fpa

YMMV, (i.e. this is the kit I settled on for various reasons), I'd ditch the two you don't like, and run a three lens system of 60-100-150, which is essentially what I have on my C220 (65-105-180). The 105 gives me an angle I associate more with 'normal' than the 80, and the 65 is just a hair too wide at times, especially when doing closeups. I used the 65 alone for several years before deciding that I really missed having a lens with a draw similar to a 55/60 on 35mm. I still haven't warmed to the 180, but Mamiya never made a 150 for that camera, and it was less than $50.

 

The advantage of adding the third lens is you still have a normal lens if either of the first two gets balky while on assignment.

Edmund Optical (formerly the optics end of Edmund Scientific) sells a variety of magnifiers at reasonble cost. We kept a 10x chained in the school darkroom to good effect. Not terribly expensive. http://www.edmundoptics.com/onlinecatalog/browse.cfm?categoryid=183&level=2

 

You can also use a good 50mm lens reversed.

One random suggestion: try to find an equatorial telescope mount, even from a cheap

60mm refractor (lots of those sold once upon a time). Ideally, you can find a motor drive,

but the hand crank ones work for short exposures with practice. Properly aligned to the

celestial axis (polaris in the north, and some unfortutnately blank spot in the south), you'll

be able to track your object as the earth turns. Bolt your lens to this, and you should be

able to get sharp several second to minute exposures.

 

This opens up not only dimmer moons of jupiter (and less noisy ISOs), but also nebulae

and star clusters, many of which look better with relatively short focus (1000mm ->

200mm) lenses than in the narrow view of a full-sized telescope. Surfing the Milky Way

near Scorpio with binoculars will give you a feel for what's possible.

 

Have fun. I did some of this in HS with a 6" F8, which is effectively only 200mm longer

than your cat.

On the other hand, the 80 should give more even illumination, if you're not trying to over-

enlarge. Depends how much column you have to work with.

If you can eat the cost of a few more lights, the clip-on painters' lights in the big aluminum

reflectors can be used with standard tungsten bulbs. If you're into B&W, you can get away

with compact fluorescent, which is cooler yet. I've been using those, held to stands with lab-

clamps. I worry quite a bit less about tipping one of those over, or getting it too close to the

woodwork. I thought about the halogens, but just too much heat when I walked by them

during some renovations at work.

 

Add some pvc-pipe diffusers and reflectors, and it's a fun way to get into studio work.

Get the eastern-european films (Foma, Efke, or Forte if you can find any left in stock), then

process them with no care to temperature after the initial development. 75 deg for

development, then cold stop bath, r. t. fixer, and wash water allowed to drift up above 80

then down below 70, during a long-wash should work. Basically, do the opposite of how

you've been taught to handle film. Long wet-times and poor temperature control,

although don't go too warm, as you want the emulsion to stay on the film, and keep notes

on time/temperature, in case you want to repeat the effect in the future.

 

Newer (Delta, TMax, HP5/FP4/TriX/

etc) are harder to get a pleasing result with; generally a feature, but not in your case.

True, but let's not pick too hard; he's still providing fixes and improvements for ScanDual IIIs,

which went away a year before K-M did. Like all software, upgrade as needed only (and even

then think twice).

If you're shopping Ugly, you should consider calling them and talking to a real person first. I

considered it once, but the part they described (105D black for 220/330) was definitely ugly,

and the salesperson made sure that I knew it wasn't just cosmetic issues, but also unreliable

shutter, fungus in viewing lens, scratches on taking, etc.

 

Congrats on your luck with the RB stuff, though. Maybe studio stuff is more cosmetically

dinged but otherwise less abused?

Sorry to play chemist for a moment (although I am one in real-life), but the valence of

Zinc, Cadmium, and Mercury is 12 electrons, ns2(n-1)d10, which is completely closed.

This, plus relativistic contraction of the 6s electrons, is why mercury is a liquid at room

temperature, as it bonds poorly to itself.

