[Leica] Inspired by a film

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

I may be more inspired by Cinematogs than Photogs.
And should have gone that route but not having the raw guts.
I understand that many of the modern major black and white movies are shot
in color neg. because of processing availabilities.
Which introduces danger of the thing just being printed in color as they
start running out of money and acquiesce as they realize that the "foreign"
market has zero tolerance for black and white. They will get no foreign
market sales. I hear.
And it helps out I guess for scenes like in "Schindler's List" with the
Warsaw Ghetto shot with the super long tele of the little girl running
around in a red dress with everything and everybody else in the whole film
in black and white.
One of the great shots certainly in the history of Cinema.

Also "Icicle Thief" (Ladri di saponette) (A takeoff on the classic "Bicycle
Thief") "Icicle Thief" being remarkable film in which everything is black
and white except Heidi Komarek (a supermodel in real life) who is in color.
And she would have stood out plenty if left in black and white as she was
two heads taller than everybody else.
And real blond.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097702/

I also understand then when Barnack and maybe a few others right before him
started with the idea of movie film for stills they went with a "double
frame" format calling it that. The 36x24mm or close to it format.
The single frame format they was all used from before being 24x18.
I still have some WESS paper slide mounts with that delineation -
demarcation.
But now we call this the diminutive "half frame".

The idea of course being that single frame for stills (now called half
frame) would be pushing the whole thing a bit in the printing.
They'd be having a happy time doing wallets until they got bored with it and
went back to larger formats.

Now everybody's pretty much shooting with the original single frame for
movie format only they're calling APS-C it or something like that.

"The use of the term "APS-C" is perhaps unfortunate for a format some are
hoping will stay around. It's derived from the similar frame size of the
late, but not lamented, APS film format (APS "Classic" format was 23.4 x
16.7 mm) . We all know what a success that was. Smaller, lighter cameras
were promised - but not delivered, and image quality, though fine for small
prints, couldn't match 35mm. Image quality may have been "good enough" for
the vast majority of users (who rarely make a print larger than 5x7), but
that didn't really help!"
http://www.photo.net/oped/bobatkins/full_frame.html

I love The lenses designed for this smaller image circle are sure cuter and
niftier and my cry for years on the LUG has been:
BRING BACK HALF FRAME!!!!
I want to shoot this size ON FILM!!!
As with tab grain Academy award film technology our prints can certainly
stand it. I'm fond of verticals (portrait mode). Heck I shoot my landscape
in Portrait mode!:)
And we can shoot all day with one roll of film!
So who needs digital!!?



Mark Rabiner
Photography
Portland Oregon
http://rabinergroup.com/