tom_halfhill

That's a gross oversimplification. If you chart the growth of U.S. money supply in recent decades and compare it with the inflation rates for that period, you won't see the strong correlation that you assert. I already cited a few contrary examples, which you haven't addressed. Here's another: new money doesn't spread evenly throughout the economy. It tends to accumulate among the wealthy, who in aggregate spend less money than lower-income people do. Velocity of spending is a vital factor in the inflation equation. The less velocity, the less inflation. In 2017, U.S. corporations received a huge tax cut funded by higher government borrowing. As many economists predicted, public companies spent much of this windfall on stock buybacks. In fact, they set a new record for that (unfortunately legal) form of stock-market manipulation. The buybacks inflated the company's share prices and executive bonuses without a corresponding increase in the company's productivity. But consumer prices didn't inflate nearly as much as stock prices did. Indeed, the Federal Reserve usually failed to reach its 2% inflation target in subsequent years. The reason is that very little of that corporate tax windfall trickled down to workers as pay raises. If money supply is the primary driver of price inflation, it should be easy to reverse. The Federal Reserve can do it by shrinking the money supply, probably by reducing or ending its monthly purchases of Treasury bonds, mortgage-backed bonds, and corporate bonds. The federal government can do it by raising taxes and burning the revenue. In reality, however, it's not so easy, because many other factors besides money supply contribute to inflation (and deflation). For instance, in our global economy, we can't control what other nations do.

So-called Austrian-school economists argue that "inflation" means a growing money supply and that price inflation is merely the inevitable consequence. But "inflation" meaning price inflation is the historical norm and remains the most popular usage. The problem with the Austrian-school definition is that money supply isn't the sole inflationary factor, as my previous post explained. Indeed, prices (and wages) can deflate even while the money supply increases. For example, after the Crash of 2008, housing prices in most places deflated for years despite a sudden and massive increase in the money supply to avert another Great Depression. And many workers suffered pay cuts during that period. Even when price inflation returned, it ran below the historical average and wasn't proportional to the growth in money supply. The U.S. government's new infrastructure spending will be spread over several future years, not splurged all at once. Also, it's money we should have been spending over the past decade or more. Now we're trying to catch up. The longer we postpone it, the more expensive it gets, because construction costs rise and borrowing costs are already at historic lows. As I noted previously, other factors besides monetary policy affect the prices of cameras, lenses, and consumables (ink and paper). People aren't buying smartphones instead of digicams because of money supply or interest rates. Camera manufacturers are refocusing on enthusiasts like us who are willing to buy more-expensive equipment. Ink and paper have such large profit margins (especially ink) that they are priced at whatever the market will bear. Brand pricing is yet another inflationary factor unrelated to money supply or government spending. Leica sells its M-mount 75mm f/1.25 lens for $14,295 whereas 7Artisans sells its M-mount 75mm f/1.25 lens for $449. China's production costs are lower than Germany's, but not that much lower. (And according to reviews, the quality difference isn't nearly as great as the price difference.) I don't expect those prices to change much, no matter how many potholes the government fills with new money. P.S. Maybe the "fixed-income retirement" cliche itself needs retiring. Nowadays, workers (especially in service jobs) are more likely than retirees to be living on fixed incomes. Federal minimum wage hasn't risen for 13 years. Social Security recipients get automatic cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs); few workers do. If your retirement income is truly fixed, maybe you're not taking advantage of the only inflation everyone seems to like: stock-price inflation. (Dare we say hyperinflation?)

Not always. I already cited examples of inflation having nothing to do with money supply. Printing money is inflationary but doesn't always cause inflation. It sounds paradoxical, but you cited one example (higher production). Here are others: 1. If deflationary forces in the economy offset the inflationary effects of increasing the money supply, there's no net inflation. 2. If the economy destroys money as fast as it's created, there's no net inflation. 3. If the new money doesn't reach general circulation, it can't cause inflation. After the Crash of 2008, all three of those cases were true. That's why I was confident in 2009 that the dire warnings of inflation or hyperinflation were dead wrong. It didn't take a genius to be right. It's just basic macroeconomics. Although economic conditions are different now, other factors weigh against sustained high inflation. The pandemic moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures are expiring, which is potentially very disruptive. The supplemental unemployment benefits expire in early September, which some people predict will drain the economy of surplus spending money and abruptly end the low-wage labor shortage. (I doubt the latter.) Gasoline prices tend to decline in the fall. Some supply shortages will ease. And the surging pandemic among the unvaccinated will impede both the national and global recoveries. TV commentators often fly into hysterics over short-term blips in employment statistics, inflation rates, interest rates, stock prices, and just about everything else. I think they are emotionally challenged to handle the usual fluctuations of capitalist economies.

