edward_zimmermann

<p>I don't know the unit--- but I'm familiar with a number of others and they tend to be, more or less, similar--- but one typically needs to set the calibration point. You need to tell the machine that the high point is say 3.0 (if you high point is 3.0 against a standard). It will then take that point and together with the zero point create a linear reference. One then reads the points in between to confirm the linearity of the unit.<br>

There is surely some set-up menu, knob or set-screw to turn to set the value. Its currently been set to 1.54. Since you have a 2.05 then you need to set it to 2.05 and use that--- the higher the density the better.</p>

<p>I've also scratch all the "fix" solutions since sourcing the Ammonium Thiosulfate will be more difficult and (much) more costly (in the volumes we are discussing) than the purchase of commercial mini-lab fixer. The acid B&W fixers are not just much more expensive but they also have quite short shelf-lives---- contributing also to their cost--- as the Thiosulfate can break down in acid to sulphur.<br>

One side comment: Since the pH of mini-lab fixers is neutral and NOT acid one needs with B/W development using some developers to either include a good wash or a stop-bath. With some older more primitive and easy to scratch films one might want to use hardening fixers--- this is the historical basis for acid fixers in B&W. An alternative, however, to a hardening fixer is a hardening rinse. See: http://www.photo.net/black-and-white-photo-film-processing-forum/00BMgZ</p>

<p>Kodak is not the only name in town. Other brands offering a good colour fix are:</p>

<ul>

<li>Champion</li>

<li>Fuji-Hunt</li>

<li>Tetenal</li>

<li>Connect Chemicals Vahingen--- what used to be Agfa Valingen</li>

<li>Calbe </li>

</ul>

<p>There are also a large number of companies that sell to the industrial B&W market---- X-Ray, microfilms, traffic just to name a few----- such as Clayton Chemicals (for those in Los Angeles) that offer less expensive big jugs. These fixers are typically sold direct and are priced accordingly at a fraction of the boutique bottles.</p>

<p>Actually the C41-RA (RA stands for "Rapid Access") is a faster C41 process. Its fixer is not a bad one. Its, in fact, very close to the <a href="009fBA">"Super Fix" </a>that Ron Mowrey developed. Since fixing times for colour films (both C41 and E6) is cut to 2 min. with B&W......</p>

<p><em>"...I never endeavored down the c-41 road was because the MSDS I saw, indicated it had a whole bunch of other stuff in it, and I didn't have time to research the impact it would have."</em><br>

No need to worry. C41 mini-lab fixer works perfectly well for B&W. Agfa used to even label a fixer as "Universal" (FX Universal) and sold it for film (C41, E6 and B&W) and paper (RA4 and B&W). Of the various mini-lab fixers it was my favorite although the Champion stuff is not bad either..<br>

I won't purchase any B&W fixer products since they:</p>

<ul>

<li>are more expensive</li>

<li>have significantly shorter shelf-lives</li>

<li>have acid pH which I don't need and don't even want</li>

<li>work at best not better than mini-lab fixer</li>

<li>have, in general, longer fixing times and require longer wash times.</li>

</ul>

<p>The whole differences between C41/E6 fixes and their B&W counterparts is a much more complicated chemistry. Modern colour films have all kinds of inhibitors in them and are much more difficult to fix. One would expect them to be much more expensive than the B&W boutique fixers but due to economies of scale and market differences the sophisticated fixers are the cheap ones selling for less than 1/4 the price....</p>

<p>The problem going to the punchline is that with modern films there is a tendency to underfix using sodium thiosulfate hypo. Honestly I see little reason to use it instead of liquid (amonium thiosulate) fixer. I use the stuff as supplied for minilabs as they are cheaper and have more neutral pH than the stuff sold for "B&W". The shelf life of C-41 fixer--- like nearly all mini-lab chemicals--- is very good--- in fact, due to their pH, much longer than those sold for "B&W".</p>

<p>Mark Tate exclaimed "NEVER NEVER NEVER squeegee ..........anything"<br>

I don't agree. Done correctly with a non contaminated roller it can be quite useful. What do you think my roller transport IR dryer with RC papers does? And with Baryta papers.. Its important to get rid of some of the excess before throwing them on screens to dry--- even with a dry mount press to flatten them.. And I know more than a few people that use their IR dryers as an electric squeegee for their fibre papers..... And if you ever wanted to get a mirror finish on Baryta papers.. its IMPOSSIBLE without using a squeegee..</p>

