fred_de_van

I have an Acer ScanPrimo ST and I highly recommend it. It is

definately the sleeper of flatbeds. It will scan up to 8x10

transparencies and Negs, 8.5x14 reflected. A very nice set of format

masks are supplied for most major formats from 35mm to 8x10. It has a

new 48 bit driver (not in the specs), and a nice software package

including Monaco calibration software. Dynamic range 3.3, SCSI

interface included.

<p>

I have had mine for about a year. Cost under $500 New, on Ubid. ACER

is in the process of changing the name of its imaging products to

Benq, ACER branded productes should be nicely priced.

From the tests I have done in the past, your problem may stem from

your choice of film even more than the developer. When we ran a large

scale test of Times Sq in NY for a B&W arial night shot we tested

every film we could find. Tri-X was the worst offender. As it turned

out, some very old fashioned films have a anti hailiation backing

built in. Tri-X has 2 problems. It naturally blocks up in highlights

and the emulsion has a tendancy to disburse bright objects in its

medium. Try or ask about some of the older style films. From the Kodak

line I would look first at KODAK VERICHROME Pan, as being the one

closest to the one we found to be the best, Kodak Super Pancro Press

type B, which is no longer made. We got ours from a helpful Kodak

Tech. I would think you will find what you need from the older

European makers such as Berrger, Forte, Orwo or someone manufacturing

from the Perutz or Adox formulas. Ilford or Agfa may still have

something in their catalogue. Fuji Neopan is definately one to try.

<p>

Technidol may also be a prime suspect. Try a Glycin based developer

such as Edwal 20, 12 or Harvey's 777. We found 777 to be the best with

the Edwal's running a close second. 777 is still being sold through

Bluegrass Packaging (502-425-6442). A Pyro developer may also do the

trick. Pyro works but is not as predictable as Glycin or Paraphenylene

Diamine. D-23 was the best Metol based developer.

<p>

The developer will make a big differance, but in general, if you want

details in very bright highlights, do not use Tri-X.

<p>

Fred

There is a 4x5 expressly designed for the LF hiker. It is the

Granview. The camera only weighs about 2.5 pounds and can survive

intact, being rolled down a hill, is not effected by wind, and can be

sealed against dirt.

<p>

Fred

Yes Matt, I have. For a bit more than 3 years. This after a couple of

decades of using a Linhof Technica V. The camera is every bit as good

as it looks, maybe a bit more so, because it delivers a few

attributes you do not expect and are not available in other packages.

<p>

I have lenses ranging from 53mm to 135mm at present but have used

longer ones. I tend to always focus via the ground glass. Focus is

always perfect. The helicoids are crude looking and stiff until you

work them in, but solid as a rock and precise. Once set they stay set.

The little Ground Glass magnifier accessory that slips into the back

is eminently useful, and seems like a toy until you use it. It works

very well despite its short focal length. There are no focus surprises

with a granview.

<p>

Quickloads, Polaroid, rollfilm backs all work perfectly. Sharpness is

perfect and dimensional integrity is better than any LF camera around.

This camera is strong rigid and very rugged.

<p>

The granview is very easy to travel with because it is so light.

Unless you break it down, which requires a quick set up, (just do not

forget your lens locking tool) with long lenses it can become bulky.

But nowhere near the bulk of a rail based camera. If I need to make it

small, unscrew the lens and the mount and store them wrapped, inside

the cone.

<p>

The dirty little secret is that the camera is impervious to water. You

can clean it with a wet sponge if you have a mind to. The longer you

have a Granview the more you will use it to do things you never

considered before with a LF camera.

<p>

Fred

Without a doubt.... A GranView!

<p>

This is its reason for being. It requires no setup at all. There are

also dust free front and rear caps for it. At which point you can toss

it down a hill (it is also super strong) and it will still work

perfectly. Wipe it off with a damp cloth and it is returned to

pristine. I believe you actually can get away with a careful washing

(not recomended but possible with no major damage even if you goof).

If you are not familiar with this rugged, lightweight camera take a

look at http://www.granview.com

<p>

Fred De Van

Neither can I

<p>

Ellis,

<p>

You sound like any one of five assistants I fired over the past 40

years of my effortlessly switching from a Deardorff to a Sinar to a

Horseman to a Cambo. I would tell you the reason I fired them but like

them you will (have) missed the point.

