barry_sanford

<p>I shoot only MF, and primes are the norm. Zooms in MF are expensive, heavy, and have very limited zoom range relative to 35mm class lenses. I mostly just use the normal, f2.8 lens for either 645 or 6x7, and zoom with my feet. I do have various wide/narrow lenses for indoor, tabletop, etc. but almost never go with a zoom. I consider zooms to be more marketing ploy than photographic necessity.</p>

<p>Here is the formula I was looking for: PPI = 2 / (Distance x 0.000291)</p>

<p>The viewing Distance is in inches, and PPI is Pixels (not dots) Per Inch. Since it usually takes many printer dots to make a single image pixel, you'll need to adjust your print driver settings accordingly. This is why you may have your image size set to 180 PIXELS per inch, but your 8-ink Epson driver, for example, may be set to 1440 DOTS per inch (180 PPI x 8 inks = 1440 DPI). The above formula calculates to 190 PPI for a 36-inch viewing distance, and just over 1 PPI for a 500-foot distance.</p>

<p>You might want to reference the following site for more information:<br /> http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/print_viewing_distance.html</p>

<p>Viewing distance becomes a major factor in the quality of prints that are too large to conveniently hold in the hand. The viewing distance greatly determines the required resolution. For instance, highway billboards are printed at only something like 4 dpi. Do some Google searches. There are formulas out there that attempt to estimate the minimum print resolution required under various viewing conditions and distances.</p>

<p>I have to agree that the GX680III is the most complete and advanced MF system out there. The IIIN film backs even have a bar code reader that reads the paper on Fuji rolls and sets the ISO correctly every time. These are also one of the few MF cameras that have complete film edge imprinting capability (date, time, shutter, aperture, sequence). Weight is definitely there, and movements are not very effective with the 50mm lens nor any lens that requires the optional rail mount because of lens weight (e.g. 100mm-200mm zoom.) However, "the beast" is definitely capable of producing the best possible quality in MF film. Digital backs, though workable, are not very graceful with this camera. Its sync system was designed before digital, and it takes some 3rd party add-on stuff to make a digital back work. Even then, the lenses are really designed for film imaging rather than the particulars of CCD imaging.</p>

<p>I also own a Mamiya RZ67 Pro-IID along with the tilt/shift adapter. The T/S adapter is not nearly as versatile and useful as it might appear, and I have never been able to get acceptable results from it. Don't get me wrong, I love my RZ, but I've given up using the T/S adapter for movements. Just my 2-cents worth.</p>

<p>I tend to think of it as fingers on a piano keyboard. if you are playing with all 5 fingers of one hand, that is your dynamic range. The keyboard represents your available latitude. Within the limits of this analogy, you can place your 5-finger dynamic range anywhere within that latitude and get usable results. If your DR goes down to, say, 3 fingers (stops), then you have even more possibilities for placing them within your latitude. As the dynamic range begins to approach the breath of the latitude, there is less room for correct placement without some fingers being off the keyboard.</p>

<p>I have an RZ Pro-IID with an Aptus-22 back with both the Leaf dumb adapter (non-pinned) and the Mamiya pinned adapter plate. The Mamiya plate seems to work OK at slow shutter speeds (e.g. less than 1/30 sec) Anything above that requires that I use the PC cable from the lens to the back. This has something to do with the power wake mode on the Aptus. Admittedly, the Aptus-22 is not exactly their latest creation, but it has just never worked as advertised on the IID. Using the Leaf dumb plate with a sync cable gives me perfect shots each and every time. Cable or not, the RZ/Aptus/Capture-One combination makes for some beautiful images.</p>

<p>Yep. That's the same price they gave me, which works out to about $108 USD just for shipping.</p>

<p>Supposedly these kits are Fuji's equivalent to the Kodak 6-bath kits, and have been in use in Europe for a long time. I'm soon to be down to my last Kodak kit, and will be ordering one of these sometime next week for a trial run. The person I've spoken to in the UK says the Fuji kits are alive and well, and are readily available.</p>

