Saturday December 3rd at Marc's ad a click in the Twin Cities today on the program. We're going to be talking about photography taking pictures of people places and things StarTribune photographer. Mike Zerbe will be in the FM news station Studios offering suggestions and what it takes to get good shots course. He'll also field your questions about photography. So get them ready the National Weather Service forecast weather forecast for today areas of early morning fog mainly cloudy this afternoon areas of freezing drizzle and mix lights. No mainly in the far North Heights from a lower thirties to the middle forties for tonight. Mostly cloudy a chance of snow late in the North Lois from the teens to the lower 30s and then on Sunday, mostly cloudy with a chance of snow spreading from the Northwest to the southeast colder Ice tomorrow from the upper teens to the lower 30s.News is next from national public radio news in Washington. I'm Laura knoy about 400 un peacekeepers remain held by Bosnian Serb forces and the fighting continues around the town of be hot after a day and a half of negotiation you an Envoy Sushi Akashi left Bosnia today without much to show for his efforts the BBC's Jimmy over reports. She could say only that he's gained a better sense of the situation and elsewhere in the country and proposals for an immediate cease-fire and throughout the country 2006. I'd have continued to insist on licking a truce with a provisional agreement to end the whole world that something about government feared would leave besides on the little pressure to give up any of these 70% of the country that currently occupied International diplomacy.Conjuring the dark ashes visit the Belgian government fears that once again it will be under pressure to produce the concessions or Territorial and constitutional needed to unblock the process and its Signal Credit immediate has already reached at the bottom line when it comes to giving concessions in Sarajevo a nightclub Club brawl in Elizabeth, New Jersey overnight left for people crushed to death as customers stampeded to escape the fighting Steve inskeep remember station wbgo reports begin dancing with another girlfriend. The club is called el balcon or the balcony and is the fight spread people on the balcony above the Dancefloor began tossing chairs and Bottles onto people below the crowd panicked and ran to the stairwell which led down and out of the club police Lieutenant Mark car dealer says hundreds of people were jammed in that exit people just stacked up on top of each other, you know.425 high in a bit Crusher people behind them trying to force the way past this pile of people as police cleared away the trapped in the injured they found the bodies of three men and one woman fleeing customers knock down a lock door to a second exit but a third exit to the license Club apparently was never used it all for National Public Radio. I'm Steve inskeep report President Clinton and the new Republican leadership in congress Common Ground yesterday the president in Cumming Senate Majority Leader, Bob Dole die, like the house Speaker Newt Gingrich met at the White House Friday evening Gingrich call The Talk superb and said they were a number of areas with the White House in the GOP can make real changes these include using Federal requirements on the states passing a presidential line item veto and making Congress live by the same laws. It imposes on the public Senator Dole who was elected to his new post as Majority Leader yesterday said the three men did not discuss welfare reform, Texas or Healthcare. This is NP.9News it's 4 minutes past 11 from the FM news station on Chris Roberts charges have been filed and Thursday sexual assault of a Teenage student at Spring Lake Park High School 25 year old Eric Dewayne little was charged yesterday with 3rd and 4th degree sexual assault at a public meeting last night District 16 superintendent. Chris Huber told the group parents and students that Safety and Security have to become the district's first priority as an educator of more than four decades. I thought I would never have to say that but all our first concernEven though we would like to say is what we teach students is not our first concern anymore school officials say they will close many of the entrances to the high school and will require students to produce identification on demand Supervalu plans to eliminate 4300 jobs and sell about 30 retail grocery stores as part of a restructuring the Eden prairie-based food. Wholesaler announce the plan yesterday the last business day of the third quarter Super Value says the moves or and improving profits and efficiency beginning next year. The Moose will cause the company to report a third-quarter losses later. This month Supervalu is reducing its Workforce by 10% for the next two years. Mostly wholesale and Retail operations the 30 stores to be so old are outside, Minnesota and represent 15% of the company's retail Holdings.The updated forecast for the Twin Cities cloudy for the rest of the morning with areas of dense fog this afternoon. Partial clearing is expected highs in the low 40s probably to mostly cloudy tonight Lowe's in the upper 20s 30s and mostly cloudy on Sunday with a 20% chance of snow mainly during the afternoon and highs in the mid to upper 30s Cloudy Skies Prevail over much of the region at this hour in Duluth 35° in St. Cloud 36 partly sunny now in Rochester and 37 in the Twin Cities fog and 34 that's news on Chris Roberts. Thank you. And this is midday on the FM news station. I marked it act like in the Twin Cities and today on. Midday. We're going to be talking about photography and I hope you'll be part of that conversation. It's a pleasure to welcome back in the FM news station Studios Star Tribune photographer. Mike, serby who's been here before passing out tips on taking pictures and Fielding your questions about photography. Thanks for coming in again today. Mike delighted to be here delighted to be with somebody who has marks, Adecco.Funnymike Zerbe we could be like some sign of strange twins. Mzz hour on the FM news station shooting pictures of a wildlife in the fog or something. It had to forego that cuz we were blocked whatever your question about photography to 276 thousand is a number to call and ask him if you listening in the Twin Cities to 276 thousand with your photography question. If you're in the metropolitan area anywhere else, you're listening to this broadcast, you can call toll-free and I have Mike serby offer a tip or two for your a holiday picture taking the toll free numbers one 800-242-2828 toll-free. Once again one 800-242-2828 while we let the folks queue up on the line Michael. I've asked you this before I'm going to ask you again cuz I think it's interesting the way you answer the question every time what makes a good picture. It's very simple photography is it is in so many ways a strange and mysterious phenomenon for people. They wonder how the heck do they get those photographs? How do they do that?If I buy the right camera, I can probably take really good pictures Photography in terms of technology has come a long way in the last hundred years in 50 years. It is now quite simple to buy a camera and pointed at whatever it is you wish photograph and get a good photograph technically what it looked like the human