william_hahn1

Years ago I attended a "fly-in" in Orange,MA with a friend who was (in a previous life) an

airplane mechanic in Alaska. It was amazing. The biggest plane that landed was a DC-3,

which looked huge when landing, and surprisingly small when looked at close up. What was

scary was my friend's auditory identification of planes based on the pitch of their engines -- I

guess this is particularly easy for seaplanes.

 

Anyway, thanks for reviving the memory of that day with your pictures...and I'm sorry to hear

about the fatalities....

(Caveat: I visited Fredericksburg in 1999.)

 

I can only speak to the Civil War sites. The heights where Longstreet posted his artillery are now a terraced Civil War era cemetery. A portion of the sunken road has been preserved.

 

Lee's headquarters site was disappointing - the woods have pretty much obliterated the view it must have had in 1862. (I.e., it wouldn't be anybody's choice for a HQ site today.)

 

For more open, less busy Civil War sites - visit the battlefield south (or southeast) of the city - where Meade had his brief breakthrough. You can find some trenches still visible there.

 

To the West you can visit Chancellorsville - and Guiney Station, where Stonewall Jackson died. The foundations of the Chancellor house are still visible - near a busy intersection. The plantation buildings are Guiney Station are long gone, except for the little office building where Jackson died....

 

Hopefully some local will add to this, and correct it if necessary....

 

--Bill

Brian wrote: It could be something in the genes.

 

I once called my mother and she asked me what I had done that day. "Shot pictures of birch bark" I said, and was greeted with hoots of laughter. Then she explained that she had also been shooting birch bark that day...and that just before I called, my cousin L. (whom I hadn't seen in several decades) had called her and related how she was photographing birch bark that day.....

Bill Clermont,

 

Your photo reminds me of the time I played an elementary school champion - I was a full

grown adult in my mid 30's at the time. This was in five board team chess. Just before

my game with this young boy was about to start, my team captain came over to me and

whispered in my ear: "I understand his bedtime is 9pm; play a slow, closed opening and

try to keep him up past 9pm."

 

I still find this advice hilarious - but it shows you how chessplayers think. In our game,

the young man played well ehough for me to offer him a draw, but unfortunately he

declined and tried something that landed him in trouble. Then he offered me a draw, and

I said.....

 

"Too late".

 

Mercy is not a virtue found in many chessplayers....anyway, enjoy the game(s)!

I think Ahto Tanner's photo refers to this game as shown in this

 

<a href = "http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3492">recent article.</a>

 

I played a few games of this -- never forgot my surprise when my opponent interposed on a

"knight" check.....

>He's not retreating, is he?

 

Black probably had his knight on a6, White might have played a3 to avoid Nb4 (though I

don't see how the knight is protected there - damn that clock.)

 

I also don't see White making any threat along the a2-g8 diagonal, not with Black's queen

on f6. And I'm curious how the queen wound up on b3 - with the pawn still on c2.

Maybe something like Qg4-a4-b3.

 

Anyway, I'm sure this talk is just fascinating to the photographers reading this....anybody

wanting to acquire a substantial chess library can email me -- assuming they can read

English notation, I started collecting books in 1972.....

My answer to "identify this GM":

 

Could it be Bent Larsen? And could that out of focus face to his left belong to Edmar

Mednis? Just a guess....

In the original photo....

 

Looks like Black has just placed Nc5, and White is looking for place to move the vulnerable Q on b3. Once the White Queen has moved, Black can play Nxd3 and get the bishop pair....

 

Note that if Black has a pawn on b7 (obscured by clock) it would be protected (against capture by the queen) by the N on c5....

 

....I'm a horrible chess player who unfortunately loves the game and its history...something big in chess took place in Baguio City in 1978....

Just saw a short 30 minute movie about Eisenstaedt - he also used view cameras, e.g., for his portraits of Ernest Hemingway. (He described his frustration with EH's cats, who loved rubbing up against the tripod legs....) I envy those who can go see this show....

Francesco,

 

The introductory essay by Bridget Ollier was written in French (I assume, she is/was a

journalist for Liberation) and translated into English. The translator's name is given on the

last page.

 

--Bill

I have a fat paperback simply entitled "Doisneau Paris", published by Gingko, and also look

for the name "Brigitte Ollier"....

The conventional wisdom is that a shutter speed of 125 is about the slowest you can handhold w/o blurring. (With discipline - bracing the camera against something, etc - you can go slower.)

 

The lenses you mentioned should be fine wide open, just be careful about your focusing, you'll have a smaller depth of field than at more closed down apertures....

Brent is quite right to mention the problem of powering digital cameras over long

exposures.

If you google for "star trails" some of the sites talk about how to address this.

 

Michael, using an off-camera light meter doesn't solve all your problems, and sometimes

you need to conduct experiments. The good news with digital is that this is much

cheaper than conducting the experiments with film. I was trying to say that some people

have posted the results of their experiments and that will provide a starting point for

you....

