davecollopy

Dimitri

 

Rob gave you the general answer and Richard gave you the definitive one. I usually calibrate at infinity unless I have a specific reason not to. I know I have a TLR which I calibrated at fifteen feet because I only use it as a close focusing camera(ten to twenty feet) and the engineers who designed the lens optimized it at that focusing range.

Patent Etui 6x9, Tri-X, 2sec.@f/32. Don't remember the name or denomination, but I did get in trouble for tresspassing on that field.<div></div>

Olivier, just thank your lucky stars you had the good sense to leave. I really feel for all those people who couldn't get out, what they are experiencing. I can't imagine it. I think I heard Mandeville got hit pretty hard. Uptown won't flood, if you mean around Audobon Park and and further up the bend like Dante Street. Tulane should be alright. Midcity and East NO has some of the worst flooding. It's all pretty mind boggling to me and it seems it's anybody's guess how it will all turn out.

It's just as well that the "add a comment" link is dead. And it should probably stay dead. I don't think Bob's article would work with all the added commentary.

Brian, if you are writing all this code yourself I have to say I am impressed. In the short time I have been here you have created solutions for some extremely difficult socio-politico-ethical dilimmas. And in my opinion your solutions have succeeded. But in this particular case I would remind you as a code writer that there are solutions. And then there are also elegant solutions.

A simple do-it-yourself test with a pen light in the dark will give you an indication of how prone to flare your various lenses are. The results might well surprise you. Some of my older simpler uncoated lens are less prone to flare than my many of my newer multicoated more complex lens designs. But lens coatings do more than just control flare. I won't shoot color with an uncoated lens. Color shifts and isn't translated the way it is with coated lenses. On the other hand my uncoated lenses overall resolve fine detail better than their coated counterparts. My coated lenses appear sharper with a punchy contrast, but I find it comes at a price to finer detail.

Mike, I don't know all the particulars of your situation, but I suggest completely filling all the memory banks on your present PC before doing anything rash. I have witnessed some true life horror stories in terms of efficiency on new computers running XP: too many processes and too little control at the UI over resources.

No. Absolutely not. Use a lens hood. If you're rangefinder has a three element or a four element, three air space lens, flare can be controlled quite adequately with a lens hood. Once you get into four airspaces or more flare can become rather unbearable without coatings.

I always felt the ideal solution was always a dual head graphics card with one lcd and one crt, preferrably a trinitron tube in the latter with an apretutre grill. But if you're just looking for one, the crt will certainly give you the most bang for the buck. Lcds still blow highlights and block up shadows, though they've gotten a lot better than they were. They certainly render color better than crts, more vivid. Best bang for the buck, go with proven manufactuers and models like the Samsung SyncMaster or even the Viewsonic ypu're looking to replace. The SyncMaster may be strictly lcd now but the crts were always a good buy. If you're looking for a hassle free solution then definitely check with your Better Business Bureau because service with national chains like BestBuy and Circuit City can vary widely with location. You may be better going with a locally owned appliance store. I know I am.

I certainly don't consciously approach a subject differently if my camera is loaded with b&w. Yet I find myself continually disappointed with my results in color. And it is not for any lack of trying. Perhaps its because I am not familiar with any great color photographers whose work I admire, I therefore don't know what to look for. Or perhaps its because I don't see color, I only see light.

My experience has been that the front cell focusing Anastar on the Kodak Reflex does resolve close focus detail better than any front cell focusing tessar I have used. And I have used several. Of course any unit focusing tessar will produce superior results, that is a given, even the lowly Wollensak Raptar. I have never used the 75mm unit focussing Raptar on the Ciroflex but I do have a 105mm Raptar that performs exceptionally, every bit as good as my 101mm Ektar. As always, mileage will vary given the condition, use and abuse of any particular lens.

 

Personally I think the gear focusing design of the Reflex is a kludge. And as anyone will tell you who's ever tried to reassemble the damn thing, a pox upon the engineer who thought it up. Other than that it is an exceptional camera. I don't think a better trl can be had for the price, 40-60US.

Mike, I think this is some of your best stuff. I really like the Symi folder but I haven't really looked at the other two yet with the time they deserve. I use Reala in 35mm but I don't get these kinds of results. It sounds like you had a great time as well. It certainly is great to have you back. Looking forward to the B&W.

