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Barnack Challenge No 11: Final results!


Möbi

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Hi,

 

the Barnack Challenge No 11, still life, is closed and here are the final results:

 

First place with 38 points: christoph_d with "Still life with grapes"

 

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Second place with 32 points: telewatt with "Knoblauch-2"

 

 

Third place with 29 points: like-a-leica with "Dictionaries"

 

 

Congratulations to all winners, especially to christoph_d, who have the honour to set the next theme!.

 

So I´m locking forward to the Barnack Challenge No 12. Thanks to all who voted me.

You can find all results below.

 

christoph_d 38

telewatt 32

like-a-leica 29

Möbi 20

t.schertel 11

Dr.No 8

str 6

Cocker 6

jc_braconi 2

freudenberger 2

Octo 1

RaymondH 1

 

 

Well done to everybody. Thanks

 

Regards

 

Möbi

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THANK YOU ALL !!!

I´m happy and honored!

 

Special thanks to Möbi who organised the challenge, and set this challenging but enjoyable theme. Well done. :)

 

Congratulations especially to Telewatt and like-a-leica, you made the voting very exciting... :eek:

 

And thanks to everyone for participating and voting.

 

The honour is mine to set the next theme. I believe the next challenge will run in April, so watch out for an announcement with the next theme in a months time from now...:rolleyes:

 

Best regards,

 

Christoph

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Möbi,

I promised to described some of the challenges faced in the Barnack challenge: "still-life",

so here they are:

 

I believe my leica-0 (2000) is the oldest Barnack design in this challenge, although in terms

of date of production it may well be the newest. Working with and around the interesting user

interface is a challenge in itself.

 

Firstly the viewfinder, that tiny glass and metal - gunsight thing on top of the camera is

incredibly inaccurate. With careful alignment 10-20% added to each side of the frame may be

just enough to keep the composition reliably within the picture!

 

Secondly, the camera focuses only as close as 1 m distance, the lens cannot be exchanged

with any other lens, screw-in close-up lenses as add-on probably do not exist ... and - of

course - many of my ideas required to get much closer...

 

The next issue has less to do with the camera and more with my trusted assistant. My twelve

year old boy kindly held up a black cloth as a background - also visble in the submitted

picture - however his armspan does not quite cover the required width, leading to some

additional losses around the image.

 

Being amateur, and not in possession of a studio with suitable illumination, and

therefore convincing myself that daylight is the best illumination, and furthermore having

chosen a film with 100 ISO, and wanting to chose an aperture at least aroung 9, so that some

sharpness may be seen in my image from front to back, I was suffering my next challenge.

The longest controlled time on the camera is 1/20s of a second (or shall I say the largest

slit width 50mm?). The required times for my pictures were anywhere between 1/2 and 30 seconds.

The camera does lack, however, a cable release, so I had to keep my finger on the button for

whatever time it took and trust the robustness of my tripod and pray for the best.

 

We then come to the choice of film. I believe that an event like the Barnack Challenge asks

for a film that could have been used at the heyday of my camera. I believe there is only one

film currently produced that would fit the bill, the Adox 25 - 100 series. Not available easily

in my part of the world. So I settled on another classic, the Agfa APX 100.

 

Next point developer. Having Rodinal at hand didn't seem a wrong choice, as it was in use

since eighteenhundredhuppeldipup. With APX 100 it returns a fine sharpness and excellent

greytones. However, for future challenges I am looking to achieve other effects. Readers of

Anchell's and Troop's "the film developing cookbook" may remember that the holy grail of the

film developers in the 20s and 30s was super fine grain, not enhaned sharpness, and it seems to

me that this may well be the reason for the kind of creamy, dreamlike, somewhat blurred images

that often can be seen from that time. I will try to re-create that effect, and will surely

experiment with Micodol-X or similar developers. Some hints in this direction from more

experienced forum members are appreciated.

 

Next challenge: mice and Stag Beetles. When the topic was set I began researching still-lifes;

many superb classic images can be found and are described in literature. I particularly liked

pictures of the old masters such as "Still-life with Stag Beetle" by Georg Flegel. In trying

within my limited means and time to somehow re-create them was extremely difficult. I attach a

sample.

Very nice symbolism though, of mice or stag beetles creeping towards the beautifully

displayed produce, symbols of evil ... I couldn't easily find those creepy things for my

pictures though...

 

In the end I settled for a more simple, clearer image, the one I did submit.The careful

observer will find a rather large spec of dust in the image, though not placed intentionally,

it does rather well replace the Stag Beetle...

 

Kind regards,

 

Christoph

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christoph_d,

 

thank you for your detailed explanation!

It shows to me again, that creativity is a hard work.

Especially when you have to work for a given theme.

And this is here the real challenge at every Barnack Challenge.

 

It´s not so easy but it seems often so.

 

I had some fights too. I set the theme but did not had any idea for the theme still life at this time.

 

So I´m looking forward to the next theme. And I surely know: I will have some fights again.

 

regards,

 

Möbi

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