{"id":3060,"date":"2016-01-07T12:41:35","date_gmt":"2016-01-07T17:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/?p=3060"},"modified":"2016-01-07T12:41:35","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T17:41:35","slug":"planetarium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/?p=3060","title":{"rendered":"Planetarium"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Planetarium\"<\/a>

Planetarium<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

The last blog was about my Super-Wide Camera, which has 110\u00ba angle of view. Of course it\u2019s possible to go even wider, and I built a camera to do that also. The thing is that when you go beyond super wide you get distortion. Just as it\u2019s not really possible to make a flat map of the entire planet that makes all the continents and distances look right, it\u2019s impossible to show everything in front of the lens without distortion. This camera\/lens combination shows everything in front of the camera: 180\u00ba in all directions, but the images bows out in the center. This is called fisheye effect.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The shot was made at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, maybe you\u2019ve seen it in an old James Dean movie? There is a pendulum in the center of this shot, but it\u2019s hard to see because it\u2019s moving. The pendulum demonstrates that the earth is moving, but I\u2019m not sure how that works. I made the shot on 4X5 Ektachrome film, and the exposure is long enough for the pendulum to have moved from side to side. Didn\u2019t use a tripod, but I did have the camera steadied against the rail. The transparency looks a little like a Christmas tree ornament. The actual image is about 80mm across on the film, pretty impressive.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Fisheye<\/a>

Fisheye Camera<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

I should say that I didn\u2019t build these cameras because you couldn\u2019t get super wide lenses or fisheye lenses for 35mm cameras. I did it because the resolution of film was so poor. If you made an 8X image of shot like this from 35mm film the image would already show grain and a loss of detail. Because this shot uses at least 10 times more film than there would be with a 35mm shot the grain and detail are much better! I\u2019ve made prints 24 inches wide that looked fabulous. You can use the PayPal link below to get a print that\u2019s about 13 inches wide, on a black background. I normally mount and mat on white board, if you\u2019d like something else let me know when you order the print. I\u2019ll be adding more links as this project goes forward.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The camera started life as a Speed Graphic, a classic press camera. The lens is from a Russian Kiev 60 camera that shot 6X6 cm images. The lens made full frame (edge to edge) square fisheye images on the original camera. I modified the lens by removing the built in lens hood. Then I customized the Speed Graphic to take the Kiev lenses. I also had to remove the base board (front) of the camera so it wouldn\u2019t show up in the shot. The camera was a junker when I began, with a very rough appearance. I took the leather off the outside of the camera and refinished the mahogany surface. On the whole, I think it is the best looking camera I ever built. The camera focuses using the ground glass or the focus scale on the lens. Speed Graphics have a built in focal plane shutter so that\u2019s what the camera uses. You can see my article about camera building here<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve attached a couple of the other images I made with the camera below. I hope to add posts and PayPal links for these images soon.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Wat<\/a>

Wat Thai Temple, Los Angeles<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Castaic<\/a>

Castaic Power Plant-Pulling Rotor, California<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

I hope you\u2019ll order a print of this image. As usual the price, $125, includes mounting and matting. The image will be about 1X13 inches. Please let me know about the mat at john@siskinphoto.com<\/a>. Also contact me if you\u2019d like the print shipped outside the United States. You can also get the image, and many others, in my book B-Four<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


\n\"\"You can buy one of my other books by clicking on the titles below:<\/span><\/span><\/form>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"\"\"<\/a>\"\"
\n\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The shot was made at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, maybe you\u2019ve seen it in an old James Dean movie?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,28,15,19,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3060"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3066,"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3060\/revisions\/3066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siskinphoto.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}