george_bourke

The "laser rot" you are referring to was discovered back in the days of Laserdiscs (remember them?). Anyway it was traced down to contamination between the protective layer on the disk and the metal that eroded the metal beneath. This affected pre-recorded media (that was all that was available back then) and recordable DVDs and CDs are manufactured by a little bit different process that requires less handling and less opportunity for contamination to occur...so, I would expect this to be rather rare with recordable media.

 

FWIW, my background is that I am an electrical engineer who had some experience (way back in college as a design project) with Laserdiscs and the average consumer-type experience with CDR and DVD-R/DVD+R media and recorders.

 

George

I believe HOW it is displayed plays a major part. So far, I do not have a printer that prints large enough that I've treated any output as "art", but my old chemical process prints that I've put behind OP-3 (acrylic that blocks 99% of UV) have held up just fine for 20 years...OP-3 is cheap enough (about 8 cents a square inch) that I'd put anything that I considered "important" behind it.

 

George

Hi A.Kat,

 

Did you use the product you suggest to download the manuals? I ask because I think the product you listed is download caching software to make a less-capable (user's) computer seem faster...I'm pretty sure the problem lies with the server the manuals reside on as this is the only download(s) of this size I've ever had a problem with...I've even downloaded files up to 700MB considerably faster.

 

Best regards,

George

Miles,

 

Regarding the battery, I'd suggest the C.R.I.S. adapter (do a google search)...they are a little pricey but they will house a current model battery and use a built-in voltage regulator to drop the voltage down to the 1.3V provided by the old PX-13 mercury batteries. That way you can use a silver oxide battery which has siminar discharge characteristics to a mercury battery rather than using a zinc-air Wein cell (your other option). The C.R.I.S. adapter costs about the same as 4 Wein cells (at least it did when I bought mine for my Nikon F w/Photomic FTn finder).

 

George

I've had excellent luck with Ritek and Taiyo Yuden printable DVDs that I've gotten from www.supermediastore.com (I watch for sales on www.techbargains.com as it makes quite a difference). So far, no coasters (out of about 200 tried) from either of these brands. You do know that the stuff you see in retail stores is generally made by someone else and branded FOR the companies whose name appears on the label, don't you?

 

I got a bit disillusioned some years back on buying CDRs when my 100-year gold HP CDRs were generating A LOT more coasters than some GC CDRs that I got at Fry's (ironically, this was on an HP burner). So, I generally try to buy stuff that is branded by the manufacturer...or, at least to give some lesser known brands a chance. So far, the best CDRs and DVD+Rs and DVD-Rs I've found have not been from Memorex, HP, TDK, or even my beloved Maxell (they sure did make excellent magnetic recording media).

 

Of course, YMMV as someone else pointed out concerning a huge improvement on his burner with a firmware update.

 

George

Does anyone have a link to the manuals on a server that can serve them faster than 16kbs? I've been trying to get 'em for days now and it seems that after 5-6 hours the connection just barfs and quits. I transfer files this size all the time (I have a 3Mbs connection) and they usually take just a few minutes but it seems that all manual copies must reside on servers slower than the PDP-11 I used 25 years ago.

 

TIA,

George

If you do decide to try a non-local dealer, it doesn't hurt to check them out at http://www.resellerratings.com (some dealers who advertise in the back of Popular Photography have literally HUNDREDS of complaints...makes one wonder how they stay in business)

Does anyone know if the Tokina 12-24 (on a D70 if we are being

specific) focuses as fast as the Nikon 12-24? (I thought some of you

urban dwellers may have had the luxury of being able to try both

lenses side-by-side.)

 

TIA,

George

I have a "cheap" answer and a bit more costly answer for you. The "cheap" answer is that you can actually get by without one by taking a test exposure (or two or three) and viewing the histogram. If you really want to become a better photographer (film and digital), pick up a good spotmeter...I use the (older) Minolta Spotmeter M that I bought new, but the Spotmeter F (flash capable) would be a superb choice. Also, pick up a Zone System book...you won't be dinking around with altering "film speed" and "development time" but it would be useful in getting an idea of tonal "zones" and the range of zones that you can effectively reproduce and CONSCIOUSLY selecting which zone you wish a particular picture element to be in and KNOWING where other elements will fall.

 

Good luck,

George

You don't need to buy the Adobe plug in...if you load the Nikon-supplied D70 software (the freebie, not Capture) and IF it finds a PS installation it'll load Nikon's RAW converter plug-in for PS. That is what I am using with MY D70 and PS7.

I have four Prolite 100's and they are great. They are 1000 ws and have UV coated flashtubes (so fabrics won't fluoresce (sp?)). Bowens Prolites are very well made and parts are available from Calumet. The accessories for the Prolites are considered to be "Series 2" accessories and work on the Elite series (current model monolights) as well.