j_yabrow1

<p>I think the Impossible Project is carrying forward the 600 name to be compatible with Polaroid's originally-named 600 'integral' film, which was an evolution of the sx-70 film for the Spectra cameras of the 1980's & 90's. These are easily confused with the 'older' 100/660 pack films made for cameras with model numbers 100 through 400, and the 600/600SE press camera--the pack films to which you refer are the 660-series, not 600-series. To be even more misleading, the Polavision movie film was also designated 608, 617, and 618. The 600 series film even had one 'professional' film called--wait for it-- 779! Polaroid couldn't have come up with a more confusing, consumer-unfriendly product naming system if they tried. And people wonder why they went out of business ;)</p>

<p>You can learn about all of the Polaroid cameras and film at http://www.rwhirled.com/landlist/landfilm.htm. But, it doesn't look like The impossible project is making pack films (yet). So far just 'integrated' film for sx-70 and Spectra cameras.</p>

<p>FWIW, I recently dug my old spectra camera out of the garage and have been shooting off some expired film, which is surprisingly fun. I hope to try the Impossible film, although it is pretty pricey at $3.50+ a shot. I'm still in awe of the bizarre, almost schizophrenic product and film lines that Polaroid sustained for all those decades.</p>

<p>If you're looking for pack films, Fuji appears to be the only reasonable choice. Expired polaroid films are selling online for insanely outrageous prices--some as high as $10/shot for film that expired years ago. FP-100B, FP-3000B, and FP-100C are still available, fresh, at $2-$3/shot.</p>

Hi Domenico,

 

I've used the Contax Aria and I think it is a great film camera. It's small & lightweight, has a great meter, and takes the awesome Carl Zeiss lenses. It is however a dead system. First, Contax pretty much abandoned their manual focus lens line when switching to autofocus products several years ago. A few years after that they got out of the camera business entirely. I think they made one 6MP digital SLR that got mediocre reviews, and that used the new autofocus lenses, not the manual focus ones. You mention digital so I assume you may be interested in using CZ lenses on a modern digital SLR. If you already have Contax manual focus lenses in C/Y mount, you could get a mount adapter for Canon EOS cameras--although you won't get autofocus and will have to use stopped-down metering. If you don't already have Contax lenses and are thinking of getting Contax lenses to use with Contax film bodies, and/or digital SLRs, I'm not sure it is worth it compared to the excellent quality new lenses available from camera manufacturers that are still in business today. Used contax lenses are not cheap, and repairs/maintenance are likely to be difficult to do. A quick search of "contax lens" or "contax eos" should produce enough links to keep you busy for a while. Good Luck!

Hi Lisa,

 

I've done lots of slide scans on a Polaroid SS4000, which I believe is a slightly earlier form of the 4000tf you're using. I've had pretty much the same results with many of my slide scans. As others have noted, scanned slides are never that sharp, but you should be able to sharpen them post-scan and get sharp-looking results for just about any print or display size. In my experience, slides that looked great on a light box often scanned dark and muddy, especially in the shadow areas. Sometimes slides with mostly light colors, or ones that were somewhat overexposed scanned much better. I had no trouble with C41 or B&W negatives on that scanner. I believe that slide film has too great a density range for that kind of scanner to "punch through", and unfortunately 35mm scanners like the 4000tf may not be up to the job for slides. I've tried flatbeds, but they were much worse. I've had some of my slides drum scanned, and they came out almost exactly like they look under a lupe (a bit less sharp, but still great). I'm still looking for a cost-effective way of getting high-quality scans of my slides. Drum scans are very expensive.

 

I've heard good things about scanning slide film with the Nikon Medium format desktop scanners (the 8000 and 9000) and the Minolta Scan Multi Pro (long discontinued), although I've never used them myself. I suspect they may be better for slide film because they were designed more for "professionals" to whom slide film was much more important than those in the general 35mm market. The Microtek/Polaroid scanners have a claimed dmax of 3.4, whereas the medium format scanners claim dmax values of 4.2 and higher. While those numbers are highly suspect, they do indicate that the medium format scanners can read a higher density range than the 4000tf--which may explain the better results with slide filem that I've read about. The Nikon 4000 (35mm) scanner has a dmax of 4.2, you might try that one.

 

Not sure if this is at all helpful to you, but I wish you the best of luck with your scanning.

Hi Debejyo,

 

I've used DR5 several times over the years and I've gotten great results. You can look in my portfolio for some examples. The China pictures and Oakland Zoo pictures are all B&W DR5. I've had various 35mm and 6x6 film processed with DR5 and I'm very happy with the results. However, my scanner doesn't really do justice to the original slides. I haven't done much with film in a while now (mostly due to lack of time) but I hope someday to get back into it and maybe try 4x5".

