tom_halfhill

The recently released movie "Civil War" imagines a near-future armed conflict when a U.S. president refuses to leave office after his constitutionally limited second term. It's a violent and controversial film on which I won't comment here. However, I did chuckle at a photography-related goof in one scene. Two of the main characters are female photojournalists. One is a middle-aged veteran of many foreign conflicts, and the other is an ambitious young newcomer. The experienced photographer uses a modern digital camera. The young one shoots black-and-white film in a Nikon SLR (FA or FM2 I think) handed down from her father. In one scene, the young photographer develops her film while sitting outside in a sports stadium converted into a refugee camp. She says to her older colleague, "You want to know the secret to developing film?" She pulls a small plastic bottle out of her waistband. "Body temperature!" Then she pours the developer into a plastic daylight tank, agitates it by inversion a few times, puts it down, and says the film will be developed in ten minutes. I've developed hundreds of rolls of b&w film, but never have I used a developer whose optimum temperature was 98.6F (37C). That's 30F too hot! The characters are sitting outside in shirt-sleeves, so presumably the air temperature is much cooler than 98.6F if she needs to warm the developer. Indeed, the air temperature is probably near the developer's optimum temperature. Ten minutes of stand development at 98.6F would seriously overcook any film I've used. But maybe she's using a temperature-tolerant monodeveloper, because she doesn't seem to have any stop bath or fixer, either. Nor any water to wash the film. And though I've never used a plastic daylight tank -- I prefer stainless steel -- all the ones I've seen agitate by twiddling a center shaft, not by inversion. Anyhow, it's only Hollywood...

I noticed three changes in Paris since my 1991 visit: it's much more crowded with tourists, advance tickets for the most popular sights are virtually mandatory, and English is spoken more widely. In 1991, I walked into most places without waiting in line. Now, even in February, the lines were enormous. People trying to buy tickets on the spot waited for hours. Buying advance tickets online is the only sane option. We had to reserve our Louvre tickets two days in advance. Considering the crowds I encountered during my recent off-season trip, I'd never visit Paris in high season. Another change was the former language barrier. In 1991, my sketchy high-school French was very useful. This time, almost everyone seemed to speak some English, even when I tried to speak French. (Some people may not consider this change an improvement.) Although French people and especially Parisians have a reputation for rudeness, I've never encountered a rude person in France, neither on this trip nor in 1991. Maybe I'm just lucky. In some situations, local folks even offered me unsolicited help. I did have one argument with a station agent in Versailles using my broken French and her broken English, but she was being inflexible, not exactly rude. On arrival by train in Versailles, I discovered too late that my Zone-3 Metro pass was inadequate for Zone-5 Versailles. But the station's service window was closed, so I couldn't buy a new ticket. Everyone on my train had the same problem. The agents wouldn't let us leave the station, reboard the train, or tell us when the ticket window would open. Our mood was desperate because everyone had reserved-time tickets for the palace, but we were trapped on the platform. Finally we ignored the agents and forced our way through the turnstiles. So I guess we were the rude ones.

Last month I visited Paris for the first time since 1991 and photographed the Notre-Dame cathedral from nearly the same spot. (I didn't have the 1991 photo with me for reference.) I used different cameras in 1991 and 2024 but the same lens. 1991: Leica M4-2 with my 1979-vintage 35mm f/2 Summicron and Ilford HP5+ film. 2024: Leica M10, same lens. However, this time I couldn't enter the cathedral because workers are still repairing the extensive 2019 fire damage. In 1991, I went inside and climbed one of the towers for a close view of the gargoyles. (I love gargoyles.)

Thanks. As I said, I haven't yet dissected an LED bulb to see how practical they are to repair. The internal design probably varies from one brand to another. None of my LEDs have failed yet. In fact, I'm still using some CFLs and incandescent bulbs. But it's interesting that LEDs might be repairable, because CFLs and incandescents certainly are not.

A friend loaned me a Voigtlander Vitessa for a few days in the 1970s. I shot one roll of b&w film and was impressed with the folding camera's compactness and the 50mm f/2 lens. His camera didn't have the built-in lightmeter.

Good tip! But I've heard that some of these LED bulbs are repairable. If they have an internal ring of small LED emitters, the emitters are probably wired in series, so it's possible to find the defective one and bypass it by soldering a new connection or even by bridging it with a tiny piece of aluminum foil. I haven't yet dissected an LED bulb to verify this hack.

