Colophon

col-o-phon (kol'e-fon') n. 1. An inscription placed usually at the end of a book, giving facts pertaining to its publication. 2. A publisher's emblem or trademark placed usually on the title page of a book. [Latin colophon, from Greek kolophon, summit, finishing.]
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, © 1981, Houghton Mifflin Company

Copyright information

All images on this and associated pages are copyright David Adam Edelstein.

You are welcome to use any of my photos for a desktop image or screen saver on one computer, but any commercial use, or any use in any other form whether for profit or not, must be arranged in advance with me by contacting me at dae@davidadam.com.

Equipment used

Cameras

A complicated discussion. The short version is that I'm currently shooting most of my work with a Leica M7, Canon Powershot G2, and Nikon N90s.

I've used a number of other cameras, including a Nikon FM2, Nikon 6006, Rollei 35SE, and Canon AE-1.

My dear old AE-1, which was the first "real" camera I owned, decided one morning that it wanted to learn how to swim. As you might expect, this was fairly unsuccessful, especially since the camera was on and the back was open.

I've also been known to use a Holga or a Lubitel 166 from time to time.

The digital darkroom

I don't have a "pro" digital camera yet, but given the recent (Fall of 2002) releases of 11-14 megapixel cameras, that's likely to change in the next year or so.

As of around September 2002, I'm no longer printing black and white in the darkroom; instead, I'm using an Epson 1280 with the Piezography system. Why? Because the quality I require is finally there. Now I can print with a cat in my lap.

Although I learned to print in a traditional color darkroom, I hated every stinkin' minute of it. It's always seemed more reasonable to me to do that work digitally, which is what I do. For portfolio output I use an Epson 1270. For exhibition output I send files off to Pictopia, although now that the Photographic Center Northwest has a digital lab I expect I'll be using their Epson 2200s or 7600.

My scanners are a Nikon Coolscan 4000ED (I don't shoot medium format, so no need for an 8000) and an Epson Perfection 1240U (which isn't available any more, but is basically the same scanner as the 1260).

Other photo hardware

My lightmeter is a Sekonic L308B, incident/reflective, with strobe socket. It's a very simple and wonderful little meter. Not a lot of bells and whistles, which means it's very easy to use, and relatively durable.

My tripod is a Bogen 3021 (although not the latest model that link goes to) with a 3055 ball head. Stable, relatively lightweight, and the ball head has a quick release plate on it.

When I still printed black and white in the darkroom, I used a wonderful old Omega B-8 that's just a fine, solid, well-made unit. I highly recommend these if you can find one in good shape. The lenses that came with this (original to the enlarger) suited me fine until I bothered to pay attention one day and discovered that they were deeply soft at the edges. So that's why it was so hard to spot-tone the edges of my prints! I replaced the 50mm with a Schneider Componon-S, which is much better.

All of the polaroid transfers on this site are produced with a Vivitar Slide printer, which is basically a box with a light source on one end, a polaroid 3x4 film holder on the other, and a lens in the middle, with a place to stick in a slide. For more information, Polaroid has some basic information on their website; also, check out Kathleen Carr's excellent book on the subject.

Films

As of around August 2002, I've stopped developing my own film. This is due to three reasons:

• Since I'm no longer printing in the darkroom, I'm trying to stop doing any chemical processing on my own. Labs have systems in place for dealing with their chemical waste stream, which I don't, and it's just better overall.
• Panda Photographic here in Seattle does a much better job of developing film than I ever did.
• I'm so busy that I just don't have the time to develop and proof film.

I shoot most of my black and white work on Kodak Tri-X; some work I shoot on slower films, usualy Ilford Delta 100.

For my day-to-day color work, I've mostly switched to shooting digitally with the aforementioned Canon Powershot G2. For projects where I need to make larger scans or prints (or where the infernal shutter lag on the G2 is a problem) I usually use Kodak Gold 100 (which turns out to be a very nice film when exposed well), Fujichrome Sensia 100 (exposed at 50 and cross-processed) or Kodak Portra 160VC.

Among the other films I've used are:

• Ilford HP5 Plus: Many of the photos on this site were taken with HP5+.
• Agfapan 25: This is the film I used to use in the studio, until it was taken off the market.
• Fujichrome Sensia 100: This is a "consumer" color slide film. Fairly tight grain structure, good color that's not too wild, and cheap cheap cheap (I buy it at CostCo in 5-packs). Most of my polaroid transfers start out on this.
• Kodak E100SW
• Fujichrome Velvia
• Polaroid type 669.-- This is what I do all my polaroid transfers with. If I need a bigger print, I confess I scan the image and print it digitally.
• Polaroid instant slide films.-- Polaroid makes (or "Polaroid make", for you subjects of the Queen in the audience) three different instant slide films. Very weird to see your slides a few minutes after you shoot them. There are two black and white slide films, a high contrast (PolaPan) and a very high contrast (PolaGraph) that are really gorgeous for portrait work. Very cool grain structure, very fast light falloff outside of its dynamic range. I have a pack of the color film but I haven't used it yet. The drawback to these is that the film itself is very expensive, and to use it you need to buy at least the $120 hand-cranked processor, if you don't choose to buy the much more expensive motor-driven one.

Website production

My HTML editor of choice is Homesite. I'm learning Adobe GoLive and might actually switch to using that for some projects.