<p>According to a quick search "Jet Dry" contains:</p>

<ul>

<li>Polyethylene glycol</li>

<li>Stearamide MEA [Cleaning Agent]</li>

<li>C12-15 Oxo alcohol EO-PO adduct [Cleaning Agent / Nonionic Surfactant]</li>

<li>Alkylaminopolyethoxypolypropoxypropanol Cleaning Agent [ Nonionic Surfactant] </li>

<li>Fragrance</li>

<li>Water</li>

<li>Ethanolamine [Cleaning Agent /Alkalinity]</li>

</ul>

<p>At the end of day not too terribly far from Photo-Flo + detergent. + alcohol. Instead of the Photo-Flo + detergent, a bottle of dishwashing concentrate is probably cheaper :-)</p>

<p>I suggest the use of a IR print dryer. It can increase the maximal density of blacks by 0.15 logD or more over air drying (including hot air). They are quite comfortable to use: one inserts paper in one end and they come dried out the other. NOTE: None of the drying ovens (Durst, Kaiser etc.) and not all roller transport print dryers use IR (Rowi, Kindermann and Ilford do, Durst / Devappa don't). In today's post-post-digital 2nd hand market they can still be found with a bit of patience cheaply.</p>

<p>"<cite>Many paper products in the US contain silica particles which can scratch film.</cite>"<br>

I'm sure not all paper towels do so. One,I guess, must be careful.<br>

"<cite>This is why paper towels and Kleenex are not to be used on modern glasses. They scratch the plastic</cite>"<br>

Most better modern plastic eyeglasses from companies such as Zeiss and Hoya use coatings that are amazingly scratch resistant. Cheap plastic glasses will be scratched up in no time alone from airborne grit.<br>

"<cite>Also, the dishwasher soap, being alkaline, can gradually degrade gelatin.</cite>"<br>

Not of significance in the concentrations we are talking about. The pH of tap water itself is more all over the place.. In Munich where the drinking water quality is considered very high the pH ranges from 6.5 to 9.5. The pH of tap water in Los Angeles is also in this range. West LA's tap water is on the side of 8.5. Other parts of the city tend to have water pH hardly under 7.5.<br>

Bottled distilled water can have a pH in the range of 5-7 (generally somewhere around 6-6.5). Adding a few drops of alkaline dishwashing soap and some isopropanol does not sound bad at all when I think about it... :-)</p>

<p>Ron wrote: "<cite>I would not use any version of Photo Flo for my dishes and I would not use any dish soap for my film!</cite>"<br />Lacking, however, something like Photo-Flo or de-mineralized water I see no real archival or process problem from someone using a very tiny amout of dishwasher soap with a slug of isopropanol. With modern films one can then remove the sludge with some clean kitchen paper towels. Its no replacement but sometimes one needs to ab-lib. B&W materials are reasonably robust.</p>

<ol>

<li>Use the film? Of course I'd use it. I'd do a little test first.. shoot a few 12 frame rolls and do some tests.. </li>

<li>Rate it differently? Probably not.. that's the point of the test roll.. run some tests.. </li>

<li>Developer? Whatever you like with Tri-X 400..</li>

</ol>

<p>While its true that with age the base fog can increase, contrast and speed decrease.... by how much... there is no clear cut ...</p>

<p>I'd stick to D96. For the application its superior to D76--- which itself is a great all purpose developer. For motion picture development you want low base fog. Recall that negative film is not viewable but must first be printed on film (or its digital pendant). Pyrocat is a staining developer and its base fog + stain make it less than ideal for printing to film or into a digital intermediate process chain.<br>

If, however, you want to use 8mm film stock and the goal is printing to photographic paper.....</p>

 

<p>Yes you can. Photo-Flo is a solution of Triton X-100 with a bit of Popylene Glycol. X-100 is a Octyl Phenol Ethoxylate and not good to drink. It may contain traces of nasty things like dioxane but in the low concentrations when used as a wetting agent its completely harmless. Other wetting agents contain slightly different additives including things like bacteriacides (such as Isothiazolinone as used in Tetental's Mirasol 2000 product). Its, however, much much too expensive and does not do a good job of cleaning. Allergenic reactions are possible and biocides such as Isothiazolinone (not in the Kodak product) can induce hypersensitivity but that's more likely a problem using it as a wetting agent than in a dish washer.<br>

