peter_chipman

Thanks, guys. I figured that would be the case...just hoping for a possible "fix." Much appreciated, though.

And to answer Wes's question..., yes I did already ask Sigma (U.S.) about it. I guess it wouldn't hurt to call Sigma Canada.

Thanks,

Pete.

Hi, everyone.

Back about 5 years ago, when I used an Elan 7e and film, I bought the

Sigma 24mm f2.8 and took it out shoot in the Canadian Rockies. When I

got my 16 rolls back, the only slides that turned out were those where

I hadn't used the Sigma 24mm....the rest were all washed out as they

were taken at f2.8, no matter what the setting on the camera. I had

the lens rechipped (at the time, it wasn't a widely known issue), and

I've been using that same beat-up lens to this day (now on a 1DSMKII).

Whatever rechipping they did back then lasts through to the latest

Canon camera...I wish someone knew how to do the rechipping...I'd buy

several of these lenses and keep them as backups.

I know Sigma in the US no longer rechips their lenses that are out of

production. I've heard that Sigma in Canada might, but I'm not sure

how crazy they'd be to get a bunch of old AF Sigmas coming from me to

be rechipped.

Does anybody know what's involved here? Would it be possible to do a

fix here? I wouldn't even mind if I lost the ability to autofocus, as

long as the apterture setting would work.

Any ideas?

Also, is there a way you can tell between a rechipped Sigma one that

has not been rechipped? (I'm not afraid to open one up...except for

the one I have that works, of course :-) ).

Thanks,

Pete Chipman

To follow my re-posting above, a posting from Alex:

The story Peter Chipman related about Galen Rowell's photos being so beyond most people's concept of the limits of photography brings to mind this quote:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." --Arthur C. Clarke

Galen's study of cognitive psychology, visual perception, and the illusionistic qualities of light, combined with his love of Creation and phenomenal athletic ability allowed him to advance his photography to the level of a truly artistic magician.

-- Andy Fox , August 13, 2002; 10:32 A.M. Eastern

Although his life was in 35mm, his thoughts on color and lighting were at the top of the field as a whole.

My posting on the general forum yesterday:

It was not his or Barbara's time. It's just hard to believe that such a prolific and inspirational photographer and person is gone along with Barbara, succsessful in her own right. Looking at Galen's photos was like listening to your favorite band for the first time, it just grabbed you, he was that good. In this day, when there's millions of pictures floating around, many of them outstanding, he still managed to shine through and wanted to share his ability with others freely.

You will be missed, and remembered with warmth,

Pete Chipman.

P.S. I was searching the net earlier this evening for news on the crash when I came across an "Earth Island Journal" online posting (published before the crash) in which a reader was complaining to the editor about the choice of a Galen Rowell picture that was selected for the cover of one of their issues:

"I wanted to write to you about the cover photo for the Summer '02 issue. It is colorful and eye-catching but if you look at it carefully you will see that there is something really wrong. The lighting is most unnatural. If you look at, or photograph a sunset there is no way that you will see vivid greenery in the foreground. Also there are no shadows to indicate where the light is coming from. It looks to me like the photographer pasted two pictures together taken at two different times of the day. This kind of manipulation with a computer can indeed create colorful pictures but they are unnatural like a cloned sheep or "star link" corn. In my humble opinion they detract from (and even parody) the important mission of the Earth Island Institute."

Well, as those familiar with Galen Rowell know, Galen managed to take pictures that captured light so fantastically and so skillfully that it managed to fool many (such as the person writing to Earth Island Journal) into falesly thinking that they were viewing some sort of photo trickery. What a tribute to a master!

Galen was ALL real, and managed to capture magic in nature that few others have been able to match. Time for me to get back out into the mountains in the wee morning and evening hours with the camera and wait for the colors. Thanks, Galen!

Sorry, forgot to mention that I'm familiar with Boss Screens being "brand specific," but I did not see that as a problem, as I'm not adverse to sanding/shimming my ground glass holders to put the wax layer into the film plane.

I'm just double-checking to make sure that the two plastic strips, representing the wax layer, are what need to be in the film plane, and therefore, I need to shim my holders since I've incorrectly sanded them down to put the larger glass plate in the film plane.

Another thing that I found in a previous thread, but that doesn't seem to come up in more recent threads, is that the black plastic strips DON'T represent the wax layer, but are actually correcting for the slight bending of light that occurs as incoming light passes through the smaller layer of glass and hits the surface of the wax. The black plastic strips add a little distance to the wax surface to compensate for this. If you read the Boss Screen "Instructions," it shows the wax layer as being 0.12mm, and the black plastic strips as being 0.3mm. This leads me to believe that the black plastic strips are NOT representative of the width of the wax layer, but as posted before, are correcting for light bending plus the width of the wax paper by placing the wax layer slightly further back. However, the end result is the same, as you should have the surface of these plastic strips in the same plane as the film.

