neal_shields

Mr. Honda�s title translated to �Director and Supreme Adviser�. I

never understood how �advise� could be called �advise� when it came

from the �Supreme Adviser�.

 

<p>

 

I agree that they build a fine car. The CVCC design was truely

inovative.

Deming went to American manufacturers when they were running their

plants at full production to try to fill pent up demand for consumer

products that were unavailable during WW2. Essentially he said:

"Stop what your are doing,(Stop what you did to win the war.) retool,

restructure,rethink, and I will show you a way to reduce waste".

They rightly asked; "Why?" They had more raw material then they knew

what to do with. They had more sales than they knew what to do with.

 

<p>

 

Japan on the other hand (thanks to American B29s) had a clean sheet

of paper. If they had won the war, made the world safe for

benevolent rule by their Emperor, survived with all their

manufacturing facilities intact and possession of limitless sources

of raw materials in conquered countries, they almost certainly would

have thrown Deming out on his keester too.

"potentially inflammatory"?????

 

<p>

 

Please don't post anything you consider inflammatory, you will start

WW3.

�Minimal Acceptable Quality� Sounds like a story for CNN. However,

it is simply the point beyond which no value is added. The Japaneese

have a word for that, it is �Muda�. Waste. They disdain it above

all else. (Juran defined Quality as �what the customer perceives�)

How much more will the average consumer pay for reliability and

features (form fit and finish that they will never be aware of our

use?)

 

<p>

 

One story going around manufacturing management circles now is that

Lexus doesn�t plate their seat frames. They know that this will

result in a light powder of rust during the life of the vehicle but

that the owner will never have a reason to know or care. If they

plate the frame, what ever cost in dollars and resources will be

wasted.

 

<p>

 

The fact that a German couldn�t learn anything in America doesn�t

surprise me. One might note however that during WW2 Tiger tanks were

built so well that we could build 10 Shermans for ever Tiger that

they built. Tolerances were so tight that when they got them up in

Russia during the winter, they wouldn�t run. Tigers were built to

last 20 years but considering that the average life of a tank in

battle is two hours, this might not have been an intelligent

engineering decision.

 

<p>

 

I might add that I own a Mercedes, have for years and the biggest

advantage that I can see to owning one is I never have to buy

another. You only need to pay $58. for an over-engineered turn

signal flasher once in your life. The Mercedes turn signal flasher

is solid state and flashes the turn signals at a very precise duty

cycle and time period down to the fractions of a second. If you add

a trailer, they still flash at the same speed. Fords use a electro

mechanical device that retails at about $3. If you add a trailer

they flash faster because the load goes up. Which is value and which

is obsessive compulsive?

 

<p>

 

Neal

That is a very good question. So good that several years ago, MIT

asked it and then spent 5 years and 5 million dollars answering it.

To limit the scope of the question, they restricted their study to

the automotive industry. The results were published in a book

called: �The Machine that Changed the World� Buy it if you like

graphs and charts. They looked at overall product quality, and

quality as a function of man hours and resources used. Their

conclusion (in a nut shell) was that Toyota was a fine car but in

most cases Ford was just as good and in some cases better. Mercedes

was good but only because of very expensive end of line rework of

mistakes that Ford and Toyota wouldn�t have made.

 

<p>

 

I have worked with automotive engineers all over the world, and yes,

I do believe that there are cultural differences that show up in the

products. I wouldn�t even begin to try to make judgments as to

whether these differences make products better or worse. On the

whole I think the answer is both. Linhof puts a triple extension

bellows in the same space Graflex put a double. But to my experience

Graflex will last longer before developing pin holes. The Nikon�s

eight thousands of a second shutter adds capability to the camera but

my wife�s F4 blew up on our honeymoon on about the 30th roll of film

and about 30 days after the warranty expired. My old Ftn with a cloth

shutter is going strong after 25 years and my Leica 3f still

produces a satisfying �zip� after about 50. Everything in

engineering is a compromise.

 

<p>

 

With modern quality procedures (invented by Americans for the War

Department during WW2) and modern CNC machinery, the differences in

quality as a result of where a product is made are shrinking rapidly.

 

<p>

 

However, �the proof is in the pudding�. Cameras are for taking

pictures not admiring and stroking. (do as I say not as I do.)

 

<p>

 

I think it is safe to say the vast majority of 4X5 images that have

stood the test of time were taken with Graflex cameras. Probably the

Wide Field Extar holds the record for studio advertising shots. For

vacations and kids birthdays, the Brownie has to King. Kodak labs

are to film what Bell Labs were to semiconductors. The only area of

photography where you might give the title to a foreigner would be

lens development and to my mind no one comes close to Zeiss.

