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Posts Tagged ‘8×10’

8×10 is an app for selling limited edition framed prints on Instagram

11 May
8×10 / @HULLOITSLYDIA

If you are a photographer, painter, illustrator or other type of artist with a large number of followers on Instagram, there is now a new way of monetizing that following. The new 8×10 app lets you sell framed limited-edition fine-art prints of your artwork.

You’ll have to select the photos you want to offer as prints and define the terms, including the number of prints the sale will be limited to, duration of the sale and of course the price. You can also add a signature to your images and opt to donate proceeds to a charity.

Next, the sale is posted to Instagram and your followers are alerted. They can access the sale page through your Instagram post and purchase if they like what they see. In the back-end, the 8×10 app offers a sales-tracker so you can keep up with your orders, but printing and global fulfillment are both organized by 8×10 to keep the process as simple as possible.

When a print is sold, 8×10 users receive their profit within the next 14 days, once the buyer’s payment clears. Using the app and creating an offer is free, 8×10 only takes a cut of your profits if a sale is made. No specific rate is given, but based on the intro video and screenshots provided through the app store, the app’s cut seems to vary in percentage depending on how much you choose to charge per print.

This quick intro video gives you a good overview of how 8×10 works:

This makes the app an interesting tool for photographers and artists who’d like to test demand for prints of their work, without making any major investment in a print run or dealing with setting up fulfillment. It does genuinely sound like an easy way to dip your toe into the print selling waters.

To find out more or try the 8×10 app for yourself, head over to the app’s website or download it from the Apple App Store.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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You can own the world’s first single shot 8×10 digital camera for $106,000

22 Apr

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If you’re shooting digital, the largest image sensor you will find at your local camera store is the 53.4mm x 40.1mm medium format sensors inside something like the Phase One IQ3. But if that is just not enough for you… there is one, much larger option. Meet the $ 106,000 LargeSense LS911: a large format digital camera and purportedly the “world’s first 8×10 digital single shot camera for sale.”

The LS911 is the passion project of Bill Charbonnet, who left his desk job in 2014 to start LargeSense LLC and built these large-format digital cameras. Four years later, the LS911 is his first shipping product.

According to the press materials, LS911 features a 12-megapixel 9×11-inch monochrome CMOS sensor (that translates into massive 75 micron pixels), ISO that can be set at either 2100 or 6400, 900GB of internal storage, and the ability to output files to DNG, 16-bit TIFF, 32-bit TIFF, RAW and JPEG formats. There is no CFA, but the monochrome sensor can be used to produce color images (of non-moving subjects) using an in-built 3-shot system and color filters.

Oh, and the thing can also apparently shoot 4K, 3840 × 2160 video at 26fps using its electronic shutter.

Here is a video of the LS911 in action:

And here is how the size of the LargeSense LS911 sensor compares to some of the other image sensors out there:

Note: the LargeSense LS45 is a 4×5-inch digital back Charbonnet is working on, but has yet to release.

If the LS911 seems a bit bonkers, honestly, that’s because it is. We’ve been discussing it in the office for the past couple of days, trying to figure out how to put this camera in context for our readers, and here’s our take: it’s cool, but having a sensor this large may not be as advantageous as you think.

Science Editor Rishi Sanyal explains:

One of the main benefits of going to a larger sensor is that you can get more resolution as the larger pixels place less of a burden on the resolving power of the lens, but this camera does not take advantage of that.

What it does offer is the tilting, shifting and swinging ability large format cameras are known for, and if you can give the sensor enough light, the entire image has the potential for greater ‘tonality’ because the lower relative shot noise will yield very high signal-to-noise ratio for most tones. That makes the image more amenable to extreme sharpening without accentuating noise. That said, beyond a certain signal-to-noise ratio, tones are already clean enough – particularly with modern full-frame or medium format cameras – that it likely doesn’t matter.

So, are you guaranteed a noticeable improvement in overall quality of the photos just because of the 9×11-inch sensor? Not necessarily. This is probably more about the feel of large format where you can throw most of the image largely out-of-focus by tilting the focus plane, or keep a large amount in focus without stopping down if you align the focus plane with your subject(s).

