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hey eveyone, just wanted to let you know the good news. The issue was successfully resolved by Nikon Dusseldorf. The F6 is definetly still serviceable.

<p>I got positive responses from Nikon UK and Germany. I will let you know how it pans out in the next month or two.</p>

<p>I have made scans both with noritsu and fuji frontier systems. The noritsu scans always came out better and the grain looked exceptional, especially for well exposed negatives or slides. Last year i scanned twice with a frontier machine and the results were terrible, but i am not sure if the problem could lie in poor maintenance of the unit or a clumsy operator.<br> <br />My advice before buying any dedicated film scanner would be to rent a DSLR with no AA filter and a good macro setup. A good example would be</p> <p>https://www.trippingthroughthedark.com/scanning/scanning-35mm-black-and-white-negatives-with-the-d800e/</p> <p>The reason for this is that you can photograph the film with one shot, in contrast to the film scanner line sensors that travel over the frame in order to scan it. If you look around, you will see many instances where film scanners from various manufacturers produce line ghosting artifacts in shadow regions (for slides) because of this. Nikon Coolscan 9000 had a special slow scanning mode to avoid these problems.</p> <p>Another issue is that both noritsu and fuji machines produce only 8bit channel files. You won't get any 16bit high dynamic range scans from them. Maintenance/parts could also be an issue.<br> <br />In general, i would seriously suggest that you investigate the dslr method. With the right lens and camera, you will probably get better, cleaner, high dynamic range files from which you will be able to make better prints and adapt them to various displays.</p>

<p>I guess the F6 is a rare sight in many areas and certain service centers may not even know it still exists, let alone have the right tools, parts and software to perform maintenance on it. Therefore, i think their first reaction might be to refuse servicing it. This might explain some of the conflicting reports.<br> <br />I will check with them when i get back from vacation and i will keep you updated.</p>

<p>Does anyone know if Nikon still services the F6, and how is part availability?</p> <p>The camera is still being produced in small runs, but there are some conflicting reports floating around regarding serviceability.</p> <p> </p>

<p>A few months back when i checked it on a d40 i think i saw it but i didn't pay much attention. I got more startled when i saw it in the viewfinder even in the second copy of the lens that i acquires recently :)</p> <p>Regarding the AF-D version, back when i had one and tested it against the series e they looked identical. However, i just pixel peeped photos and didn't do very formal tests. Sharpness, softness and colors wide open looked the same.</p> <p>Regarding the pancakes, there are 3 versions. The series e version and the usual ais one seem to have the same optical formula, coatings (purplish...) and both focus down to 0.6m. I have a series e back in my hometown, i will try to test it again and contribute my observations, but it might take a while until i do it.</p> <p>The japanese pancake version focuses down to 0.45m. I think the optical formula is the same, but it has different coatings (greenish...). It also has a rubber focus ring and is the sharpest and most contrasty of all when shot wide open. I could observe the differences <em><strong>clearly</strong> </em>just by looking at images, no formal tests needed. There was also an informal test on a japanese website that demonstrated this. On a d40 the colors were also a lot warmer, but i did the test years ago and i am not sure if the camera was doing any weird white balance compensations.</p> <p>In the end it is my understanding that the sharpest and most contrasty 50mm f/1.8 are the early short/long nosed ais and the japanese pancake (minus the small apertures with the weird hot spot). I think these also share the same greenish multicoating.</p>

<p>btw, i would have already contributed samples but i do not have a dslr around :)</p>

<p>Jose, it should be easier to see if the sky is <em><strong>full</strong> </em>of bright clouds (or anything filling the frame uniformly and brightly). Stopping down at f/16 or f/22 the image will dim in the viewfinder but not uniformly. There would be a pronounced, fat, hot spot around the center area and you should be able to see it easily if it is there.</p> <p>I remember seeing some long/short nosed 50s f/1.8 on ebay and remember noticing that the rear element looked bigger than usual. Maybe these ones do not have this issue. It would be interesting to verify which one do and which ones don't.</p>