However, that was more a result of two or three individuals not a

culture.

 

<p>

 

The other problem that we have in American is that the government

takes their share first before the company can buy new machinery or

improve worker's compensation. Right now in an American

manufacturing company the government gets about 50% of the wealth

created. Furthar, tax laws and the stock market mandate a 90 day to

1 year corporate horizon. As most equipment capital expendure has a

pay of measured in tens of years, it gets a short shrift in America.

At one time Japan owned 80% of the industral robuts in the world and

America had 80% of the lawyers.

 

<p>

 

Neal

Somewhere I have an Email from a Dr. ?? at Zeiss that answered some

questions for me about my 75mm Biogon. He said something to the

effect that although it wasn't a "T" coating, that there wasn't a

great deal of difference between it and a modern lens. I suspect

yours is multi-coated. I think you are right about the filter size.

I might also add that he said that the proformance was very simular

to the 38mm that they still make and that proformance was "not much

improved below F8"

 

<p>

 

I have also found posts on the net that claim that a center filter is

not necessary.

 

<p>

 

For a yellow filter I found a government surplus filter about 10mm

larger in diameter and used foam to shrink it down to a slip on fit.

 

<p>

 

Neal

I think Ellis Vener�s answer has helped me most because this really

was a question. I didn�t mean to be rude or insult anyone�s work.

Obviously �failure� was a poor choice of words. Photography is a

hobby for me and one that I don�t spend enough time on. Someday when

I retire, maybe. Most of you could drop your camera and accidentally

take a better picture than my best work.

 

<p>

 

What I like about photography as a hobby, is that if forces the

photographer to look at things that everyone else�s brain has been

trained to ignore. Somewhat recapturing some of the child like wonder

that most of us tend to lose as we get older.

 

<p>

 

I was raised in South Texas, the beauty of which I will defend to the

death, but grand vistas aren�t around every corner. On a visit to

New Zealand, I shot frame after frame of breathtaking vistas, only

to get some of the most boring prints that I have ever seen. That

pretty much got me out of the grand vista business.

 

<p>

 

What Ellis says about abstracting something out rather than trying to

capture the whole may be what I needed to hear.

Wayne, let's just say that if I take a picture of the sun on the

horizon, it is probably a sunset.

Is Half Dome is a joke God played on photographers to teach us humility?

 

<p>

 

I just read an essay by Mark Citret in which he suggests that man and man�s structures are as �natural� as anything else in nature and it started me thinking, as his essays have a tendency to do.

 

<p>

 

Edward Wesson took photographs of groceries and chemical plants and showed us more than we would see ourselves if we had been there. Moreover, once you see a Weston cabbage you will see more, everytime you look at a cabbage, for the rest of your life.

 

<p>

 

Ansel Adams took wonderful photographs of landscapes but (with exceptions) usually conveyed 1/10 (a kind estimate) of the visual experience that being there in person would provide to even the most obtuse observer.

 

<p>

 

Down deep, I think all landscape photographers know that they are failures. There was an old movie called �Hicky and Boggs� with Robert Culp and Bill Cosby. They played private detectives and the running joke was that they used huge 44 magnum pistols. Everytime they missed the bad guys they would turn to each other and say: �we need to get a bigger gun�. It seems to me that people are packing more and bigger cameras into the wilderness, and coming back with wonderful photographs, compared to other photographs and pitiful abstractions compared the scene that they photographed.

 

<p>

 

Isn�t it a much higher calling to show our audience that there is beauty everywhere in their everyday lives, then to convey the impression that beauty is reserved for the affluent that have the wealth and leisure to travel to remote �unspoiled� places.

 

<p>

 

When I go to a Museum and look at an Ansel Adams print, and mentally compaire it to simular vistas that I have actually experienced, I feel like if this is the best, why should I bother to even try?

Either I don't understand your question or it is too advanced for

me. However, if it has to do with view camera focusing, I think you

will find the answer on the following web site.

 

<p>

 

http://fox.nstn.ca/~hmmerk/HMbook18.html

This is more of expanding your question than answering it. It is my

understanding that pixels don't like light rays strikeing them at

sharp angles. Therefore "digital" lenses are designed so the the

light strikes the sensor cell as close to 90 degrees as is

practical. That would seem to mean that for a given focal lingth you

would have to bend the light more than with a normal lens??? If so I

would expect more aberation than with a normal lens. Also I would

expect a smaller image circle??