Just a tip: When using Photo-Flo or Agepon as wetting agents use less (even lower concentration) but add (pure) Isopropanol to the water.</p>

<p>In the amateur sector, of course, Tetenal 3-bath is really the only game in town--- and its really very good--- but in the professional sector there are a number of 6-bath vendors around. Tetenal, Fuji-Hunt, Kodak and Champion all make good 6-bath e6 chemistries and have distributors in Israel. One should be able to source things from any of a number of suppliers.<br>

While there are some distinct advantages to 6-bath--- especially economy--- the Tetenal 3-bath does produce very good results and is, in my opinion, the prefered chemistry for most low volume amateur set-ups including even those with smaller automatic machines.</p>

<p>A good shoulder bag that would fit a notebook and some camera gear is the Filofax Finchley bag.<br>

Size is 290 x 420 x 140mm so it easily fits the bill as a carry on bag.<br>

See: <a href="http://www.filofax.co.uk/store/businessdetails.asp?catId=3&productId=376">Filofax Web page for the product</a><br>

Its more or less a large leather shoulder bag but with padding and a number of holders, card pockets and elastic loops designed for pens and other things but ...<br>

P.S.: The briefcase version is even on sale this week in the UK (for father's day).</p>

<p>Its an old thread but as documentation, why not answer it.. better later than ....<br>

OK.. The Robot Royal cameras can all take normal Kodak(Nagel) cartridges. A 36 exp. roll will provide 55 pictures in 24x24 (Robot III, Robot 24) and, of course, 36 with the Robot 36. The take-up spool is something else and specific to Robot cameras.. Its type NR. Its needed but they are easiest enough to find. All the Royal models have rewind. Instead of a standard cartridge one can also use a special Robot cartridge called TR. It has the advantage of not having any felt light traps to scratch film and places the least resistance on the spring motor and thus provides smoother operation. The NR cassette is closed and so one does not need to rewind but can remove the pair from the camera and insert another pair to continue shooting. It even allows one to change film mid-roll and only loose a few frames. Models with an "a" on the end of their serial number were designed for technical/scientific applications and have a removable back. This allow them to take external magazines like a film camera--- in fact, some of the larger magazines were sourced from Arnold and Richter (Arri). Magazines with film capacities of 10m, 30n, 60m and even 150m were available.<br>

TR cartridge may be bulk loaded but may also loaded from another cartridge. The film and spool in a standard Kodak cartridge fits in a TR. One can even fill a TR with film without the spool.</p>

<p><em>" think this lens has been made up from parts of widely different ages ; f18 makes that bit pre-war ; not having a serial # suggests early 30s, or earlier still. The focusing mount must be 50s, with the red distance scale. Is the glass coated ?"</em><br>

<em>Elmars without serial numbers were supplied by Leitz for dual enlarging and taking uses and bundled with some Focomat 1c enlargers in the 1950s. I have one such RS (5cm/1:3,5 max f/16) and it came even with the special hood and no serial number (and was attached to its original enlarger home)---- for reference, I replaced it with a Focotar 2 as the Elmar is better suited to a camera than an enlarger. In this connection its interesting to note that Leitz had in their history provided enlarging ELMAR (quite different beasts from the taking ELMAR), VAROB (a variant, I think, of an enlarging ELMAR), taking ELMARs (for dual use) and at least 3 formulations of Focotars (in a few minor variations)--- the last one being double Gauss (Planar) type and unrelated to the ELMAR..<br /></em><br>

Leitz also made a number of objectives without serial numbers as prototypes--- although as mentioned not all without numbers are prototypes but might have been (as in this example) supplied through a different channel. Bastards tend to have serial numbers. Fakes always have serial numbers.</p>

