new hampshire john

I should have said that I haven't seen it used with a price within my range... MPX had a couple last time I looked, think Adorama might have, too. I may just bite the bullet and pay $600 for one, but I'm plagued by having let one go for much less over at e*ay.... back to scouring the internet, I suppose.

I actually have looked at the Nikkor -- just let one slip through my fingers on the auction site a little while back. Can't cotton to buying new, and haven't seen it used anywhere. But yeah, you're right -- that would be a nifty solution.

whew. tough crowd tonight. what is this, the hinckley jury?

 

Chee - keep the photos coming -- we've probably all thought about the xpan at one point or another, so we'd be interested to see a Leica guy "do the xpan," particularly if you shoot a lot of B&W. I'd personally be interested in any developing-scenes type photography -- i.e., things that you couldn't take pictures of with a digital SLR and then just stitch together to make a pano. Keep the street stuff coming -- that kind of spontaneous panoramic is something the xpan seems to have a good lock on...

Thanks for the considered responses, guys.

 

Nicola, I think you're right that getting a lens that "just fits" is probably not the best long-term solution.

 

And Michael, I'll take your advice. I think I'll be heading for a 150 or 180 with nice (290mm or so?) coverage and leave it at that for a while.

 

Anyway, thanks much --

 

John

Request his contact info -- that usually freaks people out a little bit, and makes them slightly more responsive (because eBay will tell him you requested the info). Then if that doesn't produce an e-mail, call him at home -- that really gets people off the pot.

Howdy, all -

 

Title says it all. I'm looking for some recommendations on a good first lens that will suit a 5x7 rig with both 5x7 and 4x5 backs -- something normal-range for 4x5 and wide for 5x7, assumedly...

 

I've been looking at stuff with a 210mm+ circle of coverage for 5x7, and have been focusing on the 90/8 Super Angulon (and its other-branded copies). I recognize that this won't give me a ton of movement in 5x7, but that's okay.

 

I'm primarily wondering if I'm missing some hidden treasure -- is there another lens (or type altogether) that I should be looking out for? I suppose it's important to say that if I drop another $800 on camera gear this year it better come with a tent as I'll be sleeping in the back yard... (I'm thinking the "cheap bastard" range of LF gear, here -- maybe $400-$500, used is okay, and cheaper is okay, too).

 

Any thoughts would be most appreciated.

 

John

Lex - have a safe trip, and best wishes to your mom for a speedy recovery.

 

But if you get R&R time, don't waste it trying to re-connect with us -- get out and take some pictures!

You are one brave dude, my friend.

I was just reading that discussion in another window, too. Imagine my sense of discombobulation when I returned to this window to find the discussion of lens wraps continued in this thread!

Have a great trip, WenTong -- think about adding to the static photo.net content on your return -- I don't think the travel section on the top right side of the toolbar has been updated too much lately, and it would be nice to have something from South America up there. Have fun!

...some interesting variations to try!

 

I'm glad I've got a long roll of this stuff to experiment with. I'll be interested in picking up some Perceptol to see that at work, and I'll be including Clay's techniques in my initial FX 39 work...

John -

 

I've never presoaked, with any film or developer -- I wonder what effect (if any) presoaking might have on Diafine's A solution -- to wit, whether it would prevent attrition of the A bath or whether it might eventually dilute the A bath. The thing that would make me think about presoaking might be if I had a single-bath developer with an unusually short development time (under 4 mins, perhaps?) and I were concerned with uneven development -- I might be convinced that presoaking would avoid air bells or other artifacts from the failure of the developer to coarse evenly over the full surface of the film. But with Diafine, where you're dealing with an A bath that is (by my admittedly limited understanding) just a sensitizing solution (i.e., no development occurs during the A bath, it's really just got to soak in the A long enough), there would be less of a purpose to presoaking.

 

Or, I could be full of it. But either way, the answer to your question is "no."

 

-John

Bernard -

 

You mentioned that you use a single-reel tank -- in case it matters, I thought I would mention this: one of the major benefits of Diafine as a developer to my mind is the convenience of processing different films for/at the same time/temp -- i.e., I can develop a five-reel tank with a couple rolls of APX100 (for me, exposed at 200), a roll of FP4+ (exposed at 250), and a couple rolls of Tri-X (exposed at 1250), which might encompass a whole event's shooting. If you use different films for their speeds or characteristics, it might be worth dialing in a couple different films -- the convenience of tossing them all in the same bath at the end of the day is pretty sweet.

I'm still on the same big batch (whichever the larger of the two can sizes is -- one gallon working solution, perhaps) for well into its second year -- very little loss in the A solution. I develop five rolls at a time using 1500ml of chemistry, must have developed well over a hundred rolls by now...when used with the Photo Formulary developer (TF-4, perhaps?), which lasts a terribly long time, you end up avoiding disposing of any chemicals in the process save those that run off in the rinse (you don't use a stop bath with the TF-4 fixer), and the chemicals almost never require replacement.<div></div>

Lutz -

<br>

<br>

I just picked up some FX-39 for the express purpose of trying it with Delta 400, so I'll be interested to hear your results if you wouldn't mind reposting when you've got some.