Most subjects have a tonal range wider than film can capture, and most negatives have a tonal range wider than prints can reproduce. Therefore, printing for maximum black (and minimum white) preserves the widest tonal range possible on paper, sacrificing the least amount of tonal range in the negative. It's the way to make a full-toned print. Of course, there are exceptions. A picture on foggy day or a snowy day might range from dark gray to light gray, possibly within the range of the film and the paper. But usually there's something totally black or totally white in the picture. Because photography is an art, it's of course acceptable to make subjective departures from the objectively best rendering of a scene. Because photography is also a science, it's of course desirable to make the objectively best rendering of a scene. In my opinion, full-toned prints just look better than midtoned prints that appear as if they were yanked from the Dektol too soon. An analogy is music reproduction. I like to hear the thump of a bass guitar and the sizzle of the cymbals. Turning down the bass knob and the treble knob will reduce both, leaving only the midrange tones. Some listeners may prefer "gray music," but I want to hear a recording that's closer to the original performance. Why buy good speakers if you sacrifice their tonal range? And why buy good photographic equipment and materials if you want to sacrifice their tonal range?

Thieves everywhere have learned that if they're very fast, they can rob a store before the police can respond. Often they're in and out in less than 60 seconds. These types of robberies target stores selling high-value merchandise because even a small amount of quickly snatched loot is valuable. Jewelry stores are the main targets. Apple stores and some camera shops are secondary targets, as are professional photographers and TV news crews who carry lots of expensive equipment. I keep hearing that smartphones are making cameras obsolete, but apparently the thieves haven't received the message.

Expose a print for the minimum time to reach the paper's maximum black through the clear film edge. If the print is too dark, the film was underexposed or underdeveloped. If the print is too light, the film was overexposed or overdeveloped. Adjust your future exposures or development time accordingly. If the print was too dark and you shorten the exposure, no part of the print will be maximum black. The best you can get is dark gray. You can recover the blacks by increasing the contrast (e.g., by using a harder paper grade or a higher-contrast filter), but it will compress other tones as well, such as the midtones, so you will sacrifice some quality. If the print was too light and you lengthen the exposure, you can come closer to a full-scale print, but it won't be quite as good as a print made from a properly exposed and developed negative. Overexposing or overdeveloping the film compresses the contrast. You can determine the minimum time to reach the paper's maximum black by making a test strip with the clear edge of the negative showing. Or you can use a piece of clear film from the beginning or end of the same roll.

Update: I am currently setting up a brand-new Windows 11 computer. To my surprise, the setup procedure automatically configured the machine to a Local Account (not a Microsoft Account) by default, even though it was connected to a Wi-Fi network! The initial setup did offer a Microsoft Account as an option (describing it simply as an "online account"), but the Local Account was the default. It wasn't described as a "Local Account," but that's clearly what it is. The computer is currently downloading updates even though I haven't yet logged into my pre-existing Microsoft Account to install Microsoft Office. This default behavior of the setup procedure is exactly the opposite of what everyone else is saying about Windows 11 -- that it defaults to an online Microsoft Account and either forbids a Local Account during initial setup or makes it very difficult. Is it possible that Microsoft is reacting to complaints about the account-setup options? This computer is an HP laptop. Could HP have forced Microsoft to make Local Account the default? Another possibility is that Microsoft is bending to local privacy laws. I live in California, which has adopted the strongest computer-privacy laws in the USA. In fact, the privacy law proposed in Congress would weaken California's protections, because the federal law would supersede state law.

Lots of misinformation in this thread: 1. It's untrue that Windows 11 always requires a Microsoft Account for log-in. Although Microsoft doesn't make it easy, it's still possible to install or configure Windows 11 with a Local Account. If you search the Internet for "windows 11 local account setup" you'll find at least three different methods. 2. It's untrue that a Local Account won't receive Microsoft updates, including security updates. If the computer with a Local Account has an Internet connection, it can receive the same updates as everyone else. 3. It's untrue that a Local Account won't require a password to log in. By default, a Local Account still requires a password. Although there are ways to bypass it, I don't recommend it, even for a single-user home computer. You never know who might try to access the computer when you're not looking.

Rubbing the print to darken selective areas during development does indeed work, but I found the effect to be slight. Another method is to float a sponge in a beaker of hot undiluted developer and swab it on areas of the print to be darkened. But generally I prefer to manipulate the tones in the enlarger (burning, dodging, flashing, etc). I have always handled wet prints with rubber-tipped print tongs, without damage. Some people are allergic to photochemicals and can't use their fingers.

In the olden days there were lots of ways to "speed up" film, including push developing, water development (stand development), pre-exposure, latensification (exposure to weak light after exposure but before development), and fuming the film with mercury vapors. The last two methods work but the results are difficult to predict and repeat.