<p>As we all know by now, the Kodak E6 5L kits are discontinued and the supply chain has virtually dried up. While there are the Arista kits from Freestyle, they are 3-bath rather than the full 6-bath, and many prefer to not go that route. I've done some checking around on the Fuji Hunt Chrome6 5-Liter kits. These kits presently have no distribution here in the U.S., and the people at FH that I've spoken to do not indicate any plans for setting up a distributor anytime soon.</p>

<p>In light of this, I'm wondering if there is enough interest to consolidate a (multiple) skid sized order(s) of the Fuji Hunt kits from a European distributor. My company is capable of making such a purchase as well as accepting & storing bulk shipments and redistribution via UPS. If you are interested, then please leave either a post here or send me an email with an estimate of how many kits you might require within, say, a 3 month period. I'm not looking for purchasing commitments at this point, just gathering data.</p>

<p>Also, it's not my intent to be using this forum to plug a commercial venture, but rather I'm thinking more of a non-profit, purchasing co-op expressly for acquiring these kits.</p>

<p>Hi Ken. I actually started out doing assembly on a Z80 in the late 70's but not as a profession, I was still in college at the time and was writing low level math functions for other programmers and for academic requirements. Guess I had a penchant for this kind of stuff. My reference to FORTRAN was given simply because it was the predominant language used by engineers at the time, while COBOL was used primarily by the accounting types. Pascal was just coming on the scene, but it never really made it past being an academic tool. It was soon eclipsed by DoD Ada, which also never had much commercial success, and only found a home in the military and some commercial aviation systems with military roots (e.g. Boeing).</p>

<p>You ask, what does this mean? In truth, it all means very little except to say that I've been around the computer software block a few times through the years, and have seen lots of crap come and go. This is why I'm not impressed with the current state of affairs in the RAW arena. The whole thing is still too dependent on the business whims of the various vendors, and on economic forces that have only short-term profit in mind rather than long term viability. For example, I'd bet Nikon couldn't care less if anyone could read a D2X NEF file 200 years from now. They're wanting to sell cameras and maximize profits today. Why else would they have encrypted the white balance in the D2X NEF file? If the camera makers were really interested in this issue there would be an industry-wide consortium to write standards, rather than just Adobe going at it unilaterally.</p>

<p>If computer history tells us anything about the future, it tells us that the next killer technology will leave the current technology in the obscure, if not forgotten, past. I still have Visicalc sheets on 8-inch floppy disks (assuming they are still magnetically viable) with no practical way of reading them these days. That obsolescence has occurred in only 30+ years! So what chance does a digital photo archive of today have 200 years from now? Even if we each spend the remainder of our lives continually updating our archives to new hardware platforms, new software versions, and new data formats, who will do it after we are dead? No one, that's who. While the notion of long term storage could mean as little as 5 years for some forms of commercial photography, it's of major importance to those of us who photograph primarily for historical and archive purposes.</p>

<p>I have been writing computer software since the mid-80 when assembly language was common, and FORTRAN was the only high level language available. I have also been an overly-serious amateur photographer since the late 90s. As someone whose paying job is writing product-based, proprietary software for a manufacturing company, I have a perspective on the whole RAW issue that most photographers may not have. This is not to say that my perspective is any more valid than that of others, it's just one that seems to always be lurking around but never fully stated. That perspective is that, from the camera manufacturer's point of view, the RAW data is part of the camera product, not part of the photographer's product. More specifically, it's part of the camera function in taking an analog image from the lens to a data file in an open format such as TIFF or JPEG. The fact that the manufacturer allows us to "grab" this data while the image is transiting from analog to TIFF, is something market pressure has forced, but not necessarily something the camera maker would prefer to do. When seen from this perspective, RAW data was never intended to be anything more than a transient step, lasting anywhere from milliseconds to a few days of post processing. It was certainly never intended to be a long term archival format.</p>

