gib

Eduardo, hi, I dont what software you have to modify photos with. But I would recommend you do two things. Searc content here on photo.net for "tips on scanning" there are several posts on this topic. Also, a lot of people talk about using Photoshop, which is very expensive. I use the less expensive version called Adobe Photoshop Elements. Right now at the Adobe site online www.adobe.com there is a try it out download version of Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 version. I also invested in a Elements for Dummies book. Elements costs $99 US, I think I got that right.

 

 

The award for the dumbest name for a computer function of all time on the planet is "Unsharp Mask" which actually sharpens, altho from its name it sounds like it unsharpens. :)

 

regards....with a litte bit of time and cash, I think you can improve your scans and be better able to present your work online...like using the camera it takes some practice. good luck.

one other factor to consider.....is it sounds like you will be using flash and may need to use a second off camera flash perhaps triggered by a light sensor hot shoe to slave the second flash (sounds complicated and isnt really, the little sensor cost me $19 CDN), but a single flash normally covers as wide as 28mm lens, there are several ways to broaden it. If you are trying to shoot reno before and afters and doing a lot of this..... you might want to look at something more like a Canon G2 and a 420EX Canon Flash. I documented a TV company's rebuild on a control room and several other areas and produced all photos onto CD, one for builder, one copy for client. Just a thought. When I looked the cost of film over a long project, the numbers didnt make as much sense as going digital. regards

nice echo in here.....<div></div>

when you talk about budget and cost and get advice from

people, one factor I rarely see but which might be worth

considering is frequency of use. How many times a year are you

going to take this MF out and take photos?<br><br>

If it is let's say once a month and you take two of those out for

bad weather, then you are going out 10 times.<br><br>

On each of those ten times, how many rolls of film will you

shoot? With a 120 roll at 6x6, you get 12 shots per roll. With a

6x9 you get 8 shots. Some outings you may shoot 2 rolls or

maybe 5 rolls. Averaged out at say 3. 30 rolls in a year. This is

kind of amateur shooting level, also assuming you will drag

along your 35mm SLR stuff and shoot it on most of the same

outings. So then how much money do you invest in between

240 and 360 exposures per year? (my arithemtic skills are

notoriously weak, so forgive me if my calculation is off)... How

many will you enlarge?<br><br>So how much does the cost of

film and processing of prints add up to and then the equipment

cost itself and then divide it by the number of exposures per year.

<br><br>

Like I said this is simply a different way to look at it. My

suggestion may have more holes than swiss cheese.<br><br>

 

regards BG

my soul claim to fame as a Leica user is I live about ten miles

from the old Leitz plant in Midland, Ontario, Canada

<b>A title with a strong emotion producing hook will win

attention.<br><br></b>

Al made an interesting point that it is easier to use an external

meter and set the camera directly from interpreting that, than to

make the effort to overcome automation to get to manual or

compensated settings, and as added further down, to have to

keep re-overcoming it. <br><br>

I have been learning to use my IIIf and using a new incident and

spot meter over the last week or so. I have also been going

through my "backlog" of equipment and shooting some of my

"semi-discarded" gear. I did find a classic moment of being

blocked by automation with a Pentax PZ-1 with a Viviatar Series

1 MF 19-35 lens. Having sat down the night before and read that

whole user manual through for the first time in at least ten years,

I got stuck. That camera has some favourable comments on its

ease for compensation of either speed or aperture. I forgot one

simple step - turning body to manual from single focus. It would

not let me fire the shutter since it did not believe I was in focus. It

hadn't got feisty when I was aimed at the horizon, but tilted down

at f11 at 19mm it grew attitude. Much new vocabulary could have

been learned by young sailors at that moment. In its defense, it

has a custom function to set shutter speed increments from 1/3

speed intermediate increments to 1/2 speed increments. It

also has about the loudest shutter on the planet. <br><br><b>

Back to Leica and manual RF in general. </b> - You use your

meter and your brain and set the camera, then you can relax and

focus and compose until what you are aiming at has different

incident light level. Which is mighty nice. I have noticed a true zen

state of shooting with the IIIf, relaxed but alert and paying

attention to the composition after having easily settled the

technical question of exposure.<br><br>regards BG

Al,

Thanks for posting this, I took a look and was mightily impressed. In a non-

photographic carom off your posting....people might find Martin Cruz Smith's

"Havana Bay" an interesting piece of fiction. Assuming folks read

something other than their camera manuals, <<<<< poor atttempt at

humour.

