photography for the rest of us

A few nice photo scanner images I found:

Old Franklin half cent


Image by readerwalker
Even back when I bought this at the post office I wondered what anyone used a half cent stamp for. Thoreau tallied to the half cent the costs of his Walden cabin materials, but that was a long time ago (March 1845).

This is a test of my new Epson Perfection V300 Photo scanner. Not bad for an inexpensive scanner ( from B&H, including shipping). Note the detail and clarity in the much enlarged original size scanned image. This stamp turned out to be an unusually good test for the scanner.

In googling I found several web pages about a different looking Franklin half cent stamps before finally finding a picture of this one and this explanation:

"In 1938, the United States issued a set of definitive postage stamps featuring images of the nation’s first 29 presidents. This issue has affectionately become known as the Prexies issue. In addition to the 29 presidents featured on the stamps, fractional postage stamps were issued with images of non-presidents, such as Benjamin Franklin and Martha Washington, and the White House.

"For those not familiar with fractional postage, some types of U.S. mail required a partial cent, even though there was no coinage for half cents in use in the United States at the time. Thus, a person could buy 2 half-cent stamps for a cent, and use them as additional postage for some classes of mail. Also, the half-cent stamp was used to round the 1-1/2 and 4-1/2 cent purchases up to the nearest whole cent. However, throughout its existence, the half-cent stamp was never used, by itself, in order to mail a letter as the minimum postage was never less than 1 cent.

"The first stamp (in denomination order) is the half-cent Benjamin Franklin issue. As the United State’s first Postmaster, he was chosen to appear on the first fractional value stamp."

That according to: www.stampsofdistinction.com/2008/06/8-things-you-didnt-kn…

Sand, Rocks and Sea


Image by Dread Pirate Jeff
This was shot in 2001 on our honeymoon in California somewhere along the Pacific Coast Highway as we traveled from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

This was shot with a Yashicamat-LM TLR using Fuji color slide film and scanned at 2400dpi with an Epson V500 Photo scanner.

Breakers on the California Coast


Image by Dread Pirate Jeff
On the way south along the Pacific Coast Highway, we stopped and I got some shots of rocks and waves on the shore.

This was shot with a Yashicamat-LM TLR using Fuji color slide film and scanned at 2400dpi with an Epson V500 Photo scanner.