If, after knowing all of this, you’re still interested in dropping $ 106K on the LS991 (hey – it’s guaranteed to be a conversation piece at parties if nothing else), head over to the LS911 product page on the LargeSense website or check out the full spec sheet at this link.

And do let us know: what would you use it for?

Press Release

LargeSense launches the LS911

It is the first full frame 8×10 digital single shot camera for sale!

Medium format has thus far been the limit as far as sensor size because large sensors are difficult and expensive to produce. With the LS911, photographers now have an option for high quality large format images other than film. Available now. The USA price is US$ 106,000 Check www.largesense.com for more information.

LS911 Specifications

  • Single shot 9×11 inch monochrome CMOS sensor
  • High base sensitivity of ISO 2100
  • Live view for focusing
  • Compatible with any large format lens with a sufficient image circle
  • Easy to use HTML-based WiFi control with any HTML5 browser
  • 4k Lossless video with audio up to 26fps
  • 900GB internal storage, CF cards and external USB 3.1 drives
  • User-generated curves to apply to the linear files
  • Integrated 3 shot tri-color images when using color filters
  • Designed for mounting on large tripods or custom camera stands

LS911 product page: http://largesense.com/products/8×10-large-format-digital-back-ls911/

LS911 spec and feature sheet: http://largesense.com/files/3415/2348/3451/LS911-Specs-And-Features-180411.pdf

Upcoming Products

A 4×5 inch digital back, the LS45, is expected at the end of 2018.

The color version of the LS911 is expected in 2020.

LargeSense was founded in 2014 by Bill Charbonnet to manufacture single shot, large format digital cameras. Inspiration was from Mitchell Feinberg’s 8×10 digital back. The issue for a business in this tiny market is keeping costs low while delivering a specialty product. After 3 years of development, we are proud to be the first to offer such camera, the LS911!

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Moar Megapixels! Pixel peeping a 709MP drum scan of 8×10 slide film

17 Mar

Large format wilderness photographer Ben Horne recently embarked on a little experiment with some help from his friend, Michael Strickland. Horne shoots large format 8×10 slide film, and Strickland has a drum scanner that can scan that film at insanely high resolution. How high? Using a little bit of trickery, Strickland was able to provide Horne with a 709.6-megapixel file to pixel peep in this video.

Take that, 100MP medium format sensors!

To give you an idea of just how high resolution this file is, printed at 300ppi, the resulting print would measure 79.3 x 99.4 inches. As we mentioned, this took a bit of ‘trickery’—namely: Strickland actually had to drum scan the print twice. He first scanned the top half, then the bottom half, and then merged the two scans together in post.

In the video, Horne zooms in to 100% and makes his way around the file. He explains how he shot the image, what sacrifices he had to make regarding sharpness in the closest foreground and furthest background, and shows off just how sharp this thing is in the parts of the image he’s most concerned with.

Check out the full explanation for yourself up top, and then head over to Horne’s YouTube channel for more videos like this one.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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How I built a large-format (8×10) video camera

07 Feb

Large format, for me, has always been the dream. Not for its ridiculously high resolutions—the 12 megapixels of my Sony a7S are more than plenty for me—but for its unique depth rendering. There is an enchanting quality to the depth of field produced by a huge chunk of vintage 8×10 glass that is near impossible to replicate on a smaller format, mostly thanks to the ridiculous equivalent aperture that would be required.

My longing for large format without the expense and and hassle of chemicals led me to build a pretty unique camera rig with very promising results.

The camera works by projecting an image from a large format lens (an Industar-37) onto a large matte white screen. The projected image is then captured with an off-axis camera (a Sony a7S) and wide-angle lens (an Irix 15mm F2.4). The 15mm is shifted upwards (using a Kipon shift adapter), which allows it to record a centered image of the screen with none of the perspective distortions that would come from simply pointing the camera up, and still be well out of the way of the light path.

