garygruber

I realize this is an old thread but here goes. I just disassembled my Medalist II and am having problems with the prism also. After a thorough cleaning I see that one side of the prism has lost its mirror silver. What I thought was dirt is actually a loss of the reflective material. I just purchased a parts only medalist II in hope of being able to retrieve the prism and use it in an otherwise fully functional camera. If anyone has any thoughts I'm all ears...

Thanks for nothing everyone. I am leaving now for good. You can continue your circle jerk without me.

Fluid dynamics is very important in film development. Under agitation causes the film adjacent to edge to develop slower. If that edge is a sky value, it will exhaust the developer at a slower rate than the rest of the film. This is not just my observation but the observation of every pro I went to school with and had to put their butt on the line when they saw poor results from using the manufacturer's recommendations with regard to proper agitation Shadow areas exhaust the development more quickly. I have been using 6 inversions in 10 seconds once a minute ever since I began to understood the concept of fluid dynamics and flow. It is most important to stop the vertical movement of the reels inside the can, as I detailed previously using a small length of PVC pipe. I conferred with many photographers before the internet and we compared notes and found out the same thing. You can eliminate the small tank (30 sec) vs. large tank (60 sec) intervals, by adjusting the processing times for smaller tanks down slightly. Consistency is everything. It is the only way to eliminate variables. It is also crucial to mix developers using distilled water. Either too hard or too soft water will wreak havoc with your film. Too soft can cause the emulsion to lift right off the base, too hard can cause mineral deposits to form during development, creating spots that print black on the film. I had film ruined that was used during research for a Guggenheim Fellowship I was awarded back in 1972 due to soft water. I banged my head on the wall for quite some time understanding all of this. I hope this helps. I've had nothing but consistent results since 1976, when me and my photographer buddies met to discuss all of this and figure out both the source of the problem and an approach to remedy it.

I have seen several threads on the difficulty of putting filters on both lenses of a 180 due to the close tolerances. I solved the problem today by turning down the diameter of two new B+H filters on my lathe. I used the thread protector ring that comes stock with the 180 as the filter holder. I then simply threaded the filter on and turned it down. My initial measurements indicated I had .050 thou of rim thickness to work with (and leave a 0.010 thickness for stability). I ended up taking off 0.042 thou from each filter in multiple steps until I achieved a good fit with about 0.002 clearance between the two filters: #1. Lens protector chucked on lathe: #2. Filter threaded on:

Sage advice. A densitometer to read base fog usually tells the story -- as long as the film has not been push processed.

All electronic media can and will fail eventually. Rotating cards is a good policy. I take at least a half dozen with me when I travel.

I used to keep local backups. I now have both a Microsoft OneDrive and GoogleDrive accounts to store nearly 2TB of photos. I have scanned some of my 54 years of negatives and transparencies -- well over 100,000 images. I find cloud storage to be optimal, but Microsoft's software is much better than Googles.

To avoid the reels moving in the tank I cut a piece of one inch PVC tube to permit no more than 1/8 inch clearance between th top of the reel and the bottom of the tank cover. This will prevent over agitation when the tanks are inverted.

If you shoot with a lot of sky or high zones in your photo, twice per minute will cause under agitation and under development of the high density areas. I have used 6 inversions in 10 seconds once a minute for about 50 years now. Pre-soak for one minute prior to development. This will prevent uneven development. Been there too many times early in my career

Mamiya RZ67, 50mm, Ilford Delta 100 [ATTACH=full]1343566[/ATTACH]

I checked with the ghost of Beaumont Newhall and no one else in the history of photography has ever done this.

no

Polaroid was instrumental in large format. I did tons of architectural photography, including ads for Architectural Digest. It was the best way to ensure that your verticals were straight. It wasn't unusual to spend up to 4 hours prepping for a single shot, especially an indoor / outdoor photo where you had a seven minute window to get the right light balance. In product photography, the polaroid let us adjust the spacing between objects to yield smooth visual transitions.

Thanks for the advice! Maybe me and my friends (several award winning commercial photographers from Boston, L.A., and NYC) have had it wrong for 50 years. And there is my buddy Michael who was a Nat Geo photog for 20 years after a successful stint doing advertising in NY.. Let me contact them immediately and let them know they've been doing it wrong for all these years. /SARC OFF. I think I've run into his cousins on other forums I've been on...