tom_halfhill

I never get 10 stops range in darkroom prints. Zone 0 is maximum black (d-max), Zone I is very dark gray. Zone VIII is near white, Zone IX is paper white (d-min).

Recently there was some controversy about Samsung TVs with voice control allegedly spying on users. The TV is always listening for commands, so it hears everything else, too. Some people claimed that advertisements were eerily related to their recent conversations near the TV. These ads supposedly appeared when the TV was booting up. For instance, if the TV heard someone talking about beer, it might display a Budweiser advert the next time it was switched on. If it sounds paranoid, consider Facebook. I always know what my lady friend is shopping for online, because ads for those products start appearing in my FB feed, even though we have different FB accounts on different computers.

Vincent has it right. An incident meter doesn't care about the subject's tonality, so it should always indicate the correct exposure, whether the subject is light, dark, or in between. Of course, this assumes your film speed and development are calibrated to your camera and meter, which is a prerequisite of the Zone System. Years ago, when I was using Kodak Microdol-X fine-grain developer (no longer available), I learned by experimentation that Tri-X should be exposed at ISO 125 or 160 in my camera instead of box-speed ISO 400. Without that calibration, all my photos would have been 1.5 stops underexposed, no matter how I metered. That said, the Zone System does indeed emphasize reflective meter readings of specific subject tones so you can place them on your Zone of choice. For example, when taking a spot reading of sunlit snow, maybe you'll want to place it on Zone VII instead of Zone VIII to record more detail if you care less about losing some detail to underexposure in the lower Zones. A popular misconception of the Zone System is that it's a rigid method of exposure and development. It's actually a flexible method. You can place any subject tone on any Zone for creative reasons.

If you don't develop your own film, you can't fully calibrate the film speed to your camera and meter, unless your lab does custom development. But maybe it doesn't matter if you're not making darkroom prints. My experience is that negatives intended for scanning and computer printing should be a little thinner than negatives intended for darkroom printing. Also, I'd rely more on the incident meter than the reflective meter, assuming it's accurate. A 10-degree spot meter will give very different readings depending on what it's pointed at. Incident meters don't care what the subject looks like because they measure the light falling on the subject, not the light reflected from the subject. If you're shooting 4x5, it's a slow process anyway.

A camera with speech recognition might be useful for some handicapped people or those with arthritis who have trouble manipulating small controls. As someone pointed out, though, a noisy background would make recognition difficult. I think the potential market is too small to justify adding this feature to a dedicated camera. Smartphones already are adding this capability and are the cameras most people use today.

I don't buy the conspiracy theories about the CPI. Over the past 40+ years I've found it a pretty accurate measure of general inflation. Yet I keep hearing theories that the government either exaggerates the inflation rate or minimizes it. That said, there are alternative inflation measures that vary from the CPI. All of them are approximations.

I just noticed that the U.S. government's Consumer Price Index (CPI) -- an important measure of inflation -- is dropping a few photography-related categories after December 2020: - Film and photographic supplies - Photographer fees - Photo processing Film, supplies, and processing probably have become such small components of inflation that they're not worth tracking any more. And now that every amateur with a DSLR is a wedding photographer, the real professional photographers are probably a declining factor, too. All of the discontinued data series are listed here: Discontinued CPI Series : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

The Zone System really isn't difficult to understand and is entirely applicable to roll films and 35mm. Although those films don't allow variable development for individual frames, the exposure principles are exactly the same. Variable development isn't central to the concept. I agree with an earlier comment that Fred Picker's out-of-print "Zone VI Workshop" book is the best primer. It was a required textbook in a college photography course I took many years ago. Before I took that course and learned the Zone System, my winter snow pictures were always underexposed and hard to print. I didn't understand that my light meter was reading the white snow as middle gray. When I read Fred Picker's examples and placed the snow on Zone VII or Zone VIII (two or three stops more than the meter reading), my pictures were properly exposed and easy to print. Also, his book explained how to calibrate my film exposure and developing to my camera and meter. Most b&w films processed in most developers can't be properly exposed at box speed. Much later I wrote a series of articles in Shutterbug magazine about this: Personalizing Your Film Speed, Part 1 Personalizing Your Film Speed, Part 2

