joris_van_looveren

Hold it near your subject, point the meter's dome to your camera, and trigger your flash. The meter will register the amount of light that reaches the subject and calculate the f-stop you have to use in conjunction with your camera's flash sync shutter speed.

 

The different power ratings on your flash correspond to stops on your lens. Suppose you set your flash to 1/4 and your meter says to use f8. If you want more depth of field, you can increase flash power to 1/2 or 1/1, and use f11 or f16, respectively. If you want less depth of field, you can decrease flash power to 1/8 or 1/16, and use f5.6 or f4.

"as a sidenote, i've heard that Barry Lyndon was shot almost entirely in natural light (perhaps it's not that uncommon, dunno).."

 

There is one (maybe several, don't remember) interior scene of a dinner exclusively lit by candlelight in that movie. In order to film this scene without needing additional light Kubrick used a f/0.7 lens made by Zeiss for NASA. In other scenes artificial light was used. (According to the Internet Movie Database).

It seems like you were shooting upwards. In that case, the plane of focus is not parallel to your subject but at an angle, so that at the level of the kid's face, it is closer to you rather than at the face. With f5.6, the DOF is probably not sufficient to also make the face sharp.

Well, whatever. The I/J issue seems to be confusing to many people, but it doesn't confuse me and I attribute that to the fact that I learned to write capital I like it is shaped on these cameras. Someone else can figure out the details if they wish :)

"Until very recently the Germans used an alphabet slightly different from the usual Roman one, and in it capital "I" looks like what we know as capital "J". Hence Jhagee."

 

This has nothing to do with different alphabets. This has to do with script (handwriting) vs. printed text. When I write by hand, capital I comes out looking something like a printed J (hence the confusion), and capital J goes below the baseline, like a small j but taller and with no dot.

That would be Ihagee; europeans seem to write differently from americans...

 

<a href="http://www.ihagee.org/index.htm">http://www.ihagee.org/index.htm</a>

"In my experience most 120 cameras give slightly variable distances between the frames. I think a lot of it can depend on how quickly you wind it, the condition of the gears, and even how long of a break (a few seconds, a whole week?) there is between shots."

 

That is what I thought. And don't get me wrong about the coffee grinder comment, I love it! I plan on using it a lot, with the 80 and 180 lenses I have.

...well actually it says Mamiya C330 on the front ;)

 

It handles excellently and seems to work fine from the negatives of my

first roll. I'm anxious to enlarge them to see the quality! I noticed

though that the frames are spaced unevenly on the roll. Is this

normal, or is something slipping inside?

It doesn't work with Netscape 7.0 for Mac. It works with Firefox 1.0 for Mac.

 

(In both, however, the thumbnails extend beyond the right border of the window. I have to scroll right to click on the thumbnails, and then scroll back to see the picture, which is not really convenient. Is it like this in IE too?)

 

The page source shows numerous checks for older browsers (IE4 and NS6), but they are commented out. Maybe you can check an option in Frontpage for compatibility with older browsers or something?

Thanks for the kind words everyone! Of course, I edited out the photographically less

interesting snapshots of friends and family :) And yes, the cables above the roads

bothered me too, but in Vienna they are so omnipresent (not only Strassenbahn) that

they are simply a feature of the city.

 

The photos are freshly developed and contact printed, so I haven't really thought very

hard about them yet. The darkroom I go to doesn't have the chemicals for sepia. I

might try it in Photoshop though if I can get the negatives scanned. I enlarged one

photo (the last one in the first row, of the Orangerie at Schönbrunn) to 25x25cm, and

though it is soft and the negative has pinholes (dirt in the camera?), it looks very nice.

Not all negatives have pinholes though.

 

Roman: I live in Brussels and don't usually shoot 'sights' in Brussels either... My 'hotel'

was just around the corner in the Kaiserstrasse, but it seemed the gallery was closed

because they were going to move it to the house to the left of LeicaShop (or

something). It's on my list for next time though, and now I know where it is!