As measured by the Consumer Price Index, inflation has been running below average for 30 years. In recent months it's trending closer to average, which now seems "high" in comparison. The average annual inflation rate since 1913 (when the U.S. government first began tracking inflation) is about 3.2%. We heard the same warnings about out-of-control inflation when the Recovery Act passed in 2009 after the Crash of 2008. Mainstream economics predicted otherwise, and indeed the inflation didn't happen. Although conditions are different now, I still expect inflation to stay near the historical average. Of course, there are always exceptions. I agree that low interest rates are inflating real-estate prices -- and stock prices. Bitcoin mining is inflating GPU prices. Chia mining is beginning to inflate the prices of large-capacity disk drives. Chip shortages are inflating automobile prices. Cameras and lenses seem to be getting more expensive as smartphones destroy the snapshooter market, forcing manufacturers to focus on enthusiasts like us. Consumables like printer paper and printer ink are poor markers for inflation because they have never been priced relative to their actual manufacturing cost. When b&w darkroom paper got more expensive, it was blamed on silver prices. Then they removed all the silver to make inkjet paper and it got even more expensive. Several years ago someone calculated that Epson ink costs $15,000 a gallon. Sometimes inflation happens for reasons having nothing to do with macroeconomics.

The only Leica digital camera I've used is the M10. I'm satisfied with its JPEGs, as I am with those from my other cameras. I rarely use my RAW files unless the image needs lots of manipulation, which isn't often. Cameras of all brands have gotten much better at producing JPEGs. I dislike wasting time trying to make a RAW image look better than the JPEG, especially when printed instead of pixel-peeped. I only shoot RAW exclusively when copying old slides and negatives, because they always need extreme corrections.

My father had a Praktica VF for many years until the shutter jammed and he replaced it with a Pentax K1000. After he died, I found the Pentax but not the Praktica -- only the manual, which covers both the VF and VFB (the latter model had a built-in meter). His VF came with a 50mm f/2.8 lens, but I don't remember which type. I have scanned many of his slides and negatives; it was soft at all apertures. Ditto for his 80mm f/2.8 and 35mm f/4.5. In addition, the 80mm had a subtle flarey look that Leica users call "glow." Lots of character. John Seaman's pictures are amazingly sharp and clear, as if made with a modern lens.

Thanks for all the responses! And thanks to Rick van Nooij for identifying the Cletrac M2 tractor. There's always someone in these forums who knows military vehicles. Alas, I can't measure the frames on those films, because the base and emulsion disintegrated moments after I copied the images. In fact, they were disintegrating *as* I copied them. I had to work fast. For those who are interested, I used a Nikon D7200 with a Nikkor 40mm f/2.8 macro lens and a Nikon ES-1 slide holder that I modified to hold bare film. This was before Nikon introduced the ES-2 holder that works with either slides or film. Later I found small original prints made from the same negatives. They were in poor condition, too, but I scanned them anyway. There is an interesting postscript to this story. One image I rescued showed my late father's bunk in the army barracks. Above his bed on a shelf were some framed pictures. One was his mother, and the other I recognized (from other pictures he took) as his high-school girlfriend. I tracked down the girlfriend, who was now living in a faraway nursing home. I introduced myself by email. (She had an iPad.) We never met, but we corresponded for years. Her memory was pretty good. She helped me identify people and places in some of my father's photos from the 1940s and was delighted to see them. Then came a day when my emails went unanswered. A few weeks later I found her obituary on the Internet. She had died one week after her 90th birthday.

