tom_halfhill

I bang the tank against the heel of my palm to break up bubbles. And I always hold down the lid so it doesn't come off while agitating. It's a one-handed job with the one-reel 35mm tank pictured above. A larger tank needs both hands. But the tape and the coin are good ideas. When a lid gets stuck, I've pried it loose with the same bottle opener that I used to open the 35mm film cassette.

In 1993 I wrote an article for Shutterbug magazine titled "Defeating Dust." My advice remains valid today. You can find the article on my website here: Defeating Dust

I've seen similar marks along the sprocket holes when the film is crinkled while loading it onto the developing reel.

At present, there's no good solution for long-time digital storage. I use multiple portable hard drives stored in different locations. DVDs lack enough capacity for large archives (like mine). Flash memory does indeed lose its charge over time, which varies from months to years, depending on the transistor size and environmental factors. Generally speaking, the higher the capacity of a USB thumb drive or SSD, the smaller the transistors, so the sooner they dissipate their charge. Some new technologies promise stable long-term storage, but they're not commercially available yet. Until then, multiple hard drives stored in different locations are the best compromise. Cloud storage is a good backup if the provider is reliable and if you pay for a year or more in advance to prevent your account from being deleted. If you want your heirs to inherit the archive, store a copy of your username and password with your will.

Clean the glass very late on a sunny afternoon under direct sunlight. Every spec of dust will be visible. It's a good time to clean your camera lenses and filters, too.

Did you ever find out if your M10 batteries were OK or defective?

Please don't re-wet the old film without experimenting first with a small piece! Years ago, I made that mistake and watched as the emulsion slid off the film base, completely ruining all the pictures. More recently, I found two rolls of developed but uncut 35mm film tightly wound in Kodak film cans since 1946-47. When I tried unrolling this film, it began crumbling into small pieces. Exposure to mild humidity didn't help. Finally, in desperation, I snipped off a few frames at a time, quickly dipped them in cool water, then immediately inserted them into a modified Nikon ES-1 film holder and copied them with my Nikon DSLR and 40mm macro lens. Working fast, I was able to copy the negatives as they disintegrated. The images appear damaged but are recognizable. Later I found and scanned small prints of them as well. It seems that water and old film don't mix. Also, the old film I found had been stored in terrible conditions -- extreme heat in summer, freezing cold in winter. It's amazing I was able to salvage any images at all.

Same for me. I can't update my email address on the Photo.net account page. I can update other info without problems, but the email-address update just isn't working.

I too am unable to update the email address on my Photo.net account. When I click the "Save Details" button, it says "Saving" but never saves.

For only $35, the SCSI card is worth a try. Otherwise your Polaroid scanner is worthless. Any repair, even if available, would cost more. It's possible that the Firewire interface chip or connector are failing. If the SCSI card doesn't work, the Epson flatbed is a reasonable substitute. I've found that flatbed scans can be printed up to 5x with good results. That good enough for an 11x14 print from an uncropped 120 negative.

When I pushed Tri-X in D-76, the results were always too grainy and contrasty for me. But that was the old Tri-X, not the new 400TX. If you don't like the D-76 results, I suggest using Kodak T-Max developer, which is a pretty good push developer. I wouldn't try pushing T-Max 400 film, though -- you will likely blow out the highlights.

Some electronic flashes aren't 100% charged when the ready light comes on. They may be only 70% to 90% charged. You can find out by shooting a test picture immediately after the ready light comes on, then shooting another picture at the same settings after waiting a full minute after the light comes on. If the second shot is noticeably brighter, the ready light is premature. But I would expect the difference to be less than a full stop of underexposure.

Years ago I experimented with Diafine as a push developer. My first few rolls showed great results in film speed, but only with so little agitation that my negatives suffered from uniformity problems, especially in clear sky areas. When I increased agitation to achieve uniformity, I lost the film-speed gains. I couldn't find the happy medium between stand development and uniform development. After using up one can of Diafine, I gave up and went back to T-Max developer. Others have found the happy medium, apparently. It's an interesting developer.

Wow, 3.75 minutes for new Tri-X versus 7.5 minutes for old Tri-X. That's 100% more development time! I haven't used the new Tri-X (400TX) and didn't realize it was so different. It's not really the same film. Kodak must have changed the emulsion when moving production to a new factory.

Most of your exposures look pretty close to me. To quickly judge the exposure and contrast of your negatives, you can make a "proper proof" -- a contact sheet in which the negatives are exposed for the paper's maximum black through the clear film edge. This will be the minimum exposure that makes the clear film print as black as the sprocket holes. Many years ago I wrote an article for Shutterbug magazine that explains in more detail. You can find it here: How to Make a Proper Proof Sheet Nowadays you can make a proof sheet on a flatbed scanner, too. But a traditional proof sheet has the advantage of showing the contrast and tonality on the same print paper on which you will make your enlargements.