<br>

<br>

The <a href="http://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.html">Massive Dev Chart</a> lists 9 minutes at 1:9 (exposed @ ISO 400, developed @ 20°C) and I've used their times as starting points with very few problems over the years.

<br>

<br>

I just picked up a bulk roll of Delta 400, though, so maybe I'll try to dial it in with some short rolls. If I get anything interesting, I'll post some thoughts here.

<br>

<br>

Good luck...

Thanks for the review, Alan -- we're all interested in new M-lens performance, and I've long wondered if it made sense to do some kind of slightly more organized "user reviews" posting area -- i.e., a category for just this sort of thing -- a post that reviews a lens' handling, build quality, bokeh, sharpness, with pix and an explanation of the shooting conditions/technique/data together with how the post-exposure processing was handled -- I've been thinking of doing such a mini-review for the Summitar I've been using for the last coupla months...

 

Anyway, nice review -- enjoy the lens!

If you know what you're looking for, it's hard to go wrong with B&H or Adorama. I've used both for film (bulk 35mm, pre-packed 35mm, rollfilm, and 8x10 sheet film) and never had any problems.

Robert - I'm sure someone with more knowledge will chime in shortly enough, but the extent of my experience is this: the type 1 rigid will fit the TTL but the dual range will not (higher top plate for the TTL).

At first, I thought the younger lady was indeed rocking out to the Jeffers beat, as that would have been a nice dichotomy, but on reflection I think she's just right in the middle of that hair flip some women do -- usually it involves those closed eyes, head titled back, a quick side-to-side shake, and some hair accessory held in one hand -- the hands are held forward like that in anticipation of using them to gather the hair together after the shake (and usually then using the stated accessory to hold the hair together). So it seems to me that their boredom is pretty much universal...

Howdy, all -

 

I've been thinking of taking the plunge on the digital SLR thang, and

wondered about the histogram -- I had originally heard that to get to

the histogram you had to go through a menu, and couldn't see the

histogram in the post-exposure image on the LCD -- was that right? I

think I read it in one or another of those throwaway photo rags, but

then in the B&H big digital book (Digital Sourcebook?), I read

something that sounded like post-exposure histogram review....

 

Secondarily: is there a better ist-D forum (that is, a place either

dedicated to the camera or with somewhat more regular discussion of it

than here)?

 

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Isn't there some way to put a "Why Leica?" link perpetually at the top of the forum page? That would avoid this discussion's having to occur every few weeks when someone else wanders over and poses Pierre's question.

...interesting comparison of two then-contemporary cameras, Gary, and well-written, too...you definitely get an "A" for "stygian gloom"...

I just looked at the lens mount/rear element on my G21, and it's surprisingly close to the throat size of my M6 -- I'm not terribly inclined to get them too close for fear of doing something irredeemably stupid (a little talent of mine), but I imagine you could link them up without an awful lot of trouble. Of course, linking them with the correct back focus is only the start of your problems -- far more difficult to my mind is the fact that the focus mechanism for the G-series lenses is driven by the camera body -- the only way to manually focus the lens is through the wheel on the camera body (and yes, it's even as kludgy as that sounds -- it's not a mechanical link, with a direct-drive input=output link like the old Contax rangefinders -- rather it's an electronic link with a sort of non-linear response to greater/lesser thrust on the wheel). So while you can get Zork or Zorf or whatever German company it was to engineer you a V/C 12mm or 15mm to mount on your G1 or G2 (you can do the focusing on the lens), you can't mount an electronically-focused/body-focused lens on a manual focus body and still focus the lens. The G-series lenses retract to a very short position when not being driven by the camera body (might be further back than infinity focus, I seem to recall some movement even on infinity focus shots), and you could still make images with the lens at that position, particularly once you sorted out some depth of field calculations for the different stops. But that's a pretty limited-use lens, and you've buggered it up for use on a G-series body now. Just pick up a G1 -- spend the $200 on the body and keep the remaining $$$ and hassle the conversion would have cost. Or just get yourself the Leitz 21 you deserve.

 

...not do dissuade you from the G21/2.8 -- it's a fantastic lens.

ditto on the Summitar recommendation -- it's quite remarkable, even abstracted out from its date of production...it's a 50 that retains that Leica "look," for sure.

Plenty of folks don't find the M5 ugly (and then another bunch finds its posisitive points outweigh any aesthetic disadvantages) -- it's hardly heresy to suggest that the M5 is aesthetically pleasing, as a simple search in the archives will show (it seems every couple of months there's a post to this effect -- remember "How's your M5 hanging," <i>et al.</i>).

<br>

<br>

What does interest me, however, is that you disregard the issue of physical size as "aesthetically irrelevant," which seems to me to be simply incorrect. What if the M5 were the size of a dinner plate? A citroen? Arguing from absurd examples is a sign of weakness, I know, but you get the point. One of the major complaints raised against the M5 was its bulk, a complaint which assumedly had both aesthetic and practical dimensions. I understand you're trying to look at this as a pure design matter, but we live in a world of dimensions, and we're all real sizes -- without reference to the human form factor (including size), a camera's aesthetics have to include its size.

<br>

<br>

...obviously I'm under-caffeinated today.