More interesting! I knew that public libraries sponsored Kanopy but didn't know they pay a fee for everything we watch. As for "non-Hollywood films," that's what I like best about Kanopy. I've been watching many silent films, foreign films, and documentaries that I've heard about for years but are rarely broadcast on TV or cable. The cameras W. Eugene Smith uses in "Minamata" are indeed Minolta SLRs. I don't know if that's authentic. Smith used many different cameras during his long career. In the 1950s, Smith carried nine cameras comprising three "sets," as he called them. Each set of three cameras had one with a wide-angle lens, one with a normal lens, and one with a short telephoto lens (probably 35/50/90mm or 35/50/85mm). He loaded one set with fine-grain slow b&w film, one set with medium-speed b&w film, and one set with fast b&w film. Thus he could shoot under any lighting conditions without changing lenses or film. At that time he favored Canon rangefinder cameras or Leica RFs with Canon lenses. Note that his nine cameras could be replaced today with one digital camera mounting a midrange zoom lens -- and it would shoot color as well as b&w.

Interesting. I didn't know that Kanopy has different limits in different places. My ration is still 10 views per month, although I rarely watch that many.

After two years of waiting, last night I finally saw "Minamata," the postponed movie about W. Eugene Smith's famous Life magazine photo essay exposing the mercury pollution at a Japanese fishing village. The Covid-19 pandemic delayed this film's theatrical release until 2021, then near-empty theaters cut it short. Last night, to my surprise, I discovered it has landed on a free Internet-streaming service (Kanopy). In my opinion, it features one of Johnny Depp's best performances. Depp plays Smith, the famous photojournalist and master of photo essays during the peak popularity of weekly picture magazines such as Life and Look. Depp virtually vanishes into his lead character. He's a dead ringer for Smith in the photographer's later years as an uncompromising man suffering from health problems, chronic pain, and alcoholism. Reluctant at first, he's recruited in 1971 by desperate Japanese villagers poisoned by pollution from a chemical plant. Smith convinces Life to assign him the story, which is emotionally draining and physically dangerous. His pictures still stand as monumental photojournalism. This excellent drama shows how he made them, and Depp's largely unseen performance was Oscar-worthy. I haven't read the book on which the screenplay is based, so I can't comment on the realism. The photography and darkroom scenes are relatively accurate, by Hollywood standards. One possible invention is a scene in which a drunken Smith gives his camera to a crippled boy. To keep Smith working after he sobers, the villagers donate their cameras to replace his. I doubt that a professional photojournalist of Smith's stature would embark on a Life magazine assignment with only one camera. In the 1950s he carried nine cameras. Anyway, I recommend this movie. I found it on Kanopy, a U.S. streaming service that's free in some cities if you have a library card from a participating public library. After registering your card number, you can watch up to ten films per month. The selection is huge. Most offerings are documentaries and educational films, but there are also many recent dramas, old classics, silent films, and foreign-language films.

Your camera looks much like two Kodak box cameras I inherited from my grandmother and her sister. Their cameras bear a strong resemblance to yours but place the horizontal- and vertical-format viewfinder portholes next to each other instead of spaced apart. Both of those ancestors are long departed, but family lore says they received these cameras as Christmas gifts in 1914 or thereabouts. One of my cameras is embossed "Kodak No. 2 Brownie" and "116". The other camera lacks this label. When my grandmother died, we found a shoebox full of negatives in her attic. Apparently she kept every negative she ever made, because the earliest ones show her as a teenager, around the time she received the camera. I scanned all the negatives that weren't spoiled -- about 1,200. They date from the 1910s to the 1960s.

Has anyone installed the Leica M10 firmware update yet? (Released in May 2022.) It makes the M10 compatible with the new Visoflex electronic viewfinder recently introduced with the Leica M11. Has anyone had trouble with the update? Although I have no plans to buy the Visoflex at this time, I wonder if Leica quietly fixed any firmware bugs, too -- or accidentally created new ones.

If pixel binning doesn't improve dynamic range, perhaps the firmware isn't processing the raw images optimally. I would shoot at 18MP anyway unless I plan to make a super huge print or drastically crop the image. The biggest print I've ever made came from a 6MP Nikon D70 and it's gorgeous.

Lately I've read about people using CineStill Pf96 b&w film developer, which is a developer + fixer monobath. Works in about three minutes. Then wash, PhotoFlo, hang to dry. Not much easier than that.