Hold on, you're about to contradict yourself: Yep, just what I said. Not what I said. Very small defects do disappear. I've seen it! Larger defects only get smaller. And you're ignoring the tonal distortion, which is worse than the dust problem. Probably for creative reasons when he wanted a very contrasty print. I'm certain he didn't use it to correct the distortion of the Callier effect, because he didn't need to. If you've read his books and seen pictures of his darkroom, he mainly used a diffusion enlarger with two different neon tubes ("hard" and "soft") that allowed him to infinitely adjust contrast on multigrade paper by variably mixing the light from those tubes instead of using contrast filters. Few people notice the difference until someone shows them. They can't believe it until they see it with their own eyes. They just can't. Everyone who accepted my darkroom challenge either bought a diffusion enlarger or modified their existing enlarger by removing the condenser and replacing it with a cold-light head. That's what I did with my Beseler 23C. My only regret is that I didn't get commissions from Aristo or wager money on my demonstrations. Condenser enlargers never fell out of favor. Still sold today! Do you really understand the Callier effect? It doesn't change overall contrast. It mainly boosts the highlights and higher midtones. It's a distorted curve. Changing paper grades will soften the overall contrast, not just the parts you want to soften. That's why some people resort to split-contrast printing, dodging, burning, flashing, dual-tray development, and other tricks. My point is that you needn't resort to tricks when the light is undistorted. Also, you aren't asking yourself in the first place why an enlargement should need a softer contrast grade than a contact print from the same negative. Obviously, the enlarger is distorting the tonal scale. Distortion is OK if it's for corrective or creative reasons -- maybe you underexposed or underdeveloped the film, or maybe the subject was very low contrast. But usually, a distorted tonal scale is less desirable than an undistorted scale. Distortion is easier to introduce than to correct.

I've been printing since 1972, so my experience counts, too. I would never return to condensers. If you think an opal bulb in a condenser enlarger is the same as a diffusion enlarger, you haven't actually compared the results. If there's a condenser in the light path, you'll get the Callier effect. Grain remains visible with diffused light, which is why a focusing magnifier still works. (More proof that you haven't actually used diffusion.) The grain is exactly the same size, of course, because it's in the negative. The difference is that condensers produce higher local contrast, which makes the grains look more distinct. But a diffusion print is still grain-sharp, so the image is sharp. Indeed, that's why I bought Nikkor and Schneider Companon lenses, because the Beslar lens that came with my 23C enlarger was a poor performer that couldn't sharply render the grain all the way out to the corners. (Maybe later Beslars were better; I got my 23C in 1975.) Diffused light behaves differently when it hits dust and scratches on the negative. Small defects disappear altogether, and larger defects look smaller. It's similar to closely examining a negative for dust and scratches before enlarging. Everyone tilts the negative at different angles to look for these defects, because they appear differently depending on the light's direction. It's also common to look for these defects under a strong single-source light, which highlights the defects more prominently. This examination is much like the difference between condenser and diffusion enlarging. But aside from minimizing defects, the main advantage of diffusion is uniform tonality. Condensers distort highlights and the higher midtones (Callier effect). Negatives are much easier to print with diffused light. You can prove this to yourself without a diffusion enlarger by comparing a contact print with an enlargement. Contact prints are the gold standard because the light source doesn't matter -- the negative is pressed in direct contact with the paper. Run this experiment: 1. Choose a silver b&w negative with lots of highlight and midtone detail. It doesn't matter how it was developed. Make a contact print using the paper grade you consider normal for that negative. Expose it for the minimum time required to produce the paper's maximum black through the clear film edge. Develop normally. 2. Make an enlargement using the same negative on the same paper grade. Expose it for the minimum time required to produce the paper's maximum black through the clear film edge. (We're establishing a Zone 0 baseline.) Develop it the same way you developed the contact print. 3. After fix and rinse, compare the tones in both prints. The condenser enlargement won't match the contact print. The highlights and high midtones will print much lighter, probably blowing out some highlights. If you expose the enlargement longer to recover the lost highlights and midtones, you'll depress the lower midtones and shadow detail. If you print on a lower paper grade to reduce contrast, you'll also shift the whole tonal scale, not just the tones you want to control. The usual remedy is to reduce the film development, but that also depresses the midtones and shadows. And the enlargement still won't match the contact print. I've seen people resort to all kinds of acrobatics to compensate for the Callier effect. They'll experiment with different films and film developers, try split-contrast printing, burning, dodging, flashing, and two-tray development. Sometimes they come close to matching the contact print. But why bother? A straight print with diffused light does the same with much less effort. Diffusion prints always match the tonality of contact prints from the same negative. Condenser prints don't, and that's the proof that condensers distort tonality. I've convinced numerous people that diffusion enlargers are superior -- not by discussions like this one, but instead by making actual prints. Their first reaction is always the same: stunned astonishment. And their second reaction is usually a groan: "Dang, now I have to reprint my whole portfolio."

