fred_obturateur

"he only let me know he didn't do Paypal until after the auction ended ("I don't do paypal--let's talk!") and he woke up my wife and I this morning at 6:45 to gripe about it."

 

Imho this bayer is in the PITA category... Get rid of him and find a better owner for your gear. This pig doesn't deserve it!

Frank burnt on Charlie during the Stones 72 Tour? D'oh!

Acc to an extensive tech test I read years ago the Kodak film wins. PLus it's a 640 Iso film so you might accidentally under-expose it (slightly) with no harmful consequences.

"Invert 5 times in 5 sec every 30 sec"

 

This is much more than what I'm doing, Mr Moravec. I do two 180-degrees inversions every minute. It takes me 10 seconds to do so. Am I doing wrong?

Hello again Lex!

 

"I'm a bit unclear about how much film has been fixed in how much solution"

 

Sorry it must be my poor English : I mixed one liter of stock Unifix with four liters of plain water. I fixed 32 135-36 rolls of TRI-X without any problems. When I tried to fix 16 more I discovered my fixer had gone belly-up.

 

I have done some more lab work incl. processing more Tri-x's 135-36 using Ilford fixer and I have yet to report any problems.

Thanks for the advices : all the 16 films are now drying.

 

Now my processing routine : TRI-X in 135 format processed in D-76 1+1, then a stop bath with acetic acid at 2%, then a rapaid fixer (Ilford till this week when I was sold Unifix...) diluted 1+4. Precisely I dilute 1 liter of pure fixer in 4 liters of water. I then process 16x4 = 64 TRI-Xs. And yes Lex I've been doing this for roughly 10 years now without any problems.

 

Last Sunday I mixed a new batch of fixer (dil. 1+4 as usual) trying Unifix. I took one liter from the (sealed) drum of Unifix.

 

I fixed 32 TRI-Xs without any visible problems. It is today when I processed 16 more films that my fixer went belly-up (I've just checked it with a film leader : it's dead).

 

Imho the fixer is the culprit, not me. I'll get Hypam tomorrow.

 

John and Lex thanks again for the advices!

Hello,

 

I just processed 16 films with my 2 Paterson tanks. After hanging the 1st 8 films

I noticed uneven fixing on these. (It was the very first time I used Kodak fixer

btw)

 

Now I know I have to re-fix the films tomorrow evening (with some ILFORD fixer).

 

BUT what shall I do in the meantime? Letting the other 8 films rest in the tank

with the final rinsing water for 24 hrs? Or Fotoflo them and hanging them to dry

with the first 8 ones, then re-wet them all and refix them?

 

Looking forward to reading you...

 

Freddy

Good Old John also managed to get great prints from Kodak's FB papers!

Is he the Jeff Gannon of the darkroom?

"be damn sure that the printer isn't making extra copies for himself"

 

Do printers do this? Really?

"[no] difference between it and regular Ilford MGIV FB"

 

Ouch! That's a baaaaad news...

In my area the M8 saved more than one dealer from going out of business (after the "Herm賠years" disasters...).

 

Good luck Leica! My payment for a new Summilux 50mm ASPH is going Monday.

Let's just hope it's a GENUINE comeback not some cheap scam a German big player tried to pull last year on the European buyers "Yes we've found uncut rolls of MCC111 made in 2005 just before Agfa went out of business".

 

It was in fact some lame FB stuff that was poorly manufcatured in Eastern Europe... not in the same league as the excellent departed MCC111.

 

Wait and see...

"I can live with this, I really can"

 

So can I! Your neg is sparkling! Congratulations!

I've read somewhere that diluting X-TOL in hot water is the best recipe for experiencing "X-TOL sudden death" aka "my negs are ruined".

 

Don't know if it's true but if I were you I'd use cool water.

Make no cultural mistake here : there is NO pawn shop in Paris or in the Paris area.

 

Your M camera might pop up one day either in eastern Europe or places like Lebanon. Leicas follow the same route as stolen expensive cars...

