James G. Dainis

Alan, Just tell the cavalry guys to dig the hole twice as deep. That makes sense.;) (I bet you liked having students like that.)

I was always told that the correct viewing distance of a photo/image was equal to the taking lens focal length. In the photo of the Singapore Merlion above, if i were to hold the 4x5 inch slide 150mm from my eye, it would exactly superimpose over the actual view. For the 35mm slide, I would have to hold the slide 50mm from my eye to have it superimpose directly over the actual scene. If I had an 8x10 inch slide made in an 8x10 view, camera with a "normal" 300mm lens, I would hold it 300mm (12 inches) from my eye to superimpose it over the actual scene. I should think the same viewing distance would hold for the same scene blown up to 8x10 inches from 35mm or 4x5 inch view camera using the "normal" 50mm and 150mm lenses. All three scene captures should be the same assuming the 35mm is set for 4:5 capture.

Let us return to a time when photographers used large format. http://jdainis.com/merlion4_5.jpg This would be what a 4x5 inch Velvia positive film would look like if taken with a "normal" 150mm lens on a 4x5 film camera. http://jdainis.com/merlion35mm.jpg This would be what a 35mm Velvia positive film would look like if taken with a "normal" 50mm lens on a 35mm film camera. Notice they both capture the same field of view (more or less). The 4x5 film could be laid on a piece of 4x5 paper to contact print the image directly. The 35mm film would have to be blown up in an enlarger to make the full 4x5 size print. Both prints would look about the same. http://jdainis.com/merlioncrop.jpg Remember, at this large format time the "normal" lens was 150mm. If one were to buy a miniature 35mm camera and use the"normal" 150mm lens on it (as one buys an APS-C camera and uses a "normal" 50mm lens on it) the 35mm camera would crop out the red square above and capture that on the 35mm film. Now people would say that the "normal" 150mm lens has a crop factor of 3x which causes it to become a 450mm lens.

http://jdainis.com/tree4.jpg A 50mm lens throws a 50mm wide circular image. In fig. A you see what falls on a full frame 35mm film/sensor. In fig. B you see what falls on APS-C sensor. That is what gives it a 75mm effect, the same would show on a 75mm lens on a 35mm film frame. Fig C shows what would occur with a 32mm lens on the APS-C camera. 32mm is a "normal" lens for the APS-C. 50mm is a "normal" lens for a 35mm or full frame camera.

If a small basket holds four apples and you have five baskets, how many oranges do you have? That is a simple enough question. I don't see why anyone would be confused. I mean an orange is the same size as an apple so you would have 20 oranges or apples or pieces of fruit. Simple, right? Changing tags only makes for confusion doing the math. If an image is 800 pixels wide and you print at 200 pixels per inch, how wide would the print be? 800 pixels / 200 pixels per inch = ? Doing the math, the pixel tags cancel out, the inch tag remains and you end up with 4 inches. Easy and intuitive. ======================================================= If an image is 800 pixels wide and you print at 200 dots per inch, how wide would the print be? Doing the math, nothing cancels out and you wind up with 4 pixels/dots inches. No wonder people have a hard time doing the math if they are first told to use dots.

Note from Moderator: I will be out of the country without internet access for the next few weeks. If a new "365 day thread for 2019" is posted, it may be a week before it is made sticky to stay at the top of the thread list. That should be no problem.

I didn't like getting 37 exposures on a roll of film. My negative file holder held six rows of six frames or thirty six total. That extra frame was always a bother deciding which to throw away and would often leave me with two frames, three frames and one frame on a row.

It is a good idea to shoot Christmas lights during dusk when it is not too dark out. Otherwise you get a black scene with just a string of bright lights showing. Evening may also be a good time to get blurred falls and rapids. With the camera on a tripod you may need 2 or 3 seconds of exposure to lighten up a dark scene and that will give you the blurry water you want. Or get the neutral density filters in order to shoot at any time.

Prints made with Cibachrome paper did need a mask to prevent loss of detail in the shadow areas. Here is a contact print made from an 8x10 Ektachrome on Cibachrome paper: http://jdainis.com/park642.jpg The original print does look much better due to the very shiny surface but all the detail in the shadows is lost. Here is the tree trunk on the Ektachrome off to the left as photoed against a back light. http://jdainis.com/park400.jpg All that detail is lost in the Cibachrome print.

I don't think 35mm film is a tool of convenience anymore. It is rather hard to find, not like before when one could buy some in the supermarket between the dog food and feminine hygiene products.

"how can they both have the same image quality?? Nikon D3300 got 24.2 MP white the canon 1300D got 18.0 MP ? so there will be no difference in quality?" Do not confuse image size with quality. You can have a dull and blurry 24.2 Mp image and a clear and sharp 18.0 image depending on the lens more than the camera. The Canon vs. Nikon argument has been going on for decades much like, "Which is better, Ford or Chevy?"

Those dimensions you give are if the image is printed at about 200 PPI. Three A3 printed at 100 PPI would need a 1658 x 3510 pixels image. That is about a 1:2 ratio. Most cameras take 2:3 or 4:5 ratios. Just what size image are you starting out with? If it is not a 1:2 ration you are going to have to crop out a lot of the original image to make it fit.