After my father died, I found two metal Kodak film cans, each containing a developed but uncut roll of 35mm b&w film. When I started to unroll the tightly wound film, it began disintegrating. But I glimpsed a few images and realized they were pictures he took in 1946-47 while stationed at a U.S. Army Air Force base in occupied Japan. The film had been stored in the cans for about 70 years. I also noticed that the images were made with a half-frame 35mm camera -- a type of camera I had never known him to own. What gives? After unsuccessful attempts to humidify the fragile film, I resorted to a destructive salvage process. I unrolled a few frames at a time, briefly immersed the strip in lukewarm water to relax the curl, quickly inserted it while still wet into a film holder, and copied the images with a DSLR before the base and emulsion disintegrated. I was able to salvage almost every image, albeit with some visible damage. Now to solve the camera mystery. One picture appeared to show a soldier playing guitar in the barracks (first photo below). Closer examination revealed he was holding a Mercury 35mm half-frame camera, recognizable by its distinctive hump on the top plate (second photo). Another picture showed my father next to some kind of military maintenance vehicle (third photo). Enlargement revealed he was holding a Mercury 35mm half-frame camera (fourth photo). My first thought was that he had borrowed the camera from the soldier in the barracks. But other images were taken in the U.S. either before or after his deployment to Japan. So now I think he bought the camera at a PX (Post Exchange, a military store) and used it for only a short time before selling or losing it. His other pictures in Japan were taken with a Brownie box camera he had received as a gift several years before. In any event, the camera was definitely a Mercury, and he didn't have it for long. Photo #1: At first I thought this soldier in the barracks was playing guitar... Photo #2: But no, he's holding a Mercury 35mm half-frame camera. Nothing else looks quite like it. Photo #3: My late father on the airfield, holding a camera. Behind him are several P-51 Mustang fighter planes, but I can't identify the vehicle. Enlargement of photo #3: It's a Mercury!

I didn't know that British civilians were already making war preparations (sandbags, gas masks, etc.) before World War II started on September 1, 1939. But a war was strongly rumored at the time, so I guess it makes sense. However, some of those "Land Girls" are flashing V-for-victory hand signs, which I thought weren't popularized by Winston Churchill until after the war started.

My 135mm f/4 Tele-Elmar focuses correctly on my M6 and M10 -- but yeah, it is touchy. Some people say a more accurate 135mm lens is the old f/2.8 model with goggles that magnify the 90mm frame to show a 135mm field of view. I had one but traded it for the much smaller Tele-Elmar. Note that if you send the lens to Don Goldberg (DAG) for service, he is excellent but is currently backlogged. I've been waiting more than four months for him to recalibrate focus on my 50mm Summicron. The other two renowned Leica repair people declined the job. Sherry Krauter said she's too busy with cameras to bother with lenses, and Youxin Yee doubted if he could recalibrate the focus. But you can check with them anyway to see if their circumstances have changed. I didn't ask Leica USA because I don't think they service very old lenses. (My 50mm was made in 1969.) I've searched in vain for other trusted Leica repair shops in the USA.

DAG is very busy right now. I sent him a 50mm Summicron lens for focus calibration in November (four months ago) and I'm still waiting. I would try Youxin Ye first.

Practiflex I with Xeon 50mm f/2 cost $131.75 in 1940 = $2,462 in 2021

My experience scanning negatives or slides with a flatbed is that prints are sharp up to about 5x magnification but not beyond. So if you want sharp prints, here are the approximate limits: 8x10 format: 40x50-inch prints 4x5 format: 20x25-inch prints 120 format: 11x14-inch prints 35mm format: 5x7-inch prints

I have noticed the same thing when scanning silver-based b&w negatives. My Nikon CoolScan V-ED emphasizes negative defects such as tiny scratches and embedded dust that won't brush or blow off. As Rodeo Joe says, the film scanner probably illuminates the negative using a highly colimated or point-source LED array. Local contrast is also higher. These are the same effects we get with a condenser enlarger. By contrast, my DSLR dupes using a macro lens and Nikon ES-2 film holder minimize the negative defects, and local contrast is slightly lower. These are the hallmarks of a diffusion enlarger -- which makes sense, because the ES-2 works by diffuse backlight (either ambient or flash). If a negative needs more local contrast, I can add it using the Unsharp Mask filter in Photoshop. I use the CoolScan for color negatives and dirty slides, because the infrared dust-removal saves much time in post-processing. Not all film scanners are like the Nikon scanners. Years ago I borrowed a Minolta film scanner for a while. It must have had a diffusion light source, because those scans were cleaner than the Nikon scans and less contrasty. Yet they were plenty sharp (grain sharp).

