richard_ilomaki7

Eric:

<p>

Handlheld meter or built-in, the real trick is to carry a small-3x5in

neutral gray card on your key chain and take reflected readings off

that when held in the same light as the subject.

<p>

Go to a plumbing supply shop and look at their samples of Formica

counter tops or a furniture store for the same stuff and pick a light-

mid grey sample coupon and they may give you one from an old bunch.

It likley has a hole in it already as they are on chains.

<p>

This is a standard reference for all your shots. In B&W it gives you

a standard reflectance and with colour it gives you a standard gray

for correct colour balancing.

<p>

In colour neg work, take a shot of the card at the beginning of each

different sequence of shots under different lighting and the final

print filtration can be adujsted to give you the correct grey, then

everything else will fall into place. Slides really can't benefit as

much from this unless you do your own processing and printing. Most

pro labs will however adjust the colour to your preference and if you

show them the grey card, thay can make Cibachrome or Frontier prints

to match.

<p>

This comes from the late Bob Mitchell, a real wizard at B&W and colour

printing who helped develop some of the most useful devices for

standardizing amateur printing and photography.

Any of the meters mentioned will be great with this technique.

<p>

cheers

There was a thread on this forum a few weeks ago on this same subject

and I mentioned Barry Lyndon by Kubrick, where he developed lenses

for the flare and Bokeh, although that term was not trendy then. Many

of the indoor scenes were shot exclusively by candleight to capture

the ambiance of pre-electric light ballrooms and special lenses were

needed. Note also the sun-rain-cloud outdoor scenes -stunning!!

For a real treat, see the recent-5 yr old- features by the Chinese

director (sorry forgot his name, even tho I saw it last week)- Red

Lanterns or something like that. Every shot in the movie could be a

museum still on it's own. Another beautiful current piece of work is

All the Pretty Horses, with Matt Damon -just as good visually as

Cormack McCarthy's novel is as literature.

As I said in the other thread, how many of us sketch out every shot

we make on a storyboard and set it all up and rehearse it for hours

before-hand, or make 50 checks of light in every part of the scene to

get just the desired highlight and shadow interplay?

<p>

Even as far back as the 20s, the DOPs were mastering the art: revisit

Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times or Goldrush.

<p>

Then there is the all-time master Hitchcock: Rear Window, Vertigo,

(Kim Novak didn't detract from the overall effect erther) North by

North West, and of course Psycho all depended on effective settings.

The scene were detective Arbogast was killed on the stairs transcends

all that came before it for effect. The Birds used multiple matte

shots that would do Lucas proud, way before computers.

<p>

So much to learn from them.

<p>

Cheers

<p>

AND!!! Do not forget the cartoons of the 40s and 50s- golden age with

Looney Tunes etc. They were wonderful at minimalist scene-setting, as

each frame was a separate still image in itself.

<p>

Paul Strand was DOP on several movies which because of their

political content were as much as banned but still are masterpieces

of cinema/still art.

<p>

My presonal recent favourite is SE7EN, and I Must heartily endorse

seeing Visions of Light-Great.

I am not a leather technologist, but was told once by one that to

protect and rejunvenate leather, take a reasonable quality skin cream-

ordinary name- brand and apply it. What else is human skin but pre-

processed leather. It contains moisturisers and conditioners and anti-

oxidants and is usually cheaper than specialized leather treatments.

It works for boots and jackets as well.

<p>

(BTW I know what Bovines are but what are Ovines?)

<p>

Over and out

For All;

<p>

If you can not fit Berlin into a busy schedule before Dec. 11th,

there is a great coffeetable book with first class reproductions of

the photos in the show. It costs nearly $US 100, but for any Leica

nut, or photographer of any kind with a heart, it is worth it.

<p>

Three simple lenses, Tri X & T Max 3200 and probably among the best

printers in the world make it all seem so easy. Note particularly the

shot in the train station in India.

