Lartigue Effect

We have got all sorts of stuff going on in Tulsa these days.  The city doesn’t know whether to lean to the right,
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or lean to the left, or

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Or just kind of shimmy in place.

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So what’s happening? I know the wind blows here in Oklahoma, but not that much.

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I have a cheap camera. The Takashi 521 digital lomo camera. It has all sorts of special effects built into a camera with a plastic lens. One thing this camera doesn’t have though is a shutter. That’s right no shutter. You press the button the sensor gets scanned is all. So that means that if I move the camera while pressing the button the things that the camera sees get distorted.

In a regular camera with a shutter you don’t get that. You get a blur. Blur can be fun, but not that much fun.

This distortion is called the Lartigue effect after Jacque Henri Lartigue, a french dude, who used a “focal plane shutter.” to invent the effect. Here is an example of his work:

Check out the link. He was cool! The main thing is that I love the term “focal plane shutter.” That is like one of the most wonderful pieces of jargon I have heard in a long time. I have no idea what it means. I’m going to use it a lot. I mean talk about authority. For instance, somebody talks about plumbing problems I’m going to shut them up by saying that until they get a Focal Plane Shutter installed they are going to continue to have the same problem.

Those of you who don’t have cheap camera will have to pay big bucks to get a focal plane shutter. That’s what you get for having fancy stuff like shutters on your camera. My shutterless piece of junk can get the same effect using the scan rate of the sensor. Aren’t you jealous? You should be.

12 thoughts on “Lartigue Effect

  1. Sylvia K

    Oh, you’re so clever and such a tease with all your camera/brand wisdom! I’m doing good to keep something in the view finder long enough to shoot it without too much blur!! These are terrific – regardless of the camera — guess that means its the talent that matters! Hope you have a great weekend — with all the cameras, cheap and otherwise!!

    Sylvia

  2. Marie

    Very funny and educational at the same time :-))) I get the same effects with my sunglasses. Thank you very much for visiting my blog.

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