Gear Talk Archives - Luigi Barbano Photography

May 26

by Barbano Luigi in BlogUpdates, Gear Talk, News, Uncategorized 0 comments tags: #Fowa, #Kimono, #monochrome, #Pentax, #Ricoh, #Ricohimaging, Black and White, K3Monochrome, Luigi Barbano, photography

Pentax K3 Monochrome, full review.

Introduction Thanks to Fowa, the Italian Pentax importer, I had the Pentax K3 MkIII monochrome to test for some weeks. There is only one way to describe my feelings for this camera: I’m in love with it. I like to do black and white photography, both in film and digital, and it’s the first time using a digital camera I feel the camera is just a tool to realize my vision and not something that will be in my way and I will have to figure out how to not let it influence my vision. . The camera The Pentax K3 MkIII, in its normal color version, had been on the market for a while. It’s a beautifully built 26 Megapixels Aps-C reflex camera that had great reviews from many photographers. The body is solid, weather sealed, very easy to use and has a beautiful viewfinder. In the era of mirrorless Pentax decided to continue to produce reflex cameras. If you like optical viewfinders as much as I do, you will really like the quality of the Pentax viewfinders. I tested the K1 MkII, a full frame camera, and the K3 mkIII and also if the K3 has a smaller […]

May 10

by Barbano Luigi in BlogUpdates, FineArt, Gear Talk, News, Uncategorized 0 comments tags: Black&White, K3, K3Monochrome, Monochrome, Pentax, photogrpahy

Pentax K3 Monochrome vs K3 mkIII Color

Thanks to the Italian importer of Pentax, FOWA, I had the Pentax K3 Monochrome and a K3 MkIII to test. For now I just did a first walk with the camera, at night in the city of Cuneo and a little comparison test in studio. . . Here, in the video you can hear what I think about the camera, if you like to see the pictures I took in the studio to have a first comparison of the K3 Monochrome and the K3 MkIII Color and download the raw files, just scroll to the end of the article and you will find the link. . The results are really impressive. The lack of noise also at higher ISO, the dynamic range and the general quality of the images are absolutely fantastic! . Here the 100% zoom. If you want to download the original RAW files and play with them, use the following links. Please consider to use the Donate button so I can cover the increase of expenses for the server space and bandwidth. K3 Monochrome:KimonoTestRAW_Part1.zipKimonoTestRAW_Part2.zip K3 MkIII Color:K3MkIIITestRAW_Part1.zip K3MkIIITestRAW_Part2.zip Please consider a small donation: . See you next time with more tests!

Apr 06

by Barbano Luigi in BlogUpdates, Gear Talk, News, Uncategorized 0 comments tags: aviation, Castelleto Stura, Fowa, Luigi Barbano, Pentax, photography, Ricoh, Ricohimaging, Tecnam

A tale of two passions and a beautiful Sunday morning

Whoever knows me knows I have two great passions in life: photography and aviation. Both of them started early in my life, photography when I was 8 years old during a darkroom class at the elementary school and aviation with my first flight when I was turning 6 and my father, a private pilot, brought me up for my birthday. A lot of water passed under the bridges since then and life decided photography had to become my job and aviation an hobby I had to dream about more than practicing it. I tempted many times to bring the two passions together but I was able to do it just for a little while when I lived in Florida and you can see here a peak moment of that union. In Italy it’s not that simple and when the unexpected opportunity of last Sunday arrived I jumped on it. . . Sadly Italy is not offering the same opportunities in aviation. General Aviation in Italy was annihilated by years of excessive taxes, absurd bureaucracy and socialist rhetoric. The story of aviation in Italy was great at the beginning, the development of aviation was fast and strong around the World Ward […]

DIY UV Box Tested!

It passed quite a while since I built my UV Box but sometime life gets in the middle of our fun projects! Now finally I tested the UV Box and I can say it works great. . . I made a test with two different negatives: a very soft flower subject lighted with painted light and a very sharp subject lighted with a very contrasted light. I wanted to see how this printing process deals with different subjects. I proceeded with some step test to find the corrected exposure for my negatives. I did 2 seconds steps and as you can see in the video I was a little optimist with my first strip of 2,4,6,8 seconds exposure. At the end the correct exposure resulted of 11 minutes. . You can see the tests I made in the video below. I was expecting shorter exposure times ’cause I seen some other boxes made with the same LED giving short exposure times with other alternative processes. Still I like the slow times when I work with film and so I kinda like to have time to think while I wait for the paper to be exposed. The Arduino timer is working […]

Feb 10

by Barbano Luigi in BlogUpdates, Film photography, FineArt, Gear Talk, Uncategorized 0 comments tags: Carbon, Cianotype, film, filmisalive, fineart, Luigi Barbano, old techniques, palladium, photography, Platinum, printing, UV, UV BOX, Van Dyke

Luigi’s Drunk UV Box!