Really? Look again. The f/5.6 corner shows no film grain at all, because it's out of focus. The grain just becomes visible at f/8 and is apparent at f/11. At f/5.6 center, I think what you perceive as less noise is actually less-distinct film grain. The jacket fabric doesn't look much different to me. I'm judging sharpness by the film grain, because the grains are the "atoms" of the image, so to speak. When the grain is sharp, the picture is sharp. It's exactly like using a grain magnifier to focus an enlarger in a darkroom.

"Will someone, someday find your old snapshots on a thumb drive in an attic?" If they do find an old thumb drive, it will be blank. Thumb drives use flash memory, which loses its electrical charge (and therefore its data) over time. And loses it faster in a hot attic. Maybe 5, 10, 20 years at most.

Maybe it's not the fault of your lens. I've seen the same effects from scanners. They can have dirty lenses, too. Check to see if the "flare" appears on your negatives.

Newindustar: "Well haven’t had a lot if time but although once I saw equivalent sharpness with the micro 55.2.8 on my enlarger rig but after scanning a few rolls on the Coolscan IV it was consistently sharper." I made a similar comparison: CoolScan V-ED versus Nikon D7200 + Nikkor 40mm f/2.8 Macro + Nikon ES-2 film holder. At first glance, the scans looked a little sharper than the DSLR dupes, but a closer look revealed it was deceptive, in my case. The scans looked sharper because local contrast is higher. The CoolScan may have a collimated light source, whereas the ES-2 holder illuminates the negative or slide by diffuse backlight. The difference is like prints made with a condenser enlarger versus a diffusion enlarger. (I have always preferred diffusion enlargers.) I can match the slighter higher "sharpness" and local contrast of the scans simply by using Photoshop's unsharp-mask filter with a wide-area setting (Radius 50, Amount 20%, 0 Threshold) on the DSLR dupes. But this filter may also blow out some highlight detail if the histogram has no headroom. In another similarity with condenser versus diffusion enlargers, the CoolScan emphasizes dust and scratches, whereas the DSLR minimizes them. C_Watson: "Cultists? No, I still use my CS 9000 because I'm scanning my late father's slides and negatives. The IR dust removal saves a lot of spotting time. So snap away with your DSLR if you have spotless film. Life for many other people is a bit more complicated." Yes, I agree. I use the DSLR to copy silver-based b&w negatives, which the infrared dust-removal can't fix. I always use the CoolScan for color negatives because the dust removal works and because it's much better at removing the orange mask and correcting the colors. I use the CoolScan on dirty slides. Clean slides are much faster to copy with the DSLR. Different tools for different jobs.

One drawback to owning old Leica equipment is the shortage of experienced repair shops. My all-time favorite lens -- a 1969-vintage 50mm Summicron -- suffered a minor accident after Halloween and needed a focus adjustment. That was 3.5 months ago and I'm still waiting for it to come back from the shop. Of the top three Leica repair people generally recommended in the U.S. (Goldberg, Krauter, and Youxin), only one was willing to tackle what seems to be a minor repair. We've got 10 million people unemployed in this country and a few million more who dropped out of the labor market since the pandemic started. Given those grim statistics, and the lengthy backlogs at the very few Leica repair shops, you'd think we could train a few more people to work on these things. I guess it's becoming a lost art.

Leica snobs looked down on the Canadian-made M4-2, but the one I bought in the 1980s had the smoothest shutter release and film advance of any Leica I've owned. Later I traded it for an M6 because I wanted a built-in meter, but I still miss the M4-2's smoothness. Maybe mine was an unusually good sample.