I agree that Kodak HC-110 is a good long-lasting film developer. I switched to Kodak T-Max developer because it yields similar results in grain and tonality but delivers more film speed, in my experience. With HC-110, I was never able to get full box speed. No matter what kind of bottles you use, label them boldly as POISON -- especially if you store them in a refrigerator to extend the shelf life. When reusing bottles that originally contained edibles, completely remove the original labels or completely cover them. Some people take the extra-cautious step of writing the phone number of a poison-control hotline on the label. I also write on the label the date when I mixed the solution. For solutions I reuse, such as fixer, I keep a tally of the number of rolls processed. This discussion thread brings up something I've been thinking about for a while. For those of us who mostly shoot digital but occasionally shoot film, ideally we'd have a complete workflow of one-shot chemicals mixed per session from long-lasting powders instead of liquid concentrates. - Film developers like D-76 come as powders, but subdividing a small enough amount for one or two rolls is unreliable. - For stop bath, powdered citric acid works. - Powdered fixers are available, but I don't know if they can be reliably subdivided for only one or two rolls. And usually they aren't rapid fixers. - Hypo clear can be mixed from sodium sulfite. - Wetting agent isn't powdered but the Kodak liquid lasts forever anyway. (I wonder if powdered dishwasher detergent would work?) Something to think about.

Kodak T-Max film developer lasts a long time in its original bottle when refrigerated. Even when the bottle is only half full, it lasts for many months. Once I even used a partly filled bottle that was a few years old and still got good results, although I had to extend the development time. Mix only as much as you need for your developing tank. For a two-reel tank, you can mix only enough for one roll. I've done that routinely with no problems, but some people recommend filling the tank. Better yet, buy a one-reel tank. Stop bath: Kodak Indicator stop bath lasts for years in its original bottle, even when partly full. Mix only as much as you need. For a two-reel stainless-steel tank, that's about 16 fluid ounces. You can re-use it for several rolls until it starts turning dirty yellow. It turns purple when exhausted (hence "indicator") but you needn't stretch it that long. When printing, though, I discard stop bath after every session. After decades of using Kodak stop bath, I switched to citric acid. It's a white powder you mix before use. Unlike the Kodak stop bath (acetic acid), it's odorless. It's lasts a long time, too, but lacks an indicator when exhausted, so to be safe discard it after a dozen rolls or so. When printing, discard after each session. Fixer: I prefer Ilford rapid fixer but any will do. Mix only as much as you need for your tank. You can use it for several rolls. Hypo clear: any will do. Is Heico Perma Wash still available? When refrigerated, it lasts for years in its original bottle. Mix only a quart or gallon at a time. Discard after each use. Hypo clear can also be made with sodium sulfite. One of my photography teachers said hypo clear is unnecessary for film because it doesn't absorb hypo like paper does, but I use it anyway. Kodak Photo-Flo: When developing film often, I mix one gallon at a time. For occasional use, a few drops in the tank is OK. Don't use too much or you'll get streaks. I mix Photo-Flo with distilled water, not tap water. Final wash: If you use hypo clear, 5-10 minutes in running water is plenty. But I always finish by filling the tank with distilled water and agitating vigorously for one minute. Some tap water is gritty or "sticky," so the final rinse in distilled water washes away anything left by the tap water. Hang up the film in a dust-free place overnight. Don't wipe it with a sponge or squeegee -- a sure way to scratch it. I rigged up a retractable clothesline in my bath/shower stall. Closing the shower door helps deter dust. Don't run an exhaust fan, because it will stir up dust.

