Comments on: Comments on 11829

Post number 11829

MegoSteve — Thu, 25 Oct 2001 16:39:55 -0800

Pencam verité Using an inexpensive digital camera about the size of a magic marker, the photographer/webmaster of pencam.org demonstrates how a keen eye for detail and composition and a little bit of Photoshop tweaking can overcome cheap tech with his gallery of hundreds of extraordinary images taken from daily life.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Thu, 25 Oct 2001 16:44:22 -0800

Give it up for crunchland. I'm amazed he's gotten such good output from such a low-end camera. I also sort of wish he had large, high resolution versions of those images.

By: davidmsc

davidmsc — Thu, 25 Oct 2001 17:03:35 -0800

I need to learn from this man -- my skimpy little WebCam Go is cute, but the quality of the pix makes me hang my head in shame... (shuffles off to corner, dejected)

By: heather

heather — Thu, 25 Oct 2001 17:21:49 -0800

Dave is a Pencam master... I never tire of looking at his photos.

By: kaefer

kaefer — Thu, 25 Oct 2001 17:42:05 -0800

The colour saturation on these images is really strong. I'm guessing he's punched things up in Photoshop afterwords. Does anyone have any tips for achieving similar results?

By: ljromanoff

ljromanoff — Thu, 25 Oct 2001 18:04:36 -0800

Our own Jennak's Pencam collection.

By: PhotoDude

PhotoDude — Thu, 25 Oct 2001 18:15:04 -0800

Dave never ceases to amaze me with the Pencam. And it ain't just the camera. He's got a great eye. And Ms. Heather is none too shabby in the small camera department, as well. Queen of the Casio Wristcam.

By: websavvy

websavvy — Thu, 25 Oct 2001 18:29:20 -0800

Heather has lots of pencam shots at Harrumph. ...and also at the Mirro Project website, which is still not about vanity.

By: websavvy

websavvy — Thu, 25 Oct 2001 18:31:25 -0800

Ouch. Mirror. Ouch. Didn't see one of my Heather sites in the previous post.

By: rodii

rodii — Thu, 25 Oct 2001 19:07:37 -0800

This site is very cool! I mean, even aside from the images, the design is ingenious and attractive. Well done.

By: realjanetkagan

realjanetkagan — Thu, 25 Oct 2001 19:35:28 -0800

It's not the camera, it's the eye: he's got the eye. *I'd* love to know what he's hearing as his sound-track when he takes his photos, because each set of photos brought some very specific '50's and '60's jazz to my inner ear. Thanks so much for this link & this thread, gentlefolk. I think I need a pencam, if only to shoot a clip each to Lalo Schifrin & Herbie Hancock & MJQ. This is inspiration at its purest!

By: crunchland

crunchland — Thu, 25 Oct 2001 22:40:21 -0800

Hey, thanks for the compliments, everyone! And it's true... Heather is my hero. She's the one that inspired me to get the pencam in the first place, late last winter. Her pictures are the best. Praise from her is high praise indeed. As for the saturation of the images. I don't dink around too much with most of the images you see on the website, aside from boosting the contrast (+40), shrinking them down a bit, and converting them from bitmap to jpeg. Admittedly, I do tweak some of the pictures for the sake of composition. But most times, the colors you see (including those vivid blue skies) are what the camera puts out. Again, Thanks everyone.

By: KnitWit

KnitWit — Fri, 26 Oct 2001 06:43:15 -0800

I'll always be a fan of the lomography stuff. It's hillarious to think a whole "sect" of photo buffs out there are fixated on these photographs when the only reason the look the way they do is because of a terrible, poorly built camera.

By: misterioso

misterioso — Fri, 26 Oct 2001 07:37:50 -0800

I dig Laura Holder's pencam shots from around nyc, although the rest are great too.

By: mmarcos

mmarcos — Fri, 26 Oct 2001 13:23:36 -0800

Very nice. As so often, even with low tech material, the interesting stuff happens when one truly applies oneself.

By: caf

caf — Sun, 28 Oct 2001 23:04:32 -0800

pooh, i feel left out. in the grand old tradition of self-promotion, please visit my pencam gallery. it also includes the magic link to making your pencam work with a Mac!