I was always told: if you have to do something, do it with your own style! So here my Italian style UV box to expose the papers coated with antique photographic processes. At the origin of photography many technologies of printing required the exposure in UV light. At those time sun was the perfect source and the exposure was usually made outdoor. The quantity of UV light from the sun can vary a lot in different seasons or with different weather, plus, baby it’s cold outside now in winter! For this reason I decided to build a UV Box. I was inspired by some similar projects videos on YouTube but I added a personal touch. First of all I used an old wood box for wine bottles instead of a modern plastic box. The wood box was in my cellar, free, and wood looks better and more coherent than plastic with old techniques. Second I decided to add a timer for a precise exposure instead of counting the seconds with an external timer and manually switch the lights on and off. . . Check out the video to know more about the UV Box and see how it works. . […]

Jan 13

by Barbano Luigi in Black and White Tales, BlogUpdates, Books, Film photography, FineArt, Gear Talk, meditations, News, Uncategorized 0 comments tags: film photography, fineart, New Year, new year resolutions, photography

Welcome to 2021

What a freaking year 2020 had been! Now we are 12 days into 2021 and it seems to suck even more… but I’m still optimist so I will focus on the positive I got from 2020 and tell you a little about my projects for 2021. If you prefer a video version, just watch it here, but if you prefer to read go on. I’m really glad in January 2020, before the shit hit the fan badly, I decided to start my Black and White Tales project. It was a great way to keep myself busy and stay in touch with the world and my creative mind while we entered the Covid jail we still have to leave! That project taught me a lot about myself and my photographic style and preferences. I got even more involved with film thanks to the images I found in my archive and really loved. If you followed the projects from the beginning I owe you a big thank you. If you did not just click here and enjoy it. If you do not click and check it out nothing will happen to you but you will make me sad and that will perhaps […]

Dec 07

by Barbano Luigi in BlogUpdates, Books, FineArt, Gear Talk, News, Uncategorized 0 comments

My New Book is Here, Ink-jet Fineart Printing

From my series The F Manual, another book is here: Ink-jet Fineart Printing. The book talks about all is essential to know to start to create fineart ink-jet prints. Content: Why to print Ink-jet technology and its history Different kind of inks and their specifics Paper, canvas, other substrates and their characteristics Consumer advice Color profiles, what they are and how they work A deeper look at ICC profiles How to practically use the ICC color profiles Optimize the workflow for printing How to set the options in the printer interface How to take care of your printer Beyond the “correct” print Ink-jet fine art printing in black and white An example of the journey from pixels to pigments Some general rules for retouching images Protect and presenting the prints Build the optimal lightroom Resources to learn more . You can buy the book on Amazon.

5 Steps to PROPERLY start with film photography

Lately I made many videos talking about film photography and equipment. Thanks to that I had been asked, mostly by millenials, how to start with film photography. Here my answer. It is a little provocation but is exactly what I think. . . Let me know what you think.

Gear Talk: Holga 120S

Sometime a cheap plastic camera can be a lot of fun. This camera has character created by all the defects of a cheap camera put together! . . Here some images taken with Ilford HP5 and developer in Ilfotec HC. Click on them to enlarge. . . See you next time… perhaps with a little more serious camera!

Sep 17

by Barbano Luigi in Gear Talk, BlogUpdates, Film photography, News, Uncategorized 0 comments tags: 35, Camera review, Film camera, film photography, Filmcamera, filmisalive, GT, Minox, Minox 35, Minox 35GT, sharp lens

Gear Talk: Minox 35GT

After my last video about the huge Pentax 67 I had some jokes, on social media, about the size of the camera and the probable need for compensation for other attributes. Being an Italian and having to defend an entire tradition and culture, I evaluated various options. At the end I decided to talk about another camera I use so I can recreate an equilibrium! Ok, just kidding but I decided to talk about the Minox 35GT because is a fantastic camera and has an opposite philosophy to the medium and large format cameras I mostly use. . . Here a couple of example of images enlarged from the original 21.6″x30.8″ at 360 DPI. Click on the details to see them at original size. . . . As you can see the sharpness is pretty impressive. In the last example is easy to read the incision on the statue also if the light condition is not the best, being the incision in the dark shadow. See you for the next review!