<p>Hi Brad,</p> <p>thank you for your comment. In general i avoid small apertures, i just found this behavior strange.</p> <p>I would like to clarify what i mean by hot spot. I do not mean overall loss of contrast.</p> <p>For <em><strong>both copies</strong></em> of the specific pancake lens and small apertures, there is a <em><strong>hot spot</strong></em> that is about <em><strong>1.5x-2x</strong></em> the brightness of the rest of the frame. Its size is similar to the central <em><strong>12mm circle</strong></em> on my F3. It shows up even with a lens hood on.</p> <p>I also tested the following: 50mm f/1.2, 50mm f/1.8g, 75-150mm series e and for small apertures and bright uniform subjects, the image in<em><strong> the viewfinder dims uniformly</strong></em> as i push the dof preview lever down to f/16 or f/22. With the aforementioned pancake, u can clearly see the fat hot spot.</p> <p>What i see closely resembles the following description from an old thread (http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00Fyur)</p> <p>"There was a change in the optical formula at some point, and I remember that you can tell by comparing the radius of the rear element by looking at reflections. One particular version will produce a small circular bright spot in the middle of the frame when shooting bright scenes at small apertures. The other ones don't do this. Unfortunately, I don't remember which one suffers from this, though I know I own one! Avoid that one if you shoot bright outdoor scenes at small apertures."</p> <p>Can you comment if you see something similar for the short/long nose versions? You don't need to burn film, it should be clearly visible in the viewfinder (at least with old matte focusing screens).</p> <p> </p>

<p>Hello everybody,</p> <p>I have two copies of the 50mm f/1.8 ais, the pancake version that was available only in japan and which focuses down to 0.45m.</p> <p>I noticed that the combination of <em><strong>uniform bright light</strong></em> (clouds, bright skies etc) and a <em><strong>small aperture</strong></em> (f/16, f/22) produces a weird <em><strong>bright area/hot spot</strong></em> that is visible in the viewfinder when enabling dof preview. It is more easily visible on cameras with matte focusing screens like the F3 or FE2.<br /> <br />Both copies of the lens show this behavior, and none of my other lenses show such hot spots in similar situations. I have also seen other people mentioning here in photo.net that this particular pancake version is the only 50mm ais exhibiting such behavior. However, the comments seem a bit confusing and it is not always clear which 50 mills have this issue.</p> <p>I would really appreciate if anyone could confirm this, and also comment if the long barrel versions of the 50mm f/1.8 ais exhibit such flare/hot spots.</p> <p> </p>

<p>The pacific image prime film XA is the same as the reflecta rps 10M. I bought one sometime ago and had serious issues with it.<br /> <br /> More specifically, the scanner would scan a few slides and then it would jam and stop near the end of the scanning process. After a random number of restarts it would start to operate normally again, only to jam repeatedly after a while. The problem appeared even with single 35mm mounted slides.<br /> <br />Another problem was noise in dark areas and light banding/stripes with a very prominent vertical stripe on one side of the 35mm frame. Such problems however also happen with other line scanners as well, if you google enough you will find mentions of such instances. This is why in my opinion a properly configured (not to be taken lightly :)) dslr one-shot setup might be preferable in general.<br /> <br /> In the end i returned the unit but the dealer wouldn't refund the whole sum because i had 'somehow' scanned more than 100 frames and made inadvertent use of the unit. It turned out that Silverfast registered even the prescans as normal scans...<br /> <br />All in all a very bad experience. At least reflecta stepped in to explain them that the unit was indeed defective and they should issue a full refund. So kudos to them for that.</p>

<p>Thank you for replies! I will post results when I get around to working with it :)</p>

<p>Hi everybody,</p> <p>i recently got hold of some Agfa Copex/Rollei Slide Direct film which is supposed to yield positive images with standard B&W processing. However the film is very very slow and as such, i was mostly thinking to use it for tripod based shots or for producing B&W duplicates from my slide collection.</p> <p>I took a look at a technical sheet from Rollei and it is a little bit confusing. From what i understand, it is recommended to set the meter at iso 6 and overexpose by about 5 stops.</p> <p>Does anyone have any experience exposing this film? Any ideas about the best way to develop it would also be welcome, as i shoot almost exclusively slide film these days and it is a really long time since i did any B&W processing myself.</p> <p>d.</p>