Old shutters have to give the flash bulbs time to start burning

before they open the shutter. When you cock the second lever, it

delays the fireing of the shutter blades for however long you have

set the M...F setting for, depending on what type of bulb you are

using. Some bulbs take longer to achieve full brightness than

others. I suggest you make a few trips to garage sales and buy some

flash bulbs because your electronic flash will have fired and

recharged before the shutter even thinks about opening.

 

<p>

 

If you take the following advice and it ruins your shutter, I don't

know you. However, with mine, I took the lens elements out, took the

cover plate off (watch that the little high speed spring thinge

doesn't fall out and get lost), and put the whole thing in a ultra-

sonic cleaner with lighter fluid. Then mixed some graphite (lock

lubracant) with lighter fluid (spairingly) and soaked the whole

thing. After it dried, I blew out the excess graphfite dust and had

a good as new shutter.

http://wisner.com/Page12.html

 

<p>

 

buy one for me while you are there, I'll pay you back when I get the

money.

A frend of mine has a surplus shop and has the world's visiable supply of old Polaroid scope cameras that the government sold for scrap. I brought a couple of Wolensack lenses in shutters but haven't mounted them on boards yets. They are 75mm and 1 to 1. At infinity they only have about a 3" image circle but at 1 to 1 they cover 4X5 just fine. It would seem like they would be great to photograph bugs and flowers, or would I be better off to just use one of my normal lenses with a long bellows?

Sounds like the lenses are worth more than that.

 

<p>

 

However, keep in mind that Linhof probably puts more bellows into

less space than anybody else. I.E. Compressed width vs extended

lingth. They do this by using thin materal.

 

<p>

 

On a camera that old, I would expect the bellows to leak or if it has

had little use to start leaking shortly after you begin to use it.

 

<p>

 

I purchased a very well cared for 4 and the bellows leaked a great

deal. Between tape and goop, I pluged about 90% of the leaks but it

looked so bad, I couldn't stand it.

 

<p>

 

I took them off and replaced them with a scrounged Super Graflex

bellows. The double extension graflex bellows take up as much room

as the tripple extension Linhof.

 

<p>

 

Even non-Linhof, I would expect you would have to pay $200 to $300

for new bellows.

Cameras for art photography should be judged on how much information

that they capture. This can be measured objectively in a lab.

Objectively even scanning backs that cost tens of thousands have a

long way to go, especially if you are trying to capture a scene with

anything that is moving. The latest issue of PhotoTechneques reports

that a new emulsion process will improve film by a factor of 4 and

will be in production in two years. Last time I was at Motorola they

were still using film to make chips so film is likely to be around

for a long time.

 

<p>

 

Once I have a negative that I want to use for something besides

making a fine art print, I can really see the advantages to scanning

it into Photoshop right now.

 

<p>

 

However, most of those advantages are advantages of convenience, not

capability. I can �interpolate� my negative by making an

internegative, and I can mask, dodge, burn, and change contrast

locally with multi contrast paper.

 

<p>

 

P.S. I believed that �records are going obsolete� stuff and stored my

records and sold my tube amp and turn table, to buy indestructible

unscratchable CDs. Anyone priced a MacIntosh tube amp lately?

 

<p>

 

My big fear for film is that what Rush calls "environmentalist

whacos" will begin to ask why we need all these harsh chemicals,

film, silver etc, and regulate us out of film.

 

<p>

 

I am old enough to have lived through several transitions simular to

film to digital. Automated check out lines at the grocery store take

longer than good casheers with crank registers did. We are still a

long way from the promised "paperless office". TV doesn't educate or

replace books, it is what someone called "a mind eating device".

Computers don't help people think better, just faster. You can be

stupid at the speed of light now.

 

<p>

 

Point is, I wouldn't expect digital convenience to improve

photography. I think a book I saw at Barns and Nobel the other days

sums it up. It was titled: "Learn Photography in a Weekend"

One thought would be to use the shutter off of a Graflex Super D. It

allows you to focus at full aperture and then stops down

automatically to the taking aperture when the shutter is tripped.

Thus saving one whole step in the exposure process. Also you could

use UV filters instead of lens caps.

 

<p>

 

Also if you use Grafmatic backs, you can buy extra septums and

instead of loading septums in the field, you can just swap out

septums in a changing bag which would be very quick. If this doesn�t

make sense, see the Graflex.org web site.