 

I use an off camera light meter with a pinhole camera (ZeroImage), the aperture is the

equivalent of f/256, and there is a handy circular dial on the back for taking the meter

reading and adjusting it for that tiny aperture. Once you get the resulting shutter speed,

sometimes you need to refer (I'm talking film) to the reciprocity failure tables, etc, as

explained above.

 

Michael, there is a huge difference between long of exposures of, say, one minute and 8

hours. In my advice I was probably biased towards toward the former. There are many

situations where an off-camera light meter is only the beginning of the exposure

calculation....

Michael,

 

Generally one uses a light meter - but exposure times for various types of long exposures are well known, and you can look them up (e.g., google for "star trails".) But there is an issue with film (I'm ignorant about digital), called "reciprocity failure" - which means that for a given film, once the METERED shutter time exceeds a certain amount, you have to add additional time - usually based on a table available from the film manufacturer's website. (For those still using film, Fuji Acros 100 B&W film and Fuju Provia E6 film have good reciprocity - you can have shutter times up to one minute, I believe, before you have to start compensating.)

 

Again, hope this helps, and feel free to correct any errors...

I wasn't completely clear - many times the remote release has a bulb feature which allows one to hit the remote button once and keep the shutter open, even when you let go of the remote button. For example, there may be a little plastic "shelf" which slides over the remote button and keeps it depressed....

 

I didn't mean to imply that one had to stand by the remote with the finger on the button.

What you're looking for is "bulb" mode, and may only be available in the 'M' (Manual) mode. Try this experiment: put your camera in manual mode, and keep increasing the shutter time. After the 30 seconds setting, does one more click show the work 'bulb' (at the bottom of the viewfinder)? If so, then in bulb mode, the shutter stays open as long as you have the shutter button depressed. (This is why a remote control may be better - you can use it to keep the shutter "button" depressed w/o having to stand with the camera.)

 

Hope this helps, and hope others correct any errors I made...

I also own the 100mm and 180mm lenses, and, well, what Alan said. The 100mm lens gets much more use than the 180mm lens....

I don't know what you can do at this point, except send the camera in for repair. By the way, if you search this forum for "wind", you'll find that several people had problems with the wind lever on the Pentax 67 and 67II. It may be worth reading those threads to see if you get an idea about how to fix your problem....

 

Sorry I couldn't be of more help. The only time my Pentax 67 (built in 1981) has this problem, I think it was battery related....

Some questions:

 

 

1. Can you press the shutter release and then advance the wind lever?

 

 

2. Is the shutter open? Can you look through the view finder and see anything?

 

 

3. Have you tried putting a fresh battery in?

I shoot 4x5 in addition to medium format and 35mm. I've used three different 4x5 cameras, two field cameras and one monorail.

 

Not sure what advice you're looking for that would come only from someone who also uses 35mm RF gear. As for a beginning kit, I would recommend a cheap used monorail (e.g., Cambo), with a 150mm lens. (This would correspond to a 50mm lens in the 35mm world - make sure the monorail is long enough for the lens.) With this you would be able to start learning LF technique.

 

You might want to get a "roll-film adaptor", which would allow you to shoot 120 MF film at a 6x9cm format. You lose the advantages of the big negative, but while learning your mistakes are less expensive.

I shot a lot of polaroid and roll film before moving on to real sheet film. If you're going to be shooting E6 transparencies, where getting the right exposure is crucial, then practising with rollfilm may save you money in the long run.

 

After you learn LF technique, you may decide that your monorail is too heavy, you want a longer lens, etc., etc., etc. But at that point your decision would be based on experience, and not on a lot of input from strangers (like me) on the internet.

 

Hope this helps...others will no doubt have other opinions....

After Burrows' death Life Magazine put out a book called "Larry Burrows: Compassionate Photographer". You can find out more about it

<a href="http://www.life.com/Life/burrows/burrows.html">here.</a>.

Also apparently not terrified of heights - <a href="http://www.ncf.ca/~ek867/bwhitechrysler.jpg">here she is</a> about to photograph the top of the Chrysler building.

 

There was an article in 1972 in "The Atlantic" - unfortunately no longer viewable at their website - where a person who worked for the Life-Time complex noted that people were terrified of traveling with MBW - they were afraid of becoming just another pack mule for her equipment...

John,

 

Don't be afraid to ask questions!

 

When I first got my camera with a 135 mm lens, I locked the lens at 150 mm (the length of the bed) and for two weeks couldn't figure out why I couldn't focus at infinity! Now that's stupid....

 

Cheers,

Bill Hahn

The interior shot with the peeling red wallpaper reminds of a house shown to me by a realtor in the 1980's - it was the only one I could afford within route 495 (Boston area).....

 

...no, I didn't buy it...

>But thats exactly what i want to learn. How ones "crap" can turn to gold.

 

I already got into so much trouble with my answer to this question in the "Art, Aperture and

the parking garage across the street" thread, I think I'll pass.

 

But I like Imogen, and her "simple" images...