Thanks for the tips. I had already found Custom Bellows UK during my Internet search, but a U.S. shop would be preferable to avoid the international shipping on top of the repair cost. One alternative might be to order the bellows from the UK so my friend can install it himself, but neither of us have the tools or experience for nontrivial camera repairs. He has no experience at all, and the most I've done is replacing gaskets on film doors and the foam mirror bumpers in SLRs. The cost of a professional repair isn't too important relative to the camera's value. It was his father's, so the value is mainly sentimental. I doubt he would object to a synthetic bellows. The Solida camera indeed feels solid and above average for a vintage 6x6 folder. And I have some Ilford 120 film in my freezer that I've used to test a few of my own family heirlooms.

Does anyone know a reliable U.S. repair shop that can overhaul a Franka Solida III folding rangefinder camera (6x6cm) and replace the leather bellows? The bellows is the main problem. It's irreparably torn. I found a European hobbyist named J. Noir who claims to offer CLAs and custom-made bellows for these cameras, but his exact location is uncertain, and I can't find out anything about him. My friend who owns this camera would prefer a U.S. shop because he lives in California. The camera is a sentimental possession from his late father. J. Noir's website: J. Noir - Repairs & Sales

I think you are correct. Large percentages can be so confusing that I prefer to use multiplication factors (2x, 3x, etc) instead of percentages when expressing differences greater than 100%. I shouldn't have deviated from my practice. Is the following series your progression? 1 stop = 2x = 100% 2 stops = 4x = 300% 3 stops = 8x = 700% 4 stops = 16x = 1,500% 5 stops = 32x = 3,100% 6 stops = 64x = 6,300% 7 stops = 128x = 12,700% 8 stops = 256x = 25,500% 9 stops = 512x = 51,100% 10 stops = 1024x = 102,300% So my revised percentage calculation (51,200%) was off by one stop.

" You are right! In my haste, I added instead of multiplying: one stop = 100%, two stops = 200%, three stops = 300% ... etc. Instead, as you say, it should be 100%, 200%, 400% ... etc. So my ten-stop Smoky-16 exposure compensation should be 51,200% more exposure, not 1,000% more. Anyway, I hope everyone realizes my Smoky-16 Rule is dark humor. Exposures will vary widely, depending on the smoke density. Today it's not nearly so dark, and the weird orange glow is gone. Instead, a fine white ash is falling. I spent more than an hour this morning vacuuming the stuff out of our home after we foolishly opened our windows for a while.

Many photographers know the Sunny-16 Rule: a sunny mid-day exposure is f/16 at a shutter speed of 1/ISO. For example, f/16 at 1/200 second at ISO 200. Now I propose the Smoky-16 Rule, which estimates the daylight exposure in the vicinity of an unprecedented wildfire, like the kinds we're now experiencing in California. Our fires were ignited during a heat wave that reached 130F (54.4C) and dry thunderstorms that brought 12,000 lightning strikes but no rain. I took the photo below at high noon today (September 9, 2020) from my third-floor balcony near San Francisco. The Sunny-16 exposure should be 1/800 second at f/16 at ISO 800. Instead, my metered exposure was 1/42 second at f/2 at ISO 800. So, my Smoky-16 exposure is Sunny-16 plus 10 stops -- a difference of about 1,000 percent. My camera's auto white balance doesn't fully capture the weird orange glow of this noontime pseudo-daylight, which a friend describes as "Martian." Cars are driving with their headlights, and indoors we've got all the lights on. I slept until 8:30 this morning because I didn't know it was daytime. As I write this at 3 p.m. the same afternoon, it's a few stops darker now. So dark that a sharp handheld exposure at f/2 and ISO 800 isn't possible, even with my camera's motion stabilization. I'd need a tripod to make a time exposure. Australia suffered similar wildfires earlier this year, reportedly killing one billion animals. Now it's our turn. Unprecedented fires have also burned above the Arctic Circle in Sweden and Siberia. I'm afraid my Smoky-16 Rule has a bright future.