being behind the camera can however add the element that makes photography and art rather than just a recording for him. If you show him what it feels like as well as what it looks like then you've been successful if you can convey somebody in time and space so he just gets to be kind of Star Trek talk. But in fact when you look in the viewfinder, you can take what you see put it inside the camera and at a later time transport yourself or somebody else to that exact moment that exact place and give them the sense of here's how it was. Here's what it looks like and here's how it felt. It was scary horrible. Wonderful. That's photography at its finest likely easier said than done though. I mean, how do you do that? Well, some of it has to do with genetics. I'm convinced. It's a skill was born in summer.Open play the piano some people can draw some people can take photographs beyond that. It can be refined. It's a skill that can be discovered understood refined and expanded upon but I think there has to be some sense of like how to arrange things in space. It's a figure Forum relationship. I could go down that road for a while, but good photography at at 11 love really high-quality skilled a journalistic artistic. It comes with the original package. It doesn't come in the camera box. It doesn't come and lie and lie and developing envelope. When you go back to Target to get your pictures. It's it's a part of who you are and that's what we talkin about for the balance of this hour on Saturday. Midday Mike Zerbe StarTribune photographer in this morning to talk about taking good pictures and what it takes to get the shot that you're really looking for a let's go to the phones at The Red Shoes in Baldwin, Wisconsin the morning.I have one of these is a really slick camera that automatically has a built-in wide-angle and a telephoto lens. And I know that I have taken some shots of my close up pictures and then I would just keep trying both of those and I'm not really sure what is the thing that makes it so unbelievable. Like when is a good time used wedding going out and I can work clothes up a great question their me, there are two possibilities presented here for you. If you have something in front of you that relates to the background remember movie pass the actor portraying George Patton walks up in front of a flagon you have a figure in front of a background that the president in front of a flag. This is time use a wide-angle for two reasons. It allows you to get a lot of things and focus the depth of field the area of focus the zone of sharpness is quite deep and it allows you to place the foreground object. Whatever it is in a space where you can see it well and see the background the opposite end of this is if you have something that you wish to isolate, Space for instance you're going to a graduation ceremony and you want to see your daughter and we want to know that the pictures of your daughter graduating and not the other hundred people in the picture. If you use a telephoto lens, you will Zero in on the topic. Is there a 1 on your subject and you will limit the depth of field. She will be the only sharp or relatively sharp stick in the frame. So what's the question of do you want your main subject to join the background or to be isolated from the background telephoto what it wouldn't what do you mean when you say I know live know the telephoto lens? What are the what are we talking about? When you say that most 35 millimeter camera and I presume that's what we'll be talking about. Mostly our have what's called a normal lens. It is measured in millimeters. It's called normal because it represents. The scene about is the human eye sees it. It's measure that usually around 50 m m. That's what comes on most cameras as your standard lens or lense that has shorter focal length of a smaller number 24. Mm. 35. Mm. These are called wide angles. They will include more in the picture. They will presento a wider field of vision tell if Ozark lenses that are measured in millimeters longer than 5,100 mm300 mm500. Each of those are progressively stronger much like a telescope or binoculars for that. You would buy many cameras for many cameras have built-in zoom lenses with Golden Compass many of those focal lengths as a point of comparison. If you have a set of binoculars that are say eat power binoculars that would equate to a 400 millimeter lens 100 millimeter lens is about a two-time magnification. So I'll give you an idea what you're getting when you buy something with with a right angle or telephoto. I'm sure they'll be more questions on the toys of the trail as we are making our way through the hour. Let's go back to the phones now though and to Dorothy who's in Lino Lakes you only FM news station holiday light displays on some houses and I'd like to know what kind of exposure you recommend for 100 speed print film just throws a lot of people taking pictures at night, right? It does the the issue is you're presented with Something extremely bright the bulbs that are colored lights and then the surrounding background we had some in our paper today at least Star Tribune newspaper. I'm taking by Cheryl Meyer and she did a really nice job. What you typically need to do is expose for much more than you think. If you point an automatic camera out of Christmas light display what the exposure meter will typically see is the bright bulbs and it will make an exposure not long enough. There are ways to fool a camera if it's fully automatic. But what you typically needed is exposure for 100 speed film that will be in the range of or perhaps a half-second at at for those numbers mean something to you. The very best way to go at this is to do what's called bracketing if it's important enough to you to get out into the cold and stand there in the snow and hopefully set up a tripod because it will take a Time exposure to get a proper proper rendering then try several pictures use 3 4 5 frames of film and expose at different settings rather than saying gee whiz. I hope that one turns out Don't hope instead invest $0.50 worth of film and see The Wiltern out by by doing multiple exposures at different settings. Take a similar approach. You're not exactly so if you go over to Tower Hill in the Twin Cities and point your camera back at the at the skyline of Minneapolis. It's a great location. It makes a nice setting and you won't have the same problem presented in Reverse typically because what you see from a distant bandage of a Skyline is a lot of darkness and the camera will tend to overexpose but Kodak publishes inside the film box on and in several Publications specific recommendations for specific film speeds in specific locations include fireworks in Las Vegas displays, I'd recommend picking up one of those because there are so many variations available. They've done a nice job of outlining it. There's no way to meet her at with an automatic camera. It just isn't going to work in 15 minutes. Use the flash occasionally in settings like that. The flash is going to have no effect whatsoever. Basically Illuminating Darkness about 12 feet falls to the ground puts his little legs up in the air and dies. How many pictures do we all have like that in the garbage it someplace it's 15 minutes past 11 you listening to Saturday. Midday on the FM news station. Mike's herb. He's here. He's a photographer With The Star Tribune newspaper more talking about photography Richards in Minneapolis. