curt_sampson1

Just keep in mind your application before you jump to a matte screen. It's all very nice in daylight at f8, but just try to focus without a focusing aid at f1.4 at nighttime when you have 10 cm. depth of field. I know that I sure can't do it.

The OM-3Ti and OM-4 use standard SR44 silver cells, still easily available, not Mercury! So there's no need to substitute a 357. (You can substitute an LR44 for the SR44; it just might not last as long.)

 

And if you've got a OM-3Ti, you want to put in a battery. Why waste such a fantastic light meter?

I guess I really meant, why not meter the scene once, work out an exposure low enough to avoid clipping on all lenses, and then use that exact same exposure on every lens. Then you don't get it changing due to reading the light meter with different vignetting and so on.

I'm not entirely clear on why you used autoexposure. Using manual exposure, you could have ensured consistent lighting across all of the lenses.

Oops. Forget that. I was out in space and thinking of 4 vs. 4Ti.

The T and Ti are different. Service for the electronics of a Ti is still available (though not for too much longer). If the electronics on a T go, you're out of luck as they can't be repaired.

 

 

The other difference is that the Ti is a few grammes lighter.

Hm. Well, I bought the Pen D2 this afternoon. The shutter speed dial is a little gronky, and the aperture dial is a bit stiff, but other than that it seems ok. The meter works for some definition of works, but I don't have a battery right now so I've not tried it out outside to get a sense of how accurate it is.

 

The W, in some ways, looks better to me; in particular the shoe would be nice (so I could mount one of those little Gossen meters), as would the closer focusing, but the D2 has some advantages as well. Particularly, I like having the 1/8 shutter speed, for those low-light situations. The faster lens might also be good, but then again, am I going to be able to focus a lens at 1.9 using only scale focus?

 

It's the first time I've shot without a light meter, so I hope that things will be ok. I'll see when I develop the film this weekend.

 

At least, with 72 frames per roll, you can do a lot of bracketing!

I've found a shop with a PEN D and a handful of PEN D2 cameras, in the

$100-$150 range, and I'm thinking of getting one. (It may be a bit

pricy, but this is Japan, where any used camera shop is going to

charge half again what you'd pay elsewhere.) What appeals to me is

having a small manual camera to complement my XA.

 

Any thoughts on these, and what I should be looking at? I understand

that CDS cells die after a while, and these cameras are getting on

towards 40 years old, so I'm definitely leaning towards a D2 over a D.

 

I'm not really wanting to spring $30 for a battery adapter, either,

but I understand you can just wedge in an LR33 or something like that,

and just live with different meter readings. I can compensate when I

determine my developing time, anyway. (Is constant voltage important

here? Should I be using an SR43 instead?)

 

What's most likely to break on these? What parts should I check,

besides the usual--everything turns smoothly, aperture opens and

closes appropriately, shutter speed seems correct.

 

Or should I be looking at another small, manual camera, half-frame or

otherwise?

Summer in Tokyo tends to make getting your developer down to 20deg quite a pain. I've done the ice bath thing, but I've found the easiest thing is to use freezer packs (you know, those ice things you can re-freeze) to get a 5l jug of water down to about 20deg for processing, and then keep small quantities of developer in the fridge, that I mix with room-temperature developer just before developing. This is much faster and easier than using an ice bath to try to cool developer. Presumably you could do the same with stop bath and fixer, if it's a serious problem. (For me they're generally not above 25deg anyway, which is close enough for me.)

The forum post here can be found at:

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00CHH3

 

The original page is at:

 

http://rick_oleson.tripod.com/index-165.html

Warning: pedantic nitpicks ahead.

 

Andy wrote that, '"Bokeh" is just a fancy way of saying focus pull...' Well, maybe if you've got a motor drive. A really fast motor drive. Like 24 frames per second. :-)

 

I've never heard of "focus pull" in the still camera world, but in the motion picture world, it's a change of focus within a scene. Frequently this is done when two people are talking, with one in the background and one in the foreground, and focus changing between the two as they speak.

 

There's a good definition at http://www.mediacollege.com/video/camera/focus/pull.html , and some fascinating notes on it and focus calibration at

http://octopus.drama.bris.ac.uk/OnlineDocs/FocusPulling/ .

I'm also using a no-name Korean 128 MB card without problems.

Responding to a few comments here:

 

"It's hard to beat an OM-1 with a handheld incident/spot meter. What more could you need?"