Definitely get the 35mm. As others have said, the Leica M4 lacks 40mm framelines, so you'll either have to estimate the frame or attach an auxiliary viewfinder. But the more important factor is that the 40mm Summicron lens won't focus accurately on the M4, except by accident. The 40mm and 90mm lenses designed for the Leica CL camera have different rangefinder cams than other M-mount lenses. Although other M-mount lenses can focus accurately on a Leica CL, the reverse isn't true. At small apertures, depth of field may hide the focus error, but it will likely be a problem at wide apertures and close distances. You will always hear some people say their 40mm or 90mm CL lenses work fine on other M-series cameras, but it's just luck. Sometimes the cams match, sometimes they don't. You can find a technical explanation elsewhere. Bottom line: Get the 35mm.

Personally, I find it easier to shoot in monochrome when my digital camera is set to monochrome mode. It's more like shooting with b&w film. But it's purely psychological and is probably a result of my shooting b&w film for decades before digital cameras came along. A good solution, as described in previous comments, is to set the camera for monochrome JPEG + RAW. The RAW file preserves the original colors and offers great flexibility for applying filter effects later in software. To simulate the "true" b&w film experience, however, shoot in monochrome JPEG only. The resulting files will be approximately as inflexible as a b&w negative. Or put the digital camera aside and shoot b&w film in a film camera.

Yes, the Olympus XA was so good that after losing one on a camping trip, I bought another. But they were mostly owned by advanced amateurs. Some higher-end Instamatics weren't too bad. Most were terrible. My grandmother's 1914 Kodak box camera made better pictures than the typical Instamatic, mainly because the prints were contacts, not enlargements. The real boon for snap shooters was the introduction of compact 35mm cameras with autofocus, built-in electronic flash, and easy loading. I agree. If a 4x6-inch snapshot is well composed but unsharp, I'll scan it at 300 dpi, good enough. But most are poorly composed, so I'll scan at 600 dpi and crop it for a better composition, which leaves something like 400-500 dpi. BTW, I also tested the optimal resolution for copy prints made at Walgreens. To make a 4x6-inch print, I uploaded the same image at 300 dpi, 600 dpi, and 1200 dpi. The Walgreens prints showed no difference. So now I always scale them to 300 dpi, which is only 1200 x 1800 pixels, or 2.1 megapixels. They upload much faster and still look fine. I don't know if the Walgreens machine automatically downsizes everything to 300 dpi or if their printer simply can't resolve more detail. Maybe other places such as Mpix or Shutterfly do better. I recently ordered a 12x12-inch photo book from Shutterfly that includes some low-res pictures made with a smartphone. Some of them are less than 300 dpi. The book hasn't arrived in the mail yet so I don't know how they'll look on paper.

They are not assumptions. My statements are based on scanning thousands of snapshot prints from past decades. Textured papers such as "silk" were popular after the 1960s because they hid the fingerprints that marred glossy papers. In the 1980s, glossy prints from mass-market photofinishers were the exception, not the rule. Sometimes glossy wasn't even an option or cost extra. And though it's true that people have different ideas about camera quality, the original poster specifically said his pictures were made with "not very expensive cameras," which in the 1980s likely were 110- or 126-format Instamatics or even the truly awful Kodak Disc cameras. However, some pictures may have been made with early 35mm autofocus compact cameras like the Canon SureShot series, which were pretty good. File sizes are still important. One of my family photo archives won't even fit on a 128GB card or thumb drive. And keep in mind that the flash memory in those devices isn't archival. The electrons will dissipate in a few years and the pictures will be gone. (The persistence depends on many factors; some SSDs are rated for only six months of offline storage.) Large archives like mine are impractical for DVDs, so external hard drives rotated between on-site and off-site locations are the safest solution. Another is cloud storage, but I wouldn't depend on it solely. Before starting my archive in the 1990s, I performed many experiments to find the optimal scanning resolutions for various media. Those fundamentals haven't changed. You can scan 4x6-inch Instamatic snapshots at 3200 dpi if you like, but those enormous files won't extract any more image detail than a 300 or 600 dpi scan. This forum is for beginners' questions so I'm trying to offer useful advice for beginners. They shouldn't have to repeat the same experiments to arrive at the same conclusions.