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you very much for being please. I'll be traveling and England. I'm a traditionalist. I still love black and white pictures. Can you suggest a fast film that will virtually assure me of a nice exposure? Well, it's an interesting question nice exposure fast film virtually assure me. These are all interesting phrases and words if you're interested in archival, Baldi that is something that you can give to your children your grandchildren your right to choose black and white It Last Forever or as long as the paper holds up fine quality film is a T-Max 100. It will assure you of a good exposure and a time. It's not going to do a very good job inside Cathedrals T-Max 400 or even what's call P 3200 will do a nice job all of these however have nothing to do with assuring you of anything. They simply are tools any more than buying a good saw willow tree of a good house. I don't know where to go beyond that other than to tell you that black-and-white is the medium for the Long Haul and it is the medium that provides many people with the most satisfaction that allows them to create an abstraction or the create something that is more of their personality invested in the photograph you talk about Mike taking a picture that you want to save for generations and pass it to on your family members black and white definitely the suggestion done that before and had the pictures. The paper can a crinkles up and if you like it put it on something and it doesn't look as nice as it would if I were to go buy one from a shop or something is there what are your recommendations you get that picture the great family portrait you blow it up, you know what 10 x 12 or something like that? And then you want to you want to frame it? What what do you do to it to get it ready? So it's not going to fade away in and look pretty homemade in a couple of weeks Amazing. You should ask. My daughter Laura Kathleen is in the midst of completing a course at the University in photography. She's driving me crazy, but she's just done a lot of photographs of Fort Snelling and she's matting them. I'm having the matter is one solution. She's doing it herself. It's not expensive. If you do it yourself, that's the way to achieve modest camaras de expense you want to use sulfur free paper acid free paper. You want to have an environment where the photograph is kept at relatively modest temperature is it shouldn't be Garage freezing and family album, it shouldn't be in a plastic page the magnetic albums that you find a Target or Kmart. Those are very bad for both color and black-and-white photography. They tend to eat up the image itself. So the best thing you can do is go to a professional framing shop. If you're not equipped yourself have them properly matted frame about it. It will last a very long time if it's color. You don't want to have the photographs displayed in a brightly-lit area because the ultraviolet light coming in the window or from fluorescent lights will literally destroy the picture itself color photographs are made with Organic dies, and they will last perhaps 10 to 20 years and they begin to suffer significant degradation. Anybody who's 40 years old back and look at your high school photographs of remain color and see what happened to them black and white on the other hand Mathew Brady Civil War in black and white and black play other people, but They're still around a hundred more and more years later. So what it takes to setup your own black and white developing station at home and Christmas coming up here. It might be interesting thing to get a piece of paper and pen out for people looking for gifts for a either adult friends or maybe even kids who went might want to try this out Mike explains that it's not as expensive as many people would think so we'll have sort of the instruction guide over the air waves here as to how to make your own darkroom before we wrap things up. So you may want to get ready for that will go back to the phones now and to Kiran who's in Minneapolis. I am I have an old family portraits of about 2 mi to inches size black and white and solid granny and I want to get an enlargement benefits about 10 by 12 retired the photographic enlarging but the quality is in very good. I was wondering if it could be grabbed Australian male enhancement down on that. It is possible. Let me say at the outset if it's to buy 2 in in grainy and not very good to begin with, Well, you can fabricate something from that that may appear better. You can never make it more than it is at the beginning. There are photo programs on computers these days we're using the paper where you can scan an image in that is in effect take a picture of it and put it on the computer screen and then you can begin to work with it in the end. However, you're still going to have a grainy not very good photograph. I would recommend if you can locate the negative another possibility might be literally to take it someone who creates paintings from photographs are many artists who will recraft the photograph into a family painting might give you a more satisfactory outcome this gentleman call if he was looking for some more specific information. Designer photograph restoration to 276 thousand is a number to call if you have a question about photography for Star Tribune photographer. Mike Zerbe. If you listen to the Twin Cities to 276 thousand anywhere else you listening to the broadcast you can call in with your question about taking pictures toll-free at one 800-242-2828 Micah mentioned the color before the last caller that you don't recommend putting pictures and some of the standard books that people buy to keep pictures and don't keep them out of the garage. Technology is moving along as it as it seems to do and now you can actually view your photographs on a CD-ROM and a computer talk a little bit about some of the options you have for storing. These are photographs. Once you take them. You've given me a great window. Thanks. Yes at the at the paper within the next sixty days. We will no longer be making prints of any kind. All the photographs will be made on Color Film color negative film will scan them into a computer will archive them on a CD-ROM that looks very much like an audio CD five quarter Chinese Round Disc and people have beat before them an incredible technology for enhancing is we talked about just a moment ago and handsome photograph storing photographs for for a very long time in ways that are much more useful than they have been historically. I was talking to a friend last week who's doing family trees genealogy. She's collected photographs of all or family friends, and she's How to best prevent them in to give a wide audience to them and I suggested one possibility would be to scan them into computer Mount them into a database and then print them out using literally a laser printer that we're all familiar with that that process laser printing is quite long lasting and it's inexpensive in and you can then distribute photographs in black and white at this point anyway to a large audience for really low cost. Do they look good? They look great. They look a lot better than some of the photographs of reproducing in our