 

It depends on what you mean by, "beat." If you don't take the time it takes to take a photo into account, you'll get the same result. But the OM3/4 spot meter is quite different from any other spot meter you've ever used.

 

Typically, I'll spot three or four things to get an idea of the contrast of the scene, and where the shadows and highlights lie in relation to each other. One of these spots will be the highlight or shadow area where I think it's most important to have good detail. I'll then place that in an appropriate zone, usually within a couple of stops of zone V, and see where everything else lands. At that point, I might decide that I'm loosing too much detail at the other end, due to where things landed, or perhaps I've completely blown out some highlights or lost some shadows, and so I'll move the exposure up or down a stop to avoid that problem, living with losing a bit of that detail I wanted for the sake of the overall picture. And during all of this I'm also checking the overall brightness of the scene with the area meter, as well.

 

This whole process takes less than two seconds. There's no way you could do it that fast with a handheld meter, not only because you have to switch between the meter and the camera, but more importantly because you don't get all of the information presented to you at once on a clearly and quickly comprehensible graphical display. Nor can you focus at the same time as you're metering.

 

If you've not seen how this works, you really need to try it out. It's certainly nothing at all like having an OM-1 with the meter re-tooled to be a spot meter.

 

If there's one thing I could change with this, it would be to make the angle of the spot meter smaller. I find it a hair wide for my taste.

 

As for the OM-4 batteries, it is a relative battery eater, compared to a Ti, but it's not truly horrible. With my old OM-4 I found I'd replace a pair of SR44s once every couple of months, at the same cost as a couple of rolls of film, which is not such a big deal when you're shooting 30-40 rolls per month anyway. Also, when you're not using the camera, setting the shutter speed dial to the manual-60 or bulb modes turns off the electronics completely, conserving the batteries. The service issue is a much better deal, IMHO.

 

If you're shooting in cold weather, a 3Ti might be the way to go, from what I've read here. However, if you're just worried about reliability, you can buy two, or perhaps even three, OM-4 Ti bodies for the price of a single OM-3 Ti.

 

It's true there's no mirror lock on the OM3/4, but if you use the self timer the mirror will go up at the start of the timing period, reducing vibration when the shot is actually taken. If you can live with the wait, this may be a reasonable substitute for mirror lock.

The OM-1 and OM-2 have a standard match-needle metering system. The OM-3 and -4 have an amazing metering system that lets you spot meter several different spots and see them all *at the same time* against a horizontal line broken up into sections by f-stop. It's particularly great if you do any kind of zone system stuff. I'd strongly recommend a 3 or 4 over any earlier model if you do a lot work in manual mode (which I'm guessing you do).

 

Unless you're particularly concerned about batteries going out because of cold weather or you don't carry spares (though they're so small, you always ought to!), I would go for a 4 over a 3. You'll save a bunch of money (the 3s are much rarer, and thus more prized by collectors) and you never have to set it to auto mode if you don't want to. (In manual mode, the cameras function identically to the user, as far as I know. It's just that the 4 uses an electronic shutter.)

That "just zone-focus and shoot" thing is one of the two things I really like about the Lomo. Although I really wish they'd put the focus on the right-hand side so that you could operate the camera one-handed.

 

The other thing I liked was that the lomo is pretty darn quiet, and always takes a photo when you push the button. I have regular struggles with my Ricoh GR1 trying to convince it to take a shot.

Oh, can I just take it in to Bic? And get a discount and points? Fantastic! Now I don't have to put off getting my C-3040Z repaired.

 

I would worry slightly about taking in an OM-4 or something like that, though; I don't have confidence that someone at Bic would really understand the problems with it. But then again, presumably the guy at the repair shop could figure it out, once given a clue.

 

But they definitely do have some at least basic mechanical repair folks over at Olympus Plaza, because they repaired a couple of small issues (missing knob on rewind lever and lost red transparent cap on self-timer) on my OM-4Ti right then and there. (I happened to have it with me when I was picking up my OM-4.)

 

As for the silver and black being the exact same model, are you really sure? Even the electronics are exactly the same? It's not unusual, from my experience in the computer industry, for manufacturers to make rather dramatic changes in in electronic internals without changing the exterior much. (I've seen cases where a manufacturer has had two entirely different LAN chips on different versions of the same model of LAN card! This is much like buying a Mac one day and finding an Intel CPU inside.) Given the type of electronics inside that camera, it would not surprise me if any electronic repair to the OM-4Ti silver involved ripping out all of the electronics and replacing them with OM-4Ti black electronics.