Am I correct, or am I confusing the issue?

Thanks,

Pete.

Hi, everyone.

Ok, after reading through threads on this forum, I worked with a

friend on installing a bosscreen on my 4X5 (a Bender).

Initially, I thought we were going to line up the black plastic

strips on the Boss screen with the plane of the film, but we instead

made the surface of the larger piece of glass line up with the plane

of the film in the film holder.

So, I'm assuming that we now need to do the following: Shim the four

ground glass holders so that the two plastic strips (which I've read

correct for the light bending as it passes through the smaller sheet

of glass)line up in the plane of the film in the film holder.

Am I right and we need to shim, or do we have it right the way we did

it and we don't need to shim?

Thanks,

Pete.

Thanks, Jen.

Just whenever you get a chance.

Pete.

Looks like I'm going to have to shim the small resting points for the groundglass on my groundglass holder until the wax layer is at the same position that the frosted side of the old glass used to be. Right now I've got them set so that the plane of the frosted side of the groundglass is in the same plane as my film.

Thanks, Bob.

Pete.

Hi, Bob.

The Bosscreen I ordered is the exact width and length of the groundglass I have now (dead-on 4 inches by 5 inches).

Hi, everyone.

I read in a previous post that someone investing in a Bosscreen

should save their money and apply a small amount o Vaseline to the

frosted side of the groundglass, wipe it in with a circular motion,

and then "presto," you've just saved yourself $150.

Is this true? I just ordered a 4X5 Bosscreen from Badger Graphic,

and I'm wondering if I should instead grease up one of my existing

groundglass.

Your opinion?

Thanks,

Pete.

Mark, it's WAY to early in the morning...of course option 2. Sorry, just swallowed a big lump in my throat and replied to option 1 before reading option 2.

Thanks,

Pete.

Thanks, Jen.

Mark, I'm usually just holding a flash above something of interest in the foreground, with the flash toned down from what the default camera/flash combo usually tries to put out for skin tones. I like to have just enough light to bring out color in flowers, and bring out detail in driftwood from the shadows. I find that even with an f-stop of 22, I get enough light with my 35mm setup to do this, the result being that I've got a little more color and detail without anyone recognizing too much the use of flash. But, I do like what I'm learning here. It's giving me some ideas to experiment with.

Pete.

Big egg on my face! (but still a good idea).

You guys are right, my memory is more glorious than reality. I DID used to just put in greenspun.com, and then I was able to snatch up the relevant information. For whatever reason, you can't search more selective links within a domain.

I wonder why you can't search a subsection of a domain? It would make this forum much more powerful. In fact, if photonet did that for all of there forums, they'd really take another step ahead of the pack.

A quite subdued,

Pete.

Thanks, Jennifer.

Good link. And yes, I primarily do fill flash outdoors, but the link was useful.

So, tell me what I'm missing here...I take a meter reading of the scene, program the 540ez for shutter speed and f-stop, and then the Canon will fire the right amount of light by just releasing the shutter (connected to flash via pc adapter cord) or pushing the "test-fire" button on the flash during the exposure? I know these sound like simple questions, but I'm so used to a 35mm camera body interacting with the flash to come up with desired result, and then just modifying it a bit myself by dialing in a 1.5 stops or so undercompensation. I'm not familiar with a dedicated flash being able to fire the right amount of light independent of the camera, but from what I'm reading, I guess that's what the flash can do. Am I missing something here, or is it that easy...the shutter sends a signal for the sole purpose of tripping the flash (no other information sent), and then the flash, manually set, fires the right amount of light.

Thanks, Pete.

Just a slight correction (in my mind, anyways) on David Rose's response that the Bender isn't portable. Good Lord! I built a Bender 4X5 and it only weighs about 3 pounds. How much more portable can you get? I think that you CAN make it precise, but I would agree that this is difficult, and requires the reqruitment of precision instruments and a lot of patience with sanding/shimming to position the groundglass the exact distance as the film plane. It could be more rugged, but mine isn't exactly flimsy, I took the time to build it right.

Anyways, I'll have my Bender on a 9 day hike in the Canadian Rockies, and having at least 3 pounds less will be a blessing to me everyday.

Thanks, Wayne. But my question is not about where to get the adapter. Please read my question.

Thanks,

Pete.

Hi, everyone.

