There are a few ESSENTIAL items listed first. Following that listing is the list of supplies that every first year Imaging and Photographic Technology student should have available for the department's PHOTO 1 course. Next is a list of OPTIONAL items which if you have them it would be helpful to bring them but they are not needed and can be purchased here later. There is also a file of suggested COMPUTER related items.
ESSENTIAL
CAMERA: One camera body with interchangeable 50mm lens or with a mid-range zoom lens. The camera should have the capability of operating in "manual" mode. That is, ait should not be a fully automatic camera. Any additional fixed focal length lenses or zoom lenses can only help.
EXPOSURE METER: Any meter that is of professional quality and measures incident and reflected light will work fine. If it can also make measurements of electronic flash, that is so much the better.
CALCULATOR: We would recommend a graphing calculator such as a TI-82.
GRAPHING SUPPLIES: french curve or flexible ruler, straight rulers,
SWISS ARMY KNIFE: good quality with a few tools but not too large.
Photo One specific supplies
Thefollowing is a list of items that are required for a specific course in the Imaging and Photographic Technology program that first year students will be enrolled in. It is the Imaging and Photographic Technology program's Photo One course taught by Prof. Steve Diehl. If you have questions about the items on this list feel free to drop him an e-mail message.
Imaging and Photo Tech GENERAL PHOTO I SUPPLIES
Prepared by Prof. STEVE DIEHL - swdpph@rit.edu.
BOOKS:
PHOTOGRAPHY by London and Upton (Sixth edition unless there is a seventh edition)
VIEW CAMERA TECHNIQUE by Stroebel (He is completing the 6th edition)
PHOTOGRAPHY SUPPLIES:
*Some of these items will have to be replaced during the course, especially film, paper, and Polaroid materials.....
Many students are finding it very useful to have a computer that will support Photoshop and color printers (such as Epson 870)This allows the student to work away from the digital labs which are often under heavy usage, expecially in the spring quarter when almost all the assignments involve digital output and many involve digital capture as well.
FRESHMAN DARKROOM KIT - this is in addition to above supplies.
Items marked with an * are immediately needed for the first lab session in the Fall.
The following list is provided simply as something to consider if you happen to have it currently available. If it was included in the Photo 1 list above then that listing supersedes this one.
SHOOTING EQUIPMENT: If you own the following, bring:
Tripod - any will do but if you go buy one it should be sturdy enough to
hold a 4x5 camera.
small portable flash unit
4 x 5 sheet film holders
cable release (12-24 inches)
focusing cloth for view camera (buy or make)
tape measure (cloth sewing type is good)
close-up attachments or bellows
close-up (diopter) lenses
filters - not really needed but nice to have especially polarizing, red and UV
bulk loader and bulk B&W and color film (can buy here)
PROCESSING: If you own the following, bring:
stainless steel/plastic developing tank(s), 1 or 2 reel size
stainless steel/plastic reel(s)
developing tanks/reels for medium format film
photographic thermometer
wooden, spring-type clothespins (1 package)
PRINTING: If you own the following, bring:
grain focuser
dodging and burning tools
print tongs and/or gloves
photowipes
pencil flashlight
old bath towels (very helpful for cleanup)
COMPUTER: - see attached note.
The list below includes various other accessories you might consider:
car - useful but not necessary
bicycle or roller blades
tools - hammer, X-acto knife, mat cutter, screwdriver,
small pliers, scissors, nuts/bolts, tool box or fishing
tackle box to keep some of the darkroom supplies in
grey card
step-up/down rings
batteries - lots for both cameras and flashlight
extension cord - a couple including a power strip.
T square
pushpins
spotting brush and Spotone
tape measure
photo paper and film - but you can buy lots here
changing bag
negative sleeves
mat board
dry mount tissue
floppy discs
lens shade
magnifying loupe
dark cloth
ADDENDUM: how much to plan to spend each quarter in Frosh year for supplies? about $500 to $750 depending on how much you shoot/reshoot and how many items from the "optional" list you already have.
FURTHER NOTE ON COMPUTER NEEDS FOR IMAGING AND PHOTO TECHNOLOGY STUDENTS
From Dr. Russell Kraus who teaches System Design for Graphic Presentations (a first year Imaging and Photo Technology course). Feel free to drop him a line if you have any questions about this subject. His e-mail address is rckpph@rit.edu.
Often I am asked by parents and students "What computer should I purchase?" As photography majors, students need to be concerned with how photographs are captured, stored, recalled and imaged. Rather than recommend a specific type of computer or a brand name, I identify the important components that would make the computer most useful to an imaging student.
RAM...one can't have too much RAM. I consider 96 Mbytes the ground floor and 128 to 256 Mbytes the target. Students can often get by with 48Mbytes in a Windows/NT environment and 32 Mbytes in a Macintosh 8.X OS environment.