 

Upshot; they're not terribly reactive metals, but mercury does make a good amalgam with

silver, i.e. a solid solution where Silver dissolves into the mercury, the same as in the old

dental fillings. This is probably why it made a good intensifier once upon a time. You're

filling in the somewhat sparse silver grains with larger silver/Hg grains.

 

I would try the sulfide toning, as I never got enough density with selenium toning to help

much, though it does help preserve the negative. My heretical suggestion, if the negative

is important enough, is send it to someone like West Coast Imaging , and have it drum

scanned, then output as an enlarged negative.

FWIW, I have the setup you're describing, and it works fine. Photoshop CS runs well with

1.5 G of memory when processing scans that are in the 150MB range, the screen is bright

and clean (I have the 17" model), and the OS is unobtrusive. This is my work machine,

and the only improvement it needed over stock was the extra gig of memory. The larger

(20") screen would be nice, but certainly not vital.

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Software-wise, it runs everything I need (Office, Photoshop, IBM Fortran). At home I have

the Mini, which I use for photoshop and writing, and haven't hit a problem with it related

to overall performance. It runs Vuescan and my SDIII without incident, as well as the usual

plethora of software. Of course, it comes with software you might not want (ILife, XCode,

a complete X11R6 runtime and development environment), but it's nice that it's all there,

no matter what model you buy.

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They're not hardware hotrodder machines, but they are well thought-out, and well-

integrated, tools.

If weight is an issue, what about a monopod and faster film? One third the legs, and

presumably quicker setup. Given the 'blad's larger negative, you won't notice the grain from

400 as much as you would in 35mm.

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Just an idle suggestion, but it's what I'm increasingly leaning towards with my C220.

Just as an aside, to confirm what some others have suggested: prices on Bronica SQ-A seem to have cratered in the past couple of months. Lenses are less expensive, focal-length for focal-length, than those of my Mamiya TLR. If you really need/want the SLR operation, then that's an option. A KEH Excellent, with back, finder, and lens will set you back less than $350.

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I understand the pull of the 'blad, but you'll hgave to ask yourself whether you'll use the 'blad, or be too afraid of scuffing it to take it out of its case.

I have an XA, and one warning I was given was that they don't like alkaline batteries. The voltage tails off and causes the meter to misread. Try using the silver-oxides before you give up. My XA does just fine with Ektachrome 100. (which I was pleasantly surprised by)

Talk to SK Grimes, as I seem to remember that only the model that Jim Rhoades mentions can

be put in a modern shutter. I just tried one mounted in a flash supermatic, and it's slightly

(less than a mm) larger than the opening in a small prontor press (no size marked on it that I

can see, but ~ 25mm opening).

 

Regrettably, it's a great lens, but not quite right for modern shutters.

I realize I should leave such discussions alone, but I have a Nikon 995 from 2001, which still has good color, good close-up capability, and for which accessories are becoming aggressively cheap at KEH. The swivel-body construction is convenient, and you get used to composing via chimping. I'd look for an excellent condition or better 995 or 4500 (the 4MP replacement). You could also go with the 2mp 950, which has a poor hot-filter and can therefore be used for IR. All of these are also pocketable, if you have a deep pocket. (they're long, but not terribly thick)

Kodak Management.

I used to say that I went shooting to have something to work on in the darkroom, and now I do the same with scanning + photoshop. I like being able to finally make the print look like what I saw when I took the picture, rather than a literal recording of what was there.

 

Basically, it now gives me the ability to dodge and burn in color, without the color shifts or other attendent issues in wet-darkroom color. Not every picture deserves the full-court press, but it's nice to have the ability when the right image comes along.

Late to the party, I know, but if you're going the Epson route, then I'd recommend looking at Doug Fisher's holder for it. I have a 4870 for office work, which I found mushy when used for film. I bought the aftermarket holder, and found the scans to be noticeably sharper. It may be the better flatness, or moving the film up a touch into the area of sharpest focus, but the results are visibly better using it. You can simulate this effect, of course, by putting a sheet of thin matboard under the default holder, and then taking several scans to establish the actual plane of focus. It will never be a Nikon9K/Drum Scanner, but then not everybody owns a top-end enlarger + glass and shoots only tripod-mounted Velvia either.