When properly exposed and placed for 7 min. in a bath of DK-60a, none

of them will perform as well as a box of refridgerated 20 year old

Super Pancro Press Type B.

Yes, Jorge, in retrospect it is. At the time it was just another of a

string of NUTS things I did with cameras after too many years inhaling

Dektol fumes. It was a lot of work, and very rewarding because it was

such a challenge.

<p>

Ed: It seems like you have it. Whispers from the deep reaches of my

recolection, recall Germain coming up in one of the many

discussions of the topic, but memory also says that there were more

components in the Harvey formula. Buffering agent and/or a

preservative and such, but the qualtities were infentesimal. Some of

the discussion lent toward them being bogus components that did

nothing of value but were there to obfuscate and confuse the curious.

Chemical straw men. None of us had any interest in making it

ourselves, but what was in it was a constant question. The differances

in performance in small tanks and the way agitation changed the result

always led to the question as to why. (when there was time to think of

such otherwise unimportant things. We knew how to use it right)

<p>

Guessing from the formuli you supplied the anomolies in performance we

noted were the product of the Metol (Elon) being thrown out of balance

with the relatively low activity Paraphenylene Diamine and Glycin

components, in small chemical to film surface area ratios and as

agitation frequency was increased. What ever it was, it was very

usefull, when you got the hang of it. Bewildering, if you were a

noephyte.

<p>

I started at this stuff when very young and remember Defender 5-D.

what It did to contrasty thick Ortho sheet film (which I developed by

inspection in the stuff) had simularities to what 777

did to FP-3 and HP-4, as well as the Dupont and Ansco/GAF films that

were still being made.

<p>

I was such a stickler on this stuff that I tested emulsion batches in

my soup before I commited to use them. This resulted, on one occasion

, in me missing a shoot. All my stuff was confiscated by British

Customs when I appeared from NY with 1000 rolls and 500 sheets of

Ilford film at London Airport. They said nobody would logically do

that and I had to be smuggling something. 5 days later after many

discussions and calls to the Time-Life photolab and Ilford, I got my

clothes, cameras, lights and film, back with appologies.

After some searching, we found a few cases of old big slow burn

flashbulbs. We mounted a rig of 4 bulbs each into modified 24" and

larger smith victor 1500 watt incondecent flood reflectors and fired

them buy radio to Ascor 600 strobe units that fired photocells at the

flashbulb units using car batteries as a power source. We had to light

the Tower at 43rd St. evenly. It took weeks of planning and testing

and a large number of people, and worked precisely as planned. The

entire project ran as a 8 page ad for Allied Chemical in Life

Magazine. I was hired because they wanted it to appear to be similar

to Life editorial pages, and since I already worked for Life I got the

job.

The first line of my prior message somehow got garbled. What I was

saying is: The per sheet chemical costs are posted on the JOBO web

site, at list prices. Even at list, they are nominal. For sheet film

even at the JOBO price structure if you process enough film the ATL is

cost effective. The reality where I live is that there are no options.

Here 2 hours from NYC there are no longer any custom labs. Since

Sept.11, mailing raw film to NYC is out of the question (see notice

on FUJI website), and this week even if Mail still worked, the

Time-Life photolab stopped accepting outside work. In August, the T-L

Lab, in a move I am sure they will come to regret, or have already,

since the person who made the decision is no longer there, turned into

a qasi digital operation and suspended fiber based printing and other

analog services.

<p>

The biggest cost to roll you own E-6 processing is the price of a

Pakon mounter if you do a lot of 35mm, not the JOBO stuff. The JOBO

tools empower all manner of other things, and no more trips to the

lab. The mounter is a non recoverable expense. If you love E-6 as I

do, sooner or later the JOBO will become the only option unless you

live in a major metro area.

Kodak publishes instructions for using readyloads in Polaroid 545 and

545i holders on the Kodak Professional site.

See the Jobo processing costs per sheet/roll whatever, at list prices.

I just bought a Jobo ATL 1500 film unit for the same use as you. I

should have it installed next week, and hopefully my chemicals will

arrive from Jobo. Kodak e-6 chemistry cannot be shipped by B&H. I will

post my results when it is up and running. The expert drums do not fit

the ATL 1500 but it comes with the other 4x5 drum. Do note, the ATL

requires a low flow water temp control valve. I have a powers with a

low flow kit, as with everything the JOBO was to pricy to rationally

buy.

