowadays, there are few programs that do not have tools for "degrading" the final result. It seems to me that imperfect images engage other parts of our brain, evoking memories, vague desires, and forgotten sensations.

Startups and photography

When cameras appeared in every phone, almost all photographic equipment immediately became the preserve of professionals and photography enthusiasts. The number of cameras decreased, and professional film cameras almost disappeared. Now, however, they are experiencing a renaissance. With the advent of 3D printing and cheap, powerful processors, many startups have emerged to replace the giants that have left the market, producing photo enlargers, developing machines, flashes, and exposure meters.

One of the most notable new companies is the Estonian startup Vintage Visual. They have created the AGO film processor for all types of film and even paper. It is based on the idea of monitoring the temperature of solutions, and the development time is adjusted depending on the temperature of the solution. Now your entire film development lab can fit in a single plastic box. So if you want to take a picture of your idol, not a "sugary" one created with artificial intelligence, and not a "telephone" one with a bunch of unnecessary details, but a lively and memorable one, like this photo of David Bowie that I took back in 1996, then you should explore film photography and everything that comes with it – developing, printing, scanning, and archiving. And startups are indispensable helpers here.

On my last visit to Tallinn, I stopped by the guys at Vintage Visual.  Here's their website.

https://vintagevisual.eu

Ode to the slide

I was captivated by the magic of the slide when I was five years old, in 1957. My grandfather built a little house for children in the yard, where we played during the day, and in the evenings, he would bring a filmoscope and show filmstrips. It was a thrilling spectacle!

Now I realize the quality of the filmstrips was terrible, the screen was just a white cloth, and the filmoscope was primitive, but we never noticed.

I saw my first real slides ten years later, in 1967, and they were Kodachrome slides, unmatched in quality even today!

At that time, Bratsk was very popular—a grand construction project, a young city in the taiga, and so on. Many famous people and correspondents from international publications visited the city back then. My father showed the city to correspondents and the photographer from Look magazine, one of the leading American magazines of that era. They promised to send the magazine and photos, and they kept their word! I never saw the magazine, but I remembered the slides; in fact, I still have one, although it’s damaged by poor storage. It shows my father with two correspondents somewhere on an island in the middle of the Angara River. One of the correspondents holds a huge bouquet of wildflowers, which can hardly be found now.

Later, in 1970, good reversal films from East Germany—ORWOCHROM UT18, UT16 and UK17—began to be sold in the USSR. A slide photography boom began for us, as it was the only way to capture that era in color with any quality. Everything produced in the USSR was of terrible quality. We developed the film ourselves using Hungarian DIACHROM kits. I still have hundreds of ORWOCHROM slides, beautifully preserved from those distant times.The truth is that some of the slides were hopelessly ruined due to the primitive projectors of the early 1970s…

Now, I also have a great PRADOVIT slide projector, and the magic of the projected image still captivates me. Shooting on slides today is an expensive hobby; a roll of KODAK EKTACHROME E 200 now costs €29… Yet, I hold a timid hope that the film photography boom will lead to the revival of KODACHROME film!

The Magic of Panorama

It might seem simple—just crop the top and bottom of a photo, and there’s your panorama… but it’s not quite that easy. I fully experienced this magic only recently, when I started shooting panoramas on 35mm film inserted into a 6x7.

The setup is fairly straightforward—a masking frame inside the film path, a couple of spacers so the 35mm cassette fits where the 120 film spool usually goes, and a mask for the viewfinder that turns the 6x7 format into a 24x66mm format. Once you put your eye to the viewfinder, you’re instantly captivated by the charm of the panorama! All ordinary scenes take on an astonishingly new perspective, even places you’ve shot dozens of times are seen in a completely new way.

“Real World Studio” panorama - I did it by stitching files weeks after shoot.

I had taken panoramas before—on film with a Horizon camera, and in the digital age, by stitching files together in software. But in the Horizon, the viewfinder only gives a rough idea of the future shot, and when you shoot a panorama in parts, it exists only in your imagination.

FUJI G617

There are two types of cameras that shoot panoramas—cameras with a wide-angle lens, like FUJI G617, or

Hasselblad Xpan

…and swing-lens panoramic cameras like absolute iconic camera Widelux F8 and

Russia made “Horizon”

Swing-lens panoramic cameras is especially intriguing, as different parts of the frame are exposed at different times. For instance, you can take a portrait of a person who simultaneously appears in a mirror reflection on the other half of the frame, and they will have a completely different facial expression if it changes during the exposure. It’s no wonder these cameras have devoted fans, almost like a cult following. Jeff Bridges and his wife Susan, for example, along with a couple of other enthusiasts, are trying to revive production of the iconic Widelux F8 camera. The latter is especially intriguing, as different parts of the frame are exposed at different times. For instance, you can take a portrait of a person who simultaneously appears in a mirror reflection on the other half of the frame, and they will have a completely different facial expression if it changes during the exposure. It’s no wonder these cameras have devoted fans, almost like a cult following.

…and one more story from Josef Koudelka: “I was using this Fuji panoramic — but the problem was everyone stopped developing the film,” says Koudelka. “You can’t get 220 film anymore and you needed to carry about 35 kilograms extra.”

“I went to Leica and they did one camera for me that was digital panoramic, which is this S2 camera, and they make two lines and set it on black and white,” he continues. “I made four trips with it together with the film camera.”