I spent "Silvester" (New year's eve) in Vienna, and took my Agfa Isola II and

some rolls of Ilford HP5+ with me.

 

<a href="http://www.van-looveren.net/joris/en/foto/wenen.html">See the

results.</a>

I don't usually shoot slides, but last time I did so, I shot most slides outside. Because the sky was in many of the slides, the OM10's meter tended to underexpose without special adjustments. The slides were acceptable but I would still have liked a bit more exposure. So I would certainly not underexpose a stop by default in those circumstances.

Verizon should have backups too. Not very professional if they don't.

You can ignore my opinion too, but the fact that there are many backs in the pictures does stand out. It makes "german idyll" sound almost ironic.

I have a Tamron 200/3.5 with the adaptall2 OM adapter and find it more than solid enough. I figure if you want sharp pictures from a 400 you need to support the lens, so not all the weight will be on the lens mount/adapter anyway. Maybe you can take your lens to a second-hand shop and try to get a feel for the OM + Adaptall2 combination?

My System 4 tank does not leak. You should not put the lid on when you store it. This allows both residual moisture to evaporate from the tank after washing it, and does not stretch the lid so it keeps closing well.

I like it, especially the fact that in the positive part it is the girl who is lighting the cigarette and in the negative part it is the guy. Subtle difference between two images that at first sight seem to be each others' negatives. (I did notice the fourth face in the negative part, but only after the striking similarities made me curious.)

As for ground glass, you can get by with wax paper. Failing that, a piece of plastic from one of these thin plastic grocery bags worked for me when I had to recalibrate the lens of my Agfa Isola. For a loupe you can use a loose 50mm (or wider) lens. (Rear element pointed at the "ground glass", you look through the front element.)

That kind of looks like a Tamron adaptall adapter on the back of that lens. I couldn't say for sure though.

I'm not worried, just wondering what I might get out of it.

I recently bought an Agfa Isola medium-format camera in fine condition

at a flea market. It has an Agfa Agnar 75f6.3 lens and Singlo-2

shutter. The first roll I tried (APX 100) was seriously underexposed

so I threw it away, but what was on the roll seemed to look promising,

so I will try a few more rolls. Does anybody have an idea of the

quality of the lens and resulting enlargements? (I currently only have

experience with 35mm.)

Personally, I don't like the effect of panning with runners. Their arms and legs will be moving in the picture but their torso may or may not. Maybe it's nice for one or two pictures, but not for a whole series. It's not like panning with cars.

I have a Zuiko 135/2.8 that I really like. I bought it used but in good condition (in a store) for 85 euros if I remember correctly. I had been advised against the (cheaper) 135/3.5. It's small and light.

 

I also have a used 200/3.5 Tamron with adaptall-2 adapter that I bought (in the same store) for about the same money or slightly less.

I have been doing available light photography up to now, but I would

like to start experimenting with a flash, especially fill flash to

reduce harsh shadows from sunlight.

 

In the photo equipment package I "inherited" from my father there is

an Agfatronic 240CB flash, without user manual. There is a shift

button on the front, with one setting labeled with a filled circle,

and the other setting with an "open" circle. Can anyone explain what

the difference is between the settings?

 

I made a test roll using a 135mm lens at 3m; the slider on the back of

the flash indicated f/8 as the aperture to use. All the frames where I

used the "filled circle" setting are underexposed, except with the

aperture at f/4. The frames where I used the "open circle" setting,

were better, except I need to correct 1 stop from the slider setting

(1 stop larger aperture for bounce flash, 1 stop smaller aperture for

direct flash). I seem to have to correct 1 stop more in either

direction with a shorter (50mm) lens, is this correct?

Thin negatives mean too little development (most of the silver remains undeveloped and is removed during the fixing phase). So, you need to develop longer. Sorry, I have no concrete information---I don't use DDX nor HIE.