ben_crabtree

I live in Minnesota, and it's getting colder here, too, but not quite that cold yet.

 

Winter is full of good scenes for the eyes, yet I've been quite unsuccessful in taking pictures of winter scenes. You have done it well, especially the first one. Congratulations.

 

Ben

So..... Is it a remake of Agfa 25, or not?

I just bought a Senrac film dryer on e-bay -- a used one, with no

instructions. Can anyone tell me which temperature setting to use,

and for how long a time I should set the timer?

Daniel, what times and dilution do you use? I presume you're talking about using it with Rodianl.

In Santorini, stay on the lip of the caldera side, get pictures of the fog climbing up the steep sides to the top every morning. The most spectacular view I've ever seen in traveling to several European countries. Make sure your color film does a good job with the color blue, because it's a knockout there.

Thanks, Oliver.

I've been reading with much interest the comments about Pat Gainer's

PC-TEA developer. I've figured out what the components are but not

the actual formula for mixing the developer. Can anyone help me out

with this?

 

Thanks

 

Ben Crabtree

I certainly get more than 10-12 prints on my 7960. I haven't kept an exact count, but the number is somewhere around 20. I'm just assuming that it costs me $1 a print.

I was careless and included a roll of Velvia in with some print film

to be processed, the processor was careless and didn't notice, so I

have a roll of Velvia processed as if it were print film. Not

surprisingly, the prints that came back looked pretty wierd. I've

scanned it in, and have played around with the color balance

controls on Photoshop 6, but I'm wondering if anyone knows of a

fairly straight-forward technique to get the colors back to where

they should be.

I have had very good luck with Neopan 1600 @ 800, developed in X-tol 1:2. Sharp, surprisingly little grain on indoor shots (I don't use it much outdoors, don't need the speed).

I've experimented with many films and developers, and find that Tri-X developed in X-tol 1:2 gives me what I want, especially with "people shots" -- good sharpness, no objectionable grain. I was really surprised to do a side-by-side landscape comparison with FP-4 (also in X-tol 1:2) and the Tri-x gave me more fine details without a noticeable increase in grain. My developing techniques are perhaps not finely honed, but I have not found anything to match this combination.

load the film in the dark, everything else can be done in the light.

 

Although it varies from one brand of tank to another, you should be safe if you use 15 oz. of liquid (developer, stop bath and fixer).

One more vote for Midwest Photo. Very fair and knowledgeable.

I'm thinking of going back to my first developer, FG-7. I used to

use it with the 9% sodium sulfite, but was wondering what would

happen if I used half (or 2/3, or whatever) that amount of SS.

Would I get a little less compensation/grain softening, but a little

more sharpeness (toward the results with just water)? I'm no

chemist, but it seems logical that half as much SS would put me

right between the results with or without the 9% SS added. Anybody

ever try this? Otherwise, any educated guesses as to the success of

such an experiment?

 

Ben Crabtree

I'm pretty happy with my new HP 7960, having bought it to use

exclusively for B&W prints, but have a couple of questions for the

more experienced users:

 

1) In the Photoshop print space profile, which do you chose? I've

tried 'same as source" (a little flat); "working gray-gray gamma

2.2" (OK); and "hp 7960-hp photo paper-8 ink" (very slow, and high

enough contrast that I would have to re-calibrate my monitor). What

have others found to be the best?

 

2) I get something of a bluish cast, even though I have used the

grayscale mode in Photoshop. How do I get rid of that?

 

3) I can't figure out why the ink in my 57 & 58 cartridges seem to

be dropping so much faster than that in the gray one (59). I have

them in place as 58-57-59, left to right. Is that correct?

 

4) When the #57 (tri-color) cartridge runs dry, do I need to replace

it, or can I just run with the 58 (photo cartridge) and 59 (gray

photo cartridge)?

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Ben Crabtree

Tree Bark

My wife paying bills<div></div>

Thanks for the info. My value guess was OK after all.

 

Ben

I've read some of the threads on this subject, but I still am not

sure I understand. I have a chrome 35mm Summicron, excellent

condition, with eyes, serial #1996xxx. I was going to trade it in

against a 35mm Summicron ASPH, but was offered so little ($200-$250)

that I've kept it. I understand that these lenses have the

Leica "glow", what ever that is, and I expected it to be worth

more. I'll probably just keep it, but is it really only worth $300-

$350 retail?

Excellent shot, Doug. Keeps drawing my eye back. Just my personal opinion, but I think it would be even better if you cropped out the bright area on the right edge.

 

Ben Crabtree

Terrific thread

I also think you're a bit too far away, but the real problem for me is that the left hand side of the picture (the dark columns and the contrasting lighter space in the upper left hand corner) pull your eye away from the restfulness of the inside of the coffee house. If you were to crop the left side just inside the pillars, your eye (or my eye, at least) would be more inclined to rest on the people, with the dark thing on the right balancing out the light area on the left.

On my screen, there's nothing to the right of the grey bar. A quarter of the page is totally wasted.

I agree with both Omar and Doug:

 

As Doug says, it's much easier, with less chance of a mixing error, to mix up big batches (e.g., a gallon) of the solution. The proportion is 45 grams per 15 oz. of water; I've read that this equates to one teaspoon of SS per 15 oz. of water.

 

As Omar says, make sure you use the correct time for the SS mixture. I used the plain water time by mistake a couple of days ago. Boy, those were contrasty negatives!

This probably isn't intellectually consistent, but taking things (such as telephone lines) out of a picture seems OK to me, because I probably am not alert enough to have noticed them anyway, but the addition of foreign objects into a picture makes it completely uninteresting to me. Tweaking contrast, light quality, etc., seems to be no different than traditional darkroom techniques.