CPU's... I do not recommend anyone over the other. Any Intel PII is fine just make sure that the CPU has a high cache. Of course if a "state of the science" CPU is wanted then the Mac G-3, PowerPc or a MIPS, or SPARC is available. However, the OS is somewhat more complex for MIPS and SPARC stations, and the software (applications) are more expensive. At RIT's School of Photographic Arts and Sciences, the student can expect to encounter Mac and PC clones. Having either would facilitate working at home and at school since many of the school's machines are supplemented with Zip drives and Jazz drives as information storage devices.
Students would be wise to come prepared with or be thinking about investing in one of these drives to easily carry large image files between home and school. If the student is starting from ground zero and wants to build a useful and somewhat longer lived system then get hold of a large SCSI hard drive in the 6 gigabyte or more range. If the the system is going to be running a Windows OS, then see about a mother board that is PCI bused 66mhz speed. Both would allow maximum through put and speed up most image applications such as storage and retrival, video display.
Video display is crucial in that 24 bit display cards are mandatory. Accelerated cards are required. Something along the lines of a 8 Mbytes ATI would certainly suffice. There are other boards such as Orchid or #9 or Diamond that would do as well. Make sure you get the maximum memory that the board can handle.
Finally, the monitor. A 17 inch diagonal measure monitor with a minimum of 1,024 x 768 non interlaced display is our minimum. A 21 inch would be desirable and easy on the eyes. The more screen real estate the better for running several apps at once and the better for imaging program having multiple tools and palettes simultaneously displayed. Flat digital panel screens are making an appearence in the sub $1000 price category. They offer good color display, high resolution, and are light and easy to set-up.
Finally, finally... graphics tablet, trackball, mouse? I prefer them in the order I just listed for pointing devices. There are other options such as CD-ROM writers if you intend to archive much, sound boards , midi interfaces but while these add a dimension they are not central to much of the electronic imaging we do at school.
There is another course of action, namely, portable. RIT had become one of the most wired campi in the country. Having a large screen, true color, portable with three spindles, and two type II PCMCIA card slots is a good but expensive way to go. Hope this helps, I am sure I overlooked something such as a modem or ethernet connector, but we can raise the overlooked items at another time.
rus kraus
you can send me e-mail HERE!
To give you an idea of where students spend their supplies funds, this is a list of supplies purchased by one student during her first quarter in the Imaging and Photo Technology Photo 1 course. This is provided simply for your information and so you can get an idea of what a "real" student did. This should give you an idea of roughly the kinds of items she bought and their approximate cost. As for sensitized good she only indicated cost per roll/box or film - total is somewhat variable but you can plan on at least 20 rolls of 35mm. B&W, 5 rolls of 35mm color transparency, 5 rolls of 120 and 2 boxes or 50 sheets of 4x5 film. You will also need a box of 100 sheets of 8x10 inch B&W paper.
35mm camera & lenes Nikon Fm2 about 500 lens 35-135AF 150 Canon Rebel-X 300 lens 35-85AF 150 (or similar Minolta, Pentax, etc. outfits or can borrow from cage) tripod (can borrow cage) 100 for 35mm bogen & 2 1/2 lightmeter (can borrow cage) 150 starting at flash (can borrow from cage) 100 starting at grey card 9 filters(polarzier, red, blue, magenta, etc) 15 aprox each tank & reels 15 dodging materials 5 thermometer 20 enlarger filters 25 color viewing filters 16 canned air 6 anti-static brush 8 anti-static cloth 6 wooden tong set 5 towels (hand) 2 each grain focuser (borrow cage) 25 gaffers tape 4 push pins 2 tools (hammer, screwdriver, tape measure, scissors, plyers & tool box) 40 background cloth/paper 30-60 extension cords 12 ladder (6 foot) 26 loope 10 cable release 7 lens cleaning paper 2 AA batteries 5 sleeves for negs & trans 100 pkg. 35mm neg 20 35mm trans 28 120 20 4 x 5 20 film -- black & white 120 3 per roll 4 x 5 17 (25 sheets) color transparency 120 5 per roll 4 x 5 18 (10 sheets) 35mm 9 per roll b&w paper (RC 25 sheets) 12 E-6 processing 1.50 mat board .80 11 x 14 sharpie pen 2 spotting pens 35 adhesive photo corners 5 cardboard 35mm slide mounts .03 each white cotton gloves (12pk) 6 T-square 15 ruler 5 French curve 3 mat cutter (Logen-4000) 38 calculator (TI-85) 100 bicycle (buy it used) 30 bike lock (Kryptonite) 20 computer (RIT has many) --- car (RIT has a shuttle bus) ---
If you have any questions about supplies you may contact Prof. Davidhazy who may be ablle to provide further clarification. Send e-mail to his PostOffice right now!