I have almost never used the standard rail with my horseman. It is too

short. If she shoots food and things like that she will definately

need lenses like the 300mm just to make things look normal. Short

lenses distort the objects in the shot. Egg shaped dishes 3D forks,

cherries bigger than oranges. I often use a 480 Rodenstock Apo Ronar,

or a 14" Ektar for food. You need a very long camera rail and bellows.

My Sinar and my Szabad are both 8x10 models so long bases and bellows

are not an issue on 4x5. I have 3 Horseman rails. The long one I think

is 24". My Cambo is a 22, I think. I rarely use any 12-15 inch rails

because the 135-180mm lenses are useless in the studio for anything

other than full length people because of the distortion and you have

to be so close that the camera interfears with lighting and access.

But the distortion is horrible. I use short rails for Wide angle

lenses, such as my Beloved 53mm Biogon.(Useless in studio, it really

lives most of the time on a Granview). A too short camera (rail

and bellows) will be a source of instant frustration, since the one

thing she cannot do is the very thing she loves to do. It will do

great landscapes with almost any lens, but do nothing at all in the

studio.

<p>

If you do get her a 4x5 for Still Life/Food, you will need a real

tripod. Look at the Davis And Sanford studio air support tripod, and

the big Gitzo. The D&S costs no more than a manfretto, but is so much

more a device a studio photog would love. Perfect in every way.

definately not a overgrown toy.

Listen to Charlie and Don, a 150mm lens is too short and very annoying

to attempt to use for her needs that you describe. A 210mm is minimum

and the lens that will fit over 50% of her needs. A 300mm is a class

act. Look to the Schnieders and Rodenstocks, they do things the others

don't. Some of the best lenses are no longer made but they remain the

standards of the realm. Those are the Ektars, made by Kodak. The 10

inch Wide Field Ektar, the 12 inch Commercial Ektar and the series of

Voightlander Apo-Lanthars are the true Jewels of the still life world.

She will love you forever, and never part with one. They are not hard

to find or too expensive.

<p>

Still life and studio photography is not about ease, in is about craft

and skill. Do not listen to that stuff about no yaw and other

nonesense. It is marketing and has no effect on sensitivity and true

feel for the craft. As a Sinar user, I can tell you there are aspects

of the over attention to engineering that can be annoying and non

intuitive. A good Horseman or even a Cambo can be less intrusuive, but

there is no arguing that as machines the Sinar and the Arca Swiss are

two of the finest there is. In Practice at times a 60 year old floppy

deardorf is the tool that works best, even with all of its

limitations. The 4x5 and 8x10 Granview cameras are amazing field

cameras and there is nothing in the world like them. For a starter

camera with the most flexability and ruggedness I would look first to

the Horseman. Make sure you do not fall into the trap of buying a

basic Sinar only to find it too short for use in the studio with a

210mm lens. That is the most annoying thing possible and many basic

cameras are too short for still life use.

There is wide and then there is WIDE! I use a 65mm 5.6 Super Angulon,

a 53mm 4.5 Ziess Biogon, and on occasion a 47mm 5.6 Super Angulon, on

my Granview and Cambo 4x5s. The Biogon on the Granview is stunning and

much easier to use than when I had it on a Technica V. I have two

Granview cameras and can show that the 53mm Biogon has less fall off

than the 65mm Schnieder glass. Being a subjective art far more than a

math excersize, the end photographs from any extream wide angle are

usually enhanced by the fall off anyway, and the combination makes the

image work, visually. It closely approximates what the eye does

naturally. The effect of fall off from extreame wide angle lenses is

minimized once you put a 6x12 back on your 4x5. Vast expanses of sky

or any other monotone is why you are even aware of it. With a busy

subject matter it looks quite normal, cause that is how the eye sees

the scene. Our brain is the compensating device. It scans.

Edwal 12 was close but no cigar, but it did have it's uses. Generally

it was dissapointing, but if you had to photograph Times square at

night from a helicopter and the top of a building using flash fill and

street and traffic lights, Edwal 12 and a film with a good anti

halation backing (and a bevy of assistants) was the ONLY way to do it.

