craig_shearman1

<p>"Some american websites don't send to Italy"<br /><a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com">www.bhphotovideo.com</a> is one of the largest U.S. photo supply houses and ships worldwide.</p>

<p>"my continuous lights (halogen) are too hot to place the gels in front."<br /><br />No, they're not. Rosco makes polarizing gels that can be used with hot lights. You might need to put them a few inches in front of the lights. And Lee makes a heat-absorbing gel that can be used between the lights and the polarizing gels.</p>

<p>What kind of program is this for? If it's for a news program or news magazine program, then you would not get paid at all. With the exception of the occasional exclusive on something particularly juicy, legitimate news organizations generally do not pay the people they cover and even then it's controversial to do so. At least here in the U.S. it would be highly unethical for you to demand payment or for them to offer payment. (I'm a former reporter/editor/photographer.) Maybe things in Japan or the UK are different. Now if they are looking at you as a vendor to create a photo to be used for promoting their show, that's totally different. But that's not what it sounds like.</p>

<p>See-saw development has been around for decades, but not something you hear of very often. I think once upon a time it was seen as a bare-minimum way to get into developing while spending as little money on equipment as possible. All you needed was a tray or bowl instead of a tank and reels. You don't even need clips -- just hold onto the end of the film with your fingers. Today it's most useful for the situation you describe -- where you have an odd-size roll of film that it isn't easy to find a reel for. I would not use it for 35mm or 120. You can also do sheet film in a tray by handling it the same as paper.</p>

<p>First medium format camera I ever used was a Yashicamat, probably a D, for the high school newspaper in the mid-70s. Later they had a brand-new 124G that I used for quite a while. Liked it so much I bought one of my own about 20 years ago (actually swapped a movie camera I wasn't using for it). Used it to do studio portraits of my kids when they were babies. Still have it occasionally use it. Love it.</p>

<p>The lens you have is simply too slow (6.3 when zoomed in) to shoot night football, so any of the four lenses you're looking at would be a huge improvement. I have the first of the two Tamron 70-200 lenses you list and while it's a tack sharp lens for portraits and events and news, it doesn't AF fast enough for night-time sports, so I rent a Nikon 70-200 2.8 VRII for those jobs but that doesn't help you with the Sony. The second Tamron is newer and may AF faster. For day games it's less of an issue. Haven't used either of the Sigmas. None of these are macro lenses despite the name -- they focus down to maybe three feet, not three inches.<br /><br />I've shot sports off and on for 40 years and IMHO you're not going to get good pictures from the stands, at least nothing resembling a closeup of your son. At the high school level you shoot be able to shoot from the edge of the field if you introduce yourself to the coach/principal/others ahead of time, depending on the school and how bureaucratic they are. At the college level, that won't happen unless it's a very small school.<br /><br />Wherever you're shooting from, for night games you need to be shooting at least 1600 ISO and wide open at 2.8 to have any hope of a shutter speed high enough to stop action. VR/IS etc helps some with camera shake but not with stopping the motion of the players. Shooting wide open gives you no depth of field to cover focusing errors, so you have to experiment with the AF settings on your camera to see what gives the best results. Most of all, you have to shoot a lot of frames and expect to throw away a lot in order to come up with a few good shots.</p>

<p>Can't tell you the specific film stock without going back into some reference books but both movies would have been shot on color negative (color reversal was used for news and documentaries but Hollywood features were pretty much universally shot on negative stock and still are if shot on film). One difference with Jason and the Argonauts was that film used a lot of special effects with extensive optical printing. That meant that even the final master negative was a copy of a copy of a copy rather than straight from the camera, and therefore more grain at each stage. Definitely tons of advances in reducing grain in film over the years, but not sure which movie you are thinking of since as Peter says the Clint Eastwood movie the Good Bad and Ugly came out in 66. There were later movies under the same title, though.</p>

<p>If your clients are taking a pass on the B&W and want color instead, that pretty much answers the question. Give them what they're willing to pay for. Personally, I normally don't do extensive post work on an image until a client has already ordered it, so maybe you might want to consider only showing "proofs" before you tweak anything for either B&W or color.</p>

<p>Looks a lot like those kit cameras from back in the day. I hope they can make a go of it but trying to design and sell a new view camera today is a little like coming out with a new buggy whip. There are so many cameras gathering dust and being sold for peanuts if not outright given away that there doesn't seem to be much point in making new ones. Particularly for view cameras, which last forever and aren't subject to the latest bells and whistles.</p>

<p>This time of year you should still have reasonable light until about 8, so I would make it easy on myself and plan on doing most of my shooting during the first hour of the show. An hour is plenty of time to cover most of the shots you're going to get. Once it gets dark, it depends on what kind of stage lighting there is, if any. If it's well-lit at good levels (unlikely) you might be able to shoot available light with your three faster lenses. If you do flash, rather than just blasting with it on camera I would try to use it as fill to supplement the stage lighting (again assuming the stage lighting is decent). Ideally you should get the flash off camera and use a radio trigger but that might be more complicated than you're looking to get into. My gut is that that 70-300 is simply too slow to be of much use once it gets dark, not just for exposure but AF as well.</p>

<p>Played with both Kodak and Ilford C-41 B&W a couple of times but never saw much point to it for my purposes. It was more trouble to develop than regular B&W and didn't give me anything that regular B&W didn't. But I'm sure it came in handing for those who had various reasons not to want to develop B&W themselves.<br /><br /></p>

<p>They will fit. But are you sure you mean 15-stop? You wouldn't be able to see anything through the lens regardless of the polarizer.</p>