Try developing the film for about twice the normal time. That guess worked great for me in 1990, when I developed a roll of film lost since 1955. That film was Ilford HP3 Hypersensitive (ASA 250), an ancestor of today's HP5 Plus. However, the roll I found had been stored under terrible conditions. For many years, it rested in an Ohio barn through scorching summers and freezing winters. I developed the film for 15 minutes at 68F in Kodak T-Max developer. My normal time for HP5 Plus is 7:15 at 68F. I was so happy with the results that I wrote an article for Shutterbug magazine: "Back to the Future"

"2. A top-quality, 6 element enlarging lens - Rodagon, Componon-S, El-Nikkor, Minolta CE, Neonon, etc. - is the most cost-effective way to get a suitably flat-field copying lens." Yes, I have an 80mm Schneider-Companon enlarging lens, as well as a 50mm El-Nikkor, and I have adapters that fit them to a Canon bellows that in turn fits to a Nikon F-mount. They make no difference when copying my negatives, because they make no difference when enlarging the same negatives in a darkroom. The limitation isn't the lens' flat-field rendering; it's the film flatness, as you point out. When enlarging 35mm negatives in a darkroom, achieving equal sharpness across the whole field is equally difficult. Normally I aim my grain focuser about one-third away from center to achieve approximately uniform sharpness across the whole print. And I do get sharp grain in the center and corners unless the negative is badly warped. But I stop down to f/8 or f/11 to ensure it. (And also to give me time to burn and dodge with consistency from print to print; I prefer exposures in the 30-45 second range.) When the subject matter is centered in the frame and I don't care so much about the corners, I'll aim the grain focuser at the center. Basically I do the same when focusing my DSLR on the negative or when focusing my Nikon CoolScan. Could I achieve better film flatness with a better holder? The metal "frying pan" film holder of my Beseler 23C enlarger is already pretty good. The Nikon ES-2 film holder for my DSLR is about the same. I don't have room for the elaborate copying rigs I see here, and I have little to gain by using them. My inkjet prints are as sharp as my darkroom prints from the same negatives. The film grain is sharp, and the grain is the picture. I'm not making poster-size prints from pristine film. Mainly I'm rescuing old negatives (and slides). My greater problems are badly faded colors, scratches, embedded dust, torn film, discoloration on b&w film, vinegar syndrome, fungus rot, and even film emulsion that's separating from the base. The tiny tiny difference of diffraction sharpness between f/5.6 and f/11 is the least of my worries. My guess is that most people who are using a DSLR to "scan" film don't have the room, skills, or inclination to build elaborate copy stands using the best possible equipment. They want a simpler solution that's 99% as good. It doesn't get much simpler than a DSLR, macro lens, and Nikon ES-2 film holder (that isn't limited to Nikon cameras and lenses). It's fast, it's easy, and it solves the problem of aligning the lens to the film (because it's all one unit). And it's a viable alternative to a dedicated 35mm film scanner.

To prove that my digital copies of b&w negatives are sharper at f/11 than at the lens' nominal optimum aperture of f/5.6, I made the following photos. My purpose is to encourage people to test their own equipment and working methods to find their best solution instead of blindly following advice that copies are always sharper at f/5.6 or thereabouts. My first image shows the full frame. I took this picture in 1977 using a Canon TLb 35mm SLR, Canon FD 135mm f/2.5 lens, and Kodak Tri-X film. My standard developer at that time was Kodak HC-110 Dilution B, although sometimes I used Edwal FG-7 to push the film one or two stops. I can't remember if I pushed this roll. I made the digital copy using a Nikon D7200 DSLR (24 megapixels), a Nikkor 40mm f/2.8 macro lens, and Nikon ES-2 copy attachment, which screws into the 52mm filter thread of the macro lens. I bracketed the copies at f/5.6, f/8, and f/11. No digital sharpening applied. Next come three 100% crops comparing center sharpness. The vintage 1970s Tri-X grain is distinct. Notice that the f/11 image suffers no loss of sharpness to diffraction effects. Indeed, I believe it's sharper than the f/5.6 and f/8 images. I think it's sharper because the additional depth of field at f/11 hides small focusing errors. DOF is extremely shallow at this magnification. As I said in a previous post, it's difficult to get sharp focus at every point on a negative. And this negative was flatter than many of the old ones I copy. Finally come three more 100% crops, this time comparing corner sharpness. This time the difference is stark: the f/11 image is far sharper than the others. Here again, DOF is the reason. Aiming the DSLR focus point at a different spot on the negative would show slightly different results, but some spots would always be much less sharp than others when shooting at f/5.6 or even f/8. I conducted many experiments to verify that f/11 is the optimum aperture for my equipment. At f/16 (not shown here), the corners sharpen a little more, but the center crop definitely looks softer. The diffraction falloff from f/11 to f/16 is significant with this lens. Let me add that I've never seen a sharper result at f/5.6 or f/8 than at f/11, no matter where I aim the focus point. The diffraction falloff from f/5.6 to f/11 with this lens is invisible at 24 megapixels, and the film grain is as sharp as I need it to be. Maybe the difference would be visible at a higher digital resolution (e.g., 48 megapixels). But I think it would be overkill, especially for Tri-X and other old films. I get similar results when digitizing negatives with a Nikon CoolScan V-ED dedicated 35mm film scanner. Sometimes it can't achieve equally sharp focus across the whole negative. In those cases I aim the focus point at the most important part of the picture. I can do the same when copying negatives (or slides) with my DSLR. Conclusion: test your own equipment before gluing your aperture ring at f/5.6! Lenses allow smaller apertures for good reasons.