 

regards

Bill Gibson

You might want to search for information on the Agfa Record III

which is a 6x9cm folder (the Isolette's big brother), I have two

reconditioned of this camera, but I'm hanging onto them. My

scanner permits me to scan the 6x9 negative. They are for fun. I

have seen some comments about the trouble of maintaining

film flatness over the 9 cm span. I have one shot in my bw folder

here on photonet taken with the Record III:

 

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/1003647

 

taken at Balm Beach, Ontario looking across Georgian Bay to

Collingwood

as the cropper in question, the response it netted was a lot more than benign

Hi

having read the notice on the front page of photo.net about the

availability of web space within photo.net, so I tried a small

experiment, a crude one, and posted some photos there.

 

http://www.photo.net/users/The_Gib/

 

The folder of RF Images has shots taken with the Leica IIIf and one

taken with a Bessa T101 (the far shore storm clouds with sun and dog

in the foreground)- I think I overexposed the IIIf shots a bit.

 

I thought people might want to check out this benefit of subscription.

Elmar 50 3.5 and Fuji NPC 160...interesting old church and they

also had a equally large Canadian Flag in front as well.

I recently sought and got lots of helpful advice about my new

purchase of a IIIf. <br><br>

 

<a

href="http://www.photo.net/photo/1021167">

Greek Orthodox Church north of Barrie, Ontario</a>

 

<br><br>

any comments welcome

I think you would do well to consider something other than an M6. I think you might want to look at a Nikon FM2 or FM, and three lenses: the three I relied on for a recent trip to SF were a 105 f2.5, 50 f1.4, and a 35 f2. I also dragged along a 20 f4, but didnt use it much.

 

I also think a decent light meter would be a good thing, incident and reflected.

 

This set will give you a lot of flexibility, the prime lenses are reasonably sharp, and the overall cost is not extreme. You can go a long time with this set up.

 

I have recently acquired a Bessa T 101 w. VC Heliar 50 f3.5 and a Leica IIIf with Elmar 50 f3.5 and find that the rangefinder experience is different, good, but has the limitations that people talk about above.

 

I learned on a manual SLR about 30 years ago. Even used a Yashica Electro G35 rangefinder.

 

An Elan 7E with battery grip handle is not a low profile unit, even with a 50 lens on it.

 

Just my thoughts.

 

regrds

Bill Gibson

another shot taken with 50mm pro tessar <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/990008&size=lg">etude rouge</a>

 

The 50 is a very sharp lens.

 

 

The pro tessar 35 and 115 arrived today, I will take them out for a walk later today. 115 f4 is a big guy, heavy lens, 67mm thread for filter, 35 f3.2 is 52mm thread for filter.

Canon G2 at 4 megapixels and with lots of exposure control is a good camera for landscape work.

A SLIGHTLY SIDE NOTE but related:

 

I may be dead wrong but I wouldn't use auto levels at any time. I would use acc to Adobe Photoshop Elements, the function Enhancements, Brightness/Contrast, Levels and adjust levels through the black midtone and white sliders. This way gives you much finer control and you can set preview on and watch the changes. Autolevels is kind of one setting full blown shift.

 

I have done some scans of 35 neg color, bw, slides, andused this technique, but mostly digital shots taken with a Canon G1 or G2. I find autolevels very rough especially on colour shots taken on flat light or overcast days. It seems to want very sharply contrasted whites and blacks and does some things to bluegreys that I dont much care for and based on my memory dont really match what I saw on the day I shot.

 

My magenta fringing troubles have occurred with the Canon G1 under very limited light conditions.

it's here

 

just loaded my first roll without much trouble at all....knocking the top of my wooden head.

 

It really is something special.

 

regards to all who commented with advice and information

 

Thanks

Bill Gibson

About Mr. Gandy, let me say this.

 

 

I dealt with Mr. Gandy using email and IMO he was perfect. I have received one order and one should show up at my door in about a day or so.

 

I expect to deal with him again.

 

As for the phone, well, on his orders page he says email, dont phone him. So I emailed him.

 

I guess I screwed up.