newspaper working on that by the way, but yeah, it is 600 DPI resolution. I don't know how technically want to go on. My husband. I'm already lost. You can take your photograph slides print negatives down to a place like professional color service on Hennepin Avenue. They will put your photographs on a CD-ROM for you. They will put them on a floppy disk for you. They will do a number of things and all of it is not tremendously expensive any longer it's relative and I understand people's budgets, but we have now the technology to hand on photography. Wonderful forms to Generations to come thank you could get quite a bit on a disk so that if you wanted me to save some photographs that are particularly important to you, you could put them on a great deal of photography on a small disk and stick it in the safe deposit box or something. You could do that. They're very inexpensive. I purchased a book by a guy named Rick smolan who had the $50 book couple hundred color photographs and along with it came a CD-ROM that had 600 color photographs. The book was $50, very expensive to produce fine quality the rum cost about a buck to throw out another copy more imagery on that little disk for a fraction of the cost will be seeing more and more of this that I'm sure of it. No question about it are online services are coming up or you can call in and out on your telephone on your modem and our newspaper will be online starting in January and you'll be seeing Star Tribune photographs coming over the telephone line into your Mackintosh IBM, whatever. Alright, the phone lines are jammed and let's get to the phone's gyms in St. Paul. You run with mics are we good morning? It doesn't look like what I saw when I started I like to blame that on the finishing. I realize you can't name a preferred pretty sure but maybe I maybe I should go with a slower processor rather than the one hour or something like that or does money really buy better than the answer that let me ask you something real quick Lane. I don't want you to mention the store where you bring your film or anything, but what are you paying to get 24 36 exposure develop right now? About $89 because it's terribly expensive especially if you really get into taking pictures, you can drop a lot of money pretty quickly. Well, we're going to get in trouble if we start naming stores in the sort of thing so I could we better not do that. But this is a question that I'm sure a lot of people have on their minds. What do you do about the developing side of this and how do you make the right decisions are all right. It is complicated and it is not something you can nail down all four corners any given moment, but there are some guidelines I can provide. I hope the first thing you want to do is do some testing. It'll cost you a little time a little money but in the end it could save you a lot of money and you hopefully will be more satisfied find a negative for a picture that you really like something that you have a great affection for you know what it looked like and you know what it felt like and you got a friend in front of you that's satisfactory. And what you want to do is find somebody who will make that same quality print over and over take the negative and take it to a variety of places. I would suggest Just taking it to a mass-market or Target at Kmart or whatever let them play with that negative and let it come back and see what it looks like then take it to a 1-hour photo finisher of your choice of Pro X or whatever. Let them play with it in the end. What you going to get as a series of prints maybe half a dozen then you can look at them and you can say well this one most closely approximates what I saw all right, the next roll of film we have to take it to them and let them run. You don't have to have it back in a hurry and you're not going to get better or worse quality whether you get back in a hurry the technology is such now that there are a very small number of machines that are run by operators of varying skills and dedication the technology the Machinery the chemistry is the same for everyone we all use the same chemistry. It's all a big pot and it all works about the same. The operator is the key to this whole thing. If you find a mass-market if it works for you, that's great. Stay with him until they shift processor is because these people move it around to make better profits. They will try this processor that process or when you take your film to a specific location. It's not process there. They send it off to a large finishing house at the which may be in the city which may not be in this city, which may not be in this state so you can depend on them for a while, but don't be surprised if it should change the best thing that I found is to find a local person. I live in Fridley and without naming names there's a processor in Fridley that I take my film to when it's family snapshots. I see the people who makes prints. I see the people who actually do the work and I can pull the envelope out look at it and say merry this picture is not quite and she'll say oh, let me do it again. Doesn't cost me any more like you're probably a real pain up there, but they get my business over and over and over and and I don't complain about every picture but but to be able to look in the eye the person who's making the bread is the secret to the whole thing find yourself a neighborhood center sure. There's lots of them around here. I could name names but one that you can look at ones you can see the process. It can even be one of the ones in a Pillsbury Center. There's a camera store that has a one-hour process in it. You can see the person making them if you can establish a relationship be a pain in the butt has Mark says that's the secret to getting it over and over its work for me over the years. What is Mike serby pay for a 36 exposure roll of film. I confess. I don't know why we're about my Visa card and I paid for it. I don't I don't care. I've got the product I want and I don't care 28 minutes past 11 you listening to mid-day on the FM news station StarTribune photographer. Mike Zerbe is in this morning. We're talking about what it takes to get the shots that you are a trying to get when you're up. The button on your camera to 276 thousand in the Twin Cities one 800-242-2828 anywhere else, you can hear the broadcast. Go ahead my day one of the thing you remember you're paying $0.19 for this Photograph. Typically, you can expect it to look as if it was worth a lot of money. If you have a photograph that you truly treasure that that shot. That is the lifetime picture take it to a professional color Service Place pay $30 for an eight-by-ten print. It will be as much as it can be that that's critical. Remember. What are you paying? And what are you getting don't have expectations too high? Okay Dan's in St. Cloud. Thanks for your patience you on with Mike Cervi. Hi Mike. He once had an electric eye on it. I'm being told now that the camera is shocked if you can't measure the light anymore, so I'm going to need to buy a new camera. Timer for my son a couple years ago. It was a Pentax you paid about $60 for it. It's it's a name and shoot camera that just don't like the camera because it just doesn't allow me any flexibility anymore. So I'm going to need to buy a new camera like to buy a camera that I can still