 

The French Postal services used to be as reliable as a Swiss clock but for several years now they have been put thru the deregulation grinder... Now it's nearly 1.5 millions parcels or letters that are lost EVERY YEAR.

 

And Paul N. you're a strong contender for the "silliest post of 2008" Award. ;-)

I shall add the 6 year mariage with Hermès was a sheer disaster. Nothing came out of it except the utterly ridiculous limited "Leica Hermès" ("Leica Pimp" shouls have been more appropriate...).

 

The Austrian who bought the Leica shares from Hermès look much wiser, don't cha think?

 

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1000&message=20029492&changemode=1

"Actually, Leica as whole is quite a viable company. They hardly have problem selling their non-photographic products. At my work

every time we put a tender out Leica wins hands down, mostly scientific stuff."

 

You're absolutely right : "Leica camera" buried its own grave the day it became an independant entity, separated from the profitable Leitz industrial empire. (Remember the "Ein Stück" ["a piece"] limited M6? Well that one was to "celebrate" this gloomy day...).

 

http://www.kbcamera.com/m6einstuck.htm

Send Mr Bonavolta a mail. He's Swiss so he must be fluent in 3 langages (French, German; English). Plus, he's VERY nice!!

hé Pierrot va falloir que tu t'appliques plus si tu veux nous impressionner... Pourquoi ne pas t'approcher plus de ton modèle?

On dirait que tu as fais dans ton froc au moment de prendre la photo?

(comme moi y a 10 ans en gros...)

Courage! Tu peux faire bien mieux! ;-)

Imho the 2 winners are D-76 1+1 (400) and Diafine (1600).

 

Gonna buy me a quarter of this stuff! Price? 30 ?/45$... Pretty hefty import/European price...

 

Anyway thanks for the link Jason!

Thx John! Does that mean 500 Iso cinema stock has a sensibility of 1000 Iso pre-Vision2 stock?

Honetly I've learnt a TON of things on optics reading Erwin's articles. Didn't you, honestly? I'll probably never ever buy a 75mm lens (a bastard focal lenght imho) but I'll read this article immediately.

Bill thanks a lot for the stories and for THE picture!

Leica fever spreading like Spanish flu again!

 

It really makes me think of a beautiful girl everyone would like to sh@g but knowing this is not really possible (too small to poor etc). Then it's "look how fat she is" "her eyes are ugly" "she's dumb as a cow, way overrated".

 

Replace "beautiful girl" with "new Leica product" and "sh@g" with "buy" and you get the whole picture!

Let me correct a few mistakes I've read here and there...

 

"the exhibit and subsequent book from them" The 1988 MOMA exhibition was NOT based on these post-mortem films. It was a retrospective of his WHOLE career. Some pix were taken from the latter part of his life.

 

"develop for grain the size of golfballs?" I personnally would not trade one Winogrand pictur for Ansel Adams's ENTIRE works but hey everyone's entitled to his/her (bad?) taste...

 

"he used an interesting method of "develop by inspection" with his Tri-X under a green safelight" He did this because he processed his according the contrast of the light at the time of shooting. He would process all the films made under a bright sunny light at the same time and THEN process all the films made with a soft cloudy light. He would (briefly) inspect them to make sure the neg contrast was bearable.

 

"I agree with his preference for distance between

taking the photo and dealing with the finished image" He probably got it from his dear friend Lee Friedlander who looks at his contact-sheets like 7 years after exposure.

 

"I remember reading somewhere that he rated Tri-X at 1250 ASA, but I don't know which dev he used" This is what Joel Meyerowitz says in the book "Bystander" (1994) about their modus operandi in the early 60's : "the reason was to be able to shoot at 1/1000th of a second as much as possible" (p.376). My guess is Winogrand used Diafine at that time, then (in the 1970's) switched back to normal setting for his TRI-X (and used D-76?).

 

And thanks Henri for this great question!