 

<p>

 

However, the king of rapid fire 4X5 has to be Peter Gowland. Get one

of his Gowlandflex cameras (4X5 and 8X10 TLRs), and you eliminate

several steps in the normal view camera picture taking process. You

can leave the Grafmatic back in place, leave your shutter speed, and

aperture set. They are a bit heavy however, so I hope your Llama

doesn�t spit on me if we ever meet.

 

<p>

 

Keep in mind when everybody tells you about these great artists that

didn�t do very much, all of the stuff that Michaelangelio did during

his life time. Read �The Agony and the Ecstasy�. The birth of

American Art Photography coincided pretty much with the Beat era

so prolific output would not be expected.

 

<p>

 

However, I have been trying to get a satisfactory picture of a door

with vines around it for several months, so I don�t think I can

aspire to your 6 or 7 a day.

Get on Ebay and buy every Grafmatic back you can find.

Some of the old Protar lenses were designed to be used that way.

They are symmetrical designs and you can use either element or both.

It is suggested that you always put the element that you are using

behind the diaphragm. Also you lose some of the ability of the lens

to correct for things like chromatic aberration. Therefore it is

suggested that you use a yellow filter or a �zero corrector� when

using a single element.

 

<p>

 

The only one that I am aware of that is still selling these types of

lenses new is Ron Wisner. However, I don�t think he recommends using

elements signally. I have an older Schneider �convertible� which is

either 150 or 270mm but most of what I hear is that it is an

excellent lens at 150 but a compromise at 270. As I also have a 270 I

have never used it in the 270 mode.

 

<p>

 

I suggest you check out Wisner�s web page he talks quite abit about

this: Wisner.com

Beware of carry on weight restrictions. Especailly if flying British

Airways. At one point their restriction was 9#!!

I read Fred's post after mine. The sinar comes with a 18" bellows

but only a 12" rail. The 6" extension rail is $159. The Linhof has

20" standard, the horseman 15",the Arca Swiss 15" with a 11.8" rail?

I checked my B&H catalogue which may not be quite current but will

give you an idea of new 4x5 view camera prices:

 

<p>

 

Arca Swiss Discovery $1344.

Horseman LE $1345.

Linhof Kardan E $1999.00

Sinar F1 $1850

 

<p>

 

Most of these cameras can serve as platforms that she can add on to

vertually forever.

 

<p>

 

Schneider G Claron 210mm F9 $711.

Nikon M 200mm F8 $609.

Rodenstock APO Sironar F5.6 $989

All are in Copal shutters.

 

<p>

 

Wisner 4X5 Traditional field $1495 (probably not what she needs but I

just like pretty wood.)

There are 75mm Biogons out there that are government surplus (no

shutter). I have seen some great deals on Ebay, even if you have to

pay to get them put in a shutter. Most people say that they don't

need a center filter. I put one on my 8X10 and didn't see much fall

off. The image circle is 175 but I think that it is quoted a f4.

Some of the other mfgs quote at smaller F stops. You need a strong

back though, they weigh about 4#! They can also be a trick to get

mounted in a normal bellows as the rear element is so large that when

you tilt the lens to get the board in the bottom catches on a Linhof,

the top of the rear element pushes on the bellows.

Call B&H and get their Professional Photo SourceBook. It is $9.95 and

lists everything, with prices and pictures. TALK TO HER

PROFESSORS,they probably know exactly what she wants.

 

<p>

 

If you really want to knock her socks off, get her a Wisner, but you

might have to sell your car and start riding a bicycle.

 

<p>

 

I have made Christmas present purchases for my wife from B&H before

and they agreed to extend their aproval period 15 days from Dec 25,

not the purchase date. They also offer a extra cost warranty for used

cameras. However, everyone else that has been mentioned I have had

good luck with or heard good things about.

 

<p>

 

The only thing I purchased from Midwest turned out to be defective

and I had no problems at all returning it a getting a refund. That

is the real test of a retailer...when things go wrong.

 

<p>

 

Beware leaking bellows on used equipment, especially Linhof. I

purchased a used Technica and stuck a flashlight inside the bellows

and the pinholes looked like the sky on a clear night. Replacement

bellows can be very expensive.

 

<p>

 

I have found that if you have time and watch Ebay and know what you

want, you can save about half. However, the other night I tried to

buy this year's christmas present for my wife and it went for about

75% of list and about $30 OVER what I could buy it brand new out of

NY for.

That is it, thanks.