change the f stops in the speeds and all of that. So I guess what I'm looking for suggestions on price range. What kind of camera should I be looking for? And what am I going to expect to pay for that type of a camera? I'll hang up and listen. Thanks. Mike Will. Typically these days people talk about cameras and they really want to get something for under $100. It's not going to happen. What you two to achieve what you're talking about. You're probably going to be in the range of 4 to $600 to get a camera that has the technology to be everything you want it to be. Is not an expense of any longer they feel inexpensive. I have to say I I I'm currently a Canon photography shoot with Canon cameras. I used to shoot with Nikon cameras. They're all about the same but they all know our being made out of plastic than they feel like they're made by Mattel toys, but they're marvelous machines the Canton system of I find very good. They they come into tier cannonlake on Pentax Minolta all of them coming to tears one of which is very expensive professional models. And the other one in which range is between 2 and 600 the value to having one of those is that you can get lenses to satisfy you from from very inexpensive to very expensive and they will all fit the modestly priced units in modest. I translate is $300 Tuesdays. When I go buy a used one the Technology's been around for the past several years here in terms of the real high-tech cameras when I just get a used one good suggestion. If you can if you can live with not having the very latest gadget. Yeah, they use camera Market is it is filled with cameras that are two three years out of date and you'll get them in a much better price great suggestion. You might even try a God forbid manual camera where you're in charge was complicated though. So it's not as complicated as you think and and it can provide much more satisfaction. It's not an engineer who dictates what kind of exposure you use but you dictate the exposure. Okay, let's go back to the phone's John is in Montevideo with a question for Mike Cervi. I John Jerome Lee bling ring a bell that you was one of my instructors at the University. Are the GI bill and I took a course of photography. Give me the instructions sections in lab work as a black and white processing. He was a stickler for making a decent negative and making a decent print and his recommendation or his insistence was to bracket the exposure of the paper from the negative urine test strips and always Paper to be in a developer a long time. You don't jerk it out when you think it's a decent and quickly put it in the shortstop hypo you let it in the developer a long time and limit e possibility of over development by the by limiting the exposure lines. Also, he was an assistant instructor for a long washing time on the print absolutely transfer half an hour, but he said if you wanted to print the last for the ages if it's worth the effort to do it yourself and you want to have the friends last a long time and not turn yellow over the years. It had to be at the last at least 20 minutes and he preferred a half an hour. What are your comments on that? He's absolutely right. And your your Recollections are right on target shirt exposed for the year Shadows developed for the highlights this a lot of a lot of rules of thumb like that but terms of archiving. Yes, if you're doing your own black and white photography either use something called hypo clear quick wash or variety of liquids that allow the chemistry to be washed out more quickly. If you don't do that, you will lose the photograph. Let me add quickly. Once again the color photography that we all treasure so much today is not very permanent. And if if my friend Matthew Brady had the photograph the Civil War the way that we photographed the news on our families today. We would have virtually virtually no real photography left to look at I'm really concerned about that. So bless you for shooting black and white and bless you for being concerned with a archiving developing kit here. How do I set somebody up with their own darkroom at home? What are some of the basic things you need to include in that how much first off is it going to cost if you want to set up a small black and white developing station at home. I know when I was younger. I had one or two underneath the stairs at my parents house and they wasn't that expensive and you could do amazing things. You can start out well under $200. I know that seems like a lot but when you think about how much money is pending in finishing if it adds up pretty quickly what you're going to need is a dark space. You're going to need a safe flight and several freeze a couple of developing tank some chemicals in a larger than large will be the most expensive part and there are not a lot of great photo stores left to go to in the in the Twin Cities with the world. There's a limited number and they carry only good materials these days. I'll mention names cuz aren't going anywhere talk about on downtown Saint Paul place called fish for photo many places in the Twin City called National Camera Exchange. Minneapolis West photo each of these places has very high quality Equipment. Then you can start out modestly-priced couple hundred dollars and then move in any direction you choose to the value of all of this is you don't have to hope it turns out you're in charge of it. You are absolutely in charge in terms of process times and how long is washed and how are the crop is made what you choose to put in the photograph how dark or light it is all of it in your hands for black and white is relatively simple and inexpensive even for color. It's not a great. We're not talking thousands of dollars and it's so satisfying it is it's it's a marvelous process and I have to say that I was nine years old when I first saw my first picture I was getting a Cub Scout badge merit badge and the magic has not gone away. I'm Several years Beyond nine years old now and when I do a black and white image, it's still magic. It's still an unbelievable experience to let that picture come up in the tree. It's a great way to I would think to get to a kid or an adult interested. No Hobbies someone's board set him up with a inexpensive camera and a relatively primitive developing station. They've got something to do for a couple of weeks anyway, and it's a communication to a little owls in a form of expression for people who don't write well or perhaps don't speak. Well, it's another way to say what you're about and it's and it's a it's a great mind to mind communication package. It transcends language barriers and cultural barriers at many levels. It is literally a pure communication what I see what I photograph you can see and it's it's it's remarkable phenomenon. I'm sorry I get excited about it don't want to put you on the spot like but at any ideas at book suggestions working in a manual so we can go buy a book or get a book from a library. You bet one of the best books Tom Sweeney and I are teaching a course over the universe. St. Thomas and we have for the last several years the textbook we use is about $40. It's pricey but it is the best one I've ever seen. It's called photography amazingly enough. It's by if you get a used copy, it'll be by Upton and Upton if you get a contemporary copy, it'll be by London and Upton