Area. If it takes 20 one foot square tiles to tile a 4x5 foot room, How many tiles would it take to tile a room that is twice as large? Hint: an 8x10 foot room that is twice as large as a 4x5 foot room would take 80 tiles not 40 tiles.. Area varies as the square of the linear measure. Double the size of the print and the enlargement has to be spread over 4 times the area.

Looking at your photo, I would say the negative is too badly underexposed. The photo looks dark but there are no blacks in the photo as there should be with those dark shadows. The look is of a badly underexposed photo that has been tried to be saved by giving less exposure in the enlarger, so the blacks are not black but the mid tones are a bit lighter. I imagine that is a very thin negative.

Find the exposure setting for pure black. Put a clear negative in the enlarger to account for base color. Set the enlarger for f/8 or whatever you desire at a certain enlarger height. Put a photo paper under the enlarger and turn it on. Cover the paper with a dark cardboard. Every one second move the cardboard down one half inch. When you get to the bottom, develop the paper. The developed paper will now show strips going from white to light gray to dark gray to black. If at the 12th mark is black and the 13th mark is just as black and it is black all the way down then 12 seconds is the ideal time to get the correct exposure at f/8 and the set height. This naturally works best for properly exposed negatives. If you can't get or don't have good negatives then just hunt and peck with test strips.

The Zone system is useful mostly for large format. For people who have a hard time understanding it, the first paragraph here: What is the Zone System? should make it easy to understand.

One advantage of using black and white is you can alter development times to change the various tonal qualities, or zones, in the negative. With color, if you have a good exposure for the darks in a scene, the highlights may be blown out. If you change the exposure so the highlights now have good exposure, the darks will be pure black with no tones. With black and white if you have good exposure for the darks in a scene but the highlights will be blown out you expose for the shadows but give minus 25 to 50 percent less development time to the film to bring the highlights into a good tonal range. Easy-peasy if you are using large format. The Zone system, as it is called, is easy to understand: What is the Zone System?

Do not post links to eBay for your own auctions. That would be spam. Links to other auctions for informational purposes are okay.

wogears, "Microcontrast" is one of the unicorns of photography. It does not exist. Take this cum grano salis because I don't really believe in "bokeh" either (it's really blur). The word origin of bokeh comes from the Japanese word ボケ which should be read as bo-ke. The word translates as blur, haze.

I used Unicolor E-6 kits long ago with very good results. Maybe things have changed. It was a great feeling to pull the film off the developing reel and see all those tiny colorful positive images. Gosh, it was swell.

Ben, did you actually ask to be removed as a moderator? Otherwise you would still see the "Edie Delete IP Warn Report" buttons at the bottom of each post. Occasionally there is a "Spam" button but if you hit that not only does the post disappear but the poster is banned. Careful! There is no longer a page for the designated moderator of a forum to go to, for instance, to enter Bozo words or to suspend a used for a set period of time. A user is either banned or not banned. I have very little control over anything.

Photo.net has lately been inundated with spam posts, everything from kitchen remodels to phony passports/IDs/diplomas to horoscope readings to love potions, etc. Moderators are hard pressed to keep up. It used to be easier to control them with the old photo.net but many of the moderator tools are no longer available on this new version of Photo.net. On the old forum there used to be a blurb off to the right hand side = "The moderator of this forum is James Dainis." You could click on that to ask me, the moderator, a question. I had complete control aside from top administrators. That no longer exists and all moderators can now exert control in all forums. That can lead to mistakes such as a moderator not familiar with a forum and its members mistaking an informative post as a spam post. I'm quite sure that Tai did not delete anything. "Schmidt Rodriguez 35mm camera with Leica mount made with mirror lock up (permanently). $125." Is that someone providing information or spam?. A quick glance might indicate to a moderator not used to the forum that it is spam. If I saw that the person posting it was JDM I would know it was intended merely to be informative. Mistakes happen. For that I apologize. Moderators had it a lot easier with the old Photo.net. There used to be a Moderator's forum where moderators could post questions and get answers from the other moderators. "Is this spam?" - "No, he is a regular and is just giving information." Moderators are now on their own. Is there even a list of moderators? There used to be but not any more. I, myself, am just about ready to give up. How many moderators have gone and how many are left? Who knows. Has anyone seen Lex and Bob Atkins lately?

"Light: I firmly recommend getting hold of a used copy of "light science and magic" practising with whatever might be at hand and breaking out of the 45° from two sides print reproduction lighting scheme." I totally agree with Jochen. Even lighting is needed when copying photographs or documents. For three dimensional objects such as rocks I would simply use natural lighting from a window on one side and a white reflector card on the opposite side for fill.

When I first started my own darkroom and did my first prints I was disappointed. The 8x10s didn't have the feel of real photos; they were hard and curly like dead leaves. A friend told me they were like that because they were FB paper not RC paper like all the photos I would get from photo stores. I switched to RC paper and was happy. For serious prints I would later use FB paper and a dry mount press. But for everyday, for fun not profit, I would use RC paper and didn't notice any marked difference in enlarger exposure times

I had one of those Spiratone copy stands with the lights. It was great and easy to use. On my last move I gave it to Godwill along with other things I wanted to get rid of. http://jdainis.com/copystand.jpg