777 was perfect for anything else. Extreamly smooth fine grain,

totally flexable mystery soup. Shadow detail that dumbfounded folks,

and which made those great long scale shots in smokey Jazz clubs

possible, without ever burning out a highlight. Negatives that far

outstriped the dynamic range of the papers of the time. (Almost

unprintable at times on Kodabromide), really amazingly long scale with

gently curving heel and toe but with a accutance and snap the boggled

contemporary concepts of scale and depth. The only thing that worked

to photograph thousands of pages in Brides magazine with the Ascor

flash units of the era. The dresses simply always still had detail.

<p>

777 has a give away smell. It is a nice but very distinctive one. It

was poorly marketed, and very expensive. It was originally only

available as a mixable kit packaged on what seemed like a too large

cylinder, with the components inside. It was hard to mix, and once

mixed it was a broderline suspension that if you had never seen it

before seemed like it was not mixed. It was sold premixed for a while,

but this falling out of suspension problem disuaded most from ever

buying the expensive and seemingly unstable (read bad) contents. A

bottle of relatively fresh perfectly good 777 looks very funky.

Putting 777 in a 500ml tank is asking for dissapointment. It is very

soft working and is unpredictable when there is 250ml of solution

attacking 80sq. inches of silver rich emulsion. (Edwal 11, 12 and 20

do this too)

<p>

W. Eugene Smith and I would make sure our friendly competors never

discovered our secret sauce by giving them 16 oz out of out "ripened"

3 1/2 gal tank of 777. We knew they were used to things like DK-50,

DK-60a, UFG, acufine, FG-7, Clayton P-60 and the like, and we would

wait for the blue smoke, phone call that was sure to come a few days

later.

<p>

Standard practice for changing overworked 777 was to dump 2/3 of what

you had and adding fresh to the worked stock. Rarely, did any 777

addict mix a totally fresh batch. For us guys who shot everything from

35mm to 8x10, 777 was a god send. perfectly predictable, stable,

consistant, do anything, at any temperture, magic stuff. It will work

well (unlinear) from about 55f to over 100f. Dead on predictable and

linear from 65f to 90f. It is hypercritical to agitation. Testing is

the starting point. Not an endevour for the occasional user.

<p>

In the 50's thru the 80's social life for many like David Vestal, Bill

Pierce, Nick Samardge, Guy Terrell, Aurtour tcholackian, Henri Kertez

and a bunch of others was getting together at somebodys studio, The

Tcholak Lab or the Pierce mill/home to chart out a new time and temp

sheet for a new film and 777. There was a lot of inspection developing

going on. The product of these get togethers, those hand drawn charts,

were some of the closest held secrets in the photographic world.

One of the reasons (Harvey's)777, (it had other names like

"panthermic") is so hard to find is that it's principal developing

agent is p-Phenylenediamine (1,4-Diaminobenzene), which Ed B describes

as being basically obsolite. I do know how this formula works and it

should work best in silver rich films. It can work magic in the

highlights and the deep shadows that I have not seen exibited with

high repeatability in any other B&W developer. It was the workhorse of

the NY studio croud back when B&W was in demand and the secret of the

photojournalists who did the impossible. 777 certainly is a developer

which had a look all it's own when used to its best.

<p>

777 seems to work best at 75F and above, and is best used in large

quanities (big tanks). It changes a little after the first few rolls

and a new batch should be ripened with a few unimportant rolls and it

will then be stable for years. It really lasts well, even though it

visually is not confidence inspiring in looks. Murky is normal. It is

hard to mix, and the initial mixing is critical. Agitation is quite

important. Do it the same every time.

I have searched these pages for about 6 months looking for some

mention of 777. It was my standard for a few decades. I am determined

to find some somewhere. I loved its strange but lovely

characteristics. At one point when it was starting to dissapear, I did

a lot of research on it and did see a formula for it. It was not

something you would want to make. I just located some 3 1/2 gallon

tanks and am determined to dedicate on to 777. I would love to share

any info about it that can be found.

Janet,

<p>

I just happened to see your post. If you wish to get the most possible

out of your $500 and get into medium format too, you may wish to

consider a new Kiev 19M, (Nikon AI Mount manual), and a Kiev 60 6x6.

Together they will cost you less than $500 brand new. You will have

enough left over to buy a second lens for the K60. I got fed up with

Hasselblad pricing about 6 months ago and bought both a Kiev 60 and a

Kiev 88cm to augment my 'blad setup. I have been so happy with them

the swede is now relagated to the back of the closet.