Well, I think if the moderators take heed of the following, this

forum will once again be a robust site.

It used to be, that I could copy the large format link from greenspun

and paste it into the website search in the "advanced search" section

of Google. The result was that google would search through

everything ONLY in the large format forum on greenspun, NOT the

entirety of the greenspun website. This saved tons of time trying to

pinpoint answers in a sea of questions. It also helped avoid having

to ask the same question over and over and getting the response "this

question's already been asked" over and over.

As it stands now, just before you post, photo.net asks you to submit

a query on your question. Well..., all this does is search all of

photo.net. A good example of how this presents a problem is as

follows:

I've been interested in hooking up a Canon 540ez flash with my large

format equipment. If I was able to seach on the keyword "540ez" with

just the large format forum itself, my answer would appear quite

quickly as it pertains to the world of large format. The way it is

now, I've got to sift through hundreds of unrelated threads, 99.99

percent of them related to 35mm. And yes, I've also tried typing in

540ez with "large format" and many other types of searches...it just

doesn't cut the mustard. I'm not interested in trying to find my

answer in the pages describing the Canon Rebel G with subsequent

photos and readers' comments (nice camera, but totally not anything

to do with what I'm trying to specifically find out about the 540ez)

So....

Could the moderators please try either restablishing the ability to

use the advanced search in google to search the large format forum

specifically, or could the submit query box be reprogrammed to search

the large format forum only?

Otherwise, this forum will not be as powerful a tool for us as it

used to be.

Thanks,

Pete.

hi, everyone.

I'm interested in purchasing a pc cord to hotshoe adapter to hook up

a Canon 540ez flash to my Fujinon and Rodenstock lenses.

Has anyone done this? Is there anything I should be aware of? Are

all the manual controls on the 540ez sufficient to adjust the light

output to the way I want it? Any other suggestions to doing

something different if you think this is an unwise choice of setup?

I quite often like to add a touch of light to my forground when doing

landscape, but have not tried it yet with my large format equipment.

Also, I know this question on dedicated flashes may have been

addressed before in the forum, but I've found that you can't search

the large format forum by itself with the Google advanced search

feature which lets you simple type in the forum link to do a

selective search of the forum only (instead of all of photo.net!).

It would be great if the moderators at photo.net could resolve this

issue, as it would cut down greatly on repeatitive questions.

Thanks,

Pete.

Thanks,

Pete.

Hi, everyone.

I've been waiting to gather the money and snatch up an Epson 2450 for

doing cheap/decent scans of 4X5s. However, I just read the specs on

the Scanmaker 6700, and I'm wondering if that might be the way to go.

Anybody used both? Anybody know what the Dynamic Range is on the

Microtek?

Thanks,

Pete.

I posted this before, but i'll post it again...

<p>

Well, I don't want to cause problems, and my experience was just my

experience, but I sent my girlfriend to Mexico (post Sept. 11th) with

Fuji 160ASA film (NPS or NPC, can't remember), and she came back with

the tell-tail yellowish fog line going through her prints, including

shots she hadn't exposed but had processed (i.e., black prints with a

yellowish fog line going through the center).

<p>

I know everyone says, no problem, under 1000 ASA will be ok, but

that's not what happen in this instance, even with "slow" film. I

hope that this is an isolated/unique case.

<p>

Pete.

Nathan, not to pick an argument, but my girlfriend came back from

Mexico with a few rolls of Fuji NPC 160 ASA (35mm) and it definitely

got fogged (bad). I know this wasn't an exposure problem, because

the last ten shots on one of the rolls she didn't expose, yet when we

got them back from the lab, there was still the tell-tale sign of a

hazy yellowish line going through the middle of those prints. Prior

to September 11th, I too had no problem with film under 400 being

scanned. However, this recent experience makes me not so confident.

<p>

Pete.

Well, this just gets better...

<p>

now I've got blue lines less than 1mm in width running perpendicular

to the direction of the paper's movement through the printer. The

banding goes outside the porder of the print and off the page. This

is different than the tonal banding I described earlier.

<p>

Looks like I might need a new head? [referring to the printer, again]

<p>

Pete.

I second on Singh Ray.

<p>

And, if you're only going to one to start with (soft or hard), go

with the hard first (3 stops) and get soft later. However, this is a

general statement, as you might be shooting stuff that's more suited

to a soft edge (I find myself using the hard edge, more often). As

far as what lens to use, I can't argue with Galen's advice on the

long lenses, but don't be afraid to use the hard edge on WA (in my

experience).

<p>

Also, don't be afraid to combine them (2 stop plus a 3 stop), if the

exposure range your trying to equalize is to wide for one filter.