I am not really sure if it should be called a ‘large format camera’ or a ‘large format adapter’—is format determined by the size of the imaging plane, or that of the sensor? Usually those are one and the same but not with a rig like this—but either way it records real large format images and just from my first results, I think they look fantastic.

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Beyond just digitizing large format photography, the rig opens up the really exciting possibility of large format video. It is absolutely incredible to see the large format image come to life, and it is something the world hasn’t really seen before. Dynamic range and resolution are only limited by the camera you put inside, and I am just using a consumer camera. I can’t wait to see how the rig performs with cinema gear.

The main downside of of the the design is sensitivity. The process of re-imaging loses about 6 stops of light, so an ISO 100 shot outside the camera becomes an ISO 6400 one in the rig. Thankfully, many modern cameras have excess sensitivity for bright environments so the camera works great in well-lit scenes, although it definitely struggles without proper lighting like the indoor scenes in the video above.

Large format ‘reimaging’ rigs have been made before (quite successfully by Gonzalo Ezcurra), but with one key difference: they project onto ground glass and record the image from behind, instead of reflecting the image off a diffuse surface. This method works, but ground glass is never a truly perfect diffusing filter, so there will always be a hotspot at the center of the image and some grain pattern introduced as well. The hotspot can be reduced—really, just enlarged so it looks more like a vignette and less like a spotlight—by moving the camera further back with a longer lens, but then the already huge setup just gets longer and less practical.

My version has the advantage of a folded optical path: since the image is bounced off a screen instead of going through a ground glass, the rig is about half the size of these other experimental reprojection cameras. It is still rather unwieldy, but this size difference is enough to allow shoulder mounting and really improve usability to the point being a genuinely useful tool instead of just a novelty.

I am currently working on an updated v2 version with a host of improvements, but I have really just skimmed the surface of the new possibilities with a camera like this.


Zev Hoover is an 18 year old photographer/videographer based in Natick, MA. His work has been widely featured, ranging from the Boston Globe to a BBC mini-documentary, and he has received awards including the Flickr 20-under-20 Award and 500px ‘innovation’ contest winner. You can find more of his work on his website: zev.tv

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Intense underwater 8×10 camera pops up on eBay for $5,800

22 Jul
This custom underwater 8×10 large format film camera was made for underwater fine art photography, and it can be yours for $ 5,800. Photo: eBay Auction

When you think underwater photography, a few cameras probably come to mind. Maybe you think of a simple GoPro action cam, maybe a ‘rugged compact’ like the Olympus TG-5, or maybe you dream of putting your DSLR inside a serious underwater housing. Whatever you think, we can almost guarantee you’ve never seen anything like this underwater camera.

This custom-built large format 8×10 underwater camera was built to capture fine art photography underwater, and it just popped up on eBay for the not-all-that-unreasonable price of $ 5,800.

The camera was posted to eBay by swfloridagirl941 before it was spotted by The Phoblographer. Made from aircraft grade aluminum and featuring 2 strobe connection ports, you need 60lbs of dive weights to even use this thing underwater. The monstrous creation “was built around a Schneider Super-Symmar 150mm f5.6 XL Aspheric MC lens with Copal No. 1 shutter and custom No. 2 close-up lens by Century Optics” and the seller is calling it “the first successful underwater 8×10 ever made.”

Schneider Super-Symmar 150mm F5.6 XL Aspheric MC lens.

This camera is the real deal, but don’t expect “auto” mode performance if you do buy it. You have to surface and change the film between each shot like any other 8×10 field camera, and understanding the optimal focusing distance and optics of this crazy system is crucial if you don’t want to waste some very expensive film.

When it does work, though, swfloridagirl941 promises spectacular results: “I have printed a poster size print of a girl underwater at five feet and with a magnifier one can see individual hair on her arm that are tack sharp.”

Here’s a behind the scenes and sample photo from the eBay auction:

To learn more about this fascinating 8×10 camera, head over to the eBay auction by clicking here. Just be ready to plunk down $ 5,800 plus about $ 300 shipping if you’re genuinely interested.


Photos © swfloridagirl941, courtesy of eBay auction.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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