You're both wrong. There's a visible difference in grain, dust, and scratches when using a diffusion enlarger versus condenser. I used both for many years and immediately switched to diffusion when I saw the difference. Focusing wasn't a variable because I used a high-magnification grain focuser with my Nikkor and Schneider Companon enlarger lenses. My prints are sharp! Even digital scanners that employ different light sources show a difference. Light emanating from different directions is less affected by negative defects and grain molecules than point-source light. The tonal differences are significant, too. However, I know from experience I won't convince you. When I had a darkroom, I regularly challenged condenser users to compare prints made from the same negative. They could pick any negative they wanted, the film developed any way they wanted. We made a print with their enlarger and one with mine. Every single time, I won, and they bought a diffusion enlarger or a diffusion head for their condenser enlarger. The only people I couldn't convince were those who refused my challenge or who couldn't practically accept it -- such as people in Internet forums. BTW, a similar difference is visible when printing XP2-type b&w negatives with a condenser enlarger. The grain clouds diffuse the light differently than silver grains do.

Anyone who isn't sure about rangefinder focusing shouldn't start with a Leica, unless money is truly no object. Start with a cheaper rangefinder camera to learn if it's comfortable for you. Some old Japanese rangefinder cameras with fixed lenses (i.e., Canon, Konica, Yashica, Olympus) are available for $100 or so. Even an interchangeable-lens Canon rangefinder camera will cost less than a Leica. When coupled rangefinders first appeared in the 1920s or 1930s, they were the most advanced focusing technology available at the time. SLRs were still relatively primitive. SLR features such as instant-return mirrors, automatic stop-down irises, and full-aperture metering didn't appear until the 1960s. Until then, rangefinder cameras had the advantage. Today, with autofocus technology, optical rangefinders are largely obsolete. But some people still prefer them. I still like rangefinders and can focus very quickly with them. Others hate rangefinders and love their DSLRs or mirrorless cameras with EVFs. I'm comfortable with all the above. The main thing is to get a camera that just feels right. Otherwise you won't use it much.

Film-development times shorter than five minutes are generally discouraged, because minor variations in timing are a larger percentage. Even the time required to pour out the developer and pour in the stop bath becomes significant. For many years I developed Tri-X, Plus-X, HP4/HP5, and other films in HC-110 and obtained good results, but I can't remember the development time. It was definitely longer than 3.75 minutes. Either I used a higher dilution or a lower temperature to get above five minutes. In the 1980s I switched to Kodak T-Max developer because it gave me better results than HC-110. The difference wasn't huge, though -- mostly higher speed, not finer grain.

If you want to be discreet, a pro DSLR with an 80-200mm f/2.8 would be a poor choice unless you're photographing in a popular tourist area. If discretion doesn't matter, then any camera + lens will work.

I'm surprised your 400-speed film developed in HC-110 is grainy. For years I developed Tri-X and HP4 in HC-110 (dilution B, I think) and produced negatives that printed with very fine grain on enlargements up to 11x14. Ansel Adams liked the same combination when he used 35mm. But I've never tried Xtol, so maybe it's better. In the 1980s I switched to Kodak T-Max developer, which is also good for high-speed films and also keeps well. Just store the partially used bottle in a refrigerator. Another tip: a diffusion enlarger will make finer-grain prints than a condenser enlarger. The diffused light also tends to hide small dust spots and scratches.

Alex, you don't need f/16 to get everything in focus for a picture like this. There's almost no depth. The subject is almost entirely in one plane. Using your 35mm lens from several feet away, you could shoot almost wide open and still get everything in focus. The wider aperture would also permit a higher shutter speed, which would produce a sharper picture. I also agree that pushing the film wasn't necessary in this case. The black background is deceptive. The subject is actually brightly lit. But only a spotmeter (or a very good guess) would get you the correct exposure. It's a good try, though. You're not far off. You can probably recover some highlight detail in her face by "burning-in" when exposing the print.

I disagree. The major newspapers offer far better coverage than any of the cable news channels. To cite just one example from a few years ago, cable news became obsessed with the ebola outbreak and covered it relentlessly for weeks in a near panic. Commentators squawked that the U.S. government was helpless in the face of this terrible epidemic. But not one American contracted the disease in this country, and some of the few who caught it elsewhere and were brought here for treatment survived without spreading it further. The difference between TV coverage and newspaper coverage is often stark. When I talk to people who don't read newspapers, their knowledge of current events seems limited to celebrity news (Taylor Swift's latest boyfriend) and to the cable-news fixation of the week. They also seem to be missing vital information about business, personal investing, and retirement planning. A few years ago someone asked me, "I just turned 55 and need to start saving for retirement. What's a mutual fund?" I keep hearing that newspapers are obsolete, but maybe it seems that way because we're getting dumber.

Wow, that photo from the Monterey Herald is awful. How could anyone take a blurry photo in bright sunlight with a pro DSLR? I suspect the paper laid off all the real photographers and handed the heavy camera to someone unfamiliar with it. My local paper (San Francisco Chronicle) maintains high quality in reporting, writing, photography, graphics, layout, and typography, and I read the paper edition every day. But it's expensive, unless you subscribe digital-only. I subscribe to the print edition because it's faster and more enjoyable to read in hand than on screen. Most U.S. newspapers are dying, though, starved of advertising by the Internet. I still see some good newspapers when I travel abroad. I love newspapers.