www.graemehird.com

Better get a heavy tripod! All that air inside the bellows means you can use the camera as a life bouy.

Go on Rob - I'd love to see the results of a box camera in a housing. Single shot only, but what a shot!

Cheers,

Graeme

Film: A future-proof, high resolution storage medium.<p>

Capture on film and scan to make a digital image. When your CDs and DVDs become obsolete and you've forgotten to upgrade, scan again on the latest and greatest technology. I expect my film to last 50 years, even if my digital storage media/file format goes belly up. (of course, the sensible thing to do is to keep up to date....)<p>

Now, will there be film scanners in 50 years? If not, I'll dupe my trannies with the latest 500 MP digi-cam/coffee maker.

Matt,<p>

I was looking at doing something similar a while ago and found liquid pool chlorine (AKA bleach or sodium hyperchlorite) quickly gave wood a weathered texture and colour. I soaked the wood in it for a couple of days and had a texture of drift wood by the end of it. You might coat the back of the wood in petroleum jelly to prevent that being weathered.<p>

I never made the frame out of it, but it looked promising.<p>

Graeme Hird<br>

<a href="http://www.goldeneyephoto.com/OtherPages/Self.htm">Me</a><p>

Graeme Hird

Kevin,<p>

I've been scanning and printing via lightjet for 3 years. I scrapped the darkroom's enlarging side and now only use it to load film and develop B&W sheets. No regrets (except that I didn't do it earlier).<p>

Graeme <br>

<a href="http://www.goldeneyephoto.com">www.graemehird.com </a>

Jeffrey,

You might try speaking with your local surveyors. I picked up an old fibreglass surveyor's tripod for nothing from them since they considered it junk. It's heavy but very stable and quite tall. The more modern aluminium ones are lighter and just as stable.

I use a ball head mounted to it with a home made adaptor board.

Cheers,

Graeme

Kevin,

Michael's question was about a specific function of the Gossen Starlite meter which allows the user to place the zone in the meter (eg. meter a bush and set that reading to zone III). The meter does the calculation to tell the photographer what settings to use on the lens to achieve a zone III bush. It also shows the user where other subjects fall in relation to the zone III bush.

It's a good system, but Michael got lost in the instruction book.

Graeme

Michael,<p>

I also use this meter, and I think you have misunderstood the instructions. You state <i>"I understand to be the average of the first (shadow) reading with user zone placement and all subsequent readings (presumably of higher values including highlights). Is this correct?".</i> It is not correct. It does not make an average.<p>

The first zone you put in (your shadows in the case you quote) sets the exposure that you read when you switch back to the other modes based on where you placed the zone (it adds or subtracts the correct number of stops). Subsequent readings only show you where they would fall relative to the first reading. They have no effect on the exposure reading.<p>

You've bought a good meter, and I hope you enjoy using it as much as I enjoy mine.<p>

Regards,<br>

Graeme Hird<p>

<a href="http://www.goldeneyephoto.com"> www.graemehird.com</a>

Go back and shoot it again when the conditions are better.

On the digital side, you're much better off starting with a great image than working on a good image.

On the photography side, refining your vision is how you become a better photographer. You've imagined what can be done - now be there when the right conditions arise.

Graeme

John,<p>

I'm a member of the group and find it to be a well thought out concept which is well executed. Essentially, it is a co-op of stock photographers who all work for themselves. OzImages is the web site where the buyers of images search through our files.<p>

As with any stock library, you will only reap rewards when you've loaded a lot of images. Yes, there certainly are a lot of terrible shots on the system, but there are also a lot of good shooters there. But the poor shots do sell! The group has a reputation for being able to provide images which are ordinary enough to be believable (some of the better known libraries won't stock such images). Of course, there are also great images on the site that sell - it's up to the buyer to choose the image, not the library owner.<p>

With OzImages, you have to deal with the clients yourself, but you also keep 100% of the fee. It works well for me, but I don't know your image quality and your commitment level. Those will be the telling factors as to whether it works in your case. And if you are only shooting LF, your images are not likely to be the ones that are used as "stock" images, and you may not have enough of them.<p>

I will keep renewing my membership.<p>

Regards,<br>

Graeme Hird<br>

<a href="http://www.goldeneyephoto.com">www.graemehird.com</a> (click on the stock button to see my OzImages folio)