and I'm not sure if the authors. Separated ways or whatever but in any event photography. It's about 12 in square. It has all the technical material and that you will ever need and it has wonderful examples of Photography Upton an option or up to London photography. It's I think it's in his 5th edition right now any chance you could set yourself up with a dark room getting used equipment. There are lots of swap sales. There was one in fact the day of the big storm recently that that last Sunday flea markets in the Twin Cities that happened with great frequency where you can pick up materials quite easily look in the water as of my newspaper. You will often see dark rooms for sale. Yeah. It's it's out there and then finally, is it something that kids shouldn't be doing because of the chemicals involved. Can we worry about that now the chemistry at least for black and white photography is not toxic if it would give you a stomach ache but nothing is going to corrode your hands grow the same guy I would recommend drinking it, but it would not kill you if you drank a time. Is it safe for kids all that said about your home developing station will move on and back to the phone. Gyms in Minneapolis. James is in Minneapolis rather. Good morning. Thanks photography is for for your profession and also for the consumer and second question. Are you frustrated ever as a professional by know you look at your print? It's gorgeous. And then you see the reproduction of Grey ever frustrated by that two variants and quality explain. What digital photography is digital photography is best explained by thinking of a football game where you have an entire side of the stands holding up cards that form picture is everybody stands up. Hold up a card man to get a picture of if they are in China. You got a picture about to tell me if you're in Iowa to get a picture of gopher being crowned whatever digital photography is representing the image in zeros and ones in numbers. If you're looking at a photographic negative film what the picture is made up of his small clumps of C. Actual real silver that formed against less dense more dense areas and caused the formation of a picture when you look at it in digital photography are looking at in effect crossword puzzle a little squares and each crossword puzzle square has a light in it and the light is either on or off depending how many squares are illuminated how many squares are off you can get a photograph happens at the Metrodome. If you look up at the scoreboard, we have red green and blue light bulbs in effect that caused the formation of a picture of when their illuminated you see a picture. All right. So digital photography has as a as a base Electronics when you take a picture with an electronic camera, there is no film in it is an Imaging device to call a charge-coupled device won't get too technical, but it converts the incoming picture to a set of zeros and ones and record some typically on magnetic disks or a random access memory. Those are then reproduced on your screen and output to a printing device. That's exactly what happens at our newspaper these days we digitize the photographs. We run it through a scanner electronic beam looks at the photograph and says all this is brightwheel. Turn on that pixel. It's called picture element. All right, we can go down that road a long ways, but it is cost effective in the end for mass production situation like a newspaper we go through a lot of film and we go through a lot of paper and for us it'll be cost-effective to Simply eliminate some of that by using Electronics in the end. The photograph will appear in the newspaper. You won't be able to tell the difference. It'll still be as good or bad as it typically has some days because the process is not what the photograph is about in the end. What we do as photographers is not driven by the technology that technology is simply a tool will use digital photography because it's cost-efficient for the consumer the mask and somewhere for a grandma or more Bill who's got to his camera. He's making pictures for a Christmas card. He's not Using digital photography for at least three to five years because it's not cost-efficient. There's not enough volume to drive it in terms of the reproduction. You mentioned in the newspaper. We have a quality control committee that works on that everyday and yes, we are disappointed from time to time. But by and large, we we put out very well reproduced photographs are paper looks in the context of American and world news papers. We have one of the better-looking newspapers in the country. And where is disappointed by battery production is as you are I can only tell you that we're moving to improve it and that each day. We we are either rewarded or disappointed and we look at it and we attempt to make it better than next day. So thanks for noticing how important are the pictures in the newspaper. I mean, do you folks sit down after the paper comes out and slam it on the table at the pictures don't look right saying the whole papers goofed up everyday, we look at the photographs and every week. We have a critique would put the entire week's production up on the wall, and we look at all the all the pages and say What's good? What's not good? How can we make it better? And it's done by the entire staff. We have an integrated the newspapers and integrated Community. We have writers photographers graphic artist layout design people. All of us are working towards the same goal is to provide information for the reader and the photographs certainly provide a significant element in that Communications package. Okay. The phones are jammed with questions for a mic. So, let's go back to the phones John's in Minneapolis. Thanks for your patience. guy, yeah, I recently graduated with a photo do and then relocated to the Twin Cities and I feel pretty disconnected from us and have a photographic community and Does wonder if you have to just depends on how I could get involved that way and also I'm looking for like a Cooperative dark them specifically color and all that's not your favorite obviously better conversation we had today but it's it's kind of my passion. So I suggested I wish I did for a lot of folks. Of course, if you enroll in Upper Darby course at the University and you have access to their dark rooms, if anybody out there knows of community darkroom. Let us know. I'm not aware of one right now. The first part of your question was Crooks where I think Jon's looking toilet connected to the heart of the community and ask for them at any of the camera shops. They have listened. It's at we have a very Lively Community here in terms of Photography the fact there's a contest being judged by John Croft one or other photographers this coming Tuesday. If you want to give John a call, I'm sure it'll be alright without give John Cross to call down at the paper. If you want to go be part of that particular event. He's aware of the scheduling a location. I don't have it in my head just now just call your camera shop and find out what clubs are in your area. OK. It's about 15 minutes before 12. Noon you listening to mid-day on the FM news station and is in Minneapolis run with my hear me. Hi Mike. Nice to hear your voice is so us know your pictures on everyone talks about Prince, but I want to know if it matters