 

regards Bill Gibson www.bluetyger.ca my photo literary zine....end of intrusive chest beating plug

oh and Mike, if that's your Mom, I think you got carried away a bit in Photoshop

 

regards

Bill Gibson

I used to be a perfectionist but I wasn't very good at it. So now I come here and let the dog practise her typing.

looks greenish to me on Windows PC monitor

Photography can and has had political power for a long time. I think of Lewis Hine. People can see in photographs those things that could be or should be confronted.

 

With no special apology to Americans, the greatest country in the world is Canada. I am a proud Canadian, and Canada is not perfect. A long way from it. Lots of good and bad.

 

The United States of America is a marvel, that has great people and does great things. Many kind and generous things for those less fortunate. Some people do less kind and generous thihngs. America is full of places and people who are vastly different. Each has different view of politics and each acts or fails to act as they believe. America has great energy, great economic force, and cultural power that affects everyone on the planet. This has been good and bad and it will not stop ever evolving. How it evolves requires political will, participation and action by American citizens carefully learning, questioning and acting with their government.

 

As some have alluded to, the question of race in America is still not answered. Canada has not answered it fully either.

 

But more to the point of this thread, photography and television show how much material abundance, over abundance, drowning abundance is in America and Canada. These images ripple out and through those with little, without the simplest things, like potable drinking water. Although I recall a moment in a report about Afghanistan where a remote villager said he had never seen a magazine.

 

We have so much; many, many more have so little.

 

As for suicide bombers and those who foster that political tactic, I cannot and will not accept that as a justified way to bring change.

 

I have never taken an overtly political photograph in my life. For whatever its value, this thread has made me want to.

 

regards to all who read this, who all live with their heart and mind equally engaged, who balance patience with action.

 

Bill Gibson

Victoria Harbour, Ontario, Canada

Dreamweaver can save you a lot of sweat. One other helpful tool is the relatively inexpensive Adobe Photoshop Elements, which has a automated function to create web photo gallery. You tell it a folder name, tell it a destination folder and it then builds a index page (you can make it a subindex to your main page), thumbnails, images, and pages, all linked and ready to go.......in less than a minute. Then you need to go in and modify the individual pages.

 

For an example of some variations on this theme type in the following url{

 

www.bluetyger.ca

 

the current issue has a single portfolio about California, it was built using the approach I have described.

 

there is a link to a back issue index, where you can see different approaches I have tried.

 

this is my online photography and writing zine

 

I have produced 19 issues - the earliest ones were done with very simple html editing tools.

Americans and Canadians the same thing....tsk, tsk....that's like saying the French and the English are the same, just happen to be on either side of the Channel, right....by the way, where is the Isle of Woman?

thanks for all the advice and comments.

 

Why the IIIf is a good question.

 

I saw one available from a reputable dealer for a price I could

manage.

 

An oddball angle....I recently saw and purchased a mint

condition Contaflex Super B with a 50mm f2.8 Pro Tessar lens.

 

Walking around the afternoon I bought it, I took a roll of colour

film and had them developed. The photos showed me that the

lens was sharper than anything else I own, except for maybe the

Nikkor 105 f2.5. My exposures were better than with two other

rolls from a Canon Elan 7E.

 

The Super B is a real enjoyable critter to work. Easy, instinctive

and quite a joy but still an SLR. But the tip off was in the lens.

 

It gave me the hint and final nudge that all the talk about Leica

lenses must be the real deal.

 

I can get decent photos from my digital camera but the shutter

lag is glacier. Not usable in many circumstances. A Canon

Elan 7E has disappointed me this year in many ways. I am

considering selling it and the lenses but I will let that sit for

awhile. I am wondering what kind of digital SLR body may come

in the next 24-36 months.

 

In terms of rangefinder viewing, I have used and am getting

repaired an old Yashica Elector G35T. I enjoyed that camera a

lot. Got some good photos from it. So I have some idea about

that part of viewing and using a rangefinder.

 

Two of my favourite photographers are Capa and HCB, so using

this kind of camera will allow me to feel a direct connection to

them, which is not to say my humble efforts are anything much to

write about.

 

Those are my reasons.

 

The IIIf may be a little difficult to load and have other

inconveniences but I suspect the rewards will be large.

 

I will let you know how film loading 101 goes and if it instantly

qualifies me for neurosurgery, the performing of or the receiving

of. if something from my first few rolls comes out of interest i will

post them.

 

Thanks again for the kind and helpful answers to my question.

 

And won't the postman please hurry.