The original post said the 4x6 prints were made in the 1980s with "not very expensive cameras." So the limitation is the camera, not the lens on the commercial printer. And 1980s prints were usually made on textured paper ("silk" etc.) that doesn't scan as sharply as glossy paper. I've scanned literally thousands of such prints. Scanning at 600 dpi (or higher) extracts no more image detail than 300 dpi but does allow for some cropping and enlargement. And the digital files are 4x larger. I've seen people scan snapshot prints at the maximum resolution of their scanner and then wonder why the huge files are so blurry.

I've heard that some insect repellants and suntan lotions can rapidly degrade the rubber grips by chemically interacting with the material. Those products are widely used by landscape photographers. Studio and wedding photographers, less so.

These forums are a revelation. I used to think I knew every possible mistake that could be made with film and processing -- because I've made most of them when I was learning. But new ones keep cropping up. Rewinding the film backward is a rare mistake I haven't made. The problem may be that many of today's film beginners are working on their own. In the past, I think most of us learned from an experienced parent, teacher, or friend. We had the benefit of some personal guidance. Not so with today's young folks. But at least they've got forums like this one to seek advice. We didn't have that.

Scanning prints at resolutions higher than 300 dpi doesn't reveal more detail, but I scan them at 600 dpi to allow future 2-3x enlargements from the digital file. For example, scanning a 4x6-inch print at 600 dpi produces enough resolution to make an 8x12-inch print or even a little bigger without pixelation. Higher resolutions theoretically permit even greater enlargements, but sharpness falls off dramatically after 2x. Scanning to JPEG instead of TIFF is okay if you make the major adjustments in the scanner software before scanning. The scanned file should then be very close to ideal and require only minor adjustments that won't reveal the limitations of an 8-bit JPEG file. I've scanned thousands of prints this way. But the scanner software included with all-in-one (AIO) printer/scanners may not allow you to make many adjustments before scanning. Switch to "Advanced Mode" or "Manual Mode" if it has one. An AIO printer/scanner is probably good enough for scanning snapshot-size prints made with old cameras. I doubt you'd see much improvement with a dedicated scanner. Hint: old color prints are usually faded. A quick way to restore the color balance is to use the histogram-levels control in the scanner software, if it has one. Usually these controls have three "eyedroppers" under the histogram: black point, midpoint, and white point. If you can find something that should be a middle-gray tone in the picture and click on it with the midpoint eyedropper, all the colors should change to something more natural. The middle-gray tone could be concrete in an outdoor picture, an article of gray clothing, or even gray hair. It may take a few tries to find the right spot, but you can undo each wrong try. This method works better than tweaking the individual color controls unless you have unusually good color perception.

Right you are. I was thinking too negatively.

The black streaks run along the length of the film, so they could be caused by a tiny leak in the shutter curtain that admits light as the film is advanced. Scratches would be more distinct, I believe. But I may be wrong, so I suggest checking the film gate, shutter curtain (or blades), and pressure plate for anything that might scratch the film as it's advanced. Small particles in the felt lips of a film cartridge can also scratch the film. The excessive grain may be caused by film development or negative scanning. Kodak D76 has long been considered the industry standard for b&w film development, but it dates to the 1920s and is inferior to newer developers, in my opinion. If you're seriously going to shoot b&w film, I suggest developing it yourself. You don't need a darkroom, enlarger, or trays to develop film. I have found that Kodak T-Max developer works well with Kodak and Ilford films. It yields fine grain and full emulsion speed. It also keeps well in a partially filled bottle when refrigerated. You didn't say if your posted images were scanned from darkroom prints or the negatives. Scanning conventional b&w films can exaggerate the grain if the scanner has a hard light source, as Nikon film scanners do. The old Minolta film scanner was much better in this respect, but few of them survive because they weren't built as well as the Nikon scanners. Some flatbed scanners have a softer light source, but they're usually not sharp enough for 35mm. If your posted images were scanned from darkroom prints made with a condenser enlarger, that could also account for the grain. Diffusion enlargers aren't as grainy.