The best black background material I've used is high-quality black velvet. I used it to back

fine-art paintings for jury slides. It's expensive, but I've shined 2 700-watt halogens on it

and the resulting slides were jet-black (outside the paintings), with absolutely no reflection.

Call around some local fabric and craft stores, someone should have it.

 

Good Luck!

The lab I use returns the 120/220 roll sleeved. I have tried hand-holding the film and cutting, but it was hard to get even cuts in the center between frames (I've nearly ruined some frames by cutting too close to the image). A standard gillotine/lever cutter makes straight cuts, but it is tough to get enough light below the cutter to see exactly where you're going to cut. What I do now is hold the sleeved film up to a lightbox, make a small visible notch with a scissors in the sleeve in the right spot between the frames. Then I take the sleeved film with notches over to the paper cutter and it is simple to line up the notches with the cutter's edge and get perfect cuts every time. The backlit cutter mentioned earlier seems to be much more elegant and I may just buy it one of these days. But this "notch" method hasn't failed me yet...

I've had similar experience in the past with really bad inkjet results. For a long time I really wanted to get an idealized turn-key printer that just created prints close to good minilab quality. Even the most highly rated Epsons seemed to have all sorts of caveats whether it was fine-tuning color calibration, inability to print B&W, clogged printheads, excessive print times, etc. I've encoutered these issues at work and did not want to deal with the problems at home too.

 

Color laser is tempting, but I've never seen any output that really looks like a photograph. They all resemble newsprint quality to me (I know they're not halftone like newspapers, but they look just as bad).

 

What you're probably looking for is a dye-sublimation/diffusion printer, such as those made by Kodak and Olympus. I've used these in the past for work and they are very simple and make great-looking prints quickly. The down side is that they're generally more expensive. The printers themselves cost much more, and the ribbon & paper are usually even more expensive than the overpriced inkjet paper and inks in common use today. Dyesubs are also much less versatile than inkjets. You cannot print labels or transparencies like you can with inkjets and there is usually only a tiny selection of available sizes and surfaces of papers. However, i've been very impressed with the output and the relative simplicity and speed of dyesubs vs inkjets.

 

That being said, for home I ended up getting an inkjet printer, the HP 7960. The dyesub was just too restrictive (we needed to print labels & CD notes as well as photographs). This printer seemed to output great looking color with no calibration, and the printheads are built into the replaceable ink cartridges, so a very small chance of clogging. They also output great looking "true" B&W because of the multiple black density inks. I've heard there is a wider carriage model, but I don't know the model number. The HP ink & paper are a bit more expensive than Epson or generic, but still much less than dyesub materials. The HP isn't perfect, (getting exact border/borderless margins is a challenge, the software driver is hard to use), but I would highly recommend it for the fear-of-inkjet crowd.

 

Good Luck!

In Windows File Explorer, you should be able to right-click on the file and select "Open With"->"Adobe Photoshop", or "Open With"->"Choose Program...". If Adobe Photoshop doesn't appear in the list of choices, select "Choose Program" and a dialog will open with a list of all of your applications. Choose "Adobe Photoshop" in the dialog box and from then on it should automatically appear in the "Open With" menu.

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I have this printer and although I haven't experienced moire' patterns, I have not found a way to get past the printer driver's interpolation step and send EXACTLY the pixels I want printed. The printer (or driver) will crop the edges of the input image internally and there's no way I can tell to turn that off. It's possible that the printer or driver is just doing a bad job of interpolating your 8mp image down to the printer's output dpi for a 4x6 print.

 

It would seem to be a pretty glaring defect, but I've learned to distrust the driver and its on-screen preview because the images come out so blatently cropped--and there's apparently nothing you can do about it. I wouldn't be surprised if some built-in printer/driver lameness is causing your moire' problem as well.

 

This is frustrating because in many other respects, the HP 7960 is truly an amazing printer. The colors, sharpness, and ability to print true B&W without complex 3rd-party inking add-ons is pretty unique in the industry.

 

As to your problem, I think if you try a smaller file you might be able to escape the moire' patterns. Are you printing directly from the camera? Or do/can you edit the images before printing? This may make a difference. 8mp (roughly 3k x 2k, approx. 512dpi or better) is far in excess of what is needed for a good 4x6 print. Bad interpolation can certainly cause moire' patterns, and a decent image editing program such as Photoshop or even the shareware Image Magick almost always offers better interpolation than printer or camera manufacturers' firmware or driver software. I would try sizing down the image to 300dpi (approx 1800x1200) and then sending it to the printer to see if that circumvents the problem. You can of course try other inbetween sizes.

 

Good luck, and please follow up and let us know how it's going. I'm sure other owners of this printer will be interested (I know I am).