where we go to get the film developed to the negative stage is that neutral or or are some places better at handling, you know, is that is can I trust anyone to do that or if I really am concerned, you know, should I go to a place where I often go that does really good professional work in the reason I ask is sometimes I may have one picture. I might be interested in on a roll. Tennessee mall, and you know, I could go to a real fast place or whatever but the negative is that is my question. Is that does everyone do that? Well, yes, in terms of the processing of the negative assuming that they change the chemistry properly replenish should pay attention to the temperature is so forth were as I mentioned we're all using the more less identical Machinery The Identical chemistry and if it's properly maintained and well-run, it will produce standard negatives over and over and over and you're exactly right you might want to consider taking your film to an inexpensive processor or through the mail processor and just use the resulting prints for an effect a large contact sheets or as reference points and not assume that there was a good quality so that for five or six dollars, you might get a roll processed the prints are all you wanted. But what you're looking for is which of the 36 pictures do you want to have properly treat? That's a great approach and I would endorse it I think with relatively Little concern you can you can count on film processing its being pretty standard least. That's been my experience Prince, but you never tweet negative negative need to be standard. Nobody ever looks at a negative and the with the exception of when we divorced processing for dark places at football games, whatever know the negative is is done the same way over and over. It's a standard. It's a common element back to the phones into Jamie who's in Williams Minnesota run with Mike. Serby. Mike you just mentioned football game. I work for a small newspaper up in Minnesota and my boss doesn't want to spring for anything more than 400 speed film and I have a tough time getting good shots of Confession of fire shots of the football game against anything that well if we're not spending the money in the right place. I'm sure the cost of your film budget is relatively modest in the great scheme of things. If you want to the readers of your newspaper to be excited about the photographs of their kids playing football get some Kodak TMax p3200 film. It's a magic film you can process that is fine as they say 6400 and get really fine quality prints in terms of newspaper reproduction. They'll be excellent. If you're if you're saving literally a dollar or two parole by buying 400 speed film, it's it's a terrible disservice to the reader's eye. I don't know which newspaper you work for but I wish the publisher would see that spending literally less than $100 more a year is going to provide a much better product and I presume subscribers will be more excited Mike. You can drive up on Monday morning and work it out with him exactly John's in Shoreview with a question for Mike Cervi. Good morning. Good morning, Mike today you talk about the history. I just have to come in about I didn't start smoking because I could spend $0.25 for a trike impact. If you remember those have some at home. My question is from Storage of slides. Would you recommend that those be turn to CD-ROM and could you tell me how long we might expect to have our stores are slides to maintain the color of the second question when you mentioned digital photography always my concern is Once you digitize a photography a picture, how do we control the reality of that picture from somebody changing? What was actually there. What could have been there with some creative Electronics from 12 to 1 to just talk about this particular great questions slide should be stored in the dark at moderate temperature is moderate to humidities. And if you want to put them in Pages, please don't put them in vinyl Pages. We we talked about Prince suffering and those magnetic last two pages hits vinyl is the problem final does what's called outgassing it begins to decompose and gets brittle but the gases that come out will attack the prince same thing is true for slides. There are pages that you can get at the store your slides in 20 the time be sure you buy a water called archival storage pages are made from polyethylene, which does not have the problem of vinyl so for long-term storage put them in Carousel tree as a great way to do it keep me in the dark and cool keeping dry if you're talking about and let me segue quickly into movies long-term storage many people take their home movies and put them on videotape this a great thing. You can distribute them for very low cost to a large family. A lot of people can see him in the TV show that don't have to look it up projector will love this is a great idea to put the movies on video tape do distributive your family. Don't throw the movies away. The movies will last typically between 40 and 100 years because the film is a very durable medium the videotape on the other hand as we're speaking right now on the radio video tapes are quietly being erased by the Earth's magnetic field itself same as before audio tapes. It's no big. So if you have your movies if you have your slides converted to videotape great, but keep the original medium in terms of what's to keep us honest. The only thing you can trust about a photograph is the maker of the photograph We all know the Russian history where people would appear and disappear in Russian photographs of people on top of Lenin's tomb various heads would be inserted that uses used scissors and paste did it crudely. We can all do it much better with the electronics. So if you want to have a photograph that you trust you must trust the maker of the photographs the technology hasn't hasn't created the monster. That's the maker a big issue for this industry right now your industry my industry as well, I guess because we're both any journalists how much of an issue but remember what Time Magazine was either Newsweek or time OJ Simpson all the sudden appearing much darker than he would have argued more Sinister areas. People are talking about absolutely. It's a continuing discussion. We have it all the time. Let me take it to two levels or really get too short on time here. Let me take it the two levels. First of all, we don't alter photographs at mine. Paper. We have a policy that's written understood we do journalism. We tell fruits with a camera and it's it's very straightforward. If you wanted to you could then the Technologies here right now to do whatever you want to do to a photograph. It's very easy. It's not at all difficult. It's fun. But we are our job is to tell you what happened to show you what happened to give you information. Our job is not to convince you that were on the right side or that we're not Rouse make people look good or bad. The technology would make that quite simple in terms of who can you trust I've set it all you must trust the maker of and if you don't trust the maker you're in deep trouble. We have people who routinely assume however that we are altering photographs or that we are biased the whole job of Journalism Institute is to convey information and ignore as much as possible your own biases to be true to the situation