Are you talking about the Olympus Plaza repair centre in Ogawamachi? I took my OM-4 there a while back when the shutter speed dial got stuck (a purely mechanical problem) and they had no difficulty fixing it for me. They did give me dire warnings that they might not be able to fix it (it's no longer a supported camera, and electronic parts for it are no longer available) but they did agree to give it a go.

 

Perhaps it was just because it's mechanically pretty similar to an OM-4Ti, which is still supported.

Kodak Technical Pan is gone, but you could always try Bluefire Police as a replacement. If you pop over to <a href="http://www.frugalphotographer.com/">Frugal Photographer</a> you can get more information on this film and its developer, as well as pricing.

Apparently I'm not the only one who likes Paterson Super System 4 tanks. This is Stephen Anchell, quoted in <i>The Film Developing Cookbook:</i>

 

<blockquote><i>

For most of my career in the darkroom I have had a prejudice against plastic tanks. When I was starting out plastic reels had a reputation for absorbing chemicals, and they could not be loaded wet. Although the problem of chemical absorption has apparently been solved, many plastic reels still cannot be loaded when wet. A few years ago I was introduced to Paterson Super System 4 tanks and reels. I think there is no better tank or reel for manual film processing. Although the reels do not absorb chemistry and they can be loaded wet, that is not the reason I recommend this system. The reason is the wide mouth, for rapidly pouring solutions in and out. The only way to come close to the fill and dump speed of the Paterson tank with a metal tank is to turn off the lights, remove the lid, and fill (or dump) the tank in the dark.

</i></blockquote>

 

My experience is that the fill speed (meaning when all the fluid has actually gone through the column and is in contact with the film) is about 4 seconds for a two-reel tank, and 6 seconds for a three-reel. Dump speed is more than twice that.

Doing your own black and white film developing is no big problem; there are plenty of resources on the net. Basically, you'll need a developing tank, the appropriate chemicals etc., and a changing back. You load the exposed film into the tank inside the changing bag, close the tank, and at that point the tank is light-tight and the rest of the process can be done in room light.

 

Whether you'll be able to use these negatives to decide what to print is a bit more of an open question. I personally tried for a while, but I find that contact prints are much easier to work from. But you can do contact printing in a dark bathroom.

If you need a tripod from time to time, get a strap for your tripod and throw it over your shoulder. I find it no worse than carrying a camera bag around.

There's a very nice Araki and Moriyama Daido show on at Tokyo Opera City right now, if anybody happens to be in the Tokyo area any time soon. As well as the photographs, they also have stills and video of the pair of them wandering around Shinjuku's Kabukicho (rather a red light district) photgraphing things.

 

Are we going to see a DVD of this released soon? And, importantly for me, will it be region free? I've still got an American-bought James Natchaway DVD sitting at home that I can't watch because I've yet to buy a region-free DVD player.

I'm not sure that producing digital products would be a good idea at all. It's certainly a distraction from what I would hope would be the company's main focus, and a more profitable distraction is likely to kill the less popular products.

 

I think that Ilford can do fine if it settles down into being a small company than it has been, serving a small core of users that are going to be sticking to black and white for a long time to come.

You might find the book <i>Dream Street: W. Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh Project, 1955-1958</i> inspiring.

All it means is that you're exposing at a different EI than the frame numbers were exposed at, and you're developing for your exposure, not the frame numbers'. Nothing wrong with that.

 

I do find the frame numbers serve as a quick initial guide, though, especially when you're developing a new film. But it's true they can't be trusted. I developed some Delta 100 the other day for the first time, and it seems that the frame numbers at the top and the bar codes at the bottom are actually exposed differently; one looked ok, and the other rather lighter.

 

In the end, what you really want is to make sure that you've got detail in both the shadows and the highlights on the film, and an appropriate range of contrast to make printing easier. But given the huge range of negative film anyway, and commonness of good variable grade paper, you can be pretty lax with all this and still do quite well.

 

If you want to get it optimal, do the standard film exposure and development tests that any basic zone system guide will tell you about. But I don't bother to do this, because I have other constraints, anyway. (I usually shoot at an EI of 3200, far above the "best" EI for my film, because I need the speed.)