I use my Nikon CoolScan V-ED for color slides and color negatives because Digital ICE saves me hours of fixing dust spots and scratches. (Most of the film I'm scanning is very old and wasn't always stored properly.) Digital ICE doesn't work on silver-based b&w negatives, so for those I use a Nikon D7200 DSLR, Nikkor 40mm f/2.8 macro lens, and Nikon ES-2 film holder. The 24MP D7200 makes copies at 4,000 dpi, same as the Nikon scanner. Because the ES-2 film holder works by diffused light (either flash or ambient), it minimizes dust and scratches, though it doesn't eliminate them altogether. Careful cleaning before scanning removes most dust unless it's embedded. Because the ES-2 screws directly into the macro lens filter ring, alignment isn't a problem, and no tripod is necessary. In fact, you can make sharp copies in ambient light, handheld at slow shutter speeds, such as 1/10 second if necessary. I stop down my 40mm lens to f/11 despite advice that the optimum aperture is around f/5.6. By *actual test*, I get better results at f/11. The difference in center sharpness between f/5.6 and f/11 with my lens is invisible at 24MP, but the corners are much sharper at f/11. (The film grain is the giveaway.) The reason is that the film rarely lies absolutely flat, even when clamped in the ES-2 film holder. Film curvature is particularly a problem with the negatives I'm copying, which are usually 30 to 75 years old. Predictably, someone will insist that I'll get better results at f/5.6, but they haven't used my rig, and I have. Probably they get better results at around f/5.6 with their setup. In any case, I recommend making your own tests at various apertures to see which one works best for you.

I think it's a wonderful photograph! Sharpness is desirable but overrated. Grab shots rarely are critically sharp. The spirit of the composition is more important, and this photo has spirit. Imagine if your father had been obsessed with sharpness. He would have mounted his Voigtlander camera on a tripod, attached a cable release, stopped down the lens to f/5.6 or f/8 -- and missed the moment with the laughing policeman. Or the policeman would be even less sharp because of the slower shutter speed required to stop down the lens. Many years ago I took a picture of this same scene (the Arc de Triomphe in Paris) with a Leica. It's sharper than your father's picture but not as good, because it doesn't include a laughing policeman. That said, your photo can be improved. Your digital copy is filthy. Unless the dust is embedded, you can remove it before making another copy. Before I copy a slide or negative, I shoot both sides with an anti-static gun, brush both sides with an anti-static brush, and finally blast both sides with a rubber squeeze blower. Also, the picture still looks too blue to me, despite your color correction. A quick way to correct old slides is to find a middle-gray part of the picture and click it with the mid-tone eyedropper in the histogram tool. Adobe Photoshop and most other image editors have these eyedroppers. The leftmost eyedropper sets the black point, the rightmost one sets the white point, and the middle one sets the midpoint. In a color image, it also adjusts all the colors to align with the middle-gray area you have clicked on. There's lots of concrete in your picture, so you can easily find something that should be middle gray. You may need a few tries to find the best one. Below is my quick adjustment using the mid-tone eyedropper. I also reduced the yellow saturation slightly and applied some sharpening. (Unrelated, I downsized the resolution for faster uploading.) My version can be further improved by someone with better color perception than mine, but the main point is that my corrections took only a few seconds.