Hi Melissa. I have the same printer and have noticed small "tick" marks in some prints, running across the page spaced about 0.5-0.75cm apart. These marks are not obvious and may diminish after drying (at least I don't notice them on prints after they've dried). The marks I've observed seem to run in the direction of the print head as opposed to the motion of the paper through the printer.

 

I have seen much more visible similar marks from other printers at work, like the cheaper Epsons and Canons, so the HP 7960 doesn't seem so bad in comparison. In general, unless they're really bad, you shouldn't notice them unless your nose is right up to the print. If it is much worse than that, you may want to consider returning the printer.

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<img src="http://www.photo.net/photodb/image-display?photo_id=1734450&size=lg">

"Mamiya is out, from what you are saying. "

 

I think the Mamiya 6 sounds ideal for your needs. I have one and it works wonderfully for me. It is light, very compact (the lens retracts into the body for travel, making it smaller than many 35mm SLRs!). It is also quiet, easy to use, and can create incredibly sharp images. On the downside, it is discontinued and i've heard that Mamiya will no longer service it (not sure if that's true). The camera and it's accessories are pretty expensive even used. Focusing takes some getting used to, although the viewfinder is large and bright. Also, the meter is easily fooled by bright overhead light, and sometimes you'll have to compensate or bracket. There are other downsides to a MF rangefinder, such as slow lenses and long minimum focusing distance, parallax error, etc. I have no problem with the downside issues mostly because the camera is easy to carry around and use--my SLR is definitely more flexible, but it usually stays home. In short, I really like the M6 and would highly recommend it. I don't think you're likely to find anybody renting them, so checking out the 7 is a good idea, they are very similar in size, layout, and operation.

 

Good Luck!

Hey Neil, how do you attach the OM lens to your EOS-10D? I have a number of decent OM lenses and am thinking of getting a digital SLR. It would be really cool if I could use my OM lenses on a 10D or 300D, do you use an adapter? I've looked far and wide for such a thing but haven't found anything.

Hi Patrick, I have no experience with digital 8, but I have been using a SONY DCR-TRV20 miniDV camcorder for a while now and I can highly recommend it. I bought mine used about 18 months ago and they're now selling (on Ebay) for $500-$600. The miniDV is great and the TRV20 has a large 3.5" color LCD as well as a color viewfinder. I recently hooked it up to my computer with a generic IEEE-1394 card and the Sony-supplied video editing software, and capturing was no problem. You need LOTS of disk space (1Gig = 3-5 min video w/DV-NTSC codec).

 

I'm pretty sure most of the miniDV camcorders have DV & AV I/O, I don't know about the Digital-8s.

 

Some words of caution: if you're buying used, TEST THE CAMCORDER THOROUGHLY BEFORE SHOOTING ANYTHING IMPORTANT. And preferably buy from someone who has a return policy.

 

Also, use one brand of tape consistently in the camcorder. I ran a prefunctory test of my used camcorder w/maxell tape and it worked fine. However, when I used TDK tape, the resulting video recording was riddled with digital noise!! Never happens with Maxell tape, often happens with TDK tape. Easy to remedy by just using the one brand of tape, however I can never recover the noisy recordings I made because i didn't test. One of the video engineers I work with told me that the DV tapes have different lubrication and tension specs and switching tape brands could cause performance problems.

 

Good Luck!

I've tried it with a few rolls of Tri-X, TMax, and Pan-F 50 about 18 months ago. The slides come out real nice. I have some examples:<br>

<br>

<A HREF="http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=179223">click here</A><br>

<br>

I don't use it much these days because with shipping it's kind of expensive (this is a hobby for me), and I'm on the West Coast, so turnaround is usually about 2 weeks. I've also had some problems scanning some of the slides with my Polaroid ss4000 desktop scanner, probably because the slides are so dense compared to negatives. I have nothing against the process. It's quite beautiful, and there's nothing like seeing a sharp B&W slide on a light table. It's just not very convenient for me.

 

What do you know? I just checked the dr5 web site and it looks like they're moving back to the west coast! Maybe i'll make more use of them...

Yeah, I checked out Olden a few year's ago (the same day as Willoughby's in your other post) and had pretty much the same experience. The "sales" guys had no enthusiasm whatsoever. The look on their faces was one of defeat--you could see it in their eyes. I think those places are almost relics from an era long gone. Modern retailers like B&H, Ritz (internet), eletronics superstores, and ebay are pretty much killing these places off. I wouldn't be surprised if both Olden and Willoughby's are out of business by now (Camera Barn, Executive Photo, 47th Street Photo and umpteen others all died a long time ago). Based on my earlier experience, I wouldn't expect to find any deals or gems even if they're still around.

I actually went in there about 3-4 years ago. I remember them being a large store in the distant past, but what I saw there a few years ago was a sad joke. 60% of the space was devoted to electronics and the photo "department" was pretty lame.