Larry, I still use my 286 Packard Bell whenever I get the urge. It's a thrill just to watch it boot up. In just 15 seconds you're already at the command prompt. WordPerfect and Lotus123 are as functional as any software. Admittedly the dot matrix printer is slow and somewhat noisy compared to what you might find on the shelves at a Staples nowadays.

 

But I still enjoy Loom or Quest for Glory, Lemmings or Sid Meier's Pirates as much as I did the first time I played them.

Congratulations Richard. I think you achieved a little bit of celebrity status around here due to your recent findings. I thank you for giving new life to my XA and Ikonta.

Btw Linux on an older laptop is not for the timid. Architecture was not standardized and ran the gamut from mca to pci so that certain flags must be passed to the kernel before the install script will even run. Lcd displays and obscure proprietary display drivers, many of which are still unsupported, take special options which requires hacking your Xconfig file. Pcmcia and internal laptop modems are not your garden variety and require cryptic initialization strings that must be manually entered in the pppsript. These days Gnome and KDE are hard pressed to run on anything less than 128megs of ram and Netscape is the only browser that still uses a color pallet to handle an 8 bit resolution. Arachne could handle 8 bit, but I don't know if it's still around.

 

On the other hand Linux on a desktop these days is relatively painless solution. And an early pentium desktop will cost a quarter of what the laptop would.

The problem with WebTv is Microsoft probably hasn't upgraded it in almost a decade. I wonder if they still support it. My biggest gripe with MS was the way they always dropped support for their earlier solutions. People still use WebTv. People still use Windows3.1 with the same level of productivity they could get out of XP. My dad uses WebTv exclusively even though he has a computer with a modem right next to the set. The WebTv is much easier for him to read.

Looks fine here in Netscape running on Fluxbox, as well as in Links browser at the command prompt.

Hi Maury. You are correct. "Tank" may be a bit of an exaggeration. I don't think my XA could withstand a skating mishap either, though it has withstood everything I've dished out so far. I was only referring to the camera's durability as it is relative to its weight, size and replacement costs. My XA weighs less than 8oz. I'm not absulutely certain but I suspect an all metal body Leica would weigh close to 3 times that, and be 6 times the price. Anyway if the XA weighed what a Leica weighed I wouldn't have the XA. I have heard a lot of good things about the Canonet recently. But I wonder how much it weighs. Because at 17oz. of camera weight I'm already shooting 6x9 in medium format, unless I find I have a need for a particular 35mm lens.

A Kodak Precision Enlarger here with a 100mm enlarging ektar that does a good job for me on 6x6 and 6x9. Acually two of them in my darkroom.

What Don said. The further north you get, ie Presque Isle, the better. It's been in the 30's/40's here and raining for weeks on end. So your chances of spotting moose this time of year are very high.

Alan, definitely get the DSLR, but don't sell the 4x5, particularly if you are going into portraits. I know exactly what you mean trying to streamline your equipment. I am trying to do the same. But everybody needs at least one 4x5 outfit.

 

Get the DSLR now and pay for it later. After all, this is America.

Hi Dan. If your lens does not say "Bausch & Lomb-Zeiss" then it was made after 1921, or whenever the patent actually ran out on the tessar. My IIb is 2152432 and was manufactured in the late teens. I always suspected the IIb was an indication of coverage, and it is plenty for 4x5, because all my B&L tessars on 6x9 cameras are marked Ic. Anyway I use my IIb as a long focal lens mounted to a 6x9 Avus plate camera. And its a darn good lens for that with corner to corner sharpness in 6x9.

Btw just tried Rick Oleson's idea on my XA and the results were very satisfactory. Instead of tape I made a sort of dot matrix patch with a fine point Sharpie. Works good.

Thank you!!! Rick, Daniel and Kelly, thank you! I used Kelly's modification on Rick's idea of a dot matrix patch using a fine point Sharpie. Now I have beautifully visible double image in the rangefinder of the Olympus XA I bought from Daniel.

You are right, Lucas. I've seen the camera go for several hundred. I've also seen it sniped for pretty cheap. I would offer $200 to $250 in good condition. That's a very fair price to you and it's a fair amount for someone to recieve who isn't interested in listing the camera himself.