to be true to the subject matter. No question. I have opinions about things and when I photograph When are my computer it's right. They very much try to submerge those and just go with the story. It comes down to very simple things that were accused of let me quickly relate a story about the last elections. We had people were unhappy with a newspaper because they felt we showed our biases by photographing and displaying pictures that would more that would favor one candidate over another and it was a simple in one case as well you photograph this candidate you never show this candidate smiling that candidate didn't smile very much you always photographed this candidate from the side and the other candidate from the front. Well, in fact in that particular instance front vs. Side, the photographs we were running were supplied by the candidates and they were the preferred photograph. So the picture taken from the side of one candidate was the that candidates submitted photograph, please use this picture and the other one submitted a frontal shot. But in some people's mind the fact that one looks like it weighs one. Look forward was are by us and we were some healthy So it's not technology-driven it's it's information being supplied and if you trust the maker of the supply of the information, that's all it needs. If you don't there's lots of ways to fool people. Will it make sure we ever come to a point where you get a picture and there's a stamp on it that says this picture was taken by somebody and developed by by people who have agreed not to change it because as you say it is so easy to technology is right there. If you want to do anything you want to picture for the be less seal. There is a way to encode information inside a digital file that would somehow authenticated or verify that this is real I would submit that there are as soon as you can invent a way to insert a secret code that somebody will invent a way to get the secret code changed. I have to still maintain that the only the only authentic purveyor of information that you can trust is one that you know and believing. Okay. Let's not go down to a very patient. Helen who is in Milaca, you're on the FM news station with Mike Cervi. Thanks for waiting. I think you're still there and everything and it takes a lot of time to aim. You can't just aim and shoot now. Could you suggest a good Canon camera for an elderly couple that just do want to aim and shoot you better Canon EOS Rebel. That's it. I give a brand name. I give a specific model. I'm going to get in trouble for this. I know I know there are lots of others like it but sure there are many out there and you can get them that are fully automated and very good quality but $260 or something like that. Okay, and then I have to ask you this question this from John Gordon who's filling in as a producer today. He wants to know what's the best pic picture you've ever taken as far as you're concerned Mike serby 27 years. I believe I don't have your your bio up here with me, but you've been shooting for the stars begin for 27 years. I have lots of photographs on fond of I'm still looking for the best one. I really hope it comes to Tomorrow when I'm making pictures with paper you have a favorite ones you would rather shoot people or places people are the best thing people in process of photographs of people being born and photographed people flying B-52 bombers. I've been at the North Pole with rock wheel sticker have those lights in Lebanon riots. I've been gassed I've been there a war stories are go on and on and on and on and out of all of those I guess I still am seeking the really good photograph. We all want to be remembered for a photograph. We all want to be immortal. My my chance at immortality is the body of work that I create and it's not done yet. So that's a nice question. I appreciate it. And I'm not trying to be coy. I do have favorites at one of my favorites was of a veteran of Vietnam. We lost both legs to a landline and he's watching then-president Nixon declare that we have one piece with honoring and clearly this man is paid that price and And I went back and asked this man. What was it like to be photographed and have your picture if you're on page one laying in a hospital bed with your leg is gone, so I was proud. Well anytime you can convey somebody sense of what they're about and what they value and and have them feel good about it being in the paper. That's a good one. I felt I'd done a service for him. And for the readers to see what's involved. What's it about? Okay, we'll make sure we were starting to run out of time here. I wanted to get one final question out to you lot of people are taking pictures of their friends and family for the next month or so here during the holiday season. What do you do if you want to picture you don't really care about what's in the background, but you care about you or your brother or your grandmother or your good friend and you want to get a good picture of them this year. How do you 30 seconds? We got to get going here. But how do you do it real simple take a lot of photographs stand very close. Don't tell him you're going to take pictures. Don't take pictures when they're posing. Don't let him pose for you. You keep the camera with you at all times the best photographs always seem to happen when there's no camera nearby. So put the camera in a place that you can grab it in a minute. I remember proposing to my wife last Thanksgiving and fortunately one of my son Please grab the camera and turned it on and now it's recorded those moments. Only come one-time. Keep it with you stand close Mike serby photographer from the Star Tribune newspaper in this Saturday on Saturday. Midday to talk about ography. Thanks a lot for coming in again. And we look forward to the next day that you'll be a gracing us with your photography tips Mike. Thanks. Have a great time. Thanks. Midday on Saturday. Today was produced by Jon Gordon. The technical director was Clifford Bentley. Thanks to you who called in and to those of you who listen to Mark's exactly midday on Saturday supported by the oriental rug company celebrating its 10th anniversary year at 50th and Bryant in Minneapolis. Chris Roberts. Hello, Mark. How are you? I'm fine. How are you? That was a fine program. I think that's a good idea for Christmas presents holiday presents. It's a free country. Absolutely Chris. Thanks. Let's check the forecast very briefly. Probably mostly cloudy skies this afternoon some drizzle. Or light snow possible in Virginia, Minnesota highs from the low thirties to the low forties tonight. Mostly cloudy of chance of snow later on in the Duluth area Lowe's from the teens in Pipestone to the lower 30s around Rochester Minnesota for the Twin Cities partial clearing this afternoon highs in the low 40s. Probably mostly cloudy tonight, then mostly cloudy tomorrow with a 20% chance of snow mainly during the afternoon hours and high in the mid to upper 30s and Duluth. It's cloudy and 35 degrees cloudy in St. Cloud and 36. I'm Terry fedele on the next midday treasury secretary Lloyd Benson live at the national Press Club on the summit of the Americas being held in Miami. That's midday at 11 on the FM news station k n o w FM 91.1 you listening to Minnesota Public Radio. Fog and 35 degrees at the FM news station know.