Nicholas,<p>

I am about to do the same thing at my home. I can't help you with the specifics, by I would suggest asking people like the curator at the local art gallery or lecturers at your near by university. They are the experts at displaying art work, and I'm going to ask them.<p>

Cheers,<br>

Graeme<p>

<a href="http://www.goldeneyephoto.com">www.graemehird.com</a>

Enrico,<p>

I live in Kalgoorlie, WA, so all my film and equipment comes from online ordering. You are in no way limited to purchasing your items in Oz.<p>

As it happens, I order my film from <a href="http://www.vanbar.com.au"> Vanbar</a> - they are friendly, fast and pretty good on price. They do stock 10x8 Velvia [you didn't want anything else, did you?:)]<p>

Cheers,<br>

Graeme<br>

<a href="http://www.goldeneyephoto.com">www.graemehird.com</a>

.... and tacking onto the end of Leonard's excellent advice, I also have the same system, and I use the tape measure to gauge the distance from my previewing frame to my eye when I'm using the frame.

<p>

Graeme<br>

<a href="http://www.goldeneyephoto.com">graemehird.com </a>

Nancy,<p>

No problems with the tape. Just don't make your darkroom look like a Christmas-lit house. Moderation.<p>

Cheers,<br>

<a href="http://www.goldeneyephoto.com"> Graeme Hird</a>

I use a small tape measure to set the focal length of the frame (as others use the string) and on the reverse side of the tape I've got belows extension exposure factors for each lens marked.<p>

Graeme<br>

<a href="http://www.goldeneyephoto.com">www.graemehird.com</a>

The curved grooves sound like the method of swinging the back, but the "wedges" have got me stumped. They should not come off, only loosen enough that you can swing the back. My Tachihara is probably a later model than yours, and there are no wedges on mine.

Graeme

Andrew,

Leave your monitor on and use a packard shutter on the lens to control on and off for your exposure & fit a uv filter. The biggest problem is the small amount of light emitted by the screen - you might need long exposures.

Scan your negs and use the image as a contrast mask for that image.

Let us know what results if you try it. I've thought about doing just such a thing, but never gotten around to doing it (digital printing is too easy!)

Cheers,

Graeme

Forgot to mention: if your folder has sub directories (eg one for each film), jalbum will make albums for each of them also, with linked thumbnails on the first album. Just what you are after?

Graeme

Robert,

I would really recommend jalbum (http://www.datadosen.se/jalbum/) because it is completely customisable and doesn't touch your originals (if you don't want it to). It is also free, and very easy to learn. The galleries on my web site (www.goldeneyephoto.com) were all produced using it, and I've never worked with html before!

Simply put all the files you want into a folder and run jalbum pointing to the folder. It does the rest according to the skin that you apply (which is where the customisation comes in).

By the way, if you are planning to fit several thousand images on a CD, they will not be much bigger (file size) than your thumbnails. Not what I'd call archival! When I scan my 35mm films at full 2900 dpi resolution, 48 bit colour, with LZW compression applied to the tiff files, I usually don't fit a whole roll worth of film onto a CD. 20 to 25 archival images is the limit for me. Of course, your end use is going to different to mine.

Good luck,

Graeme

Jim,<p>

You are on the right track. If you can retract the dome of the meter you will get an acurate filter factor to apply. When you determine your filter factor though, you need to do it in non-polarised light (eg. an overcast day or inside). The filter factor <b>doesn't</b> change, only its effect on the polarised light in the scene does. <p>

I had better explain that last sentence: let's presume that you are trying to make the sky darker relative to the rest of the scene. You put the filter on and the whole scene darkens somewhat (which you allow for with the <i>true</i> filter factor). You then rotate the filter to give the amount of darkening you want. If at this point you apply another amount of exposure adjustment, you would end up with the sky back where you started, defeating the purpose of the filter.<p>

For the filters that I use, my filter factor is 1.7 stops.<p>

Regards,<br>

Graeme

Neither.

Get the Gossen Starlite. Heaps of great features, including a zone metering system built in.

Graeme

Scott,

Don't try to fight nature - shoot from the west using the sunset as a big golden difuser. The flowers will all be facing you and your light will be stunning.

Cheers,

Graeme

Apparently it is as far as you must go before you get to beyond.

Roughly 300 focal lengths is a good approximation for me.