<p>Most modern computer software systems are developed with object orientation. That is, a strict binding between data and algorithm. If RAW is the data part of the object, then the converter is the algorithm part. Lose either one and you have nothing. How many people who archive any form of RAW data also archive a copy of the converter software along with it? Not many I'd bet. Even if they did, is the converter compiled for a processor that is till active like the Intel, or for some now defunct processor like the once popular Motorola 68010?</p>

<p>Archiving ~recoverable~ computer data over a long term (50, 100, 200 years, for example) is fraught with difficulties that even our top commercial/government/military computer facilities wrestle with. It's doubtful that the photography industry will solve this problem while on it's present tack of supporting numerous RAW proprietary formats as archive formats.</p>

<p>As for first developer running for 26 minutes at 72 degrees, it may work, but I'd say that a time/temperature reciprocity failure is almost sure to occur.</p>

<p>I've done lots of E6 processing at home (did 6 rolls yesterday) and have never had a processing error. E6 process is very time/temperature sensitive. This means not only the temperature of the bath water, but also of the chemicals being used. The Kodak standard is +/- 5 seconds on time, and +/- 0.3 deg (F) on temperature for step 1. At the very least you will need a JOBO CPA-2 or a CPP-2. There are some of these units on eBay all the time. These will each maintain the correct temperature, as well as performing the agitation process in a consistent manner. And although chemical management is still manual with these units, it's greatly improved with the lift arm mechanism. For flawless E6 with more automated chem management, get an ATL-1000 or ATL-1500. The only issue with these models is that you must maintain your own heated water supply to the water input line. I use an ATL-1000 and heat my input water to about 102-deg F to account for heat lost in the supply line. With the ATL series processors, you load the film, load the chemicals, press the button, and come back in about 40 minutes to perfect results. Compared to hand developed E6 an ATL may be "cheating," but unless your chems are bad, you are just about guaranteed perfect results every time.</p>

<p>Thanks, Ian, for the info. I've managed to locate a couple of kits in the meantime, but the supply seems pretty much exhausted :(</p>

<p>Hi Rob, this is a bummer. I've checked my usual sources--all sold out!! So now I'm left with having to buy the 10L quantities and mix in smaller batches. This will require a new chem management protocol as my storage tanks are all 5L--more handling, more aggravation. Can you post his attached mixing document or forward me a copy via email?</p>

<p>Garrison, Agreed. But any data that has been sent to the swap space must also be brought back in from the swap space in order to be operated on by Photoshop or simply saved to the user's file space. If the system only has 4GB, and a minimum of 1GB is required for the OS, at best 3GB remain for user data. If the stitching has consumed, say, 20GB of space, then 17 GB of that is in the swap space. Even worse, if the swap space and user files are on the same spindle, the problem is compounded. Admittedly, a second drive will alleviate the overburdened spindle, but it will not eliminate the fact that 85% of his data is being operated on from disk rather than from RAM.</p>

<p>With processor/memory bound tasks such as Photshop stitching, RAM quantity, not drive speed, is critical. 4GB of RAM is peanuts these days. I have two Mac desktops and they each have 12GB and 16GB of RAM respectfully. If you have enough RAM then OS X will not be page faulting and your drive speed will be irrelevant. An add-on drive will be irrelevant anyway (as far as page faulting goes) unless you reconfigure the OS to use that drive for swapping--not a good idea!</p>

<p>In the old days of UNIX, we used to set up a dedicated swap drive, a dedicated drive for OS core files, and another dedicated drive for all application/user data. This was done because of OS page faulting due to limited RAM availability. But today, RAM is way cheaper than the cost of external drives + human time.</p>

<p>Even under high-res scans, scratching has never been a problem for me as the film mostly "floats" in the stabilizer bath, away from the walls/floor of the container. This floating action is enabled somewhat by the fact that my container is deep and of large diameter. Even if there is incidental contact with the container walls, they are very smooth and there is obviously a thin fluid layer between them. One is far more likely to damage the film while doing a wet mount for a high-res scan.</p>

<p>I've never had a problem with the film (either 35mm or 120/220) attempting to re-curl during the stabilizer bath to such a degree that it prevent contact with the fluid. Immediately after the development process, the film is usually fully relaxed and only again tries to curl (mostly cup) during the drying process. I mostly develop 120/220 (occasional 135) in E6 process.</p>