<p><em>"Jobs' allusion was chiefly to the precision engineering. "</em><br>

Seem to have bought in the hype. There is NO precision engineering in an iPhone. There is nothing special about the chips, circuit boards etc. They are typical Chinese cookie cutter electronics in a nice package. The chips are not from Apple but standard sources for this: Infinion, Samsung, Toshiba etc. Foxconn have come over the past 3 years quite a way in improving their quality but still..... physical build quality on current iPhones is around mid-field.. I don't expect things to change much.. even before FCS of this new iPhone it'll be behind the current state of the smart phone art.. The new iPhone is getting a screen which is comparable to the the IPS LED in the Motorola Droid.. the current state of the art, however, are OLEDs such as Samsung's Super AMOLED Wave phone.. What precisely has Apple "engineered" in the iPhone 4? The CPU, Display? Or just the industrial design, packaging, proprietary O/S, marketing and, above all, hype..?<br>

Beyond all of this.. Can one really talk about "precision" in the context of consumer electronics save in the manufacturing process of making the chips? Precision assembly? That's the opposite of engineering.. good engineering in that market is about fault tolerance and lowering the cost and demands for assembly...</p>

<p>The best suited foam is closed cell. Closed cell Ester foam is quite suitable. At the top of the list is perhaps neoprene (which is not really a foam but an elastomer) as its flexible and durable and resists ozone, sunlight and chemicals. Since the Paterson uses a kind of spring latch for compression one could also just ditch foam and use some wool felt. Why did the Paterson use Polyurethane foam (the stuff that disintegrated) ? Probably cost. It costs much less than Ester foam or good felt (which contract and printing frames all used to use). One needs to recall that back in their day the Paterson frames were quite inexpensive--- they just got more and more expensive over the years--- and back then everyone used and overestimated the lifespan of polyurethane--- witness its use as a binder in magnetic tapes for a while resulting in sticky-shed syndrome. Today, interestingly, one markets some of these hydrophillic polymers tuned to fall apart even faster for their degrading properties..</p>

<p>Radios? What you are thinking of was this:<br>

<img src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40822000/jpg/_40822724_ipod_ousby_203.jpg" alt="" width="203" height="152" /><br>

The Regency TR-1---- the first commercial transistor portable radio. Designed and made is the USA.</p>

<p>Isoascorbate:<br>

<img src="http://www.fusokk.co.jp/eng/product/life/image/007_02.gif" alt="" width="242" height="241" /><br>

Sodium Ascorbate<br>

<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/Sodium_ascorbate.png/200px-Sodium_ascorbate.png" alt="" width="200" height="115" /><br>

Vitamin C<br>

<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/L-Ascorbic_acid.svg/200px-L-Ascorbic_acid.svg.png" alt="" width="200" height="118" /><br>

The whole point of using the sodium salt of Vitamin C is to not effect the pH. Vitamin C is an acid. By adding hydroxide or common baking soda one can adjust. Baking Soda introduces the Na+. One could also instead make the Potassium salt.</p>

<p>Just neutralize Ascorbic acid ("Vitamin C") from the local druggist.: Add some baking soda (also available from the drugstore) until it stops fizzing. Viola... more or less (sufficient for photographic applications)... Sodium Ascorbate..</p>

<p>Current Apple design is not based on old cameras but quite distinctly upon modern industrial design from the 1950s and 1960s. Ive is a typical product of 1980s design school. The German Braun and, at the other end, and a love-hate with Memphis Group (Sottsass et al) design elements are clearly obvious. There is, of course, a linage to Sony and others through pre-Ive Apple designs such as those from Frog (the IIc, NeXT, Newton).<br>

Dieter Rams for Braun Design above and Johnathan Ive for Apple below:.<br>

<img src="http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/site_furniture/2008/01/16/BraunVsApple460.jpg" alt="" width="460" height="254" /></p>

 

<p>"Leicas were never a here today gone tomorrow and upgrade to a newer model in 6 months kind of thing,"<br>

Were. That's how and why the Japanese optical industry trounced not just Leica but the whole of the German camera industry. The German's stuck to leather, metal, precision mechanics and backwards compatibility at increasingly high cost... while consumers voted with their money for features, plastic, electronics, lower prices and shorter and shorter product cycles.. Technology, "innovation" and marketing replaced precision and sustained value. The same happened to the Swiss watch industry. Swatch became king of the plastic electronic watch.--- and only through their cash did the Swiss mechanical industry survive.</p>