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In the end, YMMV, but it's at least capable of making decent prints of moderate size, if used carefully.

I'll stand up in defense of Central, though I'm also baffled by their pricing structure. I bought a black F2A from them a couple of years back, in KEH Bargain condition (brassing, but no dents) for a good deal less than KEH wanted at the time. It was a bit of a hypochondriac, and they took it in twice in four months under warranty, until they fixed the problem. Very apologetic about it as well (shutter release would disengage occasionally if the camera was held vertically, but only vertically).

 

They're great to deal with, and generally have one of anything somewhere. They have a nice selection of less-popular developers as well. I don't understand some things ($800 14" commercial Ektar in Chicago dust), but on others, they're pretty competitive. They'll also take time to talk you through various items, which is an increasingly rare behaviour.

Heaven help him if he ever gets his hands on a Hasselblad and Efke 25 in 120. Sounds way

too much like the speaker-cable people; yes, you can hear a difference between baling wire

and decent speaker wire, but after that point has been passed, you're projecting your own

issues onto the hardware.

 

Still; all that effort, and he's still shooting a postage-stamp sized piece of film, and scanning

it on a CCD. You'd have thought he'd at least be paying from drum-scans, given the rest of

his obsessions.

I have the predecessor, and ran it under Windows XP (Minolta or Vuescan), and Mac (OS

10.3/10.4), and the only difficulty during installation was finding room on my desk.

 

I did send my unit back to KM for repair, due to a temperature-sensitive chromatic streak,

but otherwise it's been fine. If you're worried about the driver issue, then use Vuescan,

which I don't believe required me to load the KM software before it would talk to the scanner.

I found an old roll of tech pan from years back, and followed the massive dev chart of XTol 1:2 for 6.5 min at 68. Negatives are printable with shadow detail.

Politely, if you have a stack of unprinted, but developed, negs, and a working enlarger, I would start making 4x5" contact prints, and seeing if I liked the tones I'm getting. I occasionally make 4x5 cyanotypes, as the negatives are large enough to make a nice print, if the subject matter is right.

 

FWIW, I would also agree with using a different developer. XTol 1:1 works for me in 120, especially with Delta 100 rated at around 64. On the other hand, if you make a few contacts, and like the Rodinal look, then go with it. Still, the first step is that you should make some contacts, and actually see how your negatives look on paper.

I saw some enlargements of home life around the world last year at the Chicago Botanical

Garden, where they enlarged 35mm to 12x18 or so, and 120 (square images) to ~20x20.

It may have simply been bad film choices for the 35mm pictures, but they were noticeably

grainy and slightly soft at that size. If you stood back a few feet, they were ok, but there

was still a definite softening versus the square prints.

 

I have made very acceptable 11x14 from 35mm print film (at least once framed and

hidden behind glass), so if you were properly bolted down, you should at least be able to

do 12x18 or 16x24, as long as nobody is going to sniff the prints. In the end, have an

11x14 or so made from a part of one of your images, on a couple of different papers, and

see if you can stand it. If you don't have a lot of real fine detail, it may work quite well.

One suggestion that's been missing is that you should get a color calibration slide for

your scanner. I found that my scanner biased Green (Minolta SDIII) without it. I just used

the Wolf Faust Ektachrome target to calibrate the scanner, though I realize that technically

i should shoot one per each film, and make my own film settings. I'm now reliably getting

the colors I expect from negative film, within the variances from film to film.

 

Get the target, then use Vuescan to make a profile for your scanner. This should eliminate

a lot of the problems you've been having.

 

Unfortunately, as you've noticed, the advantage of scanning yourself over the shop is

fineness of control and probably total resolution. My stores were only scanning at monitor

resolution, and returning .jpgs, so it made sense for me to buy a scanner in order to make

scans intended for final prints. If you're only learning, you could do worse than initially

eating the cost of develop and scan with no prints, then doing digital darkroom work on

your PC.