<p>

Cheers

Hi there:

<p>

Konica Impressa 50 is the finest grain sharpest colour neg film

available with very good saturation. Great stuff, as Konica films

are, in my not so humble opinion, vastly underrated.

<p>

Thats all folks

Nicholas:

<p>

I have used XTOL several times and it has kept very well. Use a dark

bottle in a cool or cold place, or keep it in a flexible plastic

bottle and freeze it and it will keep for months or years.

<p>

XTOL was developed partly to satisfy the demand for an

environmentally friendly developer, as it uses essentially vitamin C

as a devloping agent and other rather benign stuff. I once made a

developer out of a Vit C tablet and a spoon of baking soda. it worked

but not well.

<p>

The alkalai agent in XTOL is a bit iritating but otherwise it is non

toxic.

<p>

Cheers

Slides onto 8 x 10 Ilford HP5 in D 76 for 8 min worked for me too.

Try a few dev times to get the right contrast and density for Pd/Pt

prints.

Cheers

There excellent plans in the brochure availble from Palladio in Boston

(sura @ www.napc.com) (Sura Steinberg at New American Platinotype

Corp).

<p>

I built one for les than $100 Canadian in 2 evenings and it works

very well.

All my attempts to circumvent this with UV bulbs, flash etc were

futile.

<p>

Dan Burkholder's book and website are very helpful. Photoshop negs on

litho film are almost 100% transparent to UV unlike ordinary photo

film. I can get good Pd/PT exposures in 40 seconds with a litho film

neg from a service bureau vs 4-5 minutes under the UV source with HP5

8 x 10 film.

<p>

Clear film coloured deep orange in Photoshop, after converting to RGB

gives very good results, as the Pd/Pt paper sees orange as total

black.

<p>

Cheers

I have a Nikon Coolscan LS3 and can confirm scanning silver B&W negs

is difficult.

<p>

The instruction manuals that come with the unit are egregiously bad,

in that they give no explanation of the functions or meaning of such

terms as colour space, RGB vs CMYK etc.. :Nothing! Zip! Nada! Bupkis!

etc.

They also do not tell the user that to scan B&W negs, one must turn

off the color manager in a complex sequence of moves, then make sure

the Digital ICE is off. It took me 2 hours with a Nikon distributor's

technician to find this out. Even he did not know how to do it nor

what the various terms meant. Nikon deserves to be thrashed

MERCILESSLY for the lack of data with these expensive machines.

<p>

Once the right buttons are clicked, there is a usable B&W scan, in

which the grain of Tri X or HP5 becomes evident before the digital

artifacts, which means at least an 11 x 14 print, IF your printer is

good enough to do something with it and not degrade the image.

<p>

Scanning of C-41 chromogenic negs is a snap, and further impetus for

me to switch over completely to these films for 35mm work. In these

scans, the pixelation comes in before the grain does.

With the advent of FUJI Provia 100 slide film, I shoot a lot more of

that and convert a colour scan into greyscale, then incer to a

negative for beautifull "toned" B&W prints from my otherwise mediocre

Cannon BJC 6000. On watercolour or parchment paper, these look

beautiful!(I will get an Epson 2000 soon.)

<p>

These machines were not designed to do serious B&W scans, or at least

this is not explained by the manufacturer.

<p>

Low D Max can be compensated for in software, with only a minor

degradation in overall quality.

<p>

Cheers

H&W control film was made in Germany by ADOX and imported into N.

America under the H&W name.

Kodak Tech Pan can indeed equalor surpass these old Orthochromatic

and VERY slow films. AGFA APX 25 and ILFORD Pan F are just about as

good with better tonality AND a speed of 400-800!!

<p>

Ilford XP2 super is just as good as I remember H&W to be, but has the

great convenience of being processed in C-41 chemistry.

<p>

Good Luck

<p>

OH! Fuji has a B&W fine equivalent-Fuji F at 50 but is only available

in Japan, I think. That is where I get it.