Photo Tech Talk: About their gear

My daily gear is supplied by the newspaper. I carry Nikon F4 and N90 bodies and five lenses; a 24mm, 35mm, 60mm macro, 85mm and a 180mm. I use Nikon SB 25 and SB 28 strobes. I also have a Panasonic EZ1 digital video camera. The newspaper also provides each staffer with a hand held trunk scanner for monitoring police/emergency frequencies. We use Nextel units that combine a cell phone with a two-way radio to communicate with the office, other photographers and story subjects. Pool equipment includes Canon cameras for sports and both Nikon and Canon telephoto lenses ranging from 300mm f/2.8 to 600 mm f/4. We have several digital camera bodies for the Nikons. Lighting kits include either Dynalights or White Lightning units. There is a Hasselblad medium format system and a rarely used Toyoview 4X5 view camera. We drive our own cars and are paid mileage.

Fujicolor is the standard film here, using 100, 400 and 800 ASA versions. We will also shoot Fujichrome Provia 100 for magazine or features assignments. I sometimes will use Kodak's TMax P3200 for low light b/w work.

We scan most images on the Kodak film scanner. We also use the Leafscan 45.

 

I do almost all my newspaper work with a Nikon N90s and F3HP, Nikon lenses. I don't have very long lenses; my longest is a 300 mm. I still own Minolta equipment, some of my best work was made with a Minolta 9000, which, while painfully slow on the AF draw, I don't plan on selling. A great camera.

When I do medium format/studio work, I use a Hasselblad 503CX. I sometimes use it for magazine work, never for the newspaper. I own all my own equipment; there are no such things as "pool lenses" at The Riverdale Press . We used to shoot TriX except for special color covers, until 1997, when we switched to Fuji 400, 800, 1600, color neg, which we have processed in a local one hour lab (which does it in 10 minutes.)

If I have a special project, still life or fashion, I use whatever film I want. Sometimes I'll shoot tungsten, or use slide film like Velvia if I'm using strobes. I actually miss shooting in black and white. Some images really work well in color, but there's nothing like a black and white portrait!

Most of the images I've sent to you were scanned from the negative on a Nikon Super duper Coolscan II; originally scanned at 200 dpi or better (usually 300) and made into a low res jpeg(72 dpi file) either directly from our archives at work or my own personal files on a zip disk - scanned on a mac and then saved on a pc disk and sent from home via my pc. Some of the older pictures I sent you were scanned on a flatbed (hmmm, I think the conductive ed./yeshiva pictures) - I think I had some old Ektamatic prints lying around of some stuff. For some older photos, I dug old negs out of archives. Oh yeah, both of my illustration pictures were scanned from original slides. My breast cancer pictures were scanned on the flatbed from fibre prints.

For 75% of what I send you I use the Nikon NC2000e - digital - belongs to employer. For the rest I am using Canon EOS 1n - mine. Film is Kodak Gold 200 or Fuji 400. Scanned images from Nikon SuperCool Scan - digital - well, you know.

I shoot with a Nikon F3 and a Nikon FM2; primary lenses are a 20-35mm f2.8 Nikkor zoom; 80-200mm f2.8 Nikkor zoom, and a 300mm f2.8 Nikkor lens.

Pool gear...White Lightning and Lumedyne strobe kits

Fujicolor 400 and 800; 800 pushed, as needed to 1600...sometimes to 2400 or 3200...Polaroid SprintScan 35 Plus...

Also, the bike camera kit is two Nikon FMs, one with a 24mm f2.8 Nikkor, the other with a 70-210mm f3.5 Nikkor zoom

Newsday now owns all of my camera equipment. We used to own it all and get a camera allowance to update, but a few years ago Newsday bought all the dinosaurs out and now they are the owners. We are asked, from time to time, what new equipment we would like and depending on the equipment budget, we might or might not get something new to play with. I have 1 Nikon F-5 and 2 F-4’s all with motors. My lenses are a 15mm, 24mm, 35-70mm AF zoom, 80-200mm AF zoom, 300mm AF and a 600mm. I use Nikon SB-24 and a SB-26 Flashes. Throw in a Minolta Flash meter, a few Vivitar 283’s and light stands and umbrellas, a Gitzo Tripod, some camera bags and flash cords and filters and I guess that’s it.

I shoot mostly Kodak Gold 200 negative color film. I carry some Kodak Gold 400 and 1,600 and some Fuji 800.

I pull the images from Newsday‘s file system and put them on floppies and store them on SyQuest Discs at home for my personal use. If I shoot something that I like, I’ll reduce the file size to fit a floppy and bring it home. When I send it to you, I reduce the size to about 3 X 4 inches and run it through DeBabbelizer which generally results in about a 17K file which goes through the e-mail system really fast and downloads just as fast.

 

In shooting the images that appear on the "Behind the Viewfinder" pages, I have used a variety of equipment and as my skills as a photographer evolved, so did my equipment...

The images prior to my working at the Tuscaloosa News are shot mostly with a Pentax LX and Pentax ME super- The LX is still one of my favorite cameras to use. I always thought that as a pro camera it had all of the features that I wanted with the exception of a 1/250th flash sync. I feel that it's the camera's only downfall. The optics that I used with this camera ranged from 17mm to 300mm. When shooting, I tend to shoot at the extremes and for a lot of my work, a 20mm or a 300 were typically used as a "normal" lens.

On some of the documentary work that you will see, particularly that with Jack Williams, I used a Leica IIIc with a 35, 50 and 90mm lenses. All of these cameras used the then-standard Vivitar 285hv flash.

While at the Tuscaloosa News, I shot with company gear and switched my personal equipment over to Nikons. I shot with an F3, 8008 and FE while at the News. Lenses ranged from 20mm to 300mm and pool 600 F4 lens and a 16mm f2.8 lens. I am currently shooting with a Nikon F3, FA and N90 with lenses ranging from 20mm to 600mm. I also use the Nikon SB26 flash and carry it all in the big Domke photo bag, which I love... For the past several years, I have used Kodak Tri-X and Fujicolor 400 for literally all of my shooting

 

James shoots with NIKON FM-2, and a collection of lenses ranging from 20MM, 24MM, 35MM, 50MM, 80MM, 135MM, 180MM AND 300MM.

Film used: KODAK AND FUJI 400 ASA B/W, COLOR NEG AND 100 ASA SLIDE.

Images are scanned with a NIKON SL-1000 NEG SCANNER.