don__

Mike,

I've had the pleasure of looking at dozens, perhaps even hundreds of Michael's prints (and Paula Chamlee's) and the reproductions in that book don't come close to the quality of the real print. I know Michael has one book "The Students of Deep Springs College" that is printed in 600 lpi that does reproduce the print quality quite faithfully.

If you haven't tried printing with AZO I reccomend giving it a go. It is capable of making very beautiful prints when processed in Amidol. But I'm sure you know this.

And yes you will need to dodge and or burn with AZO. The nice thing about contact printing versus projection enlargement is that it is much easier to dodge and burn without leaving tell tale halos or burn marks.

Din Bryant

My question is, why would you need a 4.0 density step tablet?

Don Bryant

This is very sad news for me. I just received a modified lensboard from Steve a few days ago. As I'm sure everyone here knows, he was a man of true integrity, sincerity in his work and treated everyone with respect. He helped me many times with questions and problems and showed great patience with my questions and requests. Without sounding overly dramatic, may Steve be remembered for the legend he really was. We will all miss him.

Don Bryant

The densitometer display is illuminated but never changes, all '999's, when a sample is measured, reflective or transmissive. I called Esseco and spoke to the lead technician and he responded by saying that most likely that a resistor on a power supply may have failed and he has made this repair on this model many times. However, there is a flat fee for repair on this unit which is about $395 plus shipping. I'm not electronic literate so the repair is beyond my knowledge and skill.

Don

Does anyone know of a densitometer repair service that can repair an

Esseco Speedmaster reflection/transmission densitometer? Speedmaster

wants $500 to repair mine which is more than I want to spend on an 70-

80s vintage device.

Thanks,

Don Bryant

20 minutes isn't necessarily too long.

Bob Lane

In a word, NO!

Bob Lane

I use plastic clothes pins that always leave a small rippled impression on the corner. If the negative is contact printed it is very easy to spot. I don't sweat it.

Don Bryant

My 2 cents worth - Vuescan does a great job with both of my scanners, an Acer 2740 and an Epson 2450. It is my understanding that Silver Fast requires a seperate license purchase for each scanner.

I do beleive you can download a trial copy of Silver Fast and of course you can do the same with Vuescan.

Ed is always improving Vuescan and provides some very nice features IMO for very reasonable price.

I beleive he is planning to add scanner ICC profile creation in a future release which will make the product even better for $40.

Don Bryant

Eric,

The range of wave lengths that you specify are not the optimum part of the UV spectrum desired for alternative process printing. You may wish to refer to these two web articles for more information:

http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Light/light.html. This link has an excellent article by Sandy King which discusses differnt types of UV lighting and their applicability and efficiency with different alt. processes.

http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/UVBox/uvbox.html

The second link shows a homemade unit similar to one I made several years ago. If you choose to DIY and build your own I would recommend fabrication out of sheet metal to reduce weight dramatically.

Whatever you do I would recommend spending the time getting a capable light source. It will save you time and frustration while learning alterantive photography processes.

Good luck,

Don Bryant

I've recently purchased a 16.5 inch Red Dot Artar mounted in an Ilex

shutter. I've not used a shutter like this one before as the shutter

speeds do not have detents that lock the setting in place.

Is it possible to set the shutter to operate at positions between

marked speeds like f stops?

Thanks,

Don Bryant