<p>Was the tank level? An out-of-level tank can cause such problems.</p>

<p>Same as Juergen. I have made the mistake of purchasing used reels off eBay only to find that sometimes they have a texture to them that makes it difficult to load film. It's only reasonable to assume that these reels were subjected to stabilizer solutions. Thus, my method is to NEVER use the reel in stabilizer, but rather to strip the film from the reel directly into a 5-Liter container of stabilizer. This allows me to easily and gently agitate it for a few seconds as well. When pulling the film out, I hold it over the sink for a bit allowing the excess to drip off (rather than back into the container) before hanging in a dryer. This is all done in a small room where an electrostatic air cleaner is busily working 24/7 to keep dust at bay. Curl has never been a problem for me as I let all film (35mm or 120/220) dry with a weighted clip on the bottom end. This link http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/25441-REG/Jobo_J3312.html shows the RED hanging clip and the BLACK weighted clip. You need to find some of these or something similar.</p>

<p>If you want a "backup" to your DSLR system and you already have some good lenses, then get a cheaper body that is lens compatible. But if you are looking for an "alternative" to your DSLR rather than a backup, a Four-Thirds system from Panasonic or Olympus is the way to go. They are of good build and image quality, and not so expensive that if something gets destroyed you'll be overly heartbroken . But in reality, it's all just a matter of perspective (no pun intended.) Some may say that a Four-Thirds system is not P&S. But when the "other camera" in the garage is a Fuji GX680 or Mamiya RZ67... well, you get the picture.</p>

<p>I'm in the process of discovering this for myself. I presently am making the swing from all-digital back to mostly film... even put my D700 outfit up on eBay. Not wanting to be totally without a digital option, I have resurrected my daughters 2005 model Olympus E-500 two lens kit. Though still less than a week using it, I have to say that I'm more impressed with this little gem than I thought I would be. As long as I'm content to stay within its limitations it's a wonderful camera. Here is a review of the E-500 from back in 2005:</p>

<p>http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympuse500/</p>

<p>As for the newer models, there have been some incremental improvements. The largest change (not necessarily an improvement) is the move to a new Micro Four-Thirds standard. This is basically the same Four-Thirds standard without a shutter box and mirror. The newer Micro-4/3 cameras are about the same rectangular size across the back, but are thinner as there is no mirror. Hence, all view finding must be done via the LCD on these systems. There have also been additions such as video, in-camera stabilization, etc. But by and large, the system has remained the same. At the time, the E-500 was winning the review wars against both Canon's and Nikon's similar class entry.</p>

<p>Tim, the Nikon 9000 does indeed work very will under Snow Leopard. It's only Nikon's bundled software that stopped working. This is really no big deal as Nikon stopped any new development on Nikon Scan a long time ago because Vuescan and Silverfast were beginning to dominate the market. Either of these can leverage 100% of the 9000's feature set. That said, I did like using Nikon Scan and wish Nikon would have continued its development and support. Unfortunately, Nikon has never been known for its software prowess.</p>

<p>I, too, have been on the "digital dark side" for the past few years. Only in the past few months have I begun to shoot film again. You might say I went from the "dark side" back to the "dark slide", LOL! But seriously, I discovered that digital was making me a mentally lazy photographer. And while I certainly understand the "time is money" economics of commercial photography, for personal work it's the other intangibles about film that seem to add up to far more than the sum of its parts.</p>

<p>I haven't shot the D700 in two months. When I did last take a digital shot it was with an old Olympus E500 4/3 camera, a far cry from the D700, but it served the situation just as well, if not better. Thus, I've decided to place my whole D700 system for sale. I'd rather have the dollars.</p>

<p>I generally always put the emulsion side toward the detector, which is typically down for most scanners. If you are looking at your film on a light box (or using a window as a light box) and the film's brand name in the margin reads correctly (not mirrored) then you are looking through the base toward the emulsion, which is away from you.</p>