Distilled water may not be necessary but is a precaution. Tap water can vary widely, even by season. When I lived in the southern USA, the tap water at certain times of year contained small amounts of algae that altered the taste. Now I live in California, where the tap water is virgin melted snow from the Sierras. Because distilled water is a constant, it eliminates a variable that may or may not matter. I also use distilled water to mix film developers and Photo-Flo. Glassine sleeves are considered nonarchival, but a few of my early negatives stored in glassines show no harm after many years. Even so, I switched to plastic (not vinyl) sleeves in the 1980s. Mine hold six strips of five frames, so I bulk-loaded my b&w film with 30 frames per roll. My description of Ilford's fast-wash method for prints forgot to mention it requires nonhardening rapid fixer (ammonium thiosulphate, not sodium thiosulphate), and it must be mixed at film strength, not paper strength. In other words, a stronger dilution than normally used for paper. Ilford's method is based on research which found that the relatively large fixer molecules become entangled in the paper's microscopic fibers and are very difficult to wash out. Minimizing the fixing time will minimize the entanglements. Using a rapid fixer mixed at film strength fixes the paper in less time (30-60 seconds), so the fixer molecules have less time to embed in the fibers. The first water rinse (60 seconds after fixing, with agitation) removes the gross amount of fixer clinging to the paper surface. Then the hypo clear goes to work on the embedded fixer. Finally, the 10-minute wash removes the rest. My practice of soaking the prints in standing water between the hypo clear and the final wash is beneficial, too. It gradually leaches some fixer out of the paper. During a long printing session (6-8 hours), I change the water occasionally, even though the weak fixer solution in the standing water shouldn't migrate back into the paper unless the paper contains less fixer than the water (osmosis). The only problem with soaking in a tub is that the prints tend to float and stick together. I solved that problem by soaking the prints in my archival washer, which separates the prints between plastic dividers. However, we have digressed from a thread about film processing into a discussion about print washing. Returning to the original topic, my college photography instructor said film can be safely washed for only five minutes, even without hypo clear. He said film is like resin-coated paper -- it absorbs almost no fixer. Even so, I used hypo clear, just in case. I never bothered to test my film for residual hypo, as I did with my prints. No matter what washing methods we use, a residual-hypo test is a good verification.

The Ilford method for fast washing fiber-based paper works by using a nonhardening fixer for the minimum time required to fix the paper. Ilford originally recommended 30 seconds, but further research found that 60 seconds works as well and ensures complete fixing even when the fixer is gradually exhausted during a printing session. After the fix, the paper is immediately rinsed in water, then hypo clear, then a final wash for 10 minutes. My version of this technique is to transfer the print from the hypo clear to a large tub of standing water. I let them soak until I'm finished printing for the day. Then I wash them all together in an archival washer while I clean up the darkroom. Usually they get at least 20 minutes. My residual-silver tests confirm they are fully fixed, and my residual-hypo tests confirm they are fully washed. Prints processed in this manner show no fading after 20+ years.

A five-minute wash isn't a brief rinse. I don't run the water full speed, but it's fast enough to wash the film thoroughly. Also, after this tap-water wash, I fill the tank with distilled water and agitate vigorously for one minute before dumping it and pouring in the Photo-Flo for 30 seconds. (I dilute the Photo-Flo with distilled water, too.) This technique prevents virtually all suspended particles left by the processing chemicals and wash water from embedding in the soft emulsion. And I hang the film to dry without wiping. The distilled water is important because I found that some city water is "sticky." I don't know how else to describe it ... it just doesn't rinse completely clean. Of course, water varies from place to place, but distilled water is a constant. Recently I digitized almost 500 b&w negatives from the 1970s and 1980s that I donated to my university. They were stored in archival plastic sleeves and looked as if they were processed yesterday. They required very little spotting.

The point of hypo-clear is to reduce the wash time. If you're washing film for 30 minutes, then you're right, no hypo-clear is needed for archival processing. But I've always used hypo-clear followed by a 5-minute wash. My earliest films from the 1970s are still pristine. In addition to reducing wash time, hypo-clear saves water and reduces the chance that suspended particles will embed in the soft emulsion. These are real concerns for some people. My first darkroom used well water, which contains more minerals than city water. It was so gritty that I installed a filter on the faucet to remove most of it. Even city water may be gritty if the pipes are old. My shorter wash time also saved wear and tear on the well pump.

I can sympathize. Before I was a "Leica snob," I was a Ricoh 500G snob, a Konica Auto-S2 snob, a Canon G-III snob, and an Olympus XA snob. Two of those other rangefinder cameras were used when I bought them. I have always liked rangefinders, but I didn't buy a Leica until I could afford an old used one. And I've never bought a new Leica lens. My Leica M10 is second-hand, too. I already owned the Leica lenses I bought many years ago when prices were lower. Although I'm richer now, I still keep my priorities straight. I have a Leica M10, a Leica M6, several Leica lenses -- and my car is 23 years old. Priorities!