<p>Don't know about guides but when I was out there a few years ago there were a couple of "photographers guide to the Grand Canyon" type of books available. They were very specific about spots to go to, how to get there and -- I believe -- recommended a guide or two. </p>

<p>As recently as a couple of years ago there were a couple of places online selling it but even they were saying that supplies were low. There's always going to be somebody looking for a niche market who might crank out a small supply of obsolete formats, but it's not something you can count on. The bigger battle is keeping current formats like 35mm and 120 in production.</p>

<p>What are the conditions in your house and what are your negatives in?<br /><br />Generally speaking, if the house is comfortable for people it's fine for film, short of living in the tropics without air conditioning. Does your house have heat? Does it have air conditioning? If so, not sure why the closet would have significantly different temps than the rest of the house.<br /><br />I've stored all of my slides and negatives in PrintFile pages at normal room temperature (plus or minus 76F) since the 1970s with no problems at all.</p>

<p>Guys, stop and put this into perspective for a minute. A gallon of developer is maybe $10, and fixer is about the same. It simply isn't worth the time or trouble, let alone buying a bottle of any kind of preservative. And propane? Wait til the insurance company hears that once after your house burns down. :)</p>

<p>If you're going to go with hot lights, the most popular professional units are Lowel, <a href="http://www.lowel.com">www.lowel.com</a> You can get a Lowel Tota light for around $150 new and stands (any brand will do) around $50. Umbrellas are much cheaper than softboxes, starting at about $20. You can also buy all of this used on ebay for half that, and it's gear that's safe to buy used since there aren't that many things in it to go bad.<br /><br />There are lots of fancy things you can do if you want to be a professional bike photographer. But if you're just trying to take good pictures of what you're trying to sell, keep it simple.<br /><br />Personally, I would use flash rather than hot lights, but that's another conversation.</p>

<p>Google Sover Wong. He is the F2 repair expert.</p>

<p>If the outside door closes securely enough that rain and wind and cold/hot air aren't coming in through it, then you are probably fine as far as dust is concerned. Just keep it closed, don't be opening it. As far as making it light-tight, you only need to cover the cracks where light is coming through, not the entire door. I have used black gaffer tape.<br /><br />As for ventilation, unless you are going to be in the darkroom for hours at a time without coming out for a break, it should be a non-issue. Opening the door into the apartment from time to time should be sufficient. If there are gaps in the iron door sufficient that a fan would let air circulate in or out around it, those gaps would be big enough that you could have dust coming in or they could be light leaks and you would want to seal them up.<br /><br />If I were building a permanent darkroom where I was going to be working eight hours a day five days a week I would want ventilation. Many of my temporary darkrooms have been in bathrooms and if there's a ventilation fan there already I turn it on. My current permanent darkroom does not have ventilation, but I'm never down there more than a couple of hours at a time.</p>

<p>Alan is correct that the developing time is the same as long as you have sufficient volume of liquid to cover the film. Same as in a vertical plastic or stainless steel tank. I haven't used the Jobo but in a regular tank it usually takes 16 ounces for one roll of 120, 32 ounces for two, etc.<br /><br />As for replenishing used developer, I don't. All of my developer goes down the drain and fresh developer is used for each batch. Much simpler that way. And I develop so little film now that I'm more interested in using up a gallon before it goes bad than trying to stretch it out.</p>

<p>I would go with the Mamiya.<br /><br />I have a C330 and at the of the newspapers I worked at a lifetime ago they had half a dozen C-ceries cameras. There are differences in features but they're all rock solid.</p>

<p>Check out <a href="http://www.darknessandlight.co.uk/">http://www.darknessandlight.co.uk/</a> for incredible pictures of Cambridge that will give you some ideas. I was there about a month ago. It has endless possibilities.<br /><br />In London, down by Waterloo train station there's a spot where you can get Big Ben lined up in the middle of the London Eye if you're after something that captures the classic and modern together. You want to be off to the right of the Eye, on the Waterloo Station side of the river. </p>

<p>One of the photo magazines a while back had a piece on a photographer who had shot something showing off canoes or kayaks in a shallow pond. He placed speedlights in watertight clear plastic boxes and fired them with radio triggers. You obviously would want to test the boxes pretty well before trying this.</p>

<p>There's quite a bit you can do with the 18-55 you already have, so before you rush out to buy anytning else I would shoot with that and see what shots you are missing that require something else. Since you are covered on the wide to normal range, the next lens you will likely find a need for is something in the normal to telephoto range. IMHO, the two most essential lenses that allow a photographer to cover the widest range of subject matter with a minimal amount of gear is a 24-70 and a 70-200, both 2.8. If I had what you have I would buy a 70-200 2.8 (it can be a Tamron or Sigma, not necessarily Canon), then eventually replace the 18-55 with th4e 24-70. The third lens in my lineup is a 12-24 to cover the really wide end of things.<br /><br />For events you also need a good external flash, and learn how to use it properly.</p>

<p>As much as I love film, I have mixed feelings about schools using film to teach at this point. It's great that young kids are learning the fundamentals and that film knowledge will be preserved for another generation. But I think digital is probably the more efficient method for teaching.<br /><br />Take simple exposure and focus for example. With film, you have the kids shoot, then you have to wait anywhere from hours to days to get the film developed to see what they got, by which time most have forgotten what the camera settings were (even if you told them to write them down). With digital, you can show them immediately how opening up or closing down the aperture affects exposure, how the shutter does the same, and how combinations of aperture and shutter work. You can see whether something is in focus or not. You can even demonstrate in focus and our of focus, especially for kids who think "focus" means "emphasize" or "concentrate.<br /><br />I wouldn't tell schools not to teach with film. But at this point it might be something I would do later in the curriculum after I took advantage of digital to speed up the learning curve.</p>